Shifting Infinity (ISF-Allion Book 2)

by Patty Jansen

“He’s an innocent civilian,” Melati said.

  Dolchova gave her a cold look. “I didn’t say it was an elegant solution.” She turned to Dr Chee. “I thought we had Ormerod’s mindbase.”

  “There appears to have been a copy.”

  For a while, Dolchova stared at him, nostrils flaring.

  Melati wracked her brain. There had to be some sort of solution that didn’t involve Moshi’s death. She repeated the information she had read in the research paper over and over in her mind. Mindbase fragments were no longer used because of vulnerability. They could be used to copy one’s political dispositions to a great number of people. And if something happened to the original mindbase, then—

  Dolchova blew out a heavy breath through her nose. “Great.” She spread her hands and let them drop by her sides again. “Just great. You know that we might be about to see action?”

  “I am aware of that,” Dr Chee said.

  There was another tense silence.

  And another breath forcefully exhaled through her nose. She typed on her PCD, possibly a hold order. “What can we do now? I’m highly tempted to put a request in for the Repentance to catch up with us as soon as possible. I don’t want him endangering our ship any more. You’re sure you need him to locate this thing?”

  The same time Melati thought No!, Dr Chee said, “Unfortunately, if we want to fully disable a fragment, then we’ll have to do it at the source. That’s the nature of fragments: they’re controlled by the original mindbase.”

  “So he is effectively a spy on the ship.”

  “Not necessarily, but there will be a connection to the original mindbase which is on the station.”

  “That’s a spy in my language, Doctor.”

  Dr Chee spread his hands, opened his mouth to protest, but said nothing and let his hands sink again.

  “What would happen if we shoot him?”

  “To our problem: nothing. But it will make it harder for us to hunt down where the fragment came from.”

  “So then we’ll take the crude solution and evacuate and vent the station. That would solve it.”

  “I’m sorry but evacuate the station?” Melati’s heart was thudding. What were they planning?

  Dolchova turned to her and gave her the eyebrow waggle. “Most battles require getting the civilian population out of the firing line. In order to make a station safe, we need to clean it out, shut everything down, purge it and then rebuild it.”

  Dixon said, “That’s expensive and hard to do, logistically.”

  “We can handle that.”

  Melati looked at her in disbelief. Did Dolchova even realise how hard it would be to evacuate ten thousand people, most of whom had never left the station? Who might refuse to leave? Where was she going to put these people? And what about the chickens?

  Melati had visions of long lines of panicked grandmothers carrying chickens under their arms. People crammed into the hold of cargo ships with whatever possessions they could carry.

  Dolchova put her hands flat on the table. “All right, I’ll call the Repentance and check up where they are. If they can’t come quickly, he’ll have the honour to be the fourth person to be personally executed by me.” She looked at Dixon. “Then you get three weeks to clean this bug out of our system. I’m guessing that should be enough time?”

  Dixon started on a long technical explanation of how he could quarantine the important parts of the network, how he couldn’t guarantee that it would be one hundred percent safe and about keeping personnel in certain parts of the ship. Melati felt desperate. Were they really going to do all that? Execute Moshi, drive Allion out with sheer military force, then evacuate and vent the station. Through Dixon’s explanation, Dolchova checked the time twice. The second time, Dixon stopped speaking.

  “Um, ma’am? I thought you wanted me to tell you how—”

  “I don’t really care how technically, but I want to know how safe. Your method sounds interesting, but it’s not going to help us. I need a one hundred percent sure fix, Dixon.”

  “I understand. That’s why I’m proposing—”

  “You’re not proposing anything except things that may just work if we’re lucky. Give me something that will work.”

  Dixon looked desperate. “Destroying the source mindbase. That will work. Evacuating the station does not destroy the mindbase. Venting the station kills disease vectors but not electronic infections. To be one hundred percent sure, we need to destroy the original mindbase. But we can hardly saunter up to the station and check into their systems—”

  “Yes, we could,” Melati said.

  Dolchova turned to her. The expression on her face was sharp. She held her hand up to silence Dixon. “Do tell me more, Lieutenant Rudiyanto.”

  Dixon looked annoyed.

  “Well, it’s like this.” Melati took a deep breath. All the thoughts in her mind were still coalescing into an idea. She wasn’t naturally good at speaking up. She preferred to be quiet and out of the limelight. But this was about her family, about saving the life of an innocent man, about stopping things that were wrong in her way of thinking. Her cheeks were glowing with heat.

  She began, “The station is in poor condition. We’ve suspected that for a while, but I’ve just seen events in the prisoner’s mindbase that confirm it. They’re desperate. The recycling systems aren’t working. Allion troops are a minority and they’re afraid that the civilians will riot. They try to keep the citizens isolated but there are moves afoot to cut the B sector’s recycling from the station so that they’re reliable and independent. Allion hasn’t been able to deliver supplies to fix what needs fixing. They blame Bassanti for having set loose a worm, but in all truth everyone is blaming each other and no one knows what’s going on. Maybe the mindbase copy of Paul Ormerod is angry and he is roaming the station’s systems, furious.”

  “Roaming the systems?” That eyebrow waggle again.

  Melati cringed. “Whatever is the case, the Allion technicians appear to have poor control over the station’s maintenance processes. Power goes off without reason. And then it comes back on. The vents blast cold air and then the blast hot air. The recycling plants are running an oxygen deficit. I think we’re facing these incoming Allion ships because the station command has called for help—”

  “We know. Help that they’re not going to get.”

  “That they are going to get.”

  “We’re on course to prevent those Allion ships coming into the system. They will not enter and will not come to the station’s aid.”

  “No, but we will.”

  Dolchova looked at her in astonishment. “What are you talking about?”

  “They’ve sent a message for help. It’s likely that they know we’ve intercepted it. They will not be surprised if we mention it to them. So we will send them a message in return that we can fix their maintenance problems for them.”

  “Two questions: One, why would they trust us enough to let us on the station, and two, why would we want to?”

  Melati continued, “To the first question: once we make it clear that we will stop the ships that are their only hope for help, it’s their only option, unless they want to die. They know they’ve got a few weeks and if none of their own ships can get close enough to help, they are likely to accept any help we can give.”

  Dolchova snorted. “I’ve not known Allion to have sense. Who says they won’t pretend to accept our help and then keep our people hostage as soon as they arrive?”

  “That is fine, because giving them help is only a decoy.”

  Now the eyebrows went up. The grey eyes no longer looked bored or keen to get back to her work. “Go on.”

  “We’ll talk to them on broadcast, and ask for some concession in return for our help. We’ll make it sound as if that concession is what we want, and then we’ll send a small group of people to fix their problems as we promised. They’re not going to be surprised if we know that they have trouble with the recycling, and we can mention that
we have all the diagrams and the software that Bassanti destroyed so we offer to bring those diagrams and a technician. Whatever they ask for. What we’ll offer along these lines will make sense to them, because we know the station and they don’t. They will also expect us to try to trick them, deliver them a blow or plant spyware, and they’ll guard the group. But we are simply going to take a relaxed pace to fix up the recycling and tie up their resources with our team. Think of it: Their systems are down half the time due to the lack of power. When the team arrives, everyone on board the station will be busy, either on their faulty systems or trying to keep an eye on our team because they expect us to pull some trick.”

  Dolchova was still listening now with even more interest on her face.

  “But we send two teams: one is the official team, the other is on board our ship dressed as crew. Once the ship is at the station, and the official team has gone in, the second team waits until the power cuts out, which it does erratically but often, and then crawls over the outside of the station to the B-sector hatch. We take enough supplies to refit the electronics and computer systems of the recycling plant. We disconnect the old system, discard any software and any storage device that has ever been in contact with the station’s main hub, and set up the new. Then we establish an anchor point in the B sector. Very quietly. We don’t advertise our presence. We—”

  “Who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”

  “Myself and my cousin Ari who works in flight tech. He’s got vacuum accreditation. Once we’re inside, we can move around in the station without being noticed by Allion.” Because one small brown person looked pretty much like the next one, right? “All I ask is that we remain in constant contact with our prisoner here on the ship. Apart from the fact that he will help us identify the source of the fragment, he is friendly with the hypertechs who are the group trying to set up their own recycling. That group is normally hard to penetrate. They’re secretive and reclusive and they don’t like either me or my cousin very much. But they’re also expert hackers and can break into anything. Once the sector is safe, we’ll ask their help to go into the station’s main systems, locate this rogue mindbase copy and disable it. Then, with this ship safe from attack by the fragment, the rest of you can come in to mop up the occupiers.”

  Dolchova gave her a penetrating look. Melati was afraid that she would say that she was crazy, that there was no way that she was going to risk her personnel in a stupid mission like that.

  The silence lasted for what seemed like forever.

  But then she said, “We need a full project meeting on this.”

  Chapter 14

  * * *

  THE CAPTAIN SAID she had some operational issues she needed to deal with, so Melati was given a meeting time and a break to freshen up, which she used to have a shower and get changed into her dress uniform because when the captain gave you a break for this purpose, that’s what you did.

  Fresh, clean and feeling a bit more rested, she came back to the meeting room at the flight deck to find a whole heap of people gathered there, all of them in dress uniform and most of them looking somewhat puzzled. Ari was there, looking very dapper in his white jacket with the Fleet emblem. Jas wore a grey Force uniform without rank decorations but with a Grimshaw tag. His status was on loan from the Taurus Army. The most decorated person was Flight Lieutenant First Class J Hasegawa, the cocky pilot she had met in the mess hall a few days ago. He grinned at Melati. “The expedition is on, then?”

  With him was a woman in white Fleet uniform but without ranking. She wore a Fiorelli tag.

  There were a couple of other people with Fleet badges. She presumed they were flight tech. One man she recognised as working in the Felicity’s kitchens. He wore a Brown tag.

  This was a really odd assortment of people.

  People milled around. No one was sure what to say and no one had yet taken a seat, because the captain wasn’t there yet.

  There was some commotion at the door, and Dolchova arrived in the company of Cocaro and a Fleet private who remained at the door.

  “Do take a seat, everyone,” Dolchova said.

  People sat down.

  “Lt. Rudiyanto, I want you here.” Dolchova indicated the seat in between her and Cocaro.

  Melati wormed herself past the back of seats. Ari pulled a face at her when she passed. He sat next to a man she suspected of being his immediate superior.

  When Melati sat down, the door to the room opened and Dr Chee came in. He had exchanged his usual hospital gown for the grey Force dress jacket, which included a Research badge, his Lieutenant First Class badge and the hospital badge on both his sleeves.

  Dr Chee also sat down, and Dolchova explained quickly what Melati had told her and what she proposed. While she spoke, everyone listened intently. It seemed that Melati had not been the only person frustrated by the endless waiting and doing nothing.

  “Commander Cocaro and I are going send a message to Sep Kerakis to tell him that we will fix his systems in return for the release of the New Pyongyang refugees.”

  “Why not all civilians?” Dr Chee asked.

  “Because they will not agree. If they release everyone, they will no longer have a buffer against us attacking. But the New Pyongyang refugees are only three thousand, and they never belonged to the station anyway. New Pyongyang started repairs once an agreement was reached between the workers and their tier 1 enforcers. It’s up and running enough that they can go home.”

  Dr Chee nodded.

  “Besides, once they agree to release civilians, they are likely to release more civilians at a future time. From their point of view, I can’t see a downside. We fix their systems, and take off their hands a large proportion of the population that puts a strain on those systems.”

  “That’s right. Why would we do this? We make them stronger.”

  “We’re going to show everybody in the system and back at the Council of Four that we care about civilians. Thousands of senseless innocent civilian deaths was what made Allion look so bad in the Mars war. We’re showing that we won’t descend to that level and that if there are any deaths, they’re Allion’s fault.”

  There was a knock on the door. A Fleet private came in carrying a tray with cups.

  “Ah, refreshments. Do put them on the table, Dobson.”

  The private did, and handed cups out to everyone. The smell of hot chocolate drifted into the room.

  When he was gone, Dolchova continued about the second part of the expedition that would take place in secret.

  Dr Chee’s eyes widened and he stared at Melati.

  “Certainly you must be kidding. You’re not even vacuum accredited.”

  “Ari can teach me.”

  “It’s not that simple. It’s dangerous out there. The hatches may be closed from the inside. What will you do if the population has become pro-Allion? They will hand you to the authorities.”

  “That is the main danger at this point in time,” Dolchova said, cradling her cup in her hands. “Although it seems that Lieutenant Rudiyanto has reliable information that the scenario is unlikely.”

  Melati said, “They won’t be pro-Allion. They are still barang-barang and that is more important than which side of the war they’re on. They’ve seen far too many rulers and are too cynical.”

  With all the will in the world, she couldn’t imagine Uncle and the aunties supporting anyone other than their own representative. The hypertechs might be another matter, but Melati hoped that the fact that the hypertechs were cutting the sector off from the central recycling plant meant that they hadn’t become Allion supporters either.

  Dolchova said, “This mission will be under the leadership of Fleet Lieutenant Melati Hermann Rudiyanto. I’m going to call out the members of the team. Please stand when your name is called. Flight Lieutenant First Class Joshaya Hasegawa.”

  The cocky pilot rose. He met Melati’s eyes. A smile ghosted over his face.

  “Kya Fiorelli 26, Fleet.”
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br />   The woman next to Hasegawa stood up: of early middle age, slender, with her brown hair in a ponytail.

  “Jas Grimshaw, Taurus Army.”

  Jas smiled at her, turning up one corner of his mouth.

  “Milo Brown 364, Fleet.”

  The man who worked in the kitchens. What was he doing in this group?

  “Flight tech officer Ari Suleiman Rudiyanto.”

  Ari gave her a broad grin.

  “Nysa Kessler 281, Force.”

  Melati hadn’t taken much notice of this woman before. She was slender, light of frame and a bit mousey. But on her plain uniform with no ranking above her Kessler tag, she wore a small badge that Melati couldn’t read from where she was sitting.

  “And Flight Tech Lieutenant Majoa Houston.”

  This was a woman whom Melati had sometimes seen walking the corridors in the dorm section. She was remarkably tall and her skin was darker than Melati’s. She’d thought about this woman sometimes after having an argument with Sengkia and tried to convince herself, See? Disadvantage is not about skin colour. And she knew that. It was about background and education, but moving into an advantaged group was just so much easier if you weren’t small and brown.

  She smiled at Melati and a moment of warmth passed between them.

  Dolchova said, “I’ll leave it to you to sort out your individual tasks. We will have a sizeable backup team on board this ship. The usual comms crew will be backed up by the New Jakarta Base IT crew under the leadership of Major Dixon. At Lieutenant Rudiyanto’s request, the team will include the merchant Mobashar Qureshi, who will be in the Correctional Department, communicating by secure link.”

  “Does that mean that he will no longer go to the Repentance?” Melati asked.

  “Not as long as you need him.”

  Melati nodded. She was satisfied with that.

  “We will also deploy our ForceShield system on your ship for protection. It will not carry any arms, but we’ll have some drones slaved to the pilot’s controls that are capable of doing serious damage to the station or any vessels that threaten the mission. For a mission nerve centre, I will order the meeting room next door to be set up with all the necessary equipment. You are all relieved of your regular duties until further notice.” She nodded. “That concludes my part of this mission. Lieutenant Rudiyanto, you will report directly to me or Commander Cocaro. Minor decisions require permission of either of us, but we will both need to approve major decisions. In emergencies where neither of us are contactable, use your own judgement. Kya Fiorelli will take over your duties when you are no longer on the ship.”