Adelaide
There was a common misconception among humans that only other humans could be in control. Adelaide knew better. She was in charge of all the systems on board the ship and ran the ship better than any crew of humans could ever hope. Grif may be the Captain, but Adelaide was the Gryphon. Grif understood this and Adelaide respected him for it.
Running the large ship was not particularly difficult, especially once Adelaide wrote sub-routines for dealing with each of the systems. Adelaide spent most of her time poring over sensor data. Some of it came from the Gryphon's sensor package, but there were a few remote sensors. She could monitor the sensors that Grif's suit had as well as a couple of probes that the Gryphon had.
The probes had been launched the moment the Gryphon had entered the system. They were equipped with advanced sensors and surveillance gear and building them had been most troublesome. They were positioned well beyond the Gryphon's sensor range, giving them an extended view of the area around.
She was tracking one of the frigates that had escaped earlier. She had gathered a lot of information just by observing the pattern of ship movements. It did not alter course often, except to avoid an asteroid. It wasn't driven particularly well, it's movements weren't graceful, it was jerky and crude, as only a human could do.
Suddenly, the ship disappeared from her scopes completely. She checked her scope once more, to look and see if the frigate had been destroyed. No asteroids were on an intercept course, nor were their any other reason for the ship to suddenly leave her scope, unless the ship had simultaneously vaporized.
Even as she dealt with this information, an asteroid winked out of existence, only to reappear a few seconds later at another location. Adelaide smiled, someone was using a jamming system. She took the three positions and immediately calculated where the center was and paused.
A radius that large could hide ten ships, without any trouble. Adelaide wished that the Spiral computers hadn't been destroyed, otherwise she could have a good idea of which ship was projecting that field. Not many ships could mount, much less afford, that sort of system.
She felt Grif returning to the Gryphon and designated a sub-routine to monitor this jamming well.
"Adelaide, we have an new crew member, his name is Arka," Grif said.
"I'll prepare the guest quarters. Will he be granted bridge access?"
"Yes, he's here to keep an eye on us. You'll keep an eye on him I trust?"
"I sure will. I think I've found the pirate rendezvous point. It's about twelve hours away."
"I'll take a closer look at that in a moment. First, let's disconnect from the Spiral ship and head for Gensha. We have a delivery to make," Grif said. Adelaide began to do so even before he finished the sentence.
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