“Not quite. Just a general trajectory with a very wide margin of error,” she admitted. “However, it is not slowing down. It appears to be on a ballistic course, Captain.”

That was odd, Eric would willingly admit. A ship on system approach would have to be decelerating hard if they didn’t want to shoot right through, and if they were doing that, why take the risk of entering the gravity well of the local star? Sure, there wasn’t much more debris inside the well, but it was still a risk if you were moving at the speeds of a relativistic vessel.

If the ship was warping space, there would be no risk, but this contact wasn’t warping. It was ballistic, and that made no sense.

“We’re narrowing it down,” Miram said. “They’re aiming for a slingshot maneuver. In a little less than two hours, they’re going to sling around the outer gas giant.”

Eric stiffened. “Are you sure?”

“Yes sir,” Miram answered, looking perplexed as she noticed his apprehension.

“Goddamn it!” Eric swore, mind racing as he started to say something, then stopped.

“What is it?” Miram asked.

“I gave Steph and Milla clearance to do a qual flight,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re slinging around that same damn planet.”

“We can go to power and pick them up,” Miram said.

“If we warp space,” Eric said grimly, motioning toward the telemetry readings, “they’ll see us.”

“Sir, they must see us already. The Odysseus isn’t like the Odyssey. We can’t hide from their scanners,” Miram said. “We mass as much as a small planet.”

“Yes, but they’re not Priminae, Commander,” Eric said. “I’m betting they don’t have full system records. Right now, at the range they’re coming in from, we’re just a dip in space-time. If we warp space, then they’ll know we’re not some random rock.”

He stood up, walking over to the comm station.

“Get me a link to the shuttle.”

►►►

IBC Piar Cohn

► “Sir, we’ve calculated the anomaly’s orbit.”

Aymes looked over to his scanner chief, nodding. “And?”

“It’s odd,” he said. “The orbit isn’t as eccentric as I would have believed.”

“Oh?” Aymes took more of an interest. “How so?”

“Just that I would have expected our combat survey to have included this one,” the chief said. “It’s an eccentric orbit, but the opening to miss it would have been quite small.”

“Hmm,” Aymes grunted, turning around. “Alert status. All decks.”

The alarms sounded, and people began rushing around as Aymes sat in the middle of the whirlwind of activity, glaring at the screens surrounding him.

He was probably being overly cautious, but there was no sense in following the fate of his predecessor.

He rather liked breathing.

►►►

Shuttle Eagle One