AWF Chpt 122

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=Chapter 121=
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===Passing Notes under Watchful Eyes===
Black Lion Class Battlecruiser, CSS Veil of Light
Jump Point
St. Ives System, St. Ives Compact
June, 3030
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Anastasia could feel Harold's arm around her. She was somewhere between awake and dreaming, and wasn't quite ready to start the day, or watch, or shift or whatever reason she needed to be awake. She knew they were on a drop ship and underway, and cozily ensconced in their sleeping chamber. She considered finding the watch on Harold's arm, but that would be too much effort. Too close to being awake, and too much of a risk in case it was already time to be up and moving.
She tried to remember how far they were in their current was pretty sure it was still early, this meant they'd still have some fresh food. She particularly wanted fried eggs for breakfast. She wanted them perfectly fried though, with runny centers, so she could mop up the warm yoke with toast. She'd probably need to cook them herself. Harold would probably be content with scrambled eggs or some other barbaric abuses to his breakfast, but Anastasia would prepare the eggs, and make him a proper breakfast. After a proper breakfast, and then she'd continue her work to make a proper gentleman.
Actually Hap was a gentleman and Anastasia recognized he put up with a lot of her eccentricities. She had become more aware of this recently. She felt he could use or really deserved some physical affection. She leaned back to snuggle up to Harold. She pressed her back into the cold hard bulkhead. Her eyes opened immediately and she realized she was on the ComStar warship.
The berthing area was dimly lit, but Anastasia could see the thick strap that was across her side and keeping her secured to the cot built into the ship's bulwark. She quickly realized she was still a prisoner on a ROM controlled warship and her friends and her husband were being held as hostages if she didn't assist the crew. Hap was somewhere else, and she hoped he was okay but she didn't want to think about it.
The only advantage she had was one of the ComStar crew members, Victoria, appeared disillusioned with ComStar and seemed willing to help her. Anastasia knew that relying on her was a desperate risk, but it seemed like her best choice. Right now Victoria was sleeping in the cot above Anastasia.
Anastasia had no idea how long she had slept, she did feel better, or at least less shaky, but she was hungry. Anastasia unlocked the belt and held onto the side of the cot as she sat up. Victoria's head appeared from over the side of her cot.
"Hey you're awake. Are you hungry?"
Anastasia nodded as Victoria pushed herself off her bed and floated to the lockers across from their cots. As she floated across the rooms the lights automatically came on. She held onto a wall handle with one hand as she opened up a drawer and called out to Anastasia, "You want the veggie frittata or apple streusel?"
Anastasia's micro gravity training was limited, and it had never included meals. She knew the food was generally a paste that came in a tube and you'd have to suck it through a straw. The idea of an apple pastry paste didn't sound appetizing, but she needed to keep her strength up. "The streusel, I suppose."
"Good choice" Victoria said as she took two silver tubes and put them in another drawer with a timer. She turned the crank as she added, "The fritta is okay, the texture is about right, but after you've eaten them for a month or so all you can taste is the quillar. Honestly after a couple months of eating these they all taste like quillar."
Anastasia remembered Roweyna's "tea" and now the ship's captain's greedy behavior of eating so much of the fresh food from Roweyna offered her made sense. Eating sandwiches and cakes in zero gravity would create a cloud of crumbs so it was probably a very rare treat for her.
There was a ding from the drawer and Victoria opened it up and pulled out the silver tubes. She reached into another draw and pulled out plastic straws with screw on bases. She pushed herself back to Anastasia, sat down next to her, and showed her how to screw the straw on to the meal tube and enjoy the contents. Anastasia followed Victoria's example and was surprised that the apple streusel actually had the texture of little diced apples and Anastasia could almost feel light pastry flakes among the apple filling. Anastasia gave Victoria a surprised look.
"Surprising right?" Victoria answered."The fact these things have the texture of normal food is a miracle."
Anastasia gave Victoria a questioning look as she continued to enjoy her streusel. It almost felt like Victoria was going to credit Blake for the rations.
"A scientific miracle, obviously." Victoria added.
"Obviously." Anastasia agreed. That sounded like the Victoria she knew.
Victoria ate more of her meal for a moment, "Oh I just remembered, I was going through those technical documents and I saw something interesting." Victoria held the meal tube in her mouth as she pushed herself off of Anastasia's cot and floated up to her own. She took a binder off her cot and crossed her legs and floated in mid air. She continued to eat as she flipped pages and slowly rotated.
Anastasia reached out and stopped Victoria's floating. She was on her side from Anastasia's perspective. Anastasia considered righting Victoria but she was concerned she'd just start rotating in the other direction. Victoria didn't seem bothered by floating on her side as she searched the technical manual.
"Here it is, I found there was an out of band communications channel that allowed for simple text and actually a few commands. I suspect someone built it as a backdoor into the ECM suite…"
"Out of band? That means it's riding on another signal, which bands is designed to work on?"
"Honestly it will work on any band. I think it's designed to receive communications from the passive radar. However it wouldn't be hard to make it work with the main comms array, the long range or short range radar, the telemetry system. Anything that emits energy, really. It looks pretty flexible.
Anastasia pulled the manual and Victoria over to her and looked over the pages Victoria was reading. She remembered it was in Chinese and shook her head. "Help me set this up. Is there a communications terminal in this area."
Victoria nodded and motioned over her shoulder, but continued to float in place. Anastasia realized she was stuck and gave Victoria a good push before she propelled herself off her cot.
"Why do you think the Capellans included this…
"Feature"
"Feature into their system? It seems like it would be a pretty significant weakness."
"Maximillian Liao is notoriously paranoid, and given the strategic significance of a warship I could see why he or someone close to him would order a backdoor way to disable it. This assumes that Maximillian Liao knew this was being done."
Actually there was a memorandum that explained that when Maximillain Liao was briefed on the work to create the ECM suite used for battlemechs he ordered a larger one designed for a warship. The memo referenced an incident where the Taurians discovered the SLS Tripitz. Maximillian wanted this technology ready should they ever have the opportunity to capture it or another warship.I didn't know the Taurians had a warship."
"From what I understand the Tripitz was destroyed by a mysterious wing of SLDF era fighters so they probably don't have a warship. Although I guess there's some mystery behind it's final fate. Given your grandfather's proclivities I'm surprised he didn't tell you all about the Tripitz affair and attribute the mysterious fighter wing to his nefarious lizardmen."
"He might have…" Victoria said wistfully, "He was certain the lizardmen were behind every tragedy and mystery in the Inner Sphere."
They came to a terminal and Victoria turned it on. As the system started up Anastasia asked, "I need to send a quick text message on the guard channel to the McFinnigan's drop ship.. Can it do this while we use the radar?"
Victoria nodded, as she logged in and started to work the terminal. "What do you want to say?"
Anastasia reached over her and typed a short message. Victoria squinted as she tried to read it. "What is this? Truir fear ciuin? Is that latin…true fear of-."
"It's gaelic, it means silent men. It's the McFinnigan's company's way of saying they have a compromised comms channel. So stop talking and change nets." As she spoke Anastasia typed another series of celtic words. "They'll know which channel to change based on this." What Anastasia wasn't telling Victoria was that the number of blind men was a multiplier for the number she had just sent. It was a simple code and mostly based on obfustication. Anastasia knew she was probably telling Victoria too much, but she also wanted to show Victoria that she trusted her.
Anastasia told Victoria to setup the terminal to receive and send on a common short range radar frequency and they waited. Hopefully someone was watching the guard channel and they could put together the clue to change channels and use simple text messages. If anyone on the Warship was watching it might look like the warship was passively scanning the dropship and the dropship was doing something similar. Anastasia assumed she could just lie about testing the system.
Anastasia also tried to think what she was going to tell the McFinnigans. She probably should have figured that out before she did this. She needed to let them know what she was doing and that the crew was generally safe. She assumed someone had told them they were hostages, but she wasn't sure. There was a long pause then words started to appear on the terminal.
Is that more gaelic or is the transmission garbled?
"It's gaelic, it means top of the morning, which I'm told is pretty normal greeting." Anastasia tried her best to remember how to reply, she typed, "Trathnona maith" or "Good evening" and waited. Again this was another simple method to make sure they were talking to a bonafide member of the mercenary company.
<<"This is Kelly McFinnigan, to whom do we have the pleasure of speaking?">>
"Anastasia."
<<"Good. Is everyone well?">>
"Yes. I believe so. Although there was an escape attempt, but no one was seriously injured. However, the crew defeated us."
<<"Good. I'd expect my lads and lasses to at least to attempt to escape.. If you're able to move freely about the ship, I need a doorman.">>
Anastasia and Victoria exchanged looks.
"Can you give more details?"
<<"I need someone to open the airlock on the comms tower in three hours. Can you oblige?">>
Anastasia glanced at Victoria, who was nodding. "Yes."
<<"Be ready, McFinnigan out.">>
"Clear the logs, and shut down the system." Anastasia said
As Victoria began to work the terminal intercom came to life, "We notice you were scanning the Mercenary drop ship, can you explain what you were doing." Tempes himself was inquiring.
"We were testing the ECM's passive radar system, but it looks like the crew was able to detect us." Anastasia lied.
"Once we setup the ECM's antenna array we think it will be undetectable." Victoria added.
"When will you be ready to perform a space walk?"
"Three hours." Victoria answered.
"Very good. Do not hesitate to ask if you need more support." Tempes said.
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