My first captain used to say that extracting information in the fleet was like blood letting: it took a lot of pain and effort to get a single drop, and then it starts pouring all over the place. Up to now I had no memory of ever receiving a transmission from a Salvage Authority official. Apparently, it had been considered important enough to have me delay my de-rad procedure by a few hours. Minutes after I had met up with Prometheus and gone through a rushed disinfection procedure, I was called to Major Tanner's room. This time the XO was also present, along with Elec, and several of the scientists on the exploration program. Strangely enough, the captain was not.

“Elcy, sit down somewhere,” the major invited me. The seated scientists exchanged a few glances, after which one of them got up, silently offering his seat.

“Much appreciated, sir.” I smiled, giving the man a slight nod. Experience had taught me that scientists weren't always the most socially adept individuals.

“Hopefully this will be brief, so you can start your procedure,” the major said, looking at the wall section that had been transformed into a screen.

“Do I need to make an additional report, sir?” I had made three so far, but sent the one I considered the least harmful. Knowing Major Tanner, I was surprised he hadn't brought up my wasting five satellite probes when fewer would have been almost as effective.

“No reports,” the man sighed. I could tell by the looks around the room that others shared his sentiment. “We're only here to listen.”

“Understood, sir.” The hint was clear. Questions, while not officially forbidden, were strongly discouraged. “I'll be mindful.”

Seven minutes passed in uneasy waiting. Everyone kept staring at the wall, occasionally breaking the silence with whispers of jargon-filled jokes or professional discussions. Shockingly, I was unable to follow most of their conversation. Clearly my refresher in the Academy wasn't as thorough as I had thought.

“Holding up okay?” Elec asked leaning closer.

“All's fine,” I whispered back. “How about you?”

An image appeared on the wall. All talk abruptly stopped as the logo of the salvage authority emerged, along with the obligatory confidential warning underneath. Moments later, the logo vanished, replaced by a thin woman in a brown business suit, seated behind a large wooden desk. Her composure and the three dots on her suit pocket clearly showed she was of serious authority.

“Gentlemen,” she said, eyes moving from person to person. “Ladies. Cadet.” Her eyes locked onto me. She knew exactly what I was, just as she had access to everyone's personnel file. Likely she had spent the delay before the call to go through the highlights. “Apologies for the unusual situation.”

Unusual. For someone of higher authority, the term was synonymous to uncomfortable. There were many ways I could describe the situation and unusual wasn't one of them.

“I am Department Head Ragide and have been approved to share some information on the matter.” Her image shrunk to an eighth of its size, moving in the upper left corner, while the rest of the space was filled with a modified Surveyor probe. The design was very different from the models I had seen during my days as a ship. It was three times the size, and covered with a number of components that weren't supposed to be there. “This is the Euclid, an experimental deep space exploration vessel. It was originally developed as part of Project Glowworm.”

What's Project Glowworm?” I asked Prometheus.

Classified, came the reply. Marked as inactive.

That's all?

What did you expect? I felt Prometheus smirk.

“Needless to say that the vessel was believed to have been destroyed,” the woman continued. “With the system being a considerable distance from human space, and not linked to any of the war efforts, the program was rendered inactive. Clearly, that opinion was premature.” The woman opened her smile in a single measured laugh.

Just like your first day at school. The mannerisms and humor had an uncanny resemblance to Sev's principal. After we had settled on the planet, I had gone to the opening school ceremonies every year, until the day Sev demanded I stop so as 'not to embarrass' him. I had given him his space, of course, only to be invited back several years later. Life with him never was easy, but at least he had an openness about him. Ms Ragide, in contrast, was as opaque as scorched concrete.

“Based on our analyses of the transmission fragment and thousands of simulations, we can only conclude that the Euclid is on the verge of breaking up,” the Salvage official continued. “More than likely, what was received was part of his distress beacon left on loop. It is therefore considered a waste of resources to send a salvage ship to reclaim the remains.”

Everyone understood the hint. The Salvage Authorities had no interest in the ship being reclaimed; a reflex, rather than an actual cover-up. They preferred to have it remain lost and forgotten. The whole point of this talk was to have Prometheus not salvage it. The crew would probably earn a positive mention—the least of army bribes—then be ordered to keep the incident on the down low.

What do you know about the ship? I checked with Prometheus.

Not listed. He paused for a millisecond. Which wouldn't be unusual. According to the blueprints, it's a low AI level craft.

Someone must have launched it here.

“What was the Euclid's mission?” Major Tanner asked.

“That information is still classified,” Ragide replied with a thin smile. “Suffice it to say that it will in no fashion affect or endanger your mission. Just to be on the safe side, I had recommended to your captain that you stay clear of its estimated location. I understand that you have already surveyed the twin suns that trapped it in their orbit?”

“Of course.” The major straightened up even more than usual. Clearly he wasn't going to enter in a confrontation. I glanced at the XO. The man was leaning back in his seat, patiently waiting for the conversation to finish.

Ask if there were any people on board, I told Prometheus.

Why?

I'm just a cadet. You have a reason to ask since you have a responsibility to your crew. As well as other crews.

The explanation was a stretch, but one any ship would agree with. It hurt me that the real reason I wanted him to ask was completely different, but I needed to know.

“Were there any people aboard the Euclid?” Prometheus asked. The atmosphere abruptly changed. The bored expression melted away, as everyone focused in the upper left corner of the wall image. Major Tanner leaned forward, and even the XO put a finger on his chin. Only Ragide remained unfazed.

“No.” The corners of the woman's mouth curved down. “Euclid was completely unmanned. You don't have to worry of any loss of life or burial arrangements. The only thing that the unfortunate occurrence has cost the fleet was a rather large amount of resources that could have been better utilized. I'm sure that's something we could all agree on.”

Yes, there is one thing that we can agree on, I pursed my lips. None of us like being lied to when we're sent to die.

* * *

This is Light Seeker, I transmitted to the group communication stream. Does anyone have a gravitational reading? My scans keep getting corrupted.

Same here, Light Seeker, replied High Grace, an old Fireball class cruiser. The map is shifting non-stop. Transmitting my data for analyses.

Likewise, another ship responded. Sending data burst.

Dozens, then hundreds of ships burst their scan data into the network. Some had done scans every millisecond, others twenty times per second, yet one thing remained the same. The data that I had collected was random, but definitely not corrupted. All other ships had recorded exactly the same values in the same time period. Whatever the reason for these anomalies was it wasn’t faulty scanning.

“Captain,” I said to my bridge, as I armed all active missiles. “We might have a problem.”

“What's going on, Elcy?” I felt the fear in Gibraltar's voice as he still tried to make sense of the readings I was sending. “What am I looking at?”

“Ship remains,” I said, trying to pin them down.

Even after working in unison with two thousand other ships across three parallel networks, the task proved daunting. System and deep scan results kept fluctuating to the point that they were unusable. Hundreds of thousands of mini sats synced together, moving in Brownian motion, trying to piece together an adequate map of the star system using short range sensors. The results had been alarming.

“By estimation, over seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty-one.“ I rechecked the numbers. ”Mostly Cassandrian, though five thousand are fleet built.” The number varied based on method, but in the best case scenario three thousand nine-hundred human ships had been destroyed in the system. “Identification is impossible, but all appear to be frigates and battleships.”

“Just like us,” the weapons officer muttered.

“Use my access level to check for battles in the system,” Captain Gibraltar ordered.

“Everything related to the system is mark classified on fleet command's authority. We won't be getting anything from there.” I kept sending information requests every five thousand milliseconds, receiving the standard reply asking me to wait for further instructions. “We won't be getting anything from there.”

A new batch of ships jumped into the system, increasing our number by five hundred and twenty. All were battleships that had seen considerable action, all with a full armament of weapons, and none of them knew what to expect.

Any of you seen such gravity behavior? Lunar Dusk asked. The pattern is too chaotic to be natural. Looks more like a weapon's test.

There was talk of a new Cassandrian class being involved in the Trist cluster, High Grace transmitted. With three new models added to the database last month alone, it was rather likely. In each case, the change in design was accompanied with a new type of ranged weapon system that managed to destroy the first few waves of ships it encountered before Strategic Division came with a counter strategy. In this case, the lack of any command level ships were telling.

“I doubt this is a push, captain,” I said on my bridge. With the amount of debris, this could only be one of three things: a weapons test, a desperate defense, or a strategic sacrifice. “Still no instructions from command. Also, navigation will be impaired. There're a series of minor gravitational anomalies throughout the system. It won't be a problem for me to compensate, but missile use is unadvised.”

There was a long moment of silence. Lacking direct instructions and clear battle hierarchy, all decisions fell on Gibraltar. He had the authority to issue additional commands while waiting for clarification, or even go as far as countermand any instructions that he found to needlessly endanger his crew. Thirty-one captains had already ordered their ships to enter combat readiness, moving into a wedge formation.

“Who is the most senior officer in the fleet?” Gibraltar asked.

I checked. “Captain Piotra Jay of the Righteous Fury,” I said, opening her file. “Fifty-three years as captain, promoted three years ago to Specialized Captain.” According to her file, Captain Jay was an outstanding officer, having participated in thousands of battles. Even my first captain had seen less action. However, her current rank disturbed me. People in her position would usually promoted to vice admiral. Instead, she was given an exception rank to mark her half-century of command.

“Tell the captain that I—”

Attention, battle fleet! A transmission blasted through all channels. This is strategy ship Sword of Wands. I'll be assuming command.

Immediately, I used the common sat network to scan for the ship. He was a short distance from the overall group, smaller than expected, with a frame design that had to be two centuries old or more. He had no identifiable markings, transmission tags, or ident fragments, making it impossible to confirm he was what he claimed to be.

“What the hell?” Gibraltar whispered, his heart rate spiking. “Elcy, give me everything you have on this ship. Enter combat readiness. If this is some Cassandrian trick...”

“He checks out, captain,” I replied, way ahead of him. “He is in the active fleet, and I just received a confirmation from fleet command. Whatever's going on, he's in charge.” One thing I didn't share was that I had seen that ship class before. I didn't know its name, nor did I have the access level to view him in the fleet database, but I strongly suspected he had battled on both fronts. The last ship of that type had trained me before I was assigned my first captain, and from what he had told me, those types of ships specialized in one thing: suicide missions.

* * *

“That was a whole lot of nothing,” Elec whispered, annoyed, as we entered the elevator. “They could have just ordered us to ignore the signal and save us the call.”

“The call wasn't meant for us,” I looked at the floor, my mind assessing options. “Bureaucratic rituals have to be performed even by the Salvage Authorities.”

That wasn't the real reason, though. The truth, I suspected, was that the division head wanted to get a read of our reactions. The XO knew it all along, that's why he hadn't bothered to pay attention the entire time. She was just as overconfident as the top fleet's strategists. Augustus rarely missed a chance to display his hatred of them. Ironically, once his final rotation with me was over, he had gone to join them in one of the fleet admiralties.

“How are you coping?” I asked, rising on my toes.

“As usual.” A slight wince told me that the only thing he had managed to improve was putting on a fake front: a useful skill, as long as it wasn't overused. “There's already a list of potential cadet candidates to come here after I'm gone.” He changed the subject.

“How many are there?” I leaned against the elevator wall.

“Two dozen, give or take,” Elec said, maintaining a stiff posture. “It's still unknown how many of them we'll get. The XO is asking for three, but so are most of the other ships. Wouldn't be surprised if we end up with one.”

“What about you?” I pressed on.

Elec gave me a look that screamed of hatred. It was very much like the ones I'd gotten from Sev when embarrassing him in public. If we weren't in an elevator, he'd turn around and walk away without another word.

“Prometheus, give us some privacy,” the cadet said in an unusually dry tone. The elevator walls flickered twice, indicating the request had taken effect. “Look, my life is my own problem.” He crossed his arms to hide the fact his hands were trembling. “Just drop it.”

“Sure.” I tilted my head.

“I've ten days left here. Don't make it painful.”

“I know and I won't.” The calmness of my voice surprised me. “Sorry for bringing it up, but I needed you to request privacy mode.” Especially since I had used up mine, and Prometheus was unlikely to be understanding with another request. “I need your help with something.”

“Hmm?” Elec narrowed his eyes. I expected him to be confused.

“I want to get in touch with the Euclid.” I was taking a big risk making such a request. The last time I had made a similar request things hadn't gone well for me.

“The Salvage probe? You want me to get in trouble a week before graduation?”

“We won't be breaking any rules.” At least in the most technical sense. “We were told not to approach the ship. There's nothing against trying to boost a signal and exchange a few words.”

“You're too smart to believe that.” Elec looked down at me. In this body it felt as if a tree was glancing down at an ant. “Plus you should know the chances of you catching the signal again.”

“I know a way.” I paused. Say yes, Elec. You were far too disappointed when they snatched the Third Contact mission to let this pass. “Will you help?”

Seconds passed one after the other. The cadet kept staring at me, as if in the hopes that would help figure out my intention. The funny thing about that was that my intent was the one thing I was most open about.

“Even if you manage,” he began slowly, “what do you expect to get? It's an automated distress call. At most it'll have coded instructions you won't be able to crack.”

“I'm not interested in the message. I just want to know if Euclid is still alive.”

“Alive?” Elec nearly choked. “It can't be alive. Surveyors were AI ships.”

“Standard Surveyors aren't modified by Salvage.” My lips curved in a smile.

“You're grasping.” Elec shook his head. The inner conflict was apparent on his face. “That's a pretty big leap.”

“It's actually not. Ragide confirmed it for me.” I moved closer. “She called Euclid 'him.'”