“Rhode Island, Boyle.”

“Anything?”

“Negative.” Lieutenant Nessa Boyle hesitated after glancing at her captain. Walsh was motionless, staring at the viewscreen, hands clasped behind his back. He looked calm and at ease, but the Rhode Island XO knew better. She knew his mind was racing, engaging all his experience and sensibilities. Reaching into the void for the slightest hint of enemy activity. “He’s doing it again,” Boyle whispered.

“I hope he sees whatever I’m missing.” Commander Islington sighed. “We have hostiles out here, and they’re looking to take a shot at the task force before we get our defenses established.”

“But why approach from this vector?” Boyle asked rhetorically. “I realize there’s some limited timing advantage in maneuvering directly through the system, but the risk has to outweigh the tactical considerations, especially if they are moving in numbers.”

“If it were me, I would engage from behind the twins. Those two stars make things very dangerous for warships, but they aren’t as big a hazard to properly outfitted capital missiles. They aren’t much of a threat to fighters either.”

“Fighter strike. Long-range missile strike.” Nessa mused. “Can Sarn warships mount an attack like that this close to Core space without being detected?”

“If they had Skywatch help they could.”

Those words burned at Nessa Boyle’s sense of fair play. The idea that high-ranking officers would deliberately aid and abet hostile warships in civilian spacelanes was unthinkable. Yet the continually mounting evidence that was exactly what was happening was impossible to ignore.

“So the captain sent the Warlock out here to find them first,” Rebecca continued. “I have him to thank for finally getting my cloak, even though I had to give up my inboard SDAC launchers to get it.”

“I think you’ll find flying an attack sub in space sounds a lot more glamorous than the reality,” Nessa said.

“To be honest, I’ve been looking forward to some quiet contemplative moments.”

Boyle chuckled. Her smile faded as she glanced at her captain again. Commander Walsh just stood there, staring. It was as if he were peering into another world. A universe only he could see. It looked like that other universe were just as quiet as Nessa and Rebecca’s. Every time he so much as flinched, the entire bridge crew tensed, expecting him to bark one of those unexpected orders. The orders that almost always touched off the few seconds of screaming terror that punctuated the endless hours of waiting.

Nevertheless, the crew of the Rhode Island could be thankful for two things. One, their captain could apparently see and hear things in the soundless emptiness of space nobody else could, and two, the ship he commanded was Death’s own scythe. She was a warship without peer, capable of striking suddenly and vanishing into the cold eternal night of space like an icy whisper. In fact, Rhode Island had grown even more effective since the Bayone perimeter engagement. She was a lithe, razor-sharpened black leopard prowling her territory, and woe to any luckless beast who blundered into her path.

“Rebecca, I can’t get my mind off fighters. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. The twins would give them exactly the kind of navigation hazard they would need to drive a battlegroup up a wall.”

“And if their commander has any sense, he knows we’re going to be looking for a long-range attack, so he’s going to maintain a combat space patrol, which is why I believe those anomalous readings we got at the twins yesterday were a Sarn ready alert ducking out of our scanner envelope at the last second.”

“The captain is never going to allow us to go active.”

“Well, if his reputation is genuine, we won’t have to,” Islington quipped.

“Touche.” Nessa glanced at Walsh again. “He’s been standing there for hours, Rebecca. Is he waiting, or–”

The Rhode Island signals officer held his headphones closer, concentrating on something. His expression twisted in confusion. “Captain, I have a coded perimeter alarm.”

“Source?” Walsh asked in a chilling voice.

“The transmitter is moving, sir. Source frequency is drifting in a range of zero point zero seven gigahertz. Course plotted and on the board. Unidentified contact designate Uniform Epsilon Six bearing zero four four mark sixty. Range 12 million miles and closing.”

“Re-establish data net.”

Nessa already had the command queued up on her console. Silent electronics glowed to life and began transmitting telemetry between Rhode Island and Minstrel. Within moments, two Skywatch warships became as one: Their weapons, sensors, navigation, defenses and battle screens coordinated to within micro-second intervals.

“Patch in Minstrel on coded frequency.”

The signals officer configured the necessary channel.

“Captain, are you getting all this?” Walsh asked.

“Affirmative, Rhode Island, we see it.”

“Opinion?”

“If I had to guess without going active, I’d say it was a sentry probe.”

“Signals, configure a transponder challenge before it breaks ten million miles. Align our beacon antenna to bounce the signal off the Shasta jump gate at three three five.” Walsh issued his orders without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Sir, begging the captain’s pardon, but won’t that trigger an open frequency response from the probe?” Nessa asked, voicing the question her signals officer wanted to ask, but didn’t out of concern for his own welfare. Nobody aboard Minstrel spoke. Rebecca Islington was likely considering all the possibilities just like the crew of Minstrel’s sister ship.

“Yes it will.” Walsh still hadn’t moved.

There was a pause as everyone on the data net considered what Walsh had proposed. If Rhode Island transmitted a challenge, the probe would automatically respond per Skywatch protocols. That transmission would not only be picked up by any hostiles in the area, it would also give away the probe’s location and course.

The two Skywatch patrol ships, on the other hand, would ostensibly remain cloaked and undetected, since Walsh intended his ship’s signal to use the directional antenna and let the Shasta jump gate pretend to be the source. All the enemy would see would be a transmission from the gate followed by a response from the probe. There wouldn’t be a shred of evidence any other ships were in the area.

Of all people, Islington and Boyle both knew the strategic advantages. It perpetuated the worst of all possible circumstances for an enemy. They were up against Rhode Island and they didn’t know it. Minstrel was just as dangerous, but for entirely different reasons. The Ghost Killer did its deadly work suddenly and silently. Minstrel preferred a wild, loud open range chase where enemy captains were likely to make a mistake not because of the tactical situation, but because of the split-second advantage-gaining and decision making required to beat the fastest Perseus warship and her quick-thinking captain.

The two ships together were twice as dangerous, as now Minstrel shared Rhode Island’s cloaking technology and the larger destroyer had the option to employ its heavier and more versatile weapons systems during one of Minstrel’s trademark furballs.

Nessa just stared in awestruck silence. The Warlock rarely spoke in situations like this, but when he did, it was almost always to issue an order replete with malevolent elegance. The probe would go live using an omnidirectional broadcast. It’s position would be detectable to any hostile ships in the area. If any of them moved to investigate, they would become visible to Rhode Island and Minstrel...

...and silently tracked back to their launch points.

The signals officer spoke shakily. “Standing by, sir.”

“Transmit.”