COL 285 Sector DS-I C10-8 - 3308-08-02 11:15 GST
Frederich Pohl eased back on the throttle and angled The Argus' trajectory away from the system's only star. The ship's fuel scoop deployed automatically and Frederich guided the ship on a safe course through the upper reaches of the stellar atmosphere, balancing heat build up in the ship against refueling time. There was no hurry with this mission, a routine reconnaissance patrol, and therefore no point in putting the ship in any danger. When the ship was fuelled he pulled away from the K Class star and, at about fifty light seconds away from the star, slowed the ship down to the minimum supercruise speed. He opened a comms channel to Brandi Chen, the ship's engineer and signal analyst.
"Hey, Brandi! We're in position for the system scan."
"Okey dokey! Beginning a full spectrum scan. Bets that we find that this system is as empty and as uninteresting as it was yesterday."
"Not taking that bet. We're almost done with the uninhabited systems, then we can get on to the fun part of the patrol."
"Sticking our noses into everyone's business.", Brandi replied with a chuckle.
"Absolutely! Discretely, of course. People would be a lot more careful if the knew HIP 74286 Stakeholders were monitoring what they were up to."
The Argus was a Krait Phantom, rigged for electronic surveillance, stealth, and espionage. It had enhanced grade A sensors, recon and hatch breaker limpet drone controllers, a high speed wake scanner, a long range warrant scanner, and an electronic countermeasures suite. Core systems were mostly grade A modules, as well, and it was decently armed with a pair of cannons visible on each side of the plexiglass canopy that surrounded the pilot's seat and projected out from the front of the triangular wedge of the ship's hull and a burst laser turret and torpedo pylon mounted on the hull's top surface. It wasn't the fastest ship in the galaxy and would struggle against dedicated warships in a fight, but it could hold it's own against pirates. Fighting wasn't its primary function, however. The ship excelled at being sneaky, listening to electronic communications, hacking, and performing signal analysis.
"Huh!", said Brandi, "We might have something. It's very faint, but we may have detected something in the A ring of the third planet."
"Ship?"
"Maybe. It's a very faint signal, easily confused with emissions from lightning discharges in the atmosphere of the gas giant below. The Argus is picking up a hint of structure there, though. It might be an unregistered comms beacon."
"Out here? That sounds like something worth checking out."
"Adding a marker to your HUD."
The Argus traversed the sixteen hundred light seconds to the systems third planet in about five minutes. The signal was too faint and erratic to get a proper lock so Frederich would have to disengage the frame shift drive supercruise manually. With the ship aimed at a point just above the HUD marker Brandi had placed for him, he estimated that they'd come out of supercruise about eight kilometers from the signal and about three kilometers above the ring. From the placement of the HUD marker, it looked like the signal was amongst the metal rich rocks that comprised the ring. The HUD marker jumped to a point twenty kilometers further away, and thirty degrees left of their current trajectory.
"Now we are closer, I am getting a better fix on the signal. It's looking like a comms beacon, alright.", said Brandi over the communications channel.
Frederich adjusted the ship's course. The HUD marker jumped again. He corrected again. At fifteen kilometers away he disengaged the frame shift drive. They were three and half kilometers above the ring and seven from the signal.
"Okay. Sensors are definitely picking up a comms beacon,", said Brandi, "and it appears to be emitting the signal. It's gibberish to the decryption suite so far, but I'll see what I can do. It may just be a sneaky homing signal, though."
"Keep an eye on the long range sensors. This is starting to feel like a pirate ambush."
"Everything feels like an ambush to you, though, to be fair, this is giving me the creeps as well."
Frederich deployed the ship's hardpoints, and targeted the beacon. At this range the data link scanner wasn't much use, so he carefully brought the ship closer to the beacon, weaving amongst the asteroids. As the ship passed under a large asteroid, motion in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He disengaged the flight assistance computer and manually applied maximum downwards thrust on the vertical thrusters. An explosion on the upper hull's shields rocked the ship and started it spinning, slowly. Frederick quickly got the ship back under control and brought it to a complete stop.
"What the frak was that?", exclaimed Brandi.
"A mine. There's a mine launcher embedded on the surface of one of the asteroids near us."
"One of the asteroids?"
"One that I know of. There's probably more."
"Right.", said Brandi, "No damage, as far as I can see, but we did lose twenty percent of our shields, but that'll recharge in few minutes. Assuming we don't hit any more mines. Or asteroids."
"Well before we get moving again, can you commune with the sensors and find out if there are any more mine launchers, or whatever it is that you do."
"On it."
After about ten minutes, The Argus's shields had recharged and there were a network of hostile targets around them, with the beacon at the center. The net wasn't perfect and Frederick could see three places where he could maneuver the ship out.
"That's all I can detect without prospector limpets.", said Brandi, "I am pretty sure there are no more on the surface of any of the nearby asteroids, but there might be more buried deeper. Unlikely, but it's a risk. Do we bug out?"
"I'm kinda curious to find out what's so special about that comms beacon, that it deserves its own minefield. I am pretty sure I can can fly us close enough to use the data link scanner and drones without triggering any mines. What do you think?"
"I say we go say hello. It'd be rude not to."
Frederich maneuvered The Argus closer to the beacon, keeping an asteroid between it and the ship at all times: until they'd done a detailed active scan of the beacon, then they couldn't be sure it wasn't armed. When in scanner range he oriented the ship so that the scanner array had line of sight to the beacon, shielding as much of the ship behind an asteroid as he could. Brandi then initiated the scan.
"Okay. We have some good news, some bad news, and some better news. The good news is that the beacon has now weapons modules. The bad news is that the data link scan found only a handful of encrypted files in the comms buffer. I grabbed copies."
"And the better news?"
"There's two physical access sockets that look to be part of some sort of data storage system. The recon drones should be able to interface with them."
"Okay. I'll reposition us so the drones have a clear path."
Frederich rolled the ship one hundred and eighty degrees and moved the ship a little further out from behind the asteroid. He trusted that Brandi was correct in her assessment that the beacon was unarmed, but it never hurt to be cautious in situations like this, or to be sneaky.
"Recon drone away", said Brandi. "Recon drone attached. Delivering intrusion payload. Okay. Drone estimates sixty seconds until its hack is complete."
The minute passed slowly. Frederich kept a close watch on sensors.
"Downloading data.", Brandi said. "There's a lot of files here, various formats. I'm launching a second drone. Recon drone away."
A faint contact showed up on Frederich's sensor display.
"Brandi, I think we have company."
"Aw frak. How far?"
"Twelve kilometers. Looks to be a Diamond Back Explorer. It's heading this way. We'll be inside it's sensor range in less than a minute."
"Frak! We're almost there. We got some data at least. Wait! What the frak happened our shields?"
"I engaged silent running. I can hide us long enough to get the data."
"What? No! Don't melt my ship!"
"I won't. We only need to shut the heat vents for about ninety seconds. Two minutes, tops. We're easily capable of that without major damage."
"Whatever! Just don't melt my ship."
Frederich disengaged the flight assist computer again, maneuvering the ship with minimal thruster usage trying to keep a line of sight to the beacon, while simultaneously putting asteroids between The Argus and the approaching ship. The cockpit was getting warm and a red alarm light started flashing.
"I got the data. Get us out of here!", said Brandi.
With gentle thruster firings, Frederich moved The Argus towards a gap in the minefield. Sweat ran down his brow. He was unsure if it was from the heat building up in the cabin, or the stress of the situation. If they were hit by a mine now, without shields, it would likely be catastrophic. A heat alarm started blaring.
"Can you not go any faster", asked Brandi, over the comms channel.
"That risks our engine flare being seen. Besides, we're almost past the mines. After that I'll have room to maneuver and can risk more speed."
A few agonizing seconds passed before they were out of range of the mine launchers. Frederich inched the throttle forward. The smell of burnt insulation stung his nostrils. Fifteen seconds more and they'd be beyond the range of the Diamond Back Explorer's sensors he thought. He focused on flying between the large metal rich rocks, staying close to their surface to make The Argus blend in as much as possible.
"Okay. We're clear. Disengaging silent running."
"And I am running a level two diagnostic, to see which parts of the ship you melted.", Brandi replied grumpily.