The copper relay inside the bound leather cover of the captured register continued its sharp, rhythmic chatter, its metallic clicks echoing inside the steel-walled chart house of the Vanguard.
CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK.
Sarah did not touch the book. She stood three feet back, her portable wire-tapper clamped over her ear, tracing the copper lead that snaked down through the desk's brass fittings and vanished into the lower deck conduits.
"It isn't transmitting a radio signal," Sarah said, her voice taut, stripped of all fatigue. "It's a closed-circuit telegraph relay. The wire runs out through the flagship's stern armor, straight down into the deep-water harbor cable. The moment you turned the master key, Elara, a signal flashed directly to the continental cable station at District Twelve."
