“Call coming in, Captain. It’s them, sir. The Interlopers.”

  The Communication officer reported to the captain as he had the ensign sitting at the station working to clean up the signal.

  Bowman and Toshi looked at each other. The senior officer had approached the captain with last-minute details before the enemy’s expected arrival. Surprise passed across both men’s faces, who shared a look that spoke volumes.

  “That’s a first.” Toshi said, his surprise deepening as he read his captain’s expression.

  Maybe it’s not a first. What the hell, cap?

  “On screen,” Bowman said, forestalling the question he could see forming on his friend’s face.

  Gotta do better, Carter. He’s known you for a long time. He knows how to read you.

  “It’s audio only, sir. They seem to have some trouble with their systems.”

  “No surprise there,” Toshi said, noticing and accepting the captain’s brush off. “They must’ve taken quite the beating flying through the Cluster the way they did.”

  “No kidding, Tosh. Better go make sure the teams are ready.”

  Toshi took the hint, nodding a salute to the captain before heading back to his station.

  “Go ahead, Jovesky. Play it for me.”

  The lieutenant hit a command on his terminal and the main bridge speakers began playing the signal.

  Bowman leaned forward, listening, but all he heard was static. He looked at his Comms officer, who shook his head.

  “I am not sure, sir. We’re receiving their signal. They just aren’t transmitting anything.”

  Bowman was about to reply when a modulated voice came over the speakers.

  “Rishi, this is the Oshakati of the Da’a’shori First Expeditionary Force.”

  Well, shoots. This is going in the history books alright.

  Bowman took a moment to make sure Jovesky was recording this conversation. Headquarters and historians were going to be playing this message back for years to come. That simple opening statement told them more about the Interlopers than most in Solvonus had ever known. And now it was out. Too many people had heard the message.

  I should’ve Jovesky give me headphones for this.

  Bowman shook his head at the errant thought. His crew knew they were hunting for an Interloper ship. The secret was already leaking out. There was no way to contain it now. Bowman knew he probably should have tried none-the-less, but he was too old and, more importantly, too tired of the secrets.

  He sat back in his command chair, his fingers drumming their subconscious staccato.

  “Oshakati, this is Captain Bowman, of the Rishi. Why are you in our system and what are your intentions? I should warn you, in case your sensors are damaged, that you are surrounded by mines, and we have our launch tubes and rail guns trained on your ship.”

  There was a moment's delay, static playing over the speakers. Bowman was sure the other captain was trying to verify what he had just said. He knew he would be in their place.

  There was a loud burst of static through the speakers.

  “Understood Rishi. We’re having difficulty with our communications array. Thank you for the warning. The orbital cluster was more” — a burst of static broke up the signal — “plicated than we had anticipated.”

  Bowman’s gut told him something was off here. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The Interlopers, the Da’a’shori, never communicated. They either escaped back into the Rift or obliterated their ships. That was a known fact. Now they were here, sitting bow to bow with the Rishi, after trying like hell to evade them through the Cluster. Chatting like they were just two ships having a friendly meet up.

  He didn’t like it.

  Bowman looked at his HUD and saw a message notification blinking. Ramirez was letting him know they were scanning the Da’a’shori; among other things, their bulkheads needed major repairs and were leaking atmosphere in several spots. The Oshakati was on her last legs.

  That made Bowman's hackles stand up even more. Something definitely wasn’t right. They couldn’t fight the Rishi and they were in no condition to attempt an escape. Nothing added up.

  His senior officers were thinking along the same lines, quietly conferring together nearby. Bowman typed a quick reply to Ramirez, adding instructions to notify him of all activity from the other vessel, no matter how small.

  Ramirez read his message and glanced up to nod to the captain before leaving his station to confer with the other station heads at the far side of the bridge.

  “Oshakati, I repeat. What are your intentions here?”

  Again, a delay punctuated by static.

  “Rishi, we are having trouble receiving you. We’ve detected your mines and will stay at zero station. Please give us a few minutes to boost our signal.”

  “Understood, Oshakati.” Bowman said before signaling to Jovesky to mute their side of the conversation.

  He got up from his seat and walked over to where his command crew clustered around Toshi’s station.

  “Any ideas, gentlemen?”

  Toshi spoke up, the others deferring to his leadership.

  “Our scans show that they’re pretty beat up, sir. They probably have several critical problems onboard, the least of which is their difficulty in communication.”

  “Any idea on that voice modulation?” Bowman asked, realizing that had bugged him since they first heard it.

  “Hard to say, sir,” Jovesky said. “It could be a simple system malfunction or any other thing, really. We just don’t know enough about them.”

  “It could be their translator, sir,” Tanaka said. “We shouldn’t assume we’re speaking the same language.”

  “Right. Good thinking Tanaka. That could lead to some complications.

  “Any other thoughts? I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

  His men looked at each other for a moment. There were head shakes all around. Obviously, they were just as stumped as he was.

  “Keep scanning their ship, the surrounding space, their air waves, everything. Something isn’t right, I can feel it. There’s no record of any communication with an Interloper ship before. It seems odd that they aren’t fighting to the end. That’s how it’s always been at the Rift.”

  “Could they be stalling for time, sir?” Draskol said, having entered the bridge, catching the tail end of the conversation as he came from the med-bay where he had checked in with Tavu.

  The group of men all stared at Draskol for a minute, with a few of them giving slow nods.

  “What makes you say that, Draskol?” Toshi asked.

  “If this is outside their usual behavior, and they have nothing to gain by talking to us, it just seems like it’s a ploy of some kind.”

  Bowman nodded.

  “Benjaan, making some general assumption, if they were to blow their ship up, would we be in the blast radius?”

  The master chief took out his data-pad and did some quick calculations.

  “We’d be well within the safety limits of our shields, sir, even if they weren’t at full capacity.”

  Bowman looked around at his group of friends again. He’d trained and crewed with all of them, apart from Draskol, for a long time. He trusted them and respected their input.

  “Keep working on it. I agree with Draskol. Something’s not right. We need to know what it is. Let me know the minute you find, or think of, anything that is out of the ordinary.”

  The men nodded their acknowledgement before disbanding and heading back to their stations.

  “Rishi,” the modulated voice said, stronger now, but still electronically enhanced.

  Bowman was about to reply when he noticed Tavu, still looking haggard from the ordeal of creating the ‘Rishi Battering Ram’, limping on to the deck. She was making her way straight for his chair. The look of determination she projected made Bowman rethink what he was about to say.

  Bowman held up a finger, forestalling whatever Tavu was about to tell him.

  “Oshakati, give me a moment here. We’re having trouble on our end now. All those electromagnetic fields always play havoc with our communications.”

  The captain signaled for Jovesky to mute the mic again and turned to Tavu.

  “What is it?”

  He knew better than to admonish a Power, even one who was nominally in his command structure. She obviously had something important to say.

  “They’ve got a Traveler onboard. I don’t know how, or who, but I am sure of that.”

  A moment of stunned silence followed.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  A Traveler? How the hell?

  Bowman recovered quickly and signaled to Draskol, who joined them in three quick strides.

  “How do you know this?” Bowman asked Tavu.

  Tavu paused, looking at Draskol as he came up beside her. She shook her head slightly, as if arguing with herself, before speaking.

  “It’s a thing Teleporters and Travelers can do, sir. It depends on the strength of each, though. We use the same sort of Power, just a different aspect of it. That commonality allows us to …,” Tavu hesitated as if searching for the right word, “... feel when another Power is nearby. The feeling gets stronger when their Power is being used.”

  Bowman looked at Draskol, who could only shrug. This was new to him, too.

  “It’s not something known outside our two Power groups. I don’t know if it’s common for other Power groups to have the same ‘feelings’.”

  She was obviously hesitant to speak of this out loud at all, and Bowman appreciated how hard it must be for her to reveal a closely guarded secret about her own abilities.

  “So, what are you saying, Tavu?” Bowman said. He was itching to find out more about this ability, it was outside even his intimate knowledge of Powers. However, he had his ship and this situation to worry about first.

  “I’m not exactly sure. All I can say, with some certainty, is that there’s a Traveller operating nearby. I can feel slight bursts every few moments from different locations. I don’t know what it means.”

  “How exact can you be with these feelings, Tavu?”

  “Not very, sir. I can give you approximate headings, though.” The Power paused. “I think.”

  Without wasting another moment, Bowman pulled up a star map on his console, punched in a command and projected it onto the deck in a hologram, centering on the Rishi.

  “Show me.”

  The Power stepped into the middle of the hologram, orientating herself to the holographic image and closed her eyes. She seemed to relax into a meditative state. Bowman and Draskol looked at each other and waited. It felt like the longest few seconds of their lives. The crew sensed something odd happening, and despite the senior officers’ best attempts, everyone on the bridge stopped what they were doing and stared at the strange sight.

  Bowman was about to say something when Tavu pointed directly to the Oshakati on the map, her eyes still closed.

  “There. I can’t say if they are coming or going. Just that there was a surge, just for a second.”

  The two men waited, and Bowman noticed that the rest of the bridge had become deathly quiet. Tanaka was drifting over to see what was happening. Bowman shook his head, and Tanaka stopped in his tracks. Tavu was physically weak and probably feeling vulnerable now; Bowman didn’t want her to put up walls.

  Bowman took a second, looking around the bridge and staring hard at the crew. They got the message.

  Get back to work.

  The captain nodded to himself at their reaction and then he looked at the clock on the HUD, estimating backward to when Tavu said she first felt a surge.

  Suddenly Tavu, without opening her eyes, turned and pointed to the rear of the holographic map, approximately twenty degrees off the Rishi’s starboard stern.

  “There.”

  Bowman estimated about three minutes had passed between the two hits.

  “Are you sure, Tavu?”

  She opened her eyes and nodded. Thinking about it for a moment, she added.

  “I think it’s been like that since I started feeling those surges in Power a few minutes ago. Back and forth every few of minutes. As soon as I realized what I was feeling, I came straight here. The map really helps pinpoint the feelings. Good thinking, Bowman.”

  “Can you think of how many times you’ve felt that now?” Bowman asked as he stood up from his chair and ignoring her familiarity.

  Tavu closed her eyes and Bowman could see her eyes going back and forth, as if replaying the feelings in her mind.

  “I think this was the fourth set … One more just now.” Tavu said.

  Bowman didn’t wait anymore. Something was wrong, and he didn’t like where his intuition was leading him.

  “Weapons, fire on the Oshakati. I want fire concentrated on their hangar decks and engines. I want them disabled and unable to maneuver or launch anything off her decks.”

  His crew, trained by the Navy’s best, didn’t hesitate. Within seconds of the unexpected command, gouts of flames chased the missiles as they launched from their tubes. Everyone on the ship could feel the telltale thump of the rail guns as they hurled their forty-kilogram hardened magnesium slugs at the enemy ship.

  Let’s just hope I’m right and didn’t piss away a perfect opportunity

  __________

  Zirenna took a few deep breaths. It was just her on the bridge now. She had Akandi slave her controls to her own before directing her to the hangar deck. This was going to be tight.

  The burst transmission they had gotten from the Forsetti just before exiting the Cluster had contained a text package that detailed their plan. She was glad to know Mr. Esplin had made his rendezvous with the Oshakati’s sister ship and was taking an active hand in getting her crew out of this mess.

  She glanced once more at her screens and saw that Ikora had the crew in hand and was completing preparations for a hasty evacuation. It was good to know that when it came down to it, her friend was still reliable.

  Zirenna keyed her mic and began her part of the plan. She needed to stall the Rishi from attacking her ship.

  “Rishi, this is the Oshakati of the Da’a’shori First Expeditionary Force.”

  A modulation filter masked her voice. Zirenna would take any help she could in sowing confusion for the Rishi’s captain. Even revealing their identity was a calculated risk.

  The reply came almost immediately.

  “Oshakati, this is Captain Bowman, of the Rishi. I need to know why you are in our system, and what are your intentions are? I should warn you, in case your sensors are damaged, that you are surrounded by mines, and we have our launch tubes and rail guns trained on your ship.”

  So, it’s Captain Bowman is it. I’ll remember that name. You did what few others have done, Captain, chasing down a Corsair ship and her crew.

  Of course, Zirenna knew about the mines. They were pinging her ship’s systems relentlessly, warning her of their proximity detonators.

  She had to keep stalling. She pulled up a command screen and began adjusting the output level, dropping their signal strength and allowing even more static to enter the channel.

  “Understood, Rishi.” Zirenna said as she keyed her mic back on. “We’re having difficulty with our communications array. The orbital cluster was more” — Zirenna played with the commands again, fading the signal and allowing a temporary burst of static to cut her off — “plicated than we had anticipated.” She finished.

  That was the truth. She never cared to fly through a Cluster again, and most definitely not at those speeds on a compromised ship.

  Zirenna was monitoring the vid feed from the Oshakati’s hanger deck, making sure everything was running smoothly. Bowman repeated his request, wanting to know her intentions. She ignored him for a moment. She could not very well tell him they were trying to subvert their empire and cause a civil war. Thus making it easier for the Da’a’shori to invade and subjugate this system for the Dynasty.

  She saw Ikora signal to Mr. Esplin and after a moment, there was a ripple that the cameras picked up, and then the shuttle disappeared from the hangar deck.

  There was a ping on Zirenna’s HUD, and she saw a notification telling her the third trip was complete, and they were getting ready for the fourth. When Ikora notified her that the fourth trip was complete, she would have two minutes to complete the ship’s auto destruct sequence and make her way to the hangar.

  Zirenna played with her controls again and then spoke, communicating with the Rishi.

  “Rishi, we are having trouble receiving you. We’ve detected your mines and will stay at zero station. Please give us a few minutes to boost our signal.”

  She cut her signal off with a burst of static and continued to pour over her screens. They had already removed the main computer cores, the ship now working on the emergency backups, the ones that contained only rudimentary control codes for the ship. She needed to make sure they erased everything from their redundant systems. The ship’s auto-destruct would atomize crucial areas of the ship. The enemy would surely comb the debris field, and she took a moment to walk around the bridge, ensuring they would find nothing of value. Unlike the smaller craft that periodically breached the Rift, the Oshakati was too large to atomize completely.

  She realized too much time had passed while she was making final preparations to scuttle her ship. She had to keep Bowman engaged.

  “Rishi,” Zirenna said, allowing static to bleed through the transmission.

  “Oshakati, give me a moment here.” Bowman said. “We’re having trouble on our end now. All those electromagnetic fields always play havoc with our communications.”

  Zirenna paused. Something in Bowman’s voice didn’t sit well with her. There was an edge to it that wasn’t there before. Something had changed in the last few minutes, but she didn’t know what. She looked at her clock and saw that she only needed a few more minutes. She tried hailing the other ship again, but there was no response.

  Her computer display showed the active auto destruct and it would scuttle the ship thirty seconds after the last shuttle disappeared with Mr. Esplin. There wasn’t much else to do, and she was debating with herself if she should try the Rishi again when she got a notification that the fourth evacuation trip was complete.

  That’s it. Time to go.

  She toggled the auto-destruct and stood. Without a second glance, Zirenna left the bridge of her ship for the last time. This was no time to be sentimental. The hangar deck was two levels down near the rear of the ship. She could do it in thirty seconds, at full speed.

  Zirenna was just entering the hangar deck when the ship’s defense alarms sounded. She was out of breath, her chest heaving. She had poured on every ounce of speed on her way here. Ikora intercepted her as she stumbled to a stop, the deck bucking under her feet. She realized belatedly that had happened on her mad dash from the bridge, but she had been too focused on her run to notice.

  “They’ve opened fire on us. Our shields can only take another hit or two. Esplin better get back here soon.”

  Zirenna simply nodded and let her first mate lead her to the staging zone, near where the shuttle would appear. This was cutting it close.

  Suddenly, the hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she saw the same ripple appear in the air in front of her. Sort of like the haze that happened on a hot day.

  In an eye blink, she was staring at the shuttle. Its landing doors were slamming down, the safeties disengaged. Ikora and the remaining crew member were already rushing up the ramp, pushing carts loaded with the last of their equipment. Zirenna followed them, grabbing a jump seat in the tight confines and strapped in for the trip.

  Without warning, the deck dropped from below them. She could hear Esplin yelling something from the pilot’s chair and felt someone pushing an oxygen mask to her face, a torrent of air threatening to rip it from her face. Zirenna fought to stay focused, her vision narrowing, growing dark along the edges. Through the still open hatch, she saw the space where the hanger deck used to be, seeing only cold dark space. It was reaching out, wanting to take her into its embrace.

  And then it was gone. Replaced with grayness and nothing. No cold. No being sucked out of her seat by the vacuum of space.

  Another few heart beats and she saw the hangar deck again. The disorientation lasted a minute before she realized it wasn’t her hangar deck. It was the Forsetti’s. They had made it. They had escaped the Rishi alive.

  __________

  Bowman watched as the Oshakati exploded on his screens. The missiles they had just launched wouldn’t have caused that sort of damage. That was a self-destruct explosion. He had seen a few of them himself over the decades he had served.

  “Helm, flip us about. I want your heading twenty degrees to port. Ramirez, Tanaka. Let me know what’s out there. If it’s big enough to hide a ship, call it out.”

  A moment went by, the Rishi getting under way, before Tanaka spoke up.

  “There’s a magnesium iron core asteroid in that direction, sir. About six hundred thousand kilometers.”

  “Get us there right now. Full burn!” Bowman said, knowing the distance was too great, even with the Rishi pushing her engines. “Tosh, anything on visuals before the explosion?”

  “Working on it, just a moment, sir.”

  “Draskol, work with Tosh. I want to know if the drones saw anything as well. They were closer. They might have had a better angle than we did.”

  “Aye, sir,” Draskol said, punching a few commands into his terminal, sending the drones’ data streams to Toshi’s station before getting up and heading over to work with him.

  __________

  Two hours later, Bowman was sitting in his chair, playing the incident over and over in his mind while sipping on an espresso a helpful crewman had handed him. It was from the galley, but he didn’t mind. The Rishi had excellent coffee, even it wasn’t his own roast. Toshi and Draskol approached and, by the looks on their faces, he knew it wasn’t good.

  Something to add to the pile, he supposed. Tanaka had let him know they found traces of the same radiation they used to track the Oshakati. That told him there had been another Da’a’shori ship here, hiding from their sensors behind the asteroid.

  Tavu had also reported that as they had made their way to investigate the asteroid, she had felt a massive surge from that direction. He was pretty sure what that meant.

  “Sir,” Toshi said. “The drones caught a few frames of something interesting. Just as we breached their shields, right before the explosion, a rail gun round ripped their hangar doors off. You need to see this.”

  He handed the captain his data-pad. On the screen was an enhanced photo. Bowman’s blood ran cold at the image it displayed.

  It was the Solvonus Navy crest. Along with a shuttle identifier.

  “That’s what I think it is, isn’t it?” Bowman asked in a low voice.

  “Yes, sir. That’s Mr. Esplin’s shuttle.”

  Bowman sat stunned. He supposed, subconsciously, he should have expected something like this the moment Tavu told him another Power was out there. But to have it confirmed still rocked him.

  The Da’a’shori were deep in his system, with a Traveler, and he did not know why or where they were going. Worst still, he didn’t know how he was going to get this up the chain to HQ, or if he should.

  He stood. Heading to his ready room.

  “I think I am going to need more coffee. Tosh, assemble the senior staff in the ready room. We need to figure out what we do next.”

  “Aye, sir.” Toshi said, watching his captain walk away, a slump in his shoulders that he didn’t remember seeing before.