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Fifteen minutes ago, Brooks had been informed, Apollonia Nor had crossed onto MS-29.
His countdown for the arrival of Director Freeman said there was just over two hours left. Once the man arrived, it was all out of their hands.
And he had a sickening feeling that it was going to go even more disastrously than he feared.
He was tempted to order the Craton to leave. At least save his ship. But he could not simply run and abandon the hundreds of millions on the medical station, and he had orders that kept him here.
He could only wait.
An alert startled him. There was a call incoming, from Director Freeman.
Had the man arrived already?
He answered. “Brooks here.”
There was no visual, and the audio was odd; distorted and low-quality, but his system confirmed an audio match for the director.
“Good,” the man said. “Captain, I will arrive shortly. I would like you to begin to prepare Michal Denso for transport. I have specific instructions for this task I will send at the end of this message.”
“Are you messaging me while in transit, sir?” Brooks asked.
“Yes,” Freeman confirmed, but offered no more elaboration.
Brooks had never even heard of that ability, though judging from the quality of the transmission he could understand why it was not in wide use.
“Sending instructions now,” Freeman continued. “And Brooks?”
“Yes?”
“I am counting on you. Your success or failure in this will be remembered by myself and the rest of the Directorate.”
Brooks said nothing as the connection was cut, and the data stream began.
He reviewed the instructions Freeman had sent. They were rigorous, and he could see that it would take several hours; Freeman had anticipated this and noted that that they were unlikely to be finished by the time of his arrival.
But he expected them to be well along.
Given what Brooks knew about the current state of Denso, this did not seem safe for his crew. But Freeman had even anticipated that.
“Risks to crew considered acceptable under circumstances. This is a matter of Union security.”
Brooks was duty-bound to order his crew to begin preparing for this.
Instead, he asked his system; “Where is Ambassador Kell?”
The device took a moment, longer than it should have, for such a simple question.
“Ambassador Kell’s location is currently unknown.”
“Did he leave the ship?”
“Unknown.”
Brooks closed his eyes for a moment. He had a feeling where Kell was.
“Put out a call for volunteers from our available Response officers and medical staff,” he ordered. “Matching the parameters of this document. I want this team assembled in twenty minutes.”
Other Terrestrial 