"He's late," Lucas said in concern.

Alexander had to admit, it was indeed odd for Krieger to be late. "We'll give it five more minutes, and then I'll start the discussions."

Lucas and Archie both nodded.

Lucas was there because he was Alexander's Head of Research and Development. He was also the only person other than Alexander who had any idea what the meeting was about. Alexander had invited Archie because he was going to have to add or update the Lund Academy's curriculum to include information on the new FTL system.

Just as time was running out, Krieger hurried into the room, looking concerned.

"Did something happen?" Alexander asked.

"Captain Voss checked in," Krieger replied.

"That's good news, isn't it?" Alexander asked.

"Yes and no," Krieger said worriedly. "I was planning on asking you to postpone this meeting to brief you separately, but if you're fine with everyone present, I can do it now."

It had to be concerning if Krieger wanted to brief him personally on it. Alexander nodded for his Admiral to continue. Both Lucas and Archie had top secret clearance for BSE, so he felt no reason to keep them from hearing what the Admiral had to say.

"Very well," Krieger replied, before securing the room and placing a data chip on the holo-projector.

"Captain Voss encountered a damaged ship that was docking for refueling and repairs. She decided that was her best opportunity to perform a boarding action, without having to disable one of their frigates. She was able to capture one individual and question him."

What followed was a recording of the event. Alexander frowned at the use of threats to extract the information from the prisoner, but he kept silent on her methods. He had done the same, so it would be hypocritical of him to decry someone else from doing it as well.

"As you can see," Krieger said after the recording ended. "The information she discovered was highly concerning. Instead of reporting all the details with her last check-in," Krieger said in annoyance. "She took it upon herself to investigate the man's claims. What she found was even worse." Krieger played a partial recording of Voss's trip to Xin's supposed home world.

The recording froze on a zoomed-in picture of a very recognizable gate, surrounded by dozens of defensive installations, ships, and even constructions attached to the alien structure, likely for workers. What was most concerning was the three Shican vessels that were overseeing the operation.

Krieger continued. "As you can see, the man was telling the truth. The Shican have co-opted Xin's forces. For what ends, we cannot say for sure, but it's clear that they are either studying the gate or trying to reactivate it. We can't let that happen."

"If she went all the way to Xin's seat of power, and discovered this, why didn't she report it right away?" Archie asked pointedly. "It must have taken her over a month to get back to Asgardian space."

"She tried," Krieger replied before fast-forwarding the recording until the Shican ships appeared right next to her ship. "Less than a minute after activating her comm node to forward the data, the Shican appeared. She managed to escape without any major damage, but only because she cut power to the node."

"They can track the connection?" Lucas asked in shock.

Alexander should have been more surprised, but the memory of his conversation with Chairman Rush came to mind. He had always wondered how the man seemed to know the BSE ships had FTL comms. The man's explanation had always felt off to him for some reason. If the Shican could sense the connection, it stood to reason that Gravitational Solutions knew how as well.

If a comm node connection could be sensed, there was a good possibility that it could be intercepted and decoded as well. He was glad he had encrypted his connections at the source, but that encryption only went so far. The Shican were more advanced than humans. Alexander couldn't assume they wouldn't be able to crack any encryption he came up with, given time, or simply steal the encryption key if they captured a damaged BSE ship.

The news was worse than even Krieger realized. It meant their entire network of stealth satellites was essentially useless as they currently were. Alexander needed to know if the Shican's ability to sense the connection was only for outgoing or incoming connections. The problem was that he had no idea the previously suspected secure connection was detectable, and thus had no knowledge of how to counteract such a method.

Alexander did know one person who might be able to shed light on that problem. He made a mental note to speak with Theo after the meeting and see if Rush had spoken to him yet.

"I think you're focusing on the wrong thing, Lucas," Alexander replied. "While the Shican being able to track an active comm node is a problem, it's not an immediate concern; that gate becoming active is. If they get it operational, it could connect back to the ones the Shican used to invade the core systems."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Not knowing how the gates operated was a severe blind spot. Alexander was assuming Dr. Lund's research and notes about the hypergates were accurate, because he had nothing else to go on. So far, her research seemed accurate. The woman had postulated that a wormhole would seek the closest available connection, so long as one side was still active.

It was pretty clear to him that the Shican hadn't built the hypergates, or they would have used them long ago. It didn't mean they couldn't figure out how to turn them back on, though. That would explain the random power fluctuations Grace's sensors detected before they were set to go through the Borrus gate in Epsilon Eridani. The Shican gate might have been trying to establish a solid connection.

He had no idea where the Shican's gate was, but it must have been closer to the Borrus system, because that was the first system they attacked. Next was the Ganos gate in Ross 128, followed by the one in Tau Ceti. Now that he thought about it, he could probably use that information to triangulate the general area of space where the Shican's gate resided. Not that the information would be much use. The Shican were bound to have a large military presence in that system if they were using it as a staging ground to invade through the hypergate.

"Shit, you're right," Lucas breathed, bringing Alexander's thoughts back to the topic at hand.

Alexander turned to look at his Admiral. "Krieger, what is your assessment of the situation? Is there any chance we can get a strike force close enough to take down that gate?"

"It's possible if we throw everything we have, including all of the Asgardian ships, at the problem, but that was before they knew we knew. Now they are going to be expecting us, and we have no idea how many ships Xin has. Captain Voss counted over two hundred ships on her trip into Xin space. We know of at least three additional fleets of a hundred vessels each along the Asgardian border. Let's say both of those amount to six hundred just for simplicity's sake. Then there are the ships pushing into STO space. We have no numbers on those, but it's safe to say Xin or the Shican sent a larger force that way, since the STO is far larger than the Union. Even if they didn't, let's just assume they have access to at least twelve hundred ships."

"I can't imagine they would throw them all at us," Alexander said.

"No, but even with their ships being outdated, that is more than enough to stall out any advance we attempted. I'm sorry, Alex, I don't see any plausible way we could pass a large enough fleet through their territory undetected."

"That's not technically true," Alexander replied. "Have a seat, we can discuss why I brought you all here today."

Krieger looked around the table to get an idea of what might be discussed, but Archie didn't know, and Alexander hadn't told Lucas that he had completed the prototype for the new FTL yet.

Once the Admiral was seated, Alexander popped the image of the Seahorse up on the holo. "Our enemies are moving faster than the STO. Faster than us. That's not good. We will notify the STO of our findings, but I fear they won't have any way to respond in a reasonable amount of time. That leaves it up to us. Some of you are familiar with this ship. For those who aren't, this is the Seahorse; it is essentially an automated carrier."

"I still think BSE's manufacturing efforts would be better spent creating more Orcas," Krieger replied, reiterating the same concern he had when Alexander first showed him the ship. "I understand the usefulness of not wearing out a bunch of combat ships as they fly to the front line, but we haven't had many issues with the Stingrays."

Archie nodded. "I'm in agreement with the Admiral on this, Alex, but I know you well enough to know we're missing something."

"You would both be correct. It would be a waste if the ships were just transports for the Stingrays, but they aren't. Well… technically, they are, but not in the way you think. I've completed a design on a new form of FTL drive." Alexander held up his hand to stop any questions. "Before you get too excited, this method can't be used to transport anything organic. At least that's what Dr. Lund's notes show, and I have no reason to think she was wrong."

"That's why you wanted to build an automated carrier," Krieger said in understanding. "Can I assume that this new form of FTL is faster than the current jump drives?"

"It could be," Alexander said hesitantly. "There are a few drawbacks to the new method. The biggest is the fact that it can only create a connection between two exact points of gravity. And not just any old point will work. To reduce the power requirements needed to create this connection, the gravitational points must be located near gas giants. As you can imagine, finding two similar gas giants is not that easy. Luckily, we have plenty of data on Xin space from both our satellites and Voss's ship, once the data gets sent over. That reminds me, Lucas, I want you to program an update for the satellites as soon as possible, to make it so they only turn on their comm nodes after any possible Shican vessels leave the system. It's not an ideal solution, but it should keep them from being discovered." He didn't add hopefully at the end of that request. It was better to act swiftly than to waffle on what-ifs.

"Couldn't you use a warp bubble to block any harmful effects of the transit?" Archie asked.

Alexander shook his avatar. "The warp bubble stabilizes the space around a ship, essentially locking it in place, which allows a ship to transit into FTL without experiencing any relative motion. The new method forms a sort of tunnel through a higher, more energetic layer of space, but the vessel still has to travel through it. If you tried to force the bubble of stabilized space to go through the connection, it would destabilize it at best. That's assuming you could even provide enough power to the warp bubble to stabilize it deep inside a gravity well, and we all know what happens when warp bubbles become unstable."

The group all grimaced and nodded at that.

"If I understand you correctly, Alex," Krieger said. "You plan on finding a matching planet near the Xin home world and jumping in these automated ships to take out the hypergate. The ships will be vulnerable when they arrive and will have to climb away from the gravitational pull of the planet before finishing the trip to their intended target. What about the defenders? The Shican are likely to keep some around."

"I was hoping you might have a suggestion on how to deal with that," Alexander replied.

The man sat back in his chair and mulled over the problem. "They know we have to attempt to stop them, but they don't know about this new drive. A lot will depend on how close you can get to their home system, and how many ships you plan on sending."

"I can't answer the first question until I have the computer crunch the data. As for how many ships. I can have two ready in a month and a half. The Stingrays would be ready before that."

"Okay," Krieger said. "Then the best way to improve our odds is to pull the enemy to us. We have to attack them in full force, ensuring they take us as a serious threat."

Alexander was afraid of that.