“What is it?” the captain demanded.

“Dimensional anomaly,” the chief answered instantly. “Possibly an unscanned planetoid, something from far out in the system.”

“How far?” Aymes asked.

“Very far. In order to not be on our scans, it would have to be something with an extremely eccentric orbit, Captain. Thousand-cycle orbit, at least.”

Aymes frowned, considering that.

It wasn’t impossible. There were certainly stranger star systems in the galaxy than one with a single—or even a few—eccentric-orbit planetoids. However, this was one of the few systems the Empire had mapped out prior to launching the infiltration and assault of this arm of the galaxy.

“Could it be an enemy ship?” he asked softly, walking over to the station.

“Possibly,” the chief replied. “It is a known Oather system, Captain.”

“Well, if it’s an Oather ship,” the alternate commander offered, “we can easily handle them.”

Aymes nodded. “True. I’m more concerned about the unknown, however.”

“The anomaly wouldn’t show up on dimensional warp scans,” the alternate agreed.

“No, but that’s the problem,” Aymes said and sighed. “This anomaly is too difficult to locate for my taste.”

He stared for a moment. “Continue as plotted, but lock down that anomaly.”

“Yes Captain.”

►►►

AEV Odysseus

► “Report.”

Eric strode onto the command deck, eyes swiveling to lock on the long-range scanner station.

“We have a gravity anomaly, Captain,” the duty officer, Lieutenant Sierra, answered.

“Drasin?” Eric asked, standing at his station.

“No match, sir. Not on any of our databases.”

“What about Priminae databases?” he asked.

“Ran those too, sir. Possible match, but too vague to be certain. We could be looking at a long-orbit planetoid, coming in from the local version of the Oort Cloud,” Sierra said.

“Do the Priminae have any planetoids with that sort of orbit listed for this system?” Eric asked.

Sierra turned to look at him, eyes widening.

“It is one of their colony systems, Lieutenant.”

“Yes sir! Sorry, sir, checking now,” Sierra blurted, looking back to her console.

It took only a few seconds, then she shook her head. “No eccentric-orbit planetoids, sir.”

“Sound general quarters,” Eric ordered, dropping into his chair. “How far out is the anomaly?”

The general-quarters alarm sounded in the background but was muted swiftly on the bridge as systems shifted to alert status.

“Working on an orbit now, sir.”

Commander Heath strode onto the bridge, pausing next to Eric as she examined the activity. “Sir?”

“Unknown contact,” Eric said. “Possible enemy ship.”

Miram nodded, dropping into her own seat at her station. “I see it. Not a planetoid?”

“Not according to Priminae charts,” Eric answered.

“Right, of course. It’s one of their former systems. They would have it properly mapped.” Miram nodded again. “Still . . . it doesn’t appear to be under power. I’m not seeing a change in course telemetry.”

“Can you tell what course it’s on?” Eric asked.