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On the freighter David and Sarah found Steve working busily at his computer terminal, he turned as they entered the bridge of the Galactic Traveller and smiled at them. Then he indicating that they should join him and the others inside of the shuttle craft that was once again safely parked within the starship`s large hold. Once safely inside, and with the airlock firmly shut he brought them up to date.
“I have built into my snooper program a feature that will only download files when the files on the Mazeren computer are already open and being used. This means that we may have to wait a couple of hours to get any information from our Trojan horses, but the Mazeren starships logs will be open sometime today and as soon as they are my program will alert me.” Steve said. “The same goes for their communications files.” Steve looked more than satisfied with his work, but David wanted to be sure on all points regarding their espionage.
“So Steve, what are the chances of our being detected as we download their files?” David asked.
“The chance of our being detected snooping on them is very small, for the program that I have already downloaded into their computers should prevent it, their computer software is advanced but it is at least twenty years behind ours and their illegal software detectors are pretty old hat compared to ours. And anyway my little snooper is such a clever little beast that they will never find it, and as soon as we have all of the necessary data we can tell our snooper to erase itself and along with all traces that we were ever inside of the starship`s computers.”
“Then why do you delay, why do you not download their files immediately?” Sarah asked.
“Because Sarah dear, this way makes the risk of detection all the smaller.” Steve said patiently.
“Won`t it slow their computers down and become noticeable if we make use of their files when they are also using them.” Tony Miles wanted to know.
“Of course not oh foolish one.” Steve said laughing. “Their computers are extremely fast, even if they are a little outdated, the delay might be noticeable to Barney, but even he would have to be looking for it before he could find even a trace of the delay in time. This is the twenty second century not the twentieth century.”
David now turned to Jimmy and Tony. “Well how did you two enjoy your morning away from the grey walls of the Galactic Explorer?”
“Fine David, we had a couple of cups of kakao and a plate full of various cakes, and then we were given a quick and very abridged tour of their starship. We saw the engine room with its new big shiny hyper drive engine, but of course we couldn`t tell much from that except that it was the ship`s primary drive and so apparently their space cruisers should be quicker than ours. That is if they have ironed out the inconsistencies of operating such a large hyper space engine, something our people back on Earth haven`t as yet managed to do.” Jimmy said and then looked across to Tony Miles. “That`s about it eh Tony?”
“Yes Jimmy, that is it as they say.” Tony replied.
It was two hours later that Steve`s snooper signalled that the starship Timor`s log had been opened, and he was then able to download every entry for the last three years with no trace of his activity being noticed by the starship`s computer or the crew. One hour later and he also had every message ever sent to the both the Timor and the Sentinel, and after another hour they had the log of the Sentinel safely downloaded into their computer banks.
Steve now took David back to the shuttlecraft so that they could talk in safety.
“I`ve got everything that we need from the two ships, so I have told our two snooper programs to erase all traces of our entry into their computers and of themselves. Before you say anything David, I know that it would be useful to hear any future communications that the two starship`s receive or send, but I am the computer genius and I believe in safety first. If you need to re connect at anytime then we do have our two Trojan horses still available to us, for the moment at least, and we can then send a new snooper into their computers, but as of now we are free of the perils of their detecting our little indiscretions.”
“Ok Steve, as you say you are the expert. Let`s begin the job of wading through all of the data that you have downloaded.” David said heading for the airlock that would take them into the freighter`s hold, but Steve stopped him.
“Wading through gigabytes of data, David, I think not. Barney will do all of that laborious work, and in next to no time at all.”
Steve then led the way back up to the bridge of the freighter and Barney, who as always was on guard just inside of the freighter`s own airlock. Steve went across to their loyal metal companion and handed him his tablet. On the tablet was a note asking Barney to run through all of the data that they had downloaded from the Mazeren space cruisers. First, he was to check if anything referred to the Blazer Explorer and its crew, secondly as to whether there was any data that might be a security issue as regards the safety of the two starships from Earth, their crews and their passengers. Barney went across to Steve`s computer terminal and connected up to it, soon he was humming away contentedly. It took Barney five minutes to go through all the gigabytes of data but finally he was finished.
“Captain I have gone through the data and I`m now ready to give you my report, when you are ready that is.”
“Ok Barney but perhaps we should discuss this down below, and with that David led the others to the shuttle craft, as everyone wanted to know what if anything Barney had discovered. Once everyone was within the shuttlecraft and its airlock was shut tight, David asked Barney for his report.
“I have found mention of the Blazer Explorer, and I will play back the log of the starship Sentinel, there is also a similar recording on the log of the Timor but it doesn`t add anything extra to the first log.”
It was Admiral Stator`s voice that they heard speaking into the Sentinel`s log. ‘Extra to today`s log, we encountered the starship Blazer Explorer from Earth early this afternoon, and together with my two consorts I attacked and destroyed their hyper drive forcing them to enter the atmosphere of the third planet of the Cordican planetary system. We continued our attack and hit the middle section of the starship but they still managed to crash land onto the planet`s surface. Unfortunately, due to its badly damaged hull the starship broke into two pieces while making its landing. We sent the small scout ship Blaydon, down to search for survivors, and it found that four of the crew had survived the crash and subsequently took them off the planet for delivery to our home world where they will be interrogated.’
David Charlton hadn`t been able to breathe whilst he had been listening to the Sentinel`s log but now he let out a long sigh. “That probably means that all the people in the engineering section of the ship died, probably soon after the initial attack in space. My god, I would like to kill that man, but, I suppose the ambassador wouldn`t like that.” Even so, he would have to be careful not to let his anger surface whenever they met.
“At least four of the crew survived David, it could have been worse.” Sarah said gently as she clutched at his arm in an attempt to offer some support.
“What else do you have Barney?” David asked.
“This is from the log of the Timor, Captain.” Barney replied.
‘Further to my earlier report I must report that the hyper drive engine on the scout ship Blaydon exploded, and she crash landed onto the third planet in the Cayman planetary system. We arrived there four hours later and took all the survivors off, unfortunately there were five fatalities.’ David looked at Sarah and the others and he could see they were thinking exactly the same thing as he was.
“Barney, didn`t the log list the dead crewmen.” Sarah asked the question David had difficulty formulating, her voice very quiet and wavering just a little.
“No Ms Hardin, it didn`t, I haven`t found out who died in the crash but I have more to report that gives some indication as to who did survive. Shall I continue on Captain?” Barney replied.
“Yes Barney, continue with your report.” David said q
uietly. He could feel his pulse racing, his heart thumping, but he forced his outward signs to stay calm.
“This is another log entry from the Timor and is dated seven days following the crash of the Blazer Explorer.” Barney said and then he gave the log entry.
‘Further log entry to today`s date. We berthed at the space dock and gave Captain Charlton and his surviving crew into the hands of a security detachment who were waiting there to escort them down to the planet`s surface where they will be confined and interrogated by our intelligence agency.’
“That is the last item that I found on the two ship`s logs regarding the Blazer Explorer, as regards the other item I can report that there are no security issues to report as of today, the Mazerens don`t have any plans to attack us.” Barney finished.
“Well they probably wouldn`t want to start a war with us which would be the result of an attack on the Intrepid, and an attack on us would be pointless as Earth now knows of their existence. David, at least we know that your father was on the planet Mazere two years ago. All we need to do now is to come up with the next part of our plan, and that is how to find out where he was taken after he was transported down to the planet Mazere.” Steve said.
“Yes, and we also need to wangle an invitation which will allow us to travel to the planet Mazere.” Tony Miles said to his friends who were mostly looking just a little glum. For while they had progressed two steps forward, however, they still seemed as far away as ever from finding Richard Charlton, and whoever else survived the crash on the planet in the Cordican system.
“One other thing that my little snooper found when it was busy in the Mazeren starships, it found the exact co-ordinates of their home world. It was in their navigational records that I also downloaded in full.” Steve said and this information managed to raise their spirits, for now all they needed to do was to wait for the postal worker to drop in the invitation that would ask them to call in and visit the planet Mazere.