Free The Outer Worlds: Book One of the Epherian Chronicles by E J Gilmour

said as she turned a
dial beneath the light.
    ‘ What does it mean?’ asked Cynthia.
    ‘ It means someone is in trouble and they don’t want the aliens
to know their location. The message is sent in three separate waves
which are scrambled and then reconfigured further away from the
beacon. The system uses an algorithm that predicts the bending of
waves through space and brings them back together at a distant
point. It’s an old technology, but it’s probably not monitored by
the aliens. Look, here’s the message.’
    The voice of a
young man could be heard faintly from the com speaker.
    ‘… Emergency. Emergency. Please respond. We are stranded on
Herman Beta 3. We belong to a colony which has been attacked by
aliens. Our power supply is dwindling and our food synthesizers are
offline. There are aliens here. We are hiding. They haven’t found
us yet. Please help us.’
    Cynthia’s
heart leapt in her chest. ‘We have to respond. Can we talk with
him?’
    Sara didn’t
answer for a few moments; she blankly stared at the console. ‘No.
The message is seven days old,’ she said, glancing across at
Cynthia. ‘It’s probably best that you don’t tell Aradel and
Adrastus about this.’
    ‘ What! Why not?’
    ‘ Because this message will probably upset them.’
    ‘ But they have to know.’
    Sara drew a
deep breath. ‘Cynthia. I fought the aliens for years before I
joined the Out Drifter. These stranded colonists will not make it.
They’re already dead. They may have an untraceable hiding place,
but once they come out into the open the aliens will make light
work of them.’
    ‘ But surely there is something we can do.’
    Captain
Michael stepped into the confined control room. ‘Something we can
do about what?’ he asked.
    ‘ We just received an encoded message from the surviving
colonists on Herman Beta 3,’ said Sara.
    Michael
nodded; his face was strained. ‘Let me hear it.’
    Sara hit a
switch and the message replayed. Michael stood completely still,
looking down at the com speaker until the message finished. He gave
a curt nod and turned to leave.
    ‘ You’re not going to say anything?’ questioned
Cynthia.
    He glanced
back over his shoulder. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to
say.’
    ‘ How can you be so cold?’ asked Cynthia in a raised
voice.
    ‘ Cold…’ he replied, his brow furrowing. ‘Let me clearly explain
this to you,’ he said as he turned back around to face her. ‘No one
is happy about the alien invasion. Many people have died trying to
hold back their advance, and many more will die before the war is
over. This situation with the colonists is tragic, but there is
nothing we can do to save them. Sara knows this, I know this, and
you should also accept this as a fact. We can’t help those stranded
colonists.’
    ‘ I believe we can try!’ she said firmly.
    Michael was
silent for a few moments.
    ‘ Cynthia, what is your problem?’ he asked. Cynthia averted her
eyes and didn’t answer. ‘Tell me, Cynthia! That’s an order from
your captain.’
    She glanced up
at him with sad eyes and began to speak in little more than a
whisper.
    ‘ I didn’t grow up on X5126. My parents were colonists on
Petramorning 7. About four years ago the alien fleet was
approaching our world. Our small colony didn’t own a spacecraft, so
we had no way of escaping the invasion. We sent out requests for
help. We knew there were human ships in the Petramorning system,
but only one ship answered our call. The ship was owned by a
ruthless and greedy merchant. He took advantage of our desperation
and vulnerability. He agreed to save only one of us, and his price
was every last credit owned by the entire colony. There were
forty-four colonists, and we decided to draw straws to see who
would be saved. My mother drew the saving straw and she insisted
that I go in her place. I was the only survivor of the Petramorning
7 colony. I never saw my parents again. They were killed by