Space Voyage #1

[Janus]

Just finished up on double checking the orbital parameters for the Comsats. It looks like a go. What a chore! Unfortunately we can't use normal geostationary (Or should that be selenostationary?) orbits for them, since due to the Moon's slow rotation (sidereal period=27.32 days) these orbits are outside the Moon's Hill sphere.

For those of you who don't know, the Hill sphere is that area where a secondary body orbiting a primary body can have satellites of its own. Outside of the Hill sphere, the gravity of the primary body will pull the satellite out of orbit of the secondary body, and into orbit around itself.

 

Since this is a problem that isn't unique to the Moon, (The same will be true for any of the moons we visit that are tidally locked to their primary.), We are using a different approach. We are orbiting our Comsats so that they have an orbital period of 1/2 the moon's rotational period. This means that our ground units will have to track a comsat as it crosses the sky, and when it sets, pick up the next one which will already have risen. That's one of the things we are going to test out while we're here; to find out how long it will take the ground unit to find the next comsat. If it is too long, we may have to mount redundant antennae on the ground units that can find the second comsat before the primary array breaks contact with the first.

 

We are going to make this a real test, so the Prophesy will be out of line of sight of the landing crew when we try the switch. If the array has trouble finding the second comsat, we may be out of contact with the ground crew for a short period.

 

My job being done for a while, I decided to check out some of the rest of the ship, as I haven't had much a chance to do so up to now. I'm heading down to the rec decks as there is something there I have been curious to see.

 

Along the way, I stick my head in a few rooms. I notice a couple of pool tables, and decide to test something out. I grab a cue stick and lay it lengthwise on the felt. Sure enough, at the middle of the cue stick there is a small gap between it and the table. There had been some debate about whether the tables should follow the curve of the ship or remain flat, and I guess the "curve" camp won.

 

A few doors down, I pass the bowling alley. (yes, we really do have a bowling alley on ship; one lane only, but a bowling alley none the less.). Here there was no debate, because of it's length, the lane had to curve with the ship. I stood at the end of the lane, and wondered if I could get used to bowling what appeared to be "up hill". But this is not what I came to see, so I kept moving on without bowling practice ball.

 

I kept going until I reached one of the Agricultural modules. Once I had steped inside and gone a ways, I was struck at how good the illusion was. With the sky blue ceiling and murals of distant vistas on the wall, you could almost convince yourself that you were back on Earth. The ground still curved upward in either direction, but the feeling was more like standing at the bottom of a small depression.

 

I pushed on into a clearing, and the spell was broken. There it was. I had been down here once before, but at that time it wasn't finished and you didn't get the full effect. I walked down to its edge and stared.

 

By now I had thought I had gotten used to the curved floors of the habitation ring and pretty much had been taking it for granted, but this was different.Water is just not supposed to do that! . I stood there at what felt like the bottom of a frozen cresting wave, looking at water as it curved up away from me, feeling that, at any instant, it would become aware of its ridiculous position and come pouring down on me.

 

This was the source of another controversy. The idea of a open body of water on a spaceship seemed foolish to some. But here it was, about the size of a small pond or a swimming pool, with a sandy beach surrounding it. And speaking of swimming, you could actuallly swim it it. It's affectionally called "the ol' swimmin' hole", and is fed by what a appears to be a small brook. (which really part the complex filtering system, that keep's the water fresh).

Looking aft, I saw that the "beach" sloped higher there, a concession to the fact that the water would slosh in that direction while under thrust (Our own little version of a tide.), and of course, if need, it could be quickly drained and the water stored in tanks if we really needed to.

 

I walked around it, took my shoes and socks off and dipped my toes in the "brook". Cool, but not uncomfortably so.

 

Glancing at my watch, I decided that I should go check up on the progress of the landing crew, slipped my socks and shoes back on and headed back up to the bridge.

[ronthepon]

I was still uncertain if the agent had managed to slip the message into one of the crew members aboard the ship or not. For soon after I boarded, I recieved a heavily encrypted message warning me about the elimination of the agent.

 

However, I suspected that one of the high posted members aboard the crew might be connected and may liqidate me too if I tired to get the message across. I struggled to see for signs of the slighest so that I could expose the insider.

 

For now, most of my suspicions were centered over Pyrotex, because of the stange and nervous signs he was clearly radiating. Either that, or he was the member the agent had managed to contact. But I knew that I would have to hide my true identity until I was absolutely sure about who was the man. Any suspicion would most definitely be fatal for me.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Dozens of the little buggers had swarmed out of the hold, crawling all over me, the shop, and into the air vents and service corridors with abandon. Whereas only a few seconds ago I had been overwhelmed with the the little robotic insects, now the shop was once again empty.

 

The "buggers" where small robots, about the size of a rat with a wireless camera and some basic sensors affixed to them that had a (very) basic analog pathfinding routine. They also had a connection to The Prophesy's main computer, and a battery life of a few days to a week or so. They would crawl "out" for half that time, and then "back" for the other. Being small, and equipped with six nano-fiber legs, they could get into places the crew could never go. They sent low-res video to the main computer, which used advanced image differencing techniques to alert us to things that might be out of place. And of course, the sensors on the little crawlers could find leaks, small broken bits, and anything that might have shaken loose in the burn. They were handy little suckers, and of course an operator could tap into the video stream whenever he felt like it, provided he had the password. If they found something, they stayed put and emitted a strong beacon that the crew could use to find them and repair whatever little anomaly they had found.

 

During shakedown they had found nearly a hundred dropped bolts. Not a big deal on a surface ship, but on a spacecraft, they could turn into dangerous projectiles during a despin, or get sucked into a fan, or something worse. They'd even managed to find a tiny pinhole in an air duct, a manufacturing defect that the onboard sensors wouldn't have picked up.

 

The "crawlers" were certainly handy, although some of the crew were a bit creeped out by their cockroach-like behavior. You tended to see them scurrying into air-vents and hear them walking around behind service panels.

 

I was watching the feeds now, twelve on the screen at a time. There was of course, not much I could see - it was mostly dark in the access panels and air-ducts, and the computer was much better at detecting slightly "off-balance" readings that I ever would be, but it was fun to watch... kind of.

 

I snapped out of my virtual cockroach experience when the intercom went off behind me.

 

"Stone! We've got a problem with one of those bots you refitted for the Ag Section. It seems to have broken a plow."

 

"No big deal, I'll bring you another right now..."

 

I grabbed my tool-kit, and an extra CNT plow off the workbench, thinking to myself that it was a little odd that one would have actually broken, but attributing it, in the same thought, to a problem with the CNT nano-lathe, and headed out the door.

 

I didn't see the signal from Crawler-34 suddenly turn to static.

 

[dum dum dum!]

TFS

[Pyrotex]

Well, I have done the best I can do. There is every reason to believe that I am being watched, since the Scotland Yard dude was in fact murdered mere hours after he had arranged to slip me the warning. (I see from one of the French news feeds that he was killed by over 300 2.5 mm high velocity ceramic flechettes in the abdomen, chest and head. Yuch!) Therefore, from this point on, I shall play innocent and make no more moves that our adversaries may deem suspicious.

 

I gave BD the gist on the Moon by sound conduction of our helmets. The full story I slipped to him via a handful of toilet paper on which I had written the facts in #2 pencil. I requested that since he has certain "special" access to Earth via means that do not rely on our standard comm sats (I shall say no more) that he let Earth Prophecy Central (EPC) in on our "problem" and have them initiate some research on our computer vendors.

 

I caught Janus in the ol swimming hole and jumped in. I knew that the garden modules have very few surveillance feeds -- cause he and I designed them that way! I asked him a favor. Could he design a virus, a tiny harmless virus, that could pass from one computer to another without detection and look for abnormal execution activity? The bug we are up against is likely to be, itself, another virus, precluding any way of cleaning it out of the systems all at once. Janus gave me a big grin.

 

I managed to get TFS into one of the garden modules by "carelessly" screwing with one of his auto-plows. I led him into the corn plot and asked him if he could modify some of his "little buggers" to do some very discrete espionage. It would nice to know IF I'm being followed--and by whom. TFS had no problem. He always does love a challenge.

 

I sorely wanted to use the talents of KAC, but I don't know his background. Could he be one of the perps? I just can't risk it at this time.

 

And finally R/Pon. As defacto floor sweeper and "mascot" nobody (BUT NOBODY) would suspect his REAL STATUS on our crew, a fact that is totally tip-top secret to everybody onboard except for him, me and two other officers who I shall not mention by name. Even EPC doesn't know who R/Pon really is, chuckle chuckle. His assignment was the most sensitive and secret of all. And the most critical.

 

If he fails--then we are all as good as dead.

[Jay-qu]

I guess because you didnt come talk to me I am a prime suspect :)

[ronthepon]

My reciever blipped repeatedly, indicating motion somewhere ahead. I knew that I would be asked suspicious questions if I were found there. I also knew that this was my last proper chance to search Pyrotex's room properly.

 

Just then, I spotted the little bugger(no pun intended, I assure you). Thankfully, it was still moving in the vent, with the wire mesh exposing it to me. Before it could turn and expose me to its transmittive camera, I had to destroy it.

 

I drew the nailgun I had brought as a precaution. Then I aimed at it the best I could. I pulled the 'trigger'. Three missed the target before I could properly 'nail' it down. Hopefully the listener was not exactly concentrating of the screen of the bugger at the time.

 

I quickly proceeded to pick up the remains of the multimillion dollar crawler, and extracted the nails from its shiny body. Crawler 34. May not have been on screen while I broke it. I put it in my pocket, deciding to make it look like an accident.

 

A few more minutes of searching in Pyrotex's room proved to be inconclusive. I found nothing that would betray him explictly. Although, he had kept a .357 revolver model without any bullets. It was indeed strange.

 

Why would he keep an empty weapon like that? And why would he risk putting such a dangerous giveaway in such an open place?

 

I considered the possibility that he was being implicated. That would mean that the true suspect knew about my searching intentions.

 

I kept the .357 back in its position. Picking up the destroyed crawler, I moved out of the room.

[Pyrotex]

****. Someone has been in my room. And they left a .357 magnum under the richly embroidered bathrobe in the top drawer of my dresser. I don't touch it with my fingers, but it is definately mine. I left it in my house back in Texas six months ago! Somebody is trying to tell me that my house was searched prior to our launch from Earth orbit.

 

I check the vent for the custom bugger that should have been recording the events in my room. It's not there. I see two small holes in the vent itself. Disturbing.

 

The last lunar shuttle leaves the Moon day after tomorrow. The Moon base we will leave behind is fully automated. There is someone down there that I MUST talk to: Jay-Qu. It is imperative that I warn him BEFORE he gets back onboard! But HOW am I gonna get to the Moon's surface and back without anybody but Jay-Qu knowing?

 

Watson, this is a three-pipe problem!!!

[TheFaithfulStone]

[OPEN STREAM]

[OCTECT-8 HANDSHAKE]

-CRAWLER-34-IP-192.168.15.34-

-PROPHESY-MAIN-IP-192.168.0.2-

KEEP ALIVE----

 

BEGIN TRANSMISSION.

 

T-INDEX:1

UPDATING POSITION REPORT: CABIN-C81 (PYROTEX)

SENDING IMAGE DATA: @C-DATA

SENDING SENSOR DATA: @S-DATA

WAITING FOR REPLY . . . . . . [no anomaly]

 

T-INDEX:34

UPDATING POSITION REPORT: CABIN-C81 (PYROTEX)

SENDING IMAGE DATA: @C-DATA

SENDING SENSOR DATA: @S-DATA

WAITING FOR REPLY . . . . . . [Anomaly Detected]

 

REQUEST ANOMALY DIFF. WAITING . . . . .

 

ANOMALY IDENTIFIED. REFERENCING . . . .

 

ERROR: LEG MALFUNCTION.

ERROR: SMA ERROR

ERROR: CONTROLLER ERROR.

 

ANOMALY(2) IDENTIFIED - CONNECTIVE PIN (PART #A3450349RX2)

ANOMALY(3) IDENTIFIED - CONNECTIVE PIN (PART #A3450349RX2)

 

SENSOR ANOMALY - AIR PRESSURE CHANGING.

 

ERROR:LEG CONTROLLER 2,5,6

ERROR:CAMERA FUNCTION OFFLINE

ERROR:NETWORDSF9089xzxcl;akjw234;lzkjzlxcjvas7df987F*(&D(*F&(*D&SFasdfdfasdfzxcvzxcv

 

.... NO CARRIER

 

CRAWLER-34-PING . . . . NO RESPONSE

CRALWER-34-PING . . . . NO RESPONSE.

 

[END TRANSMISSION]

 

I stared at the print out. What did it mean? Had someone actually knocked off the little bugger? Or had it just wandered into a fan and been destroyed? It had been known to happen, they weren't particularly smart.

 

But still, the nail thing was a little odd, and the sudden change in air pressure, it could either be a fan, a something descending rapidly towards the bugger.

 

Back on the workbench Crawler-43 was disassembled while I fitted it with a wireless mike and a reprogrammed it's controller to follow Pyro's beacon around. I'd even obscured it's insignia - no one would suspect it was the same little bugger that was following him around, just that the he seemed to be kind of a strange magnet for them.

 

There was even a kind of informal competition among the crew, seeing who could spot the most buggers in a day. Current leader was Ronthepon. (Current leader was ALWAYS Ronthepon, he spent all that time lurking in corridors and cleaning stuff... creepy.) I'd ask him if he'd seen #34.

 

I needed to show Pyrotex this printout, but he wasn't in his cabin, and I couldn't find him on the ship. He may have been in the center section or near the reactor - the position tracking system we used to keep track of the crew got a little spotty down there.

 

I put the case back on 43. I'd nicknamed this little spy-bot "Julia" after Julia Childs, WWIIs most unlikely OSS agent. Plus I liked the irony - Julia Childs was 6'2" tall - my little bugger was barely six-inches end to end.

 

I turned it on but nothing happened - the robot couldn't locate the signal from Pyro's personal beacon. Odd.

 

I pinged the robot to make sure it was working, and it was. Things were getting strange on board this ship. I might need a little something out of my personal stash...

 

I put the little bot into the airduct. When ever Pyro's beacon came back on, the bot would seek him out and follow him around (at a non-suspicious distance) of course.

 

Then I went looking for Ronthepon. I wanted to ask him if he'd seen Crawler-34 anywhere.

 

TFS

[Jay-qu]

The moon was fun at first, all the excitement, the cameras, but now the novelty had long but worn off. It was time for all the boring stuff! I have been picking up and sealing sample after sample of rock dust and anything else we could find. I cant beleive I scored this job, I should be up on the ship with Pyro and Janus figuring out our satellites orbits and all the cool stuff!

 

Thats it, finally I finished! I shoved the last sample into its holding container in the lander and started heading for the platform, as I got there was a loud burst of static over my comm. Then it cleared up a bit, it was faint but I could hear a voice in there.. It was Pyro!

[IDMclean]

Oblivious to the stranger dealings of the ship, KAC found himself wandering about the ship, mostly being a lazy bum, but then again he didn't have many duties at the moment. Someone had suggested him as a Wrangler operator, guess they had liked his Rover stunt.

 

He chuckled to himself, drawing some looks as he went about. signing in with GAHD, and grabbing his own tools from his quarters, KAC would spend the rest of the day shuffling about the ship performing maintence. He continued to break into chuckles and big grins as he worked away, some silent personal joke giving him great amusement... they wouldn't know what hit'em.

[TheBigDog]

I sat alone in my quarters, leaning back in my chair and fidgeting with a small piece of metal. The past two days since the moon trip...

 

I didn't have a clue about what all had been going on. Not a minute after we stepped off the platform onto the surface, Pyro is giving me a gesture that only two guys who had downed more than a bottle of tequila in a night would both know the meaning of. I knew that about 3 billion people were watching us on the tube. We were in fact expected to make some public words, and answer some questions from the press pool who had been selected to interview us live once we landed. Lucky for us the plan went to hell. Someone, I know who but I am not telling, took control of the rover and drove it right into the middle of the pack of six lunar-naughts standing in the group. No sooner had that happened than InfiniteNow and the rich guy had seated themselves on its flat top and were being toted over to the old Eagle lander. the other four following close behind kicking up a storm of dust.

 

With all eyes of the world now dancing with that group Pyro and I were free to exchange a few words. We both switched off our mikes, including the telemetry monitors, and touched our bubble masks together. This was the first time I had noticed real tension in Pyro's face. Sure, he had been feeling a little under the weather, but the look he flashed me at that moment was enough to make me forget were in the universe we actually were. Words were quickly exchanged, but all I needed was the look. We would find a way to talk in detail later.

 

That was all I needed. This was perhaps my only opportunity to visit the moon, I would most likely spend every day of the next few years onboard the Prophesy, while the scientists got to do all the cool extravehicular stuff. And now was so distracted that the surreal joy was turning into a numbness. Shaking my head to gather myself back into the moment I bounced off to join the others for the ceremony.

 

Inside the rover was a monument. We took it out and placed it by the foot of the lander where Neil and Buzz had descended to the surface 36 years earlier. We posed for a picture, and read some speeches. But they seem unimportant now.

 

Then we moved off to the shuttle for a short hop to another moon site. This time we landed at the site Apollo 13 had selected as their primary landing site. Another PR stunt, we had our guests actually perform some of the experiments that they had prepared for all those years earlier. Then, ceremonially we passed the tools for gather rocks from the Apollo 13 crew to InfiniteNow and Jay-Qu from our crew.

 

We soon ascended back into the shuttle and returned to the Prophesy.

 

I had to figure out a way of changing our plans for the return trip to earth. But how? First thing I would do is delay them. We would linger at the moon for a couple of days, including our guests. This would give us some time to get a handle on things.

 

We launched the real science crew to the surface the next day. They would be setting up an automated base to conduct research controlled from the earth. Plus doing their own research. They were controlling the seven rovers we had sent previous to gather moon samples from every interesting corner we had found on the surveys. Racoon, Jay-Qu and a couple of redshirts made up the crew. They could stay down there for a couple of days. Racoon was interested in gathering soil samples for gardening. Jay-Qu was getting his first chance at command. We had spent the past few years grooming him for this mission. He seemed to be doing fine.

 

Dammit! Why couldn't I get it off my mind! Sabotage? What member of the crew could be planning sabotage? I had helped with the selection of every person. We had used multiple methods of vetting people and checking backgrounds. How could the be a bad guy up here? WHO WOULD WANT TO HURT MY SHIP!

 

The more I though about it, the more impossible it seemed, and the more impossible it seemed, the more it bothered me that it was probably true. Dammit! I had my trusted people, but Pyro had said to trust nobody. Did that include him? Did it include me?

 

The piece of metal kept twisting through my fingers. The clock on the wall continued to makes its slow loops, marking the passage of time spent doing nothing. Was I all right? I didn't know anymore. I had been sitting there for hours. The pieces of broken bugger along with six bullets. .357 I think. On my computer screen was a simple message. I would be given orders that I would follow, or bad things would happen. Very bad things. I could only image what that meant. And the first thing it said to do was to get Pyro back to the surface of the moon, but nobody could know I had made it happen. Not even Pyro.

 

And I sat twiddling the bullet and wondering how I would make that happen. And how I could flush out the person behind this. I would play along for now, with my eyes wide open. I had put too much of my life into this ship. I was not going to lose her. I found myself gripping the bullet tight in my fist, my nails digging into my palm. I knew what I would do. But first, to get Pyro to the moon. Did they want to play? I had a game for them!

 

BAM! My fist came down on the table as I shot up from the chair. First things first, I had to get Pyro to the moon.

 

Bill (t+3)

[ronthepon]

I knew I had made mistakes. In my attempts to make the holes look bigger, so that they would not give direct indications of nails, I had ignored the other, larger holes already present. Back in training, it would have gotten me badly kicked.

 

It turned out that someone had already shot at the thing with the .357, before I had entered. I then came, innocently believed it to be fine and shot it with my nails. I knew that the rest of the crew was becoming wary of the situation. And the suspicion could very easily fall on me, because of my easy access to everywhere on the ship.

 

Pyrotex was getting wary of me. TheBigDog was getting wary of me. I was no closer to knowing who the threat was, than I was at the commencement of my assignment. I had to work fast.

 

I waited for the moon mission I had been told about by TheBigDog. It could be an oppurtunity for me to get sure about Pyrotex.

 

But now, I had to talk to the TheBigDog. I procceded to his room, he had been there for about two hours fiddling with the very thing I wanted to hide. And he had not allowed any visitors. But he had to allow me. He knew that I was worth it.

[ronthepon]

I sprinted towards TheBigDog's chamber. The door was shut tight, wih no chance of me getting through. I knocked, then banged, then hollered. There was no doubt that I could not be heard through the thick soundproofing.

 

Just then, the door opened. With a worried and stressed face, the captain walked out. As usual, his imposing frame gave me an inferior feeling.

 

"Captain... BigDog sir!" I mouthed with medium loudness.

 

He was slightly startled to see me there.

 

"Oh, hey Ron" He said, eyeing me with hints of authority.

 

"I need to have a very important word with you, sir."

 

He looked at me with a very serious eye. This was not about more spilt radioactive beer.

 

"Make it short, I'm busy" He said.

 

"This concerns a very serious threat the ship is facing, sir. I need your time and... help." I said quickly.

 

He allowed me into his chamber.

 

Motioning me to sit, "Begin" he said.

 

I began by giving my background as briefly as possible.

 

"Oho. So thats why you were so very highly recommended for the post" He chuckled. "Carry on"

 

I continued to describe my assignment.

 

"...they are probably going to resort to blackmailing, and threatening." I was saying, "We are not sure of their true objectives or motives."

 

Now I saw in his eyes that he was holding something back. He knew something he did not want me to know. Was he the perp? No, I instantly decided. He had set too much store by the ship. He would never do this. But that meant that I was being suspected by him.

 

"Do you have any useful information for me?" I asked abruptly, hoping to have him blurt.

 

He was taken aback, but only slightly.

 

"Not much. But..." he trailed off, proceeding to show me the bullet in his hand. "This is most of what I know."

 

Most? What else did he know? Was he aware of my destroying the crawler? TheFaithfulStone has come to me earlier, asking me about bugger 34. Since then, I knew I was in trouble. He would locate it eventually and it would implicate me. So at that time I handed it to him, saying that I found it clogging Pyrotex's air vent.

Although TheFaithfulStone did not look at me suspiciously then, I could tell that he had made a good lot of others suspicious. The captain, sitting in front of me was also wary.

 

I shifted in my seat, and looked him in the eye.

 

"Do you think that I am the one?" I asked, directly and as bluntly as politeness permitted. "Do you suspect me?"

 

He did not answer at first. Finally he said "I suspect nobody. You do the suspecting here."

 

The mild hostility in his tone depressed me.

 

"Sir. You can not afford to suspect me now." I said, trying my best to win over him. "Because I already could have blown apart the ship on countless occasions before now."

 

He softened a bit. He breifly glanced at his computer console. The logo I had designed was visible brightly.

 

"You have my support for now." He muttered finally, "I will tell you what you will need to hear."

 

I was irritated. Here was a man who could not be swayed.

 

I stood up.

 

"Thanks for hearing me out." I said, realising with a falling feeling that my objective of coming here was not accomplished.

 

He asked me to summon the rich guy to his chamber. I wanted to hear what they had to discuss.

 

The bug I had planted would do the job for me.

[TheBigDog]

Damn spooks! I liked this kid. Had taken a special interest in him. I was well aware of his role on the ship - something he didn't know. And here, only 4 days into the mission he was already blowing his cover! I took a deep breath and relaxed. The rich guy would be here shortly, and I had to deal with the fact that my room had just been bugged. I couldn't know for sure, but that was the nature of the beast that had just left my personal quarters. He was still a good kid.

 

I went into my bedroom and quickly changed clothes. Then I washed my ands and arms all the way to the top. I exited by opening my door by command. I waited just 30 seconds for the rich guy to appear in the hallway.

 

We began a stroll through the ship. There were some sections that were always safer to talk. The background noise would drown out even the best external listening devices. When we got to the chicken coops I began.

 

"RG (everyone called him RG from my lead and he was clueless about what it stood for), remember that favor you had inquired about?" This had my guests immidiate attention. Back on earth he had proposed to me being able to take a second trip to the moon, without any press or cameras, so that he could enjoy it of his own accord, in private. I had denied that request. There had been some tough talk about it, but in the end he got what he paid for and it was done. I could tell immidiatly that I had his undivided attention.

 

"Of course I remember. Why do you ask?"

 

"Because I am going to give you a compromise." I picked a handful of feed pellets from a bucket and scattered them at our feet. The noise from the scratching and pecking hens filled the area.

 

"I am going to give you a chance to remote control a lander and rover. You can use them for exploration of your own interest. But I need something from you first." He was hooked. I could tell by the look on his face that he was hooked.

 

"What is it, BD?"

 

"It will cost a billion dollars. And it has to be in the next 60 minutes. We have a limited window to make this happen."

 

He was taken back by this a bit. Did I ask for too much? I held my eye contact like a cat.

 

After a deep breath he replied, "Do I have choiice of the landing area?"

 

"No, you need to work in the vicinity of the base construction. We have techs down there who can assist if anything happened to your rover without having to fly to a remote location."

 

He thought for another second, then exteneded his hand and said "Lets do it!"

 

I threw the remaining feed from my hand and gave him a firm shake and an smile. People loved to buy space stuff!

 

"OK, this is a private deal. This is between you and me and me and my crew. The only person you should be dealing with is me, and Pyro. Lets go to Command."

 

A few minutes later we had entered command. Pyro was at his accustomed position at the rail. He glanced over at us for a moment as he saw us approach.

 

"Pyro. I am going to take command for a while. I have something I want you to do with our friend here." I put my arm over his shoulder, leaned in and whispered into his ear the details of what I had promised Leaning away from him again, I continued, "Got it?"

 

Pyro's look was blank as he was processing what I had just said. He nodded and gave me the robotic "Wilco, BD."

 

"You are relieved," I said with a smile and gave him a friendly thump on the shoulder.

 

"BD has the Con," voiced Pyro for the official record.

 

"I have the Con," I repeated.

 

As Pyro was leaving, I shouted to him. "Get yourself some sleep afterword. I will leave instructions that you are not disturbed." And he and the rich guy were gone.

 

I looked down at my hand. In it was Pyro's RFID tag. I had palmed it off of him when I was whispering. He had to know it because I poked him with it. I had set everything up for him. He would be personally equipping a rover and lander for the rich guy. All he had to do was get into the cargo bay of the lander or the rover in his suit and ride it down to the surface. My assumption was that Pyro wanted to get to the surface. And that given this opportunity, he would take it. I had just one last thing to do. I dialed to RonThePon's communicator.

 

"This is RTP" cam across to me a second later.

 

"RTP, I need you in command."

 

A voice from behind me said, "Here I am." This kid was a spook.

 

"RTP, take this and pin it to Pyro's pillow in his quarters." I handed him the RFID tag.

 

"But, sir..."

 

"Don't give me any **** kid. Make it happen. And one other thing. I have a bit of an infestation problem in my room. I am goinng to exterminate later. If I find any still there I am going to find the queen and put her out the airlock. You might want to check that ahead of me. Got it?" He almost flinched. Damn, this kid was good.

 

"Wilco, BD"

 

Now, I had to wait.

 

Bill (t+4)

[IDMclean]

it was like having cable, but better. As I sat there in my quarters, eating popcorn, I watched the mechinations of crew on the screen. I noted RG and BD in the Ag module... hmmm... the chicken coops eh? can't make out what their saying... oh well. A little while later I noted that BD was on command deck, and shortly after that RG and Pyro left command and headed to the landers.

 

Something odd was going on here. I patched into the Rover through a nice little backdoor, a hole in the security that I was sure no-one would notice a mouse sneaking through.

 

IP: 192.168.0.XXX

Mask: 255.255.255.0

run rover.sim -Trick(127.0.0.1)

Establishing connection...

Complete...

Resolving Host...

The trick played merrily XD, welcome home Rover_1...

setting Permissions...

patch complete.

 

I love my little friend. I thought merrily. Need to make me one of these for the Landers

 

I would wait, silently watching with the Rover cameras, monitoring the private Com Chatter, hopefully they wouldn't resort to helmet touching.

 

I changed to Clown_The_Second, while I waited for the Lander to hit the moon, and continued my morning soaps, that were the crew, now that was odd, I swore I saw someone in Engineering... that area is restricted for safety reasons and I had checked the logs, Gahd wasn't due in their till at least 1:00pm today.

 

Backing up the recording I zoomed in on the face as it darted, moving quickly, maximum of coverage, this guy(?) was being a sneak, it showed in their movements, stance and even somewhat in their expression. It wasn't someone I knew that was for sure... Not enough to identify them. Damn.

 

well, better send this on. Somemore Address manipulations, along with removing indentifying tags and then it will end up in Jay-qu's mail box. he might be interested.

[ronthepon]

He was not going to let me in his little surprise. It irritated me, and made me pitiful. I also knew that I could not mess with him and remain spring fresh.

 

"...I have a bit of an infestation problem in my room. I am goinng to exterminate later. If I find any still there I am going to find the queen and put her out the airlock. You might want to check that ahead of me. Got it?"

 

Brr... he was creepy. He had asked me to pin Pyrotex's RFID tag to his pillow. Why? And how the hell did he know about the bug?

 

I entered the captain's room first. I carefully removed the bug from his console. Should I have done it? No, I decided. I had to know what happened aboard the ship. I could not allow myself to be bogged down so easily.

 

I turned to the camera in his room, pointed squarely at me. Naturally, TheBigDog was not going to take chances with me. I bent down and scrubbed a little patch on the floor, trying to be as regular as possible.

 

Then, I walked out of the room, and proceeded to Pyrotex's room. There was no second search needed there. I would bug it stealthily.

[ronthepon]

I was trying my best to get into the mainframe of the ship. For some reason, the firewall seemed more impregnable than ever.

 

Error(0005): You dont have sufficient access privileges

 

My patience was eroding fast, and I was practically banging on the keyboard.

 

Error(0005): You dont have sufficient access priviliges

 

I was trying all the tricks I knew, using all the assiting programs I could find. Even the lowest level of programming I could reach was too high level for my intentions.

 

Exactly why the firewall had been updated so late, I did not know. Probably they had not expected any hackers.

 

Suddenly the thought hit me. Either they had detected me earlier, or there was some other hacker onboard!

 

Both the options were too bad for me.

 

Just then, it happened. My computer froze, all programs started to close, one by one. The cursor was being manipulated, and it was not by the hardware I was using.

 

STOP YOUR ATTEMPTS, HACKER, SAVE YOUR MACHINE BEFORE I DEVOUR IT!

 

It instantly dawned on me.

Virus!

At that time, pulling the minicomp's plug was all I could do.