And I thought the weird buzzing in my head was an adjustment.
“It's a trap, sir,” he said, his voice deep.
Chapter 10
Chloe
* * *
The Atlan cleared his throat, the sound a thick rumble in the room. “They're using this Sector to deploy a new, experimental weapon...” The warlord’s hands were palm down, flat on the table, but his entire body strummed with tension so thick I could feel it on the other side of the room. “You have to get the entire battlegroup out of here.”
“You know I can't do that,” Commander Karter replied. “The Coalition has held Sector 437 for hundreds of years. We're not going to lose it today.” When Angh didn’t say more, the commander sighed, then asked, “What kind of trap?”
The giant Atlan shook his head, frustration on his face and in his crumpled brow. “I don't know, sir. I don't remember everything. I know there's a trap here. I know it's closing in on us. But that's all I've got.”
“Well, Warlord Anghar, I guess that's better than nothing.” Commander Karter turned to me. “Tell me some good news, Chloe. Tell me you can hear what these bastards are planning. Give me something to work with.”
All eyes in the room turned to me, most with curiosity. I was new here and the commander was placing the entire mess in my lap, looking for answers. I lifted my chin. “There's nothing obvious in the normal traffic. I'll need a couple of hours to analyze their signals and see what I can come up with.”
“What was that attack about? The pain in your head.”
“Not sure,” I replied. I wasn’t. I had no idea why it suddenly came on other than I’d intercepted…something.
Angh’s hands balled into fists but he did not lift them from the table. “You don't have two hours. I can feel them getting closer.”
So could I. I had no idea how, but I just knew.
I looked into Warlord Angh’s eyes and an understanding passed between us. Somehow, he knew that I could feel it, too. There was a strange humming connection between us, as if the frequencies that the Hive used to transmit were tying us together. Two fixed points on the end of a vibrating guitar string.
I looked away from the giant warlord to Commander Karter. “He's right. We don't have two hours. I can feel them, too.”
“With all due respect to Commander Karter, what the hell are they talking about?” I didn't recognize the Atlan warlord who spoke, but he was massive and scarred and wore the rank of commander on his uniform.
The Atlans voted for their leaders. So, the warrior before me had been elected and chosen by the others. Respected. Experienced. He saw me watching him, his eyes jumping briefly to the Prillon collar around my neck before he bowed slightly at the waist.
“My Lady, I am Warlord Wulf.”
“Commander Chloe Phan, of Earth.”
The giant warlord towered above me in my chair. He was nearly eight feet tall.
“And what is your specialty, Commander Phan? How did you earn the rank of commander in the coalition fleet?”
Commander Karter stood and leaned over the table, his elbows locked, arms straight and tight, his muscles bulging with barely restrained tension as he rested his knuckles on the table. “Commander Phan was with the Intelligence Core for four years. That is all I can tell you. But we need her help on this. What she says, goes.”
One of the other officers shifted around at the far end of the table. I could not see his face clearly, but I heard his words. “Shouldn't we alert the Intelligence Core of this new threat?”
“Gods be damned, yes.” Commander Karter stood to his full height and rolled his head on his neck. The ominous sound of bones cracking was loud in the room. “Send an immediate transmission to the I.C. We need a team here, now.”
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.”
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.”
Commander Bruvan looked at me and I looked at him. I felt like I was in an Old West showdown.
“Bruvan.”
“Phan.” He crossed the distance and stood before me. Toe to toe. I would have said nose to nose, except he was at least a foot taller. And towered over me, as I'm sure he intended.
I put my hands on my hips but didn’t step back. I looked up to find him scowling at me. “Show me what you've got, Phan. And then stay the hell out of my
way.”
Oh yeah, I’d volunteered to be an Interstellar Bride, to ensure I was as far away from this one particular person in the entire universe. Yeah, that hadn’t worked out so well.
Chapter 11
Dorian
* * *
The battle alarm sounded, jolting me instantly alert from a dead sleep. I threw on my uniform quickly. I remembered Chloe was at the control deck, safe with Commander Karter. Seth, I knew, was out on a ReCon mission. I’d heard his comm unit ping when he was in the shower earlier and had quickly dressed and run out before I fell back asleep.
I grabbed my weapon, holstered it.
Seth faced the same uncertainty we all did every day, and we'd both come to terms with it. I just hoped Chloe could, too.
Uniform and boots on, I left our private quarters and made it to the pilots’ debriefing room in record time where I was shocked to find Chloe standing with Commander Karter and Warlord Anghar on the edge of the room. A few feet away was a group of warriors I did not recognize. Their armor was strange, embedded with odd silver circuitry that I recognized well as Hive tech.
Their leader appeared to be glaring at my mate and I did not like the way he looked at her. Hell, I could tell just by looking at him he was an asshole. But I could sense that from Chloe through the collar, knew she was more than familiar with this man. She hated him. But he underestimated my Chloe’s fire, for she glared back, not backing down one inch. I felt shame tinge her pride, her resolve to stand her ground.
My pride at having such a brave, beautiful mate swelled even as the seriousness of the situation slammed home. Every pilot we had was in the room. No one was sleeping. Commander Karter himself walked to the front of the group and began briefing us on our mission which, for now, was a basic scramble alert. We had to be ready to go at a moment's notice. Apparently the giant Atlan we’d taken off that freighter with ReCon 3 had woken from the ReGen Pod and warned the commander of some sort of trap. That my Chloe was in the middle of it didn't surprise me at all. But I could feel a shocking mix of emotions coming from her. Emotions I had no hope of deciphering now.
Fighting For Their Mate Page 10