To Touch the Stars (Founding of the Federation Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  “And damn it, find a way to stop them! Hit back if you have to!” Jack snarled.

  Roman grimaced. “Elliot and the other IT geeks told me they are using zombie machines. Innocent people boss.”

  “Great, just great,” Jack sighed.

  “We cut off our nose to spite our face or …”

  “Find a way to send out some sort of inoculation program. Get the firewall up, hell, throw in another layer. And send someone around to take our most critical and protected data off the network. They can't hack it if it isn't connected to the net,” Jack snarled. “I remember that much.”

  “The problem is too much is interconnected,” Roman frowned. Cyber security really wasn't his thing; he was definitely out of his element.

  “I have inoculated the firewall, but they can come at us in another way. I am crafting a better internal firewall now as well as a virus scan on all devices that are connected to the net. It will slow down system response though,” Athena warned.

  “Anything on what was stolen?” Roman asked.

  “Low level material mostly,” Athena said. “They were very careful about that. I attempted to track the worms, but they fragmented when they hit the net and turned into ghosts. I did backtrack some of their traces and found they had copied some of our communications files as well as low level personnel lists. I am still finding out where they went. Trevor, a new report has just come in, unauthorized copies of repair manuals.”

  “Damn,” Trevor growled. “Did they get the inertial dampeners?”

  “No, that and other classified equipment are protected. They went for the low level things as I said,” Athena replied. “A series of spiders and web crawlers are now going through the net. They appear to be covering the tracks of the worm.” Trevor and Roman looked up hopefully. Athena reached out with a series of bots, snagged a spider with one of the bots and attempted to copy it. The copy came back as garbage just as the spider self-destructed. She tried to sift through the coding but an overwrite program was already at work. She managed to snag what she could for later in-depth analysis by Trevor and his department.”

  “I attempted to copy a spider to backtrack it but was encrypted and self-destructed.”

  “So, you lost them,” Roman said, thoroughly disgusted.

  “Yes, these guys are good. Did you get anything out of the suspects?” Trevor said, looking expectantly to the security chief.

  “Limited,” Roman replied. “Two claimed they thought it was a prank. Didn't you monitor their interrogations?” he asked.

  “No. I was otherwise occupied,” Athena replied. She accessed the records and did a rapid review of the transcript. There was nothing there. She set up a bot to go over each in more detail and check thermal and voice stress analysis.

  “Pity. A little real time help would have been appreciated,” Roman grumbled.

  “I was busy fending off the attack and trying to prevent a repeat,” Athena replied tartly. He blinked, surprised by her cool snark. Athena realized she had erred in allowing her emotional subroutines to color her remarks. “While also trying to figure out how to prevent another internal attack,” she continued in a more normal tone of voice.

  “How did they get through the internal firewall and virus scan the first time?” Jack asked, holding up a hand to restrain a retort from Roman before it could get out. They didn't need to be bogged down by petty tit for tat crap, Jack thought.

  “I am not sure.”

  “Can you hazard a guess?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow. He was curious about how she would answer.

  “I lack human imagination, sir.”

  “Turn it around,” Trevor said quietly.

  “Are you asking me to put myself in the attacker's position?” Athena asked carefully.

  Jack nodded. “Yes. How would you have gotten the data?”

  Athena ran a series of sims. All were subpar, so she adjusted the variables a bit. Two finally came up as possibly viable. “I … am not certain. I believe somehow they gained a copy of the previous firewall and antivirus software. It is updated several times daily however, so they had to have found something in the core programming to exploit.”

  “Or they could have compromised a portal, plugged it into your net spoofing you and done it that way,” Trevor Hillman said in his raspy mechanical voice. Trevor was quite the coder; he had been since he'd been six. He was also a cyborg; he had been born with enormous deformities due to a series of birth defects. He was pale as a slug and had no hair on his body. He'd grown up with prosthetics his entire life and had never been interested in getting organic replacements when they became available.

  Trevor had been in the company for decades; his worn face looked from Jack to Roman and then to the nearest camera. He didn't wink like he usually did, but she noted a slight cocking of his head. She was still having trouble interpreting subtle human body language, but the bot algorithm she had come up with indicated a 56.43 percent possibility of a show of support. He was also a friend to Athena; he treated her as a person.

  “That certainly is possible,” Athena said, testing the idea. “We can check the hardware though.”

  “Unless they wrote a back door. Or a self-destruct virus,” Trevor reminded her. “And remember, garbage in, garbage out. Algorithms can be just as prejudiced as people,” he warned. “A program can turn a blind eye to something just as easily as a person can. If you expect to see something, sometimes that is all you see.”

  “True.”

  “Why are we asking a glorified calculator to think of something anyway?” Roman grumbled.

  “Because she … someone has to,” Jack sighed. He shook his head and then gave Roman a quelling look. “Chill Roman. We need to get to the bottom of this. The suspects …”

  “I am checking for anomalies in their recorded responses now. Security has been going over their background,” Athena reported, making a quick assumption based on previous record with Roman's people. “Nothing concrete has been found.”

  “Nothing yet,” Roman amended.

  “Get to the bottom of it people. Roman, Athena, work together, stop playing stupid pissing games and remember we're a team. Start acting like it,” Jack said, giving Roman and then the camera a look. Roman's jaw set. After a moment he nodded. “Good. Re-interview the suspects. Take apart their lives. Fingerprint the evidence, you know your jobs, I shouldn't have to be telling you how to do them,” Jack said coldly. “If you have to, do a brain pan,” he said with a glacial voice. Roman winced. A brain pan meant a download of a person's short term memory. He hated it; the procedure was highly invasive and didn't give them much to go on. A careful questioning while monitoring their biometrics was a better way to go in his opinion.

  Still, he could use the threat of a brain pan to drag something out of someone if he thought they were holding back. He just hoped Jack knew that the heavy hand would sour some people, possibly pushing them over the edge into the enemy camp when word of the interrogations got out.

  Jack kept going, ignorant of Roman's stray thoughts. “ …And get our people up here. They are too exposed; it's time to pull in our horns and cover the basics. Anyone we need to protect, move them up here. Move groundside jobs to outside contractors. We'll find a job for the people and thief families later if we have to, but I don't like loose ends. And find these hackers!” Jack said, fist slamming into the desk for emphasis.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Bret finally got his chance and went into space. He was excited, the new motion sickness meds had gone a long ways to helping him pass the vomit comet. One he was in orbit and passed orientation he was transferred to the satellite communications maintenance department on station L-11. Lagroose 11 was a deceptively large station. It seemed large from the outside at over a kilometer long, but the interior was crammed with just about any junk, machine shops, and tools imaginable. A true rat’s nest, Bret found himself right at home.

  L-11 was one of the older stations, a spindle centrifuge station like all the
first Lagroose stations. It stank, it wasn't very well lit in places, and there was no social life, but it was home. It did have good food. Jack Lagroose was big on keeping his people fed and happy; he'd gotten the idea from his people who'd spent time in the navy.

  It also had a killer view. The biggest view ports were popular attractions to many on the station. Some residents staked out airlocks and portholes in escape modules. Bret found his own honey hole to stare out at the blue marble in the engineering bay behind a set of lockers. When he nudged them just a bit away from the wall he could squeeze in and look out the hidden view port. It truly was magnificent.

  His other thing was the repairs and tools. Many of the kids complained about the workload, but he loved it. Stripping down old pieces of equipment and storing the salvage was fun; troubleshooting old satellites was his favorite though. He was quickly tapped with those projects while the more plug and play staff went to town on the tear downs.

  He'd wondered why they'd bothered at first until he'd found out that many of the parts weren't being manufactured anymore. So the leading location for parts to repair some of the old satellites were the salvage piles. That finally made sense. It also explained why the station was called Junk Heap.

  He worked on repairing satellites that were recovered and brought into the station for a week as he settled in. Then his boss Sampson poked him to better his education.

  He found out while attempting to pass the EVA qualifications that he couldn't hack the black however. He talked with Hannah about it when she called on the weekend. She noted right away that he was embarrassed by the failure but at least he'd owned up to it and not brushed it off. As kids, she and Jamey had been worried about their father's reaction to their surpassing him. Now he was trying to follow his dream but was running into problems. Another thing to be worried about, she mused. At least she'd done it once and could maybe give him some pointers, if he could accept them. She wished Jamey was around; he could give them both pointers.

  “Funny, I don't have a problem with wide open spaces on Earth. Give me the Yukon any damn day,” Bret said, shaking his head.

  “It's the lack of a reference. And a floor daddy,” Hannah explained to him. “On earth you are grounded. There is a horizon, and you can feel the ground beneath your feet. In space there is nothing around you except the station or craft you started in. You should listen to the training and use it as a reference.” He made a rueful sound. “I've been doing sims to get up to speed too, Daddy,” she said. She didn't admit how much time she spent in null gravity.

  “Are you going to spacewalk?” Bret asked, now concerned.

  “Everyone who goes on a starship has to spacewalk at least once, Dad. They need to know how you react under pressure and handle the black. Like I said, I've done the virtual sims. It can be disorienting, but I'm getting a handle on it. I've spent a lot of time in null gravity so that part is easy.”

  “Okay.”

  “Of course, I had a leg up with you and Jamey. I also snuck a couple visits to the Lagroose swimming pool on campus,” she admitted slyly.

  “Pool? What does … oh water?”

  “Not just being in water but being in the full sim,” she explained. “Lagroose put up a pool on the campus I was on to train people to work in space. It's small, about the size of an Olympic pool. I understand the swimming coach has been bitching up a storm about not getting to use it, which is bull since he has a pool already,” she made a face, remembering sneaking in once with Brandon. “Anyway, they've got a suit class and techs. So people can study to be a suit tech or to work in space. I got in a couple of times with some friends to try it out.”

  “So you cheated,” he teased.

  She shrugged. “Hey, if you aren't cheating you aren't trying hard enough.”

  “I'll keep that in mind.”

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  “Isn't it funny how Pavilion and One Earth were so quick on the draw when that virus attack began?” Jack asked, looking at Miss Cole.

  The woman nodded slowly. “As a matter of fact, yes. Neither came out and claimed responsibility. No one has.”

  “Yes, I thought you or Athena would have came to me with that if someone had.”

  “I thought they would be all noble and crow about it, after all, they did do us a lot of damage. But no. No one has stepped up.”

  “Which means they aren't stupid. They don't want to make themselves a target,” Jack said. She looked at him. He shrugged. “We have to find a way to hit back.”

  “But if we strike at Pavilion or One Earth they'll expect it. They'll also cry foul. They don't have to prove it was us either.”

  “I hate crap like that. Take it on the chin. Turn the other cheek. It's old,” Jack grumbled.

  “It is nonetheless true. We are the bigger man, sir,” Miss Cole said carefully.

  “They have … okay, no, we're not going to do what they expect. But we will find a way to hit back eventually. Pavilion can go to hell as far as getting a manufacturing or software license from us for a while.”

  “Yes, sir. What bothers me is … did they do this together?”

  “Were they in on it do you mean? A cooperative venture? Possible,” Athena said. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

  “You got that right,” Jack said with a tight nod.

  “One Earth we can't touch directly. I do believe we should be extra vigilant with the new personnel,” Athena said carefully. Jack nodded a slight nod again. “I am beginning to map their organization. I suggest the intelligence department do the same.”

  “Contacts, human Intel, eyes, ears … the works,” Jack murmured. “I want a warning if they are up to this again, or worse,” he said. Miss Cole nodded.

  Chapter 19

  Life on board Daedalus was initially interesting and fraught with tension for the crew. The crew settled down nicely once they got past their initial nervousness of the journey. The idea of making history was still appealing but an old topic. Now the focus was on their destination and their return.

  They were in what Jamey increasingly called the lowest octave of the alpha band of hyperspace. Now that he had had time to analyze the sensors as well as the scans of their hyperdrive, he had combined the two hypotheses into one theory. He labeled the octave C. The navigational team were uncertain of his math but followed along dutifully.

  According to the navigators, they had twenty-three days in hyper before they emerged 1.4 light years out from Sol on their course to the Centauri system. Jamey and the navigational designers were not all that certain about how to best keep the proper heading in hyper so they would have to drop out and then orient the ship every light year until they worked something better out.

  Everyone put up with the constant tests of the ship systems for the first few days as the ship settled into hyperspace and the crew adjusted to the new routine. It took time for the ship's systems and software to adjust as well, which made more than one crew member nervous. They were all aware the computer or someone could do something wrong and they'd all die. Fortunately everything worked out, not without the occasional bug, but nothing life threatening.

  When things quieted down, scuttlebutt made the rounds about how Doctor Asurabi was making the rounds. The ship doctor had made himself unpopular with his announcement about refusing to treat or speak with the dolphins. Now he was even more vexing as he went beyond a basic physical. He tested each crew member and officer thoroughly for radiation, abnormalities, or other health issues. He found none.

  Kathy did her best to help out where she could, but she made a point of doing her duty to the dolphins first over the human crew. That was something Doctor Asurabi apparently didn't care for, but that was too bad for him she thought. He should have been sacked or at least transferred; they'd had plenty of time to do it. Apparently someone in corporate had refused to allow it … most likely for political reasons.

  She rather regretted the design of the ship more and more every day. The utilitarian design made her fe
arful sometimes of touching anything. It was color coded, which was a plus, but she couldn't remember the coding for the conduits and plumbing so she watched where she put her hands when she had to steady herself.

  They still had issues with the inertial dampeners and artificial gravity. Some sections of the ship were off limits to nonessential personnel. Two incidents had been reported; fortunately both had involved a cleaner bot and not an organic. Still everyone was on the lookout for problems with the gravity controls.

  She smiled wryly, amused by the memory of the media when they had commented about the ship's interior design. She'd watched the episode with Jamey; he'd laughed himself silly. They'd expected something out of Star Trek, finished, polished, with everything hidden behind bulkheads. Instead it was closer to Star Wars or other shows, practical. The wet navy had learned a long time ago to not hide important works; if they were exposed, it was easier to spot and diagnose problems before they became a threat to the ship. It also allowed them easier access to deal with such repairs … or modifications. Spacers had picked up those hard lessons early on and kept things practical ever since. Only liners or yachts were polished to perfection.

  There were some exceptions, not everything had to look industrial. As the psychological input on the design board, Kathy had made certain the crew had some comforts of home, some warmth. For instance there was pho-wood floors in some of the common areas. The galley had a linoleum floor, but it had pho-wood cabinets and paneling as well as wide screen LCDs that displayed videos of Earth, Mars, or Space. The AI Sylvia tied the images to the ship's mood and time period to keep the crew in synch.

  The officer's wardroom was quite exquisite, a den with the paneling and rich grained table. There was a lounge for all of the crew, quite popular for off duty personnel. The lounge had a couple overstuffed couches where they watched recorded shows or read e-books.

  She wished they'd let her put in a pool, but that had been nixed by Charlie. She'd argued back then. It would have doubled as a water supply, but space within the ship was at a premium. She understood that now. To expand outward to give everyone more elbow room would have doubled the size of the drives, fuel, reactors … she shook her head. Everything including space came at a price.