Paying the Price (Book 5 of The Empire of Bones Saga) Read Free

Doctor Leonard was busy reading the full data stream from the probe staying in the Harrison’s World system, but it made no sense to her. It was focused on the flip point and too technical.
    The first probe vanished…and reappeared a few seconds later. It immediately indicated it was in distress. The battle screen had failed and many of the systems were offline.
    “What the hell happened to it?” she asked. “Was it fired on?”
    “I’m getting the scanner recording now,” Marcus said. “I’m forwarding it to you.”
    The view from the probe was of deep space. It saw the weak flip point in its scanners. When the signal came across to flip, it did so.
    And intense radiation bombarded it from every angle on the other side. The battle screen held up almost as long as it took the flip drive to cycle and take the probe back to their side.
    The view of the system beyond the flip point was indistinct. It was as though space was foggy.
    “What the hell was that?” Jared asked.
    “I believe I understand,” Doctor Leonard said as he stepped up beside Jared’s console. “The other system’s sun has gone nova. The destination side is far too close to either a neutron star or perhaps even a black hole for the probes to survive more than a few moments.”
    Kelsey shook her head. “Well, that certainly explains why none of them came back. And it means we’re not going over there, either.”
    “Actually, that’s not a given,” Marcus said. “I’ve analyzed the strength of the radiation and a ship’s battle screens are capable of protecting it. Only the probe’s lack of power caused its premature failure.”
    “Admiral, might I mention that this is an unprecedented opportunity to study such a phenomenon?” Doctor Leonard asked. “We have no records of anything like this in the Old Empire databases and we might not be back this way again anytime soon. Might we use one of your ships for a few hours? Other than the natural dangers, the system probably doesn’t pose any additional risk.”
    Her brother looked between the scientist and Kelsey. “Okay, but only if you make the trip on Persephone . Her scanners are more than capable of getting you the data you need. You only have half a day. We’re leaving on schedule. I’m serious.”
    Kelsey was more than a bit surprised Jared was allowing her to go. He must be even more exhausted than he looked. Still, it sounded interesting.
    “We can do that,” she said. “Doctor, what are the chances you can detect other flip points in that system?”
    “Slim, but not impossible,” he ventured. “Weak flip points are out of the question. We’ll be able to find the one linking to Harrison’s World again because we know precisely where it is, but the chaotic environment there will overshadow any others.
    “We can use the ship’s scanners to locate gravimetric anomalies like planets and regular flip points, though. If they aren’t too far away from us, that is.”
    She grinned. “Well then, what are we waiting for? We have a supernova to explore!”
     

Chapter Two
     
    “Is that thing safe?”
    Carl Owlet looked over at Fleet Captain Aaron Black. “It should be. Why?”
    “It could go right through you—and the wall behind you—if it malfunctions. You don’t have Princess Kelsey’s strength. Hell, I’m not even sure that would be enough if it went rogue.”
    The graduate student gave the Fleet officer a suitably unimpressed expression. “Don’t be ridiculous, Captain. Everything will be perfectly fine.”
    “Famous last words,” the other man said. “I’ll just move over here and watch from behind this handy blast shield.”
    The two of them were down in one of the rooms used to test weapons inside the Grant Research Facility. It had plenty of protection for observers and the labs around it. If it could handle plasma weapons, it should be safe enough.
    Probably.
    Carl took a deep breath and tried to put the worries Black had raised out of his mind. Yes,