Page 59 of Starfighter’s Salvation

* * *

The briefing room held General Aryk, General Jennix, Captain Wroxxon, Priya, Vesh, Gina, and me. Gina should have been in bed. Instead, she sat beside me with a fresh dressing over her ribs and a cup of something Dekker claimed he'd bad brewed just for her.

I would have punched him if she didn't look so happy. She had tasted it once and threatened violence if anyone tried to take it away. Her knee found mine under the briefing table, warm through the seam of my trousers, and my mark stirred at the contact, a low pull in her direction. I could have moved. I did not. I liked the contact. Mine.

Jennix brought up a map of the Ferros Trench and scowled at Captain Wroxxon like she wanted to put her boot up his ass. She probably did. She'd tried to demote him, but General Aryk had intervened and reminded everyone that the Elite Starfighters were, technically, under his command. The captain hadn't disobeyed her because, technically, General Jennix didn't have command. She'd also signed off on the mapping expedition without reading it over, so even the pilots who'd flown in with Mia and Kassius didn't get in trouble.

The hearing was three days ago, Jennix was still fuming, and I'd decided Wroxxon was a lot smarter than I'd given him credit for. He'd also saved our lives. Hard to dislike him after that.

“None of this information leaves this room. Are we clear?"

When everyone present agreed, she continued. "We have now confirmed three separate security breaches, each of which led to an unexpected ambush or attack,” she said. “The access code we've tracked to the Ferros Trench incident matches the one used against Priya and Vesh on their scouting run.”

“A Delegate?” Priya asked..

“Yes. Or someone close enough to be trusted with access to command codes. Also, the enemy forces in the trench were not Xandraxian. They looked like Scythe fighters, but they were slightly modified. When our teams took the gun batteries apart, they discovered the munitions and power cells came from somewhere outside of Queen Raya's remnant network. We have no idea who they were or why they attacked.”

Gina’s fingers tightened around her cup, the knuckles going white. “So, you have no idea who the traitor is? It could be a network of people for all you know. And you have no idea who is attacking Velerion ships? Some alien race is out there who is killing people, and you don't have any idea who they are or where they came from? How is that possible?”

Jennix ignored her outburst and changed the display. “We suspect their strike force not only knew the Salvation was coming, but when.”

“How. We finalized our mission launch time standing in the landing bay,” I said. “There was no transmission. No data.”

“One encrypted update was sent to fleet command to notify them of the mission. As required.” General Aryk informed all of us. I had no idea they did that.

The room fell silent.

“The traitor has live access to encrypted Starfighter command traffic?” Vesh asked.

“Yes. And now we know exactly where and when that access occurred,” Jennix added. A holographic recreation of the Citadel appeared over the table as she continued. “Whoever it was accessed the mission data, and passed it on, during a meeting of the full Delegation. Their access code was used inside the high security chamber, while every sitting Delegate was present.”

"Ballsy." Gina set her cup down.

That narrowed it down to… several hundred people. How many Delegates served Velerion since the war began? Six hundred? Seven? A thousand? I didn't pay much attention because I didn't care. Politicians talked too much.

Gina wasn't apathetic, she was angry. “So, one of the people running your government intercepted the transmission and sold us out before we'd even left base?” Her voice carried the rough edge of rage. I knew exactly how much pain she'd been in the last few days and resisted the urge to lift her out of her seat and onto my lap, where she belonged.

“Yes. A brief inquiry allowed us to connect the use of this particular access code to several incidents over the last few years. They are becoming bolder and acting with increasing frequency.”

"What other incidents are you talking about?" Vesh asked.

“We are reopening every similar ambush in the archive,” Aryk continued. “Including the trap they set for you and Priya. And the attack on Callis.”

Jennix added several more images to the floating mosaic in front of us. “Mia and Kassius did some great work. They captured images of everything in that trench. Our teams also recovered intact power cells from the gun batteries. They are not Xandraxian.” The unfamiliar sigil the Scouts had reported from their mission to Queen Raya’s shipyard appeared beside the cell design.

“Same builder as the Death Star,” Priya said.

"Excuse me? The what?" Gina stared at her friend. Priya shook her head with a we'll talk later wave of her hand that had my mate flopping against the back of her seat. I did not know what this Death Star was supposed to be, but I'd seen schematics of the weapon they were building. It was a horror to behold, and when finished, might shift victory in Queen Raya's favor.

“We believe it is the same symbol,” Jennix answered. “Which means the unknown source supplying Queen Raya is also involved with these activities on Xenon. And whoever they are, they had foreknowledge of the Titans arrival. They knew the researchers were being moved, and they had intimate knowledge of a protected transfer route."

Priya tilted her head, thinking out loud. "Why not just destroy everyone in the trench? Why use all those resources to jam their communications and let them live? Were they just bait? For what? For a medical evacuation? That doesn't make any sense. And why send twelve Scythe fighters to stop one medical rescue?"

“I don't understand any of this.” Gina’s jaw clenched and I wanted to kiss the tension away.

Like an unwelcome guest, a new thought solidified in my mind. "They were trying to shoot us down."

"Yeah. I noticed." Gina glanced at me like I was stating the obvious. In fact, I was stating the opposite.