As heroic as Major Moody made the young captain sound, at that particular moment he didn’t look like he was ready to slay any dragons. Captain Hunter was pacing the bridge of his ship while his executive officer and signals officer watched with concerned expressions.

“I’m tempted to call it a ruse,” he said, looking up at the massive tactical display of Gitairn Sector 8. On the port side of the Argent’s avatar was Alert Three, consisting of two fighters and a Tarantula-Hawk gunship. On the opposite side was an indicator for the last known position of Nemesis Eight, an electronic warfare corvette stationed nearby to assist the much larger battleship in the event hostilities broke out.

And by the looks of things, Hunter thought, they just might. Although his flight decks were still at general quarters, Hunter had ordered the rest of the ship to alert condition one. Unidentified contact Kilo X-ray One had neither advanced nor retreated in the last three hours, and Hunter remembered well the lesson he learned in officer’s training about crews that remained at high alert for too long.

“At this range, there’s no way to tell. I can’t give you any details on the hardware they’re using, or why we’re getting such weird signal attenuation,” Zony replied. “They’ve set it to automatic broadcast, so either they know we’re here or they know we’re coming.”

“Still doesn’t make sense,” Annora Doverly countered. “They called us by name. No designator. There wasn’t even an attempt to conceal our identity or theirs. They just fire off this minimum bandwidth signal, hoping we’re here to receive it and then tell us to run? What about them? Barker’s Asteroid isn’t exactly well known for its five-star accommodations.”

“I’ll give you that much, Commander,” Hunter replied with his back still turned. “If I was crashed on that spinning junkyard, I’d be more concerned about survival than setting up warnings for ships I don’t even know are–”

It hit Zony and Jason at exactly the same moment. He turned around and her face gradually lit up into a delighted expression of sudden discovery. “What if the admiral knows we’re coming?”

Hunter pointed at Lieutenant Tixia in a wordless gesture of agreement and turned to his executive officer, whose frown indicated she wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about their electromagnetic sleuthing skills.

“A flag officer would not set up an emergency beacon and start broadcasting ship names in the clear,” Doverly said. “Look at this.” She rose from her seat and walked over to stand by the captain at the forward bridge tactical display.

“Here is Alert Three. They got the same signal we did only a few hundredths of a second sooner. Nemesis Eight is over here. They got the same message a few ticks later. That means if Barker’s Asteroid is broadcasting the signal, it’s omnidirectional. With all due respect to the admiral and the captain, sir, it takes a special kind of imbecile to start listing ship names in a clear frequency omnidirectional broadcast with hostiles in the area.”

“Yeah, the next thing you know, they’ll be asking us to confirm our position,” Lucas Moody added. He was leaning against the edge of the main bridge entrance portal behind the tactical console and munching on a piece of celery.

“Exactly,” Annora said. “Whoever that is, they aren’t Skywatch.”

“Alright, let’s come at this from the other direction. Kilo X-Ray One is between us and the signal. They must be getting it too. But they’ve been sitting out there for three hours. They’re not moving. No emissions. No energy readings. Nothing. What’s their purpose here? Drawing a line and daring us to cross it? Why wouldn’t they respond to the signal?”

“Maybe the signal is bait?” Zony speculated.

“Could be, but that ship is no match for Argent,” Lucas said. “Why draw a line in the sand if the guy’s just going to push you down and step on you?”

“Maybe that’s why they’re trying to stay out of reach,” Hunter mused, looking back up at the tactical display. “I wish I could get a line on their weaponry and loadout. If that’s a missile cruiser, a couple squadrons of jacks could carve it up like a pheasant. But if they’re loaded up with energy weapons...”

“How sharp his teeth are only matters if he bites us,” Commander Doverly said.

“Want me to take a flight of paladins out there and kick the door in, Skipper?” Moody asked.

“I’ve got a tougher job for you and the boys, major,” Hunter replied. “When the time comes I want you to set a squadron down on Barker’s Asteroid and find out who’s playing with the radio. Bridge to sensor section.”

The overhead intraship commlink switched over and a pleasant female voice answered. “Sensor section, Ensign Cavanaugh.”

“Do we have anything on the Dunkerque we can get through passives? Radiation trail, reactor signature, last known course, anything?”

“Negative, Captain. Unless we go active, we can’t turn the clock back that far. Nemesis Eight could probably do it, but covering the sector yard by yard is going to take a while.”

“How much of a “while?’”

“At least a couple of days, captain. Gitairn is a big box of rocks, and every asteroid out there is a special signal-reflecting, interference-producing snowflake.”

Hunter ran his fingers through his light-colored hair. “Well, I’ll say this much. Whoever decided to drive me up a wall today sure planned ahead. Bridge out.”

The bridge crew quietly continued monitoring their instruments and waiting for orders. Hunter paced.

“Alright, we didn’t fly all the way out here to watch the paint dry. I want the Dunkerque found and right now the prime suspect in her disappearance is Kilo X-ray One bearing three-one-nine.” Hunter fell into his command chair and punched the intraship. “Alert Three, this is Charlie Oscar. I want a loud ID pass on target Kilo X-Ray One. Acknowledge.”

“Yes sir,” came the confident reply.

Hunter switched the transmitter. “Nemesis Eight, blanket the sector. I want everything dark.”

A moment later the tactical display went haywire. Ships began appearing and disappearing all over visible space. Zony indicated loss of contact with the Barker Asteroid radio signal. As the tiny electronic warfare orvette began filling the spectrum with noise, the Argent bridge crew watched carefully as the trio of attack vessels designated Alert Three veered towards the unidentified contact.