Blink: 3003 (Book 1)

08

"Darien, Idas," she yelled. "Open the door – something's happened to Raptor."

Darien shot upright and across the room. The door opened and Niamh stood with the rest of the squad behind her, her eyes wide and breathing heavily.

"Smith sent us to find you," she explained breathlessly. "They've lost all contact with Seb and now the Nav-Rod signal has gone down! He's waiting for us in the main briefing room. This can't wait."

Summoning all his willpower, Darien suppressed the shiver of horror that shot through him. He couldn't fall apart, not now. He was a squad leader, a Blink Operative and a damn good one. He looked into Amber's gleaming brown eyes and a spark of resolve lit up in the back of his mind. He was not going to let the past cripple his future.

"C'mon, Idas," he said firmly. "Looks like no-one's on vacation anymore."

*

The briefing room was large enough to hold several squads of Blink operatives, but right now only Smith and the members of Hammerhead Squad occupied it. The fact that Smith was giving the briefing himself only served to drive home the seriousness of the situation they were about to be thrust into.

Standing in front of the large screen built into the wall at the head of the room, Smith paced back and forth. The Blink operatives sat in front of him on a single bench, all looking up expectantly for the briefing to begin.

"Alright," Smith began evenly. If the current course of events had unsettled him he wasn't letting it show. "As you are no doubt aware, Raptor Squad was dispatched thirty-six hours ago on a Summit Grade mission. They have not established contact since their arrival and two hours ago the Nav-Rod signal from the planet they were sent to went dead. What that means we can only guess at, but it is definitely not good."

"No kidding," Idas muttered.

Smith ignored him. "The planet in question is Titan Aquilla, a highly sequestered archaeological research colony well beyond the Black Line."

Darien found the more he knew the more apprehensive he was becoming. The Black Line marked the farthest reaches of colonised human space. Anything beyond that was largely unexplored, unmapped territory where any number of new threats could be lurking. It figured that the colonial governments would tuck a secretive research post beyond the range of prying eyes, and consequently, beyond the range of any kind of response in the event of an emergency.

"Exactly what research is being undertaken at Titan Aquilla is unclear at this point," Smith said, and now his tone carried a definite hint of unease. He was not a man who liked being kept in the dark. "Sufficed to say it involves a potentially seismic discovery in the field in interstellar exploration. The only information I have that is concrete on the matter is that they were excavating what is believed to be a settlement below the surface. A settlement of non-human origin."

"What, aliens?" Uther grunted.

"You can ask questions when the briefing is over," Smith snapped. "Now, the station dispatched this distress signal two days ago with Summit Grade priority." He pressed a button on the remote in his left hand and the screen came to life.

Darien folded his arms and stared hard at the haggard figure on the screen. The man looked like a colony engineer of some kind, clad in deep brown overalls and he looked over his shoulder for several seconds before turning back to the camera and speaking.

"This is Chief Engineer Evett Scoular, Colonial Outpost Titan Aquilla, Identification 000-000-001X, Summit Grade priority message," he blurted out. Sweat ran in rivulets down his cheeks and his eyes were wide with hysteria. He just barely managed to keep his voice at an even pitch as he spoke. "Yesterday conditions at our dig site were compromised entirely, I repeat compromised. Our security force is attempting to contain the situation but I don't think they can stop what we've uncovered. This thing...I..." He glanced over his shoulder again. "This is not a sanctioned transmission – I will probably be shot for sending it, but we need help and we need it now. I urgently request that if Blink HQ receives this message that they send out operatives to our location. This station needs to be locked down. If we can't contain this thing then this facility should be destroyed."