The small com unit on the table buzzed. “Lieutenant Plunkett, it’s Corporal Williams in the communications hut. Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I have Sergeant Jones on the com for you.”

Plunkett shot a confused glance over at Hargraves. Jones was on the orbital platform with one of the platoon’s squads. It was a regular rotation that put a quarter of his Marines up there at any time. But what the hell could Jones have to report? “Put him through, Corporal.”

“Lieutenant, sir…it’s Sergeant Jones. I…ah…there’s something happening up here. The techs…their scanners show a ship coming through the transwarp, sir. They got nothing scheduled.” There was a short pause, and Plunkett could hear voices in the background. Then: “Lieutenant, something’s definitely wrong. Unless the scanners are going bonkers, that ship is over four klicks long. The techs say the energy readings are way too high for a tanker…which means…”

“All right, Sergeant…don’t lose your shit. Let’s take this one step at a time. Even if it is a warship, it could be one of ours…is probably one of ours. Maybe their com is down or something. Maybe…” Plunkett wanted to blurt out a whole series of maybes, as much to calm himself as his Marines. He had no idea what hostile ship could be there…it seemed impossible that a Union vessel could have gotten all the way across the Confederation undetected. But he knew the Confed fleet was massed to face the expected attack on the Union border…and it seemed unlikely a frontline battleship would be all the way out here. Not now.

“Yes, sir…” Jones didn’t sound convinced. “What do you want me to do, sir?”

Plunkett hesitated. Hargraves could see the lieutenant had no idea what to do. If that was some kind of hostile battleship there wasn’t much one platoon of Marines was going to do to stop it.

“Put your men on alert, Sergeant. Just to be safe. And ask Mr. Klyde if his people need any help manning the weapons stations up there.”

The orbital platform was mostly a place for tankers to dock while the ground-to-orbit tenders ferried up refined tritium. It had a few guns manned by civilian techs who’d been given some extra training, a token planetary defense, but nothing that was going to make a four-kilometer long battleship stop and take notice. Still, he couldn’t think of anything else.

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“And, Sergeant…keep me posted. If anything happens, anything at all, you let me know. And even if it doesn’t I want hourly updates.”

“Yes, sir. Understood. Jones out.”

Plunkett turned toward his platoon sergeant. “So what do you think, Clete? Any ideas?”

“It’s probably nothin’ Lieutenant…”

“But?”