All That Bedevils Us by Thomas Watson

Author:Thomas Watson [Watson, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-15T22:00:00+00:00

~20~

A week after their intervention, as Costa and Captain Anderson sat drinking coffee in the wardroom of the RDF George Dewey, the com system chirped on the command channel. In nearly the same instant the yellow alert sounded, and the crew in the wardroom with them scrambled up from chairs and bolted from the room to reach their duty stations as quickly as possible.

It was Rory Pike on the com channel. “Boss, we have company.”

“Ships?” Costa followed as Anderson left his chair and headed to the lift across the corridor.

“No, this looks like a drone of some kind,” Rory replied. “Too small to be manned, if we can safely assume anything from those ships we saved. Odd, the reading we got just before it showed up. I expected something a lot bigger.”

The lift started to move. “I’m on my way to the Dewey’s C&C. Are you aboard Loknata?”

“Yes. Need me over there?”

“Stay put for the time being,” Costa replied.

“Got it.”

“Is this drone transmitting?” Costa asked.

“No, it’s inert,” Rory replied. “Though I’d be willing to bet some sort of passive scan is happening.”

“So by now they’ve scanned the T’lack ships with us,” Anderson said.

“Shouldn’t be a surprise to them, if they were able to use the image data we provided,” Rory pointed out.

“We have so much riding on assumptions,” Costa muttered.

“Of necessity,” said a third voice. It was Maladar, and Costa had no doubt others in his staff were logging on to the channel even as the lift opened and delivered them to the command and control center of the Dewey. “We know little, so we assume and move with great caution.”

“Agreed,” said Costa. “That it’s necessary offers little comfort.”

“Amen to that,” said Captain Anderson.

Costa settled into the Admiral’s station, strapped in, and waved his hands over the horseshoe of boards before him. Green and gold data frames unfolded in the space over the boards. He enlarged the one containing a real-time image of the space around the node. The ship’s systems bracketed the object that had appeared there, and with a flick of his fingers he expanded both the frame and the image it held for a better look. It was a featureless sphere, just barely large enough to be a life pod for a Grahlin, three-quarters lit by the distant primary star of the system. The rest was filled out by image enhancement, and had a ghostly quality. Not shown were the ships and automated defense systems standing guard around the node.

“Anything from our visitor?” Costa asked.

“No transmissions,” the scan tech replied. “Hasn’t pinged us yet, either.”

“Just sitting there,” Anderson said. “Like it’s watching us.”

“It almost certainly is doing so,” Maladar said from the conference frame Costa had opened.

“It’s also waiting for us to react.” Costa rubbed his chin, peering into the display and remembering the drone they’d handed off to the Others during the intervention. “Captain, transmit the contact sequence and take us to the node, thrusters only, slow and easy. All other ships maintain present positions.”

“Yes, sir,” Anderson replied.

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