Trident's Forge Read Online Free PDF Page B

Director Benson?” Mahama asked politely.
    â€œYeah, you. All of you. The Unbound spent their entire lives hiding inside a tube sixteen kilometers long with a million cameras inside it. Hell, they ran a damned farm without us knowing for thirty years. They know our systems, our protocols. They’ve been evading the crew for decades. You really think we could keep a lid on them down here, with an entire planet to hide on?” He snorted. “You’re dreaming.”
    â€œBut how did they navigate straight to the rover site over thousands of kilometers of ocean?” Mahama said. “That’s quite a feat.”
    â€œThat’s the easiest part to explain,” Benson said. “If you have the rover coordinates, just take a tablet and hack the GPS software and flip it to receive only. Then you’re passive and we have nothing.”
    â€œYou have a criminal’s mind, Mr Benson,” Mahama said.
    â€œThank you?”
    â€œHow far behind are we here?” Theresa asked.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Mahama asked.
    â€œWhen did they land? When was actual first contact made and how long have they been in situ talking to the Atlantians?”
    Mahama shrugged. “We don’t know. We only know they entered the temple for the first time yesterday.”
    â€œHow can we not know that?” Alexander asked with a huff.
    â€œDon’t get so worked up, Greg,” Benson said. “You look like you could use some time outside. Why don’t you come try out for the football league? I’m sure someone could use a center of your… stature.”
    â€œOver my dead body.”
    â€œThat’s the perfect attitude for a center.”
    â€œIf you’re quite finished, gentlemen?” Mahama scolded. “To answer your question, Mr Alexander, we’re searching back through archived images and data as we speak looking for clues we may have missed.”
    â€œWell look for their damned ship parked on the shore. That should tell you.”
    Benson tapped the table. “If they were smart, they’d have made landfall in the middle of the night and scuttled the ship before daybreak. The sats would never have the chance to catch them.”
    â€œAwful lot of planning there,” Valmassoi added.
    â€œAnd that surprises you?” Benson shifted in his chair. “These folks are survivors among survivors. Maybe it’s time to stop underestimating them.”
    â€œSo there’s no way to know how much of a head start they have?” Valmassoi asked.
    Theresa held her hands open. “Maybe not. Well, actually…” She swiped her tablet a couple of times and the picture of the old village came up again with the suspected boat circled. “If that’s really the boat they used, and I’m almost sure it is, then it’s around what? Twenty, twenty-five meters long? Last census we took, the Unbound were right at thirty-six people, including four children that had been born since we landed. Between people and supplies, they would’ve been packed in tight. Fresh water isn’t a problem if they took that solar desalinization machine with them, but food would be a real issue.”
    â€œBut they’re fishermen, on the ocean,” Mahama observed.
    â€œYes, that’s true,” Benson jumped in. “But they were barely above subsistence levels before the storm, and that was using tidal traps and multiple boats with nets. None of which are going to work on the open ocean if they’re trying to get somewhere, because the nets create drag and slow you down, adding time to the journey. They could use hooks and lines, but you can’t pull nearly the same volume of game that way, especially out away from the more fertile coastal waters. So yeah, they may’ve been able to catch enough to supplement their stores to some degree, but they had to bring most of their food from the start. So that limits how much time they