Chapter 26: Foe System

It was probable the foe vessels had not seen our arrival in the system. If that were the case, they would soon leave for the Baglogi system. I could not let that many vessels go. We had little time to act.

“Ship, bank right thirty degrees NOW!” I yelled. We were cloaked, but I could not afford a collision with Ship.

“Confirmed,” said Ship. We moved out of the way. The unmanned vessels however continued towards the foe vessels.

“Alda, Bera, Cala, deploy all your data port probes ahead of the advancing foe vessels then bank left thirty degrees,” I said.

“Confirmed,” x 3. On the display there was suddenly a cloud of sixty data port probes drifting towards the foe vessels. Three green dots were peeling off to the left. But the foe vessels were moving too fast. I needed them to slow down.

“Dura, full stop, de-cloak and engage dreadnought. Wait one minute and then disengage dreadnought, cloak and move left,” I said.

“Confirmed,” said Dura. Suddenly there was an enormous dreadnought class battleship on the sensors. It was directly ahead of the foe vessels. As far as they knew it had just arrived in the system. I had not mentioned this to Jem and Koluna. Their eyes grew wide as they saw the stats on the tactical display for the dreadnought. It confirmed this was a monster of a ship. It was armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry.

It had the result I was looking for. The foe vessels were in a state of panic. This honking big dreadnought was right in their path. Every foe vessel in the fleet got imminent collision warnings. Thirty foe captains would require new underwear. With seconds to spare the foe vessels applied braking thrusters and veered off to avoid destruction.

At least their plan to go into hyperspace was aborted. Their rapid deceleration brought the fleet of foe vessels into contact with our data port probes at a manageable relative speed. The data port probes targeted the data port next to the docking port on each vessel. I was surprised how quickly it worked.

One by one the foe vessels came to a stop. On our tactical display the red dots turned grey. Soon they were all drifting in space and there were thirty grey dots.

By now Dura was cloaked and had moved to the side to avoid a collision. There was a pause and then I let out a breath I did not realize I had been holding. It worked. Somehow it freaking worked. We just captured thirty foe vessels in under five minutes!

“Holy crap! We have a dreadnought? I have never seen such a huge vessel. Where did that come from?” exclaimed Jem.

“We don’t have a dreadnought. It is just an illusion. I got to thinking if we can cloak and convince sensors we are not there, then perhaps a probe could convince sensors it was more than a probe,” I replied. It was then I noticed Koluna was on the floor.

“Koluna, are you injured?” I asked. She was out cold. Perhaps the stress was too much for her. Jem got down and checked her out.

I had more to do. The drifting foe vessels would alert others something was wrong. We could expect visitors if we did not do something fast.

“Ship, please execute go away protocol on all thirty foe vessels. Then have Alda, Bera and Cala retrieve their data port probes,” I said.

“Confirmed,” said Ship. This was funny to watch. Thirty vessels turned in random directions and accelerated. One by one the foe vessels left the system into hyperspace. They would be gone for a long time.

I turned back to Koluna. Jem had helped her back into her seat. I went to the food dispenser and got her a glass of water.

“I thought we were about to crash into those vessels. I fell off my seat and hit my head,” said Koluna. She took some sips of her water.

“We should get you to medical and run a scan to make sure you don’t need treatment,” said Jem. They got up and moved towards the exit.

“I need to take care of a few things, then I will follow you shortly,” I said.

Once they were gone, I turned back to the tactical display. The unmanned vessels had gathered back their data port probes.

“Ship, is there any sign we have been detected?” I asked.

“There has been no reaction from other foe vessels to indicate so,” replied Ship.

“See if you can tap into their system wide communications. I’d like to know if anything is going on,” I said.

“Confirmed. Communications suggest that we have not been detected. I will keep monitoring for updates,” said Ship.

“Please take us to the far side of the moon around Foe-3. Alda, Bera, please remain here and be prepared to disrupt vessels leaving the system. Cala, Dura, please come with Ship,” I said.

“Confirmed,” x 5. We started to move off. I hurried to medical to check on Koluna. Fortunately she was going to be fine.

We travelled carefully to the moon around Foe-3, not wanting to risk detection. The closer we got to their home planet, the more traffic we encountered. There were many vessels around or travelling to or from the planet. None were orbiting the moon.

When we arrived at the moon, Ship parked in an orbit that kept us on the side of the moon furthest from the planet. We used the planet shield us.

“Ship, see if you can tap into their system wide communications again. Search for anything about the Baglogi system. I would like to know what their plans are,” I said.

“Confirmed,” said Ship. Jem and I went to prepare the shuttle to take us to the lunar surface.

Before we were ready to depart, Ship alerted us, “Attention, communications received indicate further vessels are being prepared to travel to the Baglogi system within two days.”

“That is not good news. Ship, how good is your connection to their network? Can you send out?” I asked.

“Confirmed. However, to send out from here would reveal our location,” Ship replied. I could feel the beginnings of a plan in my head.

“Ship, select a planet in the system with a small patrol of less than ten vessels nearby,” I said.

“Confirmed, there is a small patrol in orbit around Foe-5,” said Ship.

“Cala, set an intercept course for the patrol in orbit around Foe-5. You are to deploy data port probes ahead of their path and take control. Have them continue to orbit the planet,” I ordered.

“Confirmed, leaving now,” replied Cala.

“Ship, once Cala has taken control of those vessels you are to use the proxy protocol. You will need to tweak a version of the injection protocol to send the do not disturb protocol via the foe network. Contact vessels one at a time, using credentials from the vessels in the patrol. Ideally the vessels that are injected will not know anything happened. I would like all foe vessels to receive the do not disturb protocol and be incapable of travel to the Baglogi system. Clear?” I said.