Murdock threw his bag into the Chicago's small shuttle and turned to Hannibal who handed him a rifle.

"Sure you wouldn't rather take the ship?"

"Nope," Murdock said. "Travel light, move fast."

"Okay. Well, be careful, Murdock."

"Hey, no worries, Colonel. I'll be fine."

Hannibal frowned. Murdock was altogether too blasé about this. He needed to be prepared for trouble.

"The sheriff doesn't trust Calvin and I've been told he's pretty odd."

"That's great. I'm odd too, so I'm sure we'll get on like a horse on fire."

"Er, that's 'house on fire', Murdock."

"It is? Okay, like that then." He slapped Hannibal on the shoulder. "Look, Joy trusts him and she seems like a good judge of character to me."

"Because she likes us?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, we are the good guys!" He frowned for a moment, looking puzzled. "We are the good guys aren't we? Because if we're not, can I have permission to grow a goatee beard?"

"Focus, Murdock," Hannibal snapped, wondering if he should maybe be sending Face instead. "Yes, Captain Frost likes this guy, but liking someone doesn't make you the best person to judge them."

Murdock pulled a small notebook from his pocket. "I'm writing that one down, Colonel. That's a good one."

Hannibal rolled his eyes. "Well write this one down too. This guy keeps quiet about what he did in the war and he lives in an impenetrable bunker on the dark side of a moon, with highly sophisticated scanning equipment to warn him of anyone approaching. The word 'hiding' comes to mind."

Murdock looked at him wide eyed for a moment.

"Good analysis, Hannibal." He finally sounded as serious as Hannibal would like him to be about the situation. Slipping the notebook back into his pocket he said, "I'll stay alert. Anything too weird and I'll bug right out of there."

"Okay, good luck, Captain."

Murdock got in the shuttle and closed the door. Hannibal left the launch bay and headed back into the town. He glanced at his watch. Nearly ten a.m. So far, lunch with Maggie was still a go.

His communicator buzzed and Face's voice came through.

"Hannibal, get over to the sheriff's office. We have a problem."

Damn, Hannibal thought. Jinxed it.

-o-O-o-

Face looked up as Hannibal strode into the sheriff's office.

"What's up, guys?" Hannibal nodded to Face, BA, Amy and Ted.

"There's a message coming in from a power plant, down in the southern hemisphere," Ted said. "It's an automated station. The message is a distress signal from its mainframe, reporting damage."

"I think it's been attacked," BA said, "according to what the message is reporting. Looking at serious damage."

"How come it got a message through?" Hannibal asked, frowning.

"There's a hard line," Ted said. "The plant serves nearly three hundred people. There's a backup system of course, but that plant needs to be back on line fast. I've already called Joy to get ready to head down there."

"I think its weapons damage," BA insisted, tapping the data on the screen on Ted's desk. Face glanced at the figures but they meant little to him. "And," he went on, "it's continuing. Whoever is doing it is still there."

"Really?" Hannibal grinned and Face sighed. Cue the Jazz.

"Hannibal, this could be something in the way of a party invitation." Face said. "I mean they could have just blown the plant to bits, but instead they're damaging it a piece at a time. That say trap to anyone else?"

"Party invitation?" Hannibal grinned and Face wondered if he'd even heard the rest. "Well, I never miss a party. Let's not be late." He turned and headed out. Face and BA exchanged a 'here we go' look and followed with Amy.

"What about Joy?" Ted asked as he followed the team out of his office. "We need that plant back to working order fast."

"I guess we could take her along," Hannibal said. "If they've gone when we arrive, she can get right down to work. Amy, you stay here though."

"Hannibal!" Amy protested at once.

"Come here a second." He beckoned her closer, until she walked close beside him and Face.

"Someone around here is feeding info to Kyle," Hannibal said. "Like I said yesterday, they knew we were coming. I want you to check that out. These people all know each other too well to be objective the way you can."

She still looked annoyed at being left out of the action, but nodded.

"Right, Hannibal. I'll see what I can dig up out of the records."

"Follow the money," Hannibal said. "That's always the key." Amy and Face both nodded in agreement this time.

They arrived at the Chicago. On the other side of the bay, Joy and Russ were prepping her small ship for launch.

"Joy," Ted called. "Colonel Smith wants you to go with them."

She came over, Russ following, carrying a toolbox.

"You think I need some bodyguards, eh, Ted?"

"I think it's highly likely," Hannibal said. "Plus Ted said it's urgent you get that place up and running again and our ship is faster than yours." He looked at Russ. "Sorry, kid, you'll have to stay behind."

"But --"

"BA can be Joy's assistant today," Hannibal said, with a grin, making BA bristle with outrage straight away.

"Assistant!"

"The colonel's right," Joy said to Russ. "Go on back to the workshop." She took her toolbox from him. "See if you can track down that power drain we detected."

"Okay." He scowled at the team and walked off.

"Prep the ship, BA," Hannibal ordered. BA stamped up the ramp to the airlock growling about the word 'assistant.'

"Let me take that for you," Face said, taking Joy's toolbox.

"Thanks. I just have to grab something from my ship. One second." She hurried over to it and went inside. Hannibal watched her go.

"You guys better get out of here," Face said to Amy and Ted.

"I'm coming with you," Ted said. "This is my jurisdiction."

Hannibal turned back to him. "Sheriff, I think you need stay here. There's always a chance that this is a distraction and they'll actually show up here. We can't leave the town unprotected."

Ted scowled, looking torn, but then he nodded. "Okay, Colonel. You're right, that's a possibility. I'll stay." After a moment he added, "Good luck."

"Be careful," Amy said.

"Always," Face said, smiling at her.

Ted and Amy left the landing bay and Hannibal turned to Face as they waited for Joy to return.

"Keep an eye on Joy. Don't let her wander around the ship on her own."

"Hannibal! You can't be thinking she's the spy!" Face protested. He glanced over to see Joy closing the hatch on her ship. "She's, well, you know, she's army, she's one of us."

"What was that I was saying about objectivity?" Hannibal said in a musing voice.

Face sighed. "Okay, okay. But what am I meant to do? Follow her to the bathroom?"

Hannibal grinned. "She might not mind."

"Shut up!" Face hissed, as Joy came back over. Whatever she had collected, it must have been small. She had nothing in her hands.

"Permission to come aboard, Colonel?"

"Granted, Captain," Hannibal said, waving her to the ramp.

Five minutes later, they cleared the landing area and Hannibal set course for the power plant. He leaned back in the pilot's chair and stretched, then looked around at the other three seated on the flight deck.

"Okay, we got five hours to kill. I hope you brought a deck of cards, Face."

"Hannibal," Face said, spreading his hands. "Can you think of any times I don't have a deck of cards. Aside from when I'm actually naked."

"Sometimes even then," Hannibal said. "Of course he finds it hard to get people to play when they see where he keeps them." BA and Joy both giggled. "I hope we've all got something to lay down on the table." Hannibal grinned. "Well, BA obviously has."

BA scowled at him. "I never bet my gold, man, don't even think about it."

"And Frosty could always wager that pistol she picked up from her ship."

Joy froze and stared at Hannibal. Then she frowned. "You have a weapons scanner on here then, Colonel?"

"Nope, I'm just not an idiot."

She grimaced. "That's pretty clear." Leaning forward, she took a small pistol from a holster on the back of her belt, where it had been hidden by her jacket. Face tensed, but she turned the gun around in her hand at once and passed it to Hannibal.

"Cute," Hannibal said. "Nice size for a purse. But still illegal, right?"

Joy sighed. "Look, I love Caithlin. She's a sweetheart and a good mayor. But, she's an idiot. About the guns anyway."

"She know you feel that way?" BA asked.

"Of course. She knows I support Lambert's proposition."

"But she doesn't know about that," Face nodded at the gun, which looked tiny in Hannibal's hand.

"No. Look, I never take it into town. It stays on my ship. Caithlin doesn't know what it's like doing my job. She visits the families, or settlements, but I go to all the mines, and some of them have only a couple of guys working the claims, maybe just one guy. I'm not saying anything's ever happened. I've never even had to point that at anyone. But better safe than sorry." She shrugged. "I've been taking Russ around with me a lot lately, which cramps the style of anyone who's thinking about trying anything. But he'll be going off to college soon." She looked back at Hannibal, with a defiant expression. "I think I've got a right to defend myself."

"Yeah," Hannibal said, "I think you do too." He stood up and handed the small pistol back to her. "But if there's any trouble at this power plant you let us handle it."

"I wasn't even considering doing anything else," Joy said, tucking the pistol back into its holster.

"Right, Lieutenant, where's those cards?" Hannibal turned to Face. "I think we've got time for a few hands before lunch."

-o-O-o-

Murdock made himself a coffee, and sat in his pilot's chair with the coffee in one hand and a pack of cookies on his lap. He popped a plastic square into the computer's reader and sat back in the chair. With the course laid in, and the ship on automatic, he had several hours before he arrived, so decided he might as well use them wisely. The evening before, after they'd decided Murdock would be the one to make contact with Seth Calvin, Murdock had spent some time chatting with Joy about the man.

"Computer, load files in reader. Play file Goya1."

A second later a screen in front of him lit up, and Murdock sat back to learn all about Francisco Goya, Calvin's favourite painter, according to Joy.

After a while, Murdock began to wish very hard that he hadn't volunteered for this job.

-o-O-o-

Amy had persuaded Ted to let her have access to all his files on the Galileo City mainframe and she'd been reading them for hours now, taking notes, looking for a pattern, anything that might give her a clue and lead to a connection between Kyle and someone around here.

"You know what I'd really like," she said, looking up at Ted, who sat at his desk doing paperwork. "Access to Kyle's military records. I think that's the most likely place to find a connection, between him and one of the war vets around here that he could have known back then."

"We don't have that info here," Ted said. "I could try and get it, but it would take weeks to arrive." He shook his head. "I can't see any vets wanting anything to do with Kyle though, the things he did back then."

"It could be someone he has some kind of hold on." Amy suggested. "Maybe blackmailing them." She sighed. Speculation. Hannibal would want solid facts.

"I still find it hard to --" Ted began, but a buzz from the phone on his desk interrupted him. He pressed a button and its screen lit up. Amy heard the voice of Russ Lambert.

"Sheriff, can you come over to the workshop? There's something you need to see."

"What is it, Russ?"

"I'd rather not talk about it over an unsecured line. You need to come over."

Ted frowned. "Unsecured line? Okay, I'll be right there." He stood up with a sigh and took his jacket from the back of the chair. "Kids. God forbid they can't be dramatic."

Amy smiled and stood too. All her reporter's instincts told her to tag along. She could no more ignore those instincts than she could not follow a speeding convoy of howling fire engines, ambulances and police cars.

They got to the workshop quickly and Ted pushed the door with its Please Walk In sign. The door didn't open. He frowned and knocked hard.

"Russ? It's the sheriff, open up."

In a second, they heard the door being unlocked and Russ peered out. He looked at Amy for a moment, and then said. "Okay, come in." He led them inside.

"What's wrong, Russ?" Ted asked.

The boy looked at Amy nervously again, but Ted nodded at him to go on.

"Okay, this morning when we came in, me and Frosty I mean, we found a power drain coming off the town's power grid. Nothing huge, but worth looking at. She had to leave before we found the source, but I kept looking."

He brought up some data on a screen, which didn't mean too much to Amy, and from the look on Ted's face, she guessed he felt the same.

"The power is being directed to the communications transmitters. Like we do when we need to send out a boosted signal. That's exactly what this was doing, sending out a signal since just after four this morning, repeated over and over. And it's not just a transmission, it includes instructions, to reprogram each relay station on the way to divert power and boost the signal onwards. Someone really wanted to get this transmission out."

"It's going to the dark side, isn't it?" Amy guessed. "To Kyle's base?"

"I... I guess it must be. I can't track it over there, but where else?"

"What's the transmission?" Ted asked. "A message?"

"It's a data burst," Russ said. "Highly compressed data. Some of it's encrypted, I guess that's messages. But some of it... Well, this is what it is." He touched a few buttons and the screen changed. Amy stared at the screen, at her own face, and those of the team and the members of the council, all standing around the doorway that left through to the launch bay. The team's luggage lay scattered around in the ground.

"It's the council meeting," Ted said. He glanced at Amy. "We record them all. But this one hadn't been released yet."

"That's not all," Russ said. He touched buttons and the council meeting started going very fast indeed. After a few seconds, he resumed normal speed. It took Amy a second, but then she recognised the restaurant of The Great Red Spot. And she recognised all the people sitting around the table. Ted approached the table as he had last night and asked, "Are you ready to order?"

"What the hell?" Ted stared at the screen, at himself and at the others as the recording continued.

"Do you have cameras in The Spot?" Amy asked Ted. He shook his head.

"No." He looked up. "Have you traced the source of the transmission?"

Russ looked away.

"Russ?" Ted said. "What's the source?"

Amy sat poised. The boy looked anguished. Amy's mind raced ahead. Could it be his father, she wondered. Hannibal had been suspicious of Lambert and he was the obvious place to start following the money.

"Russell?" Ted's voice became soft. Perhaps he thought the same thing as her, Amy speculated.

Russ looked up.

"Here," he said. "I've stopped it now. But the transmission was coming from this workshop." He walked over to a bench and put his hand on a half-dismantled piece of machinery. "From this. It looks broken, but it's not."

Ted and Amy both came to their feet staring.

"Take you hand off it, Russ," Ted said. "Is there a card in the reader?"

"Yes, do you want it?"

"Don't touch it," Ted snapped making Russ pull his hand away. "Outside." He hustled the pair of them out onto the street. "Lock the door," he ordered Russ. "Nobody gets back in here until I've scanned that machine for fingerprints and DNA. Russ, you need to surrender all the data you --"

"Sheriff," Amy said, urgently, "Sheriff, you have to contact Hannibal."

"Miss Allen," Ted said turning to her, "your colonel may be able to get away with telling me what to do, but that privilege does not extend to you."

Amy clenched her fists and resisted the urge to snap back at him, took a deep breath instead, keeping her temper in check.

"Then I'm asking you, please. The transmission came from Joy's workshop." She saw him scowl and knew he would protest if she let him, but she rushed on before he could speak. "I know you don't want to believe she's responsible, but right now, you know as well as I do what you have to do."

"No!" Russ protested, but Ted ignored him. He glared at Amy, but she could see he knew she was right. Eventually, he nodded.

"Okay. We need to try to contact Colonel Smith, so I can," he grimaced, looked pained. "So I can order him to arrest Joy Frost."