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"I was doing a standard analysis run of yesterday's data," Johnson explained, tapping keys rapidly.
"Which data set?"
"Northern hemisphere air traffic, Ma'am. Quadrant Charlie-Golf."
"I didn't know there was any air traffic up there," Abigail said with a smile.
"Well, there isn't much, Ma'am, and that's a fact. Most of it's south of the Charlie line, but there's actually more local traffic than you might expect, given the population level, and about five or six regularly scheduled air transport routes that come up from the smaller continent-Dalmatia-and cross the pole on their way down to Karlovac and Kutina or going the other way on the return leg. They come straight through Charlie-Golf, but it really is what you might call a quiet chunk of airspace as far as through traffic is concerned.
"The local air traffic's so high because ground traffic's pretty nearly nonexistent in the area. The airspace's an awful lot less crowded than someplace like Karlovac, of course, but with no decent local roads, everybody who does move around, does it by air."
"Okay," she said. "I've got the location, now. And this was yesterday's data?"
"Yes, Ma'am. The time chop would be from about seventeen-thirty to midnight, local."
"Okay," she repeated, nodding to herself more than to him as she mentally settled the references into place.
"All right, Ma'am." Johnson tapped a last command sequence and sat back with his arms folded. "Watch this."
The data take from the array watching that portion of Kornati's airspace played itself out on Johnson's display at a considerable time compression rate. The little icons of aircraft went streaking across the plot, trailing glowworms of light behind them. The regularly scheduled transport aircraft were easy to identify. Not only were they bigger, and normally at a higher altitude, but they were also faster, moving on straight-line courses, and their transponder codes were crisp and clear.
The local traffic was much more erratic. No doubt a lot of it was nothing more than local delivery aircraft, dropping off overnight parcels to the isolated homesteads in the area. Others were probably joy-riding teenagers, buzzing around in old jalopies. And at least one larger, slower aircraft was identified by its transponder as a tour bus of high school students on a nature field trip. None of that traffic seemed ever to have heard of the notion of straight lines. They wove and twisted, plaiting their scattered flight paths across Johnson's display, and if there was any pattern to them, Abigail couldn't see it.
Johnson looked up at her, one eyebrow raised, and she shrugged.
"Looks like so much spaghetti to me," she admitted, and he chuckled.
"Trust me, Ma'am-I didn't spot it by eyeball, either. Assuming there's really anything to it, that is. I was ru
He tapped one of the macros he'd set up, and the same timespread replayed itself. But this time the computers were -obviously filtering out the bulk of the traffic. In fact, there were less than a dozen contacts, and Abigail felt both eyebrows -rising.
"Run that again."
"Yes, Ma'am," he said, and she straightened up, folding her own arms and cocking her head as she watched. There was no time association she could see between the contacts Johnson's data manipulation had pulled out. The first appeared at 17:43 hours local. The others were scattered out at apparently random intervals between then and 24:05 local. But what they did have in common was that regardless of when they crossed into the quadrant, they each terminated at exactly the same spot.
And they stayed there.
"That is odd," she said.
"I thought so, Ma'am," he agreed. "I'd set the system filters to show me any location where more than five flight paths terminated, and this was the only one that turned up, aside from a couple of small towns scattered around the area." He shrugged. "I've been trying to think of some reason for them to do that. So far, I haven't been able to come up with one. I mean, I guess they could all be going on a fishing trip together, and it just happened to take them six and a half hours to get together. But if it was me, I think I'd try to schedule my arrivals a little closer together than that. Besides, this is yesterday's take, and I've already done a search of today's. We still don't have a single departure from that location, so whoever they are, they're still there, right?"
"That's certainly the conclusion which would leap to the front of my own powerful brain," Abigail said, and Johnson gri
"The problem is, Ma'am, that according to passive scans of the area, there's nothing down there but a river and some trees. Not a helicopter, not an air car, not even a log cabin or an old pup tent."
"To quote Commander Lewis, 'Curiouser and curiouser,'" Abigail said. She gazed at the plot for several more seconds, then shook her head. "Sensor Tech Johnson, I think it's time we consulted with older and wiser heads."
"Johnson and Abigail are right, Skipper," Naomi Kaplan said flatly. "We've got ten aerial vehicles of some sort-analysis suggests at least six of them were private air cars-all landing at exactly the same spot, and then just disappearing. And a standard passive scan of the landing area shows absolutely nothing there now. Except, of course, that they have to be there, because they never took off again."
"I see." Terekhov leaned back, gazing at the holo map projected by the unit in the center of the briefing room table. "I suppose we could do an active scan," he said slowly. "But if there is anyone down there, and they pick it up, they'll know they've been spotted."
"Well, before we do that, Skipper, you might want to look at this." Kaplan gave him the smile of a successful sideshow conjurer, and the holo map disappeared. In its place was a detailed computer schematic of a single small portion of the total map, showing contour lines, streams, rocks, even individual trees, and Kaplan looked at it fondly.
"That, Skipper, is from one of Tadislaw's stealthed battlefield recon drones. They don't begin to have the raw computational power we do, and they sure as hell don't have our range, but they're specifically designed for taking close, unobtrusive looks. So when I decided I wanted more detail on the area, I got hold of Lieutenant Ma
A bright, irregular line appeared on the map, which obediently zoomed in still closer on the roughly wedge-shaped area it contained, and Terekhov's eyes narrowed.
"This, Skipper," Kaplan said, her tone and ma
"And we couldn't pick any of this up with our own array?"
"Whoever put this in, did an excellent job," Kaplan said. "My best estimate is that the Defense Force's recon satellites wouldn't have seen this at all using their optical or heat sensors. There are power sources down there, but they're also extremely well shielded-so well that even Tadislaw's drone can't isolate point sources reliably. You can do that with enough dirt or cerama-crete. I don't think anything the KDF has could spot this without going active with radar mapping. We couldn't spot it from up here, using purely passive systems, partly because of the sheer depth of atmosphere, partly because of the dense tree cover and how good a job they did of hiding it when they put it in, and partly because for all the computational power we've got, our arrays simply aren't designed for detailed tactical work in this type of environment. The Marines' equipment is, and that's why Tadislaw's drone could spot what we couldn't."
"All right, that makes sense." Terekhov sat gazing at the holo for several more seconds, thinking hard, then nodded.
"This is on the planet, so it's clearly in Suka and Basaricek's jurisdiction. Both of them would be more than mildly irritated if we crashed the party without even mentioning it to them. On the other hand, none of their units have the same ability we do for getting in hard and fast. So it's time I brought them up to speed, but I think I need to talk to someone else first."
He punched a combination into the conference table com.
"Ground One, Kaczmarczyk speaking," a voice said.
"Tadislaw, it's the Captain."
"Good afternoon, Sir," Captain Kaczmarczyk said from his command post at the spaceport. "How can I help you this afternoon?"
"Commander Kaplan and I have just been discussing some equipment you lost earlier today."
"Ah! That equipment."
"Yes. I think we're going to want to go collect it this evening. Has Commander Kaplan shared her analysis of the data with you?"
"Yes, Sir. She uploaded it to me about a half-hour ago."
"Good. Who have you got down there who could go get your toy back?"
"Lieutenant Kelso's platoon has the duty this evening, Sir. She's got enough battle armor for two of her squads."