It had been a long boring shift. Mark Perkins had lost track of the number of cups of coffee he'd drank in the last few hours. The radar display continued to track the inbound supply freighter, Gorn's Dream, but other than that it had been very quiet. The ship seemed barely to have moved during his whole shift. And to think, he had thought life on Volturnus would be exciting!

"Work in Space Control on the Fringes of the Frontier, where the land is still wild and unexplored", said the advertisement in the Triad Times newspaper. It hadn't mentioned that he would be cooped up in a darkened radar control room with two other radar controllers and a watch officer ten hours a day. He was startled out of his reverie by the chimes that indicated a new contact on the display.

It took him a moment before he recognized which one was the new blip on the screen. He sent a query signal to the ship's IFF, or Identify Friend or Foe, transponder. If the ship was a Federation vessel, the transponder would send back an encrypted data stream identifying the craft as civilian or military, and it's name and class. This information would then be displayed on the radar screen. Mark waited nervously for the signal to cross the sizable distance and the reply to arrive.

A minute later, the ship's name and affiliation popped up in the tag instead of the ominous 'Unknown'. It was the UPF heavy cruiser Challenger. Mark sighed in relief and motioned over the watch commander, Lieutenant Oorl. He walked up to Mark and peered at his display. "The Challenger made it" Oorl announced to the others in the control room, "Get Governor Bradley on the line. Then send a subspace message to Rear Admiral Bolchak on Fortress Pale. He'll be glad to here this bit of news."

Lieutenant Oorl proceeded to another Subspace communications radio and keyed it to UPF tactical hailing frequency. "UPFS Challenger, this is Volturnus Deep Space control, respond please."

The Challenger had emerged from the Void at the fringes of the system, so the message would take a few moments to get there. In fact, there must have already been a message on it's way from the Challenger, because the radio crackled to life with, "Volturnus Control this is the UPFS Challenger, we are in system and calculating the next Void transit jump to the Truane's star system per our earlier message. Over."

Oorl paused in confusion before transmitting, "Challenger, we received no 'earlier message'. The last message we received was during your outbound acceleration to jump coordinates over." If the Challenger sent a subspace message from system F.S.37, it had to have been intercepted, Oorl realized. Interception of subspace messages was possible only if the message was sent tight beam. A tight beam message was sent in only one narrow direction instead of radiating out centrally from the antenna. If the Sathar had managed to position a ship with specially made communications interception and jamming equipment directly in the path between the Challenger and the Zebulon system, it was conceivable that they had blocked the message.

Luckily, the message would have been sent out encrypted, which made it nearly impossible for the Sathar to read. Without the correct cipher, it would take years to decode the message, and by then, the data would be useless. Mark Perkins interrupted his thoughts saying, "Sir, Governor Bradley said he was on his way over here."

He looked at the starmap thoughtfully for a second, then asked, "Sir, What do you think they found out there?"

"I wish I knew, but I have a feeling it wasn't good."

Two miles away, Governor Thomas Bradley opened the door to his ground car to let his assistant governor in. He saw it as the chivalrous thing to do. She saw it as inefficient and senseless. The two beings were a study in contrasts. Thomas Bradley was an affable human. He called everyone in the colony "friend" and was genuinely fond of each and every one of them. Jenk'sik, the Vrusk Assistant Governor, seemed unreadable and unapproachable by comparison. Jenk'sik knew all of the colonists by name, but she thought of them only in terms of occupation and productivity.

Jenk'sik squeezed into the groundcar and settled uncomfortably into one of the seats. Bradley entered next, sat in the seat across from his Vrusk companion and smiled at her. He then gave quick instructions to their driver and closed the soundproof privacy curtain. The groundcar pulled away from the curb, then turned down one of the narrow streets toward the deep space radar control center.

"You look worried," Jenk'sik stated.

"Only you could tell that. Is it just me you read with that uncanny ability of yours, or do you do that to everybody?" he asked, his tone light.

She ignored his question. "What are you worried about?"

He paused, choosing his words carefully, "Look at those people, just over four-hundred colonists on Volturnus, all dwelling in this one small compound. We're responsible for their safety and security, and I'm starting to feel what an awesome responsibility that is. When I applied for this position I thought running a colony at the edge of the Frontier would be fairly routine. Now I'm not so sure I can live up to my end of the bargain."

"What makes you so concerned about your abilities now?"

"Lieutenant Oorl believes that the Challenger must have met up with a Sathar force in system F.S. 37. He'll know by the time we get to the control center. The Challenger is sending us the system report, but the fact that the first report didn't make it here indicates that the Sathar blocked the signal. If the Challenger did meet up with the Sathar, that's only five days from Volturnus. That's too close for comfort, and not something I anticipated."

"I of course, share your concerns, but even if a new offensive is launched, they will undoubtedly just cut off planets by blockading them from orbit. They haven't landed on a UPF world in force for many years now."

Her words should have given him comfort, but as he looked out the window at the community they had both helped to build, he felt a very real sense of unease. It deepened when their groundcar pulled up in front of the Deep Space radar station and Thomas saw Lieutenant Oorl running out to meet them. In the four years they'd been on Volturnus, neither Thomas or Jenk'sik had ever seen the Dralasite officer run.

As Jenk'sik opened the door she heard Lieutenant Oorl shout, "This just came in from the Challenger". Oorl brandished a printout of the last communications report from the ship, and was so eager to give it to them that he was blocking the groundcar door. Jenk'sik, eager to get out of the cramped interior of the groundcar, shouldered her way through and Thomas followed quickly before Oorl could get back in the way. Thomas took the report and read it, with Jenk'sik peering over his shoulder. The report was brief and to the point. It began, "UPFS Challenger military survey. System F.S. 37. Sathar warfleet presence confirmed. Retreated from combat with heavy losses. Sathar manufacturing capabilities in system. Elimination of facilities requires additional forces. Captain Galvin, Commander UPFS Challenger. "

Oorl was already asking questions before they'd even finished reading the report. "Do you think they'll approve a strike? Would they use Volturnus as a staging area? Should we put our forces on alert?"

Thomas Bradley nearly laughed at that last one. Our forces on Volturnus consist of twenty-two Landfleet members and an armed Explorer all-terrain van, he thought miserably. Mostly they were there to keep Megasauruses out of the scientist's compound and escort survey teams to the wilder parts of the planet. While Thomas respected their dedication to duty, he regarded their chances of repelling an invasion as infinitesimally small.

Thomas wasn't surprised when Jenk'sik beat him to a reply, "It's far to early to tell." As usual, Thomas thought, she answered as efficiently as possible. All three questions at once too! No wonder the Vrusk were the first to develop interstellar travel.

He was initially a bit uneasy around Jenk'sik. She was the first Vrusk he'd had a chance to get to know personally. The insect-like race always struck him as impersonal and lacking in individuality. When he'd heard that the new assistant governor would be Vrusk he wasn't overly thrilled. After working with her, though, he'd found her courteous and efficient, and even likable. The last several months seemed to have melted the ice somewhat.

Now, with Sathar just a five-day trip from Volturnus, he could think of no one he'd rather have by his side. Whatever happened, saving the lives of these colonists was their first priority. If the UPF fleet and the Sathar armada wanted to go head to head, that was their business. The civilians, like the colonists, would simply leave for now, and come back when the shooting was over.

"Jenk'sik, please begin work on an evacuation plan for all colonists, begin with the families with children, then the rest. Lieutenant Oorl, get on the subspace radio and see if there are any starliners in the area that can transport us all out. Keep this quiet for now, there's no need to start people worrying." Besides, he thought, I'll do enough worrying for all of us.

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