For Captain Smith, the idea of being abot to just speed her crew up or slow them down at the tap of a button seemed insane. Of the fifty-two people aboard the Scoutship, each of them would take two turns each way spending the day at full timerate, just in case. If they hit an emergency? Everyone could be realtime with the tap of a button. Ultimately, this meant for each of the crew; aside from the captain and the navigator, the entire trip only lasted a couple days; unless they wanted it to be longer.
Leanna knew full well that some of her crew wanted to be on the same ship with one or another of her people for the sake of the romantic possibilities; the fact that about a third of her team ended up doubling up when they didn''t need to let her easily sort them out as well; and while this wasn''t the navy anymore, she''d made it clear that nobody was going to be ''serving under'' the person they dated. At least, not in the official sense. A few minor schedule adjustments made sure of that; and if anyone objected, she''d play a video of the first two watch-standers spending a solid six minutes making out on the bridge rather than paying attention to their jobs.
Still. Even for her, the seventy days felt like less than a week; though everyone was at full-time, on-shift and ready now. Shields were prepped to go up the moment they left hyperspace; which seemed to have a vivid purple tint here in the cluster; missiles ready with a solid blend of 10 bomb-pumped-lasers, 4 ECM and 6 nukes. During the fifth day of transit, the Tisiphone had briefly popped into Hyperspace to give her an update; possible radio signals coming from twenty-seven stars in that sector of space; ranging from just a few dozen for stars that didn''t have any apparent visible change, to millions for the one system which was most drastically dimmed. There were even a few signals picked up that seemed to come from deep space.
The conclusion seemed obvious; she was to assume a highly-developed but slower-than-light civilization was moving into the cluster. This would be the first time humanity initiated contact with another intelligent race; but she was to take every precaution.
The Alecto''s hyperdrive fired up. A careful, precise rupture of its hyperfield; and the real stars appeared once more. Most still as distant pinpricks of light; but one particular red star showed up as a malevolent eye. Somehow knowing something intelligent spun round it made it seem malicious; perhaps because the only two known sentient races out there were either completely apathetic towards outsiders, or overtly hostile.
"Comms, go ahead and start in on the radio signals. See if you can pinpoint the sources. Nav, get me a single orbit of the star; keep it wide and slow, and well above the ecliptic. For right now we''re in survey mode. Lets get a good picture before we start firing off probes."
The general picture of the system was swift. One gas giant; two dwarf planets. One out in the distance; the closest to them in its cold white icy splendor; though its primary component was nitrogen rather than water ice. One of them had such a tiny gravity well that it shared its orbit with a veritable swarm of objects any larger planet would.. No.
"Captain. Look at the first planet. I''ve got a debris cloud consistent with something impacting the surface with significant force. And... I''ve got signatures from that cloud. It looks like.... definitely detect some unnatural formations on quite a few of those asteroid chunks. And one of the radio signals is coming from.... this."
An image came up on the central scanner. At its heart, a rough rock in a vague U shape; with beautiful rainbow of colors streaming out in every direction in the form of what appeared to be a sheet of hexagon-shaped material. At its center, an almost torpedo-like shape with long, then tendrils trailing behind; an almost squid-like shape attached to the sheet, tendrils out among them.
"At a guess, thats a construction ship, building, probably, solar panels. I''m catching more of these panels all over the place.."
More images flit about the screen. Massive sheets of hex-shaped panels attached together; some hooked to a piece of rubble; some floating free. The largest is dozens of miles across, while the smallest is only a handful of the panels; each perhaps a dozen meters to a side.
For a moment, the crew was speechless, just watching as more and more images appeared. Thousands of clusters of solar panels, scattered across the system. There was almost as much construction here as there had been in Sol before the fall; and this was one of the lightest presences of whatever they were. To have so many solar panels to blot out thirty percent of the sun...Stolen story; please report.
The weapons officer pulled up an image of the dwarf planet. Massive impact craters dotted its surface. "From the looks of things, most of that debris field came from this planet. They pound it with whatever weapon they use.. something not as bad as a hypercannon, but bad enough... and capture the pieces to use for construction. Eventually they''ll just make the planet break apart. If they can do the same to the the gas giant and that other dwarf, they won''t have enough for a dyson sphere... but they''ll have enough to make a ring around the entire star at the distance of the closest panels."
Captain Smith studies the debris clouds. The scattered debris from truly incredible impact forces. "Alright. We need to learn more. See if we can do any better of a job translating now that we have some context; I''d assume part of the signals are some sort of directions about manuevering; and launch probes. Target them to come out... here." She designates a course that will take the probes on a flyby of various parts of the system from above, and then just drift down ''below'' the ecliptic.
"Nav, set us a course to reach that point in a week. If they spot and react to the probes, that''ll tell us something, but I don''t think we want to really get in close until we can understand them, at least a little."
***
For three days, the crew watched in fascination the manuevers of the strange ships. Using ultra-high efficiency drives, mostly some sort of ion engine, they made slow, careful tracks around the system. Each journey would take years or decades; the only reason enough signals came through to even be translated is that there were over ten thousand of the ''construction'' and ''cargo'' ships.
Ultimately, four basic classes of ships were identified; a giant, bloated ''carrier'' sort of ship that seemed to handle smaller versions of the construction ship. A ''cargo'' ship that simply pushed chunks of rocks to others. The original ''constructor''... and a final, unidentified type, which seemed to be keeping its distance, staying inside the ring of solar panels at the system''s heart.
The Navigation officer showed images of the four subtypes. "This last one. The smallest ship that moves on its own. We... have yet to see any of them move, but they''ve got a higher energy signature than the others. One of our probes is going to pass less than a light-second from one in a few hours. Hopefully we can get a good view."
The Comms officer glances up. "We definitely aren''t going to be having a conversation anytime soon. But we''ve managed to recognize the patterns and have a few that seem to basically mean ''I''m about to leave here'', ''I need more supplies'', and ''I''m bringing more supplies''. Also... every single signal carries coordinates of sender at the beginning, and receiver at the end, so we know who each is directed to. If we''re going to translate anything else... we just need more context."
"I''m surprised you were able to get so much."
"That represents roughly four hundred hours of work on over ten thousand transmissions, ma''am. But the type 4 ships? Haven''t seen a single signal from them. No manuevering other than very tiny bits of thrust to keep them in the same orbit."
"Alright. Keep an eye on the probe. We''ll see how they react... if they even manage to see it."
***
A tiny metal cylinder; a mass of chemical thrusters, almost impossible to detect unless they were actually firing, wrapped around a sensitive package of sensors of a variety of types, drifted through space. A classic type-1 UN Navy Probe; it just barely fired off its manuevering thrusters; jetting out tiny amounts of hydrogen to tilt its center to focus on the type-4 it was dritfing by.
At this distance, it looked like a cigar-shaped mass, bulging out somewhat in the middle, without the various tendrils the construction ships had. At present, the probe transmitted nothing; recording every single bit of information to be retrieved when it was picked up. It had a laser transmitter to send burst transmissions; but only used those if it was already detected.
Which, clearly, it was. The cigar-shaped object shifted. Subtly at first, rotating to point the narrow forward end at the probe. The probe recorded with interest; and once the target ship clearly noticed it, started sending off its transmission; laser firing, spitting out terabytes of information in seconds.
A flow of information abruptly cut off when a sudden burst of neon green light emerges. Its temperature sensors abruptly spike; and the probe detonates. Shards of metal and clouds of chemical propellant scattered in every direction.
***
Out on the Alecto, the response seemed immediate. Every type-4 they could see immediately began moving, heading out into the system, accelerating at a steady 2Gs; the only one not moving out in an apparent search pattern was the one which had fired; which moved in to examine the wreckage.
Captain Smith studied the recording for a moment; the final signal the probe sent was of the weapon being fired at it. "Weps, what are we looking at?"
"Looks like a plasma weapon... and a laser, at the same time. I''d need more data to get a better reading, but its clearly solid mass, not just light, but travels at least .9C. Definite overkill; that shot would be hopefully mostly deflected by shields, but if it hit an unshielded target... that thing would go in one side of the Alecto and out the other without losing much of its power."
"So. No attempts at communication first?"
"None."
"So we''re sharing the cluster with an overpoweringly numerous slower-than-light empire. And one we can presume is hostile. Keep on course. We''ll retrieve the probes that make it through and then re-enter hyperspace until we can contact the Commodore."
She looks around at her crew with a somewhat sad look on her face. "I suspect we''re not going to be settling down in the cluster after all."