Brynin

By Thadd Evans

In the distant future, The OTA Corporation, an organization that is spread across many planets, has created elite clones called the C. The C, the smartest humans that have ever lived, fly and maintain OTA’s starships. This is the story of one of them, Jason 664, a freed slave, a man who longer has to work for OTA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781771110723

Book preview

This is the story of a cloned man, the captain of a space transport ship, a freed slave, Jason_664.

In the distant future, The OTA Corporation, an organization that is spread across many planets, has created elite clones called the C. The C, the smartest humans that have ever lived, fly and maintain OTA’s starships. This is the story of one of them, Jason 664, a freed slave, a man who longer has to work for OTA.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Brynin

Copyright © 2012 Thadd Evans

ISBN: 978-1-77111-072-3

Cover art by Angela Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Devine Destinies

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Smashwords Edition

Brynin

By

Thadd Evans

Nan Serrins, my mother

As ST7 approaches the speed of light, more deadly primary cosmic rays pass through the carbon nanotube hull. This is a problem for the co-pilot, Greg Thompson, myself, and any passengers.

Jason_664, Captain, pilot of starship ST7, a commercial transport.

Chapter One

Inbound

It was the year 1014 as the OTA Corporate Empire spread out over eight planets.

On screen, coordinates brightened. We were more than two light years beyond the edge of the OTA Empire.

Below the coordinates, the accelerometer indicated that ST7, our eighty foot long, thirty foot wide, tear drop shaped starship, was still maintaining a velocity of 157,203 miles per second.

Greg, a medium height, slender man with a narrow face entered the bridge and sat down. Greg, who had a doctorate in Astronomy, worked for OTA as a mapmaker. After seven years, he told his manager that he was tired of eighteen-hour days with little time off, and OTA fired him.

After speaking to OTA and Opco Corporation Human Resource managers, and OTA spacecraft captains at over six hundred locations, the only job he could find was working as my navigator. And since I was the sole proprietor of an independent company, a cargo starship shipping organization with no ties to OTA or Opco, hiring him wasn’t a problem.

In addition to that, for several years, Greg had created spheroid holographic planispheres, three-dimensional star charts, navigational guides which were visible through an oval window. Every planisphere was different. Some contained the brightest stars. Others displayed comets, moons, asteroid belts and constellations. In every case, the observer could change the planisphere’s latitude and longitude, making it possible for the current user to study charts more easily.

Because my ship wasn’t following well-traveled OTA routes, most navigators were afraid of working for me. Several had told me that if ST7 broke down beyond Yopla, a distant planet, no one would rescue us. Luckily, Greg didn’t care about that.

Near the top of his screen, aligned vectors, coordinates that were created when laser beams ricocheted off five distant planets, Yot, Minq, Nym, Bir, and Sios, returned to our ship, creating part of a galactic map. Although we used the vectors to make two and three-D maps, not all the beams came back. As a result, there were over 6,302,511 holes in the maps.

On many occasions, we filled many of them with less accurate ultraviolet and RGB scans. The problem with ultraviolet and RGB, red, green, blue light, was that the light itself curved as it passed Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, Yot, Minq, two planets and six moons, Nasm, Caz, Onme, Ryet, Meis and Norom. Because of that, those distorted scans created faulty star charts.

Near the bottom of the screen, a tiny piece of asteroid dust whizzed by the port wing like a bullet.

Beyond that wing, just over 81 million miles from us, near the top of Alpha Centauri C, hot gases exploded, and shot toward us.

Greg said, a worried expression on his face, If those hit ST7, the hull may burn up.

I shoved my hand through floating text and the ship veered starboard—missed the edge of the Dena asteroid belt by several feet. If it wasn’t for your vectors, we would have smashed into that belt.

Thanks. Unfortunately, we’re not out of trouble yet.

I blinked. We’re moving away from Alpha Centauri C.

Greg nodded.

On screen, an ultraviolet scan of the solar winds and Nooipl, a planet, and its magnetosphere, enlarged. The winds and the magnetosphere were spreading out. Steering through them would be more complicated.

In the center of a map, a cloud of asteroid dust, particles that were eleven