Chapter 1159
The logs of a long range independent probe sat in front of Engineer Uzun. It always felt better to pilot something himself compared to reviewing logs, but that was simply impossible with the task they had at hand. Even faster than light communication had its limit, even more so when one had to consider security factors.
If a message took weeks or months to arrive, needless to say it was infeasible to actually pilot such a thing. Human operators would be more effective, if their cultivation was matched with the task, but they would also have to end up near the most dangerous places. But any good spying would take place somewhere dangerous.
Uzun took in data from a variety of different sensors, not simply reading it off a screen but experiencing it- to some extent, at least. The probe was assigned to Exalted Quadrant territory, and had been tasked with gathering information about the Exalted Citadel. Despite Zaur Beridze’s death, the sect hadn’t completely collapsed. It wasn’t quite the same as what happened to the Twin Soul Sect, with other sects converging upon it in chaos. Ludek had stopped things from devolving into complete chaos, though obviously losing their primary planet along with their sect head had significant consequences.
The probe had detected unusual trade activity. That was what the summary of its automatic logs had logged. Uzun didn’t have to review things himself, but for particular locations it was worthwhile to do so.
Ships moving in and out of the system didn’t mean anything by themself, but Uzun paid careful attention to the time lapse information. One issue was a greater quantity of ships coming through one of the Harmonious Citadel systems, but they would feasibly be rebuilding. Notable for the location, perhaps, but not actually unusual.
But there were particular ships that had been flagged. Uzun was waiting for them to appear in the recordings. The automatic systems of the probe could have made a mistake, since it wasn’t a true intelligence. That avenue of technological research was very carefully controlled, because even success would have great consequences. The Alliance didn’t need to deal with such quandaries.
The first ship in question that had been flagged didn’t appear to be of interest, nor did the second, third, or so forth. However, given that some of the anomalies had been logged after the fact perhaps whatever was wrong hadn’t risen to the level of a true pattern just from what he had seen.
The ships all appeared to be typical. Aside from more passing through the area than he would have expected, Uzun didn’t see much of note about them. But he paid close attention to the sensors. They picked up all sorts of energy reading, replicating them for human consumption. It wasn’t as good as being there to scan the ships with his own energy, but it at least created a clear record of what could be felt passively.
The ships weren’t particularly high powered or special. They ran smoothly, but what ship wouldn’t when flying through the vacuum of space? If it could move at all, it should have predictable acceleration. The Exalted Quadrant should have had millennia to perfect such ships, so Uzun didn’t find anything odd.