The Prize: Book One (47 page)

CHAPTER - FORTY SEVEN:              Revelation

Director Markoff contemplated the holographic screen, seethed in anger, an emotion he was unfamiliar with.  Thanks to Penn, the screen remained frustratingly blank to matter how he manipulated the data stream.  Nothing of his true emotion showed on the parchment yellow skin of his face as he turned to another screen.

“How many humans do you have presently in systems at this time, Commander?”  The fact he had to even ask that question made him feel venerable.

How long it would take for the word to spread that the Director of IMPSEC didn't have the data available, he didn't know.  No matter how long it was the word would gradually leak.  Hopefully, by that time, he'd have his backup database installed.  For a moment, the Commander of the Tellurian home defense force looked off to the side, coughing slightly to clear his throat when he saw the results.

“Um… well Director, I don't have any.”

“None?”  Director Markoff asked in surprise.  What he felt was shock.  If memory served correct, there should be at least 850 humans serving in various fleet and ground units.

“No Sir, none.  They were all shipped out on your order three days ago.”  The Commander swallowed carefully, mentally hearing the thin ice crack beneath him.

“The order was bogus Commander, and sent without my authorization.”  Penn sent that order under his encrypted signature.  It also meant he was one… maybe two steps ahead, anticipating what would happen after the attack.

“But… Sir!  I didn't know that…”  Sweat appeared on the Commander's brow.

“Calm yourself, Commander Deloss.  I know that, and I don't hold you responsible in this instance.”  The Commander breathed an audibly sigh of relief.

“Thank you for your time.”  Markoff waited a moment after cutting the connection before swearing.

The Commander's answer did reveal the reason why Penn sent so many message drones out system the day of the attack.  Even without receiving a reply from the one's he'd sent out, he knew Penn had already transferred all human troops to somewhere.  The question was where?  Earth probably.  If so, so much the better.  He'd have them all in one place.  With the destruction of his ship, and barely escaping with his life, Captain Melche was more than happy to receive new orders after he arrived back on Telluria Prime.  Even now, he was preparing to depart the system with a full battle fleet with direct ordered to proceed to Earth and bombard it into a lifeless ball of glowing rock.  The Director felt a measure of satisfaction in that.  He also ordered, that if possible, Melche was to try to locate and capture Penn alive at any cost, and bring him back here for judgment.  Penn would suffer a very long time, and beg for death before he was through with him.  Turning back, the Director mentally plugged back into his network to monitor the on-going reconstruction of his database.  For several hours, he shifted data around to where it 'felt' comfortable.  That brought a profound sense of relief as the data began to coalesce into a form he recognized.  The feeling of vulnerability gradually diminished to the point where he felt almost relaxed when his communicator 'beeped' him.  A quick query showed the call was from Captain, now Fleet Commander Melche.

“Yes, Fleet Commander, what can I do for you?” He said, eyeing the crono.  By this time the lag, or lack of it in the Commander's response told him the fleet wasn't where it should be.  Director Markoff's warm feeling instantly evaporated the moment he saw Melche's face.  Ashen would be the best description.

“Sir…  I…  I have to report that I am unable to carry out the Emperor's orders.”

“And the reason you are unable to do this is?”  Markoff asked, holding his anger in check.

“Sir!  We… no one… that is the fleet, can't go to Earth!”

“What?  What are you talking about?”  For once, a Var saw an emotion on the Director's face, and Melche wished he hadn't.  It wasn't a pleasant look.

“Sir… the nav data to Earth's location isn't in the Stella Startography Institute data base.”  Director Markoff did even bother replying.  He simply disconnected and sat there blinking at the screen.

Of course it wasn't.  Suddenly Penn's attack on the Palace all made perfect sense.  It had nothing to do with attaching the Emperor, never did.  It was all a distraction.  Director Markoff, let out a sound half way between a laugh and a sob.  It was all so blindingly clear now, and he had to admire the beauty of the plan.  It was brilliant, and something he might have devised under similar circumstances.  As he saw it now, it was predictable he would pull in all available troops to defend the Palace and the Emperor.  The fact that it left the Startography Institute virtually undefended never even occurred to him.  Composing himself, he placed a call to the Chief Administrator of the Imperial Startography Institute.

“Good evening, Var Sylmar.”  The Institute administrator quickly swallowed a mouthful of Kaf in surprise.  Not that the call was unexpected.

“Good… good evening Director.”  His glace at his office door didn't go unnoticed.

“I'm delighted to see you are working late to resolve the missing data problem.”  Markoff refrained from curling his lips in distaste at the sight of the overweight Director.  He reminded him of a big, fat hog his uncle kept on the family farm.

“Yes, Sir.  I have called in all available staff to try and fix the um… problem.”

“Good.  And yet, you failed to call and inform me of this… incident.  Why is that?”  Var Sylmar started visibly sweating.

“I…  I was about to, Sir… once I discerned where the missing data went… we have just discovered it was missing, when Fleet Commander Melche requested the navigational data for the human home world.”  He ended in a rush of words.  For a moment, Markoff said nothing.  Simply stared at the screen image of Sylmar.  It was sufficient to reduce the Var, to a quaking mound of jelly.

“I have already sent orders to discipline the Institute guards for their failure,” Markoff lied, “make sure I don't have to send out another to reorganize your staff as well.”

“No Sir, of course not Sir.  I'll have a full report on your desk in a few hours.”

“See that you do.”  He didn't need to add a threat, cutting the connection without another word.

The 'few' hours turned into 10, gut twisting, nail biting torture for the administrator and no matter how much he screamed and yelled the answered remained the same.  Eyes, red rimmed from lack of sleep, stomach churning from lack of food, too much Kaf, and fear, his hand shook so badly it took him three tries before he could punch in the Director's comm number.

“Yes?”  Var Sylmar wished he hadn't drunk that last kef.  Even the way Director Markoff answered his call was intimidating.  It felt as if he was about to piss his pants.

“Sir, I have a report…” his voice turned into a squeak as the door opened and in stepped two plain-clothes IMPSEC agents.  Neither said anything as they moved to stand on each side of the door, but then again, they didn't need to.

“Carry on, Var Sylmar,” Markoff asked politely, watching in cynical amusement as Chief Administrator was reduced to an incoherent mound of quaking blubber.  At another time and place, it would be almost be funny to see what his comm call could do to one of the supposed elite class.

“I… we… we found the erasure program… but… we thought we'd removed it by purging all the data banks and reloading the achieve copy…” tears ran down Sylmar face as he stuttered to a halt.

“And?”

“…there was another program inside the first one that we didn't see… part of the upload protocol… it erased the archive copy… it wasn't my fault…  It was that cold face bitch of a Surl…”  He blubbered, but he was talking to an empty screen.

The two agents moved toward him, and Var Sylmar completely broke down, crying like a baby as they half dragged him from his office.  Three floors down in a third rate office, another screen beeped with an incoming signal.

“Yes?” The thin faced woman sitting at the desk said, as she keyed the unit.

“Surl Gretna.”  Director Markoff said, bowing his head ever so slightly.  Normally a Var was addressed by their social rank, never a Surl, or lower class.  In this case, Markoff thought it appropriate.

“Director Markoff.”  Bema Gretna felt her sphincter tighten when she saw who her unexpected caller was.  She was careful to let none of her feeling show on her face.  It was something she'd learned to do well over the years working for Var Sylmar.

“Your work in the Institute has recently come to my attention, and due to Var Sylmar's unfortunate medical condition, you are now Chief Administrator of the Institute.”  If Bema Gretna was surprised, she hid it well, other than a shadow of a smile and a slight bowing of her head in acknowledgement.

“His unfortunate medical condition?” she asked.  Despite herself a sheen of cold sweat beaded her forehead.  Director Markoff was impressed by her degree of control.  Other than the slight sweat, nothing of her true emotions showed on her cold, angular face.

“Yes.  Rapid deterioration of his… condition, is life threatening.”

“I see.”  And she did.  Markoff didn't have to spell it out for her.  The stupid Var had screwed up enough to piss the Director off.  That meant the fat pig was dead, and good ridden.

“Please give me an accurate updated report on the situation with the data core.”  The slight emphasis on the word accurate was sufficient.

“Yes, Director,” she replied, composing herself.  “After purging the main data core, we…  I,” she corrected, “retrieved the achieve copy from the vault and uploaded it into the main frame as Var Sylmar ordered without giving me time to verify the purge.”

“I see.  Go on,” Markoff murmured.  He was please to see she hadn't tried to defect responsibility.

“The moment we did, a secondary program used as a 'handshake' protocol for in and outbound ships activated.  It... erased the archive copy.”

“The upload was over your protest I assume?”  Markoff asked, throwing her a bone.

“Yes, Director, it was.”

“Go on.”

“I felt, and warned Dir…  Var Sylmar that we hadn't had time to check all the peripheral programs.”

“But as a Var and the Chief Administrator, he overrode your judgment and ordered you to load the program,” he finished for her.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Thank you for your report, Chief Administrator Director Gretna.”

“Director!  Wait!”  Bema said before Markoff signed off as he was known to do.

“Yes?”

“That isn't all, Sir,” she carefully licked her suddenly dry lips.  “Whoever constructed this… program is the best way I can describe it, actually wrapped a program inside a program, inside a third.”

“I see.  Ingenious.  And this did what.”  Markoff had the sinking feeling the news was even worse than he thought.  He saw the woman take a deep breath.

“Every outbound ship that left Telluria Prime in the last few days, no matter where it is going, carries a copy of the erasure program with it,” she swallowed carefully.

  ”That means…”

“I know what it means, Administrator Gretna,” he answered coldly before cutting the connection.  It meant that Penn had successfully erased the location of Earth from every data bank and nav satellite in the Empire.

For a moment, Markoff sat there digesting the information and its implication.  With the on-going turmoil across the Empire, the Imperial navy didn't have sufficient ships to mount a survey mission to re-map the now empty star region.  How soon that would be was unknown, possibility years.  Now he understood the beauty of Penn and Major Ellis's attack on the Palace.  It also explained why Penn had erased his files instead of just copying them.  It wasn't out of spite or anger, but a calculated move to make him waste precious time painstakingly reconstruct his data base.  Another distraction piled on top of the other.  Only a human was devious enough to contrive something like this.  Never, ever trust a human.  Now, Earth, along with several thousand combat troops, trained human combat troop with Imperial weapons had vanished.  Suddenly in an unexpected way, the Emperor's morbid nightmare was starting to take terrible shape.