She turned on her computer andwas overwhelmed when she saw the vast amount of information her teamhad to sift through in a short period of time. “Where should Istart?”
He looked at her with eyes thatshone with a light from deep within. “Use your uncanny sixth senseto figure out what to focus on.”
“My sixth sense?”
“Yeah, your nudges, hunches,your ability to see what the rest of us can’t.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t whatshe’d expected him to say. Jake wasn’t that comfortable with herprecognitions, flashes of insight and didn’t have any interest inreligion. He didn’t know her nudges came from a Higher Source andyet somehow it was as if Spirit had spoken through him. Her mind wasa great tool, but she needed to tune into the higher part of herself.She closed her eyes and focused within. She wondered what theuniverse was trying to tell her as she listened inwardly.
Toemeka heard a high-pitchedSound that sounded like radio waves and felt herself raised inconsciousness. Then an idea came to her with startling clarity. Sheneeded to find a weakness in the starships to exploit. She typed inthe battle starship schematics and studied their shield system andweapons for some vulnerability. The room faded away as she immersedherself in the information.
She was impressed with how wellthe ships were made. The battle airship designers knew what they weredoing and she doubted she’d find a design flaw, and yet somethingwas always overlooked.
Lunch was delivered by an androidwho put several space food wafers and a drink on her desk. Foodscientists hadn’t come up with a pill to substitute for food. Apill simply couldn’t contain enough calories to sustain human life.She didn’t especially like the wafers, but they contained all thenutrients she and her growing baby needed.
At dinner time a mess-hall mealwas brought in. This time the twelve-member team sat in a circle todiscuss their findings and share ideas as they ate.
They continued to work after themeeting; everyone knew time was of the essence. Though the work wasdemanding, she enjoyed challenging her mind, doing something to helpwith the war effort and save Borko. She still felt on edge workingwith Jake, but fortunately he was all business and professionalenough to put saving Borko ahead of his personal feelings.
After a few more hours Jake slidback into his chair and said, “Time to quit for the night.”
“I can keep working,” Toemekasaid, absorbed in the schematics on the computer screen.
“It’s better if you get agood night’s sleep and have a clear head tomorrow. We start early.”
“The team hasn’t come acrossanything useful yet,” she said, feeling discouraged.
“It’s only the first day.We’ll find something.”
“I imagine numbers and chartswill be running through my head all night.”
“Maybe things will cometogether while you sleep.”
“Thank you for helping find away to save Borko, Jake. It can’t be easy when your family’s inJelmur. I’m sure you’d rather be trying to figure out how to saveAlandra.”
A deep sadness entered his eyes.“Alandra has already surrendered. We did everything we could tosave it. Now we have to save Borko or risk the free world losing thebalance of power and maybe losing the whole interplanetary war.”
The next morning Toemeka wokeearly and skipped breakfast. She had a vague feeling she’d missedsomething and wanted to get right to work. She slipped into herworkstation and touched the keyboard. The computer monitor lit up andshe began scrolling through the starship schematics until she got toinformation on the jump system. The day before she’d read that whena starship first arrived at its destination, there was a brief periodof time where they had to calibrate their position before switchingto regular flight.
That was not unusual. All shipsdid that, but it occurred to her that ships were vulnerable duringthis short period of time. While the ship calibrated its position, itmight be possible to feed its computers false data that would send itoff on a new jump, to some distant place in the galaxy.
But to catch them coming out of ajump, she needed to know when and where the air fleet was going toattack Borko. She switched the computer to the files the Coalitionhad intercepted that contained Raptor communications. The computercondensed and sorted the information by categories. A fewcommunications were put under “Unclassified.” In that folder twophrases made her spine tingle:
Whenday is night, we will take back what was ours.
We’llmeet in the shadow of the dark side of the Delga moon.
Jake set a roll covered withfetna nuts and a steaming cup of tea on her desk. The combined aromaof the two treats filled her nostrils and reminded her that shehadn’t eaten.
“Where did you find a freshroll?” She picked it up and took a bite. Her mouth filled with thewarm, rich taste. She wondered if he was trying to apologize for whathe’d said about her marriage.
“The ship has a little cafethat makes rolls every morning. I didn’t see you in the mess halland figured you’d probably skipped breakfast.”
“You know me too well. It’sgood, really good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. So what didyou figure out?”
“What makes you think I’vefigured something out?”
“I recognize the look. You glowwhen you’re excited.”
“I’m not sure I have anythingyet, but maybe. When is day night?”
“Well . . . when you’re on aplanet, the sky becomes dark when there’s a storm or an eclipse.”
“An eclipse! That’s it!”
His forehead wrinkled. “That’swhat? Is this some type of quiz?”
“The computer came up with twophrases that it didn’t know how to classify. ‘Whenday is night’is one of them.”
She typed into the search engine:Whenwill Jaipar’s moon Delga have its next eclipse? As the computer brought up the information she explained, “Thewhole phrase is: ‘Whenday is night, we will take back what was ours.’I think ‘ours’refers to Jaipar that was controlled by General Bhandar up until afew months ago.”
Toemeka pointed to the computermonitor. “Look! Jaipar is going to have an eclipse in eight days.That must be when they’re planning to attack.”
Her stomach knotted. “Thatdoesn’t give us much time.”
“What was the other phrase thatstood out?”
“‘We’llmeet in the shadow of the dark side of the Delga moon.’It sounds almost like poetry, but
