Chapter 27

Shipping Lanes to Mars, March 20, 2163
The Polnoye Resheniye en route to Mars

“Kapitan! We have high speed trace outbound from Mars, it is accelerating at 11gs,” called out Sonarman, second class Pasha Nikitin.

“Is it looking for us?” asked Kapitan Radmir Valery Kovalyov

“It does not appear so Kapitan. Sir, I believe there are two objects ... one is following an hour behind the first...” The radio sonar man rolled his eyes up in his head as he tried to recognize the radio noise generated by the high-speed devices. “Sounds like N-52 engines ... I cannot tell anything else; they’re making Very Low Power radar sweeps, they appear to be looking for traffic to avoid ... they definitely haven’t seen us.”

“Keep me informed,” said Kovalyov.

“Yes Kapitan, they will pass to our left later today at 10,000 kilometers at their closest point.”

“And the NSS Naha?”

“The Naha continues to do a Crazy Ivan at random intervals, but she continues on course and communicates with her sister ships at regular intervals.” The Crazy Ivan is a naval tradition in the west. It is a rotation by the Naha, anywhere between 45° and 315° and is to see if anyone is following. The Polnoye Resheniye was not following the Naha, they were merely going in the same direction, but it was an excellent exercise for the crew of the Polnoye Resheniye to continue to track the very unstealthy Naha.

Kapitan Kovalyov congratulated himself on the choice of the new radar operator. The last one wasn’t working out well and was given the option of walking home. “Your tea Kapitan?” asked his steward.

“Thank you Konstantine,” there was another well-chosen position to find some advancement in the ranks. The previous steward was getting too familiar.

The Polnoye Resheniye continued on course, following the Naha at a great distance, and as predicted, the mysterious objects passed far to the left of the Polnoye Resheniye. As they passed, they were hard to track because they were painted a flat dim gray, and they were moving incredibly fast. Also, their engines had shut down, and they were coasting at well over 400,000 km/h.

“Well?” asked Kapitan Kovalyov.

“They’re about eight meters long and tubular. We guess secure cargo transports possibly?”

“Are they weapons?” asked Kapitan Kovalyov.

“Unknown Kapitan. We estimate that the majority of its cargo is most likely fusible mass for those enormous engines.

Following a direct route like the Polnoye Resheniye is taking is good because you can be extremely quiet. You won’t use thrusters and engines to change course and make noise, however if someone gets an inkling of where you are and how fast you are going, they will be able to calculate where you will be for days, maybe even weeks. With that knowledge, they can program drones to do interesting things.

The two F-231 pilotless fighters shot past the Polnoye Resheniye then slowly rotated 180 degrees until they were pointing back towards Mars, then their engines throttles opened up. With their engines pointing away from the Polnoye Resheniye, the large dark ship didn’t see them. For over a day, the two F-231s chewed up reaction mass as their N52 engines slowed them down, then stopped. Then the engines opened up to 190%.

Through some programmed throttle manipulation, by the time the F-231s neared the Polnoye Resheniye, they were close to each other and charging at over 700,000 kph. WA-001 gave the Polnoye Resheniye a quick beep with VHP (Very High Power) Radar, similar to what the shipping lane buoys use but at a magnitude of a thousand times more powerful. Seeing something where they expected the Polnoye Resheniye to be, WA-001 gave WA-002 the go-ahead signal. Their weapons bay doors opened, revealing cameras and sensors, and WA-002 rolled onto its back. The ships moved apart and readied for their run.

They flashed over and under the Polnoye Resheniye like two bolts of lightning. WA-001 was 1,000 meters above the Polnoye Resheniye, and WA-002 was 500 meters below, shooting upwards at the belly of the mysterious ship. In the half second they were above and below, each F-231 took 500 images of the Polnoye Resheniye, then their throttles opened up to 200% for 1 minute and then they were gone, lost in the inky blackness of space.

Ten minutes later, a side door opened up on the Polnoye Resheniye and the lifeless body of Sonarman second class, Pasha Nikitin, floated off into space.