0300 Book 2 - 6. Chapter 6: Science Ship Galileo

Chapter 6: Science Ship Galileo

When the school year ended, I was ready for another science ship assignment. We had the core of the Geeks with Guns group. It took a bit of pushing to get them all assigned to space duty with me, but Admiral Davis signed off on my request. His signature was gold. The admiral was now Fleet Admiral and Chair of the Fleet Council. Sort of like World CEO and Chief of the Armed Forces rolled into one. He still interviewed me before I took over the Galileo though. It was a tough interview, even with the veil, although I didn’t have to push, once.

I’m sure glad he’s on our side.

The Galileo’s assignment was to survey the major moons of Jupiter. Unlike the Goddard and its Mars assignment, there would be no ground support base. We’d be stuck on shipboard for an entire year. That would create different stresses on both the crew and my kids. Other than freeze-dried pizza and lots of movies, I wasn’t sure what to do.

I needn’t have worried. The kids had a ball piloting shuttlecraft through the atmospheres and above the frozen surfaces of the moons, and on occasion diving into the atmosphere of Jupiter, itself. At first, the scientists were reluctant to integrate the kids into their teams; however, I insisted, and required the same sort of on-the-job training we did on the Independence. I didn’t want to call attention to us by promoting the entire junior mess, again, but all my boys knew they’d had a workout.

We also spent a lot of time as a team, learning about our unique capabilities. Tobor was an hour away at lightspeed, plus or minus depending mostly on where Earth was in its orbit, so our communication with him was batch email.

Jupiter was a hardship assignment. We got a full month of leave between that and our next assignment. We visited friends in Australia (and surfed the Great Barrier Reef), skied the Rocky Mountains, and snorkeled in Barbados. We spent the last few days in Geneva. Danny and I were in the gym when he got a call from Tobor.

“Paul, someone’s trying to hack Tobor. He’s gotten to Level 6. I’ve got to go. May I take a shuttle?”

It never occurred to me to ask where, only, “Will you be safe?”

“Yeah, George is . . . ”

George arrived with MK-7s under each arm. I didn’t hesitate, but asked Tobor to launch the alert shuttle and have it pick up Danny and George at the gym. In the 90 seconds it took the shuttle to arrive, I’d gotten a hug and a kiss from each one, and a promise to let me know what was going on “ . . . as soon as we do.”

Thirty minutes later, the door of a student’s room at the Cardiff School chimed. The boy punched the delete button on the keyboard, watched until the icon disappeared, and then went to the door. A cadet in Fleet utilities, with a pistol on his hip, greeted him.

“Hi, my name’s Danny. Would you show me the program you were using to hack the Fleet Mainframe?”

Bobby couldn’t quite control his reflexes. His face paled and his tummy quivered. “Uh, I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . . you can’t make me say anything.” Shut up! Just shut up! he thought.

Danny stepped into the room and walked to the computer terminal. “I won’t make you say anything, but I’ll bet you a pizza that before I leave, you’ll tell me everything.”

Bobby’s eyes widened. His tummy was really quivering, and his bowels . . . well, Bobby was afraid he was going to poop his pants. Danny felt this, and offered reassurance.

“Hey, Bobby, I’m not going to hurt you or force you or arrest you, or anything. Come here and sit beside me.” Danny sat at the computer, and scooted over so that Bobby could sit on the edge of the seat.

“The computer’s locked,” Bobby said. He didn’t sit down.

Danny pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. He punched one key. “Hello Danny,” came the response. The voice was stilted, flat.

“Hi, Tobor, would you unlock this terminal, please?”

“Yes Danny is there anything else?”

“Not yet, but please monitor, okay?”

“Yes Little Buddy.”

“I am not little!” Danny snapped the communicator shut as the desktop appeared on the computer screen.

“Who were you talking to?” Bobby whispered.

“The Fleet computer—the one you were trying to hack,” Danny said. “Come on, sit down. I won’t bite!”

“It talks?” Bobby asked. His knees were weak; he sat on the very edge of the seat.

Danny put one arm around the boy and pulled him close. “Now, maybe you won’t fall off.

“Yeah, he talks. And don’t call Tobor, it. He’s very sensitive about that.”

Danny opened a command prompt and typed, “history.” Bobby let out his breath. History was wiped . . . he’ll never—

Bobby’s stomach lurched when the program he thought he had wiped appeared on the screen. Danny felt the boy’s fear, and hugged him. “Let’s see what we have.”

Danny scrolled through the program. “Ah, that’s good! That subroutine got you through the public space into Fleet space. You could have just logged into that using your cadet ID. Wouldn’t want to with a hack, though, huh? What’s next, I wonder . . . two, three . . .”

Danny scrolled down. “Oh! That’s the one that triggered the alarms.”

“But I got farther than that—” Bobby realized he’d just confessed. He tried to shrug off Danny’s arm, but Danny held him tightly. Tears welled up in Bobby’s eyes. Danny hugged even harder and pushed reassurance.

“Yeah, Tobor let you get farther, mostly to see how good you were. Ah, ha! That’s where you got stopped. See the second expression in that equation?”

Bobby accepted that he’d been caught, and resigned himself to his fate. “Yeah,” he said. He wrinkled his nose as if to say, so what.

“There are too many common factors. Divide them out,” Danny said.

Bobby looked for a couple of seconds at the expression that took up three lines on the screen. “Then it’s just a Fourier transform!”

Danny stood up; Bobby slid to the center of the seat and typed. The equation now took up five lines on the screen. Bobby looked at Danny, who nodded. Bobby hit the enter key. They watched the program compile, and then penetrate shell after shell of the Fleet computer’s security. From the speakers came a monotone voice that clipped every syllable: “Hel-lo-Bob-by-would-you-like-to-play-a-game.”

“Would I … Hey! That’s War Games, 1989. Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy, and Matthew Broderick. You really don’t mean that, do you?”

“No Bobby.” The voice still sounded robotic, but not so much, now. “My name is Tobor I am happy to meet you you are approved.”

Bobby looked at Danny, confusion narrowed his eyes. “I’m approved . . . of what?”

“You just showed him that you were a real geek, and a genius,” Danny said. “Tobor is in charge of his own security. He learned from you, and he’ll be able to block everything in your program . And, if you promise, if you swear an oath, he’ll give you access all the way to Level 7.

“And, Fleet will give you an active duty assignment.”

“Active duty? But I’m in school . . . I’m a junior cadet. I’m 10. Do you know how many cadets actually go on active duty? Who ever go into space?” Bobby curled his upper lip. He took a breath as if to say more, but Danny stopped him.

“Yes, I do. Fewer than 5% get assignments other than full-time school before they’re fifteen; fewer than half of those get assignments in space. You’re a genius; you do the numbers.”

Bobby balled up his fists. He looked like he wanted to hit Danny. Then, “About 1,000.”

“That is close.” Bobby jumped. It was Tobor’s voice. “There are 992 cadets in space assignments including those currently on shore leave.”

Danny saw Bobby’s surprise, and giggled. “He’ll do that. Don’t start depending on him, though. You don’t want to forget how to use your own brain.”

“Are you in?” Danny asked.

“You said an oath. What oath?” Bobby asked.

Danny paused, and mentally crossed his fingers. “A telepathic oath.”

“Telepathic? What does that mean?”

“It means that you take an oath before a telepath who reads your mind to know that you understand the oath, and mean it. Then, the oath is impressed into your mind. You can’t break it without physical paralysis and serious damage to your psyche. It would burn out your mind.

“I’ve taken one.” Danny added. “Would you like to see it?”

“See it? How?”

“I’m a telepath; I can show you, if you want.”

“Telepath? Like a mind-reader and all that? Will it hurt? Will you see what I’m thinking?”

“No, to both,” Danny said. Bobby nodded.

Danny rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. It took less than a minute to show Bobby the point of light, deep in Danny’s mind, where the oath sat. When Danny opened his eyes, he saw that Bobby was crying.

“That was so beautiful,” the boy said. “You swore . . . you swore allegiance to Fleet, but you also swore that you loved your boyfriend and would give your life for him!”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “George—he’s my other boyfriend—George and I both did, and nearly broke Paul’s heart. He didn’t want us to do that, you see, but he knows that we meant it, and that someday, we might die for him.

“I hope that doesn’t happen, because I’m pretty sure he’d die, too. He loves us, so much . . . .” Danny’s voice faded and his nose wrinkled. Bobby felt what Danny was feeling; more tears fell from Bobby’s eyes. Danny’s own eyes were moist.

Bobby sniffled. “You said I was a geek,” he said. “But you found the Fourier transform problem.”

“Yeah,” Danny giggled. “I’m a geek, too. And you saw the problem in, what, about 10 seconds? And fixed it in less than two minutes.”

“You’re a geek; and you have a gun?” Bobby asked.

“Um, yes. George and I command Paul’s security detail. We all have guns . . . and pistols and rifles, too.” Danny giggled.

“Huh?” The old joke went over Bobby’s head.

“You’ll learn, if you want to join us.”

“Join you. You mean that would be my assignment? A fleet security team? Would I go into space?”

“Yes, and maybe,” Danny said. “I’m offering you a place on the personal security team and staff of Fleet Captain Paul Stewart. Our team is currently assigned to Fleet Headquarters. Paul’s going to take over the CERN-Higgs project for a year. We just got back from a space assignment where he commanded a cruiser. There may be some opportunities to travel, but we’d be mostly planetside for about a year.”

“I’d move to Switzerland?” Bobby asked.

“Would that be a problem? Boyfriend or family?”

“Um, my family lives in Sudetenland. No boyfriend.

“You said staff,” Bobby continued.

“Yeah, our main job is security, but Paul uses us for other things, too. And we’re all geeks of one kind or another. Geeks with Guns is what we call ourselves, privately. Again, are you in?”

“A ten-year-old on an officer’s staff?”

“Um, yeah. You’d be the youngest, but not by much. George and I are oldest, at fourteen. Oh, and Paul’s not much older.”

Bobby’s brain spun. TMI, he thought, and nearly fell. Danny grabbed him, and held him upright in a tight hug. Bobby took a deep breath, thought about what he’d seen in Danny’s mind, and then hugged Danny back. “Yes, please. I’m in. I’m in, with all my heart!”

Danny kissed Bobby on the cheek. “By the way, I think you owe me a pizza. Want to have it in Switzerland or here in Wales?”

“We better have it here; it’d take, what, like eight hours to get to Switzerland?” Bobby asked.

“Nah, about 30 minutes,” Danny replied. “There’s a shuttlecraft in the quadrangle, waiting for you.”

For me? Bobby nearly passed out, again.