The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 Read Free

but no matter now.) A pilot always turned his screens in the direction he was going. “System failure?”
    Steele shook his head. “Arrogance. Cock full of it.” Steele’s best guess was that Cowboy had intended to reverse direction again and head butt the missile.
    “Did you get any sense out there that that missile or this minefield was meant for us, TR?”
    “No,” said Steele. “We stepped in someone else’s trap.”
    “Bizarre place for a trap. And accidentally stepping in it? Chances have to be a godzillion to one.”
    Steele had never taken probabilities and statistics, and he wasn’t sure if godzillion was a real number, so he just nodded gravely. “So who were the mines meant for? And what are they protecting?”
    “And why here?” Farragut added. “Why right here?”
    “We gotta be close to something.”
    “Have to be,” Farragut agreed. “Have to be. But what? Clue?”
    Steele shook his head.
    “I’ll have the minefield scanned. Its placement should point us toward what’s being guarded. Have someone retrieve that sentinel buoy so we can analyze it for age. This could be very old news and maybe this is a leftover dragon from a long-gone treasure—what?”
    Steele’s face sank deeper and deeper into chagrin. Farragut prompted again, “What?”
    Steele spoke tightly. “The sentinel buoy has been ‘secured. ’ ”
    Farragut translated, “Your Marines blew it up.”
    Steele nodded. “And all of the mines.”
    One hand loosely caging his face, Farragut peered through his fingers. “Shit, TR.” Not angry. Resigned to obvious consequences. If you want to preserve evidence, send detectives or scientists, not Marines. “You know, we very likely wiped out a first contact. I’m pretty sure we never met these folk before.”
    “My Wing was thorough,” Steele said dryly.
    “I helped,” Farragut confessed. Any chance to run the guns. “LEN’s gonna pee the carpet when they read this report.”
    Naval diplomacy was an oxymoron. Farragut would have let himself laugh, had a man not died. “Cowboy. Jaime Carver.” He placed the name at last—the late Flight Sergeant Jaime “Cowboy” Carver.
    Steele was not surprised that the captain of a battleship carrying a Marine detachment of 720 and crew of 425 should know one of his Marine flight sergeants by full name. Farragut knew everybody.
    And everybody knew Cowboy. Though few knew his name was Jaime Carver.
    “Popular man, wasn’t he?” Farragut asked.
    Lips tight, teeth clenched, Steele answered, “Very.”
    Farragut must have sensed the rage. He asked softly, “Friend, TR?”
    “Dumb kid. Cocky. Balls to the wall. Hard not to like him.”
    Hard not to like him, and Steele hated him. Heard himself go on, “I knew he’d do this to me.”
    Cowboy was a funny guy, made everyone laugh. Stellar looks. Always quick to get his shirt off. Girl in every port, and one on board every ship no matter how slim the ratios. Insubordinate. Steele sometimes wished him dead. So startled to get his wish, Steele spoke aloud, “I’m asking if there’s something I could’ve done.”
    Farragut glanced aside at Steele as they walked. “ Was there?”
    “I don’t see it.” And Steele had looked hard. As much as Steele hated Cowboy, sending one of his own men intentionally, and without his knowledge, to his death was against everything Lieutenant Colonel Steele lived for. Steele was first, last, and always a good soldier. He had soul-searched and exonerated himself. Cowboy had killed Cowboy. “It was fast.”
    “It’s always fast out here,” said Farragut.
    “Man was a walking game of Russian roulette.” Future corpse, the type was called. “Hell, sir, it was inevitable.”
    Farragut’s voice turned quietly stern: “You have any more of those on board my boat, TR, ship ’em home today.”
    “Sir. Yes, sir.”
    Prox alarms blared and quickly silenced. Two sets of blue eyes lifted. “What now?” Farragut murmured, launching into a run.
    Space