Ep.#6 - "Head of the Dragon" (The Frontiers Saga) by Ryk Brown

Three

    Tug sat in the dark, cold cockpit of his interceptor as he coasted through the Takaran system at eighty percent the speed of light. It had taken his interceptor five jumps to traverse the four point six light years that separated the Darvano and Takaran systems. After his initial journey, it had taken him three additional jumps in order to enter the system on a trajectory that would carry his stealthy spacecraft through the heart of the Ta’Akar Empire and allow him to gather as much intelligence as possible. He would then reach the far side of the system and begin jumping his way back to Corinair.
    It had seemed an impossible mission to him at first, as the Takaran home system was protected by a vast network of sensor stations that could detect any ship headed toward the imperial homeworld long before it entered the system. However, the grid itself had been designed to defend against the known propulsion technology of the time. Since his interceptor had been equipped with the Corinairan’s prototype jump drive, he had been able to jump inside the sensor grid, thereby avoiding detection.
    His course and speed at the moment of arrival had been precisely calculated. Now, more than sixteen hours later, he was passing between the orbits of Takara and her sister world, Davonmur. His course had taken him slightly above the system ecliptic, therefore keeping him out of the normal navigation corridors in order to avoid being spotted by civilian, or even worse, military traffic traveling between the two busiest worlds in the system.
    His ship had previously been painted with a special, black, non-reflective coating that absorbed electromagnetic radiation and made the interceptor nearly impossible to detect. At the time, this had been done in order to avoid detection while making communication runs through the Savoy system to maintain contact with Jalea while she was there. His flight tactics in this mission were similar, keeping all of his systems powered down in order to remain cold so as to blend in with the frigid temperatures of outer space. His power plant was completely shut down, and all of his systems were inactive. In fact, there were only two things operating in his ship at the moment: his flight suit’s portable life support system and the passive sensory suite that was gathering and recording signals and images of everything of interest as he coasted past the worlds and stations of the enemy’s home system.
    He had passed the primary planet hours ago and was just now passing Davonmur. He had kept his sensors focused primarily on Takara, as it was the capital of the system and the most likely to emanate comm signals of interest. Davonmur, on the other hand, was primarily a civilian world and was unlikely to yield any useful intelligence. Nevertheless, he had already focused his passive sensor array on the secondary world since it was now in such close proximity. Once past it, he would train his array elsewhere.
    In fact, he was most interested in getting a peek at the shipyards of the moon Pallax. The biggest of the forty moons orbiting the systems biggest gas-giant, Hellek, its low gravity, complete lack of atmosphere, and rich mineral deposits had made it an ideal location for the construction and maintenance of the imperial fleet. Most notably, his interest was in the state of the Avendahl, the empire’s last battleship that was nearing the completion of her upgrade to use the new zero-point energy device as its primary power source. If that ship were allowed to leave port powered by the ZPED, it was doubtful that the Aurora would be able to defeat her.
    Unfortunately, Tug was not able to analyze or even view any of the images or signals being collected by his passive sensor suite, as to do so would require the use of his main computer system, which would require him to power up at least one of his fusion reactors. would make him instantly visible on Ta’Akar sensors which were constantly scanning the system