“Any update?” he asked the doctor. “Tell me what’s not on the chart. Has she stirred? Does she speak in her sleep?”
The doctor shook her head. “Nothing. Her heartbeat is irregular, and we don’t know if that’s normal for her species. She breathes our air just fine, but her oxygen levels are low. Again, we can’t tell if that is normal or not.”
The same as before—and it could be weeks before she awakened, if she ever did. Engineering was analyzing her ship, but so far they hadn’t been able to break the encryption on her data banks.
The scientists could analyze that all they wanted. The secrets Jorgen wanted were inside this creature’s brain. He felt an . . . electricity when he drew near her. A quiet shock that ran through him, like the sensation of being splashed with cold water. He could feel it now, standing over her, listening to the steady hiss of the respirator.
He’d felt that same sensation before, when he’d first met Spensa. He’d thought it was attraction, and surely he felt that. For all she frustrated him, he was attracted like a moth to a flame. There was something else though. Something this alien had too. Something he knew was hidden deep within his family line.
He turned to the doctor. “Please make a note to send me word if anything about her situation changes.”
“I’ve already done so,” the doctor replied.
“By the code at the bottom of the chart, you’ve updated her status priority, requiring me to renew my request. Department procedures 1173-b.”
“Oh,” she said, looking over the chart again. “All right.”
Jorgen nodded to her, then left the infirmary, returning to the corridor of Platform Prime. He was on his way to his ship’s berth to take the ground crew shift report when the klaxons went crazy. He froze, reading the pattern of buzzing alarms that rang through the sterile metal corridor.
Jorgen fought against the tide of scrambling pilots and crew members running for their ships, and headed straight for the command room. Incoming
His stomach churned as he reached the command room, where the guards let him enter. Inside, the alarm sounds were muted. By now, the DDF had moved much of their command staff up from Alta Base to Platform Prime. Admiral Cobb wanted to separate the military installation from the civilian population, to divide potential Krell targets.
They were still setting everything up though, which made this room a mess of wires and temporary monitors. Jorgen didn’t bother the command staff, who had gathered around a large monitor at the far side of the room. Though he was of a rank to join in operations here, he didn’t want to be a distraction. Instead he made his way down the line of workstations to that of Ensign Nydora, a young woman in the Radio Corps whom he knew from their time in school together.
“What’s happening?” he asked, leaning down beside her.
She responded by pointing to her monitor, which—by the designation at the bottom—was displaying a feed from one of their scout ships out beyond the shells. The feed showed two enormous Krell battleships moving toward the planet.
“They’re settling into positions,” Nydora whispered, “where they can shoot through an upcoming gap in the defensive platforms and hit Alta Base on the surface.”
“Can we fire back?” Jorgen asked.
Nydora shook her head. “We don’t have control of the long-range guns on the outer platforms yet—and even if we did, those battleships are far enough away that they’d be able to move before our shots arrived. The planet, though, can’t move.”
Jorgen’s stomach twisted upon itself. From orbit, the enemy could bombard the surface of Detritus with a devastating rain of fire and death. With sustained shelling, and with the planet’s own gravity working in the Krell’s favor, those battleships would be able to obliterate even the deepest caverns.
“What are our chances?” Jorgen asked.
“Depends on how far engineering got . . .”
Jorgen felt helpless as he watched the two battleships glide into position, then open gunports.
“No response to our requests to speak to them,” someone down the row said. “Doesn’t seem like they’re going to give us a warning shot first.”
That had always been the Krell’s way. No warning. No quarter. No demands for surrender. The DDF knew—from the information Spensa had stolen—that much of what the Krell had done so far had been intended only to suppress the humans. Six months ago, however, the enemy had moved to attempting full-on extermination.
“Why now, though?” Jorgen asked.
“They had to wait for an alignment of the platforms,” Nydora said. “This is their first clear shot at Alta in weeks. That’s why they’re moving now.”
