“Are you ready?” Luther’s deep voice was clear within my helmet.
“Let’s do this,” I replied.
I peered at the lock box and saw the frozen case holding three vials of the alien moss. Now wasn’t the moment to utilize them, but I was curious to see if the green beings could affect the Velibar the same way they affected humans. Time would tell, but that would be a test for a later day.
Today, we were exploring a Squid. Alone. In the middle of nowhere, far from home.
Jade would have sent a note back to Bryson and Octavia detailing our progress, advising them about the delay for this investigation. We were in danger of an invasion, and anything we could learn about the enemy would prove vital.
We stepped into the airlock and sealed ourselves from the cargo hold. Luther’s Widowmaker was four feet long, and he rested the barrel across his forearm while he kept the exit to our Racer open.
The docking bay was dark.
I activated a bright beam on my gun, using it like a flashlight as I aimed at the silent flyers parked on the floor. Varn and Aster were already out of Killer, their bootsteps clinking against the metallic grates. We met them on the ground and looked around, all four of our backs touching as we formed a protective circle. There were no Velibar present to greet us.
“I guess we’re alone,” Varn said.
“I’ll believe it when we’ve cleared the ship.” Aster grimaced, the lights inside her suit just enough for me to make out her expression.
“Shall we?” Luther asked, taking the lead across the hangar. Aster carried an assortment of weapons, her own Widowmaker strapped to her back. Varn held a handheld like me, the beam jostling as we strode to the exit.
There was no power.
Varn pulled a tool from a pouch on his waist and placed it over the control panel. It sparked, and the doors opened. “I’ve had to break into a few warehouses in my day.”
I didn’t pry any farther. Why a Sage pilot would need to involve himself in burglary was beyond me, but his experience gave us quick access to the heart of the Squid.
How many times had Preston Lewis stepped foot onto a Squid? How many Velibar had he broken bread with and toasted to their subsequent invasion of our home? Anger burned deeply as we entered the corridors.
“Are you picking this up, Jade?” I asked. Our suits were recording every step we made, allowing Jinx and Jade to observe from their own cockpits.
“Roger that, Arlo. R11 says to find the nearest computer,” she said. Her voice sounded excited rather than fearful.
“Over here.” Luther discovered a screen twenty meters away, and he tapped it with a finger. It was dark.
“Captain, this is R11,” the robot said through my speakers.
“Yes, R11. I know who you are. What do we do?” I had my PersaTab ready, and R11 was linked to the device from his own console. I followed his instructions, and two minutes later, the screen blinked on, Velibar information scrolling down as the network fired up.
Since we’d kept a flyer intact during the initial attempt at invasion, the Board had managed to decipher their language. The words translated from the screen onto my PersaTab.
Aster reached for the keypad. “Mind if I…?”
“Be my guest,” I told her.
Aster used the system, glancing at the tablet as she attempted to find the blueprints for the layout. She discovered them and sent the map to my Tab so we could use it remotely to search the Squid.
It was obvious the Squid was huge, but seeing it here was overwhelming. Fifty-two decks. Space for four hundred personnel. I cringed, thinking about that many of the armored Velibar being on board any given Squid. The thought intimidated me.
“R11, are you able to check their system for signs of life?” I asked my ship’s robot.
“Negative. Not that I can tell, Captain,” he responded.
“Then we do this the old-fashioned way.” Luther went slowly through the hall.
“Jade, you’re working on downloading the network, correct?” I asked.
“Already ten percent in,” she replied from the cockpit.
“Good. Let’s move.” I followed Luther as we walked through the black corridor. Our lights felt inadequate in the space. The passageway was twice our height, and there was enough room for three of us to spread out. Clearly, the Velibar didn’t like confined spaces.
The map showed our location as four solid yellow dots in the corridor, and I zoomed away, trying to see more of the area. “Looks like the bridge is on deck twenty-seven. Almost in the center. Gives it extra layers of protection.”
“Interesting,” Jinx whispered from Killer. “I’ve scanned the prints, and it appears the bridge is a self-contained spacecraft in itself.”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked.
“That the Squid is an outer shell, and the bridge is the nut inside. Or seed. Think of a peach. The outside is soft and vulnerable, but the pit is hard and impermeable. It’s quite brilliant,” Jinx said enthusiastically.
“Let’s keep moving.” Aster kept behind us, with Luther at the lead. The two security minds were working at protecting the weakest members of the investigative crew: Varn and me. I was all right with that.
There were no elevators, just ladders meant to climb between the decks. For such an advanced race, I found this surprising. We only had to travel seven decks up to find the bridge, so we ascended the wide rungs. Our boots echoed off the metal bars as we moved upward, slowing after the first six decks. The suits were heavy, but they contained built-in mechanics assisting our movements. I was grateful for the feature by the time we exited the rungs, clambering to the deck’s flat exit pad.
Luther asked for the PersaTab and rotated it in his hands. “We’re here.” He pointed to
