Free Paying the Price (Book 5 of The Empire of Bones Saga) by Terry Mixon

with your supposed incompetence.”
    The marine held up a hand. “I’ve told her you’re the brightest guy on the block, but she got a bad first impression. You need to stop banging heads with her and try a different approach. You’re not going to bulldoze your way through her objections.”
    The scanner readings were very odd. Part of the beams never came back. The hull must be absorbing them, too. What he was getting told him two mutually exclusive things.
    First, the hull was made of collapsed matter. Not the partial stuff that he’d used on the hammer, but something a lot closer to neutronium. So much so that the beams weren’t penetrating the surface at all.
    If that were true, that explained the lack of a battle screen. No radiation would make it through that. Just cutting it would take a hell of a lot of focused energy. If they could do it at all.
    Invincible ’s beams would be ineffective. It would require more power in a tighter focus. Well, maybe they would work with time, but the designers had never envisioned long duration shots. And their tightest focus would be useless. It required something much finer, yet more powerful.
    Assuming the readings were correct, the mass of the station should be incredible. Here he was floating beside it, but it should have enough pull on its own to anchor him. Not like a planet, perhaps, but maybe a large asteroid. A handful of true neutronium would weigh millions of tons. He’d need to do some calculations before he knew what to expect.
    Yet there was nothing. No indication at all that the surface was pulling any of them in. And that was damned odd. It really couldn’t be both ways. He was missing something.
    “I wish I had a clue how to hit the reset button,” Carl told the marine. “Major Ellis is all over my ass. And talk about hostile. She threatened to break me into little pieces with Kelsey standing right there.”
    “I hope you take what she says seriously,” Talbot said. “She’s pretty pissed about the whole thing.”
    “I don’t understand why. There was no way Kelsey was ever getting that version of the hammer. I have a lot more testing to do on it. Hell, I wasn’t even going to tell her about it until the testing was complete. She told Kelsey. And now I have to convince the she-bear that it’s safe.”
    He looked over at Talbot as he said that last. The marine was smiling. Bastard.
    “Look, kid, I get it. I really do. I tried to tell her what a stand-up guy you are and it bounced. She’s got it in her head that you’re a dangerous fellow. It’s up to you to convince her she’s wrong. I can’t help you with that. No one can.”
    “I’m doomed.”
    Talbot laughed and moved off to confer with the other marines keeping watch. So much for a helping hand.
    Carl sighed and glared at his scanner. It wasn’t even giving him a good idea what the texture was for. If they didn’t get inside the thing, they might never find out. At least not before they left to go home.
    He hated the idea of someone else making the big discoveries after he came up empty. Maybe he could get a more detailed reading on the skin if he boosted the scanner power and narrowed the focus. A sweeping scan that went up and down the potential frequencies would also increase his odds of getting something meaningful back.
    It only took a few moments to change the settings. He held the scanner against the surface of the station and started probing it.
    The hull underneath him sank with astonishing speed, yanking him inside the station. He didn’t even have time to yell before the darkness engulfed him.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Angela finished going over the data Owlet had given her about Project Mjölnir. It was insulting. He’d tailored his summary as though she was four. And slow.
    His opinion of marines in general, and her in specific, had to be pretty dismal.
    Perhaps he didn’t know that officers in the emperor’s service had to have university degrees. Admittedly, hers was in