It's been a while since the New Republic's operations have begun, and no one in the fleet had a rest since Tachibana discovered the ruined settlement which was once the Imperium's capital. We were still waiting for the results of his investigation, as well as the completion of the first early warning satellites being manufactured on Makemake under The Council's supervision.
Among this rush, something else interesting was about to happen.
"Commander..." said Mei. "The Council says that their stationary antennas on Makemake has received a transmission from one of our ships. They are relaying the data to us now."
"A transmission?" I said. "Maybe it's the recon."
"I hope so." Mei said. "They haven't sent anything for a long while, I was a bit worried... Transmission is nearly complete, by the way."
"Let's see."
We both walked to the communications console. Mei sat down and quickly decrypted the transmission.
"What is this?" she was slightly puzzled. "Did they decide to send all their logs at once? I see lots of fragments with different encryptions."
"Can you decrypt it?" I asked.
"Sure, I can, but it just looked odd..." she replied. "Here you go."
'---NEW REPUBLIC NAVAL FORCES---
Inner Solar System Reconnaissance Task Force
We have found a low mass comet fragment on our way, that's just big enough to hide our ship. Believing that it has not been detected by any observatories before, we decided to perform a rendezvous maneuver, accelerate the comet to our cruise speed and hide behind it on our way to Earth. In case the comet forms a visible tail, it should be mistaken for an innocent interstellar visitor, which is an uncommon but non-suspicious sight.
We will keep you updated.
---END OF DECRYPTED PACKAGE---
---NEW REPUBLIC NAVAL FORCES---
Inner Solar System Reconnaissance Task Force
Apologies for not having sent the previous message earlier - we were almost detected by an enemy probe which apparently picked up some of our emissions. Luckily, the comet trick seems to have worked. After running some observations for a while, the probe left us alone. We should be able to perform our own observations once we are close enough to the enemy's base of operations; however, the comet being noticed means that we can no longer change our trajectory since it would give away our existence.
---END OF DECRYPTED PACKAGE---
---NEW REPUBLIC NAVAL FORCES---
Inner Solar System Reconnaissance Task Force
Sorry, we just couldn't send our reports; the enemy just didn't stop observing the comet. If we sent out our reports, we could be detected.
We are approaching Earth now, but with all the telescopes on this little comet fragment, we can't even peek out with our sensors. Instead, our engineers decided to modify a small probe of ours to do the recon. It should be much harder to detect for the enemy.
We will keep you updated.
---END OF DECRYPTED PACKAGE---'
"Sounds like a lot of trouble." I said. "Is this the last report?"
"No, there is more." said Mei.
'---NEW REPUBLIC NAVAL FORCES---
Inner Solar System Reconnaissance Task Force
The modified probe has been ejected at high speed, along with a piece of rock we smashed out from the comet. Even if the probe can't complete the recon on it's own, it should create enough distraction to give us the chance.
---END OF DECRYPTED PACKAGE---
---NEW REPUBLIC NAVAL FORCES---
Inner Solar System Reconnaissance Task Force
Our probe has been detected, but we could finally peek out of our hiding spot. We turned our sensors and observing equipment towards Earth. At this distance, we should be able to detect anything important.
---END OF DECRYPTED PACKAGE---'
"Ugh, I wish they put in some time stamps on these transmissions." I said.
"They actually did, I believe there is metadata on it." said Mei. "But since their transmission isn't the highest quality and they decided to rush to send all reports at once, I can't resolve everything."
'---NEW REPUBLIC NAVAL FORCES URGENT TRANSMISSION---
Inner Solar System Reconnaissance Task Force
The AI hivemind is working on building a large spacecraft in geostationary orbit of Earth. We are yet to discover it's purpose, but the proportionally gigantic propulsion segment suggests that they want to get it going really fast. We suppose the ship also has considerable armor, especially concentrated on the bow.
We suspect that we might have been detected during the recon, so we won't take any risks and just send our reports right away. Our raw observation data will be sent last.
---END OF DECRYPTED PACKAGE---'
"And this is the last transmission we received." Mei said.
"The raw data?" I asked. "Do we have pictures or emission maps of this craft they mentioned?"
"The raw data transmission has been cut in the middle, so it might be hard to recover the data we received." Mei said. "The ship was most likely destroyed before it could finish sending the data."
I sighed, with a hint of pain.
"Is there any chance that the enemy can track the data transmission to us?" I asked.
"I don't know, I'm a navigator." Mei said. "As a former sensors officer, you know more about these things than I do. If you don't know, I don't know either."
"Alright, alright." I said. "Try decrypting whatever data we got, then we can speculate on what that mysterious ship is. While you are doing that, I will have to talk to The Council."
I put on a headset to contact the governors of Makemake.
"Core Council, I request a report on the manufacturing of the early warning satellite clusters."
"It is proceeding steadily." they said. "Our people and machines are working as hard as they can. We can process ores into alloys rather quickly, but since we don't have dedicated shipyards, it takes some time to assemble the satellites. We are working on establishing such a facility, though."
"When will the first satellite be ready?" I asked. "We might be in a little bit of a trouble here, soon."
"It should be ready within one, or at worst two days." they said. "We will let you know when they are go for deployment."
"Thank you."