Free The Epherium Chronicles: Embrace by T.D. Wilson

turned off the recorder on his cabin’s desk. He turned around and looked out the viewport. Mars Station hung in silence, and he could see several smaller shuttles and transports moving back and forth from the ship and the station.
    EDF Command had already ordered the modifications of the Armstrong to begin, and parts for the new particle cannon were starting to arrive. Admiral Tramp informed him a few hours earlier that the first of the gunships to be assigned to the Armstrong would arrive in the morning, a full day ahead of schedule. Hood was eager to see how the gunships would attach and deploy and was grateful that their added firepower and defensive capabilities would be coming along. He had seen the effectiveness that Cilik’ti drones had in combat. During those engagements, fighter and point defense screens were just not enough to deter them.
    The communication panel of the terminal in his desk chirped with a short trill sound. Hood reached over and opened the comm channel. “Hood here.”
    A young female voice came over the speaker. “Captain. Admiral Tramp’s shuttle is about to arrive. You asked to be notified.”
    “Yes, thank you. Tell the admiral I will meet him in the docking bay. Hood out.”
    Hood grabbed his uniform jacket from his bed and quickly put it on. He opened his cabin door and had to duck as a technician carrying a large conduit nearly struck him in the forehead. The tall burly technician looked back and offered a quick apology as he continued down the hall.
    Hood just politely waved him on and turned the other way toward the elevator lift. As he approached the lift, the door hissed open, and Hood walked inside.
    A rather bland feminine voice asked, “Destination please?” EDF Command had spent tremendous resources on system interaction with ship crews to improve efficiency. The system name was codenamed “Vicki” by EDF R&D and was short for Voice Interactive Computer and Knowledge Interface. Hood often wondered whose voice was the model for the system, but the same voice could speak every known human language with no regional accent.
    “Docking bay three,” Hood responded to the computer’s question.
    Hood felt the momentum of the elevator immediately shift and grasped the rail to compensate for the change. The lift car moved quickly and smoothly through the decks and soon arrived at the primary docking bay level. The doors opened, and Hood stepped out into the main docking bay corridor which was extremely crowded with various types of technicians and several crates of equipment.
    The walls of the corridor next to each docking bay were transparent, and Hood saw that Admiral Tramp’s shuttle had already landed, and that the main exterior doors of the bay had closed for re-pressurization.
    The EDF shuttle had evolved greatly over the last twenty years, but their function for carrying passengers and smaller cargo loads hadn’t changed. The new Icon class shuttle that delivered Admiral Tramp to the Armstrong sported many of the same modifications that were added to shuttles after the start of the Cilik’ti invasion, but with some distinct upgrades. The Icon shuttles were fitted with light neutronium armor, and a point defense cannon mounted in a revolving turret for fighter/drone deterrence was added to the bottom of the craft.
    Hood remembered the weapon upgrade. The shuttle pilots on his ship raved about it. During the war, the Icon shuttles were the primary rescue/recovery craft for pilots. The older versions of the shuttles only had a cannon mounted on the top and more often than not, it wasn’t a strong enough deterrent for Cilik’ti fighter drones.
    The Armstrong’s new captain was happy to see the tractor beam mounted near the lower pressure hatch. Getting to downed pilots fast in a firefight saved lives. If the shuttles could pull them in faster, it made their rescue success rate even better. He had recommended that upgrade to EDF Command and the change had thrust the shuttle