“Of course, Captain.”

“Prepare to initiate tachyon pulse.”

“All systems go, no go,” Commander Roberts replied, following the book.

“Tachyon generators…go.”

“Receptor array…go.”

“Forward shielding…go.”

Roberts nodded. “Drive system?”

Daniels turned and smiled. “We see anything spooky, we’re ready to bolt, sir.”

“We don’t bolt, Ensign.” Roberts smiled, but without amusement. “We advance cautiously to the front and quickly to the rear.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Initiate sensor ping.”

Like submarines using sonar in the previous century, the Odyssey’s tachyon array was a powerful detection device, but it had many of its own drawbacks. Unlike infrared, radar, and other telemetry systems, the tachyon generators could produce real-time imaging data from a distance measured in light-years or more. However, tachyons were not cheap to generate and didn’t last long once they had been generated.

Neither Roberts nor Weston were familiar with the mathematics of the subject, though both were aware that, on paper, tachyons didn’t even exist. It was one of those amusing mathematical proofs that seemed to be at odds with the real universe. On paper, a tachyon didn’t exist because its half-life was too short to be measured. However, in that period of nothingness where the particles existed, they could travel across the rim of the galaxy and back.

So when the tachyon generator on the Odyssey pulsed, a shotgun-like spread of those impossible little particles leapt out through the fabric of space and spread out from the ship, creating interference in the local area of space as they passed. When they hit something—anything from a single atom to the local star itself—they created a ripple effect that rebounded out from the object and traveled back to the waiting receiver on the Odyssey.

“Report.”

“Nothing out there, sir,” Winger replied as Commander Roberts appeared behind her. She’d barely jumped this time and felt proud of herself.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing like a ship, sir. I’ve compared everything we got to the readings from yesterday.” She shrugged. “We’ve got a debris field around the fourth planet that looks artificial. Alloys, atomic decay, and some configurations match, but they’re dead as doornails, sir.”

“I’ll inform the captain that we have nothing to fear from the doornails,” Roberts replied, with a twinge of sarcasm. “Stay with the facts.”

“Uh…yes, sir,” Winger said, her face flushing. “Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t apologize. Just don’t do it again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Roberts left Winger’s station and headed back to the captain. “It looks clear, sir. There is some debris in the system that matches the debris we found at the battle scene, however.”

“Nothing active?” Weston looked up.

“Nothing that we can see.”

The captain spoke up for the benefit of the bridge crew. “Ensign Waters. Take us into the orbit of the fourth planet.”

“Orbit. Aye, sir.”

The big ship shook as its massive drives rumbled into action, vibrations reverberating through the entire vessel as it began to move through the depths of interstellar space and cross the invisible line that separated it from the star system. As the ship crossed the heliopause, the yellow star began to act on it, pulling it deeper into the system with the inexorable grip of its gravity.