Izak and I exchanged a warriors’ goodbye, holding each other by the forearm, and we each led the way onto our small shuttles. In a matter of minutes my mate, the warlord and the two Prillon warriors were behind me
and I closed the shuttle doors. Chloe sat in the co-pilot seat and, to my shock, helped with the launch sequence. “What other secrets do you have for me, Commander Phan?”
“You’ll have to wait and see, Captain.” She smiled at me, her face framed by the black helmet she wore, and my heart felt light, despite the fact that I was probably heading out to the most dangerous mission of my entire career with the Coalition Fleet. With her beside me.
As fast as it appeared, her smile was gone, and a commander was seated where my mate had been moments ago. Chloe was all business, her focus and determination clear through the connection we shared in our collars. “Follow the other shuttle. We’re going to drift in close to the net and do some scans before we decide how to disable it.”
Warlord Anghar stood directly behind us, and the two Prillon warriors behind him. There was standing room only on the tiny ship for warriors so big, and no privacy.
I concentrated on flying, on what I knew, and followed Izak’s shuttle out of the launch bay and away from the battlegroup. I saw nothing ahead of us, but I knew we’d lost a freighter. Something was out there.
“I can hear them.” The deep rumble of Anghar’s voice washed away the last of my contentment at having Chloe beside me. The warmth and love flowing between our collars ended abruptly, replaced by cold dread. Her next words replaced any lingering warmth in my body with a chill.
“So can I. And they know we’re coming.”
Chloe
* * *
The net was massive. Much larger than anything I’d ever seen before and I realized that in my job with the Intelligence Core, we’d only ever seen test cases of this weapon, small deployments done by the Hive to test its effectiveness.
This was something completely different. It was huge. Thousands of miles across and nearly invisible to sensors. A battlegroup moving at high speeds would be completely destroyed before they realized what had hit them.
Shocking Dorian with my piloting skills was the one bright spot in this mess. All I.C. officers were required to have basic training in piloting a vessel, just in case they happened to be the last man standing, the only option for an escape. I’d only ever flown once before, and that incident had forever cemented Bruvan as an enemy, and gotten me kicked out of the Core. But it had saved my life. And his.
Ungrateful ass.
Whatever. I couldn’t focus on the past, not with a massive network of Hive explosives forming a net around Battlegroup Karter and the two men I’d grown to love. One of whom sat beside me now, so much devotion and protective mojo flowing through our collars that I felt damn near invincible. The feeling was heady and addictive, and increased my determination to survive this mess, to make sure that this time, nothing went wrong.
At drift speeds, it took us nearly an hour to reach the perimeter of the network of Hive mines. Behind me, Warlord Anghar knelt on one knee, his hand on the back of my chair, massive head scanning ahead of us as if he could see them with his eyes.
He couldn’t. None of us could. They were invisible to the naked eye. And to most of our sensors.
But not to me. Or Angh, through our special technology. And we were close.
“Stop here,” I ordered Dorian and we stopped moving as Bruvan’s shuttle drifted closer to the network.
“I don’t see anything,” Dorian said.
“Trust me, Prillon, it’s there.” Angh’s face moved side to side, his gaze roaming the huge monitor in front of us. “Can you magnify the screen, Captain?”
“Of course.” Dorian’s hands moved deftly and the images before us magnified, far off stars growing in size until they filled the screen with fist sized beacons of light.
“Enough.” Angh shook his head and waved a hand. “They are very well hidden.”
I agreed. It was disconcerting, how strongly I felt the presence of the Hive weapon, yet could see nothing. It made me feel like we were chasing ghosts.
But that freighter blowing up wasn’t from a ghost. Those men died because something very real was out here.
“What now, Commander?” Dorian turned to me and I shook my head.
“Turn on your low frequency radio. We wait for Commander Bruvan’s orders.”
“For how long?” Angh asked.
I wanted to snort with disgust, but kept it professional. Barely. “Knowing him, at least an hour.”
Dorian didn’t say a word, but his annoyance came to me clearly through the collars. As, I was sure, my dislike of Bruvan was shared with him.