The Epherium Chronicles: Echoes by T.D. Wilson Page A

her hull, but the effort was worth it. The devastated cruiser was almost ready to jump back to the orbital repair platform near Cygni 4. Hood was eager for answers and he needed them soon. “Commander, you said you have definitive intelligence about the attack. What is it?”
    “We do, sir,” Sanchez began. The pensive expression on his face told him it wasn’t all good news. “But it’s more what we didn’t find.”
    Hood gave his XO a skeptical look. “I don’t follow.”
    Sanchez gestured to Aldridge, who brought up a detailed representation of the
Cestus
and the debris field after the attack. She pointed to three areas along the
Cestus’s
hull. “Sir, our analysis shows that these holes were caused by a high-powered explosive. The tears are outward in each case, which means that whatever hit her pierced the hull first and then exploded.”
    “I see,” Hood said as he studied the visual of the cruiser. “The Cilik’ti Stinger missiles can do just that. So what’s missing?”
    Aldridge highlighted several more areas across the external superstructure of the cruiser. “These are the major locations of hull damage. All the others are all secondary ruptures. There aren’t any melted armor plates or scorch marks from particle cannon fire. If a Cilik’ti ship hit her, there should have been evidence.”
    Hood shook his head. “Any Cilik’ti ship would have seen the state of the
Cestus
and sent in drones to finish her off. They could’ve stayed far out of her limited range and decimated her.”
    Sanchez’s deep frown spoke volumes about his sensitivity toward his former ship. “True, but why didn’t they? According to the
Cestus’s
logs, they had ample time before we arrived and they got in close. Close enough for her damaged sensors to see them.” He paused and looked at Aldridge, who seemed to have come to the same conclusion. “If their weapons were limited, maybe they had to.”
    “What about the video logs from the external cameras? Did they pick up the ship or any drones?” Hood asked, hoping to narrow down the answer.
    “Negative on the video logs, sir,” Aldridge replied. “Lieutenant Commander Turnbow mentioned that their combatant used powerful countermeasures against them. It scrambled just about everything, but from the garbled glimpses we did get, the ship isn’t that big. The sensor logs and crew testimonies confirm it.” She pointed to the edges of the debris field. “Our scans did detect the remains of Cilik’ti drones in the debris field, but they’re only from drone fighters. Based on what I can find about the state of their point defense guns, hitting a target that small without tracking would have been a million to one shot.”
    Hood didn’t say anything. He just stared at the images of the cruiser.
    Sanchez brought up another window on the terminal. “Sir, the
Cestus
managed to launch two fighters during the attack. We recovered just one transponder and flight recorder from the debris field.” He pointed to the location, which was several kilometers away from the position where they’d encountered the
Cestus.
“According to the data, that fighter was destroyed moments after she launched. The ship logs show the second made it out minutes later, but there’s no trace of her.”
    Still in silent thought, Hood stroked his chin with two fingers. Without saying a word, he leaned forward and selected a
Cestus
video log from the list displayed on Aldridge’s terminal. It was the internal fighter bay cam. He fast-forwarded the video until he found what he wanted. A lone figure ran into the bay in a flight suit. A secondary explosion rocked the bay, and the person struggled to keep his feet. The catapult still held a fighter to launch, but its mechanisms were crippled. The man climbed up the ladder to the landing near the fighter’s canopy and hopped inside. Moments later, the fighter’s engines ignited, the prelaunch clamps holding the fighter snapped and the small craft