Read Online Project Sail by Anthony DeCosmo - Free Book Online

“She is an Admiral now.”
    “She did not appear that old.”
    Hawthorne told him, “She isn’t. Admirals are not as rare as they used to be, not with all the theaters the navy has to oversee. Besides, she comes from a family that has been in the service for generations.”
    He did not add that Duncan’s actions at Ganymede played a big role in her fast rise up the ranks.
    He tried to push her from his thoughts by firing a serve in a low line drive that Horus missed, scoring a point for Hawthorne.
    Horus asked, “Do military ships have the room for courts?”
    “Check out the blueprints of a Kansas -class battleship and you will find something called an auxiliary room or the like. The admiral who oversaw the design loved handball but couldn’t play, so he would put money on matches. Okay, one serves zero.”
    On the next serve, Horus knocked Hawthorne off the line and then went on the offensive, purposely making his older opponent run. By the time an exhausted Hawthorne regained the service line, he trailed by three points.
    “Tell me, Commander, how long after your famous battle did you leave the service?”
    “Two months after things calmed down they granted me an honorable discharge, which UVI helped with because they wanted me on their team while my name was still a brand.”
    Hawthorne’s next serve led to a long volley that he eventually won with a perfect kill shot, but his next serve was lazy and resulted in Horus reclaiming the line.
    “So you have worked for Universal Visions for thirteen years?”
    “Just about, with the last five on a luxury cruise ship. Look, you’re not writing an unauthorized biography are you?”
    “No such thing. Four serves two.”
    The Captain scored two points before Hawthorne landed another well-placed shot to knock him off the line.
    “Hell of a kill shot.”
    “I was not much of a sailor, but I could hit a handball. I served on three different ships in the span of two years because of that kill shot, spending more time in makeshift courts than on any bridge.”
    “Did the cruise ship have courts?”
    “No, only holographic sports and direct-feed games.”
    Horus asked, “Direct feed is that stuff that pumps the images into a brain implant, right?”
    “If you have a powerful thinker—implant or chip--we had game machines that could make you feel like you were surfing a hundred-foot wave or flying a race rocket. Okay, two serves six.”
    Hawthorne went on a roll with kill shot after kill shot, resulting in eight unanswered points before relinquishing the line.
    Horus huffed, “That was nasty. Six serves--what do you have?”
    “Ten, I think.”
    Captain Horus slowly walked to the serve line, perhaps stalling to catch his breath.
    “Have you been out in deep space recently, Commander?”
    “No, but I can’t imagine it has changed.”
    Horus said, “Space is no longer the exciting new frontier.”
    “Is that supposed to mean something?”
    “Consider that as soon as you leave Earth you are sealed in a flying tin can, and then you transfer to a ship like this or a passenger carrier. If you are lucky, you are on a corporate yacht with holographic tennis, but you are still inside a container.”
    “Shouldn’t you be serving the ball?”
    Horus flashed a wry smile but kept talking.
    “Those ships take you to a space station or a dome where you are locked inside, and if you want to walk outside you wear a spacesuit, an even smaller container.”
    Hawthorne prompted Horus: “You’ve got six; I have ten, serve the ball.”
    The Captain returned to his tactic of making his older opponent run, managing four points to tie the game until Hawthorne took serve again.
    As he handed over the ball, Horus told him, “Weird, nasty things are happening out here, to the point I’m starting to believe the entire human race is going insane. Last year miners working for Golden Prominence on Io went on strike and rioted, throwing two senior managers into a lava flow. When