Read Online The Cyber Chronicles IV - Cyborg by T C Southwell - Free Book Online

the more time you have to spend decelerating, which
is done with normal engines. Nothing stops in space if it doesn’t
have brakes. If we don’t decelerate, we keep going
forever.”
    Tassin was
fascinated, and watched the ground fall away below as the ship had
left the apron and rose into the sky. “So why do you use these
photon corridors to go faster and normal engines to slow down? Why
not use the normal engines for both, or the photons?”
    “ Well, changing the polarity of solar wings is impossible,
apparently, and normal engines would never get us faster than
light, because the energy they produce would be left behind faster
than they could produce it, you see? Normal engines, however, have
a profound effect when a ship’s travelling faster than light
because the energy they produce is sort of compressed, if you will.
That’s the best way I can explain it. It’s way more effective, at
any rate.”
    “ Okay.” She did not understand completely but it seemed to make
sense. “So who’s this friend of yours?”
    “ He’s a fellow hacker. We go way back, but he hacked the wrong
corporation and got into huge trouble. He had to go into permanent
hiding, and he’s been there ever since.”
    Tassin glanced
at Sabre, who stood in the corridor just outside the room where she
sat with Kole, in a guard stance. “Go and sit in the lounge, find
food and drink if you require it,” she ordered him, annoyed.
    Kole glanced
at her. “He really bugs you, doesn’t he?”
    “ Yes. I remember him as a free man, not a… machine.”
    “ What will you do if you can’t free him?”
    “ I’m going to free him.”
    He nodded,
turning to gaze out of the window. “Sure you will.”
    The blue sky
outside turned black with startling swiftness, and stars became
visible as the ship turned away from the planet’s glow and headed
into deep space. Tassin stared at the mesmerising view, entranced.
Billions of stars sprinkled the inky void like miniscule diamonds
on black velvet, each one a sun, and in some areas what looked like
clouds glowed faintly. She pointed them out to Kole.
    “ What are those?”
    “ Cosmic dust clouds, or asteroid clouds. You don’t want to get
caught in one of those if you value your ship and your life.
Luckily, photon corridors never go near them, or vice
versa.”
    “ Entering corridor X436-32,” Striker murmured.
    There was
nothing to indicate they had entered any sort of corridor, but
Tassin waited to see what would happen next. A few minutes passed,
then the ship said, “Deploying solar wings.”
    Tassin gasped
as two brilliant, scintillating filigree webs sprang into being on
either side of the ship, visible in the rearmost corners of the big
window. They glowed faintly blue, and flashes of paler hues ran
along them in regular wave patterns. They looked like nets made
from spun diamond, she thought, and were by far the most beautiful
things she had ever seen.
    Kole smiled.
“Pretty, huh?”
    “ They’re spectacular.”
    “ Approaching light speed,” Striker said.
    A moment
later, the window filled with blinding light, and then darkened,
dulling the brilliance to a faint blue glow. She stared at it.
“What causes that?”
    “ We’ve just overtaken light. Now it’s all flying back past us,
so it’s really really bright. The screens dull it, though, or it
would blind us. Come, that’s all the excitement for now. I could
use a drink.”
    In the lounge,
she found Sabre seated on the sofa, sipping what looked like a
thick nutrition drink. She sat beside him and accepted the glass of
something pink and fizzy that Kole handed her. It tasted a bit like
cherries.

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
    Tassin gazed
around at the bio dome on the Drellin Moon, wondering how anyone in
their right mind would want to live there. Then again, no one said
this Trevare character was sane. Even Kole had his foibles. Striker
stood behind them in the hangar section of the bio dome,
fortunately small enough to fit in the