Convoy (The Shelby Logan Chronicles Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  “I wonder why. Not even ID implants?”

  “No. I read Doctor Naroob's report. He tried to give her an ID implant when she came on board Caroline. He did the same with all the Bekians and Nuevo people. Some objected but didn't say why.”

  “And now you've got me wondering why. We gave them implant ID tech when Caroline arrived the first time. Distributing—it shouldn't be that hard, and you'd think a priority for officers. I'll talk to Yorgi. Maybe he has some answers. In the meantime, sick medical on her, also the academy.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir, Commodore X'll'rr has expressed concern about her command …”

  “She doesn't even have the mission yet,” the fleet admiral said with a snort. “I'm not willing to turn it over to someone I don't know and definitely not to someone who has no experience or training in hyperspace combat—not when it is going to take time to make certain the new bug is up to speed. We'll see though.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “And yes, I know you are concerned about her as well, her and the others. We'll work on that,” Admiral Irons stated.

  Admiral Subert hesitated, then nodded. “Aye aye, sir,” he finally said.

  “I'm getting more downloads from Horatio,” Admiral Irons said as Sprite blinked onto his HUD and waved a file. “I'll see what's going on. Antigua out.”

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “This is odd,” Lieutenant Strongbirth murmured as she opened an email. She read it, then stopped and read it from the beginning again. When she finished, she typed out an inquiry. There were indeed files and changes to the system setup and waiting to be initialized, but the final ceremony hadn't been completed.

  She cocked her head and bobbed her antenna. It didn't make sense; the orders had come in over a week ago on the last convoy from Antigua. The key updates had apparently come in via an encrypted flash chip on the courier nearly a week prior and were unaccounted for. That sent off alarm bells.

  She sent off an alert to ONI about the missing chip, then tapped out an inquiry as to why she hadn't been informed about the promotion along with an inquiry as to why it hadn't been acted upon. She CC'd a copy to her senior officer. Before she hit send, she thought about it. Could that be why the chip and promotion had gone astray? She cocked her head as she stared at the rear admiral's email address. Quite possibly, she'd gotten to know the human, and he was sticky about such things.

  Her antenna bobbed as her thumb hovered over the send button. Finally, she inhaled and then exhaled slowly and pressed it.

  Whatever was going to happen was going to happen one way or another she thought as she turned her attention to the next problem in her inbox.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Admiral Irons received the update that the chip had gone missing and that Admiral Subert was sitting on the promotion. He checked the time and then put a call in through the ansible.

  “Admiral? To what do I give the pleasure? Something wrong?”

  “In a manner of speaking. What's this I hear that there is a problem with a promotion? The promotion board approved it, the chip was sent, the orders sent, your Lieutenant Strongbirth just reported back that they hadn't been enacted though. The chip was signed for by you personally. What's going on Phil?”

  Admiral Subert's nostrils dilated as he inhaled and then exhaled in anger. He hated crap like that, getting sandbagged by his own people. “I hadn't known there was a hard deadline on acting on it,” he finally said as the Admiral's bust appeared on his desk.

  “You know it is important. What is the problem?” the admiral asked.

  “Fine, fine. She's another one of your favorites. Fine. I'll deal with it,” Admiral Subert grumbled.

  “Phil, knock that crap off. You know she needs the rank,” Admiral Irons growled.

  “I said I'll get it done, sir. It must have slipped my mind,” the admiral said. “The people from Caroline have been at the center of my attention for a while,” he said pointedly.

  “Okay,” Admiral Irons said, deciding to let the argument go. “Get it handled then. I know you've got your hands full with the egos from Bek.”

  “Yes, sir. Lots of those there and some here.”

  “Oh?”

  “I knew X'll'rr would be pissed at losing her command. She has every right to be; she's been in the planning of it from day one. Saul picked up that she was actually to the point of considering resigning.”

  “Damn. But she didn't?”

  “No. At least, not yet.”

  “Damn it …”

  “I know. We've got a lid on it so far. She's not going to work out with Rear Admiral V'r'z'll. The bug rear admiral is abrasive as hell. She is set in her ways, used to getting her way, and is technophobic as far as implants are concerned. She's also very much aware that she outranks me by time in grade,” the admiral said sourly. “She's starting to throw her weight around,” he said.

  Admiral Irons paused. “And from the sound of it you don't like it. Not one bit,” he said.

  “Funny how you can pick that up through the ansible when we strip everything out of the conversation except text,” Phil said with a grimace.

  “I can read between the sentences. Okay. She and the others need to get caught up to speed with their implants, medical, and such anyway, so they are on medical leave. As for X'll'rr, I'll see if she'll take a different post.”

  “I'd like to hang onto her if possible. I know she wanted a combat command, but I am light on flag officers here. I can't manage Third Fleet and the base. It's getting to be too much,” Phil admitted.

  “Understood. Make the pitch to her when you are ready. Let me know how it goes.”

  “Yes, sir. I'm not going to mention a transfer at this time.”

  “Okay. Don't let her bully you with the threat of resigning. We need her, damn it, but I don't know if we can let her or others do that to us. Bad enough I bent for that lieutenant a while back.”

  “I know. But she is critical.”

  “A change of subject, Bek is obviously a serious problem. I've been trying to figure it out. What to do about it is also a problem, especially from this distance. They aren't willing to listen to my orders apparently,” Admiral Irons said. It was Admiral Subert's turn to read emotions like frustration and anger in the stark verbal tones coming from the ansible. “Yorgi is finally starting to come clean a little about it, but obviously, his viewpoint is out-of-date so all I can do is treat it as background material at the moment.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “I'm not sure. I think I'm going to have to cut out the dead wood. Knock them down, let the others there and abroad that I mean business. I'm debating on sending Horatio in as my hatchet man, but he doesn't have the rank or backing to pull it off.”

  “Well, I suppose we can do a little about that,” the rear admiral suggested with a flick of his hand.

  “Oh?”

  “Pretty much the same thing you are pulling with the man's daughter,” Phil said pointedly.

  “Oh?” Admiral Irons said then nodded once. “Oh. Okay. You support it?”

  “It's my idea. I wish …,” Phil cut himself off. “It's the times I suppose,” he ground out. “We'll deal with it.”

  “Agreed. I'll consider it.”

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Shelby was surprised when she was unexpectedly called into Admiral Subert's office and promptly promoted to captain senior grade with little ceremony. “I wasn't a captain junior grade for three months and …,” she shook her head in disbelief as she looked at her new rank insignia.

  “I know. It's the times,” the admiral said gruffly. “This wasn't my idea to be honest, but you are going to need the extra rank to perform all of your duties.”

  “Thank you sir. I'll do my damndest to live up to this,” Shelby said.

  “You'd better,” the admiral said as she felt data flowing from him to her. Her firewall went up, but she accepted the information, unsure what it was. Initially, she thought it was a series of fresh ord
ers, but instead a pop-up alerted her of firmware changes as well as key updates. She slowly nodded in understanding.

  “Thank you, sir,” she murmured, “for the keys too. They'll definitely come in handy where we are going,” she said.

  “That they will,” the admiral said with a choppy nod. When the data flow finished, he nodded once more. “Some of that is from Admiral Irons. He tied the ansible up for nearly an hour transmitting some of that. Use it wisely,” he warned. “IG will of course check over everything you do and make.”

  Shelby nodded dutifully. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” she said, coming to attention.

  “I've got another appointment. Get going, Captain. Congratulations,” the captain said as he extended his hand once more. She took it, shook it and then came to attention once more and saluted. He returned the salute. “Dismissed.”

  She snapped to, about-faced, and then walked out. As she passed through the outer office she saw Commander Garretaj. The man's face had a distinctive sour expression. She wondered briefly why until she realized it had to do with her. She looked at him curiously, but he looked away and turned to a PO standing near him to attend to his duties.

  She shrugged and went about her business.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “Captain Senior Grade?” Cynthia exulted when the captain came back on board Prometheus later that evening. “Senior grade? You just made JG not that long ago!” Cynthia said, throwing her hands up in the air. The door was open; she saw a few of the crew look at her raised voice. She knew the scuttlebutt grapevine would get the news of the skipper's good fortune within minutes. Shelby was due for a traditional shellacking from the crew. They'd probably shake her hand until it throbbed and felt like it was about to fall off, the blond thought. Serves her right, she thought maliciously.

  “I know. Don't rub it in,” Shelby said with a bemused shake of her head.

  “We need a party. No, a bottle of wine and some crackers and …”

  “Celebrate later. I don't want to get tipsy while we're busy.”

  Cynthia grimaced but then nodded. “True, we've got a lot on our plate now,” she admitted.

  “Exactly. We can celebrate later. Have a girls' night. Do our toes or something,” Shelby said. The blond woman snorted at that idea.

  “We definitely deserve the downtime,” the XO said. “Are we going to get any leave before our departure date? And I see the plan is to truck straight through the sector without stopping much …?”

  Shelby sighed. “That's the plan. The sooner we get to our station, the better. As for leave … that depends on if we get everything done in time and what time we've got left over before we're scheduled to leave. And I want to leave ASAP since every moment we linger means someone will try to borrow our ships for something else. We may not get them back in time.”

  “Ah,” Cynthia said with a nod. “Damn though.”

  “You'll get time with old what's his name later. Trust me,” Shelby teased.

  Cynthia's face puckered a bit for a moment, then she blushed. “Oh, you …”

  “Later,” Shelby said, tapping the tablet in front of her XO. “Work first, play later.”

  “As long as there is a later,” the XO sighed as she went back to the paperwork. She groaned when she noted two additional files had been sent to her while she'd been talking to the skipper. She covered her face and moaned in frustration.

  Chapter 12

  Wraith clone X49 received a ping from the spider bot it had spun off and inserted into the government civilian network to monitor the ansible. The Wraith clone was aware that someone had gotten a sniff of it. From the signature of its pursuer, it judged it to be military most likely. Its cloak was no longer as effective as it should be the clone realized. It made some alterations to the cloak but wasn't certain if it would be effective or not until it was exposed again.

  Unfortunately, the clone was not built to be innovative; it just reacted and adapted to the best of its ability. It relied on additional personnel to be the creative innovator.

  It was still trapped within the confines of Oasis of Space XCIV's electronic network. The spider monitoring the ansible was one of the few it had managed to insert into the government network. The government network was periodically sweeping for its spiders and apparently knew what to look for. This version had so far stayed active, though it was only a matter of time before it too was found.

  The Xeno A.I. knew that it risked exposure each time it used the ship's communications systems. Fortunately, it could piggyback signals, but one exposure could cause it to be trapped and therefore trigger its self-destructive programming.

  But it needed to fulfill its primary function of gathering intelligence. The recent arrival of the ship transiting to Bek was of great interest. The ship was military so the risk of exposure was high. But since Bek was not in its list of known star systems and had a large military component, getting information on it, especially the location, was a high priority.

  After running several simulations, it calculated a two-pronged approach might yield the data it required. It wrote a series of bots to infiltrate the media network while a subset of itself worked on a means to breach Caroline's systems in some way.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “The civilian media network is running rather slow today,” Lieutenant Prometheus reported. “Nothing was mentioned about a system update. I'll query Lieutenant Barry,” he stated.

  “Feel free to find out what is going on. And while you are at it, ask him if shipment five for Airea 3 is ready? We need to start packing,” Shelby said absently. “It'd be nice if we could pack the gear for each of the systems we are passing through last so we don't have to dig for it later,” she said. “I think Carl's people would appreciate that. I know I would,” she said.

  “On it, ma'am,” the A.I. replied as he sent the queries out over the military network.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Lieutenant Barry noted the query from Lieutenant Prometheus. The civilian network was outside his jurisdiction. However, it did impact the military network to some degree, and he would get inquiries from organics if the lag became more pronounced. At the moment, only an A.I. would notice it; a millisecond delay was something highly noticeable to someone who was pure software.

  He scanned the logs, but there was no mention of a patch or upgrade. A series of hanging files might be the answer. He wrote a series of inquiries to several of the network administrators as he scanned the directories for the culprit.

  He noted a spike directed from the network to the military network by checking the data throughput and traffic. The direction made no sense, and any attempt to analyze it was balked. That told him something was wrong. Alarms began to sound off within his security coding.

  Xeno Wraith X49 accidentally ran into Lieutenant Barry while attempting to infiltrate Caroline. Ensign Caroline had been taken offline for a computer core upgrade. The Xeno A.I. used a cutout, but the dumb A.I. persisted in tracing it. “I've got a cyber-intrusion here,” Barry said, reporting it to Firefly and the other A.I. in the star system. “I've backtracked it to a civilian network,” he reported.

  “Keep us posted,” Firefly stated. “As soon as I wrap up my current assignment, I'll lend you a hand,” he stated.

  “Thank you, I could use the help,” Barry stated.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “Lieutenant Barry is busy. I'm getting reports of a network security alert, ma'am,” Lieutenant Prometheus stated.

  “Comm you heard that?”

  “Switching on buffers now, ma'am,” the PO manning the comm station stated. “Nothing has attempted to access our network. Buffering will increase the drag on the network however.”

  “Let's not panic ourselves into something we will regret. Try to talk to Kalmia, find out what is going on, Lieutenant,” Shelby said, nodding to the ship A.I.'s avatar.

  “Aye aye, ma’am. She's currently occupied as well,” Prometheus said.

  “Curiouser
and curiouser,” the PO murmured.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  X49 saw an opportunity for advancement of its goals and struck like a virtual snake. It finally had the opportunity it had been waiting for to expand and fulfill its goals.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Barry noted the direction of the traffic was to Caroline's berthing slip. He briefly considered it to be an organic hacker, possibly someone interested in Caroline's travels. It could be a nosy hacker out to prove him or herself, or it could be someone hired by a media agency to find some dirt. But when he took steps to interdict the signal, it reacted as if directed by another A.I. That set off alarm bells. He set off his own bots to backtrack the signal to its source as he did his best to contain the signal and prevent it from breaching any additional firewalls.

  That it had gotten that deep into the port's computers was rather alarming. He upgraded the threat level as his attention was further drawn into the pursuit.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  When X49 found the resource management A.I. backtracking its virtual trail through the various servers that made up the network, it saw an opportunity. It tried to suborn the dumb A.I. once it was outside its secure network. Barry had an out-of-date inoculation against intrusion but a good firewall and internal watchdog program. The firewall burped a warning, but it was cut off and soothed out of existence by a tendril from X49. That brief warning was enough however for his internal monitor to realize he was being hacked so he set off alarms across the military electronic network.

  That made Captain Firefly drop what he was doing and step in to investigate since he was the closest A.I. Clink was too far out to be of much help. Prometheus and other ship A.I. dropped what they were doing or handed their duties off to lend a hand if they were within support range.