by John Migacz
CHAPTER 20
“Captain, we’ve received a partial message from the scout ship in the Gridley quadrant.”
“Partial message?” asked Captain Arslac, his stomach tightening.
“Yes, Sir. The message was received with DartPilot Keed’s identification codes and the word ‘large’ before ending.”
“Large?”
“Yes Sir, just ‘large.’ That was all. We haven’t been able to contact him since.”
Keed’s face flashed in the Captain’s memory. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Ensign, send all the data regarding the Kraken Cross to Headquarters, and put them on alert for possible Kraken interference. Make sure you receive an acknowledgement.”
The Captain shook his head. “I hate the unknown,” he muttered, cursing his overactive imagination. He blinked up Commlead Haridep’s comm.
“Commlead Haridep reporting, Sir,” the very feminine voice sounded in his ear.
“Commlead, pack up everything you’ve gotten so far and get back to the Reliant. It’s possible we’re about to have unwelcome visitors.”
There was a moment’s hesitation before the Commlead replied. “With all due respect, Sir, we can be of more use here than on the Reliant. We can beam information back as long as possible.”
The Captain grudgingly saw that her logic was correct. They shouldn’t leave until they identified their mysterious guest, and if it were too much to handle, it might be too late for them to run for it anyway. “Humph,” he grunted. The rock and the hard spot. “All right, Commlead. Carry on. Beam your info directly to the communications room. We want this data sent to HQ immediately.”
Commlead Haridep blinked to her team’s comm channel. “Okay, people, we have a limited time here. Let’s get all the information we can.” The word “visitors” had sent a cold shiver down her spine. She had to stay active to keep from freezing up and she turned to the Lancelead. “Let’s get down to the central core and see how Fire Team Two is managing on that shield barrier.” He nodded and she followed him at a trot down the half-mile-long hallway, her stomach churning.
They had passed the lights strung by the marines and now their path was lit by an occasional spot of glow spray. The darkness increased her growing fears but she forced them down, concentrating on taking in any details and twice checking to be sure that her tri-vid was running.
The lack of equipment or diagrams in this section was disappointing. It was just a long corridor with no function that she could determine. The hallway ended at a blank wall glowing with a faint red light. A young Blade and a tough-looking older Strikedag squatted next to the wall near a cart full of equipment. The red luminescence from the barrier gave the Strikedag’s face an evil glow as he bent over his control panel.
“How’s it going, Strikedag?” asked the Lancelead.
“Fine, Sir. We should have the barrier down in an hour,” he replied without looking up. “This barrier is huge. It must extend to surround the core.” He patted his cart. “That’s why I cobbled together this junk pile.”
The Commlead tried to make sense of the tangle of taped together circuit boards and wires leading to several other pieces of equipment on the cart. “Strikedag…” she looked at his name tag, “…Tanner. Did you link a signal amplifier, blue lazstar and a graviton dampener to drain this shield?”
The Strikedag glanced up a second, grinned and made a quick adjustment on his panel.
“Clever,” she said. “We never would have thought of that.”
When the Strikedag looked up again the grin was gone but not the twinkle in his eyes. “Yes, Ma’am. We used something like this on Selinas Three when we broke through the rebels’ shields. The only problem is you have to watch for any spikes or it will deflange the amplifier pretty quick. I’m keeping it well below red line.”
“Strikedag, run that crsylak pile as hot as it can stand,” said the Commlead. “If you fry the signal amplifier, my team has one with us that you can use. We might be getting visitors. Unwelcome visitors.”
The Strikedag’s face sobered and he nodded. “We’ll max it out, Ma’am.” He turned a knob on his panel.
“Lancelead, perhaps you could send the Blade to the shuttle to pick up our extra signal amplifier. It wouldn’t hurt to have it on hand just in case.”
Lancelead Grey nodded once to Blade Redrick and he ran up the corridor. As Commlead Haridep watched him disappear into the distance, she became aware of her loudly thumping heart and a cold lump growing in her stomach. Her gloved hand bumped into her helmet as she again subconsciously tried to bite her nails.