The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception (16 page)

***

On the far side of the solar system a small, automated probe jumped into existence. Because of its size and the distance, it went undetected by the human's nascent hyper-field sensors.  By human standards, the onboard AI was not very sophisticated. But in reality, it didn't need to be. The probe's mission was simple. Engage its stealth systems; locate all population centers; record everything it saw, and then return with this information to the point of origin. It began to accelerate to .2c, and began actively cataloging everything it encountered.

Cat was waving goodbye to her father. It seemed odd that she was on their catamaran in calm seas, with perfect visibility, and yet she could hear the distant drum of a fog horn.  Slowly the horn got louder, until she realized it was Cal relaying a klaxon alarm to her auditory nerve, and waking her up, from what had been a sound sleep.

"Cal, report." Cat mumbled, while still half asleep.

"Captain, Lt. Carstairs has run into an anomaly, that has me concerned."

Cat came wide awake. For Cal to admit to being concerned, a situation must be truly grave. "Cal, loop Carstairs into this conversation, ASAP."

When the lieutenant joined a second later, Cat simply said, "Give me the details."

The lieutenant began to relay what had caused the concern. "At 23:49 I began a review of archived sensor sweeps, in an effort to develop a noise profile which could be used to enhance sensor sensitivity. Cal was helping me with the cleanup. With the background noise factored out, an anomaly appeared at 46AU 6 degrees above the elliptic... Approximately 103AU from our current position. The signature is unquestionably that of a hyper drive, but it's smaller than we have ever seen before."

"Cal, does the drive signature match anything you are familiar with?

"Yes, Captain, there is a high degree of probability, that this is an unmanned D'lralu probe."

"Wake the Admiral"

***

The Admiral's senior staff including Cat, her First Officer Ken Kirkland, Chief Engineer Thais Figarero, his executive assistant, Lieutenant Commander Sherry Melbourne, as well as Lieutenant Carstairs and of course the Heshe AI Cal. All were present in one form or another in the Ready-room just off of the Yorktown's bridge.

Admiral Faragon leaned forward. "First things first. I want to commend Lieutenant Carstairs and Cal for the work they did enhancing the sensors."

"Thank you Sir" the lieutenant said crisply.

Noticing how uncomfortable the young man was, the Admiral smiled. He remembered what that seat had felt like, the first time he had been the young lieutenant sitting in it.

"Relax son... I don't bite... Well not often anyway. You have a good head on your shoulders... Just keep using it, and we'll get along just fine."

"Yes, Sir"

"So!" the Admiral said to the room. “Fate has handed us an opportunity...  The D'lralu have sent some type of automated recognizance craft into our space. The question is, how do we best take advantage of it?"

"There is an insect in the Amazon jungle... A type of ant, that secretes a sweet smelling perfume. The perfume attracts other insects and small birds. The ant allows itself to be eaten, after which toxins in its body incapacitate the other creature, and the ant colony overwhelms it."

"Who'd have thought our Chief Engineer was an entomologist?" Ken said with a grin at Thais.

"It's an interesting idea though," Cat said. "We know, from what the Heshe have told us, that the D'lralu like to capture technology and biological samples from species they plan to attack. Cal, does that apply both when they are using manned scouts and automated probes… or just in the case of the manned scouts?"

"
Unknown, Captain. The Heshe have rarely encountered the D'lralu's probes. I suspect you are seeing one, because they have lost two ships now in this general vicinity. As you know, despite the D'lralu's generally inferior technology - the Heshe have never been able to discover their planet of origin... There is a lot about this race we do not know, or quite frankly understand.
"

Cat looked at Thais with what she hoped was an encouraging expression. "Let's assume that the probe is programmed to take opportunistic samples of our technology... How do we use that?"

Thais looked at first her captain and then the Admiral as if seeking permission to continue. "We could drop something in its path that was too tempting to pass up."

"OK," the Admiral began... "What can we drop that will be sweet enough to entice the probe to pick it up, and at the same time provide value to us... Especially in terms of intelligence as to the D'lralu home world?"

Ken spoke up, "It seems to me, Sir, the problem is even more complicated. If the D'lralu's home-world has gone undetected this long, then we must assume there will be special protocols in place to disable any captured technology... To prevent just what we are trying to do."

"That is undoubtedly the case. The question is..." the Admiral said sitting back, "... can we be smarter?  No system is foolproof."

Ken steepled his hands in thought. "There really isn't any sane way to approach this without knowing more about their defenses... Maybe it’s a mistake to try to circumvent them on the first go around." The First Officer looked up. "I'm beginning to think we should deliberately fail. Drop a full load sensor package right in front of it. Let it disable the thing, but we use the opportunity to capture as much data as possible."

"Who'd have thought a chaplain could be so devious," Thais parroted.

"I like it... I think it's our best option at his point," Cat said. "We should probably build a second unit, that can either be adapted to take advantage of any flaws we find, or act as a backup to gather more data."

"Alright... We have an initial game plan," the Admiral said.  "Let's place a cloaked observer far enough away to escape detection... Also, avoid using any Heshe tech in the probe to be captured... We don't want to tip our hand. Giving the enemy bad information, is almost as important as collecting good information.

***

It took the crew of the Yorktown three days to locate the alien probe. Even though they had a good idea where the craft had entered the solar system, it had engaged some of its own stealth technology. It was only the hyper-field detectors that were able to locate it. The Yorktown deliberately did not alter course to intersect the probe, instead preferring to maintain the illusion, that they were unaware of its presence. Several 'Decoy' probes, with the best non-Heshe human sensor technology and externally programmed generation one hyper-field drives, were prepared. These were setup to resemble and function like automated general mining probes, which would explain why they would be jumping in near the alien device.

"It seems..." Ken was telling the Admiral and Cat, "that the D'lralu are using a hyper-field, much the way we do, to deflect beam weapons... Only, they are using it at a much lower level and across a much wider spectrum to, in essence, cloak their probe. We can't see them, but we can see their hyper-field."

"You realize what this tells us..." the Admiral said, while reaching for a French-fry.

Cat pushed the ketchup in his general direct. “It means they probably don't use hyper-field detection sensors."

"Exactly!"

"Does it strike anybody else as odd, that they have had this technology for hundreds of years, and we who have had it for less than a year, are finding new things to do with it, that they don't seem to be using?" Cat mused.

"Speaking of new things..." Ken said, "I wonder if we can tune our deflectors to provide the same type of cloaking that they are using?"

Cat looked up from her sandwich. "Why don't you talk with Cal and Thais... See what you can do, but leave the primary deflector operational."

"Will do. When do we want to drop our present for our little friend out there?"

"Admiral?"

"I'd love to have as many sensors on that thing as possible. On its current course, it will be in a direct line-of-sight of both Mars and Jupiter in another couple of hours. What do we have in that area that will work?"

Cal answered thru the group's individual comlinks. "
There are a number of asteroids within the zone of interest. 4179-Toutatis would be a good choice.
"

***

Reconnaissance probe Eleven paused, as its cybernetic components evaluated what its sensor arrays were seeing. 'Seeing' was a relative term. When Eleven had been truly alive, and a part of a pack, his eyes would have drunk in vivid colors, and his snout would have relished the scent of his prey... But that was before the masters came. That was before the humiliation of defeat in battle. The purgatory for such shame was eternal servitude in this half dead half living state... A thoroughly lobotomized cybernetic construct, destined to forever scout the enemy’s stronghold, but never know the glory of battle.

Eleven's sensors allowed him to 'see' a poorly shielded electromagnetic flux. The humans, as they called themselves, had some active technology in use nearby. A programming directive was triggered, and Eleven changed course slightly to investigate. The source of the signal was approaching a moderately large, dual asteroid. The craft appeared to have plasma torches and overly large reaction mass thrusters. Eleven's pattern recognition subroutines concluded this was some type of mining craft. Determining what the humans mined, as well as their level of technology, were both designated priority one objectives, so a second programming directive was triggered. The human machine would be neutralized and secured for further analysis by the home world.

Eleven charged its EMP canon. When the unit reached 20% it fired. A 10 mega joule energy blast enveloped the mining probe.  Amazingly, the human mining probe shrugged off the energy pulse. Apparently its critical systems were shielded. A metal cage, surrounding the unit's AI with optical couplings to external systems, would be the most effective means of accomplishing this level of protection. Eleven filed this information for its report.

Eleven charged its plasma turret, and fired a short focused blast. The outer shielding of the probe seemed ablative in nature. Several inches of material evaporated from its outer shielding. A spectral analysis of the vapor indicated some form of metallic ceramic. This information was stored as well. Eleven adjusted the length of fire to allow penetration of the outer shielding and cowling.  As the energy beam ablated the mining probe's outer surfaces, Eleven continued to analyze the ejected material.

Eleven took its time. Care was essential. His programming required as much of the craft as possible to be preserved, so that the best quality sample was obtained for proper threat assessment. Once the hull was breached, Eleven fired another EMP blast. This time the desired result occurred. The mining probe's systems were overwhelmed by the electromagnetic pulse and shut down.

Eleven approached the neutralized human probe. It was much smaller than Eleven, so he pulled it into one of his storage bays designed for sample collection. His primary programming kicked in, and the cybernetic probe, known as Eleven, resumed its original course.

Unknown to Eleven, while he was studying the probe, the human probe was studying him. A detailed data feed was send via an ultra-secure and utterly untraceable quantum entanglement communications device. Old fashioned but highly effective thermite charges, rigged to mechanical deadman switches, insured the true capabilities and purpose of the probe would not be discovered.

***

"So..." Cat began as she, her First Officer and a team from engineering began to brief Admiral Faragon. "The D'lralu probe started with a series of low power assaults designed, we think, to ascertain how robustly defended the target's systems are. It then followed up with a precisely tuned attack, which just defeated our probes defenses. Once defeated, it hit the probe with a ten mega joule electromagnetic pulse, frying the internal electronics."