"Right," he announced all of a sudden. Marchero jumped. "The scanner interface looks fine. I think it was just confused by the demise of the shield one, but I can reset it. The interface isn't down, after all. It's just the wires that had burned through."
"And your plan?"
"Hook the scanner interface to the shields as well. We'll just have to hope it can take the strain. The software has backups in the main computer, so it shouldn't be a problem to re-program it. We'll have to loose active scanning, though. It won't be up to modulating that on top of everything else."
"Any other bad news?" Marchero said. There was a hint of nervousness in her voice.
"Yes. It probably won't work as efficiently. I'll start braking as soon as I've hooked up the interface, but even at a slower braking rate we may still be seen. We've no way of testing it now."
"There is," Marchero declared. "I'll take the escape capsule out and check from that."
"No you won't! Even the motors in that will be detectable without the stealth device. Someone is bound to investigate if they see it pop out of nowhere."
"Sorry," Marchero muttered.
"Go down to the bridge. Turn off all scanner functions and wait."
This time Marchero did what he asked without arguing. Kirrik disappeared back into the equipment level.
Marchero sat in the cockpit for an hour. The now blank displays might reveal anything were they active - just space, or a group of ships on an intercept course? Eventually Kirrik's voice was faintly heard. "Turn on passive sensors."
Marchero turned them on quickly. The main monitor jumped back into life. The scanner ellipse illuminated, empty, although that was not a definite sign that you didn't have company when running on passive mode.
"Start braking," came Kirrik's voice.
"At what power?" Marchero shouted back.
"Minimum to get us there, of course!"
"Which is?"
"Hang on." Kirrik extricated himself from the equipment level and headed back to the bridge. "Let me do it, then," he called down to her. She climbed out, and Kirrik dropped in. "Fifty-two percent will do from here," he said, after spending a few moments on the computer. The buzz of the engine started again as the Viper started to decelerate to meet the base.
"Right, that's it," he declared. "If this isn't working they'll know we're here in about an hour."
If the stealth device had failed any EM signatures would take about an hour to travel seven and a half astronomical units. Any alert broadcast by the target, perhaps to alert patrols, would take another hour propagate out as far as the Viper. How long it would take for any ships to reach them would depend upon the vessel, but would be at least a day. And without active scanners the first sign of company might be the screech of laser fire on the shields. Or death. The effect of the stealth device on the shields was a worrying unknown.
A new tenseness gripped the small police vessel. Marchero's abrasive manner receded, but instead was replaced by a tendency to become angered by the slightest incident. Kirrik was supposedly trained to cope with pressure, and as a veteran of all sorts of campaigns he had come under it plenty of times before. Dealing with this kind of unknowing wait, though, began to try him too, and he often misread Marchero and heard insults where none were intended.
Once they tried to put aside differences and discuss a plan, but because neither of them had much of an idea what they were going in to very little was achieved. Marchero produced a probably very inaccurate diagram of the base and they identified a couple of possible landing spots. It wasn't long, though, before they started arguing again. Kirrik was clearly frustrated with the lack of Marchero's knowledge, whereas she was becoming very annoyed with him continuously asking her about things she had already stated she did not know.
They tried agreeing to avoid each other, but before long Marchero started bickering again. She eventually confessed that she found it less of a strain than sitting around waiting.
Despite their worries the ship moved closer, unmolested.
They did, in the event, reach the base safely. A confusion of lights marked its location. They were mostly clustered around one side of a vast, dark mass of the asteroid. Further points of light were ships patrolling the space around the base, or moving to and from nearby platform.
Sat on the platform was a Python class deep space cruiser, made ugly by the four fuel scoops that had been fitted when it had only been designed for one. It was most likely doing service as a tanker, jumping to a lone, uninhabited system or an outer member of a multiple star group where it could collect Quirium Witchspace fuel without being spotted. Bright lights around the platform edge revealed a multitude of robots crawling in and out of the cargo bay.