“You’d better be referring to the fleet’s situation.”
He eyed her, wondering if he should admit he was also talking about personal issues.
Her eyes blazed as she stared back. “Don’t you
dare
pity me.
I
left
you
.” Rione spun on one heel and walked quickly away.
THE atmosphere inside the conference room was different this time. The tension wasn’t from politics or worry about the Syndics. It was focused inward, with every virtual commanding officer’s presence eyeing those around it as if hoping to see clear signs of who had tried to sabotage the fleet. But eyes also kept going to Lieutenant Iger, who was looking uncomfortably out of place, and to Victoria Rione, who sat so silent and expressionless that she might have been carved from stone.
Geary stood up, and all eyes went to him. “You all know the reason for this conference. I’ve received reports from all of your ships and confirmed that every single one had been sabotaged by the placing of a malware worm in the jump-drive systems. The great majority of those worms would have simply kept your ships from jumping the next time it was ordered and kept your systems off-line for some time while it was neutralized. Three ships, the battle cruisers
Dauntless
,
Furious
, and
Illustrious
, had worms which would have allowed the ships to jump but then stranded them in jump space forever.” He paused to let that sink in.
“Someone intended removing me from command of this fleet by destroying a warship of the Alliance and her crew. Someone attempted also to destroy
Furious
and
Illustrious
.” Geary glanced at Captain Badaya, whose face was rigid with anger. “Whoever did it knew the daily changing security access codes for the system filters and had access to the means to transfer the malware to every ship in the fleet. That means it had to be the work of individuals wearing the uniform of the Alliance. This is not dissent, this is not debate or professional differences or the act of someone loyal to the Alliance. It’s the act of traitors. The act of cowards. Has anyone found any information that might help identify them?”
He ran his eyes over the long, long virtual table, meeting the gaze of each commanding officer in turn. He almost lingered on Commander Gaes but remembered in time not to. She’d been a critically important informant this time, and he couldn’t afford to risk compromising her.
Lorica
had been one of the ships that followed Captain Falco, and apparently whoever was continuing to conspire against Geary thought Gaes was still mutinous enough to be part of the plot. Either that or Gaes had managed to maintain enough contacts among the plotters to discover what they were doing.
Captain Caligo and Captain Kila didn’t betray anything other than the same feelings shown by others.
It was impossible to tell if any of the faces reflected guilt rather than anger or fear. Geary gestured toward Iger. “Lieutenant Iger is the senior intelligence officer on
Dauntless
. He has some information regarding Co-President Rione.”
The commanding officers of the ships of the Callas Republic and the Rift Federation gaped at Rione, their expressions shocked, but she unbent enough to give them a reassuring look.
Lieutenant Iger spoke in his briefing voice. “I was made aware of unauthorized security software modifications aboard
Dauntless
that implicated Co-President Rione.”
“Why is she sitting here?” Captain Armus of
Colossus
demanded. “She should be—”
“Let Lieutenant Iger finish,” Geary broke in, his voice like ice.
Iger continued as if totally unaware of any interruption. “Co-President Rione volunteered to be questioned inside a Class Six interrogation cell. She was asked a series of questions to determine if she had actually been involved in those or any other software modifications, and registered as absolutely truthful in her denials of any knowledge or involvement. ”
Silence reigned for a moment, then
Warspite
’s commander spoke up. “Class Six? Is there any way to deceive or mislead a Class Six?”
“Specialized training can suggest ways to avoid answering questions in deceptive ways, sir, but I and my personnel have been trained to identify when someone is using those techniques,”
Lieutenant Iger replied. “We might not be able to pin someone down into saying what we want, but we can tell if they’re evading the real question so they don’t register as deceptive. Co-President Rione did not employ such methods. Her answers were direct and unambiguous.”
“So, what does that mean? Someone tried to frame Senator Rione?”
“That would be my conclusion, yes, sir.”
“That’s treason, too.”
Warspite
’s commanding officer leaned back, shaking his head in disbelief.
Geary leaned forward slightly and spoke louder than he usually did. “I’ve known ever since assuming command of this fleet that some officers did not approve of my command, that some have spread rumors about me, that some have tried to generate opposition to me. But this is not just politics over who commands this fleet. Someone tried to destroy three major warships. The ships your friends and comrades are serving on, the ships that have fought beside you. I don’t care how much any of you might have been involved in speaking against me in the past, nor at this point do I care about past actions. This isn’t about me. Whoever did this was striking at the fleet as well, and at ships I wasn’t present on. If any of you have been rendering support in either passive or active form to the people behind this, please rethink your allegiances. I promise in front of all of you that anyone who comes forth with information regarding this treasonous sabotage will not be subjected to disciplinary action as long as they were not actively part of the creation and planting of these worms or were not aware of their content and intended use.”
Silence again, but then he hadn’t really expected anyone to leap up, point a dramatic accusing finger, and cry, “Captain X did it!” That would have been a nice outcome in a work of fiction, but things just didn’t resolve themselves so neatly in the real world.
Captain Badaya spoke for the first time. “Someone willing to kill Alliance personnel and destroy Alliance ships. We lost a shuttle before we left Lakota to a supposed accident. ” He glared around the table. “A very rare sort of accident, but believable in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing. Captain Casia and Commander Yin died on that shuttle, and I now suspect they died because of fear that they would identify some of those with whom they were working against Captain Geary. Anyone involved in this should consider that whoever is leading the effort is willing permanently to silence possible weak links. If you have to be caught, I’m certain that the fleet commander will have you shot. If you remain silent, you run the risk of being silenced forever by your coconspirators. The only chance you have is to reveal yourselves.”
Badaya subsided, his angry gaze traveling around the table.
“Why would anyone do this?”
Intrepid
’s commanding officer asked. “Everyone knows some people have been unhappy with Captain Geary being in command. I had my own doubts. But he’s proven himself. Most of the doubters, myself included, are now very pleased to be led by him.”
Captain Duellos answered. “You may have stated the reason for this. Those responsible can no longer hope to convince this fleet’s ship captains to oust Captain Geary from command. Their only chance of success is to eliminate Captain Geary.”
“But anyone even suspected of murdering him and the crews of three other warships—!”
“Consider what would have happened if these worms hadn’t been found.
Dauntless
,
Furious
, and
Illustrious
would have disappeared into jump as if their drives had worked normally. The rest of us would have found the worms preventing our jump drives from working, and jumped as well once our systems were back online. This would have taken a few hours at least. We would have assumed that for some reason the worms found in our systems didn’t work on the three ships that jumped as scheduled. When we arrived at Wendig, the other three ships wouldn’t be there awaiting us as we’d expected. No trace of them would ever be found, no evidence that their jump drives had been infected with a very different worm from that in the rest of the ships.”
Commander Neeson nodded, his face like granite. “No evidence of the deliberate destruction of three warships. Very neat. Most of us would be grief-stricken by the disappearance of the three ships and Captain Geary, but we’d have to choose a new fleet commander. I wonder who would have stepped up to fill that job?”
“What about Numos?” Captain Armus asked.
Geary shook his head. “In light of the seriousness of the attempted sabotage against this fleet, I’ve ordered that Captain Numos be interrogated for any knowledge of whoever is behind this. I suspect, however, that he won’t be able to tell us anything.”
“Why not?” Badaya asked.
“Because
Orion
didn’t have the same worm as
Dauntless
,
Furious
, and
Illustrious
. Numos wouldn’t have a prayer of being accepted as fleet commander, but if Numos did know who was behind the loss of those three ships, he’d be able to blackmail those individuals. They would’ve tried to get rid of him.”
Rione gave Geary a surprised look, then nodded to him with a trace of a satisfied smile, like a teacher whose pupil has revealed unexpected attention to lessons.
“Numos tried to leave Captain Falco to swing,”
Warspite
’s captain agreed. “You think he’s not actually connected to whoever planted the worms?”
“I think those people might have been willing to use Numos, ” Geary explained, “but that they wouldn’t have trusted him.” He gave another look down the virtual length of the table. “Every ship is making additional scrubs of its systems to ensure that there’s nothing else dangerous hidden among them. When we have a clean bill of health reported for all ships, we’ll jump to Wendig. Before we jump, I strongly urge anyone who knows anything to inform me or someone else in authority whom they trust. Our enemies are the Syndics. Not each other. Some individuals in this fleet have forgotten that, and now they’re on the side of the Syndics.”
Captain Badaya nodded firmly. “
Anything
Captain Geary chooses to do will have the backing of this fleet.”
A flicker of unhappiness crossed Duellos’s face, but he said nothing.
For his part, Geary knew he couldn’t afford to offend Badaya’s powerful faction right now, not when he had another internal danger to this fleet to worry about. “May our actions remain those which our ancestors will look upon with favor,” Geary stated carefully. “As we approach the time for jump to Wendig, I’ll inform all ships whether the jump will take place as scheduled.”
Images of commanding officers vanished in a flurry, Lieutenant Iger gratefully hastening out of the room, with Co-President Rione following haughtily. Captain Desjani, her eyes on Rione’s back, went out as well.
One unexpected figure remained. Geary checked the identification. Lieutenant Commander Moltri, commanding officer of the destroyer
Taru
. “Yes, Commander?” Geary asked.
Moltri swallowed, then averted his eyes as he spoke. “Sir, I think I know how the worms were propagated through the fleet and were able to bypass security.”
“Were you involved in that?” Geary kept his voice calm with some effort. Moltri seemed not only frightened but also extremely embarrassed, which didn’t make sense.
Lieutenant Commander Moltri shook his head very quickly. “No, sir. Not . . . not knowingly.”
He closed his eyes, visibly nerved himself, then focused on Geary and spoke steadily. “There are
. . . certain programs that get passed around to those . . . interested in them. Because of their nature, they have to be passed through means that avoid fleet security checks. There’s a whole subnet within the fleet that handles those programs covertly.”
Pulling out his data pad, Moltri tapped a few commands, his face grim and his hand shaking.
“I’ve sent a sample to you, sir. Your security personnel will be able to use it to identify the means by which it was being passed. I swear, sir, that I had no idea that someone might use the same means to propagate a dangerous worm, but I think that’s what must have happened.”
“Thank you, Commander Moltri,” Geary stated. “I’ll take a look at it. You may have done this fleet a great service.”
Moltri gritted his teeth in what seemed to be pain. “Please don’t reveal my connection to the content of what I sent you, sir. I’m not proud of it. Not at all. I’ve never really hurt anyone. I swear.”
“I understand.”
“I know there’ll be some disciplinary action, sir. Please, don’t let the full reason be part of the record.”
Geary, increasingly disturbed by Moltri’s distress and statements, spoke evenly. “If it’s not germane, it won’t be. Thank you, Commander.”
Moltri’s image vanished as if the man were fleeing. Geary checked his message queue and found what Moltri had just sent him. He called up the program in it, then stared, his stomach roiling, at the images displayed. No wonder Moltri and the others interested in this kind of thing had distributed it by undercover means. Hastily shutting off the program, Geary called Captain Desjani and her systems-security officer.
Desjani hadn’t gotten far and was back quickly, but it took the security officer a few minutes to get there. Geary offered his data unit. “Take a look.”
The security officer seemed first outraged, then both sickened and resigned. “They keep finding new ways to spread this stuff, sir. May I forward it to my address?” Geary nodded. “I’ll be able to use this message to locate and monitor the subnet it was originally sent on,” the security officer advised.
“Will you be able to tell if that’s how the worms were spread?”
“We’re unlikely to be able to prove it, sir, if this subnet is typical of what I’ve seen before, but I’d lay bets that this is what was used. This subnet would have been set up to access every ship in the fleet.”