The Science Officer by Blaze Ward Read Free Book Online Page A

turret going down?”
    She shook her head. “This isn’t a hot LZ, Del,” she replied, counting crew members to make sure everyone was there. “I’ll ride with the rest in back.”
    “Suit yourself,” he said. He turned and walked up the big rear landing deck and into the small airlock. As Javier watched, the man grinned at him, waved, and cycled the hatch closed.
    Sykora completed her own count and looked around. “Mount up, people,” she called, walking up the ramp.
    Javier watched around a half dozen people file into the shuttle ahead of him. Two were obviously security goons, armed and armored up like their boss. Two females that looked like scouts. A couple of regular crew he recognized vaguely from Engineering.
    Inside, he found Sykora in a jump seat at the top of the ramp. She patted the one next to her. “Aritza,” she said, command voice invoked, “you sit here.” One seat was as good as the next, so Javier settled and strapped himself in while she watched. She nodded when he was done, apparently satisfied that he wasn’t a total landsman. Little did she know.
    Sykora pulled on a field helmet and keyed a microphone live. “Gunship One, we are go for launch.”
    A red light came on, flashing, followed by a horn hooting, and then the ramp began to rise, closing with the solemnity of a bank vault. Interior lighting came up at the same time and the shuttle began to vibrate and hum as the pilot brought systems on line.
    A nudge in his ribs, just as he closed his eyes, leaned back, and prepared to nap. “You’re going to sleep through this?” Sykora looked shocked.
    Javier shrugged, at least as much as he could in five–point harness. “Not my first time in an assault shuttle, lady,” he said over the growing racket. “We’re probably fifteen minutes to clear the ship from here, forty minutes orbital to match ground windows, and then an hour to get low enough to deploy the wings. Another hour to scout a landing spot and settle.”
    She scowled professionally at him. “We need to go over the plan for when we land.”
    Javier looked at her with a lazy smile. “I’m the scientist, you’re the big, dumb, gun bunny. I scan the wreck. You shoot things. Not hard at all.” He closed his eyes and leaned back.
    She poked him harder this time. “That’s what you think of me?” she asked. There was a new edge to her voice. “Just another killer?”
    Javier couldn’t resist. He already owed her. Several times over, if he thought about it. He opened his eyes, let them roam over her whole body, lingering in the girlie places, before he made eye contact. “Yes.” And then he closed them again and tuned her out.

Part Three
    Sykora settled into her drop station, secured in place as the last fuel connection severed with a ping that rattled hollowly through the shuttle.
    Djamila seethed.
    Like all things, it was internal. In Neu Berne society, image and social station was everything. She had learned that early, the daughter of a manual laborer and a former “entertainer.” The Navy had promised her an open society, where one could advance based purely on merit and skill. And it had been, but only to a point. She had had to prove herself better than everyone, man and woman, to be accepted.
    But she had. Oh, yes, she had. First in her training crèche. Record scores on physical fitness, obstacle course, and survival training. Elite tactical school. Zero–G combat school, where she had earned the nickname “Angel of Death” for her ability to move in powered armor in three dimensions, with a weapon in each hand.
    She had been the best.
    It had even been good enough for a poor, blue–collar waif, with no family connections and no university, to be commissioned as an Officer and a Frieholder. But it could not get her accepted. Not by the elite of the Neu Berne Navy.
    Not them .
    They were the scions of generations of service, intermarried almost to incestuous degrees. Money. Power. Connections. The right