Scout Force

by Rodney Smith

  Six hours later he awoke, rested and ready for a shower. LT Chen was gone and her bunk was folded up into the bulkhead. He stripped down, took a quick shower and checked with Wanda to see how her search was coming.

  “Kelly, I’ve found no asteroids or other debris out in the area between the cluster and the frontier, but I may have found something that will be useful. There are the remnants of an old supernova in the area. One or more of the gas tendrils may serve your need. I’ll put them on the screen for you.”

  “One of them is across the frontier, it’s the largest. The second largest is almost perfectly positioned for your need. The third is here about to enter the cluster. A fourth is approximately 100,000 km off toward the Hercules Constellation, to port of our current course. It is near the frontier.”

  “Thank you Wanda, make this information available on all the command group terminals and message it to the captain.”

  Kelly left his cabin and went onto the bridge for the start of his watch. He relieved Chief Watson after hearing that there were no indications of anything unusual along their path or near the Manchu Warrior behind them. He checked the sensor feed on the path ahead and astern of them, 300,000 km to where the Manchu Warrior was poking along. Nothing, good, now to trace the wiring.

  He turned the conn over to the senior petty Officer in the bridge watch and proceeded astern. He met Chief B in Sensors and they ran a diagnostic on the EMP device. All indicators came up green. Kelly crawled under the instrument console with a flashlight and started to trace every circuit into and out of the controller. Chief B joined him with the schematic on her pocket terminal. When Kelly had to pull himself into a cramped space to follow the wiring, Chief B took the flashlight and crawled up on Kelly to position it on where the wiring went through a grommet in the bulkhead. Having an attractive well-built woman lying on top of him would have been pleasant under other circumstances, but here it was just awkward.

  Chief B looked down at him and said, “Promise me you’ll respect me in the morning, sir,” and burst out laughing.

  Kelly just shook his head as they disentangled and crawled out of the console.

  If there was any tension in the situation, it was gone now. Kelly moved around the bulkhead and followed the fire control wiring as it snaked down the side of the ship. They traced it until it moved upward into a wide cable conduit leading into the dorsal weapons bay. Kelly stuck his head up into the conduit, but his shoulders were too broad to fit. He could see about a foot of the wiring to where the conduit made a turn and he lost it.

  “Chief, can you fit in here to see where the wiring goes?”

  Chief Blankenship lifted herself up into the raceway and could see about three feet further. She dropped down out of the conduit and said, “I hope you aren’t too easily shocked, sir.”

  At that, she unzipped her coveralls and stripped them off. She stood there for a heartbeat wearing only her boots, socks, panties, and a sheer tank top. In his peripheral vision he could see she was spectacular. Kelly had the good sense to look her straight in the eyes.

  “Sir, if you boost me up there, I’ll follow the wiring up and meet you in the weapons bay. Take my coveralls with you, please. I’m not bashful, as you can see, but it wouldn’t be good for me to walk back here in my skivvies. It would make a bad impression on the younger members of the crew, much less the Marines.”

  Kelly boosted her up into the conduit and watched as her very nice derriere and legs slid up and around the turn. He went back to the ladder leading to the weapons bay with her coveralls over his shoulder. He climbed up, opened the hatch and lifted himself into the bay. He found the light switch and went over to open the hatch on the conduit.

  He saw a light shining in the conduit and called out, “Chief, are you okay in there?”

  She chuckled slightly, “I’m fine sir, I just got snagged on a wire bundle tie. I’ll be there in a second. So far so good. No splices, nicks, or strains on the wiring.”

  Kelly backed up as she got closer.

  When she was almost to the hatch she called out, “Sir, you might want to set my coveralls down and turn around.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Well sir, I snagged my skivvies on the way here and I’m sort of out of uniform, if you get my drift.”

  “Oh,” Kelly said, “Your coveralls are by the hatch. I’ll be following the wiring to the EMP device.”

  Kelly set her coveralls next to the hatch and followed the wiring to where it went into the rear of the device.

  A few seconds later Chief B came up behind him with a twinkle in her eyes. “Sorry about that, sir. Now aren’t you glad you brought my coveralls with you? Damn wire bundle tie reached out and almost ripped my shorts in half before I even knew what happened. I got a hell of a scrape on my right hip. I’ll let Doc look at it when we are done here. He’ll get a thrill out of that. Some of those new plastic compounds can cause a nasty allergic reaction if they break the skin.”

  “Thanks, Chief. I ran a self diagnostic on the device from here and got the same reading as from the console. Let’s go run the power wiring from the console into engineering and you can get your hip tended to.”

  Kelly sealed the conduit hatch, let Chief B go down the personnel hatch into the ship first, turned out the lights, and followed, sealing the hatch behind.

  The power wiring into engineering also was run properly with no nicks, wears, splices, or strains. The space dock yard crew had done a very good job.

  Kelly thanked Chief B, saw her off to see Doc, and went back to the bridge. Cookie had just finished baking, so he grabbed some cookies to take to the bridge crew.

  He took the report from the senior petty officer as he reassumed the conn. Nothing out of the ordinary on sensors and the ship was performing normally.

  The captain stuck his head out of his cabin and motioned for Kelly to come in.

  “Kelly, I like this largest tendril as a hiding place and I think we need to get there sooner than our current pace will allow. This smaller one between the system and the frontier is too exposed and too obvious. I’m concerned that a K’Rang scout or a sensor pod may be out there watching the meeting point and see us when we move in to monitor the rendezvous.”

  “I’m not worried about violating K’Rang space. My orders allow me to go anywhere I need to successfully intercept this courier.”

  “I’m, therefore, going to take us to max speed, make a wide loop around the star cluster, cross the frontier here where this other tendril is up against it, and slip into the gas cloud around this largest tendril from the K’Rang side. With our sensitive sensors, we should be able to spot any K’Rang ships or scouts before they can spot us. Here’s the new course. Execute.”

  Kelly went back out onto the bridge, forwarded the new course and speed to the helm and navigator. While they entered the new instructions, he told Sensors to go into a maximum 360 degree scan and report all contacts.

  As the Vigilant sped off on its new course, Sensors started calling out all targets within a half million kilometer bubble around the ship. All were initially shown as yellow on the screens until they were determined to be friendly, blue, a threat, red, or not a threat, green. There were no red symbols. The Manchu Warrior, now falling quickly behind, was alone in the depth of the dark space between systems. No ships were near them or on a path to intercept.

  Kelly focused on the edge of the bubble between the system and the frontier. He saw no ships or objects between the frontier or within 100,000 km. He switched to star charts and scanned for the nearest K’Rang habitable planets. None of the other stars in the cluster on the K’Rang or GR side had habitable planets. Most of the stars were proplyds, a sun with a protoplanetary disk, billions of years away from having life-supporting planets. He searched as far into K’Rang territory as his incomplete chart went, and the nearest habitable planet was more than a week away at max speed.

  They approached the tendril near the frontier and slowed slightly. Kelly felt
someone looking over his shoulder, turned, and saw the captain looking at his display.

  “Damn, it’s quiet out here, Kelly. Let’s put a move on and get settled into the dust cloud Wanda found for us. Call us to battle stations and bring the ship through the frontier.”

  The klaxon sounded and the crew smoothly moved into their battle stations. Marine squads positioned themselves equidistant along the center corridor. LT Chen and Gunny Smith stood at parade rest behind the bridge command positions, fully armed.

  Kelly brought them as far into the supernova’s tendril as he dared. They were quickly through the frontier and without any reaction from the K’Rang sensor buoys or mines. Kelly increased speed to max as they cleared and then cut power to the engines, allowing them to coast and get maximum sensor sensitivity. Sensors still reported no contacts in K’Rang space.

  Kelly brought the ship back up to full speed and completed the fishhook movement to bring them into the back side of the large tendril. They moved into the dust cloud this time and picked their way through the tumbling rubble and gases to the top, to drop off a remote sensor pod. They then moved down to settle underneath the gas cloud. They moved to just far enough out for their ship’s sensors to have a full view behind into K’Rang space, below, around, and ahead. With the remote sensor pod above them, they had full coverage.

  They waited. When two hours had passed and there was nothing on the sensors around or approaching them, the captain released battle stations. Kelly recommended, and LCDR Timmons agreed, to keeping the two lower turrets manned at all times.

  They settled in and waited. Kelly realized he hadn’t eaten. He made a run back to the galley for a couple of sandwiches, a glass of milk, and some cookies. He sat down and was joined a moment later by LT Chen.

  “So, sir, when do you think we’ll know anything?”

  “I don’t know. The Manchu Warrior is a day and a half away. They’ll be in port for two or more days to offload their cargo of platinum ore and pick up a load of ingots. The Refugio cargo station is pretty primitive. It could take a while. Meanwhile, we wait and we watch. It’s up to the K’Rang now.”

  They didn’t watch for too long. Eight hours later Sensors spotted a large K’Rang ship coming in at power three. They assessed this might be the FTL-capable ship bringing in the courier’s ship. It moved to within 200,000 km of the Vigilant’s position and stopped. Two K’Rang Scout ships and a heavy attack fighter launched from the ship and fanned out, moving toward the gas cloud hiding the Vigilant. The captain ordered the ship closer to the charged cloud. They settled into a pea soup thick area, several times larger than the Vigilant, with vapors gassing around its edges. Vigilant vanished in this fog.

  The three ships passed the cloud and the Vigilant by. The attack fighter set up forward of the cloud's leading edge, facing the frontier, and the other two fanned out to the sides. The captain let them get out of range and dropped the Vigilant back down to give the sensors full field of view. The K’Rang ship ahead could not scan through the charged gas field, so they were safe from him. The larger K’Rang ship behind them just sat and waited. The two outlying scout ships moved out to 100,000 km on either side and waited.

  Twenty-two hours later, Sensors picked up the Manchu Warrior coming into the 6633 system. They slowed to below FTL and moved through the outer planets toward Refugio. No shuttle craft left the Manchu Warrior as before. The ship docked in the cargo station and offloaded its cargo.

  The Vigilant waited and watched for two days. No shuttle left the Manchu Warrior. The K’Rang ships stayed in their positions. No courier ship left the large FTL-capable ship behind them. The captain was starting to get antsy.

  “Kelly, I’m beginning to feel we are on a wild goose chase. I’m just a little concerned that we are out here now, in K’Rang space, with a K’Rang heavy fighter within spitting distance, two scouts flanking us, and that big guy behind us, with Lord knows what in his cargo bays yet to fly out. I’m not feeling real comfortable at the moment. I wonder if the exchange is taking place down on Refugio. I hope those Fleet Intel operatives know what they are doing.”

  * * * * *

  The exchange had indeed taken place, not on Refugio’s surface, but in the cargo station. Two burly longshoremen in full exposure suits and thruster packs had left the cargo handling level for the aft cargo bay of the Manchu Warrior. They expertly floated up to airlock, locked themselves in and operated the mechanism. In two minutes they were at full atmosphere. The airlock’s inner door opened and two recently employed crew members of the Manchu Warrior helped the longshoremen off with their suits. As the helmets came off the feline faces of two shadow warriors came into view, the two crewmen stepped back for a second, looked at each other, shrugged and got back to helping them out of their suits. The crewmen were being handsomely paid for this task.

  The K’Rang disassembled their life support packs and pulled out two large packs from inside.

  The two crewmen led the warriors down deserted passages to the owner’s large cabin. The man inside waiting for the two K’Rang warriors was not the owner, but he had the owners’ every confidence. Alan Shepler, an Indigo Consortium negotiator, was also a little nervous. He had never met a K’Rang before and was not sure what to expect. He had made many other transactions of all types, legal and otherwise, for the consortium. He would manage to make this one work too. This one, though, would garner him a vice presidency.

  “Come in, gentlemen. Please take seats. Make yourselves comfortable. Frank, Clyde, you can leave, but don’t go too far away. See that we are not disturbed.”

  The two crewmen left the room to stand guard outside the door.

  The man turned back toward his guests and saw they were still standing.

  “Please be seated, gentlemen. I assure you we are quite safe and secure here. You may verify that if you brought the appropriate sensors. Would you care to join me in a drink or do you prefer nepetalactone? If so, I have the finest blend from Earth for you.”

  The larger and Tabby-colored warrior threw down his pack and spoke, “We do not care to drink and no, we do not care for catnip. We are Shadow Warriors, not kittens. Let us get down to business. These pleasantries irritate me.”

  The other Shadow Warrior took a step forward. The man took a slight step back, looking at the two of them, recovered, and moved over to a wooden box on the desk in the corner of the room. He opened it, took out a small cloth pouch, and carried it over to the warrior.

  “I believe this is what you are here for.” He handed it to the K’Rang courier.

  The K’Rang took the data storage device from the man. He inserted it into an obvious pocket terminal he pulled from a pouch on his coveralls. He checked the data on his terminal, verified it was as promised, removed the data device and inserted another small device where the data storage device had been. After a few seconds he put the pocket terminal away and the smaller device into his breast pocket. He handed the data storage device back to the human.

  The Shadow Warrior spoke. “The data is as promised. Our payment is here also as promised. Make wise use of them–they are rare and increasingly hard to find. Many K’Rang died gathering this amount for you.”

  As the second K’Rang laid his pack on top of the first, it was opened for inspection by the human. The senior Warrior thought how stupid these humans were to place such value on something so worthless that K’Rang children used them to skip across the water on home world. It did not matter. They now had the information they needed to push the Humans back and keep them back from the three K’Rang main worlds in what the Humans called the Scutum sector. Once the one Human world was destroyed, they would fortify the area and take back their territory. With fewer habitable worlds in the K’Rang Imperial space than in the Galactic Republic space, their few main worlds needed a buffer zone to protect them.

  The larger K’Rang turned to the man, with a semblance of a smile on his face, “Please forgive my earlier rude outburst. It has been a long journey and a
tense wait for us. Now that our initial business is complete, perhaps we can have that drink you promised us. And while we choose not to partake of the nepetalactone, perhaps we could have some to take back as a gift from you to our superiors.”

  The Human positively beamed. “Why, of course, take as much as you want. Take all of it. Here, let me get you something to drink. Is Scotch all right? This is Real Scottish whiskey from Earth, aged 50 years. It’s the best single malt Scotch there is.”

  The Human babbled on about the Scotch for hours as the two K’Rang Shadow Warriors sipped theirs and made pleasantries. If it wasn’t that they still needed him to get them on their way across the frontier, they would rip his throat out with only a flick of their claws.

  * * * * *

  Kelly had done some research on the K’Rang ships around them. The heavy attack ship was a third the size of the Vigilant. It carried guns and 12 medium anti-ship missiles. It was the greatest threat. The scouts were the medium class scout ships, not the small mosquito-looking one he’d dealt with before. They had a small caliber particle beam turret, but it was mainly for self defense, not for attack, so were no threat. The big unknown was what was still on the FTL ship behind them. If it had more fighters, things could get real dicey here on this side of the frontier.

  Their best course of action would be to take out the attack ship first. It had no idea the Vigilant was there, so surprise and superior firepower was on Vigilant’s side. After taking out the apparent threat, Vigilant could deal with the scouts if they made any move. Finally, if the larger FTL ship launched something unpleasant, Vigilant would have 5-10 minutes to employ the EMP device against the courier’s ship once it showed up, board it, grab the courier, and scoot back across the frontier, blowing a hole through the mines with Vigilant’s guns.

  In a few minutes, Timmons briefed him on the same plan. He did come up with a twist though; he was going to use the EMP device on the attack ship and take it out. All Vigilant had to do now was wait for the courier ship to come along.