He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (25 page)

It was a cry as old as the hills and that short sightedness had cost Brittan dearly when war had come to her shores once more and she was ill prepared to face the threat.  Mike wondered if his small ship would make much difference, or was the Admiral and other just whistling pass the graveyard. An hour later, he presented himself to the Admiral, and this time, his reception on board was vastly different from his first visit to the Admirals cabin. Everyone either stood and saluted, or stood up and came to attention until he’d passed.  The most satisfying was almost the first one, as he ran into Leftenant Warwick as he exited his launch.  Fate or fortune conspired to make Lieutenant Warwick OOD, Officer of the Deck, and it was customary for even Admirals to salute as they asked permission to board.  Mike Saluted the resplendent image of the Union Jack on the far bulkhead before turned to ask for permission to board.

“Permission to come aboard, Sir.”  For a moment, Warwick just stood and stared, a peculiar expression on his face as he waited for Mike to salute him.  It looked as if Warwick thought he had the upper hand, expecting to exact a measure of malicious pleasure, as Mike was forced to salute him.

Mike understood knowing from experience just how slow Warwick was and just waited to see how long it would take for the little shithead to catch on.  At last, after an embarrassing moment of silence the reality of the situation sank through his thick skull as Warwick’s eyes dropped to Mike’s chest. His eye flew open, and he visibly gulped before snapping to attention, almost poking his eye out as he brought his arm up.  VC holders do no salute first, except the King, if he was quick enough.  Mike returned it with quick, almost offhanded salute, and his face blank.

“Permission granted, Lieutenant.”  He stammered at last, unable to take his eyes off the twin medals on Mike’s chest.

“At ease Leftenant Warwick.”  Leftenant Rolly Youngman the Admiral’s Flag Officer ordered as he came up beside Warwick, rolling his eyes as he gave Mike a quick salute before holding his hand out, a broad smile on his face.

“Nice to see you again, Mike.”

“Thanks, Rolly, same here.  How the old man?”  Mike asked as he fell in beside Rolly as they headed for the jump lift up to the next deck.

“Doing well, and looking forward to see you.  By the way, congrats on those.”  His eyes dropped to Mike’s chest.

“Is it always this bad for someone wearing one of these damn things?”  Mike didn’t have to specify.

“Oh no, usually most of us don’t even bother giving it a second thought, ten a penny around here,” he lied, “but then again, how often do you meet someone who has two of them.”

“I wish I’d worn my other uniform.”

“Which one is that?” Rolly chuckled.

“The one without these bloody things on them.”  He laughed, saluting yet again.

“Can’t do that, where the fun in that.  You have everyone from the First Lord of the Admiralty down all bowing and scraping.”

“Fat lot of good that does me.”  Mike complained jokingly.

“You get the best seat at the restaurant and the theater.”  He mused helpfully as they walked to the next jump lift.  “And a few free drinks at the pub.”  Mike just snorted softly in reply.  The Marines guard on the Admiral’s door came to parade ground perfect attention and saluted, and he caught a slight smile on the faces of the Marine.  The word finally got around that he was once a Marine himself.

“Good luck, Sarg.”  The other whispered softly as he passed.  Mike had to smile, nodding slightly as he walked passed.  There was no disrespect in the man calling him Sergeant, just the opposite.

“Get yourself a drink, Mike,” the Admiral ordered as he walked through the hatch, “and take a seat while I finish reading this.”  He snapped Mike a quick salute as he came in before tossing his cap on a desk and went back to reading.

“Thank you, Admiral.”  He ordered a cup of coffee from the Admirals steward and took a seat at the long conference table.   At length the Admiral stood up and lit his pipe before coming over to sit opposite to him.

“I read your report with great interest, Mike, yet many things puzzle me.”  The Admiral held his hand up for a moment and Mike fell silent as the Admiral keyed his comm unit.

“Check please Rolly.”

“Checking sir…  Everything in the green Admiral.”

“Thank you Rolly.”  Mike raised an eyebrow in question.

“Just Rolly checking to make sure our conversation is private.”  He answered, his face pulling into a deep frown.  He nodded towards a stainless steel box mounted in the center of the conference table.

“What with so many leaks, I had a disrespectful young Ensign, who also happens to be a wiz with security system, build me that little box.  It's guaranteed to fry any listening devise within fifty feet.”  He looked at it pensively for a moment, then shrugged.  If the little box didn’t work, it wouldn’t matter.  “So, as I was saying.  You have no idea who those people were in the house?”

“No, sir, none at all.”

“It's odd that I’ve heard nothing about this, or the fact that someone sabotaged your computer.”  That sounded very ominous, and a definite breakdown in security.

“I didn’t message you about that, sir, as I didn’t want it to become common knowledge.”  He saw the Admiral nod in agreement.

“Good point, but the question remains, who?”

“I get the impression that many people didn’t want my ship finished, Admiral, they killed it off twenty years ago, and kept trying until I lifted.”

“That bad, Huh.”

“Yes, sir.  It also makes me wonder if someone at supply might try slipping a few of those doctored hard drives and operating systems into the fleet.”  For a moment, the Admiral looked startled.

“Funny you should say that.  I recently received a dispatch from BueShips that they would be updating the operating systems in all ships of the fleet in the near future.”

“If I were you, Admiral, meaning no disrespect.  I’d have my Operations tech take a long hard look at those drives, and anything else BueShips send you.”  The Admiral took no offense, and simply nodded.

“Yet, I wonder…”

“Wonder what, sir?”

“I have the feeling that all this is according to some plan or time-table.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “What if those doctored units are supposed to activate on some signal or other.”

“I don’t follow, sir.”

“What if just before we go into battle against… well, against who knows who, that these units get tripped to do what you say they will, what then?”

“You’d be crippled, sir.  Navigation won’t work.  Your fire control and targeting systems would be off-line, and God only knows what else those things are programmed to do.”

“That was my conclusion.”  The Admiral looked at Mike with bright, sharp eyes.  Mike thought about it for a split second.

“I suspect your only option would be to surrender, sir.”

“Yes indeed.  That would be my only option.  Without helm control, shields, or weapons, this fleet would be nothing more than floating scrap iron.”  It was a grim assessment.

“So your only option is not to install them.”  The Admiral looked at him a moment before shaking his head.

“What if we turned this around and looked at it as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity for what, sir?”

“You and I both know there are certain officers who will turn their coat at the first sign of trouble, what if…”

“Good lord!” Mike muttered, instantly seeing the implications.  “If the ships of the fleet did what the saboteur expected, those officers would either be forewarned, or cease the opportunity if it presented itself.”

“Yes, they’d have to declare themselves and come out into the open, which they haven’t to date.”

“How widespread is the rot, sir?”  It was almost a question Mike didn’t want to ask.

“I don’t honestly know, Mike.”  He sighed.

“I can think of a couple of options to take advantage of the situation, Admiral.”

“And they are?”

“For one, a couple of my crew has been playing around with that hard drive, in an isolated simulation of course.”

“I should bloody well hope so.”  The Admired said with a smile.

“Yes, sir.”  He smiled back.  “The point is, they have isolated the root commend and developed a counter virus to kill the program even after it has launched itself to infect the system.”

“Why after?”

“At the rate it progresses, they felt that trying to kill it before it activated would be counterproductive.  The damn virus might just be smart enough to go into hiding if it meets resistance as it unfolds.”

“But once it’s been activated, it can’t stop itself.”

“Right.  Our virus follows the program down each branch and kills it as it activates.  It also restored the original program directives.”

“Neat and tidy.  Killing two birds with one stone.”

“Yes, sir.  The downside is, there is a lag between the time the virus activates and takes over the system to when the counter virus kills it off and reboots the original system program.”

“How long?”  Mike could see this point troubled the Admiral.  No ship commander or fleet commander likes to feel that vulnerable, even for a few seconds.  Ship killing missiles and energy weapons could destroy his ship, or fleet in those fleeting second of vulnerability.

“Depending on the size of the ship… up to thirty minutes, sir.”  The Admiral puffed his cheeks out and let out a long sigh.

“Too long.”  He said, shaking his head.  “I don’t have to tell you that a battle… no, a war could be won or lost in thirty seconds.”

“I understand that, sir… but…”

“Yes?”

“There is one way you can prevent that, sir, but I hate to suggest it.”

“Suggest!”

“It would all depend on how many of your crew you can really trust, sir.”

“How so?”

“You could do what we did sir.  Go on manual.”  The Admiral drew back and looked at Mike, a startled look on his face.

“Manual?”

“Yes, sir.  With all the problems we were having, I pulled the hard drive and the control crystals and hard wired the ship to manual control.  That’s how we got her out of the yard before the Inspector turned up.”

“Mike!  A Battleship can’t operate on manual, not in this day and age.  Good God!  The whole system is integrated…”

“I know that Admiral, but what if your mainframe was knocked out in battle.  All the system would automatically revert to manual.”  The Admiral looked pensive a moment before nodding.

“That’s true, they would.”

“So, what you need to do is to install a module that you can activate that cuts out the computer and switches everything to manual control.”

“You’d have shields, weapons, and helm control.  Those are really the only three things you really need, at least in the short term.”

“What about the comm system?”

“In our case that wasn’t important, but if what I suspect is true, killing communications might signal the enemy that you are on to them.  I would suggest that you prepare a battle plan and train a select crew for that contingency and give the same instruction to the Captains you trust.”

“Good thinking.  It would be hairy for the first few minutes, but knowing what was happening at least we wouldn’t be vulnerable, or at least not so much.”