Star Marine!

by John Bowers

  He spent ten of those minutes running various diagnostics, but still came up empty. Then he remembered something from his computer history class after boot camp, something that had been quite common in the early days of computers, but which he'd never seen. He dredged up a command he'd never run and gave it a try …

  … and stared at the HD in astonishment. There, right before his eyes, were the missing seven gigabytes. The file label looked like gibberish, all special characters, and he had no idea what they meant. But the mystery was solved.

  Chief Xiu Peng entered the room at that moment, and he called her over. She stared at the screen with a frown, slowly shaking her head.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "I dunno," Rivers replied, "but it might be important. It was archived as a hidden file."

  "A hidden file? The Space Force doesn't use hidden files. No one does, not any more."

  "I've never even seen one," Ernie agreed, "but there it is. And I have no idea what it is."

  Chief Xiu straightened to her full four feet eleven and placed her hands on her hips.

  "Don't touch it," she said decisively. "I want Commander Petty to see this. If someone went to the trouble to hide it, then it must be important."

  * * *

  Commander Petty had never seen anything like it, either. He was a Space Force lifer who already had three service stripes when the war started, and had deferred his retirement because of it. Now forty-three, he'd spent his entire career working with communications and computers, and was considered something of a wizard.

  Petty mounted the drive on his development machine, where he could tinker with it without affecting online operations. Sitting alone in his cubicle, he ran several tests on the mysterious file to get an idea of its characteristics. It didn't respond at all, which meant it was not a standard file. It wasn't a data file, nor was it like any program file he'd ever seen. He suspected it was encrypted, but again it didn't respond to any test that would identify it as such.

  He scratched his head. Something was definitely strange here, and as he ran over the possibilities in his head, his skin began to prickle. The Sirians had owned this base for several years — could they have left a time bomb behind?

  Just to be safe, he disabled the subsystems that linked his machine to the mainframe, then physically detached the filoptics as well — if the thing was dangerous, he wouldn't let it slip out the door.

  Then he went to work.

  He tried looking at the file data itself, but as expected, it was gibberish to the human eye. Some kind of machine language, most likely compiled from human-readable source. He would have given his left nut to see the source code, but the source didn't exist. He spent hours scrolling through the compiled code, looking for embedded remarks or logic flows, but found nothing. He skipped evening mess, trying various options, none of which netted him anything.

  He spent some time staring at the ceiling. What was it? Why was it there? What did it do? Was it even important? It must be, or it wouldn't have been hidden. A hidden file was one that didn't show up on file catalogs, and thus was protected from accidental deletion. Someone, at some time, had wanted this file to be invisible.

  But why?

  On a hunch, he tapped his vidphone and rang Spec/4 Rivers in quarters. The specialist answered on the fourth ring, wiping sleep from his eyes.

  "Rivers, this is Petty. Sorry to wake you, but I just had a quick question. Do you remember what else was on this drive? Before you cleaned it?"

  "Um, well, no, sir, not really. It was just some old stuff, from several years ago. Before the Sirians took the base. Archival stuff."

  "Do you remember the nature of the files? I don't need their specific labels."

  Rivers was silent a moment, thinking.

  "I think it was old communications stuff. Fighter op orders, vector logs, stuff like that. I have a catalog of it in the vault, sir. I can find out for you."

  Petty started to say no, then reconsidered. It would take Rivers fifteen minutes to get him the catalog, and it might be useful. He nodded slowly.

  "Would you mind, Rivers? I think it might be important."

  Rivers nodded, with a sigh.

  "Aye-aye, sir. I'll be right down."

  The catalog was extensive. The storage drive had contained several thousand files, and they were exactly as the specialist had said. They dated back to the first year of the war, when AB-131 had been a front line fighter base, before it was detected and captured. Petty gazed at the list in awe.

  "Where are these files now?" he asked, before Rivers could get away.

  "They were transferred onto offline storage. Probably in the vault."

  Petty nodded. "Thanks, Rivers."

  Rivers fled before Petty could give him further orders.

  Petty returned to the mysterious file, bringing it up on his monitor and gazing at it in perplexity. He had a powerful gut feeling about this. Something about this file was important, and possibly dangerous. He had to figure out what, if only for his own peace of mind.

  With no expectation of success, but with nothing to lose, he ran the file through a program he'd written himself some years ago. It was a reverse code program, which could take machine-readable language and unscramble it. The result was a new file composed of pseudocode — human-readable text that could explain what a program did without actually knowing what language it was written in. The process took three hours. When it finished, Petty displayed the result, fully aware that his program had its limitations. There were many program files his program couldn't decode …

  "Jesus Christ!"

  … but this wasn't one of them.

  Petty gazed at his screen in disbelief, trying to follow the logic. There were no documentation comments, but the pseudocode was pretty straightforward, requiring little interpretation. What was amazing was how little source code had been reproduced from the file. He paged for several minutes, scanning the general flow of the program — it was indeed a program — and felt the hairs tingle on the back of his neck.

  He reached for the vidphone again.

  "This is Commander Petty in data communications. Get me the Duty Officer."

  * * *

  "What the hell do you mean, virus?" Capt. Helen Scott had never heard the term in relation to computers.

  "They don't exist any more, Captain," Commander Petty explained. "Today's systems are too sophisticated. But a few centuries ago they were a real problem. Simply stated, a virus was a program that damaged or interfered with other programs. They were illegal, but they caused a lot of heartache before technology figured out a way to prevent them."

  "And you think that's what this program is? A virus?"

  "No, I said it's sort of like a virus."

  "I don't understand."

  Petty sighed and leaned back in his chair. He was used to having to educate senior officers before he could talk to them.

  "I haven't been through it in detail yet, but I've got an overview of it. What I think it does is something like this: let's say you're sending out a fighter squadron on patrol, okay? Before departure, their onboard systems download the mission orders from the mainframe next door."

  Col. Scott nodded. So far, so good.

  "Okay. Now what I think is supposed to happen is that, when the fighters download their data, this program activates. It chains into the current file being downloaded and just adds a few instructions. Nothing noticeable, just a few extra odd bytes of code. And then it goes dormant again. It stays hidden, until the next time a mission order is downloaded."

  Scott looked confused. "And what good is that?"

  "Well, that's the part I haven't verified," he admitted. "But I've seen enough that I have a pretty good idea —"

  "So tell me."

  "Colonel, I think those extra instructions had to do with Ladar operation. There were some cases at this base where Ladar failed to detect the enemy. I believe those extra instructions may have been responsible."

  Scott
stared at him in disbelief for five seconds.

  "Are you sure?" she whispered.

  "Not a hundred percent —"

  "Find out! Find out exactly what this thing does, then call me again. Don't say a word about this to anyone. Understood?"

  "Aye-aye." Petty nodded, his fatigue suddenly gone.

  * * *

  It took him another nine hours. He had to actually dig into the machine code several times and locate specific bytes of information, but he made a list, and when he was done he knew for sure. The program was multitalented, and it was indeed dangerous. When activated, it could affect not only the computer on board a fighter, but also computer-driven systems in the base itself. The codes it transmitted controlled Ladar equipment, and were very standard. When a Ladar unit received such codes, it would continue to perform as normal, but anything it detected wouldn't be reported.

  "That's how the Sirians approached this base without even being detected," Petty told Col. Scott. "They could've sent a fleet of destroyers alongside and the system wouldn't have reported them."

  "What about the Ladar logs? Wouldn't it record them there?"

  "No. The signal is blocked at the entry point to the system. Nothing would get inside. Nothing would be displayed, logged, or recognized in any way. There'd be no footprint to be discovered later. It's brilliant."

  "So this file basically switched off the topside Ladar installation long enough for a Sirian fighter to get in here and trash the fighter bay?"

  "Exactly. And there were other incidents, weren't there, where patrols were ambushed? And detected nothing?"

  Scott nodded slowly, trying to wrap her mind around the problem, to understand the ramifications of everything Petty had told her.

  "Now," she said slowly, "the big question — how did this file get here?"

  Petty shook his head.

  "I have no idea."

  Chapter 44

  Monday, 9 April, 0232 (PCC) - Polygon, Washington City, DC, North America, Terra

  Wade Palmer sat at Cdr. Kamada's side in the Strategy Room as he waited for the morning briefing on the current situation. The room was full as usual, and Wade was impatient to get on with it; he had work waiting. General Willard was late, which wasn't normal, but he finally arrived and the room came to order.

  Willard scanned the massed staff for a moment, a twinkle in his eyes. The senior planners gazed back at him.

  "As of today," he said without preamble, "the battle for Alpha 2 is over. We've beaten the bastards for the first time on a planet-wide scale."

  He grinned as the group broke into applause. Word had been received during the night that the last major army on Alpha 2 had surrendered to the Federation Infantry. Though isolated pockets of resistance still remained, the planet as a whole was secure. Federation merchant ships were now able to orbit the planet safely, though fighter escorts were still maintained. The operation had taken just thirty-one months.

  Willard waited for the applause to die, then continued.

  "Three years ago, I told you people that we were going to invade Alpha 2 and Altair at the same time. I didn't know how the hell it could be done, but one of you figured out a way, and the rest of you took that plan and made it work. I want to congratulate everyone here on a job well done."

  He reached into his briefcase and drew out a small box.

  "Ensign Palmer, front and center."

  Wade's eyes widened apprehensively. Without hesitation, he got to his feet and hurried around the room. General Willard eyed him all the way, his expression unreadable. When Wade stopped in front of him, Willard turned and addressed the room again.

  "Ensign Palmer came up with the most critical ideas concerning the fighter cover and supply for Operation Gang-Bang. I told him once that, if we actually took Alpha 2, I would promote him. Well, as I said, we've taken it."

  Willard opened the box and lifted out the shoulder patch insignia of a Space Force Lieutenant (junior grade).

  "Palmer, the next time I see you, you'd better be wearing these. And keep in mind that this promotion carries with it, more than anything else, that much more responsibility. You'll see a few extra terros in your payroll deposit, but mainly it just means more work. So don't let this go to your head!"

  A chuckle filtered around the room as the general handed the stunned junior officer the patches. Wade looked at them as if they were scorpions.

  "Congratulations, Lieutenant Palmer," Willard said.

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Now, let's get back to work."

  Wade returned to his chair, and Willard cleared the holomap behind him.

  "We've won a major victory," he said. "Two major victories. Invading both worlds at once has saved us a great deal of time, and has thrown the enemy off balance. They never dared believe we could pull that off, and frankly, I think some of our own people are surprised, too.

  "But the war isn't over. We've been at this over ten years now, and we have a hell of a long way to go. Make no mistake about it, people — the hardest part is still ahead."

  He keyed his console and displayed three planetary systems. Turning his back on the room, he pointed.

  "We have three more star systems to take," he said. "All three are enemy home systems. If we thought Alpha Centauri was difficult, it was a sail in the galaxy compared to what's ahead of us. From now on, we aren't going to find very many friendly civilians. Our forces are going to face not only military opposition, but possible civilian volunteer forces as well. We may encounter women and children shooting at us. Prisoners of war will have a more difficult time than ever before. Everyone and everything we encounter will be hostile."

  He turned to face them again.

  "The enemy has been stung, and stung hard. But he isn't defeated. He isn't even all that worried. So we're going to have to be very, very good at this from now on. If anyone here is starting to feel the strain, or doesn't want to take the responsibility any more, come and see me. I will allow any of you to walk away from this with no hard feelings, no blemish on your record. But let me know soon, because we have to start planning the next phase."

  He scanned every face in the room. If anyone had reservations, no one spoke.

  "We bought some time with our combined assaults on Altair and Alpha Centauri," he said. "We won't be able to do that again. Our next three objectives are going to be more densely populated, and more heavily defended, than anything we've seen yet.

  "The good news is that we now have eight carriers, with nine more under construction. Two of those should be ready in a few months, which will give us ten, and we have plenty of trained manpower ready to go. But we can't be careless."

  Willard touched his console again. One of the star systems on the holomap expanded to fill the display.

  "This, ladies and gentlemen, is our next target. Beta Centauri."

  "General?" A hand was in the air. Willard nodded and took the question. "What's to prevent us from bypassing Beta Centauri? It seems to me the enemy will expect us to hit it next. Why don't we go straight for the throat, and hit Sirius itself?"

  Willard stared at his questioner for a moment, taking a deep breath, as if he'd anticipated this question and dreaded it.

  "We could shorten the war by years if we could take Sirius next," he said. "But if we try that, we'll draw opposition from both Vega and Beta down on top of us. If the Sirians have to, they'll abandon both of those systems to defend their own. We wouldn't stand a chance. We're not quite that strong yet."

  "We've been at war almost twelve years now," the same planner said. "How much longer will it take, if we assault these systems one at a time?"

  Willard frowned unhappily.

  "Best guess? I estimate five years for each operation."

  A gasp escaped some corners of the room. Fifteen more years of war?

  "Look," Willard told them, "when this thing started, we were estimating it would run thirty years, minimum — provided we could hold out long enough to get on the offensive. My c
urrent estimate puts us five years ahead of that estimate. By taking Altair and Alpha 2 at the same time, we've made up some time. We might get lucky with Beta Centauri, too. It might only take three years, but we've got to get started."

  "How soon do you anticipate hitting them, General?" Wade Palmer asked from the far end of the room.

  "I have some ideas I want to run past you people," Willard said. "If they pan out, I think we might get the next invasion started about six months from now."

  "Six months!" Wade was shocked. "Sir, we haven't even started … !"

  "Lieutenant, may I remind you, the Sirians have to know we'll hit Beta next. Our best strategy is to catch them off guard, just like we did with Alpha. We caught them asleep on that one, and I think we can do it again. But we have to move boldly. It'll be risky, of course, but if we can get the ball rolling, the surprise alone may be worth several thousand Federation lives. We need to hit them before they've fully recovered from Alpha 2."

  Wade stared at the general without response. Willard took another question, but Wade just stared at the papers on the table in front of him. Alpha 2 had been a gamble, but a calculated gamble. It had worked out, and Willard was obviously pleased with its success. But too many such gambles could become deadly.

  What would happen if General Willard became reckless?

  Tuesday, 10 April, 0232 (PCC) - The White House, Washington City, DC, North America, Terra

  The Federation government changed location every five years. When the Federation was formed, it had been agreed that each inhabited continent should have equal opportunity to host the seat of power. With the power of modern communications, members of government could confer from across the system as if they were sitting in the same room, but the Constitution dictated that Congress had to sit down together when in session. Thus there was a Federation Building on every major continent. In Europe it was located in London; in Asia it was Singapore; in Africa, Johannesburg; in Australia, Sidney; in South America, Rio de Janeiro.

  In North America, the seat of power was located in San Francisco.

  The President of the Federation could live wherever he or she chose, so long as the residence met the high standards expected of the leader of the largest government in the galaxy. The previous President, Hans Susimiko, had lived in Tokyo. Henry Reagan Wells chose Washington City, formerly the capital of North America. For over a century, his residence had been a museum, but he only occupied a small portion of it for living quarters and his daily business. Its official name was The White House.