Battle Force (Captain Jason Hunter and the Bandit Jacks Collections Book 2) by Shane Black

Author:Shane Black
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Space Opera
ISBN: 123456789X
Publisher: Palace in the Sky Productions LLC
Published: 2015-10-03T07:00:00+00:00

Eight

After doing what he could to find his crew, Captain Hunter set about to analyzing the Dunkerque’s communications systems. There was always an outside chance a full suite of communications equipment would be able to do what a tac-suit based portable system couldn’t.

He had the power he needed. Yili did say the batteries were at 17%. After confirming this fact for himself, he set the ship’s communications on maximum broadcast bandwidth and keyed the transmitter.

“Hunter to landing party, come in.”

He waited the regulation ten seconds.

“Hunter to landing party, respond please.”

Nothing was audible on any of the ship’s pickups. The Captain quickly configured the system to broadcast his hail at ten second intervals and set his personal commlink to relay the Dunkerque’s response frequencies before moving to the short range sensor station.

Meanwhile, on the Dunkerque bridge, Zony was working as fast as she was able to locate the Captain’s commlink designator.

Anything? Moo asked.

Zony shook her head. “The last autoresponse we got was from lift two, but these readings don’t make any sense. It’s almost as if...”

“As if what?”

“Okay, look at this.” Zony pulled up the frequency analysis track and superimposed it on the position tracking of Hunter’s commlink. “Here, right when he steps into Lift Two, all of the frequency tracking spikes into third and fourth harmonics and we lose his signal. Nine seconds later, we get the base frequency and the harmonic at the same time index, giving our commlinks a chance to reacquire his signal for point zero zero five seconds. Then the base signal disappears again and we lose his track. Now, you could call this coincidence, except for that second blip. His appearance and disappearance is exactly coordinated with that base signal.”

“Meaning you can get a fix on his position?”

“I already did. If I set our frequency cycle to his harmonic range, I reacquire his signal, but at a different time index. From our perspective, time is passing 100 times faster for him. I know that because the time index on his commlink is already registering a couple of days in the future.”

“Could that be a systems malfunction?” Moo asked, desperately trying to keep up with Zony’s formidable intellect.

“Not unless the laws of physics are different wherever he is.”

“You said you had a fix on his position. Where?”

“He’s on the bridge of this ship.”

Moo just stared.

As he worked furiously to get a fix on the Dunkerque’s position, Captain Hunter’s commlink beeped, indicating he had received a response to his hail. He keyed his transmitter.

“Hunter here.”

“I see you simply won’t be deterred, Captain.”

Hunter face froze in a combination of shock and recognition. He rose to his feet and activated the main viewer. The face of Admiral Hughes appeared. He was still wearing his Skywatch uniform, but it was decorated with a number of strange insignia. He also had odd marks on his face. They looked as if they were from some kind of pigment.

“Admiral, I have orders to take you into custody and return you to Skywatch Fleet command for debriefing.

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