Dead Reckoning - Chapter Three

Major Sheli Chowdhury
From her journal
5 October

It has been said that a Marine's life is composed of long hours of boredom followed immediately by moments of sheer terror. Lately my life had taken on too much of the boredom and not nearly enough of the terror. I knew myself well enough to know that I lived for the excitement. I had hoped that this assignment would have some stimulating elements involved. I knew that there was a leak on the ship or in the program support staff and I suspected that they had already killed once. I was intrigued by Captain's offer to find the mole. There wasn't much that would make me give up my position as commander of Gamma Company of the Elite Corps Marines. EC command had been my goal since early in my career. It had not been easy to walk away with the drop commandos halfway through their incursion training, but a personal request from Captain William Brighton had drawn me back into Fleet Security. Any request from Brighton would always receive the same response from me. I owe that man.

When I met Captain at the transfer station he had briefed me on the situation and his suspicions. Currently, there seemed to be more suspicions than hard facts. I had been aboard for two weeks now, and was pretty sure that I had isolated the leak, information-wise at least. Having set up over a dozen different information screens and computer algorithms monitoring all traffic, as well as intra-ship communication. One of the privileges afforded to a Marine Elite Corps Major, who happened to be the security officer of a top secret project ship, was that I had access to just about every byte of data that moved around on Pathfinder. Now, it was time to track it back to a person. I continued to review logs and visual sensor data when there was a knock on the door. I grabbed my uniform tunic from the hook behind my desk and slid it on.

The WSMC uniform was a thing of beauty that emanated the deadly violence Marines were known for. Jet black with slashes of crimson across the chest and back and the blood stripes down the left leg to remind an officer that their blood was for the Corps to spend if need be. Rank insignias on both sides of the collar in gold or silver, depending on the rank.

Usually, in a combat unit, the right shoulder would have the tabs of the unit insignia in the same crimson red. This tab was to remind the Marine that the unit came before self, that your blood was your unit's blood, and that the units' collective blood was the Corps'. A Marine in fleet security had no insignia, to remind them that everyone else came first in every situation. Marines take security very seriously, as there is no other security on any Warner Space Naval vessel. It was a uniform designed to impress and intimidate. As a member of the WSM Elite Corp, my right shoulder tab held a gold sunburst with crimson chasing. The Elite Corps was the best of the best. The regular corps had a standing joke about the EC. The joke went that the sunburst chased with crimson was a warning to those around an EC. Mess with this Marine, and the middle of a supernova was a better place to hang out. From the EC's perspective the best part was that it wasn't a joke.

I straightened my tunic and added my best 'security officer' scowl and opened the door ready to intimidate. Lt. Commander Leung recoiled slightly as the door slid open so either the uniform or the scowl was working. She looked slightly nervous.

"Er, …I found this while going through some logs," Leung said handing a datachip to me. I sat down in my desk chair.

I said nothing as I loaded the chip and pulled the diagnostic up on my vid screen. I never took my eyes off of Leung, but Leung was focused on what was coming up on the screen, for all outward appearances agitated and probably a little afraid. It must be the scowl, I decided.

"See, here, this string, that is non-Warner encryption. I ran it against my engineering database to see if it recognized the family string of the algorithm base. It didn't. That means it isn't one of the friendly Families either, meaning there is no single commissioned piece of equipment on Pathfinder that should be capable of producing it."

"I am aware of the significance of this, Lt. Commander. You were right to bring this to me," I said absently as I looked more closely at it and focused a little less on Leung. What I didn't say was that I had just seen this encryption pattern. This was a different message than the others, though, and maybe there would be more clues as to the identity of the leak. "Who else have you spoken with about this," I asked curtly. No sense in relying too heavily on the scowl, I thought.

"No one. When I saw it, I backed out of the diagnostic and sealed it off so that no one else who came across it would see any trace of its discovery, and I came straight to you. I had my standard security training about a year ago at the beginning of this project, and that was as close to protocol as I could remember," Leung responded absently as she stared intently at the vid screen data load. Leung was now following multiple strands of code on the screen.

"There!" Leung yelled pointing to a small section of log string. "That's an emanation code from a relay switch. That encrypted message must have gone from there."

"Indeed," I said as I saw the case about to break. Leung had turned quickly to look at me. I was busy pulling up vid files and calling up other sub-routines to search security footage around the access areas at an interval around the timestamp.

Got you, I thought. Leung jumped. Maybe I said it out loud. I stood and grabbed her arm.

"You will wait right here. Do not attempt to com anyone or to leave. I will be back presently. If all goes well, I will make sure that Captain Brighton knows that it was you who helped me find a leak in Pathfinder's security. Sit down, get comfortable, have a drink, I don't care, but don't leave this room. Is that clear, Lt. Commander Leung?"

"Well… yes Major, but I don't think it is necessary to--"

"I do," I cut her off quietly but firmly.

"Yes, Major. I will be here waiting for you," Leung said, sitting down in the chair at the vid screen.

"Good," I said as I quickly keyed in codes that blanked the screen, activated the security monitoring of the office and dumped everything to the datachip that Leung had brought with her. I pulled the chip and went out the door.

xxxxx

"You rang, Major?" Aichele said quietly as he and Jill Burton came around the corner to meet me in the hallway outside the bridge. I nodded at them and was happy to see both already had weapons drawn and formed up on the door.

"Yeah, Gunny, I did. There's an LT sitting at Com in here that has been leaking info to one of the other Families," I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the bridge door. "I talked to the captain to tell him we were arresting one of his officers. Captain just went on the bridge, so he's keeping an eye on him for us. Let's move."

We went through the door quickly and smoothly. Training took over and I noticed every single person on the bridge as I quickly inventoried, threat-assessed, and dismissed them all. Eric Aichele moved around the far left side of the bridge while Burton moved quickly down the right side. Both of them swept the bridge with weapons as they moved into position. I had my sidearm out, but not raised. "Lt. Rex Jhonsruud," I said loud enough that the noise of the bridge evaporated, "you are under arrest for suspicion of treason to the Warner Family Space Navy. Stand and place your hands behind your head. Everyone else, sit down at your duty stations until we finish here."

Lt. Jhonsruud went white in his seat and he started to stammer that he was outraged. He looked to the captain and to Commander Teach, where he saw no sympathy. Teach did sound upset, though, but I couldn't spare him a glance. He had stood when we entered the bridge and was apparently angry at our presence. I motioned with my weapon that Rex had better stand up. He did, slowly bringing his hands up behind his head. I moved in to place wrist locks on him, holstering my sidearm as I went behind him while pulling the wrist locks out.

Without warning, Jhonsruud spun and lashed out at me. Rex was a big man, young and strong. However, he was far from the fastest man that I had ever dealt with. As quickly as he had spun on me, it wasn't quickly enough. I grabbed his leading hand and twisted it as I pulled him to the ground. He found himself on the floor with a dislocated shoulder for his efforts. His scream of pain was chilling to those on the bridge.

Burton and I escorted him out, an arm locked under each shoulder as his wrists were bound behind his back. His left shoulder, the side I chose, was out of its socket and looked grotesque as Aichele followed us off the bridge.

"Captain, was this necessary?" Teach hissed under his breath to Brighton as the doors closed behind us.