“SCOUT!”
As in … Commander DaR’s SCOUT??”
“The one and only.”
“But they cannot trace it here. Frack, for that matter, your signal should not have gotten out of the Void!”
“That is what I assumed as well but it did, and that was his answer.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I have no idea. Should we tell Slavic and the others?”
“That is all up to you. I am not going to listen to him growling at us for half a rotation if this proves to be nothing, and honestly, if they have not found us yet, the odds are they never will. But I would not put that disk back in and tempt them further.”
“It contains crucial information, Falon. We know so little about their race. What if one of them becomes ill? Our med units are practically useless without the information on this disk.”
“For a male who has not claimed a mate of his own, why all the sudden concern?”
“Oh, I have a mate brother.” He moves the vest he is wearing out of the way so that I can see the collar he has been hiding behind it. “I am doing everything in my power not to finalizethe bond. Bambi’s smell haunts my every breath, but if I am unable to provide a stable home and a future for her, I will willingly give my soul to the Gods of Ruk before tying her to this … our inadequate existence! Murgul risked his life to get this information for all of us to give them a better life.”
“That fracker enjoyed every moment of it. I still cannot believe you two took on an entire Korgon ship without backup. You are lucky the Gods of Ruk were not done writing your story, or we would not be having this conversation.”
“You have to help me find a way to access this, Falon.” He holds the disk up in his hand.
“I will put you on my ever-expanding list of things to do, Bikar. I have an entire mountain fortress to stabilize so your little side project is not critical to me at the moment.” I turn around and stomp out of the shuttle before he can say another word.
CHAPTER 3
EVO
“Captain, we are approaching the anomaly. Please advise.”
“Destiny, are you sure this is the area where you first started receiving the pod signals?”
“Confirmed, Captain EvO. SCOUT also confirmed that this is the same location where we were alerted that the human medical records were also being downloaded, along with mating rituals and other basic information.”
“Rafe, are you picking up anything on the sensors? Because my eyes are seeing nothing.”
“The sensors show nothing but dead space, not a single star in sight, which in itself is odd.”
Rafe has just turned toward me when Destiny’s alarms start blaring, and she yells,“Brace for impact!”I barely catch myself before being thrown forward into the control’s main center panel.
“Destiny, report!”
“Captain, we appear to have run into something.”
“Any injuries?”
“Negative. A couple of scrapes, but nothing serious. Although Qwin is cursing at me right now because a couple of her glass test tubes almost fell onto the floor.”
“Back us up to a safe distance and then contact Father and see how he wants us to proceed.”
“Confirmed. Captain, I have attempted several times to connect with Commander DaR, but there is some sort of interference around Ethra that is blocking my direct signal. ANDI intervened, relaying that the Commander will contact us shortly because they are having to leave the surface in order for our signals to connect.”
“Put him straight through when the signal is received.”
A giggle is all the warning I get before Ami Lynn launches herself at me, jumping straight out of ViN’s arms the moment the helm doors slide open.
