“Are you certain, Argent?”

“Affirmative, Captain. They’ve been actively targeted for the last two minutes, forty seconds.”

“And no response at all?”

“Negative. No change in aspect. No emissions. That ship is dead in space,” Annora replied. “Confirmed and re-checked, Captain. Shall we run a life signs check?”

Hunter sat at the pilots controls aboard his gunship. T-Hawk Eight was parked 300 yards off the Dunkerque’s starboard quarter. At the navigator and tactical stations sat Zony and Yili. Behind them stood eleven armored marines. They were ready to commandeer the renegade Skywatch vessel and return it to fleet control.

“Go, Argent. Let’s find out what we’re dealing with here.”

“Scanning.”

“There’s no running lights either, Skipper,” Moo said. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”

“This fits in nicely with Atwell’s story,” Hunter muttered. “I got the distinct impression Hughes marooned the crew somewhere. Perhaps they’re on Barker’s Asteroid manning that ground station.”

“Or maybe they’re on Barker’s Asteroid as prisoners,” Yili offered. “With all due respect to the Admiral, it sounds like the man has gone right around the bend.”

“T-Hawk Eight, Argent.”

“Go ahead, XO”

“No life signs aboard the Dunkerque”

“Goodness,” Zony whispered.

“What did he do, kill the crew?” Hunter blurted out. Moo winced. “There are 170 men and women on that ship!”

“Not any more, Skipper,” Annora replied. “No life signs. No bodies. No nothing. That ship is completely abandoned.”

“Does it have an atmosphere? Is life support functional?”

“We’ve got signs that reserve power systems are operating at a greatly reduced power level. Mains are off-line. No reactor signatures or heat signatures in her plants. No engine trail either.”

“Sir?”

“Hold on XO.” Hunter muted the intership.

“What she just said doesn’t make any sense. If all that is true, how did the Dunkerque get here?”

“That, engineer, is a very good question.” Hunter replied as he opened the channel to the Argent again. “XO? Keep us on scanners. We’re going to board her as planned. Hunter out.”

The Captain closed the channel and set the ship on auto-approach. “Alright, let’s suit up. Make sure we’ve got hatch clamps and everyone’s weapons are charged and ready. Neek, take us to five meters, engines at station keeping, channels open.”

“Affirmative, T-Hawk Eight on approach.”

The small company turned their equipment over and over, snapping, opening and closing the control mechanisms, checking and re-checking the indicator readouts. Hunter, Zony and Yili all donned their own power-armor and pressurized their tac-suits.

“Engage triple-S. There may not be an atmosphere over there,” Hunter said.

“Affirmative. Watch your pressure and temperature differentials and don’t touch any surfaces without your anti-static and heat-fields up. Any exposed metal over there could be two hundred below zero. We don’t want your gloves or precision surfaces to freeze and get stuck,” Moo added.

The marines all nodded while Zony worked through their comms checks.

“T-Hawk Eight to Argent. Boarding party in space.”

Meanwhile on the bridge of the Argent, everyone’s attention was riveted on the real-time video feeds from the boarding party’s helmet-mounted cameras. It wasn’t often a commanding officer led a space walk, and many of the younger crew members were in a combined state of utter shock and complete disbelief as they saw Jason Hunter float out the airlock of the gunship and maneuver his tac-suit in the direction of the Dunkerque’s much larger external hatch.

Then the impossible happened.

“What did I just see?” Annora said with an urgent tone in her voice. The rest of the bridge crew went back to their instruments, trying for all the world to decipher the data that would explain how the Dunkerque faded away and then reappeared.

“Report!”

“Ma’am, these readings don’t make any sense. One second she’s there. The next she’s gone.”

“Argent to boarding party!” Nothing happened. Commander Doverly whirled on her comms officer with a look that demanded answers.

“Channel is open, ma’am and you are five by five.”

“Doverly to Hunter, acknowledge!”

The Dunkerque faded and then reappeared again.

“This is impossible! Mass can’t just vanish like this!” the tactical officer exclaimed. “It’s like that ship is changing its atomic structure moment by moment!”

“Are we in contact with the boarding party or not!?”

“We’re transmitting, they must be hearing us.” The young ensign switched her console over to a diagnostic cycle. Every indicator showed green. “No fault in the equipment ma’am. We’re broadcasting in the clear on all frequencies.”

“Jason!”

Meanwhile, Captain Hunter was confidently listening to Commander Doverly’s calm advice on how to open the Dunkerque’s external airlock. One by one, four Argent officers and ten marines boarded the abandoned cruiser.

Ten seconds later, the Dunkerque vanished from the Argent’s instruments.

This time, she didn’t reappear.