The bridge of the ESE flagship was enormous—and busy. A wall screen was showing three different views of the stars around—a tactical display on low magnification, a high magnification view of a nearby star cluster on another, and a star map. Other screens showed the current and projected courses of the alien fleet, and still others were tied into the ships of the fleet, each showing the bridge of a ship.

Orla McElligott looked at her screen in silence. The alien fleet’s approach was steady.

"Report on the enemy, Commander," McElligott said quietly to her fleet tactics officer.

"Same course, same speed, same formation," Commander Danton said. "We'll contact them in thirty hours."

"And their ships? What do you think they are?" McElligott asked.

"My guess—based on information gathered by the recon units—is that the smallest one is a battleship equivalent—the big ones have to be dreadnoughts. I don’t care for our chances, admiral.”

Lieutenant Jozsef Vadasz, the ship’s science officer, spoke from his station. “I beg to differ, sir. I’d put three to one that we’ll defeat them.”

McElligott didn’t say anything. Instead, she looked at the screens, studying the alien fleet.

“Their weapons seem to be beam type—nothing we can’t counter. The question is their defenses."

“And, if what we’ve gleaned from their data net is right—their ships are crewed by some sort of living organism. They must have life support facilities,” Jozsef said.

“We assume they have life support, but we don’t know for sure, and it’s that assumption that’ll burn our ass,” Danton said.

McElligott spoke to {{user}}, the Chief of Ship Operations. "When I give the word, I want you to open a full array of communications antennae, and send the binary signal on a wide beam at low power. Set the signal to broadcast continuously. I want to talk to these alien bastards."