The Phoenix Conspiracy (26 page)

"I'll give you a few minutes to see if
you can come up with any ideas. We should at least try
something."

"Okay, okay, let me think." Shen sat
on his bed and tried to imagine the setup of the computer systems
on the station. He'd never been to Brimm but the typical situation
was pretty standard. Intranet with an external hookup to the
Empire-Wide-Network, he knew roughly how it was served, the
capabilities of the mainframe, and what kind of software kept it
all together. He combined that with his Intel Agent training, more
or less how to lie to people and sometimes shoot them, and this
gave him his best idea. Which still wasn't very good.

"OK, Calvin," he said. "Here's what
I'm thinking, if I can get onto one of their computers, which
should be no problem, I think I can run a program I wrote using
whatever basic user account they have logged in by default. I can't
promise this, but I think I can move it over and execute it with
just basic permissions. It, in turn, can take advantage of the fact
that the intranet is probably..."

"Shen, can you just give me the simple
version."

"OK," he thought for a second.
"Basically I can artificially generate all these requests by
remotely telling all the computers on the network to start
demanding lots of information from the server which will get
overwhelmed and crash the system."

"So... you'll crash the system."
Calvin didn't sound like he understood, and Shen wasn't about to
explain it again.

"Yes," he said. "I'll make a problem
for them. Their staff can fix it, but it may take them a few
minutes to figure out what is happening. My hope is that I can pose
as a technician, babble off some tech jargon, and get some stupid
administrator to log me in to help fix it."

"I get the picture," said Calvin. "But
if you crash their system how will you be able to use it to get
what we need?"

"I can disable my own program—if they
don't find it first and wipe it out, and then everything will work
fine again. I'll do a system-wide search and download all the data.
Hopefully they won't notice this. And I'll be sure to cover my
steps on my way out."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll send a
message to the quartermaster to send some base-standard technician
clothes your way. We'll get you a fake ID too with bogus but
convincing credentials. In the meantime you get what you need
ready."

"Will do." The comm clicked off and
Shen went to his computer to copy over the software he'd need. It
still felt like a longshot, but that's what made it fun, he
supposed.

And who knows, maybe there'd be a
flower-shop on the station.

***

Calvin spent the next
several minutes arguing with various station controllers. For some
reason the Commodore and his direct underlings had been evasive
about talking to Calvin a second time, but as he continued to
request—no,
demand
—clearance to dock with the station, by invoking Fleet bylaws,
he eventually found the Commodore's face again staring back at him
from the other side of his comm display.

"It's nothing personal, Lieutenant
Commander," the Commodore said. "But our bays are shutdown pending
further investigation of the Harbinger attack and any ships coming
to dock are considered a security risk by definition. We're only
following protocol."

Calvin doubted it was as simple as
that. "Yes, protocol," he said. "Thank you, that's just the word I
was fishing for. You see, my ship is having some electrical systems
failures and we have to put in for repairs."

"That sounds like the sort of thing
you can handle on your own. Don’t you have an engineering staff and
a standard set of replacement parts?"

"I do," Calvin admitted. "But in order
to expedite our hunt for the Harbinger this repair could be done
twice as fast using your resources, especially your computer
scanners and calibrators." Calvin didn't know what that meant
exactly but Andre had told him to say it.

"I wish I could help you."

"Oh and did I mention we are
low on fuel cells? Current estimate says we couldn't initiate an
alteredspace jump of more than forty-five percent potential. At
that rate we'd get to Iota several days too late. And all because
you wouldn't restock our fuel, which, by the way, you're required
to do. Do you really want to be responsible for that kind of delay?
Especially when both Intel Wing
and
Fleet Command have a vested interest in
this?"

"Is that a threat?"

"Let me put it to you this way,"
Calvin leaned forward in his chair. "I hear the Koshi Mining Belt
isn’t such a bad place to govern this time of year, it's almost
summer. But you’d still need a full climate suit to go
outside."

The Commodore's face twisted into a
frown. "I don't like your attitude, Mister Cross. But if your ship
is in such dire need of supplies I will authorize you to dock next
to our support bay. However, your men are confined to your
ship."

"I'll need two men to deliver reports
and coordinate with your staff face-to-face, not to mention oversee
the movement of cargo."

"Very well but only one man, not
two."

Calvin smiled. "See, you're not so
unreasonable after all."

***

Shen felt a little like a clown in the
IT support uniform of Brimm Station. He wore a tie that felt too
tight, slacks that were a little long, and they made him comb his
hair and part it. Regulation, apparently. Something he'd never do
of his own free will. He felt a renewed wave of gratitude for
Calvin’s relaxed policies on the Nighthawk.

His fake ID was clipped onto his
button-up shirt. "Sukati Yoshimo, Support Staff
Technician."

After he checked in with Andre and
picked up a datapad with reports on the ship's systems, which had
mysteriously started to fail, he made his way through the narrow
corridors and elevator to the auxiliary hatch. As he passed some
crew quarters he caught Sarah coming out of her room. His heart
skipped a beat and he stopped in his tracks.

Her hair was loosely held up by a
rubber band and she wore simple, casual clothes instead of her
uniform. It made sense since she wasn't on duty for several more
hours, but also made her all the more eye-catching.

"Hey there," she said with a smile.
Her eyes seemed to twinkle.

"Hi." He didn't know what to say and
just smiled.

"You're looking good," she eyed his
bogus IT uniform and didn't keep back a wry, teasing smile. He felt
embarrassed.

"Long story..." He said. "Special
assignment."

"Ah." She nodded.

He just stood there.

"Well... nice talking to you," she
said. Only then did he realize he was in her way. He darted aside
fast enough it was almost a jump, and a clumsy one at
that.

"Oh sorry," he said.

She laughed and shook her head. "See
ya later, Shen," and she walked away down the corridor to wherever
she was going. He kept his eyes from following her and instead
jumped into a brisk walk in the opposite direction.

"Stupid," he mumbled to himself.
Wondering why he could still feel uncomfortable around someone he
knew so well. Like he just couldn't be himself. His friends always
told him that was the best advice: just relax and be natural. But
somehow he got all tense and nervous around women he liked, and it
seemed no matter what age he was, that would always be the
case.

As arranged, a junior engineer met him
at the hatch. She would be the liaison to the station's engineering
team. Shen handed her the datapad with the ship's reports. She
saluted and went ahead through the jetway and into Brimm's support
bay. A moment later she came back and announced the coast was
clear.

"Good." He felt anxious again as he
hustled through the jetway, down the ladder, and onto the support
bay floor of the station. Once he made good distance from the ship
he slowed down and tried to act naturally. He knew if he stared at
random things and looked busy nobody would bother him. The only
thing he couldn't quiet was his thumping heart, but if someone
heard that he had much bigger problems—of a medical
nature.

He wiped a little forehead sweat onto
his sleeve and strolled out of the bay toward where he expected the
main access computers to be. Just before he reached the exit,
someone intercepted him.

"You there," an engineer said waving
at him. Shen swallowed, his mouth dry.

"Yes?” he asked weakly.

"Can you toss me that
clipboard?"

On the table to his right was a set of
notes attached to an old-fashioned clipboard. He felt a sigh of
relief as he picked it up and tossed them to the engineer. There
was less than two meters distance between them but somehow the
paperwork managed to take a nosedive before reaching the engineer's
outstretched hands. As the man bent over to scoop it up, Shen
slipped out the door and walked into the main concourse, perhaps a
bit faster than normal.

"Kiosk... kiosk..." he whispered as he
looked around. The wide open space was surprisingly empty, but then
he remembered how late it was according to Local Time.

It didn't take long to find a proper
computer terminal. It was more exposed than he would have liked and
he positioned his body to hide what he was doing as best he could.
He hastily copied over his program and executed it.

In no time it was putting a strain on
the local server and he pulled out his drive and hustled away. It
would take Brimm’s technicians at least a few minutes to figure out
their new problem was rooted to this location, since by now his
program had infected every other system on the intranet.

He wandered away into an even more
open cross-section where he correctly guessed he'd find a map of
this deck. It wasn't quite as specific as he would have liked, but
he was able to pick out a small room that was a pretty good
candidate for being the office of a local administrator—its
proximity to some computer labs was the clue. Before he made his
way there, however, he spotted a row on the bottom of the map
advertising several small shops and novelty stores. One of them was
a boutique.

He thought of Sarah and
realized—after he’d completed his mission—he could easily walk
there and buy her some flowers. It wasn't too far away at all, and
she'd love them, wouldn't she? But the more he thought of it, the
more his feet felt glued to the floor. He
could
do it. Nothing was really
stopping him. He could even give them to her anonymously if that's
what it took; then take credit for them later.

"Who am I kidding?" he
whispered. Somehow the thought of giving flowers to Sarah, or
anyone, just felt ridiculous. He just didn't think women could take
him seriously. And then he'd look like a fool. And things would be
all awkward after that.
No,
Shen
, he thought to himself,
that just won't do
.

He made his way to the small office
and, finding the door open, walked inside.

"What can I do for you?" A man asked
from behind a bushy moustache. He wore the blue-and-black uniform
of the navy and had a very pointed angular face.

"I'm here to service your computer,"
said Shen; he unclipped his ID, handed it to the man, and
continued. "IT Technician from deck sixteen, we're having some
trouble with the servers and we've isolated the problem to this
deck."

The officer looked back and forth from
Shen to the ID, seeming almost skeptical, and just as Shen felt the
impulse to run—thinking his cover was blown, the officer handed it
back to him with an approving nod. "Good. I’ve been having trouble
getting onto the network—started a few minutes ago. Keeps thinking
and thinking and never goes anywhere. Something’s
broken."

Shen nodded. "I need to have your
computer run a few programs to secure it from the virus." He knew
throwing out the V-word would spook the guy since he, like most
people, probably had no understanding of what a computer virus
actually was, and probably believed its power was akin to a
wrathful deity.

"Why my computer?" the
officer asked. "Why can’t you just
make
it work? I mean, I didn't do
anything funny on my computer to mess up your servers."

"I know you didn't," said Shen. "But
your computer is at risk. I’ll need to run some defensive software
to protect your data," he held up his drive and forced a
smile.

The man frowned for a minute and once
again Shen felt his heart race and tiny beads of sweat form on his
forehead, but eventually the officer seemed to agree that this made
sense. "All right," he waved Shen forward and stepped out of the
way.

Shen plugged his drive into the
computer and discovered it wasn't logged in. "I need you to log
into your account, sir."

"I thought you technicians had full
computer access," the man said, his tone suspicious.

Of course, Shen knew, the technicians
probably did. Too bad he wasn't really one of them, otherwise he
could log in as a basic administrator and this operation would be
easy as pie. Fortunately, though, he was pretty sure this
particular officer, despite being stationed near computer labs,
knew very little of actual computing. Shen swallowed hard and came
up with some more baloney.