Riker
December 2174
Sol
“We lost a cargo drone,” Charles said, popping into VR. “There was an explosive package waiting where it landed. As soon it touched down, the bomb went off.”
He sat down and accepted a coffee from Jeeves. “It was a supply delivery to Vancouver Island. They’ve still got enough of a fishery that they’re not facing imdiate starvation, but the loss of equipnt and resources is still painful.”
I looked up and muttered a few choice expletives. “I take it we lost the entire food shipnt?”
Charles nodded. “I thought we had the landing area completely secured. VEHENT has already claid responsibility. They’re getting trickier.”
A light blinked on my console. Not surprisingly, it was Premier Grady. I accepted the call.
“We seem to have lost our delivery,” he said without preamble. “I saw the announcent. I do not bla you for this—you could just as soon bla . However, the problem remains of hungry mouths to feed. What can be done?”
“Short term, sir, I’m going to put together another delivery. Hor is in your area, so he’ll arrange a ti and place over a short-range laser link. No chance of intercepting the communication that way.” I turned to look at Hor. He nodded and disappeared.
I thought for a second, then turned back to the video call. “anwhile, I think that VEHENT has graduated to major threat. They’re not going to go away, and they’re no longer just a nuisance.”
I talked to Grady for a few more monts, going over so backlogged items. Then he looked to his right and announced that he was receiving the connection from Hor. His eyes moved across the video screen for a few monts, then he turned back to and nodded.
After he disconnected, Charles said, “We also have the issue of the Florianópolis attacks.”
“I know, Charles. A lot of people still bla Brazil for the war. I guess they’re taking out their frustrations and getting so revenge. We have a task force going on that already. I just don’t know how hard they’re working on it. There seems to be a lot of sympathy for those terrorist attacks.”
“Less so for the supply chain attacks, even though fewer lives are lost.” Charles shrugged. “Hits closer to ho, I guess.”
* * *
There had been sabotage on one of the donuts. So chemicals had been introduced into the irrigation system and had killed three sections of kudzu before the automated systems caught on and shut everything down for inspection.
This VEHENT group was good. The only people that had legitimate access to the space farms were the Bobs. Since VEHENT demonstrably was able to gain access, we had to consider all other ans. Ideas for how they might have done it included fake drones controlled by VEHENT, stealth devices piggy-backing up from Earth on returning delivery vehicles, or even hacking of our legitimate drones. None of those alternatives really seed realistic, but then that was the thing about being a good hacker. If people saw it coming, you wouldn’t be able to get away with it.
I set my AMI monitors to reviewing all traffic for the last month. Even if they found nothing, I was at least eliminating possibilities. I was archiving everything, though, in case I got inspired at so later date. Sowhere in all the communications around Earth, there had to be exchanges between VEHENT mbers.
I went back to review, yet again, everything in the libraries about cryptography.
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