Ghosts of Orion by Doug L Hoffman

Author:Doug L Hoffman [Hoffman, Doug L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Shuttle One

“This is not good,” Bobby said out loud, though mostly to himself. “We have lost three recon drones and now a pair of sailors.”

“It just looks like the telemetry link was lost,” Mizuki replied. “There was no indication that they were attacked.”

“But cutting the communications link could be a prelude to an attack.”

Before Mizuki could respond, indicators on the control panel associated with recon drone three came back to life. Then video reception was restored.

“What's going on now? This is getting weirder by the minute.”

Mizuki interrogated the control panel indicators and sent self diagnostic requests to the re-acquired drone. After a few seconds, waiting for the self-check results to come back, she smiled and looked up.

“The drone is OK, Bobby. Everything checks out fine.”

“Did it see anything while it was out of contact?”

“No, I uploaded the event log and it shows nothing—no contact of any kind. It simply followed its programming and waited for communications to be restored.”

“This is getting too freaky for me, I'm going to call the ship.” He switched to the inter-ship channel. “Peggy Sue, Shuttle One.”

“Shuttle One, this is Peggy Sue. I see you have restored telemetry from recon three.”

“Roger, Peggy Sue. I think it must have been Drainpipe Two laying extra relays. They filled the gap created when the drone's relay was smashed.”

“We concur, Shuttle One. How do you propose to proceed?”

Bobby paused a moment for thought. Just speaking to the ship helped suppress the growing dread he had been feeling. There was still no indication that they had lost anyone, other than that first drone, and reestablishing control over drone three was a hopeful sign.

“Peggy Sue, be advised I am going to bring recon drone three and Drainpipe Two back to the surface. Then we can send them down the same path as Drainpipe One. If they are having a telemetry problem for the same reason as the drone we should be able to reestablish contact without any problem.”

“Roger that, Shuttle One. We will continue to monitor from here.”

“Roger, Peggy Sue. Break, break. Drainpipe Leader, Shuttle One. We are going to order recon drone three to return to the surface. Have Drainpipe Two reverse course and come back to the shuttle.”

“Roger, Shuttle One. Understood.”

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