Read Online Alicia Jones 3: New Frontier by D. L. Harrison - Free Book Online

animals at all.
    The good news was the atmosphere was breathable according to
the sensor readings, and most of the oxygen was suspected to come from kelp
like plants in the oceans, which was over four fifths of the planet.  The
land masses were generally small, relatively, small island chains dotted around
the planet.  The board was calling for an expedition to do a real survey,
and see if this could be our first colony planet, there was still a lot to
learn before we could be sure.
    It was also only five and a half thousand light years away,
although on a much different vector from the Nairan world, so it was less than
a day to get there.  I got the itch to be one of the ones to go, and this
time I decided to scratch.  This place was worth seeing.
    I contacted Sergei who was on his command ship, and had him
pick out twenty of his ships to go on a cruise.  I also told him I’d be
coming to take my own look, but he was in command and I’d stay out of his
way.  It should be fun.
     
    We were about halfway there when the time came to test the
wormhole drive, and to test shutting off a dark energy reactor.  I
supposed it was my turn for show and tell.  I locked the door, just in
case.
    “Kristi, come take a look at this.”
    She came over, “What’s up?”
    “Testing the wormhole drive.”
    Kristi tilted her head as I brought up the view in front of
the ship.
    “Okay Al, turn it on.”
    Al said, “Activating.”
    For the first two seconds nothing seemed to be happening,
then we saw a point of darkness in space, which we could only see because of
the sensors.  The lab ship was in the void above the galaxy and it was
already dark there.  It grew larger, then seemed to stabilize at four feet
in diameter circle.  I realized I’d been holding my breath and started
breathing again.
    Kristi sighed in disgust, “You know, I should have
known.  I’m ashamed to admit I expected the pretty exploding lights like
on deep space nine, or the blue stuff on Stargate … 
Something, other than just a hole.”
    I giggled, which morphed into a hearty laugh.
    I asked as innocently as possible when I caught my breath,
“I could add something to the overlay, would that help?  There is
radiation, I could have Al show it as a pretty color pattern.”
    Kristi glared at me for kicking her while she was down,
“Isn’t that thing a little small to fit the ship through?”
    I nodded, “Of course.  Al, send in the probe.”
    A probe shot into the inky spot that looked as boring as a
hole in space.
    A moment later Al reported, “Receiving telemetry, probe
travelled twelve thousand five hundred and fifty-two light years.”
    Kristi asked, “Why so small?”
    I frowned, “There are a lot of variables.  Size is the
easiest, it will be the size of the gravity imprint we generate.  How far
away and direction will come from many other variables, including power levels
and how long we feed it various types of particle energy.  I’m not
watching it all, it’s going to take a lot of openings and closings to figure
out how size effects the power requirements for distance, and other factors for
direction.  Al, go ahead and run through the tests and see if what I lined
out is enough for calibration.”
    Kristi nodded, “My presentation was better.”
    “How so?” I raised an eyebrow.
    She grinned impishly, “Mine had explosions,” and there was
definitely an implied duh at the end of her sentence.
    I smiled, “Well, stick around, I’m not done yet.  Of
course, we aren’t exactly hoping for an explosion here.”
    I switched the view to the shuttle on split screen. 
There were Shield missiles all around it, at various distances.  The test
shuttle was also extremely far from our battle cruiser, a few light years
farther into the void.  The shuttle already had the dark energy reactor on
for hours, so it had a lot of dark energy built up by now.  The second
view had the inside of the reactor with the micro-singularity enhanced