A less experienced officer would have missed it. Lieutenant Tixia, however, had always been fortunate to have what her captain called an “auditory tripwire.” Something or someone was attempting to jam ground-level communications. It started as an intermittent distortion in the background of Zony’s reception scanner, then began to grow in power as she rounded the edge of the northern ridge.
Unfortunately for whomever was broadcasting the distortion wave, a battleship signals officer was on the ground and much closer to their transmission apparatus than they probably thought. Because Zony was using a directional beam to communicate with her ship, her datalink wasn’t affected. This gave her the ability to use the ship’s formidable array of electromagnetic analysis equipment to quickly isolate the jamming signal and rapidly develop a counter. This, of course, also gave her the ability to use the jamming signal itself as a homing beacon.
Zony had her blaster drawn. She stood tense at the edge of an alcove in the rocks. A black wire ran along the ground from beneath some sparse vegetation into the larger nearby formation. She heard movement. Her tac-suit’s systems indicated some kind of electronic equipment nearby was generating artificial heat and emitting carbon dioxide.
The lieutenant peered around the edge of the rock. The man had his back turned. He was wearing a portable oxygen unit and thermal clothing complete with all-terrain boots. He was working with a medium-sized portable radio beacon. He stopped. Zony held her breath. He reached for his waist.
“Freeze.” Zony raised her weapon with both hands and aimed between the man’s shoulders. He stopped, fingers spread. “Reach across with your left hand and toss that blaster.”
He complied. The gun landed with a thud and slid in the dust.
“On your knees. Cross your feet and interlock your fingers behind your–”
She caught movement to one side. A blazing white flash from her blaster punched a second armed man right in the center of his chest. His weapon flew as he cried out and stumbled backwards off the ridge. Tixia took aim at the second man again just as he raised his pistol. Energy beams flashed in the Bayone night. His body landed hard, face down.
Zony’s breaths came in short gasps. She still had her weapon raised as she tried to calm herself. The inside of her helmet faceplate fogged up momentarily before her suit compensated for the buildup of water vapor. She gently nudged her suit’s proximity scanners into operation and glanced at her handheld scanner. She detected no further nearby life signs. She holstered her weapon.
The control mechanism on the radio beacon was blinking. Zony approached it cautiously and examined the device. Apparently the man had been in the process of re-tuning the transmitter to function on multiple frequencies at once. Tixia knew this would require considerable expertise. She turned the first man’s body over. His clothing and equipment were unremarkable. There would be no way to identify him or who he was working with by what he was wearing. A quick examination of the second man turned up similar results. She deactivated the radio beacon.
A soft tone sounded and Zony brought up her orbital tracking overlay. Argent had dipped below the northwest horizon. She would have to wait another 37 minutes before it reappeared in the southern sky on its next orbit. With hostiles on the ground, the dangers involved in omnidirectional transmissions had increased dramatically. Nevertheless, she had to warn Yili and the others. She configured her commlink to broadcast on a low-powered scrambled frequency.