Vitalis Omnibus by Jason Halstead Read Free Book Online Page B

to locate the needle in the haystack that the Rented Mule was.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
    “So what happened?” Sharp demanded once Eric was back on the bridge. He was limping, Kira noticed, and seemed thoroughly exhausted.
    “The pushers are ionic, slow but powerful thrust over time,” he said. The Captain scowled at him. “Right, you know that, sorry. Well, the point is they wouldn’t explode on their own. The damage wasn’t internal.”
    “So we were attacked?” Kira interrupted with a squeak in her voice.
    “I can’t say for certain,” Eric said. “I mean, if we were, why haven’t they followed it up? We’re floating in space with nothing but thrusters right now and not enough fuel for them to make a difference, outside of dodging some rocks. And that’s if we could see to use them!”
    “Captain, I had an idea about that,” Kira interrupted again.
    “That’s why I never had a woman on my ship before; they can’t keep their damn mouths shut!”
    Kira’s head jerked back in surprise at the rebuke. She recovered quickly . Her idea had merit, damn it. She glared back at him and took the risk of sticking her tongue out. The Captain’s eyes widened and a laugh burst from his lips. “All right,” he said, “out with it.”
    “Eric can reroute the nav controls to the hull. I can patch myself in from there, in a suit, and visually steer the ship when we get to the asteroid belt.”
    “Manually steering a ship the size of the Rented Mule ? You’ve got balls, Kira, I’ll give you that!” Sharp said. He leaned back and clasped his hands together, pondering the idea. “You really think you can do it? Some pretty intense calculations have to be made to dock a ship, let alone dodge the rocks floating around.”
    Kira shrugged. “I have to try . What other option do we have?”
    Sharp nodded. “All right, I’ll think about it . Now, about this damage…”
    “It wasn’t just a single hit. Either we’ve been sabotaged or there’s a damn good gunner out there,” Eric said.
    “Sabotage?” Sharp’s eyes narrowed. He stared hard at both of them.
    “I haven’t been out of the ship yet,” Kira pointed out.
    “I damn near had my spine broke when we were hit – I was outside of the inertial suppressor field,” Eric said.
    Sharp grunted. His fingers tapped a cadence on the arm of his chair.
    “Sir, Tarn came back early from his shift, remember?”
    “You think Tarn did this?”
    “Does anybody else have knowledge of how to rig an explosion and make it look like an accident or an external attack?”
    Sharp opened and closed his mouth. He growled and stood up. “Weapons locker , now. You two are with me.”
    “Captain, do you really think Tarn would do this? He’s stranded with us , too!” Eric said, following behind the Captain as he walked briskly down the passage.
    “Any chance he overheard you talking about the bounty on your head?” Sharp snapped.
    Kira gasped, drawing looks from the other two. She waved her hand. “It’s nothing. I just hadn’t thought of that is all.”
    The y rounded a corner and stopped at a hatch. Captain Sharp unlocked the door with a retinal scan and then stepped in and beckoned them to follow. He stopped, causing Eric and Kira to run into him. “Son of a bitch! I’m going to kill him with my bare hands!”
    “Sir, if he was a FIST, he’s not going to be easy to kill,” Kira pointed out. “Even if he is old and fat.”
    The weapons locker was virtually empty. All that remained were a couple of low-grade laser pistols with output ratings low enough to require several seconds for a burn-through on an unarmored human target. An alarm rang through the ship, making Eric jump. Sharp turned with a snarl and started back towards the hatch.
    “Sir, wait!” Kira spotted a display and, near it, a data port. She hurried over and pushed her hand against it, and then started commanding the computer to display the source of the alarm. “Our passive sensors