Carter Bowman lay in his bed, listening to the sounds of the Rishi. He loved the aging star cruiser. It had been his home for over twenty years, and he knew every inch of her. From the vibration of the deck plates, to the hum of the ship’s engines as they propelled the Rishi through space. These were the faint, ever-present sounds that gave life to the vessel and lulled the captain in his state of semi-consciousness.

  His berth, a floor below and aft of the bridge, was a short turbo-lift ride away in case the crew needed him. It had no windows, but view-screens built into the walls could play any sort of scene he desired. Currently, the screens were off, as was every other light source in the room. His skin glowed a faint blue in the darkness. It was a byproduct of being born on Riser and was noticeable only in complete darkness or in unfiltered moonlight.

  This was his favorite time of day; slowly waking up in the inky void, unsure if he was still sleeping, his mind free to drift as it would. His mattress conformed to the contours of his body, making him feel weightless. He felt as if he was floating through the deep emptiness of space.

  DING

  Bowman sighed to himself. As much as he wanted to remain in this half-corporeal state, he knew duty was calling; it always did for Carter Bowman. From the moment of his Testing and, Bowman knew, until he died, duty would ever call his name.

  DING

  It must be important; his crew wouldn’t disturb him during his downtime unless needed.

  “Come!”

  Bowman sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, the bare deck cold beneath his feet. He was lithe, having a swimmer’s build, although a life in the military, and elsewhere, had built his frame out more than most Risonians. His upper torso was bare, except for intricate tattoos that completely covered both of his arms. Those tattoos, as much as anything else, powered the rumor mill about his past. Carter stood, running a hand through his closely cropped greying hair as the hatch opened, light spilling into the room.

  Silhouetted by the light in the hallway was the slight form of the Rishi’s First Mate, Commander Obao Toshi. He was an Ikalitekian, the furthest planet out from the sun, and his shock of white hair, his planet’s physiological signature, seemed to glow. The man was unimposing at first glance, but Carter knew better; he was a warrior, having trained with the Shrouded Monks as a child before joining the Imperial Navy, where he further honed his deadly arts.

  “Tosh,” the captain said as he walked into the small head, its door closing behind him. “What do you have for me?”

  The first mate stepped into the room, allowing the hatch to close, cutting off the light from the hallway. Tosh didn’t mind; he had been in the cabin enough times, both socially and professionally, to know his way around by memory. He took a few steps to the side and thumbed on a small lamp that sat on a low table between two plush armchairs, the room’s only other furniture.

  “Something strange, Captain. I’d have waited until you came on shift, but…,” the first mate paused, looking down at the data-pad he held. “Well, you need to see for yourself, sir.”

  There was a grunt from the head, the sound of running water, muffling any intelligible response the captain may have made.

  Tosh sat in one of the chairs, not worried about protocol. Not here. He had served with the captain a long time, and in the privacy of his berth, Carter Bowman was informal. The first mate thumbed on his data-pad, the window with the relevant information already prepped. Toshi stared at the message on the screen, reading it over as the captain finished waking up in the head, searching for answers that weren’t there.

  “Coffee?”

  Tosh heard the captain ask from behind him as he exited the head and walked over to the small galley embedded in one wall. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

  “No, thank you, sir. I’m not sure my constitution is quite up for that sludge you call coffee.”

  “Suit yourself, Tosh. Suit yourself.”

  Bowman turned on his espresso maker, a small custom-made model. Coffee was almost a religious experience for him and if the rest of the crew couldn’t appreciate coffee made from the beans of the Fire Bush on Voltaro, it just meant more for him.

  A few moments later, Bowman sat opposite his first mate, the spicy aroma of his coffee filling the cabin. He had dressed, although his jacket was hanging by the door where he had left it the night before. An ensign had slipped in during the night to take the jacket, pressing and cleaning it, as well as shining the captain’s shoes. Bowman liked crisp lines on his uniform, and his crew ensured the captain didn’t worry about the little things.

  “What do you have for me?” Bowman asked, taking a slow sip of his coffee, a smile playing across his features as the taste and heat made their way through him.

  Tosh handed over the data-pad, his brow creased in consternation.

  “It’s a strange one,”

  Bowman set his coffee down on the low table between the two men and reached for the device.

  “It’s queued up.”

  Bowman took a minute to look at the screen before looking up at his first mate.

  “I think you better give me some more context, Tosh,”

  The data-pad showed a black screen with the Imperial Navy crest emblazoned in gold. Below the image was a line of numbers he recognized as his service number, along with an input field marked ‘code word’.

  “That’s the strange part,” Obao Toshi said, settling back into his seat. “I don’t much, sir. We received the message, and it was properly encoded. It uses an old passkey, which our systems flagged, but still acknowledged as valid. There were two files in the packet. This one, and a text message. Flip to the next screen for that.”

  The captain did just that, and a simple line of text followed by a string of numbers appeared on the screen.

  Carter. I need one last favor. Duty and Honor. Cpt. Dan Booker.

  “That looks like a mission file, sir.” Toshi pointed to the string of numbers below the message. “But when I ran it, there wasn’t anything associated with it in the database.”

  “There wouldn’t be, Tosh. No record with those numbers officially exists.”

  “I don’t understand.” A quizzical look in the younger man’s eye.

  The captain had his secrets, and while the first mate knew better than to pry, he couldn’t help but wonder what it all meant.

  “It’s ok, Tosh. I do.” Bowman said, manipulating the data-pad and bringing it back to the screen that was asking for a code word.

  On the screen, Carter Bowman typed in Black Rain, memories of a failed mission trying to surface. Ones that he had long tucked away into the back recesses of his mind.

  A video started playing in a box on one half of the screen. On the other half, the screen split into multiple windows, each labeled, showing various sensor readings.

  Bowman watched the file through twice. He glanced at the sensor outputs the first time but mostly watched the video. The second time through, Bowman focused on the output data. As the video played for the third time, he looked at the timestamp, noting it was less than a day old.

  “Place the Rishi on yellow alert.” Bowman said, looking at his first mate. “I want the department heads in my ready room in five minutes. Tell the bridge to be on the lookout for any anomalies their sensors show, no matter how small or inconsequential. Set up a four-hour rotation on the bridge; I want fresh eyes and ears on station at all times. Tell Weps and Engineering to ensure their systems are five-by-five. I want all routine maintenance around the ship completed or buttoned up within the hour.”

  “Aye, sir,” Toshi said, standing and coming to attention. “Sir?”

  The unasked question was obvious to the captain.

  “Not now, Tosh. I’ll tell everyone in the ready room. Go pass on my orders; I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Toshi said, saluting and turning on his heels. The hatch hissed open, and the Rishi’s first mate exited the captain’s berth at a quick walk, heading towards the nearest turbo-lift.

  Bowman sat, watching the video as it finished playing through for the third time. As it did, he thumbed the data-pad off, sitting in the semi-darkness of the cabin, the memories from long ago filling his thoughts.

  You did good, Dan. You did good. Rest easy, old friend. I’ll take it from here.

  He picked up the small coffee cup from where it sat on the low table beside his chair and offered a small toast to the ghosts of the past before finishing the coffee with one pull.

  The captain stood, shaking off the heavy feeling of grief. He had work to do. Honest work. It would be the Rishi’s most important mission since being assigned to Morales Station. He stepped to the hatch, and it hissed open as the captain drew near. Reaching over, he grabbed his jacket from the rack where the ensign had left it, buttoning it up as his long legs took him swiftly to his private turbo-lift.

  __________

  Five minutes later, a buzz filled the crowded captain’s ready room. Sporadic raised voices attempted to get answers from Toshi, but the first mate had told them what he knew, which wasn’t much. Now he sat quietly, thinking through what he had seen on the data-pad.

  Captain Carter Bowman entered last, having taken his time walking around the bridge, ensuring the crew understood the orders Toshi had relayed. He was proud of his people. While most of them had graduated from the academy only a few months earlier, Bowman’s Rishi was renowned for its rapid training of recruits, and had a renowned cadre of senior officers.

  As he entered, there was a shuffle of feet as the men and women present tried to come to attention. He sat in the lone occupied seat at the head of the table, waving his people back down.

  “None of that. We’re like sardines in here as it is. Everyone as they were.”

  A few seconds later, the shuffling and buzz of voices settled, silence descending on the room.

  “Sorry for the impromptu meeting. I know it’s not ideal, and you all had assignments you were working on this morning. Those are all suspended for the moment.” Captain Bowman held up a hand to forestall questions. “As you know, we’re on yellow alert. I’ve had information relayed from a reliable source: An Interloper ship has made it past the Barrier and is moving freely throughout Solvonus. I checked the logs, and Rift One has zero reports of an enemy ship getting past them.”

  He let that sink in for a moment. His senior staff had mostly been with him for years. It was part of what made the Rishi such an effective training vessel for the Imperial Navy recruits. This time, the buzz from earlier exploded into a crescendo, everyone talking at once. The unexpected news preying on ingrained cultural taboos, overcoming any sense of professionalism.

  Bowman let them get it out of their system for a moment before catching Toshi’s eye.

  “Silence!” the first mate roared above the din of the crowd. “The captain’s speaking.”

  The reprimand had its intended effect, with a few officers having the good grace to turn red-faced at the admonishment.

  “Thank you, Toshi.” Bowman acknowledged his first mate with a slight nod. “I know it seems improbable, but I assure you the information came from a source I would trust with my life and at a high cost to his own. The enemy is here. I can’t say much more than that, not that I mean to keep you in the dark, but I don’t have more information.”

  “What about word from Morales Station, sir?” A voice said from the back of the room.

  “This came directly to me, Mr. Ramirez.” Bowman recognized his Sensor Lead’s voice. “We’ve had no word from Morales. Not that we would, with all the radiation this far out. For now, we’re operating at my discretion. I’ll share the pertinent data with you shortly. We will keep to our patrol schedule, which will take us inward, through the Navorian belt, and towards Ikalitek’s orbit before we need to swing back to Morales. The How and Why are questions I don’t have answers for, and I have my own reasons for feeling uncomfortable running this up the chain until we have some answers.”

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  Bowman paused, looking at the faces of his senior staff; their posture and demeanor had subtly shifted as he talked, becoming more focused. The information was sinking in, the seriousness of what he was saying taking hold. Bowman could see understanding dawning on a few faces. That he wasn’t reporting to Morales Station spoke volumes.

  I don’t know who to trust, and now they know this is an even bigger deal.

  Carter nodded to himself. He knew his officers were up to the mission.

  “I need all of you to keep the crew in check. This will spook them and will have their imaginations in overdrive. I need them focused. We don’t know the extent of the breach. The ship in question may be damaged, and most likely hiding in the Belt. Hopefully, we can use that to our advantage to find them. Toshi will send information to your stations, but in my experience, Interloper ships are hard to locate with sensors and just as hard to spot visually unless you know where to look.

  The implications of an Interloper ship, in system and this far from the Rift, are unfathomable. We have limited time and space to take advantage of the situation, people. Right now, they’re fairly isolated. There’s only Morales, and the Belt out here. Ikalitek’s orbit is at its apogee, giving them another obstacle to navigate, but none of those make any strategic sense. If I were them, I’d be here for something more, and that means moving inward. We’re lucky Ikalitek is in the way. The I.O.C. will form shortly, causing quite the headache for them.”

  There were nods around the room, with some gathered, putting their heads together for a quiet word, no doubt already thinking about the problem.

  Captain Bowman looked to Toshi and nodded before standing.

  “Alright people,” Toshi said, standing himself. “To your stations. We’ll be running four-hour shifts, so get the schedules posted for your teams. Try to keep their speculation to a minimum. I’ll send out the data packet on the officer network in a few moments. In the meantime, get your people scanning every inch of space. We’ll be approaching the Belt in eighteen hours, and I want our scans to have marked every speck of dust between here and there.”

  In a few moments, the crew had exited the confined space of the ready room. Various department heads calling out to each other, working out details to better cross-check each other’s work.

  “We’ll find them, sir,” Toshi said, turning to the captain, who stood at the far end of the table, watching the video play out on the data-pad once again.

  “I intend to,” the captain said after a brief pause. “A good man lost his life to the enemy, and I’d like to know how the hell that happened.”

  Toshi started. The captain never swore, at least not that he could remember.

  “We’ll get answers for you, sir.” The first mate paused, allowing the silence to deepen, giving his captain time.

  Bowman watched the feed on the data-pad for another few moments before tapping on the screen and entering a series of commands.

  “I’ve sent the packet to your folder. It’s quite a bit. The drone that shot the footage was a Gen A long-range model with a full sensor suite. Disseminate the readings to the department heads, and let’s get to work.”

  Toshi’s eyes widened at the mention of the Gen A drone, but he didn’t press the captain. Whoever had sent this footage could pull some serious strings.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, giving a salute and left to make sure the crew was hard at work.

  __________

  “Captain?”

  “What is it, sailor?” Bowman asked, stopping his slow-roving inspection of the Rishi’s command deck.

  It had been two days since the news of Interlopers in the system had become known, but the crew still plied their trade, trying to find the enemy craft. The captain had them winding their way in and out of the Navorian Belt in an oblong, ever widening orbit, trying to maximize their sensor coverage. The Rishi had entered the Belt close to where the Rock Crusher had been destroyed; they found the mining vessel’s debris field, but almost nothing remained, the enemy completely decimating the craft. They were currently running perpendicular to the Belt, on the Inward side, and would turn to enter the asteroid field again shortly.

  The petty officer, one of the few Smiths who left their world’s massive StarDocks to explore the solar system, hesitated and remained seated. He was new to this post, but the more experienced crew said the captain was stern yet fair. Bowman expected each of his sailors to perform their duty by the book; he also wanted everyone in his command to speak up if they had a question or an observation, as long as it was relevant.

  Was he sure about this?

  The young man was just settling in with his new squad, and one ill-considered comment could make him the butt of jokes for some time to come. The Rishi was the most sought-after posting out of boot for recruits. However, barrack life this far out in the system was still boring as hell when off duty. To fill the hours of boredom, the crew had created an art form of playing jokes on each other. The crew mercilessly descended on anyone who made a mistake on duty until something else caught their attention.

  “Well, Petty Officer?” the captain said, again.

  “S-sir,” the young sailor stammered.

  Captain Bowman leaned close to the man, noting his shiny new nameplate under the squad’s emblem.

  “Kaslow. What is it? Say it straight and don’t hesitate. Our job is to jump at shadows. We’re the first line of defense out here, the only line. I’d rather us go on alert a hundred times than miss the one time we’re really needed. You know what’s at stake. What did you see?”

  Kaslow sat straighter with the encouragement of his commanding officer.

  “Sir,” he said again, “I was performing a scheduled sweep, and for a moment, I thought I saw something, but I’m not sure what it was. I would’ve spoken to Commander Toshi, but you were passing by.”

  “Say what’s on your mind, son.”

  “Aye, sir. I was doing a sweep on the secondary long-range scope. It’s currently trained behind us, looking back along the Belt’s edge, right by marker buoy 43189. I could have sworn, sir, that the status light of the buoy flickered on and off for a long moment, like something passed between us and the buoy.”

  “Did you ping the buoy?”

  “Yes, sir. Right away, just like the manual says to do. It was five by five, sir. No error codes or anything. I even looked up the buoy’s maintenance schedule, and the service record shows it received the proper updates in the last sector overhaul a couple of months back.”

  Captain Bowman stood quietly beside the petty officer for a long moment, running through possibilities in his mind.

  “Sir?” Kaslow hazard, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the captain standing quietly at his station.

  Bowman looked back down at the petty officer. “What is it, Kaslow?”

  “If you look at my jacket, sir, you’ll see that I worked the docks on Airia before joining up. I worked on these buoys, helping refit and upgrade them. They’re fairly indestructible, sir. They’re built to withstand the Belt, and the increased radiation this far out. When the ping came back clean, I couldn’t figure out what would cause its signal light to flicker off and on like that, so I spoke up.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Kaslow. Keep your eyes peeled and let me know if it happens again.” Bowman said, turning and heading back to his command station.

  The captain settled into his chair and typed a few commands into the terminal built into the armrest. He replayed the images the scope had recorded on his heads-up holographic display, then pinged the buoy himself, getting a clean return.

  “Astrometrics, did the scans show any rogue asteroids or any other anomaly from the vicinity of buoy 43189?”

  “Already playing back the scan, sir. One moment.” Lieutenant Andorn said, from the Astrometrics station.

  Bowman gave a nod of satisfaction as he looked around the command deck. His crew was just as alert as ever. They had been paying attention and were already hard at work to see if they could track down any evidence that could explain why buoy 43189 had flickered. It was their first lead, and they didn’t want to mess it up.

  A moment later, the lieutenant spoke up.

  “Sir, we’re currently tracking the few known asteroids in this sector that are outside of the Navorian Belt. None are by the buoy. The scans are clean, sir.”

  “Sir!”

  “Go ahead, Toshi.”

  “You better look at this, Captain.”

  “Send it over to my station.”

  “Yes, sir,” Toshi said, pressing a few buttons on his keypad, formatting the data. The commander’s hand swiped the package from his screen and flicked it towards the command chair in a fluid motion. The chair’s electronics suite intercepted the data package and projected it on the captain’s hologram.

  “What am I looking at, Tosh?” Bowman asked, poring over the information.

  “I’m not sure, sir. But when Lieutenant Andorn said his scans were clean, my team returned and did a deep scan on the data from the long-range scopes, cross checking with the data from the sensor’s logs. I can’t be certain. The profile differs from the one the rescue drone captured, but something passed in front of buoy 43189. It’s a long way behind us, so getting a clear image is hard. Working on running it through some enhancements for you now.”

  Finally.

  “Do we have a trajectory on it? Can we track it?” Bowman said, sitting up straighter in his chair.

  Long moments passed, and Bowman fought his sudden urge to snap at his crew. They knew what they were about. He couldn’t let his emotions get the best of him.

  “Yes, sir,” Tanaka said from Tracking. “It’s tentative, and we had to go back and pull up scans from a few neighboring buoys, so the information’s not as accurate. However, it looks like whoever they are, they think they’re still hiding, and we can’t see them. I’d hazard a guess they won’t make any abrupt changes that we could detect.”

  Bowman took another look at the image floating in front of him. The A.I. enhanced feeds had captured a single clear frame, but that was enough for him; being the captain of a Delta class star cruiser that patrolled the Barrier, he had access to regular intelligence briefings. Those briefings, and a previous life that the crew regularly speculated about, gave Carter Bowman intimate knowledge of the enemy.

  Interlopers. We found them.

  Part of him couldn’t believe they had tracked down a lone ship in the deep of space, especially one that didn’t want to be found. That was, however, part of the Rishi’s mission, even if it was secondary to training recruits.

  The Rishi patrolled the Barrier in this sector of the solar system. It was of unknown origin and energy surrounding the entire Solvonus solar system. It was impenetrable, in all directions, save for one minor breach, simply called the Rift, which the star base Rift One protected. The Barrier was both protector and jailor for the Solvonus people. It protected them from their ancient enemy, the Interlopers, who had first chased them to this system millennia ago. The Barrier also kept them trapped in Solvonus, but the richness of the planets and the powers that they had discovered more than made up for that limitation.

  Each child grew up knowing the Barrier kept the Interlopers at bay, and that deeply entrenched itself in their collective psyche.

  The Rishi’s base of operations was an aging star base, Morales Station; a relic from the War of Power, where it served as a secret research facility for one of the Great Houses. The station sat on the far side of the Navorian Belt, which itself was far past Ikalitek’s orbit. While they were about as far from the Rift as possible, Morales Station, the Rishi, and her sister ship, the Dovani, had standing orders to monitor for any signs of a breach in the Barrier.

  They had a million questions, and none of the answers. The captain didn’t know who to trust, but he had to get the word out to someone. The best Bowman could do was to put a Traveler in a StarFire cockpit and get the information moving inward to the core; he had waited long enough. Bowman didn’t trust the information net with this; besides, it would take too long to work through the various firewalls, regardless of how he coded the message. A Traveler could get it into the right hands a lot quicker.

  As all this flashed through his mind, his fingers fiercely typed out a message. He encoded the data from the sensors for the past twelve hours and keyed it Priority: Eyes Only.

  “Tanaka!” Bowman’s voice was louder than he intended, and it startled the bridge crew.

  Lieutenant Commander Tanaka, the Rishi’s duty officer, as well as the Tracking lead, snapped to attention.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get Mr. Finnimon on the flight deck and prepped in the next two minutes. Tell him to make the jump inward, to Senovar. I’ll upload his codes and the data package directly to his StarFire’s databank.”

  Tanaka approached the command chair instead of turning to head out the hatch to get Mr. Finnimon ready.

  “Sir?”

  Bowman looked up at the officer, not chewing him out for failing to follow orders. He had served with Tanaka long enough to know the man was a competent sailor and one hell of an officer. If he delayed following orders and needed to speak, it was for a damn good reason.

  “Sir, Mr. Finnimon isn’t on board. He’s back on Morales in the sickbay. The docs wouldn’t clear him for duty, and we had to leave him behind to stay on schedule.”

  Damn it.

  “Please tell me we have another Traveler on board Tanaka,” Captain Bowman said, running a hand through his hair.

  “Yes, sir. We do. Mr. Esplin. The problem is that he can’t make a hop as far as Senovar. He’s out here training; the best he can do from our current position is most of the way back to Morales Station.”

  “Shit.” Bowman was upset enough to break his personal rule of never swearing in front of his men. He thought it showed a lack of control on his part, and a commanding officer who was not in control of himself could not lead effectively.

  Can’t take it back now, can you, Carter?

  Frustrated, Bowman gripped the armrest on his left side slightly tighter.

  “If that’s the best we got, it is what it is. Mr. Esplin will have to do the short hop, and let’s just hope that Mr. Finnimon is up to taking over and getting the data to Senovar. Get going, Tanaka. Get Mr. Esplin up and into his StarFire. I’ll update the orders and get them loaded while he’s in startup.”

  “Aye, sir,” Tanaka said, pausing again instead of leaving. He leaned forward, lowering his voice so only the captain could hear him. “Sir. Just so you know, Mr. Esplin isn’t rated for a StarFire, but he has a personal shuttle. I’ll tag it on the system for those orders, sir.”

  Bowman nodded to his lieutenant, more for his discretion in correcting his commanding officer quietly than anything else. With a nod in return, Tanaka turned on his heels and headed to the hatch leading to the pilot’s ready room to inform Traveler Esplin of his new orders.

  Captain Bowman reflected on the lieutenant, even as he pulled the data package back up and began altering his orders. He paused in his typing, briefly considering a thought, and opened a new window on his screen. He pulled up Tanaka’s service record, typing a quick notation to add a commendation to his file, and schedule a promotion review; it was well past time.

  Closing the service file, Bowman adjusted the orders, giving Mr. Esplin priority clearance to land at Morales Station. He added an automated sequence that the shuttle would send as soon as it connected to the base’s network. It would go to the Base Commander, General Jesrian, informing him of priority traffic. The message would also inform the general that Bowman was enacting code Alpha Zulu on his initiative; this would irritate the aging general. The Alpha Zulu code would exclude Jesrian from the information chain but demanded that he allocate all available resources to help the message reach its destination.

  Bowman would pay for that later, he was sure.

  The message also let the general know that their regular Traveler was in the base’s sickbay and couldn’t muster with the Rishi when they left their tether a few days ago. Hopefully, Finnimon was doing better, but even if he wasn’t, he needed to get to his StarFire, transfer the data package over from Mr. Esplin’s shuttle, and make the hop directly to Senovar.

  Finally, he requested the general send Mr. Esplin back to the Rishi to help with any other urgent communications. There weren’t any other Travelers at the station. The third, Mr. Verkaik, had been recalled to Nthandi for formal examination and further training. He had gone with the Rishi’s sister ship when it made its way inward for its refit almost two years ago, where they were to have Power capable circuitry installed.

  The Dovani was supposed to return to duty with a new complement of Powers. However, they had temporary orders assigning them to Talunne, where they were to provide extra security for the Empress’s one-hundredth anniversary celebrations that were to take place in two months’ time.

  The orders completed, Bowman verified the data package from the sensor suites; he saw that Toshi, being the competent commander that he was, had also filed a briefing note summarizing the data with pertinent timestamps.

  Damn fine crew you’ve got here, Carter. You’ll have to make sure they know it once this is over.

  He re-coded the package, uploaded it to the Rishi’s network, and tagged it for immediate download to the Traveler’s shuttle the minute its computer had booted and connected to the main shipboard network.

  That task done, he turned back to his heads-up hologram and pulled up the timestamps Toshi had provided.

  What was an Interloper ship doing out here, and how did it get through the barrier?

  The commander sat straighter in his chair and keyed a command into his console. A ship-wide alert system sounded, and the emergency lighting kicked in, pulsing amber.

  “This is the Captain.” Bowman paused, allowing his crew to give him their full attention. “Our sensors have detected the Interloper ship. How it got through the Barrier without being detected is still unknown. Regardless, it’s here, and we have standing orders to hunt it down and capture the vessel. Man your battle stations.”