Jennifer walked alongside the captain as he headed toward the shuttle. “How big is it, sir?”

“About eight meters in diameter. Less than that in length. We’ll have to use the Can-Arms to bring it in, though. The whole thing is paramagnetic; standard grapplers won’t lock on.”

Roberts had caught up to them. “Uh, sir? What do you mean by ‘we’? You’re needed on the bridge.”

Weston waved him off. “Not this time, Commander. I’m qualified to run the Can-Arms and you aren’t. Hell, since the magnetic grapplers came into use, we only have a handful of people checked out on those things, and they are all busy right now. I’m not.”

Roberts moved to argue, then stopped, finally moving back toward the waiting shuttle. Samuels, her copilot, and Captain Weston loaded into the shuttle craft and started the preflight. The craft hummed as the twin power plants came online and the magnetic gear deactivated and retracted into the craft. A light burn from the lateral thrusters sent the bird gliding out of the bay before the main power plants engaged, sending the SAR team en route.

Once outside again, Samuels pivoted the shuttle and aimed the craft toward the bright glow of the Archangels’ power plants circling an invisible point in space. The arbitrary point in space gradually coalesced into a faint outline against the star field, the drifting escape pod coming into view. Samuels aligned the shuttle with the drifting pod, deftly matching its angle and drift with small puffs from the shuttle’s thrusters.

“I guess I’m up.” Weston headed aft as the copilot booted up the shuttle’s life-detection software (LDS) and began running the sensor data through the program.

“Whoa! Sir, it looks like we’ve got a live one here. There’s a heat source in there…” Samuels announced.

Ensign Ryan stopped dead. “Uh, Captain, I’m not sure I believe this myself, but the sensors read the pod as having one human occupant. They read the match as having a ninety-seven percent certainty rating.”

Weston stopped for a moment, staring incredulously. “Ninety-seven? We only get a ninety-three percent reading from our own ships.”

“I know that, sir.” The man shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know how to explain it…The only thing I can think of is that, if it is a human in there, the pod is paramagnetic for some reason. The material seems to be designed for easy sensor penetration.”

After a moment’s silence, the ensign spoke up again, his tone facetious. “Of course, it could be an alien boogey man who’s spoofing our sensors.”

“I’ll turn that idea over to the guys in the science division when we get back.” Weston grinned wryly as he extended the Can-Arms toward the drifting pod. “In the meantime, let’s prepare for a guest.”

“Yes, sir,” the copilot replied as Weston manipulated the controls.

The long robotic arms extended from the bottom of the shuttle, and long pincers on the arms closed over two obtrusions on the pod. As the clamps tightened, the pod slipped through their mechanical grip as he moved to compensate. As he tried to grab it again, the left arm overcompensated and struck the pod lightly, putting it into a tumble.