The commander turned to stone in the cold room. “I want a visual. I want it now.”
As quietly as I could, I walked up to stand behind him, unsure of what I would see on the screen, but knowing it would be horrible. The entire command deck was silent as we watched the single freighter sailing through what seemed like the deep blackness of space before suddenly exploding in a violent flash of light.
“Again,” the commander ordered. The footage replayed three more times as we all watched and tried to analyze what we were seeing. No obvious shots fired. The explosion started on the outside, the hull of the ship, not from within. Yet there were no enemy ships in the vicinity, no Hive, no missiles or ion blasts or cannon shots. Nothing.
One minute the ship was fine. The next it exploded.
The Transport Officer cleared his throat. “Sir, the I.C. just arrived in Transport 2.”
“How many?”
“Eight, sir.”
The commander was still looking at the screen, at the drifting fragments of the burning remains of the ship and the two pilots who had been on board. “Call the ReCon teams back. Get our assault teams back here. Abandon Latiri 7. We need all available troops back here to protect the battlegroup. And make sure they have coordinates to avoid that net.”
“That'll take hours, sir.” The XO, a giant Prillon warrior named Bard approached. “If we give up the ground we've gained on Latiri 7, the Hive will double their forces on Latiri 4. It'll take us months to get it back.”
Commander Karter lifted his hands to the Prillon’s shoulder. “I know. But we all know we're not in Sector 437 to win the war. We are here to maintain the status quo, to prevent the Hive from advancing into Coalition space. This is where we drew our line in the sand, Bard. If we can't hold them back, if the entire battlegroup is attacked by a weapon I can't see, we’ll lose this entire sector.”
The Prillon wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t going to argue. He knew the commander was right. We’d all just witnessed the instant destruction firsthand. We all knew what was at stake. Half a dozen Coalition planets would be within striking distance of the Hive if the Battlegroup Karter fell. “Get everyone we can back here. We hold Latiri 4. They can occupy themselves on 7 for a few days while we figure this out. I want every ship in defensive formations around the battlegroup. I want every shuttle and civilian transport pulled in tight, battle formation.”
“Are you expecting an attack, sir?” the Prillon asked.
“Warlord Anghar said the Hive laid a trap for us. I’m afraid we've just triggered it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The commander walked out as Bard started giving orders for all ReCon teams, all assault teams, all freighters and all pilots to return to battle group. With an emergency code I had only heard of, but never witnessed in use.
The commander walked down the hallway not bothering to check on me until we were within a couple of minutes of Transport 2. When he stopped suddenly, I almost ran into his back.
As he turned to face me, the cool-headed commander was gone. And in his place stood a very angry Prillon warrior who had just lost two pilots and was not happy about it. “What am I dealing with, Chloe? Who's going to be in this room?”
I shook my head. “I don't know, exactly. Probably an I.C. communications team, or a Hive infiltration unit. If that’s the case, they’ll have someone like me.”
“Someone like you.” His gaze wandered up the side of my face to the odd silver attachment that I still wore over my ear. The odd metal formed to my skull, creating a working circuit, a connection between it and the NPU below my ear. “Someone wearing one of those things. Someone who can hear them?”
After I nodded, he grabbed my shoulder, as he’d done to Bard, and squeezed gently, so I’d know he had my back. “Good. We need all the help we can get. I’m not losing another ship.” He turned and walked into the transport room.
I was on his heels and held back a groan at the sight that waited for us. There, standing on the transport pad, chest puffed out like a pompous ass, was my old teammate, Commander Bruvan. And, exactly as I had predicted, he had a fully armored Hive infiltration unit behind him. The unit was made up of special operatives recruited by the Intelligence Core to get into places and get out without the Hive detecting our presence. Like SEALs on Earth, but with better technology.
A Hive Infiltration Unit was a highly specialized branch within the Intelligence Core. An active unit usually consisted of one codebreaker, like me, a communications operative with a specialized NPU implant programmed with additional Hive communications protocols. We were the eyes and the ears, the Coalition’s most specialized weapon against our enemy. We were the only ones who could hear them.
Not everyone who was outfitted with the experimental NPU could decipher their odd language. Most of the time, it was gut instinct, not hard data, that came through the system—which left a lot of room for error. Mine. Bruvan’s. When we guessed wrong, people died.
The rest of the team was made up of highly trained weapons specialists and two demolitions experts who knew exactly where to strike in a Hive controlled area, inside a Hive operated vessel or station, and bring the entire thing down as efficiently as possible.
And their commander?
Our eyes met and I felt the familiar fury rise within me. It was Commander Bruvan, and he looked about as happy to see me as I was to see him. I ignored the hulking Prillon warrior to inspect the rest of his crew.
Thankfully, he did the same, stepping forward when Commander Karter greeted him. “Welcome to Battleship Karter. I am Commander Karter.”
Commander Bruvan held out his hand and they clasped arms like warriors. “I am Commander Bruvan, and this is my team.”
Commander Karter inspected them quickly, but thoroughly, and I knew he missed nothing, not the specialized sniper rifles, not the Hive tech implanted in their armor or the heavily packed demolition bags loaded with explosives. Commander Bruvan looked up. “How long ago did you detect the Hive transmissions? I need to speak to the officer who detected them. A Warlord Anghar?”
Commander Karter nodded his head, but did not move other than to turn slightly and lift his arm in my direction. “Actually, Commander Phan detected the signals we're dealing with. Warlord Anghar warned us of a Hive trap. But she's the one who found it.”