Free The Lazarus War: Artefact by Jamie Sawyer Page B

on me. No promises – we’re going into the Maelstrom, after all, but I’m not going to throw anyone away.”
    “Good enough.”
    Atkins immediately regained his composure. That was why he wanted to speak with me alone; because he didn’t want his crew, or probably mine, seeing that he was disturbed by this operation. His choice to air his concerns like this made me respect him more, in some perverse way.
    “Has our route been plotted?” I asked, returning to more mundane areas of conversation – a topic on which Atkins would surely want to speak.
    “Very precisely,” he said. He clasped his hands behind his back again, puffed up his chest: I’d read him well. “We’re moving the minimum ten AU distance from Liberty Point , then we will be accelerating to Q-speed. We’ll drop out of real-space, and the computer will take care of the navigation from there.”
    “How about the Great Veil?” I asked.
    “We’re using the most recent Naval intel, based on the Turinger Predictive Model. Highly accurate.”
    The Veil was another of the Maelstrom’s defensive measures: a loose collection of space particulate, meteors and asteroids, amassed over the millennia in an enormous orbital cloud around the Maelstrom itself. Penetrating this cloud was the first obstacle for any traveller to the Maelstrom; given the speed that most starships to the region would be travelling, the material could cause a hull breach. The Veil was the equivalent of the Solar System’s Oort Cloud, but on a vast, lethal scale.
    Atkins nodded to himself. He traced an arc with his finger, across one of the spiral arms of the Maelstrom. “Then we will be moving under the power of the Q-drive through the Ibanez Sector, directly to Helios Primary system.”
    “You’ve accounted for gravimetric storm activity in the region, I take it?”
    “Of course, of course,” he said. “There are predicted storms moving out of nearby systems, possibly being thrown out by a minor black hole along the Yabaris Quadrant.” He again pointed to the locations of those sectors in the Maelstrom; those meant nothing to me, but I was happy to let him talk. “We should be safe, although nothing is a certainty.”
    I nodded along with him. The Maelstrom flashed and flickered in front of us, sparkling seductively off the observation window. Bright and colourful, jewel-like. The very centre of the star-swarm seemed alive with storms, pulsating with galactic energies.
    “How do you feel about this?” Atkins asked. “I know it is probably classified, and I’m not asking for details. I’ve heard rumours that you and your team have been into the Maelstrom before.”
    No point in lying to the man who would shortly be responsible for all of our lives. “The rumours are true. But that isn’t why I don’t like this op.”
    “Then why is it?”
    “The Maelstrom and I have a history together,” I said, adopting a definitive edge to my voice: I don’t want to discuss this any more, so don’t even ask .
    Atkins got the message, and our conversation ended naturally. I stood with him for a long time, both of us silent, both of us watching the dark splendour of the Maelstrom.
      
    At the appointed time, my squad and I reported to the hypersleep suite as required.
    “Looking forward to a six-month sleep, Martinez?” Blake asked.
    Martinez grunted. “Just don’t keep me awake with your snoring.”
    We were all dressed in pale gowns, and medics attended to us. Olsen oversaw the procedure: IV drips into forearms, numerous injections to prep us for the long sleep.
    The room had berths for maybe a hundred personnel, and would quarter the current starship staff easily. I smelt antiseptic and formaldehyde; a heavy odour that radiated not just from the medically pristine equipment but also my own body. The freezers were essential for a crew to travel through Q-space, to counter the demands of modern space operations. Known by many different names – cryogenic hibernation,