“No sign,” Veirn confirmed. “Previous data on the planet had no inhabitants detected.”
“If they destroyed the outpost,” Kellen said, “to hide their colonization…”
He didn’t, he couldn’t quite finish the thought, as he was unsure where he wanted—or didn’t want—to go with it.
They could have simply perceived the outpost as hostile.
Or they’d had something to hide.
Whatever their reason for possibly destroying the outpost, it all indicated that they were interstellar. They might be capable of launching an attack on the Quendala.
“We don’t have time to find out,” Kellen said, though reluctantly. If they were hostile, he didn’t like the idea that they were behind them. And if they weren’t hostile? They could be paranoid. Also didn’t like that behind them.
He checked. They were cloaked. So hopefully their passage through this system would go undetected.
“Let’s leave a sensor drone behind,” he said. He recalled Doc also saying something about protecting your six.
Tim was pleased that the big one and his smaller friend had taken shelter in the remains of a ship. It allowed whoever was shooting at them to concentrate their fire. It was in hopes of this outcome that he’d refrained from shooting back at the attacker.
And the fact that he felt some sympathy with the attacker.
This left him and his pilot companion somewhat free to find the ship that the pilot claimed was here.
Tim wasn’t entirely happy about working with the pilot. Riina would have said, “Trust issues.”
It was true he had many and for good reason. But he missed her at his side, watching his back.
It was much harder to both monitor the attacker and keep an eye on the pilot while in this human body. And he realized he’d missed something.
The constant attack against his cybernetics, against his internal systems, was gone. It had been a buzz against his skin. It wasn’t so much that he lacked the necessary inputs for so small a task. It was that he hadn’t thought about it.
He didn’t like that. Was it a failure of his human body or his imagination? In any case, it was a failure.
His comms crackled for the first time since he’d flown away with the big alien.
Did the viral attack going down also mean that the shuttle was able to come back online? It seemed so when he heard Trac’s voice over his comms.
“We are lifting off and will proceed to your location. Try not to die before we get there.”
One couldn’t accuse Trac of being overly sentimental.
“I will endeavor to remain alive,” he said. He might not need the alternative transportation, but he didn’t tell his pilot friend that. He preferred the arrival of backup to remain a secret for as long as possible.
Even if the shuttle could retrieve him, they had no way to leave without navigation data. He was going to have to find a way to—as Doc liked to put it—get down and dirty with some databanks. He’d have been happier about that if he weren’t half human.
Riina was waiting for the airlock pressure to equalize, so she could step inside when Harold, Dr. Walker’s robot friend approached her.
It didn’t speak out loud, but it instead initiated a private connection with her.
With equal parts curiosity and impatience, she accepted the connection.
“I would like to proceed with you,” it said.
She looked it up, then down. It wasn’t a heavily armed robot, but it did have some basic defenses. She knew its specifications. Knew these defenses were why it had been assigned to Dr. Walker.
She hesitated. It might be useful, but it might also be needed here. Trac could handle himself very well, but if their passengers got antsy and started causing trouble, even he might have a hard time piloting and doing crowd control.
She transmitted these concerns and watched the robot’s eyes flicker as it processed her response.
