Operation Hammerhead - 19. The Corregidor

The Corregidor

The Corregidor

Sigma Puppis System

Jeff Mason sat in the Captain’s ready room across the table from James and John. The pair were the squad leaders of the Gemini platoon best trained to run the ship and served as the command team for the ship. Corregidor was underway and the Bishop and his spies were well on their way out of the star system.

Mason sat back in his chair and asked, “So now that the Bishop is gone, what is the real reason you’ve put me in charge? Any of you would know more about running the ship than me.”

James shot a glance at his brother in that inimitable way the twins communicated almost at a psychic level. Do you want to take this or me?

James answered, “First, we needed a civilian, and, not just any civilian. Marion told us about you. You are smart and know things about the Alliance we don’t, and don’t have time to learn.”

John said, “You’re known, and have standing with our passengers.”

Mason looked puzzled and said, “Over something I wrote in tenth grade when I was pissed off?”

Both twins answered at once, “Yes!”

John said, “For those of us the Alliance dubbed IEPs, or Illegally Enhanced Persons, what you wrote means a great deal to us.”

James said, “It was stupid of the Alliance to ban it. It only made people that much more determined to see and read it.” He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and reverently unfolded it so that Mason could see it was a cleverly disguised handwritten copy of the New People.

John spoke from memory, “With our gifts comes the responsibility we act for the betterment of all mankind.”

Mason said, “If we act in that way, we really will be a New People. One other question: what is it with you Geminis and your names?”

James and John answered in perfect unison with a grin, “Don’t start!”

James said through a laugh, “There was a book called Two Thousand Names for Your Twins a few decades ago. One of the project scientists scanned it and…”

John finished the thought, “If the authors weren’t already dead, we would be looking for them.”

When the Bishop’s yacht jumped away, it must have been a signal for the virus in the Corregidor’s computer to take over.

The virus, or more precisely a customized worm, took over the ship's computers with brutal efficiency. The ship went to full military power to take the ship to the edge of the system's gravity well. The bridge crew watched in horrified fascination as the master plotting console came to life and plotted a series of four jumps to the Thrace system.

James and John shook themselves and began the steps of their plan to take the ship's master computer offline and run sub-systems in local control.

“Engineering to the bridge.”

“This is the bridge, go ahead.” John answered.

“It’s started. Come on down, we need to get to work.”

Mason, James and John left the bridge in the able hands of the bridge crew and took the long elevator ride down to the engineering spaces.

“We need a plan, and I’m finding it difficult to wrap my head around all this. There are just so many moving parts”, Mason said.

John gave James a look in that strange telepathy the Gemini twins seemed to have.

“We were taught a method that officers have been taught since before humans left the solar system to get a grasp on these situations. Like most things military, it has a painful acronym: SMESSCC. I remember it by Silly MESS Completely Cocked up.”

Mason grinned and said, “That sounds completely appropriate.”

John laid out the breakdown, “It stands for: Situation, Mission, Execution, Support, Command and Communications. In theory if you define all of those parts of the problem, you can get a grip on the solution.”

Mason said, “Our situation is grave. We’re on a ship we don’t control, with a half trained crew, and we’re headed to a terrible terrorist incident we will be blamed for.”

James said, “That’s a start. Now, what do we need to do about it? That’s the mission.”

Mason said, “Get control of the ship.”

John said, “Next, how are we going to pull it off— that’s the execution part.”

“That’s where things get complicated. I don’t know.”

James said, “OK. We will isolate the central computer by giving it a virtual ship to run and take control of the backup systems— that is tricky but do-able. The next one is support which means all the people and equipment we have to address the problem. That’s us.”

Mason asked, “I know we have a couple of hundred Geminis and about two thousand refugee illegal kids. What I’m not sure about is what is a platoon and do we have any idea if our refugees have any skills that can help.”

James grinned and said, “A platoon is four squads. Each squad is sixteen Geminis— a pair of squad leaders like us and seven pairs of soldiers. Just remember, though. There’s nothing really standard about any of us Geminis.”

“Gary and Jerry’s squad is our security element. They’ve been the ones getting our passengers settled and interviewing them to see what we have. There are many bright kids in the bunch but very few of them have the skills we need.”

John said, “Our platoon is trained to run the ship. We all have our certificates. The rest are taking care of our passengers and security.”

James continued, “Fred and Ted’s squad are our snipes. They all have a lot of technical training and will be key to getting control of the ship. Last but not least are Chuck and Buck’s squad. They’re cross trained on everything and have many specialists. While they’re not quite snipes, they’ll be indispensable to our control of the ship.”

Mason nodded and said, “OK. It looks like we’ve got the right people for the job. Now what?”

John said, “Next is command. That’s you. Don’t freak out. You’ve got us to back you up. Last is communications.”

James handed Mason an ear bud and said, “Put this in, and you are connected to our net.”

Mason put the ear bud in and James touched his computer pad. It made a tone in Mason’s ear.

John said, “Authenticate your comms by speaking your name.”

“Jeff Mason.”

Mason heard several tones and then from the ear bud and, “Welcome to the net.”

The elevator stopped in the main engineering spaces. It was a very noisy place which made further discussion impossible. James motioned for the group to follow him and the moved down the center of the big compartment.

To Mason, the compartment looked like a nightmare of pipes, cables and conduits. There were also a number of signs warning of the various hazards in the compartment: high voltage, freezing and, thankfully, radiation warning lights that were not illuminated. Some pipes, despite insulation, were covered by frost. At the heart of the compartment were the squatting forms of two of the ship's four fusion plants.

The group approached a hatch in the rear bulkhead of the compartment labeled “forward engineering control room”. James pressed a worn stud and the big hatch opened up into what appeared to be a locker room. When the hatch closed behind them the pounding noise ceased abruptly.

“Wow, that’s loud”, Mason shouted while holding his ears.

John smirked and said, “Cory is running at flank speed. She’s usually not this noisy.”

James pressed another stud on the interior bulkhead and Mason got his first look at one of the ship's two engineering control rooms. The compartment was wide and absolutely packed with displays of all sorts, control consoles and at least half of the Gemini soldiers who were trained to work with the ship's engineering systems.

Fred and Ted saw them enter the compartment and approached.

James said, “Fred and Ted and their squad are our snipes.”

Fred said, “Hi Jeff. We’re just getting a handle on things down here. A few minutes ago the ships systems locked us out and everything has been running on automatic.”

Mason asked, “I didn’t know that was even possible.”

Ted said, “Ordinarily it’s not. All of these systems need to be constantly monitored. All sorts of awful things can go wrong if they’re not. You could automate a ship to run like this for a few days, but then things will start to go badly wrong.”

James said, “I was concerned about this old ship when we took possession of her, but she had a major refit a few years ago that brought her systems up to date, and she got a software update before she left the boneyard. She was supposed to go to the Marines for training, but apparently the Bishop had other plans for her.”

“And for us too apparently”, Mason said with asperity. “How soon will we get to Thrace?”

John looked at his computer pad and said, “It’s a good six jumps away but, we’re in the core systems. There are all sorts of navigation aids that make flying around in the core straightforward. If we maintain current course and speed, call it ten hours give or take whatever in system maneuvering is necessary.”

“Damn. Any way we can get control back?”

Fred shrugged, “We’re just getting started on it. It’s tricky and there’s no way to tell, but I think we can do it. We don’t know how smart the worm is. If we start pulling processors off the ship's internal network, bad things could happen.”

Mason raised his eyebrows, “Bad things?”

Fred said, “Terrible things like venting the atmosphere to space or letting go of the reactor containment fields.”

Mason looked horrified, “That qualifies as bad things. So… what do you suggest?”

Ted said, “We need to slow things down to give us a chance to recover control of the ship system by system. We’ve got a plan for that.” He pulled out a computer tablet and sat it on the worktable. A schematic diagram of the ship's ion drives appeared over the table as a hologram.

Fred began to explain, “This is one of our two ion drives. It takes in hot plasma from the reactors here in the plasma intake manifold. A common problem is that these manifolds are apt to overheat if something is wrong with their containment fields. It doesn’t take much: a phase variance or failing emitter coil can cause it.”

Ted continued indicating a point on the hologram, “There’s a sensor which sits here on the manifold and monitors the temperature at these key junctions to keep hot plasma from melting drive components. It’s a standard safety feature. If this sensor indicates the manifold is too hot it automatically backs the plasma flow down until it reaches safe numbers. Here’s the good part— the engines are synchronized. They have to be, or a thrust imbalance could tear the ship apart. If one of the engines slows, both of them slow.”

James said, “I like it. What do we have to do?”

Ted said, “Mark, get the foxer over here.”

One of the bigger Geminis brought a piece of electronics gear over and set it down on the worktable in the middle of the room. It was small but obviously heavy and had every computer and network interface Mason had ever seen plus a few dozen more.

Mark said, “We call this gadget a foxer. They are used for doing diagnostics on sensors to make sure they are working right under all sorts of conditions. You can plug them into a sensor, and it sees what we want it to see. Crews test the sensors monitoring critical systems like the plasma manifold on a weekly basis.”

Mason said, “I like it. How much time can it buy us?”

James said, “We’re tooling along at flank speed. What makes these ships fast is the sustained acceleration. If we can keep the ship from piling on more velocity, we will double or triple the time it will take to make the crossing to Thrace.”

“We need that time”, Fred said. “We have to figure out how much control the ship's computer has, how smart it is or if it is programmed to defend itself. Oh, and then we can try to regain control of the ship.”

Mason sighed, “If the game was easy, anybody could play.”

Residence of Senator Harold Hanson

Atlas Mountain District, Thrace

“Senator Harry” was a popular figure on Thrace. He was still young enough to avoid burn out or to be co-opted by the system. His charisma, undeniable intelligence and moderate politics had landed him in one of Thrace’s two senatorial seats. Hanson was the junior senator from Thrace, but he had that magical quality gifted to few politicians. He was labeled a man to watch by all the commentators and pundits who mattered.

With Parliament in recess, Hanson was spending the time at home. After a breakfast that would give a cardiologist chest pains, he sat down in his home office with a view of a stunning sunrise over the Atlas Mountain glaciers. The jagged saw-toothed outline of the mountains averaging 3650 meters went from horizon to horizon and fed numerous streams that sparkled and gleamed in the morning light.

With a sigh, he turned away from the sunrise and woke up his computer terminal. He had an AI assistant that grouped news stories of interest and prioritized his correspondence. This morning a single piece of e-mail from the Ministry of Justice with a critic priority sat on top of his electronic pile.

Hanson opened the email and read. He quickly grew pale and his shock grew with every sentence.

The comm on his desk pinged with a connection request. After reading an alert from the Ministry of Justice warning of a potential apocalyptic terrorist event aimed at his planet, he answered it instantly.

“Hanson.”

“Senator Hanson this is Special Agent Eric Fields of the Alliance Bureau of Investigation. I assume you’ve seen the terror alert put out by the Ministry?”

Hanson found his mouth especially dry and swallowed. “Yes. I just read it. How can I help?”

“Senator, we need to talk, and it would be very useful if your sons were there.”

Hanson was surprised at the request and asked, “Bryan and Ryan?”

“Yes. Some people involved in this are Geminis and your boys might be able to help us talk them down.”

“OK. Where do you need me?”

Fields said, “I’ll come to you. Expect us in a little over a half hour.”

The Corregidor

Sigma Puppis System

Cary and Terry made their way up the maintenance trunk to the port ion engine service access.

They were in a part of the ship that was not pressurized. Very rarely would anyone need to be here except in the dockyard and vacuum made everything a little harder. Vacuum wasn’t the only hazard just a few meters from the plasma flow. There was radiation, but that would only be a problem with extended exposure. The suit gloves negated the touch of hand tools every technician depended on making every job just a little more difficult.

“Fred, this is Terry. We’ve made it to access panel Papa-33 Alpha.”

Fred was, standing over the monitors for the status of the port ion engine in the engineering control room and responded, “Roger that. Remove the access hatch and tell me what you see.”

Terry pressed the release panel and the spring-loaded hinges allowed the hatch to open and reveal a maze of circuitry underneath. Carey and Terry carefully inspected the network junction and the wiring runs. They had both looked at the manuals noting exactly how the cables came together. The junction controlled several subsystems associated with the port ion drive and plasma stream. The cables were color coded: red for control runs, green for sensors, white for safety systems and orange for the engineering subnet. There were many other colors for different ships systems, but those four were all that were required inside this access point.

Cary pointed with a stylus and said, “That’s the one. It feeds into this switch feeding the engineering subnet.”

Fred’s voice came over the circuit, “Put a tap on the line and capture some normal data.”

Cary acknowledged, “Roger. We are installing a tap now.”

Terry plugged a tap cable into his computer pad and started the software to read the network traffic. His brother plugged the other end into the switch and the network traffic began to display. Cary took the foxer out of its case and attached it to the framing around the cable junction. He plugged a cable into the foxer and handed the other end of it to Terry.

Terry plugged the cable from the foxer into the secondary port on his computer pad and watched as the connection light came on, and the devices were recognized.

Terry said, “OK Fred. We’ve got the right sensor node and are transferring good data to the foxer.”

“Roger. Let it run for a minute. I’m going to watch the network and see if it objects.”

In the control room, Ted watched the detailed display of the port side ion engine systems. After a few minutes, he said, “This is Ted. Nothing is acting up. Go ahead and switch the sensor feed to the foxer.”

Terry unplugged the live green cable from the switch and the foxer took over seamlessly. As he watched the status lights on the foxer all turn green, he said, “OK. The plasma overload sensor is isolated and the foxer is talking to the network.”

In the control room Fred established a connection to the foxer. It was reporting the plasma overload sensor's real condition back via a wireless connection. Fred uploaded the cooked telemetry to the foxer which would indicate the plasma containment system was having problems.

Fred said, “OK guys button it up and get back here. It’s my show from here.”

Terry and Cary gathered their gear leaving the foxer in place, closed the access hatch and made their way out of the maintenance trunk.

It took the pair a little over twenty minutes to get out of the trunk, out of their hard suits and back to the control room.

When they arrived, Fred and Ted were all smiles. The Cory’s acceleration was cut to one quarter which would give the snipes vital time to regain control of the ship.

Residence of Senator Harold Hanson

Atlas Mountain District, Thrace

Max Jarvis brought the Bureau shuttle to a landing on the pad that serviced the settlement on a plateau. The vista was stunning with tall craggy mountains and forests covering their flanks as far as they could see. He flipped a few dozen switches to their off/standby positions and said, “Must be nice to be a member of one of the founding families of one of the core worlds.”

Eric Fields snorted and said, “Well, at least the Hanson’s came by it honestly. Many of the cities and towns we saw flying in, the timber and minerals that built them came from mines and timber harvested here.”

“I’ve heard of this guy”, Jarvis said as he finished the shuttles shut down sequence. “Politically, Hanson would be the very sort the Keilor guy would like to see…”

Fields finished his sentence, “Dead?”

Jarvis said, “Probably. If I read Keilor right, he would rather see a centrist like Hanson discredited.”

Fields nodded and said, “That’s what this whole exercise is about. If the illegals hit a world like Thrace run by centrists like Hanson as hard and bloody as a Marine Assault Vessel could hit it, no one would ever trust either the illegals or the centrists again.”

The two agents debarked from the shuttle and were met by a smiling crew chief with a clipboard. He greeted them, “Good morning gentlemen. We were expecting you. Does your bird need any fuel or maintenance?”

Jarvis said, “No, we took off on a full tank and all her boards are clear. Which way to the Senator’s house?”

The crew chief said, “the Other side of the hanger, it’s the big house on the rim of the mesa.”

Fields said, “Thanks. We shouldn’t be long.”

The Corregidor

Interstellar Space

Mason traced the communications circuit on the computer terminal and said, “Pull the master bus connector from the primary and move it to the connector marked AUX.”

John had practically crawled inside the communications console in the ship's auxiliary control room. There was a pause and suddenly the display came to life booting its various subsystems in sequence.

Every modern ship had an auxiliary control room. It served as an emergency bridge from which the crew can con the ship if battle damage or fire makes the main bridge untenable. In battle, officers from shifts that are off-duty manned the aux control, just in case. It usually acted as the ship's damage control central as it was located conveniently near the engineering spaces.

James sat at one of the control stations and ran a quick diagnostic. As John came out from under the console, he asked, “Can we ping the local NavCom buoy?”

John said, “It’s twenty light minutes away. It’ll take forty minutes round trip.”

Mason sat back in his chair and said, “OK. We’ve got the main computer running a virtual ship. The backup computer is wiped and working for us. We control all the critical systems. Is there anything we’re missing?”

James grinned and said, “Probably. We’ve got all the weapons including the mass drivers disconnected from their redundant power supplies, so the ship is incapable of doing any damage.”

John scratched his head and said, “Unless there is a surprise, I think we have control of the ship. We will have teams in place all over the ship just in case.”

Mason looked at the navigation repeater plot and saw they were a mere two jumps away from Thrace. At the rate the ship was moving, it translated to a few hours.

James said, “Now that we’re not hurtling towards an atrocity, I guess we have to start thinking about what we’re going to do when we get to Thrace.”

John said, “You can bet the Alliance will have some fleet units there.”

“Almost certainly”, Mason agreed. “The press will also be there in great numbers to record the disaster.”

“Or the grisly death of the evil terrorists”, John quipped.

“If we’re in control now, can we control the jump into the Thrace system?”

John gave his brother a look, and he replied, “Sure. What are you thinking?”

Mason said, “If we jump into the Thrace system pretty far out, like half a light hour, when we enter the system very slowly the Cory doesn’t appear threatening. Then we broadcast a call for assistance…”

John finished the thought, “…they can’t just open fire on us. I like it. It de-escalates the situation nicely.”

Mason said, “Once we arrive, and we’ve de-escalated the crisis, I’ve got some ideas on how we can make use of the media vultures. Come on. Let’s go see Gary and Jerry and find the cutest kids on this bucket.”

James and John looked puzzled.

“Think about it guys”, Mason said grinning. “The last thing any Alliance officer would ever want to do is shoot up a ship full of kids. They think we’re all terrorist maniacs. That’s what they’ve been told. When they see the kids, they’ll do anything they can to avoid a shooting incident.”