War Through the Pines by D.W. Patterson

Author:D.W. Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, hard science fiction
Publisher: D.W. Patterson
Published: 2021-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

11

Lieutenant Brently Armstrong was busy. He had never been given such a difficult assignment. He was charged with finding the anomalous signal that had shown up irregularly in his data logging of the EM sensors. And he had only been given another twenty-four hours to find it. The order had come straight from the General. Something was up.

Brently started by thinking about how he could locate the source even if it wasn't transmitting. Was there any way that data analysis could show the location, or at least the area of the platform from which the signal was being generated?

He thought about the information he already knew. He knew the different sources of the electromagnetic interference which he had nulled out. He knew their relative strength which his EM sensors picked up and he knew their exact location from scouting the station.

If he could build a map of the platform and locate each noise source and its signal strength on that map he might be able to use the data he had on the unknown source to assign it to no more than a few areas around the platform.

“Tess,” he said. “We need a map of the station, do you know of any in the database?”

“Yes Brently. I'll bring up the different versions on the terminal over here and you can choose.”

Brently reviewed the different station configuration diagrams and chose one to work with. He began using his Annie to correlate EM noise sources with distance from the sensors. By tagging the platform diagram with noise source, location and signal strength he developed his map.

Now it was just a matter of making an assumption about the signal strength of the unknown source...

Brently jumped as his Annie switched to a very loud alarm mode. The unknown source was back online! The Annie had learned that Brently was interested in this signal and had arranged the alarm itself.

Brently grabbed his portable EM sensor adapter and plugged it into his Annie for more precise location mining.

“Tess, the unknown source is back online. Please tell Dr. Fermion I am going to try to find the location.”

“Very well Brently, good luck.”

The Annie became a signal tracker once the external EM sensor was plugged in, the screen which now looked like a compass always pointed towards the unknown signal.

He followed the tracker out of the workroom and noticed that the signal was somewhere below him. He would have to climb to the center of the wheel and move 'down' in the direction of the lower equipment and station keeping boom.

Once in what was effectively zero gravity, Brently pulled himself in the direction of the lower boom. At the end of the long cylinder of the wheel's center, Brently pulled himself up to a viewing port from which he could see the lower boom. The view of the earth below caused a moment of vertigo.

He began to scan the boom by eye. He knew that the box or whatever it was he was looking for would have to have a long wire trailing from it.

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