The Silver Ships

by S. H. Jucha

  With the newly fabricated parts, GEN-2 machines were assembled, which were immediately engaged in creating the parts for the first GEN-3 machine. The TS-1 site had doubled in size and manpower in just fifty-two days.

  Alex, Renée, and the twins had flown planet side the day before. Security woke them when the engineers completed their final assembly. At 6.50 hours, everyone who wanted to witness the event had gathered around the GEN-3 machine. The lead engineer powered up the machine. Its sophistication was such that it was completely self-adjusting, able to compare its circuit and mechanical responses to its required specifications and make any necessary adjustments. When it completed its internal diagnostics, the machine’s voice emanated from speakers, “All parameters are met. Ready.”

  The techs had already loaded the required components, so all that was required of the lead engineer was to verbally request the first item displayed in Julien’s list. A quarter of an hour later, the machine produced a flawless Méridien circuit board. Four hours after the first board was produced, a bundle of boards caught the scheduled shuttle flight to the Rêveur.

  Edouard and Claude stood ready to receive the package. They were walking to the bridge before the airlock transfer hatch was even sealed behind the shuttle’s co-pilot.

  * * *

  In TS-1’s dining room, Alex and Renée were enjoying New Terran fruit juices, celebrating the milestone that had been achieved that morning, when their comms activated, “Good day, Ser and Captain.”

  Both shouted, “Julien!” The other diners turned to look for the person Alex was addressing, Renée having responded via implant.

  “The new boards are working within the expected parameters,” Julien said. “The ship’s local comm transmission is now online. I’m able to communicate directly with either of you so long as you are within range of TS-1’s comm station.”

  As they expressed their joy at the achievement, Julien delivered even better news. “In addition, I can now control the GEN machines. I’m directing engineering personnel to produce Méridien ear comms for all TS-1 personnel. Soon, we will have comm stations and ear comms for the offices of the President and the Team. In three days, we will be able to conference in any manner you choose.”

  Renée covered Alex’s hand with hers. She sent him a message via Julien,

  -20-

  “Captain, we have an intrusion at TS-1,” Julien said, simultaneously sending the message to Ser via her implant.

  The two of them left their meal half-finished and raced to the bridge.

  “What particulars do you have?” asked Alex as they navigated the corridors.

  “TS-1’s master database has been copied. I queried Ser Marion Delbert, the Station Manager, as to the reason for the copy, suspecting a problem with the storage material. Ser Delbert reported that she’d received no request for a data transfer and there were no maintenance issues.”

  “Who accessed the data?” Alex asked as they arrived on the bridge.

  “One moment, Captain.” Then an instance later, “The access code belongs to Engineer Sebastien Velis.”

  “Do we have the location of Major Tachenko?” Renée asked.

  “Ser Delbert has alerted station security, who contacted the Major. She will be at TS-1 within a quarter hour. Security is working to relay our comm to her.”

  Renée asked, “Captain, what does this unauthorized copying mean?”

  “It means that someone has stolen the data for their own use.”

  “But if they make a Méridien product, it will be known immediately.”

  “Anyone can use the data to design a product’s endpoint years down the road and then slowly introduce improvements over time until that goal is reached.”

  “What will happen when they’re caught?”

  “If they’re caught, they’ll face trial, and if they’re convicted, they’ll go to prison.”

  “They will be incarcerated?” Renée asked incredulously after Julien explained prison.

  “It’s what they deserve,” Alex growled.

  “I have Major Tachenko on the comm,” Julien announced.

  “Major, Captain Racine here with Ser. What do you know?”

  “The engineer and data are gone. According to my staff, surveillance shows him leaving TS-1 and getting into a hover-car just moments after the copying was complete. He left his reader on his desk, so we can’t use that to locate the man, and the hover-car’s auto-tracker was disabled. This was a well-planned theft. You have my apologies, Ser. I’ve been remiss in my job.”

  “Major, I believe you do your job very well. I, for one, would not have believed one of the staff would do this.”

  “Do we have anything that would help us find him?” Alex asked.

  “We’re researching him now. In the meantime, I’ve sent troopers to his residence, his parents’ home, and we are contacting his known acquaintances. General Gonzalez has been updated and is notifying the President and the Team. We’ll know more in a couple of hours.”

  “Thank you, Major. Rêveur, fini,” said Renée.

  “Captain, Ser, we do have an option,” Julien said. “My data has a unique signature that I can detect when it crosses any network that I can access.”

  “Which networks would those be?” Alex asked.

  “All New Terran networks, Captain, but I think it would be wise to keep that private.”

  “Uh…does that include government networks?”

  “If the network has access to your comm infrastructure, I can access it.”

  “Black space, Julien.”

  “Precisely, Captain.”

  “Do you need anything from us?” Alex asked.

  “Negative, Captain. I will disseminate watchers to each infrastructure node. I will receive a signal the instant the data crosses a node, allowing me to track its server destination.”

  Over the next few hours, few facts came to light regarding the theft. Velis did not go home. His parents and his friends heard nothing from him, and his financial accounts were not accessed. One critical piece of information did come to light, volunteered by his latest girlfriend.

  “Sebastien has developed a big problem,” she told the TSF investigator. “He’s become an inveterate gambler, and he’s an inveterate loser. Over the past year, he’s sold just about everything we’ve acquired. He can rot, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Days later, Major Tachenko’s report to the President, which was disseminated to key personnel, stated that Sebastien Velis had accumulated extensive gambling debts, which were probably used to leverage him to steal the TS-1 database. No trace could be found of the engineer.

  He had disappeared.

  * * *

  One day after they had picked up Sebastien outside of TS-1, two men eased their hover-car deep into the woods, 126 kilometers from Prima. In the sandy soil near a stand of guriel trees, they dug a deep hole, laid the naked body of the engineer in the pit, and doused it with an industrial solution designed to dissolve organic tissue. They carefully re-conditioned the ground to disguise their tampering.

  The men had disabled their vehicle’s auto-tracker, and they took pains to wipe the car’s GPS memory after every trip. Back in Prima, they returned to their reader sales and repair service in a small industrial building.

  The stolen data was transferred to a new storage device. To avoid being tracked they destroyed the original. The directive they’d received from their contractor stated, “Under no circumstances, review the data or connect the storage module to a networked device. Otherwise, you will jeopardize your final payment and possibly your lives.”

  But the problem with larcenous men is that they’ll steal from anyone and the Frasier brothers were no exception. The following evening, after a jaunt to a private club, enjoying too many drinks and a shared woman, they returned to the shop and convinced one another that the more they knew about the data the better they could value the deal.

  After connecting th
eir storage device to a reader and paging through several diagrams and tech manuals, they realized the designs were of advanced technology—Méridien. A celebration ensued. Dancing around their shop floor, they laughed and yelled, reveling in the mountain of creds they would soon possess.

  After several more drinks, they hatched their ill-fated plan. The data was uploaded to a private memory account, the storage device destroyed, and a ransom message sent to the contractor. They demanded fifty times the original price to deliver the data. At the end of their message, they typed—alien—to announce that they knew what they had.

  * * *

  Alex awoke to a pounding on his door. He grabbed his ear comm. “Julien, what’s the problem?”

  “Your pardon, Captain, for the intrusion. Ser is at your door. We require your immediate attention.”

  “Let her in, Julien.” Both of his doors slid open and the lights blinked on as he heard her rush through his cabin into his sleeping quarters.

  “Come to the bridge, Captain,” she ordered. “Julien has detected the stolen data.” Then she ran back out.

  Alex climbed into his ship suit as fast as he could, hopping down the corridor while pulling on his boots. “Where’s the data, Julien?” Alex asked as he entered the bridge.

  “It’s been uploaded to a private security company’s memory storage account. I have the address of the building for Major Tachenko.”

  Alex checked his chronometer. At 3.91 hours, few people would be available to them. “Who can you reach, Julien?”

  “Neither the Major nor the Team members are available, Captain. We have two choices: TS-1 night security or the President.”

  “Make it the President.” Once the comm station had been installed at Government House, the President had ordered it manned day and night. “Relay a message to him that we have an emergency requiring his authority,” Alex requested.

  Renée curled up in the command chair and resisted the urge to go back to sleep. In contrast, Alex paced the bridge.

  Nearly a quarter hour later, the President answered the comm in a gravelly voice, dulled with sleep. “What’s the nature of the emergency, Captain?”

  “The stolen data has been located, Mr. President.”

  “Located? Where? By whom?” he asked, his voice clearing quickly.

  “It’s in a private memory account. We have the address.”

  “Why didn’t General Gonzalez contact me directly? Why are you telling me this?” When dead silence followed his question, he answered it himself. “Because her people didn’t find it…Julien did.”

  “Affirmative, Mr. President.” Alex responded.

  “That’s going to have to remain between us,” he grumbled. “Julien, send me the particulars—the account number, account holder, company, and address to my private reader. I presume you can reach it.”

  “Yes, Mr. President, you have the information. I’ve included the account password.”

  “Of course, you have, Julien.”

  Everyone, Julien included, winced at the President’s tone. They were not only guilty of breaking countless New Terran laws, but they’d just demonstrated that the planet’s best encryption—private or government—was child’s play to a SADE.

  “I don’t have to tell all of you that this comm never happened, and you never discovered the data. I’ll turn it over to General Gonzalez and allow her to devise a means of dealing with the thieves.”

  Julien was hesitant to ask his question, but knew that there might be unforeseen consequences if he didn’t. “Mr. President, would you recommend I remove my block now or when the General is ready to enter the premises?”

  “You blocked the account?”

  “In a manner, Mr. President, I blocked data access to the security company—all accounts.”

  “May we be saved from ourselves,” the President sighed into the comm. “Remove the blocks at once. There must be no sign that you’ve been in the system.”

  “Understood, Mr. President, it’s done.”

  “Mr. President,” Renée said. “For the record, Julien requested permission to seek out the data. And while it may have been stolen from your facilities, it belongs to us until the terms of the agreement have been satisfied.”

  “Ser de Guirnon,” said the President, slipping on his political shoes. “Neither of us wishes to see this data in the public domain. I’m very grateful that you located it and I’m chagrined that our security procedures didn’t prevent its theft. That having been said, I don’t want the public-at-large…let me rephrase that…I don’t want anyone knowing what the four of us know—that our data security encryption is useless against Méridien technology, particularly against Julien. Good night.”

  He cut the comm before anyone could speak. Renée was now wide awake, and Alex slumped into a command chair, his desire to pace curtailed.

  In the quiet, Julien asked, “Captain, have we endangered the agreement?”

  “No, Julien, the President will keep our secret.”

  “He’s not obligated to inform your Assembly?” Renée asked.

  “Yes and no, but that’s a discussion for a later time. Let me commend you on locating the data copy, Julien. Now, let’s see what TSF does with the information. Good night, you two.”

  * * *

  At 6.32 hours Major Tachenko delivered her Presidential writ to the owner of the private security firm where the informer indicated the data was being stored. The owner woke the general manager, who in turn woke the lead engineer.

  The staff was gathered around a network control monitor with Major Tachenko and two TSF troopers hovering over them. When the lead engineer opened the account log-in screen and entered the user name on record, Major Tachenko shoved her reader in front of his face. He looked back and forth between the text and her angry face then quickly entered the passcode.

  Once the account was accessed, the TSF Sergeant tapped him on the shoulder, and the engineer slid out of his seat. The Major ordered the owner and employees to wait in the GM’s office.

  With a few key stroke entries, the Sergeant accessed the Méridien data and copied the information to a portable storage device. Dummy files were substituted, including a network tracking file. The account’s registration and payments were made anonymously, but the TSF Corporal was a network specialist and able to trace the node through which the data was uploaded. The Sergeant cross-referenced the addresses of known criminals within a half square kilometer of the node’s service area. One address stood out—the reader sales and service center of the Frasier brothers.

  When the Major and her two troopers broke through the shop’s door, they found the brothers passed out in a back room. Bleary-eyed and nearly incoherent, the hung-over men were restrained and transported to a TSF garrison holding cell. Later, stimulants were used to revive them, and they were read their rights and charged.

  With its damaged side, the brother’s hover-car was easily matched to recordings made by TS-1 security cams. It was transported to a TSF warehouse and examined by forensic techs, who determined Sebastien Velis had occupied the vehicle’s back seat and, most tellingly, the rear carry-all.

  After hours of interrogation, the brothers confessed to the murder of Velis and the theft of the government property in exchange for sentencing leniency. Their confession yielded two key pieces of information—there had been only one copy of the data and the person who’d hired them remained unknown. They had dealt with the contractor only by ether-ware—anonymous, untraceable messaging.

  * * *

  Late at night, Alex was sitting in the dimly lit bridge and mulling over Major Tachenko’s report on the Frasier brothers.

  “You’re thinking of the Major’s report—are you not, Captain? And you’re dissatisfied by the outcome.” Julien said, hazarding a guess.

  “You’re correct on both counts.”

  “It’s easy to surmise, Captain. I am of the same opinion.”

  “This was done by someone who had inside knowledge, someone wit
h power and money. And, failing the first time, they will try again.”

  An inside job—the term harkened back to the detective stories Julien had absorbed. When he catalogued data, it was rarely reviewed again until required. But the old English detective novels, especially those of Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, found in the colonists’ archives, were different. At night, when all was quiet, he would read through a few novels slowly—for a SADE that is—absorbing the cat and mouse games of the master sleuths and the evil villains.

  “If these individuals succeed in their infamous ways,” Julien predicted, “it will undo the intent of the Pact. The New Terrans responsible would become incredibly rich and powerful.”

  “And what do you think we should do about that Sherlock?” asked Alex, aware of Julien’s penchant for the old detective novels.

  “Do we not risk the ire of your President and Ser if we were to proceed?”

  “Yes…if we were caught by either one.”

  “That would mean we would have to practice deception if caught—a trait possessed by New Terrans but difficult, if not impossible, for a Méridien to imitate. An individual who develops such faculties and possesses few scruples becomes a dangerous person.”

  “True, but good people must often adopt devious means to stop dangerous ones.”

  “Is that not the beginning of moral corruption, Captain, the adoption of your enemy’s ways in order to defeat them?”

  “So, I take it you decline to follow the evidence.”

  “On the contrary, Captain. I’m eager to start. I just wanted us to be clear about the nature of the ground we will be treading on.”

  “Muddy and treacherous, I would say, my friend.”

  “Precisely, Captain. Tally-ho.”

  -21-

  TS-1’s theft was never made public. Marion Delbert, the Station Manager, loved her new job and was happy to comply with Major Tachenko’s request for silence. And the security company owner certainly wanted no one to know his systems had been used for such a crime. The Major continued to plug every possible leak until she was satisfied word wouldn’t get out.