Scorpion Relay - Part Nine

"I've decoded the message!" Mason declared. "Galileo, be advised: our Intelligence sources indicate the Rotelans are engaging in fleet movements near your planned flight path. At this time, there is no indication that they know about your location, or the fact you are en-route. The prize is still at mentioned location. The Rotelans do not have permission to enter the neutral zone. Please send regular encoded mission status updates. Good luck. Carrell. Out."

Another sensor alert. For some reason, this one caused a cold chill to slowly inch down Aaen's spine. He resisted the urge to shiver. After using about one-sixth of the available Translight flush coolant, the heat level dropped to 25%.

"—Woah! Hold on! We've got a contact at two o'clock. . . Looks like it's on a parallel course to ours. . . It's not moving very fast."

Maxon snapped. "Is it a ship?"

". . . Not sure. Right now it's just reading as an 'anomaly'."

"—Captain, that could be a ship." Let's hope it's not them, "We might want to adjust our heading, maybe even our speed. At Translight nine, our Translight signature's could make us look like a Christmas tree to anyone else's sensors, if they're sensitive enough." Maybe ours is masked by default because of the stealth system, he guessed.

"The contact's almost at our three o'clock. Still no apparent change in its course."

"—Jonathan, maximize sensor resolution and do a scan specifically on that sensor target. See if you can get its identification."

". . .Scanning. . . Whatever it is, it's reading as 'solid', but I'm not detecting any life signs."

"Is it moving?" Aaen asked directly.

". . .Yes!—In our general direction." 

"Helm," Maxon snapped. "All-stop!—Emergency stop!"

"—Roger that!" Aaen nodded abruptly, snapping, "Answering all-stop! Everyone, hold on!" His eyes followed the yellow bar gradually back to its origin on the screen as the hull came to a thundering halt. Aaen reasoned a telepath wasn't needed to interpret the emotional atmosphere now.

Maxon rushed behind Jonathan. "Where's the contact, now?—" Jonathan pointed it out, "Oh, crap—"

"Do you want me to charge cannons?" Jensen's voice sounded ready, concerned, and anxiously eager. His hands were readily at his computer's controls and he was looking at Maxon without so much as a blink.

Maxon extended her palm.

Aaen leaned firmly into the back of his chair as he looked over his shoulder at the back-left corner of the cabin. His eyes kept alternating hesitantly between Maxon and Jonathan. His first impulse was to fire up the engines again, maybe so much as to Emergency Translight, to bug the heck outta here. He told himself to wait. If someone else's ship is equipped with short-range sensors sensitive enough to detect us at whatever range we're currently at, going faster is only going to confirm their suspicions. The fourth-year at Highlight suggested a different tactic—

"It's getting closer—!"

"If that's another ship—particularly Rotelan—then we'll want to play 'dead-stick'."

Maxon looked confused, "—What?"

"'Dead-stick'—I can use the maneuvering thrusters to try to get us outta their sensor range."

"Please tell me you're not trying to be a hero, Helm."

"Seriously? I'm only trying to keep us from going from sensor myth, to fact." Aaen tried to say reassuringly.

She got the meaning, and looking back at Jonathan. "Quickly, how far out are they?—How far?"

"A million kilometers and closing,"

HOLY CRAP! Aaen silently yelled.

Jonathan looked up at Maxon, "—fast."

"Cannons?" Jensen asked more strongly this time. Aaen gave him an ugly look, but held back from saying anything.

". . . No weapons—yet." 

Aaen reaffirmed his hands' positioning on his computer controls in anticipation of what his gut suggested might happen next.

"Okay. Do it."

"A planet just appeared at our twelve o'clock, going to our one o'clock. It's speed is constant."

"I might be able to get us into that planet's southern pole, we can try to use the planet's gravitational field to mask our engine signature. First Officer, you got any kinda reading on who or what that sensor contact is?" He started the thruster maneuvers. He felt a little dizzy from the sudden, subtle hull movements. The floor vibrated mildly.

"—Negative, scan's almost finished."

"Computer, put the planetoid on-screen."

A few beeping sounds acknowledged the order and then the image changed.

Aaen hoped the first officer knew what he was doing with the scanners.

"—It's some kind of probe! Whoever launched it must have figured out a way to mask its origin. I'm detecting some kind of energy signature . . . more than one. It might be a tactical probe like they use on Magellan."

Really? "You're saying Magellan fired a tactical probe all the way out here and now it's tracking us?" Aaen asked skeptically.

"Based on this new data, I'd say it's Rotelan."

Go figure—

"It's got a class-six Translight core, got two plasma emitter arrays, a high-sensitivity forward sensor array, and high-yield self-destruct package!"

Yeah, that means its Translight-capable. Aaen reasoned, it's a freakin' reconnaissance probe! "Mason, you better get a message ready for Admiral Carrell." he tried to speak softly, but directly.

"Aw, crap,"

. . . This could be it, Aaen guessed. Reconnaissance probes usually are undetectable, and highly maneuverable, and can be extremely versatile in their function. The fact that this one got detected is because they probably wanted it to be detected. But why? he asked himself . . . They couldn't have detected us. He reasoned they probably didn't, but were trying to see if anyone was aware of the probe, much less willing to act on it. What could their plan be? . . . send a probe out into deep-space on what might appear to be a simple scientific research errange . . . we detect the probe, it reacts to us or our scanning beam, it threatens us (probably programmed to send a distress signal to its sender—probably a ship or listening post, or something a lot bigger) and then things escalate from there—

"It's changing course!"

Aaen snapped, keeping on the forward thrusters. "Tactical, hold your fire!"

"—What? Weapons aren't charged!"

Aaen leaned over to Mason and sharply pointed at her screen, "Put everything in the Translight drive into the thrusters. If that's a reconnaissance probe we need to be able to out-run it. If we shoot it down, whoever launched it will know someone's out here, and if it's the Rotelan, we're screwed—" putting it mildly.

"Okay—"

"Probe's at our four o'clock, and closing!" Jonathan sounded more frantic.

Aaen felt more pressed into his chair than before, a sensation that went away after several seconds.

"Where's the probe, now?" Maxon asked directly, looking at Jonathan's screen over his shoulder.

"It's still at our four o'clock . . . " he pointed it out on his screen, "and falling behind! Slowly.

"Have we been detected?" Aaen asked directly. How did it pick us up, initially? Aaen silently asked.

"The stealth system's still online." Jensen interjected.

". . . Doesn't look like it. We're over halfway to the planet's south pole, and the probe's not following us."

The cabin filled with cheerful whispers and gasps of relief.

—But for how long? Aaen wondered.

The main view screen gradually shrouded in the planet's shadow.

"Okay. no change in the probe's position relative to us, or the planet."

More celebratory gasps, this time Aaen joined in.

"Captain, it might be a good idea to go into silent running for a few minutes, just to be safe. If the probe's still passively scanning for us, it'll take a minute for it to be convinced that there's nothing there and then return to its original position in orbit of the planet." Assuming it's programmed to do that, "If we can get it to go to the other side of the planet, we can jump back into Translight and get back on course. If that thing's programmed to generate a sensor echo of itself, then we may only be waiting for it to come find us,"

"You're assuming it will," Jonathan questioned.

"I'm thinking it might, and we need to take every precaution we can before it may be too late,"

Jonathan sat in his seat and looked at his screen.

"I've got a coded message ready, captain."

"Standby, Operations."

Maxon looked at Aaen briefly, then at the main viewscreen . . . then she looked at Jensen. "Engage silent running," 

*****

Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."

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