Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades Read Free

Sherry said with a grin, “you are the only recipient ever awarded two CMHs. The first was in recognition of your sacrifices during the D’rlalu war the second was for your actions during what historians have started calling the Proxy war. It was assumed the awards were being given posthumously.”
    “I’ve won the Medal of Honor?” Cat repeated numbly.
    “Twice,” Sherry confirmed.
    Cat shook her head in disbelief. “I guess I should have taken the time to view all those docudrama vid links you sent me. To be honest, I’ve always found it difficult to watch others report on my life. Most of the time I just want to throttle the commentators for trying to turn me into something superhuman.”
    Sherry and Bud smiled in unison but wisely said nothing.
    Cat Kimbridge shook her head one last time and stepped forward to hug both her friends.
    “It’s good to see you,” she said warmly. It was good to see them - both. For Cat it had only been a few months since the three had stood in the same room but the calendar showed the actual span was more like three hundred years.
                  Sherry took the opportunity to ask a question. “Did you bring those M&M officers I requested?”
                  It was Cat’s turn to grin. “Oh they are here. I have them locked in my brig for their own safety. Seems they like to cheat at cards. Not typically a problem unless your intended victim is a six-legged D’rlulu cyborg with a temper… and you are playing for chocolate bars.”
                  Sherry smiled. “That sounds about right. Do you want to keep them locked up or shall I take them off your hands?”
    “They are all yours. And good luck with them. I’ll send an ensign to fetch them.”
                  “I wouldn’t bother,” Sherry said. “If I know Sam Eddington and Rhino they will have heard I’m aboard and already be making their way here. I doubt there is a brig in existence that could hold the two of them.”
                  True to her word, Rhino made a coughing sound and stepped around the edge of one of the other shuttles. Sam joined him a moment later with a sheepish grin on his face.
                  When Cat looked at the two men with a mixture of irritation and awe in her eyes they immediately straightened and executed flawless salutes.
    “Gentlemen,” Sherry said with amusement in her voice, “Perhaps you had better board the shuttle and head over to the Recluse . You’re going to be joining Captain Bedmore’s crew.”
    ***
    In a dim part of the galaxy humans called the Milky Way two large objects that had been locked in a gravitational dance around a super massive black hole finally collided. The result was a large chunk of accumulated debris cracked off of the larger of the two objects. This exposed a portion of a machined hull that had not seen solar radiation for countless eons. The object was a ship of some sort - buried in interstellar dust.
    Before the natural gravitational interaction between the large object and the dust in the accretion disk could once again coat the exposed metal, a white dwarf that was part of the circumstellar material surrounding the black hole dipped too low in its orbit. The resulting tidal forces shredded the star and released a massive amount of additional radiation in the general direction of the partially exposed ship. In response to the sudden influx of energetic particles, collectors on the exposed surface of the hull activated and piped the energy associated with the death throes of the dwarf star into the interior of the buried ship.
    The massive alien starship slowly awoke. Systems that had been dormant for longer than human recorded history slowly warmed as minute amounts of energy began coursing through the craft’s power conduits. The ship’s artificial intelligence was confused. Damaged memory cores meant that it was incapable of remembering its designation or specific