The bridge of the Aethelgard was quiet save for the rhythmic, low-hum of the quantum comms console. The smell of scorched cabbage and ozone still stayed in the air from Titus’s post-battle feast in the adjoining hold. But all eyes were fixed on the main audio-spectral analyzer.
On the main display screen, a waveform of unnatural symmetry was dancing across the green glowing grid. It wasn’t the chaotic hiss of solar radio noise, nor was it the clean exact beep of a human navigational bright light. It was a rhythmic, pulsing pulse of sub-space heat wave that sounded like a huge, wet heart beating inside an iron drum: thump... Skrrr-clack... Thump...
“Where is the carrier wave originating, Kira?” Arthur asked, stepping up to the console and adjusting his sight magnifying glass to screen directly with the test end-post.
“Directly from the central neural nerve knot of the Eclipse Sun-Eater,” Kira answered, her fingers adjusting the phase-filter to isolate the carrier signal from the sun-fire background heat wave. “The hum is modulated at four point eight times ten to the fourteenth hertz. It’s a quantum-entangled signal, Arthur. It isn’t broadcasting outward into the solar system like an omni-aimed radio wave. It’s beamed along a tightly focused, tachyon-folded gravity channel aimed straight out of the ecliptic plane.”
