This month’s second update is a continuation of Pets that ended up doubling in size. Nonetheless, it continues the tale of Caitlin and Calvin as they do their best to be excellent pirates and make their father proud… before they up end trying to escape him. In the meantime, this is the conclusion of their second encounter with… well, read on to find out more!
~
“Let me hear the transmissions again,” Caitlin said, sitting down at an empty seat and putting out a set of headphones. Every time she tried to identify what was bothering her, her mind kept wandering back to the miner’s broadcasts. She’d gone to sleep with them bouncing between her ears like a tune stuck in her head. “Start from the beginning.”
She sat in silence for some time, listening to the chatter between mining teams and the Nechanoistaan. It was exactly the same as it was before, but the more she listened, the deeper that sinking feeling got. She asked for variations and comparative analyses of the messages, Yanloladaughter complying with each of them. Some were just nonsense. Some tickled Caitlin’s danger senses even more.
“Strip all the static,” she said, a sudden flash of insight solidifying into something cold and hard. “The voices, too. Cut out everything but the background noise and run it all together.”
She listened, that cold, hard thing in her chest dropping through her guts to the base of her spine. Caitlin dashed her hands over the comm panel to run a computer analysis. It matched what she’d heard. “Triarch’s bones,” she whispered. “It’s the same. Both of them are the same.”
Caitlin clapped Xavine on the shoulder as she jumped up. “Play it,” she instructed.
“What have you-” Calvin began, but Caitlin held up a finger to shush him. “Listen,” she insisted. “Listen. This is from Nechanoistaan. Three seconds in, there will be an alert.” The sounds of background machinery began. Three seconds later, there was a soft chime as some kind of notice went off. “Fifteen seconds,” Caitlin continued. “One of the air vents will rattle.” Right on cue, a muted clanking followed. “Twenty-one seconds. Two quick alert tones.” Beep. Beep.
“That’s on every one of them?”
“Cal…” Caitlin shot a glance at the comm officer. “That is all of them. We overlaid all of the ship’s transmissions together. It’s the same with the encampment’s messages. They’re quieter, but they’re all the same. Just the words are different. It’s like-”
“-they had a template,” he answered. “And they just recorded a conversation over it.” He met his sister’s eyes. “That first message we received-”
The anxiety on her face deepened. “-it was just after someone in that orbital track would have detected us. Bait.” That last word was hushed and strained. “It’s bait.”
~
Proximal Flame's Fiction 