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Chapters (42)
  1. Cover Blurb
  2. Contents
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty

And if they didn't, he told himself, he could always discuss the odds of them reaching home, once again.  The reporters always found it alarming to hear the odds from a naval crewman.

***

“Kiev is in place, sir,” Farley reported.  Ahead of them, the tramline glimmered on the display, waiting.  “They’re reporting ready to jump.”

Ted sucked in a breath.  They’d repaired the damage, reloaded the mass drivers and reorganised the starfighter squadrons.  But they weren't at tip-top condition, he knew, and they wouldn't be until they gained an additional handful of starfighter pilots, as well as some additional repairs.

“Order them to jump,” he said, finally.  He couldn't help a thrill of excitement, even though he knew it was dangerous.  This was real exploration, the sort of work he'd hoped to do as a younger man.  But instead he'd been assigned to Ark Royal ... he shook his head, amused.  It was funny how the world worked out, sometimes.  “And then power up the Puller Drive.”

Kiev vanished from the display.  Long seconds passed before she popped back into existence, signalling urgently.  There was no alien fleet waiting for them, Ted saw to his relief, but there was a source of radio signals orbiting the G2 star.  An alien settlement?  There shouldn't be anything human on the other side of the tramline.

He smiled to himself.  No one had explored the tramline, according to the latest records.  In hindsight, that had clearly been a disastrous mistake.  Who knew what precautions could have been taken if the aliens had been discovered before the first encounter?  But now ...  One way or another, they were definitely going where no man had gone before.

“Jump,” he ordered, quietly.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Disappointing, isn't it?”

Ted had to smile at Fitzwilliam’s judgement.  The first alien star system – the first star system humanity had ever discovered belonging to another intelligent race – was disappointing, in one sense.  It didn’t look any different from a human-occupied star system.  In many ways, it reminded Ted of Vera Cruz, except the alien system was lucky enough to have a gas giant for later mining.  But it was an alien world orbiting an alien star and that made all the difference.

He looked up at the display, watching as the passive sensors sucked in data from across the star system and channelled it down to the analyst section.  A number of signal sources – strong signal sources – on the planet itself or in close orbit, a handful of smaller signal sources scattered across the star system and very little else.  If it was a forward alien base, Ted decided, feeling an odd hint of disappointment himself, the aliens had been criminally lax about fortifying it.  But another part of him was relieved for the very same reason.  A fleet of alien battleships would not be a pleasant discovery, not now.