Chapter 5 - Theft
"I’ve been instructed to prepare a 6-person team for a local mission, to investigate an illegal drilling operation 250 miles South of your location,…" begins Fischer with his first message.
In the old days a military mission like this may have been done by the SAS or Navy SEALs. Fifty years on and many technical leaps forward, this job needs at least 5 major disciplines: computer physicist, mining engineer, special forces trained, astronaut and diplomat, plus some other specialist skills, depending on who you are and what you do.
From Earth, Fischer selects his ‘SEAL’ team from the specialists already on-site and closest to Mars Base: by codename, age, gender and role. The team includes: Drew (32, male, captain), Kaffey (25, male, electronics), Shaw (21, male, demolition), Blair (22, female, intelligence), Strong (25, female, medical) and Daley (25, male, support).
To save time, Fischer makes a series of statements to Drew, the SEAL Captain, and awaits answers. Secure text calls take 30 minutes due to the current distance from Earth to Mars.
Fischer does not know he is being deceived from above and that deception is about to be passed on to people, who trust their superiors with their lives.
Fischer Message 1: “…and by the way, thanks for coming back in, we have a lot to cover and I have much to explain. You’re all trained in new mining techniques and we have an important job to do on Mars today. A competitor is drilling our patch, but their machine is 100 times quicker. I’m sure, that’s already pricked up your ears.
“They’re unauthorized intruders and we have the right to remove them with extreme prejudice. Our scientific expert on Mars is Sam Page, working the R&D lab, you may have bumped into him at the mess hall. He will be assisting you with the job of dismantling the competition and archiving what we find, using the equipment he will supply.”
Fischer Message 2: “You must locate their drill and neutralize any personnel you find with a dose of Hyper-Slumber. They will wake up after you’re done and think they fell asleep on the job. The important thing is: they should not see you working on the drill, we don’t want them to know what we’re doing.
“You’ll pretend to be mining inspectors, checking their suspected unauthorized drilling. Make sure the dose is correct for the time you need plus 1 hour and no more, say 4 hours, we don’t want any casualties. Sam will give you a device to stop the machine so you can work on it, do the scans and put it back together. The device also restarts their machine ready for when they wake up.
“I suggest, you ask the intruders to gather round the drill whilst you switch it off, and if the machine powers down, your team can apply the Hyper-Slumber whilst they’re distracted, but make sure the machine does power down first. If the device doesn’t work, the intruders will need to help you stop the machine, before you put them to sleep.”
Fischer Message 3: “The scanner will tell you how many intruders there are as you approach. Very likely two people working as a pair, like we do. The company will fund the operation. Pick up your tabs and take the hit on lost production, but once we have the drill, we will charge the competitor for its return. This machine is worth its weight in gold and more, so they’ll want it back.”
After 30 minutes a reply comes back...
Drew: “All three messages received and understood OK, we have no questions right now, will continue to Sam and get moving.”
After a long pause Fischer concludes the text call.
The SEALs venture to the mess hall in search of Sam Page and recognize a dweebie guy they used to quietly take the mickey out of at chow time. They use to laugh at his odd socks and baggy trousers, that were too short. Drew makes the first move to greet Page:
“Hello, you must be Sam Page?” offering his hand for shaking. Daley starts laughing at the back as Kaffey tickles his ribs from behind.
“Yes, I’ve been told you’d make contact. You’re the rowdy guys who are always messing about aren’t you? Whilst some of us have to work here?” Page makes that false, questioning smile, “Hum?”
“Yes, Sir, we’re what you might call the intelligent excavators based here. We do have stressful jobs, you see…”
“Let’s get down to business, I never have enough time so we’d better not waste any by messing about. Come to my lab in 30 minutes, I’m preparing your equipment, you’ll need to be moving out within the next 2 hours, otherwise we might lose this opportunity.”
“OK, Sir, I’ll prepare the team and see you shortly,” says Drew.
Page returns to his lab.
Drew sets about prepping his team for the next job: “Grab some food to take with you and get back to the Container (their name for living quarters), we have 20 minutes to check our gear and move out to meet Page in R&D.”
Page is having a secure text call with Fischer:
“You have to make sure you get a good scan of the machine. Are you confident your gizmo will switch off the intruder and restart it? Please take the guys through the scanning process, they might not remember all the options. Looking forward to the data stream tomorrow, good luck and make sure everyone gets back safe.”
After 30 minutes the reply comes back from Page:
“Yes Mr Fischer, I understand and yes, this will switch off anything! The scanner is the easy part, your data is assured, and I’ll make sure they remember everything I give them, including the safety briefing.”
On Mars, Page is laughing, rubbing his hands together and thinking, “What a naive idiot Fischer is. Once they press this ‘controller’, they won’t know what hit them!” being a guy with a serious chip on his shoulder, as he plays with one of his ‘special devices’.
Fischer ends the text call and the SEALs are by now fully kitted and arrive at the R&D lab.
“OK ladies, first things first. I’m in charge. You answer to me only on this mission, I have military command jurisdiction. Any problems – you speak to me or your lawyer, those are my orders. Now pay attention gophers,” Page holds up a navigation device, “you have this thing – a Navicom, I’ve modified. It will tell you where the drill is and the nearest tunnel to blow up, so you can get down there and at the rogue drill. You can also use it to find each other, and get back here. I’ll give you two of these. You can always call me and I can direct you, I have a Navicom here too. Make sure your location jammers are always switched off so I can track you.
“This is a standard tool set in three boxes for pulling off panels and parts. I’ll tell you where to start in a minute. This thing is the most important – the scanner. It only has a range of 2 meters, so you need to place it near the bits you scan. It is always switched on by the way. The data stream is automatically captured on that console there.” Page points to a computer in his lab, “You just have to make sure all parts of the drill are within 2 meters of this thing, whilst it’s downloading and you will capture it all. I’ll tell you when the scan is complete.
“So you’ll start at the middle of the machine, working into the centre, then back and forth with the scanner. Now, we don’t know what this machine is like inside or out, but we do know it’s 3 meters diameter and 7 meters long. The nuts and bolts of construction we don’t know, so you can try to use the standard tools I give you to enter from the side.
“The other option is this,” Page thrusts a pick and shovel into Drew’s face, smiling, “you can dig around the drill and use the scanner along the surface only, so no need to pull anything apart.” Drew shakes his head and looks at the others, “I have a pair for each of you, they are very light until you press the head of the pick here to change how heavy it is, see?
“Now, here is the last piece. You’ll need to stop the machine before you can work on it. So I’d suggest making contact with whoever is there first. Introduce yourselves as an inspection team looking into a suspicious drilling operation. Gather everyone round and tell them to watch whilst you power down their machine. Whilst they’re distracted, press this device here and whilst the machine powers down, you can admin
ister the Hyper-Slumber.”
Page brings out a metallic cylinder about 50 millimeters in diameter and 200 millimeters long, demonstrating a sliding shutter covering a button, and explains: “Press once for OFF and once for ON. Make sure this is lined up with the machine. If it doesn’t work, you’ll have to figure out how to stop the machine, maybe get the intruders to help you before putting them to sleep.”
“OK, yes that’s clear. I’d better look after this. We’ll get to it,” said Drew.
“Good luck and keep in touch!” replied Page.
Drew and the team pick up the gear and trudge out of the lab to find their transport.
Page is alone and sits back onto his chair smiling. He picks up another scanner off a shelf behind and recovers a sticky label from under his desk, like a piece of chewing gum, sticking it onto the identical instrument. The name plate says, “Range 20 meters Spherical”, not, “Range 2 meters Linear” as Page had claimed.
Page’s intention is to get the SEALs close to the drill, thinking they have to be within 2 meters, when in fact Page was getting the data stream from 20 meters away. Plenty of time to download the machine composition, before they disappear, and all traces are removed from the tunnel.
All Page has to do now is wait for the data stream he wants to start arriving, within about the next 2 hours or so.
The operation is taking place in another similar dimension, but as usual with parallel universes, some details are more important than others. In this one, Sam Page is nasty, he’s certainly experienced a different life so far.
Page is looking at what the scanner sees and right on cue gets the entire composition of the competitor machine and two unknowns, as the SEALs approach. The console says one male, one female, the name badges read, “Jes” and “Megan”. The data required is copied within a few seconds. “The SEALs have done as I instructed. Poor guys!” thinks Page as he redirects the stream to Earth, turns the light off and exits the lab. The console continues to show a stream of data coming in and then abruptly stops.