Kresge called the meeting to order.
"Thank you all for coming," he began, "As you know, the Santana Quadrant is currently being threatened by the Sheik of Barsoom and his allies. They have knocked out communications and terrorized a great many of the most remote colonies. They are occupying the Santana Nexus station and we have good evidence that they have also somehow acquired a device that stops any ships from coming in through the Sol-Terra hyperlink zone."
He paused briefly before changing the subject.
"Not all of the news is bad, though. You will all be pleased to know that the Sheik no longer has any influence in the Heard's World system nor in Catskill-Soroyan. The fact that these fools have destroyed so many of the long range communications consoles actually works to our advantage because now their own people are having a hard time keeping track of things out this far. This current situation is not likely to last, however, and we must make whatever move we're going to make while there is still a good chance of success."
Kresge looked around the crowded room, "Any questions up to this point?"
Everyone was looking back at him expectantly.
"What I am about to tell you all is still somewhat speculative but I think it is important enough that it must be shared with you."
He took a deep breath before continuing. "We have retrieved evidence from the abandoned opposition cruiser in the Heard's World system indicating that the ship was deliberately damaged in a desperate plan to smuggle an individual away from the final battle of the Succession War. This individual was referred to as a 'prince' by some of his handlers. It has also been brought to our attention that 'Barsoom,' 'Mars' and Merrikh are all the same word. With this in mind, we have come to the tentative conclusion that the Sheik of Barsoom is actually the long lost Prince Merrikh of Jasmine!"
There was a stunned silence in the room as the information sunk in.
"But that means...," someone had made the connection.
Kresge finished the thought for them.
"...Yes, it means that all this terrorist activity is probably just the opening shots in what could very well wind up being a rekindling of the Succession War! I think it goes without saying that we must do everything in our power to stop them at the Santana Nexus!"
Kresge, knowing that this new information would be both shocking and disruptive, allowed the interchange to play itself out for a while. It was a good fifteen minutes before everyone had settled down enough after the stunning announcement for the planning session to go forward.
"Okay everyone, time to get back to business. We will outline the plan that I have been discussing with my two tacticians..." he gave a nod towards Carlisle and Sukamoto who were sitting next to each other in the front row of chairs, "...regarding the liberation of the Nexus Station. First, we need to infiltrate the Station. To do that we have the Nasr, a Meridian Imperial Navy Destroyer that the enemy believes to be in his camp. We have also been able to capture an armed freighter, the Aladdin and another freighter, the Pride of Persia. These two ships were also considered to be part of the Sheik's forces as of just a few days ago. As far as we know, the enemy still believes that all three of these ships are his. With all of the forces that are supposed to be streaming into the Santana Nexus over the next few days, we propose to use these three ships to jump into the Nexus system, make it past the security screen and get to the station itself, hopefully without attracting too much attention."
"That's fine, Commander," said someone in the audience, "but what about the fleet of eight destroyers that the Sheik still has and that big Jasmine cruiser?"
"Excellent question," replied Kresge. "I won't try to minimize the danger posed by all of those ships, but with the Sheik's big summit meeting scheduled over the next few days, we don't expect the crews on any of those ships to be particularly alert. With all of their strength concentrated in the Nexus System, the Sol-Terra hyperlink blocked and their belief that they have subdued all of the opposition in the Quadrant, they will not be expecting any kind of action on our part. In addition, the bulk of the leadership, including the command staffs of all of their ships, will be at the Sheik's big meeting. If we hit them by surprise, hard and fast, we should be able to even the odds considerably.
For offense we have the Asimov, the Nasr, the newly repaired Perseus and the Foul Beastie, a formidable prototype cruiser. As far as we have been able to determine, their cruiser remains parked out near the hyperlink zone. Our best guess is that she is not only there to guard the zone but that she also has the so-called 'hyperlink damper' device onboard. All reports indicate that she is the only ship stationed near the hyperlink zone. If we successfully neutralize or destroy that ship, we open up the hyperlink zone and we can get reinforcements from Sol-Terra."
Here he stopped as the next phase of the plan was a bold one.
"To do that, I propose attacking that cruiser with all four of our warships at once. We approach her with the Nasr and the Beastie first and while they're in the process of trying to figure out who we are, we bring the Perseus and the Asimov in through the hyperlink zone. Our first shots will be aimed at the cruiser's communications dishes. Then we take her out. A surprise attack from four ships at point blank range should allow us to do enough damage to overcome her. Nasr and Perseus each have a few missiles left and the Beastie and the Asimov are both equipped with some very powerful pulse weapons.
"What about all those destroyers?"
"That may not be as bad as it looks at first glance. From our intel, we expect the destroyers to be posted near the Nexus station but no more than two or three of them will have been kept on alert. After we take out the cruiser we jump in system to take on the active destroyers, again with all four of our warships. With the cruiser out of the fight, they might have an advantage in ship numbers but we should be at least their equal in firepower. If we take them by surprise we should have a decisive advantage by the time they can get any of their remaining ships into the fight.
"That's a lot of 'ifs,' Commander," said someone from the back of the room.
"It will have to be a well-coordinated attack," replied Kresge, "We might even be able to take the destroyers on in a straight up fight but I don't intend to do it that way. My plan is to get up close to them and get as many shots into them as we can before any of them have a chance to raise shields or fire back. It's exactly the same tactic that they used to take control of the Nexus Station in the first place."
"This plan could work but, as you say, it will have to be a very well-coordinated effort!"
"Of that there is no doubt," replied Kresge.
"So, once we've neutralized the Sheik's navy, what's next?"
As I was saying, before we attack any of his ships, we will need to have infiltrated the station itself. Clancy Davis-Moore has been communicating with friends there who are members of the Resistance forces on the station. First, we use the ships that are believed to be part of the Sheik's forces to put as many of our people onto the station as we can. When the attack on the Sheik's navy is launched, we also launch our initial attack on his forces within the station itself. If we can secure the central spindle of the Station we can keep the enemy bottled up until we can get the rest of our manpower, those on the mining ships and the other two freighters, transferred onto the Station. At that point we should have the numbers to force the issue. We then cut power to the tenth ring and wait them out."
"So your plan will be to use the Nasr and the two freighters to infiltrate the Nexus?"
"Yes," replied Kresge, "We tell them that the Nasr is carrying wounded from an altercation out in the Oneida system and that should grant them easy access to the station."
"I thought you were going to jump the Nasr and the Beastie in to attack the Cruiser."
"That's only partially correct, the Nasr will have to microjump back out to the hyperlink zone, on the pretext that she needs to head back with a load of repair parts and to pick up the remaining wounded survivors from the Oneida system. We intend
to have the Beastie pose as a cargo ship carrying repair parts for Nasr's damaged companion ships. Nasr's arrival back in the hyperlink zone will be our signal to launch our attack. With the Sheik's navy neutralized, the Donegal and the Glendaloch, the Dingo and the City of Darwin will jump into the system loaded with the rest of the invasion forces that we'll need to take back the station."
"This just might work."
"I won't try to minimize the danger," said Kresge, he looked around the room, "There is a damned good chance that some of us will be wounded and that some of us will be killed. The price of Freedom has never been cheap. I don't expect that this situation will be any different. Remember this: If we can defeat this Sheik of Barsoom at the Santana Nexus station, we will have eliminated the threat he and his forces pose to the freedom of millions, if not billions, of people. Or we can cower out here, reasonably safe in the Scrapyard, while the Sheik does what he wants in the rest of the Quadrant."
"How soon do you want to start implementing this plan?"
"If we're going to have a chance of making it work, we need to start immediately. The Sheik's big meeting is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. We have to have everything in place by then."
"Looks like we'd better get started!"
"Amen!" said Kresge.
Chapter 48.
"...Stage two Whitney Communication is a frightfully complicated process. It is well known that long distance communication requires enormous amounts of power. Less well known is the fact that receiving a Stage two message requires only that the communicator's receiving hardware remains powered up. With time zones varying widely from system to system, messages can come through anytime of the day or night. As a result, most Stage two communicators are configured to receive messages while in standby mode..."
Hartwell wrist computer note highlighted for further review by Amanda Steuben. Excerpt is from " Whitney Communications: the Basics." by Melvin Patterson.
UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard Federation Auxiliary ship Greyhound, January 12, 2599.
As part of their continued training, Kresge had allowed Faiza and Amanda to attend the briefing session on the Santana Nexus attack plan but had told them they were there to listen only. Suitably awed by the experience, they'd had no difficultly following his instructions. After the meeting broke up and they had returned to their quarters. Faiza was performing some routine maintenance on her wrist computer and Amanda was going over some general instructions about warship power plant operation.
"This is curious," said Faiza, "I just found a message on my wrist computer. It's from last night."
"What sort of message?"
"Something about another user nearby."
"How can that be? It's just you and me and Tamara that have wrist computers."
"Yes, I know," replied Faiza, "but this message says that there is another wrist computer user within a hundred kilometers. Actually, it says there is another user within less than four kilometers."
"That would put whoever it is somewhere in the Scrapyard," said Amanda.
"At that distance, they would almost have to be on the Istanbul," Said Faiza.
The two girls looked at one another. "Do you suppose someone with a wrist computer could be the source of the information leaks from the Scrapyard?" asked Faiza.
"Does whoever it is know that we are aware of him?" asked Amanda.
"I can't be sure but I don't think so," replied Faiza, "We've been running our three computers as a closed system on our own Hartwell Wrist Comp Network. None of our computers would have initiated any sort of contact with a strange computer without our permission. Whoever this is, they haven't tried to access anything on the Network before sometime last night."
"Didn't your father just move a communications tech off from the bridge because he suspected the man might be the leak? Do you suppose that the same person could be attempting to continue communicating through the Stage II console using a wrist computer?"
"I think we need to tell my father," said Faiza, "right away!"
"Let's go talk to Captain Murdock," said Amanda.
The two young women went immediately to the bridge of the Greyhound. Here they found Helen Murdock running a routine ship's diagnostic using the terminal at her normal post in the Captain's chair.
"Afternoon, ladies. You taking a break from your studies?" asked Murdock.
"Sort of," said Faiza, "We found something strange on my wrist computer just a few minutes ago and we think we'd better tell my father about it."
"Yeah," added Amanda, "It looks like someone on the Istanbul also has a wrist computer and they activated the network communications systems on it last night."
"Could be the mole we've been looking for," said Murdock. "I'll contact the Ambassador right away."
Within a few minutes, Murdock had the Ambassador on the viewscreen.
"Good afternoon, Captain Murdock," said the diplomat, "What can I do for you?"
"It's Faiza and Amanda, Excellency, they have information for you."
The two young women explained about the sudden appearance of a message concerning a wrist computer from what appeared to be somewhere on the Istanbul.
The Ambassador recognized the possible consequences immediately.
"I must check on this without delay," he said, "Under no circumstances are you to make any attempt to communicate with whoever it is."
The two young women assured him they would not.
"Thanks, you two, this could be the break we've been waiting for!" said the Ambassador before he cut the communication.
***
UTFN Reclamation Center, on board Meridian Imperial Diplomatic Ship Istanbul, January 12, 2599.
Ambassador Saladin immediately summoned the Istanbul's computer tech to the bridge. Heskim came as quickly as he could and arrived on the bridge a few minutes later.
"How can I help you, Excellency?"
"I need you to check the Stage II communications console and tell me if someone with a wrist computer has been trying to access it from somewhere on this ship."
"I'll see what I can do," replied Heskim.
The technician went over and sat down at the control console for the Whitney Stage II communicator. He tapped in his password which gave him access to the console's programming files and user logs. The screen was immediately filled with lines of code. He read quickly through the script, toggled down through several screens and finally made an announcement.
"This is not good, Excellency," said Heskim.
"In what regard?" asked the Ambassador.
"Someone did access this console with a wrist computer just last night," replied Heskim, "but that's not all they've been doing. Someone, actually it's probably the same person, has been using a short range wireless connection from a wrist computer for several weeks now. The long range wrist comp network was only activated a short time ago."
"It has to be the technician that we moved over to the Stage one system because we suspected he was sending unauthorized messages."
"Let me see if has been sending any messages recently, Excellency," said Heskim. He tapped in some more commands and more lines of code filled his monitor.
"Ah...," said the computer technician.
"What is it, Heskim?"
"You know that we often insert email messages and other text information along with the recognition codes while we are using these long range consoles for video communications?"
"Yes, of course. Why?"
"Well, someone has been embedding their own information in with those communications, Excellency. They are encoded so I can't be absolutely sure what's in them but they aren't all that hard to detect, once you know what you're looking for. Let me see if I can decode some of these."
Heskim ran only three different decoding programs before he found one that could decipher some of the messages. As expected, the embedded messages contained valuable information about Scrapyard plans and movements.
That was all that the Ambassador needed.
"We need to arrest that communications tech immediately!" said the Ambassador. "Thanks, Heskim, we've been looking for something on this individual. Now that we know what they've been doing, we might as well round up the rest of our suspects as well."
Heskim did a quick check of the duty rosters and announced, "He should be in his quarters, Excellency. He was assigned to the night watch last night."
"See what else you can find Heskim."
"As you wish, Excellency."
***
Within five minutes the Ambassador and a half dozen of this personal guard had overridden the security codes on the entrance to the communications tech's quarters and stormed inside. Taking no chances with another suicide, they used a stun rod on the man while he was still asleep. After a short search, they found a Hartwell Wrist Computer tucked into the space behind a drawer next to the spy's bed. This computer had been specifically modified so that the operator could wear it around his ankle. As a result, no one had suspected that he was wearing a wrist computer and, using the short-range wireless, the man had been able to sneak various clandestine communications in with the legitimate communications over the course of the last few weeks. Presumably, these embedded messages were then downloaded and distributed by operators at the receiving end.
Rounding up the rest of the suspects only took about another half hour. Afterwards the Ambassador returned to the Stage II communications suite to see what else his computer tech had found.
"What have you got for me, Heskim?"
"I actually have some good news, Excellency," said Heskim.
"I could use some good news," replied the Ambassador.
"We haven't used this Stage two communicator since the messages between us and the Asimov while she was in the Heard's World system several days ago. Whatever compromising information is contained in his latest set of communications has not gone out yet. The enemy should not be aware of any of our plans to attack the Santana Nexus."
Junkyard Dogs series Omnibus Page 103
