Cold War
by Warringer
Chapter Twelve
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Franklin couldn't help but look into the cargo hold of the Sanchez. They had managed to get about a thousand Narn into the ship, most of them injured from the blasts of the three nukes, but thankfully they had managed to get a few Narn medics with them. There had been a few Narn commies out there, but thanks to the PPCs and the Landmate they had been able to chase them away.
A bit surprising was the fact that they also had a small clan of Wlatschides aboard, the male and the female alpha of the clan working for a NATO trading company the Sanchez had done a few fright runs for.
He knew how the Wlatschides were, having lived next to an also small clan of them back in Earth. Franklins father had always compared them to Earthern wolves and Franklin guessed that it wasn't that far from the truth, even if they were intelligent and much more civilized. But it had been a huge surprise back than when the puppy he had played with suddenly started to talk to him.
The small clan of Wlatschides consisted of two males, three females and about ten kids, four of them younger than four years as they still walked mainly on all fours.
He shook his head for a moment and looked out of a window next to him. The surface was going past rather fast as the ship was on its way towards the Great Forrest that covered a good fourth of the main continent, which was as large as Eurasia and Africa combined. He had talked to some Narn. They had never been interested in the Great Forrest and so it wasn't cartographed or anything. They had only been interested in the mountains and the ores hey could mine there.
Sure there had been a few expeditions into the Great Forrest, but they were never heard of again. Some Narn talked about strange beasts that were seen in the area near the Forrest by some of the people who were interested, but not stupid enough to enter the Forrest. The only thing known was that there most of the trees in the Forrest were taller than even the Redwood trees back on Earth, easily two hundred fifty meters tall and with wide branches.
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The Spectre would have frowned, if it still had a body capable of frowning. These Soviet mainframes had too little security for its taste. Well, considering that they were disconnected from the international computer network it was understandable. The Russians were pretty ignorant that there may be someone who didn't care about that. Especially an entity like the Spectre.
The Spectre had made it into the news a few years ago, but that was when it still had a biological body. And it still was present in the culture of the NATO, as the 'Laughing Man' had become a 'Stand Alone Complex' as some called it.
Back than it had been a young woman, Mackie Molinas, born and grown up with an unknown form of telepathy that allowed her to connect to computers. Her cybrain only strengthened it, Than she got Cybrain Sclerosis and an incident she never thought about created the 'Laughing Man'. Only a year later, she had died in a traffic incident, her body being consumed by the flames of burning fuel.
While Mackie Molinas had died, her Ghost, her soul had refused to die. It fled into the Net and became the entity that called itself the Spectre or Spex, when it appeared in a chatroom. The Spectre had discovered many secrets of the Net, like the Lost Ghosts, the Ghosts of people who had died during a connection with the Net. Other than the Spectre, they lost their individuality, becoming blank slates.
The Spectre had absorbed a few of these unfortunate Lost Ghosts, its special telepathic ability growing stronger and stronger and eventually it developed other abilities. For a short amount of time it could exist outside of the Net or even a computer, manifested as a body of its own choice . And it could access computers physically disconnected from the Net, such as the mainframe of the Soviet Admiralty.
The Spectre didn't really like the Soviets. There were much more Lost Ghosts in their portion of the Net and those Lost Ghosts were practically haunting the Net, while the Lost Ghosts in the NATO portion of the Net mostly stayed put only now and than changing data packages or disrupting people who dived into the Net.
But the Spectre didn't like to be drawn into the quarrels of the human life it had left behind to become an entity of the Net. But sometimes it wondered if it was the right thing to do.
As its electronic gaze went over the files in front of it, it gave an electronic shudder.
The files contained the detailed plans for a Soviet invasion of the Narn and some other races.
It liked its freedom and the freedom of the Net. It didn't like the Soviets. It didn't like the Shadows or the Vorlons. It didn't like what it had seen in the old files from the Acients computers.
It debated with itself for several microseconds, a long time for an entity like it.
There was only one thing it could do now.
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McMichaels cursed. The Francis Drake and the two freighters had just used the Jumpgate of Kotok and ran straight into a group of Soviet ships. Two Akulas and four Delfins that had intercepted several freighters already. The heavy jamming prevented the Drake to get any useful passive data, but some of the active scanners of the freighters were able to get at least a slight look into the system and the single planet of the system.
His mind was racing. He couldn't do much. His ship may have been an old Hauri battle cruiser, but against six Soviet ships he couldn't do much.
Than he came to a solution. He knew that the Soviets, while having developed an active cloak, were not able to get through it and used special tachyon transmitters to get the positions of their ships. And since the Drake didn't have one of these transmitters, but was equipped with a detector for it, he could snoop around in the system.
He knew that he and his pirates weren't very liked by either NATO and the Soviets, but it was possible to talk to the NATO. Maybe he could pull a 'Francis Drake'? Spy on the Soviets in this system and then relay the data to the NATO, stop his pirate attacks on NATO and Narn ships and concentrate on the Soviets. Maybe getting money from the NATO for preying on Soviet ships?
Another thing came to mind. If the Soviets had invaded this system, and everything pointed to wards it, there had to be freighters inbound to fortify the system.
McMichaels knew a bit about the Soviet fortifications of their systems. They would put special weapons turrets onto the struts of the Jumpgate, using them as shields to prevent their destruction. Additional to that were several weapons platforms twice about as large as their Putin dropships, packing enough weapons to fight against an Arleigh Burke destroyer on equal footing while being only a third of the size.
If the Soviets fortified the system it would become a hard nut to crack. And he rather wanted to deal with NATO than the Soviets.
He nodded to himself as he gave his next orders.