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“Noah?”

“Yes, sir?”

The Lieutenant swiveled in her seat, glancing back at the Major seated at his station in Ops. All had been quiet since he started reading through the day’s notices, and the odd tone caught her attention quickly. McKinley had something on his mind, even if he was still working out what it was. He snapped his fingers once and looked up from his tablet.

“Can you pull up the registry details of those shipments from the Union?”

“Yes, sir,” Noah answered slowly, fingers already dancing to retrieve the relevant information. A quick flick brought the specifications up on one of Ops larger screens, to which she gestured questioningly. The older pilot scratched at the stubble on his chin, leaned way back in his seat. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, something important. He just needed to figure out exactly what it was. 

“Stop me if something sounds weird, LT,” The Major began, pushing himself out of his seat and pacing towards the display. “But these readings don’t look much like freighters, do they? General size is close enough. Within the parameters you’d expect. But they don’t match any freighters [i]I’ve[/i] seen coming through. These flight plans are precise, and they’ve been followed without deviation. Nothing. The one coming here originated from New Berlin, that flight plan avoids most of the Federation outposts between here and there. Are there any other registered flight plans originating from New Berlin around the same time?”

“One moment.”

Noah spent a few moments refining her search parameters, and when the system spat out its results she frowned. 

“Yes. Six others left on the same day, with matching registry specifications. All within minutes of each other. All registered to the Dyson Foundation. Bound for the six other mass driver cities.”

McKinley pivoted in place immediately, shifting from pensive to focused in the span of a heartbeat. 

“Pass this to the Colonel. Recall all pilots to base. How long until Luna can get eyes on them?”

“Twenty minutes, sir.” Noah answered, furiously swiping and tapping to forward the data up the chain of command and activate the city’s alert system. Aside from a monthly test, it hadn’t been fired up since it was installed. Two long tones to recall the pilots. The sounds would emanate from just about every telephone pole in the city, they couldn’t miss it. The pilots in the parade were exempt, but it would at least put them on alert; the rest would need to hurry back to base. It wasn’t hard to see where the Major’s line of thinking was going, but she hoped he was wrong. Or at least that the pilots would be able to get back quickly.

At McKinley’s console, the Major issued notice for the base to be on alert. Only about a third of their fighting force was actually on-base, but he needed that third to be ready.