“There,” said Aaron. “Got it.” The main cockpit holoscreen lit up between them, showing an image of the planet with their current trajectory in green. Around the sphere representing the planet itself, a red ellipse traced a separate orbit.
“What’s that?” Isaac asked.
“The station. Since they aren’t responding to our hails, I figure we ought to calculate our own approach vector.”
Isaac frowned. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. We don’t know what else is down there. For all we know, our approach could put us on a collision course with local traffic.”
“What traffic? We’re picking up nothing but radio silence across all bands—for all we know, the station is dead.”
Dead.The suggestion sent chills down the back of Isaac’s neck. He sighed and shook his head.
“If the station were dead, wouldn’t the colonists have set up some sort of distress beacon?”
“What’s the point in setting up a distress beacon if you’re more than two parsecs from the nearest help?”
What if they are dead? Isaac wondered. What if that’s why they haven’t hailed us?
“Something is definitely wrong,” he said softly. “Maybe we should just cut our losses now and leave.”
“What? You mean turn around and go back to Nova Minitak?”
“That, or move on to Esperanzia. This isn’t right—we’ve been transmitting on every major frequency, with no response. Something about this system is very wrong, and I don’t want to get involved.”
“Involved in what?” asked Aaron, his face incredulous. “If something is wrong, maybe they need our help. How can we turn around and leave them if they need us?”
We can’t help them if they’re already dead.
==========
Brothers in Exile (Sons of the Starfarers, Book I) is coming out in ebook format later this month. It is the first book in the Sons of the Starfarers series, which takes place in the same universe and timeline as Star Wanderers. To be updated when it comes out, be sure to sign up for my mailing list if you haven’t already.
Thanks for reading!
