He accessed the live feed from the shuttle’s passive sensors and nodded to himself.  The aliens still weren't moving, but they were sweeping space with their active sensors.  Marine shuttles were stealthy, yet Charles knew better than to assume they were stealthy enough to creep through an active sensor sweep.  They needed one of the alien stealth systems, he told himself, and wondered if the boffins on Earth had unlocked their secrets since Ark Royal had set out on deployment.  If not ... the answers to their questions about the system might be dead ahead of them, waiting to be taken.

A faint quiver ran through the shuttle as it slowed to a halt, relative to the alien battlecruiser.  Behind them, the other shuttles held their position and waited, linked to the command ship through pinpoint laser beams.  Charles sucked in his breath and studied the alien craft through the passive sensors, recalling what little had been gleaned from sensor sweeps during the Battle of Alien-One.  The ship was half the size of Ark Royal, its gleaming hull seemingly untouched by weapons and sensor blisters.  But, given the alien capabilities, that meant nothing.

She was more elegant than a human ship, he had to admit.  Unlike the boxy Ark Royal or the newer carriers, the alien craft was a black triangle, hovering against the darkness of interplanetary space.  Twin engine nodes glowed at the rear of the ship – their in-system drives were definitely a step or two above humanity’s technology – while the faint bulge of a Puller Drive was easily detectable.  The aliens, it seemed, were ready to nip back through the tramline if the shit hit the fan.

The only rupture in her otherwise seamless hull, he noted, came at the very prow of the ship.  It looked like her hull should taper down to a fine point, but instead there was a large aperture big enough to take the shuttlecraft or a couple of starfighters.  He wondered, vaguely, if the aliens had actually outfitted the battlecruiser with a starfighter launch tube – there had been early human designs that had been nothing more than engines wrapped around a starfighter launching system – but it was grossly inefficient.  Besides, the passive sensors were picking up faint traces of radiation from the opening.

That must be their plasma cannon, he thought, as he eyed the alien ship.  It was a curious design, all the more so after witnessing what EMP pulses did to plasma containment systems.  I wonder what they would do if the ship was attacked by a nuke ...

He pushed the thought out of his mind as the shuttle sent back an automated acknowledgement to Ark Royal.  The Marines were in position.  All they could do now, he told himself, was wait.

And hope that the aliens took the bait.

***

“The Marines are in position, sir.”