The Colossus Collection by Nicole Grotepas

Author:Nicole Grotepas [Grotepas, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-19T22:00:00+00:00

31

Back at the Nest, Holly hurried to explain to Darius what Xadrian had told her.

“There’s no time to hit the massive hub. We have this. This, Darius. We know what they’re calling her, now. Can’t your little program look for the word, and then interpret it?”

“Possibly, Drake. But what would be the point?”

“To make sure Xadrian is right. That he’s not lying to us.”

“I get it. That’s true. But say we sort through the millions of bytes of information, and we find out that he’s right. But it took my program ten hours to search? Then we get Trip and head out to Ixion. And we arrive, and the window has closed, and Charm is gone? Then what?”

“What are you saying, Darius, that you want to just go in blindly, trusting Xadrian?”

He pressed his lips together, and shook his head. “No. I don’t want to do that. At all. It’s the worst possible idea. The outcomes suck. There are more disastrous possible outcomes and just one potential good outcome.”

“I know. I agree.”

“So no, I don’t want to do that. But it’s the only option, Drake. Isn’t it?” He gave her a sideways glance, turning away from his large v-screen board and the things he’d written upon it. “What do you think? You’re the leader. You know I don’t like any of the options before us now, but what do we do?”

She sighed heavily and sat down. The paper Xadrian had given her had turned into a sweaty ball of material. Crushed and unreadable.

“I think you’re right,” she conceded. “The worst case scenario, we find out there’s something going on in the vicinity and we do more good than harm. And maybe, maybe we get Charm back.”

“I think it’s the option that we’ll regret less than the others.”

“We have to move. Soon.”

“I know, Drake.”

“Then,” she said, sighing. “Let’s get planning.”

Darius pulled up all the information he had on the bases and tanker ships that orbited Ixion, harvesting the hydrantium gas from the upper atmospheres. This gas was then used to create aether, which powered much of the energy that was used in the 6-moons. It was clean and Ixion had a supply that wouldn’t run out for thousands of years. Tidal locking would occur sooner than Ixion ran out of hydrantium, and when that happened, the Centau had plans to move to a new system.

Together Holly and Darius studied the layout of the base and the possible locations that would hold Charm. They couldn’t focus on the why or the what of it. She was there. She was a child. Holly would destroy the entire base if she had to, to get back the little girl.

As they discussed it, Holly realized that the tanker she’d seen at Joppa must have been about something other than water. Perhaps it was hydrantium. Why was the Shadow Coalition using tankers? They could get the hydrantium gas for much cheaper than they would from harvesting their own and then refining it.

“We’ll need Trip, you know,” Darius said.

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