New Release Sample: HERE THERE WERE DRAGONS

 

"Captain to the bridge." Gate Team Head Taggert broke into Genys' morning workout in the simulator. “Ma'am, I'd like to report a spatial anomaly.”

She barely refrained from asking, "How can there be another spatial anomaly with a Chute so close?" What she understood of Gates and Chutes, it was impossible for any other anomalies to form close enough to the Draxonis Chute for the Defender's sensors to catch it. Simply put, Chutes sucked up all the energies for several light years around and in a sense yanked all the tangled energy lines straight, preventing other anomalies.

"What kind? Where?" she said, after pausing a few seconds to consider different questions that wouldn't imply Taggert had just suffered a lapse of some kind. She mentally shrugged and chose to head for the bridge in her workout clothes.

"Haven't exactly located it yet. I'm just getting readings."

"On my way."

The bridge was quiet, everyone focused on their stations, when Genys hurried through the lift doors ten minutes later.

"Update?" she said, crossing over to Taggert's station.

“Can’t exactly pinpoint it.” Taggert’s nose gave the characteristic rabbit-like twitch that indicated excitement, not fear. One good point Genys was glad to note. “Readings put it almost equally distant from Draxonis, on the other side of the planet, nearly on a straight line …” He shook his shaved, ebony head three times before looking up from his station. “It’s something out of legend.”

“Legend.” Genys fought a dropping-twisting-nauseated sensation. She always associated the word “legend” with Captain Shryne of the Inquest. Granted, the woman was a hero to a large portion of the Fleet and the Alliance, but "legend" now also implied darker, dangerous tendencies that quite frankly verged on insane and suicidal, thanks to Captain Shryne and her adventures.

“Does somebody up there want to tell me why we’re getting a nascent Gate alert down here?” Jasper called from Engineering. 

Genys shook her head, never breaking eye contact with Taggert. She swallowed hard and sorted through several dozen responses. Just the fact Jasper was calling up to her was startling. Jasper never called her with a question or problem. He dealt with it, and she never knew there was a problem until after the fact. After he lectured whoever of his engineering geniuses hadn’t been genius enough to deal with it before he had to deal with it.