Aaen felt a like someone threw a hard, fear-stricken punch to his chest as he watched the flurry of activity on the bridge, whether conducting repairs to the Station, coordinating investigations. . . Immediately, he was waiting for an order for him to change the Station's navigational heading and then activate the Station's translight drive to pursue that intruder—to chase-it-down, and. . . No. This shouldn't register on an emotional level, Aaen told himself. But it felt personal. Was this act of espionage the act of one, or of a team of operators? Was this some kind of highly-thought-out military operation? He wondered, wishing the apparent de-facto lone-wolf intruder was within arm's reach right now. . . Get a hold of yourself, Commander! He forced himself to focus his thoughts on the recent events on the Station, albeit with his fists clenched and pressed firmly on his desk like a judge's gavel. As a member of the Station's senior staff, the Admiral would undoubtedly inevitably call for a senior staff meeting that would include him to talk about what happened and figure out how to get out of this mess. . . And start a search for the intruder. . . What's to say there wasn't an insider? What's to say there wasn't? Does it matter at this point? Of course it matters! What's happened, happened, and it would seem there was an. . . Aaen struggled to proverbially swallow what he realized was the only sensible conclusion: the Station had been infiltrated. But the question still remained: by WHO?—REGARDLESS! Whoever it was—whatever it was, whether it was a mercenary or an agent of some possible or apparent or otherwise as-yet unannounced enemy of The Union, they are going to answer for infiltrating the Union Space Station Magellan, stealing undoubtedly classified information from a Union computer, he guessed, and commandeering a Union scout ship. . . C'mon, Admiral! Where's the order to fire up the engines and ENGAGE? Aaen asked in silence. "Let's chase that thing down!" Aaen mumbled.
From what little coordination Aaen could hear, the repair efforts sounded like they were going well. Translight drive would probably be back online, along with weapons, sensors, and navigation. . . Good. Aaen thought sharply and enthusiastically, grinning. A fortress—even one that can travel as fast as Magellan, without propulsion—is still a very dangerous target from the outside. . . And could still catch up to that Runabout in seconds, even if it were traveling at maximum translight with every ampere of power divvied between life support, navigation, and translight drive. It would be like a cruise missile chasing a paper airplane. He giggled in his seat.
The Admiral and the Captain spoke to each other for nearly two minutes, including some notable head nodding, and then the Admiral looked at the main viewscreen.
"ALL senior staff report to the briefing room!"
Aaen stood up and found himself fourth to leave the bridge. Within a minute, a uniformed crowd gathered in the briefing room, taking a seat around several tables as the sound of bumping metal chair legs filled the room as the senior staff sat down. The Admiral stood behind a large desk bearing the Union banner. A row of small white lights hung from the ceiling over the desk. Aaen put his right leg over his left knee and rested his right elbow on the table as he looked at the Admiral with a determined look. He felt like taking a compression rifle from the weapon locker on the deck, borrowing a Runabout and going on a chase on his own for the intruder. . . One man against what could be who-knows-how-many possible hostiles wherever the intruder went. . .? He held onto the idea but chose to stay in his seat. Once main power has been restored, no one will dare mess with DSS Magellan!—
Aaen focused on the Admiral.
"Okay, crew. I need to know where we stand right now. Repairs? Security investigation? Talk to me, people."
—Aaen wanted to speak first but held back. There was what seemed like a few moments of silence. . . .
"There's no reason why there should be three-quarters of main power online right now, but we've got that much. Translight is still offline, but repairs are going really well." Damage Control said.
—Good. Aaen thought darkly.
"Security?"
"I have over half of our security forces looking into the computer breach. The investigation is ongoing, but so far we know that whoever did this. . ." he looked around the room for a moment, and then said, "is very adept at a form of Intelligence gathering,"
"Can you be more specific?" Aaen asked.
"Not until the investigation is complete,"
"How do we know this wasn't an inside job?" the chief of operations asked emphatically, anxiously bumping his fist against a table. "How do we know there isn't a traitor on the Station?"
The chief of security waved him off as he looked at him. "If it was an inside job, the main computer would have analyzed the computer terminal user's fingerprints—the bridge would have been alerted in seconds or less. Admiral, I'm convinced we're not dealing with one of our own,"
"Okay, so where does that leave us?"
Aaen raised his hand just high enough off the table to get the Admiral's attention. She gestured for all to stop talking and then pointed to Aaen, "Commander?"
"All-things-considered, Admiral, I'd say we're dealing with a foreign agent—someone not explicitly in allegiance or otherwise allied with any known government that might have a reason to commit something like this against the Union,"
"What?" asked the deputy. Aaen looked to his right to find the deputy leaning forward and squinting at him.
"Think about it. Why would any government risk an intergalactic incident? Easy. They wouldn't. There's always the possibility of a complication during a stealth infiltration—"
"What are you suggesting, Commander?" the captain asked. "Someone hired someone else to break into the Station, wait for the right moment to steal the Vortex data, and then escape?"
"All-things-considered so far, captain. . . Yeah," Aaen nodded multiple times, "I do,"
"Who do you think would have done this?" the Admiral asked Aaen.
"I wish I knew. Everyone would probably first guess the Rotelans being involved. . .all things considered that could be what's happened. But, as the chief said: the investigation is ongoing. All we can hope for, for the moment, is that the intruder made some kind of mistake that would give us a clue as to who they are, or who they're working for. As quickly as the intruder was able to move through the Station—"
"It could have been a site-to-site transporter!" suggested Damage Control.
Aaen turned his head, "Internal sensors would have detected it,"
"Not if it was a special transporter that our internal sensors couldn't detect,"
"Huh?" Aaen looked over his shoulder with sharply lowered eyebrows. "There's no known way of masking a transporter signature. . ." Aaen raised his eyebrows, "unless you know something about transporters we don't?" Aaen noticed attention in the room shifted to Damage Control. He turned his head.
"Until we have evidence to back that up, Admiral, I recommend the Station be put on security posture Bravo," a heat wave flooded the room, "and we focus our efforts on figuring out where the Runabout's course went to—" security posture Bravo? Alpha meant maximum security: no in or outbound spacecraft without the Admiral's explicit written authorization, and every square inch of the Station would be aggressively searched with everything from the naked eye, scanners (specially-tuned), to particle compression rifles set to maximum stun. No one would be exempt. Even on red alert, that posture isn't strictly required.
"HOLD on!" said the Executive Officer, standing up, waving his arms in front of him. "We don't even know how much data was lost, much less if any of it was sensitive. What makes you think it was anything important, Commander?"
You're unusually sensitive, Exec. What's wrong? Aaen thought suspiciously, but kept to himself, looking at the Executive Officer with a straight face, "What kind of intruder goes through all of the trouble of breaking into a Union Space Station's main computer core, downloads a buncha data, and then steals a Runabout and takes off?— I'll bet you it was an agent working for a different government who was after the Vortex data, to begin with. . . ." A cold chill filled the room suddenly. "Prove me wrong, chief,"
"We should have short and long-range external sensors soon, Admiral. I should be able to find out the intruder's course soon,"
"The translight trail'll be gone soon. We're running out of time!" Aaen looked at the Admiral.
"Exec, get long-range sensors online as quickly as possible and start trying to figure out where the Runabout went to,"
"Got it," he nodded as he sat back down.
"How long until the Station is fully repaired, Damage Control?"
". . .A while, at least. Translight, sensors, weapons, and shields should be back online really soon. Whoever did the damage that was done to the Station knew what they were doing. Almost too well, from what my damage control teams have told me so far,"
"Admiral, whoever wants that data wouldn't have gone to the expense unless they had reason to think that they would profit from it. They either stole the data for themselves, they're stealing the data to sell to someone else, or a combination of the two," Aaen realized what he had just said, but kept a straight, determined face. His chest quickly felt heavy.
—The Admiral nodded, "Alright. Keep up the good work people. Return to the bridge and then let's find that intruder. Dismissed,"
The senior staff returned to their stations on the bridge. Aaen enjoyed the cool breeze through his hairline coming from one of the life support air ventilation ducts as he sat down. He coupled his hands in front of him and then rested his face between his thumbs and closed his eyes.
"Hey, Admiral, you der'!" Watson.
"Yes, Watson, I'm here! Do you have a report?"
"Yeah, Admiral! I dunno how but we just got back nearly full-main-power!"
"What?" Damage Control asked.
"Yeah, I don't know whatta tell you, Admiral. From what my engineering team down here's tellin' me—somehow—the primary main power converters have been fully repaired. We're still workin' on the secondaries, but we've got translight, and partial long-range sensors!" . . .The Shadows, Aaen guessed.
"What about weapons?" Strategic Operations asked.
"Agreed!" the Executive Officer added.
"All being worked on! We'll keep you informed as we work with Damage Control, up there,"
"Affirmative, bridge! Watson, out."
"Exec!—"
"I'm on it!"
Aaen watched him begin a thorough sensor sweep in every direction. The sensor scanning beams were set to high-intensity, and traveled on his screen rapidly, gradually in every direction; the beam appeared as a dense expanding circle expanding from the center of the screen outward—No mistakes! Aaen continued grinning; the expression was subconsciously short-lived.
The Executive Officer turned his head in dismay but quickly and determinedly re-initiated the scan—
Aaen noticed the captain eyed her computer screen. Ranger? He looked at the main viewscreen to see a video feed from the external short-range sensors of the Ranger quickly approaching the Station, turning slightly and then making a quick turn towards its docking port. Aaen heard the captain selected a command on her computer. Moments later, the Ranger inched into its docking port as an alarm filled the bridge, gradually building in waves and intensity. Two docking arms gradually engulfed the Ranger's deflector array as two loud slamming sounds that caused the deck to subtly, sharply vibrate. The Ranger's engines glow against its hull went dark in moments.
She looked left, "Admiral! The Ranger's docked. She's powered down,"
"Good work, captain. Security? Where are we at on the investigation?"
The chief of security stood upright and turned sharply to look at the Admiral, "So far it looks like whoever got into the main computer core did so using some kind of new technique that made detecting the intrusion virtually impossible." The internal communications system beeped thrice. Division Communications picked up a small handset and held it to her ear.
"—Bridge. . . Okay," she held out the handset, "Chief, it's your security team. They say they need to speak with you,"
He took the handset and then immediately said, "This is the chief of security. Go ahead. . . Okay. . . Understood. Standby," he covered the microphone and looked at the Admiral. "My security team is requesting that I go down to the computer terminal to look at something. Permission to leave the bridge?"
"Granted,"
"I'm on my way," he hung up, handed the device back to the Division Communications Officer, picked up his particle compression rifle sharply upright with his trigger finger hovering over the trigger pool and then started to make his way off the bridge.
"Chief! I want a full report as soon as possible,"
He nodded, "You'll have it," He walked fast to the top of the bridge on right-wing, then around the corner and out of sight.
"Admiral! We have full-main-power!" said Ensign Bryce.
"That was fast!" Aaen congratulated Ensign Bryce.
"We're almost finished with the repairs, captain!" said Damage Control. Finally! Let's get this thing moving! Aaen thought, adjusting his position in his seat as he put his right hand on his station's mouse, the other on his keyboard in anticipation of what his gut told him was inevitable.
"—Got it!"
The Admiral looked at him and asked, "What?" she stood up and faced him.
"The translight trail's faded a little," Aaen stood up and leaned on the top of his center computer screen as he looked at the Executive Officer's computer screen to see a dim and green line, curved slightly towards the top of the screen, "but it's still there!"
"Where does it go to?" the captain asked, walking down to his station, looking at his screen over his left shoulder.
". . . .Oh my gosh—"
The Admiral curiously looked at him, "What? Put it on screen, Exec,"
"Uh. .everybody!—" the captain called to the rest of the bridge with the emotion as though she had just seen a ghost. Aaen's curiosity had been piqued.
"Transferring the readings to the main screen," a brief series of beeping sounds filled the bridge, and then the image on the main viewscreen changed to show a white grid over a black background outlined in blue. A red, white and blue diamond shape representing Magellan was in the lower-left-hand corner. A curved white line extended from the diamond shape, curving across the screen, finishing almost to the opposite corner.
Additional sensor information filled the screen—Aaen's gut sank as he collapsed into his chair; as did the Admiral into her chair.
"As far as sensors can tell, the Runabout was headed at high-translight to somewhere near the general vicinity. .of the Orion Triangle,"
"Sensor readings are incomplete, but that's where the translight trail ends,"
"It's a starting point, Admiral!" Aaen said, trying to sound confident. The captain returned to her station.
"Yes, Commander. Lay in a course for those coordinates. Everyone get ready for Translight! Exec, maintain alert condition Yellow,"
Aaen methodically calculated the course and then entered it into his navigational computer screen. He proceeded to check his computers to make sure all the Translight activation settings were where they needed to be. There still wasn't enough power to make any power changes to the Translight field generators. He waited for a 'go ahead' gesture from Lieutenant Malcolm to Ensign Bryce, and then from Ensign Bryce indicating that power had been diverted to the Translight drive. Aaen's eagerness to click that command on his central computer screen to activate Translight built with each passing moment. C'mon. C'mon. . . The signal came. He started adjusting the power settings as needed despite his hands shaking from excitement of the looming pursuit, updated the settings, and then determinedly, Aaen loudly declared, "Ready to activate Translight drive on your mark, Admiral,"
"Strategic Operations: shields up. Standby to charge all cannons and load all torpedo launchers—" Aaen nodded enthusiastic agreement as she looked at him with a determined look, "Commander: Activate Translight drive," —With pleasure!
*****
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