Read Online Ghost Spin by Chris Moriarty - Free Book Online Page A

time in his adult life he’d ever encountered someone who talked like this, he had promptly changed seats, changed tables, left the bar, developed an urgent need to relieve himself, or generally done whatever it took to get clear of them. But none of those options worked very well when the person you were trying to get away from shared your brain with you.
    And by the time they broke seal and shipped out, Llewellyn had reluctantly admitted to himself that neither silence nor captainly dignity was going to do him any good.
    “Do you always talk this much?” he finally asked.
    Don’t complain. Good help is hard to find.
    “And you’re good?”
    The best.
    Llewellyn snorted. “You’d better be. We’re heading into the Drift. Cocky navigators who can’t deliver get people killed out there. Or worse.”
    Fine by me, the ghost replied. Life’s no fun unless you’re playing for keeps.
    Llewellyn snorted again, but privately he agreed with the ghost. He had gone into the Navy in the golden age of Bose-Einstein transport. Space had been tamed by reliable, safe FTL transport. Of course there had still been in-system freighters and the lumbering, slow time ships of the impoverished Periphery. But for most sailors on the Deep, the heroic age of spacefaring was over.
    The galaxy had turned into a quiet pond, its calm waters plied by ships whose onboard AIs competently handled the routine task of shunting a ship from one BE relay to the next along the established trade lanes. Ship’s captains had been glorified subway conductors. War had remained interesting—in the usual appalling way that war is always interesting—but navigation had become safe and boring. Space was still out there, of course. It hadn’t really gotten smaller, and it hadn’t really gotten any less dangerous. But you never saw it. You never grappled with it. You never had a chance to measure yourself against it. All that had changed when the Bose-Einstein relays started failing. Space had become vast and dangerous again. And with that danger had come challenge and romance—the same romance that Llewellyn thrilled to as a boy. And until it came back, he hadn’t known how much he missed it.
    They were moving out at a good clip now, still under the station’s NavControl, but starting to power up for the big push that would take them beyond the station’s reach. Systems checks scrolled down every monitor on the bridge, faster than any unwired human could possibly read them. The side-view monitor showed the Navy shipyards, a sprawling crown of thorns whose every glittering silver spike was a UN ship of the line carrying letters of marque that entitled its captain to get rich killing pirates.
    Llewellyn let his eyes stray once to that screen, then turned away. Some things in life it was better not to think about. No one could live forever—and if the ghost was as good as it claimed to be, then at least it would be pirate hunters and not the Drift that killed them. You had to be grateful for the little things life handed you.
    So what do we do next, Will?
    We make port at Boomerang. If you’re good enough. And the name’s William.
    You really want me to call you William? Your mother only called you William when you got in trouble. And you were a good boy, weren’t you? I’d remember if you hadn’t been. Unless your memory’s playing tricks on me I don’t think you ever got in real trouble until you started working for Titan.
    “I never worked for Titan!” Llewellyn snapped, goaded into speaking out loud.
    Didn’t you? Come on, William. Every Navy captain in the Drift works for Titan. Every AI officer in the Drift sure as hell works for them. You worked for them. You just didn’t know it until Helen Nguyen set you straight.
    Llewellyn flinched. He didn’t want to think about Nguyen. It only brought the whole sordid mess back to him in images that burned with shame and fury and the rising knowledge of his own unbelievable helplessness in the face