With a bright flash HHSS Heaven’s Whiskers entered 431 Caton, active sensors questing for targets, weapons hot and ready for trouble. Whatever danger lurked here wasn’t just waiting in ambush for the exploration cruiser however, not yet at least. In fact the system was dark, cold, quiet and empty, without even a failed star to light and warm it.

Arslashn cut off Whiskers’ active sensors, mind focused on the readouts. No echoes so far, 30 light second bubble clear of any objects. No immediate obvious threats. The lion twitched his ear in a mix of annoyance and relief. He had to spin up his secondary reactor to prepare and the fuel expense proved unnecessary. Caton appeared to be a piece of completely empty interstellar space. No EM emissions on passive sensors and no heat nor light signatures either. No star to light the area. Or provide power. Saving was going to be a priority. Arslashn ordered the primary reactor to spin down to a more frugal output, intending to use the charged capacitors to conserve fuel. Besides the change was going to take over an hour, lots of power for now.

The darkness also made finding anything inconvenient. The lion launched both his recon drones and increased passive sensors sensitivity to maximum. Without a nearby light source, the ship’s own jump flare could serve to illuminate any object in the area, if briefly and barely, and spread out eyes would help track the blackbodies. The ship’s RDs slowly moved to optimal spotting positions on small puffs of RCS. MainComputer prepared to record and analyse.

This task complete for now and still detecting nothing, he turned to using up his momentary energy surplus before it was all just turned into waste heat. Workdrones set into action, moving his solar farm, useless without a sun, into the smelter for recycling. They also removed solar panels from Whiskers’ complement of satellites, putting extra fuel rods into them instead. Arslashn hated to give up most of his total supply, but it was necessary. Both the Gravimetric and Observation satellites needed the fuel to last the entire mission and trying to refuel them midway would be even worse. After a moment's thought and a wince he fitted the ObSats with extended reaction mass tanks. Without the light his eyes would need to be more mobile.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Things slowed down over the next two hours. Recycling of the solar panels slowed down, then stopped completely as the reactor wound down and capacitors drained away to nothing. Blackbody analysis revealed the main mass in the area, a small rogue planet over a light hour distant. This discovery allowed Arslashn to make sense of the gravimetric sensors’ readings and start plotting orbits for his satellites. Jumpflare and active pulses returns revealed a number of objects to investigate later, just asteroids and comets judging by the spectra. The lion seethed, if not for his orders he would have no shortage of fuel or reaction mass. With return strength ever dwindling, seeing much further was unlikely.

Arslashn prepared his ObSats for launch, topping off the extended tanks on the 8 craft from his own bunkers and inputting courses allowing for making flybys of every discovered object with minimum manoeuvring. He also woke up the GravSats, beginning the lengthy diagnostic and synchronisation cycle. No. 3’s readings were slightly off, requiring a full recalibration. Launching them was still a long way in the future, the sats still connected to the Whiskers with umbilicals and fed with the cruiser’s power.

Shortly before it was finally time to catch a glimpse of the planet Arslashn deployed Whiskers’ telescope for a more detailed look. The drone pushed itself to a safe distance from the ship and unfurled its oversized mirror. A quick calibration later it was ready to transmit.

There was nothing unusual about Caton I, the lion decided. The surface was completely covered in frozen atmosphere, with numerous craters suggesting no oceans under the surface. The planet sported a small ring, probably a moon caught too close to the surface and shredded by the tides. Altogether unremarkable.

Then the telescope caught a glint of metal.