“They aren’t Kraken,” Commander Gil Rogers reported. “That much we can say for sure.”

The ad hoc conference took place on the Rho Theta Three orbital station this time. In attendance were the skippers and execs for the future core of Task Force Nine. The ships were all docked on the station’s lowest level along with Argent’s medical corvette.

The starships Black Prince, Fury and Montpelier had arranged for their crews to cycle through the facilities aboard the spacious orbiting facility. Resupply of rations and water were obtained, along with service modules and repair necessities for life support and laundry. Commander Hunter was one of the galaxy’s obsessives when it came to keeping kits together. She had finally managed to live down the days when she went by “Ensign Socks.” She had become somewhat famous from academy days due to her exacting standards for keeping uniforms, shoes, accessories and footlockers in inspection shape even if there were no chance of an inspection. Her instincts were communicated to her crew, which had led to at least one commendation for being the best-dressed crew in the fleet.

“But we have evidence of Kraken weapons,” Commander Huggins pointed out.

“That is true, which is why I believe the Sussex was attacked and disabled by an as yet unidentified alien vessel, and then set upon by a Kraken ship that somehow breached the hull, launched a boarding action and wiped out the crew.”

“And this all happened in the space of less than 30 minutes?” Captain Stone asked.

“The distress call we received could have been transmitted after the initial attack, but before the Kraken arrived,” Rogers replied.

“Or the captain figured he could handle the unidentified ship attack and only called for help after the Kraken showed up,” Vice offered.

“What worries me are the readings we are still getting from the damaged wing panel. I have the telemetry that was coded along with Argent’s latest sitrep. The readings they have from the system beyond Omicron are consistent with what we detected in the damaged metal. The radiation signatures are almost identical.”

“But the readings from the artificial planet were the spectroscopic analysis of an alloy,” Hunter said. “The same alloy we apparently built the Achaen Science Station out of.”

“Exactly. These new readings we obtained when we performed an element analysis of the damaged portion of the Sussex hull indicate traces of that same metal. Whatever attacked the starship Sussex is making use of a technology that originated in the Atlantis Sector. In fact, they are using that alloy in the weapons themselves,” Rogers said, bringing up the ultraviolet image of the damaged hull. “When that alloy comes into contact with more traditional elements like iron, steel, titanium, carbon fibers, silver, rhodium or aluminum, we get this bizarre reaction that flips radioactive decay on its head.”

“In other words we get a reaction that violates the laws of physics?” Hunter asked.

“Essentially correct, at least the laws of physics as we understand them.”

“What if this metal were used elsewhere? What could they do with it besides make a weapon?” Stone asked.

“Unknown, but they can apparently produce it in massive quantities. It seems to have an extraordinarily high melting point and also seems to be energetic on wavelengths that we can’t adequately measure yet. I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility this alloy is not their only advance,” Rogers replied.

“What else might they have?” Vice asked.

“The creation of a new element means they can manipulate matter on an atomic scale. This could mean all kinds of unusual devices. For example, if they can stitch atoms together in predictable patterns, they could manufacture carbon fibers that would be a fraction the weight of steel but several times harder to penetrate.”

“And that’s only giving them credit for laboratory atomic manufacturing. What if they can do this on the fly? This weapon of theirs indicates they might be able to do just that,” Hunter added.

“Explain this to me one more time and pretend I’m not a PhD scientist,” Stone asked. “What exactly does this weapon do?”

“For now, the reaction has stopped,” Rogers replied. “Between the time of the weapon’s impact on the Sussex hull and approximately three hours ago, the metal and the residual elements in the damaged area were acting as if they were radioactive, but in reverse. Instead of emitting particles and rays, they were absorbing them from the surrounding metal. In the process, they were becoming much heavier molecules and very unstable isotopes at the same time. This created an energy field that began emitting wildly unpredictable fields of M-rays and began to affect the passage of time in the immediate vicinity of the damage.”

“It affects time as well?” Hunter asked.

“We recorded two test results within four minutes of each other that would have been impossible to simulate,” Rogers replied. “We only had the one damaged area to go on and we collected all the data we could. Some of this is probably going to turn out to be over our heads.”

“Interesting choice of words, commander,” Hunter offered. “That’s exactly what the Argent XO thinks. I got Commander Curtiss’ report about the same time you did. She’s one hell of an engineer, and she saw exactly the same thing you did. So did Commander Tixia.”

“We’re not going to find the answers here,” Rogers said. “We need to go back to where this unusual metal was first discovered and we need to perform a full analysis on it to see if there are any correlations between the Sussex damage and the construction alloy used at Achaen and other locations.”

“So what you’re telling me is the only way to prepare to engage this enemy is for Argent to go back into the Atlantis Sector and investigate a space station that was declared forbidden space more than a century ago.”

Rogers hesitated, but he was the one man in the room who knew the truth.

“Yes ma’am. That is exactly what I’m saying. Our enemy is using a technology that we do not understand. And if Captain Hunter doesn’t find the answers in the Atlantis Region, we may lose this war before a single shot is fired.”