“Duly noted, Captain. Commander. But I am in charge of this mission and we are going to destroy this thing. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” I muttered, slumping back in my seat as Dorian, Angh, the two Prillon warriors and I sat quietly and listened to their microphone chatter. The two explosive experts placed their mines and the team reconnected, drifting as one back toward their shuttle. Once safely inside, they would detonate the explosive and we’d all run like hell.
“Back us off, Dorian. I don’t want to be anywhere near that thing when it blows.”
“Yes, Commander.” My mate’s voice was all business, but the collar let me know the truth. He was relieved to be taking me farther away from danger. We drifted back, Dorian using the ship’s thrusters to push us gently away from the net without triggering any possible detection systems.
But we weren’t out of the proverbial woods yet, not even close.
Bruvan and his team made it to their shuttle, and he gave Izak orders to get them back to a safe distance.
They had just broken away from the net as we watched when the first ion blast hit the other shuttle in its right rear engine. Above us, like a giant wall of awakening monsters, the network of mines appeared out of nowhere, abandoning their cloaking to attack the small ship. The network of mines didn’t explode, but fired massive ion cannons the size of our freighters.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“Get out of there, Izak!” Dorian yelled, but it was too late. A second blast hit their left engine shell. Then a third struck their hull.
The main communication line opened and Commander Karter’s voice roared through the speaker in my helmet. “Get back here. Now. We’re under attack from the rear. A full armada of Hive vessels. All ships return to defend the fleet.”
“By the gods, they’ve got us cornered.” Dorian turned in the pilot’s chair to look at me. “We’re trapped. The entire battlegroup is trapped.”
“Seth’s out there somewhere,” I said aloud, more to myself than anyone else. Of course, he was out there. Everyone in the battlegroup was out there. And would die.
Angh leaned forward, over my shoulder, watching as Izak’s shuttle spun out of control away from the net, back toward the fleet. “An armada. We’ll never survive that many ships. They’ll completely destroy us all.”
“No, they won’t.” I knew it with a certainty that made my teeth ache with cold. “They don’t want to destroy us.” The Hive had no intention of destroying anything. They wanted Drones. More Soldiers. More organic material to integrate into their system. They were like cannibals, and they never got full.
“No!” Angh’s roar was deafening in the small space, and I stood, looking at him, waiting for him to calm down. I knew what we had to do. I could feel it in my bones.
“You done, warlord?”
Dorian’s head snapped to me, suspicion and anger fighting a war within him. I had no doubt he was confused by my calm, the certainty I felt. But if anyone on this ship understood what I needed to do, it would be the beast in front of me. He could hear them, too.
All four warriors turned their complete attention on me but I didn’t panic. It was like an out-of-body experience. I felt…nothing.
“Warlord Anghar and I are going to put on external armor and slip through that net to the other side. The mines are placed at intervals. He and I can hear their communication links, so they should be easy to avoid.” I looked up at Angh, who listened intently, his huge eyes blinking slowly as he registered what I was saying. “Once we are on the other side, we’ll track down the master control node and approach it using the jet pods.”
“Destroy their mother,” said Angh. He was already reaching for the special armor attachments that would allow us to go outside the shuttle, into the cold blackness of empty space.
“We’ll load up with explosives, track the motherboard controlling the entire net, and blow it up. Once the net goes down, Commander Karter can escape the Hive attack with the rest of the battlegroup.”
“You don’t know where this mother control pod is,” said one of the Prillon warriors. I hadn’t learned his named, or his friend’s. “If you wander too far on the other side of the net, or fail to take it down, we won’t be able to reach you.”
The other Prillon looked at Angh, then held my gaze. “If you are trapped on the other side, the fuel pods will not be enough to get you back to the ship.”
Every word they said was true, but this had to be done. We couldn’t lose the entire battlegroup. All those people. Five thousand of them. And not just warriors, but kids. I looked up at the beast. “That a problem for you, Angh?”
He held my gaze. We both knew what was at stake. “No, my lady. It is not.”
I turned to Dorian before he could explode with the emotions I felt building inside him. “No one else can do this, Dorian. We’re the only ones who can hear it. It’s going to be invisible, shielded, just like the others were. If we don’t find it and destroy it, the entire battlegroup will be taken. Integrated. Even the children. This entire sector will fall. We protect six planets, Dorian. Billions of lives. We have to try.”
Dorian didn’t argue, simply pulled me into his arms and squeezed. “You better come back to me, mate.”
“I will.” I had to. It was possible I already carried a child, and that child would not be born into the Hive. Integrated from birth. The baby’s fragile mind and body destroyed.
I’d rather die.
The Prillon warriors stepped back and to the side so Angh and I could reach the special armor we needed to propel ourselves through space.