: Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire Notices biographiques accompagnées de reflexions et de souvenirs personnels by Desdunes Rodolphe Lucien - Creoles Louisiana Biography; Louisiana Biography FR Histoire

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Trouble Near The Sun

"You idiot!" Captain Stevens shouted. "Next time give us warning!"

The lateral tubes pilot grinned wryly but didn't lift his eyes from the scanner before him. "Sorry, Sir. There was no time. When one of those calcium faculae come boiling up at you like a cannonball, you pick a new spot in the chromosphere for the ship and get there quick--or you don't arrive at all."

Bull Wright, one of the two men who had been strong enough to keep his hold, slowly untwined his huge fingers from a projection and flexed them. He looked across the room and grinned down at the floor where Skip Allen was struggling to his feet. "How do you like good old Sol from that angle?" he drawled sarcastically. "Different from reading about it in a textbook, isn't it?"

The slim built Ensign quickly came to his feet and automatically adjusted the cap on his red head. "Mr. Experience talking, eh? I wonder why Headquarters hasn't discovered that Ensign Wright sees all, knows all, and blabs all?"

"Why that's Fleet Command's new sun cruiser," Skip gasped. "What's happened to her?"

"Headquarters doesn't know exactly," Stevens replied. "They got part of a message saying her propulsion power controls were jammed and her anti-grav and anti-heat equipment was slowly losing effectiveness. They give her about four hours before she's falling too fast to contact; and about the same time before she gets too hot to maintain life.

"A laminated layer of charged particles must have whipped across her sending beam about then because her message became garbled and finally faded out."

"Rescue," growled Bull. "That's not our kind of job. We're not outfitted for it. If that bunch of stuffed shirts didn't know enough to navigate through the corona and into the chromosphere, they deserve to die. Why should we risk our necks to save them?"

"We're the only ship near enough to stand a chance of reaching them during the next couple hours. But that's not all. Alistar of Cygnus is on board."

"Alistar of Cygnus?" one of the officers questioned. "Who the hell is he?"

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