Homesick

“OPEN COM PORT 27 TO COMMUNICATION ARRAY,” Sally typed with two fingers on the console touch pad. It had been years since she had used such elementary commands, but the syntax came back to her surprisingly quickly. Most of their communication with Earth had been VR-based and almost all their equipment shared the same channels, which were now being closely monitored. High bandwidth communication was easy to detect and would immediately raise a red flag, but a text message could be piggybacked along the lesser-known connections, such as those Earth used to monitor the ship’s fuel consumption and other statistics. If one knew how . . .

“COM PORT OPENED,” the computer responded.

“SET ORIGIN HEADER TO LOCAL HOST. FIND LOCAL HOST.”

“DONE.”

“REQUEST DATA STREAM. TELNET [email protected]. SET PRIORITY HEADER TO MEDICAL EMERGENCY.”

“TRYING CONNECTION . . . CONNECTION REFUSED. ACCESS DENIED.”

Sally sat back, genuinely surprised. “No moon base,” she mumbled. She laced her fingers together and stretched them before facing the keypad again.

“REQUEST DATASTREAM. TELNET [email protected].”

“TRYING CONNECTION . . . CONNECTION REFUSED. ACCESS DENIED.”

“Damn!” she said, more in surprise than frustration. Then she brightened. “What about computer networks that aren’t finished yet?”

“REQUEST LOGIN. TELNET [email protected] FIND BALTAN_PROJECT LINES 337_4600_1290”

“FINDING ADDRESS . . . LINES FOUND . . . TRYING CONNECTION . . . CONNECTION REFUSED. ACCESS DENIED.”

Sally’s face twisted in amazement. “Without even asking for a name and password?” she said out loud. “How can they deny access when I’m practically the only one who even knows that address?” She sipped at a globe of coffee while pondering her next move.

“INCOMING MESSAGE: RECEIVE MODE, TEXT ONLY:”

“TO KELTHY COMMANDER, FROM R-POOLE. DO NOT CONTINUE TO ATTEMPT ACCESS TO DATABASES. THIS IS A VIOLATION OF RADIO SILENCE. YOU WILL BE CONTACTED SHORTLY. IF YOU STOP NOW, NO REPORT ON THIS ACTION WILL BE FILED.”

Sally felt herself grow dizzy with rage. “I’ve got a sick man here!” she yelled uselessly at the console. She then kicked at the panel below, equally uselessly. Finally, resigned, she touched a square on the pad and the console went blank. She set down her globe of coffee hard enough to create a storm within it and stabbed the intercom button.

“Ian?”

“Here!” he said out of breath.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I was just doing my exercises.”

“At least somebody’s accomplishing something,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll be changing Scott’s treatment. I’m putting him on a mild sedative. We can’t have him breaking loose like that again, but we can’t keep him totally under either. Please set up an IV stand and rig it to the wall behind him. I’d do it myself, but you seem better at those sorts of things. I’m getting some food ready for him. He’s not eaten anything solid for far too long.”

“Got it.”

She got up, stretched, and started for the door. But she jumped at the sight of Vlad through the window. His hand was poised near the chime as if he’d been hesitant to ring it. Sally wondered how long he’d been standing there. “What can I do for you, Vlad?” she asked as the door slid open.

Vlad started with surprise but quickly regained his composure. “I must talk.”

“I don’t suppose it can keep, can it? I have a patient to attend to.”

He shook his head. “Inside?” He motioned to the door.

Sally regarded him with more interest, backed up, and beckoned for him to enter. They sat down in front of the blank console.

“Because, especially of what has happened today, I need to talk. My government was concerned before about this, but now I see they were right. This is very bad.”

Sally nodded and couldn’t help but smile. “Well, depending on what ‘this’ is, I would tend to agree with your government. I’m glad we have them to tell us these things. Did they say anything more specific than that?”

“I cannot talk to them now,”

“Neither can we.”

“Before, they were concerned about the capture. They agreed they are enemies.”

Sally nodded. “Maybe not specific enemies, but they certainly aren’t friendly.”

“But it is what Anderson said about ‘Builders’ that now concerns me. People who will attack us. We may soon have conflict out here,” he said in a hushed tone as if it were a secret.

Sally nodded. “Again, I wouldn’t consider that a revelation, assuming we ever return here. Fortunately, that’s not our problem. Our immediate safety is. I’ve got Ian monitoring the surface constantly. If they have space flight capability we should notice something in terms of preparation before they launch anything.”

“But perhaps not soon enough,” he countered, staring at her intently. “We don’t have missiles. We don’t have laser defense. We have no defense.”

Sally yawned. “Again, this isn’t news to me, Vlad, and if that’s all you came to talk about __”

“We are in danger!”

“Vlad, we know that! In fact, having been on that planet, I’ve got a much better idea what these people are capable of than you. But let’s not lose perspective. We’re doing everything we can at this point. Shaking in our boots won’t make us any safer.”

Vlad started to protest, but Sally held up her hand.

“Also, you have to remember Scott is delusional. I’m not suggesting we ignore what he said, but we can’t really be sure how much of it is accurate. For all we know, the Masters and the Builders don’t even know we’re up here.”

“My government has suggestion. I was going to talk before we left, but I think now is better.”

Sally crossed her arms, preparing to be unimpressed. “Go ahead.”

“The ship has two fuel cell generators, yes? We also have solar sail, yes? And two backup fusion reactors, yes?”

Sally’s eyebrows knitted in mild surprise as she pondered how this could be relevant. “Yes, our ship is well supplied with power sources. That’s a major concern in such a long flight. Even if both the fuel cells went bust, we’d still have fusion, plus whatever we collected from solar between here and Earth.”

“The fusion reactors are redundant. We do not need two of them.”

“We wouldn’t even need one unless we lost both the fuel cells,” she said, still trying to follow his logic. “It’s a completely redundant grid.”

“We could take one of those reactors off the grid right now and it would not be missed.”

“Yes, of course. It’s a redundant grid, as we agreed. That’s what redundant means.”

“The reactor is small. It is self-contained.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, they’re a good standalone power source. Vlad, what are you getting at?”

“At the core of each fusion reactor is a plutonium battery. An ignition battery. Do you know this?”

Sally hesitated. “I don’t claim to know much about fusion technology, but I know there has to be something to start the actual reaction __”

“Yes, that is it! The plutonium battery is a self-contained fission reaction, did you know?”

Sally shook her head.

“The ignition battery can be used to regulate a larger reaction, yes?”

Sally squinted. “Okay, I suppose.”

“We have many atmospheric probes, ye__”

“Yes, we have atmospheric probes, we have antenna arrays, we have three independent propulsion systems, we have six oxygen generation plants, and plenty of other stuff too. I got the tour before they made me captain! What’s your point?”

“The fusion reactor, it could fit in atmospheric probe?”

She thought for a moment. “Not unless you took out all the instrumentation. But then it wouldn’t be an atmospheric probe, would it?” she said as if playing along with a joke. “Why would you want to do that?”

Vladimir leaned closer to her, as if to tell her a secret. “We set fusion reactor in probe. We send it to planet. We control where it goes. If we set to overload we can decide where. Can choose target!”

Sally’s face screwed in thought. “Target?” she repeated. Then she gasped. “You’re talking about making an atom bomb!”

“No, not atom bomb. Much better! The ignition battery can trigger a much greater reaction! Thermo-nuclear hydrogen bomb! Far better yield!”

Sally was momentarily speechless, still unable to believe her ears. She shook her head. “Vlad, are you out of your mind?”

He looked surprised. “But we can stop the Masters forever! We can do it!”

“No, Vlad. Absolutely not! Good God, do you have any idea what you’re saying?” Sally rose from her chair and fought the urge to pace. “Vlad, our purpose here is not to start a war. And, even if it were, it wouldn’t be up to us to do such a thing! How can you even suggest something like that?”

Vlad stood and faced her. “They are threat to us. They threaten all of us! My government will not stand by __”

“Your government can go to hell! This is my ship and we’re under UN jurisdiction! And, even if I wanted to, do you honestly think I have the authority to commit genocide? Even in a declared war, that would be a last resort, don’t you think?”

Vlad didn’t answer.

“But you don’t think, do you, Vlad? Some maniac in Moscow came up with this idea and you just accepted it without question, didn’t you?”

“We must defend ourselves.”

“At the expense of the innocent? Vlad, Ian and I rescued Scott from a labor camp. There were thousands of slaves there, perhaps tens of thousands. We don’t even know how many Masters there are, let alone where they are and what they can do. Are you suggesting we nuke everybody including all the prisoners? That wouldn’t even make military sense!”

“If they are like Anderson they would be better off!” he insisted. “The threat is clear!”

Sally pursed her lips and felt the room begin to spin. She forced her voice to remain steady. “Vladimir Coronov, are you aware I’m a doctor?”

He nodded.

“Have you ever heard of the Hippocratic Oath?”

He did not answer.

“Well, rather than read it to you, let me give you the short version. I can do nothing to harm sick people. I’m supposed to help them. And, even if I did believe in euthanasia, it would be the very last thing I’d consider. I’m not a military commander and this was never a military mission. When I went down there playing commando, it was to rescue a fellow crewmember, not to harm anyone. We defended ourselves, yes, but only when we had no choice. Now that we’re safe, we have no reason to fight. That doesn’t make us cowards. It’s not our job.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “And even if it were, I would never consider unleashing that kind of force on helpless, innocent people! And, if you would, there’s something seriously wrong with you!”

Vlad stared at her, backing up slightly.

“Oh, and by the way, while you’re here I have a personal matter to settle with you.” She took a deep breath. “You’re a weasel, a coward, and a traitor. And, as of now, you’re officially relieved of duty. Furthermore, you can expect to face criminal charges if and when we reach home.”

Vlad’s jaw dropped and his face lit up in anger.

“I know what you did when we were gone!” she shouted before he could protest. “I pieced it together. Maybe I can’t prove it all, but I can see to it that even the biggest of your pet bureaucrats turns their back on you!”

His face changed from an angry glare to a pleading “let me explain” expression.

“Shut up!” she said before he could say anything. “Do you want to know how I found out?” She opened a drawer in her console and drew out the tiny disk. She opened its case and tilted it in the light, casting rainbow reflections on the wall. “You played this, didn’t you? You sampled my voice, right? I must admit I wasn’t expecting that, but I figured you’d try something backhanded to get around my lockouts.” She shook her head in disgust. “But there’s something about this disc you probably didn’t know. It contains a virus.”

Vlad dabbed at his brow, his face taking on more worry by the second.

“Remember computer viruses? They’re programs you never mean to run and they do things without your knowing. This virus was very busy. It got into your console once you spun the disc. Then it got into the mainframe. It went to the com system next, and it even broke radio silence and sent some messages. My guess is nobody was checking on us then.

Vlad nodded, his concern briefly set aside as he saw the ingenuity of the idea.

“When I got back to my quarters, I happened to notice a message from my bank in Ontario, Canada. It seems somebody tried to withdraw all my money, convert it into Euros, and send it to a bank in Amsterdam. That somebody was this virus.” She shook the disk. “That same somebody also sent a personal message to a dear friend of mine announcing that I was dead and giving her the bank account number where the money was to be deposited. Do you understand?”

He said nothing.

“I have a lawyer on retainer to handle my estate, including my will and testament, but the fact that Jackie and I have different citizenships and tend to live in multiple jurisdictions makes that more complicated than you might think. If I die, I need Jackie to have enough savings to get her through as long as that process takes. Jackie depends on me too much, and I can’t leave her fate to chance. So, just to make sure, I decided not to die. Or at least I planned to leave a part of myself behind.” She shook the disk again. “If I did die and you reported it, Earth Command would have asked you to spin this disc. By the time I was actually declared dead officially, the transaction would be complete and Jackie would be cared for.” She took a step closer to him. “What I wasn’t counting on was a spineless weasel like you screwing it up! Do you know what happened to Jackie when she got that message? She went off the wagon and practically drank herself into the hospital!”

She advanced on Vlad and he backed up further. “I take this very personally, Vlad, which is why I didn’t bring it up sooner. Of course, even though I blame you for what happened to Jackie, I can’t pretend it’s legally your fault. But treason, dereliction of duty, sabotage, and invasion of privacy are other matters. I don’t know what I’m going to do about this when we get back to Earth and I don’t particularly care right now. But I know one thing for sure. You’re not to be trusted and I’m through watching you undermine my authority on this ship. And, since most of the work you actually do here when you do decide to extend yourself is far from necessary or satisfactory, relieving you of duty hardly seems much of a loss.”

She took another deep breath, forcing herself to relax. “From now on you’re off duty unless otherwise noted. That makes you a passenger on this ship. I’ll be changing all the codes, naturally. Next time you log into your console you’ll find all your access privileges revoked. And I don’t care what pig headed Russian bureaucrat says what to whom!”

He started to protest again, but she stopped him with a glare. Then she grinned. “By the way, as one hacker to another, you’ve got egg on your face. I’m betting you managed to get navigation, right?”

He didn’t respond.

“But you never tried to initiate a launch sequence, did you? Of course not, because we got back before the launch window. But, if you had tried, you’d have found that access to the propulsion controls was password protected. You’d have been sitting here through the entire launch window like a complete moron!”

Sally punched the door control, preparing to order him out of her quarters. But, when the door slid open, Ian staggered in, out of breath.

“Captain!” he panted. “I’ve been calling for you!”

“What?” she asked, putting on her polite face as fast as she could.

“We’ve got a transmission!”

“Good! It’s about time!” She turned to her console. “Let’s hear what those nitwits __”

“No, Captain, it’s not them! It’s not from Earth!”

Her face dropped.

“It’s coming from Shuttlepod One! It’s coming from the planet! They’ve got Scott’s access codes!”