So, I'm in the process of uploading and publishing the manuscript but I hit a snag with B&N. They are lagging horribly. Still loading... (I've had 2 games of spider solitaire)
Anyway, while I wait, here is another and most likely the last snippet:
Minox IV
“So, you are
telling me there is nothing, not a damn thing you can do to fix the
situation?” President Ramhorn, leader of the Tauren Confederation demanded as
he leaned on his fists and stared at his cabinet ministers. “That is
unacceptable!” he fumed, nostrils flaring in barely suppressed rage.
It had been
several weeks since the message from the human President Irons and the sudden
cessation of their ansible. The leading experts in ansibles had no idea how
he'd done it initially.
Now they knew
something, but only because the A.I. network monitoring the system had reported
a major security breach.
He had been
frightened, angry, and shaken by the demonstration of power by the humans. That
they had managed to tap into his people's ansible network and pass on a message
like that said a lot about their abilities … and a lack of security on the part
of his own people. It gnawed at him; if they were deficient there, what else
were they going to find lacking?
“The ansible
hardware is toast,” Director Ren stated, voice flat. “We now believe they used
viruses to get past our computer security and into our network. They triggered
the self-destruct packages once they passed on their message,” he said. He
shook his head. “There is no way to get the hardware back online. The muons are
gone.”
The president
turned a look on him. “Gone?”
“Gone. If a split
muon touches something else, they poof, are gone out of existence. The hardware
is cooked too. Centuries of investment gone. As an act of war, it was a pretty
damn good one. It is hurting us on a lot of levels,” he said.
The other cabinet
ministers winced but didn't dispute that.
“At the moment,
my people are working on getting new ansibles going to nearby star systems. It
is a process though, and it will take time to get each ansible to its location.
The further away they are, the longer the time it will take to get them there,”
the communication director said.
Director
Blacksight winced internally. Ren was new to the cabinet, his predecessor had
been the female Flax. She had wilted under the president's raging tantrums and
resigned just before he'd publicly fired her for the fiasco.
She had taken the
brunt of the blame and heat for the fiasco but it wasn't all her. His people
had quietly determined that the enemy had performed the hack by getting into
the ansibles in their space. They didn't know which ones specifically, but it
explained how Irons had managed to get into the network at all.
What he'd done
before he'd made his presence known was keeping the director up a lot at night
lately. How long he'd had access was another big question.
“Obviously our
cyber security was lacking,” Ren stated.
“Obviously,” the
president stated as he sat down in his chair heavily.
“We're working
with the best techs to overhaul it and find where the enemy got in to prevent
it from happening again. During this process, we've run into some nasty things
that the Feds left behind in our net.”
“Ah?” the
president asked, eyeing him coldly.
Ren was made out
of sterner stuff than his predecessor. The president was slowly reshaping his
cabinet to an all-male one. He had made it quietly known to his closest
supporters that he thought cows were weak and would wilt under the stress of
the job.
In truth they
just got tired of his tantrums and blame game Director Blacksight thought. It
was why he was in the room instead of his boss Admiral Clear Sight. She'd
excused herself by “being stuck in transit” to get out of the meeting.
“We are still
trying to get a handle on the level of presentation and the data stolen,” the
communications director said, shooting a look to the Director of Intelligence.
“We don't know their level of penetration into the military and intelligence
side. But during the process of investigating and repairing the damage, our
cyber security experts have run into a series of viruses and bots. They were
left in our network …,” he paused as the president sat up straight and glared
at him. “To, ah, try to further penetrate our systems and do more sabotage.”
“You intercepted
them though?” the president asked.
“Yes, sir. And we
now know what they look like so our A.I. are scrubbing their firewalls and
looking for more. We are introducing cyber vaccines to protect against similar
attacks in the future.”
“Ah. But you
can't guarantee you got them all?” the chief of staff asked carefully.
“We can barely
detect them. We're working on it, but we're going to have to go through all
branches as well as the civilian side to make sure we cleared it all out. We
are working with cyber security both in the government and in the civilian
sector to take steps against it.”
“Fix it. Fast,”
the president growled.
Director
Blacksight nodded. The president turned to him. “What did they get?”
“We don't know.
We do know that they gained access through the ansibles outside of the
Confederation.”
The president's
nostrils flared and his eyes lit with rage. “Your shop I believe?” he asked
coldly.
“Yes, Herd Leader.
One or more of their ships must have intercepted a signal going to an ansible
platform. From there they located it and hacked it.”
“I see.”
“They are very
good. How they got around our security is still being investigated as is how
they got in so deep. The ansibles outside the Confederation are, or I should
say were, extremely limited on bandwidth. Obviously, they found a way to get
around that.”
“Obviously,” the president
said scathingly. He sat back and drummed his massive fingers on the edge of the
table.
The director
didn't hold his breath or squirm. He was a professional political animal; he
knew better than to show signs of weakness. He'd owned up to his part of the
failure but refused to be cowed or surrender. If he did, he'd be out on his ass
or worse before the meeting was over.
The president
continued his scowl. The intense frustration he emanated was palatable to all
in the room. He wanted to call them incompetent but he knew better. He could
feel some of the frustration emanating from them too.
“Obviously, we
can't deny we've suffered a major setback,” he said evenly. “The war that was
to unite our people and push our boundaries out is now an issue.” He turned to
the admiral.
“We have had a
major command and control setback. Not just with command and control of our
forces and bases but also with gathering intelligence in the Federation,”
Admiral White Skin stated evenly. The admiral was a rare albino breed of
Tauren. He was a brilliant strategist and politician and had managed to
outmaneuver Broken Tooth and others for the coveted CNO slot. “We are trying to
compensate with couriers but there is a major time lag involved with using
them. We were also very short on them to begin with so we are pressing
destroyers into service where we have to.”
The president
nodded.
“At the moment,
we know that Admiral Hard Nose has taken 77 and moved on to Triple Threat with
the intent of taking it and then holding it until we give the go-ahead to move
on.” He used his implants to trigger the holographic emitter.
The lights dimmed
and the star chart of the sector came up on the table in front of them. A
blinking icon where jump lines on their eastern border was shown.
“We have
consolidation and follow-up forces moving into that area now, but they may have
been stalled by the ansible strike,” the admiral stated.
The president
looked ready to demand if he knew or not but stopped himself. He knew that the
admiral did not know so asking the stupid question would have made him look
foolish.
“In the north,
Admiral Ela is taking the long road to 95 to ambush the enemy's pirate hunting Task
Force 4.4. After that he is to check in and then move south to secure the north
and consolidate with Hard Nose.”
The blinking
icons indicated the locations for a moment and then more appeared in the southeast.
“In the southeast,
Admiral Brewster was moving out ahead of Admiral Broken Horn. His last report
was that he was taking 80 while Admiral Broken Horn had just departed Purple
Nights. The main battle line has several major capital ships so they are slow
in hyperspace.”
The president
grimaced but nodded.
“I have forces
moving to support all three fronts, including carrier task forces. All are of
course out of contact,” the admiral stated with a shake of his head. “I
received a single courier from the north checking in but that is it at the
moment.
“There is a spot
of good news,” Ren interjected. All eyes turned to him. “I was reminded of the
war front last night. We moved some of our spare ansibles in the direction of
the eastern and southeastern fronts in preparation of supporting our forces in
the field if they were out of contact with an existing platform.”
“Go on,” the
president ordered.
“We checked,
those ansibles were not harmed. So, there are sixteen ansible cores moving in
the direction of the fronts. I'd like to send a courier to run the transport
down and have them drop off the ansibles in the Confederation instead.”
The president sat
up straighter and nodded. “Good. Forgot to mention that earlier?” he demanded.
“Yes, Herd Leader.
We moved on rather quicker than I expected,” the communication director said,
indicating his notes.
“Anything else I
should know?”
“Not at this
time. I do need your authorization to stop the transports.”
“You have it,”
the bull growled with a nod. “Get that going now.”
“Yes, Herd Leader.”
“We have another
issue with the lack of the ansible and not just the political issues—the economy,” Cron, the Director of the Treasury, stated flatly.
“We are already staring down a recession,” he warned.
There were quiet
grunts around the room. “We went from gaining new markets and gaining new
customers and supplies to this. It is going to hit hard.”
“We're working on
getting the ansible up,” Ren stated defensively.
“The longer it is
down, the harder this will hit our economy. We may be looking at a bad
recession,” Cron said again.
“I've frozen the
markets to keep the stampede to a minimum. Cooler heads will prevail.”
“That is a temporary
fix. It is staving off the inevitable slide as hedge funds and others wait to
sell off what they can to protect themselves,” Cron warned. “Once that happens,
the others will follow and it will be a cascade effect.”
“Then we will
trigger another shutdown. A cooling-off period.”
Cron nodded and
flapped his ears. “If this goes on too long, it will hit the budget like a bomb
as well.”
“At the worst
time in a war too,” Admiral White Skin said just loud enough to be heard.
“Damn, Irons timed it good.”
“You don't have
to admire him,” the president growled.
“I can admire a
foe and respect him. Not taking him seriously will lead to disaster. It is what
led us to this point to begin with,” the admiral stated.
The president's
eyes flared and then narrowed. Director Blacksight's face was expressionless.
Other professional politicians around the table had their own masks up. “What
do you mean?” the president demanded.
“We need to
reevaluate the political calculus involved,” the admiral said flatly. “We built
our strategic picture on a series of assumptions that are now invalid.”
“For instance?”
“We didn't
believe that the Federation would react in time. Now they have struck back and
hard. We also believed that they would fold once we were on the warpath and
took over the sector. Now that assumption is invalid.”
The president
scowled.
“I'm afraid the
quick and clean war that we thought we had is about to become anything but,”
the admiral said quietly.
“It gets worse,”
Director Blacksight said, surprising even himself. The president's eyes cut to
him. He cleared his throat and then continued. “Irons indicated they knew about
our xenophobia and final solution plans. That indicates a level of penetration
we didn't anticipate. Couple that with the surprise attacks and it will have a
different impact than we expected.”
“What do you
mean?”
“When the
strategic simulations were run, we anticipated their morale would crack and
break when they were overwhelmed. Now we know that isn't true. Worse, we handed
them a major reason to fight. Fight, and fight hard, pulling out all the stops
to find a way to win.”
“How can they
handle a war on two fronts?” Cron demanded.
The director
shrugged. “They are doing it anyway. Our last intelligence about the war with
the pirates was that it was winding down. They had political issues to deal
with. Our attack and our final solution will unite them behind Irons again and
he'll use that.”
“Did the envoy
ship get out?” Cron asked. “Did you get anything from them?”
“No idea,”
Blacksight replied. “We can't contact the ansibles and don't know. They might
have stopped the ship at any point in her journey. With the ansible network
down, they can't report in on anything they picked up in their intelligence-gathering
mission either.”
“Frack.”
“It gets worse,”
Admiral White Skin said humorously. They looked to him again. He flapped his
ears. “We can't get at their vitals to stop their ship building. They have a
long voyage here, but they are now committed to it. We have at least a year or
more to get to the clusters to put the cork in the bottle. But we have to do it
with a large fleet before they send reinforcements. With our coordination down,
that is questionable. Factor in any resistance from the forces they have in the
sector now and it may not be possible.”
“Then make it
possible,” the president said firmly as he got up and stormed out.
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