To Touch the Stars (Founding of the Federation Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  “My sentiments exactly boss,” Athena sighed.

  “Is there any chance Daedalus … Sylvia can find the virus and kill it? Or our people?” Jack finally asked a long moment later.

  “I don't know. I doubt it,” Athena said, calculating the odds at less than 4.6 percent. “The odds are long. Captain Locke deliberately ordered Sylvia handicapped. He is a traditionalist he said, he didn't want a smart ship. That is working in their disfavor at the moment.”

  “In other words she's too dumb to be of much use,” Roman grunted. “Perfect.”

  “But as long as the odds are above zero there is still hope. Right now that's all we can do,” Jack said.

  “And find a way to catch the bastard,” Athena vowed.

  Jack nodded grimly. “And close that particular barn door before it opened again. Memo to the design board and coders, find the holes and plug them. Memo to security, I want a review of every copy made of the code, who did it, and why. I don't care that it will slow things down, get it done.”

  “Closing a barn door indeed,” Athena said. “E-mails sent. Trevor said to tell you he's already on it,” she reported, posting a scrolling text message from the cybernetic expert.

  “And now I get to talk to Aurelia about it. I'm not sure which will affect her worse, the loss of the pod or of Kathy. Apparently Miss Abrams was quite popular with her. And, we need to figure out if we're going to brief the families or wait and hope,” Jack said, rising wearily to his feet.

  “Yes, sir,” Athena murmured, sounding thoughtful and properly subdued as Jack exited his office.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Hannah glowed with pride when she heard about Daedalus. She exchanged emails with her dad, both were excited by Jamey's terse emails that he and Kathy were okay. When Aurelia asked how she was doing, she chattered about a letter from Jamey. Aurelia bit her lip, unsure and uncomfortable about the direction of the conversation. Before she could say something, they were interrupted by a trauma case. Two Neodogs had had a spat and torn themselves up. That was followed by two Neocats who had been fighting over a female in heat. Aurelia quickly forgot her desire to brief Hannah in the heat of the moment.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  It was like listening to a dead men; men who didn't know they were dead Jack thought as they played back the Daedalus recordings, looking for any hint, any sign of awareness of their plight. He itched to scream at the voices to tell them they were in danger. Jack shook his head. He knew he didn't have that worded right; he didn't care.

  Jack listened to their dispassionate report during the highly classified briefing. Well, dispassionate for some, Roman was doing his best but Trevor was clearly upset … most likely less guild and more about feeling so damn helpless.

  Athena and Levare kept them up to date on the cyber forensics over the next six months as Daedalus continued to transmit to them, then gave them her last transmission short of their final jump. Trevor reported it would most likely be their last.

  Jack gave them the benefit of the doubt though, holding onto hope that somehow despite the odds they would prevail. But when Daedalus failed to appear 12 weeks later he quietly primed Miss Cole with the news once more. She nodded and began to review contingency plans she and her staff had drafted for just such a tragedy. Debate raged on whether or not to include news of the virus. The police authorities were adamant; the longer they kept the public in the dark the longer they kept Descartes from knowing they were on to him. Once he knew he'd go to ground.

  Athena didn't buy that argument. Descartes was good and thorough, though he was a megalomaniac. She'd seen his psychological profile; most likely he had bots within the FBI watching for his name. Cybercrimes claimed they were clean, but if she could get in and out of their servers she knew Descartes could.

  Jack frowned as he thought about the problem. On the one hand they were right. And a second thing to consider, the accusations would seem like a cover-up of their own mistakes and failure. The finger pointing could cause all sorts of political problems. Jack, however, didn't care; he insisted on full disclosure. He wanted the bastards who'd killed his friends and his starship. Aurelia was in full agreement. Kathy had been a good friend.

  “The problem, sir, is we won't know for another few years until their transmission gets back to us,” Athena said when Jack started to rant about their disappearance. That cut him off. He frowned thoughtfully. He'd clearly forgotten that, he realized, sitting back in his chair. “Think about it. They jumped an additional 2.82 light years to get to Proxima. Which means it will be at least three years before we hear from them. We have time, sir; we should wait.”

  “I hate waiting,” he growled, eyes flashing.

  “Waiting gives us time and a cover. Right now they are just overdue.”

  “Think about it, Jack. If we go forward but can do nothing to bring the bastard to justice, where are we then?” Roman asked from his monitor.

  “I hate waiting,” Jack echoed, but he seemed to deflate as anger seeped out of him.

  Roman's fists clenched a few times in front of him. “I want this bastard,” he said quietly. “We'll get him. We're digging for him now. Time. We don't need external pressure.”

  “Did you get the missing Neo problem sorted out, Roman?” Jack asked.

  Roman nodded a few minutes later. “We did indeed,” he said darkly, eyes glittering. “Elliot and the island affair. I'll fill in the blanks in person. We're mopping up the mess now. And I do mean mess. It's ugly, but one ray of sunshine is Elliot survived it. We're … pulling our people out shortly.” He said hesitantly. He looked over his shoulder than seemed to settle himself. “My people are covering their tracks the best they can. Trevor's lending us a hand.”

  “I …” Jack frowned. He knew that look Roman was shooting him. That look told him he didn't want to know the details, at least not over the network. He'd get a report of some sort soon enough he thought. How close it was to reality would be up to Roman. Roman was either going to cover for his own people … or something really nasty had happened. Or both. With Elliot involved …

  “All right. See you when you get back,” Jack finally said with a hand wave.

  “Will do boss,” Roman replied as the circuit cut out.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  They began to modify their planned news conferences with various scenarios on how best to come out about the sabotaging virus. The media caught on through a leak that something was up, which forced Miss Cole to accelerate her timetable.

  The authorities called a conference with the board and convinced Jack to hold back on the announcement of the ship's sabotage for the time being. That lead to some calculations on their part as speculation began to build and build. Finally Miss Cole reported that the ship was considered overdue but not necessarily lost. They could be stranded she pointed out before she closed the press conference without taking questions.

  Chapter 27

  Hannah took the news that Daedalus was overdue okay at first; she was distracted with a behavioral issue in the Neo primate habitat. A few of the older generation had entered into a dominance war over their troops and it had turned ugly among the males. Bret was concerned, but he felt helpless. They talked about it a few times, but they couldn't do anything. There was no sign of trouble in the emails and video files Jamey and Kathy sent back to them; they'd gone over them over and over to see any signs of stress.

  When she got done speaking with her father, Hannah realized she had one last place to look. She went over the telemetry feed with Isley's help. Isley had reported on board Icarus as a junior engineering apprentice to get her foot in the door. She didn't have a lot of free time but she did her best to help. Just about everyone was wondering what the heck happened to the ship. She had access to resources Hannah didn't have, along with the necessary skills and mindset to be able to hopefully tease out something out of the data. They didn't have access to a mainframe to run a simulation of their own, but Isley did have access to the summary reports of the digest
and of the unclassified break down of Daedalus's telemetry. Unfortunately though, they didn't have access to the raw feed, and none of them knew how to spot an error so they gave up after a couple days in frustration.

  “Look Hannah, I'm sorry. I really am.”

  “I know,” Hannah said quietly. She sighed. “I guess it's just one of those things. Dad's having kittens,” she said shaking her head.

  Isley patted her arm in sympathy. “Your dad is a tough cookie. People … parents have been going through this for thousands of years, not knowing, worrying …. We have to wait. Hopefully something turns up soon. They could exit and be stuck in Alpha Centauri, remember?” she asked, ducking her head to catch Hannah's eyes as the other woman looked away.

  “I …”

  “The time lag,” Isley explained, pulling her into her arms for a hug. “Just have some more patience. It may yet come out okay. Your bro may have some egg on his face when it's all over …”

  “I'll kick his ass,” Hannah said waterly. Isley chuckled with her as they broke the hug. Hannah dashed tears from the corners of her eyes. “He knows better than to pull this shit. He should never have gone along in the first place,” she said shaking her head.

  “All part of his deal when they hired him. He gets to go. It's an adventure of a life time.”

  “I think it wasn't just that,” Hannah said slowly. Isley cocked her head in curious inquiry. “I think Jamey didn't want them to go without him. He wanted a share in the risk since he was behind the drive. And he probably wanted to be on hand in case something went wrong. So he could … fix it,” she finished weakly. She looked away, rubbing her arm.

  “See? He might be okay. Or … not. We'll find out in a couple years. Until then,” Isley let out a long suffering sigh. “I've got to dig into Icarus. We're almost finished.” She grinned. “And unlike somebody,” she poked Hannah. “I get to see your dad on an almost daily basis now that we're buttoned up and getting ready to launch. We've even had lunch a couple times,” she said, sounding smug. “He's putting on a brave face. At least with me,” she said.

  “Huh,” Hannah grunted.

  “Maybe you can sneak on board and surprise him. You know like on his birthday in a week or two?”

  “Three weeks. Well, twenty days,” Hannah said automatically.

  “You could go inspect the dolphin's habitats or something. Life support, medical facilities, find an excuse! We'll get together and have lunch. Rat him out with the crew and his coworkers; get them to sing happy birthday to him. Embarrass the shit out of him.”

  “I …” Hannah smiled slightly, aware her dear friend was doing her best to distract her. She nodded. “I'll see what I can do.”

  “You do that,” Isley said. “And I'll try to help from my end. Just keep your chin up,” she said.

  “Yes ma'am,” Hannah replied, fighting a sigh as Isley left.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Jean Pierre celebrated the news of Daedalus being announced as overdue and speculation of the ship's destruction with a toast. It was a rare wine, expensive from France. Nearly a century old, but quite nice he thought, mentally thanking the people who had donated to his cause so he could add it to his wine cellar.

  His office was quite busy, the entire floor had been passed over to hold a fund raising and “victory” party. The group was small, only a handful of insiders and supporters could be trusted with the secret that they had been behind the hated ship's loss.

  They watched the media reports on the wall while talking and celebrating. Discrete waiters made the rounds with drinks. Real waiters, Jean recognized, though he noted two were Ludmilla and Boris in disguise. They didn't wear the white livery well, though Boris was admirably restrained. He turned back to the media report as they went on about the news. Word about the laser transmissions from Daedalus were already being discounted by doubt. That was good, he thought, Megan Su's media friends and bloggers were ready. They had already started to sow additional seeds of doubt in the public, claim the laser transmissions were fabricated by Lagroose to cover up the loss of the ship and to justify the company's bottom line with their shareholders. The seeds would form a meme of doubt, one that would be hard to combat successfully. “That should hurt their shareholders. Hit them where they live,” Gerald said smugly as the mainstream media outlets started to cautiously mention the meme.

  “And when they leave, the price will fall and our people will be waiting to snap up the shares at fire sale prices. We'll eventually get enough to be on the board or perhaps even bankrupt the company,” Frodo observed. He'd been behind the planned coup from the beginning. He was still working out the funding details though, which was one of the reasons of their current get together. The social event allowed them to rub elbows with a few friendly bankers. They would, with a little creative paperwork, grease the wheels to allow One Earth and their supporters to buy shares in companies they wanted to target on margin.

  They had been too late to fully take advantage of Gentek's second fall, but they were in the running to get a piece of the pie. To some they were vultures, Jean didn't care as long as they benefited from their opponent's destruction.

  “Don't count them out just yet. Lagroose is too diversified for one project to fail,” Saul warned.

  “What about sabotaging some of the other projects? Or even hinting that they are failing?” Gerald suggested, looking at Saul.

  “We'll have to be careful of insider trading,” Megan warned, giving Frodo a look.

  “Look into it,” Jean Pierre ordered over his shoulder, then took another sip of wine. He went out onto the balcony and watched the sun set. It was a good day to be alive he thought. He turned to see a lovely lady smiling his way. Very good, he thought.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Descartes saw the news report of Daedalus's destruction. “Pity,” he said sarcastically. He was unhappy about the recent turn of events; he'd found out One Earth and Lagroose Industries were looking for him. The FBI and Interpol had also stepped up their searches, but he could run circles around them. No, the idea of a client looking for him meant all sorts of unpleasant things. It meant that they were thinking about loose ends, and how to … remove them permanently. That was not a pleasant thought.

  Unlike Lagroose and the authorities he had regular contact with Saul Roshenko. He toyed with the idea of killing Saul but discarded it. Open warfare with his clients was … counterproductive. A warning shot across his bow might make the man paranoid … or make him more determined to find and eliminate him.

  He snickered softly. He'd dealt with such considerations his entire career as a hacker. A client who wanted no loose ends, it was typical he thought, leaning back as he put the whole thing into perspective. But he was good, too good to be traced; he knew that, they should know that. He frowned though. He could set up an insurance; he'd done that years ago. A data file of evidence in case anything happened to him. He'd long since given up such things but … he shrugged.

  He also toyed with the idea of going to the authorities or to Lagroose to clear his record. The authorities would love to get their hands on him, but he'd lose his computers, Shadow. He shook his head. He'd be stashed in some tiny cell for the rest of his life despite getting immunity, all for his own “protection.” He shook his head again, this time vehemently no. “Not going to happen,” he murmured. He'd rather die than loose his computers. They were his life.

  He became increasingly paranoid when he realized they were getting better at hiding data from him. “Where are you,” he said through gritted teeth as he tried to access the FBI's files on the investigation on him. He backed off when he realized the bastards had expected such an intrusion and laid a series of traps to pick him up. “Tricky tricky,” he muttered, backing off. He left them a couple of nasty viruses to cover his tracks as he retreated. He realized tracer bots had tagged him; they picked him up at various nodes as he and Shadow retreated. Other bots were waiting in nodes he had passed through. An alarm had sounded he realized; one he ha
dn't known. He caught one of the bots as Shadow moved like lightening, jumping to servers they had control over.

  He couldn't just sever the connection; portions of Shadow could be damaged. He passed the bot to Shadow who quickly tore it apart. The AI flashed a corporate logo back to its human creator, Lagroose Industries. That changed things. If the cops and Lagroose were on the same side … He threw out thousands of decoys and then triggered a zombie strike as Shadow pulled out of the Chicago network. He covered the AI as it jumped to the Vegas casino network then withdrew further. The human set off viruses to wipe systems behind it and the decoys.

  He knew they were on his trail, even if they didn't know just how close they'd come to finding him. Another seven layers and they would have had him. That bothered him.

  He discarded the idea of securing some sort of free pass or immunity after he realized he was in too deep. Lagroose would kill him if they found out he'd had a hand in Daedalus destruction. He sighed.

  “Frustrated? That isn't like you,” Shadow hissed. He cocked his head back and forth, eying him with one eye or the other.

  “I'm starting to regret leaving my watermark in Daedalus's code. Or other project codes,” Descartes said, still sweating from the intense effort he'd just put in to save their hides. He licked his lips, realizing his hands were shaking. That simply wouldn't do, he thought. His shaking hand tapped his controls to adjust his glucose level. A fan came on to cool his body. He sipped at a straw in front of his mouth.

  “The virus should take care of the problem,” the AI said.

  “Yes, but didn't they download the ship's telemetry from the last jump? Is a copy there?”

  “It will be hard to find.”

  “But not impossible,” Descartes replied thoughtfully. He was in a rare sober mood, their close call had made him very much aware of his own mortality. “We need to cover our tracks better. Possibly go in and clean up that loose end.”