Waters was proven wrong a moment later when the silhouette on the screen snapped into focus, showing the ship in more detail. Weston was studying the vessel thoughtfully when he heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him and turned to see Milla’s face blanche.

As if I have to guess what that means. Out loud, Weston spoke calmly: “I take it you recognize the ship?”

Milla nodded dumbly. “It’s a Drasin reconnaissance vessel. The same type as the one we encountered after…”

After another star system was sterilized…leaving only those things behind, Weston finished silently.

“Tactical analysis, Mr. Waters,” Weston demanded tersely. “Can we run?”

Waters barely had to glance at the numbers. “Not a chance in hell, sir.”

“Combat alert. All crew members to their duty stations.”

The captain’s voice rang out on all decks as the military crew of the exploration vessel snapped to their duties, going to full battle station alert in an instant. Commander Roberts slid into his station and began activating controls. Shudders ran though the Odyssey as armor plating slid aside from the weapons they protected and the ominous devices were freed from their captivity.

Weston nodded in satisfaction as he watched his people react smoothly to the situation, their training kicking in as they brought the ship from a 90 percent stand-down to full military power.

“Full power to the navigational deflectors. Waters, try to hail them. Commander, power up all weapons systems, and get a passive lock on that ship. Don’t ping them yet.”

“Aye, sir,” they both chorused as they bent to their tasks.

“Captain, we have a passive lock, but it’s only at eighty-three percent. The vessel isn’t radiating any tachyons, so a real-time lock is impossible, unless we hit them with active tachyon sensors. The computer is doing course estimations,” Commander Roberts reported a moment later, his voice showing exactly what he thought of the computer’s estimates. The error margins alone were enough to disgust the man, particularly as he was about to bet his life and the lives of every crew member of the Odyssey on them.

“That’ll have to do for now, Commander. Ensign Waters, is there any response?” Weston asked.

“Negative. No response to our hails. Initial sensor data is coming back, sir,” the ensign said, sounding nervous as he leaned over his console.

“Send it to my station, Ensign.”

Weston turned his attention to the data feeding into his terminal, looking for any information he could use to either prevent or win what looked to be an inevitable conflict. Frowning, he looked at the data closer before realizing what had struck him as odd.

“Ensign, did you run this through the fractal imaging program? All I’m getting here are echoes.”

Waters stammered for a moment and reexamined the data himself. “What you have is correct, sir. I don’t recognize the pattern. The material seems to be refracting the sensors. We can’t get a good scan.”

Weston cursed once under his breath. “That figures. Any response to the hails?”