Some of it made sense to Devereux; much of it did not. She recognized the spectroscopic and metallurgical analyses, even if she did not understand what some of the details meant.
“It looks the typical ores and elements you’d expected to see from a moon or asteroid,” she remarked.
Gho nodded in agreement. Devereux felt tiny swell of pride that she had interpreted the data correctly. Her training and experience leaned more heavily on the tactical side. The hard sciences were not her strong suit.
“The configuration is strange, though,” Gho said, highlighting the boundaries of the debris field on the screen. “There’s a lot more dust than you’d expect and not as much mass still in larger chunks.”
“Debris from a comet then?”
Gho studied the results again. “I don’t think so, Captain. The mass and elements don’t match any comets we’ve ever recorded. Although there are organic components.”
That got Devereux’s attention. Pyrafox’s ears perked up as well.
“Organic?”
Gho nodded, appearing unsurprised. “Organic compounds have been found on a number of comets,” she replied. “Nothing complex, though,” she explained. “Mostly simple hydrocarbons.”
Devereux continued to study the image in silence, watching as its resolution slowly improved. Behind her, Gho took deep breath that sounded a lot like an exasperated sigh.
“What’s wrong, Lieutenant?” Devereux asked, turning to face the young Science officer.
“I’m still having trouble getting clear readings from one section of the debris field,” she answered. She tapped controls on her console and the previous highlighting on the main screen was replaced by a new one position toward the upper right quadrant of the field.
“What’s there?” Devereux asked.
“I don’t know,” Gho replied, shaking her head. “There’s something scrambling the sensors in that section of the cloud. We can’t get a clear reading.”
“What would do that?” Devereux asked. “Do the sensors need calibrated?”
Gho tapped some controls and intently studied one of her console displays for a moment. “The sensors seem fine,” she reported. “And there’s any number of things that might confuse the sensors.”
Devereux nodded at that.
I know a few tricks for doing that myself. Almost none of them, though, exist without artificial means.
She studied the image on the screen again, paying particular attention to the area that Gho had highlighted. She found the data associated with that region, but saw nothing that caught her eye as unusual—other than that it was annoying incomplete.
“Let’s take a closer look,” she announced quietly. “Helm,” she called to Pyrafox. “Slow our approach to one-quarter. Head toward the patch there on the outer edge.”
“Aye, Captain,” Pyrafox acknowledged quickly. “Slowing to one-quarter. Adjusting course.”
Devereux watched the navigational display as their velocity and heading changed. She turned back toward the Science station.
“Anything new yet?”
Gho studied her displays for a moment before shaking her head. “Not yet, sir” she replied, sounding disappointed. “I think we’re going to have to get a lot closer before we can punch through the interference.”
Devereux nodded her understanding. Although it was the prudent thing to do, decreasing their speed meant that it was going to a bit longer to get that much nearer.
She glanced toward the Tactical station. Hawkes worked intently at his console and she wondered what he was so focused on. There was absolutely nothing for him to fire at or defend them from except for some drifting chunks of rock.
He’s probably expecting to discover at any moment that one of those chunks is a disguised enemy vessel.
Devereux turned her attention back to the data display, seeing once again the highlighted area of the debris cloud.
If I was going to hide a ship in there, she considered. That’s where I’d do it. Force them to move in. Lure them nice and close.
For a moment, she considered ordering Hawkes to place the ship on a standby alert.
It’d just be a distraction, she decided. And so far we’ve found nothing but rocks out here. She glanced over at Hawkes again. He’ll be the first to tell me if he sees anything even remotely suspicious.
Devereux allowed herself to relax and went back to studying the data displays.
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