“I’ll keep you in mind. Skipper out.” He closed the circuit. “Hobbs is on the ball tonight.”
“Even the brownnosing is first-rate,” said DeCosta with a chuckle.
Max nodded as he pulled up a crew directory on the Wardroom terminal and found the name he was looking for. “You gentlemen might want to cover your ears for this,” he said. Max opened another circuit and leaned toward the audio pickup until his lips almost touched the grille. “BALES!” he nearly shouted. “ENSIGN CHRISTOPHER BALES! BALES, WAKE UP!”
“Whaaa? Hoozat?” came the sleepy mumble a few seconds later.
“BALES!” Max continued in a voice loud enough that Bales could probably hear him in his quarters without benefit of the comm system. “This is the SKIPPER! Shake the cobwebs out from between your ears, get your comatose ass out of bed, and come to attention! MOVE IT!” Pause. About a quarter minute. “I said GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED, Bales. Are you standing? Are you at attention? Talk to me, Bales!”
There was a rustle of bedding and a few bumps and curses. It sounded like Bales got tangled in his bedding and fell to the deck. More thumps, then silence.
“Ensign Bales, report your status!” said Max in a more human tone.
“Ensign Christopher Eugene Bales at attention in my quarters, sir.” His diction was approaching normal, and he sounded somewhat coherent.
“Are you ready to understand and obey orders now, Ensign?”
“Affirmative, sir,” he said, still a bit thickly.
“Good. Then I need your happy ass in the Wardroom ASAP. You got that?”
“My happy ass. Wardroom. Alfa, sierra, alfa, papa. Got it, Skipper.”
Max closed the circuit and noticed the puzzled looks from some of his officers. Others who knew Bales better were striving mightily to suppress smiles. “Bales is a very, very heavy sleeper,” Max explained to the puzzled. “If you don’t get him standing and responding to you, he’ll just go back to sleep and never remember that you were talking to him. He actually pays a midshipman to wake him up for every watch. The poor little farts usually wind up having to pour cold water in his ear or poke him with their dirks.”
Three minutes later Bales came through the hatch. “Sorry to cut into your rack time, Bales,” said Max. “Grab yourself some coffee and have a seat.” The young ensign grabbed a one-liter soda cup from the sideboard, filled it halfway with ice from the dispenser, tossed in some sweetener, and filled the rest with coffee. He stirred it briskly, melting the ice, downed the lukewarm contents of the mug in three long pulls, then poured himself a mug full of hot coffee, added sweetener, and sat down. No one batted an eye—in order to get a good dose of coffee into their bellies in the shortest possible time, navy men had been following a similar procedure for centuries.
“Bales, we’re going to rendezvous with NAVCOMMNET Relay 7888 just over five hours from now. Naturally we’re going to establish a laserlink, tie into the data stream, and do a standard database update, but . . .”
As he had been making his coffee, Bales had been reading the orders still up on the display wall. “But you’d like to know what’s really going on. What’s behind those orders.”
“Exactly,” said Max. “At minimum I want the Flag Intelligence Brief and the supporting documentation. If possible I want the raw takes from the sensor outposts looking into Krag territory at the likely crossing points, the SIGINT intercepts, the unprocessed reports from patrols along the FEBA, that sort of thing. Get with Levy, and he can give you a detailed list of the data it would be useful to have. Do you think you can get me some of this stuff?”
“Well, sir, as you know, the toughest nut to crack is accessing the system in the first place, and we’re authorized to do that.” When no one at the table agreed with his statement, Bales thought for a moment. “Oh, I get it. We perform the database update under our own identity, but if we gain unauthorized access to these other databases—the ones where we aren’t allowed to go—under our own ID, the hack will be traced to us, and we all get to spend the rest of our lives on Europa chipping ice off the centrifuges. All right, then. With your permission, sir, I can get into the system under one or more false IDs. I have half a dozen that I’ve borrowed from other computers along the way. Once in, I’m pretty sure I can get at least some of what you want.”
“How would you ever manage to do that?” Dr. Sahin’s voice was a mixture of skepticism and annoyance. “I have considerable computer skills and used to amuse myself by wandering into areas of the Travis Station system to which I did not have authorized access, but every time I got on NAVNET and tried to go outside of the public areas, I always found myself locked out immediately.”
Bales smiled indulgently. “Doctor, with respect, I’m a little more than a casual hacker. Unauthorized access has been a part of my job for most of my naval career. In this case, I’ve found several key access codes while exploring systems that I’m not precisely supposed to have been exploring. How much I can get is going to depend on how quickly the system figures out it’s being hacked and shuts me out.”
“Mr. Bales,” asked Dr. Sahin, “how did a commissioned officer in the Union Space Navy get so good at obtaining unauthorized access to computer networks?”
Max and Kraft both looked away, their faces a study in innocence.
“Well, Doctor, that’s how I came to be in the navy in the first place. When I was a kid, I was a hard-core simhead. The navy caught me downloading official warship combat-simulation software. What the hell did I know? As far as I was concerned, they were just especially realistic games. Anyway, they conscripted me under the Supplemental Service Manpower Augmentation Act of 2302. I had a choice of shipping out as a midshipman or designing firewalls for Union computer networks from a workstation on a penal asteroid. You can see what choice I made. I wound up doing, um, special jobs for Admiral Hornmeyer before he assigned me here.”
“I surmise that the less one says about the special jobs, the better,” said the doctor. Bales nodded. “Then I have a few more questions for Mr. Bales, if I may.”
Max nodded for him to proceed.
“You have obtained access to every database on this ship, including the ones that you are not allowed to enter, isn’t that right?” He watched carefully as Bales formulated his answer. “Never mind answering. Your face and your delay in answering tell me everything I need to know. You have. That concerns me greatly.”
“Not every database,” Bales said. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I could get into any database I wanted, but I don’t want to go into all of them. I don’t go snooping around for the fun of it. I go only into the databases that have information I need—it’s just that the people who assign database access clearances have one idea about what information I need, and I have another. So I’ve accessed at least the upper-level directories of all of the technical and engineering files, intel, operations, comms, nav, internal systems, and so on. I’ve never even accessed the directories of—much less read—anyone’s personal files, the captain’s logs and notes, internal emails, and absolutely none of the medical records. There’s no reason for me to. I mean, what do I care about whether Able Spacer Second Class So-and-So picked up a case of crotch rot on Khan-Achel III B?”
“Do you swear on your honor as a Union officer that you have not accessed confidential patient records, my medical logs, or any of my personal files, and that you will make no attempt to do so in the future?” asked Dr. Sahin with almost priestly seriousness.
“I do,” Bales responded in kind.
“Excellent, Mr. Bales. Then I shall not be forced to kill you,” the doctor said with every appearance of utter sincerity. A few of the men around the table chuckled, but neither Max nor Kraft displayed the slightest trace of levity. “So, is it fair to say that, when Admiral Hornmeyer assigned you to this vessel, it was probably not despite your proclivities for electronic trespassing but because of them?”
“Yes, Doctor, I think that’s fair.”
“Good.” Sahin tur
ned to Max. “I was concerned about the propriety of this proposed course of action. Now, however, I am entirely comfortable with it.” In response to questioning looks from around the table, Sahin went on, addressing his remarks to the group at large. “We won’t be doing anything that the admiral does not wish us to do. Follow my reasoning, gentlemen. One: assume for a moment that Admiral Hornmeyer wants us to have information for which the captain is not cleared. Two: we know that the admiral can’t give us the information directly because, as we have all been reminded ad nauseam by a seemingly unending series of communiqués from Norfolk, the IG has been cracking down on instances in which individuals who have clearance for certain data disclose that data to other officers and shipmates who are not so cleared. The admiral knows that if the IG audits his secure communications—something the rumors say happens frequently, even to admirals—he could find himself in serious difficulties. I hear that even Admiral Litvinoff fears the Inspector General.”
“God himself fears the Inspector General,” Max quipped, earning scattered laughter from around the table and a disapproving glare from Sahin for his impiety.
“So, three: the admiral writes a set of orders that leaves us wondering what he has up his sleeve and that contains language of equivocation.” The doctor stood, walked over to the display wall, and pointed at the relevant language in the orders as he discussed them. “Words of equivocation such as ‘Norfolk N2 claims’ and ‘according to Norfolk.’ Clearly, gentlemen, the admiral is disclaiming responsibility for the conclusions that follow these words, hardly something he would do if he wished to inspire confidence in the accuracy of the intelligence on which these orders are based. Captain, if you had not come up with the idea of supplementing your intelligence with independent sources, I would have recommended that you do so based on this language alone.
“Four: then he contrives things so that we receive our intelligence briefing from an officer whom the captain does not entirely trust. Five: he knows that, as a result of the foregoing, Captain Robichaux will wish to supplement the official information. And last of all, six: the admiral has, in the person of the redoubtable Mr. Bales, already provided to the captain the means to obtain that information without the IG ever being the wiser.” He turned to Bales. “Young man, do not be surprised if you discover that the admiral has compiled everything we need in one easily accessed location, waiting for your unauthorized access.”
“Like where?” said Bales.
The doctor sniffed. “I’m quite certain that I have no idea. You know the admiral and NAVNET far better than I do. Remember, young man, the admiral knows you. So I suggest you put yourself in his shoes and determine where in the network he would hide intelligence files that he wanted you and only you to find.”
“All right, then, Bales, consider it an order from Vice Admiral Louis G. Hornmeyer himself,” Max said. “Get with Mr. Bhattacharyya and have his section give you their intel wish list—you might have to go looking for what we need. The admiral may not have been as helpful as our good doctor suspects, although I have to admit that it does sound like him. Then help Mr. Chin set up the necessary comm protocols. Anything you need to get the job done that he can’t supply, you come straight to me or to Mr. DeCosta here. Got that?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bales, you’re dismissed.” Max waited until Bales had closed the hatch before speaking again. “This doesn’t sit well with me. I feel as though the admiral is manipulating me, pushing my buttons, so to speak.”
“Sir,” Wendt said, “with respect, I don’t see it that way at all. You’ve read between the lines of your orders before, right?”
“I believe I have, yes,” Max answered, having done considerably more to some of his orders than just read between the lines.
“So, the admiral is letting you know what he wants you to do and is making sure you get your hands on information you need, all without so much as a blip showing on the IG’s sensors. It’s not manipulation, Skipper. It’s communication. It’s subtle, but it’s still communication. Look at it this way: you and one of the greatest military minds in Known Space are on the same page.”
“Thank you, COB,” Max said. “I suppose that’s the way I need to look at it. Admiral Hornmeyer has found a way to give us some rather unorthodox orders, and we’re going to follow them because, as you all know, we are a ship that scrupulously obeys all orders from duly constituted command authority.” Those assembled had sufficient respect for their commanding officer that they managed to hide their smirks at that statement. Oblivious to the great efforts being expended on his behalf, Max forged on.
“So, gentlemen, all we have to do is hack into the most secure computer network in Known Space, steal the intel we need from our own people, penetrate the most heavily defended battlefront in the history of space warfare alongside a ship so enormous that shuttlepods keep trying to land on it instead of dock with it, slip deep into the enemy’s rear area, conduct aggressive combat operations light-years away from any hope of reinforcement or resupply, and slip through that same battlefront in the other direction, all without getting blown to flaming atoms by the enemy or by our own forces.”
“That’s it?” said DeCosta. “And here I was, hoping for something challenging.”
“Maybe next time, XO,” Max said. “Keep your hopes up. There’s always next time.”
▪
“Admiral Hornmeyer was very, very helpful,” Ensign Bhattacharyya said, somewhat nervously, to the ship’s department heads assembled in the Wardroom. “There was a special disciplinary file on Ensign Bales containing what purported to be a complete list of all of his infractions against naval regulations. Some of which made for very entertaining reading, by the way. For example, there’s the time when a woman dumped him, and Bales executed a hack that made her name and picture come up when anyone in eleven whole star systems did a computer search containing the word bi—”
“Mr. Bhattacharyya, I don’t think that the adventures of Ensign Bales are a fit subject for this meeting,” Max cut in. “Mr. Bales is not the only person at this table who has a less-than-perfect disciplinary record, if you catch my meaning.” He glowered meaningfully at Bhattacharyya.
“Yes, sir.” Bhattacharyya gulped, a certain incident involving a sidecar powercycle, two Pomeranians, and three ladies of the evening coming to mind. “Um, anyway, the list referred to fifty attachments. The first forty-one of the attachments are exactly what the cover document says they are: source documents relating to the, um, activities of Ensign Bales. The other nine, however, looked like gibberish, even after we applied standard decryption techniques. So, naturally, Rochefort from Crypto and I assumed that we were dealing with a dual-layer encryption.”
“Naturally,” the doctor said, rolling his eyes. “After all, what could be more obvious?”
“Exactly,” Bhattacharyya continued. It was, after all, obvious to him. “We worked from the proposition that the admiral was communicating with Bales in particular, so we focused on encrypts that Bales and the admiral would associate with each other. We pretty quickly determined that the first level was Tundra, a flag-level encrypt that none of us are supposed to be able to read but that the admiral knows Bales cracked six months ago just because he was bored from spending a week in the brig. The second is in Flurry, which is an old encrypt that the admiral used to use to communicate with Bales when he was working on his special jobs.”
“But that doesn’t do you much good if you don’t know the cipher keys,” Max noted.
“Just like the encrypts, we assumed the cipher keys were words that the admiral knew were of significance to Bales. The Tundra key turned out to be Gwalchmai.”
“Gwalchmai?” six or seven people asked at once.
“My mother’s maiden name,” said Bales. “It’s Old Welsh.”
Bhattacharyya continued, “And the one for Flurry was Tawny.”
There were a few salacious snickers around the table. “Tawny” was the name
of the promiscuous female protagonist in a series of sexually explicit trid vids of enduring popularity among naval crews, including A Little Tawny Is Good for Morale, Tawny: Permission to Come Aboard, and most famously, Everyone Stands at Attention for Tawny.
“It’s not what you guys think,” Bales hastened to add, the hurt evident in his voice. “Tawny isn’t some girl in a smutty vid. She was my dog when I was growing up. A Chow Chow mix. A really good dog. Followed me everywhere. Totally loyal to me. Only friend I ever had before joining the navy. She did her best to keep me safe.” He added in a low voice, “No one else did.”
Bram felt a twinge of sympathy. He had seen the ensign’s bone scans, showing countless healed fractures from his childhood. An abusive upbringing may not have been an excuse for the man’s military and legal infractions, but it did help explain them.
Max had never seen the bone scans and had not heard about the young man’s abusive childhood from the doctor or from anyone else. But he learned all he needed to know about the ensign’s childhood from the way he said those few sentences. Max met the young man’s eyes. “Never forget, Ensign, that you are surrounded by loyal shipmates now. Anyone or anything that raises a hand to you will have to answer to them. And me.” When Bales slowly nodded his understanding, Max said, “The bottom line is that we can read the files. What did the admiral give us?”
“Just about everything we could ask for,” said Bhattacharyya. “It took a while to wade through it all, and I needed Mr. DeCosta and Mr. Bartoli to interpret all of the tactical information. The XO has the brief on what we found.”
DeCosta leaned forward. “Now I want to emphasize that the admiral made sure the information we got was vague as to the exact time and place or places, in case we were captured I suppose, but the bottom line is pretty clear.” He paused for emphasis. “Sometime in the next fourteen to twenty-five days, the Union is going to launch a major counteroffensive—the biggest one of the war. It will occur in both theaters of operations simultaneously: both Admiral Hornmeyer and Admiral Middleton will attack in their respective sectors with their primary task forces. I’m guessing that this is why we haven’t seen much of the new Churchill class Super Dreadnaughts and the new ships coming out of all the other yards in combat—they’re being saved for this.
Brothers in Valor (Man of War Book 3) Page 10
