Read Online The Agathon: Reign of Arturo by Colin Weldon - Free Book Online Page B

on the ground and approached the two men. He rolled up beside them and smiled.
    “You should be in sick bay, Doctor,” Barrington said.
    “Nonsense, that woman is far too stressed out at the moment. She patched me up and I’ll live. Besides, this place is a fucking mess. She’s not gonna fix herself you know,” he said.
    Barrington looked around the broken engine room at the destruction caused by the alien life form that had taken the form of Amanda Llewellyn. The damage to the outer casing caused by Chavel’s pulse grenade was substantial. He looked back at Tosh. There seemed to be a dent in the side of his wheelchair.
    “I was sorry to hear about Landon, Doctor,” he said. His former Irish chief engineer had lost his life in the battle. Tosh nodded.
    “He was a good lad. Cheeky fucker, but knew his way around an engine room,” he said smiling. Tosh looked at Tyrell.
    “Doctor, I would like you to work with Tyrone to get the engines back up to nominal capacity. As you know, for some reason the time dilation during the hyperspace jump has been over a thousand years,” he said sighing. He hadn’t meant to show his reaction to the shocking news so obviously, but the reality of it suddenly struck him hard.
    “A thousand fucking years,” said Tosh shaking his head, “What the hell happened? Do we even know if they’re alive?”
    Barrington shook his head.
    “I can’t see how, but it may be time to figure that out and jump back to see. I would rather not have another thousand years pass by without knowing,” he said.
    Barrington’s thoughts drifted back to Chancellor Sienna Clarke’s last message before they parted. She would be long dead, but maybe ... just maybe.
    “Well, Doctor, we could sure use that big brain of yours down here, so maybe if we put our noggins together we can figure this out,” said Tosh to Tyrell. There was a moment of tension between the two of them. Barrington thought it best to let them sort it out so he nodded and turned to leave. He walked out of the engine room and into the halls of The Agathon. As he was passing through the corridors, a thought suddenly struck him that stopped him in his tracks.
    The explosion.
    En route to the Aristaeus system, there had been an explosion on deck three which had blown a hole in the hull. Boyett had discovered evidence of an explosive material coating the walls surrounding the blast point and it hadn’t yet been determined as to its cause. He watched and nodded to the crew and passengers as they passed him in the halls.
    Was there a saboteur on board his ship?
    The comm device on his wrist bleeped.
    “Boyett to Captain,” his first officer said.
    He tapped his wrist.
    “Captain here, go ahead,” he said.
    “Sir, we have a relative position established. I think you should see this,” she said.
    “On my way,” he said closing the channel and making his way to the nearest lift.
    The Agathon
    Bridge
    The view screens were lit up overhead as Barrington entered the bridge.
    “Report,” he said.
    Boyett turned in her flight chair and pointed up at them. Each one showed a different angle of the same vista. Two large white stars, in what seemed to be a synchronous orbit filled the screens. One of them was pulsating regularly. The white light was so intense that it filtered through the view screens and flickered all over the surfaces of the bridge consoles. Jerome Young was staring up at the sight with his mouth open.
    “It’s a binary star system,” Boyett said.
    “Magnificent, isn’t it?” Jerome Young said, still staring at the screens. Barrington’s training rarely left room to admire scientific discoveries without immediately running a thousand threat analyses on them. He walked to the centre of the bridge and took a seat in the captain’s chair.
    “Situation Report, Lieutenant,” he said to Boyett, trying to snap her back to reality. She took the hint and sat upright punching commands into her flight control panel.
    “Sir, the