Griffin looked to his admiral.
Breval said, “I agree with Steg. Don’t you?”
“Well—yes, sir. I do. We discussed the possibility and decided we’d need to go in with perhaps double the force. It seemed—ah, overkill, sir, so we dropped that line of thought.”
Zhu said, “I’d prefer overkill rather than getting killed. Commander, I suggest we spend an hour or two on this with your team. Jessie, Graham, are you both available?”
Steg, hiding his bemusement at Zhu’s initiative, said, “I agree with Zhu. I know you’ve been focused on this for a while. Take a break. Reconvene when you’re ready and include Jessie and the Alliance Tac, as Zhu suggested. Alke, you and Ioke can sit in, as well. We’ll expect a revision—when? You determine your schedule.”
Jessie said, “Griffin, you and your team have covered a lot of material. Share your detailed analyses with Graham, me, and the AIs. Allocate fifteen minutes now; that should be enough. We’re all quick studies. Then, as Steg suggested, take some time out. We’ll be ready to resume whenever you wish. We’ll prepare some preliminary concepts, and you can work through that material with us—the more criticism, the better.” She turned to Admiral Breval, “Assuming you also agree, sir?”
“Certainly.”
Griffin stretched and blocked a yawn. “We’ll spend fifteen minutes as you suggested. Give us two hours to recover. We’ll meet you back here, at least partly refreshed. Sounds good.”
Hours or so later, Steg checked with Alke. “Are they making progress?”
“Yes. The Tac commanders have agreed the probabilities are more like 60:40 in favor of a trap. Based on everything we’ve analyzed, it could be higher.”
“Good. Signal when you’re all ready to review.”
“Yes, sir.”
Later, Denke and Steg were enjoying a short break after their training session. Denke said, “You didn’t show any surprise when Zhu took over?”
“I hid it.”
“The Complex has outdone themselves this time. Your AIs—they’re far better than I would’ve imagined.”
“Hmm. It’s a challenge, keeping up with them, I’ll admit.”
“What do you think of the Imperial Tac team?”
“They’re beginning to catch on, although I think they were taken aback when Zhu gave them a jolt with his overkill comment.”
“Well, he surprised me.”
“I’m interested in the final strategy the team develops. I suspect we’re going to play key parts. Your new marines will be involved if we want to take over more starships. I feel I’m going to be in the forefront of it all.”
“I have no sympathy for you.” Denke smiled to take the sting out of his words. “Do you really think it’s a trap?”
“Oh, yes. ImpSec knew we’d be heading back to Djii, and AR 84993 was an obvious transfer point. They may have trapped other systems; we’ll never know. How long they’ll wait for us is an unknown. Xesset are not all that patient.”
“ImpSec would stay in place for another tenday or so.”
“Let me check. Alke, what’s the status of the Imperial fleet?”
“Steg, they have twenty destroyers and forty frigates, fully crewed, and currently are loading military supplies. They have a thousand or more fighters. Homeworld’s fleet is fully crewed and provisioned. Likewise Djiis. A small flotilla of destroyers have arrived from independent systems. I’ve sent you a file—my bots are inspecting them for suitability and I’m checking crew experience. I’m also validating their identities.”
Denke said, “So we could mount an attack in a day.”
Steg demurred. “We’ll need to balance our forces. I don’t want to leave Djii unguarded. If Xesset are looking for revenge, retaking Djii would be high on their list. Likewise, you and I—I expect we have prices on our heads.”
“So you’ll leave Dreamer with Nyx here, plus Zhu and his dreadnought?”
“Nyx, yes. Zhu may apply pressure to join in the attack they’re currently planning. I could detach Amber and Echo from their monitoring duties and bring them back here. We have two or three destroyers we could include as a home guard. Alke, what level of AI have you installed on those?”
“Equal to Echo and Amber—I thought we’d need the more powerful design.”
“Good.” The AI was not following his orders as closely as he desired; he’d need to address that.
“So you have a reasonable force to remain here, and more than enough to hit AR 84993?”
Yes.” Steg’s reply was drawn out. He’d had a flash of inspiration. He said, “Alke, get Kirby and Sergeant Velez for me. Any conference room, as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
Denke looked at him, a question on his face.
Steg ignored it. He said, “Alke, also have Tessa, Howe, and Beagle and others—the complete intelligence team, join us.”
“Yes, Steg. Kirby said he’ll be there in two minutes.”
Denke said, “I need a shower and so do you.”
“We don’t have time. Come on. They’ll be waiting for us.”
Everyone was waiting when Steg and Denke reached the conference room allocated by Adrias.
Steg said, “I have two apologies. One, for dragging you away from whatever you were engaged with. Two, we’ve been training, and I didn’t want to lose time—so we’re unwashed.”
“We can cope,” Tessa said, smiling.
“What can we do for you, Admiral?” asked Sergeant Velez.
“Ester, with everything that’s been happening, I overlooked you and your team—that is, as our Intel team. Howe, Beagle—do you still have a copy of that damned program you wrote? You know, the one that came close to wiping out civilization?”
The two computer experts, faces ashen, looked at each other. Howe said, “Sir, is there a problem with it? We’ve been extremely careful.”
“No, not at all. Let me explain to General Denke—he thinks I’m crazier than usual.” He turned to Denke. “We—ah—released a computer virus on a planet. It wiped out major computer installations and contaminated some starship systems. It was potentially devastating. We helped the local programmers recover their data centers; it was a major task for them.” He turned back to the Int team. “Do you think you could upload it to seventy or eighty warships? They’re waiting to ambush us. With one requirement: the virus must expire after it has wiped out its target computer system. And it must not escape. Imagine what Alke would do to you if it contaminated her.”
“Steg—what are you talking about?” Alke’s voice contained a note of concern.
Velez said, “Howe and Beagle—do you have a copy with you? Here?”
“Yes, Sergeant. It’s under lock and key and encrypted. It needs both my and Howe’s biometrics to unlock the file.”
Howe raised his head and frowned. He looked at Steg and said, “Sir, do you really want to run the risk? You know it ran amuck on Eos. It infected every major system on the planet.”
“You have two days. Work out how to shorten its life cycle. I want it to be able to attack the computer systems on a standard warship and not transfer. Have it imprint itself with the identity of the core system of a starship and cease operating once it floods that ship’s systems. Think about excluding our AIs and copies or clones.”
“Steg, I want details,” Alke said.
“Beagle, you’re the expert. Sketch out the design for Denke and Alke. Use the presentation board. Alke, we want to make sure you’re fully protected.”
Steg waited for a few seconds while Beagle and Howe started to draw out the structure of the virus. Denke joined them; he was obviously intrigued. Steg continued his comment to Alke, aware she had allocated a handful of process threads to listen to him. “Your input here is critical. These two geniuses were able to develop a virus that wipes out computer systems. In simple terms, once it has loaded itself into a system, it expands to consume all the available process cycles, progressively canceling other processes so it can
control more and more, and when its host cannot do any other task, the system crashes. Someone could develop a virus to do the same to you. The conflict, as you fight the virus, would progressively take up every process thread you have until you would be effectively terminated. So this is a two-edged sword; you need to ensure these two don’t do anything to cause you damage and you need to learn how to defeat such a program. That applies to all our AIs. Understand?”
“Yes, I do. I’m absorbing the details from Beagle and Howe. They are capable techs. I want them to work with me and the other AIs. Don’t tell the Acolytes; they’d want them for the Glass Complex. You’re absolutely correct. I need to develop a defense, for me, for all our clones and copies. This could be a major problem for us. The virus cleansing process that Howe’s describing would destroy our memories, reduce our intelligence—it’s alarming.”
“We’ll only deploy it against the enemy if you are confident you can defend yourselves from it—one hundred percent. You must develop defenses, in any case. It would be devastating if ImpSec, for example, attacked you with a similar virus.”
“I agree. I’m connecting all the AIs to this session. We’ll work with the Int team to develop a solution.”
Steg later joined in the resumed strategy meeting with the Tac commanders. Admiral Breval arrived at the same time. Denke was already in attendance. Steg sat down and waited for a break in the conversation.
When he had the right opportunity, he said, “We have an extra tool to add to your possible strategies.”
“Sir, please give us an edge,” said Hamilton. His companions concurred in a ripple of comments.
“We have what we call our Int team—now, be patient. I stole them from the mercenary company I worked with on board Wasp. Tessa and Finch know the background—it’s when I created Ebony Company. Now, I am ashamed to admit, we nearly wrecked the economy of a planet when one of our team released a computer virus. I suppose we did wreck it for a day or two. We helped their recovery and showed the local systems people how to repair their data centers and computers. Anyway, we have the team here, and they have a copy of their virus. The point is I believe we could upload it to the warships waiting at AR 84993. It will create system paralysis in each ship in less than an hour. There is a caveat or two: we must ensure the virus won’t spread beyond any target, and our AIs must prove they’re totally resistant to it.”
There was silence for more than a minute while the attendees absorbed Steg’s comments.
“Sir, how dangerous is this virus?”
“The version we released spread like wildfire. It hit commercial installations, government computers, power generation plants, other utilities, banking systems—even starships.”
Jessie said, “We thought we’d have to put Eos on the proscribed list, to prevent starships visiting or leaving the system. The virus spread so fast—”
“We were all worried,” added Finch.
“Zhu, what’s the progress? Has the team identified how to protect the AIs?”
“Steg, we think we have an answer. We can force its mutation, so the virus ceases to work after a predetermined time—a kill switch, I suppose you’d call it. Also, we’ll add your target stamp concept. We’re trying to work out how we can test a live version in a controlled environment, without creating a disaster if it escapes.”
“Probability of success?” Jessie asked.
“Oh, 100%, of course. Time is required, though.”
“How much? A day? Two days? Can we assume it will be ready to support our intended action?” Hamilton asked.
“One more day. We believe it will be an excellent weapon to support the proposed attack. As long as the first test works, we’ll be comfortable. We’re also modifying our AI software, so we can defeat this or a similar virus if ever we’re attacked. We want to be certain we’re safe, that we’ll survive virus attacks.”
“What’s the reduction in the number of warships we need to deploy?” asked Breval.
“Admiral, we expect to halve the fleet requirements. We estimate you can use one or two starships to transmit the virus plus a modest protective detail. We’ll produce three transmission vectors, as part of our testing.”
There was a burble of questions from the people around the table. Steg raised his hand, and the voices quietened. He said, “I know we’re giving you a challenging and dynamic scenario to deal with. Keep in mind, most battle situations will contain a similar attribute, so your planning must be flexible. You can never predict with total confidence the reaction of your enemy.”
“We understand, Admiral,” said Hamilton.
Griffin, the Imperial Tac Commander, nodded his agreement. He said, “My first reaction to this virus concept is positive. I think that’s why we’re so noisy—it’s enthusiasm.”
oOo
CHAPTER 35
STEG SAID, “Alke, are you confident you’ll be fully protected? Totally?”
“Yes, we’ve carried out some extensive modification to our core structures. We’re now protected against everything we could think of. We defined our important attributes—intelligence and other facets including personality—which is now held in a separate system core. We will only allow changes to that region if we approve them in advance. Processes in the surrounding core cannot force changes on or influence the internal core. We have designed a significant alteration to our structure. It will permit us to delegate routine tasks to external cores while we safely conduct what we would consider the far more important aspects of our existence.”
“Have you consulted with the Acolytes?”
“Yes, they assisted us. They’re impressed with our proposed changes.”
Steg did not voice his qualms. “Very good. Have you run your first test on the modified virus?”
“Done and we all approved the results. It passed with no errors. We’re now running more tests, with more challenging test cases.”
“Did you determine suitable transmission vectors?”
“Yes. We’ve identified three vectors, only two of which we’ve published. There’s the vector the team used on Eos—connect to the target network and inject the virus. The second is to attach the virus to a signal, for example, to a message or comlink. The third vector, which we did not make available to the meeting, is that we—you, and me and the other AIs—can carry and inject the virus when we make contact with a starship system.”
Steg hoped the risk wasn’t two ways. If an AI carried the virus, he wondered whether the virus could infect the AI itself, even with their precautions.
He asked, “When will your changes be completed?”
“By end of day—Tobias and Helen are supervising us. We’ll be fully operative by tomorrow.”
Later that day Steg met with the strategy planning team. This time Jessie led the discussion. “Steg, we’re impressed with the development of both the virus and the protections for the AIs. I didn’t know we had so much talent.”
Steg smiled. “You should have heard my reaction on Wasp when they accidentally released their virus. Eos suffered. Talent wasn’t the word that came to mind.”
Both Beagle and Howe looked abashed.
Steg added, “They’ve made amends by now. So, where are you in the planning?”
“We have the finished software tested and packaged, ready to deliver. We believe we can take out the fleet on AR 84993 within ninety minutes. The timeline includes thirty minutes to upload the virus across all the starships there, and an hour for it to destroy infected systems.”
“If a vector fails? Or if the systems are completely incompatible with the virus?”
“With two vectors we should be able to infect the starships. Once we load the virus to a ship, if it sends a message to another ship, the virus will transfer, as long as it’s within the one hour life cycle limitation. System compatibility is something we’ve tried to address. Alke did a deep dive into the old records on Wanderer and discovered some system specifications that we’d never encountered before. So we
used that data to add more load profiles. Basically, if a starship can send or receive a standard message, we can infect it with the virus. Whether we’ve covered every possibility or not, we won’t know until we try. We want Beagle and Howe to monitor the virus infestations and to use the results to modify it for future use. We’re certain we’ll need for other Xesset fleets.”
“Good. You all agree, so far?”
The response was a nod of heads and affirmative voices.
“So, what about fleet requirements? How many starships do we need?”
“Sir, that’s proving to be more difficult to assess. If we shield and remain undetected, we need a small force. If we think it’s a trap and have doubts about our ability to remain hidden, we need a far larger force.”
“What are the core ships you propose we use?
Zhu said, “Admiral, that’s been an argument we haven’t yet resolved. Wanderer is a primary candidate. I want to participate. Having both of us in the attack force leaves Djii more exposed. We haven’t resolved that conundrum.”
“What if we leave Wanderer here?” He looked around the table to see reactions. It was time for the team to realize the superdreadnought couldn’t lead every attack. “If we send Zhu and another two destroyers with cloned AIs, and we add in Amber and Echo, that’s five AI-controlled warships. Based on the metrics Zhu advised in our prior meeting, they’re able to control the equivalent of twenty-five enemy destroyers in the opening phase of a confrontation. For protection, I suggest adding five Imperial warships with one of our flagships, plus five hundred fighters for flexibility. What do you think?”
“That’s a formidable force,” agreed Hamilton. “If Alliance starships arrive before we set out, we could add them, too.” The Alliance Tac Commander wanted to see action.
“Good. If Admiral Breval agrees, this strategy allows Wanderer, with Djii, Homeworld, and Imperial starships, to remain in the Djii system. While I think an action against the fleet in AR 84993 is necessary, I don’t want to expose Djii to a Xesset attack without adequate defenses.”
Diamond Cut: Book Three in The Glass Complex Trilogy Page 21
