Free Dark Space: Origin by Jasper T. Scott Page A

sensors.”
    Hoff sighed. “That’s better than nothing, I suppose. What do I need to do to my ships so that they can detect these telepathic bursts?”
    “Your fleet is already equipped with tachyon scanners to detect and track ships through SLS. All you need to do is calibrate them to detect lower levels of T radiation.”
    “Good. I’ll have you oversee that.”
    “Yes, sir. Are we going to tell the overlord?”
    Hoff frowned, and his thoughts turned to Overlord Dominic, now orbiting on the far side of Ritan in his five-kilometer-long flagship, the Valiant. Dominic’s arrival had been unexpected to say the least. “They are the ones who stand to benefit the most from this discovery, aren’t they? But no . . . for now, we’d better keep this quiet, especially from the ISSF. If someone leaks this and the Gors realize we can detect their telepathy, they’ll clam right up. We need to catch them first. Once we have proof that they’re not on our side, then we’ll go to Dominic and warn him.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You’ve made great progress, Donali, but keep working on it. If the Gors can communicate with each other while cloaked and telelocate one another like that, then we should be able to do whatever it is they’re doing.”
    The commander hesitated. “We may need to vivisect one of them to discover that.”
    Hoff shrugged. “We’ll do what we have to do. Let me know if that’s what you need.”
    “Yes, sir . . . I’ll be sure to exhaust all the other available options first.” Donali glanced around nervously, as if a cloaked Gor might be in the room, listening to them, but the displacement sensors at the doors would have detected something coming in which couldn’t be found on the room’s holocorders. With the right preparation, cloaked Gors were easy enough to detect in confined spaces. It was wide open vacuum that Hoff was concerned about.
    “Don’t go to too many extremes, Commander. There’s only so much Dominic can do to protect his pets. If we need to kill a few to unravel their secrets, I’ll find a way to do it without him or any of the other Gors finding out.”
    Donali nodded and then Hoff’s comm piece trilled with an incoming call from his pilot. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked away from the captain’s table to get some privacy. “What’s going on?”
    “Nothing to worry about, sir, but I’ve just received a commcast from Fortress Station. The Interloper is back in-system. They’re on approach.”
    Hoff’s eyes widened. Finally. “I’ll be there in a minute. Start warming your engines, Sergeant.”
    “I never let them cool, sir.”
    “Good. I’ll see you soon. Hoff out.” Turning back to his XO, he called out, “Commander Donali, you’re coming with me. I’ve been called back to orbit, and I need you to start calibrating sensors up there. Bring whoever you need from this team to help you, and don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. I want to limit the number of people who know about this technology.”
    “Yes, sir.” Donali turned and snapped his fingers at a pair of his men. All of a minute later the four of them were hurrying back through the winding tunnels of the academy on their way to Hoff’s waiting corvette. As before, they passed countless Gors—hulking monsters with sunken, skull-like faces, bald blue-gray skin, and thick, rippling muscles. When armored, each of them looked as intimidating as a navy sentinel in a zephyr light assault mech. Unarmored, they were even more frightening. Soon . . . Hoff thought, eyeing a group of aliens as they passed one another other in a narrow stretch of corridor. Soon I’ll be dancing on your graves.

 
    Chapter 6
     

    A lara and those who’d travelled with her aboard the Rescue had been confined to their ship after Delayn’s outburst on the bridge. Captain Adram said they were lucky he wasn’t making them spend the trip in the brig. As for the survivors from the Defiant , there wasn’t much space for them