"David Weber & Steve White - Starfire 3 - In Death Ground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

no potentially hostile species learned anything about the Federation's astrography until formal contactтАФ
and the newcomers' bona fidesтАФhad been established. The best way to accomplish both those ends was to
be sure no newly encountered race even knew the survey force was present until it had been observed at
length, which was the reason the Hun-class mounted cloaking ECM.
"We've completed the initial sweep, Commodore." Braun looked up as Channing swiveled his
own bridge chair to face him. "No artificial emissions detected."
"Thank you." Braun leaned back once more and crossed his legs, rubbing his chin as he glanced at
Commander Elswick. "It looks like we're in clean," he said, and she nodded.
"Yes, Sir. The question is whether or not there's anyone out there to notice anything anyway."
"True. True." Braun pursed his lips, then shrugged. "You know the odds against that, but we'll
play this strictly by The Book. Continue your spiral but hold your drive to no more than half power and
maintain Condition Baker."
"Of course, Sir."
Elswick returned her attention to her own console, and Braun settled himself in his chair. It was
going to be a longer watch than he'd anticipated.
***
"Well, that seems to be that, Sir," Commander Elswick observed.
"Um." Braun nodded slowly, his eyes still on the rough holo chart. The system they'd assigned the
temporary name of Alpha One was thoroughly unprepossessing, with only eight planets, the innermost a
gas giant seven light-minutes from its dim primary. Argive had been in-system for over six days now
without detecting anything but lifeless worlds and what might be a second warp point just over three light-
hours from the star. There'd certainly been none of the clutter star-traveling civilizations tended to leave
lying about, like nav buoys or com relays. On the other hand, any star system was an enormous haystack.
Scores of starships could be hidden in this one, and as long as they radiated no betraying emissions, they'd
all be effectively invisible. Argive by herself had far too little sensor range to sweep such a huge volume
for covert targetsтАФassuming there were, in fact, any to be foundтАФand Braun was eager to get on with the
system survey which was his proper task.
The question was how he did so. SOP required him to bring his escorts through to cover the
Survey cruisers, but Cheltwyn's "gunslingers" had no cloaking ECM. If Braun brought them up, the
flotilla's presence would be obvious to any hidden watcher. The cloaked Huns might not be detectable, but
the carriers and their screen would be, even under tight emissions control.
He snorted mentally at his own thoughts. If Ursula's scanner crews hadn't spotted anything, odds
were there was nothing to spot, despite the volume to be searched, for Argive had a far better chance of
detecting anyone else than they had of detecting her. Even the best sensors had an omnidirectional range
of little more than seventy-two light-minutes against something as small as a starship's drive field, and
given that their entry warp point had been a closed one five light-hours from the primary, no one could
even have known where it was in order to keep a sensor watch on it. Not even the most eagle-eyed
watcher could have detected their actual arrival, and they'd gone into cloak immediately, so for anyone to
be out there and unseen, they'd have to be hiding just as hard as Argive was, and that was ridiculous. Why
should anyone hide in his own stellar backyard, particularly when he thought the backyard in question
held no unexplored warp points? It would take something more severe than mere paranoia to inspire that
sort of behavior!
"All right, Ursula," he said finally. "Call Alex forward. We'll hold the gunslingers on the warp
point under tight em-con and turn the rest of the squadron loose in cloak."
 "Yes, Sir." Argive's captain seemed to hesitate a moment, her eyes on Braun's face, and the
commodore quirked an eyebrow.
"Something on your mind?"
"I was thinking about asking you that, Sir. I've got the feeling you're not entirely comfortable
about something."
"Not comfortable?" Braun frowned at the holo, then shook his head. "I'm not uncomfortable. This