Countryman stepped into the office of one of the ship’s doctors and looked around. Nothing stood out to him other than the young woman behind the desk. She seemed a little tired and worried as he walked in. “You said you had something important to discuss?”

She nodded, “I was not sure if it was a good idea to talk about it in public or over public channels. It is very important, however.”

He found a chair and sat down without asking. “This does not seem like good news, so spit it out. Best to just get it over with.”

She sighed, “I guess so. Anyway, remember that incident last week? Well, we looked into it, after a few therapists relayed some alarming trends. During our investigation, we found something, and I don’t think you will like it.”

“What did you find?”

She hesitated before answering, “A super-pheromone, we found a natural super-pheromone.”

He frowned, “A super-pheromone???”

She nodded, activated the monitor on her desk, and rotated it so that he could see the screen. Displayed was a bunch of medical jargon, jargon he understood enough of, to get the gist of what it was saying. “In some individuals, mostly younger individuals we found a mutation. It alters the pheromones we produce making them far stronger. Tests of this altered pheromone seem to indicate that not only does it signal our readiness to mate, but induces it in others. Would not be too much of a problem if not for its mind-altering effect. In females, it seems to induce an almost desperate need to be pregnant. It seems we found the cause of last week’s incident, and why orgies are so common in the communal living areas.”

He had to agree that was concerning, but he read between the lines and noted that while this was alarming, it was just a preliminary study. “I noticed that you did not mention any effects on men.”

“Well, we haven’t had time for any extensive tests. We have not yet noted any odd effects in men, but that may only be a matter of time. I would like the funds and authorization for a more extensive study. I would like to find out how common the trait is, its exact effects, and then look for a way to neutralize it.”

He sat in thought for a moment, and then said, “You have it. I’ll take care of everything.”

Then without another word, he stood up to leave. There was a council meeting in an hour, and he figured he would take care of it first thing in the meeting.

Sali kept an eye on the sensor as she made a minor correction to their course. They had reached Draxus Nine and were conducting final scans of the surface. The scans were being done discreetly, as they did not want to reveal their presence to the Cylovans.

They were not the only ship in the system either. A conduit had opened just an hour before they had entered the system. Three destroyer sized ships had emerged from it. Ships of a configuration they did not often see. They were taking scans of these ships as well.

None of the vessels were heavily armed nor did they have much armor or shielding. Their discreet scans had revealed that the ships were cargo ships, laden with supplies. While they had not found any base on the surface yet. The presence of supply ships implied that there must be a base in the system. One of the ships seemed to be carrying fuel, while the other two seemed to be carrying machine parts.

All three of them were easy pickings for an LPC, but she knew they weren’t going to attack. Hitting the supply ships here would only put the Collective on alert in this sector. They did not need that, and they had been ordered not to engage in unnecessary battles. This was a scouting mission not a raid mission. Hitting a few supply ships was not going to do a lot of damage anyway, but a hidden base seemed interesting and important. She was starting to understand what interest the fleet had in this system.

While they had not located it yet, the presence of a hidden base indicated that the Cylovan’s had something going on here that they wanted to be kept secret. She had no idea what though. Afterall what could a machine race possibly be hiding in a hidden and remote facility like this?”

The only thing that came to mind was ... Maybe a research facility? She could think of a few reasons for one to be placed in a remote system. Certain types of research were best conducted in remote areas. Then again, maybe most types of research would benefit. Putting the facility in a remote area would protect it from observation, assuming that any enemies did not know about it. Being machines they had to worry less about spies in their midst, and more about being hacked. So the best way to protect their research was probably to put their facilities in remote sectors on a separate mainframe. One isolated from their primary network.

Just as she wondered if she might be going on a wild tangent with that line of thought, and the base was actually something completely different. Perhaps the supply ships might provide a few clues. Although they were limited to what they could learn from low powered scans. They had a few ideas on what they were carrying, but it only gave them a rough idea of what the base actually was.

Behind her, a voice spoke up. Steele was also studying the sensors, and apparently found something, “Ma’am, I found a location of interest.”

The captain with a note of interest in her voice asked, “What have you found?”

Instantly an image appeared on the forward screen. It displayed a mountainous area, near a rocky coastline. Much of the area was covered with thick ice, snow, and the occasional scrub. Advancing on the area from the north was a massive ice sheet. One oddity stuck out near the mountains, an area of what at first glance looked like normal terrain, but it was off somehow. Steele spoke up and pointed out the area, “We did not notice this at first, but the Cylovans have a base here. We can’t see it because of an active camouflage field.”

She switched the sensors, and the view changed to reveal in the odd area, a large complex. Dozens of large structures arrayed around a massive central building. Several scattered landing fields, and a few ground bunkers complete with defensive weaponry.

Sali leaned forward, impressed, “How did you penetrate the camouflage field?”

Steele smiled, “Simple really. I used a short burst of full-spectrum em radiation to saturate the field. I fired the pulse when we were passing between the local star and the base and timed it to coincide with a flare-up. The return from that burst revealed those images.”

Sali was impressed. It was a simple and effective way to conduct a high-powered scan, it was like firing a weapon while a loud transport was rushing by. The noise of the transport hid the noise of the weapon. In this case, the flare served to disguise the source of the high powered em burst. If the Cylovans detected anything, the machines would likely conclude that the burst came from the local primary and not a small cloaked ship. Therefore they won’t make an in-depth analysis of the burst. Afterall there was no reason for the Collective to expect them to have any ships in this sector.

Captain Sayuri who had been quietly studying the images, finally spoke, “It seems we found the base we were looking for. Take as many images as you can without revealing our presence. Sali, I want you to chart a new course out of the system after we complete the next orbit.”

Sali acknowledged the order and got to work. It was a simple matter to chart a course. One thing she loved about this ship was the intuitive navigational controls. In a matter of moments, she had the entire course worked out, along with a few minor corrections listed to deal with some small debris on their orbital track.

The rest of the scanning went without incident, and before long they were on a track out of the system at warp five point two. With their data collected, they were now reviewing the images in preparation for their report to the fleet. Given what they had found, they would likely accelerate to maximum warp and head straight to the fleet so that the data could be reported directly. They wanted no chance that this information be intercepted by the enemy. The base certainly looked important.

Subsequent scans using simple methods to hide them being taken had revealed quite a bit more. The initial images showed only the surface level of the compound. Below the surface, the base extended for kilometers into the crust of the planet. Huge cavernous facilities, and numerous smaller cells. A virtual hive of activity was down below. They had also identified quite a few interesting things about the facility, including the presence of a massive mainframe computer buried in the facility. The computer was directly under the largest surface structure and extended down past scan range. They couldn’t even see the bottom of the facility, but judging by what they could see, the computer was a very beefy mainframe. More powerful than any processing node they had previously found.

Such a powerful computer in a remote sector, and what other images were revealing all pointed to one thing. They had found something rather important. Very important to the Collective, and they did not want the Collective on guard here. What exactly the facility was, Sali did not know for certain, but it certainly wasn’t a data repository.

Defensively, it looked like it relied almost entirely on the camouflage field. The base had a light shield, and a few guns capable of hitting ships in orbit, but it was barely enough to hold off a destroyer. A single Battlehawk class cruiser could easily take out the base from orbit. Its depth in the crust notwithstanding. It just was not built to take a bombardment. At least not a concentrated orbital barrage from a cruiser. Anything smaller and it would likely survive.

Sali had a feeling, however, that the base would be more valuable if it could be taken intact. Something that may prove harder given the size of said facility.