Alpha strike, p.6
Alpha Strike, page 6
He and Hutton made their way up to the storage area in time to be told that some of the missiles had indeed been taken. Connor felt his lips pressing tightly together. It had just become critical to find whoever was behind this theft. The clock was ticking.
7
Alan marveled at the two massive Locust computers set up in the engineering compartment. They’d been powered up for more than an hour and weren’t having any issues.
He was relieved about that. Even though he had experience working with smaller versions of the same kinds of machines, these were unique, and he didn’t want to damage them.
With that worry behind him, he focused on directing Doctor Wilson—Alice—and her research assistants in setting up half a dozen terminals to interface with them.
They were isolated from the ship’s systems because that was only common sense. He had a lot of experience working under those constraints because Kelly Danek had insisted on that from the very beginning. Even the power connections were monitored, so the computers couldn’t use those to attempt to worm their way into the ship’s control systems. Every precaution that they could take had been taken.
“I’ve looked over mothership cores before,” Alice said. “What I haven’t seen before is a system that wasn’t wiped of all critical information. You’ve done that with your mothership core. What should we be looking at with these machines?”
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “The one on the left came from the engineering compartment aboard the wreck. The one on the right was forward of that. The amount of storage they have is significantly larger than the ones from the motherships. And by significantly, I mean thousands of times, at a minimum.”
He took a deep breath and walked up to one of the machines. The support hardware that had come with a computer was similar to what the motherships used, only bigger. The core itself was of a similar shape and equally as massive. It operated with a slight hum that wasn’t present with a mothership’s core.
“I can give you a rundown of what we found aboard the mothership’s core, particularly the things that had been deleted. We’ve copied that information over to a different mothership core that we’re using for storage. We can’t save their data to our systems because the media and storage methods aren’t compatible.”
Alice nodded and gestured toward the terminals. “And what are we hoping to accomplish by searching these two?”
He grinned at her. “This is a mission of discovery, my dear Alice. Perhaps we’ll be lucky and find a Rosetta Stone during our search, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. We did find recorded communications from the first invasion that weren’t wiped on the intact mothership core. Those audio recordings were translated into an alien language. Perhaps there are actual alien sound files on these systems. I suspect we might be able to reverse engineer the output files and at least get something comprehensible in return.”
She pursed her lips. “I suppose that’s as good a place to start as any. Are we sure we’re not going to change or delete anything important in these computers during our search? Also, has any work been done comparing the contents of the two computers to one another to see if there is any overlap?”
He shook his head. “All I’ve done is make sure the machines are mechanically functional and stable. Commander Danek made certain that the power met the specifications I figured out from the machines themselves and that everything was shielded. That’s a security measure, and why we’re using standalone terminals, though these are every bit as powerful as any networked computer aboard this ship.”
“I’ve worked with something similar, so we can manage.”
“I’ll walk your people through some of the programs I wrote to compare the two mothership cores. We can let a couple of your people work on doing a comparison with these while the others work on searching for audio files in the alien format.”
At her nod, they walked over to where the research assistants were exploring their terminals. He captured their attention when he sat down at one and ran them through what they were looking for and how the programs he’d written worked.
“I won’t say I’m the best programmer in the universe—because I’m not—so if you want to play with the programs and see if you can improve things—or even find something I didn’t think of—you’re more than welcome to do so. There’s plenty of work to go around.”
Some of the young people decided to do exactly that and sequestered themselves at one of the terminals to begin working on the project. That left Alice and four of her assistants to help him start the programs he already had.
The process wasn’t quick because nothing he’d written had been optimized for speed. Frankly, he’d had nothing but time while doing his research, so he’d focused on missing nothing. Perhaps that was something the research assistants could bring to what he was doing.
Two of the terminals were set up to compare the contents of the unredacted mothership core with each of the big computers. A different terminal compared the large computers with one another. They used the remaining terminals to conduct a search for files in the alien’s audio format.
The comparisons were going to take a long time, but the search for audio files began striking pay dirt right away. A large number of files came up in the search results for both the large computers, and the list only kept growing.
He’d created a player to sample the audio files when he’d first discovered them, so he brought it into play now. He doubted he’d hear any human recordings, and he was correct. Every single file he sampled was in an alien language that was somewhat guttural and completely incomprehensible.
They were also made by real aliens rather than computerized translation because each voice was different, and the cadences strongly suggested they were natural speech.
“I suppose this is a good start,” Alice said as she eyed the list. “I think we’ll need to reverse engineer the translation software. Did you ever locate it on the mothership core?”
He shook his head. “We’ll have to do this the hard way. I know which audio files the aliens translated into their own language because the file nomenclature was identical. We’re going to have to start working on analyzing those to look for patterns and then build a program that can read the alien audio and translate it back to our language. Do you think that’s something you and your people could do?”
“Not a chance. We’re not programmers, though some of us have a fair bit of experience at it. We need dedicated professionals to build a program capable of doing the translating without introducing all kinds of errors. If there are none aboard this ship, maybe someone on the station could do it.”
“It doesn’t hurt to make inquiries. Why don’t you and your people focus on what we’ve got going, and I’ll speak with Captain MacKinnon since Jack is off the ship?”
At her nod of agreement, he went in search of India. She wasn’t on the bridge, but he found her in her office just down the corridor from Jack’s.
When she admitted him, he looked around and smiled. “I see they restored all the original furnishings. What do you think?”
She sat behind a desk almost as large as Jack’s and just as ornate. The compartment itself was eighty percent the size of Jack’s, which meant it was enormous compared to anything she’d likely experienced in her prior service.
“It’s a lot to get used to,” she admitted as she stood. “Even our flag officers don’t have anything like this, except perhaps the most senior ones. I could get by with something a lot smaller, but don’t tell Jack I said so.”
He made a motion of zipping his lips. “He’ll hear nothing from me.”
“What can I do for you, Professor?” she asked as she leaned against the desk.
“We’ve got the Locust computers up and running, and we’ve discovered a lot of audio files in the alien language. Originals, not translations. Sadly, none of us have the skills to build a translator, even though we have matched examples of recordings in our language that have been translated into the alien language. I need to go to the depot and hire someone. That’s not something I’m comfortable doing without buy-in from you or Jack.”
India frowned and leaned back against her desk. “This is a very secret project, and I don’t want to expose that information to people we don’t trust.”
“And utterly useless if we can’t decipher what they’re saying. As I see it, we don’t have to let them know about the new computers or the alien ship. It’s common knowledge among the crew that I’ve gained access to a mothership core. All I have to do is give them the files from it. They’d be responsible for developing a program that could reverse translate the audio. If they prove trustworthy, we could start feeding them the actual alien files to work with.”
“I don’t know,” she said, starting to pace. “Jack and our people have had some trouble, and things are pretty tense. Apparently, they walked in on someone stealing missiles and fire control units. Shots were exchanged, and people were killed. I’m not sure how open he’d be to sharing even that much information with them right now.”
Alan considered her. “I’m not asking them to do anything ultra-secret here. I just want to take the information we’ve recovered from the mothership and satisfy my intellectual curiosity. That’s my story, and I’ll stick to it if they ask.”
“Okay,” she said after a few seconds of thought. “I’ll clear the mothership core files with Jack and have an answer for you by the time you get there. If he says no, you can look around a bit and come back. If he says yes, I suppose you can start conducting job interviews.”
“I appreciate your support, and I’m hopeful we can find someone that can prove their loyalty to the project and their discretion. When we’re finished digging in these computers, we may need to develop Locust computer experts of our own. Sadly, that’s not me or any of the people we trust.”
She gestured toward the hatch. “Small steps, Professor. Small steps. We’ll consider this initial project a test drive. Depending on what they do and how we judge them, we might do more, but I’m not going to commit to it at this time. I suppose this is a proof of concept, if you will, so good luck.”
“Thank you for being so open-minded,” he said as he started for the hatch. “I’ll be most cautious in what I say and who I say it to. Whatever is decided, I’ll keep you in the loop.”
He stopped by his lab and packed away one of the neutered mothership cores that he was using for storage. It didn’t have anything on it from the new systems, so it would make an excellent device to demonstrate what he was working with and what he needed. He added a terminal he’d adapted to access the contents of the drive and some supporting equipment to power the core so that it didn’t need to be connected to the station’s power.
Sadly, that was a lot more than one person could carry. Even the core was more than he could handle because it was almost as big as he was. So, he summoned several crew people to get the boxed equipment to the small craft bay and aboard his preferred cutter.
As he was skilled in flying the old craft, he didn’t need anyone to escort him, though he brought the young people to cart the equipment to wherever its final resting place needed to be or get it back to the cutter if he couldn’t find anyone to help him.
He was halfway to the depot when he realized he didn’t have any of those gold coins they required for their landing fee. Oh well. He’d have to see if he could arrange a line of credit or bill Jack. He got verbal authorization from India to proceed with his plan right before he was ready to land.
Once he’d worked himself through the landing queue and parked his cutter, he spotted the table where he needed to pay and walked up to it while the recruits retrieved his equipment.
The woman sitting there held out a hand. “Landing fee.”
“I’m from Delta Orionis, and I don’t have any doubloons. Has there been a process set up to allow us to draw on credit?”
She nodded and opened a small notebook to jot something down. “I’ll see that the appropriate party is billed. Welcome to Port Royale. Can I assist you in finding anything? If so, I’m going to add that to your bill.”
He smiled. “I’m looking for directions to someone skilled in computer operations. I have an unusual task that I need assistance with. It’s not illegal, but it will be very difficult and not something they’ll have ever tried before. It’s alien, you might say.”
“It sounds like you need a hacker,” the woman said with a knowing nod. “We’ve got a number of people with skills in that area, but if you’re looking for the best, you’ll want Lisa Gane. If it’s got anything to do with computers, she’s your girl.”
She tore a sheet out of the back of her notepad and jotted down an address. Being conversant in the location nomenclature used by the Navy when the station was built, he had no trouble deciphering it.
“I’m very grateful for your assistance, so please tip yourself generously,” he said. “Good day.”
And with that, he headed out into Port Royale with his cargo handlers grunting and softly swearing behind him. The station looked much like any other he’d been aboard, and the population didn’t stand out as being all that different either. Nevertheless, he kept an eye out to make sure he wasn’t being followed and that he didn’t walk into trouble.
He followed the directions to a set of offices far off the beaten path. It wasn’t that this was a rundown section of the station, but it wasn’t well-traveled. He suspected the only people that found themselves here were the ones that intended to be there.
When he arrived at the appropriate office, he pressed the admittance button and waited for someone to answer. It took about thirty seconds, and he was about to push it again when the hatch slid aside, and a tall woman with tousled brown hair blinked blearily at him.
“Do you know what time it is?”
Nonplussed, he looked down at his chronometer.
Before he could inform her of the current time, her eyes narrowed. “That was a rhetorical question. I was working on a project all night and didn’t get to sleep until an hour ago.”
“Then I apologize for waking you, but I had no way of knowing your schedule. Perhaps you should consider putting a ‘do not disturb’ sign on your hatch?”
She ignored his suggestion, sighed, and stepped aside. “You might as well come in. I’m not going to get back to sleep until I hear what you have to say, so let’s get the formalities out of the way.”
Alan gestured for the young people moving his equipment to come inside. Instead of this being an office, he found it was living quarters. Rather, half of it was living quarters, and the other half was filled with more computer equipment than he’d ever seen in such a small area before.
Once the hatch was closed, Gane gestured for him to take a seat. “I’ll say up front that I’m busy with other projects, so unless you’ve got something interesting, I’ll decline. Why don’t you lead with the good stuff and save us all some time?”
He sat and smiled widely. “I need someone to translate audio files recovered from a Locust mothership computer core into our language. I have the source recordings and the output of their own efforts at translation. I need someone to write a reliable program to reverse the process, thus translating an alien language for the first time. Is that interesting enough?”
She gave him a long look. “If this is a joke, I’ll be super pissed.”
“I have some example hardware and a terminal that I’d be happy to demonstrate for you,” he said. “I’m Professor Alan Prescott, by the way.”
“Lisa Gane. I think we’d best get started, Professor. Get that set up while I make coffee. Today will be a long day.”
8
Mac wanted to shoot someone. Or, more accurately, many someones. People under his protection had been attacked, and the equipment and gear they’d worked so hard to recover had been stolen. It also annoyed him that Connor and his people had been negligent, so it was up to him to make sure that situation changed damned fast.
Thankfully, he had a plan, though he was sure the smuggler would hate it. At this point, that was a plus in his book. He didn’t have anything against the flamboyant man, but he’d been far too casual in assuming everything was going fine without checking.
That changed today.
Turner focused his attention on Joby Hutton. “We’ll need a complete inventory of everything we’ve got here. I understand that’s going to be in the computers somewhere, but we need to verify everything. I get that you’ve got a lot on your plate, but you’re going to have to prioritize this. I also realize this won’t be a quick or easy task, but we have to know what we have and what we’re missing.”
Hutton grimaced. “Do you know how many logistics people would’ve been assigned to this facility back in the day? Thousands. I hate to tell you this, but we don’t have a ghost of a chance of doing any kind of inventory in anything less than years. What you’re asking for is impossible.”
“I suppose you’re going to have to prioritize things then. Start with the most important pieces of equipment and work your way down. At some point, you can assign the work to other people. We’ve got to get Hunter back into fighting shape. I know you’ve been building a list of all the parts she needs, so that’s where you start.”
“Not to be a pain in the ass, but I don’t work for you, Colonel,” Joby warned him. “I get how pissed you are, but I have to look at the big picture. I’ll do what I can to verify some of the data on the most critical parts, but we’ll have to form a team to even come up with a plan to do a full inventory. I’m not starting on a long-term job like that unless the commodore tells me to either.”
Mac sighed. This was frustrating, but he understood what the other man was saying. Jack would have to decide what needed to happen. This really wasn’t his problem, no matter how angry he was.
“I get it,” he said. “And you’re right. Maybe we can hire locals or something once we know who we can trust. Or you could put some of those supply people that pissed you off to doing it.”
