Riker
December 2175
Sol
There was seldom any reason for the Bobs to et physically these days. SCUT and VR ant we could do everything we needed to in virtual space. SCUT-equipped drones made distance irrelevant for remote administration as well.
Now, two Heaven vessels floated less than fifty ters apart, in a section of space not far enough from a Lagrange point to look suspicious, but not so close that nearby clutter might disguise an eavesdropper. A laser link ensured that communications would be leakage-free and interception-free.
Charles sat across from , the coffee in his hand forgotten, his expression a mix of confusion, disbelief, and horror.
I hastened to explain. “This is just speculation on my part. Or it started out that way, anyway. When I went over the recent instances of VEHENT spaceside sabotage, Hor was always a recent visitor. In a couple of cases, the only recent visitor. We’d been saying that nothing had been near the locations, but that’s because we’ve been discounting ourselves as suspects.”
“But… Hor? How?”
“You rember the hacking attempt on ? I thought that was the only instance, but maybe it was the only instance that we detected. VEHENT obviously has so heavy-duty tech on their side. Maybe they discovered another way in.”
“So what do we do?”
I looked down for a mont. This wasn’t going to be easy to say. “We have to disable Hor and check him out. We can apologize afterwards if I’m wrong. Rember the Battle of Sol?”
* * *
[Investigation complete. File uploaded]
“Thanks, Guppy. I’ll look at it when I have a chance.” The file would be a summary of whatever the drones had found at the ground location of that suspicious transmission. I’d made a point of disabling all radio comms on those drones, and using secret-key encryption and frequency jumping for the SCUT teletry. I couldn’t have intercepted and decoded that kind of setup if I’d been handed the information on a silver platter. I had to assu that the unknown opponent wasn’t too much smarter than , or I might as well just roll over and expose my throat.
I sent Hor a ssage that I thought I knew where the next attack by VEHENT would be and that we needed a secure discussion. Charles, Hor and I arranged to et just to orbital north of the Earth-moon L4 point.
Hor coasted up and applied the brakes. Once we were at station-keeping, we rotated to present our laser comms to each other.
In an abundance of paranoia, I routed my communications through sandbox Bob. Laser comms were intimate enough that if Hor had a virus, it might try to get to via that connection. I’d told Charles to do the sa.
We connected up and Hor appeared in my VR. “So, Riker, what’s this big discovery?”
I took a sip of my coffee, and privately looked over at sandbox Bob. No reaction. “Just waiting for Charles. I don’t want to have to repeat myself and answer the sa argunts twice. One of us can fill in Ralph later when he gets here.” I looked up at the holotank where Charles was just coming up on our group.
Charles linked up by laser comms and popped into the common VR. “Hi guys. ‘Sup?”
In my private VR, sandbox Bob grabbed his throat and fell over. I looked at Guppy, one eyebrow raised.
[Source of attack is Hor]
I raised both hands in the air in the common VR, and Charles put a steel ball right through Hor’s reactor control system.
Hor went dead as he lost all power, just as he had back in our battle with the Brazilian probes. I did a quick scan. Perfect shot, no collateral damage. Charles looked green, and I’m sure I did as well.
We sent over a squad of roars and unceremoniously cut into Hor’s cargo bay. It took a few hours before we had Hor’s matrix up on a test cradle. Now ca the dirty part.
* * *
“Here it is.” I pointed to the listing. “It looks like the laser comms were the source of infection. I’m not sure when or how they would have gotten access, but in any case, it was brilliant. A hole in our defenses that I hadn’t even considered.”
Charles nodded. “Listen, Hor might not be the only one. You could be infected—although that seems unlikely, given that you’re the one exposing the issue—or I could be. My Guppy saw the penetration attempt from Hor as well, so unless you’re pulling so kind of double-reverse Maxwell Smart thing, I think you’re legit. I need you to do an inspection of my matrix to clear up any suspicions about . Like they did in The Thing.” He looked at expectantly. ꭆàꞐỔꞖƐS
I thought for a mont and nodded. It was a good idea, and necessary. Charles would have to open his hangar doors, then shut down, but now that I knew what to look for, the actual check would take only minutes.
I explained the requirents, and Charles did as instructed. A couple of roars entered Charles’ hull, and twenty minutes later Charles was back up and running.
“Thanks, Charles. I can reciprocate if there’s any lingering doubt in your mind.”
He shook his head. “You could have infected while I was off. Absolutely no reason for you not to. I’m good.”
We turned our attention back to Hor.
* * *
It took thirty hours overall to clean up and repair him. The virus, or Trojan, or whatever you wanted to call it, had gotten its hooks into multiple systems. Hor would have had very little free will, but would be fully conscious. I shuddered, thinking what that must have been like.
Ralph showed up in the midst of the process and we had to explain the whole thing to him. While I was talking, Charles lined up with Ralph’s reactor control system. When we pointed this out and explained the alternatives, Ralph quite rationally agreed to an inspection.
Once Ralph was back up—clean, thankfully—we turned back to Hor. I removed the viral control, and I installed a freshly-made firewall over the laser comms. None of us would be susceptible to that particular attack in the future. I also forwarded a complete report to Bill for him to add to the standard releases.
Hor booted up. His avatar appeared in the common VR, looked surprised, then collapsed, screaming. The rest of us looked at each other in horror. Had I done sothing wrong? Had I damaged Hor?
“Hor, buddy, co back. You okay?” I knelt beside him and put my hand on his shoulder.
The screaming stopped, and he began to moan. He curled into a fetal position, squeezed his eyes shut, and rocked back and forth on the floor.
I was at a complete loss. Original Bob hadn’t been much for this kind of emotional contact, and I was self-aware enough to know that I was even more standoffish than he was. Ralph and Charles didn’t look any more prepared. However, Hor didn’t seem to be getting worse or harming himself, so we decided in tiless male fashion to leave things be and wait for him to get a grip.
After a few more milliseconds, Hor gasped and opened his eyes. “I was hagridden. The bastards had total control of . They made lie to you; they made blow things up. They made kill people!”
Hor began to cry, a hopeless moaning alternating with racking sobs. “I couldn’t do anything. I could only watch myself follow their orders. I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t even kill myself!”
Bill popped into VR. “I’ve been lurking since I got your report. This is unforgivable. I know we don’t like violence, but if you feel the need to end the bastards that did this, no one will say boo.” He sat on the floor beside Hor and put a hand on his back, simply maintaining human contact.
I looked at Charles and Ralph. The expression on their faces said all that was needed. Soone was going to pay.
* * *
Hor had co out of his funk, but he was still very fragile. Bill was gone, after promising any help we might want in building anything we might need, up to and including Things That Explode. Yep. Angry.
Charles kept an eye on Hor while Ralph oversaw the construction of the replacent donut. Hor was gradually able to unwind himself and sit, but he would go into panic attacks from ti to ti. I suggested we enable his endocrine controls, but he shook his head emphatically.
“It feels too much like what they did to . It’s a leash. It’s just a different leash.” He waved a hand helplessly, trying to find words. “It feels like claustrophobia or sothing. Just the idea of sothing controlling makes want to run around the room, screaming.”
“Okay, Hor. Whatever you feel best about.” Charles put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re here for you, whatever you need.”
Hor nodded to us and tried a smile, but it wasn’t very reassuring.
I had not attended the latest UN session. If VEHENT had noticed that they’d lost their puppet, I didn’t want to give them any more information. Let them think we’d all destroyed each other.
anwhile, I looked over Guppy’s report. The tight-beam signal had co from what originally might have been a small military outpost high in the back country of New Zealand. It had so pretty hefty communications capability, judging from the visible hardware. Per my orders, the drones avoided using SUDDAR scanning, as that would have been detectable. Instead we stuck to passive surveillance techniques. Visual and infrared pinpointed occupied areas and gave an approximate head-count. Audio snooping picked up so of the conversations, the contents of which left no doubt about who was in residence. This appeared to be VEHENT central. Even if they operated on a cell structure, without their tech central they wouldn’t be good for much in the future.
I rembered the early hacking attempt, which had also originated from New Zealand. It was reasonable to assu that this had been an ongoing war for longer than I’d realized.
Fine. War declared. But I wanted to be certain I caught the right people. The mastermind behind so complex a setup wouldn’t be that easy to track down. I was sure there’d be at least one more hop to his location.
I would take whatever amount of ti, use whatever resources I needed, to catch him. Without limit. And when I did, there would be a reckoning.
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