"(As Tycho is an American station, I assume all of their allies know of this,)" said the burly Russian general, sighing as he looked over the set of photographs. "(Now, if you would please? Keeping in mind that I am not an astronomer or physicist. Explain what I am looking at? A comet?)"
"(No sir, a ship. As far as we can tell, without power and it's in pretty bad shape,)" said the aide.
"(So. No power?)" asked General Ludmiloff, sitting back in his chair and wishing that his superiors had given him a budget in keeping with THEIR expectations of what he was to accomplish.
"(What are the Chinese doing?)" asked the General, opening the drawer in which his stomach medicine was located.
"(As far as we know, they don't know yet,)" answered the aide.
The General pondered. "(I know you. Corporal... Armis?)"
"(Yes, sir. Second cousin to your wife's sister,)" responded the Corporal.
"(I'll try not to hold that against you,)" responded the General. "(How far out is our little wanderer?)"
"(It's just passing the orbit of Uranus, heading inbound,)" said Corporal Armis.
"(Hmmmm, how soon before it reaches Jupiter orbit? The Chinese will know by then at least.)"
Corporal Armis checked. "(Eleven months.)"
"(Which sounds like a long time until you have to plan logistics,)" said the General. "(Ah, well. Make sure the information is passed on to the appropriate agencies. Particularly make sure Vladmir over at the Space Agency knows. If we can snatch this plum away, well and good. If not - perhaps it could meet with an accident.)"
"(Doctor Singh? What do you make of it?)"
"(First, do the Russians know?)"
"(They show no signs of it, Doctor.)"
Stroking his long moustache in a practiced gesture, he thought it made him look regal and villainous, the doctor simply stood and digested this morsel of information. "(What of the Americans? Have they made any overt indications?)"
"(None, we were able to gain access to these only because one of our agents 'befriended' a communications officer, otherwise we would have no clue that this was happening at all.)"
Doctor Singh smiled then. "(Excellent. We will send a probe out in the direction of... Pluto. It will wander off course, and we will land a team on this little find and claim its secrets.)"
The scientist frowned and obviously had something else to say. Doctor Singh let him stew a bit before nodding.
"(Sir? The Americans know it is coming but haven't done anything at all about it, except possibly this.)"
Doctor Singh looked at the indicated line in a report and raised an eyebrow. "(They plan on destroying it? Well, they won't if we have claimed it. They are squeamish like that. Soft. Unwilling to do what is necessary to achieve objectives. Proceed.)"
"Are the Lunarians sure about this?" asked Colonel Locke.
Sayid Abbas, Corporal, inclined his head slightly. "Yes, sir, the inbound ship is:"
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(Posted Thu, 11 May 2006 09:40)
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