“No, it’s as good as it looks,” said Askel. “I had some AIs analyse it closely. It looks like a simulation, exactly what we expected.”
“It looked good to me too, and it felt good. Just felt right, y’know?”
“There’ll be no problem with the full burn. The extrapolations are good too, we’ve nailed this thing. How are your supplies?”
“We took our last supply drop tonight. The shuttle took the rest of the team home.”
“But you’re going along for the journey?”
“I am indeed. Rawls made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He wanted a Helios engineer on board to cover any matters arising. I’ll be responsible for both ships - we’ll be close enough for real-time coms across both vessels. You’re going home?”
“Yes,” said Askel.
“About that shuttle,” said Speight. “When your shuttle docked with us I ran some tests and patched it up.”
“I heard,” said Askel.
“One of the things I did was replace the main and auxiliary computers. It dumped all its oxygen for no reason. The hardware was all good so it had to be a software failure.”
“You put in manual overrides?”
“Well, I made it a lot harder for the ship to mess with life-critical systems without running by an actual human first. I altered the software to be super cautious, just to get them back to Earth. Thing is, I’ve run a deep analysis on the software on both control computers, and I’ve found something a little odd.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, the software is signed by Helios and dated last year, January or February, I think. Last year, anyway. But it makes reference to libraries that were only released last month.”
“That doesn’t make sense. It’s not using the older versions of the same libraries?”
“No, that’s what I thought, so I tried it with the older libraries, and it doesn’t work. The routines it used to purge the oxygen are only in the new libraries. I mean, you could do it with the old libraries, but you would have to code it in a completely different and more complex way. That’s one of the many things that’s so good about the new versions.”
“So how is an old system making use of new libraries?”
“This is my point, Askel. It can’t. The control system, which caused the failure, has to be very recent. But it says it’s almost eighteen months old.” He let the point hang.
“Sabotage?” said Askel, not really believing it.
“You tell me,” said Speight. “I’ve gone through it again and again. I’ve put my best AIs on it, and I can’t figure what’s happened. The software is a year and a half old. It had a minor patch eight months ago, according to all the meta-data, and it’s speaking to other systems that it should not be able to speak to, and telling them to be doing things they shouldn’t be doing. What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” said Askel, “there’s usually some freaky explanation for these sorts of things.”
“That’s what I thought, but I’ve been over it and over it and it doesn’t add up.”
“Did you take it to Rawls?”
“Not yet. I’m not even sure what it is.”
“Send the data over to me. I’ll have a look.”
“I can send a virtual copy, but it’s embedded in the physical systems. You really need the computers themselves.”
“Okay. There’s no way to get them over here, is there? And you’re leaving tomorrow. Keep working on them and let me know.”
“I will.”
“Listen, I’m going to be around tomorrow when you go. I’ll be following everything.”
“Good. It’s going to be fine. Like the trip to Luna, except we’re going right on past the Moon with our foot to the floor.”
“I know,” said Askel. “I’m not doing it for moral support; I want to see your data. Ephialtes is shipping out in a day or two, so it will be useful for them.”
“We’re leaving at 06:00, Eastern Standard Time, USAN. Set your alarm.”
“I’ll be here from 04:00.”
“Okay. We’ve done a good job here, haven’t we?”
“Good? I’d say we’ve done an outstanding job.”
“A hell of a lot of that was down to you. Thanks, Askel, you’ve been a great team leader.”
Askel fought to hide her smile. “Thank you too, Speight. We all did well, everyone. I’m going to personally thank all of your team when I get back.”
“You do that. Goodnight, Askel.”
“Goodnight. Askel out.”
Askel’s comdev woke her at 03:55. She quickly dressed and sat at the terminal in her small cabin. She patched through to the main comcon of Otus and listened in on their audio traffic with ground control back on Earth. She brought up Otus’ systems console on her terminal and checked all the main data feeds. Everything looked good.
She listened to Commodore Tommy Parks running through checks with his systems leads. Periodically, ground control would answer a query or impart some additional information. After a while she heard Speight’s voice too. He was having technical discussions with ground control and giving some observations to Parks. There was less than an hour to go before Otus set off for interplanetary space.
“Speight, Askel here. I’m monitoring your systems from over here; looks good.”
“Hi, Askel. Very smooth this end. Seems like a nice morning for a trip, huh?”
“Roger that.”
Askel left them to it, but kept her eyes on the data feeds. Everything was well within the normal parameters, just like a simulation.
When the clock had counted down to T minus eleven minutes Askel heard Parks take to the com.
“Men and women of Otus, this is Commodore Parks speaking. We are about to embark on an important mission and I want to say a few words to you before we set off. First, I would like to say that I am proud to have you all under my command. I have met you all, and read through your records, and I have to say that you are one of the finest collections of fighting personnel it has ever been my privilege to work with. The task ahead of us appears to be a simple one, but it is also a momentous one for this simple reason. This will be the first time in human history that an offensive force has been sent to another planet. We have the honour of being the first fighting force to represent our country in this way. We have all trained for this mission, and we are all aware that good soldiering means expecting the unexpected, adapting and using initiative to overcome any obstacle. I expect no less from you.
“We leave in less than ten minutes, so you still have time to contact loved ones and family if you want to be able to talk in real time. In five minutes there will be a data curfew. Five minutes after that, we leave. Parks out.”
Askel scanned the readings. They were all good. She spoke to her com. “Good luck, Speight.”
“Thanks, Askel. Won’t need it.”
Askel listened as the ground station at Dallas handed over primary control of Otus to Parks. They would jointly oversee the initial burn that would kick Otus out of Earth orbit. There were seconds left on the clock.
“Dallas, Otus here, we have control.”
“Confirmed, Otus.”
“T minus thirteen seconds to primary burn.”
“Confirmed.”
Askel listened to the countdown finish and followed the data flowing into her console as the great engine fired up. She had seen this a thousand times before, but it had always been simulated data. There was something intoxicating about knowing this data was real. This had all come from ideas that she had had, and now here it was, a real thing, happening right now.
She heard the chief flight engineer from Otus over the com. “Dallas, looking good. We have good acceleration and a stable burn.”
“Otus, we’re looking good here too, enjoy the ride.”
Askel looked at the data for the mirror magnets containing the plasma chamber in Otus’ engine. They were well within normal parameters.
She heard the flight engineer again.
“Ah, Dallas we are experiencing -” The communication ended mid-sentence as all of Askel’s data feeds froze.
“Otus, this is Dallas, do you read?”
-
“Otus, this is Dallas, do you read?”
-
“Otus, this is Dallas, do you read?”
-
“Ephialtes, this is Dallas, do you have a visual on Otus?”
“Ah, negative, Dallas, not from where we are,” the Ephialtes flight engineer replied.
“Ephialtes, please stand by, we have a suspected communications malfunction with Otus, if there’s anything you can give us in the meanwhile go ahead.”
“Understood, Dallas. We don’t have the transponder for Otus at this time, we will continue to hail across all frequencies.”
“Go ahead, Ephialtes, same here. We’ll get back to you when we have something.”
Askel quickly reran the last seconds of data she had from Otus. It was normal, right up to the moment it stopped. Instinctively she raised her hand to cover her mouth. As a scientist and engineer she relied on cold hard data. The data was all good, as far as it went. What the absence of data was telling her was too big for her to take in. She knew that there was an abundance of redundant systems on Otus. Independent power supplies, independent coms, independent life-support. Multiple systems could fail simultaneously and the ship would still function. It was designed that way. She had contributed to that design. There could only be one possible explanation for thirty or more independent systems to fail at the same time. She stared at the data on her screen. It resolutely refused to update. It sat there on the screen, a frozen record of the last moment of Otus’ life.
Ground control called out plaintively from her terminal.
“Otus, this is Dallas, do you read?”
“As soon as it became clear what had happened I looked at our software on Ephialtes. It’s a very, very sophisticated insertion.”
Rawls was listening to Askel’s words and she could see he was scanning through the documentation she had sent him.
“As you can see, it’s deliberate, and almost impossible to catch. It has been designed to fail, and disguise the fact that it’s failing. And to resist detection.”
Rawls nodded. “How did it get there?”
“I don’t know. The change records show no updates other than those I personally oversaw. I have the latest versions of the control software here - my versions - and this was written over them, somehow, without leaving a record that it had done so.”
“You’re saying it was deliberate?”
“I’m absolutely saying it was deliberate. Someone fixed the software so that it would allow the magnetic field cage around the fission reaction to fail at the same time as the fusion reaction ran away with itself. The engine is a bomb; it’s exploding in as controlled a way as possible in the direction we need it to. The altered software not only told the explosion to run way beyond safe limits, it fed us false data while it was doing it. And then it removed the cage, and -”
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“The data from Otus is not consistent with what happened to Otus. And the hacked software that caused it has been inserted here too, on Ephialtes. If we were to go to a full burn now the exact same thing would happen to us. They were murdered, Rawls. Someone set out to kill them all.”
“What do I tell Andrews?”
Askel thought. “Tell her the truth. We were sabotaged. It won’t happen again. Ephialtes will launch, and it will work. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Askel, I don’t want to take any risks on this, however small. Let’s take some time -”
“There is no time. That’s why we’re being paid so much, to deliver this thing on time. And we have. We have been attacked and I will not let that happen again. Ephialtes is safe, I put my life on it.”
“Let’s not be hasty, Askel. Let’s take a few days and really think this through. Come over to my house at the weekend and we’ll put our heads together.”
“What? I’m not coming back, not now. Ephialtes needs a senior Helios engineer for this trip. I’m going with them.”
“Askel, I really don’t think that’s wise.”
“Why not? I’m the best person for the job. I know this ship inside out. And I know there’s someone on board trying to sab us. If I’m here I can protect us against that and I can route that bastard out.”
“We have plenty of great engineers who are familiar with this project. Come home. You’re stressed, you’re overworked and you need a break. The last thing you need to be doing is six months additional work.”
“I’m going, Rawls. I owe it to the people here. They’ve taken down one of my ships. They’re not going to get the other.”
“Askel, the Aloadae belong to the USAN government. Counter-terrorism is their game, not ours. We’ve delivered the best systems we could, it’s up to them to use them.”
“I’m sorry, Rawls, I’m going with them. It’s in the contract. We promised them a senior Helios engineer to oversee the maiden voyage. It was supposed to be Speight. Now it’s going to be me.”
Rawls shook his head. He knew it was no use arguing.
“Listen, I don’t know if Andrews is going to call this off, anyway, in light of what happened. They’ll want additional safety checks on Ephialtes at least, and there’ll need to be a major investigation.”
“They don’t need any of that. I’ve already told you exactly what happened; they injected martial software to deliberately destroy the ship. It’s not a safety issue. Otus was a casualty of war. It was attacked.”
“So how do we know they’re not going to do the same to Ephialtes!?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Because I will be here to defend it. I’ve purged the phony software, I’ve put additional fail-safes in place. I will be here to make it work. Tell that to Andrews. This ship is leaving to carry out the mission and it will be successful. I will personally see to it.”
Rawls threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know what to say. How do you know they’re not just going to inject the malware again?”
“Because they don’t know I’ve removed it. It can’t be injected remotely - that’s one of our cyberwarfare security measures - it has to be manually copied right here on the ship. A few days ago we received the commanders for the dropships and a few additional crew members as part of the standard rotation. All of them had been aboard Otus. You remember that faulty HLV shuttle? It was hobbled in exactly the same way, manually uploaded hacked software. Someone on that shuttle hacked the shuttle. They hacked Otus, then they hacked us. One - at least one - of those thirty is an enemy agent and I’m going to stay here to defend us against them and take them down.”
Rawls knew he had been talked into a corner. Askel was brilliant, and part of that brilliance was her indefatigable drive and her absolute refusal to be beaten. What made her great also made her infuriating to deal with. He didn’t have a choice.
“Okay, Lund, you’re on the trip as our senior engineer. But be careful, you hear me?”
Askel smiled, “I hear you.”
“You know, Helios, as a company, has a lot at stake with this mission. That ship is one of the most expensive things we’ve ever made. And the importance of the mission to our client, well, that just ramps it up again. I wish you weren’t going Askel. We’ve just lost Speight. That’s a massive loss to us, and not just on a business level. You’re the most important person we have. You have to make this work and you have to come back to us. You understand?”
“I think so. You’re saying you care about the bottom line and people too, right?”
“I care about you, Askel. Be safe.”
Askel was taken aback. Rawls was never this open. Maybe it was the shock of the disaster. That sort of thing could disorient people.
“I’ll be safe, Rawls, and I’ll bring this big lump of metal back to you.”
“Make sure you do.”
C H A P T E R 2 0
> Target Practice
The launches for the orbiting missile system went without a hitch. Kostovich’s AI had predicted the probability of one or more launches failing at two thousand to one. Assembly, as per design, was fast and efficient in accordance with the many computer models Kostovich had run for it.
The system was now ready.
The main Martian conurbation of Marineris was defended by the four missile batteries on the surface of the planet, with further coverage given now by the off-planet platform in geostationary orbit above them. The planetside systems had been tested on inexpensive aerial drones. Kostovich wanted to do live tests for the orbiting platform and needed something to test it against. There were many artificial satellites in Martian orbit. Kostovich need one that was live but expendable.
He had designed the system to be as flexible as possible. To that end each battery’s missiles were armed with a number of different payloads, from nukes to tactical battlefield warheads. The idea was to limit destruction to the minimum required in a given situation. Venkdt thought their most likely enemy was their erstwhile compatriots, the USAN. He hoped that, if push came to shove, it would be possible to repulse any attack with minimum aggression.
The batteries’ missile of choice was the battlefield EMP. The powerful electromagnetic pulse of these weapons was enough to fry any nearby electronics, rendering such systems inoperable. Rather than destroy the enemy they would disarm him.
The second line was standard chemical explosive warheads, necessary for situations where a precise strike was needed. Lastly, for cases where all subtlety was lost, were tactical nukes.
Kostovich needed to test all three systems. He wanted to disable a working satellite with an EMP, cripple it with a standard chemical explosive missile, then annihilate it with a nuke. A working, perhaps soon to be decommissioned, satellite would be the ideal candidate. He set to scanning the records of the satellites available to him. Quickly he settled on Ares-H 17, a coms satellite commissioned by S-Com, an Earth based telecoms company, and leased to the USAN Army. Ares-H 17 had been superseded five years previously by Hera-3. For three years thereafter Ares-H 17 had been kept online as a failover option for Hera-3. Hera-3 had proved to be every bit as resilient as the manufacturers said she would be. Her internal failovers had never been used once. The additional cost of supporting Ares-H 17 was therefore seen as unnecessary, and was struck from the budgets. Since then it had been doing nothing necessary and was due to be permanently decommissioned in two months’ time.
Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) Page 30