AGU SCI 1: The Star Brotherhood (14 page)

"Damn. I'm reconnecting the FTL generator again. Get us out of here, Albert."

"How much oxygen do you have left?"

"I have forty-two minutes," Vyx said. "How about you, Nels?"

"I show thirty-eight on my HUD."

As the envelope began to form, communication with Vyx was lost again. Byers applied full power to the drive unit when the ship was fully encased and it disappeared in an instant. The other ship turned to follow, but it couldn't keep up and soon disappeared from the DeTect monitor.

"We've lost them again," Byers said.

"How do they keep finding us?" Kathryn asked.

"They must have planted a tracking device on the ship when they planted the explosives."

"Then why didn't they find us sooner when we were traveling sub-light?" Brenda asked.

"We'd detect an IDS-band transmission, so it must be transmitting on an RF band. RF transmissions are so slow that whoever is chasing us would have to be fairly close or we'd be long gone before they arrived. It was probably only intended to pinpoint our exact location once they were in the vicinity because they thought they'd know pretty much where to find us after the FTL drive unit was destroyed. They couldn't know about our true FTL speed capability."

"They know now," Kathryn said.

"It couldn’t be helped," Byers said. "We had to evade them."

"Vyx and Nels will be getting low on oxygen," Brenda said.

"I'll change course in a few minutes so anyone who might be following us will lose track of us. Then I'll stop in twenty minutes so they can come inside. I estimate that will give us a safety margin of around twelve minutes."

"It's not much," Kathryn said.

"We want to put as much distance between us and whoever is following us as possible so they don't arrive while we're bringing the guys in. Why don't you and Brenda suit up in case you have to go out and help them?"

"Good idea," Brenda said. "Come on, Kath."

As Byers cancelled the envelope and the ship was immediately stopped in space, Brenda and Kathryn stepped out of the airlock. They used their suit jets to maneuver up to the FTL repository, arriving in time to help Vyx and Nelligen untangle themselves and emerge from the cramped space. Both men were stiff and sore after so many hours of being squeezed into the limited space surrounding the drive unit mast, but the quick action had possibly saved their lives.

"I'm not going to be ready for love-making for a couple of days," Vyx quipped as he and Brenda entered the airlock.

"Who are you kidding?" she quipped back, "You're always ready for love-making."

"Well, at least give me ten minutes to get the kinks out."

"That sounds more like the Vyx I know and love. How about a long soak in the spa?"

"Sounds like heaven. At least it will be if you're there."

"Won't Nels be jealous?"

"Let him find his own girl."

When the ship was resealed, Byers built an envelope and headed the vessel towards Bleadalto at Light-487.

Brenda learned just how sore Vyx was as she helped him out of his EVA suit. By then Kathryn had arrived with Nelligen, and begun helping him strip off
his
bulky suit.

Hours later, sore muscles had responded to the warm swirling waters in the ship's large spa tub where Vyx and Nels were half dozing.

"Feeling better?" Brenda asked Vyx as she entered the spa area.

Vyx came alert and said, "Not as good as I'd feel if you got in here with me."

"What happened to the man who said he wasn't going to be ready for love-making for a couple of days?" she asked with a smile.

"I guess he got his priorities straightened out— among other things," Vyx said with a lecherous look.

"Down tiger, there will be plenty of time for that tonight."

"Don’t let my presence stop you," Nelligen said. "I promise I won't look— much."

Brenda grinned. "I think you've both had enough thrills and excitement for one day."

"Well, since I can't convince you to join me in here, I might as well join you out there."

"We have something that needs to be done before playtime. Albert believes there has to be some kind of location beacon on our hull because that other ship keeps finding us."

"Yes, that occurred to us as well," Vyx said.

"It has to be an RF transmitter or they would have located us sooner each time we stopped," Nelligen said.

"Albert said that also."

"I guess some of what I've been trying to teach him has finally rubbed off. Now if I could just get him to spice up the bland food he makes."

"I like the bland food," Vyx said. "You can always add your pepper and flamethrower spices after it's cooked."

"Yes, even I don't like the food as spicy as you do," Brenda agreed.

"Everybody's against me," Nelligen lamented and made a pretense of wiping away a tear with the knuckle of the forefinger on his right hand.

"Nothing personal," Vyx said with a grin.

"Okay, it's time to go to work," Nelligen said, smiling. "Could you hand me a towel, Brenda?"

After handing each man a towel, Brenda turned and hurried towards the exit.

Nelligen stood up and stared after her before he began drying his naked body. "Hope it wasn't anything I said."

"I doubt it," Vyx said and grinned as he stood up also.

An hour later Vyx and Nelligen were once again entering the airlock. Their rebreather units had been fully recharged, but they hoped they didn't need a full charge this time.

Using the equipment sensors Nelligen provided, they found the transmitter quickly, then performed another pass over the entire ship to ensure there wasn't another, or anything else foreign that should be removed.

Once the two men were back inside the ship, Byers built a new envelope and the ship surged forward on a slightly different course.

After deactivating the device, Nelligen tossed it on his work bench and commented, "Well, that won't be helping anyone find us again. You know, that transmitter wasn't flown onto the
Scorpion
. It had to have been placed on it."

"Nobody could have placed it while we were near the freighter."

"Right. So that means it was placed on the ship while we were parked at the spaceport at Ogsnara. The frequency is so far off the usual bands that no one would even notice the broadcast signal unless they were looking for it."

"Since the person didn't have to enter the ship, there was no need to know how to disable the safeguards."

"We have a new mystery," Nelligen said, "Who bugged the ship?"

"It had to be whoever planted the explosives. They were the only ones who had anything to be gained from planting a non-IDS transmitter."

"That makes sense." As Nelligen raised a hammer to destroy the transmitter, Vyx held up his hand to stop him.

"Seems like a waste of a good transmitter," Vyx said.

"What?"

"I've got an idea. Come with me. Bring the transmitter— and your tool belt."

Three hours later, Byers stopped the ship and dissolved the envelope long enough to fire a torpedo without a warhead. Inside an empty nosecone was the location transmitter, now reactivated.

"Let them chase that for a while," Vyx said.

Although the torpedo would run out of fuel quickly, it would go ballistic and keep traveling until it hit something. Since it didn't have a warhead, it wouldn't self-destruct. The power cell in the transmitter could possibly last for years.

"At least life can get back to normal," Kathryn said as they sat down to dinner.

"Or what's normal for us," Brenda said.

"I wish we had some more of that Tarlovo roast," Vyx said. "I feel like we should have something special."

"We do," Byers said as he placed a large platter of food on the table. "It's not Tarlovo roast, but it's something special."

"What is it?" Nelligen asked.

"It's seafood surprise," Byers said enigmatically.

"What kind of seafood?" Vyx asked.

"That's the surprise," Byers said.

Kathryn giggled. "
That's
the surprise? Come on, what is it?"

"The truth is I'm not sure. It looked a little like king crab. The merchant at the market called it reaquilo formoos and told me how his mother always fixed it."

"Was anyone else buying it?" Brenda asked.

"Not that I saw while I was there."

"That should have told you something," Nelligen said.

"Everyone was buying Tarlovo. What does that tell you? We know how they cook it and that it's awful everywhere you can buy it because they don't cook it right."

"It doesn't smell very good," Brenda said. "The Tarlovo roast smelled wonderful."

"Let's try it before we decide if it's good or bad," Vyx said as he scooped a portion onto his plate.

Everyone watched anxiously as Vyx tried it. A big smile lit up his face. Suddenly, everyone was scooping a portion onto their plate.

Nelligen was the second to push a spoonful into his mouth. After two chews he spit it back onto his plate.

By then everyone except Byers had taken a mouthful, and it seemed like a contest to see who would be second to spit it out.

"Aaaahhhh," Kathryn said, as she dripped the chewed food onto her plate. "That's awful."

Vyx spit his out onto his plate and laughed as Byers' face erupted into a huge grin.

"Yes, it's terrible," Vyx said, "but I didn't want to be the only one to suffer."

"You wouldn't have been," Byers said. "I tried it as I dished it up, which is why I didn't take a bite now."

"Maybe it's like the Tarlovo," Brenda said. "You just have to know how to cook it properly."

"If that's the case, the guy at the market obviously didn't know the secret," Byers said.

"At least we have Terran vegetables," Kathryn said as she scooped up a large portion of broccoli and cauliflower into a soup bowl.

"It not quite as bad as that," Byers said as he got up and took the platter of reaquilo formoos into the galley where he dropped the food into the recycle disposal. Returning with another platter and a stack of clean plates, he set them on the table. "I decided to make spare ribs after I smelled the seafood cooking. If the seafood had been good, we could have reheated the ribs for lunch tomorrow."

"Now that's more like it," Nelligen said as he took a clean plate from a pile and pulled some ribs onto it. He was just about to bite down when alarms began sounding. "What now?" he said, angry that he wasn't going to be able to eat while they were hot.

"That's the ACS alarm," Vyx said as he jumped up. "Our envelope is down. Get to the bridge."

All five agents forgot about their food as they raced to find out what emergency awaited them
this
time.

~ Dec. 30
^th
, 2288 ~

"What do you see?" Vyx said loudly as he jumped into the left pilot seat.

Nelligen was already staring at the DeTect screen as he dropped into the right seat. Byers was opening the larboard weapons console while Brenda was opening the starboard console. Kathryn was already manning the communications console and listening for anything directed at the
Scorpion
.

"Something's blocking our path," Nelligen said. "It's about a billion kilometers off our bow."

"Is it a ship?" Vyx asked.

"It would appear to be— from the shape, but I'm not getting an energy signature."

"None at all?"

"Nada."

"Anybody else got anything?" Vyx asked.

"No ships on the larboard screens," Byers said.

"Nothing to starboard," Brenda reported.

"No response to my attempt at communications contact," Kathryn chimed in.

"So what are we talking about— a derelict vessel?"

"Could be," Nelligen said. "We're so far distant from the normal space lanes that we might be the first ship in a hundred years to find it directly in their path. If our course had been a kilometer off in any direction, the ACS wouldn't have halted us and we wouldn’t have stopped to investigate a piece of space detritus when the DeTect alarm sounded and we saw no energy signature."

"Okay, as long as we're stopped, let's ease up to it and see what it is. I'm cancelling the ACS for this contact and rebuilding the envelope. I won't cancel it when we get there, just so we're ready in case that object suddenly comes alive."

The
Scorpion
moved ahead slowly, just a million kilometers a second as the crew studied the object for any signs of life. After seventeen minutes, Vyx halted the ship just twenty-five thousand kilometers from what was now clearly a single-hulled freighter. If the unknown ship was manned, laser arrays would be largely ineffective at this range.

"Anyone spot any sign of life?" Vyx asked.

"Nothing," Nelligen said.

One by one the others concurred.

"Okay, I'll move us in closer."

Five minutes later, they were close enough to get high-resolution images of the unidentified ship.

"Look at those holes," Vyx said. "Do they remind anyone of anything?"

"The hull reminds me of the images we saw of the ships attacked by the Denubbewa," Nelligen said.

"Yes," Brenda agreed. "The
Yenisei
and
Salado
had holes like that over their entire hull."

"What are you saying—," Byers asked, "that the Denubbewa are here in Region Three? Those other attacks occurred almost two thousand light-years from here."

"No one is saying yet that the Denubbewa are here, or were here, but look at that hull. Or someone could be trying to make it look like they're here."

"For what reason?" Kathryn asked.

"Perhaps to increase the Space Command presence in this area," Vyx said. "Region Three is as large as Region Two, yet we only have one-twentieth the number of ships assigned here." Vyx paused to take a deep breath. "We're getting ahead of ourselves. It was assumed that the Denubbewa crossed into GA space near the Ruwalchu border. But perhaps the Denubbewa passed through
this
area to reach Region Two. We should go take a look at that ship and see if we can determine how and when it got that way."

"We're not engineers or scientists," Byers said.