Chronicles of the 23rd Century: Hijacked

by Paul J. Fleming

  ‘Okay! Alright! I surrender! I give up!’ the thin remaining crewman shouted with panicked intensity as he threw his own pistol on the deck plating a short distance from his cowering position to one side of the small reactor room.

  Walker covered him with both pistols and stood from the crouch he had instinctively dropped into as the Mercurian had fired. The thin man before him had disarmed and had his hands both raised in the air above his head as far as his arms could stretch. He moved closer with caution, kicking the discarded pistol away to a far corner of the room as he came across it and then paused for a moment to contemplate his next move.

  He had to consider the fact that those he had encountered so far since entering the umbilical seemed a far cry from the embittered career pirates he had cause to come across in previous years, but that did not detract from the murder of his partner or the impending threat to those on Earth. No matter how they appeared, they were just as dangerous should he make the mistake of underestimating them.

  ‘Shut it down,’ he growled.

  ‘Wha… What?’

  ‘The reactor. Shut it down now and I’ll consider letting you live,’ he instructed slowly and carefully.

  ‘R.... Right away!’ The thin crewman responded as he turned quickly and made rapid alterations to the control panel he was cowering beside. His efforts were rewarded by the alert tones sounding which were followed by the resounding descending tone of the reactor itself as it powered down. There was a moment of eerie silence which descended upon the reactor room as darkness took hold momentarily before the red emergency lighting took over.

  ‘Now I’ve shut it down, you said you’d let me live!’ the thin man pleaded as he turned back from the control to face Walker who stood impassively with his pistols still trained keenly on him.

  ‘No,’ replied Walker. ‘I said I would consider it.’

  The twin lances of energy lit up the dimly illuminated reactor room and denied the thin crewman the chance to scream as they punctured through his chest, ending his life abruptly and leaving his corpse to topple to the floor aside the control console.

  Walker knew that now the power was offline the remaining crew would make their way to his position to check on the status of the reactor room and discover why their systems were on battery reserves.

  All he had to do now was wait.

  8 Destination Hyperion?

  Oswald stared into the screen and ruffled the short brown hair on his head with his right hand. The details as they presented themselves to him on the display were confusing enough without the constant interruption from the young man who waited nervously by his shoulder and kept inquiring about his progress every few minutes.

  He had endured tremendous pressure before in his work within the corporate headquarters of Aries on Mars, normally when there was a discrepancy within the records within the mainframe and he had to trace down who was accountable so that the Martian noble who was putting him under pressure could meter out a swift form of punishment to those who were culpable.

  That was unpleasant. The knowledge that a single individual would suffer an unpleasant fate as a result of his success. However his current endeavours were to prevent an unpleasant outcome for thousands. The amount of pressure upon him was almost mind-numbing.

  Every fact he had gleaned so far from the crew present indicated a rather antiquated servile AI monitoring the more automated functions of the vessel whilst actual flesh and blood crewmembers performed regular maintenance and monitoring checks on the systems. It had been attributed to the more aged years of their Captain and his mistrust of automation to properly oversee and sustain the proper operation of his ship. However the more Oswald probed into the core of the vessel’s computer system the more he discovered a rather advanced program matrix which lead him to believe he had indeed located the program which had been uploaded by the men in the reactor room, however his repeated enquiries of the computer core were now being deflected to give him reports on the environmental controls and the reactor status as opposed to the nature of the digital construct within the system.

  ‘You look a bit confused,’ the young man at his side as a mere observation but at the irritated glance which Oswald furnished him with, he held his hands up before him and backed away slightly to a neighbouring chair. ‘Sorry, I was just going to ask if there was anything I could do to help?’

  ‘No, apart from letting me concentrate!’ Oswald snapped back, but then found himself apologetic for his outburst and turned his attention from the screen to the young man who appeared slightly crestfallen. ‘Sorry, it’s just a lot of pressure to be under you understand? Now the program is seemingly protecting itself by deflecting my queries and I’m no closer to discovering it’s purpose, let alone switching it off!’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ the young man offered tentatively for fear of being the recipient of another sharp rebuke, ‘is why they needed to install a program in the first place? I mean, why not just point the ship where it was meant to go and send it off?’

  ‘I suppose they are making sure that it can make any necessary changes to course and speed in the event of unexpected deviations,’ Oswald mused in response as his gaze drifted back to the screen before him.

  ‘The Captain certainly wouldn’t have liked that!’ Jacob replied with a snort and then smiled as Oswald glanced at him with curiosity. ‘The old man hated automated systems, even to the point of threatening to shoot company technicians when they came aboard during the major refit to install the interface equipment. He had to relent as it was just the way things were and I think Simone had some serious words with him, but the Stellar Fortune has always boasted a full crew complement to operate it’s systems manually with regular checks carried out by the crew, not like these new class of Liner which have all sorts of automated checks and safeguards in place within their computer core and the crew simply push a load of buttons and act as flying administrators. That’s what the Captain called the crews of the newer ships. If you were assigned to the Fortune, you knew you were in for a lot of hands on work!’

  Oswald didn’t respond. His gaze was firmly fixed upon the screen before him.

  ‘Oswald?’ Jacob asked quietly, preparing for the backlash for once again interrupting. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘They said the plan was to knock out Hyperion didn’t they?’ He mumbled in response.

  ‘Yes, that’s what the guy said before he knocked out the Ranger. Take out Hyperion to take down the monitoring grid around the Earth.’

  ‘Well I think someone’s been telling a few fibs,’ said Oswald as he sat back from the screen before him. ‘I’ve just been able to run through the instruction set of the program and the target isn’t Hyperion, it’s Luna.’

  There was silence for a moment, then Jacob leaned forwards slightly towards Oswald who seemed to be in a state of shock at his discovery.

  ‘I thought it was deflecting you? How could you check it’s program?’

  ‘Pretty simple really, just an oversight by whoever created it. Every system, including that on the Fortune, has a primary and a redundant Secondary system within which everything operating within the primary is replicated to the dormant secondary system but in essence is inactive until such time as the primary suffers a failure and the secondary then kicks in to provide uninterrupted service and the constant updating of it’s storage media means that it should do so seamlessly. I simply interrogated the secondary media copy of the program and was able to inspect it’s intended function without any hindrance. As it was dormant it could not deflect me and the primary was only concerned with it’s own matrix in the primary core. As I said, pretty simple.’

  Jacob sat silent for a moment with wide eyes focussed on Oswald as he reeled off the information as if it were the most well known detail in the entire solar system.

  ‘Pretty simple if you understand all that,’ he replied with a smile after Oswald flashed him a glance to see why he was so quiet. ‘So you exploited a flaw and d
iscovered they want to hit Luna instead? But won’t Luna just wipe us out too with their mass drivers? Surely we’ve just traded one way of being obliterated with another?’

  ‘According to this program, we’re to specifically strike at the financial dome of Tranquillity where most of the stock exchanges are housed, as well as the headquarters for the Lunarian banks,’ Oswald said and then paused for a moment before adding almost inaudibly, ‘and my family.’

  ‘So wiping out the big financial sector of Luna in one swoop?’ Jacob asked, missing the personal detail as he contemplated the grand plan. ‘Why though? Surely everybody would be affected by such an act as all the colonies deal through Luna for their finances and stock deals?’

  Oswald mulled it over for a moment as he tried to drag his thoughts back to the task they had at hand, but it was Simone who offered her own consideration of the facts to her crewmates.

  ‘It would cripple independent interests throughout the colonies. All who all rely on the Lunarian banking services from companies of all sizes to the merest individual and would cause a major outcry at such an event actually happening. It would destabilise Luna as the financial capital of the Solar system and give rise to Mars’ persistent argument for the shift to be towards Mars as the main centre of financial and corporate interests. Not to mention the Martian Corporate Bank would be one of the only financial institutions to avoid the disaster as their head office is on Mars, not Luna. They’ll be able to ride out such a devastating event within the corporate world and take precedence in the aftermath. At present, it has to accede to directives handed down by the superiority of the Lunarian institutions, but if they were to suffer a devastating blow?’

  Everyone turned to look at her, the lines of age on her face and grey hair no longer disguising the fierce intellect which resided within her.

  ‘I’ve not always been an elderly stewardess on an inter-Solar liner my dears,’ she said with a beaming smile. ‘If I was a devious Martian wanting to shift the balance towards my home colony, then this is the sort of thing I might do. Never trust a grinning Martian, they’re just contemplating how deep into your back they can stick the knife when the time comes!’

  Oswald nodded as her words took root in his mind.

  Luna had defences, which had been employed in the past against stray stellar material and also a directed assault from Martian forces in the midst of their war with Earth, which was still a bone of contention between the two colonies, but the liner’s approach towards Hyperion would cause it to slip by their early warning systems and not be of concern to the Lunarian authorities who would determine it to not be their problem until much too late, when their course drastically altered.

  Oswald thought once more of his mother and father, his brothers and sisters. All residing within the financial quarter which this inter-Solar liner was now destined to eradicate in one massive impact and fireball. They didn’t know it yet, but their very survival now depended upon him.

  ‘We need to disable this program somehow,’ he said as his brow furrowed in concentration and his voice took on a low serious tone, all hints of the timidity lost in his new sense of purpose. His fingers began to flash across the control panel as he concentrated on the screen before him.

  Walker checked the pistols he had with him as he heard the sound of approaching footsteps in the corridor beyond the access hatch, he had not had to wait too long before someone came down to berate their colleagues for the power blackout.

  Carefully bracing his right arm across his left, he levelled one of the pistols towards the opening and readied himself, biding his time until the approaching crew had no cover and were committed to entering the room.

  As the first figure cleared the hatch and moved slightly further into the room, a second appeared within the opening but halted on the threshold.

  ‘What the hell?!’ The woman called out as she came to a sudden halt, her senses taking in the bodies about her which had been obscured slightly in the dim illumination afforded by the emergency lighting. Her hand flashed down to the small pistol strapped to her right thigh but was only about half way through the motion when Walker’s pistol claimed another victim, causing her to drop amidst her colleagues within the reactor room.

  Her companion who had stood on the threshold of the reactor room turned on his heel and pelted away as fast as his legs could carry him, with Walker cursing under his breath that he now had to chase the man down. He had to console himself that out of the limited complement he assumed were crewing this ship he had just dealt with five of their number, but should the escapee make it to the bridge they would be duly warned of his presence and thus more cautious. As it stood presently he had the advantage that this group appeared unaware and unprepared for his aggressive assault. The fact that they seemed to be moving about with their weapons holstered was indicative of this.

  Breaking cover, he moved swiftly to the side of the hatchway which lead out into the main corridor with a furtive glance around it’s edge to check as far as his vision allowed in the darkened corridor beyond. As far as he could see there were no nasty surprises awaiting him, but the chances were that the fleeing crewman would not stop before he reached the bridge, where he would be amidst others and with strength in numbers they would return to deal with him.

  Then he would lose his advantage.

  With his pistols held out ready, Walker advanced rapidly along the corridor, keeping to one side as best he could on his way to the bridge. If he arrived shortly after the bearer of bad news, he may still have the drop on the occupants as they were in the throes of surprise. If they were like the thin man within the reactor room, or the one who had just made a run for it, he may only have to fire off a few shots before they all surrendered.

  Then again, he didn’t know which ones amongst their number had fired upon his former partner.

  No. He hoped they were stupid enough to fight back to the last man. That way he could be sure he’d at least paid them back for what they did to her.

  Oswald stared defiantly at the screen and his fists thumped the controls as yet another avenue came to a rather distressing and annoying dead end.

  ‘Everything I try is being refused! I just don’t have enough control over the system to terminate the program’s process thread, let alone distract it away from guiding us to our intended demise. If only these systems were not so crude and antiquated then I might be able to…. Wait! You said your Captain didn’t trust the automation?’

  ‘Yes, Captain Allen was an old hand on freighters and transports before he earned himself this position. He used to bore us to tears about how they used to pull levers and fly manually before the company introduced more automated systems into their fleet.’

  ‘Yes, but you said the technicians came aboard to install interface equipment, which not only would allow the AI present to monitor the state of the systems it was hooked in to but for this new program to directly control. You also said that the crew of the Fortune checked things manually and it was a hands-on posting, so they didn’t rip out the old control systems to replace them with the interface?’

  ‘No….’ Jacob started to reply but then halted and his brow furrowed as he considered his response. ‘No! This was a conversion over to automation but I know that they did not remove the controls that existed before, they simply upgraded and added interface equipment.’

  Oswald spun his seat away from the panel and turned to face Jacob as the new idea formed between them both, their excited voices attracting the attention of Jacob’s crewmates who listened in keenly.

  ‘So if those interfaces were to be cut, the computer system could not interfere with the systems and we would be able to shut them off?’ Oswald asked keenly.

  ‘Yes!’ Justine almost shouted from behind him, causing Oswald to jump slightly with alarm as he craned his head about to look at her. ‘Sorry, but yes! If we get to the reactor chamber then we can detach the monitoring equipment and the panels are still there for manual monitoring and in
put.’

  ‘What about our course and speed though?’ Trevor interjected keenly. ‘If we just shut off the engines then even if the computer can’t alter our trajectory to bury us into Luna then we’re still heading straight for Hyperion at high velocity.’

  Oswald lowered his head slightly as he pondered this new problem which faced them all. They could probably avoid the change of course and the devastating impact upon Luna, but the fact still remained that without propulsion or directional control, they were still bound for Hyperion and an unpleasant encounter with a swarm of defensive fighters.

  Then he glanced upwards to Jacob who sat opposite.

  ‘Agent Walker! He went to deal with the pirates on that ship beside us! Is it still there?’

  Jacob turned to the controls and made a few hasty enquiries, a smile spreading across his face as he turned back.

  ‘Yes, it looks as though someone overrode the system and manually clamped the docking system so they are along for the ride. Looks as though there’s only minimal power over there though, so whatever’s going on I think they’re bound for Hyperion right alongside us.’

  ‘Yes,’ Oswald countered, ‘but if we shut off our engines over here, they are attached to us so if we use their control systems to alter the speed and trajectory of the Fortune, then we might just see this whole thing through!’

  ‘That’s all good in theory my dear,’ Simone replied as she stood from her seat at the forward station and walked over towards Oswald and Jacob, ‘but you said the Ranger went over to deal with the pirates? He looked quite able but he’s only one man against those unpleasant individuals. We may open the airlock to find them rather irate about being clamped to our side!’

  ‘If I can offer a suggestion?’ Mark chimed in as he stood from his own seat and made his way across the bridge, his fellow occupants all turning to watch his progress which ended by a tall locker set into the wall aside the doorframe. He tugged the tall thin door open to reveal a single column of laser pistols, mounted on brackets on atop another. ‘We need their propulsion system to avoid our impact with Hyperion? Well we take these and while one team go down to cut the systems in the reactor room, another goes over there and helps the Ranger deal with the pirates. Well?’