“Hopefully the children are okay,” Jackson said as he popped open the courier package and shook the data card into his hand, frowning as he did. The handwriting wasn’t Jillian’s, but he did recognize whose it was and it wasn’t likely welcome news. He slipped the card into the slot and let his terminal read the contents.

“Hey, Captain.” Pike’s face popped up on the screen. “You can relax, nothing horrible has happened since last we talked. Just flying around aimlessly looking for a secret shipyard … thanks for that, by the way. The reason I conned one of your planetside handlers into doing this for me is that I had a bit of an idea.

“Contained on this data card are all the post-action reports from every interaction we’ve had with the Darshik. There are the obvious conclusions made by our analysts, but the petabytes of raw data from the Prowlers could take years to go through. There’s likely nothing there, but I figured your pet Vruahn AI might be able to chew through it quickly enough to make it useful.

“You didn’t hear it from me, but the Fleet has mobilized the largest taskforce since the last battle of the Phage War and will be hitting the Darshik in two Ushin systems to push them back per the terms of the treaty. Although I shouldn’t, I’ll keep you up to date on what’s happening … it’s just the kind of guy I am. Pike out.”

Jackson rolled his eyes and selected the after-action summary of Celesta’s first encounter in the Xi’an System. His frown deepened as he read what an Agent Uba had reported. It looked like she might have rushed down into the system with a bit too much reckless abandon, even if she had been correct that it had been an AU or ESA ploy. She’d accorded herself well after the initial shock wore off, but he thought she had learned a bit more caution from her time serving under him. He hoped she wasn’t becoming too enamored with her own reputation to the point that she felt untouchable.