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amount of info from its passive systems. The Macros either hadn’t noticed the garbage can-sized sensor array, or they hadn’t cared to remove it. We were very glad for this small allowance. The only thing worse than heading into an unknown, hostile system, was doing it blind.
    “No mines sir—at least, not yet,” Major Sarin said.
    We all breathed more deeply, feeling fractionally relieved. Instant doom was not at hand.
    The screen blanked then. The data coming in from the Helios system had ceased, so it had to redraw and project the environment it was now sensing outside the invasion ship. The star came up first, unsurprisingly. As the source of energy with the greatest output, it was the easiest thing to plot. It was fairly distant, by the look of things. Either that, or the star was smaller than most.
    When the brainboxes chose a color for it, I was relieved to see a bright, yellow sphere. At least it wasn’t a radiation-blasting white or blue star, nor was it a dark neutron ball that might threaten to crush us.
    “Looks like a solo star,” Major Sarin said.
    “Navigator, do we have a range yet?” I asked.
    “Triangulation not yet possible,” Gorski said. “We haven’t moved far enough from our initial position. But judging by gravitational pull and brightness, the star projected on the map should be an accurate depiction. It is a G-class—a yellow-white star, like our own Sol. I would say it is fractionally smaller and younger, but other than that, very similar. The system seems to be a single-star system.”
    “Do we have confirmation on that?” I asked. Most star systems were not like our own Solar System. Most in the galaxy were binary or triple-star systems. Some systems revolved in a storm of stellar objects, tight clusters with many stars tugging at one another in close proximity. Such systems were inherently dangerous, due to increase radiation and gravitational effects.
    “Unless there is some dink star out there past our initial scan,” said Gorski, “then we are pretty certain.”
    “Okay, so far so good. Where are the damned planets?”
    “Maybe there aren’t any planets,” said Sandra. “The Macros said we were going to fight satellite structures.”
    “Unlikely,” I said. “Whoever built these satellites would have had to have something to build them with.”
    Even as I said it, a gas giant popped up on the screen. It wasn’t too far off, either. It was pretty far out from the single star, but not as far out as Jupiter. Eyeballing it, I would say it was about where our asteroid belt orbited back home. “There’s the first one,” I said.
    “Oh, that’s a good sign,” Sandra said.
    We all looked at her. “I’ve been reading about star system structures,” she said. “We don’t know everything yet, but a gas giant tends to suck in debris and makes the inner planets more habitable.”
    I nodded, pursing my lips. “It’s a theory,” I said. “But you are right, as far as we know that is the mechanism. I’m glad to hear you have taken an interest in astronomy.”
    Sandra smiled. “What choice do I have out here?”
    “While we are on the topic, let’s see if we can figure out where here is,” I said, knowing it was best to keep a waiting crew very busy. “As I recall, Gorski, you plotted our last star system’s position based on stellar mass and volatility.”
    “Right sir, the nearest match for the red giant we found was Aldebaran—it’s close to Earth, about sixty-five lightyears out. The star lines up with the belt of Orion.”
    “Isn’t that more of an orange giant?” I asked.
    “Right sir, but it fits the spectral signature of the Helios star.”
    I nodded. “I find that interesting, as the Blue Giant I visited once was most likely Bellatrix—the left shoulder of Orion. Let’s review: we have a known chain of five star systems. The first link on the chain is the blue giant Bellatrix—at least we think it was Bellatrix. Only Sandra and I were out