“No response to our identification signal,” Beaulieu said. “Tranquillity’s beacons are off air, I cannot locate a single artificial electromagnetic transmission. There isn’t even a ship’s beacon active.”
The centre of the debris storm had a coordinate Joshua didn’t even have to run a memory check on. Tranquillity’s orbital vector. Lady Mac ’s sensor suite revealed it to be a large empty zone. “It’s gone,” he said numbly. “They blew it up. Oh, Jesus, no. Ione. My kid. My kid was in there!”
“No, Joshua,” Sarha said firmly. “It hasn’t been destroyed. There isn’t nearly enough mass in the swarm to account for that.”
“Then where is it? Where the hell did it go?”
“I don’t know. There’s no trace of it, none at all.”