Scout Force (51 page)

Kelly focused on the edge of the bubble between the system and the frontier.
 
He saw no ships or objects between the frontier or within 100,000 km.
 
He switched to star charts and scanned for the nearest K’Rang habitable planets.
 
None of the other stars in the cluster on the K’Rang or GR side had habitable planets.
 
Most of the stars were proplyds, a sun with a protoplanetary disk, billions of years away from having life-supporting planets.
 
He searched as far into K’Rang territory as his incomplete chart went, and the nearest habitable planet was more than a week away at max speed.

They approached the tendril near the frontier and slowed slightly.
 
Kelly felt someone looking over his shoulder, turned, and saw the captain looking at his display.

“Damn, it’s quiet out here, Kelly.
 
Let’s put a move on and get settled into the dust cloud Wanda found for us.
 
Call us to battle stations and bring the ship through the frontier.”

The klaxon sounded and the crew smoothly moved into their battle stations.
 
Marine squads positioned themselves equidistant along the center corridor.
 
LT Chen and Gunny Smith stood at parade rest behind the bridge command positions, fully armed.

Kelly brought them as far into the supernova’s tendril as he dared.
 
They were quickly through the frontier and without any reaction from the K’Rang sensor buoys or mines.
 
Kelly increased speed to max as they cleared and then cut power to the engines, allowing them to coast and get maximum sensor sensitivity.
 
Sensors still reported no contacts in K’Rang space.

Kelly brought the ship back up to full speed and completed the fishhook movement to bring them into the back side of the large tendril.
 
They moved into the dust cloud this time and picked their way through the tumbling rubble and gases to the top, to drop off a remote sensor pod.
 
They then moved down to settle underneath the gas cloud.
 
They moved to just far enough out for their ship’s sensors to have a full view behind into K’Rang space, below, around, and ahead.
 
With the remote sensor pod above them, they had full coverage.

They waited.
 
When two hours had passed and there was nothing on the sensors around or approaching them, the captain released battle stations.
 
Kelly recommended, and LCDR Timmons agreed, to keeping the two lower turrets manned at all times.

They settled in and waited.
 
Kelly realized he hadn’t eaten.
 
He made a run back to the galley for a couple of sandwiches, a glass of milk, and some cookies.
 
He sat down and was joined a moment later by LT Chen.

“So, sir, when do you think we’ll know anything?”

“I don’t know.
 
The Manchu Warrior is a day and a half away.
 
They’ll be in port for two or more days to offload their cargo of platinum ore and pick up a load of ingots.
 
The Refugio cargo station is pretty primitive.
 
It could take a while.
 
Meanwhile, we wait and we watch.
 
It’s up to the K’Rang now.”

They didn’t watch for too long.
 
Eight hours later Sensors spotted a large K’Rang ship coming in at power three.
 
They assessed this might be the FTL-capable ship bringing in the courier’s ship.
 
It moved to within 200,000 km of the Vigilant’s position and stopped.
 
Two K’Rang Scout ships and a heavy attack fighter launched from the ship and fanned out, moving toward the gas cloud hiding the Vigilant.
 
The captain ordered the ship closer to the charged cloud.
 
They settled into a pea soup thick area, several times larger than the Vigilant, with vapors gassing around its edges.
 
Vigilant vanished in this fog.

The three ships passed the cloud and the Vigilant by.
 
The attack fighter set up forward of the cloud's leading edge, facing the frontier, and the other two fanned out to the sides.
 
The captain let them get out of range and dropped the Vigilant back down to give the sensors full field of view.
 
The K’Rang ship ahead could not scan through the charged gas field, so they were safe from him.
 
The larger K’Rang ship behind them just sat and waited.
 
The two outlying scout ships moved out to 100,000 km on either side and waited.

Twenty-two hours later, Sensors picked up the Manchu Warrior coming into the 6633 system.
 
They slowed to below FTL and moved through the outer planets toward Refugio.
 
No shuttle craft left the Manchu Warrior as before.
 
The ship docked in the cargo station and offloaded its cargo.

The Vigilant waited and watched for two days.
 
No shuttle left the Manchu Warrior.
 
The K’Rang ships stayed in their positions.
 
No courier ship left the large FTL-capable ship behind them.
 
The captain was starting to get antsy.

“Kelly, I’m beginning to feel we are on a wild goose chase.
 
I’m just a little concerned that we are out here now, in K’Rang space, with a K’Rang heavy fighter within spitting distance, two scouts flanking us, and that big guy behind us, with Lord knows what in his cargo bays yet to fly out.
 
I’m not feeling real comfortable at the moment.
 
I wonder if the exchange is taking place down on Refugio.
 
I hope those Fleet Intel operatives know what they are doing.”

* * * * *

The exchange had indeed taken place, not on Refugio’s surface, but in the cargo station.
 
Two burly longshoremen in full exposure suits and thruster packs had left the cargo handling level for the aft cargo bay of the Manchu Warrior.
 
They expertly floated up to airlock, locked themselves in and operated the mechanism.
 
In two minutes they were at full atmosphere.
 
The airlock’s inner door opened and two recently employed crew members of the Manchu Warrior helped the longshoremen off with their suits.
 
As the helmets came off the feline faces of two shadow warriors came into view, the two crewmen stepped back for a second, looked at each other, shrugged and got back to helping them out of their suits.
 
The crewmen were being handsomely paid for this task.

The K’Rang disassembled their life support packs and pulled out two large packs from inside.

The two crewmen led the warriors down deserted passages to the owner’s large cabin.
 
The man inside waiting for the two K’Rang warriors was not the owner, but he had the owners’ every confidence.
 
Alan Shepler, an Indigo Consortium negotiator, was also a little nervous.
 
He had never met a K’Rang before and was not sure what to expect.
 
He had made many other transactions of all types, legal and otherwise, for the consortium.
 
He would manage to make this one work too.
 
This one, though, would garner him a vice presidency.

“Come in, gentlemen.
 
Please take seats.
 
Make yourselves comfortable.
 
Frank, Clyde, you can leave, but don’t go too far away.
 
See that we are not disturbed.”

The two crewmen left the room to stand guard outside the door.

The man turned back toward his guests and saw they were still standing.

“Please be seated, gentlemen.
 
I assure you we are quite safe and secure here.
 
You may verify that if you brought the appropriate sensors.
 
Would you care to join me in a drink or do you prefer nepetalactone?
 
If so, I have the finest blend from Earth for you.”

The larger and Tabby-colored warrior threw down his pack and spoke, “We do not care to drink and no, we do not care for catnip.
 
We are Shadow Warriors, not kittens.
 
Let us get down to business.
 
These pleasantries irritate me.”

The other Shadow Warrior took a step forward.
 
The man took a slight step back, looking at the two of them, recovered, and moved over to a wooden box on the desk in the corner of the room.
 
He opened it, took out a small cloth pouch, and carried it over to the warrior.

“I believe this is what you are here for.”
 
He handed it to the K’Rang courier.

The K’Rang took the data storage device from the man.
 
He inserted it into an obvious pocket terminal he pulled from a pouch on his coveralls.
 
He checked the data on his terminal, verified it was as promised, removed the data device and inserted another small device where the data storage device had been.
 
After a few seconds he put the pocket terminal away and the smaller device into his breast pocket.
 
He handed the data storage device back to the human.

The Shadow Warrior spoke.
 
“The data is as promised.
 
Our payment is here also as promised.
 
Make wise use of them–they are rare and increasingly hard to find.
 
Many K’Rang died gathering this amount for you.”

As the second K’Rang laid his pack on top of the first, it was opened for inspection by the human.
 
The senior Warrior thought how stupid these humans were to place such value on something so worthless that K’Rang children used them to skip across the water on home world.
 
It did not matter.
 
They now had the information they needed to push the Humans back and keep them back from the three K’Rang main worlds in what the Humans called the Scutum sector.
 
Once the one Human world was destroyed, they would fortify the area and take back their territory.
 
With fewer habitable worlds in the K’Rang Imperial space than in the Galactic Republic space, their few main worlds needed a buffer zone to protect them.

The larger K’Rang turned to the man, with a semblance of a smile on his face, “Please forgive my earlier rude outburst.
 
It has been a long journey and a tense wait for us.
 
Now that our initial business is complete, perhaps we can have that drink you promised us.
 
And while we choose not to partake of the nepetalactone, perhaps we could have some to take back as a gift from you to our superiors.”

The Human positively beamed.
 
“Why, of course, take as much as you want.
 
Take all of it.
 
Here, let me get you something to drink.
 
Is Scotch all right?
 
This is Real Scottish whiskey from Earth, aged 50 years.
 
It’s the best single malt Scotch there is.”

The Human babbled on about the Scotch for hours as the two K’Rang Shadow Warriors sipped theirs and made pleasantries.
 
If it wasn’t that they still needed him to get them on their way across the frontier, they would rip his throat out with only a flick of their claws.

* * * * *

      
Kelly had done some research on the K’Rang ships around them.
 
The heavy attack ship was a third the size of the Vigilant. It carried guns and 12 medium anti-ship missiles.
 
It was the greatest threat.
 
The scouts were the medium class scout ships, not the small mosquito-looking one he’d dealt with before.
 
They had a small caliber particle beam turret, but it was mainly for self defense, not for attack, so were no threat.
 
The big unknown was what was still on the FTL ship behind them.
 
If it had more fighters, things could get real dicey here on this side of the frontier.

      
Their best course of action would be to take out the attack ship first.
 
It had no idea the Vigilant was there, so surprise and superior firepower was on Vigilant’s side.
 
After taking out the apparent threat, Vigilant could deal with the scouts if they made any move.
 
Finally, if the larger FTL ship launched something unpleasant, Vigilant would have 5-10 minutes to employ the EMP device against the courier’s ship once it showed up, board it, grab the courier, and scoot back across the frontier, blowing a hole through the mines with Vigilant’s guns.

      
In a few minutes, Timmons briefed him on the same plan.
 
He did come up with a twist though; he was going to use the EMP device on the attack ship and take it out.
 
All Vigilant had to do now was wait for the courier ship to come along.

* * * * *

      
“Shadow Warrior,” began Alan Shepler, “We will be leaving the system soon.
 
Come with me and I will introduce you to our shuttle’s controls.”