2. Hydroki Reconnaissance

Three million Kilometers away from the Noetic Zero , a small lightless space probe shot away from the Noetic System at 200x light speed, small enough and with just enough speed to avoid detection by the millions of Sentry Buoys that surrounded NU. The small black probe had a thin hollow carbonite shell, half meter wide but with a mass of less than 20 grams, for is was built as much for speed as for stealth. Its super light weight allowed it to not trigger the Minute Gravity Detectors (MGDs) that were part of the Array of Sentry Buoys that constantly kept guard all around Noesis Universalis. The MGDs arrays had been placed all around NU as far away as possible, an early warning system, to warn against fast incoming projectiles. They were designed and installed in the late 4000s nearly a thousand years ago and many had argued that they were in need of an upgrade. Yet most had felt that, given the rather rare occurrences of detection, that such an expensive exercise was not really warranted

The passive un-powered probe kept on its pre programmed journey for 5 hours, till it reached a safe distance of a tenth of a light year from NZ. The outer shell of the probe split into sections and started coming apart, separating slowly from the probe, revealing the smaller cylindrical core, with one end convex, to serve as a short distance wide angle antenna. A second later it transmitted two short Gravitonic pulses that spread out in a wide cone, directed away from NU. Almost instantly a High Gain Gravity Perturbation Antenna (HG-GPA) registered the pulses, noting their strengths, direction and speed.
The vibrator ring awoke the lone Hydrok on duty with a sudden start. In spite of his three month long hibernation, he lost no time trying to figure out what was up. As was characteristic of the Hydruk species, he swung into action like a robot. He started breathing in much faster, necessary to revitalize his body, the pure nitrogen air of the capsule making a swishing sound as it got sucked in from his small slits at the top, not that he would hear it. His two arms had no joints in them, and seemed very inadequate for anything, but the three long fingers at each arms end– really tentacles, gave him surprising dexterity. He immediately checked a panel that constantly showed the data from the GP Antenna, even as he exhaled into the recycling tube attached to his air outlet at the bottom of his thick round tube like body. His bony tentacles flipped and tapped on panels and switches mechanically, he was well trained. He copied the data carefully duplicating into several devices, then pressed a series of buttons on a display panel and the small space capsule that had been his home for the last fifteen years buzzed into life, accelerating quickly to position itself into the path of the source of the pulses, the approaching spy probe. Then he waited, so still his body seemed frozen rigid in the Zero Gravity, his breathing slowing down to near hibernation levels again. An hour went by, then a rectangle started flashing on the same panel, a low frequency of infra red that only Hydroks could see. He seemed to wake up again, his long bony fingers rapidly flipping over touch screens, then again went still. A larger panel on the side now showed the position of the fast advancing probe. A particular entry in the Hydroki script kept changing constantly, indicating the fast closing distance of the probe from the mini Hydroki reconnaissance capsule.
The probe was traveling too fast to stop or capture, so he had to do it as it past by at its blistering 200x light speed, and while it was still in range- about eighteen million Kilometers. That gave him just two minutes, one as the probe approached, and another minute as it receded from his little station. After that it would be lost to the vast empty space for ever. But he had trained for this a hundred times, and automatically conducted the routine, checking panels, flipping switches and touch screen buttons. The spy probe was suddenly with in range, and it was the duty of the lone Hydroki to retrieve the data it carried. Its narrow Tera Hertz transmitter powered up as it received the start command signal from the Hydroki station. It was ready to complete its mission’s lone objective.

Success.

The probe flashed past his capsule at a safe distance, and he repeated the data retrieval process again, they matched perfectly. He swished in Nitrogen again, - then pressed a small round button on a concave display in front of him. Out slid a shiny little button from a slot to his side, which he caught neatly in his three long bony fingers, as it floated out in the Zero Gravity.
He got out of the harness in which he had hung and slept for the last three months, his two un-jointed arms and long fingers expertly and swiftly guided his soft lower trunk within the narrow cramped capsule, emerging from a port into a slightly wider and longer compartment. This was the only other room in his lonely outpost, and housed the one major equipment in the mini space pod – a modified long distance small particle shifter. He floated to a panel on the side of the meter long black cubical device and placed the small shiny data pellet on a pad inside a transparent cylinder, closing the lid back. Again flipped a few switches, and soon the data was encoded into a series of quarks and anti-quarks of varied flavors and charges, and then transmitted as a steady stream, on its way, to the nearest relay station 50 light years away, and onward. His job done, the Hydrok switched back all his equipment, His work was done for now. The next data probe may not come for months, or years, or it could come in an hour. With nothing to so till then he went back to his harness, to hibernate and save energy and Nitrogen, his mission was not yet over, in fact, it had to last as long as possible. He checked the thin dull grey ring that went around his trunk where it narrowed slightly, you could call it his waist, or neck if you like. It was the vibrator that would awaken him when the next probe pinged, indicating its arrival. Satisfied, he settled down into his harness, body upright, his arms folded down against his trunk, his breathing slowed down to near zero, he was ready to fall back into sleep, like he had done many times before.