"Colonel. I need that woman on my team." Zigs held a tablet in his hand shaking it at Colonel Johns.

Colonel John laughed and asked, "Zigs, slow down. Mo has her on the security team this cycle, once she gives an eval we can look at sending her to another department."

"Damn it, Donny, I am being serious here, she is a fucking treasure trove of knowledge and innovation. She has already sent me enough design improvements to keep me and the boys busy for the next ten years. Some of this stuff is so easy to upgrade but perfect that I almost can't understand how the designers didn't do it this way out of the gate." Zigs ran his hand through his hair, "I need this woman in engineering."

Colonel John rubbed his eyes and shook his head, "Mo needs to sign off on it, Zigs, and right now she is a member of the security team. You know that until we learn more about her as a person, she needs to be considered a potential enemy. We are still at war per our last communication with Federation command. Due to your computations and the information we received from that girl I lean toward believing that the war has truly ended and we are so far removed from the war that we are like living fossils." He smiled and gave Zigs a slap on the back.

Zigs frowned but nodded, "Of course, I just... It's just when I read her ideas it just gets my blood pumping. The simple improvements to our systems... If we had some of these during the Mars mission we wouldn't have lost so many brothers and sisters."

Colonel John gave Zigs a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, "None of us wanted the war, those dumbasses on Earth..." He shook his head, "Well, it's all in the past now. From the sound of things, it all worked out just fine." He sighed softly and tapped the tablet Zigs was holding, "For now, go ahead with the simple improvements she has suggested, but make sure you understand all the potential consequences of making changes. If we see drastic improvements on the Nemo, send it to the squadron."

The red alert klaxon sounded causing both Zigs and Colonel John to go power walking in the opposite direction after a brief meeting of the eyes. In the security office, Lieutenant Dedmon and Treecy were waiting for orders. Lieutenant Dedmon looked over at Treecy, "Another fight?"

"I don't see anything on the monitors." Treecy looked worried as she adjusted the views on a couple of the monitors.

By the time Colonel John sat in the command seat, Harv was already in his helmet tapping on his ear to Colonel John who also put his helmet on and sealed his gloves before tapping the com channel button on the side of his own helmet. "Colonel, we picked up a wing of enemy fighters operating in sector ZX-409 on the scopes."

"PRE fighters? Here?" Colonel John made a face. "Show me the visual."

Lieutenant Marsh tapped on a panel at his station and then the normal squadron view on Colonel John's monitors became a long-range view of sector ZX-409. The AI had highlighted several points of light and enhanced them to show six fighters flying in formation.

"Those look like mark three gen one PRE fighters." Colonel John squinted and then tapped a few commands into his station and brought up a schematic of a PRE mark three gen one fighter.

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Harv frowned, "Why would those old things be all the way out here?"

Colonel John looked over at Harv, "The PRE had gates too you know." He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, "Time to intercept?"

Lieutenant Marsh called out, "AI is showing we'd be in weapons range in one month at current velocity."

"How long until those gen ones would be able to see us, Randy?" Colonel John turned and looked at Lieutenant Marsh.

"They don't have scopes, so they won't have us until we enter the system." Lieutenant Marsh answered.

"Incoming distress signal, Colonel!" The young woman behind Harv suddenly spoke out.

"Send it to me, Hicks." Colonel John frowned.

"Mayday mayday this is the People's Republic of Earth expeditionary flight seven five niner. We have twelve souls on board. Our life support and rations will only hold out for two months."

Colonel John closed his eyes and then said softly, "Fuck."

Harv looked over at Colonel John and said, "If you answer that they'll know right where we are."

Colonel John hesitated for a few moments and then pressed a button on his helmet, "Flight seven five nine, this is Federation squadron six-seventy-three we read you, over."

A shakey voice came over the com channel, "Federation squadron six-seventy-three, can't say I am happy to hear your voice but are you in a position to assist?"

"Affirm, we are two months out from your position, if you change to our heading our guys are saying you can get here in a month." Colonel John opened his eyes and then tapped a few commands into his interface.

"Copy, six-seventy-three we will head for you. Seven-five-niner out."

Lieutenant Marsh called out, "Enemy fighters are now incoming, time to weapons intercept showing as twenty-nine days, four hours, three minutes, and six seconds."

Colonel John nodded and then gave the command, "Stand down from red alert, we'll stay in condition yellow. All officers prepare for an emergency meeting in conference room four. Lieutenant Dedmon bring de Santos."

The officers quickly gathered in the small conference room. Colonel John didn't start with his usual pleasantries and launched into the heart of the issue as soon as the last person entered the room, "Ok before we bring up the entire squadron via the network I'll make this brief. We have encountered a PRE fighter wing. They issued a formal mayday and I have answered that mayday per the old spacer rules. Mo, we are going to assign one fighter per destroyer for a total of six I want you and de Santos to select the vessels based on the competence of security detail."

Colonel John then touched a button on the table in front of him and brought up a hologram of sector ZX-409. "These guys have been in the sector, so we need a good debrief from these men. Since Acting Ensign de Santos says the war is over and we are all on the same side, we will offer these men genuine assistance, they are not POWs. That is until they give us reason to treat them as POWs, is that understood?"

"Colonel, do we know why they are all the way out here?" Zigs asked.

"Not yet, and that's why we need to get a good debrief from these guys. You all remember what it was like when we came out of that death jump, it won't have been any different for these guys. We have the benefit of gravity, entertainment, and hot meals. Those guys are in old, mark three first-gen fighters. They are suffering. When we get them out it's likely they won't have even had a chance to walk around for at least a couple of months maybe longer. The suits can handle that, but all of us know that a suit keeping your muscles fit and walking around are vastly different things."

There were nods all around the table. Everyone had a very serious face. Lieutenant Dedmon raised her hand, "Colonel, I recommend that we treat them as hostiles and keep them in the brig."

A couple of the other officers nodded, "Pardon my saying so, sir, but even if the war is long over like miss de Santos says, those guys are PRE. If our situations were reversed we'd be looking at another Mars."

The rest of the officers nodded along with a few of the older ones with vacant looks in their eyes. Treecy looked around and then asked, "What is Mars?"

Colonel John folded his hands together and then looked at Treecy, "Three years ago, for us, our bomb group went to the PRE home system with a mission to attack the Mars colony base there. We came out of jump space right into an ambush. Our General gave the order to surrender but those PRE pieces of shit wouldn't accept it. They meant to kill us to the last person."

Zigs looked at Treecy and gave a half smile, "At the time Colonel John was a major in this squadron, he came up with a brilliant tactic to get us through the ambush and out of the system. Out of the group's eighty destroyers, only thirteen made it out alive that day. Just one from the six-seventy-third." He tapped his finger on the table, "Just the Nemo. Every other destroyer in our squadron right now is either from another squadron or a fresh replacement. Colonel John was put in command of the squadron and this was to be our first action as a rebuilt squadron. We were supposed to meet up with the General and go after the PRE home system again."