The Trilisk Revolution (Parker Interstellar Travels) by Michael McCloskey Read Free Book Online Page B

have?”
    “Seven.”
    “Wow.
Okay. Be careful, Shiny. Each Space Force man and woman that gets killed is
less chance for an optimal outcome. Your return on this goes down, you
understand?”
    “Affirmative.”
    “The
PIT team needs to get several places in the system. Can you hide our
transports?”
    “Affirmative.”
    “And
you can use Jason’s network to do all the scans our team needs to do to
determine who is Trilisk and who isn’t? We want to be sure. I don’t want to
kill any people I’m not sure about.”
    Yet
I’m not naive enough to think this can happen without death. Someone,
somewhere, is going to die. And it will be on me.
    “Affirmative.”
    “You
have the satellites ready to deploy that will hit them?”
    “Affirmative.”
    “So
this will be a piece of cake.”
    “Likely,
probable, sure.”
    Telisa
relaxed a bit.
    Kirizzo
is confident. If things get dicey, we could always use the AI.
     

     
    Chapter 8
     
    I
can’t believe I’m finally a real member of the PIT team , Jason thought. He had just finished a
round of virtual training with Telisa, Caden, Imanol, and Siobhan. They chatted
in person, talking about their performance. In Jason’s case, the chat was
mostly about his mistakes, but he did not let that get him down.
    Every
member of the team was driven to accomplish great things, though they were not
always perfectly in line with what Telisa wanted. Jason felt that Cilreth and
Maxsym seemed absorbed in their own pursuits and stood apart from the others,
who trained together every day in simulated battles. Jason had joined those
ranks, and in the last week he had died a hundred different ways in VR
training.
    Jason
sucked with most hand-held weapons. He knew it. The only area he could hold his
own was with a rifle. He had taken up shooting after joining PIT. It was his
way of pretending that he had a skill they could ever use in the field. That
head start served him well now. Caden and Telisa out-shot him, but he felt he
was better at hitting a target than the others when his nerves were not
frazzled. He knew how to set up targeting software and configure his rounds for
a dozen different long range projectile weapons. He had even practiced plain
old manual sighting with three different weapons, just in case he ever had to
use a weapon with dead or disabled software.
    Jason
had accidentally cut off his own leg with a Veer Ultrasharp three times in
simulations. The swords were so sharp even their scabbards had to lock onto the
handle, because almost nothing could safely hold the blade unless it clamped
onto the sides. Telisa had told him it did not matter much, since they were
mostly about advanced ranged weapons, but he kept trying. The sword combat
interested him, but he had no background in it.
    Everyone
thinks I should be able to use a katana just because I have Asian blood, like
it’s something in my genes.
    Telisa
sent him a message asking for him to show up for a planning session on their
Sol incursion. As the message came in the others paused too, so he got the
feeling everyone would be there. Jason had enough time to stop by his quarters
if he wanted, but there was nothing to bring. The exercise had been pure
virtual so far today, so he did not have to shower or change. He just walked
toward the meeting.
    The Clacker was an amazing ship. It felt like a big building on a planet.
And the technology was even better. Cilreth told him the entire ship had been
Terranized in a few days. Before that it had been a collection of caves with
blinking lights and moving sand.
    Crazy.
This huge thing is really an alien ship, but now it looks like a luxury home
for humans. And we each have our own section the size of a neighborhood.
    Jason
was one of the first to arrive for the face to face.
    Normal
for the new guy, I bet.
    With
a jolt he realized the alien might show up. He became nervous. One by one, the
others arrived, but Shiny did not come. Once everyone except Shiny had arrived,
Telisa