AMP Siege (3 page)

Touchstone shook his head. "I can't answer that, Mr. Grange. Perhaps they were along as a backup plan, you know, to kill off the Grell later if they somehow got away. I don't think it does us much good to speculate on that."

I sat back down on the desk. "What have you been able to do with the androids, Doc? Have you found the same complexities with their inner circuits as you found with the Duke?"

Touchstone smiled. "On the contrary, Mr. Grange. We have a full understanding of 90 percent of those inner circuits. I believe we are only months away from being able to reprogram them completely. There are any number of additions that we could make to them after that, over time of course. But, I believe they will become a formidable addition to our arsenal of defensive weapons."

I stood with a half frown on my face. "We probably have less than a year left, Doc. Our focus here will be changing to that of defending against the Durians. In fact, research on the Duke and the androids is going to be pushed to the side in the next few weeks. We need your brilliance working on the defense of the Grid. We need to take all that we have learned since our last fight with them, and apply it towards that same defense."

Touchstone replied, "I understand, Mr. Grange. If this station falls, there won't be any need for research on the Duke. I will let the team know that our time is limited. Perhaps the urgency will spark a useful breakthrough."

The doctor opened the door, and we walked back into the lab. I continued past the Duke, grabbing Ashley by the hand as I went.

Ashley spoke. "Where are we going?"

I replied, "We are going to go to Jasper's for a drink. I need to sit and think about where we are and what we are going to do. I need you to tell me when my ideas are lacking and why. Between us, you are the critical thinker."

Ashley smiled and replied, "What about Frig? Wasn't he involved in many of your previous brainstorming sessions?"

I put my arm around her shoulder as we walked. "I plan on having him on the comm as we talk. Between the three of us, maybe we can start to shape up a plan."

After arriving at Jasper's and being seated, I waited for a contact from Frig. He had promised to execute a wormhole comm on the hour of every hour that any other comms were not already scheduled. Seven minutes later, the connection tone sounded.

I spoke. "Frig, I'm here with Ashley. Can you hear us?"

Frig replied, "Indeed I can, Sir. Is there something specific that you are in need of? And hello, Mrs. Grange!"

Ashley spoke. "Hello, Frig. I think we are going to brainstorm on plans for the next year."

Frig replied, "Ah, very well. Has he started pacing yet?"

Ashley giggled. "No, he is sitting, waiting on a drink. I don't think the gears of deep thought have started turning yet."

I spoke. "I will pace when the time comes. I can't just jump into these things."

Frig laughed. "You, Sir, are the first to just jump into things! Ashley, have I told you about when we..."

I cut in. "OK, OK. How about we get at the subject at hand and not get ourselves all wrapped up in Don bashing. You have told us that the Durians are coming. How do we stop them?"

My bouts of pacing went on for hours. Many ideas were discussed, and many collapsed as their foundations were cut away with sound reasoning and hard facts. We ended with a single plan. An attempt would be made to locate and contact the gamblers that we had observed placing bets on the Targ. The thought of using diplomacy to establish relations with such a foul species turned my stomach, but we seemingly had no other options.

Ashley spoke. "Take care of yourself out there, Don. I don't want to have to come rescue you again."

I planted a big kiss on her and smiled. "I will try to keep my nose clean. I don't like these Gontas, but I will do my best to see if they have anything we can use. I'll keep a constant comm channel open, and Frig will be advising from the other end. As you continue to interrogate the Duke, keep this in mind: I still think he is playing us. That whole capture and destruction of his fleet was too easy. I think he wanted to be caught. I just haven't figured out the reason why."

Ashley replied, "I will keep that thought. He won't be the first devious subject that I have had to interrogate, and with a little luck on your part with the Gontas, he won't be the last."

I stepped aboard the
Granger
and made my way to the bridge. When I arrived, Frost, York, and Rodriguez were waiting.

Frost spoke. "It's not nice to keep a lady waiting, Mr. Grange."

I replied, "If I see a lady, I will let her know, Frost."

I turned to York and Rodriguez. "No offense intended, ladies."

I received simultaneous responses of "None taken, Sir."

Rodriguez spoke. "We looked over the data from the first system we will be heading to, Sir. It looks like there are two potentially habitable planets there, sixteen overall."

I replied, "Sixteen planets? I've only seen that many in a system once before. That has to be rich in easily mined resources."

Frost spoke. "I hope it's rich in something, Sir. I'm struggling with having nothing but drill practice to keep me occupied."

I replied, "Six hundred million people on the Grid, Frost. I would think you would at least find a few to toy around with."

Frost grinned and then shook her head. "Back in the day, Sir. It gets tougher every year to find new recruits who are willing to mess around with an old warhorse like me."

York spoke. "She's not hurting for love, Mr. Grange. She has a long list of former recruits that have been after her for years. She's just always in search of greener pastures, that's all."

I replied, "Greener pastures? Finally! Someone who has read the archives!"

York chuckled. "I have a load of those expressions, Sir. Why did the chicken cross the road?"

Rodriguez rolled her eyes at Frost and spoke. "Now we have two of 'em. It's like they are going to be talking in code or something. We aren't going to know what's going on."

York spoke. "Water under the bridge, Rodriguez. And don't count your chickens before they hatch."

Rodriguez shook her head. "Diane, I don't even know what a chicken is, and I don't want to know, so please don't tell me."

I sat in my favorite deck chair as the navigator piloted the
Granger
out into space. The Grid was soon shrinking away on the view-screen.

The Captain spoke. "We should be on the outskirts of the target system in about twelve hours. Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

Rodriguez turned towards me. "Smoke 'em? What is she talking about, Sir? Smoke what?"

I replied, "I think the Captain has spent some time in the archives too, Maria."

The next several hours of the journey were spent with one phrase after another being used by York, the Captain, and me. Frost and Rodriguez eventually retreated to the
Granger
's cafeteria.

When we arrived at our destination, the Captain brought the ship to a halt and began a series of deep scans.

As the data arrived, the Captain spoke. "Planets four, five, and even six are showing signs of life. We have signal broadcast from the fourth. This system is active, Mr. Grange. How would you like to proceed?"

I replied, "Let's get a language lock, gather data for at least half a day, and then see what your analysts have to say."

The Captain nodded and continued on with the business of giving orders to her crew. I paid a visit to the cafeteria to further badger Frost and Rodriguez. After a half hour of trading barbs, I then continued to my quarters for some much-needed sleep. There would be much to discuss when I awoke. It had been a long and active day.

A blaring comm alert woke me several hours later. "This is Grange. What… what 's so urgent?"

A voice came back. "Sir, there has been activity on Targ. The Captain is requesting your presence on the bridge."

I replied, "I’ll be right up."

When I arrived on the bridge, the crew was buzzing about.

The Captain spoke. "Mr. Grange. It seems the Targs have discovered our mining operation and have surrounded the area. All five of our harvesters are trapped. The Council has requested our return."

I replied, "Great, we can’t even go a few weeks without trouble from someone. Take us back immediately, Captain. I’ll be back up here in a few hours for a full briefing."

I returned to my quarters and flopped on my bed for several more hours of sleep. After waking, having a shower, and shaving, I returned to the bridge.

As I walked into the control center of the
Granger
, I spoke. "What is it we are looking at, Captain?"

The Captain replied, "We have a shuttle in high orbit that is sending us video of the ground around our harvesters. There are currently over a hundred thousand Targs, of both races, covering the surface areas where the harvesters first began their boring."

I looked at the video intently and spoke. "Both races? That seems odd after the butchering we just witnessed in the aftermath of their mini war."

As I sat in my chair, the Captain came to stand beside me. "Not only are both races present, but they are intermixed. There seems to be no animosity between them. They are united in their quest to determine what made the boring holes."

I spoke. "Take us back to Targ, Captain. This sector gets stranger by the minute."

As we raced back towards Targ, I received an incoming hail from Frig. The comm link was being relayed from the Grid, and with our distance there were hours of delay in the message's arrival.

The comm officer patched it through. "Sir, I'm transferring the link to you now. It had heavy encryption applied that required removal before passing it on."

My comm interface beeped with the incoming transmission. "Sir, this is Frig. I am reporting in, and I believe we have a new problem. Someone on the Grid, or perhaps a program left behind by the Durians, has been attempting to break into our systems here on the
Suppressor
each time we have established a comm link to the Grid. It has become increasingly difficult to block, Sir. It is only a matter of time before our wormhole link is compromised."

I turned and spoke to the comm officer. "Lieutenant Goddard, can you run a complete check on our comms with the Grid to see if we have been hit? If the Grid is having issues, we don't want that to spread to here. If a trust relationship with the Grid has been broken, this whole ship might be infected with some Durian trojan. The last thing we need is for them to be able to shut down our systems when they catch back up to us."

I continued to listen to Frig's message. "Sir, we picked up a stray beacon signal on our comm sensors yesterday. We managed to triangulate its position to a point on the outer edge of the galaxy arm. It would require a week of travel, out of our way, to investigate. I ordered a Wren to be fitted with an extra array of sensors and will be sending it out shortly. The strange thing about it was that it was a sub-light transmission, Sir. It was not a beacon as recognized by our normal encodings, but it did appear to be uniquely Human in its makeup. It contained the following textual message: '
Are you out there?
'"

Frig continued, "We were able to capture several other broadcasts, that were of other origins, that were also coming from the same location, but they were not sub-light. The signal in question originated from that point more than fifty years ago. The other signals were on standard comm transmission speeds. Whatever, or whoever, broadcast that message may have already been overtaken by others."

Frig continued with more details of the signal encounter and of why he felt it was necessary to send out a scout. He programmed a course that would give him an exact location for a wormhole transmission. Once the Wren arrived at its location, he would be able to communicate with it in real time as it gathered information. A Human signal, even one that was so primitive on a technological basis, was worth checking out.

Lieutenant Goddard spoke. "Captain! Mr. Grange! We have intrusions into our comm and nav systems! I attempted to relay that information back to the Grid, but it was somehow blocked. I have shut down both internal and external comm channels in an attempt to isolate it before it spreads to the ship's other systems."

The Captain replied, "We can't fly without our nav system!"

The lieutenant spoke. "I realize that, Sir. Lieutenant Commander Thigs! We need to isolate the nav system from the central computer! Whatever this is has already broken through three levels of our security!"

I stood and walked with the Captain to the lieutenant's console. "How many firewalls do we have left protecting the computer core, Lieutenant?"

Goddard replied, "One, Sir. Sixty percent of the core's cycles are already being used to defend it. When that number hits 80 percent, either we are going to start to lose other systems on this ship or the final core firewall will collapse. If Mr. Thigs can shut down the connection to the core, it should diminish the threat and allow the main security algorithms to rebuild those outer firewalls. It's using our own systems against us in an attempt to spread."

I spoke. "If we reboot the core, will the firewalls reconstruct, or is that a bad idea?"

The lieutenant glanced up as he continued to type on his keyboard. "The central core runs life support, Sir. If that goes offline, and the core fails to restart due to the load being exerted on it by whatever this is... that would be very bad for us all, Sir."

Thigs yelled out, "Channel to the core is down! We have isolation!"

At that moment the
Granger
lost all forward propulsion. The ion engines fired in reverse, and we quickly slowed to a stop.

Again, Thigs yelled out, "I no longer have control of the nav system, Captain! Controls are not responding to my commands!"

York, Frost, and Rodriguez walked onto the bridge.

York spoke. "What's happening, Sir? The internal comm systems are down."

I replied, "Comms are all down, York. We have an intrusion of our computer systems. It has taken over the comm and the nav systems. We had to shut down to isolate the main core."

The Captain yelled to the lieutenant commander, "Kill the nav, Thigs. Perform a complete reset, and let's see if that will clear out the bug that has us."

The lieutenant yelled as he continued to type, "I wouldn't do that, Sir! With a reset, we lose all nav references that have been loaded into the system. We have a good idea of where the Grid sits, but we only have that because of the star maps we have loaded. Unless we have someone who can eyeball their way through space, we could easily send ourselves in the wrong direction!"

The Captain replied, "The nav system can rebuild the maps, Lieutenant. That is what it does on first start anyway."

The lieutenant stopped his frantic typing and turned. "Captain, the nav system will indeed recreate a map. But unless we give it reference points of what is what, we run a big chance of heading the wrong way. We are in unfamiliar space, Captain. We can't trust the nav logs to give us an accurate heading to send us on our way, because we don't control the nav logs. This is an intelligent program we are dealing with, Captain. It can and probably will outthink us when it comes to controlling this ship. Mr. Thigs? How much practice have you had with manual navigation? Do you think you could get us home?"

Thigs slowly turned. "Manual navs are no longer taught as part of our training. I don't know if anyone on the Grid has that knowledge anymore. Captain, I'm sorry, I think the lieutenant is right. If we shut her off, we might not get her back."

Rodriguez stepped forward. "Mr. Grange, Captain. I'm familiar with manual nav. The lieutenant is right, though. They ended that training many years ago."

I replied, "So, Rodriguez, you think you can fly this thing? How much manual have you done?"

Rodriguez spoke. "I took it as an elective in pilot school, Sir. I thought I was getting an easy grade since it was being phased out. It was anything but easy. I believe I can navigate this ship on manual and will take a shot at it if needed, Sir. Just say the word."

I looked at the Captain. "If she says she can do it, Captain, I believe she can."

The Captain turned to Lieutenant Commander Thigs. "Is there any way to salvage those star maps before shutting her down?"

Thigs replied, "Not without bringing that bug with them, Captain. Besides, they may have already been altered, Sir. We have no way of knowing if they remain accurate or not."

I spoke. "Back on the
Suppressor
, Frig had a similar problem that he isolated to running on a single machine. He was eventually able to defeat the app that was running. Could we do the same?"

The room was silent as everyone looked around at each other.

The lieutenant spoke. "I'm sorry, Sir. I don't think we have the personnel on this ship who could do that. The lieutenant commander and I are probably at the tops of our abilities when it comes to this ship's systems; that is how we picked up these assignments. Computer and system security, however, are not our strong points, Sir. Had you not asked me to look for something specific, that virus, or whatever it is, would have taken over all the interconnected systems on this ship."

I replied, "OK, I'll shut up, then. Captain? Rodriguez might be our only option."

The Captain spoke. "Thigs. Reset that nav system. Miss Rodriguez. When that system is restarted and the local maps are complete, please work with the lieutenant commander to get us home."

I turned to the lieutenant. "How is the core coming?"

The lieutenant replied, "Processing cycles have dropped to 40 percent, and the second firewall has been reconstructed. Give it another hour, and that virus should be eradicated from the system. It's trapped in a junction between the nav system and the main core, where it has limited processing power and memory available to it. Once the firewalls are intact, we can shut down that junction and it will be no more. I will program an alert that will let us know if the firewalls are under attack. There is no guarantee that we can stop it if it happens again, but we should at least know that it has started."