► Eagle One faded to near pitch black as the cam-plate armor began absorbing all frequencies of visible light and beyond. Running lights flicked off, transmissions ended. The systems on a shuttle were hardly up to the full specs of the Odysseus, but the small vessel didn’t need to be nearly as efficient in order to hide in hundreds of millions of cubic kilometers of space.

Ahead, the gas giant loomed in the distance. To the naked eye, the world was a dim one, not having much light to reflect from the system’s primary star due to distance. In fact, the local sun barely looked larger than some of the other bright stars in the black around them.

In near infrared, however, the gas giant was a beacon in the night.

►►►

IBC Piar Cohn

► “Status of the unknown contact,” Aymes asked as he returned to the bridge, just glancing at the screen where the gas giant was growing visibly larger.

“Still on an eccentric orbit, Captain. No change.”

Aymes scowled. He almost wished there had been. At least then he’d have an idea what to do, but at the moment he was left with a bit of a quandary.

“What do we have on visible scanners?” he asked.

“Not much,” the chief said, shaking his head. “It’s even farther out than the gas giant, Captain. Not enough light reflecting to get much resolution with ship scanners.”

He could go active, of course, but that would reveal his location and give any enemy a good idea of what they were up against. In exchange, he might not get much of a return signal at the current range. Whatever was out there, it wasn’t on an intercept course with the Cohn, which could mean it hadn’t spotted them yet or that it was playing dead and hoping to be missed.

That wasn’t going to happen. He’d have to check it out closely before he left the system, but he’d rather not put the Cohn in a targeting reticule in the process.

We do not always get the things that we wish for.

“Take us to combat standing,” he ordered. “Stand by to separate parasite craft, charge real-time scanners.”

“Yes Captain. Systems standing by for orders. Parasite craft are being manned.”

Aymes nodded slowly. “Once they’re manned . . . launch the parasites and bring the light to this whole damned system.”

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

Shuttle Eagle One, Entering Orbit

► “I see it, Commander.”

Steph leaned forward. “Where?”

Milla pointed. In the distance, a bright star moved fast against the background.

“Got it,” Steph confirmed. “Get the passives on it. Try and work out its location and course through parallax.”

“As you say, Stephan,” she answered. “Without active systems, I am having to track manually.”

“Whoa.”

Milla looked up. “What is it?”

“Something just happened. Check it out,” Steph said, tipping his chin toward the viewport.