Ep.#1 - "Escalation" (The Frontiers Saga: Rogue Castes) Read Online Free Page A

business trip with her. Yet she was still amazed by everything Deliza Ta’Akar did.
    Loki turned aft to make sure that the ladies were in their seats, then stepped forward between the seats, and slid down into the pilot’s seat on the left of the cockpit. He tapped the auto-start button and watched the primary display screen on his console as the ship’s computers cycled through all the pre-start checks. Thirty seconds later, the shuttle’s engines began to spin up, and thirty seconds after that, the ship’s flight control computer showed they were ready for departure.
    “Dobson Control, Ranni One,” Loki called over his comm-set. “At pad one four, with India. Ready for departure.”
    “ Ranni One, Dobson Control. Cleared for liftoff. On wheels up, fly heading one four five to one zero thousand, then proceed as filed and jump at two zero thousand to transition Alpha Sierra seven four. ”
    “Cleared for liftoff on one four, heading one four five to one zero thousand, as filed and jump to Alpha Sierra seven four at two zero thousand, for Ranni One.”
    “ Ranni One, read back correct. Safe flight. ”
    Loki pressed the intercom button. “Prepare for liftoff,” he announced. He double-checked the flight profile in the auto-flight computer one last time, and then pressed the execute button. The whine of the shuttle’s engines increased in pitch and intensity, and a few seconds later, the shuttle rose smoothly from the pad, climbing at a slow, yet constant rate as its nose rotated around to its first course heading.
    The landing gear lights switched from green to red, then went out as the gear door lights lit up green. The ship began to accelerate forward, and its climb rate increased as its engines went to full power. In a few minutes, they would reach their assigned jump point and the ship would auto-jump to the assigned transition zone well beyond the standard orbits of Dobson. All Loki had to do was sit back and monitor the shuttle’s progress.
    Yup, Josh would hate this , Loki mused.
    * * *
    Captain Tuplo walked across the tarmac toward his ship, only protected from the pouring Palean rain by his long, black trench coat andits oversized hood.
    Marcus stood at the top of the ramp, just inside the Seiiki’s cargo bay, watching as his employer approached. Most people ran from cover to cover when it was raining this hard, but not his captain. Connor Tuplo walked, unaffected by the downpour. Marcus had often wondered if there was some special tech installed in the captain’s jacket, something that reduced or negated the bitter cold that the storms of this world carried. In the five years that Marcus and Josh had been in Captain Tuplo’s employ, he could not remember ever seeing the captain leave the Seiiki without that coat. And when he wasn’t wearing it, it was locked away in his cabin.
    “Captain,” Marcus greeted as Captain Tuplo walked up the boarding ramp.
    Captain Tuplo pushed back his hood and looked around the tightly packed cargo bay. “Looks like you squeezed in everything you could. Nicely done, Marcus.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “I trust we’re about ready?” the captain asked as he continued forward, making his way to the aft, portside ladder.
    “Last of the passengers are boarding now, Cap’n.”
    “Let’s close her up then,” the captain instructed as he climbed the ladder. “Tell Josh to start the departure prep. I’ll be up after I dry off and change.”
    “Yes, sir,” Marcus replied, twisting the cargo ramp control lever to retract the ramp and close the cargo bay doors.
    Captain Tuplo ascended the short ladder, stepped onto the port landing, and moved through the hatch into the corridor.
    “Captain,” Dalen called from the forward end of the corridor. “He did it again.”
    “Did what again, Voss?” the captain asked as he headed toward him down the narrow corridor.
    “Marcus packed so much shit into the cargo hold that I couldn’t get to the engineering crawl spaces