(Recommended listening: "Solomon's Theme" from the Battlefield 3 Soundtrack)

A mere hour after the complete takeover of the invading Drones' Assault Ship, the ship had become the nerve center for the Team's operation. Vela had gone back to the wreckage of their Starship to salvage parts, while Lupus accompanied the civilian Tribals to help rebuild their homes. Juno stood on the bridge of the ship with Jeff, Barry, and Amos.

"We have a problem," Barry started, once they were all gathered. "Or, what could be a problem."

"What do you mean?" Amos asked. All four were standing in front of the main console, where intel and computer messages streamed across the screen. Barry sat at the main controls, his fingers flying across the keyboards.

"We're getting a distress signal. It's a widespread signal, so we're not the only ones getting it, either.

"Is it encoded?" Juno inquired. Barry singled out a message box on the main screen. The text flashed red in jumbled messes of Drone language.

"Yes," Barry responded. "And that also means we know where it came from. The beauty of the Drone encoding system is that each encryption is specific to it's location of origin. This one… is from Sekhmet. I'll run it through the decoder now…"

The text in the message began to change, line by line. Glyphs morphed into letters and numbers as the decoder translated the Drone language into english. But the signal was still jumbled. The message box, now written in blue, was still unintelligible.

"Something's wrong," Jeff furrowed his brows. "The message is still encoded."

"Another Drone encryption?" Amos suggested. "Maybe the Sekhmet just relayed the message."

"No," Juno dismissed. "That's not Drone. That's a Jet Force encryption."

"Why would someone place a double encryption from opposing sides on one message?" Jeff questioned. "No one would be able to read it!"

"Yeah," Juno agreed. "No one but us."

"Wait," Vela stopped Juno in the middle of his explanation. She'd and Lupus been recalled from their duties early for an emergency strategy meeting. Juno had proceeded to explain the origin of the distress signal. "The message was encrypted in Drone and English?"

"Correct."

"Contemporary or Standard?"

"Contemporary."

"I'm lost," Amos chimed in. "What does contemporary mean?"

Juno answered. "When Vela and I first joined Jet Force, they used the Contemporary encryption. Those encryption codes were good all the way up until the all the other Jet Force units got wiped out. When we got back to Earth, the Contemporary codes were deemed compromised, and were retired from service. We use the Standard encryption codes now."

"So in other words, there's a limited number of people who know those codes," Jeff surmised.

"Not according to UMHQ," Vela corrected. "But we know better. There was never a chance for the Drones to interrogate the other teams. They were all destroyed in one fell swoop."

"Realistically, the only people who know the Contemporary codes are civilians and servicemen who've been in the Jet Force Corps for longer than a year." Juno could feel a migraine coming on. "But no one we know would be on or near Sekhmet. The most important thing about this message isn't who sent it, but the fact that it was meant for us, specifically Gemini and Barry."

"And that means… what exactly?" Barry scratched his head.

Lupus barked and nosed the navigation console. The current coordinates for Sekhmet appeared on the main console along with a projected flight path.

"Going to Sekhmet?" Barry's eyes widened. "What about Cerulean?"

"And the Tribals that are unaccounted for?" Jeff piped up. "This transport ship wasn't carrying materials, it was carrying a labor force. The Drones took the best miners and shipped them somewhere to work."

Barry's fingers re-attached themselves to the keyboard. "According to the ship's log, they made regular stops at Rith Essa. That's got to be where they are."

"We're going after all of them," Juno reassured.

"With one ship?" Amos scoffed skeptically. "It would take weeks to cover each one thoroughly."

"Not with one," Juno shook his head. He, Vela and Lupus exchanged knowing looks and smiles.

"With three."