Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

what happened to the people who went missing and the station residents get angry, we can turn them into a great force.”

“You’re an incurable optimist,” Thor said.

“I don’t think so. Up to now, there have been many rumours, but because they are just rumours there can’t be any anger behind them. Few people have been able to make the link between some of the strange activities that go on in the docks, when the pirates close the station to all arrivals, and their vanished love ones.”

“So were you based on Aurora Station when the pirates occupied it?” Tina asked Arkady.

“No, I wasn’t. I came in after I heard about this from my friend here.” He looked at Jetta. “And she was able to let me know what had happened by pure chance, because she was not at work that day.”

Tina asked, “Are you planning to do anything?”

Jetta said, “We have to start somewhere fighting this madness. We have to find a flashpoint for people to get concerned about the pirate movement. We have to get the Federacy Assembly to take us seriously before it is too late and our Armed Forces have been depleted too much to do anything.”

“It looks that way already,” Tina said.

Jetta agreed. “The Federacy still call it quelling an uprising. They still talk about the pirates as if they are poorly organised rogues, family groups living in shipworlds.”

“There are still those,” Tina said. “To be honest, I don’t think they get along with Artan any better than we do.”

“The point is, the Federacy on far away Olympus still don’t understand what is happening here. Maybe some of them do, but they think the problem will go away by itself.”

“Surely they’ll hear about the capture of a Federacy warship.”

“Maybe. The pirates have captured smaller vessels before with no consequences.”

“This is a Star Fighter.”

“I know.”

“They were allowing people to loot the ship. We went in because we were told to get our supplies there. It was sickening.”

“That’s what usually happens. Supplies in the station are rather short, so under the pretence of continuing normal commercial operations, they allow ships to come in to conduct small trades. But there are not enough supplies on the station to restock the ships, so whenever a large vessel is captured, they allow all the small ship crew to plunder the ship.”

“This is a Federacy warship. One of the most secretive ships of humanity. I worked for the Federacy for many years, and never set foot on one of them. Either these pirates don’t know what they have, or they’re completely stupid.”

“They’re not. They know very well the treasure trove of information they’ll find here. Artan knows what he’s got. He will have posted his men to stop people taking anything of importance from the ship, like anything from the engine or the bridge. I am guessing, going by previous occasions, that some shipworld people were trying to get into one of these places and they were stopped and this is how the fights today broke out.”

It could well be. Tina hadn’t seen how it happened.

She brought the discussion back to the reason she had stayed behind. “Do you have any idea where the crew of the Star Fighter would be?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for them. Likely they never made it off the ship.”

“They did. I saw them being led away.”

Arkady took in a whistling breath. “Artan must have plans for them, then. Maybe he needs them to operate the ship.”

“When we were inside the ship, it was ramping up for departure.”

He frowned at her, and Thor said, “Are you sure? I didn’t notice anything. Normally, when the big ships fire up, the floor vibrates in a very soft way that most people wouldn’t notice. I didn’t feel that.”

“The readiness indicator was going up. At least according to the screen in the stairwell.”

“I saw that, too,” Jens said.

“Hmmm,” Thor said.

“Maybe the software running the display was faulty,” Arkady said.

“Could be,” Tina said. “Although it’s my experience that if a military ship says it’s ramping up for departure, it really is ramping up for departure. They have too much duplication on board to be dependent on one faulty routine.”

“True,” Thor said. “I agree.”

“So why is the ship ramping up for departure without the crew?” Arkady asked. “Maybe the crew are being kept at close quarters and they have defected—”

“Never.”

“I understand you were in the military, but—”

“Never,” Tina said again.

“How can you be so sure of—”

“That crew contains my daughter. She is the meanest military hard-faced bitch you’ve met in your life. She would not hand herself over to a bunch of toadfaces. I saw her. She had not defected, and nor had any of the other crewmembers. Those highly specialised people on board these Star Fighters would not do that.”

“Whoa, calm down. I was just speculating.”

“The crew are on the station. They’re not in the ship. They’re alive. I think Artan wants or needs them for something. I think they’re held prisoner somewhere in the station. The reason I’m here is that I am going to free my daughter.”

“That is a very big and dangerous task.”

“It’s why I’m still here and why I didn’t leave with my ship that’s hanging around somewhere waiting for the docks to reopen. I am going to free her. Tell me what my best chances are and what I need to do to get into wherever she might be.”

She’d had enough of talk and speculation. It was time to do something.

Chapter Twenty

The first task was to get accurate plans of the restricted part of the station. Arkady said that he’d share with Tina whatever they had, even though he thought her mission to free Evelle was reckless and too dangerous.

The group had been collecting a lot of data on the station’s metrics, which included heat maps, the use of energy and the number of flights coming in and going out, especially during periods of official closure of the docks.

Arkady explained that one of