“Then let’s go to CIC and you’re going to show me what’s been going on in this system while I was stuck playing politics,” she said, marching away so quickly her two officers had to rush to catch up. “Not you, Ensign,” she said over her shoulder. “Go to the bridge and keep an eye out at OPS. We’ll have an overview brief for the bridge crew later.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Accari said, peeling away and heading for the lifts.

When Celesta walked into the CIC, which was actually called the Combat Operations Center but oddly referred to by the different acronym, she was pleased that it was a hive of activity and her crew was well on top of the new situation.

“Captain on deck!” a senior chief bellowed when he looked up from where he was looking over a spacer first class’s terminal.

“As you were!” Celesta barked before the others could extricate themselves from behind their stations.

“Officer of the watch! Front and center,” Barrett spoke as he walked into the dimly lit room.

“Lieutenant Commander Washburn, CIC Operations Officer, sir,” a tall, graceful officer with ebony skin said as she came around from behind the enormous tabletop holographic display. Celesta smiled briefly at the memory of Captain Wolfe, who had helped finalize the design for the Starwolf-class ships, digging in firmly and refusing to allow holographic displays to be installed. But unlike her predecessor, who had thought them an unnecessary and distracting gimmick, Celesta was delighted by the detail the holographic displays could provide in three dimensions and promptly had them installed in all the Ninth Squadron ships when she’d been promoted.

“Double watch, Lieutenant Commander?” Barrett asked with a slight smile.

“I wasn’t comfortable leaving with the captain absent and alien ships coming uninvited into a Terran system, sir,” Washburn said. Celesta nodded her approval and gestured to the display.

“Can you catch me up on what’s been happening?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Washburn nodded and walked back to where she’d been manipulating the display.

“At 1724 ship’s time we received word from the boundary patrols that five unknown contacts had transitioned in deep within the system and had then disappeared. At 1732, this call came out on the unsecure intrasystem channel—” She reached over and pressed an icon on her display.

“We greet our Terrans friends and severely apologize for this breach of protocol,” the modulated voice came over the speaker, once again giving Celesta a chill down her spine. “There is a large emergency and we must make accelerate our negotiations. We will hold position until we receive word.”

“—and once it was over our com system was overridden by CENTCOM and we’ve only been able to receive general navigation data and instructions direct from New Sierra to hold fast,” Washburn said.