“Now we know what technology we’ve been up against all this time.”

The officers of Strike Fleet Perseus had reconvened once Captain Hunter had finally given his tactical and science sections an opportunity to review the data on the events of the past few days. The particulars weren’t entirely clear, but the conclusions he and his other skippers were drawing were rather similar. They had all gathered once again in the relatively luxurious Argent Captain’s conference room. Hunter’s pursers quietly and efficiently circled the spacious table, keeping everyone’s cups filled with customary battleship precision.

“It explains the appearance and disappearance of enemy personnel at Station 19, and, although my engineering section doesn’t buy it, explains the suicide ship attacks against Fury, Constellation and Rhode Island,” Commander Hunter continued. “A matter-energy transmission field can account for the readings, the enemy ships and the enemy personnel.”

“But not teleportation,” Captain Doverly said.

“You can’t teleport living matter. There’s no way to get around the need to destroy it and then reassemble it. It just doesn’t work on a practical level. The energy field these creatures use creates a kind of folded space. We might think of it as an accelerated wormhole. It cuts through space time and connects two widely separated locations for a very short interval of time. If an object is synchronized to travel in the right direction and reach that point at exactly the right moment, it will only need to travel a very short physical distance in its reality to actually cover a very large distance in ours,” Lieutenant Madison replied, speaking for the Argent engineering department.

“Doorways,” Captain Hunter concluded.

“That would account for Atwell in the brig and the advisory we received from Spades,” Annora added. “Although I’m still unsure how Atwell got alien technology in to the brig without us detecting it.”

“It also explains Colonel Moody” Jason said. “They must have used a device like that during the Agamemnon attack to take him out of his quarters and transport him somewhere else. I’d just like to know if we’ve got the equipment to detect this technology or someone using it before they push the button. There’s got to be a way to defend against it.”

“It’s one of those things we call a “really hard problem’ sir,” Madison said. “Once we nail down one part, the other two get in our way. If we try to nail down the second part, it breaks the first one. It might just be beyond our abilities at this point.”

“But there is one thing we can do,” Commander Hunter interjected. “Our science teams can learn how to analyze and follow this technology. We have the equipment to study it. We have the personnel to analyze it and help us construct a defense.”

“Agreed,” Commander Teller added. “The more smart minds we put on this, the faster we’ll reach a point where we can at least know when and where we’re being attacked. That will prevent any further sabotage and might even give us an edge ship to ship.”

Captain Hunter sat forward in his chair. “Explain.”

Teller glanced at Jayce out of deference for the fact she was his official C.O., then continued. “I’ve seen the data on the Fury and Rhode Island attacks. There was a localized neutron radiation buildup just before those unidentified ships appeared. Now I don’t have the expertise to run the numbers, but my Science Chief does. He postulates the readings we got were caused by the velocity of the attacking ships as they transited dimensions. He also thinks there will be similar distortions of subspace for any mass that changes location during transit. Think of it as a bow wave from a wet navy vessel. The water would reach its destination before the ship itself. That’s what I think is causing the strange readings, and it’s consistent from event to event.”

“How soon can we make his analysis battlefield ready?” Hunter asked with a familiar competitive gleam in his eyes.

“Permission to defer my answer until I have time to confer, Captain? I don’t want to overpromise.”

“Granted. Gather what you need and run it by Commander Hunter first. If she signs off we’ll all take a look. Status report, Commander?”

“All ships are at full readiness. All personnel accounted for. We still have nine casualties from the fighter engagement. They are all recovering aboard Spruance. Flight Leader Roscoe tells me all squadrons will be at full strength in a day or two.”

“Very well. We will muster the fleet in a standard assault formation with Argent, Fury and Kingsblade anchoring and our battle group on the perimeter. I don’t need to remind anyone here we are facing a hostile minefield and intermittent engagements with the Sentinel Planetary Defense battery at Barker’s Asteroid. Colonel Moody, Yili, Zony and Commander DeMay are all presumably on the asteroid or nearby. My plan is to give them two hours to reconfigure the minefield so we can rendezvous with the Dunkerque. After that, I will have no choice but to order the minefield destroyed in preparation for a full scale surface assault on the Sentinel.”

“With all due respect, sir, that’s likely to provoke a reaction from the fleet between here and the Raleo system,” Jayce cautioned.

“Agreed, Commander, but at this point I have every reason to believe the crews of those vessels are not aboard their ships. This situation has been bugging me since we got here. Empty ship after empty ship, and then we find a top line capital platform abandoned and millions of miles from its escorts. Now either our enemy is completely incompetent or it doesn’t want us to know those dogs have no bark and no bite. Perhaps automation is the best they can do. I’m done checking. This time we call the bet.”

“That’s a big risk, Captain.”

“With Kingsblade, we’ve got the firepower to back my play. If they approach X-Ray Tango, they better bring their “A’ game, because if they don’t, we’re going to get the big hammer down off the top shelf and take care of business,” Jason replied with a cold gaze. “They might have the juice. They might not. This time, they’ll have to prove it.”