The Phoenix Conspiracy

by Richard Sanders

Chapter 16

  Shen sat at his desk in his quarters clicking through a slide show of pictures on his computer. Next to him sat the remains of a microwaved cheese sandwich experiment that had sucked. Not far away was a litter of pastry crumbs and candy wrappers. The coup de grâce was the half-empty glass bottle of soda that was so orange it almost glowed in the dim light.

  Shen wasn’t too overweight, in his opinion. After all, if he were, he wouldn’t be allowed in Intel Wing. But, despite the yearly fitness exam, he knew he fell into the barely acceptable BMI range by only a razor-thin margin.

  But he found food comforting and had never been particularly satisfied with his appearance even when he’d been thinner. As he continued clicking through pictures, he stopped on one of himself with Sarah. The contrast between them was glaring.

  She was beautiful, of course, attractively thin with nice thick lips curled into a smile under shining chocolate-brown eyes. Her hair poured down her face stylishly, and he couldn’t help but imagine the sweet scent of whatever it was she put on every day.

  And then there was him. Untucked shirt, unkempt hair, a little more belly than he’d like to see, and the pale round face of someone uncomfortable in front of a camera. His goofy expression didn’t help things either. He looked like an obese deer frozen in headlights with about as much personality as a ghost. For the millionth time he wished he were as witty, sharp, and attractive as Sarah was, so she could see something in him, something more than friendship. Though that seemed laughably impossible.

  At least they were friends; he did have that … if nothing else. But that just enabled him to be close enough to her to realize what he was missing out on. He couldn’t get her out of his head, and some loud, masochistic part of him demanded he make his intentions clear. At least let her know he was interested. Then, when she inevitably rejected him, he could maybe find some closure to his burning emotions. But he couldn’t think of how to do it.

  Send her flowers maybe? Women like flowers, right? Too bad flowers aren’t exactly standard on a military starship.

  He considered giving her a card or, perhaps best of all, a letter. But these seemed like inadequate gestures, and, though the thought of doing something tickled him inside, it also terrified him. And because of that fear, talking to her directly was out of the question.

  He closed the slide show and stood up to sweep his food mess into the garbage. He wanted to be a neat person, but somehow his room just got away from him. Like the eleventh wonder of the universe, he just couldn’t figure out how it happened.

  His panel started flashing and chirping, so he hustled over to answer it. “Shen here.”

  “It’s Calvin.” His CO’s voice filled the room, sounding scratchy.

  The low-bit comm system had always irked Shen, who knew it wouldn’t be that expensive to put in something better.

  “I have an important mission for you.”

  Shen was intrigued. “What is it?”

  “We’re cruising near Brimm Station, and not long ago the Harbinger forced entry and stole a bunch of data off the station’s hard drives. I want you to make a copy of all that data and get it aboard our ship.”

  It took Shen a second to catch up with what Calvin was saying. “So … I take it they don’t want us to have this data, which is why you want me to steal it instead of asking them for it.”

  “No rust on you.”

  “And you’re pretty convinced we need this data.”

  “If the Harbinger stole it, then we need it, because we need to know why they took it.”

  Calvin sounded resolute, and since Shen considered himself a loyal friend of Calvin’s, he would do all he could for him. But wasn’t exactly sure how to begin. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Is there some way for us to linkup with their computers from here and hack in to get the data?”

  Shen sighed. Typical management, always expecting more from software and hardware than it could actually do. Just because computer expertise looked like magic didn’t mean it was. “You’ve been watching too many movies, Calvin.”

  “All right, I suspected that, but I had to be sure. Which is why I have a plan B. How about if I get you aboard their station? What would you need to pull this off?”

  Shen thought for a minute. “Okay, first off I’d need some kind of external device I can hook up to their system physically to download all the material. How much data are we talking about here?”

  “The report said ‘several terabytes.’“

  “Okay, that’s no problem. I can use my own thumbkey.” His gaze automatically darted to his thumbkey’s place plugged into his linkup. “But the main problem is that I need access to their system. I’m guessing it requires some kind of secure log-on that I’d have to get past in order to run searches and copy data.”

  “Can’t you just hack your way around that?”

  Again too many movies. “It’s not quite that simple, Calvin. A really good security framework might take years or even decades to break through. And for just one guy, I might spend my whole life trying to do it and never succeed.”

  “So what’s your idea?”

  Shen ran a hand through his messy hair. “What kind of time window do I get?”

  “About an hour.”

  Considering it would take several minutes to download the data, and maybe just as much to find it, let alone locate a computer hooked up to the right server, he didn’t like his chances. “I’m not going to lie. It’s pretty grim. This may not be possible.”

  “I’ll give you a few minutes to see if you can come up with any ideas. We should at least try something.”

  “Okay, okay, let me think.” Shen sat on his bed and tried to imagine the setup of the computer systems on the station. He’d never been to Brimm, but the typical situation was pretty standard in Imperial space. Intranet with an external hookup to the Empire–Wide Network. He knew roughly how it was served, the capabilities of the mainframe, and what kind of software kept it all together. He combined that with his Intel Wing training, more or less how to lie to people and sometimes shoot them, and this gave him his best idea. Which still wasn’t very good.

  “Okay, Calvin,” he said. “Here’s what I’m thinking. If I can get onto one of their computers, which should be no problem, I think I can run a program I wrote using whatever basic user account they have logged in by default. I can’t promise this, but I think I can move it over and execute it with just basic permissions. It, in turn, can take advantage of the fact that the intranet is probably …”

  “Shen, can you just give me the simple version?”

  “All right.” He thought for a second. “Basically I can artificially generate all these requests by remotely telling all the computers on the network to start demanding lots of information from the server, which will get overwhelmed and crash the system.”

  “So … you’ll crash the system.” Calvin didn’t sound like he understood, and Shen wasn’t about to explain it again.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll make a problem for them. Their staff can fix it, but it may take them a few minutes to figure out what is happening. My hope is that I can pose as a technician, babble off some tech jargon, and get some stupid administrator to log me in to help fix it.”

  “I get the picture,” said Calvin. “But if you crash their system, how will you be able to use it to get what we need?”

  “I can disable my own program—if they don’t find it first and wipe it out—and then everything will work fine again. I’ll do a systemwide search and download all the data. Hopefully they won’t notice this. And I’ll be sure to cover my steps on my way out.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll send a message to the quartermaster to send some base-standard technician clothes your way. We’ll get you a fake ID too with bogus-but-convincing credentials. In the meantime you get what you need ready.”

  “Will do.” The comm clicked off, and Shen went to his computer to copy over the software he’d need. It still felt like a
long shot, but that’s what made it fun, he supposed.

  And who knows? Maybe there’d be a flower shop on the station.