The skin between Roberts’s shoulder blades itched as he tried to shake the feeling.

“This is impossible!” The young tech looked over the indecipherable rows of numbers for the fiftieth time.

“Nothing is impossible, lad,” Palin retorted to the young technician’s outburst, not bothered in the slightest by it. “Just improbable.”

“Easy for you to say,” the young man said. “I can’t make heads or tails out of this.”

“Nor can I.” Palin shrugged. “But that’s not the point. Sometimes all it takes is one block falling into place. Everything else will just…come together.”

The tech just shook his head and tapped a command into his computer.

Palin stiffened when a new sound played over the speakers.

“That’s not the same signal,” he said.

“What? Of course it is…” Evan, the tech, replied. “I’ve been playing it for an hour now…”

“The pitch is different, and the pattern…” Palin pierced the young man with a glare. “Where did you get that?”

“I’m telling you, Doctor, it’s the same signal…” Evan replied, exasperated, calling up the folder. He pointed to the screen. “There? See it’s…”

Palin waited for a moment and then prompted him. “What? What is it?”

“It’s a new file,” Evan muttered, staring at it. “Where did this come from, now, I wonder…Oh!”

“Oh?”

“It was just received. A pulse signal came in over the forward spires—”

“Play it.”

“Doctor, it’s probably just—”

“Play it,” Palin repeated, his voice hard.

“Uh…as you wish, Doctor,” the technician replied, hitting the play key again.

“It’s one of them, Captain,” Ensign Waters said, “lying quiet down there, but it is one of them.”

Weston leaned forward. “How many tubes do we have?”

“All but two are charged, Captain.”

Weston gave the order: “Prime tubes one through four for sequential fire.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Range to target?” Weston asked.

“Eighty-three light-seconds” came the reply.

“Hold our course. Fire on my command.”

The tension mounted as the light-seconds gradually counted down. Each tick of light as the display changed sent an imperceptible shiver down the spines of each man and woman present.

As the range dropped to under seventy-five light-seconds, Weston nodded to Waters and gave the command: “Fire.”

This time, the computer had less time to plot a course prediction for the enemy, but the ship was also flying slower than before and the range was closer than either of the previous shots. The tubes fired sequentially, according to the captain’s orders, each pulse of energy blasting clear of the ship and given a full half second gap before the next shot followed.

When all four shots had been fired, Weston snapped his next command to the helm: “Alter course, four-one-one-mark-positive-twelve. Thrusters only, Lieutenant. Keep us above the ecliptic, this time.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Course to four-one-one-mark-plus-twelve. Thrusters only,” came the automatic repetition.

Around them, the rumble of thrusters groaned from the ship itself as they once again shifted course.