Chapter 10
Brook didn’t understand what had happened. An hour ago they’d been calmly headed towards JL-398. In the last hour she’d made first contact with an alien species, been zapped by bioelectricity, watched her crewmember plunge to his death, and narrowly avoided joining him on the other side.
What a difference an hour makes.
Now she was locked out of the bridge, and her ship was headed into the unknown, having broken free of the Zantharian flagship that had held it. How had the ship detached itself? And could she expect a retaliation blast from the flagship?
“This is Major Ontarii,” she heard, turning her head to watch the alien commander as he spoke into a device that must have been tied into the intricate knot on his right shoulder. “Report.”
No reply.
He fussed with the knot, repeating himself. “This is Major Ontarii to the Zantharian flagship. Come in.”
The alien’s face was bleak. “Communications are out.”
“Great,” Brook muttered and turned back to the door to pound against it. Once again she got no response.
Moving to the panel beside the door, she worked to get the covering off. “I’ll pop the manual override. Hopefully we’ll have better luck here than in the engine room.”
“We need to re-establish communications with my ship as soon as possible.” The major’s voice was firm and demanding.
“Of course, boss,” she said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her tone. “I’ll get right on top of that.”
Brook fiddled around in the panel compartment until she found the lever for the manual release. She tugged it upwards and the door slid outwards an inch so that she was able to grab the edge.
Ontarii beat her to it, putting his large hands on the edge and yanking the door open.
Brook pushed past him and into the chamber that served as her ship's bridge, finding it completely empty.
"Where is everybody?" she asked, half to herself. She hurried to the navigation console. A course had been set, apparently towards JL-398, or Zanthar, as her companion had named it.
Ontarii scowled at the empty bridge. "Bring up your external display."
Brook rankled at his tone but punched in the command to bring the exterior view on the screen. She focused on the emptiness before her, confused. They seemed to be alone in space.
She changed the display from the front view to the rear. Since they'd just disengaged from the flagship, it should be visible on the display screen. But there was nothing there.
Ontarii moved up beside her. "Where are the controls for your sensors?"
Brook pointed, pulling up the ship's log and leaving the major to figure out the sensor controls on his own. "According to the log, the coordinates were set, propulsion was engaged, and then...nothing."
The small escape pod had not been launched. None of the external hatches had been opened. According to the log, her crew should still be there. Somewhere.
"If I'm reading your primitive device correctly, there is not another ship within two astronomical units. Which makes no sense, because our defense perimeter requires that our ships be within one AU of each other."
Ontarii's face was a battlefield. Anger and frustration warred with concern, and his color was changing again, becoming a sort of mustard yellow with stripes of red appearing here and there.
The color changes must be connected to something. They can't be random.
All thought left her head when he turned his midnight eyes in her direction.
"Captain Brooklyn, I'm afraid the Hareema have infiltrated the flagship. There's no way your ship could have detached without help from outside. My crew knows better than to disobey an order and break the defensive line. An enemy agent is the only thing that makes sense."
"How could they have gotten over to your ship without detection? Don't you have safeguards set up to expose any enemy infiltrators?" Brook recalled the shock she'd received to prove she was the human only an hour before.
The major nodded. "We've got safeguards, but the enemy may have become familiar with our protocols. We may not be able to root the agent out until it's done some damage. It can take on any shape, including my own."
The idea sank into Brook's mind, bringing with it the realization that she could run into a double of herself while attempting to complete her mission. There could already be a false Captain Brooklyn, telling her crew to do God knows what.
