CH16

Me and Draco stood in the mess facing each other, our knees bent and muscles tense; both of us were tired, our bare chests drenched in sweat but neither willing to surrender. We knew it was going to be the last exchange in this spar. My eyes locked on his, I was waiting for him to attack. Luckily, I did not have to wait long. He went for a high kick, hoping to throw me off balance.

“Nice one! Did your grandma teach you that?” I shouted dodging his foot by millimeters.

“Nah, your mom!” He marked a punch. “You know how much she enjoys lying on her back!”

Ouch, that hurt. No need to be rush though, I knew how to get my revenge. My brother had many virtues but patience was not one of them. We circled around each other keeping distance.

Just when I was about to give up and come up with a counterattack when my brother’s body sprang into action. He took a step towards me and swung his right fist at my lower jaw, trying to dislocate it. Too slow. I caught his hand at the wrist and pulled using his momentum to get him closer, while rising my knee. A second later he bent over it as my knee-cap connected with his groin. I did not stop, pushing his back and throwing him on the floor, I restrained his arm and put my hand over his head, ready to pluck out his eyeballs with my fingers.

“Sukin…!*” he struggled. “Okay, ‘kay! You won! I surrender. Geez, why do you always have to be so serious.”

“You were the one who wanted to spar.” I let go of his arm and helped him get on his feet.

“Ugh, is there any ice on this boat? Feels like you’ve crushed one of my boys, fuckhead.”

“Don’t dramatize. You weren’t using them much anyway.”

I winced in sympathy but that was all. If I was only a little bit slower, a little bit more distracted, I would be the one suffering right now. No mercy, no hesitation. Victory at all costs. That was the way we were taught to fight since our first year at the Academy. If you wanted survive you had to learn from your mistakes and there was no better deterrent than a few bruises and some broken bones.

“So this is what you two call “sparing”?” The door opened and Blaze walked in.

At first, I did not get what she was hinting at, but then I looked at Draco still massaging his crotch, while I was panting heavily.

“Are you jealous, sis?” I winked.

The way she looked at me that moment reminded me how fragile is human life and how we should not waste it on petty quarrels. What a girl.

“Ilmine’s found something,” Blaze said, ignoring me entirely. “She says it’s an emergency.”

I frowned. We had over one and a half hours before reaching the supposed gate. What did she want?

Huh, could be interesting.

*Sukin…! – Son of a…!

“Blaze says you’ve got something?” We found Ilmine in her own cabin, that was probably the only one differencing from the rest of the ship.

Her place had the same dome-like built but the interior was in no way similar to the spartan design, that dominated the rest of the ship. Walls had a nice dark azure tone in contrary to the omnipresent shades of white and grey. In addition, something seemed to be moving inside these walls, creating an impression of an underwater beast being imprisoned just a hair’s length from the watcher. Pretty badass, but too claustrophobic for me.

“Not me. Eclipse found it,” Ilmine sat at a narrow platform that must have been her bed. “A signal coming from the second planet in this system. It’s probably encrypted, I can’t make any sense of it.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I had to clarify this. “You’re saying one of this planets is inhabited?! And nobody thought I would be a good idea to tell us?! Eclipse!”

“Yes, captain? I already told you shouting is unnecessary…” Butler’s avatar appeared in the room making it look somewhat crowded.

“Explain. Now.”

“The signal is a loop and, as Ilminerelitore mentioned, it is most likely encrypted. And yes, it comes from the second planet, captain, but the planet itself is not inhabited. On the contrary, it is a dead world. You can see for yourself.”

The AI avatar extended his hand and a ball of light formed above it. Not bigger than my head, it quickly took a form of a planet. I could say one thing – it certainly was not Earth. Full of craters and hills, the surface had no trace of familiar blue and green, only reddish rocks. The whole planet seemed like a giant rock, more of a huge asteroid than anything else. What could live in such environment?

“And the signal? Where does it come from?” Draco was the first one to recover.

“This location, sir” there was a tiny white dot flashing on the ball, close to one of its poles. “The only reason I was able to fish it out is because I wanted to run a complete check-up of my systems before we jump again - external passive sensors and long range communication included. The signal’s frequency is, well, weird. Almost at the verge of my receipt scope. If I was not sure that after the restart my systems are clear I would have taken it for garbage data messing with my sensors.”

So whoever it was they did not want to advertise their presence in the system too much. Interesting. Could this be our contact with Sa’der employers? And if so, what should we do about this? We could not just say hi and order them to take us back to Earth.

“And there is no way for you to decipher that?” Not that I was not impressed, but having more puzzles to solve was hardly what we needed right now.

“Highly unlikely. But there may be no need for that.”

“How so?”

“The message itself is too short and lacking,” it was Ilmine who answered me instead. “No projections, no audio. It’s simply… crude, I would say. I can think of only one reason for it to be like that.”

“Meaning?” Getting a straight answer from her was like pulling teeth.

“A beacon. Somebody is showing us this particular location on purpose,” Ilmine got up from her bed. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t say “us” specifically, anybody could have picked it up if they knew what to look for. The loop has been activated long before we appeared in the system.”

“Do they know we are here?”

“Almost certainly, sir. I did not employ any stealth systems to mask our presence and the planet is about three light hours from our exit point. Plenty of time for them to spot us.” Eclipse explained.

Shit. That was nothing good. The element of surprise had been the only advantage in our possession I could think of. What other assets did we have?

“What stealth systems are you talking about?” Something in the last AI’s comment tipped me off.

“I do possess basic skills in that regard, captain. As I understand, this is how this vessel stayed undetected while operating in your star system. I cannot give you any guarantees, though, when it comes to whether it will be enough against whoever is broadcasting the signal.”

That was an interesting piece of information. If we could approach them undetected…

“Ilmine, what do you think?” I turned to face our blue skinned scientist. She was the only person we had I could call an expert.

“We should ignore it. It’s not worth the risk,” she said immediately. “We must stay on course and leave this system as fast as possible. It may take us a few jumps but when we finally find imperial outpost we will ask them for help. We can even sent a message to the capital, they won’t ignore something like that. They will be obliged to help you go back to your home! Besides, even if those are the people who hired me and Teo, than what? There are only three of you! Going there and fighting them would be a suicide!”

Ok, she had a point. We were unarmed, we had no knowledge about our enemies and we simply could not face them in a straight fight. Still, waiting for a help from a government, even an alien one, was never my thing. Who were we for those Alphas? A problem. And what you do with problems? You eliminate them. Why would they bother with taking us anywhere if they could simply dispose of us and maybe in addition get a nice new ship as a bonus. From what I understood Eclipse was a pretty valuable piece of technology.

Eh, that was the biggest issue. We had not enough informations about what was really going on.

“Draco? Blaze?” I wanted to hear theirs opinions.

“Whatever you decide, brother. But remember, the Brotherhood never shied away from a fight. If we are right and these fuckheads know how to send us back I wouldn’t mind paying them a visit.”

“This can be a trap,” my sister added. “But I agree. We are already dead, we might as well take the chance.”

That was why I loved Blaze so much. Such an optimist she was.

“Then this what we do,” I finally made my decision. “We will continue on our course for now, until we reach the gate. Then Eclipse will activate his stealth mode and we should all pray it would be enough to fool whoever is sending the signal. Then we will turn back and take a peek at the planet. With some luck, we may even survive.”