Scout Force

by Rodney Smith

  Chief Watson came out of the captain’s cabin and motioned Kelly to the captain’s cabin. The chief took over the conn.

  “Captain, you wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, Kelly, sit down. We’ve got some time here. Tell me how a 2LT earns the Joint Meritorious Service Medal.”

  Kelly paused to gather his thoughts and began. “Well, sir, I was involved in an action to capture a K’Rang Scout ship well on our side of the frontier. My lead pilot and I chased the scout down until they employed their self-destruct mechanism. We at least kept them from transmitting their data on the fleet back to the K’Rang Intel.”

  “I bet there was more to it than that, but that’s fine for now. It doesn’t always serve you well to display too much humility. If you don’t toot your own horn, don’t expect anyone else to. That is all. Thank you.”

  The ship settled into patrol rhythm quickly. The concept of day and night or a 24-hour day did not apply in space. The three watches rotated through the watch schedule in turn, one six-hour watch in an eighteen-hour day. Each individual was on six hours duty, then 12 hours to sleep, relax, do off-duty maintenance on the ship, and study for rating exams. The captain, Kelly, and Chief Watson weren’t in the watch schedule, but they tended to stick with a different watch team, the captain with the red watch, the chief with the yellow watch, and Kelly with the blue watch.

  Kelly wandered the ship during his watch. He would relieve the helmsman occasionally by taking over the helm controls from his position. He sat position in the sensor section to gain a better understanding of the sensor grid. He never tried cooking again, but he would now and then filch a snack as he passed through the galley. Chief Pennypacker ran drills for his gunners and Kelly would periodically sit in to keep his gunnery skills up. Chief Miller, at first, merely tolerated Kelly’s presence, but after Kelly beat him to the solution of electronic problems a few times, a new respect took hold, as long as Kelly didn’t come into engineering with his coffee cup.

  After four days of cruising, they arrived in their patrol area. The captain, Kelly, and the chief had worked out a course that would allow them to sprint and coast through their patrol area. The plan was to come up to speed and throttle off the engines. They would cover the greatest distance, have the greatest sensor range and sensitivity, and emit the least signature.

  They followed this pattern for thirteen days before they got the slightest indication out of the ordinary on their sensors. It wasn’t much, but anything unusual was subject to investigation. Kelly called the captain to the bridge.

  “What do you have, Exec?”

  “We’ve got emissions from across the frontier in open space. Something is over there. I recommend that we move to these asteroids to starboard, park next to one of them, and monitor this area for any further activity. Those emissions could be nothing more than our K’Rang counterpart doing what we’re doing, but it's the first activity we’ve seen.”

  “Good call, Exec, move us over to the K’Rang side of that big rock and park us above it.”

  Kelly ordered, “Helmsman, all stop, move us slowly over to that asteroid to starboard and position us 100 meters above it. Use thrusters only. Keep us parallel to the frontier.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The ship moved slowly under thruster power to a position 100 meters above the asteroid. Kelly went aft and found the entire sensor section up and monitoring their systems. Kelly had Chief Blankenship send two-thirds of them back to their quarters. This watch would go on for hours, maybe days. It wouldn’t do to have the entire sensor section dead on their feet this close to the K’Rang Frontier.

  Kelly moved aft. Chief Blankenship knew her job. She didn’t need him hovering. He went to the galley, refilled his coffee, snagged a handful of cookies and went back to gunnery. Kelly found Chief Pennypacker.

  “Chief, keep one gunner on the top turret at all times. Rotate them through to keep them fresh. If something comes through the frontier at us we want to be ready.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Kelly went back to the bridge. The captain was waiting for him.

  “How are things, Exec?”

  “We’re good, Captain. I had to send most of the sensor section to bed. They all were back there monitoring their systems. I told Chief Pennypacker to keep a gunner on the top turret and rotate them through to keep them fresh. There are fresh chocolate chip cookies in the galley. Here, have a couple.”

  The captain took two cookies. “Thanks. Good work, keep everyone on the watch schedule. This will be a long patrol. We need to keep the crew rested and alert.”

  The intercom buzzed. “Bridge, Sensors. We’ve got movement across the K’Rang frontier. It hasn’t reached our side of the frontier yet.”

  The captain headed back to Sensors. Kelly keyed the intercom and said, “Sensors, the captain is on his way.” Kelly keyed up Sensors on his monitor and tried to analyze what they were up against. He overlayed the two frontiers and buffer zone on his screen and plotted in the known locations of the target, gaining a rough course plot. The target was moving from several hundred thousand kilometers beyond their frontier. If it kept on current course and speed it would cross the frontier in an hour. It was in no hurry.

  “Sensors, Bridge. Is the captain with you?”

  “Exec, this is Timmons. What have you got?”

  “Sir, this guy is taking his time coming through the frontier. He’s slowed down, probably scanning for someone like us. I recommend we settle down onto the asteroid to make it harder for him.”

  “Good call, Exec, take us down. Don’t bend anything in the process. I’ll stay here. If we start to lose too much sensor coverage, I’ll tell you and we can ease back up slightly. Take it smooth.”

  Kelly instructed the helmsman, and watched the sensor fields on his monitor. The Vigilant settled onto the top of the asteroid with only a slight bump. This helmsman was smooth. He would remember her if he needed a delicate touch on the controls in the future.

  He keyed up his mike and said, “Bridge to Sensors, we are settled on the asteroid.”

  “Thanks, Exec. No reaction from our friend out there. I’m headed back forward.”

  LCDR Timmons resumed his seat on the bridge. “Exec, why don’t you turn in? This guy is going to be in no hurry to cross our frontier.”

  Kelly didn’t want to turn in, but he had been up for about 16 hours and he needed some rest. He turned his position over to Chief Blankenship, who was chief of the watch, and retired to his quarters. If anything happened he was only 20 feet away. He keyed up his terminal and set Wanda to alert him if the target crossed the frontier. He pulled off his coveralls, crawled into his rack, and fell asleep almost instantly. He awoke several hours later, checked the tactical situation on his terminal, saw there was no change, and then made a run through the galley. The lunch meal was being served so he had a sandwich, milk, and potato salad, then returned to the bridge. Chief Watson was the chief of the watch.

  “Where’s the captain, Chief?”

  “He’s in his ready room. He’s in there with Chief Blankenship. He said for you to go in once you came back on duty, sir.”

  Kelly knocked on the ready room door and heard the captain tell him to enter. He did so and saw Chief Blankenship and the captain studying the wall display screen.

  “Exec, come on over here. Chief, set up the spectral and visual data for the Exec.”

  Chief Blankenship went to the terminal, punched a few buttons and said, “This is the phenomena we’re looking at.”

  A blown up shot of the region of space containing their quarry showed up on the screen. Kelly could make out something roughly cylindrical on one end (he assumed it was the bow), with a fat midsection, and three cylinders toward what he assumed was the stern. The rear glowed red, showing heat, and the front was purple.

  “Chief, what does the purple around the bow of the ship mean?”

  “I don’t know, sir. That’s what the captain and I were trying to figure out.
The purple implies extreme cold, but that doesn’t make sense if that is a cockpit.”

  “Chief, how big is this thing? I can’t tell scale from this image.”

  “It’s about half our size, sir. It’s about 50 meters long and 20 meters wide at the widest part. One of my guys drew up a rendering of what he thinks it looks like. Here, I’ll bring it up on the screen.”

  She clicked a few buttons and a picture of a small scout-class looking ship appeared on the screen. It looked slightly conical, with a small cylindrical bow, a fat conical midsection, and three cylinders, presumably engines, at the rear.

  Kelly said, “Chief, put the two images side by side.”

  He waited while she manipulated the images, putting the rendering in the same orientation.

  “Maybe what we are assuming is a cockpit is really an IR sensor array. Remember way back when they would supercool the IR sensor to make the sensor more sensitive? That could be what we are seeing here. The purple could be the result of the supercooling of the sensor here on the nose cone.”

  “You may have a point there, Exec. Chief, have we gotten any new emissions since they entered the buffer zone?”

  “No sir, they’ve been quiet as a tomb. They haven’t used any active sensors that we've detected.”

  “Okay, let’s break this up. I think we’ve got all we can from these images. Thank you, Chief. Keep your eye on this guy.”

  Kelly went back out on the bridge and took his position. He called up the tactical display on his monitor. Nothing had changed. Feeling uneasy, he keyed up his intercom and called to Chief Blankenship, “Chief, let’s not get tunnel vision on this. Make sure that some of your people are watching the long-range sensors as well.”

  “Aye aye, sir, I’ll keep one of my people on long-range sensors.”

  Kelly thought to himself that it wouldn’t do to have somebody sneak through into the sector while they were watching this guy. He keyed his monitor to read the long-range sensor display. He saw a few ships near the Scutum sector. It was mostly in-system ships moving between the habitable planet, New Alexandria, and the nearby asteroid field that they mined for precious metals. He watched one FTL ship come into the system. He watched it closely until he saw something break away from the ship before it entered the 6664 system.

  “Bridge, this is Sensors.”

  “Sensors, Bridge. What have you got?”

  Chief Blankenship came on. “Sir, we just had a small ship separate from an FTL freighter over near the 6664 system in the Scutum sector. It’s heading in our direction.”

  Kelly hit a switch on his intercom. “Captain to the bridge.” LCDR Timmons startled him by leaning over his shoulder and looking at his monitor.

  “Is that small blip this side of 6664 what they’re talking about?”

  “Yes, sir, I watched it pull away from the freighter. Sensors says it’s coming our way.”

  “Okay, Exec, plot this guy’s course. How close will he come to us? Recommend if we need to reposition. We should do that before he gets too close. Call up what you can on the freighter.”

  Kelly did a quick search and found the freighter registration information. It was the Manchu Warrior, an ore freighter registered out of Fomalhaut. Its record was clean and it carried a small shuttle. The freighter belonged to the Indigo Consortium, a mineral trading company headquartered in the Fomalhaut system. It had just come from the Aldebaran system and was coming into the 6664 system to drop off mining equipment, and pick up a shipment of gold to take back to Fomalhaut. The records showed the consortium had a gold mining operation on a large asteroid on the opposite side of the 6664 system. There was nothing in the files on why a shuttle from that freighter was now heading in their direction, near where a K’Rang ship was waiting. Kelly relayed a synopsis of the data he found on the freighter to the captain.

  He plotted the shuttle’s course and determined that it was going to pass far enough away from them that they wouldn’t be detected where they were. If the shuttle was coming to rendezvous with the K’Rang ship, they were in the perfect position.

  “Captain, we can stay right where we are and watch the whole show or take any other action that may be required.”

  “Good enough, Exec, let’s do just that. Let’s see if we can figure out what business an ore freighter’s shuttle and a K’Rang scout ship have with each other.”

  LCDR Timmons retired to his quarters. It would be several hours before the shuttle came even with their position. He had time for some shuteye.

  Timmons came back onto the bridge as the shuttle drew near. The shuttle was going to pass a little closer than Kelly had calculated, but they were still in no danger of discovery.

  “Sensors, see if you can get a reading on what’s in the shuttle as it passes.”

  “Sensors, aye.”

  All the passive sensors of the Vigilant scoured the shuttle as it passed a mere 2000 meters away. Kelly looked at the readings that appeared on his monitor. He saw that the shuttle had no discernible modifications. There were five life signs on board. If there was anything in the cargo hold, it didn’t appear on the scan.

  The captain said, “I didn’t see anything on the scan. Did you?”

  “No, Captain, just the five life signs on board. If there is any cargo there, it doesn’t show up.”

  “Let’s just sit here and see what comes up.”

  It didn’t take long for something to come up. As the shuttle approached the frontier, the K’Rang ship crossed into Galactic Republic space. The two ships pulled up side-by-side and a docking tunnel extended from the K’Rang ship to the shuttle. The two ships docked and floated free in space. Sensors on the Vigilant picked up the movement of three people from the shuttle to the K’Rang ship. About thirty minutes later three people moved through the tunnel to the shuttle. The tunnel retracted and the two ships parted company. The K’Rang ship turned and re-entered K’Rang space. It continued on a straight path until it moved out of short-range sensor range. Long-range sensors would follow it until it receded out of long-range sensor range. The shuttle moved back to the 6664 system and landed at the New Alexandria spaceport. Two days later, the two ships lifted off together, rejoined once in space, and the freighter cleared the system and went into FTL travel. The Vigilant watched the freighter leave.

  “Chief Watson, copy all the sensor readings we’ve acquired and make them ready to transmit back to Antares Base. Recommend to Admiral Craddock that someone follow the Manchu Warrior to its next port call, board the ship, and scan the shuttle computer banks. Stand down the reinforced watches and return to normal watch schedule. Let’s get back to patrolling.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  The patrol went on for another 22 days, until they reached the farthest limit of their patrol sector, but nothing further out of the ordinary showed up. Kelly spent time researching the Manchu Warrior and the Indigo Consortium. The ship was not the least bit unusual. Its port call records showed a normal schedule for a freighter of its type and class. It visited only planets with mineral deposits and its subsequent port calls were to planets where those minerals were needed. It seemed as if the Manchu Warrior was a fairly profitable venture.

  The Indigo Consortium was also plain vanilla. Its financial statements showed it to be a moderately successful mineral trading company. It owned four freighters, the Manchu Warrior, the Old Guard, the Grenadier Guard, and the Gurkha, all identical. Apart from the quaint practice of naming their ships after historical warriors, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the company. If it hadn’t been for the witnessed rendezvous between their shuttle and a K’Rang ship, they would be singularly unremarkable. Kelly closed his terminal down and retired to his cabin for some rest. He’d let the analysts at Scout Force HQ sort this one out.

  As he lay in his bunk, he thought back to when he told the captain his abbreviated tale of how he won his Joint Meritorious Service Medal. There was a good deal more to the story than he had told the captain. Kelly remembered it qui
te well.

  * * * * *

  Kelly remembered sitting in his cockpit; his instrument lights were dimmed to a minimal glow. He let his eyes adjust to space’s velvet blackness. He stared out his screen and saw millions of stars, a nebula or two, and over a dozen far galaxies. His new fighter’s sensors watched the close space around the ship to warn of any objects near him. He had programmed his computer with a woman’s voice just slightly older than Kelly. Wanda, as he had chosen to call her, spoke to him only when she had information he needed to hear. He instructed her as to just what he did and did not want to hear.

  The artificial intelligence program did an uncanny job of making Wanda appear to be a thinking reasoning person, not just a disembodied voice. He thought he even detected a faint petulance when he corrected her for being too talkative.

  As his eyes adjusted, he slowly moved the fighter ahead. He was on free flight, 200 kilometers from the Fleet. He had successfully checked out on the F-53 and had been granted an opportunity for free flight in open space. Kelly gradually increased the speed until he was at 50% power. The distance from the fleet was progressing dramatically. He worked the fighter through a series of two and three G turns, climbs, and dives. The seat automatically gripped and released his legs to keep him from blacking out. It didn’t take Kelly very long to feel the difference between the F-53 and the trainers he had flown before.

  After he got the feel for the ship in turns, dives, and climbs, he tried some quick spin rolls without losing any forward momentum. The F-53 spun on its axis very quickly. The computer could spin the ship and then stop with the front pointing precisely along his back track. This was a handy move if you had an enemy on your tail and couldn’t shake them. It was risky and had to be done almost instantaneously or the tailing bad guy would realize what you were doing and put a missile into your cockpit.

  Kelly brought the ship to a dead stop and said, “Wanda.”

  “Yes, Kelly, what can I do for you?”

  “Wanda, take me back over the track I just flew, matching my maneuvers as closely as you can.”