“Oh.”
“Are you going to apologize now?”
“Right, because God-like beings should apologize to monkeys,” he scoffed. “I think not. Besides, dumdum, what happens if, through some miracle, we do ambush and destroy those ships? The Maxolhx will be very alarmed that two of their warships disappeared during a mission to your miserable home planet. How would you explain that?”
“Working on it, Skippy,” I gritted my teeth because the beer can was right, and I had no answer to his question. “One step at a time, Ok?”
“Not Ok, Joe. If you destroy those ships without a plan for how to make the Maxolhx not be suspicious about why two powerful warships went missing, you will have accomplished nothing. Think, dumdum, think for a change. You really do need a long-strategy plan this time. No slapping together quickie plans to deal with the immediate crisis. You can’t take the easy way out this time.”
“Eas- easy?” I sputtered, astonished. “When the hell have our missions ever been easy?”
“Joey, Joey, Joey,” he shook his head, the giant hat wobbling precariously. “They always look impossible before we do it. And they really look impossible before you monkeys dream up a plan. But, come on, think back to our second mission, when we had to destroy a Thuranin surveyor ship, a warship and two tankers, all with the Thuranin never knowing what really happened. It seemed totally impossible back then, but now looking back that seems like good times, eh?”
“You’re right. Thanks, Skippy, you are exactly right. I shouldn’t be all depressed and anxious about two Maxolhx ships coming to Earth. Monkeys kick ass, damn it,” I flashed two big thumbs up to show my confidence. “We can do this thing, it’s not impossible.”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. This is impossible, Joe. Right now, the Flying Dutchman would have trouble taking on a Kristang frigate in a fair fight.”
“The whole point of planning is to avoid a fair fight,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” he snorted.
“Crap. So I should just give up?”
“No, I didn’t say that either. I definitely do not expect you to succeed. However, your clumsy and ultimately futile efforts will give me many hours of amusement, before the inevitable demise of your species.”
I gave Skippy another gesture with two fingers, and they were not thumbs.
When Simms returned two hours later, I was playing a game on my laptop, trying to make it look like I was busy. She was carrying two cups of coffee, and handed one to me. Sitting down across from me, she held her cup with two hands, blowing on the hot liquid then taking a sip while studying me. “Any progress, Sir?”
Stupidly taking a gulp of too-hot coffee, I almost burned my tongue. “Do you mean progress in developing a plan to save the world again, or in amusing the beer can?”
“The first one.”
“In that case, no. Simms, this time it really does appear to be impossible. The Maxolhx are just too tough, too advanced. I do not have a plan, not even a hint of how to create a plan.”
Simms looked over her shoulder and shook her head to assure me there were no eavesdroppers around, then she leaned forward. “I don’t know how you usually dream up plans-”
“There is no ‘usual’,” I made air quotes with my fingers. “It just happens. No, that’s not right. What happens is I think up a lot of stupid stuff that won’t work, and kind of fumble my way down to the only thing that will work. Right now, I don’t even know where to start.”
“We don’t need a fully-developed plan right now. Start at the beginning,” she advised gently. “Take it one step at a time.”
“The beginning, right. Um,” I snapped my fingers. “All right, here is what I do know for sure. We need intel. Those Maxolhx ships might not have left yet, Skippy said the rotten kitties intended to gather a baseline read on wormholes that exhibited funky behavior, before they fly all the way out here. They had a long time to do that while we were stuck in the Roach Motel, but apparently they were still collecting data when Skippy learned about their intention to fly to Earth.”
“That is correct, Joe,” Skippy’s avatar appeared on the desk. “It could be a month, it could be six months, before those ships are outfitted for the extended voyage and begin their mission.”
“Ok. Ok, then, uh,” I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Let’s hope it is more like six months than one. We need intel. Skippy, can we get the info we need from a data relay owned by a softer target like the Kristang or Ruhar?”
“No way, Jose,” the grand admiral’s ridiculous hat swayed side to side. “If you really want to be sure we have all the info we need, and believe me, we do not want to tangle with two of their warships unless we know exactly what the Maxolhx are planning, then we need data straight from the Maxolhx. We need specific data on their flightplan, only the Maxolhx would have that info. Although, the Maxolhx would compartmentalize that sensitive information even within their own fleet, so it is likely only military units and relay stations along the flightpath would be provided the data.”
“Great. Fan-tast-ic. I was hoping you would say that.”
“You were?” Skippy looked surprised. He had gotten much better at having his avatar mimic human body language.
“Sarcasm, Your Lordship,” I resisted rolling my eyes. “The last thing I want to do is take another unplanned risk by getting anywhere close to a military base owned by the Maxolhx. So that leaves relay stations. This is circular freakin’ logic! How can we know which relay stations are along their flightpath, if we don’t know their flight plan?”
“Oh, it’s not entirely hopeless, Joe. I do know where those ships are based, because the ships that will be assigned to the mission belong to the Maxolhx Science and Intelligence Ministry. Calculating the possible flight paths, between the main S&I Ministry base and that last Ruhar wormhole they have to go through on their way to Earth, gives only a half-dozen options. Seven options, to be exact. Of those, only three are truly practical, the others are sort of going around your ass to get to your elbow. I expect the Maxolhx will provide the information to any military bases or relay stations along the most likely flightpaths, to be safe.”
“Oh, good,” I shuddered with relief. “You can identify a couple of isolated relay stations in low-traffic areas, that we could ping for the info? Wait! We need unmanned, automated relay stations.”
“Yes, I have created such a list. They are now highlighted on the star map you can access from your laptop.”
“Great! I will look at the map, select a couple candidates, and review them with you to make sure there are not any hidden dangers before we set course for one of them. Whoooo,” I let out a heartfelt sigh and looked at Simms, giving her the best smile I could manage. “This mission does truly seem impossible, but if we take it one step at a time, maybe we can get through this.”
“I agree, Joe,” Skippy’s tone was encouraging, even bubbly with enthusiasm.
“Excellent.”
“Except for the one teensy weensy complication.”
“Shit! Damn it, Skippy, you know I hate complications.”
“Well, heh heh, then you are seriously not going to like my next bit of news.”
Before I responded, I put my elbows on the table and cradled my head in my hands. After a while, Skippy tried to speak but I held up a finger for silence. The first time, I used my index finger to signal I wanted one minute to myself. The second time, I used a different finger.
Simms blessedly sat quietly, waiting for me. Or she checked messages or ship’s status reports on her phone like a good XO, I wasn’t watching her. Finally, I was able to raise my head and speak again. “What, pray tell, are you going to delight in torturing me with this time? I know you need Maxolhx encryption keys and codes and all that. Your incredible awesomeness can handle that easy stuff no problem, right?”
“It is not easy even for me, but, yes,” he sighed, “I can do it. The encryption and overall data security of the Maxolhx is an order of ma
gnitude more advanced than the laughably pathetic measures used by the Thuranin or even the Jeraptha, but I can handle the tricky stuff of moving data bits around. What I cannot do at the moment, is authenticate myself as an authorized Maxolhx ship to exchange data with a relay station.”
Simms and I exchanged a puzzled look before I asked the obvious question. “Why not, Oh-Less-Awesome-Than-You-Think-You-Are? Authentication is part of moving data bits.”
“In most cases it is, monkeyboy. Unfortunately for us, actually unfortunately for you monkeys, over the millennia the Maxolhx got tired of the more-advanced Rindhalu ransacking their databases and intercepting communications, so they implemented a fool-proof physical security measure.”
“Physical?” My mouth gaped open and Simms was doing the same. “Like a freakin’ key?”
“No, it’s not a physical key, dumdum. This is fairly advanced technology they stole from the Rindhalu, who copied it from the Elders. Truthfully, for the Elders this technology is crude and obsolete, but it impresses the ignorant peasants. Before you pester me with stupid questions, let me smack some knowledge on you. In order to authenticate themselves, each Maxolhx ship, orbital or groundside facility or space station, must have a Paired Quantum-State Interchanger that is shared with the other end of the communication. These paired devices do not actually provide a communications channel, they, um- Ugh. How do I explain this to an ignorant monkey? They provide a secret handshake, sort of. When Ship A sends a request to communicate, the computer aboard Ship B will check its Paired Quantum-State Interchanger that is tagged to Ship A. If the paired devices exchange the secret handshake properly, Ship B will accept the communications channel request. If not, Ship B will jump away just after launching a cloud of ship-killer missiles at the imposter. Early on, the Rindhalu attempted to impersonate Maxolhx ships, this resulted in short and extremely violent space battles.”
“Skippy,” rubbed my temples, “my head hurts already. Paired Quantum-State Interchanger? That’s, um, P-Q-S-I,” my fingers slowly typed that on my laptop so I could see it. “Can we call those fancy doodads a ‘Pixie’ for short?”
“Oh for- Ugh. Sure. If it helps your tiny monkey brain, we will call them ‘pixies’. That allows you to fully understand the technology, mmm?”
“Don’t be an asshole. Do these pixie things work by using quantum entanglement?”
“What?”
I frowned and hoped I had not made a fool of myself in front of Simms. “You know, uh, Einstein called it ‘Spooky action at a distance’?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what quantum entanglement is, duh. How in the hell do you know?”
“I’m not completely ignorant, Skippy,” I grinned and winked at Simms, who gave me a thumbs up. “There are many-”
“Ha!” The beer can exulted in triumph, his avatar dancing a little jig on the table. “I just checked your browser history, you learned about that from a Wikipedia article.”
“Yeah, so?” I felt like I had to defend the honor of Wikipedia. “Was that article wrong?”
“Um, well,” the beer can grumbled. “Yes, yes it is. Or, no. Not exactly. It is accurate, according to the current and totally inadequate understanding you monkeys have of the physical nature of the universe.”
“So,” it was my turn to give a thumbs up to Simms. “Is this entanglement thing how pixies work?”
“No, of course- Well, I guess it’s close enough, for monkeys. Sure, what the hell? If I told you that Paired Quantum-State Interchangers function by tiny invisible gnomes flying back and forth on unicorns, your level of understanding wouldn’t be any worse. My life sucks.”
“My heart bleeds for you. Why do we care about these pixies?”
“Because, dumdum, we have to get one so I can ask a Maxolhx data relay station for the info we need. Damn, you are super dense today.”
That gave me a chill. “What do you mean, ‘get one’? Pixies are, like, a thing? A physical thing you can hold in your hand?”
“Yes, that is why I referred to the technology as a ‘device’. We need at least one.”
Shaking my head in astonishment, I tried to process that concept. “Let me see if I understand this. A Maxolhx ship wanting to exchange data with another ship, or a relay station or whatever, first needs to get one half of the paired pixie? Each ship or station has a pixie specific to it?” The avatar nodded its head. “That’s idiotic. Before going on a mission, a ship would need to get a pixie that is paired with all the specific ships it expects to encounter? What about unplanned-”
“Whoa! No, Joe. Each ship or station carries pixies tagged to every other ship, station or groundside facility the Maxolhx have.”
“Holy shit. How big are these things?”
“Tiny. You could fit many thousand sof them in a coffee mug. Seventeen thousand, to be accurate and that includes their protective canisters. Unless you have a really big coffee mug, like-”
“Keeping track of all those pixies must be a logistical nightmare. Wait, what happens when they launch a new ship? It has to wait until every other ship and station has half of a pixie tagged to the new ship?”
“No, you- Oh, I understand your confusion now. Joe, the Maxolhx are smarter than that. Each ship and station carries half of a batch of unassigned pixies, with the other half retained by their fleet authority. When a new ship is launched or station is established, it is given the other half of those pixies, which then become assigned by a shared registry. Every couple months, another batch of unassigned pixies is distributed across Maxolhx territory. This is complicated, I know.”
“Complicated? It is freakin’ insanity!” The extreme measures the Maxolhx went through to ensure data security told me how paranoid they were about the Rindhalu messing with them. “Ok, Ok, so we need to get one of these things?”
“More than one, hopefully, to give us a margin for error in case one of them becomes disassociated.”
“Dis- how would that happen?”
“When I wipe its programming and overwrite it with whatever tag we need, there might be a glitch that causes the pair to become unmatched. Try to keep up, Joe.”
“You’d better explain what you plan to do, please.”
“Fine. I’ll break it down Barney-style for you.”
Crap. I was never going to get away from that Barney thing.
He tipped his hat back and began explaining in a tone that reminded me of a first-grade teacher, or Sesame Street, but he was using a moronic Barney the purple dinosaur voice. “Joey, to get the information we need from a relay station run by the rotten kitties, we need to jump in near the station, with the amazingly wonderful Skippy adjusting our jump signature to look like a Maxolhx ship. A relay station is in space, that is way high in the sky-”
“Can you not talk like a brain-dead moron, please?”
“You never let me have any fun,” he grumbled in his normal arrogant voice. “Fine, jackass. After we jump in, I will use the stealth field to mask our appearance, so to the relay station’s sensors we look like a Maxolhx ship. Next comes the trick of our pixie sharing a handshake with the pixie aboard the station. After our authentication is accepted, the station will accept my request for data, and we can get the information we need. I hope.”
“Not so fast, Skippy. You plan to make our pixie look like one that is tagged to a Maxolhx ship? A real, existing ship in their fleet?”
“Of course. Like I said, if you were paying attention, the pixie needs to be authentic. I can essentially copy a pixie that is in the registry, but I can’t make a relay station trust an unregistered pixie. Why?”
“Because, you dumdum, aren’t the Maxolhx going to get suspicious when they later find out two identical pixies were used in different parts of the galaxy? Your plan will only work if we not only copy the pixie tagged to a real ship, it has to be a ship that really is near that relay station.”
“Oh, shit. I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks a lot, Mister Party Pooper.”
“Ah, it’s worse than t
hat,” I rubbed my chin, not liking the ideas flooding into my head. “The target ship and relay station need to have records that they communicated at the same time. If the ship’s memory says it was at the station on Tuesday and the relay station says no, it was a Friday, then we are screwed. The Maxolhx will know some unauthorized ship accessed data about the mission to Earth.”
Simms’ eyebrows flew up and she turned to me, her mouth open. I knew that look, it meant she just thought of something I did not want to hear. “Skippy, how can you copy a pixie tagged to a specific ship?” She asked. “We don’t have to do anything like, board that ship to get access to their pixie?”
“No,” the avatar waved its arms. “That is where the magic of my awesome self gives us a huge advantage. The Maxolhx know how to set quantum-state interchangers so they are paired and match each other. What they do not know, because they are ignorant little kitties, is that it is possible to make a pair of pairs, to have four units matched to each other, and so on. We can hang out near a relay station and wait for a ship to arrive. Our pixies will be disassociated in their original blank state, but when the ship and the relay station exchange handshakes for authentication, our blank pixies will react to the quantum event, and I can set them to match the other pair. Presto! Behold, the magic of Skippy!”
Simms and I shared a look. “You, uh, want to tell him the bad news?” I asked.
This was her chance to show the beer can that he was not so smart, but she didn’t look happy about it. “Skippy, we still have a problem,” she explained. “You plan to copy the pixie of a ship, and after it jumps away, we approach the station pretending we are that same ship?”
“Yeah, so? We can claim that we, I don’t know, we forgot something the first time.”
“It’s not that easy. That ship’s flight recorder will know it never went back to that relay station. When the Maxolhx compare records, they will know someone got access to that ship’s pixie, and used it to retrieve info about the ships going to Earth.”
Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7) Page 15
