Roaring laughter punctuated story after story from all five members of the Argent’s newly minted officer corps. More than a couple Skywatch non-coms and plebs asked Commander Doverly for her autograph.

Lucas showed off the titanium poker hand they had made for themselves during their tenure as yellowjacket pilots. He told and re-told the story of how Yellowjacket Nine developed a reputation for stealing victory from the jaws of defeat and first became known as the “Bandits.” It wasn’t until Jason’s ace award they decided to re-christen themselves the “Bandit Jacks” and emblazon playing card insignia on all their ships. The squadron flew together for over a year, racking up victory after victory until the first-generation yellowjacket fighter configuration was retired and Hunter was promoted to Commander.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t often the rank-and-file got to meet an honest-to-goodness SAR command officer. Aside from Fleet, rumor had it there were only a dozen or so on active duty, with the rest of the wing comprised of medics, pilots and cybernetics specialists.

Zony was asked to dance more than once, and graciously obliged, eventually finding herself recruited into a group to learn how to dance to what Hunter explained was “country” music.

Yili won several bets with both marines and fleet crewmen over who could field strip and reassemble her blaster pistol the quickest. The OCE Lieutenant’s best time was just nineteen seconds, which left several of the young men both dumbfounded and slightly poorer for their trouble. Yili used her winnings to buy dessert, consisting of an oversized sundae dish heaped with chocolate ice cream.

The captain held court, flirting with the girls, high-fiving the guys, downing one drink after another and having a loud, cheerful good time of it. He would often interrupt the revelry to make an announcement while pointing to one of his officers, which would result in another cheer going up while the assembled all raised their glasses and enjoyed another drink together.

Hunter’s commlink alert went off. The sharp red light was instantly noticeable even in the crowded bar.

A moment later, an all-business Skywatch officer appeared at the table.

“Captain Jason Hunter?”

He looked up at the young brunette. She was obviously not here for the party.

“That’s me,” Hunter replied with a grin.

She saluted and handed him a sealed transmittal chip. “I have new orders for you, sir.” The captain took the locked container and looked at her with a confused expression. She saluted again. He returned the gesture before she turned on her heel and left the bar.

He fumbled with the channel selector on his commlink. Finally the indicators switched over.

“Argent to Captain.”

“Hunter here.”

“Sir, ComSat reports reception of a sixteen-part scrambled flash message on fleet priority frequency keyed to your identifier. Code Zero Zero Black. I say again, code Zero Zero Black.”

Zony was already at his side. Lucas put his arm around Hunter’s shoulders and cradled his half-empty stein. “Whaddya got there, Cap?”

“That’s a disaster signal,” Zony said quietly. A moment later her commlink lit up. Moody pulled a buzzing handheld radio out of his pocket and checked the readout. Then Yili’s communicator started blinking. Annora was already in communication with someone on her headset. The music, laughing and dancing continued around them, but for the five senior Skywatch officers, the world had changed in the space of only a few seconds.

“I think the party’s over, Major.”