Homeward Bound, Part 3
7th Daas, 8 (2186)
Rivkah Of Unity
I eat a cooked tasty furry thing while I wait for Alexandra to return with drinks. I don't like them as much when cooked, it changes the texture and taste.
She has a whole section of floor space dedicated to real time sensors mapping our star system in a 3D projected map. It's so much better than the delayed access charts we get from our own radar; it even tracks individual asteroids. The system tracks where you are looking, and displays data for things in your line of sight. It would be nice to have this setup in our command centre.
She returns with a glass and a cup. "Here we are. I'm just going to say it straight. I was talking with Valerius, as we are much more familiar with what the freighter's sensors can show, and I wanted to give a demonstration of it. We believe letting the freighter go is a mistake, but we feel that we can't bring it up without seeming like we are trying to keep the colony isolated. I was hoping I could talk you through what we have in mind, and that you would bring it up at the next meeting."
"In other words, you're afraid of Mum."
"Afraid of the colony, more accurately. Your Mum is much more rational, and I considered talking through this with her, but I knew she would feel obliged to let the freighter go because it is what the others ask for."
"Whereas I don't have the politics."
"Precisely."
"I can definitely see a case for keeping this, there's so much more information here."
"It's not just the information. What do you know about cloaking devices?"
"Not that much. What I know is that they try to make a ship invisible to sensors by fooling passive and active scanning systems."
"Yes, and there are things called carrier waves that coordinate extremely small probes that provide sensor data. MSI, to keep costs down, has all civilian ships and Flagships share the same carrier wave frequencies."
"Isn't that a liability?"
"Definitely. But it is also cheaper because they only have to manufacture one system, maintain one system, train people to use one system, all of that, and MSI rationalise it as being ok because civilian ships are civilian ships, and Flagships will only be in situations of overwhelming superiority."
"In other words, they don't plan for it being used against them."
"Exactly; the moment that Flagship enters the system, standard orders for entering a system with pre-FTL civilisations dictate releasing a swarm of sensor probes. We can then use those probes too."
"Could you just tell me why that's standard practice though? Seems an odd decision."
"Allows them to monitor the system and cross-check the data the Flagship feeds back."
"Ok. What you are saying then is that if we keep the freighter here, we can monitor their sensors?"
"No. Well, yes, but that's just a bonus. It means the Flagship won't be looking for other MSI vessels outside the civilian frequencies."
"And of course they will start looking because they want to find Hortensus' lost ship."
"Exactly. Which makes us even more confident in this plan. Now, there is a window of opportunity between the Flagship dispatching these probes and the probes activating where their only sensors are looking out the windows because having the ship's own sensors running causes feedback loops in the probes."
"Why haven't they fixed that?"
"Costs too much to fix. They're disposable probes Rivkah, Valerius says fixing this feedback loop would add eight percent to the cost of each probe, and MSI doesn't want to spend it because they make millions of these probes for the fleet. Much easier to switch the sensor system offline until the probes are all out of the feedback loop range."
Suddenly, I get it. "In which time, we can launch an ambush with the freighter."
She smiles. "Exactly. The freighter can be in, deploy boarding parties, and get back out again before the sensors come back online."
"And by then it is too late."
"The window is only a few minutes though. The freighter has to be by the right Hyperlane breach point too, for obvious reasons."
"But we'd still have the original plan if they did use a different Hyperlane."
She points at the Hyperlane breach point on the far side of the system. "And it is near certain which Hyperlane they'll use because of how the Hyperlanes in the region are arranged."
"I do like the ideas here."
"Would you go to Naomi?"
I take a few minutes to think it through. "Mum will want to open it for discussion rather than overrule. Vaki will think it is a great idea, and then point out that the colony already has a means of ambushing the Flagship, and the Returners will need something similar themselves to even the odds. Dad will be relieved that we can deal with the Flagship from further away, Odoos even more so. Ykrett will be pleased. Rhizome of Ebony too. The other Returners will want to take the freighter even more once they know. I need to talk to Daas to find out how long until we can copy this trick ourselves." I look at my home system. "I'll ask."
