Rocketship Patrol Read Free Page A

over and past the life boat, shaking it ever so slightly.
    When she opened her eyes, all that remained of the two ships was a scattered cloud of debris, getting smaller and smaller as the life boat continued along its straight-line escape trajectory.
    Cortez let out a breath. “Life boat?”
    “I am here.”
    “Where’d that little bastard strand me?”
    “Drantini system.”
    “Drantini? What the hell is in Drantini?”
    “Drantini is a class five system of two inhabited worlds and fourteen worldlets, home to over seven billion—”
    “Okay, it’s a total backwater, I get it. Start scanning anyway. Might get lucky.”
    “What am I scanning for?”
    Cortez smirked thoughtfully out at the void. “A ship with a superluminal engine I can... borrow.”
     
     
     
     

TWO
     
     
    Docking tube retracting, the massive triple-nacelled, fifteen-rocket DUPES Cruiser Rocketship 17 peeled away from the much smaller single-nacelled, twin-rocket Patrol Rocketship 8724 . Cruiser 17 ’s rockets lit and she flicked away, leaving the patrol rocketship all alone in the barren outskirts of the Drantini system.
    “Welcome aboard, Junior Officer Loy.”
    Duffel bag slung under her shoulder and a wide-eyed mix of nervous anticipation and excitement on her open, freckled face, Dana Loy stepped out of 8724 ’s airlock into the corridor encircling Deck 4. Raven-haired, Loy’s athletic build was accented by the severe lines of her freshly pressed DUPES uniform. The DUPES shield on her pillbox cap was showroom-floor new, polished to give off a near-blinding reflection. “Thank you, ship.”
    “Not at all,” the ship said, its voice authoritative yet subordinate, the standard for a DUPES Ship’s Brain. “For your convenience, you may also refer to me by my service designation, 8724 , or simply, Hey, Circuit Board .”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Sorry,” 8724 said. “I’m not really programmed for funny but Lieutenant Detective Hackenthrush insists I keep trying. Supposed to expand my horizons, but so far it just confuses people.”
    Loy’s brow furrowed. “Okay...”
    “Exactly like that.”
    Loy lowered her duffel bag to the metal grate of the corridor floor between two bare structural reinforcement struts. “We need to make this official, don’t we?” she asked, reaching into her uniform jacket to pull out the sealed manila envelope containing her orders.
    “If you insist.”
    “Should we wait for the Commanding Officer?”
    “I’d just go ahead,” 8724 said.
    Loy nodded and broke the envelope’s wax seal with a swipe of her thumb. “Busy man, I take it?”
    “I never said that.”
    “Okay, then…” Loy squared her shoulders, clicked her heels together, and, after clearing her throat with a demure cough, read aloud: “ Dana M. Loy, Junior Officer, Probationary, of the Drantini Unified Police and Emergency Service, you are hereby requested and required to immediately and forthwith report to the DUPES patrol rocketship designated 8724, currently on patrol in Drantini system deep sector 192, and once there, to carry out all the duties and responsibilities of your oath of service under command of Lieutenant Detective Archibald Q. Hackenthrush, by order of the High Commissioner of Police and Public Safety. ” She paused, looked up. “And then there’s a couple pages of authorizing policy codes and signatures—it’s okay if I skip those, right?”
    “Guess we’ll find out,” 8724 said. “Before the irony inherent in the sentiment becomes painfully obvious, congratulations, Junior Officer Loy.”
    “Thanks!” Loy beamed as she neatly folded the orders and slid them back into the manilla envelope. She slipped the envelope away into her inner jacket pocket. “Can I get a copy of that to send to my mom?”
    “You wanted to record it?”
    Loy’s face sagged. “You didn’t record it?”
    “Honestly, we get a lot of you rookies out here, and most of you end up not wanting to commemorate your time aboard. We