“There’s the grid… weird… it’s on the edge of that plateau.”
“City? Town?”
“Nothing. Well… some infrared indication of cleared fields, plantings… but nothing big enough to put in a grid like that.”
“We can take that out easily enough,” said Arly. “One lousy transport and landing grid - “
“But what are they after? There’s no colony to raid for slaves, nothing to raid for minerals or other goods. Why’s there a grid here, and what are they doing here?”
“Wait a minute - that’s got to be artificial - “ Onto the main screen went a shot of something that looked like a working open-pit mine. “I haven’t seen anything like that without someone nearby. A mine? Iron? Copper?”
Sassinak looked at the puzzled faces around her, and grinned. It had to be important. And this time she had a degree of freedom to act. “A landing grid, a beacon, an open pit mine, and no city - on a world supposedly not open for colonization. I think it’s time we stripped our friend’s IFF.”
“Right, captain.” The Com officer flipped a switch, and then came back on line, sounding puzzled, “Captain, it’s a colony supply hauler, on contract to that Ryxi colony.”
“And I’m a rich ambassador’s wife. Try again.” A screen came up at her right hand as the Com officer insisted. “Nothing wrong with the IFF signal, captain, I’d swear it. Look.”
It looked clean.Mazer Star, captained by one Argemon Godheir, owned by Kirman, Vini amp; Godheir, Ltd., registration numbers, crew size, mass cargo and volume… every detail crisp and unmistakable. Com had already queried the database:Mazer Star was a thirty-seven year old hull from a respectable shipyard, refitted twice at the normal intervals, ownership as given, and no mysterious disappearances or changes in use.
“So what is it doing here?” asked Sass, voicing everyone’s confusion. She looked back at the Com section, and the Com watch all shrugged. “Well. They’re acting as if we don’t exist, so let’s see how close we can get.”
WhateverMazer Star was doing, it was not looking for a cruiser in its area; Sassinak began to feel a wholly irrational glee at how close they were able to come. Either their stealth gear was better than even she had supposed, or the stubby little insystem trader had virtually no detection gear (or the most incompetent radar operator in seven systems). Finally they were within tractor distance, and Sassinak ordered the shields full on and stealth gear off. And a transmission by tight-beam radio, although she felt she could almost have shouted across the space between ships. Certainly could have, in an atmosphere.
“Mazer Star, Mazer Star! FSP CruiserZaid-Dayan toMazer Star - “
“What the - who the formative novations areyou! Get off our tail or we’ll - “ That voice was quickly replaced by another, and a screen image of a stocky man in a captain’s uniform.
“Mazer Star, Godheir commanding, to Federation shipZaid-Dayan… where did you come from? Did you receive the same distress message?”
Distress message? What was he talking about? Sassinak took over from the Com officer, and spoke to him herself.
“Captain Godheir, this is Commander Sassinak of theZaid-Dayan. We’re tracking pirates, captain. What do you mean, distress beacon? Can you explain your presence in company with a heavyworlder transport?”
“Heavyworlder transport? Where?” On the screen, his face looked both ways as if he expected one to come bursting through his bulkheads.
“Below - it’s going in to land. Now what’s this about a distress beacon? And what kind of range and detection gear do you have?”
His answers, if a bit disorganized, quickly made sense out of the past several days. On long-term contract to supply the Ryxi colony, he’d recently returned to the system from a Ryxi relay-point. “You know they prefer to hire human crews,” he said with a twinkle. “Routine flying’s too boring for them, or something like that. We’d picked up some incoming specialists, and the supplies. Unloaded over there - “ He waved in a way that Sassinak interpreted as meaning the planet in question. “Then we heard about some kind of problem here, a human exploration team that needed help, maybe a mutiny situation. So we came over - we can land without a grid, you see - But if you’re here instead, then I guess we’re not needed. You certainly gave us a start, Commander, that you did - “
“You may be needed yet,” said Sass. “How were you supposed to find this missing team?” Godheir gave her the reference numbers, and said he’d detected a faint beacon signal from near the coast. While they were talking, Com suddenly waved wildly.
Timran, piloting the number one shuttle of theZaid-Dayan, felt for the first time since coming on active duty like a real Fleet officer. On the track of slavers or pirates or something, in command of his own ship, however small. Actually it was better small - more of an adventure. Gori, hunched in the copilot’s seat, was actually pale.
“This is really it,” Timran said, with another quick sideways glance. He had said it before.
“Don’t look at me, Tim - keep an eye on your sensors.”
“We’re doing just fine.” In his mind’s eye, he saw himself reporting back to Commander Sassinak, telling her exactly what she needed to know, saw her smiling at him, praising him…
“Tim! You’re sliding up on him!”
“It’s all right.” It wasn’t, quite, but he eased back on the power, and settled the shuttle into the center of the transport’s blind cone, where turbulence from its drive prevented its sensors from detecting them. It was harder than he’d thought, keeping the shuttle in the safe zone. But he could do it, and he’d follow it down to the bottom of the sea, if he had to. Too bad he didn’t have enough armament to take it himself. He toyed with the idea of enabling the little tractor beam that the shuttles used around space stations, what the engineering chief called the “parking brake,” but realized it wouldn’t have much effect on something the mass of that transport.
“This is what I thought about during finals,” he said, hoping to get some kind of reaction from Gori.
“Huh. No wonder you came in only twelfth from the bottom.”
“Somebody has to be on the bottom. If they didn’t think I could do the work, they wouldn’t have let me graduate. And the captain gave me this job - “
“To get you out of her hair while she deals with that escort or whatever it is. Krims, Tim, you spend too much time daydreaming about glory, and not enough - lookout!”
Reflexively, Tim yanked on the controls, and the shuttle skimmed over a jagged peak, its drive whining at the sudden load. “She said stay low,” he said, but Gori snorted.
“You could let me fly. I can keep my mind on my work.”
“She gave it to me!” In that brief interval, the transport had pulled ahead. “And I’ve got better ratings as a shuttle pilot.”
Gori said nothing more, which suited Timran fine right then. Hehad cut it a little close - although he was certainly low enough for fine-detail on the tapes. Now he concentrated on the landscape ahead, wild and rough as it was, and tried to anticipate where the transport would land. There - that plateau. “Look at that,” he breathed. “A landing grid. A monster - “ The transport sank toward it, seeming even larger now that it was leaving its own element and coming to rest.
He barely saw the movement - something small, but clearlymade, not natural - when a bolt of colored light from the transport reached out to it. “Look out!” he yelled at Gori, and slammed his hand on the tractor beam control. The shuttle lurched, as the badly aimed beam grabbed for anything in its way. Tim’s hands raced over the controls, bringing the shuttle to a near hover, and catching the distant falling object in the tractor beam just before it hit a low cliff.