He looked down at me. “Commander Phan. Get on the communications array and get me anything you can about this.”
I didn’t know what this was, but I only said, “Yes, sir.” I stood, inclined my chin to the warlords and warriors in the room, but especially to the commander and Warlord Anghar before returning to my station.
I sat once again and lifted the specialized headphones to my ears. They formed nearly half of an old-school football helmet on my head. It was bulky, and ugly. Heavy. But I had a pop-up display screen that showed communication patterns and in the peripheral vision of both eyes. More importantly, the rest of the noise from the command deck faded to nothing. I was working in a bubble, my own silent, still bubble.
But it wasn’t quiet. The opposite, in fact. My senses were constantly bombarded with space noise that crashed through my headphones like ocean waves pounding the surf.
And I had to listen for the one small murmur of something alive. Something more machine than man.
It started off as a faint ping to my senses. As quiet as a kitten’s whisker pressed to a window. Barely there, but I heard it, and I zeroed in on the sound like a bloodhound. Like a great white shark who had just sensed that single drop of blood in an ocean of water.
My mate was out there. Seth was out there with ReCon 3 right now. Dorian would leave on another flight mission soon. If the Hive was setting a trap for all of us, I would find it. Those merciless machines weren't going to take my mates from me. They weren't going to destroy anyone in this battlegroup. Not if I could help it.
The old familiar rage welled up in me, but with it came a laser-like focus I hadn't felt in over a year. This was combat. This was the kind of war I knew. The type of battle I won.
I homed in on the signal, eliminated other traffic noise, amplified the sound until I had just that nearly silent signal floating in my mind like a repeating drum. Over and over. I pulled the pattern of sound up on my display screen shocked to discover that it created a honeycomb-like structure. The sound bounced from one nexus point to the another in a series of entwined hexagons.
It looked like a net and the entire battle group was headed right for it.
I jolted to my feet, yelling, “Commander Karter, stop the ship! All ships, full stop.”
In two steps Commander Karter was at my side. “What have you got?”
“It's a trap, just like the warlord said. I don't know what's out there. But it's some kind of net, or a network, and we're about to run into it.”
The commander took one look at my screen and didn't ask for more details. He raised his voice, giving the command to bring every ship in the battlegroup to a full stop at once. I didn't know how close we were, exactly, to whatever was out there, but we were close. God only knew what would happen if we ran into it. Or if the Hive were waiting on the other side.
The ship shuddered beneath my feet, jerking to a stop with such sudden force that I knew anyone who had been in bed sleeping, had most likely just rolled out and hit the floor with an uncomfortable thunk. But that was the least of our concerns. Another officer raised his head. “Commander, incoming, Transport 2. It's the I.C. Do you want me to clear them for transport?”
”Yes. I’m on my way.” He turned and pointed at me. “You're with me.”
I nodded with a shudder. I was afraid that I knew exactly who was transporting onboard this ship, and I had absolutely no desire to see him ever again. In fact, it was probably a good idea to stand behind the commander, so I didn't kill Bruvan the moment I saw him.
We were almost out the door when one of the officers raised the alarm. “Commander, Freighter 572 is not responding to the stop order. We’ve got no response.”
The commander turned on his heel and walked over to the officer’s station where he viewed a three-dimensional readout of the battlegroup that hovered above the flat display area. The entire group of ships had come to a stop at his command, hovering in the air like little holographic models. All except for one ship.
The commander turned and looked over his shoulder. “How many warriors do we have on that ship?”
The officer he spoke to looked down. “Two, sir. Two Prillon warriors. Entry level pilots who just arrived from Prillon Prime a few weeks
ago, sir. They are probably sleeping.”
Commander Karter stood. “How far ahead of the battlegroup are they?”
“Two thousand miles and gaining.”
“Keep trying to contact them.” He turned to look at another officer. This one was so close to human looking, I knew he had to be from Trion. “If you can't reach them in the next two minutes, take control of their ship remotely and turn it around.”
“Yes, sir.”
I had just turned back to the door when an alarm sounded. The commander spun once more. “Report.”
The officer who had been trying to contact the freighter before frantically pressed buttons and moved his hands through the air as if he could conjure the holographic image from empty space. The small shape that had been bright red, the little blip in the air that represented the freighter, was gone. “We just lost the freighter, sir.”
“What do you mean, we just lost the freighter?” Commander Karter walked over to the holographic image, his boots silent on the hard floor, that silence a measure of his tightly reined control.
The officer didn't look up from his station, but continued with his work as he spoke to the commander. “The ship disappeared, sir. It's gone.”