Cleo had woken Pol as she jumped the Gabriel into an unnamed system within the distant, mostly uncharted Acheron region.
‘Have we arrived?’ mumbled a sleepy Pol, stepping off the tube lift.
‘It seems so,’ said Cleo, reappearing on a control couch. ‘Scans indicate the two ships jumped into this region and have yet to leave.’
‘You haven’t found them then?’
‘Wow – don’t you look fabulous?’ exclaimed Cleo, looking up at Pol.
Pol stopped and looked down at the blue figure-hugging ship suit Cleo had made for her.
‘D’you think so? D’you think this is something human men would find attractive?’
‘Oh, yes. I modelled your figure on one of the most attractive Earth women of the twentieth century.’
‘Who was that?’
‘Marilyn Monroe – one of Ed’s favourites too,’ she said, meeting Pol’s gaze and raising her eyebrows.
‘How d’you know that?’
‘Oh – err – he told me once. Shall we get on and find these ships?’ she said, quickly trying to change the subject.
Pol regarded her suspiciously for a moment before sliding onto her couch and activating her holo console.
‘They could both be cloaked,’ Pol said, finding no returns on the regional sweep.
‘The second ship probably is, because it was tailing the first,’ said Cleo. ‘But the old freighter we’re looking for certainly didn’t have any cloaking technology in its original spec. But that doesn’t rule out it being retrofitted.’
‘Well, there’s nothing even remotely habitable here,’ said Pol, studying the results on the array. ‘Three distant cold planets and a large belt of rubble.’
‘Some of that rubble’s quite big too,’ said Cleo.
‘Are you sure they went no further?’
‘Our jump drive charges a lot faster than theirs, so as we went on, the traces were getting stronger for me to recognise. They end here, no question.’
‘They haven’t destroyed each other have they?’ asked Pol, a sudden chill running down her spine as she realised what she was implying.
‘No, there would be a sizable debris field and we would have spotted that in a millisecond.’
‘Hmm, good. What d’you suggest?’
‘Circle each planet with a deep scan and then move on to the belt.’
‘Can’t we use that anti-cloak scan thing that Ed and Andy found a couple of years ago?’
‘We could, but remember its range is limited. I managed to improve it slightly, but we still need to be within five hundred kilometres or so.’
‘We could have it activated anyway; you never know?’
‘It’s detectable unfortunately, they wouldn’t know where or what it was, only that someone was here and searching, which we don’t want.’
‘Bugger.’
Seven hours later, they’d deep-scanned each of the four planets and were working their way through the asteroids in the belt, starting with the largest and working their way down. Cleo was watching closely, but Pol’s eyes were drooping after staring at the holomap for hour after hour.
Ping.
‘Ah,’ grunted Cleo.
‘Ah – what?’ said Pol, squinting across at the holographic human.
‘We have a ping.’
‘We have lots of pings, every time you change a setting it goes ping.’
‘This one’s different.’
‘Sounded the same to me.’
‘Slightly different tone.’
‘Really?’
‘Your limited hearing range might not detect the difference.’
‘Oh, for ancients’ sake, Cleo.’ Pol’s arms slumped into her lap. ‘Make it so we can detect the difference. Like a fanfare or something.’
Da, daaa.
‘More like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’
Da, daaa.
‘Was that another practice?’
‘No, I rescanned the area the previous ping came from.’
‘So, you’ve found something?’
‘Possibly.’
‘When will you know?’
‘Two point one six seconds.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Pol, under her breath.
‘It’s a small return for a metallic substance in a crevice eighteen thousand kilometres away on this asteroid.’
A small red icon flashed against the surface of an irregular-shaped rock thirty-seven kilometres across at its widest point.
‘Are we going closer?’
‘Yes,’ said Cleo. ‘Only not too fast though. Don’t want to bump into any cloaked vessels.’
It took an hour to creep in as far as they dared before Cleo sent a drone over to get a close fly by. They both watched fascinated as the drone updated the holomap with images from inside the crevice, which became a shallow cavern at one end.
‘Wow,’ said Pol, as a small ship attached to a docking tunnel hoved into view.
‘That’s the freighter,’ said Cleo, grinning.
‘Good – where’s the other ship?’ Pol asked. ‘Has the drone got the anti-cloak thing?’
‘No, only the Gabriel has that.’
‘Can’t we try it to see if they’re close?’
‘It would give away our presence.’
‘But not who or where we are?’
‘No, just a rough direction.’
‘Couldn’t you use the drone to bounce the signal from the direction of the asteroid, so they think it’s come from there?’
Cleo stared at the holomap for a moment before shrugging and glancing over at Pol.
‘The human brain never ceases to amaze me,’ she said. ‘I actually hadn’t thought of that.’
‘So, it’s possible?’
‘Oh, yes, absolutely. If you wait a second while I reposition the drone.’
They watched as the drone’s video footage showed it zip in towards the rock face. It suddenly slewed around violently before the feed went blank.
‘What the fuck?’ uttered Cleo, changing the feedback to the Gabriel’s cameras.
The aftermath of an explosion was evident, as shrapnel bounced around within the confines of the ravine and cavern. A small GDA military ship had become uncloaked and seemed to have been blasted into the wall of the cavern. It was damaged on one side and was venting gas into space.
‘Oh, shit,’ exclaimed Pol. ‘Did we do that?’
‘The drone ran into them and exploded,’ said Cleo.
‘It made one hell of a bang,’ said Pol.
‘They carry six Kataligo missiles.’
‘Ah, that would do it.’
They watched as the venting gas slowed and stopped, allowing the pilot to regain control of the slow spin the venting had caused.
‘Do we offer assistance?’ asked Pol.
‘Probably not a good idea. They still don’t know we’re here or what caused that. I just hope I didn’t injure anyone.’
‘Did the freighter get damaged?’
‘Not that I can detect. A load of shrapnel rattled off its hull but apart from a few scratches it looks okay. Luckily the docking tunnels were behind it, so they survived.’
‘What sort of military ship is that?’
‘A marine special operations vessel that’s registered to – oh, that’s weird.’
‘What’s weird?’
‘It’s from the 28.’
‘I thought that was destroyed.’
‘It was.’
‘Perhaps the marines were tasked with this mission before that happened?’
‘They must have been.’
‘Movement,’ said Pol, pointing at two figures in armoured suits jetting out from behind the freighter. ‘What’s that they’re pulling with them?’
‘It’s an emergency evacuation bag.’
‘What, like for people?’
‘Yes – it’s a very quick way of getting someone through a hard vacuum safely. It’ll keep you in an oxygen-rich environment for up to an hour.’
‘Who’s in it?’
‘I don’t kno – oh!’ exclaimed Cleo, sitting bolt upright.
‘What?’
‘It’s Andrew.’