Reaching the shroud

The discovery that there was an entire moon cloaked from their sensors sent a wave of consternation across the bridge. This went well beyond a species hiding one probe, it moved from the domain of military or espionage technology into the nature of an entire species. Dustin glanced around the room, then asked the obvious question. “If there’s a moon out there - how do we find it? And what are the locals gonna do if we do?”

Meli was the first to react. “Gravity scanning. If Aricia is right, then we should be able to pick up the moon’s gravitational pull. The probe was too small - but if it’s large enough to impact tidal patterns, then it’ll be large enough for the sensors to locate. Given their probe didn’t detect us until it was too late, I doubt they’ll react - Rye and I were speculating earlier that the same effect that generates the shroud might also block them from fully seeing out of it.”

The idea that they might be okay to scan was a tempting one - but Dustin wasn’t about to take chances just in case their mysterious hosts happened to have cloaked weapons platforms or ships in the vicinity. “Turn the shields on first, and stand by to spool up the weave drive. We’re not here to make enemies, especially those that can hide this well, so if things turn hot we turn and run without returning fire.” As the crew signalled their readiness, he stared at the main screen and nodded. “Begin.”

The display flickered as Sola processed the incoming data. For a moment, the room was silent save for the tapping of Meli’s fingers on her console as she filtered the results of the gravitational sweep they were running - and then slowly, spheres began to appear on the display.

Given their targets were cloaked, Dustin’s wife had wisely opted for plain blue orbs to represent what the gravity scanning was telling them. Given the impact of density on the scale of celestial bodies, it was hard to size them exactly - but she’d done her best. The bigger issue than the question of if the orbs were to scale or not was just how many of them there were.

Of the four planets they could see, two had orbiting stealth-moons. What had Dustin and the others staring open mouthed at the screen however was the three larger orbs circling the stars - one in the midst of the other four planets, two further out. “They’ve got entire planets cloaked?” Dustin said quietly, sitting back in his seat in shock. He’d been expecting maybe one or two lunar bodies, most likely the entire habitation for a colony world of the stealthy species - whoever they were. But to cloak three planets spoke to a much larger presence, and a much larger dedication of resources.

As he thought that, Sola’s alarm blared. From where she’d just retaken her station, Yril’k clicked her chitin-clad fingertips against the console in consternation, as a dozen angular vessels shimmered into visibility all around Sola - with their weapons charging.

Dustin’s eyes were locked on Emely. The Feliax woman had reacted the instant the stealth vessels de-cloaked, sending out ‘we-come-in-peace’ messages across every frequency she could think of. So far, no response - but equally, besides charging their weapons the alien vessels hadn’t done anything either.

“What are they waiting for?” Dustin frowned, looking at the hostile ship on the viewscreen. Like the probe, it was red, black and green, with those same odd protrusions extending from the hull in multiple places. Unlike the probe, it also had a number of slender energy projectors - laser or high energy particle weapons, he guessed from the general design. While Sola’s shields would probably hold against a hit from those things, he wasn’t exactly enthused about the idea of trying to tank twelve ships worth of incoming fire at once.

“Captain’k. Permission to charge’k weapons?” Yril’k’s tone was measured, but it was clear the Vex’ess woman was expecting a fight.

Dustin frowned. “Permission denied. Let’s appear friendly for the time being, and see if we can’t get some kind of dialog going. If we can’t and they open fire, then by all means charge the main gun and we’ll try and shock them enough to prevent any attempts at following us. But for now… stand down, Yril’k.” In response to his order, the warrior woman stepped back from her console with a huff, arms folding across her chest as she did so. She was clearly unhappy about the situation, but the chain of command existed for a reason and she would respect it.

Emely thumped her console, causing them both to jump. “They’re not responding to anything. Sweet fucking Felio, why won’t they answer me? I’ve tried math, physics, practically every language in the databanks, binary… nothing is getting a response. This doesn’t make sense - if they wanted to hide they could have, if they wanted to attack they could, but they’re just sitting there like stupid statues that don’t…” her console beeped abruptly, and she leaned forward, fingers a blur of activity.

“Got something… it’s weird, and the translator’s having issues with making sense of it but… I think, no, yes, no, I know that they’re not hostile.” Her words stood in stark contrast to the still-charged energy weapons pointed in Sola’s direction, and a moment later the Feliax frowned and added “…well, not aggressively hostile. They’re… if I’m reading this right, which I am, then they’re demanding we either leave, follow them into ‘the shroud’, or open fire.”

Dustin blinked. “Sorry… they’re asking us to open fire as one of the options?”

The comms officer gave a shrug. “That’s what it’s saying, the only other potential translation would be something even Bleu and Defia would find anatomically difficult. Some kind of warrior mentality I guess, maybe? My suggestion is we reply that we’ll follow them and let them escort us into this shroud, whatever it is, sir.”

The discussion had been quick. With most of the senior staff already on the bridge, Dustin had pulled Meli, Yril’k, Emely and Sammie aside for a hushed conversation before agreeing to go with the fox girl’s plan. As soon as they’d made the decision, everyone had taken their places and he’d had her transmit an agreement to their hosts.

Now, Sola slid smoothly towards one of the gravitational anomalies they’d detected, flanked on all sides by the alien craft. None of their escort had powered down their weapons yet, something that was keeping Yril’k twitchy; the Vex’ess woman had moved to a position slightly out of arm’s reach of her firing console just to be on the safe side, as if she didn’t trust herself not to launch a pre-emptive attack on their hosts.

“Any bets on this ‘shroud’ being whatever is cloaking the planet?” Dustin asked, staring at the seemingly endless void ahead of them.

“Yea, I don’t think anyone’s going to take that bet Dusty,” Sammie replied, hands gently resting on the throttles. “I wish they’d fly a little faster though; it’s hard keeping Sola to this much of a crawl when…” she fell silent as Sola passed through what had seemed like an uneventful patch of space - and a world opened up ahead of them.

The instant they crossed the shroud, Sola’s scanners came to life with readings as the ship picked up the signals coming from the huge number of shuttles, stations and starships that sat in orbit around the planet. It seemed that whatever was hiding the planet was also concealing everything in it’s immediate orbit.

Dustin had expected their escorts to guide them to one of the stations - but to his surprise, the craft angled towards the atmosphere. Emely frowned at her console, then swiped a message across to Sammie. “They’ve asked us to land on this flightpath, though I think they say they’re okay with slight deviations if our ship can’t handle it.”

Sammie looked at the provided route and gave a snort of amusement. “That shallow a landing? Want me to park Sola backwards just to show off?” Then, seeing Dustin’s expression she raised a hand dismissively. “Joking, joking. Taking us down now.”