Lieutenant Brently Armstrong was busy. He had never been given such a difficult assignment. He was charged with finding the anomalous signal that had shown up irregularly in his data logging of the EM sensors. And he had only been given another twenty-four hours to find it. The order had come straight from the General. Something was up.
Brently started by thinking about how he could locate the source even if it wasn't transmitting. Was there any way that data analysis could show the location, or at least the area of the platform from which the signal was being generated?
He thought about the information he already knew. He knew the different sources of the electromagnetic interference which he had nulled out. He knew their relative strength which his EM sensors picked up and he knew their exact location from scouting the station.
If he could build a map of the platform and locate each noise source and its signal strength on that map, he might be able to use the data he had on the unknown source to assign it to no more than a few areas around the platform.
“Tess,” he said. “We need a map of the station, do you know of any in the database?”
“Yes Brently. I'll bring up the different versions on the terminal over here and you can choose.”
Brently reviewed the different station configuration diagrams and chose one to work with. He began using his Annie to correlate EM noise sources with distance from the sensors. By tagging the platform diagram with noise source, location and signal strength he developed his map.
Now it was just a matter of making an assumption about the signal strength of the unknown source...
Brently jumped as his Annie switched to a very loud alarm mode. The unknown source was back online! The Annie had learned that Brently was interested in this signal and had arranged the alarm itself.
Brently grabbed his portable EM sensor adapter and plugged it into his Annie for more precise location mining.
“Tess, the unknown source is back online. Please tell Dr. Fermion I am going to try to find the location.”
“Very well Brently, good luck.”
The Annie became a signal tracker once the external EM sensor was plugged in, the screen which now looked like a compass always pointed towards the unknown signal.
He followed the tracker out of the workroom and noticed that the signal was somewhere below him. He would have to climb to the center of the wheel and move 'down' in the direction of the lower equipment and station keeping boom.
Once in what was effectively zero gravity, Brently pulled himself in the direction of the lower boom. At the end of the long cylinder of the wheel's center, Brently pulled himself up to a viewing port from which he could see the lower boom. The view of the earth below caused a moment of vertigo.
He began to scan the boom by eye. He knew that the box or whatever it was he was looking for would have to have a long wire trailing from it. The box might be any size, though he expected it to be small, but the length of the antenna wire was fixed according to the transmission frequency. And the frequency that Brently had measured for the unknown signal would require an antenna wire of a few meters.
Brently was repeating the scan of the long boom for the third time when he thought he saw it. But he wasn't sure because the Annie's digital magnification couldn't resolve the target. If only he had a pair of real binoculars. Brently called the workroom over the intercom and asked Tess to bring a pair of binoculars.
It wasn't long before Brently saw the robot pulling itself along the handholds as he had done.
“Here are the binoculars,” said Tess as she came up to Brently.
“Thanks.”
Through the binoculars, he could definitely see a small box with a trailing wire.
“Tess, can you see that small box with the trailing wire about a third of the way down the boom?”
Tess moved to the window. “Yes, I see it.”
We've got him, thought Brently.
“Tess, how could someone place a box such as that on the boom?”
“A human in a spacesuit or a boom management robot could have placed it there Brently.”
“And to do so they would have to open this hatch?”
“I would say that is obvious,” said Tess.
“Aren't all hatch accesses and robot movements logged somewhere?”
“That is correct Brently. Even my effort to bring you the binoculars has been logged. And all hatch accesses must be approved by the central computer or the officer on duty.”
“Well, whoever it was that put the unauthorized transmitter out there had to go through the boom hatch or send a robot. And whichever way he did it the station logs will show. All we have to do is search those logs and question anyone associated.”
Brently smiled at Tess.
The station alarm went off. Brently heard the whine of the laser weapons powering up. He went back to the window and began to look from the earth outward. He heard the pop and felt the recoil of the chemical discharge that roared out the exhaust ports of the huge three-hundred-kilowatt energy weapons. Such weapons could vaporize a six-inch thick piece of steel in seconds.
He couldn't see the attackers the lasers were firing at but he did see the remains of the chemical reaction that powered the lasers and exhausted at tremendous speed. Then he felt a strange shutter as if the station was being shaken by a giant.
The intercom crackled to life and Brently heard the all hands abandon ship alarm. He looked at Tess.
Tess said, “Hurry Brently you may have only a few minutes to reach an escape pod.”
Brently hesitated a moment, “Thanks Tess.”
He started up the nearest ladder to the wheel's perimeter. The station began a complex but repeatable vibration. Brently increased his speed.
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