Alien Enigma (32 page)

"Great, Chief. Okay, you have my permission to proceed and you're in charge. Brian, you and Harriette will work for the Chief until the project is complete."

If anyone thought it strange for a Senior Master Chief to be in charge of a Lieutenant, Senior Grade and the Chief Scientist of the ship they kept their mouth shut. Keane delivered the command with utter sincerity.

It took another two hours to go around the table but mostly it was summaries and the time was spent making sure that the different departments were all on the same page. Finally he called it to an end with an order for the astrogator to exit hyperspace even farther out from the primary than originally intended. He then ordered Bogarty to begin searching for the beacon from the
Santa Cruz
as soon as they were in normal space. With that, the assemblage began filing out of the room. Keane caught Cindy's eye and made a very small motion of his head, hoping she would catch his meaning. Either she did or she had intended to hang back while the others left anyway. As soon as the rest of the contingent was out of hearing range he took the step, trying to still his pulse rate as he did. "Cindy, would you care to join me in a drink?"

"Of course, Captain. I'd love to."

He led the way toward his day cabin without speaking. He nodded to several officers and the occasional rating they passed until arriving at the cabin. He punched the code and the hatch opened. As usual, CPO Mura was there to meet him.

"Wanna, would you see if you can find some of that special brandy for us? Oh, wait." He turned to Cindy. "You do drink brandy?"

"Certainly. It's been a while, though. The marine mess doesn't stock a wide variety of liquor."

"Then you have a surprise coming." He led her through the alcove of the cabin and into the interior, which was furnished much like a living room. He gestured toward the couch. "Have a seat."

"Thank you."

Mura returned with a bottle of XO Brandy and snifters. As she poured, the marine executive officer's eyes widened.

"Will that be all, sir?" Mura asked.

"Yes, thank you, Wanna. We'll be fine."

The CPO departed, as serene and unsurprised as ever. Keane smiled fondly at her back before the door to the interior closed. A moment later he heard the sound of the hatch closing as well. Trust the Chief to make certain he wasn't disturbed.

"Is that what I think it is, Captain?"

"Yes, it is. I got that from the Secretary of the Navy. Rambling and I had a sip earlier. It's every bit as good as word of mouth had it to be. As you probably know, they don't advertise. "

She took a small sip. "Mmm. It certainly does live up to its reputation, Captain."

He took another step. "Please call me Trent when we're alone. If you feel comfortable with that?"

"Of course I do."

"Thank you. I don't entertain much but I felt the need to unwind a bit. I appreciate you joining me." As soon as the words were out of his mouth he realized how formal they sounded, not at all what he intended. He felt himself blushing as he realized it. Damn it, it had been too fucking long since he entertained a woman and he had never been a gadabout anyway. Maybe this whole idea had been a mistake.

She looked at him askance. He knew she noticed his red face. "Trent, I'm very happy that you asked me. In fact, I've been desperately hoping you would."

"Really? Um, I mean I'm glad. I wanted ..." he stalled, not knowing what he intended to say. Instead, he took a big gulp of his brandy, not really the way to appreciate a brand of its stature.

Cindy laughed. At first he thought she was laughing at him but then realized she was simply amused at something. He raised a questioning brow.

"Oh," Cindy said, still smiling wide. "Just thinking that you offered Major Rambling a sip of the good stuff but not the Marine XO whose life he's putting on the line with her new mission."

"My apologies but you're drinking it now," he said. "I am sorry I waited so long, though."

"I agree. Trent, I'm a big girl. You don't have to treat me like I'll break if you touch me. And frankly speaking, I'd prefer to have you a little closer than the end of the couch while we relax and talk about something other than work."

Keane came over close to her, bringing his snifter with him. He sipped his drink and smiled. "I'll drink to that, Cindy. Relaxing and getting away from duties for a time is important ....so tell me, what are your plans when we get back to Earth?"

"Well ...I was thinking that I'd like to take a vacation with this Navy Captain that I know."

Keane's heart sunk.
Did Cindy have a boyfriend that he didn't' know about?
That would make sense, she was gorgeous, and as a Captain in the Marines she could date a Navy Captain without there being a chain of command issue.
Was she joking?
"Oh, that's great, I'm sure you would have a great time, I always love a vacation after these long trips. Where are you two planning to go?"

Cindy laughed. "Trent, you really have been out of circulation, for a while, haven't you? I thought
we
could take a trip together to Hawaii, and do some snorkeling, fishing, and maybe even some nude sun bathing. That is, if you'd like to join me for that kind of adventure. And of course that assumes we all make it out alive tomorrow."

Although Cindy was smart, pretty and an officer, she still had that directness that was somehow built into the Marines. It was refreshing. Keane laughed and felt his body and mind begin losing the tenseness built up over a long period of time. He held up his mostly empty glass: "Cheers! It sounds great. And don't worry. I'll get us back home."

He touched glasses with her and they emptied the snifters. She moved closer to him. He reached an arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him, her face only an inch or so away. Her sweet rose-laden perfume flooded his senses. Her breasts softened against him. He kissed her. She met him eagerly. Her lips parted and her tongue met his. He tightened his arm around her. The kiss went on and on, giving him time to move his hand to her breasts and feel how unconfined they were and how firm they felt under his fingers.

When he finally pulled away to catch his breath, her chest heaved. "For God's sake, don't you have a bed in here somewhere? I'd just as soon we start our vacation today!"

He stood up and reached his hand out, helping her to her feet. He led her into the little bedroom where he sometimes took a nap rather than going back to his stateroom. The bed there wasn't king sized but it was adequate, he found. Very adequate indeed with Cindy sharing it with him as well as sharing her body.

A long while later he managed to raise himself up on one elbow and gaze at her, lying unabashedly nude and staring languidly back up at him. He smiled appreciatively. "Cindy, Sweetheart, if this doesn't relax me, nothing will!" He bent to kiss her, stretched out and was almost instantly asleep.

***

"Why so despondent, lover?" Barbara asked as Bullet entered her little stateroom, his face grim.

He shucked his fatigue jacket and sat down beside her on the narrow bed. "It's the goddamned sims! They're killing me."

"What's wrong? Are they too hard, you think?"

He stroked his face. "No, I mean they're killing me. Today makes three times in a row I got killed assaulting those fucking little robots in tight quarters. I'm afraid they're going to take my Barrett away from me after all the trouble I went to qualify with it."

Barbara wondered if she should tell him how purposely hard the simulations involving close combat with the sawed off Barretts had been made. She had been one of the consultants the electronics techs had used to design the new war games and she
wanted
the participants to get killed more often than not. It would make the special squads using the Barretts more alert in real combat and more careful, too. No, she decided. If I told him he might loosen up too much and get killed for real when the fighting got tough.

Instead she put her arm around him. "Don't worry, Bullet, baby. They're made hard for a purpose. You'll do fine when it goes down. For now, though, I think you need a backrub. Lay down and turn over. No, lummox! Take your clothes off first. You think I'm going to stop with a back rub?"

He laughed and stripped off the rest of his clothes. An hour later he was sleeping peacefully and now
she
was the one snuggled against his back and doing the worrying. Damn it, there was a limit to the number of robots they could face and still come out on the winning side.
They'd better kill a lot of the fuckers before sending us in
, she thought.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Devil's Den

I was involved in 1979 in a firefight with alien humanoids and I was one of the survivors. I'm probably the only talking survivor you will ever hear. Two other survivors are under close guard. I am the only one left that knows the detailed files of the entire operation. Sixty- six secret service agents, FBI, Black Berets and the like, died in that firefight. I was there.

-
Philip Schneider
, ex-government structural engineer, died of suicide soon after above comments.

"Captain, I'm picking up a signal, it looks like it's coming from what appears to be an old Xtron Satellite, but it's unusual."

"Why's that Lieutenant?"

"Well sir, for one, the Satellite powered up when the
Doc Travis
approached. It must have picked up our IFF broadcast and then turned on, like it was waiting for a Space Navy ship to pass by before activating."

Keane's eyes perked. "Why would they do that? That Xtron should have a fifty year life span, and with solar power available, up to one hundred or so. It doesn't need to wait."

"Don't know sir, it appears that someone wanted it to look dead until a friendly came by. Possibly a stealth mode satellite setting. Maybe they didn't want any hostiles to pick it up."

"Well, with the Worm and their robots, I can understand that reasoning. It might have been from an earlier Wannstead ship. Does it have any intel or planetary transmissions?"

"Yes, but it's in a code that
Eve
hasn't seen before. It's repeating. About a two gig message. I'll send it down to the com lab. Maybe someone there can decipher it. Boy, whatever is in that message, they sure didn't want anyone to easily crack it. This thing looks like an old 256K triple key cipher. I'm not sure we can solve this thing. Could take years."

This must be important
, Keane thought, maybe even important enough to wait for a translation before heading to Xanadu. "Lieutenant, see if Professor Juenne can get on it. I have a suspicion she can figure it out. She has one of her PhDs in cryptology."

"Will do sir."

"And in the meantime, keep looking for a beacon from the
Santa Cruz
. She should be somewhere in the system, out here on the edges of it with us."

***

"This is a classic code trick. Anyone who hasn't studied human history of cryptology could spend their whole life breaking this thing," Harriette said to PO Josey, her electronics tech.

Josey looked at the codes she had punched up. "Prof, that's a standard 256K triple code cipher. What do you see that I don't?"

"It's set up to look like a 256K cipher, but I think whoever put this together used a one-time code. If you translate the first code set, it's ASCII. Can you read the first line?"

"Oh my God, you're right. That section isn't a code at all, it's ...be damned, it's ASCII in binary. My ASCII is kind of rough ...
Eve
, overlay the old Earth ASCII code set over the first eight hundred binary characters."

Harriette and PO Josey watched as sentences appeared. The words wrote: "
The Bard of Avalon is the single key to truth. He who doth not have such human knowledge of the Romeo of life, hath not the hidden pad from a maN named reV."

"Who the hell is the 'Bard of Avalon'?" Josey asked. His young face was screwed up in a frown.

She smiled. "You should have picked that up from the word Romeo. You heard of
Romeo and Juliet
?"

"Shakespeare? The
Bard of Avalon
is Shakespeare?"

"That was his nick name in England."

"So, he's the key to truth, or should I say, this code."

"That's my guess. And I have a suspicion it's what they call a 'one-time-pad' key. The reference to the hidden pad. Also, the person who wrote this gave the inventor name to confirm the solution."

The Petty Officer was impressed not only by how good looking Harriette was, but by the fact she actually was as smart as people said. Probably even smarter. He was somewhat embarrassed to admit to himself that he was physically attracted to her. "Professor, I never heard of anyone in code breaking named 'Rev', plus I think we had some data issues. The words 'man' and 'rev' have capitals at the end."

"For God's sake, Josey, my name is Harriette. Use it, okay? And I thought that was a problem too, but if you turn them around so that the capitals are in front, where they should be, what do you get?"

"You get 'Nam Ver", or wait, you mean 'Ver Nam', Vernam! The person who invented the one time pad! Wow! That's it! The Romeo and Juliet novel is the one time pad code!"

"Yep, and all we need to do is mix in Romeo and Juliet text via ASCII, and we should be able to translate the data. The online library will surely have a copy."

"Uh, Harriette, that's great. Let's get cracking!"

***

"So, what did the satellite have to say?' Keane asked as soon as Harriette appeared at the control room hatch and had signed in. Rambling, Brian Wannstead, and the regular control room officers were present. Everyone was anxious to hear the decoded message from the old satellite.

"I'll play the voice section sir." Harriette hit the holo screen's
voice-on
button. First there was static, then a man's voice:
"This is Josh Nash and Phil Miller of the Wannstead
Athena
, beaming report to Satellite WJ2. We are about fifty clicks out from the alien city Xanadu in the Xanadu system. We were fired on from the city and disabled and then caught by a kind of ...well, tractor beam is the best I can describe it ... and brought down very near the city. On the way down Captain Wilson ordered our shuttle to try launching from the ship. It partially succeeded but the tractor beam caught it, too. We broke loose right before the ship was grounded and managed to get this far before crashing. Apparently, the beam affected our thrusters. We're been found by alien creatures and robot type helpers and have maybe five to ten minutes to transmit. We advise to avoid this planet. The aliens are dangerous. Do not approach closer than a thousand kilometers. Make that fifteen hundred to be safe. We have destroyed all ship star charts, and wiped all our computer files and archives as part of the non-lethal self-destruct required by Wannstead. The ship's computers were also wiped as per Wannstead security protocol. The captain's last words were: "We cannot let this race reach Earth. They fired on us without warning despite days of contact protocols being broadcast and ...wait...we've been located ...we're going to fight. Have to go ...This is our first, last and only upload. Josh out-may God help us all!"