章 81: The Phantom Menace

Tachibana, with a drone swarm on his back and a mothership in his front, was accelerating continuously. He could not stop anymore; the moment he stopped accelerating would bring his death, and he knew it.

"Do you think maybe we can turn around and try to shoot some of the drones while-"

"No." I stopped Mei. "That is not the plan, and if we do that, they will blow up Lodos into little pieces. Neither Tachibana nor any of us would survive that scenario."

*beep beep beep*

"The mothership is firing missiles." said Mei.

"Come on, Tachibana!" I said. "I believe in you..."

Tachibana's shuttle was agile, but the missiles were even better. He had to rely on countermeasures and smart maneuvers to evade them. And he did so successfully, evading the salvo of missiles. Soon after that, he quickly zipped past the mothership while it was firing it's point defense weapon systems. According to the plan, he now had to keep accelerating until he was in relative safety.

"Our situation, Mei?" I asked, as the ultimate goal was the safety of Lodos.

"We put quite some distance and relative speed between us and the swarm. I don't think they will turn around to chase us anymore." she said. "I will keep accelerating nonetheless."

"Great." I said. "Off to Earth!"

Both Lodos and Tachibana's shuttle made it away in time, safely. The plan was a success. We could feel a bit safer now.

"Good work Mei." I said.

"I am tired..." she said. "May I go get some rest?"

"Please." I said. "You did good, you deserve some."

Mei left the cockpit. Soon after her, I left too, in order to take a look at the data banks again. An empty bridge wasn't a security problem, the ship 'knew' who had permission to use certain equipment or enter certain decks.

After a short walk, I entered the electronics and automation center to see the data banks sitting at a corner. I stared at them thoughtfully, and they stared back.

"They must have been tampered with." I said. "They must have left the banks there deliberately, so we would pick them up and... oh no."

I quickly ran back to the bridge, sat on the command chair and used the helmet.

"Did they upload anything?" I murmured. It occurred to me that something that could bypass all layers of Federation electronic and cybersecurity could transfer malicious software in secrecy.

"Why am I even looking?" I asked myself. "Let's just purge everything and reset to defaults..."

The computer rebooted after some operations, restoring it's original state from the permanent read-only (fail-safe) memory. The ship's computers then happened to be using less resources than before.

"Something changed..." I thought. "The computer stopped doing something, but what was it?"

I couldn't think of anything for a while, and got frustrated.

"If I could compare temporary-memory images... there."

I tried to find the differences between the previous and current temporary-memory images of the computer systems. The main difference was in the communication system.

"Comms? But what was it doing in the first place?"

I went through all the communication logs, and found an odd target address, repeating regularly every few seconds. This time, targeting it manually and deliberately, I figured out what was going on.

"You sneaky..."

Lodos' security had been breached, and she was sending her position and velocity data to the enemy mothership. Luckily, with my interruption, this had come to an end before it was a lethal mistake. I sighed in relief.

"Almost got ourselves killed, eh?"

My thoughts suddenly turned to the data banks. They were no longer looking so innocent.

"Oh please don't tell me..."

I walked over to the data banks, searching for any sort of device that could be used to track Lodos. I couldn't find one, but I was still determined to throw them away. It was a risk I could not afford to take.

*click*

I turned back towards the sound. A Federation Navy officer was holding a gun towards me.

*BAM!*

I didn't even get to talk to him. He was now laying on the floor, completely still. Mei checked her own six, and came into the room.

"You- Wh- What is going on here!?" I asked in shock and confusion.

"My gut feelings work sometime." Mei said. "You are welcome."

"How in the-"

"I did start to notice weird behaviours on people, especially after what happened to Nuan." Mei said. "There is something weird going on with people."

"Nuan's case was special, but this..."

"Was it though?" Mei asked. "Anyway, I think I know what you have in mind. Let me help you."

In just under a minute, everyone had gathered around the scene.

"Mr. President, are you okay?"

"Where did that gunshot came from?"

"Lieutenant is shot! Medic!"

"Admiral, the situation-"

"Everyone shut up!" I yelled, and all the noise stopped. "We've had a security breach aboard this ship. Lodos has been targeted by malicious software, and has sent it's position and velocity to the enemy for some time. The virus has been gotten rid of. However, this is not a guarantee for our safety. I want everyone to be on the lookout for possible electronic attacks or tracking devices."

"What about Lieutenant Williams?" someone in the crowd asked.

"Attempted assassination to the President of the Republic of Mars." Mei said.

The noises started again. Suddenly, the Vineura unit on the killed lieutenant's head started creating electric arcs across itself, and caused a small fire. The fire has been almost instantly extinguished, but it raised some questions.

"Listen!" I shouted. "I'm ordering everyone to disable, or better, remove their Vineuras. This is the second case of a malfunction we've encountered."

Everyone went ahead and disabled their Vineuras. Almost. Two crew members we've previously rescued from spaceship Revolution has instantly dropped down to the ground, laying unconscious.

"Doctor!" I yelled. "Get some personnel and transfer them to the medical bay!"

"Yes, sir." the doctor said, making himself visible in the crowd.

After the bodies were taken care of, Mei and I continued our job to throw the data banks out into space.

"Do you think what I'm thinking?" I asked her.

"About what?"

"About Vineuras." I said. "They are not simple electronic devices, they are embedded surgically. In order for someone to use this technology, they must trust the company very well."

"Yes." Mei said. "The company that designed and manufactured Vineura is one of the most trusted ones. What are you getting at?"

"Vineuras have been one of the safest devices so far, since their introduction to the human civilization. That is correct." I said. "But then, we get two malfunctions one after the other..."

"Suspicious indeed. But?"

"Someone must've found a way to weaponize them." I said. "I don't know how it was done, but... People might be in grave danger. Once we arrive on Earth, I want to pay a visit to the company."