Read Online Shadow Core - The Legacy by Licinio Goncalves - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Licinio Goncalves
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helping!” Jude said.
“Who cares?” Nick interjected. “I say let's contact the locals and claim the salvage rights!”
“Are you serious?” Kade asked him with a stunned look on her face. “Do you actually want the military breathing down our necks? Because I guarantee that, as soon as the message goes out, they'll be crawling all over this place. Besides, the ship has a crew member, ergo no salvage rights for us.”
“True, hmm... there's probably a juicy reward in it for us if we call it in though. They pay us, we leave, everyone wins!” Nick said, trying to convince Kade.
“I said NO!” Kade said, getting upset.
“OK, calm down, it was just a thought,” Nick said.
“Good. Jude, set-up here and see what you can find out. We'll go pay the captain a visit.”
“I hope you know what you're doing,” Jude said.
The idea of learning even a fraction of the Zenith's secrets had originally won Jude over, but all these unknowns were raising some alarm bells. But her sister was set in her ways and Jude knew there was little she could do to change her mind in situations like these. So she headed back to the airlock door to pick up her equipment so she could get to work.
And as Jude got to work, Kade and Nick started to make their way down the darkened corridor.
Emergency lighting was still active, but it was clear that the ship was operating in power conservation mode. Not that knowing this made the atmosphere any less creepy with the lights behind them shutting down as they walked down the corridor.
Kade was walking point, giving Nick the opportunity to type a set of commands into his Echo without being noticed, smiling as he did so.
And back in the virtual environment...
“So! Nick, Kade and Jude, eh?” Static asked. “Kade is obviously in charge. And from all that gear, it's a safe bet that Jude is the technology specialist. But what's Nick’s story? Nex, do we have a link to the Icarus yet?”
“Yes, I breached the ship's firewalls a while ago,” Nexus said.
“Good, search the Icarus central computer.”
“OK, am I looking for anything specific?”
“Anything you can use to compile a profile on them...” Static was saying just as the Zenith's sensors detected a launch from the Icarus, causing alarms to go off. “What the hell is that?” He asked, looking around as the new sensor contact showed something travelling at high speed, away from the two ships.
“Scanning...” Nexus said. “It's a distress beacon. It will breach the distortion field boundary in 5 minutes. I'm deploying the nearest probe to the estimated exit point to try and jam its broadcast.”
“Why now? Are there any life signs on board the Icarus?” Static asked.
“We're detecting two synthetics, but they seem to be off-line. No other life signs detected.”
Static was running through the possibilities in his mind as the distress beacon raced for the boundary of the distortion field.
It didn't make sense to him that the Icarus crew, who had seemed to not want to call attention to themselves before, were now firing off a distress beacon which would draw the attention of the entire system.
Whatever was happening seemed pre-planned too. Distress beacons did not usually delay activation.
If the beacon had simply launched and started to broadcast, which is what distress beacons generally did in order to call the attention of rescue crews, then it wouldn't have been an issue since the distortion field worked both ways. But someone had deliberately programmed the beacon to exit the field. Someone was trying to give the Zenith's position away, which could only mean trouble.
As Static considered the situation the distress beacon exited the Zenith's distortion field area, starting its broadcast almost immediately.
The probe was mere seconds away from intercepting the target. But from the sensor readings Static was looking at, he knew the signal strength of the beacon was too
“Who cares?” Nick interjected. “I say let's contact the locals and claim the salvage rights!”
“Are you serious?” Kade asked him with a stunned look on her face. “Do you actually want the military breathing down our necks? Because I guarantee that, as soon as the message goes out, they'll be crawling all over this place. Besides, the ship has a crew member, ergo no salvage rights for us.”
“True, hmm... there's probably a juicy reward in it for us if we call it in though. They pay us, we leave, everyone wins!” Nick said, trying to convince Kade.
“I said NO!” Kade said, getting upset.
“OK, calm down, it was just a thought,” Nick said.
“Good. Jude, set-up here and see what you can find out. We'll go pay the captain a visit.”
“I hope you know what you're doing,” Jude said.
The idea of learning even a fraction of the Zenith's secrets had originally won Jude over, but all these unknowns were raising some alarm bells. But her sister was set in her ways and Jude knew there was little she could do to change her mind in situations like these. So she headed back to the airlock door to pick up her equipment so she could get to work.
And as Jude got to work, Kade and Nick started to make their way down the darkened corridor.
Emergency lighting was still active, but it was clear that the ship was operating in power conservation mode. Not that knowing this made the atmosphere any less creepy with the lights behind them shutting down as they walked down the corridor.
Kade was walking point, giving Nick the opportunity to type a set of commands into his Echo without being noticed, smiling as he did so.
And back in the virtual environment...
“So! Nick, Kade and Jude, eh?” Static asked. “Kade is obviously in charge. And from all that gear, it's a safe bet that Jude is the technology specialist. But what's Nick’s story? Nex, do we have a link to the Icarus yet?”
“Yes, I breached the ship's firewalls a while ago,” Nexus said.
“Good, search the Icarus central computer.”
“OK, am I looking for anything specific?”
“Anything you can use to compile a profile on them...” Static was saying just as the Zenith's sensors detected a launch from the Icarus, causing alarms to go off. “What the hell is that?” He asked, looking around as the new sensor contact showed something travelling at high speed, away from the two ships.
“Scanning...” Nexus said. “It's a distress beacon. It will breach the distortion field boundary in 5 minutes. I'm deploying the nearest probe to the estimated exit point to try and jam its broadcast.”
“Why now? Are there any life signs on board the Icarus?” Static asked.
“We're detecting two synthetics, but they seem to be off-line. No other life signs detected.”
Static was running through the possibilities in his mind as the distress beacon raced for the boundary of the distortion field.
It didn't make sense to him that the Icarus crew, who had seemed to not want to call attention to themselves before, were now firing off a distress beacon which would draw the attention of the entire system.
Whatever was happening seemed pre-planned too. Distress beacons did not usually delay activation.
If the beacon had simply launched and started to broadcast, which is what distress beacons generally did in order to call the attention of rescue crews, then it wouldn't have been an issue since the distortion field worked both ways. But someone had deliberately programmed the beacon to exit the field. Someone was trying to give the Zenith's position away, which could only mean trouble.
As Static considered the situation the distress beacon exited the Zenith's distortion field area, starting its broadcast almost immediately.
The probe was mere seconds away from intercepting the target. But from the sensor readings Static was looking at, he knew the signal strength of the beacon was too
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