A communications alert sounded. Most of the crew’s attention went to Hayes as she sharply turned in her chair. “New message from General Hound! It’s coded!”
“Read it!” Smith ordered.
Hayes decoded the message quickly and then took a deep breath, “Odyssey—new intelligence suggests Crestax is headed for what is believed to be a hive of black market weapons dealers. We have reason to believe he may have acquired some of the supply of Olyphium from the carrier attack. We need confirmation that he has acquired some amount of Olyphium from the alien carrier, and we need to know how he intends to use it. Your new mission objective is to pursue Crestax and find out what he is going to do with the Olyphium and then report back. STS-131. Out.”
“Connors, did you get anything from the carrier’s computer core database?” Aaen asked.
“Yeah, we got lucky on that. I’m working on figuring out what the data is, and what it means. It’ll take some time—this is really dense data.”
“How long until we’ll be able to translate it?” Smith asked.
“About 20 minutes—I’m working with the Office of Mission Sensitive Intelligence on a secure coordinated channel through Lieutenant Hayes to speed the process along. So far so good,”
“Keep me updated,” Smith ordered.
“Aye,”
“Wilson, E-T-A?” Aaen asked.
“About ten minutes, at this speed. Crestax is in some kinda hurry, pushing that ship’s engines as hard as he is,”
“No indication that he’s detected us,” Jones declared.
—And if there is an attack in progress on The Union. . . Aaen’s mind ran with tactical possibilities. If he attacked Crestax’ ship now. . . No, these are black marketers, he reminded himself, attack one and the others will flee, or attack—they have to protect themselves and each other to prevent any knowledge of the rest of their existence from getting out. . . Some of them would undoubtedly be wanted for the horrible thing they’ve done but that they haven’t answered for—there would be time for reckoning later. Aaen chose to focus on pursuing Crestax and letting him lead them into the heart of the proverbial honeycomb. . .
Another alarm sounded. “We’re ten minutes out!” Wilson declared.
“Confirmed!” Jones added. “There’s definitely more ships ahead—dozens. . .hundreds! I can’t get exact readings at this distance—they’re all located within an entire sector of space that is shrouded in some kind of electromagnetic anomaly. We didn’t detect it before because it was designed to register as empty space from an extreme distance, undoubtedly to deter police or military interest in their movements,” she manipulated a few more controls and then said, “I’ll be able to get clearer readings once we’re inside the shroud,”
“Hold your course, Mr. Wilson,” Aaen commanded.
“Three minutes!” Wilson declared. “Slowing to sublight speed,” with that, the stars became visible again as the engines on Crestax’ egg-shaped ship dimmed as the ship maneuvered as part of course adjustments.
“Send New Horizon a mission update, and tell them we’re going in,”
“Aye!”
Another alert sounded; Hayes was quickly absorbed in the new data appearing on her computer, “He’s hailing someone on the inside of the shroud—using a coded frequency,”
“Tap it and lock-in,” Aaen commanded, impressed at Hayes expertly carrying out the order—her computer screen was full of technical data and jagged fluctuating lines that fluttered expanded and contracted erratically as she worked. . .like picking a communicative lock—
“Got it!”
“On-speakers,” Smith ordered.
“Silence on the deck!” Aaen abruptly commanded, leaning forward slightly as he listened in. The bridge suddenly felt twenty degrees colder. Aaen’s neck and forearms chilled in anticipation of hearing Crestax’ voice—a few beeping sounds filled the bridge, and then Hayes turned around in her chair anxiously looking at Aaen. The look on her face told him that the comm line had been connected and patched to the main speakers—if anyone on the bridge so much as sneezed or dropped something on the deck. . . For an instant, Aaen thought about checking to see if Odyssey was equipped with a mute button for any communications to or from the ship, but the thought blinked away as fast as it came to him—he was too focused on following this criminal, and eerily suspected combat was coming, but choose to focus on his immediate mission—
Wilson hand-signaled that Crestax’ ship was slowing nearly to a full stop—Aaen nodded acknowledgment and mouthed ‘match his speed’. Wilson nodded and snapped to carry out the order immediately.
“. . .It’s me,” Crestax said darkly with a slight hiss in his voice, “I have precious cargo on board. Open the gate. Today’s password is Cerberus. . . . Acknowledged.” he said with another skin-chilling hiss. Hayes nodded at Aaen indicating the line had closed on Crestax’s end.
“Clear!” Hayes declared for the rest of the bridge.
Aaen pointed to Smith and commanded, “Write down that password. Hayes, get another mission update to New Horizon. Wilson, get us closer to Crestax’ ship. Follow him into wherever he’s going. Sandberg—standby weapons.”
Each officer acknowledged their order.
Smith leaned toward Aaen and asked, “What’s the plan, captain?”
“We’re going to follow the Olyphium to wherever that monster is taking it, and stop it from changing hands.” he looked at Smith directly, “I need to know more about this material: What is it used for? Is it combustible? I need to know as quickly as possible. Get me whatever information is available about it. Fast.”
Smith nodded and began carrying out his order.
Aaen was fixed on the viewscreen, watching as the live image of Crestax’ ship tripled in size in the center-bottom of the screen. A tactical heads-up-display (HUD) display appeared, precisely highlighting Crestax’ ship. A second indicator showed Odyssey’s distance from it: 100 meters and the number was dwindling by the second. . . 70 meters. . .
“Holding at sixty-five-meters,” Wilson declared. Odyssey was directly behind and comfortably above Crestax’ glowing antigravity amplifier engines.
“Very good,” Aaen acknowledged. A bright flash of white light appeared off of the port bow above Crestax’ ship. Odyssey followed Crestax’ ship through the dark gap. Aaen quickly realized that here, there were no stars visible. This was an area of space that was somehow apart from the rest of the region of space. . . He asked himself how Odyssey was going to get out but was at a loss for an immediate answer. . . He reminded himself to stay calm. . .For the moment, this was easier said than done.
Suddenly, numerous stars gradually began to appear in the viewscreen—Aaen stood up and approached the viewscreen, folding his arms and looking more closely at the growing number of twinkling lights, noticing a pattern. . . Oh, shoot! Aaen thought, wide-eyed, realizing a distinct pattern that struck him alarmed—those twinkling lights weren’t stars, they were running lights for ships!. . . He continued eyeing the growing number of lights—Holy-cow! There's gotta be a fleet of them out there!
After a few seconds of intellectually processing what he was seeing, he corrected himself—No! That's gotta be a freakin' armada!. .Jeez, he gasped. He could tell the ships were of different shapes and sizes, but the lighting—wherever that was coming from—was too dim for anyone to be read any hull markings or registries. . .or, for that matter, read ship names or discern any flag markings. He was silently aghast at the growing number of exterior running lights. Those ships are HUGE! Aaen decided they all looked like they were armed for bear. He took a subtle deep breath.
“The aperture has closed,” Jones announced with worried disappointment.
The incoming ship-to-ship hailing alert sounded. Hayes was already looking for the ‘who’ and ‘what’ details. . . “General Hound is hailing us! Secure channel.”
Aaen sat back in his chair and leaned forward, “Hold relative position here. Keep us at a safe distance from those ships,”
“Aye!”
“Hayes, put the hail on speakers. Use secure channel—match the coding frequency,”
*****
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