"They know," I breathed. "Vaxon, they know you're coming?—"
"Sixty seconds out. Keep monitoring."
The sensor access cut completely. But this time, something else triggered on my displays as a massive power surge in the target location, followed by emergency alarms screaming across Engineering's systems.
"What the—" Er'dox was pulling up the data. "They've triggered a cascade overload in the junction's power distribution. That entire section is going critical."
"That's where Vaxon's teams are converging," I said, ice flooding my veins.
Er'dox opened the comm. "Vaxon, abort! They've sabotaged the power systems in your approach vector. Evacuate immediately!"
Static. Three seconds of horrible static.
Then Vaxon's voice strained: "Copy. Teams are falling back. We've got injured. The power surge took out deck plating when it overloaded. Two crew members fell through to the lower deck."
"Medical is responding," Zorn's voice cut in. "How bad?"
"Bad enough. Get teams to deck forty-six, section nine. And someone shut down that power surge before it spreads to adjacent systems."
I was already working on it, rerouting power away from the cascading failure, isolating the affected junction before the overload could propagate. Er'dox worked beside me, our hands moving across different interfaces in synchronized response.
"Cascade contained," Er'dox announced ninety seconds later. "But the saboteur used the chaos to escape. Again."
I pulled up internal sensor data from the target location, watching the recorded movement patterns. "They went through maintenance access. Dropped down two decks using emergency evacuation routes, then disappeared into crew circulation areas where tracking individual movement becomes impossible."
"Two crew members injured because we got close," Vaxon said, his voice carrying barely controlled fury. "This isn't just sabotage anymore. This is assault."
"This is escalation," Er'dox corrected. "They're getting desperate. Good. Desperate beings make mistakes."
I wasn't sure I agreed with his assessment, but I kept monitoring the data anyway. The saboteur had proven they were willing to cause harm to avoid capture. That changed everything.
"Dana," Er'dox said quietly. "Analysis. What did we learn?"
I forced myself to think past the immediate crisis, to analyze the encounter clinically. "They're monitoring internal sensors through power network access. They have level-four engineering clearance, which is why they can access restricted areas. They're sophisticated enough to trigger controlled power surges as defensive measures. And they're willing to harm crew members to protect their operation."
"Which means?"
"Which means they're not just covering tracks. They're protecting something. Something important enough to risk escalating from sabotage to assault."
Er'dox nodded slowly. "What are they protecting?"
That was the question, wasn't it? What was worth this level of risk? What was worth the careful infiltration, the sophisticated power network manipulation, the willingness to cause casualties?
I pulled up the original sabotage data, the power bleed Dana had detected two weeks ago. Compared it to the subsequent incidents. The pattern wasn't random. It was methodical. Deliberate. Building toward something.
"They're stealing power," I said slowly. "Not much. Not enough to trigger alarms. But consistently, over time. They're siphoning energy from Mothership's distribution network and storing it somewhere."
"For what purpose?"
"I don't know. But it takes significant energy reserves to..." I trailed off as the implication hit me. "Er'dox. How much power would it take to activate a communications array capable of reaching across interstellar distances?"
His expression darkened. "Significant amounts. More than standard ship systems could provide without detection. But if someone was slowly accumulating reserves over weeks or months?—"
"They could broadcast a signal without using Mothership's official communication systems. A signal no one would detect because it wasn't coming from monitored channels."
We stared at each other as the full implication crystallized. Someone aboard Mothership was building a covert long-range communications system. Someone with enough technical expertise to infiltrate power networks, enough clearance to access restricted areas, and enough desperation to assault crew members who got too close.
Someone who needed to communicate with someone else. Someone not aboard Mothership.
