"These are our guys," Jocasta declared, making an off hand gesture at the hologram she had projected from a unit on her wristband. Markus strained to see but it was unlikely he could make anything out from his angle. The flyer was buffeting down into the atmosphere and presently changed it course based on the parameters Jocasta was feeding to the computer.

"How are you doing that?" the pilot asked somewhat plaintively.

"Oh relax, when I'm done it will be better than new," Jocasta replied airly. That was true, but the ancient computer systems on this thing probably would have been improved by a constructive fire, much less an expert repurposing its traffic control system to run at 160 percent capacity.

"How do you know?" Markus asked as they dove through a cloud bank and moved from the glow of dayside to the gloom of nightside.

"I've patched into orbital traffic control," she explained.

"Which shouldn't be possible," the pilot objected.

"Possible? With the encryption they are running its a miracle it hasn't been hacked by random electrical noise," Jocasta returned. 

"Anyway, there are thirty inbound transports, all routine flyers or originating from our staging area. There are three vessels on the ground. One is a freighter the other is a military cutter, probably a hired gunship but hey ho, and this one. Its heavy shuttle but that is all I can tell you about it. Every other bit of data has been electronically sealed. Nothing on this world has encryption that good, ergo it has to be our guys."

"Pretty good," Markus admitted.

"Plus there is a bunch of encrypted traffic between them and the location we were given for the Sharks, I cant read it, but its consistent with voice and data transfer," she concluded.

"Good enough, now lets take them out and steal their clothes before the transfer takes place," Markus replied. The ground below them burst into view as they broached the clouds. Off to the east, near the Shark's position, maser fire was already crackling skyward at incoming ships that had decided to risk the direct approach.