A voice with a Chinese accent blared out of the speakers, making Beaumont and St. John fall back into their seats.
"AWAITING ORDERS, FLIGHT CREW OF THE BUSTER K?"
Beaumont fought hard not to laugh and answered in his best professional voice,
"Just keep systems shut down. The ship will stay on the tarmac until further notice."
"ACKNOWLEDGED, WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR SOME MUSIC?"
"No music, just shut up, please!" Beaumont was almost ready to pull the doohickey out again, half expecting some weird effects after the sanitation of the mainframe.
"What kind of a voice was that?" St. John looked puzzled.
"I don't believe it! This is the voice of the Chinese waitress at a diner on 5th Avenue in New York City back on Earth. We went there for breakfast a few weeks
ago and talked about it, here on the flight deck. The A.I. of our system must have picked it up when we were mimicking the voice of that lady."
"Laddy, that's scary." St. John said.
"Yeah, you said it. And you don't have to fly back to Earth with it. Come on, let's get out of here!" Beaumont secured the computer with a new code, disconnected all outside data transfer and led St. John out of the ship. On the tarmac, he activated his com.
McCall's com onboard the La Fleur chirped, he took the call: "Yup, what is it Julien."
"Our Lady is back in business, all systems sanitized, flight system back online and safe, but..."
"What is it?"
"Do you remember that Chinese waitress, back in New York at the 5th Avenue doughnut place?"
"As a matter of fact I do, what about her?"
"Our lady is using her voice now."
"You've got to be kidding. How is that possible?" McCall rolled his eyes.
"Well, the computer must have picked us up mimicking the voice. The main voice database in the mainframe had to be erased, so it'll probably be speaking like that till I can find something better."
"Okay, on a normal day, I would curse you and your descendants back into the 18th century, but considering the trouble we've had...we are still waiting for the La Fleur's system to boot up again."
Beaumont chuckled and responded, "Well, sorry, I am looking forward to hear what their voice control will provide."
"We'll see, uh, hear I mean. McCall out" He had to smile then and looked at the others. "How many minutes?"
"Just five." Rosen said.
"Why are you smiling?" Lerille asked.
"Nothing, just got word that the Buster K is back in business."
"Good.", Lerille smiled, "I hope my ship will be too."
They waited the five minutes out. Then a monotone, computer voice came out of the speakers, declaring that the system was back online. In French of course.
But Captain Lerille's smile froze after the next remark from the computer voice.
"Hey, mon capitain, what are you waiting for? Vite, Vite, sacre bleu!"
The voice filling the decks of the La Fleur had a nervous feel to it and sounded something like a mythical troll.
First Officer Rosen had to laugh.
Captain Lerille slapped his right hand on his forehead and started laughing too.
"What the hell is that?" McCall asked.
"Comment? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? Vite, Vite!" The voice sounded again.
Lerille had to catch his breath between laughs, and said: "It appears that our system had to reconfigure the voice control. We were watching an old French movie a few days ago. This is the voice of the main character in the movie."
"Ok, I get it, you were watching a Louis de Funès movie while Julien and I were out there working." He laughed and then said, "So I guess I should be lucky Julien didn't want to watch one the last few days."
"Do you think this is serious?" Henry Rosen asked.
"Nope, don't think so. If I understand right, Julien had to reset the voice operation systems, deleting all of the data. The systems had to use an available voice model that wasn't corrupted."
Lerille didn't look convinced and said, "But if that's the case, why didn't the system just use our own voices? It's heard our voices much more often and more recently. Why pick some random voice it heard at some point in time?"
"Yes," Lily said, "the Buster K took your voices mimicking the old Chinese lady from New York. Why?"
„Yeah, good question. I dunno." He activated his com, "Julien, we have a question over here."
"Beaumont here, what is it?"
"Something similar with the voice control happened over here. Their system is using a voice like Louis de Funès."
They could hear Beaumont laughing before he answered: "Mon dieu, sorry about that. That's my fault. I had to look for something to override the basic routines in the flight system. I had to improvise."
"Very funny, we'll have a talk about that in person, you bozo. McCall out."
He looked at the others, but everybody was still grinning. The systems worked, that was important. He looked at Lily. "We should fly down to the colony and sanitize your beloved shuttles."
She hit him on the shoulder: "Your call Mac. Let's go!"
"Ouch! The other arm next time, please!" He looked at Rosen and Lerille and shook hands with both before leaving.
"Always a hard landing." Lerille said. "Hope you can get my crew up here!"
"Promise I will." McCall said.
McCall and Lily went back to the airlock and into the Tin Lizzy. They started it up, unlocked it from the La Fleur and started the descent into the atmosphere towards the city.
Chapter 8: Hunting Time
Beaumont had been checking the computer systems thoroughly and looked worried. He turned his head to look at St. John, "Look at that. That's odd. There's something still not working correctly with the flight systems.“
St. John looked at the screens as well.
Beaumont said, „By the way, where is your fancy new computer whiz? I want his opinion."
St. John pointed out of the cockpit window. Beaumont followed his gesture and saw Matthew Burke coming toward the Buster K.
"Ask him yourself, let's go." St. John went toward the airlock. Beaumont pulled the doohickey out again and put it into the pocket of his jacket and followed St. John to the airlock. He pushed some buttons on the wall to let the gangway down. Just as it hit the pavement, Burke made a move to enter the gangway, but Beaumont was faster, guiding him as politely as possible back down.
"But I want to help.." Burke began.
"No help needed," Beaumont answered, trying to keep an honest looking smile on his face. He directed him farther away and raised the gangway by remote, "Our Lady is sanitized and ready to fly. "
"But..." Burke tried again.
Beaumont cut him off and said, "We pilots like to keep our business to ourselves. Out here we can only rely on ourselves. And back on Earth we will be held fully accountable for the condition of our ships and their systems. Got it?"
He looked at Burke like a drill instructor and Burke stuttered: "Yes sir, I mean I understand of course."
St. John asked Burke, "So what is the status of our systems? Are they safe again?"
"Yes. I rebooted them and I'm pretty sure we killed the virus." Burke said in a firm voice.
"Very good, Laddy! What about the shuttles? Can we use them again?"
"Well, yes."
"Are you sure?" St. John focused on him. "We need them to bring the crew of the La Fleur back to their ship. Are they ok?" He asked again.
Burke looked nervous, but said," They should be operable and safe, yes."
"I want to hear what Lily says." St. John said and walked away towards the tower of the airport.
"Sorry Burke, but just like your hard-ass boss, we deep space pilots are not easy characters either." Beaumont formed a grin at Burke who looked unsure and nervous again.
"Yes, I suppose so, I've had my experiences with Mr. MacGill."
"Yes, I noticed that at our first meeting." Beaumont tapped Burke's shoulder and signaled for them to f
ollow St. John. A sonic boom announced a ship closing in.
In the Tin Lizzy, McCall had made it through the re-entry and was lining the ship up for the landing at the airport. Lily noticed that he followed the ILS glide path and frowned.
"What are you doing, mate?"
He looked back, then realized what he was doing and pulled the Tin Lizzy away from the flight path and aimed straight to the tarmac.
"Sorry, I forgot. On Earth they do it that way."
"No shit. On auto, or manual?"
"Auto, you have no choice. You'll get suspended if you try manual." He said in a sarcastic voice.
"I'm glad I moved out here." Lily said, as McCall put the Tin Lizzy on a direct course next to the Buster K. Shortly after they had come to a stop on the tarmac, and had exited the Tin Lizzy, his com chirped. It was St. John who told them to come to the tower.
As they were gathering in the tower, St. John requested that all staff leave the room. There were no flights expected anyway. Then he gave looked over at McCall. McCall nodded in return.
McCall turned to Matthew Burke and asked straight forward. "Ok, Matthew, who are you, really?"
Burke became a bit nervous at first, but then seemed to accept the situation and relaxed. He look around at each one of them before he answered.
"Okay you got me. My name is right and real, but I work for military intelligence. They sent me out here to monitor the effects of the military research facility in the sun orbit in this solar system and especially the effects it has on this planet."
He looked at the others and continued, "I am basically a watchdog, here to prevent any harm or other disturbances caused by the installation up there."
"Ha, I assumed something of the sort right from the first moment I saw you." McCall grinned, "But if I'm right, you guys always have a backup. We had a major incident here. It would be interesting to know where the cavalry is?"
Burke looked scared as he answered. "I do not know. I was expecting the USS Colin Powell. I hailed it just after I woke up after the gas incident. But it isn't responding."
"How far away should it be, I mean when you said you hailed it?"
"It should be less the 10 AU away, that means about 10 minutes to reach it."
McCall nodded slowly. "And it's a stealth ship. And possibly has cloaking devices too?"
"Yes. At the moment it's camouflaged as a transporter, but it's really a destroyer."
Beaumont hit the table with his fist, so loud that everybody in the roomed jumped.
"I knew it! Linus, that ship, a few weeks ago at Boeing field. We made fun of its miserable camouflage, remember?"
"Oh yeah, you mean the one that cut in and got priority in preorbital."
He looked at Burke again. "So then, where is it? We could use some help here."
Burke didn't look very hopeful as he shrugged and said, "I really don't know. It's not responding.” He looked over at Julien, "Maybe we should go to the mainframe. I doubt if I can do it alone, but if we consolidate our resources, maybe with your help we could find out how this bug got us."
It was a question of trust. Beaumont was the first to say, "Fine. Ready to find this bug, let's go!" Beaumont followed Burke to the server room.
McCall looked at St. John and Lily and said, "We should give them some time, these IT-geeks can be difficult."
St. John sighed and said, "Aye, come on kids. Let's have a smoke and a drink." as he headed out of the tower. They walked by the tower crew that had been banished and told them that they could have their workplace back.
As they were taking the narrow staircase down from the tower, a deep rumbling shook the ground. It was the sound of a ship taking off.
Lily suddenly gasped as realization came over her and she cried, „Not the Lady Rose, you bloody bastard! Nooo!“ She dashed down the stairwell, shoving St. John and Linus aside. She hurried out the door, just as her beloved shuttle began gaining altitude with flaming engines. She ran after it ineffectually and shortly thereafter a sonic boom rattled the landscape.
Lily sat down on the tarmac and started sobbing. Linus put an arm around her shoulder to comfort her and she buried her face in his chest.
"Easy, Kiddo. We'll get the bastard and get the Lady Rose back in one piece."
Linus McCall wasn't so sure he could keep such a promise, but he wanted to believe it. And he realized that he was really becoming scared. Something wasn't right and they weren't in control.
Matthew Burke and Julien Beaumont walked into the server room, Matt's workplace. His desk was just like any ordinary desk of any number of system administrators around the universe, which meant it was a mess. There were marketing figures from old as well as contemporary sci-fi movies, candy bar wrappers and empty Coke bottles. A UFO Picture hung on the wall to the left of his desk. One picture caught Julien's attention. It looked like a photograph of a Fabergé egg, but as Julien looked closer he could see the very fine lines of a painting. What a piece of art, he thought, but it didn't fit with the rest of the items on display. A picture of a priceless bauble that Fabergé had made for the Russian royal family a few hundred years ago.
"Hey, Matt". He pointed to the picture, "What's with this picture?"
Matthew laughed and said, "Ah that, it was a gift from some guy on the research station. He made it himself. He's really gifted, isn't he?"
"Indeed, very fine artwork, a masterpiece."
"Yes, I helped them with a server problem and he gave me that as a thank you. Real handiwork. Nice."
Beaumont nodded. Then they concentrated on running through the server records to find any clues that could lead them to the bug that had paralyzed an entire planet.
While the system was searching, Burke asked, "Why did you ask about the Fabergé picture?"
Beaumont looked around again and said. "Well, I see a lot of sci-fi memorabilia from the last 200 years on your walls, but this one is more like a historic piece of art. It stands out."
"Yeah. I bet you're a sci-fi fan too, right?"
Beaumont grinned. "Yep, I love Star Wars. My partner on the ship is always making fun of me for that."
Burke looked at Julien and asked, „Let me guess, the Luke Skywalker impression?"
"How'd you know?"
"Oh, I've had to take my share of battering.“ Then he stopped and looked around as if listening, „Wait, what's that?"
They could feel a rumble and heard a distant noise.
"A ship taking off?" Burke asked.
Beaumont shrugged: "Maybe one of St. John's Whiskey burps..."
Then something suddenly popped up on one of the screens:
'INTRUDER IDENTIFIED;
STATUS: ACTIVE;
LOCATION: MAIN SERVER ROOM
INTRUSION: VIA MAIN WIRELESS INTERFACE'
Both men stared in disbelief, and then looked around frantically.
'The main server room?' Julien thought. 'That's here!“
They began turning the place upside down, unsure about what exactly they were looking for.
Suddenly the door flew open. McCall, followed by St. John and a distraught Lily walked into the room.
"What are you two doing? Is it garbage day?" McCall looked at the things they had simply thrown to the floor.
"It's in here!" Beaumont answered, "And what are you guys doing here?"
"Somebody stole Lily's shuttle, just minutes ago.“ McCall said. And then, „And what exactly is in here?"
"The bug that infiltrated the system. It's still here and it's in this room. It came in via the main wireless interface and it's still active."
McCall paled, "Well keep on searching. Wait, I'm gonna get something from the ship."
Beaumont just nodded at him knowingly. The others just looked at each other confusedly. Then St. John and Lily decided to help dig through the room. Everyone was somewhere in the room, trying to do a thorough search. They even checked the air ducts. They pointed flashlights into any and all openings on the walls and behind the server racks, but fo
und nothing.
Then McCall rushed back in again. He had brought back what looked like a kind of scanner. It was just a box with a screen and some buttons. An antenna was attached to the front.
"Ok, everybody, out of the room, or at least behind me."
They followed his orders and he activated the device. The screen showed something like a FLIR image, but it wasn't infrared. It could detect and record all types of electronic signals. He pointed it in all directions to cover every part of the room. All of the electric cords, all of the data interfaces. Computers appeared clearly visible in the typical varying hues of green, but when he pointed it at Burke's desk, the scanner locked on something else.
The display showed a square on the wall, about 4 by 6 inches in size, and in completely different bright colors than any of the other objects showing on the screen. It had to be the bug. It was in the picture of the Fabergé egg.
McCall didn't say anything. He just moved forward quickly and pulled a bag out of his pocket. Then he ripped the picture of the Faberge egg off the wall and put it in the bag.
Burke was so stunned he wasn't even moving. Then he whispered, "How is this possible?"
"Didn't you know that you can print entire systems with a specific ink? You should know that, Mr. IT." McCall jeered.
Matthew nodded, and then looked suspiciously at McCall's ominous bag. It looked like metal. He thought it wasn't fabric and was much too big for the tiny picture. But he assumed it would seal any electronic impulses from the picture.
McCall had a bitter grin on his face. "Ok, what do we do with it now?"
Everyone just stood there silently for a while.
Burke cleared his throat and asked, "I guess analyzing it would be too dangerous, huh?"
Silence again.
Then St. John had an idea. "The silent room! We can put it in there!"
"You have a real silent room?" Beaumont was surprised, "Out here? What for?"
St. John straightened himself and said, "What do you think we are? We ain't no hillbillies who get drunk all the time and live in caves. We're in the process of building highly advanced systems for our purposes. Earth is very far away, you know!"
"And old, stinky diesel cars!" McCall chuckled under his breath.
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