KCGS Edward Vanh, uninhabited system, Quarantine Zone, July, 3142...
The cutter was an old, possibly ancient design, resurrected thanks to the peculiar conditions necessary in the Quarantine. By necessity, the jump drive shared more in common with the Aquila class, or with much later, proper, warship drives capable of a fifteen light year radius by itself.
of course, the clever boys and girls at the Boojum yards had managed to fit an LF battery capacitor to it, allowing for a second, fifteen light year jump. By even the 'modern' standards of the succession wars, the interstellar capabilities were horrifically primitive and deeply limited.
but that was, as much as anything, an asset for the Coast Guard's mission now...or their missions, really. The size of the Q-zone around Arluna and Kowloon was large enough to make good men nervous, and enforcement was a one-way trip for outsiders from the rest of the Inner Sphere.
It was even worse for the Clans, should they stray in here. The Flu was a contagious death sentence, but keeping the vultures and scavengers away and limiting the spread requires a force capable of enforcing the quarantine.
That force, the Kowloon Coast Guard, needed interstellar capability within the zone, that was limited enough to be, if necessary, halted by outside naval forces-a quarantine ship could, in theory, breach deep into the surrounding realms before being caught, but a ship with a 'short legs' could not go far with an infected crew, if they could not exceed a short duration jump on their own.
Thus, while everyone lied to each other about rebuilding naval yards outside the zone, even Devlin Stone and his successors were willing to permit the survivors in the zone to police themselves with ships capable of carrying capital weapons and advanced sensors between star systems.
and the Cutters are small.
Commander Caroline Nghien-562 could muse on this, or she could focus on the mission.
"Survey?"
"No signs of current human habitation, mum." Chief Petty Officer Jensen-Diehls Smitson-221 reported. The Weapons System Monitor's position on a Coast Guard vessel often fills the role of Science Officer, when it isn't filled by an RTO or 'Arto' with a four year degree. "Spectrum looks good, Mission Specialist?"
Mission Specialist is a rating for a senior Warrant officer in actual sciences. Frank 'Frankenstein' Falcone-Hue 003's ancestors were Deserters-followers of Kerensky, his line ran through the Clans and if he weren't a superb engineer and scientist in his own right, his shipmates would never accept him thanks to that Clan Heritage-Kowloon's Falcons were dirtyfeet, and this crew were mostly Rockjacks.
"Atmosphere is majority Carbon Dioxide and Nitrous Oxide, there's an acidic ocean, concentrated greenhouse gasses, but the cover is thin enough and the planet's distant enough that while the core is active, it's not Venus active, I think this one's going to be a good choice for the test, Mum."
"Finish compiling your reports, this is the fourth probable candidate in as many months" Caroline said, "Gonna be sad when this work is done though-this has been the best six months in the last ten years, and I don't look forward to Q-pat or Cloud SAR work again."
"Mum, I'm picking up something." Vien Van Trau was the other dirtyfoot on the command deck, a fisherman's son from New Saigon, he'd worked his way from a River Patrol to Deep Ocean in the Submarine service, out into the Black, an E-6 NCO and thus, Radioman First Class who probably should have been frocked to warrant-and would have been, had he so desired.
"What have you got?"
"Wireless band pulses, one...three...five....seven...eleven...thirteen...Seventeen...prime numbers, Mum."
"If there's a transmitter in the system we can't use it!" Falcone insisted.
"I know. Can you isolate a location? nobody should be here, nobody should even by flying here." Caroline ordered.
"big ears deploying..." two shuttle craft with tuned recievers-used for triangulating signals during search and rescue, deployed, linking their direction finders to the Cutter's main array in order to seek out the signal and create a 'pyramidal' position fix.
"Got it. Fourth planet, right behind our candidate."
"What's the read on planet Four?"
"big Mars, mum, there could be an illegal settlement there-"
"reel the boats in, we're going to need to seek this out."
