Wanda

by carl smothers

Mission Control

  After three hours of intense work, Pepper and Tarnak, with Wanda’s help, identified the corrupted code and stopped the coordinate shift.

  “Thank Goodness, we’ve got his thing under control,” Pepper said, wiping her brow. “Now … let’s see if we can correct the navigation algorithm.”

  Tarnak entered new code in the navigation computer. Slowly, the coordinates of the wormhole began to change. Just as Pepper thought they had the issue under control, the virus struck again overriding the new navigation computer coding. Chameleon vectored the wormhole to a new location, jumbled the nav computer code, erased the flight history registry and deleted the wormhole presentation from the star map. The navigation coordinates made no sense. They had no idea where the ship was or if it still existed! The Orion was gone.

  Pepper shook her head in disbelief. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead trying to relieve her frustration. How do you find something so small in a Galaxy 100,000 light-years across? I can’t believe this. Another virus? How? What if we never find them? Are they still alive?

  “Tarnak, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Pepper. I’ve never seen this happen. For the life of me, I just do not know. If we can’t reestablish the last known end points and get control of the computer system, I’m afraid we’ve lost them forever.”

  “Wanda, do you have any suggestions?”

  “I’ll get back with you. I have some ideas, but it’ll take a little while,” Wanda reported. “There is a simple solution if they think about it. Thankfully, Kimberly’s with them or they’d have no hope of finding out where they were.”

  “What do you mean?” Pepper asked.

  “They could use Pulsars. Kimberly taught astronomy and spatial navigation at Tech so maybe he can figure it out.”

  Starship Orion

  Captain Starling was trying to maintain the Orion inside of the boundaries of the wormhole. The ship’s warning claxons sounded as the star map and main display showed the wormhole exit immediately ahead.

  “Knuckles, take us back to one quarter reaction. Mr. Thompson, record the star charts and spatial coordinate location at the wormhole exit.”

  “Roger that, Captain.”

  Knuckles reduced power. “Aye, Captain, quarter reaction laid in.”

  The wormhole had transported them to an unknown part of the Milky Way. Suddenly, and without warning, it disappeared.

  We survived the transit, but where are we? Harry asked himself.

  Starling rubbed his palm over his face. “Mr. Thompson, make sure you have the exact last end-point coordinates of the wormhole locked into the system, and try to find out where we are.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Thompson ran the navigation computer through the astronomical charts trying to locate their current position. “Computer, do a star chart match and see if you can locate our position,” the commander ordered.

  “Working. The astronomical library does not correlate with the local star systems. There is insufficient data to determine our position.”

  “Captain, we’re not at Tango 555 that’s for sure.” Thompson reported. “I have no idea how far we are from Earth, or if we’re even in the Milky Way Galaxy. The computers can’t correlate our position with any star system in our library. These star systems are alien to us. Captain, we’re lost in space. We’ve arrived at some solar system, but it sure isn’t where we intended.”

  “Harry, can you guys go down to the astronomical lab and try to sort this out?”

  “We’ll try, Captain.”

  Harry headed down to the lab in a quandary. No matter what we do, that damn mole always seems to be able to screw us up. It has to be another virus. Talk about frustration … this is it.

  Mission Control

  The MCC team, particularly Pepper, was frustrated. The system’s not behaving right, and there is no reason the nav system should malfunction this way. Why did the wormhole shut down? Worse yet, what erased the flight history registry.

  “Marc, something has screwed up the nav computer coding, and we can’t seem to get it under control. Every time we think we have it, something interferes with us. Not only that, but we’re not able to access the final end-point coordinates. The worst of it is something erased the flight history registry. We’re not sure the data’s retrievable.”

  “Pepper, you and Tarnak have to establish the last end-points,” he yelled. “If you don’t, we won’t be able to get them back. Get off your ass and solve this damn problem!”

  “Marc, if you think you can do better, I suggest you get your fat ass over her and do it!” She yelled back, standing up at her console. “We’re doing everything possible. We can’t find any reason for the failure. It has to be a stinking virus.”

  No one except a close insider, very knowledgeable of our work, could have escaped our traps and inserted a new virus, she thought. It has to be someone on my virus team and it’s a short list. Tarnak, Wanda, Lars and those two DOD guys. How do I know they’re actually from the DOD security office? What an enigma.

  She sat down, sorry she had yelled at Marc. Fearing the man she loved and her friends might never return filled her with an overpowering sense of gloom.

  “Okay,” Marc said. “I just hope they have the sense to stay put. If we can’t reestablish the last known end-point coordinates the ship may be lost forever. It would be like looking for a needle in a friggin haystack. Is Wanda involved?”

  “She’s working on it. We’ll figure this out. It’s just going to take a while,” Tarnak replied.

  Pepper felt terrible about her emotional outburst. “Marc, I’m so sorry I yelled at you. I didn’t mean to, I’m just upset.”

  “That’s okay, Pepper. I understand. We’re all upset.”

  Lars joined Pepper and Tarnak. “What can I do to help?”

  “We have to reestablish the wormhole end-points, but with the flight history registry contents permanently deleted, it seems like an impossible task,” Pepper said. “We need to start looking for a virus.”

  “It could be something else,” Lars said.

  “A virus is the only logical explanation,” Tarnak concurred.

  “Let’s get to work.” She brushed her hair back. I’m going to do an in-depth diagnostic analysis in concert with the virus scanners. Maybe we’ll find something.”

  It is going to be a long night, she thought. I just hope we can solve this crazy thing. I wonder where they are. I hope they’re safe.

  The scanners sifted through the entire system code and found nothing suspicious. Every analysis technique struck out. Pepper scratched her head, very baffled. If it is a virus, it has one hell of an anti detection strategy built in. I bet it’ll strike again. I’m going to find it if it is the last thing I do. I wonder how Wanda’s doing.

  “Tarnak, we’re dealing with something unique. I know there’s a virus in the system. It’s eluding the scanners as well as every diagnostic routine I’ve tried. This thing is super-intelligent. Somehow it seems to know what our strategy is before we apply it.”

  “It may be decomposing itself. Years ago, we encountered self-decomposing viruses on Kandar, and they’re almost impossible to detect. How about we try some techniques we’ve used on Kandar?”

  “Go for it. I’m at my wits end. Wanda thinks the only way to find and kill this thing may be from inside cyberspace itself.” Wanda may be our last hope, she thought.

  Chapter 41

  MP-1

  Harry, Ronnie and Scott searched the star maps, but this part of space was not in the ship’s astronomical library. The star mapping and pattern matching routines drew a blank.

  As Kimberly pondered the situation, he got an idea. “There may be a way to figure this thing out. Maybe we can play a simple navigation game.”

  “Last time I looked we didn’t have a constellation orbiting this plant,” Ronnie replied sourly.

  “I know. Look, the cosmos has its own built-in navigation system if
you know how to use it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To pinpoint an exact position in a three dimensional volume of space, you need six points. When you intersect those six points, you define your position exactly, relative to them, within that volume.”

  “How does a point in space locate us?”

  “We know the universe is filled with pulsars, and each has a distinct signature or pulsing frequency. If we can locate six, whose positions we know relative to Earth, we can determine our exact position relative to them. Then it’s just a matter of triangulating from Earth to where we are and eureka — problem solved.”

  The men grinned at each other, and then Harry commented, “That’s brilliant.” It’s sure a good thing we brought Scott along. I doubt anyone else would have been able to figure that out.

  Scott smiled and quipped, “See, I’m more than a pretty face and an expert golfer.”

  “I bet Andy would disagree with the golfer bit,” Ronnie cracked.

  “Forrester, I should have flunked your ass out when I had a chance,” Kimberly replied raising his eyebrow.

  “Wishful thinking, Doc,” Ronnie said laughing.

  Harry got on the intercom display. “Captain, Kimberly’s come up with a plan to find out where we are.”

  “What is it?”

  After Harry explained, the captain nodded and gave Thompson a thumb up.

  “The only problem is it’ll take a while to find ‘em and run the analysis,” Harry said.

  “Great work. Mr. Thompson, please assist Dr. Kimberly in the lab.”

  “I’m on my way, Captain.”

  While Scott and Thompson conducted their search strategy, Ronnie and Harry focused their attention on the strange solar system the wormhole taken them to. It was an interesting system, with a binary star and five outer planets. The captain parked the Orion twenty-five kilometers above the fifth planet, which had two small moons. Out of curiosity, Harry ran a sensor survey of the planet. To his surprise, the data showed a very distinct elemental frequency line and a strange, but somewhat vaguely familiar, radiation signature.

  Wonder what this is, he thought as he initiated computer analysis of the data. After a minute, the computer confirmed the results he had suspected.

  “Ronnie, take a look at this data! Is it what I think it is?”

  “I don’t know dude, let me see what you got.” He studied the data. “Harry, this is the spectral signature of Selenium crystals. From what I can tell it’s an enormous deposit and worth a bloody fortune. I bet this single deposit alone would provide energy for Earth’s power systems for thousands of years. Scott, take a look at this data.”

  Scott stopped his pulsar search and walked over to the console. As he reviewed the data, his eyes widened. “This is amazing. I’ve never seen or heard of such a vast deposit of these crystals. We have to search like crazy on Earth to mine Pyrite to just obtain a few kilos of this stuff or get it through the refinement of copper. At any rate, it’s not that plentiful.”

  “If our discovery pans out, this planet will be the most valuable piece of real estate in the galaxy,” Ronnie surmised. “Without a doubt, it’ll get tagged the Mineral Planet. Guys, this is so monumental, I think we have to investigate. It’ll be big news back home. What are the atmospherics like?”

  “Computer, run an atmospheric analysis,” Harry requested.

  “Analysis is complete. Nitrogen content is 78.4 percent, Oxygen level 21.7 percent, Argon 0.93 percent. Other trace gases less than 1.0 percent. Surface temperature, 34.2 degrees Celsius, humidity 85.3 percent. Gravity is the same as earth.”

  “Computer is there any trace gases harmful to humans?” Harry asked.

  “No, Doctor. The atmosphere is breathable.”

  “How about that,” Harry mussed. “The oxygen nitrogen content is almost identical to Earth. We can breathe it with no problems. We won’t need a coat, that’s for sure.”

  Ronnie gave Harry a sideways what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look. “Harry, are you saying what I think you are?”

  “Yeah. We need to go down there and check it out. I’ll ask the captain to come down here so we can discuss it with him.”

  “What’s this ‘we’ stuff? You got a mouse in your pocket?” Ronnie remarked, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Captain Starling walked into the Astronomical lab and approached the science console where the three men sat. He leaned on the console. “Gentlemen, why the excitement? Find our Pulsars?”

  Harry spoke up. “That’s in process, Captain. We’ve made another discovery. Check the sensor data.”

  The captain’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “This is an enormous Selenium crystal deposit! Is the data correct?”

  “It’s correct, Captain. I know this might sound screwy, but we want to go down there and validate the find. Kimberly’s the expert on pulsars and astronomy, so he’s more than capable of figuring out where we are. Ronnie and I want to take the Oriskany down and investigate the find.”

  “What about atmospherics? Will you need suits?”

  “It’s breathable and fairly tolerable. From what we can see, the planet’s jungle-like. There’s considerable volcanic activity. We don’t plan to be there for an extended time. We just need to collect samples and corroborate the sensor data. You and I both know this will be phenomenal news back on Earth, and they’ll want confirmation.”

  “I agree. We have to check it out. You know, Harry, this discovery will justify the entire cost of your project a million times over. I’ll have Knuckles pilot you down. I also want Major Tobey and the entire special ops group to accompany you.”

  “Why, Captain? We’re just going to take a few samples and come right back. We shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of hours. No big deal.”

  “This is an unknown primordial planet, and you don’t know what you might encounter. The planet could be teaming with predators. No, you need protection. Scott, are you and Ralph okay to continue the search without Harry and Ronnie?”

  “No sweat, Captain. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, but Ralph and I are doing just fine. We’ve already located one of the pulsars. This is not going to be an easy task. Fortunately we have a well proven search strategy.”

  “Good. I’ll notify Major Tobey, so he can get his guys ready for the drop. In the meantime, I want to orbit the planet and do a survey before you go down. We need more information on this place, particularly any biologics.”

  Starling returned to the bridge and sat in his command chair. “Knuckles, take us into a low planet orbit. Maintain twenty-five thousand.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Knuckles adjusted their orbit, then announced, “Orbiting at twenty-five thousand kilometers.”

  “Very well. Computer, sync main screen to the astro lab sensor scans.”

  “Main screen synchronized. Do you want sensor metrics displayed?”

  “Yes, and give me data on all biological activity,” the captain ordered.

  The planet had dense foliage and large bodies of water distributed over its surface. Enormous volcanic activity polluted the sky with ash and smoke, and one very large cone appeared ready to erupt. As they flew over the horizon, the binary suns crossed paths, creating a spectacular light show that erupted at the viewing angle. Two gigantic blooms of light emanated over the horizon. Rays of light darted out through the sky with streamers of different colors shooting out like roman candles.

  Harry stared in awe. I hope the computers recorded that.

  A level-six hurricane, with a characteristic clockwise movement and spiral clouds, migrated slowly over the ocean in the southern hemisphere, heading for landfall. Boy, I’m sure glad that monster’s moving away from us.

  The survey confirmed the captain’s concern. There was considerable biological activity on the planet. Biological activity they knew nothing about.

  Enormous electrical storms sporadically occurred everywhere. Lightning lit up the sky as the ground and atmosphere endeav
ored to equalize the electron distribution between them. Thunderheads, reaching thirty thousand feet into the sky, illuminated like giant light bulbs, exchanging ferocious bolts of lightning back and forth, eager to share electrons. Huge electrical sprites ejected into space reminded Harry of ice cream cones and giant jellyfish.

  The magnetic variation readouts troubled Harry. “Computer, plot the magnetic variation and provide a time table.”

  “Working. Magnetic variation has been measured and a timeline has been calculated. Data downloaded to your Qtabs.”

  Harry reviewed the magnetic data on the science console. Over the next twenty-four hours, they would have fairly constant magnetic lines to navigate by. I hope the compass works on the surface. It’s going to be rough sledding if it doesn’t.

  After completing the survey, the captain parked Orion at the exact arrival coordinates.

  “I want to stay close to the exit point of the last known wormhole end-point coordinates,” he explained to the bridge crew.

  As time got close for the drop, Ronnie’s excitement and anxiety increased. “Harry, we’re completely lost and light-years from who knows where. Now we’re getting ready to ride a shuttle down to validate the greatest mineral find ever on a planet possibly teaming with monsters, volcanic eruptions and horrible electrical storms.” He shook his head.

  “Hey, Ronnie, this is going to exciting.”

  “We must be nuts. I know you are, and I’m beginning to think I am too. We’re all nuts. It’s just like at school. You were always getting me in the soup over something. At least that was just with women.”

  “Yeah but just think about all the fun we had,” Harry replied, grinning.