His face is drawn, every sharp feature glowing in the pale-blue light of the display. “The comms came back online,” he says.
I glance at the display—which is in Vhorathi and entirely unhelpful to me—before asking, “Why would that make an alarm go off?”
“The comms did not set off the alarm; the data packet that was forced through the security filter did.”
“Forced through?” That doesn’t sound good.
He straightens and crosses his massive arms over his bare chest. Thankfully, he’s wearing pants, but they hang low aroundhis waist in a way that’s still very distracting.
“This ship is invisible unless it is receiving a communication signal. That”—he points to a flashing orange icon on the display—“is a message from an unapproved sender. It should never have made it past the ship’s security filter.” He runs a single hand between his horns and through his long black hair. “And now they know where we are.”
I shake my head, trying to organize the heap of information he just dumped on me. “Who knows where we are?”
“I do not know.”
Ok. That’s not concerning at all. “And you can’t just open it and see where it came from?”
“No. It is encrypted. I cannot open it without the correct key.”
“And it didn’t come from one of the people you approved?” I ask, even though he’s already said as much. After we left Calidus, Vexar told me he was setting the comms to only receive messages from a few, very specific people. He made it clear it was for safety reasons and let me have a say on who we included. Not that I had much to contribute, I don’t know any of these people.
“If it had come from an approved sender, I would be able to read it.”
I bite my thumbnail, feeling my own anxiety rise. “Do you think it’s from Gaius? Or Marius?”
“Or my sister,” he whispers under his breath.
A chill runs down my spine. “Ok. Let’s try to talk this through.” I slide into the seat on the starboard side of the bridge and pull my feet off the ground, staring at the view from the external cameras shown on the display. The image is just an endless expanse of stars that would make Neil deGrasse Tyson swoon, but to me, it’s a little scary. Refocusing myself, I start at the beginning. “What did you mean when you said theship is invisible?”
“That isn’t important right now.”
I sigh. Vexar’s more of a ‘think in silence’ kinda guy, and it’s clear I’m going to have to convince him of the benefits of talking things through. “Well,” I say, resting my feet on the control panel, “do you have a plan? Do you know how to open the message or who might have sent it? Do you know if it’s definitely a bad thing?”
His jaw tightens. “No.”
“Alright, then we should talk it through. Review the variables. Maybe a question I ask will spark an idea or something.” I wet my lips and repeat my earlier question. “Why are we invisible? That makes no sense.”
He leans a hip against the control panel, face still tight with anxiety. “We are not invisible exactly, the ship is just very hard to detect. The hull absorbs and re-emits almost everything it comes in contact with: atoms, molecules, dust, radiation”—he waves his hand—“and other things I do not know the English words for. Essentially, anything floating through space will appear to move right through us, including communication signals and sensor pulses.”
“Anything floating through space? Like asteroids …?”
“No. Not like asteroids. Small things. Very small things.”
I take a breath and squint. This is all getting very … sciency, but I guess that’s something I have to get used to. With a sigh, I say, “I thought space was empty.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “It looks empty, but it is not. It is full of many things. Mostly hydrogen atoms moving very quickly, but also dust, and other things. However, that is not the problem. The problem is that some unknown person has our location, and our only defense is stealth.”
“Ok. So we’resort ofinvisible.” I’m trying to act cool about someone knowing where we are, but I’m freaking out. At least a little bit. “Are there any other reasons someone might send a message like this? Someone who doesn’t want us dead?” I ask, praying for some sortof hope.
He turns back to the display and braces his hands on the control panel. “That is the only reason I can think of.”
I nod, and despite the slowly rising panic in my chest, I charge forward. “How do normal messages get transmitted?”
“An interstellar message has to originate from a very powerful ship or a planet equipped with a clerk.” He waves his hand like he’s looking for a better word. “A computer that can package and send messages through a fold-point.”
Fuck me. I am so out of my depth here.
I drop my head back and groan. “Why does space have to be a never-ending science lesson?”
