The Dead Fleet (Juggernaut #3)

Eleven

"What can I do?"

"Nothing yet. I just have to satisfy an itch in my brain."

With nothing to contribute, Tila took her turn in the captain's chair and watched.

"Got it!" said Ellie. The central display glowed to life in a sickly green and the reverse playback began.

"See if you can get an ID on any of the ships leaving through the left."

"Okay." Ellie scanned the options available then tapped a control. "Is that it?" Each blip was now identified with a line and a transponder code.

"Perfect. Now freeze the image. I need to see what I can get out of the database." He tapped away for a minute then made a triumphant sound. "Got it! He tapped some more, and another line appeared on the screen above him. This line sprouted from the Solar Forge and followed the path of the blip perfectly. "That's the flight path. We can follow it out if we can adjust the display a little bit. Ellie, can you zoom out of the image? I want to see where that ship is going."

Ellie hesitantly tapped at her console again and the image on the screen shrank. The schematic of the Solar Forge and the dead fleet halved in size and then halved again. The flight path Malachi had identified stretched out into space and vanished.

"Where did it go?" said Tila. "Did it dock with something?"

"Not according to the logs," said Malachi.

"It must have jumped," said Ellie.

"The beacon is on the other side of the fleet," said Tila.

"Well what do you think happened to it? Malachi, can you add a line to our ships?"

"No, they're not in the system, but I can trace one of the other blips." He tapped some more and more lines appeared. "I've overlaid the data of every arrival in the last two weeks," he said.

"I still only see two lines," said Tila.

"There's only two routes. Most of the traffic goes left. Only a handful of ships come in from the right."

"The distances are the same," said Ellie. "They're jumping."

"But there's no beacon. Don't you think we would know if there was another beacon in the network?" said Malachi. He probed the console for more information while Ellie aggressively tapped away looking for the proof she was right.

Tila watched the screen while her friends each tried to prove themselves right. One of them had to be after all. There were only two options.

She thought in silence for a moment, her eyes narrowing as they bore into the navigation data on the screen.

Then she spoke carefully and slowly, knowing the question she was about to ask was pointless, but needing the answer all the same.

Just in case.

"What if Ellie is right?"

"She's not right. There's another explanation."

"But what if she is?"

"Tila, we know all the beacons in the jump network. I'm telling you there's nothing out there."

"Maybe it's a different network then," said Ellie.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Malachi, but he paused in his work.

"Even I know there's only one jump network, Ellie," said Tila. She saw Malachi staring at the large display, fingers still over the console, thinking. "Right?"

"Ellie..." said Malachi.

"Yes?"

"Can you bring up a map of the commonwealth network from your console."