Read Online Last Flight of the Ark by D.L. Jackson - Free Book Online

closed, he pulled her down the hall. “They’re not who they appear to be.” What the hell had happened to the crew of the Genesis II ? Were they being held hostage? Dead? Whatever it was, he needed to find out.
    “Sir?”
    “They smell wrong. They’re not from Earth.”
    “What do you think they want?”
    “Our planet and stock.” He tugged her around the corner. “That’s the only feasible thing I can think of. You need to get on board the Genesis II and find out what happened to the crew. If they’re being held captive, try to free them. I have a feeling we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I’ll stall them. If I’ve learned anything from the military, it’s hurry up and wait. I can drag a meeting out so long my posterity will be in the history books by the time it’s done.”
    She nodded and spun to head for the bay. Kaleb snagged her wrist and brought her back into his arms. He pushed her against the wall. “One other thing.” He lowered his mouth and kissed her, wishing he had hours to take it further. But duty called.
    Slowly he pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers. “I have to stay here. They expect my presence and I can’t let them see anything is off. It’s why I’m asking you to do this. I don’t like sending you over there, so be careful.” He pressed a laser into her hands. “Keep it set to kill, and shoot at the first sign of aggression.”
    Melissa nodded. “Don’t worry about me. Keep them busy and I’ll take care of the recon.”
    At least one of them seemed to be collected. Inside, he was torn between protecting his crew and saving another crew that might be too late to save. He’d rather be the one walking onto that ship and taking the chances.
    “In ten minutes, page Jessica on the com. Have her go down to the bay and prep this ship to land on the planet. Have her get on the com and dial the Pony Express. I need a message to go out to Earth Command. They may not be able to help us, but I want them alerted to what’s going on. If they can stop the other ships, they need to do it. This is going to get ugly. We need to be prepared.”
    The “Pony Express” referred to a courier that moved through a wormhole that brought them to this galaxy. The wormhole cut the traveling time to Terra II down by years, but it also made communication with Earth impossible. To solve the problem, Earth had created a station in two satellite segments and a courier system to move between the two parts.
    One part of Ursus Station, Ursus Major, sat on the Earth side of a wormhole at the midpoint of the route to Terra II. The other half, Ursus Minor, a smaller segment of the station, sat on the other side of the wormhole, and due to atmospheric considerations, all messages had to be moved between the two by shuttle.
    Because of the instability of the wormhole, shuttles had to wait for electrical storms inside the tunnel to calm before they could fly through. Sometimes messages could take hours or even days to reach their final destination. Earth Command officers often joked and called the shuttles the Pony Express, after the swift message delivery system of the Old West—faster, they claimed, than their own.
    “Sir, it might not be a good idea to send any transmissions the hijackers might intercept.”
    “Good point. Hold off until we know what we’re up against.” That was the other weakness. In order for the signal to travel the distance it needed to, the transmission was broadcast on a wide band, easy for other ships in the area to pick up. It was never considered an issue since Earth Command thought nobody but their own people would be listening. But now someone else was, and they’d failed to think of that.
    “Do you think they suspect?”
    He shook his head. He wasn’t getting that off them. They wanted what he had onboard and would play along nicely until they got it. He’d be damned if he let them hijack his planet and cargo. No