Virago One: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 2)

by John Triptych

  Making his way to the spacious living room, he could see Vlad Utkin typing away furiously on his virtual keypad, fingers tapping through the air as the Russian hacker sat in front of a 3D virtual monitor by an alcove near the kitchen. Kate Sturgis was pacing back and forth at the back patio, evidently talking with someone on her smartglass. The backyard swimming pool remained unused by all; its calm, turquoise surface illuminated by the submerged lights that had been activated automatically ever since the sun went down a few hours earlier. Still feeling a little lightheaded from the effects of the pain-killers he had just ingested, Herbert sat down on the living room sofa with a sigh.

  The front door opened, momentarily startling them. Ganz came in from the driveway, carrying plastic bags full of items he had just purchased from nearby shops. He winked at Herbert while closing the door behind him. When Kate saw that Ganz had returned, she walked back into the living room and turned off her phone app.

  Ganz placed several containers on the coffee table beside the sofa. He gave Herbert an inquisitive stare. “And how is your new face?”

  It was painful for him to show any kind of emotion, so Herbert just looked at him blankly. “It still hurts. It’s been a few days now.”

  Kate stood beside Ganz and took out a small container from the plastic bag on the table. “Just keep taking the pills and don’t touch your face. Recovery from plastic surgery is an inexact science, so just be patient.”

  Vlad continued to code but he was listening to them. His long hair had been shaved off. “Why wasn’t my face altered?”

  Kate glanced over to the Russian. “Because nobody except those two dumb teenagers knows you’re here.”

  Vlad shrugged without taking his eyes off the monitor screen. His English was improving by the day. “Good point.”

  Ganz walked over to the Russian and placed a cardboard box beside the workstation. “This was their most powerful modem they had in the store- it’s got an optical transmitter. I hope it’s what you wanted.”

  Vlad stopped his programming for a minute as he opened the box and took out a fist-sized personal server. “Da, yes! This exactly what I need. Now we should be able to get into network if we get access point in place.”

  “Then we need to start right away,” Kate said. “I received word from the man inside that he will put in an access point by tomorrow at the latest.”

  Ganz nodded. “How much time will we have then?”

  Kate looked at him. “We need to be able to get into Argus once we have the ID cards and bio signatures imprinted on them. When could we get this done?”

  Ganz pointed at the Russian. “Ask him.”

  Vlad nodded. “I am almost done writing software. Once base security codes have been uploaded, then it’s simple matter of printing them.”

  Ganz gestured at the large cardboard box beside the door that contained a brand new, state of the art 3D printer. “Just bought it right now. I can set it up in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay, good,” Kate said. “So once our man inside gives us access, then we can start the final phase.”

  Herbert held his hand up. “You know, I’ve been here a few days now, but I still don’t know what’s going on. I thought you guys were supposed to be my Chinese contacts.”

  Kate turned her attention over to him. “I’ve read your file. You believe in parity, don’t you?”

  Herbert was more confused than ever. “I-I don’t know what you mean. When you took me from those FBI guys, I thought you were with my Chinese handlers, and you’ll get me out of the country.”

  “You want a level playing field, right? That’s what parity means,” Kate said. “We’re giving you a chance to do just that.”

  Herbert thought about it for a minute. “Wait a minute. You had me get my face altered and yet you’re not with the Chinese?”

  “We’re not with any country,” Kate said.

  Vlad clapped his hands and laughed. “Screw all countries in world! Go anarchy!”

  Herbert looked away. “So you rescued me for another reason. Does this have something to do with what I was working on?”

  “Now you’re finally getting it,” Ganz said.

  “It’s the fusion drive, right? That’s what you guys want,” Herbert said. “But what are you going to do with it?”

  Vlad stopped coding as he swiveled his chair around and looked at him. “I care not about fusion thing, it is AI that I want.”

  Herbert took a long look at him before glancing back to Ganz and Kate. “And what about you two?”

  Kate remained impassive. “We all have our reasons. What I can do for you is to bring you to safety once we get inside Argus.”

  Herbert glanced away for a few seconds before staring at them again. “Do the three of you even know what you’re dealing with here?”

  Ganz folded his arms across his chest. “I know a little, but why don’t you enlighten us.”

  Herbert sighed. “I don’t know too much myself. I was never allowed into Argus. I did most of my work at ACE Corp’s headquarters in Florida, then over at Vandenberg.”

  “Start from the beginning,” Kate said.

  “Well, I had a junior position in R&D when we developed the breakthrough in Errol Flux’s fusion reactor in Texas,” Herbert said. “When that happened I believed that the world had become different. Now we had a nearly unlimited supply of very cheap power, and it would transform humanity. But then, even as we were thinking of ways that could be used to power the cities of the world, the military stepped in.”

  Vlad took off his interface gloves and deactivated his smartglass. He wanted to hear this.

  Herbert scratched the back of his head before continuing. “Errol had furious discussions with the military, and in the end they must have leaned on him or something, because the next thing I knew, he chose me along with several others to spearhead a new project. We had to go through a lot of security checks, and then they put us into a remote research station in Vandenberg Air Force Base to work with a bunch of military technicians.”

  Kate sat down on the side of the coffee table. “Go on.”

  “That’s when we brainstormed the concept of a fusion drive for our spacecraft,” Herbert said. “Only this time it to be funded by the government, and it would be a warship.”

  Vlad snorted. He wasn’t surprised that the moment a new technological breakthrough had occurred it would be commandeered for use by the US military. It was just another way for governments to maintain their monopoly on force, in order to further suppress their citizens.

  “How does it work?” Kate asked.

  “To put it simply, we figured out a way to synthesize metallic deuterium, which is a variant of hydrogen. This could be used as a sort of fuel for a fusion spacecraft,” Herbert said. “We manufactured the deuterium into pellets. These things are pretty big, about the size of a bowling ball, and need to be mixed in with near equal amounts of helium-3.”

  Ganz raised an eyebrow. “What do you need the helium for?”

  “We went through a lot of trial and error over the next few years,” Herbert said. “We discovered we needed helium to get the fusion reaction to work properly. Without the He-3, plasma instabilities prevented the resulting fusion from producing any useful amounts of energy.”

  “I see,” Kate said. “Go on.”

  “The whole thing works through pulsed laser fusion,” Herbert said. “The pellets sit inside a large sphere made up of neutron absorbing material which I believe was graphene, alloyed with another carbon composite. The sphere has got lots of tiny holes in it for the lasers, which are then fired at the balls. Each fuel pellet acts like a mini-bomb. Once the deuterium fuses, it emits neutrons, which are absorbed by the compressed layer of carbon, so there are practically no neutrons emitted from the drive.”

  Vlad’s eyes were wide open. “Oy, oy, oy, nifiga sebe! That is amazing.”

  “Once the deuterium pellet explodes from the laser, it vaporizes the outer shell into a plasma state,
” Herbert said. “The plasma is then directed backwards through a thruster nozzle. This is all done within less than a second, and then the next pellet gets vaporized and so on. The drive produces power equal to sixty nuclear reactors.”

  Ganz kept standing. Hearing all this was unbelievable, but he knew Herbert was telling the truth. “How fast can this thing go?”

  Herbert hesitated before answering. “The delta-v for this drive is expected to be around one hundred kilometers per second.”

  Vlad whistled a low tune. The fastest spacecraft drives known to man were the Orion pulsed military ships, yet these topped out at thirty kilometers per second, less than one-third the speed of this new ship.

  Kate was stunned. NERVA driveships and Orion warships would take about thirty days to reach Mars, yet this new spacecraft could get to the Red Planet in less than ten days. “I can now see why you decided to spy for the Chinese.”

  “Whoever has this ship can pretty much do what they want,” Herbert said softly. “When my dad asked me to help the Chinese, I didn’t hesitate. No single country, much less the military, should have a monopoly on a spaceship drive like this.”

  Kate stood up. “Everyone in this room has their own reasons why they are here, but we are all in agreement on what is needed to be done, Herbert. Are you with us?”

  Herbert recalled just how ruthless she and Ganz were when it came to dealing with his FBI escorts. He had a feeling that they were going to kill him if he said no, but at the same time he sensed they were all somewhat on the same side. What he truly wanted to do was to bring the warship over to the hands of the Chinese, and let them study it before returning it back to the Air Force. He figured it was best to play along until the right time came. If these people could give him access to the ship by themselves, so much the better, he thought. “Okay, I’m with you.”

  For the first time ever, Ganz let out a wry smile. “Welcome aboard.”

  Vlad threw his arms up. “Kruto, now we are united! We should celebrate with some vodka, da?”

  Kate looked at him and shook her head. “Not yet, we’ve got a lot of work to do first. Let’s get everything in place, and then we celebrate.”

  Vlad snorted in disgust and sat back down on his work chair.

  “What do you need for me to do?” Herbert asked.

  Ganz handed him a sheet of paper. “I need you to memorize what’s printed there. Once you think that you remember everything on it, I will test you.”

  Herbert didn’t have his glasses on so he squinted to focus in on the print. “This looks like someone’s resume.”

  Ganz stood over him and placed his hands on his hips. “Yes, exactly. That will be your new identity. You need to know all the details in that paper inside and out.”

  Herbert nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Ganz said. “Tell your face to hurry up and heal. We haven’t got much time left.”

  Chapter 10

  It had been a few years since Stilicho wore a suit, and the starched collar over the snug jacket felt stiff and awkward. The dark cloud hanging over his head had somewhat subsided, but now it felt like he was starting all over again. For the past several days, he had been escorted by Federal agents when they allowed him to retrieve some of his clothes at the numerous houses he owned. Most of his bank accounts were still frozen while the tax authorities were auditing them. Being under constant observation had made him uneasy, but he knew he needed to find a way to impress them with a significant contribution, or else they would revoke the plea agreement.

  There was just the two of them in the elevator, but even then Stilicho felt like he was being smothered; the whole place seemed to collapse in on him. He figured it must be the stress, and he would just have to deal with it. Stilicho glanced over at the Federal agent who stood beside him. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name again?”

  The other man seemed to be the same age as him. He also wore a suit, though the garment’s off the rack tailoring was clearly inferior. “It’s Special Agent Haney,” he said tersely.

  Stilicho nodded and smiled faintly. “Okay, no need to be so defensive. I just met a lot of people over the past few days, so it’s not easy to remember everyone’s names, you know.”

  Haney took out a pair of smartglasses from his coat pocket and handed it to him. “You’ve got very limited com-link access, and you’ll use it only for work. Everything you do will be monitored. Any violation of your plea agreement with the prosecutors will mean instant revocation of your privileges and immediate incarceration.”

  Stilicho rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. That’s been dictated to me over a dozen times already. I get it.”

  Haney pointed at the smartglasses Stilicho was putting on. “That item is to be returned to me or any other special agent at the end of the day. You get no com-link access in your hotel room either.”

  Stilicho shrugged as the elevator doors opened, revealing the upper floor of the FBI’s Las Vegas field office. The nearby motel he was staying at was dingy, and the Feds didn’t allow him to bring hookers into his quarters, which made everything unbearable. “Oh well, I guess it’s finally time to binge watch all those TV shows I’ve been missing over the years. Any recommendations?”

  Haney pointed at the corridor beyond. “Let’s go.”

  Stilicho thrust out his upper lip as he walked out of the elevator. “Just trying to be friendly is all.”

  Haney walked ahead of him towards an electronically locked door at the end of the hallway. The FBI agent pressed his thumb on the biometric scanner and opened the entryway before glancing back at him. “I don’t make friends with crooks.”

  Stilicho resisted the urge to roll his eyes a second time as he walked into the large room. “In that case, you shouldn’t be working for the government then.”

  Haney said nothing while closing the door behind him. The middle of the area was covered with desktop workstations. Numerous Federal agents and IT technicians were manning the consoles. The Venetian blinds along the windows were fully closed, completely blocking out the early morning sun. As Stilicho looked around, a grey-haired man in a dark suit approached them.

  Haney shook the older man’s hand before gesturing over to Stilicho. “This is our SAC, Donald McCarthy, Special Agent-in-Charge of the task force.”

  When Stilicho tried to shake McCarthy’s hand, the older man simply crossed his arms. “Let’s make one thing clear,” McCarthy said. “You’ve got a very short leash around your neck, so just do your job and help us out. Beyond that I don’t want anything else to do with you.”

  “Bow wow,” Stilicho said. “So what so you guys want me to do then?”

  McCarthy glared at him for a brief second while holding his temper in check. Two of his colleagues had been killed and he was under a lot of stress. He quickly pointed at an adjoining conference room. “Take a seat in there.”

  Stilicho walked away from them and entered the meeting room. There were already several other agents sitting inside and it looked like all the chairs had been taken. As he walked to the far end of the place and stood against a wall, he saw that Darian Arante was sitting a few chairs away, at the opposite end of the long table. He gave her a smile, hoping she’d notice. Darian briefly made eye contact with him before dismissively turning her head away.

  McCarthy walked into the room and closed the door behind him. “Okay, now that we’re all here,” he said, briefly glancing at Stilicho before returning his gaze at the others. “I need an update on the situation.”

  A tall black man with thick glasses raised his hand. “No updates from the airports or Border Patrol. US Marshals also have a negative. We think the subjects are still somewhere in the continental United States.”

  “Nothing at all on surveillance cams?” McCarthy asked.

  A short-haired woman in a business suit shook her head. “We’ve run biometric analysis on all surveillance cameras block by block in the metropolitan area and came up with a blank. We’re now extending the search acro
ss to the nearby counties.”

  McCarthy grimaced. “What about drones?”

  A gangly man with a sandy blonde bowl cut wearing an ill-fitting suit raised his hand. “I’ve downloaded all police drone surveillance cams for the past three weeks, and there’s nothing that sticks out so far.”

  Darian raised her hand. “I would suggest we check and see with the police if there was any malware infecting their surveillance and AI systems for the past few weeks.”

  McCarthy nodded. “Okay, good point. We’ll make an inquiry to the Vegas MPD right away. What about the hacking of our own AI systems?”

  A pudgy man with curly hair raised his hand. “We’ve managed to patch the breach and reset our pass codes. We’re still checking if the perpetrator left behind any worms or backdoor malware. It’s taking a lot of resources and time, but we’ll get to it all eventually.”

  Stilicho looked away, suppressing the urge to snort in contempt. If he still had Maia, he could have located the two suspects in a matter of hours. Maia’s advanced AI architecture could have easily processed multiple information streams and bypassed any sort of defenses put up against it in record time. It’s their loss, he thought. That’s what the government fools get for banning a totally useful program.

  “I think we need to focus on Anonymyst,” Darian said. “If we can find out his whereabouts, then he will lead us to Herbert Eng Wu.”

  “Since that possible sighting in one of the downtown clubs, we’ve not had anything solid on him,” McCarthy said. “Wu’s psychological profile says he is an incompetent when it comes to tradecraft, that’s how he got caught. If we focus on the weak link- namely Wu- then we should be able to nab Anonymyst as well.”

  “Yes, we know Wu isn’t a good spy,” Darian said. “But can’t you see? Anonymyst is covering up his tracks for him. There must be an electronic trail out there that we can sniff out.”