Rebellion of Stars (Starship Blackbeard Book 4) by Michael Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

was already perspiring before they set out, but sweat soon streamed down his temples and from his armpits. San Pablo had been a Hroom world, but this western continent was now given over to Ladino settlements. It had been warm last time they’d visited these yards, but the hot season had arrived. It was not only baking beneath the direct sun, but humid, like a steam bath.
    “I suppose I should get used to the weather,” Tolvern said. “It’s pretty much like this all the time in the lowlands of Hot Barsa.”
    “It was brutal enough in the highlands.” He eyed her. “When did you figure it out?”
    “That you were sending me on the away team? About three seconds after you said we’d be going back.” Tolvern unfastened her vest to let it hang open. Sweat dampened the linen shirt underneath. “Your first away team was killed. We need a new one. Brockett is a given—nobody else understands the antidote now that Henry is dead. I figured you were eying Nyb Pim to replace Sal Ypis. You need a loyal Hroom translator. Capp could be your firepower. That leaves only a commander.”
    “And it turns out that I have an able military leader who is temporarily bereft of her ship. She is the logical choice for the mission.”
    “Hah. Able? Not so sure about that part. I had one command, and I blew it.”
    “Could have been worse,” Drake said. “You could have lost your ship.”
    “Didn’t I? It’s out of commission for weeks.”
    Tolvern tossed her head to the two largest hangars in the yard. Rodriguez was repairing the crippled HMS Melbourne in one, and in the other, Tolvern’s destroyer.
    “Let me tell you about my first command,” Drake said. “I took the helm at Fort William. I was supposed to leave Albion orbit, take a swing around Thor to get the feel for my ship and new crew, and then rendezvous with a task force under Captain Peter Daw to jump to Fantalus. Do you know Daw?”
    Tolvern shook her head.
    “He’s retired now. An old fellow when I served under him, with mutton-chop whiskers so big they needed their own berth. A perpetually stiff upper lip and eyebrows drawn up in disdain as if the universe itself was an affront to his dignity. So much starch in his uniform, he could have been killed in battle and it would have kept him propped up at the helm. Not the sort of man you wanted to keep waiting.
    “So when one of my new engines malfunctioned, I didn’t return to Fort William like I should have. Instead, I ran it hot to get to the rendezvous in time, figuring we were putting into port a few days after the jump, where I could see it repaired. Engineering warned me. I ignored the warning. Ten days into my first command, I had to dump plasma to keep my ship from blowing up.”
    Tolvern laughed. “That’s pretty embarrassing, all right.”
    “Oh, it gets worse. Imagine this. We were nearly at jump speed when I had to dump, so now I tell Daw to go through, and I’ll meet him on the other side. I can make it to port on one engine, no problem. He goes through, and engineering tells me I need to squeeze out a bit more speed or I won’t make it through the jump. So I run my second engine hot.”
    “Don’t tell me you didn’t make it.”
    “Oh, I made it. The engine didn’t, though. We arrived dead in the water. Nothing but auxiliary power. I had to be towed.”
    Tolvern winced. “Ouch. Why have I never heard this story before?”
    “If it had happened to you, would you be spreading it around?” Drake remembered the smirks on the faces of the navy engineers as they strolled onto his ship, cracking jokes about his broken-down engines. “And you don’t fix a burned-out plasma engine with duct tape and chewing gum—you need a new containment field. I would be sixteen days at the naval yards while Daw set off without me. A hunk of rock twelve million miles from anything—my crew was thrilled, let me tell you.”
    “Wait, is this the same base where you fought the Hroom raiding party?”
    Drake