Jayme heaved herself onto the perimeter walkway, shifting over to allow the others up behind her. Bobbie Ray took one look at the five thousand foot parabolic dish, with the opposite edge so far away that the regularly spaced lights disappeared in the darkness, and said, “I’m having second thoughts about this.”

Titus crossed his arms. “Yeah, what makes you so sure Elma’s helping the Bajoran resistance? She’s got a class in radio astronomy this semester. Maybe she’s doing lab work.”

“After midnight?” Jayme countered. “And what about those Cardassian code files I found hidden in the back of her closet?” She hurried on before they could think to ask her what she was doing in the back of Elma’s closet. “What else is she doing with code files if she isn’t decoding intercepted material and sending it to the resistance?”

“But this antenna only receives,” Titus protested. “It doesn’t transmit.”

“Ah, but it doestransmit!” Jayme said triumphantly, pleased that she’d taken a few minutes to flip through some of Elma’s technical manuals on the large radio telescope. “It has to send coordinates to an orbital satellite to focus the telescopic electronic camera. That beam could be aimed at a communications satellite, relaying information that the antenna has picked up. Or it could be used to tap into the orbital satellites, relaying the faster‑than‑light subspace radio communications from Federation starbases and starships throughout the Alpha Quadrant.”

Bobbie Ray stood right on the edge of the dish, perfectly comfortable with the sheer drop. “I think we should quit while we’re ahead.”

“And what if she isa spy?” Starsa asked. “Do we just march into Superintendent Brand’s office and tell her we were right here but didn’t bother to go inside and see what Elma was doing?”

Jayme silently applauded Starsa’s spirit. Her species experienced a late puberty, so she was basically a ten‑year‑old both physically and in the amount of impulsive daring she possessed. Unfortunately, the tall, slender girl was also suffering from severe acclimation sickness, so her slow metabolism had to be regulated and adjusted for Earth’s pressure and gravity.

Jayme had almost rejected Starsa for this mission on physical grounds, but now she was glad she had brought her along. Especially when Starsa leaned over the edge, shuddering at the drop but laughing at the vertigo it caused. The others shifted uneasily, clearly reconsidering their protests in the face of her courage.

“Come on,” Jayme ordered, taking advantage of their indecision. “We’ve got to climb out on the truss and take the antigrav lift down.”

She gestured to the enormous cross‑lines high overhead, anchored to three towers around the edge of the dish. The lines met in the center, supporting a ring that allowed the feed to move, steering the beam that was reflected from the dish anywhere within five degrees of the zenith.

“Up there?” Bobbie Ray protested, looking at the lines overhead, then down into the black hole in the very center of the dish. “It looks dangerous.”

“The maintenance crew does it all the time,” Jayme tossed off, heading toward the nearest tower.

“More climbing,” Titus grumbled, but he followed her.

Starsa was kicking her heels over the edge. “Why is it so big? Our telescope at the Academy isn’t nearly as big.”

“That’s because it’s a light wave telescope,” Jayme explained. “Radio waves go from a few millimeters to about thirty meters in wavelength. So the bigger the parabolic dish, the bigger waves it can catch.”

“Oh, I knew that–” Starsa started to say, then she let out a piercing scream.

Jayme wasn’t sure what happened, but Starsa was suddenly plummeting down the nearly vertical wall of the dish, screaming like she was being burned alive.

An orange blur shot down the white, curving wall as Bobbie Ray dived after her. While Starsa tumbled, bouncing against the reflective metal plates that lined the dish, Bobbie Ray took an aerodynamically correct position as he zipped down headfirst.

Jayme jammed her fist in her mouth as she hung over Titus, watching their descent. Bobbie Ray’s greater bulk caused him to rush past Starsa. They receded to tiny dots as they neared the flattened curve at the bottom of the dish, but they were still going fast, straight toward the gaping black hole in the center.

Bobbie Ray splayed his arms and legs, turning into a dark gray Xagainst the dish, spinning as he slowed. But Starsa was still tumbling out of control. Jayme didn’t think Bobbie Ray would have time, but he got his feet under him and made an impossible leap sideways. Even his tremendous strength wasn’t enough, but at the last second, he snagged Starsa by the hair, stopping her right at the edge of the hole.

Starsa’s screams continued to echo out of the dish as Jayme frantically tapped her communicator, set for a special frequency just for this mission. “Is she hurt? Is she hurt!”

Titus had put on his spotting loop and was peering through the misty air. “He’s got her! He’s picking her up. Now he’s shaking her–”

Starsa’s screams abruptly stopped.

Bobbie Ray’s lazy drawl came over their communicators. “She’s fine.”

“He grabbed my hair!” Starsa shrieked in the background as Bobbie Ray released her. “It’s half pulled out! You big stupid cat!”

Jayme let out her breath, sitting down on the walkway with a jolt. “That was close!”

“Good thing she’s gotall that hair.” Titus murmured, still watching them through the loop.

Jayme was still shaking her head, thinking– Now what?But she didn’t want Titus to know how shaken she was.

Bobbie Ray was poking around at the edge of the hole, not bothering to respond to Starsa’s complaints, which came clearly through the communicators. “Hey, there’s a lift down here,” Bobbie Ray said. “Why don’t you slide down and join us?”

“What?!” Jayme exclaimed. “Do you think we’re insane–”

“Just make sure you catch me!” Titus sang out. “Yee‑ ha!”

With that, he leaped over the side of the dish, laughing as he whizzed down feetfirst.

Jayme watched him quickly dwindle, falling nearly two thousand feet. But this time Bobbie Ray jogged over to position himself in Titus’s path, leaving plenty of space between him and the hole. As the big Rex grabbed hold of the cadet, Titus’s momentum carried them spinning the last few meters. Starsa tried to help by getting between them and the hole, but she nearly got knocked in.

They were all jabbering at once, so that Jayme couldn’t tell what was happening down there. But everyone seemed to be all right. She didn’t need a spotting loop to tell when all three faces expectantly turned up in her direction.

She almost called for them to wait for her while she took the truss‑lift down like a normal human being. But it would take forever for her to climb all the way up the tower and walk to the middle of the truss. Their presence must have already been recorded by the deformation of the enormous dish, supported by sensitive antigrav nodes, and surely there was an alarm going off somewhere that the dish needed adjustment.

Jayme swung her legs over the side. For a moment she hung there, facing a near‑vertical drop, her instincts crying danger. But a good officer knew how to roll with the punches.

“Ex astris, scientia!”Jayme cried out as she jumped off the edge.

The first part was the worst, when it felt like she was actually falling with hardly any contact between her and the wall. Then the drag of the slope caught her, redirecting her and making it feel like she was going even faster and out of control. Instinctively her hands tried to grab hold of the smooth surface and she flipped over on her stomach. All she could see was the sharp, white edge of the dish far overhead, cutting into the night sky.