He exchanged code words on short-range communications with the ship’s occupant. Determining that he had the right ship, he requested permission to dock; receiving it, Kelly ordered the helm to move forward and dock.
The docking was smooth and sure. Kelly made a note to see to promoting this helmsman as soon as possible. She was his best and most consistent helmsman.
Kelly went to the hatch and cycled it open, where a tall blonde man with long hair and a full trimmed beard met him. Kelly shook his hand and received a firm grip back.
“Mr. Bennett, I’m LCDR Kelly Blake, of the Vigilant.”
“Captain, come aboard and let me brief you on what I have found out so far.”
Kelly asked if he could have his XO and Senior Chief sit in. When Alistair agreed, he called Connie and Chief B to the hatch. Alistair led them into the interior of his ship to a central conference table. A white cat was curled up on the table. Alistair shooed the cat and called up a screen at the end of the table. He motioned them to sit, then went through what he had determined so far.
He told them of the agent network, laying out every node of the network he had uncovered to date. He showed them the dead drop servicers, credits handlers, and transporters, and how he identified the spies through their use of the network forums.
Kelly pulled out his pocket terminal and transferred the data his folks had developed. Alistair whistled when he saw the data. Thanking Kelly for his parents’ work, he jokingly asked if they might consider doing more work for Fleet Intel some time.
The combined data laid out the network in detail. It showed the data flow from the spies to the dead drop servicers and network forums to the transporters. There the path stopped, until Alistair transferred in the data from his analysis of the possible courier ships. It showed the flow of credits and instructions in, but how those got to and from K’Rang space was a mystery.
Alistair held back his previous order and tasked Kelly to find the courier ship’s infiltration and exfiltration paths. He also charged him with taking out any courier ships that might be leaving with critical data. His gut told him that one might show up and soon. He passed Kelly the parameters he had developed on the courier ships to plug into the Vigilant’s computer system. Kelly passed that to Chief B.
With the preliminaries out of the way, Alistair invited them all to stay for tea. Kelly declined, and Chief B wanted to get the courier ship parameters to sensors, so they could start tracking ships coming into the system. Connie expressed a liking for tea, so she stayed behind.
It was quiet in the sector over the next few days, and Connie and Alistair had time to become quite chummy. She was constantly finding excuses to go visit or coordinate. Kelly noticed, but it didn’t interfere with her duties. Considering the loneliness a reporting officer must experience, he let it go on as an act of mercy.
The D’Ran entered the system on the far side from where Alistair and the Vigilant were orbiting. The planetary data system interrogated the ship’s data banks for name, registry, and ownership, and charged it a 200- credit system entry fee.
The D’Ran did not cause Alistair’s computer to alert because it was not like the other courier ships. It was not registered under a flag of convenience, but under a first tier world flag. It was not nondescript — in fact, it was painted bright red with an eagle’s head painted on its nose. It employed the “hide in plain sight” camouflage scheme.
H’Topa had the captain park the ship in and amongst ships waiting for clearance to land at various spaceports on the planet below. After a few days, as ships came and went, no one noticed them anymore.
H’Topa linked into the planet’s data network and transmitted a number of taskings to his agents and to those belonging to other agent handlers back on G’Durin. He also received a number of reports from his and other handlers’ agents.
Alarms went off on Alistair’s console as the outgoing messages hit the network. Alistair called over to the Vigilant and asked if a courier ship had arrived in sector. They replied that no ships matching the parameters had arrived or left the system since they started scanning for them.
Alistair knew one of the ships had to be a courier ship. He checked their registries and found all legally registered in their system of origin and insured. The insurance came from reputable ship underwriters. He analyzed the IP address and saw it was from an unknown ship in orbit, using a link to the worldwide broadcast network. He called up every ship arrival in the past week and looked for anomalies. He came up with less than a dozen suspects. He needed a way to whittle down the list.
He called Kelly over, explained the situation, and asked if they could help by putting eyes on the suspects. Kelly asked for the list and how soon he wanted the pictures.
H’Topa analyzed the reports he received back and decided to pursue multiple paths to acquire the plans. He realized, from one of the reports destined for another agent handler, that there were four K’Rang operatives in the Defense HQ, not just his two. He saw there were an officer and a senior NCO working to be assigned to the special ring office, in addition to his two administrative assistants.
There were also agents being run by Mr. Shepler, who was running a small network of his own. He had an administrative assistant, Silke Watson and her boss, Bart Morton, the local security officer on Gagarin, working for him. H’Topa decided that initiative like this must be rewarded.
He also read reports from his two agents working for Mr. Yestepkin. They didn’t feel he was a good source for the plans, but the weapon he was working on would be worth acquiring. He read their precis and agreed, and sent a message authorizing them to proceed.
H’Topa sent directives to all agents in proximity to the target, ordering them to concentrate on acquiring copies of the ring design plans. He knew that this might compromise his network, but he didn’t look forward to being offered an honorable way to die when he got back to G’Durin. A network could be rebuilt, but he was one of a kind.
Kelly undocked from Alistair’s ship and started a high orbit of the planet. Their sensors were set to high gain, and within a day had a complete list of all ships in Shepard’s space. Sensors ran the list against all ships on the planet registry, then forwarded Kelly a list of ships in orbit, but not on the registry. There were four: two bulk freighters, a bulk liquid gas carrier, and an auto-container freighter. Vigilant made a close pass to all four and scanned them for any signs of K’Rang occupants. The scans proved negative. Kelly guessed that the ships were merely avoiding the system entry fee.
Kelly sat down with his sensor experts and Chief B to see if there was any way to detect K’Rang signatures externally. The discussion went back and forth between Chief B and Chief Johnson, but neither came up with a workable solution. The winning answer to what was different about K’Rang and Humans came out of the mouth of a diminutive Cryptologic Tech 3rd Class, Daisy “Pixie” Benson.
Pixie sat quietly, listening to her superiors getting nowhere near a solution on what was different about K’Rangs that could be detected by the Vigilant. The discussion was getting quite heated when Pixie said loudly, “Their poop and pee are different.”
The startled participants sat in stunned silence, and then laughed as they absorbed what Pixie had just said. Of course, ships pump their toilet waste overboard. If there were K’Rang on board, it would be detectable by the Vigilant’s multiple sniffers. Getting silly in their exhaustion, they wondered if K’Rang used litter boxes and what kitty litter brand they used, if they did. There was much laughter before they got serious and back to work.
Chief B ran a search for the chemical composition of K’Rang bodily wastes. She pulled it up on her pocket terminal and beamed it to Chief Johnson’s terminal. Kelly sent the sensor section back to their positions to “sniff” out the K’Rang poop and pee. Pixie received an on-the-spot achievement medal for her blinding sense of the obvious.
Bart Morton decided to reinstate after hours security checks in the Gagarin Research Facility. After a week of very visible signs left on desks from people leaving their terminals on, tossing classified material into regular wastebaskets, or forgetting to lock safes, people started taking security seriously. The facility manager even congratulated Bart on his success in increasing security awareness.
In addition to gaining him kudos, he also was making his presence, wandering through offices at night, a
