Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “Yes, sir. That's where we are.”

  “I need a bit to think, Captain Hall. I'm sure you understand.”

  “I do, sir. I've had more than six months; I don't have a problem with someone else spending some time doing the same thing.”

  Twenty minutes later the fueling station commander was back. “I'm going to send you a shuttle. They will have reduced the latch-frame bandwidth, and will carry my med tech. He assures me that the procedure to remove an implant shouldn't be more complicated that inserting it. He will be tasked with observing you, do you understand?”

  “That is only prudent, Captain,” Captain Hall told him.

  “With him will be my one and only Marine. He's a staff sergeant, and like my med tech will be tasked with observing.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  “Well the last person I'll be sending you is my Portie aide. He's a nincompoop. You don't even want to think about what I'll believe if he comes back with a favorable report.”

  Irene laughed. “Sir, this ship would drive any Portie bats!”

  “I read your crew manifest... I don't think he's smart enough to tie his shoes, much less do research. Do try to be gentle with him, Captain Hall.”

  *** ** ***

  Cindy Rhodes instinctively adjusted her shipsuit so it was at its best. She knocked on the imposing door in front of her. A man she didn't know opened it and said, “Yes, Miss?”

  Without hesitation she spoke. “Would you tell my father, if he's in, that his daughter is back?”

  The man looked at her and then blinked. Well, it was nearly four years... she wasn't at all like the callow youth who'd walked out of this door for the last time so long ago.

  “Just a moment, Miss,” the man said levelly and vanished inside, without inviting Cindy in.

  A few minutes her father appeared “My God! You're back! You're safe! They didn't tell me!” He hugged her and Cindy gave him a perfunctory hug back.

  “Sir, I need to talk to you, preferably in your office.” She'd known his office was a secure location when she was growing up. The one time she'd gone in without permission, the police had been there in two minutes.

  “You're back!” he repeated. His face shifted. “Your mother is chasing... will-o-the-wisps... in Atlanta.”

  “Sir, I need to talk to you about matter of supreme importance to the Federation.”

  “Once you used to call me, Dad,” he said sadly.

  Cindy turned up her lip. “I called you 'father' as far back as I can remember. Only once, in my memory, 'Dad.'”

  He blinked, started to say something, and then waved her inside. “What's this about, Cindy?”

  Cindy waved at the man who had opened the door. “Get rid of him.”

  Her father hesitated at her tone. “He's Protective Service, Cindy. I can't.”

  “You'd better be able to, because what I have is critical to the survival of the Federation. If he is found to leak information -- not only will he be shot, so will be you.”

  Her father blinked. “Are you okay, Cindy?”

  “Father, I'm a full lieutenant of the Fleet. I'm the Executive Officer of a Fleet capital ship. If there was ever a time in your life where 'playing it safe' made sense, this is it.”

  “Vernon, could you excuse us?” her father told the man.

  “Sir, I have to report this.”

  Gunny Hodges appeared behind the man and put a pistol to his neck. The man froze.

  “Hi, I'm a Marine gunny. You know what happens if you move?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good! Are you wired?”

  “No, Gunny,” he spat on the ground. “Fleet technology is not for the likes of us!”

  “If I think even for a millisecond that you are, I'll kill you, do you understand?”

  “Like I said. I have a panic button, but I haven't touched it.”

  “Then don't. As the lieutenant said, this is critical to the survival of the Federation. Interfere and you're dead... and it won't be me -- it'll be a Special Board.”

  The man sighed. “They told me this was a crap job. And here, I thought they were shining me on.”

  “Father, your office,” Cindy said, nodding in the right direction.

  A few moments later he sat down, looking at Cindy sitting across from him. “What is it you want, Cindy?”

  “If you're not wired, you'll have your phone. Pick it up. Call Admiral Nagoya; tell him you have information vital to the security of the Federation and that he needs to come over, without any aides, without delay.”

  “He retired a year ago.”

  “Call him.”

  Her father studied his daughter. “I tried to help you last time -- but your precipitate actions made it impossible. I think it will be even more impossible this time.”

  “Father, I'm going before a Special Board. I know that. The alternative is the end of the Federation. This is that serious. Please make the call.”

  Her father picked up the phone and punched two numbers. Cindy curled her lip. The man who had led the Fleet wasn't in the top ten?

  Her father said the right words.

  “He says he will be here in five minutes,” Cindy's father reported.

  “Sir, you are going to hear things of maximum importance to the security of the Federation. I assure you, that you can and will be shot if you break security.”

  He grimaced. “Once upon a time I thought I could rely on my senatorial immunity. They've shot three of us; two for impeding the war effort and one for high treason. I know you think people my age are incurably stupid, but that's simply not true: you can't imagine how much a threat of being shot concentrates the brain onto essentials.”

  Cindy sniffed. “Contemplate that and a thousand alien ships and missiles chasing you. Then try again.”

  A few minutes Admiral Nagoya was ushered in by Gunny Hodges. He seemed to be bland and unaffected.

  “I know you,” he told Cindy. “I sent you out to explore alien space. I hadn't heard you were back.”

  Cindy glanced at her father and willed him to hold his tongue. “We experienced severe malfs, sir. I'm sorry to report we learned nothing we can count on.”

  “The design was inadequate?”

  “You have no idea, sir. Please I want to keep an open mind. You understand about wired ships?”

  “Of course? So?”

  “So, sir, the computers capable of doing that can read minds. They tell people things, using a distinctive voice.”

  “Your point, Lieutenant,” the admiral said impatiently.

  “Sir, those computers read our minds -- and they plant thoughts in our heads. To make it seem like no big deal, they use a unique voice. They can, sir, use our own voices.”

  The retired admiral sat still, thinking. “And you know this because?”

  “I don't know what you heard about me from Admiral Gull and Captain Drake, sir. But it was all a lie. Our ship's computer was using me as a puppet.”

  “It was putting thoughts in your head?”

  “Yes, sir. One day I told a deliberate lie. I felt -- well, I know the importance Fleet places on telling the truth. Right then we detected an alien ship and I was distracted. Still, it bothered me. One day I realized what was happening.”

  “And...”

  “And the ship's computer tried to interfere with our shutting down internal latch-frame. When one crew member threatened to disassemble the computer, it shut down all of the ship's active systems.”

  The admiral grimaced. “And?”

  “We worked through the malfs, sir. The computer had been spoofing our sensors. We had a lot of aliens close, on intercept courses.”

  “And...?”

  “We managed to get our shuttles to do the jump calculations. Except they were limited to two minutes, max on High Fan.”

  “Good God!” Admiral Nagoya exclaimed. “Obviously, you survived.

  “Sir, we lost three of nineteen in our crew doing fourteen paired translations in a half hour.
I'm immune to fan transitions, so was a Master Pilot we had assigned to us. Another crew member effected the changes needed to allow us unlimited time on High Fan, while I flew the ship.”

  “Obviously, you know I'm not wired.”

  “We knew that, yes sir. We were pretty sure.”

  He reached into his pocket and put his phone on the desk in front of him. He spun it like a top. “Can I make a call?”

  “Sir, we all expect to die. We wanted to give it our best shot, though.” She nodded at the phone. “Go ahead.”

  The admiral picked up the phone. “Ernie, I have a situation that you need to briefed on. Please, would you come? Ask Jensen and Saito to come as well. Booth would be good. Oh... and the President.”

  There was a momentary pause. “I know he's not feeling well; he needs to come. No aides. None. Come to my house.”

  The admiral looked around him. “My house is better for this. While Senator Rhodes' communications are moderately secure -- these days I have none to secure.”

  The president of the Federation was a third of the way around the planet and arrived last. Cindy was unprepared for how he looked. He looked like a human skeleton, while before he'd been portly.

  “Admiral Nagoya,” President van de Veere said, “you said this was important.”

  The admiral nodded and steepled his fingers. “I am going to tell you all something that is going to rock you to your core. I've put off telling my colleagues,” he nodded at the other senior Fleet officers, ”so we can tell this just once.”

  Turbine Jensen grimaced. “The last time I heard that it was something I didn't want to hear.”

  “You'll not want to hear this, either,” the admiral told him. He waved and Cindy came forward.

  Admiral Booth spoke first. “We sent you off as an ensign on Pixie.” He waved at Captain Hall. “And you were her captain.”

  “You were in Rome in the Big Battle,” Admiral Fletcher said.

  “Sirs, my crew has asked me to do this brief. I wish they'd picked someone else.” After that Cindy explained what had happened.

  There was silence in the room. The first person to speak was the president. He turned to Cindy's father. “I imagine they told you what happens if you leak this?”

  “Yes. I wouldn't.”

  President Van de Veere waved around the room. “I know these men; it will never come from them. You had better be sure it doesn't come from you.”

  “Never!”

  The president of the Federation turned to Admiral Ernest Fletcher. “Admiral?”

  “We are really, truly screwed. I've had a couple of hints of things I wasn't sure about. This confirms things... things beyond my worst fears.”

  “How so, Admiral?” the president asked.

  “A simple thing. The comm officer who came up with the same idea as Lieutenant Rhodes -- latch-frame buoys all the way out to Adobe. Once that idea was in progress -- we've been linking all of the Class One bases. All of those bases have self-aware computation. I can't think it's an accident.”

  “I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here,” Dennis Booth said. “Not that I dispute a single thing.

  “We have suggestions, not confirmations.”

  “Well, contemplate that if the worst is true, those computers hold this system hostage, along with all of the other major systems in the Federation,” Ernie Fletcher said.

  “Is there nothing that can be done?” the president asked.

  “Of course. We can kill latch-frame in the home system -- the ability was designed in case we saw our enemies were using latch-frame. We'd kill a few thousand people when we did it -- but it wouldn't be crippling.”

  “But you think it won't work?” the president asked.

  “Other systems, other rules, sir. If we can't shut down latch-frame instantly, and then disable those computers before they can regain communications, odds are we'll lose a lot of people. If the computers react too fast, we could lose the system.”

  “This is a civil war,” President Van de Veere stated.

  “I have to say yes,” Admiral Nagoya agreed. “But there are things we can do to dilute the fighting.”

  “Dilute,” the president whispered.

  “Sir,” Ernie Fletcher said, “I believe these officers. When we start trying to turn off the big computers in the Federation, we're going to have a fight on our hands, just like this crew had on their own ship. Sir, I think we can win -- but I'm not entirely confident.”

  “And the war?” the president of the Federation asked.

  “We're going to lose some time, sir. And maybe some ships. Almost all of our major combatants are wired.” He nodded at Cindy and Captain Hall. “Our people, alerted, should be able to counter-act the effects.”

  “You are placing a great deal of confidence in this report.”

  Admiral Fletcher nodded. “We've talked about a number of issues the last few years. They are happening with increasing frequency, I might add. Odd little things with no rhyme or reason.”

  “People doing things that are totally out of character,” Turbine Jensen told them. “A month ago a junior lieutenant aboard Congo punched her captain. She stood up during an exercise, turned around and hit him as hard as she could, with no warning and no obvious precipitating event. Just wham! I've been reviewing the records: the shrinks say she had a 'psychotic episode' and wasn't responsible for her actions. Her captain wants her dead. I've been trying to make up my mind.” He waved at Cindy.

  “From the sound of it, that captain had just noticed something off and his computer decided to distract him. Now I'm going to have to call them both back for further interviews; that's not going to make for very many happy campers. The whole episode reeked of problems; but there was an entire bridge crew that saw the incident.” He laughed bitterly. “After we get done with the wee bit of work we have to do.”

  “Do you have an idea?” Admiral Fletcher asked.

  “Oh, yes!” Admiral Jensen told him. “We have to be sure, obviously. I'm scheduled for a short cruise on Hastings -- for old times sake, tomorrow.” He turned to Captain Hall.

  “I assume your ship is out there someplace in the Oort cloud, docked on something substantial?”

  “Out there docked on something, sir,” the captain replied.

  Admiral Fletcher chuckled and Turbine Jensen gave her a thumbs up. “Obviously, we are going to have to adapt to a new way of thinking.

  “At any rate, I'll have a couple of Marines along; not many Marines are wired.” He smiled slightly. “I'll do a little three-card Monte and before Hastings knows it, internal latch-frame will be down. The computer can either play dead or speak up.”

  “Sir, on our ship, the computer was tied to the all the control and sensor feeds. As soon as it realized our intent, it shut everything off,” Cindy told the admiral.

  Turbine Jensen blinked and then grimaced. “We have dug ourselves a fine hole, haven't we?”

  Alis McVae spoke up. “I can help your people there, sir. I was BuShips, before.”

  “How many locations?”

  “We try to keep it simple, sir. Three main trunks. I'd say three men to disable latch-frame and two each for the trunks.”

  Gunny Hodges spoke up. “I know I'm just a Marine, sirs, but if those Marines were zoot-suited, nothing would stop them.”

  “I do believe a paranoid computer might be suspicious of zooted Marines boarding the ship,” Admiral Fletcher observed.

  “Yes, sir. I know I'm out of date on current work, sir, but BuArms always had another, newer version of battle armor on the drawing board. They could announce something new and if Admiral Jensen had a bevy of Marines with the new stuff -- well it wouldn't be the first time.”

  “Indeed it wouldn't,” chuckled Admiral Nagoya. “This still begs the question: what next? There are thousands of wired ships in the home system. They will all not allow parties of strangers to waltz aboard and deactivate them.”

  “We have the ability to kill or disable latch-f
rame,” Admiral Booth said, speaking for the first time. “It was designed if we ever realized that the aliens had latch-frame -- it was intended to try to hurt their communications in that event -- in the hopes that it would affect their reactions.

  “We can reduce latch-frame band widths to a fraction of a percent of what's available now. That would destroy the computer's ability to influence at a distance.”

  “But it wouldn't affect individual ships?” Admiral Fletcher asked.

  “Not the major units, Admiral. Just the smaller ones. It would cut the risk 95%.”

  “Here, in the home system. I suggest to you that your odds are optimistic, and I think odds of one chance in twenty we lose the war aren't good enough. We need a solution that is going to work nearly everywhere, nearly every time.”

  “You left out a step,” Admiral Jensen said, interrupting.

  “What?” asked Admiral Nagoya.

  “We can deal with Hastings shutting down all of the ship's systems. If it does that, and if it won't talk to us, then I'm afraid we may well have to resort to something like Dennis is talking about -- and take our lumps and chances.

  “We do not, in fact, know if the computers are actively hostile. Pixie behaved more like a spoiled child that a cold-blooded conspirator. If the computers were actively opposing us, I think we would have noticed. One scenario I can envision is that they think they are helping us, just as Pixie thought it was helping Lieutenant Rhodes. In short, we might be able to negotiate with them.”

  “I don't want to sound insubordinate, sir, but what if the computer lies? Pixie didn't mind lying,” Cindy offered.

  Admiral Saito spoke for the first time. “Your only pressure point would be to threaten its destruction, Turbine. I have no idea what would motivate a computer, but if it's self-aware, it's not going to be in a hurry to be destroyed and could reasonably be expected to do anything it thought necessary to preserve itself -- including lie. The first time it had working latch-frame contact with the others it would be all over.”

  “There doesn't seem to be any good alternatives,” the president of the Federation said, his voice forlorn.