Jewel Read Online Free

what?” Erik asked her.
    “Give me a moment,” Jewel said. She turned back to her
control panel and pulled up a view of the solar system again. The Euripides wasn’t a colony ship. It wasn’t an explorer. It wasn’t really anything more
than a dilapidated cargo hauler with one of its bays turned into a makeshift
passenger compartment for miners who hadn’t wanted to renew their tours at
Thimble. But she could still answer some very basic astronomical questions
about the system.
    Her fingers flew over the keyboard.
    Beside her, Mustafa Peron sat up and rubbed at the dried
blood and vomit on his jaw. “I feel terrible,” he informed them. His broken
nose made his voice sound strange.
    “The buoy is still querying us, Sir,” Everson reminded the
exec.
    “Give them our ship’s name and identification number, tell
them we’ve arrived due to navigation error, that we’re shaken up and need some
time to assess ourselves.”
    Everson immediately began to relay the message.
    “What happened?” Peron asked.
    “You screwed up and we crash translated into an unknown star
system,” Erik told him.
    “I screwed up?” Peron protested, defensive anger filling his
voice.
    “You’re the navigator, aren’t you?” the exec asked. “Now
shut up before you further disgrace yourself.”
    More data began to appear on Jewel’s screen. “This is
interesting,” she said. “That gas giant in tight orbit around the white dwarf
is actually in the system’s blue zone—those moons are potentially habitable.”
    Peron rolled over on to his hands and knees, then paused and
waited, probably for his head to stop spinning.
    “Can you see any sign of habitation?” Erik asked.
    “Not from this distance,” Jewel told him.
    “Well let’s move in closer then.”
    Jewel spread her hands apologetically. “I’m sorry, Erik, er,
Sir,” she said, “but while I could probably figure out how to do that, I’m not
trained to plot courses.”
    Peron clambered to his feet beside her. “That’s right, I am.
Now get the hell out of my seat!”
    Erik immediately strode over beside them and clapped a
decidedly unfriendly hand upon Peron’s shoulder. “You know something, Mustafa?
When someone’s just spent the last twenty minutes covering your post in a
crisis you created, you damn well better be polite. One more word out of line
and I’ll kick your sorry ass all the way back to engineering!”
    Peron twisted around to stare at Erik, but apparently didn’t
like something he saw in the exec’s eyes.
    He backed down.
    “You’re right, Mr. Exec,” he said. With exaggerated courtesy
he bowed to Jewel. “May I please have the honor of taking my own seat?”
    Jewel couldn’t help scowling as she gave it to him.

Chapter Two
     
    The next nine hours were grueling ones. There had been no
fatalities, thankfully, but with three broken bones among the crew and seven
among their motley assortment of passengers, there had been plenty of people in
need of medical attention. And those numbers ignored the wide assortment of
concussions, contusions and lacerations that the passengers and crew had
accumulated during the moments immediately following the Euripides’ crash translation back to N-space.
    All in all, the physical damage to the biologicals on board
had been less than it might have been. It wasn’t clear that that was the case
with the physical systems of the Euripides . A slide drive was a delicate
device—more susceptible to problems of wear and tear than a conventional
in-system propulsion engine and the ship’s engineer, Ana Yang, was unwilling to
certify the drive safe for sliding without taking the time for an extensive
systems check.
    Then there was the question of fuel—a matter Jewel had
brought to Captain Kiara’s attention in writing before they left Thimble. The
captain had protected her margins this whole tour—and maybe her whole career
for all Jewel knew—by avoiding unnecessary expenses like the