Anders's lip twitched. "There's nothing in their records to prohibit it, sir," he said. "I can clear them through to the outer briefing room. No farther."

"Good enough," Alvarez grunted. "Thank you. Come on, Stewart—the watchship's records should be here anytime."

"They couldn't transmit from orbit?" Cavanagh asked.

"We didn't want them to," Alvarez said. "There are too many kids out there whose idea of fun is to tie into military transmissions and try to crack the scrambling. The last thing we want is for this to leak out before we're ready." He threw Cavanagh a tight smile. "Which is one reason we're letting you in here. Makes it easier to keep track of you."

"I see," Cavanagh said. He'd already figured that part out, actually. "What do you know so far?"

"Only that a skitter arrived from Dorcas about two hours ago telling us a watchship was probably on its way," Alvarez said. "That all by itself meant bad news."

Cavanagh braced himself. "Do you know which task force it was?"

Alvarez nodded heavily. "It was the Jutland's," he said. "And the Kinshasa was definitely there with it. That's the other reason you're here."

"I appreciate it," Cavanagh said, the pressure returning to his chest. "What else do you know?"

"Precious little," Alvarez admitted. "About twenty-five hours ago the tachyon pickup on Dorcas spotted an unfamiliar wake-trail, terminating in the outer rim of a minor system six light-years from Dorcas. They didn't have a tracking baseline, of course, but the Jutland and the local garrison commander were able to triangulate a probable endpoint. The force went out to take a look; forty minutes after meshing in, they popped a static bomb. Dorcas picked it up, figured it meant bad news, and fired us off a skitter to give us some advance warning. End of report."