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  But some days, the hum isn't a comfort at all. Some days it’s a prison, a reminder that he’s stuck in a place where air has to be recycled, water has to be processed, and electricity has to be generated. He’s here and there is nowhere else he can go. His options are zero. These are the days he needs the water.

  Frank made fun of Lebbe for the number of hoops he jumped through to get the white noise machine shipped out to Zulu. It wasn't easy. Finding a supplier. Finding a pilot willing to work with that supplier to make a special delivery. It cost Lebbe an arm and a leg, but it was worth it. On days like this, when his mind can't hold a thought beyond getting home, he retreats to his office, locks the door, and turns his white noise box to the "ocean" setting and lets the waves wash over him. For added effect he stares into the images of beaches tacked to the wall opposite his desk.

  Today, the volume is pegged. Lebbe's eyes are closed. In his mind he is in a chair on the beach, one leg dropped off the side and his toes pushing a small hole into the sand. He holds a cold drink served in a hollowed out pineapple. An easy breeze blows in from the water, and someone is playing a steel drum somewhere behind him. Lebbe takes long, calming breaths. He concentrates on the in and the out and lets his beach fantasy take him light years away from Zulu.

  A knock on his office door brings him rushing back.

  "Lebbe," Caroline Grey calls from the other side.

  Lebbe sits up slowly. He waits a moment then turns off the white noise machine, and his office is left with nothing but the hum of Zulu.

  Another knock. "C'mon, Lebbe."

  He opens the door, and Grey comes into the office uninvited. "We have a potential situation."

  Lebbe puts a hand on Grey's back and guides her back out into the hall. He follows and locks the office door behind him.

  "What kind of situation?" There aren't situations on Zulu. Lebbe is security for a transfer station that is naturally pretty secure. Its distance from Earth ensures that. Zulu doesn't get many passenger ships. That’s because passenger ships rarely come this far out into the galaxy. There is little to see this far out, on the edge of the edge just before space becomes interstellar. Mostly it was cargo haulers and mining ships that came to Zulu to restock and refuel. Lebbe might have to deal with the occasional drunken crew member. Or there may be a fight between ships that just don't like each other; some of these crews develop rivalries that Lebbe just doesn't understand. Maybe someone would try to sneak something out of the convenience store without paying or try to walk a check at Frank's. But more often than not, Lebbe just walks the main floor lost in Zulu's hum.

  "There's a ship." Grey and Lebbe walk the long hall that leads to the elevator. A ride down three floors and they are back on the main floor. "It doesn't have any ID, and it's approaching. We think it was hit by pirates, that it's …,” Grey hesitates, “... a dead ship. But, until we can get confirmation of that, I wanted to let you know."

  "When will we have a visual?" Lebbe and Grey step onto the elevator and the doors slide quietly closed behind them.

  "We've already got that. I'm not convinced it's pirates. We are too far out. There's not enough traffic out here to hijack and steal from."

  The elevator doors open and the pair step off. "Volume of traffic isn't that great, no. But the quality of traffic is off the charts. Get the right mining ship weighed down with a full hull of ore and that'd be enough to retire if they can find a place to sell it. What kind of ship are we looking at?"

  "It's a cargo ship."

  "Uh huh," Lebbe says through a smile.

  "That's coincidence." Lebbe follows Grey across the common area and to the doors that lead to the control room. "Out this far it's most likely going to be that or a transport ship. That means nothing."

  Grey's heels clack the floor and Lebbe struggles to keep up with her pace.

  "And why do we think pirates?"

  "There's a hole in the side of the ship, like someone punched their way in."

  "A ragged hole or smooth?"

  "What?"

  "The edges of this hole. Were they ragged or smooth?"

  Grey stops outside of the double doors to the control room. "I don't know, Lebbe. Smooth?"

  "Smooth and the hole is probably manmade. Pirates. Rough and it's something making impact."

  Grey pushes the doors open and steps through. "Come see for yourself."

  Lebbe follows Grey to a spot behind Keith.

  "What's new?" Grey asks no one in particular.

  Keith nods a quick hello to Lebbe. "We've got a better visual," Keith says. He pulls the picture back up. There are no markings of affiliation anywhere on the ship, not even any that are faded or beaten faint by the debris of space. Nothing to identify the ship at all. It's gunmetal sides are free of any distinguishing equipment or old war wounds. If you asked some earthbound kid to draw a cargo ship, he or she would draw this ship, gaping hole in the side excluded.

  "And we still can't get any info from the ship?" Lebbe asks.

  Keith shakes his head. "I've had Zulu try to go in about three different ways thinking maybe some know-nothing stuck the charter and manifest in a hidden or buried folder three or four levels down. Zulu couldn't find anything. I finally went in manually and looked myself. Nothing. That ship is truly a ghost."

  Grey walks over to a railing in front of the big screen and cranes her neck up at the image of the ship. "And have we tried to make audio contact yet?"

  "Not yet. We've stuck a digital probe into the ship and aren't picking up any noise, but we can try and stir up something. Send in an incoming message and see if we get any response. But a ship with a hole in the side that big ..."

  "Yeah, Grey says, "I realize that it's a long shot. But do it." She rests her elbows on the railing in front of her, never taking her gaze off the picture.

  Keith pushes a couple of buttons on his terminal and pulls a small microphone in front of his mouth: "Attention, captain. This is the Transfer Station Zulu. Please acknowledge receipt of this transmission."

  The room is quiet with anticipation. Nothing comes across but the dull hiss of an open mic. Everyone waits a moment then Grey points toward Keith.

  "Again.”

  Keith repeats his message. "Attention, captain. This is the Transfer Station Zulu. Please acknowledge receipt of this transmission."

  Just the hiss for a moment, then the clicks of a microphone being activated. Labored breathing is all that comes across, then a woman's voice. She struggles to get out just a few words.

  "Acknowledged, Zulu. Help."

  THREE

  The control room sits in stunned silence. Grey looks to Lebbe and then to Keith.

  Keith turns his microphone in her direction and says "Ma'am."

  Grey walks over, and Keith activates the mic again.

  Grey begins. "This is Zulu. Can you tell me who you are?"

  "We are ... we have ..." There is a long pause. The team in the control room listens to the labored breathing of whoever this is. "Please, just send help."

  "We will," Grey says. "But we need to know who we are helping and what kind of assistance you are needing."

  There is no response. No labored breathing. The transmission has stopped.

  "Where'd she go?" Grey asks.

  "Who knows," Keith says.

  Lebbe steps closer to Keith and Grey. "So are you really sending someone out there to help that ship?"

  Grey looks toward the picture on the screen. It is coming in clearer now. "Look at the hole in the side." She points at the screen. "It's smooth. You told me that smooth meant pirates. We have to go get them for two reasons."

  She holds up a finger. "First is that there are hurt people out there. They've asked for our help."

  Second finger. "Also, we need to figure out when they were breached and if they can tell us by whom. If there are pirates out there within arm's length of Zulu then I want to know it. Those ships that are coming here are mine to protect. We have to make sure they can get here safe
ly."

  "No, we don't,” Lebbe says. “Our responsibility begins and ends at those airlocks."

  Grey points to the screen and walks in a slow half circle in front of everyone. "This, Jim. All of this is our responsibility. If we can see them here, if they can blip our screen, then we have a duty to make sure they can get to us safely."

  Lebbe shakes his head while Grey speaks. "You may have some moral code that tells you the safety of everything in your viewfinder is somehow on your shoulders, but I've got regulation manuals that will tell you otherwise. If the ship isn't attached to our air lock or if the person isn't walking our floors then they aren't our concern."

  "I don't care about regulations, Jim. This is about doing the thing that makes the most sense. This is about keeping people safe and not ignoring the things happening outside of here that could have an effect on us. We'd be fools to have evidence of pirates and not try to learn more."

  "She's right." It’s Rebecca.

  "Agreed," Keith says.

  "Good." Grey claps her hands. "Someone call McKibbon and tell him we need ..."

  Keith interrupts: "We can't tell McKibbon anything. We can request ..."

  "Someone call McKibbon and request his assistance."

  Rebecca activates a communications unit on the side of her console, but Grey quickly stops her.

  "Wait," she says. "Just tell him that I'm coming down to see him. I'll explain what's going on and make the request in person.

  +++++

  Commander Lawrence McKibbon sits in his high-backed chair and stares out into the dark of space. A pile of hand-rolled cigarettes sits on the desk behind him. A burning one rests in an ashtray. He rolls a white wax pencil in his fingers. He's drawn imaginary formations on the window behind his desk. His Zig Zags represented by Z’s and on the offensive, set to chase a small fleet of O’s away from Zulu.

  These wax-pencil maneuvers are as close as McKibbon gets to actual combat. Less than 10 years in and already commanding a unit of pilots. Impressive on paper. Not as impressive in reality. He's been on Zulu running the outpost for ten months, and he's seen nothing more than cargo ships and transport vessels cross his window. His guys did scramble once when there were fears of something coming in hot from the way deep space, the stuff out past the edge of the galaxy. For a few moments it was all hands on deck: Pilots running around the flight deck. Flight techs preparing Zig Zags for battle. Engines growling as they fired up and pushed ships out and away from Zulu.

  But moments later McKibbon called the pilots back. What looked like an oncoming invasion on the radar was really just the debris of a transport ship that was struck by a wayward asteroid, crushing the craft and McKibbon's hopes of seeing some action into a dozen pieces. Since then it'd been rolling cigarettes and blowing smoke rings.

  McKibbon turns to the wax marks on the window. He draws a long arcing line from one of the Zig Zags toward one of the O’s. He draws another set of arcs from two other Zig Zags then reaches for the cotton rag on his desk. He wipes the window, and his fleet of Zigs and their enemies disappear into a waxy smudge that leaves the window a hazy mess.

  He plucks the cigarette from the ashtray and takes a long drag that pulls the smoke all the way to his toes.

  Heels clack in the hallway outside his office. He lets the smoke roll from his mouth in a cloud that obscures his view of the door.

  "Jeez, McKibbon," Grey says as she enters the room, Lebbe and Keith close behind. "Do I have to tell you again that you can't do that here?"

  McKibbon clears the smoke with a wave of his hand and sits up straight in his chair. "You can tell me whatever you want, Caroline."

  Grey closes her eyes for a beat then looks at Keith and Lebbe. "Caroline is a bit informal, don't you think?"

  McKibbon pulls a datapad off his desk and taps the screen to life. A few gestures later and he has some sort of map up in front of him. "I'm sorry, Madame Kommissar."

  "Cut it out." Grey taps the screen of her own datapad. A moment later she has a smaller version of the screen in the control room up in front of her. "We need your help."

  She works the screen again then turns it toward McKibbon. "That ship has sent a distress signal."

  “Actually, we haven’t received an official distress signal," Keith begins. “We have received a request …”

  Grey shuts him down with a look. "Can you get anyone out there? We've received a communication from someone on that ship. A woman."

  "And what's she say?" McKibbon takes the datapad from Grey. He expands the image of the breached ship. "Looks like pirates. When were they hit?"

  Grey shakes her head. "We don't know any of that, only that she says they need help."

  McKibbon hands the datapad back to Grey. "And you just need some of my guys?"

  "I'd prefer you be among them," Grey says, "but if you can't go ..."

  McKibbon stops her. "No, I can. I just need about an hour to get things set here."

  "Great," Grey says. "We'll be back then." She turns with Lebbe and Keith to go. The trio goes back through the door and part of the way down the hall before Grey says she has to go back.

  "Go back to the control room. I'll meet you there in a few minutes."

  She returns to McKibbon's office and smiles.

  "I'm sorry." He comes out from behind his desk to meet her.

  She slips hands around his waist and says: "It's OK. I know that we have an appearance to keep."

  "But Madame Kommissar? A bit mean."

  "It stung some, but I'm a big girl. I knew what you were doing."

  She leans in and gives him a kiss then sits in a chair in front of his desk. McKibbon walks back and grabs his datapad. He starts sliding a finger around the screen. "Professional opinion,” he says without ever looking up, “what are you getting me into?”

  “Honest answer is I don’t know. As best I can tell it’s a rescue mission. But even that’s a maybe. I don’t know if by the time you all get out there if there will be anyone to rescue.”

  “Morbid.”

  “Truth. You’ve seen everything we’ve seen. According to my team it just sort of showed up at the edge of our view a little bit ago. All we’ve got right now is that fuzzy shot from our cams. That woman who we heard ask for help didn’t sound good. And the hole in the side of that ship is big. If it was pirates that hit it then it wasn’t some small-time operation.”

  McKibbon brings up the view of the ship. “You really think it was pirates? This far out?”

  Grey pauses a moment. “I hate saying this, but Lebbe is probably right. He says that there may not be a lot of traffic out here, but the traffic we do have is pretty spectacular. A smart pirate isn’t going to waste time going after a million small scores. If you come out here and find the right ship you make the score of a lifetime.”

  “But that hauler doesn’t look like that kind of ship, does it?” McKibbon turns his datapad to Grey. “If you’re hitting ships coming from mining colonies, it’s a volume game and that one’s not big enough to carry anything of value. It’s not worth the effort.”

  Grey stares at the screen then leans back in her seat. “Maybe not,” she says. “But what if it’s not coming from some mining colony? Maybe it’s heading to one. Carrying some kind of machinery. That’s got value, right?”

  “I suppose. To the right person.”

  Grey stands. “Like I said. We don’t really know much about what’s happening out there …”

  “That’s why you need us.”

  “Yes, it is. I need to get back to the control room.”

  McKibbon watches Grey turn for the door then calls out, "Will I see you again before we leave?"

  Grey spins to face him. "Of course you will," she says and blows him an exaggerated kiss.

  +++++

  Lebbe and Keith walk to the control room in silence. Something doesn’t feel right. Lebbe can’t explain it, but this ship is pinging something inside of him that hasn’t vibrated since he was a cop. It’s that littl
e spot in his gut that would go uneasy when something didn’t make sense. Other cops called it intuition. It’s what they would claim made good cops great as long as they’d listen to this feeling, if they’d let it point them toward the truth. His grandmother would have called it the Holy Spirit.