Disguises
“Disguise our bondage as we will, 'Tis woman, woman, rules us still.”
---Thomas More
“We are setting course for the Firefly system via the two waypoints we know to be en route;” the Captain announced once Jista's chart on the main screen was recorded and the star field beyond again glowed softly into the bridge. “I am as anxious as anyone to bolt straight for Tenrith. However that is not what we have license to do at present. We are on contract---not a personal quest...” She grinned slyly, “Should the two happen to become mingled... Well, who am I to reject the gifts of fate?”
Her crew set about their duties with new enthusiasm. Pim and Song headed down to the hangar bay to recommence the reconstruction of the cloaking equipment destined for the Huntress herself, with Deni tagging along.
“How does a cloaking thingie work anyway?” Deni asked to no one in particular.
Pim was just crossing to the workbenches. She stopped in the middle of the open bay as if arrested by an invisible field. “Are you familiar with how a wrinkle drive functions?” Deni shook her head. “How about how a replicator... Sorry; a 'Three-dimensional-Pattern/Matrix-Regeneration module is able to make a cup of soup on command?” Again Deni had to just shake her head.
Song giggled; but hastily apologized. “I'm not laughing at you dear. Honestly. It's just that my sister takes for granted that what she knows and understands must per force be simply: common knowledge. It's a curse. Funny! I laughed.”
Pim turned on her heel and crossed the rest of the way to the makeshift workshop, muttering; “No common language to answer the question... Should be able to correlate the transverse parallax imaging systems by amplifying the resonant sine wave signature through the...” and her sub-vocal conversation with herself disappeared into the esoteric and unintelligible.
Song and Deni stood nearby to fetch a tool here or hold a gloved finger on a circuit board there. They were as useful as they could be under the circumstances. For them it was not so much 'helping' as watching an extremely competent artist at work. Like a instrumental concert, or a cobbler making a beautiful shoe, or a premier court dancer... just witnessing the deft and efficient empowers the soul.
In the lulls of their more active 'assistance,' Song braided Deni's hair, or Deni styled Song's now growing but still short curls. The Atrian women---those from Pim and Song's home world---ritually kept the hair of their heads cropped close or shaved. It was more than tradition and the taboo of long female hair was so ingrained in them that while Song was at last turning her back on the practice, it felt like a supreme break with her own self. Pim on the other hand didn't give it a thought. Long hair was a nuisance and an impediment. She couldn't fathom why anyone would voluntarily add another chore to their routine; and there was the potential for personal injury that long grab-able, tangle-able hair just was... That was ridiculous in the extreme.
Now, that being said, she also was certain that the Boss, in particular, and the Lascorii aboard in general were the most beautiful persons she'd ever encountered, and that the Captain had the longest auburn locks of any woman in Pim or Song's memory; that was just as it should be. No judgements, no recriminations. The Elf was perfection, and Pim of all people couldn't conscience messing with perfection. She had the same prejudices and 'reasonable' exceptions to her inherent and trained cultural biases as any other living woman.
“If y'all are finished preening for a minute,” Pim pointed to a power module stored on one of the bay shelves, “I'm ready to power this up and see if it goes pop or hum.”
Song and Deni scurried over to the shelves and with Deni on Song's shoulders they carefully plucked the unit off its perch and delivered it to an appreciative Pim.
The galley gong rang through the ship and three women's smiles lit up the bay as Pim made the last connection. “Good timing!” she clapped as the bulky equipment that occupied her work bench suddenly vanished, leaving only a humming noise to mark its continued presence. “Now, for two more of these little darlings and we can move to installation!”
In the dining hall, Deni again had questions difficult to answer. Not because they were inquiries into the unknown or unknowable, but because the supporting knowledge required to convey the understanding was absent in her. She wasn't alone in that deficit, but since the others wanted to know also, Pim sighed and looked at the ceiling, still chewing. “Okay, how about this...”
She set a napkin in the middle of the table. “You see this, right?” she glanced from face to face at the nods of certainty. “Alright now, what if I turned this so that all you could see of it was from the edge...” and she held it up by the corners and directed its edge to one after another of the company. Again they nodded; it was nearly invisible as a line: the edge of a plane, versus head on as the fragment of a plane itself. Simple. Pim smiled, “That's kinda how the cloaking module works...”
“But how can it be an edge to all of us at once?” Deni was sure there was a discrepancy here and her mind clasped it instantly.
Pim sighed. “Think of it this way...” she took the strands of pasta from her plate and arranged them as rays emanating toward each of those at the table from the napkin still laying in the middle. “Okay, you can only see the napkin because it reflects light striking it from the lamp up there...” she gestured at the fixture above them. “Of course out there,” and she waved around them to indicate the space through which they traveled, “light comes from all directions at once... well almost; close enough...” she began curling the ends of the bits of pasta closest to the napkin in a pattern that made them look like they were swirling into each other like water going down a narrow opening. “So what must happen to keep you from seeing the reflected light of the napkin, is to have the napkin always present its edge to you no matter from what vantage you view it. That is accomplished by refracting the incoming light such that the parallax of the light from the opposite side of the object, relative to the viewer, is presented to the viewer without the reflected light of the object itself. A 'hole-in-space,' if you will, is constructed artificially.” She was actually enjoying this now. “So the little babies I'm tinkering with in the shop do essentially the same thing with incoming radiation, whether that is in the electro-magnetic band of visible light or at the wavelengths employed by sensors and scanners. Every 'observation' that encounters the presence of the object---in our case: our ships---is 'tricked' into seeing only what is beyond our ships, not our ships themselves!”
Deni was smiling with the light of perception. “That's so simple! Why didn't you say so before?” Pim's face contorted into mask of confusion. The peels of laughter were a salve, not an annoyance.
Ravena was still curious. “Okay so the units themselves do that 'now you see me, now you don't' little trick. How do they convince the ship to join in the fun? I mean... I mean... I'm not making the leap from module to entire ship.”
Pim nodded, “That's the big question then isn't it! And the most difficult to accomplish, let alone explain. In simplest terms...”
“Oh yes please!” came the unanimous response. She had to giggle.
“Yeah, so, in simplest terms, we make the ship itself part of the device, so that when the gadget does its thing it affects the whole ship. Like an extra skin or integral casing of the gadget itself. That's the best I can describe it without going all alien on you...”
“And you need three of them, calibrated and 'harmonized' together to cover the whole of the Huntress. While the Lorien and Lúthien only need one apiece?” the Elf was grasping the gist of the discussion.
Pim winced, “Sorta. It's not the mass---well it is and it isn't---it's more the attenuation of the field necessary to... That is to say, there's an exponential inverse polarity in the... Uh...” she was losing them. She tried a direct tack: “I can't make a whole moon disappear. It just has too much effect on the space around it---That whole 'gravity' thing? You know?---not to be noticed even if you could see the space beyond it. There's no way to put the starlight back where it might have gone if the moon just weren't there... See?”
“Deni's robe wouldn't keep the Boss from appearing naked!” Isin clapped.
Pim's grin at the suggested imagery was sincere. “In one!” She pushed back from the table, “And now to get the other two modules cobbled together and we should be the phantom huntress of the Spur before we reach...” she looked to Jista and Elenir, “Where are we going?”
The Elf answered, “Our first waypoint on the way to Firefly is an embedded cluster actually. We will likely have to spend more time there than any of us would prefer; but it's an excellent place for a fleet of ships to hole up and stay hidden. So...”
Pim mused aloud, “Cluster... hmm, denser ISM, packed with diffuse light... Challenging...” and she meandered back to 'her shop' in the bay.
True to her word, the first test of the Huntress's fancy new cloak was tested at the fringes of the Waghtnin Embedded Cluster, their initial destination on this leg. The Lorien and Lúthien were dispatched as the observation ships and The Elf gave the command to 'Cloak'!
Instantly, she disappeared from normal, visible space. Pim had set up secondary sensors just for their own ships' cloaking fields that functioned in tandem with the standard sensor-scanners which were original equipment. The crews of the yachts looked between the two monitors on their ships. On one set the Huntress had completely vacated normal space; on the other Pim-improved monitors the ghostly shadow or silhouette of the Huntress could be plainly detected. Success.
Aboard the Huntress before they formally entered the Waghtnin... “And there's no way another ship might, even accidentally, stumble on a way to replicate your tweaking of the sensors to allow our detection?” the Captain persisted.
Pim's head was still shaking back and forth. “Our own detection equipment is tuned to resonate perfectly with our cloaks---all of them are harmonically identical—and that resonance is algorithmically encrypted. Not only do each of our ships have the same signature, but that signature can't be detected except by our own sensor-scanners. Odds are in the realm of non-existence that anyone else could intentionally, or as you stipulated: accidentally, stumble upon that encryption. But, even if—-by some cosmic fluke of a miracle---they did, they'd still have to break the encryption! A statistical null. But the slickest part of all is that we can detect any active standard cloaking module we encounter, but no one can detect us!”
“Then into the breach!” the Elf commanded and the Huntress entered the denser field of stars and stellar nurseries. It got a lot brighter on the bridge. “Report!”
“Captain,” Elenir responded from the science station, “the cacophony of radiation is a mess on our sensors; however our scanners are, as Pim said they would be, still cutting through the soupy mess. Nothing out there yet that shouldn't be there.”
“Now then,” the Elf smiled, “Let's expand our eyes and ears, shall we? Launch probes!” Mim and Yula, sitting on either side of the back of the Captain's chair as usual, twitched their whiskers at the main screen as the next show began.
Ravena pressed the panels at her station that sent the half dozen specially designed sentinels hurtling out into the far reaches of the cluster around them. The cats' eyes were riveted to them as they soon vanished from view. “Data sets coming in, Captain.” Deni announced happily from the com.
Elenir confirmed, “Reassembling data signals now, Captain. We should have visuals in...” and she smiled and nodded to Ravena, who pressed one more panel in front of her and the main viewer split into six real-time views of the space in the region, causing Yula and Mim's heads to swivel and rock to keep track of all at once. “The additional scanning and sensor data is filtering now. If there is anything or anybody trying to hide in here...”
“We'll know it before they know we do!” Ravena was like a kid with a new toy. This was the best thing that had happened on the voyage to date... as far as she was concerned. She purred to herself, “Every girl's dream come true...”
“Lorien, Lúthien, you are cleared to launch,” the Elf announced to a waiting pair of crews in the hangar bay. “Copy that!” Reia announced from the Lorien with Isin and Pim, as Jista called from the Lúthien with Senta and Song. The two ships cloaked and left the invisible Huntress.
“We should be able to work out any unnoticed kinks in your script for this side mission,” the Elf smiled to Ravena. “Not that any of us could punch any holes in it to begin with...”
“Just providing for instant acquisition and interception, Captain.” Ravena was smugly satisfied, “Having three phantom ships just begged to have as huge an area under our direct influence as possible---while still maintaining a cohesive interconnection between our several positions...”
“And cut down on the amount of time we have to spend reconnoitering this 'backwater'.” Deni muttered. It was apparent to all of the Company that their Deni was more eager to find her 'Elves of Elhehrim' than anybody in the Spur.
The plodding transformation of the stuffy, though good natured, tight-suited, no-nonsense, bordering on the verge of self-righteous Guild Agent was changing their Deni into not only a more assessable person generally, but was also providing herself with insights into her own emotions and psyche---more than she even suspected could be available.
“Not a backwater if you live here...” Elenir retorted fondly. “No matter where you go---someone calls it home...”
“Let's just see if any of our pirate prey have adopted this particular neighborhood;” the Elf concluded and continued to watch each of the scenes before her---simultaneously. “Sector five!” The cats fixed their gaze on that portion of the screen instantly. “Lorien! Do you have visual on Probe Five's present position? Was that movement?” the Elf was pointing futilely at the screen in front of her.
“Isin's voice responded, “Captain, Reia is altering course to intercept; report forthcoming.”
“There! It is moving and,” she glanced at the progress display floating above the helm of their relative positions and those of their probes---all in the three dimensional holo-depiction, “it's headed toward the probe itself.”
A flash momentarily illumined the Sector Five view on the main screen then it went dark.
“Unacceptable!” the Elf was not happy. “Follow that whatever it was and find out where it came from. I want to know which side of their heads they part their hair before the Huntress gets to within striking distance!”
“Yes Ma'am!” Isin's voice answered instantly.
“Lúthien, you copied that?!” the Elf added.
Senta replied quickly, “Jista is already on her way to take up Lorien's wing, my Captain.”
The Elf had already leapt to the helm and was making a bee-line for Sector Five also. “Huntress ETA,” she glanced at her panels, “Thirteen minutes.”
“Copy!” both ships responded.
Ravena rubbed her hands together; “I needn't remind the Captain that I'll have weapon lock the moment we are in range...”
“Which should be in,” the Elf allowed a little smile, “...less than a minute.” To her little fleet she reminded, “Just like we drilled ladies...”
“Aye, aye,” chirped the com.
The next half an hour witnessed, had anyone but themselves been able to actually see their performance, a space ballet of precision and beauty. The vessel that had fired on their probe was initially obscured by a particularly dense patch of a illuminated dust cloud, it had to poke its bow out of the dust to aim and fire on the 'intrusive' little probe. Then just as quickly it sank back into its blind. The Huntress's scans through the mire revealed not one but a dozen corvette-class nasties.
“No mother-ship detected in the sectors already investigated, Captain,” Elenir volunteered from the science station as she rose and crossed to her nav post, transferring the sensor and scanner data to her own station. “It would appear that these are an independent phalanx, separated from or perhaps assigned duty out of reach of their Cruiser.”
“Or they are just a bunch of pirates gone to cover;” Ravena smirked at the screen.
“Either way,” the Elf gloated, “we'll know more about their business than they do before this night's watch is through.”
The Huntress and her 'girls' were sitting right on top, beside and beneath the formation tucked deep inside the dusty stellar nursery. Every conversation, belch and sneeze on their bridges was being recorded by another collection of Deni's 'secret' little gadgets. This time however, with Ravena's internal ship's scans as a viable inventory of the Guild supplied arsenal, the Elf herself made the specific request of Deni for those very modules---much to Deni's chagrin. She had tried so hard to keep her masters' secrets... well... secret. Amongst the Lascorii, that was a most futile exercise.
What they gleaned of the little phalanx was that: They weren't attached in any way to a Naud Cruiser. They only had a tenuous affiliation with each other. There was no 'central command' per se and finally: they were absolutely piratical. There could be no mistaking the glut of stolen goods, equipment and as it turned out enslaved peoples from the majority of the closest systems and beyond. What they couldn't get from their eavesdropping were the answers to the primary questions they had about the renegades---the whys and wherefores.
“That complicates things...” Ravena was disgusted that the Naud had reversed their own traditions and begun 'conscripting' crew. But what was worse, for the Huntress, those slaves were living shields preventing the sort of confrontation she'd prefer.
The Elf on the other hand wasn't hindered in the least by the presence of the innocent. “Lorien, Lúthien set a tracker on each of the vessels and rejoin Huntress at our insertion point. They aren't going anywhere without us from now until they can't go anywhere at all...” She turned to Deni, “Dear, please wait until we clear the Waghtnin to send an update to the Guild.” Deni nodded an affirmation, then realized perhaps nodding was too casual or familiar.
“Yes, Captain;” she answered clearly.
The Elf curled a finger for her to come closer, which she did. Her uncertainty and nervousness didn't show... much. “Yes Captain?”
The cats leaned in closer to the nearly touching pair's heads. In a voice Ravena and Elenir couldn't hear, the Elf assured, “You are not 'technically' under my direct command---as the sovereign representative of the Guild aboard my ship. So you are not specifically constrained to offer me the fealty demanded of the others. But... thank you for adhering to protocols, it is reassuring to know you are at our sides heart and soul. Still, if I ask for something prefaced by 'Dearest' or 'Darling' or any of the myriad modifiers I'm likely to use off-hand, please know that I am trying to maintain a casual familiarity with you, even though it is very difficult for me to do so. Is that copacetic?”
Deni glanced at Ravena and to Elenir, neither of whom were paying the Captain and herself any notice. She quickly put a hand on the Elf's arm and whispered, “My Captain, I offer you that fealty, though I am not constrained to do so. I have admired you from reputation for years and to now: be on your ship and so constantly in your presence... I am the luckiest Seranim woman, or man, ever to go to space!”
The Elf inclined her head. “Very well, Denalin Grinta Taborus of Breuges, I accept your fealty.” Deni was taken aback momentarily, few people anywhere knew her full given name---that was something the Seranim didn't ever let into the public domain. “And I shall expect nothing less than your best!” The Elf concluded, “Consider yourself on active duty henceforth, with a probationary rank of Assistant Comm Officer. I shall put you into the shift rotation.”
Deni couldn't have been more ecstatic. She glowed with pride. “Yes, Captain!” she accepted aloud for the whole bridge to hear.
“Return to your post; but know this: I will not intentionally influence your sworn obligations to the Guild. That is a sacrosanct bond between you and themselves alone. Therefore do your best to remain faithful to the charge of service they have laid on you regarding this contract. Clear?”
Deni nodded solemnly as she answered, “Yes, my Captain.”
The Elf added lightly, “What you do about your ties to the Guild after the contract is consummated... that is another matter entirely.”
The com came alive; Deni touched her panel. The speakers blared, “Lorien requesting docking...” Reia's voice added, “And Jista's right behind me...”
“Come aboard, and let's get our snares taut and ready;” the Elf declared. “Ravena, let's you and I take a little stroll in your gardens...” Yula and Mim were already purring; they loved the gardens. If they weren't supervising the Elf's handling of the Huntress, they were most often found in the gardens, chasing butterflies, cavorting through the shrubs