Page 44 of Wrath

“He makes a good point,” I said pensively. “Do we know if they stopped somewhere specific over the past few days?”

Wrath shook his head. “The tracker showed them going near a couple of planets but no more,” he said with annoyance. “It doesn’t mean that they didn’t meet with some other vessels to trade or exchange goods with someone from those planets. However, I use the term ‘near’ very loosely. I’m talking nearly a day’s travel at high speed.”

“So, the trap theory remains the most probable,” Linette said.

Wrath nodded. “Yes. Therefore, we are going in expecting foul play. More scout drones are being sent in the sector to warn us of any potential ambush or if they are receiving reinforcements. We’re setting course for their position. At our highest speed, we should reach them in about 32 hours. In the meantime, I want us to explore every possible scenario and the best strategy to take them down.”

The selfish part of me felt cheated out of the romantic two weeks of bonding Wrath and I had just started to enjoy. But the soldier in me welcomed this chance to ‘redeem’ myself by capturing the traitors who had managed to slip between my fingers, who had caused Wrath to endure an atrocious death, and who had almost also brought about the demise of the rest of my crew. I would enjoy watching Marcelle’s sorry ass on trial.

Linette went back to the deck to set a new course while the rest of us went to work strategizing.

Chapter 14

Wrath

My gut had told me that things had been far too easy when we destroyed the base. Things never went that smoothly. Inevitably, a curveball came our way and hit us directly in the teeth. Going into the unknown like this made me extra nervous as my gut was once again telling me that something highly unpleasant awaited us.

Our efforts to hail the Nomad remained unanswered. Long range scans didn’t show any other enemy incoming, and the scout drones in the sector hadn’t detected anything either. The question was: why had the crew not simply abandoned ship? There were no external signs of damage in the images Chaos had sent us. And even now, as we closed in on the rogue Coalition ship’s position, we couldn’t see any external signs of battle or collision that would justify their current condition.

“Remain in stealth,” I ordered Linette as she brought our vessel to a stop at what we deemed a safe distance from the Nomad.

“Still not getting any answers from them,” Myriam said with a frown. “I’m trying to connect to their com system, but what I’m seeing is weird.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It doesn’t look like a system failure or power outage. I think someone is actively keeping the vessel disabled,” Myriam replied, casting a baffled look my way.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said, taken aback.

“More than you know,” Myriam said, her fingers flying over her keyboard as she further assessed the ‘damaged’ vessel’s status. “The life support system has been shut down in entire sections of the ship. I’m reading a whole lot of organic life forms, but the computer does not recognize a bunch of them as being of any known species.”

“Could they truly have been boarded and attacked from within?” Linette asked with a troubled expression on her face.

“I’m beginning to wonder,” I said pensively.

“Do we know where those life forms are located within the ship?” Dread asked.

“A handful are in the sectors where life support has been shut down,” Myriam said. “They are concentrated near the hangar, the hold, the lab, and a part of the crew quarters. A few more are roaming around the ship.”

“Where is the crew?” Dread asked.

“I detect three human signatures, one Lenusian, and two Tegorians,” Myriam said. Judging by the readings, two humans and one of the Tegorian are dead or in stasis.”

“What the fuck is going on?” I whispered, running my fingers through my hair.

“Only three humans?” Kwan asked. “I mean, their headcount alone confirmed that even though the tracker didn’t show them landing anywhere, at least one of their crew mates got off the ship over the past few days. Is there any way you can find out if Marcelle is among them?”

Myriam shook her head with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry, but I can’t get that kind of detail.”

“Wait a minute,” Varnog said, frowning. “There are ‘life’ forms in the areas where life support has been shut down? Not corpses?”

Myriam turned to look at him with an air of unease. “Yes,lifeforms.”

“Doesn’t that simply mean whoever boarded them is wearing a suit?” Kwan asked with a confused expression.

“Technically, that would be a possibility,” I replied in a tensed voice, “but there are no sentient species advanced enough to be wearing a suit that hasn’t been added to our scanner’s database. Even if it was a hybrid species, it would have needed to be very severely bastardized for the scanner not to identify it as a hybrid.”

“I see,” Kwan said pensively. “But what’s bastardized enough? Would those freaky Jadozors we battled on Narjin qualify as such?”

---