Dreaming of Atmosphere Read Online Free Page A

only takes us a few days at most. Therefore, most interstellar travellers, such as Maxine and I, experience the passage of time a little differently to those who spend most of their life on one side of a Jump Gate.
    Most of the time you spend in a star ship is moving from one point in the star system to another. This can take about two weeks per Astronomical Unit, depending on your propulsion rig. An AU, which is how spacer travellers measure distance in space, represents an old measurement from the earliest days of space travel. It's roughly one hundred and fifty million kilometres, the average distance ancient Earth was from the Sun.
    While we travelled advertisements from various establishments and services were showing up in my vision. The station network had finished logging us into the Cluster wireless and we were bombarded with the usual tourist hooks and flashy adverts that would have once been displayed on garish physical billboards in real space, not beamed directly to our brains. A simple thought and the ads were blocked. I looked over at Max and saw her staring into space, her eyes darting in small movements. She always found a few interesting ads to view, so I left her to her reading.
    I called up the cab's display in my vision and checked the ETA of our trip. I still had some time to kill, so I opened my personal messaging service. In moments, my vision was filled with a few dozen messages, the usual amount after being disconnected from a network for a few months. I scanned the subject fields for anything interesting. A newsletter for a gun enthusiasts group I subscribe to, an invitation to trial a new material from Cortez' Armoury, an email from my old PSMC doctor. Did I mention that I like guns? And armour.
    Cortez' Armoury was an exceptional energy weapon and personal armour store on the Corus Cluster, one I made a point of visiting every time I was on station. I talk guns with the locals there, and every now and then, it pays off, like today. I had an invite to try out a new armour composite they just got in. They're looking for actives, slang for active operators that sometimes get into violent, messy or just dangerous encounters from time to time. Did I mention that space could be dangerous? So, they wanted people like me to try out this new material and give the store some feedback. I'd been looking for a new fibre to mix on my armoured space suit. My days of jumping out of space ships and launching myself at enemy ships were behind me (I hoped) but the M4 Marine Armoured Extravehicular Laminate Suit, or just M4 MAEL, came in handy many times. It was somewhat heavy though, when you're not weightless, which is when I tend to wear it most of the time these days. Hopefully, this new stuff was lightweight.
    The cab AI dutifully informed us that we were nearing our destination. I closed up my messaging app and started up my local tactical app. I could see Maxine was getting ready too, drawing out her hold out blaster and pairing it with her Overlay Interface. I pulled out my PX-2 and activated a control on its grip. Instantly an icon appeared which I acknowledged and a small, nearly invisible marker appeared in my vision, tracking to where ever I pointed my gun. When I was happy with its calibration, I holstered my side arm and stepped out of the cab. A small box appeared in my vision, with the words 'Connecting to local surveillance. Please wait.' flashing. A couple of seconds later they vanished and I scanned the crowd nearby with my eyes. When I closed my eyes, I could see faint outlines of where people were milling about, going about their business in the sector. Occasionally a small red indicator appeared on some of the outlines, identifying weapons that were picked up by local cameras and other sensors that I was now connected to.
    The tactical app I was using wasn't entirely legal. I'd picked it up during an operation I was involved with back when I was with the Star Marines. We were operating in a