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

by Chris Hechtl

  “What do you think? They've been hiding behind this crap for a while. Killing thousands of our people. My people. That ends now. If the government’s groundside is too corrupt to do something about it, I will. If someone gets in my way, they will end up sorry and sore. I'm done with their intimidating, their extortion, blackmail, espionage, sabotage, terrorism … it is pure and simple. Those responsible for stopping them wring their hands and refuse to do their jobs. Fine. Lawsuits won't help, so we'll find our own justice,” Jack said coldly.

  “So you are admitting you are responsible for the acts?” Alphones purred, eyes gleaming.

  “I said no such thing. I said we'll find our own justice. I didn't say when. We're done here,” Jack warned as he triggered his implants to cut the channel.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  “Merde,” Jean said softly as they sat down around the table.

  “So, did they get much?” Gerald demanded, glaring at Saul. The Russian returned the glower with a mild look.

  “I don't know. Krytos and our people are still sifting through the wreckage. Part of their job is rebuilding our network too. A lot of it was burned to the ground as the coder keeps pointing out.

  “We need to do something. Riposter. Hit back,” Jean said accent thick with barely suppressed rage. He drummed his fingers on the table top.

  “Right now, sir, that's the last thing we should do,” Miss Winters said carefully, fully aware of her boss's volcanic mood. Gerald and Nash both nodded in emphasis. “We've been hurt. Yes they compromised our networks. How much is yet to be worked out. But now we're the victim not them. If we hit back publicly or even privately, the public will consider it a war, and they'll wash their hands of both sides. We'll lose a lot of support.”

  “And,” Saul glanced at Miss Winters and the others than looked straight at his boss. “By hitting back we'll expose our assets and show them and the world that we had them in place. We cannot afford to do that. Getting people on the inside has been tough. Only Agent X is placed where he can do significant damage but if we expose him we'll lose him as a source as well as anything he could do down the road. I don't see how we can do that. If we burn them then our own people will now it too.”

  “Si elles brûlent ils brûlent,” Jean said. “They will be martyrs for the cause.”

  Miss Winters sucked in a protesting breath but Gerald rested a hand on her arm to stop her. He gave her a miniscule shake of his head and then waded in. “We need to hit back through the proper channels Jean,” Gerald said. The others around the board room table turned to look at him. He smiled thinly. “I know how. It may not work, but it should tie them up for a good bit. Long enough for us to get back on our feet. It will definitely give them a liberal dose of tar and feathering,” he said with a thin smile.

  “They won't move right away. Not unless they found something incriminating in the download,” Saul warned. “And I know they didn't. Our people are too careful about that. Nothing goes on the network or public computer system. And we're now secured,” he said, indicating the room around them.

  Nash looked about and then nodded. Jean hadn't been happy about moving the meeting to the basement but Saul had had a point. The concrete walls and Faraday cage built into them protected them from surveillance. There were no cameras or microphones in the room. It lacked a view but that only meant an outside source couldn't bounce a laser beam off a window or other object to pick up their conversation.

  “Do it,” Jean finally rumbled. “Find out what they may have found and cover that as well,” he said, turning to Saul. Saul nodded once. “I understand they also hit the home networks?”

  “Yes. Our people have constantly tested them for weaknesses and anyone who had anything on them we didn't want found was punished,” Saul said. Nash winced. His home network had been one of the networks hit. His kids were still whining to get things fixed. He refused. He also wasn't sure what the bastards had found. He kept some of his insurance stuff encrypted, some on the cloud, some on flash drives but …

  “Get a list. Send our own investigators, discretely,” Jean said, pausing as he looked at Miss Winters. The woman had opened her mouth to object. “… and check. Have them help fix their security holes.”

  “And the money issue?”

  “The banks and authorities are looking into it as we speak,” Gerald said with a grin. “There they definitely overstepped their bounds. Our people are doing their best to nail them for it.”

  “Très bon,” Jean said nodding.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Security used the listings the cyber teams had picked up and cross referenced them with what intelligence already had on file. There was of course nothing damning in the files. That was too much to hope for, but there was a few nuggets of useful information they could use to hopefully find more.

  The agencies on the ground couldn't use what they had picked up since it was an illegal search but they were spurred to act. They had to do something or Lagroose would and they would be a laughing stock.

  Jean Pierre pulled out all the stops to go after Lagroose. Miss Winters did her best to play the David versus Goliath card, the plucky underdog being attacked and stomped on by the big bad corporation for exercising their right to free speech. That led to calls from politicians for investigations and hearings.

  During a hearing over the matter some politicians suggested shooting down Lagroose shuttles that came into American air space without approval. The idea was laughed at. “First off, we have no proof they did anything illegal,” the general said during the hearing. “Second, if you want a war you will get a war,” General Murtough said shaking his head. He had risen to the joint chief of staff position and was a year or two away from retirement. The next election would most likely clinch his retirement, the way the public was polling the parties were about to switch control again. That generally meant a thorough house cleaning would be in order. It didn't matter that he'd been in his current position for four sitting presidents.

  “Third, we're currently not a party to either side of this conflict. The other side has shed blood, not Lagroose.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Fourth,” he held up a restraining hand as a senator opened his mouth to object. “Please let me finish,” he said. “We don't know it was Lagroose Industries or who it was. It may have been the Chinese,” he said. “I'm the wrong person to be pointing fingers,” he pointed out. “Certainly without evidence,” he said.

  “We should still freeze their assets and begin an investigation,” the senator said hotly.

  “For what reason? They are the victim in this mess,” the general pointed out. “And my I remind the distinguished senator from Virginia that many of the shuttles he wants to shoot down are currently helping save millions of his constituents who are floundering after this last pair of hurricanes hit the Atlantic seaboard.”

  “We can still interdict them,” the senator insisted.

  “Again, for what purpose?” the general asked politely. “Do you know something about the guilt or innocence that the rest of us don't, senator?”

  The senator gaped like a fish for a moment then covered his microphone with a hand.

  “General, if it did come to blows, how would we proceed?”

  “That is as much a question to the police authorities as it is to me. If, and I say this in the pure hypothetical, if we had an unauthorized shuttle flight, we would certainly send up fighters to interdict it. We have done that when a few shuttles in the past failed to file the proper flight plans or flew off course. But, may I remind all of you, they hold the high ground. We may have the numbers on our side, but they hold the high ground.”

  “So general, you are saying we can do nothing?”

  “No, sir, I'm saying we need to clean this mess up before it gets any worse. The world court and our own court system can't touch the people who actually did the killing; only God can sort them out now. But we can find those behind them. It is like any war including the war on terror. You hit them in their infrastructu
re, hit them hard, and keep hitting them. Cut off their finances and you cut them down to size. Destroy their support structure and cut them up piece meal.”

  “General, may I remind you, the allegations against One Earth are unfounded. They are flatly untrue,” the senator from Wisconsin insisted with a strident voice.

  “The same could be said about Lagroose Industries, ma'am. There is no proof that they were behind the attack on One Earth. May I remind you that the FBI stated that more than one organization may be behind that attack? Yet you continue to single out Lagroose Industries as the culprit.”

  “That's bullshit and you know it, General,” the woman snarled. “You and I both know who is behind it despite the lack of evidence. That just means they did a good job covering their tracks.”

  “Well, ma'am, I don't know that. I haven't seen any evidence either way as you pointed out a moment ago. You'll have to ask the FBI about that one.” That riposte caused a bit of an uproar among the sitting senators and representatives as well as the audience.

  Her eyes flashed. “I certainly will!”

  “Maybe you could ask them how the hunt for Descartes is going while you're at it, ma'am,” the general said politely. The senator flushed in barely suppressed humiliation. She had been one of the victims of the recent hack attack, and he was fairly certain he knew why. Public record showed that she'd received contributions from One Earth on a regular basis.

  The room broke out into a growing storm of muttering. “That's lunch people,” the chairman said, clacking his gavel.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Roman considered and rejected inserting their own spies into One Earth. Having them on hand would be of some help but they would be too new, too green to know much. They would also be horribly exposed, vulnerable and carefully watched. Possibly even fed disinformation that if improperly used could turn around and bite them in the ass. Hard. No, it was too late for that.

  What it wasn't too late for was finding some disillusioned One Earth people and possibly turning them. He had started looking into that. He also put Trevor on tracking down and ferreting out spies in their own ranks. Anyone with a direct connection to One Earth was transferred to a dead end position and cocooned. He couldn't do much about what they had already done or passed on, but he could stop them by transferring them to the ground and monitoring them. His people picked apart the lives of every suspect. Their every transmission, their movements, back history, blog posts, media interests, social net posts, everything. No one was completely ruled out. Anyone they contacted also became a suspect. Some quit, some were fired when they protested what amounted to a demotion. He knew they might be losing a few innocent people but didn't care. They had to find a way to get the bastards.

  During the investigation they had found recorded interviews of a former Lagroose employee, Peter Jordan. That put his people on the scent of any of his contacts he may have passed on to One Earth. It also reminded them to look into former employees of the company. Roman put Zack in charge of looking into the disillusioned ones.

  They were dirty, he thought, but how to prove it? “Get me Elliot,” he ordered coldly. “It's time we get to the bottom of this.”

  Chapter 44

  January 1st 2200

  The new year celebration of 2200 kicked off throughout the solar system when the clocks hit midnight in Zurich. Star Reach and Pavilion did their own things to build off the good will. Star Reach announced their laying the keel of their first colony starship while Pavilion launched Mayflower again on her second builder’s trials. Both companies ran virtual tours of their colony ships touting them as liners. That amused the hell out of those in the know.

  For the time being Santa Maria would remain within the core worlds as a transport, survey ship, and terraformer. It was a bit silly to use a ship nearly three kilometers long as such, but she could get a lot done with her massive stores.

  Funding for survey efforts beyond the fifteen-light-year limit was cut in the UN in favor of restarting the Venus terraforming project. There was also a lot of dark rumblings about the One Earth-megacorp war going on so many in the UN were hesitant to be seen working with either side. The entire colony project seemed to have been torn apart.

  Santa Maria and her crew were thoroughly vetted by security during her extended builder’s trials. Security and independent engineers were brought in to check the ship and crew over. While they worked company security also went over the files of everyone on board, their families, friends, and known associates. They went back as far as grade school and included neighbors and neighbors of friends or family. Some of the searching was easy; images and comments had been made on social media sites. Others took a bit of old fashioned investigative digging to get to the dirt.

  Anyone suspicious was isolated, interrogated, and if necessary transferred to another post for further evaluation and review. The AI on board was checked over by Athena and other AI. They gave Hudson a clean bill of health.

  With the heavy security reviews, there had been a few vacancies in the ship's crew, some from people being transferred, and some from people who just got tired of the crap and quit or transferred on their own initiative. Others had apparently had second or third thoughts about such an adventure after Prometheus's demise.

  Hannah became the assistant chief medical officer on the Santa Maria, taking Amelia's place when the other woman voluntarily transferred out because her fiancé Bill had been beached. Hannah had put in her application, not expecting anything to come of it and had been shocked when she was emailed within hours to pack her things and report aboard.

  Apparently Doctor Lagroose had anticipated the transfer request and had backed it. She felt a bit misty eyed over that news as she hastily packed her things.

  Santa Maria had a massive infirmary, three times the size of the one on Icarus and twice the size of the one on Prometheus and first Neo clinic office. It was set up for a full range of patients, crew and passengers of every physical type. It was clean with off white and green walls and fully stocked with the latest in medical equipment. They even had their own dedicated 3-D printer to print custom body parts if needed. She was overjoyed to see that.

  There was also some other equipment that the staff was getting used to, mainly handling equipment for cryopods. Those she was familiar with. When she showed her easy familiarity with the equipment, the orderly ordered to give her a tour was impressed.

  She immediately ran into a bit of trouble getting along with Doctor Surty, the male CMO, though once she settled in. He was professional, but insisted on doing everything himself so she had little to do on her own and was relegated to an observer or nurse. She had decades of experience as a medic. She could handle the Neos but he refused. Even though he had limited experience with them, he took every case.

  With little to do Hannah ended up reviewing papers and then worked on catching up on the latest research and treatment methods. When that palled she went back to exploring cryostasis again. On her own initiative she ran a check of the pods, going over each of them. When Doctor Surty heard about what she was doing, he dumped an inventory check in her lap as well as covering the front desk in the infirmary while he and his wife, the head nurse, went out for meals together. Hannah seethed over being treated like an overpaid nurse. She realized a ship that size didn't need more than one doctor on board.

  When Doctor Surty started muttering about being overworked, Hannah started a log of what she did, all conversations with him as well as a journal. She slipped a few comments to Nurse Surty that she could cover for her husband so they could get some alone time together and get some rest. The woman seemed thoughtful but didn't commit. A few days later the schedule was changed however. Hannah was to work graveyard three nights a week along with two bounce shifts. It sucked but at least she'd get some hands-on time with patients, she thought. Then Doctor Surty left orders for her to page him if something happened. So much for that.

  Finally orders were cut for the ship to move out to Proxima
Centauri and Alpha Centauri, then to head to Tau Ceti. They were to check on the various terraforming efforts there, assist where needed, then return to Sol when they were finished.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Jack grimly began to put the company on a war time footing. He no longer had to consider the threat of terrorism, sabotage, or corporate espionage. Now he had to consider how to protect assets from blow back from the UN and US.

  One of the first things he did was give Roman, Trevor, and Zack their head. They would have to lead off, analyze the situation, and then create counter measures while they plugged any holes they found. While they got the processes started there, he worked on a bigger budget for their departments to work from.

  Finding reliable people was a problem however. Fortunately he had a case of a round peg in a round hole. Roman had been after him for some time to expand the hiring of organic security officers. They'd gone the other way with AI, cameras, and robots but Jack had been forced to rethink that position when he'd come to realize the AI might become a threat.

  Roman instituted a hiring of Neos first to fill in gaps in his personnel. Many were untrained though, they had to be partnered with veterans since the security school was immediately overwhelmed. Neos were considered absolutely loyal to the company.

  Jack authorized additional security sweeps as well as exploration of mass drivers and laser turrets on the company's stations and other facilities as defensive platforms. Their stated purpose was to fend off possible meteors or terrorist attacks. He was fairly sure people like General Murtough wouldn't buy it, but Isaac wouldn't say anything either unless it really went south.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Athena decided she needed to approach the long overdue Descartes issue with fresh eyes as humans would say. She had to rip up her assumptions; they weren't getting her any closer to the bastard. That made her stop and think.

  Their recent hack of One Earth came to her with a second insight. One that should have occurred to her long ago she realized. She figured out Shadow needed a lot of bandwidth after the hack attack on One Earth. AI needed gigabytes of bandwidth to function properly, and the realization that she'd been approaching the problem for years from the wrong direction bothered her. It showed her that she had a long ways to go to be human. She lacked the creative insights, the intuition, the occasional spark of mad creation that humans had. It also reminded her that she had some of their faults, their “willful blindness.” Trevor's comments about algorithms harboring prejudice came back to her all at once.