In reply to Jaxxon Zalvedes (msg # 47):

"Thanks, gives us a shot at faking a ghillie suit."

When things go wonky up on the bridge, Walker finds a seat and belts in.

If the crew wasn't up to this, the excursion will come to an abrupt end.

Major change in plans everyone.  Right now, do we find a great hiding spot here abouts or depart the area ?? 

Blake nods to Mariel to help with the controls, going to be difficult flying the Empress this low to the ground.  Not at all like one of those scout couriers.  Makes the Empress fly like a cinder block in comparison.

Mariel, lets bring her up a bit & get some altitude underneath us.  Crash positions everyone.  this isn't a drill.

Ken strapped himself into one of the crash seats in the bridge.  "Why the hell would they send us that course?  Could it have been spoofed from the Hegemony?"

In reply to Ken Jenkins (msg # 58):

Jaxxon checked the radio.

"Yes, it could be a spoofed Hegemony signal!"

In reply to Blake Renfield (msg # 57):

The ship dropped as Mariel cut the transponder.

Neva, having not been to Qarant before, was unaware of any place to hide. However, they were in Hegemony airspace out over the ocean, at least 300km from land at an altitude of 20,000m. There was a layer of cloud cover at 4000m.

Radars didn't show any approaching aircraft or missiles. They lacked the equipment that military and scout ships would have to detect if they were being locked-on by enemy Radar or Ladar sensors.

In reply to Jaxxon Zalvedes (msg # 59):

"Blake, taking the ship into NOE flight is dangerous. Even if we go slow this ship can still plow into a hillside and the hull will take a lot of stress."

Mariel switched off the transponders and checked the coordinates they were given. "It doesn't look like they were trying to crash us. More likely they just wanted us to come in for landing at their strip so they could seize the ship and claim it was our fault.

"I'm sorry, that was my fault. I should have checked out the glide path more thoroughly."

Ken shook his head as the ship leveled off at altitude.  "Let's get down to a safe height off the ocean so we are off of long range radar and get back to the League side of the border.  It had to have been spoofed.  That they did this means they are moving closer to war or know who we are."

OK, lets bring her up to a better cruising altitude then.  Sorry Mariel, I should have checked too.  The ship comes slowly upwards & the pilot's  relax.  Another half hour & Blake will turn on the electronics, find their location & turn towards the correct landing pad, staying well away from the boundary.

Care to re-assess our strategy Ken ??  Anyone else ??

Ollie, my apologies, but we will need to do a hull check one of these days.

"Are you thinking that we've been tagged, Blake?" Ollie's voice replied over the comm. "Had an electronic hitchhiker? Could be. Or it could be our illustrious adversary had out thought us and was expecting us."

More along the second choice Ollie.  Finding an electronic tag could be quite difficult.  We could sift thru the cargo once it's unloaded & have a look.  It does increase the paranoia factor though ...

Blake then turns to Ken Freighters have a quick turn-around time on these runs.  We may need an excuse to stay longer ...  Hydraulic leaks are nasty ones to locate & fix.  Plus a very valid structural check. wink, wink, nod, nod ...  Perhaps Ollie & Neva could put something together will you guys do your look/see.

The ship turned easily away from the Hegemony land zone. Radar picked up an aircraft of unidentified type vectoring towards them from the Hegemony zone at 50km range, subsonic speed (600km/h). It turned away once they were clear and returned towards the base.

They approached the League land zone via a loop down along the southern coast.

Closer to the League base they began to pick up a radio signal that seemed to be coming from the landing area. Blake's guess was the Hegemony had been jamming their signal by overpowering it, spoofing it as Ken thought.

"Unidentified ship this is League station Qarant. How do you read?"

Ken shook his head.  "I'd guess that they figured we would be headed this way after them.  They can't know yet what happened back on Alzenzi unless someone jumped here ahead of us. I'd say they know the electronic signature of the ship or there is some kind of tag.  We'd best scan as much as possible.  It's probably something in the transponder if I had to guess."

He considers their options. "I think we proceed as planned.  Let's spoof a maintenance failure if we have to in order to stay longer.  We'll just have to be careful."  He looked at Lorain.  "Do you have any pull with the Institute organization here that can get us help?  We really need to find out what Kalamanru is up to as well as try to rescue Dumaer."

League Station, university supply ship Belladona inbound.  How's the weather down there ??

Neva looked over at Blake.  "You tell Ollie that.  I'm not going to tell him that you want to fake a repair.  They get sensitive about that kind of stuff you know."  She grinned at the thought knowing that Ollie would probably do something but do it in a way that it really wouldn't injure his baby.

Far be it from me to tell our illustrious engineer what to do ...  I'm sure he is just bubbling with ideas ...   Blake keeps an eye on the flightpath & the outside scenery - always nice to file away an emergency LZ.

"Good! Be advised, for the last few weeks the Hegemony has been trying to decoy our air/rafts and supply shuttles from the League base to their landing field. They've done this in the past but stopped. Now they've started again, probably due to the damn war between the Imperials and Zhodanis.

"Anyways, you are cleared for landing. We don't have any facilities here other than the minimal. This isn't even my normal job, I'm the base camp comm specialist. Transmitting coordinates now."

The scopes didn't show any bogeys. They were quickly approaching the south coast of the League zone.

In reply to GM (msg # 71):

Thoroughly checking the course, Mariel nodded.

"OK, these check out. Bringing her in?" she asked Blake.

Yeah, lets land this puppy, been a long day.  Blake elects not to say anything about the spoofing while in the air.

Ken shook his head and frowned at the broadcast from the base.  "Damn Hegemony bastards.  They could have killed us all.  At least it's possible that it was not directed particularly at us."  He considered options.  "Let's not talk about our mission until we can get on land and then only with  the commander.  There may be spies in the camp."

Flying low over the ocean, they crossed the coast in minutes. Mariel brought them up to 1000m so they wouldn't need to use terrain-following flight. Within the hour, they were over the forested plain where the League landing pad was located. VFR (Visual Flight Rules) were in order, and they spotted a plume of red smoke.

The landing pad was a clearing in the woods large enough for their ship and another small craft or two. There were three prefab huts off to the side. Someone was waiting for them down below and had set a smoke grenade to guide them in. It was early morning.

In reply to GM (msg # 75):

From the copilot's seat, Mariel said to Blake, "bring 'er in directly, or circle to have a better look."

Ken went back to his stateroom and fetched his PRIS binoculars.  He swept the area with them and handed them to Blake. "See what you think Blake."

In reply to Ken Jenkins (msg # 77):

There didn't seem to be anything amiss. A path led to another collection of prefab buildings a short ways away on a riverbank, but as most travel was via air/raft there were no roads cleared in the forest. The other camp buildings appeared to be occupied because of their heat signatures, the huts at the landing pad were unoccupied. There didn't seem to be anyone hiding under the cover of the woods. If there were other vehicles parked under cover (and the Hegemony favoured ground vehicles due to a less sophisticated technological manufacturing base) they were well-hidden.

If we are going to make like we're damaged, best not do a tour, bring her right in.   Easy does it Mariel.  Assorted piloting jargon as they come in, take it slow & careful ...  and touch-down.  A whiff of dust & the Empress settles in place.

Now let's see what kind of a mess we've landed in.  Blake will head over to 'Traffic Control' to check in ...

In reply to Neva Alexovna Morozova (msg # 69):




A gruff laugh came from the comm. "Honest, officer, I don't know how those iron filings managed to get into that high voltage equipment."