ahead of time.
Chapter Three
The senior staff was reassembled to go overwhat we had learned from studying the probe’s reports. Everyoneknew that that probe had been destroyed, but they were hoping thatmy team had been able to obtain some useful data first.
The captain called the meeting to order, thenaddressed me, “Okay, Vydor, your team has been working on the probedata for several hours. Did you come up with anything?” He saidthis as if he expected me to say no, with good reason.
“I am passing out a copy of the pertinentdata from the probe. The first thing you might notice is that thetime of the report and the time we received the report are notequal. If you allow for travel time, you’ll still come up roughly aminute shy. Other than that, you might notice that the data isperfect, an exact match to all Imperial records of the colony.” Ipaused to give them time to digest that. The captain did not lookhappy with this. He already had a good idea what conclusion I hadcome to.
“From this data, I must conclude that thereport has been falsified. This leaves us still with no informationabout our target.”
“Vydor, is it possible that the equipment wasmalfunctioning?” said Larath. He was a bit of an odd character; henever seemed to show any emotion at all, yet somehow still managedto convey that he cared a great deal about this mission. There wassomething else about him that I could not put my finger on, but Ijust did not trust him.
“No, Larath. I personally checked theequipment before it left. It was in perfect working order. It mayhave developed a bug or two along the way, but nothing that couldcause it to do this,” I replied. “There are only two ways that thiscould happen. First, the enemy could have cracked our codes andused them to send back a fake report, but I do not think that iswhat happened here. If ‘they’ captured the probe before it startedto transmit and played with its sensors so that it would recordonly the data they wanted it to, then let it transmit, it wouldsend it all in code. They would have no need for the codes; theprobe would handle that for them.” I stopped there to gather mythoughts.
“Vydor, is this something that is easy todo?” Dr. Rannor asked. The good doctor was like the grandfather Inever had. He always spoke with a soft, gentle tone, and was theonly member of the ranking officers on the Dragon Claw who did notseem to mind my appointment.
“Absolutely, Doctor. If a person has the timeand knows his probes, it can easily be done with this type ofprobe. The one-minute lag is probably from turning the power offtemporarily to disconnect its defenses,” was my reply.
“So it appears that all we have learned fromthis operation is that the enemy knows our probes as well as we do,and they know we are coming. They still have the upper hand, andthat is not acceptable. I want better probes assembled immediately,which are to transmit over their entire voyage. I don’t want arepeat of this,” ordered the captain.
Much of the rest of the meeting was throwingaround ideas on how to get information on “them.” Larath proposedwe call them the “Magi,” just to give them a name. I was not clearwhere he got that name from but it was approved. After all, whatwas the difference?
After the meeting with the captain, I headedback to the probe bay where some of my better probe technicianswere waiting for me.
“Okay, team, we need to get a probe to ahostile planet and have it stand up to attack long enough to get ussome decent information on our enemy. What are our best options?” Iasked.
After much debate we chose a battle probethat would only need minor reconfiguration to handle the type ofsearch we wanted. It could only handle limited, short scans. Eventhough it only needed some minor changes, it still seemed likeyears before it was ready to launch. Now, just days away from thesystem, we were finally able to launch it.
“Sir, the probe launch was a success. We willbe receiving data shortly… Okay, we are getting a good clearsignal. Probe is functioning to full specs.”
We still had no idea who or what the Magiwere. A lot of theories went around, even one that pictured them asmonsters right out of some cheap horror movie. The most reasonableconclusion was that they were a previously undiscovered alien race.If this was true, then we had a big problem on our hands. Thatwould mean war with an obviously powerful race.
Though I had no fear that our naval forceswould defeat them, it could be a long and devastating war.
Chapter Four
I was sleeping in my quarters when an urgentcall came over the intercom, “Sir! Come quickly!”
“On my way,” I drowsily replied. I hurried tothe bridge, where the message had come from.
“Sir! The probe is under attack!” was myfriendly greeting from one of my team members.
“What?” It took me a moment to realize what Ihad just heard.
“Sir, look there.” I looked where he pointedand saw for myself. A beam of energy or light struck the probe deadcenter. This was apparently the last strike necessary to eliminatethe probe.
“Sir, I think the probe is gone.”
“It would appear so. Where in the Emperor’sname did those blasts come from?”
“They came from beyond the range of theprobe’s sensors.”
I could have guessed he was going to saythat. “Any data on those beams, at least?”
“Checking.” Lights and pictures flashedacross the screen as he searched through the last tentransmissions. “Sir, they appear to be plasma bolts of somesort.”
“I want to see these reports myself. Sendcopies of the data to my office. I want blue and yellow teams towork on this.”
Plasma bolts were not a good sign. It was arelatively new weapon our army was developing. If the Magi had thisweapon, it could mean they were more advanced than we were. Thatcould be a problem.
While my men worked on the reports, I studiedthem myself in my office away from the noise and activity of theteams working the data, hoping to find out that they were fakes, orthat our initial conclusions about the attack were wrong. I let myteams worry about what the data said. I was looking for somethingdeeper. Even if I could not find proof that the data was faked,then maybe I could find some thumbprint implied by the circumstancethat would shed a light on the people behind the attacks.
“Sir, the report from yellow team is in,”came a call over the intercom, disturbing me from my intensestudy.
“Finally!” That gave me less than fourminutes to get my own report together. I was relieved that I wouldnot have to give my report without the information from the yellowteam.
One look at the report made me reconsider thefeeling of relief that I’d just had. I gathered up all my notes andthe new report and headed to the senior staff meeting. I must havetaken longer than I meant to review the data, as the captain wasalready in his chair when I arrived.
“Welcome, Commander Vydor,” greeted thecaptain. “Is your report ready?”
“Yes, sir, but I wish it weren’t.”
“That good?”
“Well, sir, the probe was destroyed by aseries of plasma bolts, three of them to be exact.”
“What?” called out Zalith. Apparently he toowas hoping the plasma bolt theory was wrong.
“Yes, Zalith, plasma weapons are a realitynow.”
“We have been trying for decades with no realsuccess. That’s the final straw, we must stop these probe games andattack,” said Zalith. “They are playing us like fools!”
“Zalith, let Vydor finish his report,”ordered the captain.
