*
“We’re nearing Earth,” Trell reported.
“How many ships are in orbit?”
“Uh...” Trell checked the readout. “Twelve, it looks like? Only one warship.”
“Well, they wouldn’t need more than one,” Alana said, observing through the viewfinder. The scanner readout could tell them nearly everything that was going on, but using the viewfinder allowed them to actually see outside through a camera mounted on the hull, because it simply wouldn’t be safe to put windows in a spaceship. “It looks like we might be able to sneak in near the planet’s southern pole. The continent down there is uninhabited.” A pause. “What is that?” She pointed to a huge celestial body orbiting the planet.
They changed places, and Trell looked at it too, squinting. “I think that’s a natural satellite. A moon.”
“Oh, of course,” Alana said, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ve just never seen one before.”
“Well, Kolea doesn’t have any, so of course you haven’t,” Trell said with a laugh. “Shall we go in for a landing?”
“Yes,” Alana said, transitioning back into business mode. “I’m going to send out false scanner signals. Hopefully they won’t even know we’re here.”
The pair fell silent, the air in the ship heavy with tension. If the Drevi saw through the trick, they’d be dead in seconds, for their little scout ship wouldn’t stand a chance against a Drevi battle cruiser. The technique should still work, since the Koleans had learned how to fool Drevi scanners before, but it was not outside the realm of possibility that the technologically advanced aliens had updated their ships.
The scout ship entered the planet’s atmosphere unmolested, and two tense breaths were released before the ship started shaking under them from turbulence.
“Which continent are we aiming for?” Alana asked, her voice wavering along with the quaking ship.
“We don’t have any control over that, the gravitational pull is stronger than the KSS thought,” Trell said through a clamped-shut beak. “So, um, that one.”
The ship shot towards the eastern seaboard of North America.
December Page 3
