Gabe was on his first flight in days, once again enjoying the chance to soar through the stars, when a signal came in over the communications net. “Command to Angel-One. Do you read?”
He smiled when he heard Susan’s voice. It had already been too long since he’d last heard from her. “Angel-One here. What do you need, Command?”
“Just checking in, Angel-One.” Susan fell silent for an awkward moment. “Have you found anything of interest yet?”
“Not yet, Command. We’re still doing our initial sweep.” Gabe glanced around him at the rest of the formation, but the others didn’t seem to be listening in on the frequency Susan was using. “Don’t tell me you’re worried or anything, are you? I mean, there aren’t any automated turrets for me to wander in front of on the Penance.”
It was easy to imagine Susan’s eyes narrowing. “Not at all, Angel-One. You can usually take care of yourself—when you aren’t crashing into things.” She paused. “How are your … new accommodations working out?”
Gabe grunted. “We’re holding up well enough, Command.” It hadn’t been easy or comfortable transferring aboard the former mercenary cruiser. The fact that the mercs had renamed their vessel the Penance hadn’t convinced him of their sincere repentance at all. “They’re treating us well, but they don’t like the risk they’re taking by being stationed so far away from the rest of the fleet.”
“My heart bleeds for their lack of comfort, Angel-One.” Susan sighed. “The distance is necessary. The enemy doesn’t know that we have a major carrier besides the Concord, and when they jump in, we could send units from the Penance to investigate instead of from the fleet directly. Besides, the Junkyard and the Scrap can salvage materials from some of the more exposed areas while you patrol.”
The fact that she was repeating her reasoning was a sure sign that Susan was having second thoughts. Unfortunately, Gabe knew she had been right to order the merc vessels out, with Wayfarer rigs aboard. He hadn’t wanted to join that detachment, but to carry off the deception Susan had planned, it had been necessary for someone to go, and he wasn’t about to order someone else to go when he wouldn’t do it himself. Even if it did mean that he wouldn’t see Susan for a few days.
For that reason, and a host of others, Gabe tried to sound cheerful. “Right. We’re doing fine out here, Command. Just taking in the sights.” He glanced back toward the retrieval area, where the two merc cruisers were busy mining an asteroid. The activity would be rather obvious to anyone who cascaded into the system, but that was part of the idea. Plus, they needed the supplies. “The Junkyard and the Scrap were reporting the other day that they had gathered quite a bit of ore for the Foundry to use. We should come back with quite a few things that the fleet needed.”
“I know, Angel-One.” There was another, longer pause, and Gabe waited for her reply as he soared through space. When Susan spoke again, she was clearly making an effort to stay professional. “After they’re finished with the asteroid, the detachment has been ordered to move to position Alpha-Three-Two. There’s a gas cloud there that might contain some unrefined fuel; if they can manage to harvest it before the Directorate comes, that might be worth even more than the ore.”
Gabe smiled. “As ordered, Command. Has Colonel McCalister already been informed?”
Susan’s voice was touched by a hint of amusement. “He has, Angel-One. The colonel has reported that he is anticipating the assignment with barely restrained enthusiasm, as always.”
He laughed, unable to summon a mental picture of the cantankerous officer being “enthusiastic” for anything, especially in command of a group of former enemies. “Well. that’s good to hear, Command. Is there anything else I should know about?”
“Not at the moment, Angel-One. Just keeping you up-to-date on your orders.” Susan hesitated one last time, and then continued. “Take care of yourself, and stay alert. The Directorate could be here at any moment. Command out.”
Gabe wished for a moment that she’d stayed on the line, but it was a pointless dream. She’d already stretched the boundaries of her discipline by making the call in the first place; the chance that she’d while away her time with a long-distance comm call when the fleet needed her attention was a bad one. He sighed and then opened a channel over the squadron frequency. “Look alive, Angels. We’re going to be on the move soon.”
The detachment was already on their way by the time Gabe returned to the Penance. It was disturbing, to say the least, to approach the former merc carrier, especially when the three craft were underway. There was something about the way they maneuvered that bothered him, as if the very methods they used to organize themselves reminded him of the frantic battle in Eris. A squadron of escort craft, their weapons at the ready, trailed behind the merc ships, ready to pounce in an instant if they needed to.
If it was unbalancing to approach the ships, it was far worse actually landing on the Penance. Everything inside urged Gabe to open fire on the merc carrier instead of calmly lining up to enter the recovery bay located on its stern, but he clamped down on those instincts as his flight filed aboard. After all, he told himself, there would be time for that later if the mercenaries attempted to do something stupid.
Not that they’d shown any tendency toward that kind of error. The mercenaries had been nothing if not unnervingly polite and considerate; Gabe half suspected that many of them would still have wanted to kill him, but they were being restrained by orders from their superiors. When he crouched his rig in the recovery elevator and disengaged the BCI, he found one of those superiors waiting for him just outside the bay. “Ms. Nakani. What a pleasant surprise.”
The mercenary pilot grinned lopsidedly, as if acknowledging Gabe’s ironic tone, and she nodded to the rig. “Anything interesting out there, or just more space to tumble through?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, Nakani. The Directorate hasn’t shown up yet.” Gabe freed himself from his pilot’s chair and stepped out onto the ramp. Allen and the others were coming out of their rigs as well, looking tense as they were met by the mercenary maintenance crews. None of them were likely to be happy about having their rigs serviced by former enemies, but there was no way around it. A rig needed to be looked after and repaired after each flight, especially if they were anticipating combat, but that would be cold comfort if the mercs decided to sabotage them. Gabe tried to remind himself that there would be Wayfarer techs supervising the process and turned his attention back to Nakani. “Is there anything you need to tell me, Ms. Nakani? Or are you just bored?”
Her grin spread into a broad smile. “On the nose, Wayfarer. Your colonel’s got me cooped up here unless someone gives me a reason to fly, and I’m going out of my mind. Isn’t there something I could do for you?”
Gabe sighed. Every time he’d thought he would get a moment’s rest, he found Nakani there, waiting to pounce on him with more requests for missions. He had no idea what she thought he would ask her to do; most of the SRRs, as the rebuilt MSSRs were now called, had been offloaded to the Concord to make room for Wayfarer flights, and the ones that were left weren’t going to be useful for scouting in a combat zone. Despite that sound reasoning, she never got discouraged. He tried to summon the commanding tone Delacourt had always used to settle him down.
“Ms. Nakani, you knew what you were signing on for when you were assigned to search and recovery. You’ll fly when we need you to, not before.”
Nakani did not look convinced. “Which means we might not be ready to fly when you actually need us, Angel Boy.” She folded her arms. “Look, I’m not asking for full-on patrol flights. You can even have some of your fancy combat rigs supervise us while we practice, but we need to be out there. Not just when you need us, but to figure things out before then, whatever you and your bastard of a warden says.”
Gabe glared at her. There was a limit to how much he was going to take from a mercenary. “You should probably show Colonel Mccalister some respect, Ms. Nakani. After all, he has the authority to shoot you on sight. Insults aren’t going to get you and your happy bunch of murderers into space any quicker, but they might get you confined to your quarters.”
She threw up her hands. “Fine! Whatever you say goes, Captain Miller. Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir. Just mark my words, pal, because one day you’re going to need me and my bunch of murderers, and you won’t have us. Think about what you’re going to do then, and how much fun it’ll be.”
Without another word, Nakani spun and stormed away, her stance angry and frustrated. Gabe watched her go for a moment, heavily tempted to send a report to Mccalister about her behavior. Given how cranky and mean the colonel could be, Gabe had no doubt that Nakani would be confined to quarters, and probably for a very long time.
At the same time, she did have a point. The SRRs were different from the MSSRs the mercs had been piloting; the modifications had been severe enough that their BCIs were apparently a little uncalibrated. A little practice with them could hardly hurt anybody, though it would spend a little fuel. He sighed, and wondered if he should mention the idea to Susan.
Allen came over while Gabe was absorbed in thought and nudged him. “Mercenary problems, Captain?”
Gabe gave him a mocking glare. “Shut it, Lieutenant. Don’t you have your own work to look after?”
His wingman shrugged eloquently. “Well, yeah, but your problems are so much more interesting.” Allen gestured to the retreating mercenary. “And here I thought that our problems with them were over when they stopped shooting at us. Things were simpler then, eh?”
“Simpler, yes. Better, well …” Gabe pondered the issue for a moment and then nodded. He’d mention the possibility to Susan when he had the chance; Mccalister would probably want to talk to her himself once he heard of it. After all, if Nakani was bothering Gabe about it, the colonel was probably almost constantly harassed on the issue. He looked back at his wingman. “There are worse troubles than having to decide how much to let someone help you.”
“True, true.” Allen stretched; he sometimes complained that his muscles came out of the rig stiff and sore. He swung one arm around as if to loosen the shoulder joint a little. “So where to, boss?”
Gabe rolled his eyes. “All right, wise guy, come on. Let’s go see if this boat has a decent cafeteria on it somewhere.” He led his friend away from the rigs, where the mercenary techs were already starting their work. “It won’t be long before they have us back out there anyway, and I have a feeling that the Directorate isn’t far off.”
Susan looked up as an alert pulsed across the command deck. Her eyes caught the sudden jerk of movement from the watchstander at the sensor station. The young officer hesitated and then turned to address her. “Admiral, we’re picking up indications of a resonance cascade entering the system.”
The tone of the watchstander’s voice was admirably calm, but even Susan could feel the sudden spike in tension. Her heart began to beat faster as she nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant Myers. Please send the information to my console.”
Myers nodded sharply, and a moment later the data was scrolling across Susan’s screen. She tapped a few keys, and the relative position of the cascade appeared on her display. It was hard not to look incredibly relieved. The entry point was nearly half the system away from where the refugee fleet now hid, well away from where she had planned to move. Even better, it was closer to where the mercenary ships were positioned, leaving that decoy in a much better position to act.
The danger might have been greater to Gabriel as well, but Susan knew she would need every advantage and bright spot she could find in the coming days. She opened a signal to the Penance, hoping that their sensors had already reported the event. “Command to Penance. We have a resonance cascade at Delta-Four-Nine. Do you have it on your sensors?”
There was a long moment, and then Colonel Mccalister’s gruff voice answered back. “Confirmed, Command. We have the cascade at the same position.” She could picture him frowning before he continued. “Command, we’re reading an energy output a lot smaller than the Directorate’s last incursion. It’s only consistent with one ship at the most, and not a very large one. Could it be a scout?”
Susan examined the data again and found that the colonel was correct. She sat back and folded her arms, staring at the display. “Command to Penance, the Directorate does not typically employ scouting tactics unless it’s approaching a new enemy system. They already know who we are and where we went. A scout would be redundant.”
Mccalister responded in an even tone. “Perhaps it’s a trick, then? They could be trying to flush us out and then jump in on top of us.”
Captain Ndigwe’s voice answered before Susan could. “Deliverance to Penance. That tactic doesn’t make sense. If they could perform a cascade so accurately, they would have come in right where we did. This approach suggests that they have the same limitations that we do.”
The next signal from the Penance was far less patient. “Then what else would make sense? If they had such a big fleet the last time, why only come with one of them this time? And if they could dampen their output from the cascade for this hop, why didn’t they do it the time before? I mean, look at this! The output is almost small enough to suggest the ship is barely even escort-sized, let alone something the size of that carrier we saw last time.”
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Susan broke in before Ndigwe could respond, hoping to cut off the argument before it could continue. “We need more information. Penance, are your rigs standing by for launch?”
Mccalister answered after a short delay. “They are, Command. We have all eight CTRs and four of the RSRs prepared for immediate deployment.” He paused, and then continued with obvious reluctance. “The six remaining SRR units are also prepped and ready for any recovery missions.”
Susan could fully understand the hesitation in Mccalister’s tone. She had just finished reading over Gabriel’s arguments in favor of the SRRs being allowed a kind of practice time, and even now she could hardly believe his willingness to allow the mercenaries that much freedom. The cost in fuel alone would have been an issue, but any amount of laxity in dealing with such people could develop into something worse, especially now that the Directorate was in full pursuit. Then again, Gabriel had occasionally been right before—as he never tired of reminding her.
She pushed those thoughts away and turned back to the task at hand. “Launch the CTRs and four of the RSRs on a patrol around the resonance cascade. If it does turn out to be the Directorate, we need to know their strength and intentions.” Susan paused. “And if they have somehow managed to transit their entire force with such a low output, I want to know about it now, not when they begin hitting our defenses.”
Mccalister answered with grudging respect. “And if it turns out to be a scout after all, Command?”
Susan didn’t hesitate. “Then the CTRs will attempt to engage and disable them. We can’t afford to allow them to reveal our positions, and any ship we can destroy or immobilize now is another piece of the Directorate that will no longer pursue us.” A lingering guilt shadowed her words, and she felt compelled to add something more to her orders. “Emphasize the need to disable, and not destroy, the Directorate craft. Better to leave them people to recover than someone they need to avenge.”
“Acknowledged, Command.” Mccalister paused, as if searching for a tactful way to phrase his next words. It was a rare thing. “Did you want direct communication with the patrols? In case you have special instructions for Angel-One, I mean.”
Susan’s lips quirked as she fought to restrain her amusement at Mccalister’s attempt to be discreet. He was still learning how to treat her like a decent human being, and it showed at times like this. “No, Penance. Any signals between the Concord and the patrol group would risk revealing our location. If we do encounter enemy units, they need to pursue the rigs back toward you. Your detachment can then lead them on a chase through the system while we make preparations.”
It was not a kind plan, and Susan didn’t like using a portion of her force as bait so blatantly, but it was unavoidable. The Penance could afford to move faster than the entire rest of the fleet, and didn’t need to join the gravitic net for the cascade until the last minute. Those two facts meant that the Directorate could chase them to their heart’s content, until the Penance and her sister ships rejoined the fleet and cascaded to freedom. Susan hoped that the trick would narrow the window of opportunity to attack the main fleet by enough that they would not risk losing anyone.
Mccalister, however lacking he might be in the courtesy department, was anything but cowardly. His voice betrayed no worry about being used as a decoy; in fact, he sounded almost relieved for some reason. “Of course, Command. I was thinking of using the last two RSRs as a perimeter guard. They can keep us aware of our surroundings, make sure there aren’t any WGCs waiting for us again.”
“A good plan, Penance. Command out.” Susan watched as the display marked the launch of the Penance’s rigs, little specks of light that began to move in the direction of the cascade. She knew that Gabriel was one of them and her heart caught at the thought of sending him into danger again, but she knew he would make it back if anyone could. He had already survived dozens of missions just as dangerous, and she didn’t think this one would be any different.
Still, it was hard not to clench the arms of her chair as those dots of light drew closer to their target. If there was one thing Susan knew well about war, it was that anything could happen—to anyone.
Gabe’s heart pounded in his ears as he accelerated to full speed. The rest of his flight of CTRs had spread out in an escort formation, with two of the RSRs tucked in behind them. Off to the right, another formation of CTRs and RSRs were moving toward the target area from a different angle, their sensors and pilots just as alert for anything that could reveal an enemy presence.
So far, there hadn’t been anything—but then again, there hadn’t been anything at first the last time the Directorate showed up. Gabe cleared his throat. “Angel-One to Patrol One, anybody see anything?”
One of the RSRs answered. “Prophet-Three, nothing on the sensors yet. We’ve nearly reached the cascade point. Recommend sending Patrol One up along the vertical while Patrol Two dives along the opposite vector. If they’re following standard maneuvers, we’ll catch them easier that way.”
Gabe felt a chill. That plan meant he would be climbing, which was where the patrols had encountered the enemy in the last system. He shook off a brief feeling of doom. “Confirmed. Patrol One will head up, Patrol Two goes down. Call out at the first sign of trouble, and again, no signals to the main group.”
Angel-Nine, the leader for Patrol Two, answered. “Confirmed, Angel-One. Breaking off.” The four CTRs and two RSRs swept into a sharp dive while Gabe led his own rigs upward. They quickly disappeared against the backdrop of the stars, though the BCI helpfully tagged their general location with a bright orange dot.
Then there was nothing—nothing but silence broken only by the howling of the illusory wind on Gabe’s face and the occasional muttered prayer to the Lord. Gabe could feel the tension in the rest of his flight mates, and he wondered if the others thought they were speeding directly into a trap as well. After they had climbed for several minutes, he keyed his comm again. “Angel-One to Prophet-Three. Still no sign?”
“No contacts, Angel-One. None at all. We should have found them by now.” The frustration evident in the scout’s voice was clear over the comm. “They could have come out and headed to the sides, or on a diagonal. It’s hard to say without more scouts available.”
A second signal came in, this time from far below his position. “Angel-Nine here. No contacts reported. Any change in orders?”
Gabe thought for a moment, running over the various possibilities in his head. “Okay, we’re going to split up. We have to cover as much ground as we possibly can without getting too far from each other.” He mentally planned out the maneuvers as he spoke, trying to calculate the distances involved in his head. “RSRs, break left and right, curving back toward the plane of the system. CTRs, pick vectors about sixty degrees from the course the RSRs are following, and curve back just like they are. We’ll form a nice little hexagon and meet up with Patrol Two at the plane of the system. Once we make contact, move to support each other and fly smart. We want to lead them to the Penance, not the Concord. Everyone got it?”
Acknowledgements came back to him over the communications network and the formation broke up exactly as planned, the six rigs spaced evenly into a six-pointed star. He followed his own course, curving back to where he could see the signals of Patrol Two. Their courses would form a kind of sphere that should—theoretically, at least—catch their unwanted visitors inside. Gabe ramped up his sensors to full power, straining for any sign of movement.
For long moments, there was nothing. Then a small red light appeared in the corner of his vision, warning him that his sensors had picked up something behind him.
Gabe froze, alarm bells ringing through his mind. He turned his head very, very carefully, hoping to make it look like a casual, disinterested sweep of the area. Anything more dramatic would clue the enemy in that they had been noticed, and given where they were, he didn’t want to end up with a plasma bolt in the back. It took long moments to pivot enough to see, a minor eternity where he had to pretend that everything was still normal.
Then it was there, hovering at the extreme edge of his sensor range. Ice distilled in Gabe’s gut as he recognized it, half a second before a garbled, static-filled signal reached him. “Atanaas?”
Giving up all pretense of subterfuge, Gabe turned to face the slender rig. He couldn’t tell if it was the same one he’d faced before, but something suggested that it was. There was a momentary temptation to wave hello, but Gabe killed it quickly. He keyed his squadron frequency. “Angel-One to Patrol One, Patrol Two. Does anyone else have a visitor?”
Allen answered a second later. “No. Have you made enemy contact?”
“Negative. No WGCs or other Directorate craft in evidence.” Gabe kept his eyes locked on the slender rig. It was shifting, as if impatient. “It’s the other ones. The ones from before they showed up.”
Silence answered his response, and before anyone could respond, the slender rig spoke again. “Atanaas? Mae consesa u muatero.” It moved its arm up to train its weapon on him, and Gabe restrained himself from doing likewise. He had no idea what kind of game the other rig was playing, and the last thing the fleet needed was another enemy. Instead, he pointed his gun blatantly out to the side.
“My name is Gabriel Miller, Wayfarer Defense Force. I am no threat to you.”
The other rig hesitated, its gun still pointed at him. “No aes Atanaas?”
Gabe shook his head, hoping it was the right answer. “Not Atanaas. Wayfarer.” He tapped his chest with his free hand. “Wayfarer. Gabriel.”
The slender rig appeared to ponder this answer, the strange lights along the sides of its head winking at him. Then its gun turned aside. “Waeferer. No aes Atanaas.”
Gabe nodded, exaggerating the gesture. “That’s right. Wayfarer.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Who are you? Are you Atanaas?”
In answer, the rig tilted its head to the side. “Atanaas? Dundu?” The rig looked about the surrounding area, its weapon coming up as it searched. Clearly, Atanaas was not a friend.
He waved to catch the thing’s attention, and its head came back around to stare at him. “No. Wayfarer.” Gabe tapped his chest. Then he gestured with his free hand to the slender rig. “You?”
For a moment, the message did not seem to get through. Then the rig’s shoulders shook, as if in laughter. “Hasee! Aeoy Eagro, du lo Breces Rotis.” It tapped its chest with its own free hand. “Eagro. Hasee aes?”
Gabe grinned. He tried to match the deep tone of his apparent counterpart. “Asee aes. Good to meet you, Eagro.” To clarify his meaning, he offered a slight bow.
The motion seemed to amuse the other rig, and again the shoulders shook. “Aeblis vin! Mae du grestae conotertu.” It copied his bow, though it seemed to make the motion much more fluidly. When it straightened, however, its stance grew much more formal, and the voice grew deeper. “Cuidse du Atanaas, Waeferer. Mae duar u bono du lestimar sei wellas tu muateren. Nas baemus.”
The slender rig moved its non-weaponized arm in a sort of ritualized flourish, and then it turned as if to leave. Gabe reached out, surprised that the stranger was already satisfied with their exchange. “Wait. Who are you? Where are you going?”
His questions were answered only by another wave of the slender rig’s hand, and then the intruder shot away. Gabe accelerated after it, his mind racing. If the rig was headed back to its own kind, maybe they had some kind of base nearby that the Wayfarer fleet could draw supplies from. Perhaps the strangers would even be interested in a kind of alliance to resist the Directorate, if such a thing was possible. Either way, he had to know more. He wasn’t going to let the thing escape him a second time.
Gabe had barely begun his pursuit when the rig glanced back and gave him an almost annoyed gesture. It accelerated even further, pushing itself past the safe speeds that a CTR could endure. Desperation filled him as the rig began to pull away from him. He glanced back, wondering where the others were. “Angel-One to patrols, I’m in hot pursuit. Where are you guys? Repeat, I’m chasing an unknown rig and need RSR backup.”
Garbled static was his only answer, and Gabe began to notice small contacts flickering in his periphery. They were steadier than they had been. When he took a closer look at them, he realized that they were located along the lines his signals would have taken to reach the others. The fact that the strangers had isolated him from the others nearly convinced him to cut short his pursuit, but he shook off his fear and pressed on. If danger lay ahead, the Lord would protect him. He had to know more.
The slender rig continued to gain distance on him, and he began to despair of finding out anything more about his uncertain quarry. He was just on the edge of losing contact, the slender rig a mere speck on his sensors, when the BCI brought something to his attention.
It seemed like nothing at first, a simple ripple in the background scatter of the surrounding area. Space was hardly an even distribution of electromagnetic radiation and gravity, and sometimes the sensor suite tended to pick up occasional oddities instead of focusing on the wider tactical picture. Yet that distortion had occurred directly ahead of him, just barely off to the right of where his target was fleeing, and Gabe focused his attention on it for a second.
In that second, the ripple became something more. Worse, it moved, sliding through the void on some unclear journey, and Gabe brought his rig up short. Momentum continued to carry him forward even as he tried to brake, to pull back from that disturbance. His sensors continued to refine their data as he watched in horror.
The ship—if that was even the right word—was a monstrosity that no sane individual could have created. There were certain rules to shipbuilding, especially when the stresses and complications of tetherdrive travel were considered. Most large craft were built in a sturdy rectangular or oblong shape, with few variations. Anything more delicate or ornate tended to tear apart during combat maneuvers, or required far more power than any current technology had ever provided.
This ship was anything but normal. The thing burrowed through space like a terrible claw, with spikes and protrusions distorting the space ahead of it. Its shields were so heavy that even at such a close distance—and he was close enough that he whispered a horrified prayer to the Lord that he could still escape it—Gabe couldn’t see through the disturbance those shields created. At any greater distance, the ship would have been completely undetectable, and the speed at which it moved was just as impossible as that level of protection. Gabe remembered the cascade signal that had brought his patrol to the spot and numbly came to the conclusion that it had definitely not been the Directorate that had entered the system there.
Yet for all that deadly power and terrifying alien structure, the ship did not seem unduly concerned about him. As his momentum slowed to a near halt and he started to accelerate away from the spot, one last signal reached him, this time in an even deeper and more alien tone than Eagro’s. “Wa, vasta, Waeferer. Nas baemos aen ottru tempar.”
With that, both the escorting contacts and the last traces of the rig he’d chased vanished, scattering like seeds before the wind. The terrible ship he’d glimpse rippled out of sight, receding past the point where his sensors could identify its horrifying shape, and Gabe shuddered in relief. He’d thought that the slender rig had been bad enough, but that thing was definitely going to torment his dreams for a long, long while.
Abruptly, a flood of signals crashed in on him, and Gabe was assaulted by a half-dozen open channels from his patrol members. Allen’s voice overrode all the others. His wingman did not sound pleased. “Angel-One, if you don’t respond right now, I’m going to—”
“I’m here, Two. Still here.” There was only a short pause, and then the comm net filled with demands for explanations. Gabe tried his best to speak over them. “They were jamming me, I think. I haven’t heard you guys for the past few minutes at all.”
Prophet-Three was the first to respond to that detail. “How is that even possible? And if the Directorate could do that, then why—”
“It wasn’t the Directorate.” Silence reigned again, and Gabe glanced back at the spot where the ship had been. The shape of it was still etched in his memory. “Trust me, I almost wish it was. Let’s get back to base.”
He ignored the other demands from the pilots who hadn’t understood what he meant. The rest of his flight kept quiet; no matter what the others would say, Allen and the other Angels knew what Gabe had seen in the last system, and they could probably figure out what he’d found here, too. After that, the rest of the fleet would hear about it as well, thanks to the rumor mill, but he didn’t want to start that whole process early. Trying to convince IntCent that he was serious was going to be hard enough without the others making it harder. This time, letting them ignore it was not an option; the presence of another ship—likely a rig carrier, now that he thought of it—was too big to set aside for convenience’s sake.
As he set his course for the Penance, Gabe prayed that the Lord would help him see what his discovery was going to mean for the people. Yet all he knew as that distance shrank was that he and the rest were going to have an awful lot of explaining to do.