Read Online This Corner of the Universe by Britt Ringel - Free Book Online

the
distance between them.  Once pleasantries were exchanged via voice and video
communications and each ship’s standard data was synched, Anelace gracefully pivoted one hundred eighty degrees and settled beside the enormous
freighter 10 ls (light-seconds) to starboard.  Naval ship formations had
ship stations much closer to each other but, with civilian traffic, most naval
ships were reluctant to crowd a non-military navigator. 
    As
both ships reached the Beta Field, Anelace shifted her position to
directly in front of the freighter, slowed to .05 c and led the ship
through the field of shifting asteroids ranging in size from small hover cars
to massive, mountain-sized rocks.  The two ships treaded carefully as the
distortion inside the field limited even Anelace’s powerful sensors.  They
must sail practically blind in here , Heskan thought.  Those freighter
pilots are braver than I give them credit.  
    Once
clear of the belt, the two ships accelerated again to .1 c and reoriented
themselves toward the distant refining station.  Two and a half hours later, Nomad received clearance to dock with the RALF and Anelace set her course for
the Skoll tunnel point.
    The
actual route Anelace took to the tunnel point was far from direct. 
After his three experiences with the Beta Field, Heskan had no desire to travel
through the far denser and exponentially more dangerous Alpha Field.  Instead
of traveling through it, he took the ship out-system and around it and only
then set a direct course for the tunnel point.  It added over five hours of
travel time but the increase in safety was well worth the time spent.  Once Anelace reached the Skoll tunnel point, she was 3.25 lh from the RALF. 
    Two
hours into Anelace’s search for the Skoll buoy, Nomad pulled free
of the mining station and began her journey to the Narvi tunnel point
unescorted.  Heskan did not like the freighter traveling through the Beta Field
without a shepherd but he could not blame the freighter captain for not wanting
to sit docked, waiting on Anelace’s return.  The universal constant of
“Time is Money” prevailed over all else in economic ventures.
    In
the end, the freighter captain’s decision to travel without an escort proved to
be a wise one.  Nomad traversed the Beta Field without incident and dove
into tunnel space one hour before Anelace discovered the location of the
Skoll buoy.  Heskan breathed a soft sigh of relief when the signal of Nomad’s safe departure from the Narvi navigation buoy reached Anelace , nearly
four hours after it happened.  He understood that Lieutenant Durmont might not
look favorably upon him “leaving” his duties to find this buoy and, considering
the state of his professional relationship with the arrogant bastard, he did
not need to give him any reason to send off a bad report to higher command.
    The sensor
section crew recovered the dead buoy without mishap and Heskan ordered another
“buoy autopsy.”  Ensign Truesworth’s report on the first buoy had been
definitive.  The buoy had ceased to function as the result of a collision with
debris approximately 0.1 meters in width.  Even though collisions in the dead
of space were extremely rare, they were not entirely unheard of.  When Truesworth
had estimated the chance of the occurrence at less than one percent given the
buoy’s position and the time it had been in operation, the number concerned Heskan
but there was not much left to pursue.  The buoy was hit by a space rock and
that’s that, he thought.
    Truesworth’s
men set to work on analyzing the second buoy as Anelace returned to the
other side of the star system.  Heskan had not ordered a replacement buoy
deployed at the Skoll tunnel point because no ships came out this far.  More
importantly , he told himself , I want to hold on to my last buoy in case
the galaxy rolls another one percent on the cosmic dice and destroys my Narvi
buoy .  Anelace had maneuvered around the Alpha Field and