The Trafalgar Gambit

Chapter Seventeen

Kurt felt oddly numb over the days following their joint confession. On one hand, his duties to the starfighter pilots under his command were blurred with reporting to the Marines and going through every last detail of their affair; on the other hand, he kept expecting the blackmailers to make contact and nothing happened. He programmed his terminal to alert him the moment any message arrived, then did his best to put it out of his mind. It didn’t work.

He missed Rose, more than he cared to admit. It wasn’t just the sex; it was being with her, sharing ideas for how best to deploy their starfighters in combat. But they’d been banned from being together alone and it was hard to get someone else to supervise them. All they could do was keep busy, keep the new trainees working hard to build up their skills and try not to think about the future. Whatever happened, Kurt knew, his career was definitely at an end.

“All clear,” the XO said, once Ark Royal passed through yet another tramline. “Starfighter pilots may return to their quarters.”

Kurt nodded and climbed out of his starfighter. One squadron would remain on Quick Reaction Alert at all times, just in case they encountered the aliens, but the remaining pilots would either go to the simulators or their bunks. Most of the trainees were looking tired and worn these days; if it had been possible, Kurt would have forced them all to take a week’s rest. But he knew that it wouldn’t be possible until the end of the mission.

He sighed as he looked at the young men and women. Most of them were definitely going to wind up dead.

“Concentrate on your attack formations,” he ordered, addressing one group. They’d be going straight to the simulators. “You’re not random enough. The aliens will rip you to shreds when you enter attack range.”

“I’ll put them through the wringer,” Wing Commander Falcone assured him. He looked ridiculously young for his rank, but at least he had experience. He’d been nothing more than a newly-trained pilot during Operation Nelson. “And then make sure they get some damn sleep.”

“Proper sleep,” Kurt ordered. “Sleep machines tend to catch up with you, sooner or later.”

He watched them go, then turned and hurried back to his office. The Marines would probably want to talk to him again soon enough and he wanted a nap before they arrived, if only to prevent himself from falling asleep in the middle of the interrogation. They just went over the same questions again and again. Kurt suspected they were trying to catch him in a lie, something that infuriated him more than he cared to say. But he knew they had no reason to trust him. They knew how badly he’d compromised himself.

His office was monitored now, of course. Kurt wasn’t sure if it was to make sure he wasn’t making love to Rose or to catch anyone trying to leave messages for him, but it was something else he hated, no matter how much he understood. He stepped through the hatch and half-stumbled towards the desk, fighting down the yawn that threatened to burst from his mouth. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him.

And a new message was blinking on his terminal.

He stared, suddenly shocked into action. It was from the address he’d been given… and he should have been alerted. When he looked down at the terminal on his belt, he saw nothing… but they’d been on tactical alert. Nothing short of a Priority One message would have been forwarded to him. He cursed violently, then opened the message. It was nothing more than a handful of sentences strung together, seemingly at random. But he knew it was the message’s arrival that was the true notification.

Bracing himself, he stood and strode through the hatch, heading up towards the observation blister. It was late at night, by shipboard time, which probably meant it would be in use by a pair of legitimate lovers. The hidden sign indicating occupancy was there, warning him not to enter the compartment. But he had a feeling it was actually there to keep people out until he’d picked up his orders. Cursing again, he walked through the hatch and into the observation blister. It was empty.

Puzzled, he looked around. There was a datachip lying on one of the benches, under the stars. He picked it up and examined it, but saw nothing that separated it from the hundreds of thousands of datachips used throughout the ship. It looked to be a design used by both civilian and military personnel. No one would think twice if they saw it, he realised, silently saluting the blackmailers. And, without the correct access codes, they wouldn’t be able to use it.

He popped the chip into his terminal. There was a brief moment of nothing, then the terminal demanded a biometric scan. Kurt swore under his breath, then pressed his fingertip against the reader, wondering just where the blackmailers had obtained his biometric details. They were kept under tight security at Nelson Base, as far as he knew. Fingerprints were one thing, but access to a person’s genetic code — which would be possible, if they’d accessed his fingerprint records — was potentially disastrous. Someone could force-grow a clone of someone important and use the clone’s DNA to access classified data.

Or perhaps they just took my fingerprints from Luna City, he thought. He had been too distraught to think about the mug of tea he’d drunk. Fred could have arranged for it to be picked up and then delivered to one of his associates. Now, let’s see…

The files on the datapad unlocked, one by one. Three of them were text files, the fourth was an executable program. He opened the first text file and read it, quickly. It consisted of nothing more than instructions, which he had apparently twenty-four hours to follow or else. They didn’t go into details, but it didn’t matter. He knew what ‘or else’ meant.

He sighed. He’d have to take the terminal to the Marines and hope they knew what to do with it. And that the blackmailers didn’t notice what he’d done.

“They want what?” Ted asked.

“Access codes,” Major Parnell said. His technicians had been examining the datachip since the CAG had brought it to them. “They want his access codes, but also access codes belonging to the XO and the Captain. And they want him to upload the program on the datachip into the main computer.”

Ted shook his head, firmly. Ark Royal was less dependent on automation than the modern carriers, but they didn’t dare risk losing the main computer. It was bad enough that the system was a patchwork of ancient Royal Navy gear merged with Russian, Chinese and French systems. He’d had nightmares about it coming apart at the seams ever since the aliens had proven their ability to shoot through the hull. They’d built as much redundancy into the system as they could, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

Fitzwilliam had another question. “What does the program actually do?”

“It’s a virus,” Parnell said. “It won’t do anything until it receives the signal. When it does, it will hack its way into the ship’s datanet and take control, locking us all out. Or it would, according to the techs, if we were a normal ship. The virus wasn’t designed with our systems in mind.”

Ted’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure of that?”

“The techs think our systems won’t be able to support the virus when it goes active,” Parnell said. “But I’d prefer not to test it.”

“Me neither,” Ted said. He shared a glance with Fitzwilliam. “What about the original message, the one alerting Schneider to pick up the chip?”

“Apparently, it was sent from one of the terminals on the lower decks,” Parnell said. “The system was accessed using a standard dockyard access code, not a crewman’s personal login. It could be any of the dockyard workers who sent the message.”

“Or someone pinched their code and used it,” Ted said. Normally, dockyard codes were purged from the system as soon as the ship left the shipyard. This time, with dockyard workers still onboard, the codes had been left in place. “They all use the same one, don’t they?”

Parnell nodded.

“We’re looking through footage now, sir,” he said. “But we may be unable to locate the person responsible. Too many people pass through the lower decks.”

“Of course they do,” Fitzwilliam agreed. “Haven’t you been urging the ambassadors and their staffs to take some exercise?”

Ted tapped the desk, shortly. “What could they do with personal access codes,” he mused. “And how could they expect Schneider to obtain them?”

“Someone with enough experience at manipulating a computer could probably pull someone else’s access code out of the system,” Parnell said. “It’s a persistent headache on the ground, sir. Terrorists and insurgents often try to fight smarter, as well as harder, and there’s always some idiot who leaves their access codes unsecured. Once they’re in the system, they can create dummy login details for themselves and slip in and out at will.”

He shook his head. “And anyone onboard ship will be already inside the outermost firewall,” he added. “The system won’t see anything Schneider does as an attempt to force access from outside the hull.”

Ted nodded. One of the Admiralty’s persistent nightmares, ever since computers had become utterly indispensible to operating starships, was someone hacking into the Royal Navy’s datanet and crashing the entire system, leaving the fleet helpless. The fear was so prevalent that hundreds of precautions had been taken, from isolating each starship to hardwiring certain safeguards into their computer networks. But, during wartime, isolating starships from the datanets prevented them from working together smoothly. No one, it seemed, had seriously considered all-out war with an alien race.

But they might be able to break into our systems, he thought, morbidly. We broke into theirs and they have a head start.

“Right,” he said. “We can’t take the risk of uploading the program.”

“It might be workable,” Parnell said. “We could disable it first…”

“Too risky,” Fitzwilliam said.

Ted nodded in agreement.

“Captain, Admiral, we don’t know who left the chip in the observation blister,” Parnell said. “And Schneider has been ordered to forward the access details to a specific location within our system, not return to the blister. It’s within the entertainment subsection…”

“Where everyone and his aunt goes when they’re not on duty,” Ted groaned. Ark Royal carried millions upon millions of movie files, music tracks and VR simulations to entertain her crew when they had some downtime. That part of the network was hard to patrol, let alone to secure. If the files were isolated in a specific location, it was unlikely they’d be discovered by the wrong person. “Can’t we track down the user?”

“We can flag the file so we’re beeped if it’s accessed,” Parnell said. “The only question is what we actually give them?”

Fitzwilliam eyed him, suspiciously. “What would you like to give them?”

“Access codes that can be cancelled, if necessary,” Parnell said. “Look, they don’t seem to be familiar with our computer systems. Their virus might have failed even if Schneider uploaded it for them. We give them a set of access codes that look modern, but have to be approved and authorised by us before they do anything. At the very least, we’d be able to track down whoever was using them.”

“True,” Ted said. “But why do they want the codes?”

“Sabotage,” Parnell guessed. “Other than that, I can’t imagine what they might have in mind. Unless they are working for the aliens, of course.”

Ted gritted his teeth. “If the aliens could talk to us well enough to tell spies what to do,” he said, “why couldn’t they talk peace without…”

He waved a hand at the bulkhead. “Surely, they must realise the war hasn’t gone as well as might be expected.”

“Insufficient data,” Parnell said.

“There is another possibility,” Fitzwilliam said, suddenly. “One of the Ambassadors is planning something.”

Ted gave him a sharp look. “They know just how bad things are,” he said. “They wouldn’t try to rock the boat, would they?”

“My family does a little diplomatic work,” Fitzwilliam said. It wasn’t common for him to talk about his family, not since his failed attempt to take command of Ark Royal. “A great deal of diplomacy, particularly between the major powers, consists of maintaining the status quo rather than one nation attempting to best another nation. That’s why we ended up with agreements not to build large numbers of mass drivers and not to fight each other in the Solar System.

“But this is different. This is something completely outside our previous context.

“It’s quite possible that one of the Ambassadors has secret orders to try to wring some additional advantage for his own country out of the peace talks,” he added. “Or…”

He broke off and swore. “It’s the Russians.”

Ted blinked. “How can you be sure?”

“If necessary, the Ambassadors have orders to cede space the aliens already hold in exchange for peace,” Fitzwilliam said. “Give us ten years of breathing space and we might be able to… renegotiate the agreement. No one really wants to surrender human-settled systems, but we might not have a choice. And that would include the surrender of New Russia.”

“The Russians would be furious,” Ted said, very slowly. “But would they want to prolong the war in hopes of liberating their world?”

“They’d be dependent on us to liberate their world,” Parnell added. “They’re down to their last carrier, I believe, and only a handful of frigates. There would be no liberation unless we or one of the other spacefaring powers did the heavy lifting.”

“And someone might well have started to pressure the Russians into making concessions while they’re down,” Fitzwilliam said. “The Russians have suffered the worst of any of the spacefaring powers. Someone else might have decided to take advantage of their weakness.”

Ted frowned, more perturbed than he cared to admit. “Have we taken advantage of their weakness?”

“Not as far as I know,” Fitzwilliam said. “But if the war ended with a return to the status quo…”

He allowed his voice to trail off suggestively. Ted barely heard him. If there was a spacefaring power that had good reason to hate the aliens, it was the Russians. Even if the war ended tomorrow on decent terms the Russians would still need decades to rebuilt their lost military and economic strength. And New Russia sat on a handful of tramlines, tramlines the other spacefaring powers would want to use. It was quite possible the Russians feared losing everything in the wake of a peace agreement that left the aliens in control of New Russia… or losing influence and power even if they did recover New Russia.

And there was a team of Russian observers on the ship.

“Watch the Russians,” he ordered, “but don’t take your eyes off anyone else.”

Parnell smiled. “We’ll try, sir,” he said. “But the diplomats are very good at checking their cabins for bugs. I think we’ll have to watch from a distance.”

He shrugged. “With your permission,” he added, “we will provide dummy access codes to the CAG. He can send them to the blackmailers and… hopefully, they’ll use them. And then we will know who they are.”

“And then we can remove them,” Fitzwilliam said. “Five days to Target One, Admiral. And we still don’t have any idea what the Russians — or whoever the blackmailers actually are — want.”

Ted nodded. The blackmailers had played a card when they’d forced Schneider to work for them under threat of exposure. They wouldn’t have shown their hand unless they had something in mind for him, some way to use him for best advantage. And that meant they intended to use him soon, or they wouldn’t have run the risk of exposing themselves. And that meant…

He shook his head. “Give me a nice naval battle any day,” he said. He looked at Parnell. “Give them the dummy codes, but make damn certain we can override them if necessary. I don’t want them to be in any position to harm this ship. If the techs think we can let them think the virus is in place when it isn’t, do it. If not, Schneider will have to tell them that he doesn’t have access permission to upload anything to the main command network. He certainly shouldn’t have that permission.”

“Aye, Admiral,” Parnell said.

“There is an alternative,” Fitzwilliam mused. “We pretend to discover the affair and put both Schneider and Labara in the brig. Or claim we caught him trying to upload the virus. They’d pull in their horns and pray to escape discovery, instead of causing further trouble. Then we can honour the agreement with the… happy couple at a later date.”

“We might not learn precisely what the blackmailers had in mind,” Parnell pointed out. “Or just who they were. We have suspicions, Captain. Nothing more.”

“No proof of anything, beyond attempted blackmail,” Ted agreed.

He glared down at the deck. Naval combat was understandable. The enemy wanted to kill him and he wanted to kill the enemy. But this counter-intelligence work was like shooting at shadows, with the added disadvantage that some of the shadows might shoot back. And that shooting the wrong shadow might be disastrous. Accusing the Russians — or anyone else — of involvement in the affair would not go down well without very real proof.

And the only way to get that proof was to let the blackmailers proceed, praying all the time they could keep them from doing any real damage.

“Shit,” he muttered. “They must have been out of their minds.”