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“How is it coming?” Halsey was asking her own communications officer on board the Ganymede.
He didn’t answer right away. She wondered if he’d heard her? She stepped around to where she could see his face. She’d seen that look before. On her kids’ faces on Christmas morning, back when she could actually see them at Christmas sometimes.
“Lieutenant!” Captain Bowers barked, and the look of joy dissipated somewhat.
“This is amazing!”
“Yes, we get that. But how is it integrating with our equipment? Will it work?”
“Yes, sir! It’s already working. Would you like to send a real-time message to Lunar Command, Admiral?” He looked at her hopefully.
“Hell no!”
She met Captain Bowers’ eyes and nodded her head to the side, for him to step over to her.
“We must be careful with this. The temptation is great to just start talking to anyone and everyone. Loose lips sink ships!”
He looked puzzled.
“Nevermind, an old saying, Captain.” Behind her she heard Tallie giggle. At least someone got her historic references.
“Come to my cabin. You too, Captain Talbot.”
They left the communications department and walked in silence to Admiral Country. When they entered, she saw a couple more members of her staff and motioned them to follow also.
Once inside her cabin, she turned to face them.
“Opinions? Recommendations?”
They stared, blinking at her.
“About this new communication enhancement. Hell, I can’t call it an enhancement, it’s like going from smoke signals to wireless overnight!”
She saw Tallie smiling again. “I know you appreciate my humor, Captain, but why do you keep smiling?”
“Sorry, Admiral. But you see, I recruited her.”
Now Halsey blinked in puzzlement.
“Sara Perci. When we were in first contact with the Restans I recruited her to join us on the Ambassador. She has been invaluable and even more brilliant than I’d hoped!”
Halsey allowed herself a quick smile. “Yes, well thank you. How could you be surprised? Without her we’d all still be sitting on Earth like fish in a rain barrel, waiting to be picked off by these devil aliens!”
They all nodded agreement at that. Sara had been instrumental in the development of the gravity drive.
“Admiral? I see your caution,” Captain Bowers said. “But these transmissions are supposed to be undetectable unless you have the same equipment.”
“That’s the key word here, isn’t it Captain? ‘Supposed’ to be!”
She went over and sat behind her desk, leaned back in her chair, thinking. They all waited
“Let’s review. First, we get this communication from the Ambassador. Then they send it to Point Luck. Then I presume Lunar Command. Who haven’t they either sent it to or had a recipient pass it on from there? If these aliens are capable, they could have the locations not only of our home planets and bases and colonies, but the disposition every ship in the fleet!”
They all looked very grim at that prospect.
“Including, of course us! This task force could be heading into an ambush!” She threw her hands up the air.
No one was volunteering anything. She shook her head. “But what’s done is done. What do we do now?”
Tallie had been thinking about that. “Can we download this enhancement to our micro-probes?”
Halsey stared at her. Tallie braced herself.
“Now, that’s what we need, ideas! Captain Bowers, get on that problem. If we can get real-time pictures back from the micro-probes already in the enemy star system, it will be a major advantage for us!”
“But, Admiral, you said we should restrict our communications...”
“IF they are intercepting these signals we are already dead flotsam just waiting to be finished off, Captain. No, I don’t want anything but communications black-out from now on, but we have too much to gain if we can get this into the micro-probes. And if they have an ambush planned, we will at least know it.”
He hurried out of her cabin, but not before shooting Tallie another of his “who do you think you are?” looks.
Tallie didn’t care. She was used to it.
“Keep thinking, Captain Talbot. That why I recruited you to my ship!” Halsey said, and looked pointedly at each remaining member of her staff.