tlb wrote:kzt wrote:No, the Ghosts come in on cargo vessels. No signature at all.
Strangely, on rereading that passage; the cargo ship that delivered the
Ghosts, did so at such a distance that they believed that it would not be observed by the Manticoran sensor net. Why do it that way and not the way the
Silver Bullets were delivered: from a cargo ship coming to make a wormhole transit?
Wallaby was on her way to make a wormhole transit
Storm From The Shadows wrote:Wallaby had made her alpha translation thirty minutes ago, and she was still several hours away from the wormhole junction she'd ostensibly come here to transit. At this range, even a fully conventional ship Chameleon's size would almost certainly have been invisible even to Manticoran sensor arrays (assuming its skipper was smart enough not to bring up his wedge, at any rate).
And it doesn't say that the freighter wasn't observable by the Manticore sensor net - certainly her hyper emergence would have been seen.
And at freighter accel, being several (5-10?) hours from (zero-zero intercept with) the Junction probably only puts her 150-630 million km (8.3 - 35 LM) out. Certainly if her wedge was up she'd still be tracked, but even if she was coasting with wedge down a 4 mton freight was probably still being tracked by the sensor net.
However ~50,000 ton (~80x smaller) frigate-sized ships slipping away from her without wedges up were expected to avoid notice from the sensor net at that range (even if they hadn't been ultra-stealthy
Ghosts)
However it would be reasonable to take a more cautious approach to slipping Ghosts into Manticore than Silver Bullets into Beowulf. For one thing the Ghosts are a lot larger (so easier to see as they exit) but also their size made it sound like it was a slower and more ticklish process to launch them than it would have been to drop a bunch of effectively oversized RDs. You'd want to be sure nobody would be nearby to see you open your cargo hatches while drifting along - and if the process requires them to be open longer then you'd want to be in a more isolated spot when you begin.