Escaping My Shadows

Paying the Shadows Back

Dave Walker, imprisoned in the Chitoxan battle crab Tzuljin, feels like the spiders he often came across during his hikes through the fields near his home on Earth. However, instead of being like the spider hanging out in the open while devouring its prey, Dave and Tzuljin sit in a hyperspace eddy, hidden from all but the most powerful sensors. While Dave checks the sensors for nearby ships, Tzuljin's bots retrieve necessary supplies and raw materials from an unfortunate shadow scout ship Dave, and his shadow vessel, had grabbed after it had entered hyperspace. Dave had tried contacting the scout's controller but the controller's mind was too far gone for Dave to break through. As Dave tried to sever the controller's connection with the scout vessel's Other the scout was trying to kill Tzuljin with Dave inside. Dave had no choice but to kill the vessel and the controller.

As the bots help replenish what he and Tzuljin need, Dave extracts the scout's database and updates Tzuljin's with the latest data. Then he begins searching Tzuljin's updated database for places where he might be able to find basic supplies. He knows that if he wants to survive he will have to continue cannibalizing shadow vessels or find some isolated shadow base he can raid. In his searching he comes across a strange entry. Added not long after he had broken away from shadow control, it is an odd bit about a Chitoxan base being established on the first planet, creatively called Planet One, in the K'tan system. What surprises Dave is how close, at least via hyperspace, the system is to Earth. The system's very small and somewhat dim star only has four small, rocky planets orbiting around it. The planets are too close to the star to be habitable and since there are no mining operations identified they must hold little in the way of useful extractable minerals. Except for being close to the Sol/Earth system, the K'tan system has little to interest humans or other races. Dave decides that once the bots have finished with their work he'll check out the K'tan system.

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Instead of having a Chitoxan-installed beacon identifying the K'tan system's corresponding point in hyperspace, the location is fixed using the relative positions of existing hyperspace beacons set up by humans and the other races. Since the Chitoxan sensors are more powerful and sensitive this gives the shadows the ability to mark locations using other races' beacons. This allows them to 'mark' hyperspace locations of interest, whether in Chitoxan-controlled space or not, without letting the other races know they have done so.

According to the database, opening a jump vortex at that hyperspace location would put him just inside the orbit of Planet One. Depending upon where Planet One is in its orbit the jump vortex may put him near or far from the planet. If he enters normal space too close to Planet One the Chitoxan sensors may pick him up. To play it safe, Dave opens a jump vortex at a point that should be a good distance away from the outermost reaches of the system and hopefully unnoticed by any shadow sensors. Entering normal space he uses his passive sensors to check out the system. Once he locates Planet One, he has Tzuljin slowly circle the system until the star is between them and the planet. Keeping a tight rein on Tzuljin's communication system Dave quickly moves as close to the star as Tzuljin can bear, carefully circles it, and then slowly moves toward the planet, using the star's wide-band radiation to hide his vessel's signature.

He silently whistles at what he sees on his sensors. The sun-baked Planet One is a little over 2000 kilometers in diameter. A faint trail of rock and other matter trails behind the planet, slowly falling toward the sun. The trail must be the debris from the construction of the base on the planet. Since he cannot see much on the planet's surface he assumes the Chitoxans must have burrowed inside the planet to build their base. While he can see evidence of the base's existence, its close proximity to the star will make it difficult for any human or other races' sensors to see it. Given the length and density of the debris trail a great deal of material has been evacuated and ejected from the planet. This tells him that a very large base is being built almost at Earth's back door.