Starsnatcher - Trapped In An Alien World [COMPLETE]

Chapter 4.3

What I picture Starsnatcher to look like. Credit goes to Steve Bowers and the Orion's Arm Universe Project.

Crick waved their tentacle over the table's surface. They summoned a holographic representation of a binary solar system.

"I believe you have a right to know what awaits us once we cross the wormhole," Crick transmitted.

Twelve wormholes surrounded that system. One for us to pass and eleven more from which the 

Starsnatchers could call reinforcements at any time.

"Right now, however, we must focus on one specific enemy," Crick continued.

The map zoomed in on one specific starship near the wormhole.

As Crick told us, it was Starsnatcher.

It looked wrong. Everything about it.

Its shape wasn't even remotely rocket or arrow-like as in any other ship I had seen so far.

Instead, its ovoid shape made me think of an egg from which an alien queen could hatch at any moment.

There were no thrusters on it, no crew module, and nowhere to store the fuel. These portions certainly existed, but they couldn't be seen from the outside and that was probably the point. If we wanted to bomb it or board it, we didn't know how.

A smaller ship flew next to it for scale. The Dragonfly. Assuming correct scaling, the Dragonfly's length was between 1/3 to 1/4 of the oval's diameter, depending on the axis.

Wasn't our ship, like, one-and-a-half miles long?

"You are observing a reconstruction from the heat signatures we have, as the ship is invisible," transmitted Crick.

"Invisible?" I repeated.

I hope I didn't earn myself a death sentence by interrupting the Captain.

Crick remained calm. "Yes, you understood the concept I transmitted well. This ship does not fly through conventional reaction mass like our ship does. We do not understand how it flies at all, but this is not important at the moment. What is important is that this, along with its efficient cooling mechanisms, makes it difficult to detect.

"It is not invisible to our heat sensors though. It is invisible to the naked eye and very likely also to the heat sensors of humans. This is why they could abduct you so easily."

Had I only had a chair to sit down on.

Eerie stuff. Stealth in space was hard and these guys were good enough to fool our heat sensors completely? Did they have better ships that could even hide from the Seizers?

"The ship's surface material absorbs the heat in the interior, distributes it evenly, and radiates it into space. We hypothesize that this is to hide the inner portions. However, heat signatures are not distributed equally. There are regions of greater intensity."

A ring of deep marine blue was drawn around the craft. It extended perpendicular to the direction of travel the ship took.

"We must concentrate our missiles and boarding pods on the ring," Crick transmitted. "There is a problem though and that problem is called velocity. I am sure you are familiar with the concept of delta-velocity."

I transmitted an affirmative mindwave.

In rocket science, delta-velocity refers to the maximum speed a rocket could attain if it burned up all its fuel. There's no friction in space, so unlike a car, a rocket doesn't have to use fuel constantly. Every use of fuel speeds it up and once it has used up everything, it reaches a defined velocity.