The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) Read Online Free Page B

Summers. “We could crash right into the asteroids!”
    “Not if we jump back the way we came,” said Calvin. “We have no choice but to jump into alteredspace to free ourselves from the tractor beams, and so we’ll just have to take it back a step and try again.”
    “I could try to isolate the source of the tractor beams and destroy them,” offered Miles.
    Calvin didn’t want to risk opening fire on any part of the Polarian defenses, for fear that it would give away their presence. He hoped that stray asteroids and other debris became trapped by the tractor beams frequently enough that nobody had actually detected the Nighthawk yet. Or drawn suspicion from the appearance that the tractor beams had all independently locked onto what appeared, to most sensors, to be absolutely nothing.
    “Understood,” said Jay. “Reverse alteredspace course plotted.”
    “Punch it,” said Calvin.
    Nothing happened.
    “I said punch it!”
    Still nothing.
    “I’m sorry sir,” said Jay. “I just…I can’t make it go.”
    Calvin unstrapped himself and dashed over to the helm controls. “Move aside,” he commanded. Jay unstrapped and evacuated the pilot’s chair, which Calvin abruptly took charge of. Sometimes if you want something done right , he thought, you’ve got to do it yourself .
    Calvin adjusted the controls, set the alteredspace heading for 0.00001 klicks astern, powered up the alteredspace drive, then hit it. “And that is how…” his voice trailed off as soon as he realized his effort had been just as fruitless as Jay’s had been.
    “What the hell?” he turned to Cassidy, meanwhile prepping to make a second attempt. “Begin a diagnostic of our alteredspace drive and find out if engineering shows anything wrong on their end.”
    “Already on it, sir,” said Cassidy.
    That was the only explanation Calvin could think of. There wasn’t a tractor beam in the galaxy—not even a matrix of them—that could prevent a ship from slipping into the mysterious realms of alteredspace.
    “I’m trying it again,” announced Calvin, once the computer was ready. “Here goes!”
    But, despite his expectation that all would go momentarily dark out the window, nothing happened.
    “Engineering,” he said. “It has got to be engineering.” He just couldn’t explain it any other way.
    “I was afraid of this,” he heard Rez’nac’s deep voice say from over Calvin’s shoulder.
    “Diagnostic shows no systems failure,” reported Cassidy, “And engineering cannot visually identify anything wrong with the alteredspace system.”
    Calvin ignored Cassidy and spun the pilot’s chair around to face Rez’nac, who, being quite tall anyway, seemed to positively tower over Calvin. Nevertheless, Calvin wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated.
    “Rez’nac, you’ve been holding back on us,” said Calvin. “Tell me, just what sort of trap have we stumbled into?”
    “There is a word for them, the closest human equivalent would be…the trap of the rat.”
    “How fascinating,” said Calvin, feigning interest, “Now tell me, how does one escape such a trap? How does it work?” Calvin tried to keep his voice collected and commanding, but he was starting to feel a sense of panic breaking through his tone of voice.
    “We are not just being targeted and held by a matrix of tractor beams,” said Rez’nac, “We are being invisibly held by an alteredspace dampening field.”
    “An alteredspace dampening field?” asked Calvin, sounding equal parts skeptical and confused. “Those actually exist?”
    “Yes,” confirmed Rez’nac. “And they are almost impossible to detect.”
    “I’ve read about those,” offered Jay. “But an alteredspace dampening field only works over a certain cubic region of space, and would have no effect on sublight drives. They only prevent a ship from jumping into alteredspace.”
    “But in the meantime, we are being held down by a matrix of tractor beams that won’t allow us to use