Furnace Read Free Page B

facility.”
    I furrowed my brow and stroked my stubble absently, watching the simulation again with renewed concentration. “Why only these stars?”
    “Like I said, the presence of natural gravity slipstreams with a unique energy spike. We’ve identified them around these specific bodies so far. You can use any one of them, or all of them if you want to go really far.” She dropped the datapad on the bed and shot me a sly grin. “It takes an expert navigator to pull it off, though. The coordinates have to be laid in manually during the slingshot.” She fell back to the pillow and pulled at my gray rec shirt with eyes that positively glowed in the starlight. I was hungry for her. Then again, when wasn’t I? “If you don’t want to try it because you don’t think you can pull it off, I totally understand.”
    “Oh really?” I glared at her, feigning an injury to my pride that felt all too real.
    Then she giggled and I couldn’t hold back.
    Some two days later when we re-boarded the Rockne Hummel , I presented her suggestion to Captain Gibbons. Based on my personal recommendation, he accepted the proposal—no doubt eager to return home—and two-thirds of us went into hyper-sleep. The rest kept watch, but they never saw what went wrong. It happened in the blink of an eye.
    By the time I woke again, we were already fucked.

BEYOND
     
    “That’s impossible.”
    “I agree, but that’s what the ship’s telling us.”
    “We must have fried the systems somehow. Does it show any temporary blackouts? Did we pass through an electrical storm or something?”
    “No, sir. Everything appears to be in working order, except the sensors say we’re trillions of light-years beyond charted space.”
    Captain Gibbons stroked his beard, frowning. “Fuck…”
    Teemo punched in a few commands on the control console but, evidently, wasn’t pleased with the results. “Shit.” He rubbed at his neck. “What was the last checkpoint we hit?”
    I consulted the computer readouts on the holo-projector and shook my head. “I can’t tell. We passed Pluto Station three days ago but we don’t register anything after that.”
    “This is bullshit!” Teemo shouted at the viewport while he jammed on the flight controls. “Is the screen down? I can’t see anything! I’m flying blind!”
    “Calm down, we’re still on auto-pilot,” Gibbons told him, then turned in my direction. “Where are we?”
    My stomach did a somersault. I felt like I was going to vomit, probably from being ripped prematurely from hyper-sleep. I prayed it would be the only side-effect. “Like I said, sir, I have no idea. We’re beyond charted space, even using the Tsoul maps.”
    The captain sighed and approached my station, where he examined the readings on my console to verify my findings. The extra set of eyes wouldn’t have done much good even if I was wrong, of course. Navigation is a highly-skilled trade. Even captains, even good captains, rarely understand what they’re looking at when we submit readings for review or file a report. They’re almost entirely dependent on our skills and expertise.
    “Where are the stars, Chalmers?” he whispered, trying to prevent the others from hearing. It was no use, though.
    The entire bridge crew watched us intently, even the Master Gunner, Lao Gang, who should have been one level below in the Rockne Hummel’s Weapons Command station. Everyone wanted to know what the hell had happened and why they’d been yanked early from hyper-sleep. Waiting to jump down my throat, too, in all likelihood. Detours aren’t exactly welcomed when you’re out on the black sea. Especially when the readings tell you that the ‘detour’ took you so far from home that there’s no conceivable way back.
    “I don’t know, Captain. The only reading I’m showing is a planetoid directly behind us. If the scans are right, there’s nothing else within a quintillion miles at least.”
    “Wolski, turn us around,” Gibbons