by Ryk Brown
Jessica just kept going, turning left to head toward Nathan’s cabin, which they had agreed to share during the trip.
“Jess, come on.” He followed her into the port corridor and then aft, all the way into his cabin. “What’s the deal?”
“You should’ve asked them,” she insisted.
“I’m telling you, it wouldn’t have done any good! In fact, it probably would have hurt our cause!”
“The guy has fighters!” Jessica reminded him. “Probably several of them! Did you see them? They were fucking beasts, Nathan. What if he could have gotten other Gunyoki team owners to join us, as well? Do you have any idea what we could do with those ships?”
“Actually, I do,” Nathan said. “In fact, I expect I know better than you what we could do with them. I did graduate from combat school, flight school, and command school, remember?”
“Then how could you not see the advantage the Gunyoki fighters would give us?”
“It might not be as big of an advantage as you think,” Nathan explained. “We have no idea just how powerful their weapons are. For all we know, they couldn’t take out a cargo hauler.”
“But we could have found out,” Jessica insisted.
“And we will,” Nathan agreed. “But Ito was a businessman pretending to be a patriot. He was wrapping himself in the flag of the Gunyoki for the purposes of advancing his own agendas. For all we know, he could already be collaborating with the Dusahn.”
“They’re more than four hundred light years from the cluster,” Jessica argued. “That’s too far away for them to be in communication with the Dusahn.”
“You’re probably right, Jess, but we don’t know for sure. That’s my point.” Nathan paused, waiting for Jessica’s next rebuttal, but it didn’t come. “Telles will agree, I guarantee it.” He put his hands on Jessica’s shoulders. “Look, I know how you feel.”
“Oh, you do?”
“Yeah, I do. The Dusahn took away your new homeworld. They almost took your family from you, as well, and now you want some payback. I don’t blame you. But now is not the time for revenge. It’s time to lay low, figure out the landscape and the players, and gather our resources.”
“It’s been three weeks, Nathan,” Jessica pleaded. “Three weeks. And all we’ve done is run around trying to scrounge up credits to feed ourselves. I feel like we’ve just rolled over and accepted our fate.”
“We don’t yet have the resources to engage the Dusahn and stand a fighting chance,” Nathan reminded her.
“We’ve got the Aurora! Isn’t that enough?”
“If they didn’t have jump drives I’d say yes, the Aurora is enough. But they do. We have to be smart about this, Jess. Especially in the beginning, when we are at our weakest. You have to trust me. Telles, Cam, and I all agreed that as much as we want to start pounding the hell out of the Dusahn, we must wait until the time is right. It just isn’t right.”
Jessica pushed past Nathan and stepped back through the doorway into the corridor. Before she left, she turned back. “Put me in a room with Lord Dusahn and I’ll end this, just like I ended the reign of Caius Ta’Akar!”
“Jess…” Nathan sighed, watching as Jessica stormed off to be alone with her thoughts.
“Is she going to be alright?” Deliza asked, coming up the corridor behind him.
“She’ll be okay,” Nathan replied. “She was like this after Tanna was glassed, as well. She needs to punish whoever she thinks is responsible.”
“I thought the Ghatazhak had trained that out of her,” Deliza said.
“Apparently, she’s still a work in progress,” Nathan replied. They were silent for a moment.
“If it is any consolation, Nathan, I agree with your decision not to discuss the rebellion with Ito Yokimah.”
Nathan looked at Deliza, puzzled. “How did you know about that?”
“Are you kidding? We could hear you two arguing all the way back in the cargo bay. I put two and two together… I apologize if I was eavesdropping.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Ito Yokimah is not a bad man, but he is a shrewd businessman. You are wise not to trust him too easily.”
“Thank you,” Nathan replied.
“Would you like me to speak with Jessica?” Deliza offered. “Woman to woman, so to speak?”
Nathan let out a small laugh. “Probably better to just let her cool down a bit, but thanks.”
“Of course,” Deliza replied, heading forward.
Nathan returned to his cabin, stretching out on his bunk as the Seiiki’s engines began to spin up. In a few hours, they would be back aboard the Aurora where Telles would talk Jessica down as only he could. Jessica had always been beyond Nathan’s influence, and he knew it.
There were some things that even time didn’t change.
* * *
A direct trip from the Tau Ceti system to the communications rendezvous point that Cameron had designated in her original message would have taken only an hour by jump shuttle. But Robert had selected a different route, one that would be difficult to follow should the Alliance be suspicious of him… He was probably being paranoid. Unless his XO had violated his orders and immediately sent word of Robert’s departure to command, no one knew about his illicit movements.
Robert had landed on Kohara dressed as an ensign, not bothering to check in at the Alliance office in Cetia. At the most, an inquiry might be sent to command about an SAR shuttle from the Tanna having come and gone without following procedure, which was not an uncommon occurrence while the fleet was on alert.
So, it had been a long trip; nearly six hours. But it had given him time to think. Gil had told him everything he knew about the layout of the Cobra gunship plant on Kohara and about the specifics of its security measures. For the most part, the plant’s security had been designed to keep civilians away and prevent theft of tools and materials by workers. Besides the security codes on the ships themselves, and on the launch rail system, no other measures were taken to prevent the theft of gunships. After all, the Tau Ceti system was protected by the second most powerful ship in the Alliance fleet, the mighty Benakh. Only a fool would attempt such a theft.
Robert and Gil had been sailing for hours, further discussing how to do the impossible. In the end, they had agreed that the biggest problem was the contingent of Alliance Marines who guarded the gunship facility. While Robert and Gil both felt that the Ghatazhak would likely defeat them, doing so would involve killing most of the marines. Neither man wanted to see Alliance personnel killed, especially by an enemy that could have so easily been an ally. However, Admiral Galiardi had recommended that the Alliance ignore the requests of its member-worlds in the Pentaurus cluster. He had been in favor of protecting the Sol sector worlds, and the Alliance council had agreed without hesitation. However, turning their backs on member worlds, no matter how distant, had been a direct violation of the Sol-Pentaurus Alliance charter. While the violation was not cause for a war between the two sectors, it was that decision which might condemn the marines guarding the Cobra plant to their deaths, not the decision whether or not to use deadly force the Ghatazhak would have to make.
Eventually, Robert and Gil had been left with no choice but to let the Ghatazhak wrestle with that decision on their own. No matter what the two of them had decided on that sailboat, the Ghatazhak would do what they had to do. While the thought of being complicit in the deaths of Alliance Marines bothered them, being unwilling assistants in whatever Galiardi’s end goals were bothered them equally. In the end, the sacrifice that Nathan Scott had made to save them all seven years earlier was what tipped the scales in their minds. If both Nathan and General Telles were committing themselves to the fight against the Dusahn, Robert and Gil would back their play.
Robert had been working on the return message to
the Aurora during his journey back to the communications rendezvous point, trying to include every trivial detail. He had even included the various ways that he and Gill had come up with to accomplish the mission. Unfortunately, the few plans they had devised all involved considerable risk. However, neither of them truly understood the capabilities of the Ghatazhak. They only hoped they were grossly underestimating those capabilities.
When Robert finally completed the long series of jumps that brought him to the rendezvous point, his message was complete. The jump comm-drone dispatched by the Aurora was still there, waiting for him in deep space, and he wasted no time transferring the message to its queue. Finally, he transmitted the return message and the drone moved quickly out of sight, its final departure marked only by a distant, almost imperceptible flash of blue-white light.
It would take the drone a few hours to make its way across the thousand-plus light-years of space between them, and several more hours for the Ghatazhak to analyze the message and dispatch a response.
Robert powered down his ship, being careful to ensure that his shuttle was not producing any detectable emissions. With only his passive sensors to alert him of company, he settled in for a long wait. Luckily, he had brought plenty of food and water and quite a few vid-plays to waste away the hours.
Thanks to Gil, he even had a few cold beers on hand.
* * *
“I can’t believe that all you do is sit here and watch while computers jump this ship over and over across the galaxy,” Marcus commented as the Seiiki’s windows went opaque again for the next jump.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Josh defended.
“No, it’s not,” Loki said.
“Lok…”
“Josh, we both know that once the jump sequencer takes over, we’re just passengers like everyone else,” Loki insisted. “What makes us pilots is that if something went wrong, and the ship could no longer fly itself, we would know how to perform the jumps manually.”
“You’re taking all the glory out of it, Loki,” Josh complained. “You’re turning us into a couple of button pushers.”
“It’s all about understanding who you are, and what your role is,” Loki insisted.
“Fine,” Josh replied. “I’m a pilot, and you’re a button pusher. How’s that?”
“You’re hopeless.”
“Uh, guys?” Neli interrupted. “I think we’re there.”
Loki looked at the sensor screen. “Yup, that’s the fleet.”
“Just stay on this heading until we’re cleared in and given intercept-and-approach instructions,” Josh instructed. “You see?” he added, turning to Loki. “Pilots know that.”
“So do button pushers.”
“You two are like an old married couple,” Neli commented.
“Yeah, even Neli and I don’t argue as much as you two,” Marcus added. He glanced at Neli. “Well, not usually, anyway.” A disapproving glance from Neli, and Marcus quickly changed the subject. “Maybe we’d better hail the Aurora.”
“Good idea,” Loki agreed.
Neli quickly changed comm-channels and made the first hail. “Aurora, Aurora, this is the Seiiki. We are at……one five seven by two one five, eight hundred thousand kilometers out, requesting permission to approach for landing.”
Neli paused for a response, and looked worried when there was none.
“Gotta give it a minute,” Loki reminded her. “We’re still a ways out.”
“How long?”
“Well, since we’ve already blown through a hundred thousand clicks since you called, not long,” Josh commented.
“At this range, another minute or so,” Loki specified. “Go ahead and start decelerating.”
“And, how do I do that again?” Marcus asked.
“Select speed, then reduce, then choose fifty percent,” Loki reminded Marcus.
“Right. Speed; reduce; fifty percent,” Marcus repeated as he performed the steps. “Execute.”
The Seiiki’s engines reacted immediately, spinning up and firing the deceleration thrusters on the forward portions of the engine nacelles.
“See,” Marcus said, smiling, “button pushing.”
“Keep it up, smart guy,” Josh warned. “We haven’t even started your emergency procedures training yet.”
* * *
“You wanted to see me?” Michael asked as he entered the makeshift lab, deep inside the old abandoned terrak mine.
“Yes,” Cuddy responded. He finished entering a few more lines of code, then turned from his view screen. “I think I figured out a way to secure your communications over the public networks.”
“Already?” Michael replied, surprised. “It’s only been a few hours.”
“More like fifteen,” Birk corrected from his seat in the corner of the lab. “Fifteen…long…boring…hours.” Birk stretched, yawning. “Don’t you guys have any kind of entertainment around here?”
“We spend most of our time working,” Michael replied curtly. He turned back to Cuddy. “What did you discover?”
“Well, you did most of the work for me, to be honest,” Cuddy admitted. “All of the message-routing data that you collected over the last ten days is what clued me in. If you compare it with normal message-routing data from before the Dusahn, you’ll notice…”
Michael studied the two data sets, which were displayed side-by-side on Cuddy’s view screen. “There are no messages being pushed through the backup networks,” he finally realized.
“Exactly. We switched to the new network infrastructure a few years ago. But we still use the old networks as a backup, and during abnormally high usage periods. Priority traffic sometimes sends the same message on both nets, to ensure that the message arrives intact.”
“Why aren’t the Dusahn using them?” Michael wondered.
“Probably because they recognize that those nets are based on outdated technology. They probably don’t plan on maintaining it. Easier to monitor one high-performance communications system than two, especially when the second one is not as reliable.”
“If it isn’t reliable, why does it still exist?” Birk asked.
“You never remove the old system in favor of the new one, until the new one has proven itself trustworthy,” Michael stated. “Not if you don’t have to.”
“They were going to start dismantling the old networks in a couple years,” Cuddy said. “If the Dusahn are not monitoring the old networks, then you’ll have your own private messaging system.”
“And if they are?” Birk challenged, playing devil’s advocate.
“Encryption,” Cuddy replied, sarcastically.
“Actually, he has a point,” Michael said.
Birk smiled triumphantly.
“It happens on occasion,” Cuddy quipped.
“If they are monitoring the old networks, we’d be taking a big risk.”
“Why not just start flooding the old networks with random copies of messages already being sent on the new networks?” Cuddy suggested. “Give them millions of messages to sort through.”
“They would likely shut the secondary network down to avoid complications,” Michael insisted.
“But if they are not monitoring it…”
“Then they wouldn’t even know the messages were there,” Michael said. “But how would the recipients know where to look?”
“I’m sure we could create a simple app that would pull the correct messages from the backup networks. Include an algorithm that pulls bits from the other messages and then assembles them on the recipients’ comm-unit into a coherent message.”
“The algorithm will need to constantly change, never using the same one twice,” Michael insisted.
“Of course.”
“How l
ong will it take you to create this application?”
“A couple days, maybe,” Cuddy answered. “You’ll need to send someone out into the wild to receive the message and reply, so that we can test the system.”
“That will not be a problem.” Michael studied the code on the young man’s view screen for a moment. “Nicely done, Cuddy.”
“Thank you.”
“You know, if you really want to make it safe, you could change the chips in all your comm-units,” Birk suggested. “Put the master algorithm from which all the iterations are built right on the chip, and encrypt it with an impossibly long key that would take them a decade to break.”
“We don’t have the ability to create new chips,” Michael replied.
“You don’t need to create new ones. Just reprogram existing ones, like the ones that were for the old networks. They’re redundant now, anyway, right?”
“That would make it more secure,” Cuddy agreed.
“There’s always a chance the Dusahn might capture one of them,” Michael pointed out.
“Program a key combo to fry the chip,” Birk suggested.
Michael looked at the two young men as he considered the idea. “Very well,” he finally said. “Get started…both of you.”
“Finally! Something to do!” Birk exclaimed, jumping up from his seat as Michael left the room.
* * *
Without warning, General Telles walked into the flight briefing room on the Aurora’s flight operations. All twenty-four Ghatazhak in the room, including Jessica, rose to their feet and came to attention without being prompted. Following suit were Nathan and the crew of the Seiiki, Cameron, Lieutenant Commander Shinoda, and Deliza and Yanni.
“As you were,” General Telles instructed, stepping up to the lectern. With the press of a button, the large screen on the wall to his right lit up, displaying an annotated aerial view of a production facility with what appeared to be a long set of rails traveling down the side of a hill away from the building.