by Kal Spriggs
I spent the remainder of my patrol thinking about that.
***
“Have you got anything?” I asked Kyle as we pushed away our summer correspondence work. We were sitting in my side of the split officer quarters we had. It was set up so that two people would share each side, with a shared shower and toilet in the middle, with dividing doors to give us privacy. Since we were the only cadets here, we had the four-man quarters to ourselves. My side had a slightly larger spot for a desk, which was why we’d chosen to work on our homework here.
“You’re asking about our... special assignment?” Kyle asked, looking around. Summit Station wasn’t quite as wired for sound and video as the Academy, but there were security monitoring systems throughout the station. I’d tapped into the ones for our quarters, though. There were maintenance issues throughout the system, so I’d just introduced a bit of static that came on and off intermittently, over the past few days since our arrival. I’d turned it on right before I asked the question. My implant hadn’t picked up signals from any other monitoring devices, sound or video, so I assumed that was all. Besides, who would want to spy on cadets?
“Yeah, and we should be good to talk,” I ran my fingers through my hair, drawing it back out of my eyes. I hadn’t cut it in over a month and it was starting to get longer than I’d ever had it in my life.
“Good,” Kyle looked relieved. I noticed he was also watching me run my hands through my hair. I realized that for the first time in our relationship, we were really, truly alone. The odds of someone interrupting were pretty low, and we didn’t have our next patrol for another twelve hours. Focus on the mission, I told myself. Myself wasn’t very good at listening.
“Well, uh, I spent some time talking with Lieutenant Martin, she heads up the next patrol,” Kyle said. “She said that ever since Commander Arton took over, he’s shuffled up the patrol routes, like a lot. She also mentioned that Captain Schultz, the station commander, gets really involved in Squadron business, the two of them apparently butt heads all the time.”
“Hmmm,” I said. Captain Schultz, the commander of Summit Station, wasn’t one of the suspected conspirators. At least, his time on station hadn’t been long enough to overlap some of the other events. He had been present for the pirate slipping through to attack Century. The patrol hadn’t detected the pirate ship when it emerged from strategic warp. They hadn’t detected it, nor had they detected its wake until long after it had arrived at Century, almost a full day later.
As a cadet, I didn’t have access to the flight logs or the orders that had sent the patrols out. But I did have the Admiral’s files, which included a report of the investigation. The text there had been rather short, shorter than I would have expected for the circumstances. Due to the lack of multiple operational vessels in overlapping patrol patterns, the Summit Station patrols did not detect the intruding vessel until after it had already moved into position. Century Militia vessels detected the intruder as it cleared Century’s upper atmosphere and went into immediate FTL warp...
Those few words had let everyone in the station off the hook. After running a patrol, I had some understanding of the size of the system and the difficulty that Summit Station would have faced in detecting the single frigate as it emerged and then dropped down to Century. That didn’t make me feel any better. Given the volumes involved and the timing, there were odds, very good odds, that the frigate should have emerged somewhere where it would have been detected by a patrol. That burst of radiation and the constant bleed of high energy exotic particles would have made it visible for the entire duration of its re-calibration.
Detecting the electromagnetic wake of its passage should have happened, too. I had the route it took as well as the patrol routes from that week. I put it up on our desk display so I could trace the path that ship had taken on its route to murder my family. It wasn’t a least-time path, it curved, ever so slightly... just perfectly around a set of patrol route that might have picked them up... six hours after they made the jump in to Century.
Six hours... which would have been just as the pirates were getting ready to attack Black Mesa. Instead, Commander Arton’s patrol the next shift had detected the intrusion, almost seven hours later. By the time their warning had made it to Century, my family had been murdered and I’d been left for dead, buried in the tunnel I’d collapsed on myself. The pirate vessel had exited the atmosphere thirty minutes prior to that warning’s arrival.
The evidence suggested that they’d not only known how to avoid discovery on their route in, but exactly when their intrusion would be discovered and planned their escape for just afterward.
“I’m just not seeing it,” Kyle admitted. He too, stared at the display, with the route in. “The personnel have turned over, out here. There’s no one officer in place for the different intrusions and no one else would have the access necessary. The patrol routes are plotted out based off an algorithm set that the Militia has designed for randomness. So they can’t predict the patrol routes and no one in position to report them has been on station long enough through the entire stretch.”
I nodded. The entire Militia used that random route generating software and we used it for a whole lot more than just patrol routes. I’d seen it used for missile deployments in scenarios and attack runs for fighter squadrons. Using it for patrols was merely one more method to generate unpredictability so that enemies couldn’t know where to find us.
That should have held doubly true for the patrols on the day that pirate ship had slipped through. Short of a transmission from one of the patrolling ships, it shouldn’t have known to curve like it had. Even the flight commanders didn’t know the routes until the computers spit them out that morning. Then they deconflicted their paths from traffic control and...
“It has to be someone slipping them the route,” Kyle said stubbornly, staring at the display.
“But the ship emerged in a zone not covered by the patrol that day,” I noted. It had emerged just far enough away from anything that the emergence radiation could diffuse enough that no one on Summit Station or deeper in the system would pick it up. In fact, that emergence couldn’t have been plotted better to avoid the patrols that could have picked it up. Both were as far away from that ship as it was from Summit Station.
“No one from the patrols reported any transmissions, so they couldn’t have queried for the patrol routes for that day... unless they subverted an entire patrol,” I shook my head and sat back in my chair, rubbing my neck muscles in irritation. I reached down and popped off the magnetic locks on the bottom of my chair and tilted it back. I balanced it on the back two legs, thinking and rocking. “I mean, we haven’t seen much of these people, but it’s hard to imagine any of them selling out to pirates, much less two of them.” I hadn’t been impressed by any of them. They were cynical, they were jaded, but they kept going out, day after day. They kept doing their jobs. And there hadn’t been any signs of money transfers or anything like that in the files the Admiral had sent me. Two of the pilots, including Lieutenant Koga, were in deep debt, but they didn’t show any signs of payoffs.
“It’s more than that,” Kyle nodded, “with how Commander Arton shuffled up the patrol squads, the crews of those patrols, pretty frequently. He wasn’t even on the patrol that the pirates avoided. So unless he’s involved and at least two other pilots, possibly four...”
“This doesn’t make any sense at all,” I growled. I knew why the Admiral had sent me here, now. If this had been simple, she would have had her answer. But it wasn’t simple. It was a headache that I couldn’t solve. No one on the station had the patrol route until the day of the patrol... but the pirate vessel’s trail had been tracked back, it had emerged in the perfect area to remain undetected. Too perfect by far, I told myself, which meant they had to know the location and timing, which they couldn’t do without an informant that couldn’t possibly give the information in time.
“Wait...” Kyle pulled up the patrol data. “They to
ok off from Century thirty minutes prior to the arrival of the transmission from Summit Station warning of intruders, right?”
“Yeah,” I waved a hand, “more evidence that they had someone on the inside.”
“But even Commander Arton didn’t have the patrol route until after they were on the ground at Century,” Kyle frowned. “Which means either they had Commander Arton in their pocket and he sent them updated patrol routes on a transmission that penetrated through the sandstorm on Century and somehow remained undetected or...”
“Or something,” I nodded. None of it made any sense. Yet as I stared at the display, I realized that something else bothered me. The patrol routes for that entire week should have been random, totally different from any other patrol... yet here we were, almost six months to the day from the attack, and those routes looked remarkably familiar. In fact... I overlaid the routes we had run this week against the ones on the display, factoring in the modifications to our patrol pattern based off corrections from flight control for inbound supply ships and that sort of thing.
My feet and the other two legs of the chair slammed into the deck with a clang. “Oh my God, Kyle. This isn’t a single spy. We have got to warn the Admiral... our entire Fleet is in danger.”
***
Chapter 18: Sometimes Being Right Is A Bad Thing
With a three hour lag until the Admiral could get my warning, Kyle and I spent a lot of time discussing what that meant. “The routes, they’re repeating every six months, almost perfectly,” He frowned over what we’d been able to piece together.
“Here, yeah, where it is more noticeable... but also on the other perimeter stations, and any of the other patrol routes I can get data on,” I said. I’d pulled traffic control data from the station, which quickly showed the pattern, once I knew what to look for. “Down on the elliptical plane, there’s far more traffic so they adjust the routes, so things don’t line up quite as perfectly, which would make it harder to predict things like the pirate ship had.”
“I still don’t understand how it repeats. I mean, someone had to test for that!” Kyle protested.
I didn’t argue. I pulled up everything the unclassified system had on the algorithm. “There’s not a lot here,” I mused. I probably could slip into the station’s classified side, but the last thing I wanted to do was get caught. “Icon Solutions designed it for the Militia, I think. Software updates are from Arco Dynamics...” Even that I wasn’t sure about, the two companies handled “unspecified” software updates for the Militia, and it looked like the dates lined up with when the software had been adopted.
“Arco Dynamics?” Kyle asked. “I heard that name somewhere...”
We dove into what files we could find on the station network, but that was pretty limited. Summit Station’s database was pretty limited and it was a three-hour turnaround on querying information from Century’s planetary network. I groaned in frustration as we both sat back. “This is ridiculous,” I muttered.
“Hey, Jiden,” Kyle asked softly, his eyes going a bit wide.
“Yeah, what?” I asked.
“You’re a bit better with networks than me, but I think I just triggered some kind of program,” he replied.
I dove into the system and I saw what he meant right away. Someone or something had detected his search parameters. Something buried in the central workings of the station’s system had triggered an alarm. Before I could act, that system triggered a communications burst, back to Century.
Then, to my shock, the entire comm system for Summit Station shut down.
“Well... that’s unfortunate,” Kyle noted.
***
“Alright, everyone,” Commander Arton said, glaring around the ready room at his pilots, “listen up. The comm system is down, the backup fried as well. Our birds, meanwhile all got some kind of similar bug. We’ve got short-range transmissions but their long-range comm-sets are fried. That’s not a major issue, though. Headquarters will notice that Captain Schultz hasn’t done his regular updates and after the standard delay for reporting, they’ll send someone out here. In the meantime, we’ll resume patrols and--”
“Sir,” I raised a hand, not really sure if I was making the right decision or not, “I think that would be a bad idea.”
Every head in the room snapped around to look at me.
“Excuse me cadet?” Commander Arton’s lips drew back in a grimace.
“Sir,” I let out a tense breath, “I have reason to believe that the comm going down was deliberate sabotage.”
The room went dead silent. Then, Lieutenant Koga gave a braying laugh. “Sabotage? Little duck has been here a week and she’s already gone mad from boredom...” She trailed off in giggles.
I ignored her. “Sir, we were going over some of the patrol route data as part of a school assignment,” not totally a lie, I told myself, it’s related to school, “and Cadet Second Class Regan and I noted that the random patrol routes... aren’t random.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lieutenant Koga protested. “They spit out a route based on the data we put in!”
“They repeat, every six months, to the day,” Kyle said. “Then I got curious and looked up who made the software--”
“Arco Dynamics,” Commander Arton interrupted.
“Yes, sir, but something about my search triggered a bit of code in the network. It sent a transmission from the comm system and then it shorted the system out.”
Commander Arton set his jaw, his big, horse-like teeth angry, “You’re telling me that you suspect a critical flaw in some of the software that the entire Militia uses and you didn’t tell anyone? You started digging!?”
“This is crazy, sir,” Lieutenant Koga whined, “the two cadets are probably funning us, just a prank gone bad--”
“Shut up, Lieutenant,” Arton snapped. His hard eyes leveled on us. “Did you tell anyone?”
“I sent an encrypted transmission approximately thirty minutes before he triggered the program,” I answered.
“To who?” he demanded.
“I can’t tell you, sir,” I answered. I didn’t trust him, not yet, and besides that, I didn’t want it on the official record. “Someone much higher in my chain of command.”
He rolled his eyes, “You might as well have said you sent it to Admiral Armstrong.” He gave a big sigh, “Fine. You two played junior cadet inspectors and you triggered sabotage. Did either of you think about the repercussions?”
“Sir?” Kyle asked.
“Whoever set that has to know that there’s a limited window in which they have to operate. If there is a problem with our software, this repeating pattern that Cadet Armstrong saw, and you’re a contractor for the Militia, you’d try and solve it. Even if you’re corrupt, the worst you’d do is try to keep it quiet and hope no one notices that you got lazy with code.” Commander Arton looked around at his squadron, he looked as if he’d bit into a particularly sour lemon. “What you don’t do is set up a deliberate sabotage program that triggers if someone did some investigation. You might trigger an automated warning, you sure as hell don’t burn out Militia equipment and turn a corruption charge into conspiracy or worse.”
I was surprise that he’d processed all that so fast.
“No,” he said, “you only do that if you’re going to try to cover everything up... and the best way to do that is to kill everyone who knows what you did.”
The room had gone dead quiet. Commander Arton went over to the wall and slammed his hand on the alarm panel. “All pilots, to your fighters,” he snapped.
***
“What are you doing!?” Captain Schultz demanded once more. “We’ve no indications--”
“Just a precaution, sir,” Commander Arton repeated over the net. “But one of my pilots believes that the loss of our comms might be due to deliberate sabotage--”
“Sabotage? Why would anyone even need to sabotage us?” Captain Schultz demanded. “They could give us another six months and we’ll fall apart o
n our own...”
“Sir,” Commander Arton cautioned, “I believe that we are in a very real state of threat.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll keep our people at alert status,” he snapped. “Probably as good a time as any to run some rehearsals.”
The Nine-Thirty-Seventh had formed up and the twelve warp-fighters hung in formation around the station. Just after we’d formed up, Commander Arton had ordered us to do a readiness check on our munitions. My Mark Three Firebolt had all four matter-antimatter bombs and its particle beam's capacitors were fully charged, but I went through the functions check anyway.
“Armstrong,” Commander Arton messaged me directly, “I’m going to make some assumptions. Your grandmother sent you out here to investigate the series of issues with ships slipping by, yes or no?”
“I can’t discuss--”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he went on. “Let’s assume I was assigned here for a similar purpose. Do you have any thoughts on who might be behind this?”
“Drakkus,” I answered quickly, “with help from people in Century’s government.”
Commander Arton didn’t answer, not right at first. When he did speak, he sent his message to the entire squadron, “We’re going to operate under the assumption that our random course generating software is compromised. What that means is our attack parameters are going to be suspect. An enemy may be able to predict our courses. So, we’re all going to disable that software. Additionally, we need to warn Century Station and Headquarters of the problem. Since our two cadets are our least experienced pilots, I’m sending them, short line, straight course to Century Station. I’m transferring you a coded transmission to broadcast as soon as you get into range.”