Battlecruiser Alamo: Malware Blues

by Richard Tongue

   “Then you trust me?”

   He smiled, and said, “I trust that you will not harm the ship for the moment. Right now, I’m acting on the assumption that you are working some sort of long-term plan, but that gives me time to convince you that I’m in the right.”

   She turned, frowning, and said, “If you believe that, then why are you letting me have access to your systems?”

   “If we fail in combat, we’ll know who to blame. And we have quite a few tricks left to play that I haven’t told you about.” Folding his arms, he said, “Including a redundant security package that I know you’ve tried to access on three occasions. No need to make any excuse.”

   “Then why aren’t you sending me down to the surface with the others?”

   “Because I need to start winning people over, or my cause is done.” He folded his arms, and said, “Do you understand what you did when you allowed the Progressives to win that election, sign that treaty with the Cabal? More than a hundred officers were forced to leave the service, a generation that should be moving up to command cruisers and battleships right now. We need those people back.”

   “I’m not arguing with you,” she said.

   “That’s the trouble,” he replied. “We’re working on some technology that, I will admit, violates some of the treaties we’ve signed. Don’t you think that the other stellar nations have their own grey labs hidden away?”

   “Probably.” She paused, and said, “Assuming you are right. What’s your plan?”

   “We’re going to follow in the footsteps of Alamo. Into the heart of the Cabal. With the crew I’ve assembled and the technology at my disposal, I can wrest their secrets from them, and find out what their long-term goals are. I’m convinced that means a war with the Confederation. Then we return home, present our case to the people, and they’ll throw the peace-mongers into the fire and let us do our jobs.”

   Harper froze, then said, “That isn’t what I was expecting you’d say.”

   “What, you thought I was going to try and take control of the Confederation with a couple of ships? My plan is far more wide-ranging than that. That’s why you are up here. Down on the planet are officers I can use, once I’ve completed the next stage of our mission. When the time is right, I’ll go down there and retrieve them, explain all of this, and I’m certain that most of them will come along for the ride. You, on the other hand, I cannot do without.”

   Shaking her head, she said, “You’re joking.”

   “Lieutenant, you are one of the top hackers in the Confederation, probably the best one wearing a uniform. Your father is one of the leading candidates to be the next President, no matter that he only scraped in at the last election. He’ll be proved right, and I will see to that. I need you both for the mission, and for the aftermath, but only if you truly believe in what I am setting out to accomplish.”

   “It might be possible,” she said. “I wasn’t with Alamo last time.”

   “And have regretted that ever since, I suspect.”

   “Yes,” she replied, nodding. “There would be resupply problems. Fuel, food.”

   “We’ll raid, just like during the war. Snatch fuel from transports, small bases. We can do this, Lieutenant. I’m convinced of it.” He seemed to be looking beyond her, into the future he was dreaming of. “We’ll return as heroes, and this time everyone will understand what we are trying to do.”

   “Maybe,” Harper said. “There’s a better chance that we’d be killed, or captured. Or that our presence would start a war.”

   “When we put on the uniform, Lieutenant, we knew what it might mean. And as for the latter, I’m not too worried. Our current crop of politicians might not be up to much, but they know how to crawl. I’m a rogue commander on a rogue crew, with a ship that I have hijacked. Plausible deniability.” He paused, then asked, “Under other circumstances, would you have volunteered for this mission.”

   “Yes,” she replied. “It isn’t as simple as that, not now.”

   Nodding, he said, “You’re in a difficult position.”

   A voice sounded over the loudspeaker, “Commodore to the bridge, urgent.”

   With a frown, he gestured to the door, and said, “Come on, Lieutenant. Let’s go and see what’s got Steele worried.”

   Leaving her console, Harper followed Tramiel to the bridge, her mind buzzing. The mission profile that he had outlined was tempting, and strictly from an intelligence-gathering point of view, had considerable merit to it. Enough Cabal forces had gone rogue that they would have no grounds for complaint about anything a single ship might do, and her skills could make all the difference.

   Somehow, when she’d come on board, she’d imagined some daring plan to take down the government through a second coup, a military uprising that would install Tramiel as dictator. Not a plan that under other circumstances would have been immediately approved by the Combined Chiefs. It wasn’t far from the idea that sent Alamo into the Cabal the first time around.

   The door opened, and they stepped out onto the bridge. Steele shot her a glance as she vacated the command chair, moving over to Tactical, Kline was at his customary position at the helm.

   “What’s the problem?” Tramiel asked, settling into the center seat.

   “Surface Base has missed its scheduled check-in time. I tried to signal them, but there was no reply.”

   “That’s strange. Could it be a relay malfunction?”

   The technician at the engineering station, an angry-faced man called Bacalov, replied, “I’m still getting good telemetry from our relays, but nothing from the base itself. All completely dark, like someone threw a switch.”

   Stabbing a button, Tramiel said, “Wyvern to Surface Base, come in.” He paused, then repeated, “Wyvern to Surface Base, reply at once, at once.” Looking up at the helm, he said, “Kline, take us into the cloud, as close to the planetoid as you can. I want a close range scan.”

   “Aye, sir,” Kline said, working the controls, as the roar of the scoutship’s engine began to resound through the hull. “Closest approach in five minutes.”

   “Harper, take the communications controls,” Tramiel said. “See if anyone is trying to interfere with our systems. Was there anything out of the ordinary with the last report, Steele?”

   “Nothing as of six hours ago,” she said. “The prisoners were getting a little restless, but hadn’t shown any signs of escape, and all systems were functional down there. Should I have Shuttle One prepared for launch?”

   Tramiel glanced up at the clock, shook his head, and said, “Let’s stick to the sensor check for the moment. We should be closing on range now.”

   Harper perfunctorily ran through the systems checks, and frowned as she came to the bandwidth monitor reports. Half a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours, someone had done a massive data upload to the ship, only just small enough that it didn’t crash the system. She started to look around the database, looking for any sign of the data, but everything was just as it was when they arrived here.

   Which meant that there was more than one spy on this ship. Someone had managed to dump a couple of terabytes of information onto a portable storage device. With a little time, she’d be able to work out which dataport had been used.

   “Have you found anything interesting, Lieutenant?” Tramiel said, Kline looking over his shoulder at the rear station. “You look lost in thought back there.”

   “Nothing, sir,” she lied. “I thought I’d spotted something, but it just looks like a minor glitch. Everything’s nominal now.”

   “Are you sure?”

   “Still running checks, but I don’t think there is any system-based problem preventing communications, and there’s no sign of anyone hacking into Wyvern.” Technically, both statements were true, and her poker face was good enough that Tramiel turned to Bacalov, quizzing him on diagnostic checks, though Kline’s gaze lingered on her f
or a moment longer than she was comfortable with.

   She continued to dig into the database, getting deeper and deeper into the files, trying to track down the location of the data dump. Periodically, she glanced up at the screen, watching as Kline picked his way around the scattered remnants of the planet, their target now centered on the screen.

   The data trace was far more interesting, and she called up the duty schedule, trying to work out where everyone was when the dumps took place. A few fragments remained in the system, and she pulled out a data stick, uploading a few of her personal hacking programs to run down the contents of the file.

   “Closest approach,” Kline said.

   “Running scanning trace,” Steele added. “No signs of any disturbance on the surface, no anomalous activity.” Looking up from her console, she said, “The only way we’re going to find out what is happening is if we go and take a look.”

   Nodding, Tramiel said, “I think you might be right, but not right now.” He turned to Harper, and said, “By my reckoning, Alamo should be jumping into the system in a matter of minutes.”

   “What?” Steele asked.

   “Lieutenant Harper will have found a way to send a message back to alert her people of the hijacking of this ship, as well as what she has thus far discerned of my intentions. Don’t bother to deny it, Lieutenant, I would have done the same in your place.”

   “But the timing?” Fox asked.

   “Five days for the message to get to Alamo with our infiltration team, which I am assuming acted as unknowing couriers, and five days for Alamo to jump here. If I know Captain Marshall, he won’t have waited for more than a moment to make the decision.” Glancing at his watch, he said,  “Conservatively, I am assuming he left Yeager Station two hours after the infiltrators boarded.”

   “If you knew…,” Steele said.

   “I want Alamo here, Lieutenant, and I want it very badly. This ship is not suitable for the mission profile I have in mind.” Looking around the bridge, he said, “We need something larger. And given that it was the Battlecruiser Alamo that so successfully launched the attack last time, it seems logical to use it again. I’m sure I can convince Captain Marshall of my good intentions, and we’ve got a few surprise packages to play with, just in case. I’ll want you on countermeasures, Steele.”

   “Security to the bridge,” Kline said into a microphone. “On the double.”

   Nodding, Tramiel said, “Lieutenant Harper, you are temporarily relieved of duty. Be assured that I do not hold this against you, and that I still have every intention of utilizing you as a key member of my command team in the expedition to come, but I would not ask you to take up arms against your shipmates in any fashion.”

   “Commodore, there is something you need to know,” she began, but he shook his head.

   “I told you, there’s no point attempting to deny your actions, or to dispute my assessment of your loyalty. However much you have attempted to disregard it, you are General Harper’s daughter, and I see a lot of him in you.” He smiled, and said, “That’s one of the reasons I want you for the mission.”

   “No, sir,” she began, but the doors opened before she could finish, four armed crewmen stepping out onto the bridge.

   “Dimensional instability!” Steele said. “Major, capital ship emerging.” Glancing across at a screen, she added, “It’s Alamo, sir.”

   “Battle stations,” Tramiel replied. “No sense not taking all precautions. Harper, it’s time for you to go.”

   “No, sir,” Kline said, drawing his pistol and rising from his console. “Saunders, take the helm. Drake, cover them.

   With a thin smile, Tramiel said, “Evidently I underestimated you, Harper. My compliments.”

   “Don’t rate her too highly, Commodore,” Kline said. “Though she did force my hand a little. Just to satisfy your curiosity, I was the recipient of those data dumps. Not all of us want to die in enemy territory for a country that has expelled us.” He looked at Tramiel with a sneer, and said, “You couldn’t just let us sneak away, could you. You wanted a battlecruiser. The blood I’m going to have to spill is on your hands.”

   “All the gray-tech you stole,” Harper said. “He’s got copies of it all. And everything else you’ve uncovered down on the planet.” With a sigh, she added, “For sale to the highest bidder, at a guess.”

   “Precisely,” he replied. “I’m happy to allow the Confederation to make a bid of its own. Either way, most of us would rather be rich than dead.”

   “I’ll see you burn in hell for this, Kline.”

   “The time for words is over, Commodore.” One of the crewmen dropped into position at the helm, and he continued, “Drake, take the Commodore and Lieutenant Harper down to Storage Two.”

   “Steele?” Harper said, looking at her erstwhile shipmate, whose eyes dropped to the deck. “I see.”

   “What are you going to do?” Tramiel asked, as the three guards pushed them towards the elevator.

   “Get the hell out of this system. If I have to shoot my way through Alamo to do it, so be it.”

   “You have shipmates down on the planet.”

   He shrugged, and said, “Fewer people to split the pot.”

   The doors closed, and Tramiel looked at the guards, saying, “Whatever he’s told you…”

   “We’re all in this together, Commodore. Get used to it.” Alert sirens sounded, and he continued, “Don’t worry, you’ll get your share. All of this is being done in your name, after all.”

   “I would never…”

   The door opened, and the guard said, “Across the corridor. We’ve left rations and set up a couple of cots. You’ll be in there for a while.”

   Harper looked left and right, briefly tempted to try and make a break for it, but decided that she would be unlikely to outrun a bullet, and walked over to the entrance to the cargo area, stepping inside the cold, dark room. Tramiel followed, and the door locked shut behind him, the old man dropping to his knees, looking up at Harper with tears running down his face.

   “What have I done?” he asked.

   She had no answer for him. Right now she was struggling with the same question.

  Chapter 9

   Orlova studied the strategic projection displayed over the holotable, watching as the resolution improved, data pouring into Alamo’s sensor grid. She looked at the tumbling remnants of the planet at the heart of the display, a tangle of trajectory projections that constantly jumped as the computer had more time to ponder the problem.

   “Fascinating, isn’t it,” Powell said. “A jewel in the stars, beautiful and terrible. A few thousand years ago, that was a world like Earth, similar mass and atmosphere. People like us might have walked upon its surface, wondering about the stars, until their world was literally torn asunder.”

   “What do you think did it?” Grant asked. “I’m not seeing any sign of another body in the system, nothing that might have done this.”

   “Well, I suppose it is possible that we are seeing the remnants of two worlds, though I don’t think the orbital track would have worked as it did.” Glancing down at a stream of text running across the panel, he added, “And the readings we’re getting don’t seem to support such a theory, either. My guess is that it was artificial. The result of a war.”

   Turning from his station, Nelyubov said, “We’ve never built a bomb that big.”

   “Oh, you would be looking at something several orders of magnitude greater than anything on the drawing board. Something in the multi-gigaton range, definitely.” He nodded, and said, “Anti-matter, certainly.”

   “We’ve got more pressing concerns, gentlemen,” Orlova said. “The location of Wyvern, principally.”

   “I’m sorry,” Powell said. “I’ve been a Professor for so long, it’s hard to switch tracks.”

   “There’s no sign of another ship in the system,” Spinelli said. “
They might have left early. If they learned that Lieutenant Harper had sent us a message, they had time to get away.”

   “Should I stand down battle stations?” Nelyubov asked.

   “No, not yet,” Orlova said.

   “It’s been an hour,” Grant said. “The crew will start to lose their edge. We can remain on alert stations, but…”

   “We will remain at battle readiness until I am certain there is no threat in this system,” Orlova said. “That swarm everyone is so interested in is full of sensor blind spots. How many probes will we need to view them all?”

   “Dozens, I would think,” Powell said. Before Orlova could press him, he tapped a sequence of commands into a panel, and said, “Thirty-one, to be specific, and more than two hours for all of them to be on-station.”

   “We’ve only got ten in inventory,” Nelyubov said.

   “Use what we’ve got. I’ll settle for taking a look behind each curtain, rather than pulling them all back,” Orlova said.

   Nodding, Powell said, “Nine probes, then, but it will take six and a half hours to cover everything. The tenth we can hold in reserve. It doesn’t actually help.”

   “See to it, then,” she ordered. “Weitzman, any response to our signals, anything at all?”

   “No sign of artificial electromagnetic activity in this system.”

   “Keep looking.”

   “Our information could be wrong,” Grant said.

   “I don’t think so,” Powell replied. “Someone has been here, and conducted a very thorough investigation.”

   “There’s no trace of that,” Grant said.

   “Exactly. I have a hard time believing in a culture that deploys anti-matter bombs without some sort of space-based presence. Where are the satellites, probes, space stations? Someone has been here, and investigated them all.”

   “That might have happened decades ago,” Nelyubov replied.

   Shaking his head, Powell replied, “By now, we’d know about it. Even if it was the Cabal, we’d have some sort of an idea from the files we’ve recovered. Some trace would be in the historical records. No, this was recent, and through. My instinct is that there is an installation somewhere in this system, hiding.” Tapping a button, he said, “First probe is away.”