by Jeff Sims
“There they go!” Colin announced. Technically, the ship left the Waylon system 6 hours ago, but the light from the corvette’s jump just reached the space station.
Jim said, “Great, status reports. Let’s go around the room. Russ, you start.”
Russ replied, “Fortunately, Shole wasn’t monitoring our communications very closely. I was able to sneak a few emails past her.”
Jim responded, “Amy Weisman, the CEO of Victory Games, confirmed in an earlier email that the Victory Games main computer on Earth contains the files for the plasma drive reactor core and the electro lift. It probably contains the hyper drive and ion cannon too for that matter. However, the system has them blocked. They need a password to unlock them.”
“Clever,” Colin responded. “How does that help us?”
Russ replied, “Shortly after we received that email, I sent the same exact email separately to Victor, Carank, and Lorano asking them if they knew the password. That was almost three months ago.”
He typed a few keys on the communication station and read, “Lorano, I hope this email finds you well. We were trying to run one of the older fighter simulations from Earth where a cruiser assists a fighter wing on an attack. However, the electro lifts and plasma reactor are either missing or hidden. Is there a password to unlock them?”
This was news to Colin. He asked, “What did they say?”
Russ answered, “Victor didn’t respond or at a minimum hasn’t responded yet.”
Jim interrupted, “He may be trying to avoid us now that we know he is actually a Solarian masquerading as a Human.”
Russ continued, “Carank responded that Lorano created that part of the simulation.”
Kip said, “And Lorano.”
Russ finished, “Lorano was very helpful. He said that there were four passwords, one for each major system. He listed them as Cyclo12$, Lasko12#, Bylas12%, and Clone12&. He verified that each password was 8 letters, had at least one capital letter, two numbers, and one special character.”
“Certainly helpful,” Kip replied. “Have you tested them?”
Jim pointed to Colin. Colin brought up one of the old simulations and entered the first password – Cyclo12$. It worked. The plans for the hyper drive system were now available. He showed them on the main monitor.
“Try the next one,” Jim softly commanded.
Colin tried Lasko12#. Now the electro lift was available. He then entered Bylas12% and the ion cannon specifications displayed on the screen. Finally, he entered Clone12% and the plasma reactor was now available. Colin double checked that the combination of the 4 passwords had indeed unlocked the entire ship.
Jim said, “Okay, the passwords are very helpful. We stand far less risk of detection if we send her a password instead of a huge data package with hundreds of drawings and specifications.”
Colin commented, “Not to mention that we are technically supposed to use a file transfer protocol on a protected websphere ftp site.”
Jim said, “So, they probably couldn’t arrest us for sending confidential information to Earth, but they could arrest us for not using the proper method for sending it.”
Russ laughed and said, “Too true. What do we do now?”
Jim said, “It comes down to whether or not we trust Amy Weisman.”
Kip replied, “Her contract seems fair. I had one of the new pilots review it. He has some training in law. Basically, she is going to create a new corporation called Victory Enterprises, of which Victory Games is a wholly owned subsidiary.”
Kip continued, “Then, she is going to make the new company a Chapter S corporation with 200 total voting shares. Each of us will get one share for 80 total, the families of the 6 people who died also get one, Amy will get 13, and Victor will receive the remaining 101. Legally, Victor will still have controlling interest of his own company.”
Russ theorized, “I wonder if he is even allowed to own a company since he is literally an illegal alien.”
No one knew the answer, so Jim asked, “How long are the messages taking these days?”
Russ replied, “The message has to travel from Waylon to Solaria, then from Solaria to Earth. It takes 480 hours or 20 days to travel that distance. However, the transmission is only sent once a week, so it will either take 21 days or 27 days to reach her depending on what day of the week we send the message. If we send it now, it will reach Earth in 21 days.”
Jim nodded and said, “Send Amy Weisman the password for the plasma reactor and the electro lift. We will keep the other two technologies to ourselves for now.”
Russ said, “Aye cap-i-tan” and sent the message.
Jim said, “Next subject, Colin you’re up. What can you tell us?”
Russ interrupted, “Wait, there was a little more in Lorano’s email.”
Russ paused and waited until Jim waved for him to continue. Russ said, “Lorano asked if I had ever heard the term Atlantean.”
Colin responded, “Atlantean, did he mean the ancient civilization on Earth? What did you tell him?”
Russ shrugged and said, “I just wrote that there is an old folk story about a civilization called Atlanteans that lived on Earth about 4,000 years ago. They built a city called Atlantis and supposedly taught everyone how to build pyramids. Then the city was destroyed by a tidal wave.”
Jim commented, “Sounds about right I guess.”
Russ continued, “Oh yeah, I also told Lorano that some believe that the Atlanteans were aliens from another planet and that Atlantis was just a giant space ship.”
Russ looked at Jim. Jim looked at Colin. Colin looked at Kip, who then looked at Russ. No one said anything for a moment. Finally, Russ looked at Kip and the cycle repeated backwards. Russ had meant it as a joke, but it didn’t sound like one now.
Finally, Kip said, “I wonder if the Altians are lying about when they actually discovered Earth.”
Jim nodded and said, “Okay, now let’s move on the next subject, Colin?” He overemphasized the word now. If the Altians had visited Earth in the distant past, there was really nothing they could do about it now.
Colin replied, “Well, Shole taught Becky and me how to operate the space mining drill. If we ever have a sudden need for a large amount of raw materials we are ready. However, as you all know that wasn’t the real reason for the trip to your previous home.”
Jim replied, “First squadron was there for a couple of months helping Lorano build some gravity missiles. We would probably still be there if the Sunflower hadn’t been assigned to the fleet that attacked Spindle Station.”
Colin continued, “While there, I was able to access the missile database and obtain the flight paths of all 6,000 missiles.”
Colin inserted a flashdrive cube into the control panel and accessed a file. He loaded the image on the main monitor. The monitor displayed the sun, planets, mining drill, and space station. There was a large circle around the entire system that represented the Waylon’s gravity well. Colin taped a few more keys and the missiles appeared on the screen.
Colin said, “The visual gets a little hard to see when all 6,000 missiles are displayed. Therefore, you are only seeing every 10th.” Colin paused for a moment to let them see it and continued, “It is pretty obvious when you look at it.”
Jim studied the plot. The first volley of gravity missiles had covered the entire northern hemisphere of the circle, roughly from 10 degrees all the way to 120 degrees. The second volley covered the southeast quadrant, roughly from 290 degrees to 360 degrees.
The third volley covered the southwest quadrant, from about 130 degrees down to 250 degrees. That left a large 40 degree gap in the missile firing pattern from 250 degrees to 290 degrees, or directly down.
Kip stepped beside Jim, pointed at the bottom of the monitor, and said, “Why didn’t they fire any missiles in that section of space?”
Russ replied, “Because Lorano apparently already knew what was there.”
He paused for effect and continued, “Here
is what we know. Lorano announced that you were returning to Earth. You guys boarded the Sunflower and performed a micro jump to this location.” He touched the monitor at a point due south about 14 hyperspace minutes outside of the gravity well.
Jim said, “I remember. We docked with another ship for a little over an hour. Lorano announced that we were going to move to a different ship that I have to believe was the Vista. However, for whatever reason we remained on the Sunflower and jumped into hyperspace. Eleven hours later we exited hyperspace and were back at Earth.
Russ said, “I checked the navigational computer. Three is a record of a micro jump from the station to the spot that I just indicated. Further, there is a record of a jump from the spot back to the station.”
“Makes sense,” Kip interjected.
Russ continued, “Here is the strange part. Between the two micro jumps there is a record of an 11 hour jump away from Waylon and an 11 hour jump back to Waylon. However, the jump coordinates are nonsensical.”
Russ touched the monitor and zoomed way out. The Waylon system was now a large dot in the middle of the screen. He then created another at the very left edge of the monitor. Russ said, “The point isn’t quite to scale, but you get the idea. The navigational logs show that we basically jumped to the middle of nowhere.”
Colin commented, “So, Lorano must know a way to trick the navigational computer.”
Jim said, “Colin, based on Lorano’s initial dispersal pattern, how many missiles are needed to cover that 40 degree section of space?”
Colin replied, “1,000.”
Russ touched the monitor and made it zoom back until it only showed the Waylon system. The hyperspace dot was visible again. Russ said, “If, or perhaps I should when we find the route the Earth, we will need to be at this location.” He pointed to a spot on the other side of the system and said, “We are currently here.”
Jim said, “We have no reason to be here.” He pointed to the chart and said, “We need to be over there.”
Everyone nodded and Jim continued, “If we are going to jump to Earth, we are going to take everything. The Altians left four tugs. We could attach two to the station, one to the drill, and one to the drill control platform.”
Russ traced a line that went straight up and said, “We could pull the three stations out of the gravity well here and then make two micro jumps to reach that point.”
Jim shook his head and said, “No. That technically takes us of the Waylon system.” He drew a straight line from their current point in the northwest quadrant of the system to the southernmost tip of the Waylon system.
Colin said, “I see your point. If we go there, then we will only be one 14 minute micro jump from the exit point. We will still technically be in the system, but we would be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
Russ mapped out the series of jumps required. Basically, they would have to tow each station one at a time to the end of the gravity well and then micro-jump it across the system.
He said, “Crossing the entire system is dangerous though. We could get trapped with one station on one side of the system and us on the other. We couldn’t defend both.”
Jim said, “We have no choice. Are there any better solutions?”
He looked around. No one had a better answer. Jim said, “How long will it take us to move everything?”
Russ ran a simulation and had the computer track and each jump and associate a time for it. Russ summarized, “A fair estimate including rigging, jumping, un-rigging, and returning is three days per station or nine total days.”
Jim said, “Colin, go build the 1,000 missiles required for the gravity tracking experiment. Russ, create the necessary hyperspace paths for the missiles. Kip, I want the four tugs hooked up and moving the first piece to that location by the end of the day.”
He waited for a nod from everyone and asked, “Are there any questions or other topics we need to discuss?”
Each man responded “No” almost in unison.
Jim said, “Okay men, let’s go find Earth.”
Chapter 3
Senator Amanda Catmeows received yet another high priority, personal message. Like the five previous messages, this one was marked confidential and encoded for her personal clearance only. That basically meant that only she could access the communication, but anyone with proper authority that checked her message log would find that she had received a communique to her personal, not public email address.
And like the previous five messages, this one was from some mystery man. She assumed that the mystery man was Hiriculan Ambassador Bline, but she wasn’t entirely sure. Either way, she believed that the mystery man was closely associated to Ambassador Bline because he seemed to be acting on the ambassador’s orders.
The message said the same thing each day. Well, the words were slightly different, but the overall tone remained the same. A couple of times the messages were threatening. Twice they included bribes. One message was even disguised as an overdue library book notification.
A few weeks earlier, Senator Amanda had let her dislike of the humans affect her judgement. She agreed to send detailed information about the Sunflower’s movements to the aforementioned mystery man who would then secretly forward them to Hiriculan Ambassador Bline. She had asked for nothing in return.
The Hiriculans wanted to capture the Sunflower and bring its (original) crew to justice for their attack on two destroyers in Hepitila. Amanda acted like she too thought the crew should be brought to justice. However, her secret plan was to get rid of the humans in the Alliance Navy by having the Hiriculans capture or even destroy the Sunflower.
She used her personal email account to send the Hiriculan Ambassador Bline information detailing exactly when the Sunflower was entering Trilon. The Hiriculans severely damaged the Sunflower in Trilon, but failed to capture it. Then the Sunflower launched a horrific attack on the Spindle Station as a clear act of retribution.
After that attack, Amanda was truly horrified of the humans. Their penchant for violence and destruction was unmatched in the galaxy. She decided to help the Hiriculans a second time. She used her Senatorial clearance to manipulate the Sunflower into being assigned to a supposedly easy mission to rescue a Hiriculan defector with information about Neto breeding practices.
She indirectly notified Ambassador Bline of the mission and the Hiriculans set yet another trap to capture the cruiser. However, the idiot Hiriculan Admiral Lopeq’la that they assigned to the taskforce managed to destroy his entire fleet with a wayward ion cannon blast. The Sunflower returned to Conron with a captured Hiriculan battleship.
Then Senator Figur was mysteriously murdered and the Alliance had begun an intense investigation to find his killer. Amanda realized that her actions would soon be discovered, so she created fake emails to make it appear as if Senator Figur were the informant. She then decided to permanently stop supplying the Hiriculans with information – it was simply too risky with the increased scrutiny.
Then one day a few months later the aforementioned message first appeared in her private email. And a new message arrived the next 5 days after that. Amanda sighed loudly and opened the sixth message. It read:
“Senator Amanda Catmeows. Please introduce legislature to the Alliance Senate to send the Vista to Earth. You can choose whatever reason for the mission you would like. Sincerely, Ambassador Bline.”
Well, Amanda thought, at least this time there was no threat to expose her. She had been really scared when she received the first couple of emails. However, when she wasn’t immediately exposed, she realized that the mystery man may be bluffing, or may not have the full approval of the ambassador.
She scrolled down and saw that there was a second message from the mystery man. This one did not mention Ambassador Bline’s name. It read:
“This is your final message. If you do not introduce legislation in today’s senate session, you will be exposed as a traitor this evening.”
Amanda screamed in ange
r and frustration. After a couple of minutes she calmed down and thought through the situation. The mystery man may have saved emails, but they were from her private server, not the public Alliance Senate one.
Plus, none of them were technically to the Hiriculans. That was the main benefit of working through the mystery man. He provided a buffer between the two parties and provided a means of plausible deniability. If pressed, she could claim that he was the one that sent the information to the Hiriculans, not her.
Therefore, the mystery man really had no tangible information linking her to the leak!
She deleted all of the emails on her communication pad. She deleted all the backup emails on the communication pad. She deleted the email address. She then looked at her communication pad. It was a private one that she had purchased it in Solaria.
She had configured her communication pad for both personal and Senatorial email. The plus side was that she didn’t have to carry two separate communication pads. The downside, however remote, was that someone could hack her senatorial emails since it wasn’t on a super secure Alliance Senate approved communication pad.
She forwarded all of her saved senatorial emails to herself. Then she deleted every piece of information on the communication pad and reset the AI to its original configuration.
She looked at it again. She knew better; nothing was ever truly deleted. She threw it down hard on the floor and stomped on it a few times. She then put the communication pad under one of the legs of her desk and sat heavily on her desk a few times. She verified that the communication pad was completely destroyed and dumped it down the garbage chute.
If the mystery man wanted to contact her, he would now have to use official channels. She smiled. If he tried to expose her, she would simply deny it. Besides, the jury of public opinion had already convicted Senator Figur of the transgression. Any new information linking her to the crimes would hopefully be dismissed as political jockeying.
Amanda realized that she no longer had a communication pad. She searched her apartment for her Alliance Senate issued one. Eventually she found it in the closet in a sealed storage container marked seasonal holiday decorations.