Predator - Incursion Read Online Free PDF Page A

the ten-week journey to the drophole.
    He’s lost people, too
, Mains reminded himself.
A lot more than me.
    “I’m sorry,” Niveau said. “I’m sorry for your dead.”
    “Yeah… and I’m sorry for yours.”
    Niveau stared at him for some time, as if readying to say something else. Then he pulled a control pad across the desk, brushed its surface, and swiveled to look at the display rising on the holo frame.
    “Facility status,” he said. “My people are working quickly. Look, those blue areas have already been shut down into hibernation mode.”
    Mains sat down in a padded chair, sinking into the cushion. What he wouldn’t give for a drink right now. But an urgency was growing in him, a need to get moving. He wanted to speak to his people again, and soon. Compare notes and thoughts. And more than anything, he was keen to send a message back to Excursionist HQ and get their take on things.
    The VoidLarks had been surveilling a Yautja habitat beyond the Outer Rim for a little more than a year. It was a huge artificial vessel, several miles long, orbiting a star in one of the countless unexplored and uncharted systems beyond the Human Sphere. He was as certain as he could be that the Yautja who attacked this facility had not come from there.
    “It’s good that your people are efficient,” Mains said. “They need to keep busy. There’ll be plenty of time to think about things later, and mourn the dead. But for now, I want you all away from here.”
    “I’ve been here seven years,” Niveau said. “We’re doing important work. Genetics, medicine, using bacteria mined from just under the surface of the asteroid. This is one of only five places we know of where it exists. But… I never thought anything like this could happen. Never.”
    “It’s space. Nothing’s ever safe. If it’s not something you know that kills you, it’ll be something you don’t.”
    “Nice outlook,” Niveau said.
    Mains shrugged.
    “So why can’t you escort us?” Niveau asked. His voice was low, quivering slightly. The fear was real, the void of space suddenly deeper and darker to him than before. He’d become too settled here, in this place where comforts distracted from the promise of the uncaring, infinite vacuum.
    “Because we’re doing something important, too,” Mains said. He gestured at the blank holo frame. “You’ll understand that. You know what Excursionists do?”
    “Of course. Patrol the Outer Rim. Escort Titan ships as they move beyond the Sphere and build new dropholes.”
    “That’s the easy part of it, yeah, but expansion isn’t easy. For the past year, maybe a bit more, my VoidLarks have been keeping an eye on a big Yautja habitat that’s been drifting past this sector, hanging around a star system several light years beyond the Sphere. It’s pretty inactive, seemingly without purpose, and it’s never seemed much of a threat. Nevertheless, that’s our job. We’re not just an escort service for Titan ships. We’re the sharp edge of defense for the human influence in the galaxy. Out there beyond the reach of human space exploration, making sure things are safe, trying to change things if they’re not.”
    “These Yautja came from there?”
    “I don’t think so. We’d have logged their ships leaving.”
    “But you still came.”
    “Your emergency call was passed through to us by another unit. You were lucky we were drifting back for a yearly resupply run, and we were closest to you. Otherwise…” Mains raised a hand and shrugged.
    “They’d have killed us all,” Niveau said.
    “Probably not. There’s evidence that if they attack a large population, they take captives.”
    “What for?”
    Mains stood, groaning when his knees clicked. He’d been in space for too long, and running on zero grav for long periods in the
Ochse
to cut down on telltale power trails. “Beats me. Nothing good, you can bet on that.”
    “So you’ve got to get back to your post. Watching the