Through the freighter's transparisteel canopy, Kaerb could see the rapidly growing blue and white marble that was his destination. Glancing over at the chron, his jaws gaped in a grin. Right on time. The planet's bulk was safely between his ship and the monitoring station on its oversized moon, and the only real sensor grid in the region he was headed for should be going offline any second. He turned his head slightly, bringing a particular communications display within his field of view. As he watched, an indicator light began flashing, a sign the unit was decrypting an incoming tightbeam data transmission. The message that appeared on his display was short: "The waters are still."
The waters are still, it is time to go swimming. The phrase lost a lot of its poetry in the translation to Basic, but its basic meaning remained clear. Close enough now to be slipping within the outermost ring of widely disbursed Terran satellites, Kaerb rolled his ship into a steep trajectory directly towards the planet's surface. The power hungry descent would get him to ground before the lunar station crossed the horizon, and his ever reliable contact had just made sure his presence would not be monitored by the New Republic forces on the planet. All that left was the conventional Terran sensor capability, and the day Kaerb couldn't slip through a net as archaic as that. . . well, he wouldn't need to retire, because he'd have to already be dead.
Nick leant casually against the bonnet of his speeder as he watched Kaerb's vessel, the Aquaris Wanderer, make its final descent. Behind him, he could hear the two Ewoks he had brought with him jabbering quietly to each other. They had been engaging in a few bouts of light sparring, but had stopped with the approach of the smuggler's ship. As the sleek, almost fluid craft settled on its landing struts, Nick straightened and moved forward.
As he approached, the boarding ramp began to lower, slowly revealing the familiar figure of a Mon Calamari starship pilot. Before the ramp had even touched the sand, his rasping voice growled, "Remind me again why we always have to meet in this water-forsaken wasteland."
Nick's reply was as oft-repeated as the ship captain's complaint. "Because this is the part of the sensor net I control, and out here we don't have to worry about overly curious Terrans. Not to mention the fact that anyone who does spot us will be accused of seeing things. Besides, if you think about it, you've got ocean on all sides."
"Two thousand klicks away!"
"Well if the desert bothers you so much, why do you keep coming back?"
By now, Nick and Kaerb had met at the bottom of the ramp, and clasped hands firmly. "Because the planet's so pretty from space? Hmm, no, plenty of pretty planets in the galaxy. Ah! I have it. I get paid well for what I transport. That's the one!"
Looking past the smuggler's gape-jawed grin, Nick could see the cargo from this latest trip appear at the top of the ramp. He raised a hand to acknowledge their pleased yammering. From the sound of it, two successful missions and two Ewok commandos quite happy to be heading home for a break. "Yep, For sure, you're raking in the cash. Shame you don't get to keep any of it."
"Details, details. Let me enjoy my delusions." The erstwhile smuggler's expression suddenly turned serious. "Now, I actually have a few important matters to discuss with you." With a motion of his hand, he stepped further away from the ship's entry. "You already know that the General is taking a very hands-on approach with this planet. There are resources here he is eager to take advantage of, but he's also concerned about inadvertently provoking another Adumari-style incident."
Nick followed, listening to Kaerb while keeping half an eye on his furry subordinates. The two returning commandos had exchanged greetings with the two who had arrived with Nick, and now all four were working to transfer a number of crates from the back of the speeder to the Wanderer's cargo bay. At the main entry hatch, Kaerb's co-pilot directed them in the placement of their burdens. As Kaerb paused, Nick returned his full attention his friend. "No, that point had completely escaped my attention. I've only been working for him for a year, after all."
All business now, Kaerb ignored the Australian's sarcastic response. "Now, the General has taken extraordinary pains to ensure that the source of his illicit merchandise is not revealed. However, he has reason to believe that some of your former clients may have become upset with the abrupt withdrawal of some your own product lines last year."
Nick nodded. "Yeah, we've been expecting fallout from that. The clients of those product lines weren't exactly what you'd call nice people. That's why the General is so eager to smoke them out. Helping get the Wraiths off his back is no doubt a nice bonus, as well."
"True, but it gets worse. If they'd simply been mad about the loss of their supplier, you'd have heard from them long since. We figure they just started looking for alternative sources - the General's been able to exploit that. However, when you reopened your doors with the legal product lines, some of them became curious about what happened to you. Other incidents, including the General's activities, may have furthered that curiousity. The final straw was when people started asking about you and your business on Mssar a couple of months back."
"A couple of months ago? Bloody hell, I wish you people would tell me these things. I'm quite willing to suffer a bit of extra anxiety for the sake of knowing that someone is probably gunning for me. I'm pretty sure the Chief would have liked to know, too."
"Yeah, well, we thought we'd be able to handle it on our end. It turned out we were wrong. The individuals in question disappeared a couple of weeks ago. And we didn't have anything to do with it."
"You think they came here? But our sensor net is good enough. . . waitasec. A couple of weeks ago would put it around the time of Mucs's last run. She seemed a little jumpy. I'd chalked it up to the fact that she nearly screwed up and blundered into the conventional nets, but maybe it was something more."
Kaerb's eyes swivelled thoughtfully. "Mucs Efilwol? Yeah, maybe. I've never had any real contact with her. I only know the name because she's one of the real smugglers making this run to hawk your legit stuff. To tell you the truth, we got caught a little flat-footed on this one. We weren't even able to get a name for the guy asking most of the questions on the station. And if they are on-planet, you're better equipped to deal with them than we are."
"Yeah, thanks for the heads-up, even if it is a little late." The Mon Calamari pilot had sufficient grace to look embarrassed. "I'll pass it on to the Chief. Hell, if we can't clean up a little mess like this, how can we expect the General to continue to rely on our aid in securing the planet?"
"I'm sure you'll be your usual efficient, destructive selves." Glancing back at his co-pilot, who was signalling from the hatchway, Kaerb continued, "Anyway, it looks like our friends have finished loading, and my new passengers are all aboard. I'd better get moving or I'll miss my exit window and your man in the moon will have bad things to say about you."
"About me? Just think what the General would do to you for letting yourself get spotted by people who aren't supposed to know you're here."
Halfway back to the ship's hatch, the Mon Cal shuddered theatrically. "OK, you win. I'll just be moving right along then."
Nick laughed. "Calm waters, Kaerb. I'll see you next time."
"Calm waters, my friend. We let our guard down this time. Don't you do the same."
Kaerb disappeared into the ship, and Nick turned towards his speeder and the pair of Ewoks seated in the back. As he slid into the drivers seat, there was a whine of repulsorlifts as the Aquaris Wanderer rose slowly into the air. Kaerb rotated his vessel slightly and then fed power to the main drive and disappeared into the night sky. Bringing his gaze back below the horizon, Nick powered up his own vehicle. His mind busy with plans and theories arising from Kaerb's revelations, he turned her around and headed for home.
Nick rubbed his eyes. After getting back from the meeting with Kaerb, he'd spent a couple of hours inspecting the code responsible for keeping clandestine visits like Kaerb's out of the main sensor logs. If Mucs had made an additional drop, or if someone else had snuck in through the sensor net, an error in this system was a likely culprit. Still, he'd been looking at the relevant parts and there weren't any obvious errors. Hell, he and Sci had gotten a couple of Cracken's people to go over it with a fine tooth comb, and they'd pronounced it adequate. So what had gone wrong? Maybe Kaerb was mistaken, and those people hadn't come to Earth after all. Nick grunted to himself. Wishful thinking.
OK, if the code looks like it's doing what it is meant to, then take a step back. Is there a flaw in the intended purpose? Nick looked again at the code on the screen. Within specified time periods, all references to particular objects on particular flight profiles were either removed from the sensor logs, or never entered in the first place. Fine so far. What are the tolerances? Generous. OK fine, they have to be. Pilots aren't perfect, ship configurations change, turbulence can throw things around.
Nick paused. The tolerances had to be generous to make sure that the intended traffic was masked correctly. But that generosity could be creating its own problems. Reactivating his test program, he ran the masker over the sensor profile of the Aquaris Wanderer making a standard drop in Central Australia. No problems - masked cleanly. He added the profile of an X-wing starfighter closely shadowing the Wanderer all the way down. Still masked - no alarms. He modified the Wanderer's flight path to make an additional drop a short distance away before transferring to the rendezvous point. Still masked - nothing recorded in the main logs. Damn.
He started drumming his fingers on the desk as he considered his options. He'd already wasted a few hours tracking this down. But the fact was, finding out how they got in wasn't that likely to get him closer to figuring out just where they were, now. Still, it was important to determine if there really was a problem that needed to be nailed.
There was a solution. It wasn't ideal, but hell, he'd already tipped his hand when he let the alarm through by getting the times wrong. If Sci didn't like it, well, he'd cope.
"Moonchild, this is Six. Not sure what time you're on, but if you're awake, take your nose out of whatever book you're reading and talk to me."
At the sound of Nick's voice, Kristy looked up. When she realised what he'd called her, her eyes narrowed. Carefully marking her place, she put the book aside and slid the repulsor chair over to the comm unit.
"You're going to use that against me forever, aren't you?"
"Against you? You came up with it. Besides, it suits you."
Kristy smiled. "If you insist." Her smile faded as she remembered the unsatisfactory conclusion to their last conversation. An edge came into her voice as she continued, "Now, this time, if you want me to help you, you're going to answer my question."
"All right. No, you weren't seeing things. Yes, there was an alarm. Yes, it was erased from the sensor logs before you accessed them. Your mind is your own, but I'm asking for your trust."
Nick's response took Kristy by surprise. After his evasiveness last time, a straight answer was the last thing she expected. Then something else caught her attention. "You're telling me the Chief authorised this?"
"Yes, that's what I'm telling you. It's need to know, and you didn't. Now you do, so I'm telling you. I need you to run something through the computer up there. I'd use the one down here, but it's going to be busy enough with my own data searches."
"And that's all you're going to tell me about it?"
"Not quite. We have a potential hostile Visitor on the deck. I'm going to be sending you the unaltered sensor logs for the last two months, as well as a list of authorised traffic which won't appear in the main logs. I need you to run an analysis on those unaltered logs. I think one of our contacts may have brought an unfriendly in - close shadowing is a definite possibility, as is an additional drop before the official rendezvous. Look at the insertion that occurred 15 days ago first and let me know what you find, but I'll need you to scan the entire log anyway."
"I can do that. Just promise me one thing."
"What's that?"
"You will eventually tell me what this is all about, won't you?"
"I'll see what I can do. I can't promise but I'll try."
"I guess that'll have to be enough. I'll let you know what I find."
"You'll have the data shortly. Thanks, Moonchild."
Before Kristy could think of a suitably witty riposte, the Australian had disconnected. Glancing at the chron, Kristy realised she should get some sleep after she set up this analysis. That would put her roughly on the same time as the team in Paris. They should be getting down to some serious work tomorrow, and I'll need to be on top of alert. Kristy paused and shook her head. On top of things. Alert. Damn, I really do need some sleep.
Back in Brisbane, Nick started the data transmission and then sat back in thought. His own efforts now would have to focus on other avenues of investigation. In light of the current situation, the previous week's attack on Josh had acquired a whole new meaning. Where had those attackers come from? Was it an attempt at an indirect assault via his friend?
Nick shook his head. Too much speculation, not enough data. He directed the computer to begin collating a summary of recent activity reports for individuals with suspected or known extraterrestrial contacts. He also activated a scan of all of the communications taps he had access to. Even with the computing power at his disposal, sorting through that junk pile was going to take a while. Time to get some rest. I have a feeling I'm going to need it. As he rose from the desk, he paused. Should he attempt to contact Sci?
No, not yet. The Boss has enough crap to deal with. No need to bother him until Nick was sure there was a problem. The same went for Josh. Nick knew the sort of paranoia levels Josh operated at when out on a mission. If anything's going to happen, he'll be ready for it.