Command Authority, page 3
part #5 of Last Hunter Series
Rather than worrying about something beyond her control, perhaps she should ask. This may be a strange question, but how long do your people live? Am I in danger of you dying while I’m still in the prime of my life? Is the reverse true?
That made sense. Why worry about something that would happen so far in the future? They definitely had threats that could come calling much sooner than that. The Tardan military could launch another strike on New Copenhagen. Or the motherships infesting the cluster could come calling any moment, too.
Well, not at any moment. The things were limited to about ten times the speed of light, and even if they’d started from the closest system the moment the gates had been destroyed, they’d still be weeks away.
If the forces in New Copenhagen had sent for help, it would be months from responding. There was no reason to expect motherships would come calling any sooner, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t. Aliens were going to alien, as the commodore often said.
And she should know better than most.
That still didn’t make the process any easier. She was something of a worrier, and they didn’t know how their symbiosis would work, which still bothered her.
Perhaps something of what she was feeling bled through, or he knew her well enough to figure out that she was still worried about the subject. In either case, Regex spoke again without her having said anything.
Hearing someone project their thoughts into her head was still freaky, but her brain had somehow assigned him a different voice and accent than her own thoughts. It really was like someone else was in the room speaking to her, though no one else could hear his words.
Are you able to modulate how I interpret your thoughts? It seems like your tone has become more distinct since we began integration. Is that what happens when two beings join together to become a symbiont?
It does. Thank you.
She looked down at what she’d been working on, brought her mind back into focus, and re-examined the problem they were working on. They’d salvaged an alien computer system from the wrecked Novarite warship the Confederation had recovered two centuries ago and were trying to break into it. They’d also recovered one from the Novarite vessel Hunter had beaten in combat. The two were set up next to one another, and both were proving resistant to her access attempts.
The systems were encrypted. That much was obvious, but intriguingly, the two seemed to be encrypted in similar but different manners. She wasn’t sure if that revolved around the amount of time that had passed between when the vessels had been built or if every computer used by the Novarites used a slightly different form of encryption to prevent anyone from breaking into one and gaining access to them all.
One of the most interesting aspects of working on these computers with Regex was that their knowledge synergized as they worked. In fact, her experience with hacking was quite helpful in bypassing the security that had proven resistant to Regex’s skills.
In the beginning, they weren’t even able to access the basic systems, but insights she had into finding weaknesses in human computer systems had given him ideas of places to look in the Novarite ones.
That had given them partial access and driven a wedge into the security protocols. That chink in their armor would hopefully provide a method for them to gain full access, though it didn’t seem to be working in the short term. Still, she had high hopes they’d be able to get in before much longer.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Together, we seem to know enough to get through most of these problems, but our knowledge is still segregated, and we can’t combine it into an integrated whole. I wish I could access your memories directly.
Personally, Lisa wasn’t sure. It was one thing to share someone else’s memories when they were connected to your brain, but mixing and matching two completely different sets of knowledge about computers when those hardware systems and programming languages had nothing to do with one another seemed impossible. Even if it was possible, would it help?
She supposed it couldn’t hurt to try. It wasn’t like they were having much luck doing what they were doing. Changing things up would at least be interesting.
How are we supposed to do this when the two of us have had no luck intentionally sharing memories and knowledge back and forth? Yes, I can access your memories about speaking the Tardan language, but that doesn’t seem to be carrying across to programming in your computer languages. Or being able to use my hacking skills to look for vulnerabilities inside these systems. How do we change that?
Not that shortsighted, considering the situation we find ourselves in. What do you think is happening on your world? If the Novarites knew to follow the colony waves, that means they’ve taken action against your planet. How far would they go?
There was a pause before Regex responded.
The most straightforward thing they could do is find where you were building your ships and disable those facilities. Or, if they still needed you to build warships for them, they could station someone there to be certain what was being built. They already have a war on their hands, and I don’t think they’d spare the time to destroy your people, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do something terrible. For your sake, I hope that’s not the case, but without going back to look, there’s no way to know.
None of this helped them with the project sitting right in front of them, and it was depressing her. They couldn’t wallow in self-pity and worry. They had too many things that still needed to be done. If they hoped to make any progress breaking into the Novarite computer systems, they needed to change the circumstances they were working under.
Here’s what I think we should try. I’ll focus on everything I can think of regarding my computer hacking and programming skills. I’ll try to share that with you as deeply as I can. That’s what you did when you were working on sharing your language with me. I suggest you do the same thing with your programming and hardware knowledge. Perhaps if we’re simultaneously sharing, that will create some synergy.
At the very least, it couldn’t hurt. The hardware used in the Novarite computer systems was the same as the Tardans utilized, with a couple of things added in. Those had to be security measures for hardware the Novarites hadn’t wished to share with their slaves in everything but name.
They’d extracted some of those pieces and examined them before reinstalling them, but she was still uncertain what each was meant for. Once she had a better idea of how the systems worked, she might be able to contribute more to cracking them. Regex wasn’t a hardware expert, but he was knowledgeable. He’d worked on academic versions of these computers for many years and was intimately familiar with their operation.
If they could combine their knowledge, it would go a great way toward giving them an angle that might get them inside these restricted systems. She longed to be able to use her hacking tools to get in and find what they wanted, but the languages were incompatible, and the hardware wouldn’t work together either. Her goal now was to translate those concepts from her experience to Regex’s. Talk about a cerebral endeavor.
Lisa closed her eyes and focused on her skills as a hacker. There was far too much to send across to her passenger, but she could feel her knowledge as sort of a combined package that she envisioned holding out toward the symbiote. In a way, she could feel him doing the same.
There was resistance, but it slowly felt like their knowledge was merging into a single package of information. When the process was complete, she felt utterly wrung out. It was as if she’d run a marathon, and considering she wasn’t very athletic, that wasn’t a good thing.
She stood to get some water. How long had she been sitting there? It had only felt like a couple of minutes, but a glance at her chronometer showed they’d been working for over four hours. How could the time have gotten away from her so badly?
I’m not sure, but it felt as if we combined our knowledge. Not what we held inside ourselves, but a copy forced together in a new area like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The idea made her laugh, and she found herself agreeing with the concept. It did sound delicious.
Once she sat back down, she closed her eyes again and focused on that conglomeration of knowledge. It seemingly floated between them, separate but still hanging there as some type of construct they’d made together.
She tentatively tried to tap into the knowledge and was almost overwhelmed by a flood of information about both the alien computers and her own abilities. It was like a hurricane of information blowing in a great circle, and everything was mixing together. Right now, it seemed incomprehensible, but there had to be a way to create order. It was just going to take time and perhaps a great deal of effort to focus on sorting the information to where it all fit together.
In what way? I’ll admit this is strange, but what do you see? It looks like a cloud of knowledge that seems separate from us. It’s really chaotic.
It’s an experiment, she said as she stood and stretched. I don’t think we’ll have any short-term success with this, but we’ll see what happens. Unlike the rest of your people, we’re something of an oddity. The way we do things isn’t the same as everyone else. Who knows what’s going to work?
She laughed and headed for the mess hall. Sandwiches were something one could make on the side if one had a decent relationship with the cook. She did, so she’d take shameless advantage of that and pinch herself a good lunch.
And maybe a nap. Duncan McRae continually nagged at her to take things easy, and maybe if she slept on the mixed memories and experiences, they’d make more sense when she woke up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Working with the disgraced Navy doctor was easier than talking to Jesse Romanoff. The commodore’s mother had decided to implant Regex inside her without her permission, and she was still angry about it. She’d grudgingly—though privately—admitted the other woman had made the same decision she would have made, but it hadn’t been her call to make.
Rather than work with the person who’d done this to her, she’d settled on the gruff medic and found he suited her. He didn’t take any crap, and he didn’t give her useless information. If he thought something, that’s what he told you. Nothing more, nothing less. If you fell short, he tore a strip off you. If you did better than expected, he’d give you a reluctant nod.
There might come a day when she’d forgive Romanoff, but she didn’t see it coming anytime soon. That being the case, it was better to avoid the woman than to glare at her every time they crossed paths.
Lisa took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts away. I think we’re done for the day. Let’s go have an awesome sandwich or two.
4
Lieutenant Derek Calvo guided Hunter out of orbit and was pleased with her responsiveness. Her fusion drives reacted strongly and promptly to his orders, and the ship was answering the helm as well as it ever had. Perhaps even slightly better.
While he hadn’t been involved with the repairs, he’d heard specialists from Port Royale and New Copenhagen had come to assist in fine-tuning the fusion drives and the power plants. They’d done good work.
“Helm is responding as expected, sir,” he told Commodore Romanoff. “Shall I set course for the jump limit?”
The ship’s commander leaned back in his seat. “Actually, I think it might behoove us to perform another couple of tests of the hyperdrive before we give the independent quantum drive a run. Do you have any idea if the two might work in conjunction with one another?
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean, sir. How are you proposing we use them? Enter hyperspace and then try to engage the quantum drive? That sounds dangerous to me.”
“No. I suggest we go to the edge of where we can use the hyperdrive and have it take us out to the jump limit for the independent quantum drive. Once we reach that spot, we drop out of hyperspace and immediately jump to Port Royale. I don’t want to do anything dangerous, but something like that might save our bacon if we have to get away from somewhere faster than might otherwise be safe.”
Derek thought about that and found himself nodding. “That should be doable, sir. I suppose that brings up another question. Should we be jumping for Port Royale, or do we want to do a few jumps into the system’s outskirts to see if we can detect the fleeing Novarite warship?”
Romanoff raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think we’d be able to detect them? Regex said we can detect a ship in hyperspace about sixty light-hours out. The Novarites are traveling at twenty times the speed of light, so the window for us to spot their vessel is small. Space is big, and we don’t know if they even maintained the same course. I wouldn’t. Is this a wise use of our time?”
Derek shrugged. “It can’t hurt to try. Every day, the chances of pinning them down drop, so are we going to lose anything by trying?”
“What do we do if the independent quantum drive fails after we jump?” the flag officer asked.
“We could tag an exploration ship to come with us. If we run into problems, it can head to Port Royale and get us any needed parts.”
Romanoff pursed his lips. “I’ll have to think about it. Can we even get out to where they might be? I thought we couldn’t use the independent quantum drive for a deep space destination. That’s why we’re trapped in the cluster.”
“I might have been a bit loose with the description of deep space. We’d have to test the limits, but we’ve already seen the exploration ships go out a full light day beyond the outer planet in this system. I feel confident we can get a full light-week out without danger. Maybe more.”
Romanoff shook his head. “That’s not a lot of space to search. At twenty times the speed of light, a single hour in hyperspace gets them almost a light day. They’d have been a light-week out by the time they dropped out the first time to bleed off the radiation. By now, they’re coming up on a light month of travel. Could we make it that far?”
Derek shrugged. “Maybe. If not, the jump will just fail. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“Take us out toward the jump limit, and I’ll have an answer for you before we get there.”
Just to be sure he was ready for either eventuality, Derek plotted out a series of jumps that would execute a search pattern in the most likely area if the aliens retreated directly back the way they’d come. The Novarites had no reason to expect that anything like the independent quantum drive existed, so there was little reason for them to dodge and change course. At least not after the initial period of trying to escape any immediate pursuit.
Once they were clear, they could set course back to their home unless there was a rally point nearby. If it had been him setting up this raid, he’d have insisted they meet back up where they’d last exited hyperspace. If anyone was separated, that was a great place to meet up if things got too hot.
