asteroid field that they mined for precious metals. He watched one FTL ship come into the system. He watched it closely until he saw something break away from the ship before it entered the 6664 system.
“Bridge, this is Sensors.”
“Sensors, Bridge. What have you got?”
Chief Blankenship came on. “Sir, we just had a small ship separate from an FTL freighter over near the 6664 system in the Scutum sector. It’s heading in our direction.”
Kelly hit a switch on his intercom. “Captain to the bridge.” LCDR Timmons startled him by leaning over his shoulder and looking at his monitor.
“Is that small blip this side of 6664 what they’re talking about?”
“Yes, sir, I watched it pull away from the freighter. Sensors says it’s coming our way.”
“Okay, Exec, plot this guy’s course. How close will he come to us? Recommend if we need to reposition. We should do that before he gets too close. Call up what you can on the freighter.”
Kelly did a quick search and found the freighter registration information. It was the Manchu Warrior, an ore freighter registered out of Fomalhaut. Its record was clean and it carried a small shuttle. The freighter belonged to the Indigo Consortium, a mineral trading company headquartered in the Fomalhaut system. It had just come from the Aldebaran system and was coming into the 6664 system to drop off mining equipment, and pick up a shipment of gold to take back to Fomalhaut. The records showed the consortium had a gold mining operation on a large asteroid on the opposite side of the 6664 system. There was nothing in the files on why a shuttle from that freighter was now heading in their direction, near where a K’Rang ship was waiting. Kelly relayed a synopsis of the data he found on the freighter to the captain.
He plotted the shuttle’s course and determined that it was going to pass far enough away from them that they wouldn’t be detected where they were. If the shuttle was coming to rendezvous with the K’Rang ship, they were in the perfect position.
“Captain, we can stay right where we are and watch the whole show or take any other action that may be required.”
“Good enough, Exec, let’s do just that. Let’s see if we can figure out what business an ore freighter’s shuttle and a K’Rang scout ship have with each other.”
LCDR Timmons retired to his quarters. It would be several hours before the shuttle came even with their position. He had time for some shuteye.
Timmons came back onto the bridge as the shuttle drew near. The shuttle was going to pass a little closer than Kelly had calculated, but they were still in no danger of discovery.
“Sensors, see if you can get a reading on what’s in the shuttle as it passes.”
“Sensors, aye.”
All the passive sensors of the Vigilant scoured the shuttle as it passed a mere 2000 meters away. Kelly looked at the readings that appeared on his monitor. He saw that the shuttle had no discernible modifications. There were five life signs on board. If there was anything in the cargo hold, it didn’t appear on the scan.
The captain said, “I didn’t see anything on the scan. Did you?”
“No, Captain, just the five life signs on board. If there is any cargo there, it doesn’t show up.”
“Let’s just sit here and see what comes up.”
It didn’t take long for something to come up. As the shuttle approached the frontier, the K’Rang ship crossed into Galactic Republic space. The two ships pulled up side-by-side and a docking tunnel extended from the K’Rang ship to the shuttle. The two ships docked and floated free in space. Sensors on the Vigilant picked up the movement of three people from the shuttle to the K’Rang ship. About thirty minutes later three people moved through the tunnel to the shuttle. The tunnel retracted and the two ships parted company. The K’Rang ship turned and re- entered K’Rang space. It continued on a straight path until it moved out of short-range sensor range. Long-range sensors would follow it until it receded out of long-range sensor range. The shuttle moved back to the 6664 system and landed at the New Alexandria spaceport. Two days later, the two ships lifted off together, rejoined once in space, and the freighter cleared the system and went into FTL travel. The Vigilant watched the freighter leave.
“Chief Watson, copy all the sensor readings we’ve acquired and make them ready to transmit back to Antares Base. Recommend to Admiral Craddock that someone follow the Manchu Warrior to its next port call, board the ship, and scan the shuttle computer banks. Stand down the reinforced watches and return to normal watch schedule. Let’s get back to patrolling.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
The patrol went on for another 22 days, until they reached the farthest limit of their patrol sector, but nothing further out of the ordinary showed up. Kelly spent time researching the Manchu Warrior and the Indigo Consortium. The ship was not the least bit unusual. Its port call records showed a normal schedule for a freighter of its type and class. It visited only planets with mineral deposits and its subsequent port calls were to planets where those minerals were needed. It seemed as if the Manchu Warrior was a fairly profitable venture.
The Indigo Consortium was also plain vanilla. Its financial statements showed it to be a moderately successful mineral trading company. It owned four freighters, the Manchu Warrior, the Old Guard, the Grenadier Guard, and the Gurkha, all identical. Apart from the quaint practice of naming their ships after historical warriors, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the company. If it hadn’t been for the witnessed rendezvous between their shuttle and a K’Rang ship, they would be singularly unremarkable. Kelly closed his terminal down and retired to his cabin for some rest. He’d let the analysts at Scout Force HQ sort this one out.
As he lay in his bunk, he thought back to when he told the captain his abbreviated tale of how he won his Joint Meritorious Service Medal. There was a good deal more to the story than he had told the captain. Kelly remembered it quite well.
Kelly remembered sitting in his cockpit; his instrument lights were dimmed to a minimal glow. He let his eyes adjust to space’s velvet blackness. He stared out his screen and saw millions of stars, a nebula or two, and over a dozen far galaxies. His new fighter’s sensors watched the close space around the ship to warn of any objects near him. He had programmed his computer with a woman’s voice just slightly older than Kelly. Wanda, as he had chosen to call her, spoke to him only when she had information he needed to hear. He instructed her as to just what he did and did not want to hear.
The artificial intelligence program did an uncanny job of making Wanda appear to be a thinking reasoning person, not just a disembodied voice. He thought he even detected a faint petulance when he corrected her for being too talkative.
As his eyes adjusted, he slowly moved the fighter ahead. He was on free flight, 200 kilometers from the Fleet. He had successfully checked out on the F-53 and had been granted an opportunity for free flight in open space. Kelly gradually increased the speed until he was at 50 % power. The distance from the fleet was progressing dramatically. He worked the fighter through a series of two and three G turns, climbs, and dives. The seat automatically gripped and released his legs to keep him from blacking out. It didn’t take Kelly very long to feel the difference between the F-53 and the trainers he had flown before.
After he got the feel for the ship in turns, dives, and climbs, he tried some quick spin rolls without losing any forward momentum. The F-53 spun on its axis very quickly. The computer could spin the ship and then stop with the front pointing precisely along his back track. This was a handy move if you had an enemy on your tail and couldn’t shake them. It was risky and had to be done almost instantaneously or the tailing bad guy would realize what you were doing and put a missile into your cockpit.
Kelly brought the ship to a dead stop and said, “Wanda.”
“Yes, Kelly, what can I do for you?”
“Wanda, take me back over the track I just flew, matching my maneuvers as closely as you can.”
“Kelly, would you like me to do the maneuvers in reverse or forward of what we just completed?”
“Forward back to where I started. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Kelly, I can. Would you put your hands on your knees and away from the control stick? Good, hang on.”
The ship took off and the computer matched the maneuvers Kelly had completed almost exactly as Kelly had done. He noticed that the turns were not as crisply done as he had done, but were well within the range. As the ship reached the starting point, it executed a perfect spin roll and braked to a stop.
“How did I do, Kelly?”
