(1) Another sensor alert. This one made Aaen's spine tingle, a sensation that caused his hands to shake as he manipulated the thruster controls—"Talk to me, First Officer!"
"Contact at two o'clock has changed course. . . It'll pass right over us in ten seconds!—"
"—Adjust our course to prevent detection!"
DUH! "I'm already on it!" And he was. And it wasn't proving to be easy—even less than what he initially guessed it would be. This was turning out to be like trying to move a pawn piece on a chess board along the center of the board without the other player noticing, except the chess piece was virtually visibly non-existent, which gave them an edge. . .just as long as they didn't switch to visual scanning instead of relying entirely on their sensors. One well-placed manually-targeted shot. . .
. . .Another sensor alert—"Come hard to port! Contact at nine o'clock is turning towards us!"
"Commander!" Maxon snapped. Aaen knew she was exclaiming at him—
"—I've got it!" Aaen rolled the shuttle to port and brought the bow up. Inertia kept the shuttle rolling. The towering green battleships seemingly rolled around in the viewscreen as Aaen continued to manipulate the controls so they would pass over the contact at 9 o'clock. . . Their relative distance readings between both ships was getting dangerously close, Aaen noted—another sensor alert was immediately followed by a more sharp and loud proximity alarm associated with the shuttle's stealth system. He fired the ventral thrusters, and then countered the roll to port with the roll to starboard until the gauges on his screen showed the shuttle's relative directional positioning had been restored to "0". The Rotelans' hulls looked on the viewscreen like Galileo was going to bounce off of their shields—
—Another sensor alert, "More contacts incoming! I'm reading. . .twelve more energy signatures!"
"I've decoded the message!" Mason declared.
"We're about fifty kilometers from the contact at four o'clock!" Jonathan declared. "All but two of those ships behind us are changing course again—it looks like they're fanning out along their border. Wait!. . . They're coming about!"
"Have we been detected?" Maxon asked sharply.
". . .No, they might be starting a new search using a new search pattern,"
"Keep tracking them for as long as they're in our sensor range,"
Jonathan nodded acknowledgement.
"Should I recharge cannons?" Jensen asked.
Maxon turned around sharply and then replied, "Yes,"
Beeping and chirping sounds from Jensen's computer proved the order was being carried out with impressive speed.
Maxon turned to Mason, "What does the message say?"
"To: USS Galileo, From: Admiral Carrell, Command:
Galileo. Be advised our sources have reported the Rotelans are advancing the timetable for the deployment and testing of the Module Cloaking Device. The Rotelans are going to move the device from its current stationing to an unknown location in approximately four hours. We still don't know where or how the device is going to be tested, so it is imperative that you intercept the device and extract it before it is permanently secured. Your current destination orders stand.
We have also been informed that the Rotelans will be increasing their planetary defensive posture with the deployment of planetary defense satellites. These satellites are capable of penetrating your stealth system and detecting your ship. If you are detected, there is a high probability that the Rotelans will send every ship in range to intercept you and then either destroy or capture you for information. Neither of these projected outcomes can be allowed as the acquisition of the data on your shuttle's computers could have serious long-term ramifications for the rest of the fleet.
The best suggestion to safely traverse this obstacle is to try to deactivate the satellites by breaking into the satellites' internal computer network. You will have sixty seconds from the initial attempt to deactivate the satellites before the Rotelans will know you are there, which may cause them to further advance the timetable. If you are detected, the satellites will alert every level of the Rotelans military. Also, be advised: detectable activity along their border has also increased significantly, and their numbers have seemed to increase also in the last hour. Sources suggest they have at least 50 ships in intercept-range of the planet. Possibly more. Avoid contact as much as possible, get to the planet and capture the Module Cloaking Device as soon as possible and then return to home base as fast as possible. The president has authorized strategic fleet deployments to increase border security, though we are unsure how effective any such step will be until this situation is resolved.
Keep us updated on your mission progress.
—Good luck!
Admiral Carrell"
Telepathy wasn't needed to know every crew member's gut just sank, especially Aaen's, after coming to the realization of what is likely to come.
"We're now a hundred thousand kilometers from the nearest sensor contact," Jonathan said. "Those other ships are still shifting their courses around a lot. . .Never mind, they all just cloaked. I can't see them anymore,"
"If they detected us we'd be exchanging fire right now, Captain," Aaen quipped.
"Agreed. get us back to maximum warp, Commander,"
"Recalculating course. . ." the three coordinates were running randomly on his computer, and then the AIU finished the calculations and displayed the new course. Aaen was quick to begin entering the coordinates. . . They were officially in the hornet's nest.
. . .Another sensor alert—"Are there more ships coming in?" Maxon asked Jonathan sharply.
". . .Yeah, but there are more behind us at the moment. They're using so much power their cloaking fields is barely keeping them completely hidden from our sensors. . . Looks like there are four ships that are following our general course. They're not following our exact flight path, but it's close enough. I'd say they're onto us, to say the least, but they're not trying to get a weapons lock on us,"
"That's probably because we're still a ghost story to them. We just took out one of their border satellites. The damage to the satellite will look like it was attacked, versus a strike by a space rock. They're going to be suspicious. The best thing we can do is stay invisible," Which, frankly, is obvious, but doubtfully is going to be easy—"New course set, Captain," the crew felt the hull sharply, gradually yawing to starboard and then stabilized, "—Everyone, hold on! Standby for jump to warp nine!" he gave the command to increase speed. Five seconds later—the warp engines' hum built to a roar as a flash of white light flooded the viewscreen and then
the hull abruptly shot forward through the warp barrier.
Another sensor alert—"ETA to destination: one hour, at present speed!"
Aaen's heart nearly jumped out of his chest. The skin on his arms felt like it was tingling and he suddenly felt a shortness of breath. His thoughts jumped ahead to those satellites. . .he asked himself how he was going to get them through it. . .if they're too close together—or if their detection range is overlapping. . .Aw, crap. . . There's no way to get through something like that without being seen!—His next thoughts were about Mason. Just how good is she with breaking into enemy computer systems? He recalled that border satellites and planetary defense satellites—while notably similar in many technical aspects—are ultimately two different types of machines, configured differently because of their differences in intended purpose. Monitoring a sectors-wide border versus the space surrounding a mere speck of light in a vast and dense ocean of lights are very different objectives. Between the two, planetary defense satellites usually have sharper sight—and hearing, whereas border satellites are more of an early warning system. Both were fearsome, and could lead to tragic endings for any one or group of intruders. With as many battleships as they had along their border—whether they were cloaked, or not—no one in their right-mind would so much as think about sending in more than a shuttle, especially one that was so well-designed like this one was, Aaen admired. He took a little pride in the fact he just got them all through one of the most dense hazards any starship pilot would ever be faced with. . .but he still felt a lack of solace about the mission's status-quo. . .
. . .Something still didn't feel right. . . He asked himself if they were allowed to get through the border. No. They wouldn't play it like that—they would have opened fire and more-than-likely tried to blow us up. If you had designed, developed, manufactured and planned to test out a new piece of military hardware that could easily change the balance of power in an entire quadrant overnight, there's no way you'd leave room for the possibility that anyone you don't want to have the hardware should get it. That left only two possible ways this mission could end other than how they expected it to. He chose to believe his initial reasoning that they hadn't been detected—at least not yet, and he hoped it would stay that way—but there had been footprints in the proverbial snow, but because of the shuttle's impressive design, there is no way for them to know who or what the prints belong to, or where their owner's heading to. The footprints were gradually disappearing in real-time, and much faster than the typical starship. Right now, Aaen was silently asking himself where the rest of their fleet was. A handful of cloaked ships here and there meant they were more than likely spread out. . .
. . .He used a few percentage points of warp flush coolant to keep the warp engine heat level below 25%, and then quickly looked at the viewscreen, silently wondering about their fleet's whereabouts.
Another sensor alert—Maxon turned around.
Jonathan looked around the bridge with a mixed blank/shocked look on his face, "Those ships that were behind us are outside of our sensor range,"
Okay, there's some good news, Aaen thought.
"But it looks like their fleet is spread out throughout the surrounding space. . . I'm detecting more energy signatures, way more than before. They might be routine patrols for all I can tell. Some of them are larger, some are smaller—none of them seem to be aware of our presence. I'm also detecting what appear to be cargo ships under escort by warbirds and smaller scout ships. Looks like they've deployed some kind of reconnaissance probes all over the place,"
Oh, great.
*****
Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."
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