Valor At Vauzlee (29 page)

"Aye, Admiral," Gavin said grinning. "I will."

"I'd surely love to get some updated intel on Raider movements."

"As would I," Gavin said. "I half expected them to be here already. I kept praying that we'd make it here before they attacked. Perhaps they had to wait while the seven destroyers that managed to escape our attack at Vauzlee completed their repairs. We pounded them damn hard. With the loss of so many expected ships, the senior officer of their attack force might have decided that he needed every single vessel in top fighting trim."

"That's a good possibility. They know our people are dedicated, better trained, and that our ships are better armed and armored. They can only hope to defeat us through the sheer weight of numbers. They have to be able to attack us with heavier volleys of torpedoes than we can hope to shoot down."

"Since they expected so little opposition at Vauzlee, I think we should assume that their better ships were held in reserve for the attack on this base."

"That, also, is a good possibility, much as I hate to admit it. Intelligence has heard repeated rumors in recent years that the Raiders have been striving to upgrade their fighting forces. Their successful raid on the Mars' shipyard, where they managed to steal both the Prometheus and Chiron, would seem to bear that out. I imagine they've also been pressing the Tsgardi and Uthlaro to produce stronger, faster, and better armored warships."

"I'm sure you're right, sir," Gavin said. "While I doubt if the Tsgardi have made many technological advances beyond what they've stolen from the Flordaryns, the Uthlaro are a different matter entirely. They're intelligent, innovative, ruthless, and openly mercenary. I predict that one day our two civilizations will clash violently."

"Perhaps, Larry. I don't know. Fortunately they're so far beyond our borders that it probably won't happen in our lifetimes."

"I don't know, sir. Our ships keep getting faster, and I expect they're making similar advances. But that's of secondary import right now. I'd better get back to my ship. I want to undock as soon as possible. I don't want to be maneuvering for clearance when the Raiders arrive. I just wanted to check in with you to see if you'd heard anything new."

"I'm delighted that you're here, Larry. I might actually get a little sleep now."

* * *

Jenetta awoke unsure of where she was. She had gone to sleep in her warm relaxing bed, but now found herself lying on an ice-cold slab of plasticrete. Strangely, she still appeared to be in her bedroom.

"Lights," she said to the computer and the room illuminated.

She pushed herself up onto one arm and felt the gel-comfort mattress with the other. It was as hard and cold as the flight bay deck.

Thinking that she might have said something during her sleep that altered the bed settings, she said, "Computer, adjust bed to my default settings."

"Unable to comply," the computer said in her CT. "No local adjustment of bed settings is permitted."

"Computer, I am the captain of this vessel and I order you to override that command and permit local adjustments."

"Unable to comply," the computer said.

Jenetta sighed and swung her legs over the edge of the block of stone that an hour before had been a warm, comfortable sleeping platform. According to the wall chronometer, it was 0212. She had just put on her robe and slippers when she heard a light knock at her bedroom door. It could only be one person.

"Come," she said and the door slid open.

"Excuse me, Captain," Woodrow said. "Lt. Commander Rodriquez just called to apologize. He says that every bed on board the ship has turned into a solid slab of stone. He has his people working on the problem, and hopes to restore local control of bed adjustments shortly."

"Our saboteur again, I suppose?"

"Yes, Captain. In the meantime, might I suggest that you use one of the sofas in your sitting room? It will only take me a minute to make one up as a bed."

"Thank you, Woodrow. That would be preferable to trying to sleep on a plasticrete mattress."

"Just give me one minute, Captain."

Woodrow prepared the temporary bed while Jenetta watched. He had already brought sheets and a light blanket from somewhere. It took him less than minute.

"Where are you going to sleep, Woodrow?"

"I have a sofa in my quarters, Captain. I'll be fine."

"Very well, Woodrow. Thank you."

"Good night, Captain."

"Good night, Woodrow."

* * *

The bed problem had been resolved by the time Jenetta was awakened with a ringing sound in her head. She sat up on the sofa and cupped her left ear. The noise seemed to be originating in her CT. She pressed the face of her Space Command ring and said, "Carver out," to disengage the carrier, but the signal persisted. The wall chronometer in her sitting room indicated that it was 0452. Jenetta had just risen to her feet when Woodrow entered the room.

"Commander Rodriquez just called, Captain," her steward said. "It appears that the saboteur has gotten into the CT and ID systems module. Our people are trying to locate the problem and restore the proper coding."

"Damn, that could take hours. Is everyone on board affected, or only me?"

"It appears to be a system wide problem. I'm hearing a strange ringing sound in my left ear."

"Contact Commander Rodriquez and tell him to manually disconnect the carrier signal transmitter until his people find the problem in the code. It's better to lose the system for a while than to have everyone get a splitting headache."

"Aye, Captain."

"Oh, and Woodrow, tell him to have his people check to see if any frequency was exempted. If the saboteur excluded himself, it may tell us who he is."

"Aye, Captain."

Five minutes later the ringing in her head suddenly stopped, but Jenetta was too awake to fall back asleep so she showered and dressed. Woodrow had her breakfast ready when she emerged from her bedroom.

* * *

"Captain," Jenetta heard in her CT, "we have another problem." She instantly recognized the voice of Lieutenant Risco. The CT and ID systems had been restored by 0730.

Jenetta sighed, closed the report she was reading, and pushed down the cover of her com unit. As she emerged from her briefing room she was pleased to see that no one on the bridge appeared overly concerned. The problem couldn't be a serious one.

"What is it, Lieutenant," Jenetta asked as she reached her command chair.

Risco, presently sitting in the First Officer's chair, said, "All transport tubes and lifts have suddenly stopped operating."

"All of them?" Jenetta asked in surprise.

"Yes, ma'am. Every single one."

"Have you notified Commander Rodriquez?"

"Yes, ma'am, but he can't do anything at the moment. He's trapped in a transport tube car on Deck Five, back near Section Two-Sixty-Eight."

"Does he have a theory about the problem?"

"Yes, ma'am. He says that it has to be a problem with the transport system module in the main computer. Most likely it's the work of our computer saboteur again. He's dispatched people to start investigating, but says it will take time for them to track down the affected code. He'll join them as quickly as possible, but that probably won't be for another twenty to thirty minutes. He has to get out of the transport car, find an access hatch, and then use zero-grav tubes to reach Engineering."

Jenetta sucked in a deep breath and then expelled it quickly to show her exasperation. "If I ever get my hands on the person responsible for all these computer problems, I'm going to personally wring his neck."

Risco suppressed a grin. Since no one had been hurt, yet, and there was no present danger to the ship with this latest problem, she could afford to be personally amused by the problem. Her cat hadn't been harmed by the erratic action of the laundry bots. Simone had simply hidden beneath the sofa until the room was cleared.

Jenetta turned towards the bridge doors and said, "I'll be in Engineering." Then she stopped, turned again and said, "Cancel that. If a serious problem occurs while the tubes and lifts are down, I may not be able to get back here in a timely manner. I'll be in my briefing room."

* * *

Since the inception of Space Command, its vessels have always employed four separate and distinct onboard computer systems. Life Support, Propulsion, and Weapons Control computers, while fully integrated with the ship, are standalone systems with no interfaces to each other or to the Main Computer System. Engineers tend to describe these three systems as ‘simple' because most their functions are ‘burned' into circuit rods. Little tampering is possible.

Life Support is responsible for monitoring and adjusting air temperature heating and cooling systems, water heating and recycling functions, and air purification and regeneration. Thousands of sensors located throughout the ship constantly monitor system operations. While someone can possibly tap into a local loop and modify individual parameters for a specific location, it's impossible to remotely adjust them beyond established ‘comfort' settings. Only from within the ship's highly secure Main Engineering Section can the system or specific locations be deactivated or seriously affected.

The Weapons Control system, while capable of performing complex computations and tasks on demand, is similarly tamper-proof. It has a specific job and performs its functions within the tightly controlled parameters of its mission. Code changes require the replacement of circuit rods with the new programming ‘burned' into memory circuits.

Propulsion is the third ‘simple' system. Operational access is limited to consoles on the bridge and AC&C. Like the other two systems, it's isolation makes it almost invulnerable to loss of control from hacking efforts within the ship, or by outside efforts.

All other shipboard functions are handled by various modules within the Main Computer. Although user ‘rights' are strictly and carefully apportioned through IDs & passwords, the system is accessible by anyone with the proper user interface hardware.

* * *

Jenetta plopped down in her chair and stared at her desk's surface after leaving the bridge to Risco. The saboteur was stirring anger in her like the anger she had felt when she awoke in the Raider cell and first discovered the slave imprint that she still wore on her chest. Whoever the individual was, she intended to find him; if only she knew where to look.

As if by divine enlightenment, she suddenly realized where
she
should have been looking all along. She activated the large wall monitor opposite her desk and removed a wireless computer keyboard from her desk. The tightly furled floppy membrane resembled a holo-tube when in it's storage state. It instantly rolled out flat on her desktop as she removed the Velcro band, and activated as soon as she touched the proper contact spot near the top, left hand corner.

Jenetta knew that the saboteur must be leaving some evidence of his hacks in the computer. Perhaps one would point Jenetta in the proper direction. Although she was the ship's captain, high level systems access privileges had never been established for her in the main computer. Ship captains normally either didn't have time for playing around inside computers, or weren't sufficiently computer literate or inclined to do so. Jenetta Carver was both able and so inclined, but she hadn't had the time since coming aboard the Song.

The lack of system access privileges presented no difficulty. She had been hacking into computers since almost before she could walk, but as a ‘whiter than white-hat hacker' it was never with malicious intent. Within ten minutes she was cruising through the system modules looking for evidence of unauthorized access by the saboteur. She looked in the transport module first, since that appeared to be the most recent point of attack, and immediately found broken links and missing code structures. The saboteur had definitely been there. Switching over to the history log that recorded all code modifications, Jenetta searched for some indication of the identity of the saboteur, but his back trail was too clean. He was too good. He wasn't able to cover his modification efforts, but he left nothing that pointed back to him. When it was obvious that it was a dead end, Jenetta turned her attention to restoring the links and missing code by reversing the logged modifications. She finished the restoration and was considering where to look next when she was interrupted by a message from Lieutenant Risco.

"Captain, the transport systems have just come back on line. I thought you'd want to know in case you still want to go down to Engineering."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Jenetta said almost absent-mindedly, before returning her full attention to the monitor.

Jenetta then began skimming through the millions of instruction sets in the main computer, hunting for something, anything, that would point to the saboteur. The systems code of any ship's main computer is almost bulletproof by the time the newly built ship leaves the Mars spacedock, and is therefore seldom modified. Unless the saboteur was a renowned computer expert, he or she had to have left a trail a mile wide. Using the transaction history logs, she reviewed all recent activity.

As her investigation intensified, she discovered that the saboteur had always entered the system through an almost never used access socket. Prior to Petty Officer Nichol's death, that particular socket hadn't been accessed since the ship had been built. Jenetta checked the access registry file and discovered, to her surprise, that the socket wasn't listed there. The address hadn't been removed, it had
never
been there. Apparently that was either the result of an oversight on the part of the original systems team, or perhaps it had been intentionally left off the list to provide a permanent backdoor for maintenance programmers. This might be the break she was hoping for. Either the saboteur had stumbled across the unused socket by accident, or he'd had contact with someone who worked at the Mars Shipbuilding facility when the system was installed.