Alien Technology

Timothy was staring out of the cockpit while simultaneously pulling the imaging results up on a secondary display. The ship appeared nowhere. He saw nothing, and the imaging results displayed only a non-reflective ball of mass traveling through space. Timothy stared again at the spectral analysis in awe. How could this be possible? Timothy prided himself in his intimate knowledge of spacecraft and military technology, and he knew for a fact nobody had perfected any sort of cloaking technology--at least not publicly. And the appearance of the ship on the waveform reconstruction, while apparent in function, was nothing like those used by the military--or anyone he had seen. It was massive; almost as big as an undeployed DSS.

From what their scientists and corporations had learned of cloaking technology, the problems with implementing it were many-fold; no space-faring material they could build ships with could sustain the field, and the radiation emitted from the propulsion systems used in every known human vessel would destroy such a field. If they could surmount those and other seemingly insurmountable obstacles, cloaking as they understood it might be a possibility. But this, which held Timothy's gaze on the display in a state of near-shock, was something entirely different.

In an attempt to see more of the mysterious ship, Timothy returned to the reconnaissance controls and enabled the X-Ray analysis function. Not more than a fraction of a second after the device clicked on, the massive ship on Timothy's spectral display seemingly effortlessly spun around and then disappeared from his waveform display (through more detailed analysis of the waveform recordings, Timothy later learned that in fact the ship did not disappear, but simply accelerated incredibly fast out of range of scanner range).

"Shit," Timothy called out as he angrily slammed a balled fist on the lower control board. He immediately went back to the navigation controls, accelerating at full power in the direction of the fleeing ship. For nearly six hours he flew, passing small pieces of rock and space debris every so often, but the ship never appeared on his display, and the alien radiation trail, apparently caused by the space mass and not the ship, had gone completely cold. Timothy eventually concluded that the data he had collected was enough, and set a course for the Carantan colony.

He didn't know what they'd make of his discoveries, but he could only hope it would mean they would include him on any reconnaissance missions based on them. It wouldn't be the first time they've relied on his field expertise; and he figured this would be one of those times. He would insist on it.

He did have the corporations to think about, however. Many a science division in the private sector would love to get their hands on this data before any governing body, and they'd probably pay him more for it. But if either official department found out about such a trade, it would surely hurt his reputation with them and could even land him on one of the labor colonies.

Either way, he had a two week journey to the colony ahead of him with which to make up his mind.