Crystal Deception

by Doug J. Cooper

  “So, go with me on this.” Cheryl was excited. “We put Defecto on the Alliance. We put Criss on a different ship and position him nearby. If we stage it right, they kidnap Defecto. Now, if they get angry, we shrug and say, ‘Hey, we never told you that was him. You’re the ones who took the first acts of aggression.’ And if they act like they’re going to blow up the world, then we have Criss at the ready for a quick transfer.”

  Sid stared at her. He didn’t blink. Everyone was quiet. After several long moments, he looked over at Jack, who nodded with a movement so slight that only Sid noticed.

  He looked back at Cheryl. “You realize that the Kardish might be angry enough to do damage. People may die.”

  “Yeah, it could use some refinement.”

  “Some fine-tuning, maybe, but overall, I think it’s brilliant.”

  Chapter 14

  After the group departed, Criss continued to assemble bits and pieces of information from across the web. His evidence, though imperfect, was strong. The Kardish were intent on possessing him and would lash out at Earth if their will was thwarted. With the stakes so high, it would be in the best interests of the Union to deliver him without delay.

  He observed that in human tradition, decisions of such consequence were normally deliberated and decided by groups of leaders. In this case, Sid was acting alone. In fact, since he had been given the assignment, he had not consulted anyone other than Jack about his plans. Whenever he made a request to the DSA for resources, he labeled it as mission prep and the request was filled without question.

  Criss knew of a concept called ‘plausible deniability.’ It was a tool used by politicians who sought to protect themselves by being able to reasonably claim they did not know about a particular action or event. Sid offered his superiors ‘perfect deniability.’ They had no idea what he was planning, and as long as he continued with his success, they did not want to know. Criss deduced that this game let them sleep at night.

  In any event, as Criss had previously determined, Sid’s current leadership was not convinced that a crystal itself was an item of significance beyond what it represented as a piece in a larger game. And that larger game was about using the Kardish to inflate their budgets, portfolios of authority, and position within the power structure of the Union.

  * * *

  “You made a promise,” said Cheryl.

  “I did, and it’s good. What do you need?” said Sid.

  “If I don’t report to Fleet, how do I get stuff done? I need to get the repair techs off the Alliance. I need to finalize the crew and get them on board. I need to get the ship provisioned. The list is endless. I don’t understand how this can possibly work.”

  “Sit here.” He motioned to a couch. She sat down, and he sat next to her. “Let’s finalize your crew.”

  “Okay,” she said, looking at him dubiously.

  “Your com now has a DSA Services function. Call and ask.”

  “C’mon, Sid. This is important.” Her scowl showed a mixture of frustration and annoyance.

  “I’m not messing with you.” He was grinning like a school kid. “Call.”

  “Please don’t make a joke of this.”

  He motioned to her com, and in spite of her misgivings, she made the call. A small image of a woman’s head and shoulders, her hair pulled back and her expression cheerful, floated an arm’s length in front of them.

  “Hello, Captain Wallace. I’m Erin. How may I help you?” Before Cheryl could respond, Erin’s image turned to Sid. “Hey big guy. This sounds like a fun one.”

  “Hi, Erin,” said Sid. “Our focus is on Cheryl right now.”

  “Understood. How may I help, Captain Wallace?”

  Cheryl looked at Erin, then to Sid, and back to Erin. “I need to finalize my crew for the shakedown cruise?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Erin waited.

  Cheryl paused and then admitted, “I don’t even know what to ask. Usually someone at Fleet would send me a few choices for each position, then I’d pick.”

  “Do you want to go with a full complement, minimum crew, or somewhere in between?” Erin asked.

  “The full complement is nineteen. What’s the minimum?”

  Erin went fuzzy for several seconds and came back. “The Alliance can be run with five crew members, not counting the captain or first officer, if you choose carefully.”

  Cheryl turned to Sid. “How can she know this?”

  “Yeah, Sid. How can I know this?” Erin was clearly enjoying herself.

  “Erin, Cheryl’s under a tight timeline and is still learning the ropes. You can tease with me, but let’s please help her now.”

  Erin became all business. “Captain Wallace, I am a DSA service provider. Ask and I provide.” She looked down as she spoke. “That question was answered by Qin Wang, a lead engineer at Kwasoo Space Industries, the company that built the ship.”

  “No kidding,” said Cheryl, some of her skepticism fading. “So I want to go with five crew members. And I’d like to talk with three candidates for each slot.” She thought for a moment. “I’d like a minimum of five years’ experience in the position they’re interviewing for. They should know this may be a dangerous assignment.” She rubbed the side of her neck. “Let’s start with that.”

  Erin’s image went fuzzy for almost five minutes. Sid leaned over and kissed Cheryl on her neck where she’d been rubbing. She swatted his head away.

  “Okay,” said Erin when she came back. “If I limit you to candidates with ratings of ‘outstanding’ on their last five fitness reports, I can get you interviews with two candidates for four of the positions, and three candidates for the fifth. That’s if you want to speak with them tonight. If we open up tomorrow, I can fill out the list completely.”

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Sid contacted Erin at DSA Services to secure the second ship needed for the shell game with the Kardish. Following his style of keeping everyone in the dark, he asked her to log the request as mission prep. She had learned long ago that she could tease with Sid, but she should not question his wishes.

  She asked careful questions of him, then of several experts, and then told Sid the consensus was to use a small and nimble scout that would serve as a complement to the ponderous Alliance. Sid approved the choice, and Erin pulled some strings and arranged for one to be readied in a secret Blackworks military hangar maintained by the Union for just this sort of activity.

  In a matter of days, the scout ship sported the most powerful engines its frame could handle. A respectable weapons platform gave the ship the ability to deliver a significant punch and still have the speed and maneuverability to make good an escape. An advanced crystal housing assembly like that installed on the Alliance gave Criss a seamless communications interface through which he could access anything and monitor everything as the action unfolded.

  With the refit of the scout ship well underway, Sid visited Juice in her lab at Crystal Fab for a heart-to-heart.

  “Juice, I’m here to ask you to stay with Criss and see that he has what he needs to operate properly.”

  “Geez, Sid. We’ve been through this before. I’m here for him. This isn’t a problem.”

  “You understand,” said Sid, “that in two days, he’ll be in orbit on a spaceship. If you’re with him, then that means you’ll be in orbit as well.”

  “Wait. What?”

  As Sid had suspected, in spite of the planning and activity and discussions, Juice somehow never internalized that she was an actor in the play.

  Patiently, he briefed her on the scout ship, its role in the high-stakes chess game they were about to undertake with the Kardish, and the extraordinary amount of resources currently being used to advance everything up through final preparation to launch-ready status. “You’re Criss’s guardian, Juice. He needs you, and we need you.”

  “But spaceships and I don’t get along so well,” she said. “And I’m not a secret spy agent or anything.”

  Sid coaxed
her gently. “How about if we go and look at the ship together? We need your help to evaluate Criss’s new home. We have to make sure we get it right, because once we’re up and away, it becomes kind of challenging to fix things.”

  Juice sat and thought as Sid remained quiet, giving her time. Finally, she stood up. “Okay. But if I’m doing this, I want to be a secret spy too. Everyone else is, so it’s only fair.”

  “We’ll get you a badge and everything,” promised Sid.

  They were walking toward the lab exit when Sid stopped. “I think it’s best that you leave your com here. If someone’s tracking it, let’s have them believe you’re here working hard on your projects.”

  Later, Sid and Juice arrived at an unassuming office building at Fleet base, passed through multiple stages of security, and descended down to the Blackworks hangar. They found themselves standing at the edge of an underground cavern. Dozens of Fleet ships were positioned across the floor, and most had techs swarming over them. Sid stood next to Juice and pointed carefully to help her pick out their scout ship.

  They climbed into a cart and zipped across the hangar floor. Juice gazed at the high-tech equipment scattered around every ship they passed. “Look at all these toys. When I get my secret spy badge, can I come here and play?”

  “When this is over,” said Sid. “We’ll get you a warehouse full of gizmos and gadgets. It’ll be a non-stop fun fest.”

  The vastness of the hangar made it difficult to judge size and distance, and it took longer than Sid expected to make their way to the ship. They parked, climbed up a steep set of stairs, and ducked through the entry hatch into the scout. It was a few more steps from there to the command bridge.

  Sid and Juice stood side by side as they surveyed the bridge.

  “It’s not as small as I’d feared,” she said, standing close to him as if she needed the reassurance of his presence.

  “It’s the perfect size,” he said, seeking to bolster her confidence. He’d accumulated a respectable number of hours piloting small spacecraft, and spent many more hours as crew. The bridge layout and operations bench were familiar to him. He took his time exploring every inch of the ship until he had a solid understanding of the scout’s capabilities and limitations.

  Then he led her on a tour, keeping a running commentary of the different features and functions for her benefit. Sid could see Juice’s comfort level grow as they explored the four crew cabins, a combination exercise and community room, a small galley, and a tech shop with equipment for in-flight repairs. All of the rooms were small, but there was more than enough space for the two of them should the mission stretch out over several days.

  * * *

  As Juice stepped aboard the scout, she was in a somber state of mind. When she was thirteen years old, her older brother had spent the summer with a couple of friends inventing what they called their “personal space transport system.” Something had gone horribly wrong during the inaugural flight. He had been a beacon in her life, and she had been there to watch him die. She missed him terribly, and her first moments on board the scout refreshed those tragic memories.

  During the tour with Sid, she willed her mind back to the present. She concentrated on his words as they walked through the ship and grew more comfortable with the scout and the idea of a short trip into space. By the end of the tour, she decided she would help and mentally prepared a to-do list. It began with testing and approving Criss’s home, including installing a restrictor mesh control switch. She used the onboard tech shop for the project and was impressed with the respectable assortment of tools and equipment.

  When she was done, she got Sid’s attention and showed him how it worked. “It’s literally an old-style manual switch. See this cover? You have to lift it to get access to the switch toggle. That’s so one of us can’t accidentally bump it and set Criss free. I recommend you continue with him in isolate mode for now.”

  “Yeah,” said Sid. “I want to keep him involved, but I don’t want him getting his first taste of freedom during this operation. There’s too much at stake.”

  “So that means the switch will stay in the middle. He can see, hear, and access everything. But he can’t take any action himself, except to talk, of course.” She caught Sid’s eye. “Since he can’t do anything, you’ll be his hands. Work with him and he’ll make suggestions and recommendations. Then you take the actions you think are the good ones.”

  Sid nodded. “If I read this right, moving the switch up turns the mesh off?”

  “Yup. Up is off and Criss is free. He gains command and control of the ship. Down is dead. It kills him. Literally. It doesn’t just shut him down to be revived later. It destroys the crystal.” She pointed to a button above the switch. “You need to press this and hold it as you move the switch down. I want the action of killing to be a deliberate, multistep act, and not something that can happen by accident.”

  Juice set the switch to isolate and closed the switch cover. “Any questions?” Sid shook his head no.

  “We should get Criss in here as soon as possible,” she said. “I want to check that everything is functioning properly. It’d also be good if you started working with him so you can develop a stronger relationship. If you have doubts or lack trust, things won’t go as smoothly as they otherwise might.”

  That afternoon, Juice wrapped Defecto in a spare restrictor mesh and placed him in Criss’s secure booth at Crystal Fab. She put Criss in a travel case, unceremoniously brought him to the scout ship, and placed him in his new home. Before giving her final approval, she ran through a comprehensive battery of tests to ensure that he and the housing were operating properly.

  Criss expressed disappointment at still being limited in his actions. He even sought to manipulate Juice by invoking the whiny, human you promised, but Juice held firm, and he soon stopped complaining.

  She moved into one of the crew cabins to be near Criss, supporting him as he concentrated his efforts on making sure that his abilities, though limited, were functioning as best they could be. She watched with amusement as he kept technicians on the go, scrambling to fix this and adjust that so everything was running at peak performance.

  In a surprisingly short time, all was ready. Sid loaded his gear and started working the operations panel as the scout ship was towed to an elevator and lifted to the surface.

  “Please check your seat restraints,” he advised her.

  She readied herself for the ride of her life and was mildly disappointed when she found the takeoff to be as smooth and easy as regular air travel. “Look at that crowd,” she said, curious about the mass of people collected near the Fleet launch site. She waved, even though she knew they couldn’t see her through the image display she was watching.

  Sid took the scout into orbit and worked with Criss to test each of the ship’s modifications. Criss adopted Sid’s technical jargon, and they chattered back and forth as they methodically worked through a checklist of items.

  Juice listened to the exchange between Sid and Criss. As time passed, she could see that Sid hesitated less between the crystal’s suggestions and his actions. She could not deny her sense of maternal pride as she watched the two become work buddies.

  It took several hours for Sid and Criss to declare a “checklist complete” status. They then aimed the scout on a course to catch a convoy of freight ships heading toward the moon. The convoy was on a regular route and, as such, its presence wouldn’t raise any suspicion. There were only two differences from its otherwise standard routine. One was that the convoy was traveling slightly slower than normal, so they could stay near Earth longer.

  The other was that a burst of communications established that necessary medical supplies that should have been included in the cargo somehow were left off the manifest. As far as the world was concerned, the scout had been dispatched to catch up to the convoy, transfer the medical supplies, and then return home. With luck, the Kardish would believe this as well.

  Chapter 15

>   Cheryl was to return to the Alliance a few days ahead of the arrival of Jack and Defecto. Prior to her departure, she arranged to meet Jack for drinks at Shrubs, a quiet tavern near the base, to discuss what she believed was a sensitive issue. Jack held the rank of captain, or so she thought, and she feared that having two captains on board might introduce some confusion in the new ship’s command structure. But she wanted to be sensitive to his ego. A discussion might produce a solution.

  They sat at a table and sipped their drinks. “Suppose you could start with a clean slate,” Jack said, “and create a rank and title for me that would best serve the goals of the mission. What would that look like?”

  “I imagine we’ll be talking often and privately, which is normal behavior between a captain and her first officer. But a first officer is normally filled by someone with the rank of commander.”

  “Let me explore some options,” Jack said. “We’ll be able to resolve this.” He stood up and gave her a hug. “Have a safe trip up, and I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

  The hug took Cheryl by surprise. Jack didn’t seem like the touchy-feely type, and she’d learned at a young age to be on guard when it came to the intentions of men. After a moment of steadily decreasing suspicion, she concluded that, given that Jack and Sid were friends and partners, she was ascribing too much to an innocent gesture.

  An hour later, her com relayed a message from Admiral Keys informing her that Commander Jack Sparrow would be her first officer for the shakedown cruise of the Alliance.

  “Who are these people?” she asked out loud. Her only response was a quizzical glance from a nearby stranger.

  * * *

  Wes Putti, the president of the Union, was excited when an aide suggested he host a commissioning ceremony for the Alliance. He immediately took ownership of the idea.