Cloak and Dagger

Commander Dodger settled back into his seat. He'd only been doing delivery missions for a few years, and he'd managed to kit himself out in a military “surplus” Viper Mk 2 that he’d renamed “Nighteyes”. It had been given by the Federal Military to do a particularly important delivery, with the opportunity to keep it afterwards. That had been a mission and a half. In that he'd had to pick up an unwilling imperial scientist that the Feds wanted to "talk" to.

“Nighteyes” was something special, as he'd been given it to do that particular job. It had been fitted with an experimental Class 4 Military drive, giving it a phenomenal range. There was also the matter of the 20mw laser strapped to the front. And the transmission jammer All it lacked at the time was some decent shields. He’d soon fixed that though, removing a couple of unnecessary bits of equipment in the process. These had turned out to be to be concealed explosives, rigged to explode after entering hyperspace a few times, and a transmitter, broadcasting the position of the ship. The mission had only required 2 jumps.

Since then, he’d not worked for the feds, preferring to let them think he was dead. Instead he hung around on the fringes of travelled space. The ship’s range pretty much allowed him to jump from Reidequat to Phekda in one jump, with only requiring 1 tonne of military fuel. Already he’d had numerous offers to buy the ship from several bounty hunters. A few had also tried to take it by force in space. All they’d succeeded in doing was costing Dodger some money for minor repairs to the ship.

At the moment he was waiting in “The Clansman”. A bar on the Greenhill City station in the Waedphi system (-8, -1). He was waiting for someone who’d contacted him wanting someone who could take him directly to hope, in Gateway. That seemed like a simple enough job for him. It was a jump of almost 70 light years. All he’d been told was to sit at a particular table. He hoped that it wouldn’t take too long. There was a concealed shipment of slaves he was smuggling to Phekda. The customs officials might be able to get a scan through the dampening field he’d hooked up around that section of his ship. His official reason for that section was that he was transporting radioactive materials to a processing plant. That would keep all but the most curious snoopers well away from Nighteyes.

After about an hour, a pair of mean looking pilots walked in looking around. Spotting him, they walked straight over to Dodger’s table.

“Come with us” the taller out of the two said.

“Sorry,” replied Dodger, “I’m expecting someone, and it’s not you.”

“We know, he’s at docking bay 5. He wanted to meet you there instead.”

This was starting to look very suspicious, but interesting.

“Mind if I finish this drink first then?” replied Dodger, covertly checking the blaster concealed in his sleeve. He’d already learned that sometimes have a big powerful hand laser sitting at your hip wasn’t enough to put some criminals off, and reaching for it took a couple of seconds. Not always good in a bad situation, so it helped to have some hidden backup.

Down in the Docking bay, he met his customer.

“We heard you could get us to Gateway by next week. Is this true, and how?”

This guy was straight down to business. Either he was in a rush, or new to the game. Possibly both.

“Us? I thought there was only one of you going, not three.”

“There is. Is it true or not?”

“It’s true, but I can’t tell you how. That’s my business. How we get there doesn’t concern you. Just that I get you there in one piece.”

“Will ten grand do?”

“Depends. Why do you need to get there so fast?”

“That’s not your business”

“It is if my ship gets attacked”

“If your ship is attacked, it’ll be before we jump.”

“Who’re you running from?”

“The Federal Military. I took something from them, and they’d rather destroy it, than let it get away. These two will help defend you before we jump. They both pilot Cobras.”

“Ok then, but it’ll cost you 15,000. Non-negotiable, before we leave.”

“You can’t expect me to pay that!”

Dodger turned, and started to walk away.

“Wait! OK, OK. I’ll pay the fifteen. But half now, half when we get there.”

Dodger stopped and turned. Maybe he had a soft spot after all. He just hoped it would be worth it, and besides, it was on his way to Phekda.

“Hope your bags are packed. We leave in ten minutes.”

Back in his Viper, Dodger went through the usual pre-flight routine. There were a few power spikes that were bothering him, but they weren’t serious enough to bother with yet.

His guest had eventually told him his name. Daniel Carrington. He was currently getting himself settled into his cabin.

“This is the Viper “Nighteyes”, requesting permission to launch. My destination is Vegreio.”

Carrington chose that moment to come forward.

“Roger Nighteyes. Please wait a moment.”

Dodger cut the mike and looked round at Carrington.

“Vegreio?” asked Carrington.

“It’s in the right direction, and I can always jump back there to trade. I don’t want the officials to know this ship’s true range.” replied Dodger

“I suppose…” The intercom cut in before Carrington could finish.

“Nighteyes, you are clear to launch” cut in the station’s docking control. “Please proceed to jump point 3.”

“Roger, Nighteyes out.”

Dodger waited for the station to open the bay doors, then activated his thrusters and manoeuvred the Viper towards the jump point about 50km distant. Two Cobras angled towards the Viper, as if to escort it.

“Think we can trust your friends?” said Dodger.

“I trust them”

At that, Dodger locked a missile onto each Cobra, and turned to Carrington.

“Well, I don’t. I’ve never trusted cobra pilots. They’re usually mercenaries or pirates. I also just picked up a beam transmission from one of them to somebody else up ahead.”

“What?”

“It’s a signal that is only detectable along the path to its intended destination – The computer only detected it because the Cobras are behind us. That’s not what bothers me, though. What bothers me is that the direction is almost directly towards our jump point but there’s nothing in that direction according to my sensors.”

At this, Carrington became quiet.

“Anything you want to tell me?” asked Dodger.

“The thing I stole from the Federal Military…”

“Go on.”

“It was plans to a Cloaking Device. More advanced than the ones that were used in the war with the Thargoids.”

“I thought they’d been banned after a while because of some health risk.”

“True, but the prospect of having one that didn’t affect health was too appealing to the Military. There’s a prototype actually up and running now. All I know is that it’s on a Viper like this one.”

“Like this one?”

“I recognised some of the equipment back there. It’s experimental Military hardware. My guess is they sent you on some job as a test run for the platform. It saves them losing pilots if it all goes wrong, as well as testing things out in actual combat. Usually, ‘pirates’ kill the pilot a few hyperspace jumps later to stop the pilot talking”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

All this stuff was starting to look like the Feds were going to try and kill him again. Plus, this Carrington guy knew too much to be healthy.

“I worked as a scientist on numerous projects. When I expressed concern over some of the things we were doing, I was threatened at home. I grabbed the plans so that I’d be able to sell them. I was only able to get twelve grand from my account before the military sealed the account.”

“Do you have a buyer?” Dodger hoped so, because it looked like Carrington might not be able to pay the other seventy five hundred credits

“Of course. I’ve never met them, though, but they really wanted the plans. They just won’t have anyone out in this sector for a couple of weeks.” That was pretty believable. The sector was pretty far from the core systems, and there wasn’t much out this way anyway.

“Well, no time for that now. We’re approaching the jump point”

Dodger started to reach for the hyperspace controls when one of the Cobras suddenly fired a missile. His reaction was instant, and hit the ECM button. The missile wasn’t locked onto Nighteyes, though. It went straight into the side of the other Cobra.

“So you trust them both do you?” said Dodger.

He wheeled Nighteyes around and fired on the other Cobra, grazing its shields. A laser blast hit Nighteyes from behind.

“What the hell!!??”

A Viper had just appeared 2km away and was firing at them with its laser. A Viper and a cobra working together weren’t the best of combinations to go up against.

“You said the Cloak was on a Viper like this. Does it have shields?” Dodger remembered that Nighteyes hadn’t been equipped with shields when he’d first got it.

“We weren’t able to get shields working on a ship that had a cloaking device. We couldn’t get the generators to work properly. All the ones from the Thargoid War got destroyed, so we couldn’t work from them. All the old technical notes on them weren’t available to us either. Those went missing when INRA got disbanded.”

“Well, I guess that works in our favour then. I would try a misjump to throw them off, but this drive needs a few seconds to charge, and I haven’t set the destination yet. Besides, they know where we’re going thanks to your friend in the Cobra.”

Dodger pulled Nighteyes into a high-g turn to avoid laser blasts from the Viper and fired a missile at the Cobra. He followed up with a long raking blast from his laser. The Cobra’s shields failed and it started to smoke.

Another blast hit Nighteyes, and Dodger wheeled away from the other Viper’s fire again.

“Damn, I haven’t got a shot at this guy yet. Hopefully this’ll make him back off for a minute.”

Dodger hit a button to drop a couple of mines. As he hoped, the enemy Viper abruptly wheeled away to avoid the mines. One final laser blast finished off the Cobra.

“Now we can get around to this guy.”

Dodger wheeled the Viper around to confront the enemy ship, only to find it had vanished again.

“Looks like he’s not so brave by himself. Any way to detect these cloaking devices?”

“No, unless he jumps in from Hyperspace. The radiation cloud would reveal him as a blank spot in the radiation. He also can’t fire while he’s cloaked. It gets its energy supply is from the weapon power grid.”

Dodger quickly set his jump coordinates for gateway.

“We won’t do a misjump this time. I wanna get that bastard!”

At this, he entered Hyperspace.

They emerged from Hyperspace the next day, although to Dodger and Carrington, it only took seconds. Dodger wheeled Nighteyes around to go into the entry cloud.

“Hopefully, when he jumps in, he’ll look ahead and try to find us. The radiation from the cloud should hide us for a few seconds. We won’t see him either, but I’ll be able to detect his jump cloud.” said Dodger

“Um, what about the radiation?”

“We’ll be fine if we leave the cloud within the hour. After that, the shields won’t protect us. Don’t worry though. If he’s following us, and that Viper’s got the same type of engine specs as this one, He should be here within a few minutes.”

Dodger set his scanners to look for jump cloud radiation, and readied his remaining missile to fire.

“You know, I’ll give you back your money if you make me a copy of those plans.” Said Dodger as he was boosting power to the shields.

“I can’t do that! That’s nowhere near as much as I’m getting paid for them on Hope.”

“Hey, I’ve just saved your life, and like I said. I’d just like a copy of the plans. I’ll also give you priority for future jobs. All you’d have to do is leave an advert on GalNET when you need me.”

Carrington thought for a minute then said “If you get the Federal military off my back as well, then OK. I’ll make you a copy.”

“Good. Put some items of yours they’ll recognise in the cargo bay. Make sure you include your ID as well. I’ll jettison them into the wreckage if I actually succeed in destroying that Viper.”

Carrington went back to his cabin, while Dodger waited. The scanners picked up an entry cloud, and Dodger activated the intercom.

“Strap yourself in. We’re about to fight again”

Dodger fired the thrusters and saw the Viper uncloaked beside the entry cloud. He fired his last missile at the Viper and immediately followed up with his laser. The enemy Viper fired its ECM at the last minute and started to manoeuvre away from the laser. Dodger activated the transmission jammer, and set the computer to record any frequencies the enemy was trying to transmit on. Carrington chose this moment to come forward.

“That’s me done it.” said Carrington

“I told you to strap in back there. Never mind now, buckle in, fast”.

Carrington did so. A second later, the enemy viper tried to pull a high-g turn to try slipping under Nighteyes. Dodger followed, harassing it.

“Why don’t you fire a missile at it?”

“Already did. I’m out of them now. Shut up and let me concentrate!”

Dodger managed to hit the engines of the enemy Viper, destroying them. A light flashed on Dodger’s console. He ignored it and came around again behind the now-disabled Viper. A long blast from the laser and the enemy ship exploded.

“Done it!” yelled Dodger. He set the Autopilot to hold position, disabled the jammer, and got out his seat.

“You might want to go to your cabin for a few minutes, Carrington. I’ve got to do something you might not agree with.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me put it this way. They’ll expect 2 bodies in the wreckage. Your body, and mine.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to know.”

They walked together towards the back of the ship. Carrington went into his cabin and locked the door. A few minutes later, Dodger was back in the cockpit. He activated the tractor beam to push a body and some loose debris from just outside his airlock towards the wreckage of the Viper. When it was close enough, he fired his laser on low power at the wreckage and the body. This done, he checked his communications console and replayed the message the enemy pilot had tried to transmit. He recorded his own message and set his computer to change his recorded voice to that of the dead enemy pilot. This done, he selected the frequency the enemy had tried to transmit on, and sent the message. Dodger thumbed the intercom.

“OK, that’s it done, Carrington. We’re heading to Old Curie now. You’ll find some recent dreamware in there if you want. It’ll take us a day to get there.”

“What about that copy of the plans you wanted?” came the reply.

“They’re on disc. Aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll find there’s a console set up down there. Put the disc in and I’ll copy it from here. After that, get some sleep.”

Two minutes later Dodger had the plans to the cloaking device stored on his computer. All in all, this was going to be a profitable trip. He’d managed to get a couple more kills under his belt, and hopefully managed to trick the Feds into thinking that the cloaking device was unstable in hyperspace. His message had said the ship was badly damaged while making the jump with the cloak on. They’d probably think that their viper exploded in mid-jump. The Feds would probably also think they’d managed to get him this time.

The only downside was that the slaves he was smuggling were going to be one less than the amount he’d agreed with the buyer two weeks previously.

-----------------------

Well, that’s my first bit of Elite Fan Fiction. I hope if anyone’s read this, that they enjoyed it. Opinions on it are welcome to my Email (I don’t check the newsgroup very often). If people enjoyed it, I might even do a follow-up sometime. It took all night, and I’m hoping it’s OK.

I know that the first Elite game had cloaking devices, but they’re strangely absent from later games. I decided to introduce a possible reason for the lack of appearances in the later games.

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