“Why would they transmit directly using subspace pulse, why not send it in the clear?” Lowell vocalised what they were all wondering in the wake of the surprising missive.

“Whatever their reasoning, they’ve singled us out,” Fraser-Perry said, having moved to stand over his second’s computer station, “choosing to keep the civvies in the dark that they’re there.”

“Speaking of there,” Amelia said, scratching her head, “where are they? I thought you said the scopes were clear?”

“They are,” the Operations Officer protested, “there’s nothing on neither LIDAR nor gravpulse, apart from the star of Nürmann-184 itself and that massive asteroid belt.”

“So the Greens have got to be in there somewhere then,” WO Korvel said, and Gallagher immediately started typing in commands to run more scans of the closest parts of the belt, “or else they wouldn’t have been able to see us.”

“Nor contact us that quickly,” Durzi commented, “subspace pulses are quicker than regular radio, you know, with the whole speed of gamma waves and all that, but they evidently had us on their sensors almost immediately upon our arrival, ran a recognition scan, and then had the time to set up, record, and transmit a sub-pulse.”

“We’ve only been in-system for all of nine minutes,” Lowell pointed out, looking at her old-fashioned mechanical wristwatch, “and since we apparently did not register a gravpulse ping against our own sensors, it is logical to assume she has us on LIDAR.” That last comment was accompanied by a slightly pointed glare at Fraser-Perry and Gallagher, and both of them swallowed hard.

“Mr Fraser-Perry,” Amelia said in an authoritative tone, “you know what to do. By that logic, work out where she could be if she only has us on LIDAR. LIDAR travels literally by the speed of light, so you just have to work out the travel distances and timing by using time stamps from, say, ninety seconds to eight minutes.”

The Operations Officer nodded in confirmation and he and his second got down to it, querying the sensor SAI systems, and communicated with the third Ops officer down in the Action Information Centre.

“Mr Durzi,” Amelia continued, “put me through to the civilian captains. They need to know what is going on, and potentially be ready to crash-drop back into the Light Way.”

“What about the Royfort, Ma’am?” Korvel asked and Amelia shook her head.

“We’ll play for time. We can’t tight-beam her or send a subspace pulse back without knowing her exact location, and we won’t give her captain the satisfaction of scrambling by sending a response in the clear. No, we’re going to coordinate with the rest of the convoy, find the bastard, and talk to her directly. That, or make her wait long enough for her to starting squawking in the clear.”

She picked the headset up again and put it on, choosing to activate her command chair’s video pick-up in the armrest as well. After a few moments, the inlaid computer screen (which very practically swivelled around on a pivot so the captain could position it just the way she wanted it) came alive with the nonplussed faces of the three Indiamen.

“Lady la Lune,” Shipmaster Molly Chapman of the Selenagrad Prize was the first to speak, “what’s the matter? We’ve only just dropped out of the Light Way and my engineers have only now started to cool down the fusion coils, we won’t be at H-1 for at least two hours.”

“Firstly, I would like to inform you that we’ve arrived in Nürmann-184, a particularly charmless piece of interstellar real estate, close to twenty light years away from the Lorelei System, so we’re just about halfway through our trek across the Lorelei SAR. Secondly, we, as in the Euphoria, have been messaged through a direct subspace pulse communiqué about our intentions and travel plans by an Alliance warship.”

That second part made the civilian captains hike their eyebrows up in surprise and they started speaking to their bridge crews, no doubt running through the same motions Amelia and her own people had just been through. She held up a hand and cleared her throat to regain their attention.

“I can pretty much tell what your officers are saying right now; there’s no signal on sensors, there’s no way the Greens are close enough to send a direct message without us seeing them. To that, I will offer you a pretty simple possible hypothesis as to why.”

She smiled morbidly.

“Your civilian sensors are, and do forgive me for saying so, barely worth the rhenium and technetium that went into making them. And while yes, you are also tied into the Euphoria’s sensor network, we also have a completely useless sensor package, the D5E, which has failed us frequently on previous occasions.”

“Bloody brilliant,” Jakub Antonov of the Astral Pearl said with a huff and crossed his arms over his chest, “we’re practically caught with our pants down and our ‘escort’ can’t even see who’s stalking us.”

“Mind your tone, Sir, what what,” Amelia said with the slightest of smirks, intentionally slipping into a more aristocratic drawl, “we’re searching for this troublesome fellow right now, and if we don’t find her, we’re going to wait long enough for her become so impatient she will start communicating in the clear, ruining whatever ‘clever’ ploy she was attempting.”

She was about to say something more, but Lieutenant Lowell, who had walked over to the holographic plot and taken over commanding about the bridge crew while Amelia was occupied, snapped her fingers sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Amelia said, looking back into the video pickup, “but duty calls.” Her tone sobered up quite a bit.

“Euphoria will remain linked to your ship’s sensor SAIs, and keep your frequencies open. I would advise expediting the cooling of your fusion coils and have your crews at high readiness. That is to say, I do not expect trouble, but given the problematic attitude of the Alliance Space Navy in regards to policing the SAR these past months, the quicker we were on our way, the better.”

“Surely you don’t think they’d accost merchant ships travelling along a known interstellar shipping lane?” Chapman asked, slightly indignant and Amelia shook her head.

“No, I don’t believe the Elysians would take issue with you, but I wouldn’t put it past them to make some sort of ruckus if recent history is anything to go by. I will keep you appraised as the situation develops, Euphoria out.”

She cut the link and turned to face Lowell and Gallagher.

“What do you have for me?”

Lowell pointed at a zoomed in part of the holographic plot, a section showing a bunch of heavy asteroids most likely filled with rare earths, and as Amelia concentrated on them, an ever so barely visible greenish-yellow outline could be spotted in the space between the two largest asteroids.

“Looks like we found the Royfort,” Fraser-Perry commented, rather unhelpfully. “It appears she is in hull-down mode, running as silent as possible in terms of emissions and electronic signature exposure. From that angle and distance, about seventy-two million kilometres out, it would have taken them three minutes and fifty-eight seconds to spot us on LIDAR and the same time for the readings to bounce back. That fits perfectly with the about nine minute mark, and would also explain why they used subspace pulse instead of normal communications.”

“Because sub-pulse is faster since it dips into the Light Way,” Amelia finished for him, the pieces of the puzzle slotting into place, “and since only the Euphoria has a gravpulse array powerful enough to receive sub-pulse messages, that explains why the message was directed at us.”

“Indeed,” Lowell said, “which means we really could be answering in the clear.”

“Quite,” Amelia answered and put a hand up to her chin in thought, “but I want to play this safe. Ms Gallagher, please note this in the log. Euphoria and Convoy LP-77 arrived in Nürman-184 to recharge fusion coils at 21:29 shipboard time, 10 November 2874 galactic relative. At 21:39, Euphoria was contacted by a ship claiming to be the Alliance Navy Ship Royfort via subspace pulse. O-i-C Euphoria decided at 21:46 to open communications with the ship claiming to be Royfort. Await further log entry.”

She took a deep breath and straightened her beret and tugged at her uniform tunic.

“Put me on main screen, Mr Durzi, and start recording on my mark. For the record, send it over normal radio channels, we’re not playing to the Greens’ tune. Meanwhile, Ms Lowell, get the rest of the crew up and at Readiness Two. Hold off on donning C-suits, but have them close by.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to simply call to quarters?” Lowell asked, having found her seat again in the 2-i-C chair, but Amelia shook her head.

“No, this is probably some hotshot captain looking to peacock his feathers about a bit, trying to play his own importance up and earn some bragging rights among his mates. Trust me, I’ve met the kind before when I was out on the border with the Neuhansa Sternbund and had to deal with paranoid Sternmarine captains who thought every foreign ship either carried contraband or were a covert invasion attempt.”

“Damn clever hiding spot he picked out for himself though,” Lowell said, “but I cannot for the life of me figure out why he would pick this waste-of-space system to hide in, it’s pretty far from the usual layover stops on this shipping route.”

“Well, we’ll just ask him if we get the chance. Now, get the rest of the boys and girls out of their bunks and have them report to their stations and divisions.”

“Aye aye, Ma’am.”

“Alright, let’s have it, Mr Durzi.” Sub-lieutenant Durzi typed in a few commands, and a light came on above the massive mimicglass bridge window that also doubled as a huge computer screen, and part of it became filled with a feed of Amelia from the stomach up, and she stared into the camera pick-up with a calm, but firm look on her face.

“To the ship claiming to be the Alliance warship Royfort, this is His Auroran Majesty’s destroyer Euphoria, in charge of Royal Merchant Marine Convoy LP-77, Lieutenant Commander Lady de la Lune commanding. We are en route to Lucidia and have entered N-space to recharge the fusion coils of the Light Drives of our Indiamen-type merchant ships. We plan to continue on our way within the next three standard shipboard hours. Euphoria clear.”

Durzi didn’t need a cue to know when to cut the feed, and Amelia’s face disappeared from the screen and the little light went out with a single clack on his keyboard.

“Sent, Ma’am, should be about seven minutes and change before they receive it.”

“Excellent,” Amelia said, “now, someone clear away this tea tray, and I want to know what kind of beast the Royfort is. Ms Gallagher, run through the database and see what we have on her. Ms Lowell, call our merchant skipper friends and ask how they’re getting along with their fusion coils. Don’t be rude, but also drop a few hints for them to light a bit of a fire under their arses. I don’t want to sit here and exchange ‘pleasantries’ with the Greens for three hours straight, I have better things to do with my time.”

“Oh, looks like the Royfort is on the move,” Fraser-Perry reported, and all eyes were drawn to the holographic plot, and indeed, the little dot denoted as the Royfort, with the blurb of information attached to it, was slowly but surely moving away from the asteroids it had been hiding behind.

“That makes no sense,” Korvel said in a confused tone, “they can’t have received the message that fast, she’s over seventy-thousand k-clicks out.”

“Why are they moving at all is my question,” McMorrow opined, “if they’ve somehow received the missive, they’d know that we aren’t trying anything funny-like, and that we’ll be gone as soon as practicable.”

Anna Gallagher simply could not shake the feeling that something was wrong, but every time she consulted the holographic plot and asked the computer systems to run another scan of the sensor data, she came up with nothing. Fraser-Perry was too busy to notice what his junior was doing, and since he was doing most of the work with keeping the plot updated and the coordination with the AIC, Anna was more or less free to keep searching for what nagged her, in between sending updated data to Warrant Officer Korvel’s Tactical division. Her computer made a ding sound as the database search produced results.

“Ma’am,” she said, half turning to look at de la Lune, “central registry came up with a positive for Royfort.” Her eyes skimmed the data and she swallowed.

“The Royfort is a Rangertown class light cruiser, commissioned seven years ago, last noted as part of the Alliance’s Starfall Fleet. She has twice our numbers, sixty per cent more guns, and over two times the mass advantage on us.”

“Well well,” Amelia said, following letting out a low whistle, “she’s a little lady with a bite is she? No matter, we’ll be out of her hair shortly. And, for the benefit of the log, I would like to point out that we are well within our rights to be in this star system.”

“Oh, Ma’am,” Durzi interjected, “Royfort is addressing us via sub-pulse again.”

Amelia clicked her tongue and put a hand up to her temple.

“Damn their eyes, why can’t they just stop this idiocy and start sending via normal frequencies. But alright, let’s have it.”

Ensign Joseph Durzi tapped a few commands on his keyboard, and part of the mimicglass screen was given over to the stern face of an olive-skinned man with very short black hair under his black and white peaked cap.

“Auroran warship claiming to be the Euphoria,” he said in clipped tones, “this is Commander Ali Vargas of the Royfort. It is my duty to inform you that you are currently in a restricted Alliance territory without specific permission given, nor any advance warning of your arrival provided. I cannot confirm your proclaimed identity, nor that of your companion ships, and as such I have no option but to ask you to port at the nearest Alliance naval base. I will ask you to turn off your active sensors, stand your crew down, and allow yourself to be boarded by our marines and officers who will take your ships to the Lorelei System, where your data logs will be inspected. If you indeed are the Euphoria as you claim to be, you will be permitted to be on your way only after this has been carried out. Royfort clear.”

Amelia and Lowell could only stare at the now blank mimicglass screen for a solid half-minute, before the captain broke the silence.

“Excuse me, what the actual fuck?” She thumped a closed fist into the armrest of her chair and pointed at Durzi.

“Put me right back on, open channels again, and keep the log running; I want our side of the conversation to be retained for posterity.”

The light came back on, and Amelia leaned forward in her chair, her calm expression replaced by an icy cold one this time around.

“ANS Royfort, this is His Auroran Majesty’s warship Euphoria. Your previous message, which for the benefit of both our shipboard logs were delivered as a direct subspace pulse, is in fact indicative of intent of breach of not only the Genoa Treaty of twenty-one-twenty-two, the interstellar agreement that ensures the security of commercial shipping without arbitrary and unlawful impediment, but is also a violation of the Azurea Agreement of twenty-eight-forty between our two respective star nations. The Lorelei Special Administrative Region is not, repeat, not sovereign Alliance territory, it is an internationally recognised demilitarised zone under the temporary jurisdiction of Alliance authorities, and the Alliance armed forces have a duty to uphold order in the SAR. This does not extend to ordering merchant vessels of neutral nations to port at Alliance Navy bases for unlawful inspections. I await reception and recognition of these facts, Commander Vargas. Until such time, Convoy LP-77 will continue in current fashion. Euphoria clear.”

The feed cut again, and Amelia had to place the palm of her hands on the armrests to hide the fact that they were shaking violently from the rest of the crew.

“Joseph,” she said with as much steadiness in her voice as she could muster, “put me through to the civilian captain again, I need to run this through with them.”

“Aye aye, Ma’am,” the young Communications Officer replied, once again rerouting the comms channels of the ship.

At the same time, Anna Gallagher was running every sort of scan she could think of, while also forcing through diagnostics of the Euphoria’s notoriously unreliable sensor package that the central AIC CBA-SAI protested noisily against in its own electronic way, but Gallagher overrode its attempts at shutting down what it felt like unnecessary distractions. Something was off-kilter and was gnawing at the back of her mind, but what?

“Helm, put us to thirty per cent FMP acceleration,” Lieutenant Lowell ordered from her First Lieutenant’s seat, “and angle us towards the Royfort, course one-oh-five by oh-niner-niner. Put us between the Greens and the civvies as best you can. Mr Korvel, extend the CBA-SAI’s network and prepare a tube to launch recon drones. Also, my compliments to Ensign Dunleavy, and have him order his torpedo crews to start putting fish in the pipes.”

That last few comments caused heads to turn on the bridge. Amelia managed (somehow) to cut the status update with the civilian captains short while still remaining civil, before turning towards her second in command with a horrified grimace on her attractive face.

“Steady the Buffs, Ms Lowell! No one’s ordered you to prepare our torpedo batteries hot for action! Have you any idea what you’re doing right now?”

“Ma’am,” Hannah Lowell said as she turned to face her captain directly with a facial expression like battle-grade titanium, “we, as officers and sailors of the Royal Navy, have sworn to defend the honour of the kingdom and our sovereign, protect our allies, and uphold the safety of civilians and the innocent in space. If this jackass in an Alliance Navy uniform isn’t coming perilously close to violating that latter point, then I don’t know what else could constitute such an example. In any case, wouldn’t it be better to be prepared for the worst while aiming for the best?”

“Lieutenant,” Amelia said in a tone that would in most cases have brokered no argument, “you are walking a very dangerous path right now. Do you have any idea what would happen if this became public knowledge, that a Royal Navy ship was actually prepared to open fire on an Alliance warship over what in all likelihood is a massive misunderstanding? The fallout would be catastrophic, and although I agree with you in principle, I cannot in good conscience allow you to–”

“Buoys!”

The sudden outburst drew all eyes away from the confrontation between the two senior officers on board towards Ensign Anna Gallagher, and she involuntarily shrunk a bit into her uniform as she realised she had shouted it out loud, but she had solved the puzzle. While everything else had been going on, Anna had been studying the plot, quarrelling with the central SAI systems, and running through any related reports her own Dumb Artificial Intelligence systems could dig up, skim through, and give abbreviated notes on. Her brown eyes had bored into the screen, all the while Lady Dawnshire was angrily arguing with her Elysian opposite some sixty-odd million kilometres away, freeing a hand to flick away troublesome mahogany-coloured hair whenever it escaped the confines of her beret to fall across her eyes. Her eyes almost glossed over, and in her intense focus, Anna was mentally transported back to a time not too long ago.

“Ms Gallagher!”

The crass voice made Senior Cadet Anna Thomasine Winfield Gallagher sit straight up, and she instinctively made sure her blue beret was properly on. Captain Susannah Goodenough shook her head and sighed, before rapping the old-fashioned blackboard with her pointer for emphasis.

“I certainly hope,” she said out into the auditorium, raising her voice without the use of a microphone for the benefit of the forty-odd cadets present, “that my lecture isn’t as boring for the rest of you as it evidently is to Ms Gallagher here.”

Anna’s cheeks heated up as laughter rang all around her, but Captain Goodenough soon put a stop to it by rapping the blackboard again.

“Some of you may laugh, some of you may sleep, some of you may be texting your boy- or girlfriends right now, but trust me when I say that what I am discussing in this lecture might just save your lives someday. Now, we’ve already covered the basics of the physics involved when it comes to computer-based sensor systems made by humanity. That was first year curriculum, and if you still have trouble comprehending it, I will be honest and proclaim that I’m having problems believing you’re actually fourth year cadets. Anyway, as I was saying, the stealth systems of modern military technology is, objectively, as immaculate as is humanly possible to manufacture. For four-hundred years, naval shipyards have produced hulls that are radiation-absorbent, with internal water-coolant systems that drink up any resident solar energy and store it internally in said ships for further consumption, or simply stockpile it and then flush it at convenient times. But somehow, collectively as a species, we’ve managed to create sensor technology that foregoes any physical technological advancement readily available to us. Take the gravpulse as an example. Yes, as a system it is very visible and indeed vulnerable, since it is as easily seen as it can see other objects in space. But, but, and here is the rub, ladies and gentlemen, it is also the speediest and most accurate mode of measurement known to Humanity.

Actually, that’s a falsity, it is so accurate that we as a species still have not managed to manufacture a recipient sensor receiver that is capable of absorbing all of the data that a gravpulse is able to transmit, with the speed it is able to transmit, dipping into the Light Way as it does, without throwing up a bunch of false positives, or positive negatives that our SAI systems have to filter through before a complete sensor picture is presented before our dumb human eyes, able to be translated by our dumb human brains.”

“Excuse me, Captain Goodenough,” a male voice from somewhere behind Gallagher asked, “are you implying that computer systems are somehow smarter than humans? Because that would go against any conventional perception of the superiority of a non-limited and multiple-decision capable entity versus a mechanical construct designed for efficiency within a given parameter of ideal tasks.”

Captain Goodenough presented a thin smile that didn’t fool Anna at all, and the King William’s Naval Academy professor tugged at her black and gold peaked cap.

“Suppose what you say is true, young Mr Maldonado, that Humanity is undeniably superior to the transistor-based servants that we have chosen to create…”

Her tone set off alarm bells in Anna’s brain, but she chose to remain silent, fingering the collar of her blue Royal Naval Academy cadet’s uniform. Of very similar cut to the commissioned junior officer’s uniform of the Royal Auroran Navy, it was of an ocean blue colour with white stripes with a dark blue beret; whereas the Royal Navy officer’s uniform was the infamous black and gold with white or navy blue berets.

“It doesn’t change the fact that computer systems are inherently more capable at relatively simple tasks than we are. How fast, Mr Maldonado, can you name all the prime numbers up to the first thousandth? I can guarantee you that a very simple Boolean DAI can do it a million times faster than you. And then I would ask you to compare your times when finding the square root of them all, round up to nearest whole number, and then use those numbers to calculate a spread of positive-operator-valued measures on a Hilbert-Nipissing space. Pretty impossible for you to accomplish unless you have an entire week to do it, Mr Maldonado, wouldn’t you say? That should just prove a benchmark as to what even basic computer systems are able to in terms of compiling and analysing raw data, make sense of it, and produce understandable mathematical results and readouts that our poor monkey brains can make sense of; it scales up when more advanced constructs are used, and then we introduce artificial intelligence systems, and so forth and so forth.”

That shut the cadet up, and provoked a few more chuckles launched in his general direction.

“Now, as I was saying, again,” Captain Goodenough said with a half-stern, half-humorous expression on her face, “I would like to compare the translation of complex sensor data to the millennia-old adage of Ockham’s razor. Simply put, if something seems too incredible to be true, then in most circumstances it is, the less fanciful explanation is likely the more logically preferred. If, for instance, a foreign warship has too fast a reaction speed in regards to travel time for radio signals to reach, be translated, a response formed and recorded, and sent back; you can bet your arses that they have deployed some sort of advanced communications drones or other AI-aided system in order to aid with zone-and-control of a given patch of space. Don’t simply assume that your own technology is faulty, out of date, or somehow not up to snuff; just give your erstwhile opponents the benefit of the doubt and allow yourselves to believe that they might have been planning for such a contingency, and then observe, plan, and thereafter act as such.”

“Buoys, My Lady!” Ensign Anna Gallagher shouted again, back in the present, although no one caught her drift, despite her stating it a second time.

“I believe, Ms Gallagher,” Hannah Lowell said in a slightly condescending tone, “that you need to explain yourself a bit.”

Anna wasted no time, her hands flying across the keyboard of her station, now completely sure what the stupid little pings of false returns the gravpulse sensor SAI was throwing back at her were.

“Here, look,” she said with gusto, leaving her chair and pointing at the holographic plot, “this is the confirmed electronic signature of the Royfort.”

She shuffled a bit to the other side of the plot and pointed again.

“And here we, LP-77, are. As you can tell we’re a very tell-tale cluster of four electronic signatures with our active transponders firing, meaning that anyone just looking in our general direction knows that we’re a warship, and these other huge beasts are merchant ships.” She made an exaggerated motion with her arms to encompass the computer display of the large Indiamen-type ships.

“Warships put out a stupid amount of signals when under normal cruising conditions, especially gravpulse signals, so it is practically impossible to be misidentified for a civilian vessel.”

She paused and drew in a breath.

“But what then, are these?” Anna said, pointing to a seemingly empty part of the Nürmann-184 System. Eyes followed her pointing finger. It looked like a few variable results that shifted every time the next gravpulse wave hit, moving both location and attached electronic data; the very definition of sensor false positives. There were a few scoffing noises, two officers started to whisper things under their breaths, and Lady Dawnshire’s brow started to scrunch up… That was until Lieutenant Aiden Fraser-Perry suddenly produced a surprised sound.

“You’ve read the Carcharodon report, haven’t you?” His tone wasn’t as much accusatory as it was admiring, and Anna nodded while smiling. “I skimmed it a month or so back, and accessed it again just now because I had a hunch.”

“My Lady,” Fraser-Perry turned towards the still seated noble lieutenant commander, “what Ensign Gallagher is pointing to is in all likelihood Alliance Navy communications or observation drones, possibly even intelligence buoys.”

“How can you be sure, Mr Fraser-Perry?” Lieutenant Lowell asked in a tone that suggested she would have liked a less complicated or fanciful explanation, but the Operations Officer shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but the ensign is right. These ghost pings that our gravpulse is picking up are very… no, extremely similar to what HMS Carcharodon found close to six months back in New Malta. What Carcharodon had to deal with that we don’t, is that the suspected Alliance drones were hidden in a Jovian’s ice ring, whereas these are just hiding in plain sight, pretty far away from any solar objects. That means our gravpulse at the standard configuration is just barely able to pick up on the very low frequency output they generate, but the SAI interprets it as ghost pings; in other words false positives.”

“It would also explain why they keep sending via subspace pulse,” Durzi said, mental pieces clicking into place for him as well, “because if they transmitted in the clear over open comms channels, they would be routed through the same buoys and we’d receive the messages just as fast as they are. The buoys are probably hooked to subspace and Light Way transmitters, meaning their signals are getting incrementally and exponentially boosted depending on the size of the buoy network. We use the same approach when we set up surveillance and communications networks, but I can’t think of an example of doing it in an uninhabited system like this…”

“I guess the shoe is on the other foot, then…”

“My Lady?” Warrant Officer Stephen Korvel looked up at the comment made by Amelia, which she really wished could have gone unnoticed. She drew her flaxen hair back and tied it into a ponytail.

“Very well done, Ms Gallagher,” she said, and gave the junior officer a smile of appreciation, “I will make sure to mention your contribution in the report later. But for now, we have a very agitated light cruiser captain that needs to be put back in his place. Mr Durzi, open channels again.”

The light came on, and Amelia sat up straight.

“Royfort, this is Euphoria. We have multiple reasons to believe that the Alliance Space Navy have deployed extensive communications and/or monitoring buoys in the Nürmann-184 System. In addition to the previously outlined potential violations of interstellar treaties described in our last missive, the presence of a military surveillance network in the demilitarised zone of the SAR is in breach of the Interstellar Court of Justice’s paragraph eleven, as well as a further breach of the Azurea Agreement. Euphoria will upon arrival in Lucidia forward the information gathered to the appropriate authorities of both our star nations, as well as relevant third party polities. We will also lodge a complaint to the Alliance Navy regarding Royfort’s belligerent actions which have been totally unbecoming in relation to neutral vessels in a marked DMZ. Needless to say, we will not comply to Royfort’s previous instructions, as they are by their very nature unlawful. Euphoria clear.”

As the recording light disappeared again, Amelia turned to Lowell.

“Inform the civilian skippers that we’re leaving, damn their fusion coils. We’ve wasted too much time and energy already dealing with this Commander Vargas, and we need to get this information to Lucidia Station before the Greens can clear their trail of any wrong-doing. And I have a sneaking suspicion that–”

“Royfort is accelerating and powering up her sensors!” Fraser-Perry half-shouted in surprise from his station.

“She’s hitting Antiochene Heldin and Astral Pearl with targeting lasers!” Korvel reported, his voice betraying his disbelief.

“She’s what now?!” Lowell spun around to look at the plot. Royfort was still over forty million kilometres away from Euphoria, which had already started to close the distance, and as such were close to fifty million clicks from the nearest of the Union Indiamen, but the tell-tale bright beams that emanated from the holographic contact were unmistakable.

“They’ve gone completely mad,” Lowell said in a low voice, “they’re actually aiming their weapons on neutral ships, civilian ones at that.”

“Warship claiming to be the Euphoria,” the angry voice of Commander Vargas said over the comms, now apparently messaging in the clear since their cover had been blown, “we have every reason to believe that you are not the ship you are claiming to be, and as such is in direct violation of the Azurea Agreement between the Independent Systems Alliance and the collective governments of the Royal Union, in addition to flying under false flag. There are also grounds to doubt the veracity of the identity of the ‘merchant ships’, and as such you will accompany the Royfort to Lorelei Fleet headquarters for internment and questioning. Please stand down your crews, shut off your systems, and prepare to be boarded and hand over control of your vessels. Failure to do so will be regarded as an act of hostile intent. Royfort out.”

“That slimy fucker,” McMorrow commented angrily, slamming his fist into his station, “you know the cat’s out of the bag and now you’re trying to get rid of the evidence.”

“This is so beyond illegal that I don’t have any words,” Fraser-Perry said and slumped back in his chair.

Hannah Lowell and Amelia de la Lune exchanged glances, and Lowell nodded.

“Ms Lowell,” Amelia said in a calm voice, “call all hands to Action Stations and beat to quarters.”

The bridge immediately fell silent, the only sounds being the whirring of the ventilation system and the faint hum of the computer stations.

“Aye aye, My Lady,” Lowell replied in a similar tone, rose from her chair and saluted. She picked up her own headset and selected internal comms and ship-wide. The tannoys played a tune before the First Lieutenant’s voice was broadcast all over the interior of HMS Euphoria.

“All hands, this is the First Lieutenant, Action Stations, I say again, Action Stations. Bugler, sound the beat to quarters. All hands don your C-suits, deck and division officers report readiness status.”

The bulkheads, hallways, and decks of the Euphoria rang with the sound of heavy boots hitting the metal flooring in heavy tempo, the sound of the Action Station klaxons ringing out. Most stations were already manned by the bare minimum crew for operations, but at the call of beat to quarters, everyone dropped whatever they were doing and ran to put on their protective C-suits before rushing off their assigned stations. The Royal Navy’s Combat/Closed Circuit Mk VII suit was a tightfitting, all-encompassing spacesuit with inlaid plates of aramisteel in critical areas such as the chest, stomach, crotch, shoulders, knees and the back. A helmet with a wide visor of mimicglass slotted into place over the high neck guard, creating a completely tight and vacuum secure seal, and internal oxygen canisters held enough air for a period of up to ten hours of intense activity. The Combat Gunnery suit was even more heavily armoured and protected against flash fires, minor to moderate back-blasts from malfunctioning guns, had blast padding, and polarisation on their visors instead of a retractable extra visor like the normal C-suit. The suits were uniformly light grey, but with increasing amount of navy blue and golden stripes on the upper torso, arms, and legs according to rank; it was much more effective to colour-code the combat suits rather than rely on insignia, especially in the heat and tempo of battle.

“All hands, this is the captain speaking.” Amelia’s voice penetrated the noise of running sailors, NCO’s shouting and directing troops to their stations, Royal Marines donning their own combat armour and grabbing pulse carbines out of arms lockers, winches hoisting railgun shells, medics preparing surgical tools and crash carts, Damage Control teams making sure their flame-retardant spray canisters were correctly fastened, and the engineers sealing off the fusion reactor and the Misaki bottles to prevent overheating from energy roll-back.

“Shortly after arrival here in the Nürmann-184 System, we were hailed by a warship claiming to be the Alliance Navy Ship Royfort. After a series of exchanges and increasingly worrisome sensor readouts, the conversation turned hostile. The captain of the Royfort has accused us and the civilian ships we are escorting of flying under false flag, and to be in breach of interstellar law, which for the record, we decidedly are not. Me and my officers have, on the other hand, conclusive evidence that either the Royfort or some other Alliance ship has created a surveillance network here in Nürmann-184, which is a blatant breach of the Azurea Agreement and a violation of the Lorelei Demilitarised Zone treaty. When we confronted the Royfort with this, they turned aggressive and ordered us to stand down, be boarded, and forced to port in Lorelei where we would be interned. Naturally, that is not happening. Shortly after informing the Elysians of that, they powered up their sensors, staked a course for our merchant charges, and are now targeting them with aim-lasers. It is the duty of the Royal Navy and all its officers and sailors to protect civilians and the innocent, and we will act accordingly. Know that I will do everything to de-escalate the situation, but be ready for anything. Good luck. Captain de la Lune out.”

“Bridge is now in Readiness One,” Lowell reported as Amelia received her C-suit from a yeoman who had fetched it from her cabin, “all officers and technicians are present. Bridge will now enter Action Mode, all orders are logged, and all interactions are transmitted on lower bands of the internal net. Captain, you have the bridge.”

Lowell saluted and Amelia returned the gesture, her throat suddenly very dry. She was good at maintaining a professional exterior, but on the inside she was a quivering mess. Self-doubt, questions, fears, worries over misinterpretations and miscalculations bounced around in her mind. Alright old girl, stiff upper lip. Never say die, for the devil a morsel of good that’ll do.

“I’m going to get changed, you have the conn for the moment, Ms Lowell.”

Amelia stepped into the bridge’s adjoining readiness room, a relatively small compartment with a few chairs, tables, fold-down beds, a small kitchen space, and heads; it was used for rotating crews during extended operations, and also as a changing room for this exact purpose. Ensign Gallagher saluted as she exited the heads and Amelia stepped in. Once inside and the door to the stall was locked, she slumped down onto the toilet and put her head in her shaking hands. Her breath was heavy and laborious, and her stomach roiled. Steady old girl, steady, you’ve trained for this, you’re ready for this. You always knew there was a possibility something like this would happen. The crew looks up to you, you can’t fail them now, and especially not the merchant sailors. Still shaky, she stood up and started to remove her battle dress. When she was stripped down to her underwear, her nerves had had enough, and she barely had time to open the toilet before the contents of her stomach came soaring back up. Amelia absently reflected that there was next to nothing but tea and bile, and that she shouldn’t have skipped dinner.

“Status report?” she asked as she stepped back onto the bridge, now wearing the C-suit, and slotted her helmet into place, having tied her long hair into a bun that could fit inside it.

“No change, Ma’am,” Fraser-Perry reported, his voice coming both from the external speakers of his helmet as well as from inside Amelia’s own over the internal bridge channel net.

“Right, let’s show the Greens how the Royal Navy conducts itself in the face of what amounts to uniformed pirates,” she said with an angry snarl as she sat down.

“Mr Fraser-Perry, fire up our sensor suite to maximum power. I want every targeting laser and guidance beam we have pointed squarely at the Royfort. Stealth be damned, I want us to look like the next best thing to a Christmas tree on their plot. Master Baker, put us between the Royfort and the civilian ships, and keep us in their path regardless of course changes, we’ll be the merchantmen’s shield. Speaking of, Mr Durzi, put me through to all three of them.”

The three merchant captains appeared on the screen again, and Amelia saluted them formally this time.

“As you have heard over the open radio channels, the Royfort is intent on unlawfully intern and port us. This is in violation of so many interstellar treaties and laws that I have lost count, and basically boils down to outright piracy. I have therefore called my ship to action stations, and I will through any means necessary force the Royport away from your ships. As commanding officer of Royal Merchant Marine Convoy LP-77, I order you all to power up your fusion reactors and Light Drives, head directly for the t-limit, and translate into the Light Way as soon as possible and make your way to Lucidia with the data packets and sensor information you are now in possession of. Lodge a formal complaint to the Royal Navy Lucidia Station and to the Auroran administration on Lucidia, and present the data. If Euphoria does not show up in Lucidia twenty-four hours after your arrival, assume the worst.”

She took a deep breath, and tasted the nasty afterwash of bile at the back of her throat.

“I’m not going to lie to you, this may become a major interstellar incident, and I will continue to de-escalate using any means necessary, but you now represent the best hope of Aurora and the Royal Union to get this vital information into the hands of the appropriate authorities.”

“Lady de Lune…” Captain Chapman began, but Parzer cut her off.

“My Lady, don’t do this, you can outrun a cruiser, just come with us! We still have an advantage in distance, we can all translate into L-space before the Royfort can enter effective firing range.”

Amelia held up a gloved hand and allowed herself a thin smile.

“Don’t worry, Captain Parzer, I don’t intend on getting myself and my crew killed in some death-or-glory charge. I will simply buy you time to effect a getaway. I was simply outlining the worst case scenario. So, get going now, and Godspeed.”

She cut the feed before the other captains could say anything more, and she sighed. Lowell leaned over and touched her helmet against Amelia’s, muting her microphone and letting the sound waves travel through the contacting metal and plastacene.

“How much of that was true?”

Amelia smiled wearily at her First Lieutenant.

“Some of it, to be sure. But come now, let’s get down to do our jobs.”