Holloway looked across the room at the tachyon pickup display and the young sergeant sitting stiffly in front of it. "The Jutland task force?"

"I don't know what else it could be," Takara said. "You can't really pin down a static bomb from anything but point-blank range, but it's from the right direction."

"Strength?"

"If it's from the same spot where we placed the bogies, it's about the size of a watchship's backstop bomb." Takara's lip twitched. "I don't know if you knew, Cass, but it's only been forty minutes since the task force meshed in out there."

The room, Holloway noted, was very quiet. "I suppose we'd better alert Peacekeeper Command," he said. "We have a skitter ready to fly?"

Takara's forehead creased slightly, and Holloway could tell what he was thinking. There were only two stable stardrive speeds, three light-years per hour and twice that, with only small ships like fighters and skitters able to achieve the higher equilibrium. The problem was it cost nearly five times as much per light-year to fly at the higher speed, which on the Dorcas garrison's budget was a nontrivial consideration. "Number Two can be ready in half an hour," the major said. "I assumed we'd be waiting until we had something more concrete to send them."

Holloway shook his head. "We can't afford the wait. Whatever happened out there, the fact that a watchship dropped its static bomb means there's been serious trouble. Our job is to buy the Commonwealth every minute of prep time that we can. The details of the trouble can wait until later."

"I suppose so," Takara said heavily. "I'll get the skitter crew moving."

He left, the door sliding shut behind him, and Holloway stepped over to the tachyon station. "Can you sift anything at all out of that mess, Crane?" he asked.

"No, sir," the young man said. "The tachyon static will blanket everything else in the region for at least another hour. Maybe two."