Origin - Season Two

by James, Nathaniel Dean

  “It should be delayed by no more than a day or two while we look for another vessel.”

  Yew nodded somberly. “Very well. There is to be no more recruitment from abroad.”

  Yew looked around the table, and seeing no dissent, continued, “If you need talented people, you’ll just have to find them here. Frankly, I find it somewhat humiliating that we need to look to the West at all.”

  “If I may, sir,” Duan said. “I objected to taking the American.”

  Yew looked up in surprise. “So I am to blame then?”

  “No, sir,” Duan said. “I was merely—”

  “I suggest you get busy looking for a new ship, commander. The situation in Goa will be dealt with by the foreign ministry.”

  Duan stood.

  “And commander,” Yew said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Let this be the last time we meet like this. You may be a hard man to replace, but you’re not indispensable.”

  Chapter 47

  The Pandora

  Friday 15 June 2007

  0900 EEST

  Mitch was standing at the chart table on the bridge of the Pandora. Next to him, Captain Almila was unfolding a navigational chart of the East China Sea.

  “It sailed here,” Mitch said, pointing to a location near the coastline of the Korean peninsula. “Then it just turned and headed northwest.”

  Almila took a pencil and sketched the line, then looked at it for a moment and said, “And you think it was headed for North Korea?”

  “Why else would it get so close?”

  Almila studied the map a moment longer and nodded. “There’s no obvious reason it would have gone so far out of its way that I can see.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Mitch said.

  Mitch thanked Almila for his time and returned to the hangar. Heinz, Watkins and Naoko had spent the last two days compiling a complete navigational manual for Gandalf. So far they had discovered a number of new features, including the use of all four viewing ports as screens that could track separate locations simultaneously, thereby putting an end to any possibility that the system used a single orbiting platform to provide the imagery, while casting no light at all on how it actually worked. In addition, they had discovered that whatever the system had put into orbit was picking up signal traffic from most, if not all, the Earth-based satellite transmitters, although the form in which these signals were relayed to RP One was currently just an incoherent jumble of alien code.

  “What did he say?” Heinz asked when Mitch joined them.

  “He thinks I’m right,” Mitch said. “It was headed for North Korea.”

  “You better call Richelle and let her know,” Heinz said.

  On the screen tracking the Beixiang the ship had now rounded the Bohai Strait and set a direct course for its home port at Huludao.

  Mitch left to call Richelle. When he returned there was none of his jovial self in evidence.

  “What is it?” Heinz asked.

  “Mohindar is dead,” he said.

  They all looked at him.

  “Dead?” Heinz repeated. “How?”

  “She doesn’t know,” Mitch shrugged. “There was an explosion in his apartment. He was killed along with two others who haven’t been identified yet.”

  “Jesus,” Naoko said. “Does it have to do with Jasper?”

  “I don’t know,” Mitch said. “Pretty odd timing though, don’t you think?”

  Chapter 48

  Washington Post Editorial

  In a move that has taken many by surprise following the recent political upheaval in Pyongyang, the Chinese foreign minister announced today that Beijing is committing itself to the process of North-South relations on a scale previously unseen. Presented as a long term strategy for reconciliation, the plan is set to involve not only political overtures toward both nations, but an economic plan which will see a significant rise in the level of Chinese investment in its Communist neighbor.

  Also part of the plan is a joint venture between China and the two Koreas, the first of its kind, that will see an expansion of the existing Kaesong industrial area in the North, alongside an equally ambitious development across the border. According to a spokesman for the China Motor Corporation (CMC), a partially state-owned truck and bus manufacturer, the company has been offered generous concessions to move some of its manufacturing facilities to the region. During a speech in Delaware earlier today, the president said he welcomes the move by China, saying it was a sign that Beijing is finally “living up to its status as the major power in the region”, and that economic stability in North Korea can only have a positive effect on its relationship with the South. However, when asked if he thought this meant that China may also have a role to play in the ongoing tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, he was less enthusiastic.

  And not everyone is welcoming the news either. In an interview on CNN following the president’s comments, Republican senator Harold King of Delaware warned that allowing China to assume the role of “mentor to the new regime” as he put it, may only serve to exacerbate the problem unless Beijing specifically states that nuclear disarmament will be part of the discussion. “Allowing the Chinese to take advantage of their cheap labor and non-existent regulation might reduce tensions on the Yalu River,” Senator King said, “but to think that will change their attitude toward the United States is naïve. North Korea has one political objective, and that’s North Korea. And if the President thinks we can put political pressure on the Chinese to bring them to heel, he’s ignoring two decades of history. We can’t even get them to devalue their currency.”

  So is this good news or not? Personally, I think it’s a step in the right direction, if nothing else.

  Chapter 49

  The Pandora

  Friday 15 June 2007

  2300 EEST

  The Beixiang arrived at Huludao under the watchful gaze of two very different observers. The first was Commander Duan, who followed proceedings from the window of the port security tower. The second, sitting in his accustomed seat on the bridge of RP One several thousand miles away, was Mitch.

  The rest of the team, save for Naoko and Watkins, had all returned to Aurora to make preparations for the imminent arrival of what was arguably the strangest supply drop in human history. Watkins—no spring chicken at 64—had retired several hours earlier. Naoko had managed another two hours before doing the same.

  Mitch made a concerted effort to put the idea of the resupply and its many tantalizing possibilities out of his mind and concentrate on the task at hand.

  Long gone were the days spent huddling over his own barely legible notes, while carefully prodding the controls on the command chair. Much like he had taken to the keyboard and mouse as a young computer enthusiast, the chair and its strange interface were quickly becoming second nature to him. He brought up the tracker he had placed on the Beixiang before its arrival in Goa and sat back to watch. Two tugboats were gently pushing the ship into its berth beneath a container crane as the crew cast down the lines. No sooner had the gangway been lowered than the cargo bay doors were opened and the crane operator began lifting pallets from the hold. The first dozen or so each contained four oblong wooden crates. Mitch began capturing shots of the cargo using a digital camera from various altitudes, right down to the full screen image of the company logos and part numbers, as well as several of the shipping labels. It took just over three hours.

  Mitch wasn’t sure how long ago he had nodded off, but when he sat up and returned his attention to the screen another ship had taken the Beixiang’s place beneath the crane, and the operator was busy reloading the cargo. Mitch placed a tracker on the new ship with two deft movements of his thumb and climbed down from the seat to stretch his legs.

  On the counter next to the nearest wall terminal sat a laptop computer plugged into an extension cord that snaked its way in through the gangway entrance. Parallel to this ran a network cable wired into the ship’s satellite l
ink through the observation room outside. The Pandora had a wireless network and enough rebroadcasting nodes to cover most of the ship, but these proved useless within a hundred feet or so of RP One.

  When the circulation had returned to his lower limbs, Mitch sat down at the terminal, transferred the pictures he had taken and began searching for the part number stenciled to the side of one of the crates. According to the manufacturers’ own website they were industrial batteries intended primarily for use with heavy-duty mining equipment. Mitch saved the page and tried another part number. This turned out to be a five-speed transmission for use with electric motors made by a German firm called ERL. He searched several other numbers with varying degrees of success. Some related to machine parts, while others denoted specific gauges of electrical cable or rubber hose, as well as several generic pressure gauges and sensors. The larger crates contained only the name of the manufacturer, which all turned out to be in the mining equipment business.

  The numbers checked, he turned to the shipping labels. It took him two hours to hack into the manifest database in Dubai. Most of this time was spent searching through obscure forums for updates on security and encryption technology introduced since his last foray into the art over a year ago. He began with the batteries, which had been manufactured in South Carolina and shipped to Dubai through the port of Charleston. The buyer, according to the entry, was LKM, a Chinese truck maker based in Shanghai. Everything else onboard the Beixiang fit the same mold, each consignment arriving in Dubai the week before it set sail, and each destined for customers on the Chinese mainland. However, as soon as the cargo reached the emirate it had all been sold on to a company named Panjin Partners, which now appeared as the recipient on every manifest. Panjin, according to the official list of Chinese state-owned enterprises, was a contract arm of the People’s Navy.

  Mitch managed to stay awake just long enough to see the newly loaded vessel leave port. He watched it through bleary eyes, the lids of which were growing too heavy to hold up. A minute later he was snoring.

  Chapter 50

  Ganymede

  Peter Bershadsky had named the ship Origin for the simple reason that he had to call it something. Her real name—as Christopher Watkins was soon to discover—was in fact Kashkal. Literally translated, it meant star-jumper.

  It had long been assumed by the men and women of Aurora that the giant craft, having lost its crew, had been dormant since its arrival. This assumption was only partially accurate.

  Origin no longer received human input from its internal control interface, that much was true, but she was far from dormant. With over 97 percent of the ship’s systems being fully automated, the central computer had simply responded to the loss of the crew by shutting down the life support systems and activating the hibernation protocols designed to keep her operational indefinitely. Nor had the ship been anywhere near Jupiter when this occurred, but over four hundred million miles away, or over twice its current distance from Earth. Receiving no orders to the contrary, Origin had navigated itself into position in accordance with the last valid set of instructions. Once in place it had dutifully deployed the delivery module containing, amongst other things, RP One and her three sister platforms. When the command to drop RP One had failed to materialize, the module had returned, leaving behind only the atmospheric monitoring beacon that Bershadsky and his team would eventually locate through Siren Call, thereby setting in motion all that was to follow.

  By the time the call to redeploy RP One came some two millennia later, Origin had completed no fewer than 140 automated reconnaissance assignments, extending to every planet and moon in the solar system, including Venus, Mercury and Earth’s own moon. Unbeknownst to Heinz and his staff, the inadvertent launch of what Mitch now called Gandalf had triggered the second phase of the Earth landing mission, the first part of which was the delivery of critical equipment and weapons. That the “crew” in this case belonged to a different race of men entirely was irrelevant to the ship’s onboard systems, which used no biometric or password related security protocols of any kind. Nor did the program which ran the ship’s central computer contain any logic circuits that would allow it to draw its own conclusions about the long absence of its human masters, or their sudden reappearance. Thus, when Mitch transmitted the coordinates for the first drop, the equipment for the far larger second drop was assembled by the automated systems on Origin and loaded onto the waiting transport without query or hesitation.

  Had there been any way to observe the lumbering giant in the immediate period that followed, the viewer would have seen only a momentary flash of light as one of the thrusters in the bow fired a single time and the ship slowly turned its nose toward the Earth some 387 million miles away. At the end of the launch tube, which ran almost the full twelve-mile length of the ship, a generator began to spool up, charging the two dozen coils inside until they throbbed with more energy than most nuclear power plants generate in their operational lifetime. When the dropship was finally catapulted from the barrel it was traveling at just under 304,000 miles per hour, a mere fraction of the speed of light, but still over a hundred times faster than a large caliber bullet. Within an hour the ship had accelerated to three times that speed, which it would maintain for the next 332 days, slowing only as it approached the Earth and prepared to drop its cargo of not one, but fifteen containers.

  Chapter 51

  Beijing, China

  Saturday 16 June 2007

  0500 CST

  The unmarked Xian-H6 twin propeller transport set down on the military airfield on the outskirts of the capital at just after five in the morning. A very agitated Duan stepped off the plane as soon as it came to a stop and got into the back seat of the waiting car before the driver had a chance to open the door for him.

  “Home, sir?” the driver asked.

  “The Peixin Hotel,” Duan said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The drive took only half an hour, traffic at this time being all but non-existent. When they were stopped at a checkpoint crossing the Tonghui River despite the diplomatic plates on the car, Duan got out, approached the senior police officer present and threatened to have him reassigned to the coal mining region of the Mongolian interior.

  The driver pulled into the hotel entrance and found an empty parking space in the corner of the lot.

  “Twenty minutes,” Duan said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Duan showed his identification to the woman at the reception counter who directed him to the elevators. When he reached the sixth floor, he walked to the end of the hall, took the stairs down to the fourth and found Room 413. The man who opened the door was a tall Caucasian with a receding hairline. He was still dressed in his hotel bathrobe.

  “Commander, how nice to see you again,” the man said. “I trust you’ve been well?”

  Duan, visibly apprehensive, nodded. “Please assure our friends that what has happened is in no way a threat to our plans.”

  The man offered him a joyless smile. “You wouldn’t be here if anyone believed it was.”

  “Of course,” Duan said.

  “That said, the situation poses certain questions. What do you know about this man, Mohindar?”

  “Very little at this point,” Duan said. “He was an operative for the Indian Intelligence Bureau prior to 2002. Since then he has become a security consultant to several western companies, most of them American or German.”

  “Are any of them connected to the former employer of Jasper Klein?” the man asked.

  Duan shook his head. “Not that we’ve been able to establish, no.”

  “Yet you think that he knew Klein was on board the ship. Why?”

  “According to the political officer’s report,” Duan said, “Mohindar was posing as a state official when they spoke.”

  The man raised his eyebrows at this. “And he knew Jasper been taken on board at Dubai.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “And have the Americans said an
ything?”

  Duan shook his head. “Nothing.”

  The man considered this for a moment. “Very well. We will deal with this matter ourselves. In the meantime I suggest you do everything you can do to get back into the good graces of the council.”

  “Of course,” Duan said.

  The man walked to the window and stood looking out at the city below for a long time. When he turned back to Duan he said, “I hear the council has approved the transfer of the assets at Qingdao.”

  Duan, as he always did when this man—Duan knew him only by the codename Iris—demonstrated just how much he knew, felt a sudden shiver run up his spine.

  “They have,” Duan said.

  “That’s good to hear. General Rhee appears to have things under control, would you agree?”

  “I do,” Duan said. “Rhee is a competent man. And a loyal friend.”

  “I’m glad you think so. If we proceed now, there will be no turning back. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Duan said.

  “Good. I would advise you to deliver the merchandise before you meet the council again. Once the weapons are in the North your position will be considerably strengthened.”

  “It will be a welcome change,” Duan said. “I don’t trust Minister Yew. The order to apprehend Klein came from him. Something he has conveniently forgotten.”

  This time the man’s smile was more genuine. “Yew is an idiot. If all goes well, we should be ready by the end of the year. Goa aside, you’ve done well, commander. Keep up the good work and I can assure you your efforts will not go unrewarded.”

  “Thank you,” Duan said.

  “Now if you don’t mind, I need to get some sleep. I have an early flight in the morning.”

  “Of course,” Duan said, moving to the door.

  “One more thing, commander.”