She picked the bag up first and opened it. However dirty the bag was, the two identical devices inside looked clean and new. Looking more closely at them, she thought they might be starship parts, though it wasn't obvious what they were for. She realized they had the distinctive appearance and markings of authentic Telani parts. At the same time, she didn't recognize them as any of the components missing from the Queen.
What?
Hopefully, the datacard had some answers, because now all she had was more questions.
When she inserted it in her comm, she discovered it was encrypted to her ID. When she unlocked it, the first thing she saw was a battered, bandaged Motul, sitting up in a hospital bed.
“Congratulations, Captain. You win our little bet. The module I used as 'packing material' is from your Dove, so that means you've officially found at least some of your parts. This is a component you didn't know about, though.”
He sighed. “I wonder if I could have saved myself a lot of pain and some broken bones if I'd decided to trust you sooner, but I swore an oath, and I promised to protect the ship as best I could until it was needed. I didn't know if anyone else still cared about my promise, but it mattered to me.
“Last night, some thugs broke up my bar – and me, 'cause I tried to stop them. They took a lot of stuff, including all the Dove parts I had stored there. Yeah, I was the guy you were looking for, sorry.” He gave a little smile with that.
“Chances are, those thugs were just making some money. Maybe I threw them out of my establishment some time, and they were holding a grudge. But there's another possibility that would mean this whole thing was aimed at you. So I guess you need to know the rest of my story.”
He paused for a moment, then continued. “Over thirty years ago, some smart folks figured out there were powerful, unfriendly people trying to take over the Empire from within. The same smart folks who figured it out decided they weren't going to let the unfriendly people succeed. Now, the smart folks had to act quietly. If word got out that the Empire was coming apart on the inside, it would have destroyed the people's confidence. Even worse, some of our neighbors might have seen our weakness as an opportunity and attacked us.
“So the smart folks put together a secret fleet, and made ready to defend the Empire against the unfriendly people. That's where your ship comes into it. She's a special ship, with special abilities, and she was built to be part of that fleet. I was part of her crew, and we brought her out here to Doran to hide, to train, and to wait.
“The unfriendly people did try their coup. It turned out Prime Minister Salan was at the head of it, and he tried to take over. As it turned out, the smart folks caught on to him soon enough that they were able to stop him without ever needing the secret fleet. They were even able to keep the whole coup attempt secret, so nobody had to know that the Empire had a weakness. If you're interested, go read about Prime Minister Salan and his embezzling. That was just the public story, of course.
“After all that was over, the smart folks said they weren't sure the threat was gone. They suspected most of the conspirators had stayed in the shadows. As time passed, though, there was no sign of another attempt. Since you can't run a secret fleet without spending a lot of secret money, they started cutting back on expenses.
“Some parts of our little fleet were ships in service to planetary governments. They had a public mission so they could continue to be paid for openly. Our ship was in the other part – the completely secret part, the part that was difficult to pay for without leaving a trail. So we got shut down.
“Our ship was too unusual to put into service somewhere else, so they decided to store it here. Since Doran was my home, I agreed to keep an eye on her. The rest of our crew went left and went home. They ordered me to disable the ship, make it hard for anyone to steal it. So, I took out the parts they told me to, and I stored them away, so that we could be ready to go if we were ever needed.
“The years went by. I waited. Eventually, I got the word that my contact would only call me again if they needed to activate the ship. That was the last time I heard from any of them.
“Ever since then, I've watched the news to see if there were any clues, any signs of those unfriendly folks trying again. I never saw anything – at least nothing obvious.
“It does look to me like the Empire has been changing for the worse, though. Anyone can see things are getting darker, especially in the last ten years. There's more central control, more corruption, and less concern about the people. I can't help but wonder if that's just the way things are going naturally, or if those effects are part of somebody's plan. If it is a plan, whose is it? I don't know. But why would I? I'm just a bartender in a small town, way out here on Doran.
Motul refocused. “But I'm just rambling. I've waited a couple decades now. Somewhere along the way, I realized I might live out my whole life without getting a call. What I figured was that when I died, I would have kept my promise. Now, most of the parts I was holding on to are just plain old normal Dove parts, and once I was gone, my family could then sell them and have a nice chunk of money. The parts take up a fair bit of space, so I stored the crates of parts in the back room of my bar.
“I also placed a hidden tracking device in each crate, designed to activate if they were ever moved. Yeah, I checked, and I don't have a signal from them. If they were still here in town, I should have picked them up, but they're only short range emitters, so that probably just means the thieves left town and took everything with them.
“If those were just normal thieves, then the parts should show up eventually on the black market. On the other hand, if they were there specifically to steal those parts, then you've got trouble. If they know what those parts are, there's a good chance they'll want your ship, too. Any idiot could figure out that they just need to let you know they have the parts and you'll come running to check it out. If they can get the ship and the parts together, there wouldn't be much stopping them from doing whatever they want, is there?
“They might not be just thieves, either, and that's the reason I told you my whole story. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but if the opposition is still around, they'd want to find the people who were ready to stop them. If they found out about me and the Dove parts, they might want to make sure it couldn't be used against them.
“Y'see, the only way they could know about the parts, or who had them, was to get that information from someone I trusted – one of the people I worked with back in the old days. I don't believe any of them would sell out, because if that had happened, they wouldn't have needed to rob me. They could have sent me a message with the right code and ordered me to hand them the parts. If I'd gotten the right code, I guess I would have done it, too.
“Whoever they were, whatever reason they had for robbing me, they didn't get all the parts. Up until tonight, the regular Dove parts were all I was considering giving to you. But I also had some special parts that I wasn't leaving for my family, parts that unlock the special abilities of your ship. The thieves didn't get 'em because I hid them where only I could find them.
“Now, you don't know me well enough to trust my word, so I decided to give you some proof to go along with my story. The parts in the crate are from your Dove, so now you've won our little bet. Congratulations! Oh, and the installation instructions are on this chip.
“I also figure that if those thieves did come for the parts, then you might need some help dealing with them. In that case, the parts I'm giving you will also help you by letting your Dove be more of the special ship it was intended to be.
“Like I said, I was already about half decided to give you the parts, even if it meant breaking my old promise. A ship like that was meant to be out among the stars, especially with the right captain.
“I told myself I was waiting to see what you'd do with her. Maybe I wanted to see something that told me you were really worthy of her. Maybe I just didn't want to give up my last link to my old life. But now they're gone, and I've re
alized that I'm happy just running my bar and enjoying my family. So if you do manage to get the rest of the parts, they're yours. I'm done with them.
“I guess this is a lot to take in, but it's all I'm gonna tell you. I've got a family to think of. If someone is after you, I don't want them to know I helped you. That's also why I didn't just call you. From here on out, I'm going to pretend I don't know you, and I'm asking you to stay away from me.
“Ah, I'm just too old for all this crazy stuff. Goodbye and good luck.”
That was the end of the video.
Crazy is right. Conspiracies and counter-plots? Sure, anyone can see the Empire has problems, especially these last few years, but someone trying to take over? Crazy.
However, what he said about the ship did sorta fit with the weird things she'd already found in the Queen. Even better, he had given her a concrete way to verify at least part of what he'd said.
Anailu checked the instructions on the chip. Then she stowed the crate in Cargo Bay 3 and headed for the bridge with the unexpected parts.
Chapter 33: Curiosities Explained
When she got there, both Velvet and Diamond were seated. Velvet turned from the console. “Are we ready to go? The drive's up and we're green across the board.”
“We're not leaving yet.” Should I tell them about all this crazy stuff? What are these parts supposed to do, anyway?
As she thought about the procedures for opening the console, she realized that if this module did anything, the instructions didn't say what would happen when she activated it. She had been planning to install it right here, but now... Maybe it's smarter to get away from the city first.
“Never mind, we'll go now.”
“OK, then. What's up?”
“I'll explain in a bit. Let's get clear of the city, first.”
At first, Anailu kept to the course she'd planned before, headed toward Purport where Grotehl had his shop. Once they were clear of the city and over the low western mountains, she found a narrow, deep valley, just wide enough to fit the Queen, and deep enough to limit her visibility from above. She set her down on the bottom, on the flattest part she could find.
Velvet looked concerned. “Why are we stopping here? Is something wrong?”
“There's something I need to look at. I'll tell you as soon as I know what it is.”
“OK, ten points for weirdness this morning, Captain.”
“Things might get weirder.”
Anailu shut down the main drives, leaving the ship running off the auxiliary generators. Then she opened up the panel for the power system and shut off main power to the bridge, leaving just ventilation and lights up.
With the console powered off, she could safely open it up. She could see the bulkhead between the control modules for the pilot and copilot stations. According to the standard Dove manual, that's all it was: a bulkhead. According to Motul's data, it was hiding a place to plug in one of the modules Motul had given her. The second module he'd given to her was a backup, intended to be installed in a similar secret location down in Engineering, with the rest of the redundant equipment for the bridge systems.
On first inspection, she couldn't find anything to indicate a secret panel. Still following the instructions, she removed one of the piloting modules, which exposed a hidden locking tab. According to the normal manual, it shouldn't be there.
This all might be real.
She had to pull additional modules from both sides of the “bulkhead” to get to all the locks, but she was finally able to remove the panel, and there they were: the undocumented expansion ports described in the instructions. She compared the one labeled Expansion Port 1 to one of Motul's modules, and sure enough, the connectors matched. She shrugged. There wasn't anything else she could check, so she installed the mystery module, closed up the hidden panel and reinstalled all the normal modules she'd pulled.
I hope this doesn't just fry the ship or something.
At last she closed up the console and turned to the power panel. “OK, here it is, the moment of truth.” With a wince, she turned on power to the bridge systems, not sure what to expect.
Nothing happened.
Well, nothing unusual happened. There was no transformation into a giant robot, or any of the sort of thing you might see in a fantastic tale.
Once the bridge systems reinitialized, the system menus all looked the same as they had the first time she was aboard, telling her the drive was non-functional. Apparently, the restart had also reset the safeties to their default settings.
Just like her first time aboard the ship, she entered her override code. That first time, the codes had given her access to disable some of the safety systems and activate the drive.
Now the override display prominently displayed the status, “Incognito Mode ACTIVE” on a toggle control. Hesitantly, Anailu touched the control, and the status changed to “Incognito Mode DISABLED.” She exited the override mode.
Now listing of ships systems had two new additions: “Flight Operations” with the status of “Disabled,” and “Sculpting” with the status “Active.”
The first one was interesting, but Anailu was more intrigued by the second because she had no idea what a “Sculpting” system could be.
She selected it, and at first, she still wasn't sure what it was supposed to do. As she flipped through the various options, though, it started to become clear to her. “I think this is some sort of scan masking system.”
Velvet burst out, “But that's illegal!”
Scanning systems could reveal details about a ship long before it could be seen visually. Scan blocking, either active or passive, would hide details from a scan. Scan masking would make the area appear as something different than the reality – at least to the scanner. It didn't change the visual appearance, so once you got close enough, it would be obvious if you were masking to make your battleship pretend to be a bulk freighter.
While the military did use it for that purpose at long ranges, scan maskers were also used to make scans of the interior of a ship return false images. Governments used them on covert operations ships. Smugglers also used them, so they were illegal most places. In the Empire, limited scan blockers were permitted, but like Velvet had pointed out, it was very illegal for an ordinary civilian to own a scan masker.
Both Diamond and Velvet were watching her. Velvet asked, “Wait, does this mean that secretly, you really are a smuggler?”
Anailu gave an exasperated sigh. “No, I'm not a smuggler. It doesn't mean anything.”
Anailu shifted to the Captain's chair. Just because they were out in the middle of nowhere didn't mean they weren't being watched, and Motul had said something about the parts being bait. Since the stuff he said about the ship seemed to be real, she was going to assume the rest of what he said might be real, too.
First, she checked the ship's sensors. She'd landed in a spot that limited her visibility and the sensors had showed no ships in orbit above her, and Doran didn't have full satellite coverage because the equatorial debris ring made keeping satellites up difficult. Still, standard commercial sensors like those on a Dove weren't sensitive enough to pick up everything.
Anailu had a hunch that the Queen might have better sensors than she'd been claiming, Sure enough, this time the sensor displays now offered a lot more detail.
Anailu could now change the display to show all of Doran, or the entire system. In these modes, the Queen displayed projected tracks for satellites and ship traffic that it had seen previously. It was clear the Queen had been collecting more information than she'd let on.
Even with Queen showing her true capabilities, there were no active power sources detected anywhere in sensor range. Anailu decided that the sky was about as clear as she could hope for.
She went back to the systems display and selected the scan masking system. That was another odd thing – she'd never heard of anyone calling it “Sculpting.” Of course, this was a Telani ship, and they liked to do things their own wa
y. Something else bugged her about it. Examining the status display, she realized what it was – the scan masking system indicated it was already active! She found a display of what it was projecting, and it just showed the ship as it was.
Anailu really wanted to test out what this “Sculpting” system really did, but that would take some work. Before that, she decided to at least take a look at the other newly revealed system.
She switched over to the “Flight Operations” display. Most of the screen was a status schematic of the Queen, but with some unexpected entries. It showed the locations and statuses of “captive docking ports” and “hangar bays.”
Normal docking ports were designed to be used when both docked ships were at rest, or at least matching course and speed. A captive docking port was designed to keep a smaller ship attached to a larger one during maneuvering, even allowing the smaller ship to be powered down.
Anailu was already aware the Queen had captive docking ports. The dorsal and ventral airlock at each passenger lift was equipped for captive docking. But this display was indicating eight more captive docking ports on the forward half of the ship. These hidden ports appeared to be located on the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the ship, at the positions of the bulkheads at the aft end of Cargo Bays One and Two – the cargo bays which the display referred to as hangar bays. It called Cargo Bay 3 the Primary Landing Bay, and showed it equipped with big dorsal launch doors. It also referred to the lift compartment in the nose as the Auxiliary Landing Bay.
At least this was another thing she could actually check out, simply by opening these “launch doors.” She could activate them from here, but she really wanted to see them for herself.
“I'm going down to the cargo bay and see these launch doors. Want to join me?”
Diamond nodded, and Velvet said, “You bet!” and bounced up from her seat.
Down in Cargo Bay Three, a.k.a. the Primary Landing Bay, Anailu activated a control panel on the aft bulkhead. Sure enough, there were now controls for “Launch Doors.”
The Sculpted Ship Page 21