Chapter 25: Travel To The Foe System

I looked at Jem, “So you want to go there as soon as possible. Can I suggest the mission is to sneak in to the moon, meet with some Baglogi and discuss with them a possible rescue?”

“Sounds about right to me,” said Jem.

“I just want to be certain that we are not going for an all out war,” I said, “because we are not equipped to win it.”

“Agreed. No war,” answered Jem. Koluna smiled.

“If we leave for the foe system, we leave this system in the hands of the automated system defences. It is possible that while we are gone, we lose the system to a large foe attack,” I said.

“I have faith in you and your defences,” said Jem.

“What if the Baglogi do not want to leave?” asked Koluna. “They have been there for about a thousand years. That moon is their home, for at least twenty generations.”

“Good point,” I said.

“Well then we say goodbye and leave,” answered Jem.

“So we sneak in, talk to the Baglogi. What if they are hostile to us?” I asked.

“We leave.”

“If we are discovered by the foe?”

“We leave.”

“I will go to make preparations for our journey,” I said.

As usual, I went to a quiet place to work out some details. By now Jem and Koluna were used to my going off to prepare things.

“Molly, as of now I am handing over control of this system to you. Ship will travel with us to the foe system. Ship, please relinquish control of the manufacturing facility and all system defences to Molly,” I said.

“Confirmed,” said Molly.

“Confirmed,” said Ship.

“Alda, Bera, Cala and Dura will travel with us to the foe system. Make sure you have full loads of data port probes,” I said.

Each of my four unmanned vessels replied “Confirmed.”

“Ship, I need your help again to develop a protocol update for the data port probes we are taking to the foe system,” I said.

“Proceed,” said Ship.

“First the return home protocol is not useful if a foe vessel is already home. I need a go away protocol. If in the foe system, it will send the vessel to a distant system selected at random, not including our system and at least ten days travel by hyperspace. The rest of the go away protocol is the same as the return home protocol. Clear?”

“Confirmed. Next?” said Ship.

“Second, I would like to create a new protocol, designate it the sleep protocol. It disables all but the life support for four days. The data port probe will then detach from the vessel and be available for re-deployment. This would allow us to use our limited number of data port probes on multiple foe vessels. Clear?”

“Confirmed. Next?” said Ship.

“Third, I would like the data port probe to inject a persistent protocol into the main computer of the foe vessel. Let’s call this the do not disturb protocol. This protocol is to remain after the data port probe has detached. The protocol is triggered whenever the foe vessel tries to attempt hyperspace travel to the Baglogi system. The action of this protocol should be the same as the go away protocol. Once a foe vessel is injected with this persistent protocol, it cannot travel to our system. Can you do that based on your knowledge of the foe computer?” I asked. It took longer to consider my request.

“Confirmed. Foe computer do not disturb protocol created. Injection protocol created,” said Ship.

“Ship, please share those with Molly. The do not disturb protocol and the injection protocol is to be rolled out to all data port probes. Once a foe vessel turns up in our system, we send it home and make it unable to return,” I said.

“Confirmed. Molly responded that she would update all data port probes in this system. I will update the data port probes for the foe system. Next?” said Ship.

“Fourth protocol I’d like is a proxy protocol. I want to make a vessel under the control of a data port probe to send out messages to other foe vessels. It may be limited to the language you are familiar with, but it needs to appear genuine. Can you come up with a way to do that?” I asked.

“Confirmed. I learned where a foe main computer keeps communication logs. Referencing the communication logs provides a broad selection of vocabulary related to messages sent vessel-to-vessel,” said Ship.

“Excellent. So create a proxy protocol. Whatever we ask it to send, it is to find the nearest translation that is suitable. Also, make me a random proxy protocol. The difference of this protocol over the last is that it can send out a random message to a randomly chosen vessel every minute. It will leave them all confused and distracted, which is what I will need,” I said.

“Confirmed. The random proxy protocol will be the fifth protocol. Any more?” asked Ship.

“I have no more right now. Can you send out the update please,” I said.

“Confirmed. Transmitting the following updates: go away, sleep, do not disturb protocol and the injection protocol, proxy and random proxy. Eighty data port probes updated,” said Ship.

“Thank you Ship. We should be able to do some serious mischief with those,” I said.

“Confirmed. Additionally the data port probes asked me to relay to you a message indicating their gratitude for the numerous updates to their protocols over these last days. Their simple logic is as follows: They exist to serve, and your updates provide them additional ways to serve,” replied Ship.