Adventures in Internal Affairs I wasn't sure why I'd been chosen for the job, but as the infiltration pod drew closer to the ominous vessel ahead, my questioning thoughts were buried. The teams' mission was one of close knit planning and intricate execution. Apparently, some scientific information was being held within the comuter of this great barge. But why an Infiltration Task Force was used to get to it... I don't know. My company was nice. We were all of equal rank and no one man lead. We often did it this way since our plans always dictated what each person had to do according to his ability. However, we didn't have precise plans of the ship and this time, I feared having an equalibreum might be suicide. Marc was our technical advisor. He was a tall man of 6'2" and medium build. He was often made fun of for his very wavy hair styles that tweaked his bangs into "surf's up" positions. Antony was our security loophole. He knew how to disarm any security system. He was about as tall as I am, 5'11" with a neatly parted haircut. He and I often preferred a casual approach to infiltration and we always wore tennis shoes, black shorts, and a black tank top over a white T-shirt. It was almost a uniform to us. Lucas was even shorter still cashing in at a mere 5'8". He was always a lookout. He and the other member of the team, Dianne, were engaged and planning to get married in about a year. Dianne herself was as tall as he, with blonder hair flowing down to about 5" past her shoulders. She was our "land-mover" so to speak. After we'd disable a security system, she'd bust down the doors or break the newly unprotected locks; a very important memeber of our team and a pleasant person to be around. Of course, the whole team was. It surprised me since this was my first time serving with them and all the other teams I'd been on left much to be desired. "Ever do this before?" Marc called to me from the back of the pod, I was the pod pilot and backup man, "Yeah. Here and there." "Any good?" "I'm still serving..." I commented with a quick shrug. "Sounds like you don't have a very high opinion of your work there," Dianne pointed out. "I don't. I'd like to be a more active member... I mean, I know what needs to be known about infiltration, but my commander suggested I be put in as pilot since that's what I did best." "Well, don't let it get to you. You're just as important as we are," Marc concluded, putting his hand on my shoulder and looking forward as the massive star barge came into range. "Steering point five four mark thirty negative. That'll put us right into the defense fuselage. We can get anywhere on the ship from there." I turned the pod to bring it parallel with the massive reflective plating of the hollow defense shell. Then with a soft hiss then clang, the magneto hydro airlock clamped to the barge. A perimeter cutter then incised a sqare hole through the foot-thick metal allowing just enough room for one person into the hull at a time. The four got through and signalled for me to come. With a final flip of the power center, the pod went dead and I descended into the blackness of the defense hull. The defense hull is basically a layer of thick metal spaced about eight feet from the main hull of the ship. It completely surrounds the ship but is often built upon and only a few sections will remain open to space. We happened to lock onto one of those open spaces. Within the defense hull, is a cold, dark, ecosystem. Microbes thrive and form thick slimey films on the walls and floors. Large colums often dangle from the ceiling dripping a foul smelling fluid. In this case, the hull had recently been depressurized. It was colder than usual and the slimey film was reduced to a crusty dirt-like material on all walls. Marc switched on his hand light, "This whole place is dead. They must have figured out that stuff grows nicely in these shells and done something about it." Meanwhile, Antony and I nearly froze. We'de once again decided to wear our casual uniform. It proved a most poorly planned descision. The temperature averaged about 27 degrees in the shell and made for a poor place to wear shorts and a short sleeved shirt. "The main computer bay is this way," Lucas pointed to a a row of columns, probably running water and elevators to one of the structures built onto the defense hull. Each was numbered in decending order, and we established that eighty feet beyond the last tube was the computer bay. It took no time to get there... which was a blessing comsidering the cold that Antony and I had to bear with. We cut through the six inch metal and peered out at the bay below. There was eight computer cages for each of the barge's functions. Basically, there were two rowns of four cages each. The first row was right next to a console area with windows looking panoramically into the huge cargo bay. The others lined up behind them. No one was in the room. And the room was huge! Usually, on a well organized ship, an important station such as this would never be left ungaurded... but sure enough, not a soul was present. A quick estimate of the room gave it the dimensions of 150 feet by 300 ft with a height of 40 feet. Each computer cage was about ten foot by teen foot and eight feet high with a square opening in the bars on the top, and a seven by three foot door on the side. Both entrances would lead to a sufficient link up to extract this important scientific information we were after... Our only problem was: Which computer was the science computer. We'd have to check them one-by-one. Antony had rope, 100 feet of it which we used to lower ourselves down from our small hole in the ceiling to the top of the cage just below. when we were all down, we noted the hallway on the far left of the room, entering right at the back wall. If anyone was to came, I'd be from there. Lucas positioned himself on the cage so he could see deep into the hallway. Antony observed the setup of the cage and finally concluded that the system was unprotected. It was easy game. Marc jumped into the cage. Looking around he saw he was completely surrounded by computers. There was enough room in there for all five of us, but we gave Marc all the room he needed to tap into the computer to find out if this was the science computer or not. "It'll be the last computer we check... you can bet on it," Lucas said sarcastically, even though he was probably right. With intricate precistion, Marc pulled out a small databank that he would put the extracted inphoto-disk into. Then he gently pryed off one the the computers panels to ge to the meat within; wires and circuit boards that pulsed messages to other parts of the ship. It was a matter of tapping into the pulse and finding out what it was saying to find out what computer this was. Marc touched a probe to one point on a large circuit, then touched another probe to another... And problems arose. A siren echoed through the computer bay. Lights of bright white pulsed in each corner of the room... and the computer cage doors began to slide closed. Lucas was the first to plunge into the cage with Marc, in an attemp to hide. He figured that even if they eventually got caught, he'd rather not draw any potential discoverers before the info could be extracted out of the computer and transmitted to the pod. Dianne jumped in quickly after as the door slipped further across the opening. I then signalled Antony who plunged in next... just as the door reahed halfway then slammed shut unexpectedly. I was left outside for all to see. In a last attempt to find a suitable hiding place, I jumped off the cage and grabbed the side door, just inches before it closed. I leaned back pulling on the door so hard my entire body ached. It slid an inch backwards then thrusted forward an inch. I pulled harder causing my complexion to phase into deep red. The door slipped back an inch again... then slammed shut. I pulled my fingeres out just in time and breathed heavily to help my skin color return. Just as my breath settled, A troop of fourty men ran out from the hallway not twenty feet away. The commander, a stout man with an assured smile walked up to me, menacing his sharp face into mine and uttering the words, "Which way did they go?" My first thought was, "He's got me..." Then as his words sunk in, I realized, he didn't even know who I was. I was an invader on his ship and he didn't even know it! I responded, "That way," pointing towards the windows to the cargo bay, "around where the console is. I think they were trying to get into the computer." The entire troop of fourty proceeded to the front where I had told them to go... not questioning me further. I didn't know what to do. I felt that if I ran, they'd get suspicious, so I stuck around to see if they's "get the bad-guys." After a little while, I noticed a group had formed in the hallway entrance. It was composed of about seven people and all looked entertained at the sight of fourty armed guards looking in the wrong place for my team. I decided to belnd in a bit and socialize. I walked over to them and said a simple, "Hi." "Hey," came seven individual voices. One voice continued, "Who are you, I don't think I've seen you around? And what kind of uniform is that?" Somehow, I managed to think really quickly and I answered the inquisitive girl's questions, "I was just transferred from an independent science vessel." "Must be for that secret project the science crew is working on." She continued, "Sounds neat." "Yeah, it's real neat. I've done a lot that could benefit this fleet anyday though... some even more so than the project." I bragged, even though the stuff I'd worked on was top-secret, "I was lead programmer for a new drive protocol. Initial tests show my programming is up to 88% faster than the standard programming. I also did a few assignments on fuel extraction on Grodian 4. I'll have to tell you about it sometime." "How about you meet me at the cafeteria this evening... say at nineteen hundred hours." she smiled and winked. I suddenly came to the realization that this girl was nice looking. She had shoulder legnth blond hair and greyish hazel eyes somewhat analogous to my own. Her smile was perfect and her figure was smooth and perfect as her uniform adhered to each curve. I blinked out of my daze to answer her question. "Sounds good..." I suddenly saw the biggest, strongest black dude I'd ever seen in my life. His face was huge and his cocked, perturbed looking eyebrows were shadowing his deep brown eyes that stared intently on me as he approached. I continued to speak to the girl making casual glances to the guy as he emerged from the hallway. With a short stride-sprint, he was at me, and with graceless motion, his enormous arms completely encircled me, trapping my arms from moving and cutting off a bit of my air... yet I continued to appeal to the girl. And as I was carried from my place into the hallway, I continued, "...just recently, I developed a matrix for plasticite. It's metal that's as strong as steel but as light as plastic..." Then I couldn't see her anymore. I couldn't see a thing. I'd been bonked efficiently on the head. I awoke in what appeared to be an interrogation room. A board of commanding officers sat around me, shuffling papers and watching monitors that kept flashing computer generated images of scientific and communication satallites. I knew they'd figured me out, and I knew they'd do something to me, but I wasn't sure what. I thought maybe they weren't completely convinced I was one of them and would question me by having me identify their satallites in order to prove my position. That was a test I'd fail anyday. I never kept track of my own fleet's satallites, much less an unknown fleet's. It was a disaster waiting to happen. One of the higher rank officials shuffled his papers on his desk, squring them off with very annoying "click click" sounds as the papers met the desktop repeatedly. My doom was come. I looked around for a hint or something. Maybe they had a chart with the satallites on them that they overlooked and left in view for me to cheat off of. A glance around the room revealed only three monitors and three windows beyond the monitor stands. On one of the monitors was the mentioned satallites, the other was a topographical view of the computer bay, which was abandoned like before. The third monitor was off but had a keypad below it. Evidently a communications monitor. Suddenly, the same alarm that had went off earlier went off again. the sound came from the computer bay monitor though. I looked focussing only on the four dots on the screen... the team had gotten out. The room went wild. Every man there stood up and looked towards the sliding door between them and the hallway. And almost all at once, every man in the room went out the door and to the left. I siezed the opportunity and ran for the door as well... but made a right. As I dashed through the crowd and out into the vacant hallway to the left, I yelled, "That's my boys!... And girl!!!" And darted down the maroon plush carpeted corridoor. Only one of the commanding officers noted my departure and quickly locked the elevators by remote control. The elvator was right at the end of the hallway, before it made a left to run parallel to and beyond the interrogation room. A green light illuminated on it just above the word "LOCK" and a clicking sound could be heard as a bulkhead was put into position beyond the elevator door. I yelled back, "I don't NEED an elevator" turned the corner, and all got silent. The hallway got wider. It went from aboutsix feet wide to about ten feet. On either side was a wall with doors placed every sixty or so feet. But not far ahead, the walls stopped and railings took their place. I was entering the observation balconys. I walked to the place where the balconys started and looked around. The wall fell back thirty feet away to my left and about sixty feet in front of me. The balcony continued forward thirty feet then cut another left into a set of gently inclining steps. Everything was still carpeted. Looking over the edge, another carpeted room sat below. There was nothing in it and it looked like there had never been enything in it. I kept going; around the corner to the steps, which had gaps between them so if you looked straight at them, you could see peices of the scene below. It didn't take me long after that to realize that not only the floor was carpeted, but the walls were as well. Only a strip of black painted wood in where the floor met the wall and where a wall met a wall broke the plane of the carpeting. At the top of the steps, looking ahead, I could see that there was one more set of steps just like the one's I's come up, ascending another four feet above the vacant rooms below. I proceded up them and looked over the edge. Below was what looked like old instruments for generating electricity and static fields. Confusing above all. I made another note that I saw no way of getting down to those lower levels... no way short of jumping 25 feet down. I continued to lean over the edge, examining from a distance the primitive devices, when I heard the soft pat-pat-pat of someone very light running on carpet. I turned around to see the girl I spoke with in the computer bay running up the steps to me. "I finally found you," she said between pants. "Here I am..." I looked at her as she started to relax and breathe normally. "I thought I might find you here." she said. "Why?" I inquired. "Because, this is the old science museum. this is the kind of place a guy like you would hang out." She explained intelligently. "Is that what this is?" "You didn't know?" She looked surprised. "No. I had no idea. I was just looking around and I found myself here." "What were you looking for?" "The science station." "Well... why? The project staff has the week off." "Um... I know. I just wanted to look over the place while the ships'a having problems with security." "Good idea. But, why can't you find it... you've been there before haven't you?" "I can't lie to you," I grew a bit grim, "I'm not who you think I am. I'm not scientist for this ship... I am a scientist, but I'm also on an infiltration task force that was assembled to recover stolen technology. Unfortunately, this secret project doesn't belong to your fleet... it belongs to ours and I'm here to get it back." She stood there nearly shocked by this blast of bad news. Her left hand brushed through her hair and she backed away from me. I hardly even knew her and I'd already let her down. "I'm sorry it has to be this way..." I tried to explain, "I really like you. I didn't want to hurt you." A tear rolled down her cheek, "Then why did you tell me all that stuff about being transferred here from an independent fleet?" I gulped nearly audibly, "Because, I didn't want any of the officers around me to know I wasn't part of your crew. They'd have killed me on the spot... Even without them knowing, I was nearly killed." "Take the third tunnel on the right ahead. That'll take you straight to the sciance labs." She wiped her tears. "Thank you. So much. You've done a great deed for my fleet. I'll never forget you for this." I held out my hand and waited for her to grab it. Instead, she walked up to me and put her arms around me. I repeated the action and kissed her on her head, "I'm sorry. It just won't work." She sniffled, "I thought I'd finally found someone who liked me for who I am." "I do, I do... but we're born enemies. If not for that, I'd take you with me... But I fear harm would come of you if you return with me. They'll try to get every shred of information out of you that they can. I promise... If I can, I'll came back." I slipped out of the hug and turned back to face the long stretch of balcony that lay ahead of me. I could see the first of three platforms leading back into the hallway structures. And as I walked towards them, I couldn't ignore the soft cry from behind, as I left a girl I'd never forget. My job pressed on. Pretty soon I was out of audible distance from the sobbing, heartbrokem girl and on my way to the third balcony to the right. I passed the second and noted it lead to a large airlock door about three hundred feet down it. Finally, I reached the third turn off and hung a right. This particular balcony led into the hallway like the others did, but turned left thirty feet in. After turning left, it went straight for another thirty to a clear glass door with a green light next to it. Beneath the light was the word "LOCK" just like the elevator. Somehow I'd have to get into the lab without setting off the alarm... but then the light went off, and a click could be heard from within the wall... I looked around and noticed that the reds lights that I was accustomed to seeing mixed in faintly with the white lights had shut off. There was no more security breach which meant one of two things. The team was captured or the team got away. Either way, I still had the job of getting the information out of unfamiliar computers. I walked foreward and the glass door slid up allowing me to enter the lab. As soon as I walked in, the door slid closed behind me and the floor shifted. I was in an elevator taking me down. the wall directly opposite the door was glass as well, and as soon as the elevator cleared the wall of the hallway, the giant labratory was visible expanding in both directions from my point of view in the elevator. The wall just opposite me, all 500 feet of it was one huge window to the stars. Beyond it I could see the ominous image of the dark half of Tielsa, a large mining planet. The lab was abandoned, just like the computer bay. But unlike the computer bay, nothing was caged in. The entire lab was open for all to see. And laying on a large table in the center of the room was the great experiment. A large black panel with tiny blisters in it, so small that you can't even feel them. I knew what it was the moment I saw it from the elevator glass: The densest, most powerful solar array ever made. According to the scientific reports I had to research before trying to join the team that built it, it could power an entire flagship on just the light of stars. And it was ours... we were ready to test it when all of the data disappeared as well as the team that built it. That was the only time I was glad I wasn't accepted on the team. The elevator came to a quiet stop at the bottom of the open shaft and the door rotated around to face the lab. The door slid up once again, giving me complete access to the system. I looked over the panel and made sure it wasn't altered in any way. Having not seen it before hindered that examination greatly. But I established quickly that it was still original. I pulled a homing box out of my pocket and switched it on as I attached it to the underside of the black silicate sheet. That was set... now all I needed was the research and data linked to it's developement plus any research the thieves did on it. Fortunately, because all the information stolen was on inphoto-discs, they had to build inphoto-disc drives to retrieve it. They never bothered to disable it which allowed me to extract all the information and delete it out of their system within five minutes. My job was done... now I needed to get home. I ran back to the elevator and got in. the door slid closed and the glass tube raised me to hallway level. The door slid up again allowing me to step out for the last time. I then ran out back into the balcony section, back to the second corridoor where the airlock was. All the signs indicated this led to the main cargo bay. Thinking back real hard I recalled seeing several small freighters and personal shuttels in the bay from the computer bay's window. I stopped short at the airlock and pressed the open key. the massive doors parted with the sound of hissing air and powerful servo motors. Just beyond that door was another identical door. there was a good six feet between each door, giving every indication that this was a pressurization chamber. I stepped in and closed the door. Sure enough, oxygen poured through the vents. A door opened to the side which was a small walk-in closet full of oxygen suits. I chose the one that best fit me and closed the closet. The air vents then began to hiss again as I put the suit on and sealed it. Then the vents in my suit activated making my breathing easier and clearing the fog that had already formed in the visor glass. Then without me doing anything, the main airlock door burst open releasing a gush of air. I was now walking in the vacuum of space, still held to the ground by the ships artificial gravity system. Right outside the door was a set of eight stepes leading down to flight deck level. And just as I had seen, several small personal shuttles sat at my disposal. I walked to the nearest one and popped the side door latch. The door hissed open. I stepped into the tiny cockpit and hit the door close switch. The life-indicator light went on immediatly to prevent anyone from opening the shuttle door from the outside, just incase I didn't have a pressure suit on. After the light went on, the internal oxygen tanks kicked in and pressurized the cabin. Even though I was in a different ship, I was still under the gravitational influence of the large ship's cargo bay gravity system. but I knew that would stop as soon as I launched, so I put my seat harness on. The ship I was in was quite simple. Everything was traight foreward and it was sure to be as easy, if not easier to fly than the infiltration pod. I hit the antigrav switch and the vehicle hovered four feet off the deck. Nudging the stick to the left, I faced the nose towards the open cargo bay door area. Nudging the throtle foreward, I left the bay, catching a glimpse of the massive ship in the rear monitor. I tried to see where the pod was to see if my team had left, but no such luck. It was too far away by the time I found where we'd landed. In a zip of light, I was gone. I never knew that a young blond girl was watching from observation window, wondering if I'd keep my promise... Everything came out fine this time. The technology was saved and successfully developed under us, the rightful owners. The panel aboard the barge was recovered by way of the homing box and the science team responsible for stealing it was charged with pirating and imprisoned. The commanders of the barge apologized and hoped that our two fleets could meet again under a flag of peace. We were just happy to have the science team that developed the solar array back. I found out not long after I returned that the rest of my team came back safely after not finding the information. And bacause of my acts of bravery and the successful recovery of the technology, I was promoted and given my own Infiltration Task Force. I was allowed to choose whomever I wanted to serve under me... I chose Marc, Lucas, Antony, and Dianne. The End.... By:Matt C. Pelletier Based on:A really neat dream.