by Ken Lozito
“As to your question, I’ll take you to my team leader,” Volker said.
Sean followed Volker toward a work area that was somewhat secluded from the others. There was a large holoscreen with several scientists working around it. Unlike their teammates, these people were quiet and more focused.
“Oriana,” Dr. Volker said, “Colonel Quinn has some questions about the issues with the security protocols.”
Sean noticed someone move from the other side of the holoscreen, but he couldn’t quite get a clear look at them. Then, Volker guided Sean around to the other side and he saw the team leader. She was tall and slender, and her science team uniform hugged her supple curves in all the right ways. Her hair was a deep curtain of velvety black, and her face was sweetly angelic, sort of girl-next-door pretty. She looked him squarely in the eyes and seemed to be assessing the way he was looking at her, measuring what his reaction would be. It was as if she were challenging him to be different than the other men in the vicinity, who seemed to find any excuse to look in her direction. Sean clenched his teeth and forced his mind to resume working with the discipline that had taken him years acquire. And just like that, her spell was broken.
She looked at him and wouldn’t look away. There was nothing in her dark-eyed gaze other than a careful calculation and perhaps a determination to keep everything completely professional, which was fine with him. Despite all that, Sean felt his cheeks flush just a little bit and felt the warmth spread down to his chest. He blew out a soft breath, and by the end of it, he had regained his composure. He’d seen plenty of beautiful women before, and even though Oriana was stunning, to be sure, Sean wouldn’t become a gawking fool no matter how alluring her perfectly shaped eyes were.
“The problem is simple and impossible,” Oriana said and gestured with a slender arm toward the holoscreen. Her facial features appeared somewhat Asian, but her accent skewed toward that of someone from the EU. “We’ve uploaded the AI with all the known Earthbound militaries and private ship classes that were in the Ark’s database when we left Earth. However, the Vemus made use of those ships, and we’re being asked to come to a definitive conclusion about whether the ships these probes will encounter are a threat to us here. The bottom line is that anything that remotely resembles a ship could be construed as a threat and would cause the probe to self-destruct.”
“I thought the AI would be sophisticated enough to assess aggressive intent,” Sean said.
Oriana shook her head. “No, even the cyber warfare suite you have on this ship requires—or better yet—works at the behest of the commanding officer to make an informed decision. The case with these probes is that they need to be self-reliant.”
Sean understood and glanced at Volker, who nodded. “You want something exact, and you’re right that it’s impossible. The AI should be configured with a ‘best guess’ set of parameters to work from.”
Oriana looked at Dr. Volker. “I didn’t think they would accept that.”
Dr. Volker frowned. “They wouldn’t accept that.”
Sean used his implants to bring that specific part of the mandate up onto the holoscreen as a secondary window. “Specifically, we must reduce the risk to acceptable levels. Nowhere does it say to eliminate all risk to New Earth. You’re being too literal.”
Oriana’s eyes flashed angrily. “Certainly not! I was merely—”
“It’s fine,” Sean said and was slightly amused at her incredulous stare. “What I would need to know is the specifics for your best-guess set of parameters. I think it would be a good idea if you worked with some of my tactical team to figure that out. They could help translate what would be acceptable as far as risk to the colony goes.”
He looked at Dr. Volker, who was nodding, considering. “I think that would be very helpful.”
“Yeah, you’re a real hero,” Oriana said.
“You don’t approve?” Sean asked.
“I think you’re oversimplifying what we need to do.”
“That’s interesting because I was just thinking that you were making it overly complex and hitting a wall where nothing was getting done.”
Oriana made as if to reply but reconsidered, turned on her heel, and stalked away.
Sean looked at Dr. Volker, who was eyeing him as if seeing him in a new light.
“What’s next? This mission needs to launch in seven days, and we have a lot of work to do. Let’s get to it,” Sean said.
Volker nodded enthusiastically and looked a bit relieved to at last have someone to offload some of the burden onto. On his part, Sean was already making lists in his head. He didn’t know why Major Brody wasn’t helping Volker, and he needed to know, but that would have to wait. First, he had to get this operation back on track. He also needed to work with Gabriel on the gaps in their morning briefing sessions. The Vigilant’s AI was hardly to blame for a problem his XO had helped create, but Sean could have been alerted much sooner.
8
Sean spent the next twelve hours with Dr. Volker and the science team in the main hangar deck. First off, he brought in several off-duty squads to help get the scientists organized, and they began by breaking up the cluster of workstations, giving everyone some much-needed breathing room. Whoever thought working with large amounts of people clustered together like sardines would be a good idea deserved to have their head examined. One of the immediate results was that people didn’t have to shout in order to be heard by their immediate teams. Score one for civility and improvement of the overall working atmosphere.
Sean posted security teams on the walkways above to discourage anyone from loitering above the science team’s work area, which seemed to mollify Dr. Volker.
Throughout Sean’s career as a soldier, he’d seen many people make mountains out of molehills or miss the forest for the trees. (He was sure he could come up with a few more sayings he’d heard his parents throw out during their meetings if he thought about it long enough.) This time, what got the science team hyper-focused where the Apollo Mission objective was concerned also struck at the heart of everyone in the colony. There wasn’t a single colonist who didn’t hold out hope that perhaps there were some survivors back on Earth. The space probes were equipped to gather resources to make new probes and build a tech base to help anyone who was still alive there—if there was anyone alive. Either way, they stood a much better chance at finding out now than twelve hours earlier, but it would still be a close thing. The worst-case scenario would be that they would have to wait several years to launch the mission back to Earth.
Astronomers had identified two other star systems that were relatively close and that could be potential colony worlds in the distant future. That had been his father’s dream. Tobias wanted to establish New Earth as humanity’s first interstellar colony world and then send another group to another star system, spreading humanity throughout the cosmos. Now, there was a good chance they were the last humans in the universe. The logs they’d captured from Vemus ships all indicated that there had been a total collapse of civilization in the Earth’s star system. But in spite of everything Sean knew about the Vemus and what they could do, he couldn’t entirely discount the tenacity that resided in all human beings—an almost indomitable will to live, even in the most adverse circumstances. They were a tenacious bunch when it came to survival, and they would dig in. They would endure as people had always endured, but was it enough to survive something like the Vemus? Sean wasn’t sure, but he hoped so.
Sean had left the science team in the capable hands of Captain Halsey, who would then hand off to a relief captain in a few hours’ time. Sean had assured Dr. Volker that from then on there would be constant CDF representation to assist them with achieving the Apollo Mission. He’d also utilized Gabriel by asking the AI to highlight which particular CDF groups had frequented the science team’s work area. He wasn’t too surprised to learn which branch of the CDF had been there most often, and he could’ve handled the entire thing over a comlink. But Sean needed a wal
k to clear his head, and he’d need a clear head to deal with Major Brody.
The Vigilant carried an infantry division that included a very capable Special Ops team, and Sean had served on these teams before with their current CO, Captain Chad Bozeman. Sean walked into the area where the Spec Ops teams were broken up into groups, with some doing some PT and others doing maintenance on vehicles that were designated for Spec Ops purposes only. He found Captain Bozeman inspecting a line of Nexstar combat suits, which were the upgraded series nines.
Captain Bozeman saw him approach and immediately saluted.
“As you were, Captain,” Sean said.
The core of the Nexstar combat suits was similar to the original in that a person could easily get them on and be readily equipped with heavy weaponry in a highly agile combat unit. The battle-steel armor plating utilized a new alloy that had supplanted the old graphene-based version. It was supposed to be almost indestructible, but in Sean’s experience, that wasn’t the case for the person inside the combat suit.
“I hoped this would be a social visit, but judging by the look on your face, I doubt that’s the case. What can I do for you, Colonel?” Captain Bozeman said.
Sean told Chad about what had happened with the science team, in particular about a certain sergeant who seemed to be the ringleader for the frequent jaunts to the forward main hangar deck.
Captain Bozeman shook his head. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I had no idea the boys were doing this while off duty,” he said and glanced over at the Spec Ops team members who were in the room.
“Not just the boys, I’m afraid,” Sean said.
Spec Ops were made up of both men and women, but Captain Bozeman referred to all of them as “the boys.” The women on the team didn’t mind in the slightest and often joked that when they led the next team, they’d be referred to as “the ladies.”
“Sergeant Benton is an exemplary soldier, but he might have too much time on his hands. That’s something I’ll need to rectify,” Captain Bozeman said.
“I knew you’d get it taken care of, but it’s not just Benton. The mixing of military and nonmilitary personnel is new. There’s nothing wrong with expressing interest in another person, but there’s a time and a place for it. Everyone has a job to do, and we can’t have the noncombatants feeling that they have to circle the wagons in order to get their work done,” Sean said.
Captain Bozeman nodded and then frowned. He quickly glanced around to be sure what he was about to say wouldn’t be overheard. “I thought the roster showed Major Brody assigned with the particulars of dealing with Dr. Volker.”
Bozeman had a background in intelligence-gathering, so Sean wasn’t surprised he’d picked up on that bit of intel.
“You don’t expect me to talk about the particulars of a superior officer, do you, Captain?” Sean said evenly.
Captain Bozeman smiled knowingly. “Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of it. Will that be all, Colonel?”
Sean nodded. “Yeah, I have bigger fish to fry.”
Captain Bozeman saluted Sean and turned toward the Spec Ops team. “Alright, it seems that a couple of you have a little too much time on your hands. Since you’re so full of energy, we’ll need to work to expend some of it. How do we accomplish this?”
“As one!” came the booming reply.
Sean was leaving the area when he heard Chad call out for Sergeant Benton to come front and center. Sean knew the drill well. The main culprits would be identified so the entire Spec Ops team would know why they had additional PT, along with whatever else Captain Bozeman had planned. Unfortunately, there were some members of the Spec Ops team who’d be only too happy to do PT all day long.
Sean could do with a bit of PT himself, but that would have to wait. “Gabriel, inform Major Brody that I want to see him in my office, now.”
“Yes, Colonel. The message has been sent and received,” the ship’s AI replied.
Major Brody’s location was on Sean’s HUD, and judging by the distance, they should both reach Sean’s office at about the same time.
9
There were multiple holoscreens active over the square table at Noah’s base camp.
“How long is this going to take?” Dash asked.
Noah noted the time on his internal heads-up display. They’d been at this for hours, and it had taken that long for Dash to finally ask the inevitable question.
“I’m not sure.”
Dash glanced askance at him. “Yeah, right. You must have some idea. Is there something else we can be doing right now?”
Several ryklar screeches could be heard through the open windows. They were apparently circling back through the area.
“Here’s the thing: We can’t use normal communication channels because they’re monitoring them. What I’ve sent out is a sophisticated tracer that’s designed to be reconstructed after the data bits have traversed the network. At that point, it activates and copies itself. Eventually, it’ll phone home, but they only have one shot. I suspect our adversaries will quickly detect them and work to mitigate the threat.”
“Mitigate the threat,” Dash repeated slowly. “Are you saying there’s a chance they could trace them back here?”
“That’s something I’d like to avoid, but I can’t pretend the potential doesn’t exist.”
“How do you know if your tracer will get to the intended target?”
Noah was sitting on a stool, and he spun around to look at Dash. “Have you ever heard the term ‘bait and switch’?”
Dash nodded. “So you plan to lure them out. How?”
Noah interlaced his fingers and rested them on his lap. “How would you do it?”
Dash considered this for a few moments and then flashed a glance at Noah. “They’re interested in NEIIS, so it would make the most sense to use that. Maybe put some fake data out there for them to find.”
“Bingo,” Noah said.
Dash frowned. “What’s ‘bingo’?”
Noah shook his head. “Never mind. But yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get them to access a report that they’ll send up the chain of command, which can’t be that extensive given how quickly they can operate. Once that happens, my tracer goes to work propagating itself, and eventually it will phone home.”
“It’s a game.”
“Well, I guess you could think of it like that.”
“No, I meant ‘bingo’ is a game. I understand the reference now. But what if your tracker never phones home?”
“First, it’s a tracer. Second, it will. We may not get an exact location, but we’ll be a lot closer than we are right now.”
Neither one of them said anything for a few moments.
“Did you set up this base camp by yourself? With the fencing and all that?” Dash asked.
“Yeah, but I used some of the auto functions to help, so it’s not as labor-intensive. The fencing I couldn’t do by myself, but I have installer bots that did most of the heavy lifting for me. It was good enough for a small installation like this.”
Dash glanced around with a nod of appreciation. “I’ve been trying to set up a permanent FORB at the NEIIS capital city, but I keep getting denied the resources. The temporary structures we put up are labor-intensive. With something like this or a little bigger, we could probably study the city full-time.”
“The resources are there; you just have to know how to convince people to let you use them,” Noah replied.
Dash tilted his head to the side. “Yeah, I guess I’ll have to work on that. Could you tell me how you got the resources to make this place?”
“Connor specifically told me not to make things too easy for you.”
Dash frowned, and his mouth hung open. Then he grinned. “No, he didn’t,” the young man said.
Noah smiled.
“I’m gonna head outside,” Dash said.
Noah watched the young man leave. Truth be told, he was getting a bit anxious himself. He felt like other people were much better suit
ed for what he was trying to do. Despite everything Connor had taught him, Noah just wasn’t as good at this stuff as someone like Sean would’ve been. But he couldn’t contact his friend because he was deployed out in the star system, and Sean had his own work to worry about.
Noah chewed on the inside of his bottom lip and brought up the comlink interface. There was someone he could call, but he’d be breaking one of Conner’s rules.
His contemplation was interrupted by several alert messages appearing on the holoscreens. Someone had taken the bait.
Dash came back inside. “I thought I heard something.”
Noah frowned as he read the alerts. “The source is coming from multiple colonial settlements.”
“Would we need to check all of these?”
Noah rubbed his chin. He brought up a map of the colonial cities, along with the alerts. He arranged them by color according to the timestamp for which his tracer had been activated. “Looks like there’s a cluster of them at the actual cities. Can’t be a coincidence that Sierra, New Haven, and Delphi all figure prominently. That must be where they’re accessing the data.”
“Well, we can rule out Sierra.”
Noah pressed his lips together. “Why?”
“It’s too populated and too well-known. It would be difficult to bring stasis pods in and out of there. I think one of the other cities would be our best bet.”
Dash did have a point, and Noah found himself agreeing. All he had to do now was decided which of the other cities they would go to.
10
New Haven was the second-largest city in the colony, with nearly seventy thousand inhabitants. Like the other colonial cities, New Haven had been destroyed during the Vemus War as part of Sean Quinn’s strategy to lure the Vemus forces into the heart of the cities and then detonate an explosion that decimated the invasion force. The bold strategy had been extremely effective, but it was the preparation work that allowed the colonists to jumpstart the rebuilding efforts.
