A Plain Jane Book One Read Online Free

number of
transports or cruisers or battleships that he’d been on that had
faced terrible crashes, or some dastardly plot that only he could
solve – it just wasn't normal. Or maybe it was normal, and other
people were doing just what he was doing but they weren't getting
the attention for it.
    Now that was something
that kept Lucas up at night. He had a whole Galaxy telling him that
he was the bee's knees, at the prime of his game, the absolute
perfect man for the job. But what if he wasn't? What if he’d always
simply been lucky? What if there was somebody out there, or
millions and billions of people, that could do the job better than
him?
    He knew he was tired and
that he was thinking negatively, but Lucas also knew that he wasn't
going to get any less tired. For the next several weeks he would be
planning the mission, and then for the next several months he would
be implementing it. As everybody kept telling him, it would be the
most important operation of his life, and perhaps the most
important mission mounted by the entire Galaxy in the past 100
years.
    Lucas swallowed hard and
massaged his brow again.
    That wasn't the worst
part.
    The worst part was in the
containment field two meters to his left.
    That was the real reason
they were heading through Hell's Gate. It wasn't to study quantum
singularities. It wasn't to study the planets beyond the rim. Oh
no, it was all about that thing two meters to his left.
    ‘ Look, Lucas, just go home. There
is nothing more you can do here tonight. I'm running the tests, but
I really don't need you to stand there and look sullen. Go home and
stand in your own house and look sullen,’ Alex kept on shaking his
head as he looked up from his console. ‘If you keep on staying up
all night and pouring over all of that data, you will find the
mission very short indeed, because I will call you up and send you
home the second we get out of space dock.’
    Lucas looked up from under
his hand.
    ‘ Go home’ Alex mouthed
again.
    Lucas finally shrugged. ‘Fine,
fine, but I don't want to run any risks, so have the computer
triple the containment field.’
    Alex gave an impressed whistle.
‘Triple the field? That is going to be a mighty drain on power.
Lucky you are Lucas Stone, or you would be getting dragged up
before the Chief Engineer in the morning.’
    Lucas replied with another
massive sigh, turned on his heel and walked out the
door.
    Alex was right; he really
needed sleep, but then again, the Galaxy really needed him to pull
this mission off. If he didn't . . . hell, he had no
idea what would happen. Because that was the
thing . . . there was much more to this mission than
the public were being told. Of course there was more to it. The
powers that be would not fund such an enormous operation if all
they really wanted to do was have a look at a couple of swirly
whirly twisting space oddities.
    It had to do with them . Those
things they had been finding. The strange, peculiar, frightening
things that had been popping up throughout that area of space for
the past 50 years. Nearly every day they would find new samples,
new signals, new artifacts that hinted at something far darker, far
more menacing that a bunch of quantum
singularities.
    Now that was why Lucas Stone was going on this mission, and
that was why he was populating his team with more than
scientists.
    He was aware that his
thoughts were rambling; he was so damn tired. He clamped another
hand on his temple and tried to push the fatigue and worry out. It
wouldn't work, but it at least it would distract him. Plus, he had
every intention of ignoring Alex's demand. He was going home, not
to sleep, but to do more study. Lucas would not go on this mission,
with so much at stake, without knowing exactly what he was up
against.
    Lucas didn't live far out
of town. While nearly everyone else he knew chose to live in the
city, in one of the beautifully-appointed apartments full to the
brim with modern technology, he chose to