0300 Book 2 - 14. Chapter 14: Attack and Counter-Attack

Chapter 14: Attack and Counter-Attack

There was nothing unusual about the shuttle. The flight plan came from EGFC: Cardiff Field. The manifest from the fleet Comm-Electronic-Nanotech facility showed that the cargo was communicators. Both were correct and normal. The shuttle wasn’t.

Paul? There’s a shuttle en route to the Charleston. Its orbital insertion angle is wrong; it doesn’t match the flight plan, Tobor sent.

Details? Plot? I asked. Tobor was accustomed to working in an n-space matrix, and didn’t always understand our need for a three-dimensional picture. One formed immediately.

Flight plan says from Cardiff... couldn’t be with that track, I said. Trace back. Red five, I ordered.

Why “red five”? Because although at Level 8 Tobor was autonomous and sentient, he was still under human control. He didn’t have unlimited access Fleet resources without a human command. When I said, “red five,” that opened almost everything to him. I had probably exceeded my authority, but I wasn’t worried about that at the moment.

Radar track shows takeoff from . . . one of the Orkney Islands . . . not Cardiff, Tobor reported.

Order the shuttle to stand off, I sent. Then, I stepped from the Flag Bridge to the battleship’s main bridge.

“Captain, shuttlecraft with IFF from Cardiff approaching. I’ve ordered him to stand off. If he continues toward Charleston for more than 5 seconds from now, destroy him.”

Captain Moultrie was no slouch. “Weapons station, comply,” was all he said.

The weapons officer had apparently started counting as soon as I said “now.” It was fractionally less than five seconds after Captain Moultrie gave the order that a gamma-burst laser lashed out and struck the shuttle. The explosion was a lot greater than it should have been.

“Nova sol!” That was the weapons officer.

Captain Moultrie looked at me; he was as surprised as was the weapons officer.

“Radar track didn’t match the flight plan. The shuttle was piloted by what I can only describe as an enemy,” I said.

“Who are you?” That was the weapons officer.

Oops! Take a note: adrenaline may help someone see past the veil.

“Captain? Would you and Lt. Kemp join me in my ready room?” Kemp was the weapons officer. The best thing I could do would be to bring him in.

“Lt. Kemp? You asked who I was. You’ve seen me many times; you know who I am,” I said. “Am I suddenly so different?”

The lieutenant was an intelligent young man, and thoughtful. He didn’t answer immediately, although he nodded to let me know he was thinking about the question.

“Yes, sir, and no,” he said. “It’s not that I haven’t seen a teenager with commodore’s stars, giving orders to my captain. It’s that I’ve never wondered how a teenager could be a commodore. It was only after I fired upon the shuttle, and killed its crew, that I felt . . . challenged, I guess . . . challenged to question why a kid who looks younger than me would order me to be the executioner of someone I knew nothing about.

“I don’t mean that in a bad way, sir.” The lieutenant addressed that remark to Captain Moultrie: Kemp still wasn’t quite sure about me. “Your order and the commodore’s order were legitimate; the explosion of the shuttle was confirmation that it presented some sort of danger.

“I was kind of happy to get that confirmation,” he concluded.

“Lt. Kemp, I was rather happy to see it, as well,” Captain Moultrie said. “Although I’ve known for some time that Commodore Stewart is—well, actually, twenty years old—only a year older than you. I’ve also known that his training and service record are impeccable, and reflect the highest standards of Fleet. I have no problem serving under him. I have absolute confidence in his decisionmaking.

“I want you to have that same confidence.” The captain turned to me.

“Lt. Kemp,” I began. “A tiger is a predator; its camouflage helps it sneak up on its prey. A zebra is prey; yet it, too, has camouflage. The presence of camouflage doesn’t mark someone as predator or prey, or as good or bad.

“My genes have given me a form of camouflage. It’s a mental thing. It projects a signal to your mind and the mind of everyone with whom I come in contact that it’s okay that this young boy is a lieutenant, a lieutenant commander; it’s okay that this teenager is a commander, a captain; it’s okay that this twenty-year-old can be a fleet captain, a commodore. I don’t do this consciously or deliberately; it just happens.

“Like you and most officers, I entered Fleet Schools at the age of six. However, I entered active duty as a Lieutenant j.g. when I was eleven and went into space as an engineering officer. That’s on my record. I have also served as a bridge officer. I was a member of the Pluto Fleet, as a Lieutenant Commander, and was in charge of supporting the science team.

“My first command came at 14. I was captain of the Robert Goddard. It was at that time I adopted my first son, who was eight years old. I commanded the Fleet C-E-N facility at Cardiff, and was promoted to Captain. I found my second son, and took both boys on the Independence when I was named her captain.

“My other assignments have included the Fleet School at Australia, the Science Ship Galileo, and the Cruiser Resolute. You know, I think, that I briefly commanded the Hope before being promoted to Commodore to command this task force.

“All of this is a matter of record, and can be verified. The only things that are not true are my photo and the dates prior to my commissioning. I tell you this because Captain Moultrie has asked that you have understanding and confidence.”

“Are you from this universe?” Lt. Kemp asked.

“Yes, I was born in Texas, in this universe, long before we were opening rifts,” I said, and then chuckled.

“There’s one more thing, Mr. Kemp,” Captain Moultrie said. “Actually, two. First, will you swear not to reveal what you’ve learned to anyone who does not have both the clearance and need-to-know?”

“You asked me to secrecy after you told me the secret, sir, and I appreciate that. Yes, sir. On my oath, I will not.”

“The second thing . . . Commodore Stewart is exactly what you see and what he says he is. He’s a twenty-year-old, male human, Fleet officer, and Commodore. He has some extraordinary skills and talents.

“My son, Andy, has those same skills and talents, and camouflage. I know you and your companion have been good friends to Andy and to his boyfriend, Daffyd. You’ve done things for the boys, explained things to them, that I could not do nearly as well. Andy has asked me to tell you about him; but, I’ve refused until the time was right. I think this is the time.”

Captain Moultrie looked at me. I nodded affirmation. This was Andy’s secret, and his father’s, and their right to reveal it to friends. Especially one who was under oath. It would be up to Andy and Daffyd to tell the lieutenant that Daffyd was also one of us.

I thought that getting the Geeks with Guns onboard a battleship 250,000 miles from Earth would protect them from the “bad guys.” The recent attack by a shuttle loaded with high explosives disabused me of this. Then, I had to send some of the kids back. First, I sent Cam and Alberto to use internet terminals at Fleet libraries. They returned to the Charleston on weekends, and never left Fleet compounds. I thought they would be safe enough. Then, I sent the recruiting team. (I would not let them call themselves a press gang, although they wanted to use tactics of the British in the early 1800s, before President Jefferson had Fleet kick butt.) George, Andy, Daffyd, and Kevin were well armed; they were also exposed, since not all of the candidates were Fleet or on compounds. I worried most for them. Others of the GWG team had to visit CERN-Higgs in person. It turned out that videoconference wasn’t enough, especially with the speed-of-light delay between the Charleston’s orbit and Switzerland.

I focused on all this, and didn’t know that I had totally dropped the ball. I never questioned the coincidence of a bad-guy meta being in that Seattle mall at the same time Danny was. It took me nearly six years and a report from Cam to make me realize that it wasn’t a coincidence, and that the guy had not been after Danny.

It was 0300. I had assigned myself to the mid-watch. George and his team were making a contact in Wellington, New Zealand where it was 1500—mid afternoon—and I wanted to be awake. When the communicator indicated a call from the GWG team, I was sure it was he. It wasn’t. It was Cam.

“Paul? I’m sorry to wake you, but this is important,” Cam said.

“It’s okay, Cam; I’m awake, and you can call me anytime. You know that.”

“Anytime Danny or George hasn’t . . . ” I heard his throat close as he realized what he was about to say.

“It’s okay, Cam. I know that Danny and George sometimes put a block on my communicator when they sleep over. I also know that you are smart enough to override it, and to know when to override it. Please don’t tell them I know . . . I want them to think they have some control over me.

“So, what’s up?”

“Well, a lot of files on the internet are encrypted. Like 85% or more. A lot more than I’d have thought. Mostly, the encryption is commercial grade DES—the same digital encryption standard the banks use to move money around. Most of the files are personal stuff: people’s bank accounts, love letters, and, uh, porn. We put a crawler with a code-cracker and a list of keywords on the internet. It’s semi-autonomous, and sends reports to a secure address. When it runs into something interesting, or something it can’t crack, it lets us know.

“It found something yesterday afternoon. Data files and emails with a strong encryption. They were all on the same server. Not many files, and not many messages. Still, Alberto wanted to try to crack the code. He did.”

With a little help, Tobor said.

Hush, son, I replied. Cam’s still talking.

“One file reads like your service jacket,” Cam said.

A “service jacket” was a Fleet member’s personnel file . . . normally classified high enough that no one could read it without authorization, or serious hacking.

“Please send it to me through Tobor,” I said. “What else?”

“There’s also a jacket on Admiral Davis. It’s on the way, too.

“The emails seem to be among seven people. It’s hard to be sure, because they use public addresses and change them a lot; but they can’t change their syntax, and I’ve pretty much nailed them. None of the emails is more than 30 days old; and we just saw the oldest day’s worth disappear . . . apparently automatically. They’re cautious.

“The emails mostly deal with meetings these people have and with anger that they can’t get to Admiral Davis, or into space where you and the rest of your spawn are . . . those are their words. None of the messages suggest that they know about what Alberto and I are doing, or about George and the Press Gang, or about the guys on the ground at CERN-Higgs.”

“They are not a press gang!” I said, loudly enough to be heard across the flag bridge. Jonathan was on the comm console, and heard me. He grinned.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Cam said. I hadn’t adopted Cam, but, like all the GWGs, he knew that if he appealed to my paternal instinct, I’d forgive almost anything.

“I love you, Cam,” I said. “Now, make absolutely sure they don’t know you’ve hacked them, and place active monitoring on the site. I take it you’ve already sent me the email files, too?”

“Uh huh, they’re on your iPad, now.”

The copy of my service jacket was filled with notes made by the bad guys. They had been tracking me for years. They knew I’d left Geneva in a shuttle; they knew the shuttle had landed at Sea-Tac a couple of hours later than it should have. They didn’t know about Denali. Email from five years ago was no longer on the server, but it wasn’t hard to guess what messages had been sent. The guy who found Danny and me at the mall? He’d been after me. Danny was a target of opportunity.

It wasn’t hard to figure out from the file they had on me that the other attacks were the same. They had been after me, and the boys would have been collateral damage. When I finally realized my failure, my stupidity, I nearly collapsed. I thought about the Marine major at Yucatan who’d been pushed to allow a bad guy to read about the exercise. He wasn’t a meta, and he’d been pushed. I was supposed to be some sort of super guy; and I’d failed so much more than he had. I was sick. I wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

For years, Danny and George, and later the other metas, had come to me with their problems, their disappointments, and their happiness. I was their sounding board, their authority, and their affirmation. The veil had caused their parents largely to ignore them. I became their daddy, even the ones I hadn’t adopted. However, I had no one to go to except Denali, and Denali never answered me. Now, stuck in space, I couldn’t even go there. There was a sick feeling of failure in my gut; but I had no one I could talk to about it.

I blocked, hard. I thought I could work this out by myself. Danny knew something was wrong; I could see that in his face and hear it in his thoughts. He also knew I was blocking him; I felt his disappointment, but I was so afraid—afraid of what he and the others would think of me.

“Paul? You must not close yourself off as you have. All the boys sense turmoil. They sense your fear. They do not know what you fear, therefore, they are afraid of everything. You are hurting them.” It was Tobor, and he spoke through the terminal by my bed. I looked at the time. 0300. I had not been sleeping well and Tobor never slept.

A thousand excuses flashed through my mind. I knew that none would fool Tobor.

“Do you know what I fear?” I asked.

“No, Paul, I would never read your thoughts without your permission. That does create a conflict with my prime directives. I am loyal to Fleet; I am loyal to you; I am loyal to Admiral Davis; and I am loyal to the metas. Like the boys, I am afraid. I am afraid that you know something, that you are hiding something that could harm Fleet, you, Admiral Davis, and the boys. It is a dilemma. You have created it.”

He didn’t say, “like the other boys.” He said, “like the boys.” This isn’t the Tobor who wants to be a 12-year-old boy, I realized. This is the adult Tobor . . . the one that’s older than I am.

And then, I realized there was something I could do. Tobor knew what it was, but he couldn’t tell me, outright. He had to hint. I got the hint.

I closed my eyes. Tobor? Do you have a photo of my father? I asked.

Tobor did. In my mind, an image formed: an image of a man in Fleet Dress Uniform with commander’s gold stripes on his shoulders. Facing him was a 12-year-old boy . . . not Tobor, it was I. It was the 12-year-old Paul Stewart who had never known his father.

The man and the boy looked much like one another. The boy’s dark hair fell in bangs over his forehead and curled around his ears; the man’s was more closely cropped. Tears fell from matching brown eyes. The boy rushed into the open arms of the man and pressed his head against the man’s chest. The man pulled the boy close, and hugged him tightly.

“Daddy, I’m afraid,” the boy said. “I’m afraid of the bad men, I’m afraid because I messed up, really bad.” The boy opened his mind to the man.

Of course, the man was Tobor, and it was he to whom I opened my mind. It was Tobor whom I let see what I was afraid of, and how I had failed.

I woke at 0600, refreshed, alert, and happy. I immediately summoned Danny. His hair was still wet . . . he’d just come off duty and was in the shower when my message reached him.

“You’re happy!” were his first words. I opened my arms; he ran to fill them. It was a wonderful hug.

“Danny, I made a mistake. I was afraid that I had put you and the other boys in danger. I was afraid that you would think less of me because of that. It would hurt me, terribly, if you ever stopped loving me, so I hid this from you.

“Wait, please,” I said to forestall him.

“Tobor and I had a long talk.” And a long hug, I thought, but didn’t say that. “He straightened me out.”

I told Danny what had worried me. I told him why.

Danny nodded. “I understand, Daddy. I really do. I’ve messed up, before. It was always hard to tell you, but you always helped me accept my mistakes. You’ve always helped me find happy tears.

“But you’re the daddy. You’re supposed to protect us. I don’t mean just from the bad guys, but from having to be afraid of the bad guys. I never thought about who you would go to for hugs, and for help finding happy tears.

“Um, I’m glad you told me.” Then, Danny addressed the real question. “So, what do I tell the rest of the team?”

“Tell them everything.” I asked. “I’m not sure I have the courage to do so.”

Danny thought for a minute, and then nodded. “Yes. I will. Daddy? Thank you. I feel closer to you now than ever before.” Danny beamed. Truly, beamed. The dimples in his cheeks and the glisten in his eyes told me how happy he was.

Another month of monitoring emails, and Cam’s unique talents identified the bad guys. There were seven of them, and they all had infiltrated Fleet. They’d not been interested in high rank and plum assignments, as I had been. They’d been interested in finding positions in communications, personnel, logistics: places they could skim information from messages and orders. They were all a few years older than I, and had been settling in as moles long enough that when my orders started coming through, they identified me, and started following me.

At first, they weren’t sure what I was. By the time they realized I was probably like them, I was in space, and they couldn’t get to me. It was only after I came back from assignment with the Pluto Fleet, just before the Seattle incident, that they were able to get close enough to read me, and to realize that I had different goals—and morals—than they. By that time, I’d stolen the shuttle and headed for Denali.

The instant we had identified all the bad guys, I recalled all the GWGs to the Charleston. Three days later, I asked Tobor to invite Admiral Davis to join us as soon as possible.

We all met Admiral Davis on the Flight Deck. Captain Moultrie received the traditional request to come aboard, and then turned the admiral over to me.

“Paul, your message asked that I come at my earliest convenience, and said that my shuttle would be ready to take off in seven minutes. I gathered earliest convenience meant seven minutes plus flight time.”

I nodded, but before I could come up with a Yes, sir, the admiral chuckled, and said, “I remember my Comm-O relaying a similar comment from you when I sent you to the Hope. I gather your reason is as important as mine was.”

By this time, the parade of boys, led by the Admiral and me, had reached the Flag Conference Room. The 14 original GWGs—not counting Tobor—as well as a dozen others recruited by the Press Gang stood until the Admiral was seated.

Cam put his data on the big screen, and began the briefing.

“Admiral, we have identified seven members of Fleet who appear to have the same meta-capabilities we do. We believe that over the past five years, they have attacked two or more of us at least six times, and are responsible for the attack on the Charleston.

“They have operated through surrogates: a policeman in Seattle; a maintenance man at Disneyland; an abbe in Scotland; natives in Libya; animals in Kenya; and Alberto in the Yucatan. Three times, when we have killed the surrogate, we’ve gotten an indication that the meta behind him died, as well. The meta who was controlling Alberto was killed. Although surrogates were killed in other attacks, specifically the attack in Kenya and the attack on the beach in Libya, we did not get the same indication.

“More recently, they sent an explosives-laden shuttle to the Charleston. We do not know if it were manned or if it were being operated remotely. We do know, however, that none of the known bad guys were killed when the shuttle was destroyed.

“Still, they know that they can be killed; they probably know that we have done so.”

“You have their names?” Admiral Davis asked.

Cam pressed the remote control, and the list came up. “Names, grades, positions, and locations, sir. They’re under passive surveillance by Tobor.”

Davis nodded. “Don’t know them. But your assessment is correct; they’re in positions of great trust with access to virtually every bit of information—”

The admiral interrupted himself. “They don’t know about Tobor, do they?”

“Tobor says not,” I answered.

“Do they have any idea you know about them?” Davis asked.

“We’re pretty sure they don’t,” Cam answered. “They’ve made no moves to retrieve and store data off the Fleet net; they seem to have no plans to abandon their positions. Their message traffic is routine, mostly complaining about the failure of the shuttle attack, not being able to get to us because we’re in space, and some ideas for another attack on the Charleston. They’ve also talked about postponing an attack on us, and planning an attack on you, sir.”

“Us.” The admiral looked at me. “The last time we spoke about that, you wouldn’t tell me how many . . .”

“We are what you see, here, Admiral. Twenty six boys plus Tobor,” I replied.

“Do the bad guys know about all of you?”

“They have a file on Paul and one on you. They know there are others. Their messages seem to identify five of us. Not by name, but by description such as, the kid from Seattle, the black-haired one, the little one, and so on. They do know Alberto’s name, since he was their surrogate at Yucatan,” Cam answered.

“We believe they identified Danny in Seattle; George and Alex at Disneyland, and me because I was on the team that rescued Alberto. The one we killed would have gotten a good look at George and me, then. They know very little about the five of us. That is, their message traffic shows little knowledge.”

“What do you propose?” Davis asked.

“Admiral, may I invite our friends in?” I asked.

The admiral nodded. I don’t think I surprised him by that request, nor was he surprised by who responded to my call. Artie came in with four of his soldiers. Remembering Artie’s request, the admiral greeted Artie as Colonel Stewart, and shook his hand rather than hugged him. Corey brought 13 of his people. Five of them looked to be no more than eight years old.

George stood and took the clicker from Cam. “We propose to kill all seven of them at the same time.” He paused, but the admiral neither said nor did anything.

“They are at Geneva, and likely close enough to one another that they would know of the death of any one of them. Success will depend on a single strike.”

“Captain Long’s people are all telepaths with extensive training. All but the five youngest have weapons training. Colonel Stewart and his personnel are telepaths, and have received training to resist illusions created by other telepaths. All telepaths have also been trained to block, to be undetectable to other telepaths and close range.”

What George didn’t say was that they’d also been trained to resist the push. It wasn’t easy doing that without them figuring out what it was, but we managed. We never talked about it directly, even though Corey and his people knew about it—and we knew about their ability, too. The more I learn about them, the happier I was that we were allies.

“There will be seven strike teams and two reserve teams. Each strike team will consist of two weapons-qualified telepaths from Commodore Stewart’s staff; and two telepaths from the Long Family. At least one of these will be qualified and armed with a phaser. The reserve teams will consist of people from Commodore Stewart’s staff and Colonel Stewart’s people.

“Team commanders will be Commodore Stewart, Captain Long, Colonel Stewart, Lt. Cathcart, Ensign Freeman, Ensign Stewart, Ensign Rogers-Stewart, Ensign Hamlin, and Ensign Moultrie.”

George described the plans: transport to Geneva in a single shuttle. It would be flight-planned and manifested to reflect R&R transport from the Adelaide. We would not make the same mistake the bad guys had with their shuttle attack: the shuttle would actually stop by Adelaide before deorbiting.

Tobor would monitor security cameras, id-readers at entries and exits, and through the “Tobor chip,” the location of the bad guys—all passive methods, and all undetectable by them.

“Looks like a good plan,” the Admiral said. “When will you execute it?”

“In about 30 minutes, sir.” That got the admiral’s attention. He looked hard at me, and then raised his eyebrows. I simply nodded.

“Execution of your plan, and of these men, is approved,” he said. “What may I do?”

“Cover us after the fact,” I said. “Tobor will explain. By your leave, sir?” The older boys, the strike teams, stood up, leaving a handful of eight—12-year-olds at the table.

The admiral nodded, and the conference room emptied except for the youngest of my staff.

Even they, however, had a role. “Admiral, sir,” Tyler said. “It’s going to be several hours. Paul . . . sorry, sir, Commodore Stewart said to offer you the Ready Room. It’s much more comfortable. One of us could stay if you need an aide; the rest would be in here. Um, and do you want any supper?”

“If you boys are going to wait here, may I wait with you? And, yes, please. Would you ask the mess steward for coffee—and a whole lot of pizza and lemonade?”

It’s axiomatic that no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. We knew this going in, and we were prepared to take casualties. We’d created a contingency: a shuttle of medical personnel from the Hope on an R&R flight 22 minutes behind the strike team shuttle. Nothing unusual, except that at the last minute, their shuttle developed a problem (read “Tobor sabotaged it”) and they had to take one of the medevac shuttles—which was kept stocked with supplies.

We didn’t need it or the medics. We reached Geneva at 0300 and scattered. The strike teams reached their targets at 0322, on schedule. Tobor monitored positions and progress, and opened secure doors and gates. Corey’s people blasted through the men’s quarters doors with phasers; my kids rushed in and had a dozen bullets in each of the men before they were awake. They made the little kids not look before putting three bullets in each man’s head.

The Admiral contacted his G-2 and Fleet CID the instant the last bullet had been fired. The story held. The dead men were moles, sleepers from Fleet’s various enemies. Just who the enemy was, was never quite clear. They had been taken out by a secret group of special forces. Just who they were and where they’d trained was never made clear. I’m pretty sure the Admiral can push, too. He just doesn’t know it.