A long pause followed as the communications officers worked at their stations. The red marker on the central display blinked steadily, drawing closer to Jalun with every passing second.
"We can't, Commander," one of them said at last. "The signal is unreadable. It isn't a Federation identification code. It doesn't match any registered vessel in our records."
"Is it Mekharan?"
"It doesn't match any known Mekharan pattern either. It doesn't match anything. Our systems can't make sense of it at all."
A murmur ran through the room.
Commander Ostrava turned toward the soldiers who had escorted the cadets inside.
"Get them out of the way," she said.
For a moment, it seemed as though the cadets would be taken out of the command center entirely. One of the soldiers glanced toward the door, but the commander shook her head before he could move.
"There's no time to escort them out. Put them against the far wall and keep them there."
