Peacekeeper

by Doug Farren

  “Who actually cut those lines?” Sorbith asked.

  Anita’s eyes went wide as she searched through her memory of the event. “After Cain’s hardware was removed, the room remained locked and abandoned for a few years. When the decision was made to sell the building, we hired a contractor to do the work. They sealed off the interconnecting subway tunnels and got the building ready to put on the market. Jay was present when they walled over the interface. The company was looking to save money so of course we took the lowest bidder. It was a company based out of India.”

  Now it was beginning to make sense. Many AOH supporters were from Muslim countries. Several thousand had come from India. Sorbith was willing to bet a significant sum of money that the Kenyan company that had purchased the building was a supporter of the AOH. Not all AOH supporters had left Earth. Many remained behind to continue the effort to ‘free the planet from the grip of alien domination’ as their pamphlets claimed.

  Looking again at the paper in his hand, Sorbith said, “I will have to keep this as well as the suicide note you mentioned.”

  "Why?"

  "To attempt to verify their authenticity."

  Anita got up and headed for the open safe Reaching inside, she pulled out another piece of paper, closed the door, and pushed the picture back into place. Holding the note out before her, she said, “Other than his memories, this is all Jay has left of Cain. Please take care of it.”

  “I promise to take good care of them and to return them in a few days."

  "Is there anything else you need to know?"

  "No. I believe I’ve learned far more than I thought possible,” he admitted. “Please give Mr. Kauffman my regards as well as my apologies for his discomfort. It was an honor to meet you both.”

  Anita stood up and extended her hand. “I’ve always wanted to meet a Peacekeeper. I only wish the circumstances had been different. What are you planning on doing with your newfound knowledge? More specifically, what are you planning on doing to us?”

  “Nothing. I see no reason to change what history has already recorded. As far as the Alliance is concerned, CAIN acted alone and you cannot be held responsible for its actions.”

  Anita’s face relaxed as she smiled. “Thank you. Jay will be relieved. I’ll walk you to the door.”

  Chapter 29

  “I have confirmed the existence of an old project called CAIN,” the Tri-Star reported as Sorbith settled into his cycle. “Do you wish to hear the details?”

  “Not right now." Sorbith took one last look at the Kauffman mansion. How could anyone remain sane after living for 50 years knowing who had been responsible for triggering an interstellar war? A rumble of thunder interrupted his thoughts. Closing the tricycle’s transparent bubble, he engaged the drive and headed back to the San Diego spaceport. It was raining by the time he arrived at his ship.

  “Take us back to Mojave,” he ordered as he rode the cycle lift into the ship. “Any word from Chyr?”

  “No.”

  “I want to know the moment she reports in.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  * * * * *

  While Tom headed for Tholtaran space to conduct his interviews, Chyr’s course took her toward the edge of Shandarian space. Her original destination had been Bran-Ta’Kur, a thriving planet populated mostly by Tholtarans because its climate was a near perfect copy of their homeworld. Three Tholtaran war veterans had set up a hunting business in a remote area of the planet.

  She was 22 light-years from her destination when she received an urgent message from a Peacekeeper on Tarapu informing her that the Naruma, one of the cargo ships identified as being involved in the transfer of stolen weapons, had unexpectedly returned to the base. Peacekeeper O’Neil’s original instructions had been to arrest the crew, but given the unique situation presented to him, had come up with the idea of using an HK to track them. Knowing that Chyr was in the area, he contacted her and suggested she follow the ship.

  Chyr had been torn between two conflicting desires but the chance to discover the location of the hidden AOH base overrode all other orders. She agreed and immediately altered course. She received the synchronization codes for the HK and waited.

  As soon as the Naruma cleared the Tarapu control zone it immediately set off on a course far different from its stated destination. Unlike the situation with the Barstock, following the Naruma was child’s play. The cargo ship continued in a straight line for just over eight days before slowing and then eventually dropping out of FTL in deep space. The HK reported the presence of three other vessels of unknown configuration. If Chyr had been trailing the ship as she had done with the Barstock, her presence would have been detected.

  Fifteen minutes later, the Naruma along with one of the other ships engaged their stardrives. They appeared to be heading for a system designated by the Terrans as HR 8323. Chyr had her ship, the P’nutch, put the star up on her tactical display along with its relevant statistics. The first thing she noticed was the large debris disk. This was unusual given the fact that the star was about the same age as Earth’s sun. A single request brought up the details.

  The system was first surveyed by a Shandarian probe 22 years ago. The debris surrounding the star was visible both optically and in the infrared spectrum from Earth and consisted mostly of very small particles, much like the famed rings of Saturn. Two planets, both roughly the size of Earth, were known to exist. Neither was classified as habitable even though one of them orbited well within the zone of habitability of the host star. Located far from any colonized planet and possessing only lifeless worlds, the system was logged and forgotten.

  Chyr continued to follow the cargo ship, maintaining a distance of at least two light years behind and to one side. As they approached their speculated destination, the Naruma suddenly dropped out of stardrive. The HK reported that two other vessels were on an intercept. Chyr decided to play it safe and dropped out of stardrive herself. A few minutes later, the HK failed to send its scheduled update. It also failed to send the next. With the patience of a Peacekeeper, she waited.

  Two hours later, a report finally arrived. Because of the limited bandwidth, it required several transmissions before Chyr knew the details of what had transpired during the probe's silence. The escort had conducted a detailed scan of the cargo ship causing the HK to power down most of its systems to avoid detection. Shortly after the scan was complete, one of the new arrivals docked with the Naruma. About an hour later, it undocked and departed.

  The second ship quickly took its place. Since it had detected no additional scans, the HK’s tactical system had judged it safe to resume sending updates. The fourth transmission arrived early. Based upon the content, there would be no more.

  The second ship had undocked and rapidly backed away. A few minutes later, the HK detected a small maintenance robot approaching. Based upon its configuration, it appeared to be one of the Naruma’s robots. It headed directly for the HK. Believing it had been discovered, the probe sent its last transmission then triggered its three-megaton warhead.

  Chyr was tempted to continue toward HR 8323 but after a few minutes of thought put that idea aside. She spun her ship around and set a direct course for Earth.

  * * * * *

  Tom was so focused on his task that he was unaware Sorbith had returned. “What have you found?” Sorbith asked, as he entered the room.

  “This is unbelievable!” Tom replied, spinning around in the chair. “There are several million communications stored in the computer. Most of them are encrypted military traffic. I can pick out any one of them and read it. In essence, I have full, unrestricted access to almost every message that passes through the hub. I’m sure that if we restored the connection to Mojave I could link to several other hubs. There’s a screen allowing me to set up criteria for preventing certain messages from being transmitted as well as rerouting almost any message to any other destination.”

  “You’re certain of this?”

  “About as
certain as I can be. Dennis and his team of software engineers are on the way. They’ve already been involved so I cleared them to work with us on this. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Sorbith replied. “They are the experts and I believe they can be trusted.”

  “You do realize,” Tom said. “that the AOH will still be able to monitor our communications.”

  “Not after we transmit new key codes,” Sorbith replied.

  “It won’t work,” Tom shook his head. “The AOH already has the list of key codes and they’ll be able to switch to the new ones just as easily as we can. We’ll have to install a whole new set of codes— maybe even a whole new algorithm—manually by physically carrying the new encryption system to each and every ship in the fleet.”

  “That’s going to take months!” Sorbith exclaimed. “What else have you found?”

  Tapping the side of the monitor, Tom said, “I’m convinced this is not the original interface. It’s as if someone’s been poking around in the code trying to figure out what it does and when something interesting is found, they tack a new menu item onto the interface. There’s a whole suite of sophisticated network monitoring tools as well as a complete software development package on this computer. Someone’s been maintaining a log of their activities and it seems to confirm—”

  Sorbith raised his hand to halt the seemingly non-stop flow of words. “The code running on the hubs was written by a self-aware AI that was once housed in this room. Apparently, when it…died…it didn’t delete all of the code it had installed in other systems.”

  Tom tilted his head to one side. “There’s no such thing as a self-aware AI. Even the Hess was not totally sentient and was constrained to follow its core programming. Who told you this?”

  “The Kauffmans,” Sorbith replied, bending down to look at what Tom was doing. “I’m pretty well convinced they were telling the truth. Based on what I was told, Dennis and his team are going to have a hard time finding a way to remove all the code from all the systems it had infected. I’m hoping they can at least render it harmless.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Prior to its demise, the AI that once inhabited this room managed to infiltrate almost every communications network in existence including the Tholtaran tactical data net. Apparently, quite a bit of that software is still running and continuing to infiltrate new systems as they are discovered.”

  “Good God!” Tom exclaimed. “It’s like the entire Alliance has been infected with a super virus. We need to figure out how to kill it.”

  “I agree. At least we’ve dealt the AOH a major blow by uncovering this operation.”

  “Have we learned anything from the prisoners yet?” Tom asked, switching topics.

  “They refuse to talk. I’m having a specialist brought in to question them using drugs. With the security of the Alliance at stake, I don’t see much of a choice.”

  “So what now?”

  “I’m hoping that Dennis will be able to—” Sorbith interrupted himself as he listened to a voice from inside his head. “Chyr is on her way back,” he said, in an excited voice. “She’ll be here in a few hours and I want us to meet her in orbit. She thinks she’s found the location of the AOH base. It also happens to correlate with the prefix code’s destination you provided me with earlier.”

  “This day is just full of good news!” Tom exclaimed.

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high,” Sorbith tried to downplay the news. “This might just be another false lead." He stood in thought for a moment. A tiny, knowing smile appeared on his face. Waving his hand at the terminal he said, “Leave this for Dennis and his team. They're the experts. Come on, I have a special surprise in store for you.”

  Tom glanced at the terminal, wishing he could continue his investigations. In doing so, he spotted another issue, “What about my combat armor?”

  Sorbith had been in the act of turning to head for the stairs but stopped and stared at the open combat suit. Leaving it where it stood would be a very bad idea. “Take it with you,” Sorbith said. “Have your ship land outside the building. I’ll ride with you up to meet Chyr.”

  Sorbith turned and headed for the stairs. Tom quickly climbed back into the suit, instructing the Orion to land in a convenient clearing as close to the building as possible. As soon as the suit was operational, he opened a private channel to Sorbith. “What sort of surprise?” he asked. “Not all surprises are good ones.”

  “Oh, I think you’re going to like this one,” Sorbith replied.

  Tom squeezed past another Peacekeeper heading down the hall in the opposite direction. “Okay, but don’t keep me in suspense. What is this big surprise?”

  “I’m not about to mobilize an entire fleet until we know for sure there is a base to be dealt with. If there is one, we’ll need to assess its defenses before deciding how big of a force to send against it. Because we’re dealing with a potentially heavily defended base, I can think of only one ship I would use to carry out such a mission.”

  Tom waited but Sorbith was apparently expecting him to figure out the name of the ship himself. The answer quickly popped into his head. “The Komodo Dragon!” he exclaimed.

  “Precisely. I’ve already made the request. It will be here in three days.”

  Following the debriefing with Chyr, Sorbith told her to take a couple days off. Tom and Sorbith returned to Mojave.

  While they waited for the Dragon to arrive, the two Peacekeepers monitored the questioning of the prisoners. Under the influence of the powerful truth drugs, several of the prisoners admitted to being involved in the accessing and altering of military communications. Their commander, one of the people Tom had been forced to kill, would receive an encoded message telling him exactly what to do. The commander was the only person capable of decrypting the message.

  What was even more disturbing was that none of the prisoners had any knowledge whatsoever of an AOH base. All of them had been born on Earth and believed themselves to be part of a resistance movement based on Earth to rid humanity of all alien influence. Various law enforcement agencies were called into play and in less than a day their birthplace was confirmed.

  Dennis arrived along with his team of programmers and immediately began work. It didn’t take long before someone suggested hooking up one of their own computers instead of the one programmed by the AOH to the dedicated lines. Sorbith approved the request and a few hours later the connection was made. Not long after that, Dennis excitedly reported that he not only had full access to the hub but he could also look at and analyze the malicious code placed there by CAIN.

  Although Tom spent a lot of time watching them work, most of what they were doing was way above his ability to understand. Even though he was very anxious to see his old ship again, he was a bit reluctant to leave when he received word that the Komodo Dragon had arrived.

  Chapter 30

  Komodo Dragon: Bolivar-class Alliance heavy cruiser. Built at the Almaranus shipyards. While under the command of Captain Ken Stricklen, the Dragon discovered the ancient cargo ship which held the stasis machine containing five Kyrra, a technologically advanced race who’s homeworld was destroyed by a rogue neutron star over 45,000 years ago. The Dragon was heavily modified by the Hess (a semi-sentient probe constructed by the Kyrra) to allow it to enter Chroniech space on a mission to return the Kyrra to their people. The ship’s weaponry, stardrive, and shield remain far more advanced than anything the Alliance has been able to develop.

  The shuttle slipped into the Dragon’s hangar bay and nestled against its locking clamps with a barely perceptible thunk. The door unsealed and dropped down, turning itself into a ramp. Captain Doug Scarboro was waiting. Sorbith was the first to exit, followed by Chyr, then Tom.

  Focusing his attention on Sorbith, Doug said, “Welcome aboard the Komodo Dragon Peacekeeper Sorbith. It’s good to see you again.”

  “I’m glad to be back aboard,” Sorbith replied. Gesturing with his arm he continu
ed, “This is Peacekeeper Chyr. She possesses some key information related to our mission.”

  “A mission I still know nothing about,” Doug said, sounding a little annoyed. “I was told to place my ship at your disposal but my orders mentioned nothing about where we would be going or what the mission is about.”

  “Do you recall encountering a small fleet of AOH ships in the Hess system?” Sorbith asked. Doug nodded his head. “I’ve been trying to figure out where those ships came from. You’ll get all the details when I brief your command staff." Motioning for Tom, who had purposefully stood behind Chyr, to step forward, he said, “I believe you know Peacekeeper Wilks.”

  An enormous smile broke out on Doug’s face as he recognized his former communications technician. “Tom! Oh my god—look at you! It’s good to see you again.”

  Tom grasped Doug’s extended hand. “Likewise. It’s good to be back aboard the Dragon.”

  Doug slapped Tom on the shoulder, an act he instantly regretted as his hand contacted hard armor instead of soft, pliable skin. Rubbing his palm, Doug said, “We’ll have to sit and chat so you can bring me up to date." Looking at Sorbith, Doug asked, “Orders Sir?”

  “Set course for HR 8323. Our ships will be following, so keep your speed at no more than 3.9Kc. What is your current ship time?”

  Glancing at his chronometer he said, “Right now it’s 1938. The crew is virtually all human so we maintain a standard Terran time-keeping system.”

  “Very well. Can you have your command staff assembled in, say, an hour?”

  “Can do. Main conference room, 2030. In the meantime, I’ll have Petty Officer Wesolek show you to your quarters.”

  A petite female standing no more than 142 centimeters high stepped forward. “Please follow me,” she said in a voice that sounded like fingernails being run over a blackboard.