The Apprentice Starship Engineer: Book One The Link Read Free

her arms around me. “I love you. Be careful, and write me.” She sobbed.
    Sibyl stood by, tapping her foot. “We have to go, Mrs. Wilson. They won’t wait for him. We need to leave now !”
    “Go,” Mom said, pushing me away. “Go. Remember we love you. Your dad and I love you,” she called.
    Sibyl drove faster on the way back, passing cars and going around corners with the wheels sliding. I didn’t say a word, but feared for our lives as we flew through a red light without even slowing. She ground to a stop at the entryway to the spaceport, and said, “You have a half hour. You may make it.” She grabbed me, giving me a passionate kiss. I hugged her back and wished I wasn’t leaving. “Go,” she said, pushing me out of the car. “Go. Run fast!” she yelled.

Chapter 2: Margret
    I ran toward the waiting shuttle, dragging my heavy bag and waving my union card to the security guards. I sprinted up the ramp and dove through as they just started to close the doors and held up my job placement slip.
    A tall man with a brooding face looked at me. “You the apprentice?” I nodded. He motioned me to follow and led me to an empty acceleration couch. “Put your trash in there,” he said, motioning toward an open locker.
    I struggled with my bag and jammed it into the locker before getting into the acceleration couch. I noticed the countdown clock read five minutes. A businesslike woman came back to check on everyone. She looked at me and frowned, then turned on her heels and walked away. The timer resumed ticking off the seconds before launch.
    “What’s your name, kid?” asked the man.
    “Drake Wilson.”
    “I’m Jack Carlyle, your journeyman. I’ll be training you. Three things I want from you, kid. First, when I start telling you something, don’t ever say you know what I’m going to teach. You’re a first-year trainee and don’t know crap so just listen and learn. Second, do what I say. This ship can kill so pay attention. If you don’t understand ask. Third, many people during my career have taken the time to teach me. That’s why I’m going to teach, not because you’re a great kid or because I’m on a weird power trip. I’ll do it to repay a debt to those who taught me. In the future you should take the time and effort to train others. That’s what journeymen do.”
    I didn’t know what to say, but managed to mutter an, “Okay.” I thought of learning a secret hand shake. It was Dad’s fault if he hadn’t made Mom mad she wouldn’t have insisted I take up an apprenticeship. I could have gone off to college and received a diploma in history or art. Jack looked mean, a guy I didn’t want to cross. This isn’t going to be a party, I thought. The clock finished counting, and the ship’s engines fired. A slight tremor and vibration ran through my seat.
    Jack looked over at me. “The reason you’re comfortable right now is that the inertial damping field is set correctly. You’ll align the generator for our dampening field on the Armstrong . If you screw it up, we’ll have a very uncomfortable time during the course adjustment in five days. Drake, being a starship engineer is hard. If you screw up, everyone could die.” He smiled.
    I’d worked with Dad, fixing the machines on the farm. I’m good at it. Once when I was sixteen, I’d screwed up the alignment on the harvester and it’d tried to cut the wheat a couple feet below ground level. That had destroyed the harvester cutter, costing us over twenty thousand, but nobody died, and it wasn’t the end of the world. Dad had showed me what I’d done wrong and had me adjust it again after we’d finished rebuilding it. The harvester has worked fine ever sense.
    This is a starship, and Jack is right. Mistakes couldn’t happen. I turned and looked over at him. “Ah, this might not be the right job for me. I make mistakes sometimes. I screw up. I don’t want to kill anyone,” I said.
    Jack looked over and nodded. “That’s good.