Transference Station Read Online Free

a jump carrier or a missile ship, and apart from the chief, none of her crew had ever been career fleet. That was a deliberate choice on Lana’s part. There were always ex-military types looking for work across the civilized worlds, but they were too buttoned-up for the relatively casual regime she ran on board her vessel. Be honest with yourself, girl. Too honest for some of the dicey trade you have to take on, as well.
    ‘Don’t take it too personal. The chief wouldn’t leave the engine room even if we were orbiting his home world.’
    ‘I didn’t realize the chief had a home world,’ observed Skrat, laconically. ‘I always thought the prickly fellow might have been a cloning accident on board a carrier.’
    ‘That’s an act,’ said Lana. ‘The chief was born on Quin Hon.’ She pointed Calder’s empty waist out to Skrat. ‘Get the man dressed.’
    Her first mate placed a scaly hand on the weapon locker plate and the bin swung open as it recognized his biometrics. Skrat pulled out a rail pistol attached to a tangle of black webbing and tossed it at Calder – a twin of the gun the rest of the crew were wearing for their shore leave. Well, not Polter, but with the vestigial fighting claws tucked on top of his carapace, Polter could cut his way through a steel deck if he had a mind to. A five-foot tall amphibious tank wasn’t something most humans took it into their mind to anger. You didn’t have to have been nipped by their nearest Earth analogue – a crab – to show the Kaggen race a healthy measure of respect.
    ‘There’s only one rule, Mister Durk,’ said Lana, watching Calder finger the malevolent, icy cold slab of weaponized ceramic, the green light from its magazine readout pulsing across his hand to indicate a full charge and a hundred shot magazine. ‘You draw it, you better be prepared to kill someone with it.’
    Calder grunted and pulled the straps tight around his waist and leg, clipping the holster in place.
    ‘We can buy you a longsword if you prefer to go sixth century on us.’
    ‘A longsword is two-handed,’ said Calder. ‘I was trained on a falchion. Shorter by seven inches.’
    ‘Shit, boy, there’s a job for you as a sim consultant if they ever revive the Conan franchise,’ said Zeno.
    ‘You can ignore him,’ said Lana, arching an eyebrow in the direction of the ship’s android. ‘The broker we’re going to see is a media geek. Zeno here is just getting himself in the zone.’
    ‘Dollar-sign Dillard is the only chap within a hundred parsecs who actually cares that Zeno played Lando Calrissian’s son in the remake of Galaxy Wars,’ noted Skrat, dryly.
    The android’s wiry Afro bristled in indignation. ‘It was the reboot of the remake of the Star Wars Golden Republic TV series, you skirl heathen. And if your species hadn’t got lucky by buddying up with humanity, you’d still think No Theatre was state-of-the-art entertainment.’ The android formed his hands together and made the shadow of a rabbit on the wall, wiggling the animal’s ears under the bright airlock light. ‘Hey, look, viewers, I’m a mighty skirl sand baron, and my nest is entangled in an indecipherable political turf war with a lower hierarchically-placed nest.’
    Skrat’s tail swished angrily behind him. It sounded a lot like a fencer testing the air with a foil before a duel. ‘Dear boy, I think we can safely classify sim addiction as cultural pollution, rather than an actual art form.’
    ‘Play nicely, boys,’ ordered Lana. ‘Or you can spend your shore leave with the chief inside one of his reactors, sponging down our anti-matter injectors.’ She saw the look on Calder’s face. ‘Just a little horseplay, your highness. We’re every bit as tight as a Triple Alliance carrier on board the Rose .’
    ‘I can tell.’
    That was the trouble with civilizing the barbarian nobleman with Zeno’s hand selected sim episodes and tape learning… you never got your facts in the round, and too