Lieutenant Bart McSwain: Adventures of the League Space Patrol, #2

By Frank Carey

Can Bart face a synthetic fluid lifeform that looks like his dead wife?

An evil mad scientist returns from the dead with a new plan to take over the League. Can Bart put his past behind him and focus on his future long enough to stop her?

If you like tech-heavy sci-fi, relatable characters, and stories of family and redemption, you'll love the second book in Frank Carey's Adventures of the League Space Patrol series. 39 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Carey
• Release date: Apr 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386409298

Frank Carey

Frank Carey has been formally writing and publishing works of science fiction since late 2013. Over the years prior, he had dabbled in various forms of writing including haiku poetry, but that all changed when he and his wife, Jo, decided to try their hand at writing and self-publishing. Since then, he has written and published a collection of flash fiction and short stories, two anthologies, a pentalogy, and a trilogy. All his work, to date, has been in the science fiction genre. Most of his stories take place about two centuries in the future when Earth joins the League of Planetary Systems. Many of his protagonists are strong females. He is an inveterate pantser who believes the story will go where the story wants to go. Frank’s background includes degrees in physics and extensive work as a scientific programmer and technologist.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Space Patrol Repair Specialist Lieutenant Bart McSwain threw his spanner on the deck before kicking the offending food synthesizer in its base.

Bart, that will not repair the unit, the station computer, Charis, informed him.

No, but it makes me feel better, he replied. Taking a deep breath, he retrieved the spanner and calmly went back to work. Char, what the hell was with Zoe when she built this place? You've got bioengineering systems that are beyond anything the League could build mixed with life support systems that belong in a landfill. It's like she didn't give a damn about the people she built once she was finished building them.

I concur. Dr. Muntz was a dictionary definition of incongruity. Look at this base: an advanced bioresearch center which she abandoned in a fit of pique, leaving several GELFs in stasis pods.

Yeah. I know two of those GELFs, and both would gladly end her life if she wasn't already dead... She is dead, right?

Yes, Bart, she is dead, her body floating in the vacuum of the Omega Nebula space. You can stop worrying about her returning and finding you here kicking her equipment.

Tell me again what you are?

I am an advanced biomolecular quantum computer system, the only one of my kind in the known universe.

Not an Alue, immortal, or Necrue?

No, I am not that primitive.

He laughed. Since arriving at Charybdis to complete repairs of the abandoned station, he and Char had become friends of sorts, even with him being a human and all.

There, that's got it. Char, run diagnostics, please, he said while rubbing a pendant he wore around his neck.

Of course, Bart. A perfectly cooked steak dropped onto a plate followed by a pile of French fries. He carefully took a fry and tried it. Not bad, he said while taking the plate out of the machine and walking over to a table to eat. The mess hall could easily handle a hundred people, but now it only catered to his nutritional needs. Charis, what's next on the repair list?

Video monitoring system is on the fritz again, corridor scanners are out on all levels, and intermittent glitches in the network are at the top of the list, she replied.

At least we can perform periodic station scans using the main array...

Bart?

Yes, Charis?

I talked to Jinx the other day when she and Rabbit passed by on patrol.

Where was I?

Sleeping. It was just after you finished that 72-hour repair of the gravity generators.

Right. Sorry I missed her. What did the two of you talk about?

You. She is worried that you are withdrawing from contact with your fellow corporeal life forms.

Bart rubbed the bridge of his nose. Yeah, she's mentioned that. Maybe I am...

You have taken leave only once in the year since Monica passed.

No! I've gone... Dammit, has it been that long?

Yes, it has been that long, and Jinx is very worried...

A chime sounded. Bart, we are receiving an all-sector alert on the priority channel.

Great. He got up and headed out into the corridor. Let's take it in the control room.

He walked down the corridor. Once inside, he walked over to stand in front