Kelly shook his head. Chief Watson spoke up. “What bar do you guys frequent so I can tell the crew?”
Everyone laughed and Timmons said, “LT, I guess you answered all our questions. Is that all?”
“Yes sir, Admiral Craddock wanted you to know what all we found. Of course, this is just a preliminary assessment. We intend to continue to tear the ship apart until we get all we can from it. Again, I must emphasize the sensitivity of this information. Be very careful discussing it. Let me escort you out then.”
The captain, Kelly, and Chief Watson rode quietly back to the ship. They stopped off for lunch on the way, and discussed the upcoming training cruise and what each of them had done on their days off.
On the K’Rang home world, a very irritated Shadow Leader M’Trang was berating his subordinates. One lay in an enlarging puddle of his own blood on the floor. His throat had been ripped open with an expert flick of one paw, all claws extended. The former deputy never saw it coming. The other two remained at a stiff, but shaky, attention.
“Baron N’Gana is not happy that his son has not returned from his adventure. It is only my reputation for success that kept me from sharing the fate of your associate on the floor. He failed me. He chose the Shadow Warriors that accompanied Baron N’Gana’s son. I suggest you not fail me.”
“The cargo carrier ship T’Onna waited three days and M’Talli’s ship never appeared. Our drones have crossed the frontier and verified that his ship was destroyed as was the human courier shuttle. We only found small debris from the stern and engine section of M’talli’s ship. The lack of debris from the bow of the ship and the trace of metal from the human ship makes me suspect that the humans may have captured M’Talli and the human couriers. If not, they at least have the bridge and crew section of our ship and all the information it contained.”
“This challenge cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Shadow Petty Commander L’Alla, you will organize an expedition to the human world in the system adjacent to where M’Talli’s ship was taken. The human traitors have a facility on the major continent in the southern hemisphere where they have stored a back-up copy of the final data segment. M’Talli was killed attempting to acquire it. Assemble a sufficient force to enter the facility, kill all you encounter, find the data, and return to me with it.”
“Shadow Petty Commander G’Sanu, you will take command of one of our new torpedo ships, precede L’Alla’s attack force, conduct a thorough surveillance of the frontier region near the human world, and destroy any human combatants that may be in the sector. Are there any questions?”
The two assumed an even stiffer position of attention, saluted, and answered in unison, “No, Shadow Leader.”
The Shadow Leader stepped over the body on his way out the door, “Do not fail me, Petty Commanders. Return with the data or not at all. But first, send someone in to clean up this mess.”
The Vigilant’s training cruise went well. The crew picked up on the goals of the cruise and quickly improved their performance at all stations. The helmsmen put the simulator drills into practice by conducting a series of zero-G landings on Armstrong’s smallest moon. They weren’t as smooth as Kelly would have liked, but they were greatly improved over the last patrol.
When they returned to base, they were back on patrol status. The next patrol would be back to the Scutum sector. Signals indicative of flight by the K’Rang drone ships were being picked up in that area and HQ wanted them to go and see what they could find. They would be held at the base only until the new reverse-engineered K’Rang sensor system could be fitted onto the Vigilant.
The yard crew and Chiefs Miller and Blankenship put the system in and tested it in only three days. They would have to calibrate it enroute to their patrol sector, but it was in and operating nominally. It should give them an edge.
Kelly had time to see Candy before they shipped out. He found out that she had accepted the job at the Base JAG office and she would be in it by the time he returned from patrol.
On the morning they were scheduled to lift ship, Kelly had messages from his folks and from LT Bell, wishing him well on his patrol. There was a message from Angie that the Bolivar had been diverted to patrol near the border for a few more weeks. They would not be at Armstrong until much later. Kelly thought this was lucky, because he would have been away on patrol when they arrived. He did not know how long this patrol would be, but most likely they would be back in time for the Bolivar’s port call. He really wanted to see his old squadron mates. There was a message from Tammy, telling more of her experiences transitioning to the new shuttle. The video of her message showed her in her flight suit with the zipper provocatively down to her navel.
Kelly replied to all and told them he expected to be back in about a month, but he probably would not be able to receive or send messages while he was gone.
Kelly made his ship inspection, noticing some minor deficiencies in the galley that were corrected immediately, but the rest of the ship was ready for patrol. He moved back to the bridge to put his own position in order.
Kelly looked around the bridge. The helm and navigator positions were manned. The engineering sensor and weapons positions were manned by senior petty officers. There was a quiet hum of efficiency; the bridge crew was now a coherent team. The captain and Chief Watson were conferring in the conference room. He expected them to finish just before lift off.
True to his prediction, the captain and the chief came out just before lift off. They made a quick inspection, gave the necessary orders and lifted off the planet. The Vigilant quickly sped out of the system and went into FTL mode. In a few short days, they arrived near the Scutum sector. They stopped in the dark space outside the sector and calibrated the new sensor system, then scanned the entire sector as they approached, and found nothing out of the ordinary.
The Fleet intel reports on the strange signals showed them originating across the frontier, moving into the Scutum sector, and returning. The distance to the nearest listening posts was too far for an accurate location. They would have to patrol the region and hope they got lucky.
The first five days were uneventful. They drifted in the sector in close proximity with several large asteroids. The passive sensors were operating at maximum sensitivity. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared.
On the sixth day a K’Rang ship appeared, dropping out of FTL just a few thousand kilometers from the frontier. Chief B focused every sensor on that ship. The new K’Rang-style sensor gave an incredibly high-resolution image of the K’Rang ship. The ship was about twice the length of the Vigilant and half again as wide.
The sensor feed to Kelly’s station showed a smaller ship, about twice the size of a fighter, detach from the larger K’Rang ship and move toward the frontier. It quickly penetrated the frontier and made a run through the center of the Scutum Sector. It was incredibly fast, accelerating quickly to just below FTL speed. Kelly couldn’t figure out how they could get such power out of such a small ship.
“Petty Officer, can you get any kind of a reading on the engine in that thing?”
“The petty officer spoke into his intercom and said, “Sir, Chief Blankenship will be here shortly to answer your question.”
The captain looked over at him and said, “It is fast, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. I’m trying to think what they could be using to get speed like that out of such a small vehicle. How restrictive are our orders, sir? Could we capture this thing?”
“I’ll let you read the orders again, but I don’t see that flexibility in them. I read them as we are to observe only, unless GR citizens or property are endangered.”
Kelly rolled his eyes. “Got it, sir, no action unless they shoot first.”
The K’Rang ship continued its high speed run through the Scutum sector. Kelly wondered if it was intentionally showing off, hoping to draw a GR Fleet reaction. Kelly saw the wisdom in following their orders to the letter. It was probably equipped with a self-destruct mechanism and they could gain more information from observing the ship secretly than analyzing a debris cloud.
Chief Blankenship appeared. She said, “Sir, you asked about the engine. As best we can determine it is an extremely efficient reaction engine with an unshielded gravity well FTL drive. It is running at about 98 percent efficiency. They seem to be injecting something into the exhaust stream to give them that much thrust. We’re trying to see what that might be. We are tracking the flight path. If we can run through the flight path later, we might be able to use the sniffers to figure out what it is.”
The captain said, “Good enough, Chief. Once this thing clears out, we’ll do just that.”
Chief B continued, “One other thing, sir, as sharp as that ship is turning, there isn’t a living being on board.
