Dalton slept while a slow trickle of data downloaded. There was little new information to change the AI team's conclusions. The probe would continue to dive, search, and document. It had been several hours since the last communication. A simple message replayed 'Searching.' Experiment data was queued in the sub-ice storage waiting for the Europa Clipper to loop near and relay the data back to earth.

Others trickled out of the makeshift control room to their beds. Some wandered outside to watch the sky. The night was crystal clear—perfect conditions to watch the sky: bone-dry humidity, high altitude, and far enough from Reno's pollutants. Satellites and the ever-present space-junk zooming twinkled over a static scene of distant stars.

A few 'oohs' and 'ah's' came from the enthralled observers of this beautiful, tranquil night.

The twelve meter dish, flat white on the drab landscape, was also prominent, even in the waning moonlight. It had been trivially easy to identify from orbit. In fact, a Chinese national, a young college student interested in radio astronomy, had visited the ranch during one of the outreach programs that the Trillionaire's property ran.

Meanwhile, overhead, an object classified as debris by the US Space Force, suddenly activated. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) had launched the object three years prior and claimed a malfunction left it inoperable. At the time, the media viewed it as a major loss of prestige and capability by the CNSA. A year afterwards, the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force launched an anti-satellite missile as a training exercise. It appeared to have struck the object according to Western space defenses. Now mislabeled by the orbital fratricide, it peered down from the sky at America and acquired its target. They sent a long burst of microwave energy to the receiver at the ranch.

Owing to the civilian nature of the installation, the unshielded electronics were easily overloaded. A fire was ignited.