Eric Olafson, Midshipman 77

Part 77: INTERLUDE: ADMIRAL DENT

The short Admiral leaned back in the high backed chair that had an extra thick seat cushion so he looked as tall as the others sitting there; that his feet did not reach the floor was something no one dared to notice. He stapled his fingers and nodded to Commander Becker his second in command.” All teams have arrived I gather?”

“Yes Sir, they are all here now. We have confirmation that the USS Shetland will also arrive later today.”

Dent was still calm.”We will show those self important meddlers that we earned the right to be the elite, of course. You had time to go over the files of the teams?”

“Yes, Sir, there are a few that might pose more than a challenge for us this year, but we are working on a few ideas to ensure our victory despite external supervision.”

“I like to hear more about these ideas later.

The short Admiral looked over the conference table at what he called his inner staff. Three women and eight men he had handpicked over the last two decades and all but two were former Cadets at Newport. He had promoted them and gave them special privileges. That each of them had almost failed the Psych evaluation at the Academy entry exam with a warning note of the psychological examiner was exactly why they were here. Actually he had developed a little search logarithm that was looking for exactly those character traits in all the Academy applicants and it was those that got an invitation to Newport.

On his right sat Lt. Belinda Morgan, she was a genuine Terran from Earth region Northern Europe. Her Psych profile classified her as obsessive with ambition, a general hatred for men, a high level of easily evoked envy at anyone having success greater than hers and an inflated self image. She was accepted with only one Psych Evaluation point above the dismissal threshold and the note that her character development should be closely monitored by academy staff. She was a perfect fit for Dent, as he saw those traits not as a handicap, especially since his Psych evaluator back then had made similar observations only he would have failed the exam if his friend Swybar had not introduced him to a bribable records clerk who altered his exam notes.

These traits made them malleable to his ideas and ways of doing things, none of them were stupid and had the necessary level of intelligence to pass the Academy intellect requirements and they were well aware that the things they did for Dent over the years were not just against Fleet regulations but some activities were nothing less than treason or would be classified as capital crimes and doing these things tied them even closer to Dent.

None of his staff had the snug and confident faces they usually had during staff meetings, they all looked worried today.

The news that the USS Shetland was only hours away bringing the Admiral of the Fleet in person for a close inspection had traveled fast.

Belinda had spent all night, erasing and doctoring files that could not stand up to closer scrutiny.

He sipped at his cup of Venus Sun tea, grown in the first terra formed gardens of his home world. It was an acquired taste as almost everything that grew in the soil of Venus still had a distinctive smell and taste of sulfur. It was almost a ritual, no one talked while sipped his tea, and he put down the cup in a measured move and gave Lt. Morgan a sign to give her report.

The woman had despite all the options available, an overweight problem. Of course she did not even consider any of those options as she found nothing wrong with herself and considered the fitness standards of the fleet oppressive and solely designed to discriminate against her. She had made the decision to join the Fleet because her class mates had made fun of her and told her she would never be accepted.

Belinda filled out her uniform, stretching it to its limits. Usually she loved to give her report and sound important and efficient, but not today. Her eyes shifted back and forth between her notes and the Admiral. “I have done what you asked me to, our main data bank now shows a malfunction and all the internal files have either been lost or adjusted.”

Dent played with his cup and looked at her. “Well if that is the case why do I get the distinct impression you are not telling me everything?”

A red shade flushed over her round cheeks.”While doing that I noticed someone had been in the Archive section of our Cadet library and downloaded a considerable portion of these files.”

Dent’s facial color changed too and he paled visibly. “How can that be? Those files should not even be accessible from the library and they are encrypted are they not?”

She said. “Whoever accessed the system at the library ran a very sophisticated and customized search program. All computronics are connected, Sir.”

Dent inhaled slowly. “Sophisticated and customized, does that mean a spy perhaps of NAVINT or CID tried to gain access?”

She shrugged her round shoulders. “Our Chief Computronic Analyst is of the opinion that this someone had made up that program on the fly and tailored it exactly to our system parameters. He also reports that this individual broke into our encrypted files in less than five minutes. According to him that should have been almost impossible.”

Dent’s blood pressure was rising. “Do we know who did that?”

“There were only six Cadets at the library at the time this happened. There were two of ours and four of the visiting teams.” She looked to Lt. Gorham, the security chief. “David checked the files of all four.”

Dent simply gestured to the tall man of Glen Planet and he responded.” All four are the science specialists of their teams and all four have considerable computronic skills, but only one of them has a Level 12 intellect, holds four PhDs in computronic related fields and declined an invitation to join the Mastermind society of the Science Corps in order to become a regular Union fleet science officer.”

Dent waved his hand with disbelieve in his face. “Nonsense, you checked the wrong files. There never has been a cadet in the Fleet with a Level 12 intellect, they are immediately snatched up by the Science Corps and no one would decline an invitation to the Hive of Minds. Four PhDs those are young cadets they would have had no time for that.”

The security chief of Glen Planet looked insulted. “I triple checked. The Cadet in question has nine PhD titles and works on her tenth right now. It does not take years if you go straight for the dissertation and it is accepted by the scientific peer. Cadet Wetmouth, the Sojonit of the Olafson Gang declined that invitation three times already.”

“You telling me that Sin4 whore that somehow managed to become a Fleet cadet is that smart broke into our encrypted files and made copies?”

Lt. Gorham spread his arms. “I am saying that this is the information I got from her personal files. I triple checked with Fleet Personnel Central and they confirmed that every time. I am not saying she did break in our files, because whoever did it left no evidence but she is the most likely one.”

The Admiral leaned forward.”What exactly did those files contain she might have accessed?”

Belinda answered. “Your search logarithm that preselects possible candidates, your notes of previous challenges you wanted us to keep. The altered accident reports from the past twenty years and the personal files of all Newport staff.”

Dent asked. “Why has this all been kept in the first place?”

The head technician of the Academy, Lt. Caro felt addressed and answered.” Sir our main computronic is directly linked to Fleet Command and to Nelson, the machines base programming cannot be altered by us without Fleet Command knowing. Since we had to alter files and personal records, the only work around was to create a second set of files and isolate the real files in an encrypted location. The altered files were sent to Fleet Command while the real ones were kept, but no official records can be erased without rising alarm bells.”

Dent cursed silently and then said. “So how did you get rid of those files then, Belinda? Did you not report to me they are gone?”

“We did the only thing possible and physically destroyed the memory bank of our system. This too will cause Fleet Command to investigate and they will send technicians, but in the light of the upcoming visit of the Admiral of the Fleet we had no other choice and we came up with a way to explain the damage.”

The Academy communication officer, an unusual silent man in his position said. “I just received Fleet news and the Devastator is on her way as well. She will arrive during the final challenge. That also means Admiral Stahl will most certainly come for a visit as well.”

Commander Becker was the only one who somehow still believed he was a good Fleet Officer, but the news that McElligott was coming for an inspection had him wake up to the reality of things. “Maybe we should simply come clean and give ourselves up. I prefer McElligott and fair court martial proceedings over what Stahl might do when he comes and finds anything suspicious. The Admiral of the Fleet we might be able to fool, but I am not at all confident we can do the same to Stahl.”

Everyone looked at him as if he had lost his mind and Dent hissed. “Don’t worry about Stahl, worry about what I will do to you if you don’t shut up.”

Even though he tried to appear confident he actually contemplated the very same thing after he had talked again to his special friends. All their contacts aboard the Devastator had fallen silent. They did not know why Cadet Suppor did not show up as planned or how Olafson and his gang managed to escape what they thought was a certain death trap.

Dent then said. “We have nothing to fear, we just have to be careful. This is Newport, we know this planet and the training facilities better than anyone and we will utilize our knowledge and out skills to ensure that our team wins. As long as we don’t give them an obvious excuse to investigate, we are fine.

Those Immortals stick to the rules and as long as they don’t have evidence of anything there won’t be any problems. The Sojonit will have an accident and that will solve the problem with the copied files as well.”

Part 78 »