Far Horizon (Juggernaut #4)

Forty Four

Captain Yannis sat forward in his chair as the alerts came in. Each new report added another clear data point to their knowledge base. Each unfounded statement, rumour, or guess, only added noise. The challenge for the captain and his bridge crew was learning which was which. Keep the signal, discard the rest, uncover the truth.

"Sir, we finally have comms with asteroid B4C."

"Sir, we have reports the transport from B4C has been destroyed."

"Sir, ground crews are reporting the transport is requesting docking clearance, visual ID only."

"Sir, B4C is now transmitting reports of an attack."

"Quiet on the bridge!" Yannis roared. "Buffer all new incoming messages. What do we know for certain?"

Grace bent over a console next to a young officer, flicking commands across the touch-sensitive display, grouping and tagging the reports she found consistently plausible in one place. The truth began to take shape.

"Sir," said another officer, "We have mixed reports from the B4C expedition. The transport Northwind dispatched is missing. The transport now docking has some sort of communications failure."

"I need answers. How can all the comms fail at once on two ships and the asteroid?"

"Working on it, sir."

"Get a runner down to the docking bay if you have to. We're blind, otherwise."

"Sir!" The XO nodded a command to another officer who departed at once. The swish of doors admitted Marcus at the same time. He stepped up to the command dais with a look of concern on his face.

"Captain, playback local ship telemetry for the last six hours. Track the IFF vectors," said Grace.

She nodded at Marcus.

"Mrs Vasquez, I need to speak with you—" he began.

"Do it," interrupted Yannis.

The officer stationed at Flight Control tapped in the commands. "On screen."

"Skip forward to the point the transport docked at B4C," said Grace. She climbed the steps and stood next to Captain Yannis. "And get me a list of crew on that transport."

"Sir, the crew, that manifest won't be correct." said Marcus.

"Is someone missing?" said Grace, and knew at once she had asked the wrong question.

Marcus shook his head. "No, ma'am."

"Tila?" she said quietly.

Marcus nodded.

"Your daughter was on that transport?" said Yannis.

Grace held Marcus' gaze and slammed her fist against the comm switch on the captain's armrest. She spoke through gritted teeth.

"Docking bay, who has disembarked from that shuttle?"

"We're scanning crew IDs as we speak, sir."

"She won't have an ID. She wasn't supposed to be there," said Marcus.

"Why was she there, Sergeant? How do you know she is there?"

"Command?" came the voice over the intercom.

Yannis brushed Grace's hand from his chair. "Go ahead," said the captain.

"We have one crew member without an ID. A Tila Vasquez."

Grace melted into a chair, but her eyes were still has hard as the stars as they locked with Marcus's. "You and I are going to have a discussion, Sergeant," she said.