Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [21]
He turned his command chair toward the preoccupied green priest. "Any word from the Chairman yet? How long does he want us to wait here?"
The green priest stared down at the feathery fronds of her potted plant, stroking the treeling as if it were a pet. When she withdrew from telink, Clydia took a second to center herself. "The Chairman suggests that you tune a receiver to the following frequency and boost the gain." She rattled off numbers. Even though she herself sat at the comm station, she did not know how to use the sophisticated equipment.
"What's that supposed to do?" Stromo asked.
Without suggesting an answer, Elly Ramirez hurried over to configure the receivers. Clydia continued to recite: "Run any signal through a descrambler. The Chairman thinks you might receive a message."
Stromo felt even more confused. "There aren't any habitable worlds around here, and no ships that we can find. Where would a signal come from?"
"Apparently, a Listener compy was planted aboard the rammers to keep watch on Commander Tamblyn and attempt to gather intelligence about the Roamers." Ramirez glanced up, incensed at the green priest's words. "You should be able to tap into the surveillance software. If the compy is in range, this may allow you to trace where the rammers have gone."
The Admiral looked around nervously. "Any sign of hydrogues yet? What if they detect us eavesdropping?"
"This is a very-low-intensity broadcast for espionage purposes, sir, tailored to blend in with background noise until extracted with our specific algorithms. It was designed not to be detectable."
"Designed so that the Roamers can't detect it. Who knows what technology the drogues have? Stay alert. Be ready to move at the first hint of trouble."
When Ramirez finished her adjustments, the bridge viewing screen filled with static as if an electronic dust storm had swept over the cruiser. Gradually, images formed as the signal was strengthened and reinforced; descramblers stripped out noise and extraneous feedback. Then the picture clarified.
Stromo felt as if someone had hit him on the back of the head. Hard.
The viewer showed a group of humans huddled inside a bizarre cell whose walls looked like jeweled gelatin. Closest to the surveillance imagers was a scuffed and disheveled Tamblyn; next to her sat a dark-skinned young man who looked oddly familiar. Brindle. Yes, that was his name--the volunteer who had gone down in a diving bell to contact the drogues just before the battle of Osquivel. Robb Brindle! But how in the hell did a young man who vanished at Osquivel on the other side of the Spiral Arm show up here at the edge of the Ildiran Empire?
Stromo saw a small group of downcast and weak-looking humans. Were they still aboard one of the rammers? Prisoners of war? And who had captured them? This was all too confusing. "Where the hell is that signal coming from? Find me the rammers!"
"Doesn't make sense, Admiral." Ramirez looked up. "But it looks like the signal originates within the gas giant. Deep down."
"Impossible! Nobody can survive down there."
The pair of sensor operators also checked their readouts. "Confirmed, Admiral. They're inside Qronha 3."
Then, into the image stepped a Klikiss robot. The beetlelike machine moved its sharp-pointed appendages in a clearly threatening manner. The captives cringed away.
Stromo already had plenty of suspicions about the black robots, especially after what he had seen on the crushed Hansa colony of Corribus, after hearing the unbelievable report from the survivor girl Orli Covitz. "What in the hell is that thing doing there?"
The two Soldier compies manning bridge stations suddenly froze, as if receiving a signal. Stromo glanced at the military robots in disgust. "Now what's wrong with them?"
"Check their stations, Ensign Mae," Ramirez said.
Mae left her nav console and ran a quick diagnostic of the closest compy to see if some feedback might have influenced them. "There's nothing--"
Both Soldier compies moved with astonishing speed. The nearer one spun its flexible torso, reached