Scorpion Relay - Part Seven

The command functions for his computer were darkened after the computer control network was reset. Aaen quickly clicked the white "Sign On" button sided by two small blue squares in the bottom-center of his screen. He typed his first and last name into the pop-up box and then confirmed the information with another click. His name immediately appeared in the bottom-center of the screen—his computer controls were again enabled, he grinned. He looked around to find the rest of the crew were getting the same result on their computers. Maxon looked at Mason's computer with a straight, determined face, then at Aaen's, then looked behind her. Jonathan and Jensen both looked at her and nodded in-turn with determined looks on their faces. Jensen looked more cautious, in Aaen's opinion, but kept to himself.

Maxon turned the page in her binder, scanned the top of the page and then looked at Jonathan, "Okay, Commander, do we have eyes on what's going on outside?"

". . .Checking . . ." Jonathan read his screen, typed in a scan subject and then did a scan. Seconds later, he turned his head and said, "short-range sensors show the shuttle bay's all-clear."

Maxon turned to Mason. "Can you monitor their communications?"

"We can, but I can only put whatever might be picked up on speakers."

Aaen noted there were two at the front of the cabin, one discretely embedded on each side of the main viewscreen. Looking around to see if he could find any others, there was a third, larger speaker in the back wall of the cabin between Jonathan and Jensen.

"Okay, don't worry about that right now. Jonathan, what's our current location?"

"Scanning. . . we're in Federation space, about two parsecs from our projected deployment zone."

"Where exactly is that? Are we moving?" Aaen asked.

"Voyager's adjusting their course as we speak. They're moving at half-impulse . . . woah—okay, according to readings from their navigational array, we're headed to the edge of the Federation-Neutral Zone border. The Rotelans might detect Voyager where they're taking us," he started turning his head, "but we're so small we probably wouldn't even be a blip on their radar."

That's assuming they're even monitoring that particular part of the border, Aaen silently offered, which would mean that they would have to have ships close enough to their side of the border to even notice there are any ships there at all, provided they were as detectable as a ship as huge as Voyager.

Aaen gasped out of skepticism. Even as many ships as the Rotelans may have, to cover that much space would still be a stretch—even for them. And even if they did detect Voyager, whether the Rotelans happened to be cloaked or not, Galileo is so small, and with her stealth capabilities, detecting her, even with a sensitive long-range sensor array from a battleship, the odds are optimistically astronomical that they would have any clue that we were even out there to begin with. Aaen felt something bluntly slug him in the chest with the realization of another possibility: then again, the Intelligence report didn't mention whether or not they had made any significant upgrades to their fleet's sensors to make them more sensitive to what we are about to attempt . . . . Aaen had faith in this shuttlecraft, but couldn't help but acknowledge the lingering, haunting thought now rolling around in the back of his mind, the existence of which he did not acknowledge with so much as a change in facial expression. For an instant, he reasoned the rest of the crew probably would appreciate knowing the Helmsman for this mission at least looked strictly confident about what might be to come—

—One shuttlecraft against one battleship. Yeah, Aaen dug deep into his psyche to figure out if he felt confident enough to pilot this craft around long, dense, high-intensity particle beams and high-velocity anti-matter warheads, if that became necessary, if they happened to be detected. Hmph! This shuttle's practically a high-velocity anti-matter warhead! Aaen switched to the thruster control screen and reviewed in admiration the technical readouts specifying the shuttle's maneuvering capabilities. Even at high-impulse, this baby'll darn-near outrun and/or out-maneuver anything that anyone else that dares shoot at us! Much less try to establish a weapons lock! Somehow that came as significant reassurance. No problem, Aaen told himself. Right now, he just wanted to get out there and—with some ego—decided he wanted to find out what it was like to play cat-and-mouse, and find out just how big and dark a shadow those batlteship really cast. "You're sure about that?" Aaen asked. "How close would we have to be to another ship for them to be able to detect us?"

"—Really close."

"Give me a number." Maxon quipped. Jonathan gestured for her to come to his station. He pointed in a circular motion to something on his screen. Maxon's expression changed to surprise.

She looked at him, "Serious?"

"Until this point, we're basically invisible to any other ships, even our own fleet."

"Does that include Voyager?" Aaen asked irresistibly.

Jonathan nodded and replied, "—Anyone."

"So what if we were to dock—"

Maxon waved her off and returned to her chair and faced forward. "Operations, do we have a secure comm-link to Intelligence' database?"

Mason switched control screens, read the answer, and then turned around. "Yes. Intelligence has their own frequency, which can be used for long-range communications, whereas all the other frequencies are restricted."

These people aren't kidding around, Aaen reasoned.

A sequence of identical beeping sounds flooded the cabin.

"What was that?" Aaen asked, looking around.

"Sensor alert: Voyager's changed course. They're increasing speed." Jonathan announced. "Several other ships just passed by. We weren't detected, captain."

Aaen couldn't help but ask, "Can Voyager detect us?"

Jonathan looked at his screen again, and then back at Aaen as he turned his head and looked up, "There's no such indication."

Interesting . . . on a ship manned by over a thousand crew members, only two know about Galileo's presence on-board. This made him wonder about A Cry from the Dark—

"Mason, are we getting anything on long-range?"

She checked her computer—"Yes. Captain, Intelligence sent us a written message." Maxon leaned toward her as she continued reading aloud, "To: USS Galileo, From: S.F. Intelligence . . . Voyager has been authorized to exceed Translight-factor-six for its role in the purposes of this mission. You will receive a long-range message from Voyager's captain as your signal to launch. It will be up to you to undock and navigate away from Voyager at that time without coordinating your departure with Voyager as per normal shuttle launch procedure in order to keep other personnel who are not cleared to know about this mission in the black. Further messages to and from us will be encoded to further ensure mission secrecy."

Wow. Aaen silently remarked at the apparent reality of the fact. His chest suddenly felt heavy—

"We will be coordinating directly with you as your mission progresses, relaying any new Intelligence gathered by our assets within the Rotelan Empire. Be advised: all other fleet-wide ship-to-ship communications between you and the rest of the fleet are hereby restricted until further notice."

—WHAT? Aaen turned sharply at what they had just declared. His first mental reaction to this new mission directive nearly sparked a strong verbal response, but he held back.

"Good luck, Galileo. S.F. Intelligence - Out . . ." she turned around. "That's it. That's the end of the message."

How in the—what if we need backup? he silently wondered. This thing might be tough, heck she might even be the most elusive spacecraft ever engineered by a humanoid race! But how far does that go if the Rotelan were to detect us? Particularly on this mission where we have no clue where their fleet's located at any given time. If we're surrounded by battleship from multiple directions—or every direction, for that matter—are they really going to leave us out there to fend for ourselves? One highly-impressive shuttlecraft versus . . . one battleship? Sure, Aaen was confident he could out-maneuver one. What about two? he asked himself. What if two battleship decloaked with a weapon lock already on us? From the moment the captain ordered red alert, to the time Jensen could raise the shields, charge cannons and then work with the first officer to put a couple of high-yield warheads together. . . Rotelan battleships are capable of turning at a rate of about five-degrees-per-second-per-second, and climbing and descending at roughly the same rate. Maybe a little faster if they were moving at about half-impulse. Aaen guessed in his mind what a combat situation might be light between the shuttle and a couple of big green flying cities armed with mostly high-caliber weaponry. He recalled year three's classes that covered this particular topic—the biggest weapons threat on a battleship is its nose, which houses their powerful Mark-XIII plasma-antimatter torpedo launcher, which is capable of firing either a warhead, or a directed pulsating energy beam, if modified correctly—like firing pulsating bolts of bright-green lightning. Same weapon, but hitting the target with the same force as an energy beam, but multiple times within a few seconds. The Rotelan battleship was basically the Rotelan equivalent of a Galaxy-class starship. Heavily-armed, but with an elusive edge no Federation ship had because of that quaint little treaty. So an ambush would be a tactically sound plan. Granted, this ship is obviously smaller than a battleship, and tactically outmatched, Aaen acknowledged. Hmph. Outmatched. If the shuttle were to come under attack, Aaen decided their best chance was not a direct engagement. The mouse isn't realistically going to put up any kind of fight with the cat, Aaen reasoned. But she's small enough that they could out-maneuver them, should the Rotelan engage. But Rotelan torpedoes can track their targets, he recalled . . . and their weapons maneuvered much more sharply than their ships did. Heck, their weapons could nearly be classified as the 'fire-and-forget' type, which is pretty close to what this shuttle was capable of in terms of its maneuverability. He subtly gasped. Okay, so I guess we just 'wait-and-see'? Aaen asked in silence.

Maxon gasped at the main viewscreen. Aaen recognized that gesture. What the rest of the crew just heard was not cowardice, but a greater realization of just how much was at stake. This was a realization even he came to and started wondering what may be becoming known even as they were waiting for their 'signal' to depart—

—With that, Aaen started wondering if or how to open this particular shuttle bay's door, or if the doors would be opened by some other 'discrete' means. His gut told him that would be something Galileo would handle—he reasoned that would be the case, probably to keep the knowing command crew from being distracted. One less hint for the rest of the crew that something else was going on that they didn't know about. They probably wouldn't care, much less notice anything significant enough to spark their curiosity later on. Good, Aaen decided, so much the better.

Another alarm filled the cabin. This alert was different than the one that signaled a sensor alert. Mason reacted immediately as her computer screen flashed white thrice.

"'nother message, captain. It's from the Voyager captain."

"Go ahead, read it."

"Uhh . . . it says, Voyager will enter high-Translight, and then stop at destination for a 'routine sensor scan' of the Neutral Zone for the distance of about a half-parsec. You will have a window of five minutes to launch for the duration of the scan. You control the launch door and will oversee your own departure. As soon as you depart and are clear, Voyager will change course Translight away from the departure sector. There will be no further communication between us after that point. You'll be on your own. Voyager, Captain. Out."

The air again felt chilled. Aaen looked over his left shoulder and noticed electrifying looks being exchanged between different crew members surrounding the captain. Maxon continued reading through her binder, quickly fingering her way down the rest of the page she was on.

"Jonathan, where are we at right now?"

His screen already flashed thrice. He read something in the lower-left-hand corner of his screen, and then replied, "Voyager's at Translight-factor-nine-point-nine-six-two . . . Looks like we're on our way." he grinned. The expression was short-lived.

Aaen admired the exactness of the readout, and the apparent speed they were traveling at. Considering what Galileo's maximum safe Translight speed was, he reasoned Galileo didn't just launch and Translight away originally—instead of getting a de-facto ride with Voyager for some part of the way—is because, he recalled, Voyager has a more powerful Translight drive than they did. A class-twelve Translight core is faster than what Galileo was equipped with. Time is of the essence—

Maxon turned to Jonathan. "How long until we reach our deployment point?"

His response was more direct and determined, "If our speed remains constant . . . about thirty minutes."

"—Nothing new from Intelligence, yet, captain," Mason announced, anticipating Maxon's next question.

Another sensor alert sounded . . . "Okay, as of right now we're twenty minutes out."

Jeez! Aaen thought wide-eyed, for a moment. We're rippin'! Aaen silently thought, admiring Voyager's speed. For an instant, he wondered why they weren't traveling at Translight nine-point-nine-nine-five, but dismissed the question, choosing instead to remain focused on his gut told him was coming—

*****

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

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