Nothing is out of place when we get home, but it is eerily quiet inside.
“Kissu?” Chrys calls out, kicking off her boots and hurrying inside.
He responds with a high trill and stretches, yawning as he hops down from the basket-like bed on Chrys’ tree.
“There you are!” He purrs appreciatively when she hugs him. “I’m glad I was worried about nothing.”
Kissu hugs her back with one furred paw wrapped around her.
One problem that turned out to be nothing is good.
Myproblem, however…
“I’m going down to the crash site before they take it out of here.”
Chrys isn’t happy about it. They both look out the window where the smoke used to be.
“Okay,” she hugs Kissu a little tighter. “But you’d better hurry back.”
“I will.”
Buried in the archives of the library, I found outdated manufacturing schematics for a particular kind of ship.
Those schematics told me Noa had lied to Shock… or maybe he’d just forgotten.
There’s something in the aft section of the ship that would help me find where the data was transmitted to. And if I don’t get down there and get to it fast… it’s going to be gone for good.
I leave Chrys feeding Kissu treats and Shock watching them in amusement.
The snow is still thick from the blizzards, and my bike throws up plumes in my wake.
Between those—if he’s looking—and tripping the sensors, Breaker is going to know I’m poking around.
It’s better if I get this done as quickly as possible.
I hop off my bike, letting it slide away from me as the engine turns itself off, and check that my gun is still mag-clipped tomy thigh. No sign of anything in the debris or along the inner caldera wall…
Hurrying through the remnants of the crashed ship, I find what I’m looking for easily.
Fire casing will have kept this part of the circuitry safe and the backup data storage underneathshouldbe intact.
When I get the panel torn open, my visor finds the connection port and I plug in the adaptor I brought with me.
Somuch information pops up on my visor, it’s dizzying.
“Filter for transmission code signal.”
The images go blank and then the information appears a moment later.
The data has been altered. The transmissions only look like they came from Calisan.
Hewantedus to go to Calisan.
I don’t know why. But I do know that Arc and Kilo need to know.
I disconnect, taking a step back as the visor clears. That’s too much data for my helmet to download. I’m going to have to take the whole unit with me if I want to save it.
I try to call Arc, but it doesn’t go through.
