Sitting comfortably at his desk, Cedric lit the joint he’d just spent several carefree minutes rolling. While he knew being high could be detrimental to his productivity, he sometimes uncovered a new perspective when he was faced with difficult problems to solve.
He took a long drag. His brain stretched and tumbled, finally reaching that familiar and peaceful place in his consciousness where daily problems faded away and possibilities opened up to him at the speed of light.
After a few minutes, unorthodox thinking patterns and ideas started materializing a bit, so he went back to the encryption on the laptop to try anew. He had spent every single moment trying to crack it, but he had never seen something so strong. He was losing patience, and losing hope of ever decrypting the data on that machine. He needed something new, some kind of break.
Then suddenly something happened. Cedric wasn’t sure what it was, but he saw a crack in the chain, something he could finally exploit. He typed on the keyboard at a furious pace, and spliced in stretches of code needed to run his new exploit. In less than five minutes he had assembled the full code sequence, compiled it, and finally ran it against the encrypted content.
“Eureka!” he shouted out loud. At last, the familiar fruits of his own genius.
The file started decoding, but since there seemed to be a sizeable quantity of data, he estimated that it would take him about twenty minutes to get all the data decrypted and ready to be checked. So he stretched and placed a cocky call to Ryonna, informing her of the good news and requesting she come by to check out the data.
He took another drag on his joint and relaxed a little more, satisfied with a job well done. He had at the very least a few moments to celebrate victory until Ryonna came to his office. But as he puffed away into the quiet computer glow, a rogue thought started to grow in the corner of his mind. This had been too easy. He’d been at it for hours with absolutely no results, nor even a hint that he was going in the right direction, but then suddenly… Another long drag on the joint dulled any residual worry to rest, and settled the paranoia that was rising. He needed to remember to lighten up. He worked on enjoying the simple fact that he was just that brilliant in the first place. But soon the high crescendoed and his head rolled forward, and without realizing he fell asleep.
When Ryonna shook him, he jumped clear out of the chair. It took a moment to get out of his foggy state.
“Damn, I shouldn’t have smoked it that fast,” he said out loud.
“What did you smoke? Why are your eyes so red? Should I call for medical assistance?” Ryonna asked with genuine concern in her voice.
“No, no. No. I’m fine. I just didn’t expect to fall asleep. I’m sorry, my brain just needs a few moments to reboot.”
Ryonna raised an eyebrow at the comment. Tar’Lock stood behind her with a dubious expression, sniffing repeatedly and peering around and trying to identify the source of the overwhelming smell.
“Can we please look at what you have uncovered?” Ryonna interrupted the spectacle with some impatience.
“Right,” said Cedric. He slapped his cheeks a couple of times to straighten his thought process, and mentally move back up to speed.
Circling the glowing laptop screen, they all watched a small text box announcing that decryption was complete. Cedric quickly put a few lines of code in place to make sure that if the file contained malicious code, it would be quarantined within a memory sandbox. He also restricted write access to the file’s folder, to make sure the file would not self-delete upon access. A minute later he was sure that he’d taken all the basic security measures, and he finally opened the file.
Two things jumped open, and sent a cold shiver down his spine. First, the name of the window that the opening of the file had generated—“Project Armageddon”—was scary enough by itself. But the most worrying part, the thing that truly made him change color—was the timer. A small visual on the right of the screen, it had quietly started counting down from sixty minutes the moment they’d begun.
Seeing the alarmed expression on Cedric’s face, Ryonna interjected, “What? What is it?”
“We may have a serious problem. If I’m reading this right, and I think I am, this file is not only schematics but also serves as a trigger for something else: something very nefarious.”
“Could you be more specific? We’re dealing with acts of terrorism an awful lot lately. I’m sure their end game involves doing some sort of damage eventually,” proposed Tar’Lock, who had stayed silent until now.
“You can say that again! I’m afraid the damage could be global. Give me a few more seconds.”
He sifted through the schematics, piecing together an impromptu analysis. But the more he looked at them, the more he felt a sense of dread and urgency. Soon, the fear turned to utter terror.
“This is schematics for a quadrinium-enhanced, portable bomb. Alone, it would probably destroy half a block if used in a city. There seem to be thirty such devices located all over the world. All located near either nuclear- or quadrinium-powered plants. If these devices blow, it could very well render this world uninhabitable for thousands of years. That is, if the sheer combined force of these synchronized detonations doesn’t set off a chain reaction. One that could very possibly destroy the entire planet.”
“Well, it sure is a good thing you managed to decode this file first! Right?”
“Except there’s a timer. And it’s ticking...” He pointed.
“What? How long do we have?!”
“Fifty-seven minutes and thirty-five seconds.”
“And you’re sure opening the file triggered those particular devices?”
“Let me double check.”
The impending planetary doom sent a jolt of adrenaline through Cedric’s body. It was like nothing he ever felt before in his life. Whatever hazy high was left in his mind was obliterated by racing thoughts. He sifted lines of code and logs from within the sandbox.
“I did put fail-safes around the file. I’m checking to see if they’ve succeeded in restricting communication with the outside world. After a few tense moments, a slight relief at a taskbar notification: All network communications had been stopped by the sandbox. Cedric permitted a slight exhale, seeing no data had been sent to the Internet.
He did, however, curse himself for not simply disabling any of the devices such as Wi-Fi and Ethernet. He quickly sent the terminal commands to promptly do so. He also checked at the hardware level, to make sure they hadn’t been accessed at a lower level.
That’s when his heart skipped another beat. An unknown device was listed under networking, and it was active and transmitting. He tried shutting it down but none of the commands were working. Moreover, he intuited that even had he managed to do so, the start of the timer was probably tied to the signal being initially sent.
“We’re fucked!”
“What? Explain!”
“Even with my safeguards in place, I think we’ve triggered the timer on the devices. In fifty-five minutes, Earth might be obliterated.”
“Why would the terrorists give us a one hour delay?”
“Perhaps so whomever is responsible for this would have time to get off the world. I doubt we’re dealing with suicidal maniacs... More like a vicious mind.”
Cedric swallowed heavily. “It’s all my fault.”
“Why would it be your fault?”
“The encryption was way too strong to start with. All of a sudden I found an exploit, almost miraculously, but I now realize it must have been put there so we would trigger the program. If I hadn’t...” Cedric let the suspended sentence hover in the air. He didn’t have the strength to say the words. He was too ashamed that he’d been too high at a crucial moment, and that all the gravity of sensitive IT security matters might have been completely lost on him for that reason alone.
“If you hadn’t what? Speak!”
“It doesn’t matter why. We need to find a way to stop it. And/or evacuate the planet!”
Ry
onna did not wait any longer. She immediately opened a channel to Admiral Thassos and apprised her of the situation. Cedric didn’t wait to hear how the conversation went; he had to try and think of a way to stop this.
“I need access to the admiral’s ship computer, preferably the entire computational power of the fleet,” he begged Ryonna, who transmitted the request along.
“She says you’ve got access via subspace channel seven, whatever that means.”
“Thanks.”
Cedric sprung away from his chair, opened a drawer in his desk and took out two circular devices, which he placed at his temples.
“What are you doing?” asked Tar’Lock.
“No time to explain. These devices from R&D will allow me to work faster, as fast as I can think in fact. Pilots use them to pilot their ships. I’ve asked a pair to be modified so I could control my gear the same way, but just like 3D movies when they came out, they tend to give me a headache after a while. But I guess it won’t matter. If I’m not successful we’re doomed.” There was an awkward silence.
“I see. Could you at least explain the basics of what you’re doing?”
“Sure. I need to find a way to beam these explosive devices off Earth, NOW.” He turned to Ryonna, interrupting her conversation with the admiral with a crazy expression. “Tell her I also need a ship, like a frigate with a jump engine. It needs to be fully evacuated, and just as soon as possible.”
He slowly turned to Tar’Lock, with a grave expression on his face.
“What is it?” The insectoid tilted his head slightly.
“I need you to do me a favor. It… might get you killed.”
“Aren’t we all going to die if we don’t do something?”
“Most likely. But you could just use the next fifty-odd minutes to get the fuck away from this world.”
“Does it look like I’m fleeing? Tell me what you actually need me to do.”
Cedric nodded. He took a smartphone, fiddled with it for a few seconds and handed it to Tar’Lock.
“What do I do with this?”
“You get to these coordinates as fast as humanly possible. One of the bombs is there. Fortunately, there’s a targeted power plant about fifty miles from here. At least you’ll know where you’re going. Once you arrive on the premises, it will guide your way inside as well, all the way towards the device. Once you arrive near it, the interface will change automatically. You simply need to press the ‘scan’ button.”
“What will that do?”
“It will provide me the exact frequency I’ll need to tag and lock all the bombs simultaneously, so I can beam them together to that ship.”
“Which you’ll send into hyperspace, so the bombs detonate in space, but nowhere near Earth.”
“Pretty much, yes,” said Cedric, surprised Tar’Lock had figured out that part of his plan. “There’s a catch though.”
“Which is?”
“If some of the devices resonate at varied frequencies, they won’t get picked up. Some of the devices will still blow down here.”
“Do we have any choice in how this plays out? I mean, could you do something about it if that were the case?”
“No. I’m afraid not, not in the time we have left.”
“So let’s not worry over things we can’t do anything about.”
“Right. You should get goi—”
Before Cedric could finish, Tar’Lock blurred. He disappeared so fast from the office that Cedric was startled anew, and fell off his chair. He sat back up, slowed his breathing, closed his eyes and mentally raced towards the precious projects he needed to accomplish in a very short window of time.
I thrive under pressure. He pushed past the growing fear festering in every part of his being. Let’s do this.
Ryonna approached him as she ended her communication with the admiral.
“You’ll have your ship ready in forty minutes. Will that be enough time?”
“Yeah, that should be fine. The main problem is that I have to not only replicate the miracle beam-up we used disabling that behemoth Zarlack ship, but also figure out a way of beaming thirty bombs all at once. I could very well fry every power generating facility on the planet doing so, so I can’t risk beaming them one by one. Nor can I risk missing any. If one of them is separated from the others and detonates it could still trigger the departing cluster.”
“Are you confident you can do it? Where did you send Tar’Lock?”
Cedric took a deep breath.
“Confident would be pushing it, but I did learn a lot from the last time. I’m gonna say maybe. Don’t hold me to that, if we all die. As for Tar’Lock, I sent him to the nearest device. It’s crucial that he gets me the info I need, so I can calibrate locks on all of them.”
“Do you need to stay here to do this? Could we move you to an orbiting ship while you work?”
“Yes, I need to be here, in case these…” he said, pointing at the circular devices attached to his temples, “go wrong. They’re a prototype, after all. I may need to have access to my own gear as a backup. It would all be out of range for me to use from orbit, and while I could fix that too, I simply don’t have the time. You, however, don’t need to stay here. You should go.”
“What else did these files tell you? Any leads on who did this? Perhaps I can locate the perpetrator, and thereby locate the means to disable those devices in the process?”
“That’s a great idea. But I can’t reinvent teleportation to get this stuff off this rock, and do detective work at the same time.” Cedric quickly grabbed a tablet from an open drawer. He entered a few inputs to it, and handed it over to Ryonna.
“There’s a copy of the file on this device. Deliver it to my assistant at the end of the corridor and tell her to trace the source. She’s very good at data mining, perhaps even better than me.”
Ryonna did not waste any more time; she stormed out of the office at full speed.
“If we survive this, I’m never smoking pot again,” he said to himself, fully aware he was alone in the office. At least not while working, he compromised.
25
The Earth Alliance fleet jumped out of hyperspace a few thousands klicks away from their target in the Gatos Nebula.
Commodore Saroudis ordered a series of scans. As expected, however, the nebula’s strange composition perfectly disguised any power signatures emanating from the shipyard within.
He hailed the EAD Hope.
“What are your orders, Commodore?”
“We can’t detect any signatures. I sure hope this isn’t a ploy to divert our forces, while Argos mounts an attack on Earth...”
“Commodore, between the admiral’s fleet, planetary defenses and the Droxian reinforcement, I think Earth would be more than ready to defend itself.”
“What if they send more of these massive ships?”
“The Hope’s weaponry is partially based on the admiral’s ship. She has the firepower to deal with them. And if there is nothing in this nebula, well, I know an emperor whose last hour just started.”
Commodore Saroudis could hear a disapproving growl over the call.
“Speaking of the emperor, now would be a good time for him to provide the information he promised.”
“He’s sending the disabling codes as we speak. Hang on.”
The commodore did not like this one bit. Their entire plan rested on codes that could have been changed a million times by now. At least there were no enemy ships in sight, or on scans. That was a good sign for this mission, though he still feared that Argos would attempt a full-on attack on Earth. He tried to push the thought away. For now his mission remained clear, whether he had doubts or not.
“We’re good to go, Commodore.”
“Sub-light engines, half impulse ahead then. Let’s destroy that target.”
“Understood. Athanatos out.”
The fleet reached the outskirts of the nebula. Its green-orange tones gave it a toxic air: dangerous looking. Soon its cloudy c
omposition engulfed the cautious ships.
On board the Hope, Chase requested a full scan. The composition of the nebula made any reading imprecise at best, though the scans did reveal peaks of technological signatures. But the interference was too strong to really get a clear picture of what awaited them inside. At least it confirmed that there was something lying in the center of it. But for now, all they could do was wait.
After five minutes, obscurity within the cloudy nebula decreased somehow. On every ship, audible gasps were heard as a gigantic installation arose in silhouette from within the fog. The emperor turned towards Chase, and cast him a dark look.
Chase understood full well what it meant, but felt no need to answer it in kind. Instead he requested that scanning be pushed to maximum.
“Report?” added Chase.
“We’re getting a clearer picture, Captain,” one of his officers began. “There are thirteen separate installations. One is much larger than the others. Most of them have ships under construction; most look nearly completed. The scans aren’t clear enough to determine their firing capabilities or whether their engines are functional. But it does seem that for now all ships are offline, as very little power signature is emanating from them.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Emperor?”
“I agree. They should be fully powered during final construction stage. I don’t like this. May I personally just suggest we blow them all to hell, right now?”
Something in Chase’s mind squirmed. This did not feel right.
The commodore’s incoming transmission interrupted his thoughts.
“Ready to open fire. Maximum firepower.”
“Wait!”
“What is it, Chase?”
“I don’t know. Something feels wrong here.”
“The shields and defenses are down. These ships look like ghost ships. Completely unpowered. We won’t see this easy opportunity again, so let’s just take them down now.”
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