“There’s no way this many things can go this wrong this quickly,” Commander Jayce Hunter grumbled.

She strode quickly through the nearly empty corridors of Survey Station Nineteen, located at the extreme “western” edge of the Gitairn asteroid field. Her battle group was only a few hours out from its rendezvous with her brother’s battleship, but the readings from one of her group’s frigates left her with no option but to stop and confirm the data. With her was her XO, Lieutenant Commander Tom Huggins, and several lower-ranking signals analysis officers representing some of her escort ships.

“We’ve never seen cloak warnings like this. It’s almost like they’re using some kind of technology we haven’t seen yet. We’re still getting gravitics from the main body reported by our probes, but if the Ajax is right–”

“Tom, if the Ajax is right, we’re about to jump into the biggest open space battle since the Praetorian Campaign. Amy, did you correlate the readings with signals and astrometrics?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Sutherland replied. “I have all the readings in this portable unit. I need about fifteen minutes with the station’s tracking logs to confirm. If we’re right, we can track the last known positions of the unusual readings and be ready when the cloaked formation makes its move.”

“Outstanding,” Jayce replied as her team rounded the corner. Two marines were guarding the door to the astrometrics records storage. “Open the door, corporal,” she said impatiently.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, access to records storage must be authorized by the station commander.”

Commander Huggins interrupted. “We already checked. The best we could come up with was the approach officer. Apparently there’s nobody in charge out here except a couple of accountants and a guy with a flashlight.”

“Corporal?” Hunter’s expression made it clear she wasn’t in much of a mood for litigation.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry but I have my orders.”

“Corporal, can you identify my rank insignia?” The Fury Skipper borrowed Lieutenant Sutherland’s tablet device and started looking up the emergency regulations.

“Yes ma’am.”

“And what rank is that, marine?”

“You wear the insignia of a Skywatch Commander, ma’am.”

“And the opposite device?”

The corporal hesitated. Tom gave him two extra moments and then cut in. “That’s the badge of a Task Force Commander, corporal.”

The marine swallowed, trying to emphasize his regulation-perfect attention posture. Somewhere in his adrenaline-hazy memory he recalled the qualifications for that particularly rare designation. The star-spangled gold insignia would be hard to find on a command officer two ranks higher. Nevertheless, here she was. Judging by the numerous tightly-packed pips, there were at least nine ships including two ships of the line under her flag. The difference in firepower between a marine sentry armed with a blaster rifle and this slender young woman was roughly the difference between an underfed earthworm and an angry Bengal tiger.

“How many rank insignia is that, marine?” Hunter asked, still scrolling through the regulations on her tablet.

“Three, ma’am.”

Hunter stepped forward until she was nose-to-chin with the taller marine. “That’s right. That means I’m so close to being a captain I can smell that fourth insignia. Now you either open that lab and let my people in there or I’ll snap you back so hard your hair will change color. Do you read me, marine?”

Her voice had that tone particular to officers with experience leading thousands of men and women in battle. The sentry marine correctly recognized his authority, whatever its justification, was not going to successfully compare. He could only imagine the cosmic levels of hell someone roughly six hundred ranks higher could rain down on his life. The images of ten-foot-tall admirals and courts-martial crawled out of his blackest fears before he finally decided to favor discretion over valor. It was one thing to bravely charge the enemy. It was another to choose to die on a hill targeted by an entire artillery division with nothing but a time card punched by a junior lieutenant for protection.

Jayce watched impatiently as her signals specialists unpacked their gear in the records lab. Commander Huggins stood nearby.

“Last thing I need today is a lengthy debate with some rifle-lugging grunt over who is allowed where,” Hunter muttered. “After this is over I’ll tow this entire station back to Core Ten and drop it in a box.”

“When we find out who abandoned their post out here I think you’ll have a hide to go with that tow job,” Huggins replied.

“Hunter to Fury, report all contacts.”

“Fury, Mallory in CIC, ma’am. No contacts except King One. Bearings unchanged.”

“Very well. We’re in the records lab. We should have some answers shortly. Stand by.”

“Affirmative, Skipper. Standing by.”

“Hunter to Echo.”

“Hi Jayce! Isn’t this station the coolest?!”

Tom smiled. Commander Hunter’s self-built team of miniature robots all had the personalities of children between the ages of about four and seven. Despite the fact none of them were larger than a gallon bottle of milk, as a group they were a surprisingly effective outfit, capable of acting on their own up to a point. Echo was their combination early warning alarm and medical unit.

“Yeah, it’s pretty neat. Are Rebel and Butterfly with you?”

“Uh huh! Do you wanna talk to them?”

“Not right now. Keep me advised. If you get any weird readings, you make sure to tell Rebel and Butterfly first and then tell me, okay?”

“Okay Jayce! See ya!”

Sutherland and the other officers were well into their work by now.

“Do you always bring your robots with you on landing missions, ma’am?” Amy asked.

“She certainly does, lieutenant.” Tom was examining a large map of Gitairn space behind the records consoles. “I’ll never get over Fleet Officers who ask why you travel with a group of remote controlled toy cars and aircraft,” he said. “Always a source of entertainment when we drop in at Scary’s.”

“I’ve been dealing with raised eyebrows since cybernetics school,” Hunter replied. “High ranking officers have a bad habit of not checking the records before they start barking at us.”

“I learned my lesson in a hurry,” Tom said. “After I found out both Rebel and Wave had been nominated for valor awards and that Echo has an Indian Forks campaign ribbon I’ve been earning a fortune making odds on the next admiral to step in it.”

“Ma’am?”

The Task Force Perseus Officers gathered around Sutherland’s console. She had called up the historical records gathered by the many sensors and scanners Station Nineteen had been operating continuously for many weeks.

“There,” Tom said, pointing at a spike in the electromagnetic signatures at system’s edge. “Those are the same readings we got from Ajax.”

“And right here are the readings that confirm it,” Jayce added. “Those anomalous datasets are following a lateral line. Station Nineteen has been tracking them for over a month. There aren’t sixteen ships out there. There’s more like forty ships, and some of those power plants are our designs.”

“Why would Skywatch ships be cloaked on the far edge of Gitairn? We don’t have any bases or spacelanes this far out,” Tom said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s a–”

Hunter keyed her commlink. “Fury, this is Hunter. Bring fleet up on the Z-pack and patch it to my personal designator.”

“Affirmative, Commander, you’re on.”

“Hunter to fleet. Set emergency condition three. Stand by battle stations.” As the acknowledgments poured in, Hunter switched channels. “Mallory, re-plot our course to rendezvous with Argent and prepare for departure.”

“What’s on your mind, Skipper?”

“That’s an interdiction formation, and they’re not prepping a defense. That fleet is massing for an attack on someone or something, and I’m betting it’s populated Core worlds. Skywatch would have to muster our entire strength on this side of Boomtown to match that kind of firepower.”

“How could they keep this off everyone’s radar this long?” Tom asked.

“Unknown, but I can guarantee you we’re going to pull the really loud fire alarm in the hall in about twenty minutes.”