But now, because of the Kushan Mothership's terrifying mass of over 370 billion tons, the gravity generated by that mass alone was enough to cause a hyperspace jump to fail!
Kuken's eyes were filled with despair. "When they charged at us and circled around with us from the start, they weren't trying to attack us... They were using their own gravity to prevent us from making a hyperspace jump? They planned this from the beginning? No... impossible!"
He roared madly, "I put that coward Kunto under control immediately. There was no way any information could have leaked! How did they know we were coming?!"
"Boss... could it have been... that strange transmission we received earlier?" the first mate asked quietly.
Kuken suddenly remembered that before they had set out, their cruiser had received a strange transmission. It sounded as though someone had been repeatedly tapping on a microphone. They had pondered it for a long time and compared it against every known codebook, yet still had no idea what it was. In the end, they treated it as static and ignored it.
But now that he thought about it, the only possibility was that the message had been hidden within that static!
"No!!!!" Kuken bellowed furiously. "You want to set me up! It won't be that easy!! Even if I die, I'll take you down with me!!"
He whirled around and shouted at the communications officer, "Send the intelligence from here to Black Sun! Send it to Vego-Kash-Garulan! I want them dead! I want them to die with me!!!"
The communications officer pressed several buttons, but nothing happened. With a miserable expression, he said, "No! The electronic interference is too strong! The transmission can't get out..."
"Useless trash!!" Kuken raised his pistol and shot the communications officer in the head.