One occurrence of “vacation.” What was that about? An exchange between Schenk and Acheson last Tuesday, the day after he and Jan left for the beach resort.
Schenk: No activity. What’s going on?
Acheson: On vacation. Back by Friday. God forbid he miss his weekend off.
OK, so Schenk was monitoring the townhouse bugs, and noticed Campbell didn’t return to the townhouse on Monday night. And Acheson didn’t have a very high opinion of Campbell’s work ethic. That was all good.
But without context it wasn’t incriminating. And there wasn’t much more. He hadn’t picked up any other interesting mails among those on his suspect list, and the idea of unlogged test messages hadn’t panned out either. They had to be communicating another way.
There was one more thing he could do, now that he had authorized electronic surveillance on his suspect list. He logged into the base communications system as a system administrator. He forked the input/output stream between the base and the civilian networks on Bliss into a filter, filtered for his suspect list, and dumped that to a log file. Let’s see if that picked up anything.
He called it quits for the night and walked back to the townhouse.
Saturday morning, after a light breakfast, the gym, and lunch, Campbell went down into the Class 2 secure workspace in the Planetary Operations Headquarters. He wanted to see if his taps had turned anything up.
His fork on the input/output stream off the base, filtered by his suspect list, turned up traffic to and from several people on his suspect list.
Campbell went into full-immersive VR, and used the stream analyzer in the visualizer to separate the streams. He was specifically looking for data to and from Lieutenant Mona Singh, the spy in Admiral Rao’s office. If Admiral Rao had finalized her plans for follow-on exercises, that would be something she should communicate.
And there she was. This stream. He selected that stream and opened it. He was looking for the connect and logon sequences, and to see if she was still logged on. He found the connect and logon sequences, and he also found the logoff. Where was she connecting? Bliss Communications Services Corporation, BCSC. He opened the extractor, and prepped it, then he connected to BCSC with her connect and logon sequences.
As soon as Campbell got a connection, the extractor went to work, pulling copies of everything in her message queues, inboxes, outboxes, and archives. It sucked a copy of everything in the account and then logged off. Now, strictly speaking, this wasn’t the same as access to CSF computer resources. This was a civilian system, and came under Bliss laws. Strictly speaking, he should have a court order for accessing private computer systems on Bliss.
Except. There was an except here. “Except in cases where the access was made from a CSF computer system or network, and limited to the extent of the access from a CSF computer system or network.” In which case, the access rules were the same as for data on CSF computer systems, requiring the flag officer sign-off. That’s what the regulations said, and they were approved by the Commonwealth Council as a military necessity. And so he was on solid ground, and would not trigger the improper search and fruit of the poison tree arguments.
If there was any evidence there, that is.
Campbell opened the copy of the account the extractor had made. His heart was racing. Here it was. Was he right, or were these people just trying to form a new club together? A Thursday night card game or something.
Nope, there it was, the transmission of the plans for the upcoming exercises, as well as a reported comment from Admiral Rao: “I’m not worried about another incursion. That was a coincidence unlikely to be repeated. I mean, come on. I’ll give you once, but what are the odds of such a coincidence occurring twice?” Nice. Good job, Mary.
He scrolled back up through the archive. There was the transmission of the plans for the previous exercise. He kept scrolling. There was a received message with Senior Captain Bjorn Laterza’s calendar for the month Commander Michael Chey was murdered, showing Laterza’s wife’s garden party event on the evening the consulate later scheduled their party and Chey was murdered when he attended in Laterza’s stead.
OK, espionage, accessory to murder, and conspiracy charges against everyone on the receipt list for that email were pretty much a slam dunk.
Who were the players, though? Everyone in this system was using some sort of alias as their login name. He went back through the log of the input/output stream again. He identified the Bliss Fleet HQ system account of each user stream, and who it was registered to, then searched those streams for their BCSC user login names. He got four of them: Singh, Schenk, Acheson, and Sobol.
He would let the tap continue to run, and see if he could get the rest of the aliases. There should be one alias he couldn’t get.
John Schmitt would be accessing BCSC through a different connection.
Campbell went to the Officers Mess for supper, then stopped by the gym and watched several people sparring for a while before calling it an early night.
After breakfast, gym, and lunch, Campbell was once again in his Class 2 secure workspace in the basements of the Planetary Operations Center. He entered full-immersive VR and used the stream analyzer to separate the streams again.
He had five more BCSC user login names matched to their CSF identities. Of the ten BCSC user login names in Mona Singh’s message boxes, there was only one left unidentified: JS157923.
Campbell snorted. JS. John Schmitt. And Duval’s star catalog designation was HD157923.
He sure was a cocky bastard.
He had supper in the Officers Mess and walked back to the townhouse. He pulled his equipment case out of the back of one of the lower kitchen cabinets, from behind the cookie sheets. It was in a canvas carrier shaped to fit it, to disguise what it was. He packed the rest of his things in his bags and got ready for departure in the morning.
The admiral’s launch from the Patryk Mazur was picking him up tomorrow morning at 08:00.
He sent a message from his comm to Lieutenant Commander Acheson to pick him up at 07:30.
Chameleon
Acheson was waiting with the ground car at the curb at 07:30 when Campbell opened the front door of the townhouse.
“Early start this morning, Sir?” Acheson asked.
“Eh? Oh. No, Admiral Childers is picking me up at the shuttle pad for a little more vacation.”
Campbell put his normal two bags out on the stoop, then turned back into the townhouse to get his equipment case. Acheson carried the first two bags to the trunk of the car, Campbell following.
“Another bag this time, Sir?”
“Oh, yes. I’m taking all my paints and colors along. It was so pretty last time, and I had none of my things along. Very frustrating.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Campbell put the equipment case in the trunk, then got in the rear of the car. Acheson closed the door, resumed the driver’s seat, and they headed off.
The admiral’s launch from the Patryk Mazur settled gently on the shuttle pad and the engines spun down. Campbell and Acheson stood to one side by the ground car, waiting for the pilot to determine it was safe and cycle the hatch. Once the engines had spun down completely, the hatch opened and the steps deployed. Campbell and Acheson walked to the shuttle with Campbell’s bags, Campbell carrying his equipment case. The load master came down the steps and took the bags into the launch.
Campbell turned to Acheson.
“Well, Commander, hold down the fort for me.”
“Yes, Sir. Have a nice time.”
“Thank you, Commander. See you on Friday.”
Campbell went on board the launch as Acheson walked back to the car. When everyone was clear, the pilot cycled the hatch and started the engines spinning up. Within minutes they were aloft.
“We need to talk a bit while we’re secure here. I need to bring you up to speed on some things,” Campbell said.
“I’ve been wondering how things were going. Go ahead,” Childers answered.
“First, I now have my proof. I have enough evidence to convict all of them for espionage, accessory to murder, and conspiracy.”
“Those are capital charges.”
“Correct,” Campbell said. “No imprisonment and parole. I want them to face a firing squad.”
“So now what?”
“So now we switch to the rounding-them-all-up stage. But I don’t want to do that yet. They just transferred Admiral Rao’s plans for a set of follow-on exercises after we’ve left the system. I left enough time in the scheduling for the information to get to Duval, for them to get their incursion force together, and for them to get here during the exercises. What I need to do now, though, is wait long enough before rounding them up that the fleet will have departed Duval before a follow-up message can get to them.”
“What about the guy at the Duval consulate?” Childers asked.
“He’ll be last. In the meantime, you need to work with Admiral Rao to have the exercises play out so the arriving Duval forces think they’re good to go in on Bliss-6c, but get their clocks cleaned instead. Write up a tactical plan or something. Whatever you call it.”
“That’s easy. I’ve reviewed the sensor recordings, and I spoke with Captain Jessen, so I know what happened. No problem dealing with a repeat performance of that. We can build in some options, depending on what they do. Maybe some things to convince them they caught us with our pants down.”
“Excellent,” Campbell said. “OK. Well, with all that taken care of, we can enjoy our vacation.”
“Back to the beach?”
“Yeah. The mountains are cool and all that, but all in all I’d rather just lie around naked on the beach.”
“Works for me.”
The resort was as secure, the food as good, the beach as beautiful, and the weather as perfect as the prior week. After the daily morning shower, the sky cleared and the sun came out for the rest of the day. Warm but not hot days, cool nights, soft breezes. The beach faced west, and the sunsets were incredible.
On the morning of their last day, Childers watched Campbell rummaging in his equipment case.
“Whatcha looking for?” she asked.
“Ah. Here they are,” Campbell said.
He took an electrocast out of its pouch and rolled it up his right forearm and around the elbow. He positioned it just so and then connected the controller and applied the voltage. The cast hardened over the course of a minute or so. He disconnected the controller and put it back in the case. Withdrawing a sling from the case, he put the sling over his head and put his right arm in the sling.
“What do you think?” Campbell asked.
“More misdirection?”
“Of course. An excuse to go up to the ship with you. Given my demonstrated lack of work ethic, this is more than enough excuse for me to blow off the next two weeks on planet and go up to the ship. And it will mean they know I am out of action.”
Childers just shook her head.
“You sure you’re not overdoing it?” she asked.
“No. You never are, until you get bit. Haven’t gotten bit yet. People believe what they want to believe.”
It was mid-morning on Friday when the admiral’s launch touched down gently on the shuttle pad at Bliss Fleet HQ. An admiral’s launch always touched down gently. The people who assigned pilots in the CSF had learned long ago that an admiral’s complaints carried a lot more weight than anybody else’s.
Acheson was waiting with the ground car. He walked up as the hatch cycled and the steps extended. The load master handed out Campbell’s two bags to Acheson. Then Childers and Campbell walked down the steps.
Acheson saluted Childers and she returned it. Campbell didn’t, his right arm in the sling and his uniform jacket just pulled over his shoulder without the arm being in the sleeve.
“Admiral. Captain.” Then, “What happened to your arm, Sir?”
“I slipped on the wet veranda after the rain. It was terrible, Commander. I didn’t get a chance to do any drawing or painting at all.”
Childers couldn’t believe the bit of whiny tone in Campbell’s voice. It was subtle, but way out of character for the Bill Campbell she knew. He was playing the Sigurdsen desk pilot perfectly.
“That’s too bad, Sir. Are you bringing your art supplies then?”
“No, Commander. I can’t use them anyway for a month. At least. They’re just going to take them up to the ship when they go back.”
“Ah. I see, Sir.”
Acheson stowed their bags in the trunk, then saw them both seated in the back of the car. He took the driver’s seat and spoke over his shoulder.
“Where to, Ma’am?”
“Planetary Operations Headquarters for me,” Childers said.
“And then I suppose we should head over to the Planetary Intelligence Headquarters.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Acheson said, giving precedence in address to the higher-ranking of the two.
They dropped Childers off at the Planetary Operations Headquarters, and then headed on to the Planetary Intelligence Center.
Rear Admiral Jan Childers was meeting with Admiral Rao in a Class 1 secure conference room in the basement of the Planetary Operations Headquarters.
“So you don’t think we will have any trouble dealing with a similar incursion if they try it this time, Admiral?” Rao asked.
“No, Ma’am. A critical component of the strategy is that combat elements on patrol remain in the outer envelope, where transition to hyperspace is always available. Those elements can maneuver in hyperspace to the location of the incursion and emerge into normal space either behind or in front of the hostile force. In the previous exercises, your combat elements were maneuvering well inside the outer envelope, and they were too far from the outer envelope to provide timely relief to Captain Jessen’s overpowered force.”
“Well, the simplest response to a similar incursion is to have the defenders actually be what they only appeared to be in the prior incursion: four heavy cruisers and four destroyers. Try to inspire a ‘You can’t fool me with the same trick’ response. But that is also the most obvious ploy to anticipate for someone thinking it through rather than following their gut-level response.”
“Correct, Ma’am,” Childers said. “So I have a few wrinkles that should prove to the hostile commander that what he is seeing is what is actually there, while mounting the response from another quarter.”
“A ‘watch this shiny object over here, pay no attention to my other hand’ strategy?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Oh, I like that,” Rao said. “Do tell me more, Admiral.”
“Damn!” Campbell said.
Acheson appeared in the doorway.
“Is something wrong, Sir?” he asked.
“This isn’t working, Commander. I can’t type, I can’t select columns of numbers, I can’t scroll through spreadsheets. I can’t do anything with this blasted cast on.”
“You could use VR, Sir.”
“I’m not comfortable doing audits in VR,” Campbell said. “Doing them on screen is virtual enough. It’s hard to hold the reality in your head. I’ve never been able to really get my head around the numbers in VR.”
“Could you remove your cast just for work, perhaps, Sir?”
“No, the doctors told me not to, or the darned thing may never heal properly. And they didn’t let me have the controller, either. Knew better, I suppose.”
Campbell heaved a huge sigh.
“Commander, could you see if Admiral Childers’ launch has lifted yet?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Acheson was back in minutes.
“No, Sir. It’s still awaiting her return.”
“Put a hold on the launch in my name, if you would, then drive me to the shuttle pad.”
“Yes, Sir. You going to ask the Admiral’s advice?” Acheson asked.
“No, Commander. I’m going up to the ship with her. My work down here is almost done anyhow. Why should I spend the
next two weeks down here being frustrated to no end when I can be with her on ship instead?”
“Yes, Sir. Let me get that hold entered.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
Acheson and Campbell were waiting with the ground car at the shuttle pad when Childers arrived in Admiral Rao’s ground car. Campbell’s bags were already aboard. The driver let Childers out of the back of Rao’s car and she walked up to Campbell.
“What’s the matter? Did you forget something?” Childers asked.
“No. I can’t work with this thing.” Campbell lifted his right arm several inches. “I’m almost done here, anyway. I figured I would just go up to the ship with you.”
“You know we are going to be doing maneuvers. Lots of zero-g and high accelerations and flipping ship and all that. Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“I’ll manage. I’d rather be up there with you than down here being frustrated. With nothing to do, I’ll just be waiting around for you to return anyway.”
“Well, if you’re sure you’ll be all right, go ahead,” Childers said.
Campbell got on board the launch with the eagerness of a puppy, or a child. Childers just shook her head.
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Childers boarded the launch as Acheson walked back to the ground cars. The pilot retracted the steps and cycled the hatch. When everyone was clear, he started spinning up the engines.
The launch lifted off the pad smoothly and accelerated into the sky.
On the shuttle pad, Acheson just shook his head.
What a pair, he thought. It’s like she’s his mommy.
On board the launch, Childers laughed.
“Did you see the look on Acheson’s face when you scrambled aboard the launch? It was all I could do to keep a straight face,” she said.
Campbell laughed along with her.
Campbell- The Problem With Bliss Page 11