T’arq
As the color drained from Krystal’s face, T’arq felt a rush of sympathy. He would take her back to the Zataras if he could, but time was critical. Nobody just stumbled across the Xakul like this. He had to find out what they were doing out here.
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you. And we can’t just leave. I have to find out why they are here and what they are planning.”
He didn’t have a good feeling about this, especially since they were so close to Earth’s solar system. Only a half day at maximum speed for the Zataras. And there were Xakul ships who could match that pace. Their presence here could only mean bad news for Earth.
T’arq hoped he was wrong.
He glanced at the woman sitting next to him. She looked so small and helpless; her hands twisted together anxiously.
Maybe if he… he pushed a few controls and music flowed into the cockpit.
“Is that—”
“Yes. Greatest rock hits of the 1990s. I found the album in the data banks on the Zataras.”
“What?” Krystal’s eyes were enormous as she stared at him.
“I thought it might help you feel calmer?”
“Listening to music from the late 20thcentury as we fly around an asteroid field in a glorified tin can?”
T’arq didn’t take offense. He knew she was finding this difficult, so he just nodded.
“I suppose this is just another day at the office for you,” she muttered.
T’arq moved the ship closer to the dark mass of the signal jammer.
“Dear lord, it’s huge!” Krystal breathed as they approached.
T’arq had set up proximity alerts to warn them if any Xakul came within visual range, and relaxed slightly when nothing sounded. He drifted the ship closer to the jammer, which loomed easily ten times the size of their stealth ship.
It resembled a spider’s web, each quadrant spreading out from a central hub where the bulk of the jamming equipment was housed.
“They have switched it on since we arrived, right?” Krystal asked.
“Yes, otherwise we couldn’t have reached the Zataras at all.”
“So that means the Xakul are very close.”
“Unless they can operate it from long distances, but...”
“You find that unlikely.”
“Exactly.”
They were silent for long moments as T’arq scanned the signal jammer for any information they could get. This would be very useful to the intelligence corps, he suspected.
“Have you seen one of these before?” she asked, gesturing at the expanse of Xakul tech spread out in front of them.
“Not this size. Much smaller.”
“Oh.”
The few times T’arq had run across this kind of technology had been when he was working solo, and the signal jammers were much, much smaller. No larger than a meter across. That they had increased the size of them to such a degree, and without the Taurean military knowing? That was alarming.
He slowly raised the ship until they were level with the control box in the center of the web. They both stared at it in silence. The dark-colored material was so well camouflaged it was a wonder they had seen it at all. The box itself was about half the size of the stealth ship. Every now and then, a spark would send a bright bolt of electric blue along one quadrant, lighting the web-like connectors.
