Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) Read Free Page A

his fingers on his pants and watched out the door. The Commander peered back to his console and made small talk. Every time he leaned back, his chair crunched against the milling lines in the floor. Crunch. Shift. Crunch. Shift.
    William thought of the voyage. He had a data packet from Admiral Mesman with a glowing recommendation. He recognized the glaring hole from his previous Captain on the letter. Did Mesman send something else with the couriers? Would he be relegated to supervising docking operations or some such useless task? The very thought made him nervous.
    “Sit, sit!” Admiral Sahji said before he even entered the room. William snapped out of his daydreams and realized he hadn’t been paying much attention to the Commander.
    “Mr. Grace.” Admiral Sahji shook his hand. He straightened himself out and sighed. “Damned dirty business this is.” He looked around for a chair and, upon not finding one, stepped out into the hall with apologies flowing behind him. He returned with a gray plastic box and sat upon it with a wink.
    William looked over the Admiral and wondered where he stood. He didn’t recall seeing him with either of the three parties. Nor did he know anything about him.
    “Ahh, well, what do you think of our little hole in the wall?”
    “A bit more spacious than the ride back, sir,” William said.
    Admiral Sahji smiled at the Commander. “Can you call up the sheet please?”
    The Commander turned to the console with another crunch. One wall lit up and a display cast upon it. The entire view was rough as the light played out across the tool marks. On it a schematic floated for a ship William had never seen before.
    “This will be your new command, Lieutenant,” Admiral Sahji said proudly. “I’ve been working with Core on this. It’s a no frills warship. It’s not a colony tender. All our ships in the past had to fulfill dual roles. Not this one.”
    William looked to the Admiral and back to the screen. The ship on the wall was ugly. Even accounting for the distortion in the raw tool marks. The body wasn’t plates, or even cast alloy, but a rumble of stone, like concrete.
    “We use an asteroid for a shell, bind it with nanite, burrow out the insides, and then add what we need. Fairly substantial savings on material, but most importantly time too.” Admiral Sahji looked around the room and nodded, smiling. “I bet it will look something like this room.”
    William managed a polite smile.
    The Commander leaned towards William and sounded slightly embarrassed. “We haven’t actually finished them yet, Lieutenant.”
    “But they’re almost done! Very soon.” Admiral Sahji said. He turned his eyes back to the screen and looked at the rock potato on the wall. He seemed like the proud parent of the ugliest baby on the block.
    “How long, Admiral?” William asked.
    Admiral Sahji tore his gaze from the screen and looked back to William. “Soon.”
    “Soon?”
    “Soon,” the Commander said.
    “So uh, what can you tell me about them, Admiral?” William asked. Both the Admiral and the Commander seemed pleased just to admire something that was finally leaping out of the computer and into space.
    “Quad batteries of Gracelle mass drivers. Single keel mount railgun, probe launcher, and two missile launchers. K142 Haydn drive, a zero point three percent efficiency boost.” The Admiral nodded to the Commander with a smile. “Hmm, crew quarters for a dozen, and supplies enough for a four month tour.”
    “Four months?” William spat out.
    For the first time in the conversation, the Admiral squirmed in his seat. Glances were exchanged once more. Pleasant smiles returned. William looked between the two with his mouth slightly agape.
    “Four months is barely enough time to travel to the frontier, let alone back,” William said. “I’ll need a resupply ship following just to get anywhere and remain on station.”
    He peered closer at the print. Shared crew quarters, no paneling, zero