Chapter Eleven - Plan of Battle

Alternity - Chapter 11

Plan of Battle

"Impressive," said Tyr, as he followed Dylan onto the bridge of the Andromeda. "Very nice," he said, inspecting the control consoles. "Low mileage. Mint condition. Driven only to church on Sundays by a little old Kalderan lady?"

"Well, not really," laughed Dylan. "She's seen her share of combat, but Mr. Harper has performed wonders during the time he's been on board." On the way to orbit on board the Maru, Dylan had briefed Tyr about the origin of Andromeda and its current crew.

Tyr stopped in front of the weapons officer station and ran his fingers appreciatively across its consoles. "A skilled operator could make beautiful music with this instrument," he said.

"If you consider yourself a skilled operator, Mr Anzsazi, then I have a proposal for you. It seems that for the moment at least we share a common cause. While I can slave the weapons station to the command station it would be far more efficient if the weapons station was manned separately. Would you consider manning that station?" asked Dylan.

"I spent a year as the weapons officer on board a Free Trade Alliance Customs Enforcer, Captain. I think you will find that I am more than sufficiently skilled for your needs," said Tyr. "And as you said, for the moment our interests coincide."

"Boss," asked Harper "are you sure it's a good idea letting him at the weapons console? He's a Nietzschean."

The other two men turned to glare at him while Harper glared at the newcomer in return.

"I have no intention of letting him have the run of the ship, Mr Harper," said Dylan, "and Andromeda will monitor his vitals while he is manning the console. If Mr Anasazi is planning anything she'll know it, and the interior defenses are activated."

Tyr stepped away from the console and leaned forward slightly towards Harper, hands on hips, looking down at the smaller man. "You're commanding officer is not the fool you appear to be, boy. Unless you think you can operate the weapon systems better than I can, I suggest that you remain silent and attend to your engineering duties."

"But," began Harper only to be interrupted by Beka who was sitting in her customary spot in the pilots chair. She swiveled the chair around to face Harper.

"Harper," she ordered, "for once keep your mouth shut. We can discuss this later, in private on the Maru." "Speaking of ships," said Dylan, "Where's that freighter, Mr. Harper?"

"Information coming up now," said Harper, turning away from Tyr to face the main viewscreen. There was a sullen tone to his voice "I concluded," he continued, "that any incoming extra solar vessels associated with legitimate asteroid mining operations would use standard commercial slipstream transiting points. So after having Andromeda perform detailed analysis of data obtained from Sinti's system surveillance and early warning systems while we were planet side, here's what I found. Err...actually, this is what Andromeda found at my request. Andromeda?"

The main viewscreen cleared, then displayed a graphical representation of the Sinti system. Andromeda appeared on one of the auxiliary viewscreens and began to speak as the screen began updating. "I analyzed the last month's worth of data from the surveillance and early warning systems. Twenty four days ago an anomaly was detected by the system." The screen showed asteroids in white, with the ships in red moving among them, or transiting to Sinti IV to release their cargo. "Seven slipstream events were detected during the day in question." The viewscreen showed the locations of the slip stream portals along with the time of their opening. "Six of these transits occurred on or near the standard map routing for inter-system travel. They had been properly registered with Sinti traffic control and Home Guard and the transiting vessels were broadcasting legitimate transponder codes corresponding to the transit registration information. Only one portal opened away from that routing." The viewscreen highlighted a slipstream event marked "# 4" which was well outside the commercial space lanes. "The transiting vessel in question was not registered prior to transit nor was it broadcasting a transponder beacon identification code. Either one of those factors should have triggered an alert in Customs and Home Guard circles and a patrol craft should have been dispatched to investigate. Significantly no craft was dispatched."

From her position in the pilots seat Beka muttered "Sounds like someone in system surveillance is on the take and burying the surveillance systems reports about the unregistered arrival."

Three days ago another such occurrence took place. The viewscreen changed displaying four slip points near commercial lanes with a fifth well away from the standard lanes. "Both craft were stealth craft and the tracking system soon lost contact with them, but not before their engine signature had been recorded. No craft with engine signatures matching theirs landed at any spaceport in the Sinti system."

"Could they have simply been run of the mill smugglers?' asked Beka.

"Possible but unlikely," said Andromeda. The first occurrence happened two days after a pirate attack in the Halcyon system while the second one took place one day after a raid in the Bathsheba system. The timing of the arrivals suggests that they are connected with the attacks."

"Were you two able to use the data to locate the pirate asteroid?" asked Dylan.

"Of course we have it Boss," put in Harper anxious to get in on the briefing. "I'm a genius and Andromeda is the hottest babe in the Commonwealth. Excluding Trance of course," he hurriedly added catching the look his spouse gave him. "We concluded that since the tracking systems didn't pick up any signs of the ships maneuvering after their initial entry into the system that they didn't vary from their initial vector when they first arrived in system. We then plotted out their projected course and compared it with the orbits of the asteroids in the belt to see if any intersected. We're pretty sure that the asteroid were looking for is this one. Both ships vectors intersected with this baby." The image in the viewscreen changed again to reveal a stylized version of the asteroid belt with one of the asteroids blinking on and off.

"Pretty slick piloting," said Beka, "if they could control their exit from the stream that well." "Good work, Harper," said Dylan, "and good work, Andromeda."

"You give thanks to your ship?" asked Tyr.

"Yes I do," answered Dylan. "After all, she's one of the crew."

Tyr stared in amazement, then went back to his study of the weapons consoles.

"Andromeda, what's the best way to approach that asteroid?" asked Dylan."

chapter image It shouldn't be that difficult," replied Andromeda. My recommendation is that we announce that we are entering the asteroid belt to find an asteroid suitable for conversion into missiles for me. We can linger there for a day or two then go to full EMCON and approach the asteroid. Analysis of the fighter we captured using Mobius High Guard intelligence data reveals that it's electronics and sensors are Marduk military export grade equipment. Assuming the asteroid is comparably equipped, and that they have no reason to expect our presence, I conclude that with full emissions control, including engine damping and infrared emission control we should be able to approach to within two light minutes of the asteroid without being detected. From our vantage point we can launch Janus drones to investigate the asteroid" Noticing Tyr's astounded look at the mention of having access to Mobius military intelligence data she explained.. "What's the use of being the flag ship of the New Commonwealth if you can't get some perks for it?

"Good plan," said Dylan nodding his head in approval. "However I want us to remain three light minutes away from the asteroid until we receive the information from the drones. Now our objective is information not destruction. Destroying the pirate base will undoubtedly put a crimp in their activities, but unless we get lucky and our Mr Howard is visiting when we attack the pirates will resurface again. We need to cut off the head of the beast not just one of it's tentacles. If the freighter or the asteroid have any weapons, we should take them out, but try not to cause massive destruction. We'll ultimately need to turn over the stolen cargo to the authorities. Our other objective should be disruption of their communications so they can't alert their comrades on Sinti and warn them to lay low." "That means no big baddabooms," added Harper, unwilling to let his captain have the last word. "Understood, Captain Hunt," said Tyr. Then giving Harper a look of disdain he added, "There will be no big baddabooms in this part of space."

Chapter 10