“Jason, I’m being serious here. You took a hard crack to the head. I want you to take it easy. I know how you get when you get wound up.”

Captain Hunter knew that look. Annora Doverly was a doctor first and an Executive Officer second. If she weren’t here doing her duty she would be running a small pediatric practice in a farming village somewhere and giving away toys and candy to her patients.

“Promise me,” she said, her eyes sincere.

“I promise, doctor.” Hunter winked. “I’ll keep it tamped down to a medium-sized dinosaur fight.” His grin and infectious confidence made it very hard to doubt him.

“I suppose that’s the best I can hope for under the circumstances.”

Hunter and Doverly walked on to the bridge while the Captain read the status report. “So the Highlanders are launched and standing by?”

“Affirmative. Hatch’s recommendation was the correct one. Both Wildcat squadrons are on CSP. I have a Yellowjacket strike force standing by off Flight One and a T-Hawk strike force standing by off Flight Two. Both are on a 15 minute ready alert. I’m going to leave the ground forces loadouts to the colonel, but we’ll have plenty of firepower in the air when they hit dirt.”

“The new rail casters did well, I’m told,” Jason muttered, scrolling through the damage reports.

“They pack quite a punch in their energy configurations. Yili tells me the projectiles are even more effective at shorter ranges,” Annora replied as she manned the XO station. “I practically had to have her restrained in sickbay. She’ll be back on her feet about the time Zony and Moo have recovered. If she doesn’t sneak out a ventilation duct first.”

Hunter sat in the center chair and finished up the report, looking for anything unusual enough to change his plans. Satisfied he knew what he needed to know for now, he stowed the tablet and sighed, examining the tactical track displayed on the Argent’s main screen for any new information.

“We’re here, they’re there. Nothing has changed in the last ten minutes?”

“Negative, sir,” Pilot McInerney replied. “Although Nemesis Eight reports there are readings indicating another spotter ship has apparently relieved Kilo X-Ray Two while they recover their boats.”

“But we were right,” Doverly interrupted. “That Sentinel gun on Barker’s Asteroid took a shot at us. It was only one shot, but it was enough to almost collapse our starboard point battle screen. We’re working on the theory they don’t have a full power structure down there yet, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s what they’re buying time for. Once that thing is fully operational it can lob rounds at us for days before we can fight our way through that minefield to stop it.”

Hunter swiveled in his chair. “Tell me if I’m wrong, doctor, but can’t a Nemesis and a couple of Paladins lash up and work as a minesweeper?”

Annora took her headset off and placed it back on the console. “It wouldn’t be the first time that’s been tried with a battleship squadron, but it’s dangerous. If a skirmisher suddenly pops up in that field with the transponder matrix, they can run and gun the mine team to pieces before they get out of the hot zone.”

“I bet Zony could beat that strategy,” Hunter replied. “Just having the friendly transponders for the minefield doesn’t give them total protection from a false positive.”

“Agreed, but you’re not reckless enough to fly your Signals Officer into that junkyard, Captain. It sounds like a great way to pull off an epic riposte, but one thing goes wrong and your plan literally goes up like a breached fusion bottle.”

Hunter frowned at the tactical display. “Alright, what if we brute force it? Three waves of proximity warheads, maximum spreads. Blow the whole thing to slag?”

“The minute we open up, that fleet will walk over here and button us up like an overstarched dry cleaning order.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, why haven’t they done that yet?” McInerney asked from the helm. “What are they waiting for?”

“No reason to risk the hardware yet,” Hunter replied. “The longer this standoff continues, the more time they have to energize that gun. Once they have that, they’ve got a nearly impregnable interdiction zone. Anything that tries to breach the minefield gets carved up by the Sentinel. Everything on the Raleo side of the gun becomes their base of operations. They can launch strikes against every Core system within a light year and always have a safe place to run if things get hairy.”

“They’ll hit the jump gate first,” Annora added. “Once that’s secured, they’ve got every tactical advantage and a way to close up everything coming to stop them.”

“Why can’t we just go around, sir?” Lieutenant Rollins piped up. Can’t we just drop the Z-axis and fly under it?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. Every young Skywatch officer comes up with the same genius plan at some point in their career,” Annora replied with a smile.

“But all those plans presume your enemy will continue to operate in two dimensions while you operate in three. It sounds good in a classroom, but in practice, by the time you realize your brilliant plan nobody else ever thought of didn’t work, you’re floating home,” Hunter concluded, looking over at Rollins with a reassuring expression. “That gun can fire in any direction we can fly, and we can’t leave it here for the next ship to discover suddenly. The challenge here is getting to Barker’s Asteroid without tipping off the fleet we’re sweeping out their mines and without putting our sweepers at risk of being picked off by skirmishers.”

“That’s the puzzle, alright,” Annora replied. “And the clock is ticking on that Sentinel.”

“Sir, we’re being hailed by Nemesis Eight,” the acting Signals Officer reported.

“Put them on speakers.” The channel clicked over. “Argent, Hunter here.”

“Sir, we have a reactor signature pattern match on the new contact near the location of Kilo X-Ray Two designated Mockingbird Eight Zero. You left standing orders to report on any registry matches.”

“What’s she look like?”

“It’s the Dunkerque sir.”

Hunter raised his eyebrows. “The Admiral’s ship? How certain are you?”

“Five decimal places. She’s running a first-generation fusion/fission combination power design with the old gas-operated valves. Makes more spectrometry noise than a busted chainsaw.”

Hunter turned to Annora with a wide-eyed look of discovery, astonishment and certainty on his face.

“What.”

“You know what that ship has that we don’t?” Hunter asked with a sly grin.

Annora realized it moments later.

“A mine-friendly transponder.”

Hunter pointed at the Doctor and made a fist. “Rollins, you have the conn. Doctor, you’re with me.” The Captain and XO strode off the bridge.

“Where to?”

“Sickbay. Zony is about to win this war and we’re going to do it while eating a sandwich.”