The capture of Dr. Fedli and her team was one of the very few lucky breaks Dr. Nora Fisher had experienced. All her life she had fought her way up, ruthlessly stepping on the weaker people and conspiring with or cheating the more capable ones and compromising with those she could not defeat. Finally, the council seat was in sight and Dr. Fedli's capture by her mercenaries had helped, not only the capture of the most wanted rebels, but the information on her colleagues- all very influential people in the EC- Dr.Fedli's team had gathered.
As Assistan Director of Extra Planetary Offices, One of the three. Dr. Nora had a free hand in dealing with organized crime and rebellion in the system. A huge budget and the power to borrow forces from police and paramilitary outfits made her one of the most dangerous enemies possible. And she wanted the Jovian prototype cut open. The moment Phoenix had escaped Dr.Nora had decided to break it apart under a Laser-knife, not willing to take the risk of this tech getting away.
Dr. Nora had contacted the Phoenix impersonating Dr.Fedli for two reasons- Appear weak enough so as not to scare away the thieves and incriminate Dr. Fedli for the theft of classified tech. But Shira had to come through; if not, Shira was of no further use. She already had three attack boats of the System Space Reserves standing by for immediate action, just in case..
When Shira reported that the Phoenix had blown up, Dr. Nora ordered her to stay and search the space life boats while The Blacker went on to check the quadrant further towards Sirius A. What made her doubt Shira's report was that the Phoenix was still transmitting its location, it was possible that the some chunk of debris was responsible but it was also possible that the Phoenix was still out there. She also ordered the three Space Reserve crafts to verify Shira's reported destruction of the Phoenix.
Maaz had come up with the initial plan. To use the cloaking device to fool the pursuers. Tank had suggested the use of one of the batteries to rig a "dirty" bomb. Maaz did not have much trouble in rigging a battery to blow and placed it in one of the life boats. As soon as they found two ships approaching from the same wormhole that the phoenix had come through; they jettisoned the boat with the battery set to blow in ninety minutes.
Tank switched on the cloaking tech so the projected image of the Phoenix centered on the life boat. Moments before the life boat blew up Phoenix went dark. The engines were shut down and everything was powered down except the shields. The force of the blast had pushed the ship away and they had drifted for a good hour just observing The Claw. Maaz then realized that they were searching for the transmitter they had homed in on. He needed help and the second Dr. Fedli had been proven right. Maaz had no option but to trust the new Dr. Fedli as the original and call.
Maaz explained to Dr. Fedli what they had done and that they were now drifting dark but the transmitter would give them away. Dr. Fedli sent a piece of code which Tank uploaded into the service suite. the transmission stopped. Then Maaz told Dr. Fedli about how he had triggered the sub-light capacity and that the main engines were offline. This caused and excited flurry of questions and admonishments but in the end Dr. Fedli asked.
"If I tell help you bring the engines online, you will probably go away to the other end of the galaxy faster than a laser beam."
Maaz was caught. He was actually thinking about it. But he had no way to convince Dr. Fedli so he just replied:
"How can I assure you?"
"You can't. That is why I am coming to you. You have drifted away from the explosion and will continue to do so. I will be there in .. a day. So hold tight and don't start the auxiliaries, the active sensors will pick you up in moments."
Dr. Fedli disconnected the call and left Maaz very exasperated but with little choice. Maaz went about discussing his options with Tank and after going through half an hour of un-do-able stuff figured a way. Actually Tank figured the solution. They would fire a less than two second burst of 50% power to all the auxiliaries, randomly between 100 and 120 minutes, the debris and the radioactive residue of the bomb they would be sufficiently masked. In ten hours they would be out of active range if they headed towards Sirius A, as the Claw had started the active search from that side and was moving towards the Wormhole.
The warning flashed on the screen just before Dr. Fedli was strapping down for the Tunnel to Sirius A.
- To all craft. Avoid the radioactive debris field at ... *
The co-ordinates were exactly where Phoenix had triggered the dirty bomb. Something was going on and Phoenix was in danger, again.