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.