Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script)

by David Collins-Rivera

  "Can't you adapt something?" I pressed, because he was being remarkably dismissive for a guy remarkably short on details.

  "With what? A stardrive that broadcasts our presence to the entire system?"

  "Why not?"

  "What do you mean, why not?"

  "I mean, so what if they detect our exit cone?" I replied. "They already know we're here, somewhere. Who cares if they see a cloud of dust when we take off? We'll be gone."

  He pondered that for a bit, as did everyone else.

  "There can't be anything in that supply ship that will fit," he said, but without the same conviction as before. In fact, he spoke as if he was actively picturing the process.

  "Not perfectly, maybe," Chris chimed in, "but well enough?"

  "They must have spare drives for those little couriers," Mavis concluded. "Not the bigger civvie ones the station is using, but the tiny jumpdrones that Liquidator sends out. Those are vital for communication with their home offices and Team Headquarters. General Store is providing support for both the civvie and Team vessels. John, can we get a list of its inventory?"

  John turned to Stinna, who, for her part, looked interested...or...I don't know, something other than her usual wall-like manner.

  "I think so."

  SS1 and SS2 went to work for just a minute or so. The contents of the stock and manufax rooms aboard General Store were not encrypted, though were behind a great deal of network protection. Stinna slipped in like water under a door -- easily, inexerably, and with a graceful fluidity. The attack held all the simple beauty her personality seemed to lack.

  Cross checking for the systems required, the two Sensor Specialists zero'd in on a section dedicated to support craft, and then further down to courier parts in particular.

  "They have base materials in stock," SS2 announced, "as well as schematics for the printers. It's flagged as Buildable. What do you need?"

  Dieter hemmed and hawed for a bit, then said, "Jump field propagators."

  John dug through the lists and part numbers for a bit, then came to one that looked right.

  "Is that it?" he asked the engineer, who was studying the holo image intently.

  "Yeah. If it needs building, though, they'll have to print and form it for us."

  "Easy enough," John answered, seeming to revel in the pure joy of cracking the supply chain. With a wave, he ticked off an option, and dropped a Printing & Forming Request into the job queue. "They'll have fully functional propagators ready in...um, looks like they're backed up a bit, but the estimate for this PFR is about...four days from now. General Store is in high orbit around PS2GG, for easy support of the entire system. We can be there just about the same time the parts roll off the forming line."

  "You'd be able to make those work, right?" the captain pressed.

  "Well, I have no idea," answered the engineer, but he waved up an entry for one of the jump-capable courier drones that Shady Lady had flagged a few weeks before. There were general specs for it in our own files, being of a fairly common type found throughout Corporate Territory and elsewhere.

  "Hmmm...if I adjust the power regulation to within the right tolerances...and they're a little on the long side, but...maybe."

  So we looked at each other for confirmation, or support, or just something that might be construed as consensus, which was completely pointless, since Captain Singleton spoke up then.

  "Maybe is good enough for me," she declared. "I want my ship functional. From this point on, we bend all our efforts to one goal: getting out of here. Unless someone has another idea -- a better idea...?"

  But no one did.

  "Okay then. This crew has the order. We have to get hold of those parts. Drop anything you're doing that isn't critical. We have a ship to repair."

  * * *

  Dieter ended up risking a walk outside after all, to put a patch on the damaged exterior. We'd be approaching a heavily trafficked area, and could use all the invisiblility we could get. It was a fast job, and he was done in less than an hour, covering the damage with a piece of a jet black fabric I wasn't supposed to look at or ask about.

  Approaching General Store stealthily would take upwards of a week if we wanted to be as sure as possible of being undetected. This was good, really, because we had a lot to plan out. On the surface of it, Gunnery was completely irrelevant here: the idea was to sneak aboard in some fashion. In practise, I was simming close-in action the whole time, just in case.

  Chris and I both championed the idea of bluffing our way aboard the supply ship with some trumped-up credentials and uniforms. Dieter and the Sensor Speshes all thought slipping aboard through an exterior emergency hatch was a better idea. Mavis, who had the final say, had yet to decide, since none of us had compelling arguments beyond personal preferences. When we got closer, more details would be available.

  John and Stinna had gotten most of our sensors back up by this point. There were some lingering issues with the X-band detector that couldn't be straighted out without an energy source in the right range of frequencies to measure against, but we hadn't actually needed it for this mission.

  If things went south, I wanted to be ready, despite all. Chris and I didn't have our same old argument about conflict resolution, but he did give me some pointed looks when we were going over the plans (such as they were). He didn't say what he thought I should do, and I didn't tell him what I thought either.

  As a crew, we'd gotten away from the regular Day/Night thing, now that there was an exterior goal to focus on. I had scenarios constantly simming, and was trying to be ready for everything, while counting on nothing I didn't have direct control over myself.

  I also looked at all the ways the ship could be discovered to begin with, and determined that our biggest weakness was daylight. Being a jet black object against a well-lighted supply ship would be our undoing. Mavis had already stated that we'd be approaching General Store while it was in the shadow of the gas giant. Seeing as how this was a vector alignment issue, more than anything, it seemed like a short window of opportunity.

  The big ship, itself, had a number of blind spots -- directions of approach that allowed for no clear optical views by the systems and people aboard, if we stuck to them closely. Those looking at us from outside the ship, however, could be a problem.

  The Team vessels had sensors back up by now, but the scientists on Mylag Vernier did not. Considering the sensitive and granular quality of their instruments, the flash (which had apparently hammered out as a bubble of energy to nearly 2/3 the diameter of the star system) had hurt them worst of all. Most of the many monitor drones were still offline; the decrypted talk by engineers and other specialists indicated this could result in a delay of six months, or even more, before the next test could be performed. There was some disagreement as to whether or not to purchase and deploy another swarm of the observation and communication robots (very expensive), or to send out repair drones to re-adjust them all individually (very slow).

  So, with the best sensors in the star system still blinded, we had some breathing space and latitude of action. If we were diligent, and could avoid bad decisions, no one would see us approaching. If we were impatient and/or stupid, they most certainly would, and we'd be too far in-system to get away a second time.

  I'll admit to a sudden stab of panic as we were in final approach to our hidden rendezvous point above PS2GG. With the tiniest puffs of accelerant, Mavis dropped us into a geostationary orbit, so that we, essentially, hovered in the planet's shadow while it spun on below us. We matched vectors with the big ship's orbit while it was on the sunny side of the gas giant, and waited for the supply ship to approach. In point of fact, we had been easing closer and closer, bit by bit, and General Store had sailed on by at least fourteen times before we were ready.

  The idea was to remain static until a precisely-calculated moment, then accelerate just a bit, in the same direction as the big ship, matching its trajectory before it crested the horizon. It would then approach us s
lowly on the shadow side, and (if all went well), we'd be able to close the gap.

  Against General Store's huge size, we'd be just an insignificant speck to any distant opticals. Considering that we'd destroyed the test ship, Team wouldn't be inclined to ignore anything it saw, including insignificant specks. They'd be paranoid, and rightfully so. But they were also mostly blinded, so if we were going to make a move, now was the time. Once we sidled up, there would be a period of about three hours, while we traversed across the bright side, when anyone who looked closely enough might see us parked there, right next to the huge vessel, plain as day. Our entire plan was predicated on the assumption that no one would bother looking that closely if they weren't given a reason to.

  Without question, it had to be pulled off in as little time as possible, so the details consumed us.

  "We don't have clearance to come aboard the normal way, and we don't have the right uniforms to just sneak aboard and walk around. How can you possibly think we can talk our way in?" Chris looked at me with plain confusion.

  The ship's compliment, save Mavis, sat around the table again, in the Common Room. The captain listened closely from the open cockpit.

  The others waited for my counter-argument, but Dieter jumped in with one of his own.

  "People can be fooled easier than embedded IDent sensors. We'd stand a better chance of a successful bluff if we had a good cover story."

  "I can get into their system and deactivate sensors," Stinna said, quietly. "But that might get noticed."

  SS1 looked at her with exasperation. "Really?! You think so?!"

  Mulling it over a bit (and, frankly, having been convinced by the others for some time that my idea was a flawed one), I held up my hand.

  "That's not a bad thought, actually. If we induce a sudden, total, ship-wide sensor loss, they'll be scrambling to find the cause, and effect repairs. It could make for a nice distraction."

  "It'll also draw attention from outside," John replied. "They'll be sure to report it immediately, and draw extra scrutiny."

  "Ah, but if their exterior proximity sensors are down too, no one will be eager to send help, unless it's a matter of life and death. A small boat docking against a big ship that doesn't know exactly where it is at all times will be the loser in any accident. Around stations, for example, ships that lose prox are given a wide berth until they're online once more. Again, I'm talking about non life-threatening situations. If General Store were to call for emergency responders, they'll definitely get them. If we craft a careful system loss, though, that doesn't require outside people to come help, we could probably fly right up, dock, and walk in through an airlock while the crew is occupied. They wouldn't even notice."

  Chris pulled at his chin, thoughtfully, then turned to his Sensor Specialists.

  "Can you do it?"

  "Well, I don't..."

  "Yes."

  John turned to the woman with a face sour enough to curdle vinegar.

  "Please! You can get through a clarity mesh to do a point injection?"

  "Yes," she replied, with confused simplicity, apparently failing to understand why he was annoyed. "After a process update, our privileges would get elevated automatically."

  "They're running state-of-the-art intrusion detection!" he countered, his voice and irritation both rising alarmingly.

  "Keep it cool," Mavis ordered, the first words she'd spoken since the meeting had begun.

  "Sorry," the quiet wild-haired woman said, as if she'd been the one to shout.

  "John," Chris asked at last, as if to put a period on all the speculation and brainstorming, "are you saying that you two cannot crack their system and initiate a sensor loss? I need a yes or no from the lead Sensor Spesh."

  The other man was still looking wonderingly at his fellow expert, but finally responded.

  "It's not as simple as she says, but, well...maybe."

  "Definitive answer."

  "Then, yes!" he nearly barked again, but seemed shocked by his own tone. With a deep, slow breath, and a momentary aversion of his eyes, he got his temper in check. "We can do it, I think, but it will take time, and there's a lot of risk. It can't look like an attack on their system, or they'll definitely call for outside help. It would be a security issue then, and Team will respond accordingly."

  This seemed obvious once he'd said it, and I agreed with his assessment.

  "There's a fighter detachment from Liquidator stationed in high-orbit around this planet on a carrier frame," I confirmed. "If they get scrambled by a security alert, they'd be outside General Store in just forty minutes time. We'd never get away."

  "Then we need flawless execution," Chris concluded. "Captain, I believe this is our best course of action. Do you agree?"

  Our ML had apparently learned from his mistake of riding roughshod over the commander of the ship when it came to big decisions. Mavis responded almost immediately, her voice coming from up the companionway to the cockpit, and from each of our comms at the same moment.

  "Given the circumstances, and all the proposed ideas, I do. Let's make it happen."

  Christmas Giordano regarded us all.

  "You heard the lady."

  I went back to Gunnery, hoping to track down a couple of old scenarios that I half-remembered, to use as reference for a simulation that had just come to mind. Previously, I'd been working on ways to face the Team fighterboats, should they come streaking down from high vectors. That involved guns and ordinance. It now seemed wise to reorganize things.

  If we were detected in our approach or docking attempt, using General Store as a shield would be a cravenly-effective way to avoid any engagements. With the big ship in the line of fire, the fighterboats couldn't attack. They'd have to close distance carefully, and waste time moving to covering vectors.

  In the meantime, we could be dropping deeper into PS2GG's gravity well. It would provide a speed boost, which Mavis could use to move us off obliquely before Team could get us in their sites. Then we'd rely on stealth to vanish into the black once more. These sims were looking good, and I was confident of having all those bases I was responsible for fairly well covered.

  I had just locked in one scenario as the base reference to be called upon in an active threat environment (only swapping out realtime data), when John and Stinna both proclaimed surprise over the open channel.

  "What is it?" I challenged, scanning Gunnery's feeds for signs of unexpected movement or changes, but there were none.

  "We have a significant temperature increase along General Store's hull where the lines for its main drive's pre-firing system are laid out!" SS1 pronounced.

  "There is corresponding EMF on the electrical circuits for all thruster points," SS2 put in, then she added, "Orbital Control is talking to them now."

  "They're prepping engines," Mavis stated, watching the same data.

  "And they are going some distance," Chris concluded. "Main drives mean more than just an orbital correction."

  "The moment they fire those up," I stated to one and all, flashing back to a childhood of watching my mother at her job (a system traffic specialist back in the Alliance), "Orbital Control will be monitoring them closely. If they move off and leave us behind, will anyone be able see us if their looking this way?"

  There was a moment of confused silence, until Dieter chimed in.

  "Maybe. The temperature matching equipment might not be able to compensate. We'd be a cool silhouette against the warm mass propellant in General Store's wake."

  "We have to stay with it, then," Chris said. "Move along with them as they go."

  "We can't dock like that," I commented. "Wouldn't we be noticeable near the hull?"

  "Maybe not, with most system-wide sensors still down, and if we stay relative," Mavis replied, sounding both hopeful and decisive. "I'm initiating our own startup sequence. We either get clear right now, or we go with them."

  To John, Chris asked, "Did we capture their logged flight plan?"

  "Yeah, we sho
uld have. Hold on a sec..."

  "Now, John! We only have a sec!"

  "They're moving to the L2 position," Stinna put in, having found the relevant data quickly.

  "L2?" I questioned. "Then they're heading to the station!"

  "Oh boy, there are a lot of eyes over there," John said nervously, and it gave everyone pause.

  "For what it's worth," I put in during the considered silence that followed, "even if we're spotted, and Team surrounds us, they can't shoot if we're close to that ship."

  There was more silence, and then our captain spoke at last.

  "Sounds like as much assurance as we're going to get. Prepare for movement, people. Next stop...Lagrange Point 2!"

  ||||||||||

  The hatch underneath was clearly visible in the exterior lights. I stretched out an arm until my shoulder hurt, but it wasn't quite in reach. There was a J-shaped handle dead center.

  It had no lock -- why would it?

  Two breaths, that was all, then I threw myself.

  The handle might slip through my grasp...

  It almost did!

  I'd sprung like a tight coil when an easy push-off had been all that was needed. My body flipped right over and slammed into the undercarriage! It was like landing face-first on to a metal deck, and it knocked the wind out of me.

  I huffed inside my inflated helmet, fogging it up again for a few seconds.

  But I held on -- oh, you better believe I held on!

  When I could breath again, and got myself oriented, it was possible to actually think.

  What was I going to do? Storm the ship? Take it over?

  Sure, I almost certainly had surprise on my side, but that was about it. He was bigger than me, and probably trained in self-defense. And he was a pilot, too -- no matter his pretense.