G-Pol Ch. 10

When their eyes met, Vixi gave the other woman an nod that let her know she hadn't forgotten her question. They would discuss it later. Rachel gave her a grateful smile and joined back in the ongoing conversation.

Their escapades and the cleanup and recovery afterward took most of the time in Transit. That and a three hour nap. In the last hour, Karl and Natasha helped Mike, Janice and Rachel properly fit and adjust their body armor to make it as comfortable as possible. It had to be Karl who helped Rachel though, since her conditioning, even with the mask, wasn't allowing her to have Natasha help her without at least some discomfort. That left Natasha to help Mike, and at Janice's insistence, they both helped her. Her comment was typical Janice. "If I'm gonna get played with, I want the whole package!"

By the time they were ready to emerge, everybody was armored and ready for trouble. Natasha brought the force shields up as the stars began to fade into view, and there was... nothing. The radar showed asteroids scattered through the space around them, but nothing else. A more detailed scan, looking for indirect signs of a stealth enabled ship also showed them nothing.

"Well," Lisa commented, "I guess we can look for a spot to finish our testing. It doesn't look like there's anybody around to mess it up this time."

Natasha nodded. "I was starting to wonder if I was going to run into trouble everywhere I went in this system."

"yeah." Vixi agreed, "The first time you show up, there's somebody waiting for you. Then, Mallory's waiting for you down on the planet. Then he sets a bomb in Rachel's club. He marks up the outside of your ship before he runs off. And finally, he sends guys after you when we come out here. I'd be getting paranoid too!"

Natasha nodded. "Well, let me set up a long range scan so we can find what we need." She did just that, setting the radar for a long range scan, looking for a dense enough field of small enough rocks to make a decent test for the missile defense laser system. There was no telling how long the search would take. It could be a few seconds, it could be as long as a few hours.

The four human crew members exited the bridge deck to let the system do its work. Natasha had programmed the system to also keep an eye out for anomalies. In other words, anything moving in a way inconsistent with a rock orbiting a star. The entire sensor system was active as well. Not only would the system be looking for moving objects, it would also be scanning all known frequencies for radar and or communications transmissions within a billion kilometer radius. If it detected anything, it would automatically set the force shield to maximum power and trigger an alert that could be heard anywhere within the ship. It would also automatically activate the ship's defensive systems. They wouldn't fire unless there was a direct and identifyable threat, but they would be ready for immediate action should they be needed. Any of the crew could trigger the automated self defense systems with a word.

Despite everything seeming fine, they all elected to stay in their armor for the time being. At least until the long range scan was done. They hadn't actually spotted the pirates before until they'd been watching them for a while. It was better safe than sorry.

A few minutes later they all thought their fears had been confirmed. Natasha was cussing in Russian as she and Karl rushed back to the bridge deck. Lisa and Vixi came in right behind them. The first thing Natasha noticed was the radar screen, and the dot moving nearly parallel to the ten thousand kilometer ring of its display. What, or whoever it was, they weren't coming in their direction. Karl was already turning the visual scanners and increasing the magnification, using the radar to pinpoint his target. In the meantime, Natasha was backtracking the object to see where it had come from.

What they saw on the vid screen was definitely not a pirate ship. It was half Czarina's size, old and obviously battered. However, it was moving under it's own power, apparently moving from one large rock to another by the looks of things.

Then Czarina's com unit came to life. "Howdy neighbors! Don't get too many visitors out this way." The man on the screen was old and rather worn, his clothes were obviously shabby, but he was neatly groomed and looked clean. A closer look at his ship on another screen showed that it was just as old and worn as the man looked, but stil in pretty good shape. It was obviously never intended to fly in an atmosphere, as it's skin was covered in mounts carrying heavy equipment and tools. That would leave all the ship's interior room for it's occupant's comfort and of course cargo.

At Natasha's nod, Karl responded. "Actually, we didn't expect to come across anybody out here. Are you a prospector?"

The old man smiled happily. "Got it in one! Guess its kind of obvious ain't it? Name's Vincent Dumoane. My friends all call me Vinny. Mind if I ask your names?" Karl introduced everyone on the bridge deck. Vinny chuckled. "Well Karl, you're either the luckiest man I know, or the unluckiest. From what I can see through your helmets, those're some really pretty women you've got with you! Ladies, its an honor to meet you all. So, what brings yu all out here this far anyway? If you don't mind my asking that is."

It was Natasha who replied this time. "We're with G-Pol."

Vinny nodded knowingly. "Looking for somebody hey? I probly aint much help, I ain't seen nobody else in two months since I been out here. Then again though, I don't exactly have top of the line sensors either. They could fly by a few miles away, and I wouldn't know the difference. Especially if I'm on the other side of a rock! That's where I was before I saw you. You know, just looking for anything good."

Karl chuckled at the old-timer's use of the archaic term for measuring distance. He looked to be a character all right. The man was moving around the interior of his ship as he spoke, and Karl could see much of the space he was moving around in. It was surprisingly neat. Even if it was every bit as shabby as the ship's exterior and her operator. Even more surprisingly, there was a substantial amount of greenery visible covering most of the wall behind Vinny. Karl's gut was telling him he could trust this guy, and that was enough for him.

Actually, we came out to test some new defensive systems." Natasha informed him. Apparently she felt the same thing he did. "Do you by chance know where there's a large dense enough field of small to medium rocks we can shoot at?"

Vinny's eyes brightened at that. "So, you wanna break some rocks open do ya? What're ya usin?"

Karl smiled knowingly. He'd already figured out what Vinny wanted. "An antimissile laser system. We need mostly small stuff to simulate the size of short and medium range missiles. You know, from half a meter to about three meters at most. The lasers won't do more than melt some of the material, unlike a particle beam, which would probably atomize some of it."

"Exactly what I was thinkin!" Vinny agreed with a chuckle, " I know a couple a good places like that. I looked around some In a couple of 'em, but prospectin in stuff like that... well, maybe you know, and maybe you don't. Unless you got some really fine sensors, all you can tell is that a rock's a rock. You can spot metals pretty easy with a good radar, but valuable minerals? Not likely. I done found my share by pure luck over the years. Its why I'm still out here. I find more'n enough to get by, but I ain't made it rich yet, so I'm still out here tryin. You start blastin rocks though, that might help me find somethin. I mean, I ain't got time to go breakin open every rock! This is an old star system you know. The sun's only good for another few hundred thousand years or so. Then its gonna collapse on itself; turn into a red dwarf. Firss though, it's gonna spread out and torch all these inner planets to nuhthin. Well, you don't care about none of that. Neither do I for that matter! Ain't none of us gonna be around to worry about it are we?"

Lisa was smiling; the old man was cute! "So vinny! Why not lead us to a likely spot, and we'll blast open a few hundred rocks for you."

Vinny laughed out loud. "Damn skippy little lady! Yall follow me! Oh, sorry bout my jabberin. It's a bad habit. "S'probly why Ah'm out here alone! Drove everbody else crazy! I'm out!"

Even as Vinny was speaking, his image was fading off the com screen. A moment later, his ship slowly rotated, and a pair of bright red signal lights appeared on its aft end. It began to accelerate away slowly. As Natasha followed though, it began to pick up speed more rapidly. This was because the much smaller ship used only grav drive. This eliminated the need to carry fuel for propulsion. As long as the ship had power from its fusion core, it could continue to navigate as needed. A ship that size couldn't afford to waste what little cargo space it had. It would need it all for the prospector's supplies, and whatever he managed to find out in the void. A claim on a rich strike could make a man billions, depending on what he found. That was the reason even lone prospectors could be found in even otherwise completely uninhabited star systems. It was a lonely and dangerous life, but some found it fulfilling as well.