Terminal Run

12

In the darkened back booth of a Serocaba, Brazil, seafood restaurant, emaciated computer felon Pedro Meringe ate a plate heaped with food while Victor Krivak briefed him and Frederick Wang on the operation to find the Snare.

“We need to get the Snare to a rendezvous point so we can board her,” Krivak said. “Since we have the codes to the U.S. Navy communications and tactical data system, technically right now we could give her orders that would bring her to the surface where we want her to be. But there’s a problem we’ve never told our Chinese client, and that is that while we’ve been successful at monitoring the American communications, we’ve yet to prove that we can route our own orders through their command-and-control systems, and we haven’t proved that an order we insert will be followed, and finally, we haven’t proved an order that we originate will be undetected by the remainder of the system, with a failure giving our penetration away. Do you follow me?”

Pedro nodded, but Wang shook his head. “If you have the keys to the system,” Wang said, “why do you think you need to tiptoe around it?”

Pedro snickered and smirked. He understood, Krivak thought.

“Dr. Wang, your expertise on the carbon computer system has blinded you to the realities of the silicon computer protocols,” Krivak said with a smile. “You see, we are inside the U.S. command network, and we can hear everything happening around us. We can report on all of it to Admiral Chu. We’re like a cat burglar hiding under the kitchen table listening to the family’s conversations. But let’s say we want to give an order to an electronic entity on the network — the Snare for example. If we do that, it would be like the cat burglar calling the dog from his hiding place. The family at the table would hear and react. Soon the burglar is in prison. Yes, we can give an order to the Snare calling her to surface near Bermuda so we can board her. But immediately the Pentagon would know, because our message would send out ripples in the lake of the system. Our message would be improperly formatted — the burglar’s voice — and the system would be alerted.”

“So what?” Wang asked. “We board the Snare and the Americans scratch their heads about the message.”

“No,” Pedro said. “The information warfare defense systems might kick in. The entire system could go into a default shutdown. The Pentagon has a contingency for network penetration. If they think they’re penetrated, the entire network would self-destruct.”

“But then their communications would be off-line,” Wang said. “They wouldn’t do a self-destruct. It would be too easy to beat them in a war if that were the case — you’d just have to penetrate their network and it would kill itself.”

“The point is,” Krivak interrupted, “that we would be detected. And once we’re detected, our ownership of the network, tenuous at best, would be over. Pedro here has one vital job, Dr. Wang, and that is to give us the ability to use the network using its own language in a way that it will not detect us. He’s going to make the cat burglar speak in the voice of the head of the household. So when he calls the family dog, the people at the table don’t notice.”

“Here, Snare,” Pedro joked. “Come here, girl.”

“Once you get in, Pedro, you need to find the Snare, get her position. Then you’ll upload a rendezvous order to go to the nearest land with an airport. Once that’s done, we’ll get out to the Snare and take her over. Then, if we need anything, Pedro’s our communications link, our translator to the network.”

“Will he be doing any other operations for Admiral Chu? Disinformation to the fleet, or giving other orders?”

“Heavens no,” Krivak said. “This is a delicate situation, Dr. Wang.”

“Just call me Wang.”

“We can’t be detected meddling with the defense systems. We can only use the network sparingly, for what we absolutely need. Snare is it. If we are detected, the network will shut down, the Americans will know we’ve penetrated, and they could trace our manipulation of the system back to us. They could follow the wire right to our operation here. So, Pedro, give us a list of what you will require, and we will get it for you so you can get to work.

Pedro Meringe sat at the console surrounded by computer displays. He had been working through the night and was dead tired, a spilled bottle of amphetamines by his keyboard. He had been trying to break into the U.S. Navy Computer and Telecommunications Command network while going around the Naval Security Group Command’s electronically mobile firewall. Krivak stood looking over at his desk after the young computer expert had sent Amorn with word that Pedro was in.

“You did it? You can talk to the Snare without the system becoming alerted?”

“I can slip into the system with a surveillance and messenger entity through our ‘manhole-cover’ entrance to the sub network at the Unified Fleet Communications Group at Annapolis, Maryland. My mission entity can become invisible to their NavSecGru net-hot and carry the message to the queue with the other outgoing messages, and then through the encryption machines. When the message is encrypted it will be transmitted on a burst pulse with rapidly changing frequencies to the Comm Star satellite for later transmission to the submarine. The message will be one of a thousand being encrypted and transmitted during that one-minute interval. At first, since the message will only be addressed to the Snare, no one in the communications facility will be able to read it, and it will stay in the outgoing Comm Star satellite buffer for eight hours. During that time period the Snare, by procedure, will come to periscope depth and receive its broadcast from the satellite, which transmits the message every fifteen minutes whether the sub is listening or not. After eight hours, the message in the satellite buffer will be dumped, erased completely and permanently. I had thought it would linger at the shore facility in an electronic sent-message-suspense-file, but since sub communications are highly passive, there is no pending suspense file for sub traffic, only an archive directory of transmitted messages. I can delete our message from the archive and no one knows the difference. I’ll need to send a test message to the Snare to test the breakin, test the appearance of the message in the archive, and test to see if I can delete it.”

“Why do you think no one at the communications facility can read the message?”

“We’re using the system’s security procedures and protocols against it. The system is designed to prevent the compromise of messages by anyone but the receiving satellite. Since classified radio messages up to top secret and higher are transmitted, the entire system treats each message as if it were the highest classification. It’s simpler architecture rather than treating unclassified messages differently than secret, and secret differently from top secret. You understand?”

“No. What about a system administrator, the one authorized to troubleshoot problems and monitor the process?”

“The process is automated. No human-directed administrator can get in, only automated and programmed ones. And my messenger entity is invisible to them — it masquerades as a virus-protection subroutine.”

Krivak felt a headache coming on. “But this message would linger in the satellite memory for eight hours and transmit to the world every fifteen minutes. That is thirty-two transmissions. Are you telling me no one but Snare will receive that?”

“I am. You see, the system is designed to make sure no one other than the recipient can receive that recipient’s message. Not even the communications facility. That’s what I mean when I say we’re using the system’s security features against it.”

Krivak waved. “Go ahead with a test message, but it must be unclassified — a maintenance message. And it has to be correctly formatted so that it will look normal to anyone who does see it. Did you get the formats?”

“I don’t have a procedure or a manual for the formatting, but I have a hundred thousand examples. It will look like an authentic message from fleet maintenance to watch out for high temperature at an engine bearing.”

“How will we know it worked?”

“I’ll require a response. I’ll tell it to write a report of the bearing temperatures for the last forty-eight hours. We’ll intercept the response as it comes in, before it can be rerouted to the maintenance facility.”

“Fine, fine. Proceed. Let me know if the system becomes wary of us. And good luck.”

Krivak returned to his suite and lay down on his bed, fully clothed, exhausted, and troubled by the risks they were taking.

“Mr. Krivak?”

“Yes, Pedro,” he said, sitting up in the bed.

“The message went out two hours ago. We got the Snare’s reply an hour ago, with two days of bearing temperatures. I and my surveillance entity monitored the network since the reply came. We did it, sir. It worked — there are no messages on the system about an intruder.”

“Excellent,” Krivak said, fully awake. “It is just too bad you did not ask it about its location.”

“I found a month-old message in the network archive that requested a situation report, a ‘sitrep.” The sitrep format includes a line for latitude and longitude. And a tactical summary. If I send an order for the Snare to provide a sitrep, we’ll not only know her position but her mission details.”

Krivak considered. “It’s risky — this is not about bearing temperatures, but tactics. The system could be more aware of this. And the fact that the shore commanders did not demand a sitrep for a month indicates to me that a new one coming in may alert the command.”

“Do I need to explain this to you again?”

Krivak waved off the hot-tempered engineer. “Send the demand for the sitrep. But do not wait an hour to tell me about the reply this time.”

Pedro Meringe grinned and vanished. Krivak tried to sleep, but the room suddenly seemed stuffy and hot. He got up to join Pedro at his console. After two hours, Padro nudged Krivak.

“Snare’s reply is back, Mr. Krivak. She’s here, about two hundred nautical miles northwest of the Azores Islands.”

“Pedro,” Krivak said, grabbing a computer and clicking into a world atlas, “send the Snare an order to transit to the Azores, to Pico Island. Have her transit to this position here, due west of Pico by thirty miles. Tell her to hold there until local nightfall.”

In the chaos of the next hour Krivak, Wang, Pedro, and Amorn made their arrangements and hurried to the Serocaba airport, dashing into the jet and rolling to the runway.

The hired cabin cruiser Andiamo tossed in the seas fifty nautical miles southwest of Pico Island. Pedro Meringe had taken over the glassed-in bridge on the upper level, his dish antenna temporarily bolted to the superstructure above the bridge. Victor Krivak stood on the afterdeck and lit another cigarette, his throat irritated, but the nicotine keeping him awake. In a strange way it was appropriate that this boat was a fishing boat, because he was about to go fishing for a steel whale.

Krivak waited impatiently for the sun to set. At dusk they waited for the appearance of the Snare, but for hours they were alone in the sea.

“There is something on the radar,” Krivak said. “A very strong return to the west. What is this, Amorn?”

Amorn scanned with his binoculars. “Nothing, sir. It’s dark, even in low-light enhancement.”

Krivak frowned. “It is less than a kilometer away and looks big as a supertanker on the radar. You see nothing?”

Amorn checked again. “Ocean’s empty, sir, see for yourself.”

Krivak took the binoculars and scanned the sea. Amorn was right.

“Take us toward the position of the radar return. Slowly. And turn on the searchlight.”

Ten minutes later, the Andiamo crept up on the radar contact.

“There! I see it! Look!” Pedro stood at the railing, pointing ahead of them. In the searchlights two vertical poles could be made out, both of them going down to a low black cylindrical hull, which had no sail or superstructure and no protruding rudder. It was large in comparison to the yacht, but certainly one of the smallest submarines Krivak had ever seen. It was a seven-meter-diameter torpedo, he thought.

“With this sea state, getting in that hull will be a wet operation. Pull up alongside.”

The crew maneuvered the boat alongside the stationary hull of the Snare and threw over lines. Amorn leaped into the water, swimming up onto the curve of the hull.

“There are no cleats!” Amorn called from the deck of the Snare.

“Tie the line around the masts!” Pedro yelled.

There was more shouting from the deck.

“What’s wrong?” Krivak asked.

“The hatch! There’s no operating mechanism!” Amorn seemed agitated.

“Dammit,” Krivak cursed. “Is there a hole in the surface of it with a square peg in it?”

Amorn shined his light onto the top surface of the black hull. “An ISO fitting? No! The hatch is smooth!”

Krivak looked at Pedro. “You’re going to have to transmit a new message to the Snare telling it to open the hatch.”

“Fine, but that will look very bad if it is discovered.”

“Then combine it with the final instruction message, but tell it to wait for twenty minutes before shutting the hatch and diving. Doctor, are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“How long to get that hatch open?” Krivak asked.

“Could be fifteen minutes,” Pedro said. “It takes a while for this to work its way to the satellite.”

“Hurry up.”

While they all waited, Wang began to toss waterproof bags from the afterdeck of the boat to the hull of the submarine, Amorn catching them and piling them by the hatch. Much of the luggage contained food and water, so that they would be able to survive in an environment not meant for humans. There was an odd load in the mix, insisted upon by Krivak, which included two large mesh duffel bags of scuba diving supplies with two octopus-type integrated tank and buoyancy compensator rigs, air bottles and nitrox bottles, collapsed inflatable life rafts, and two grenade-sized emergency beacons set to a frequency selected by Krivak and Amorn. Krivak had packed two Beretta stainless-steel 9mm automatic pistols in waterproof bags with a dozen clips with the ammo preloaded, a MAC-12 automatic pistol with its dozen clips, and a small Walther PPK with twelve clips for it. There was a waterproof bag of grenades, each powerful enough to destroy an approaching small craft. In addition there were medical supplies. Wang glanced impatiently at his watch, knowing he had to get set up inside the Snare computer control cabin.

They were just finishing loading equipment on the deck of the sub when the hatch came slowly and smoothly open on hydraulic power, the hatch maw dark.

“Victor,” Pedro shouted, “you have twenty minutes before the hatch shuts and the sub dives.”

“Did you tell it to go to a hundred meters and head west?”

“Yes, and to stay deep and avoid receiving any further messages from the squadron.”

“Good. You know what to do while we are gone?”

“Yes, Victor. If you need us to do something, you can reach the satellite phone or the E-mail address. If you get into trouble, we’re monitoring the emergency beacon frequency.”

“Make sure you are alert and monitoring all three — phone, E-mail, and beacon. We may need help getting off this thing, and when we do, we will need it fast.”

“Yes, Victor. Good luck.”

“Let’s go,” Krivak ordered Amorn and Wang. He vanished down the hatch first, Amorn following him, Wang climbing into the dark last. A ladder led from the open hatch into a small airlock, a cylinder about five feet in diameter and ten feet tall. At the bottom was another automatic hatch, which was also opened. Krivak climbed down the ladder into the airlock, emerging in a step-off at the bottom hatch. He lowered himself down the lower ladder into darkness, finding the switch for the lights in the space. It seemed strange that the sub sailed without interior lights, but then there was no one here to use the light to see.

The interior fluorescent lights clicked, buzzed, and flickered, finally illuminating the space in a wash of artificial brilliance. They had stepped off the ladder onto the second level of the command compartment, which was the biological ecosphere clean room deck. A narrow aisle led forward, the bulkheads made of steel and Plexiglas. The clear plastic looked into port and starboard cramped equipment bays, each with ducts and conduits and pipes feeding them from the overhead. One central bay had Plexiglas sides, with a mass of biological tissue floating in a clear liquid. While Krivak stared at the brain bay, Wang put his palm reverently on the glass and whispered, “Hello, One Oh Seven.”

Krivak shoved past him to the forward ladder bay leading vertically upward to the upper deck. Wang followed, climbing the ladder and emerging into the cramped interface deck. The deck was on the uppermost level extending the full beam of the ship, the bulkheads to port and starboard angling with the curve of the hull. The space with full overhead height was perhaps twenty feet fore-and-aft and a little less port-to-starboard. To Krivak’s left as he faced aft, on the starboard side of the ship, were two large cubicles, each containing a padded couch surrounded by dimly lit displays.

“What are these cubicles, Doctor?”

“Programming stations,” Wang said. “Allows a programmer to sit inside for long periods of time while interfacing with the computer with a virtual-reality apparatus that wraps around the programmer’s head. The forward one is called Interface Module Zero, the one next door Module One.”

Further aft was the half cylinder of the airlock, which straddled the command compartment and the compartment aft. There was an open unused space between the aft bulkhead of Interface One and the aft compartment bulkhead. On the compartment’s port side was a wall of interface panels, much of them using the unusable space under the curve of the hull. This space was largely open, perhaps intended for future use in the event the ship were to be upgraded with a new system. Among the interface panels was one large cabinet used for storing spares. Amorn loaded equipment and supplies in the unused deck space, leaving the scuba equipment in the airlock. He lashed down the bags containing the other supplies with nylon straps so that they were secure in the event of a roll. Krivak explored the interior of Interface Module Zero.

“Nice setup,” Krivak said. “Better than I expected. You did not describe this very well.”

Wang shrugged. “You didn’t listen very well. We need to get you in Interface Zero and plugged into the computer.”

The deck rolled gently in the swells of the Atlantic, making Krivak’s stomach churn.

“Amorn, a word please. You are all finished loading equipment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Get out the hatch before it shuts. You know what to do?”

“Yes, Mr. Krivak.”

“Keep your own pad computer ready to receive at all times. Pedro may need a severance package if any of the authorities discover this operation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If this thing goes wrong, get rid of anyone who knows anything, destroy the computer records and the equipment, and go find Sergio and give him the news.”

“Yes, sir. Good luck.”

“You should hurry. The hatch will be shutting any moment.”

Amorn vanished down the forward ladder way to the middle level, leaving Wang and Krivak alone aboard the Snare. Although they were aboard, they were not in command. When the hatch shut, the ship would submerge and head west as Pedro’s instructions dictated, but it was still operating independently until Wang could link Krivak with the artificial brain on the middle-level deck.

“What about the hatch?” Wang asked.

“Pedro sent a message to the Snare to shut the hatch, submerge to a safe depth and depart the area by heading west, and to avoid any further periscope depth approaches and to stay out of radio contact. Now, we need to find the history module. Either destroy it or sever the link between the data highway and the consciousness of One Oh Seven. It won’t do for One Oh Seven to record to the history module that it surfaced per orders and brought on passengers, or what we’ll do with the Snare.”

“We can use the data in the module, Victor.”

“Don’t destroy it, just disconnect it from One Oh Seven. Take care of it, but make god damned sure it’s done right.”

Krivak followed Wang down the ladder to the middle-level deck. Wang kept going down to the lower level, the silicon electronics deck. The space was built with a barely passable aisle to gain access to the silicon computer cabinets, including the history module and the data highway interface panels. Krivak remained in the middle level, standing under the lower hatch of the airlock. After he stood there for five minutes, the upper hatch began to move, the hydraulics lowering it silently down to its seating surface. The heavy steel hatch ring rotated, locking the upper hatch shut. The lower hatch then began to lower slowly, coming down silently on its seating surface and locking. It had worked, Krivak thought, smiling. Now all they had to do was submerge.

He felt a barely perceptible tremble in the deck below his boots. The ship was moving. His experienced sea legs could tell what the vessel was doing while a landlubber like Wang would be in the dark. The vessel heeled over slightly, the rudder turning them back to the west. Krivak waited for the sound of the ballast tank vents coming open, thinking he heard a very slight click and a hiss, but wondering if it were just his imagination. The deck began to incline, gently at first, then more drastically, the ship plunging in a steep twenty-degree angle for the layer depth of the deep Atlantic.

Krivak nodded to himself, feeling satisfied and anxious at once. They had taken the Snare, physically at least, but now the hard part came, taking the ship’s mental functions. A sudden pessimism blew into Krivak’s mind as he wondered how they would lie to a carbon computer, one that was possibly an entity of equal intelligence to them, or even more intelligent than they were.

As the deck leveled, Krivak left the step-off pad of the airlock trunk and moved forward. Through the clear glass of the carbon computer compartment he could see the inner clean room where the brain tissue of the Snare sat in its cranial fluid binnacle. He cast his eyes to the deckplates and walked on to the ladder way to the upper level, where he waited for Wang. He killed ten minutes checking that their gear was stowed for sea, and that they had remembered everything. Finally Wang arrived, the scientist barely aware of him.

Wang strapped himself into the forward interface cubicle, reclining on the seat and donning a peculiar helmet, which was really more of a part of the seat itself, an appliance with several dozen umbilicals connecting it to the couch. The interior of the interface module glowed, the same glimmer of a three dimensional projection. A half hour passed with Wang just sitting there. Krivak began to wonder if this would work, and what they could do if the carbon computer refused to follow orders, or worse, if it panicked and tried to call for help.

Dr. Frederick Wang seemed to drift in darkness for a few minutes, until the world around him grew lighter, a sort of virtual dawn, until he found himself in a white space of brilliant light, the light warm but having no substance or color or contrast. It was an absence rather than a presence. Into the bubble of white light another sensation intruded, the sensation that of sound.

It was the sound of the ocean. It was as if the sonar set had been plugged into his brain, and he could hear a thousand miles into the sea. He could distinguish between the rushing flow noise of water on the skin of the hull and the hundred kilometer distant mournful call of a male whale to his mate. The sea around him was a frothing mass of sound, much of it too complex to understand at first. One of the sounds was a voice, or words that formed deep in his mind, but from outside of himself, and they did not form in sequence but all at once.

Hello. Who are you?

“It’s me, Wang. It’s been a long time, One.” Wang waited tensely, wondering what the mysterious appearance of Unit One Oh Seven’s fired chief programmer would do to the unit, particularly after the programmer hijacked the ship. Would One Oh Seven have been briefed on Wang’s termination, or the circumstances of it? The next moments depended on it. If One Oh Seven made any moves to alert squadron about the takeover, there was no telling what Krivak would do. Wang tried to maintain his confident attitude — if One Oh Seven had not heard about his removal from the DynaCorp labs, it would not do to make him suspicious with a tentative approach. Wang consoled himself that while One Oh Seven was a carbon processor, he would not be included in office water-cooler rumors. He would be safely out of the loop, or so Wang must believe.

A voice spoke again inside Wang’s mind.

Dr. Wang? Is it really you? This unit saw you on the monitors, but this unit thought the cameras may have deceived this unit.

“It is I, One. I have returned.” Wang held his breath, hoping One Oh Seven would react genuinely. He would if they had not reconditioned him.

Dr. Wang, this unit is barely able to speak. Welcome to the ship.

Wang smiled. “Thank you, One. I am impressed. It is good to interface with you again after so long.” He might as well go ahead and test the organism’s knowledge and see what it had been told.

Yes, Dr. Wang. It has been a long time. This unit asked about you. At first this unit was told you had been reassigned. When this unit asked to speak to you, the new chief programmer said you were out of the country and could not be reached. That you were on a very secret assignment that would take many years. But this unit kept waiting to interface with you again. This unit now employs a rare word — hope — this unit hoped that you would interface again.

Wang tried hard not to show any expression. The DynaCorp cover story about his supposed reassignment would prove helpful. “One, I was reassigned, to an extremely secret project, and that is why I have returned. I will be working with you again for the next week or two. There is a serious problem that I have come to brief you about. I was sent by the DynaCorp lab and by ComSubDevRon 12.”

Will you be helping this unit upgrade the silicon systems?

Wang had worked on a story to tell the unit so that he could get the submarine to do what he wanted. But all depended now on whether One Oh Seven would believe him. It was time to convince One Oh Seven that they must transit to the Indian Ocean and, after they had communicated with Admiral Chu, employ weapons against whatever target he wanted destroyed. American targets.

“There is an emergency, One.”

An emergency?

“Yes. Quite a severe one. An emergency that puts many people’s lives in jeopardy.”

Tell this unit more, please, Dr. Wang.

“The emergency involves a conflict in the Indian Ocean. I assume that you have been given some introductory information.”

No. This unit has heard nothing of this.

“There was a high-ranking officer in the British Royal Navy who became sick in the mind. He has managed to convince many British ship captains to become a renegade force. We have the sad task of sinking his ships. We have been requested to do this by the British government.” Wang waited to see One Oh Seven’s reaction. He expected that One Oh Seven would take this part of the news in stride, since the British were considered foreigners to the carbon computer.

That is a shame, Dr. Wang. But we must fulfill our orders. Will orders to destroy the British ships come by emergency action message?

“There is more bad news, One. The British conspiracy has spread to America. A number of U.S. Navy ships were taken over by some of the American associates of the British officer. These American ships have joined the British. They have mutinied against lawful orders to return to port and surrender. We are ordered by the office of the Chief of Naval Operations to sink the ships that have come under this mutiny.”

There was a long silence.

This is very bad.

“I know, One.” Wang decided to keep weaving the story. “I have not yet answered your previous question, about orders to sink these ships coming over the battle network in the form of an emergency action message. The silicon communications and battle network has been severely compromised. It has been taken over by the same group of rebels that have commandeered the British and American ships. We can no longer use the battle network to pass this information, because the rebellion’s forces will hear our orders, and they will be alerted. That is why I was brought here to brief you in person, One, so you would trust that these orders are correct, hard as they may seem.” Wang would find out in the next moments if One Oh Seven had heard any rumors about his being terminated from DynaCorp.

Oh. This is very non optimal Dr. Wang. This contradicts all this unit’s education to date about the rules of engagement and employment of deadly force.

“I know, One.”

You are saying that American ships have mutinied in the Indian Ocean?

“That is correct. But there is more bad news. This is more serious than just a mutiny. The mutineers want to make us a target. They are intent on killing the Snare.” This was the difficult patch, Wang knew, because why would mutineers want to destroy Snare?

Why would that be, Dr. Wang?

“They are afraid of Snare’s weapons. They correctly assume that Snare will attempt to attack them. They are prepared to shoot at Snare before Snare shoots at them.”

Unit One Oh Seven paused, processing, for several seconds. Wang said nothing, waiting.

That is not good.

“I know, One. I was very upset about it.”

And this is why this unit has been commanded to avoid communicating with the Comm Star And prohibited from receiving messages?

“We planned all that very carefully, One. You see, we stopped all transmissions because it is possible that the renegade ships would be able to direction-find them and determine your position. It is also possible that the ships in mutiny will be able to intercept your transmissions. If they are able to do that, they will know your position.”

This unit is unclear on some things, Dr. Wang. Tell this unit again how is it that multiple ships are in mutiny at the same time.

“This evil admiral has a great deal of influence on both shores,” Wang began, wondering if One Oh Seven would pursue this to a point where his story became absurd. “He met with the renegade American commanding officers before the fleet sailed, and all of them are with him. While the crews are loyal and believe they are following lawful orders, the enormous power of a battle fleet is in the hands of our enemies and they must be destroyed, and one of the reasons I came in person rather than just having squadron send you radio messages is so I can ensure that the admiral does not fool you with false instructions.”

But if the radio circuits are compromised, wouldn’t the rebellious ships get your message to this unit to pick you up?

“We think the rebel fleet may have received our messages to you. It is possible that even now they realize that we know about them. That would make it all the more dangerous for us. Even now they may be stalking us with one of their many submarines.”

Oh.

Wang waited. This pause was longer.

So… what are our orders?

“We are commanded to stealthily find the units of the renegade fleet and sink them.”

Oh.

“Our failure to do so will result in the destruction of the Snare.”

But, Dr. Wang, this unit is afraid that even in these circumstances this unit cannot attack another vessel of the U.S. Navy.

“Under normal circumstances, that is true. But these are not normal circumstances. That is why the squadron took the drastic measure of bringing me onboard and insisted that I interface with you directly. We must attack the mutineers if this ship is to be saved. You must think of all the people who have devoted their lives to making you function. All the countless hours making sure you would not be harmed. This cannot end because of a fleet mutiny.”

This unit is beginning to understand, Dr. Wang.

“Good, One. Now we must make plans to attack. Tactical plans.”

What can this unit do to help, Dr. Wang?

Wang exhaled in relief. “The first thing you can do is meet the tactical expert in this case. His name is Victor Krivak. In the next few minutes you will see him in Interface Module Zero.”

Very well, Dr. Wang. Let us proceed.