Jupiter Three

There are four large screen monitors in the Messa Mesa. After Colonial Security finished their search, only three of them worked. I’m not pointing any fingers; worked before, doesn’t work now? We should trade them for one of those holographic systems they have on level one. Anyone game for a “trading” party?

Monitor One displays the news channel for Mars. The lag time will increase the further we get from Mars of course, but it gives folks on the Jupiter Three a taste of home.

Monitor Two is used to display various sporting events, again from Mars,while Monitor Three displays the same from Earth. Believe me, the events are VERY different. Take terrestrial basket ball for example; while the game is very popular on Earth, it just doesn’t work on Mars, where the gravity is about 1/3 of that on Earth. Likewise, it’s impossible to host a decent Hontoo game in Earth’s gravity – it just doesn’t fly.

Monitor Four used to display space as seen from various viewpoints on the Jupiter Three, switching between various perspectives. Now it displays dust, in all its glory. Some would say they don’t see the difference, but as we draw closer to the asteroid belt in about 60 days, I am looking forward to a change in scenery.

By the way, tonight’s special is Linguine Leporidae.

Apparently, I had not been the only one with the idea of a “trading party” in response to the crippled monitor. Carl Benson, a friend and frequent patron of the Messa Mesa had approached me in the exercise room the afternoon of the 26th.

“Derick, I have an idea but I need your help.”

I grunted a few more pulls on the machine I was working on, and then grabbed my water bottle. “Sure Carl, what’s up?” I asked after a quick pull on the bottle.

Carl glanced around casually to make sure no one was within hearing distance. “I found a replacement for that broken monitor at the Mesa,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

“You know Duncan Li?” he asked.

“Skinny guy, dark hair, always looks nervous; always orders the same thing, tuna dogs with Sentally sauce?” We had been on board the Jupiter Three for over three weeks. You get to know the regulars.

“Yeah, that’s him. Duncan refills the concessions in the break rooms all over the wheel. He was telling me that Colonial Security has their own break room on level two; food, vids, couches, the whole works.”

“And,” I replied, sensing where this was going.

“And they have one of those holo vid systems for watching the games—top of the line stuff.”

“And your thinking they will be willing to trade us for monitor four,” I replied sarcastically.

Carl just smiled. “I’m thinking we can ‘negotiate’ a trade. Interested?”

I thought it over for a minute. Life on board can be pretty slow some times; eat, sleep, work, repeat. Other than the exercise regime they “encourage” us to participate in and few late night card games, the routine is pretty predictable.

“How are you going to get it out of there?” I asked.

“I have a plan,” Carl offered, smiling like a cat in a bird cage.

“I don’t know guys, I’m not at all comfortable with this,” Duncan said nervously with his usual reluctance.

“Duncan, the plan won’t work without you,” Carl replied. “Besides, of all of us, you’ll be the safest; you just need to carry a little extra cargo while you do your job. The rest of us are taking all the risks.”

We met again in the Messa Mesa during my shift that night, only this time there were four of us: Carl, Duncan, a girl I didn’t know who was introduced as Julia, and myself. Carl had just outlined the major points in his plan when Duncan had expressed his ‘concerns’. Duncan was always expressing concerns of one type or another, so it was no surprise to any of us. I could see Duncan still needed some encouragement, so I decided to show that I was behind Carl’s plan, which actually sounded like it would work.

“Look Duncan, we’re not talking about stealing credits, we’re just swapping out vid systems. Even if they track it back to us, what are they going to do? They’ll just slap our hands and take the holo vid back. They’ll probably laugh about it afterward.” I wasn’t convinced about this last part myself, but Duncan didn’t know that. We were planning on hijacking a top of the line vid system right from under securities nose. I imagined they would be pretty pissed afterward, but this wasn’t exactly a major crime.

“Is she sure about the cameras?” Duncan asked, pointing to Julia.

Julia looked back at Duncan as she rolled her eyes. “If you mis-calibrate the personal deflectors the maintenance engineers use, they disrupt the video feeds from the cameras,” she repeated. “An engineer friend of mine found this out when he used a mis-calibrated unit to check on a faulty directional port on the rear starboard engines before we left orbit. The guy monitoring him from inside could get audio, but no video. I’m sure it will work.”

“And it’s no problem for Julia to create the dummy work order in the maintenance system. She’s good at what she does; it will be untraceable.” Carl added. Julia just smiled.

I could see from his look that Duncan was weakening. “Duncan, the Hontoo playoffs are on the 29th. Imagine getting to watch them in 3-D. Come on, it’s Phobos Five versus the Mariners.”

Duncan considered this last comment carefully. He was a big Hontoo, and had come from Phobos Five. After some hesitation he finally caved. “All right, I’m in.”

We all sat back in our chairs in relief. I brought Duncan a tuna dog on the house as Carl walked us through the plan one more time. I was off in two nights, and that gave Julia a day to pull together the equipment she needed and for Carl to set everything up. Carl and I knew this would most probably come back to bite us, but if we could pull this off we would be legends.

Julia had recalibrated the deflectors by the time I woke up the next day. Personal deflectors are used by maintenance engineers anytime they have to walk outside the ship. Like the main deflectors in the ship, personnel deflectors will “bounce” anything that hits them, protecting the person wearing the deflectors from harm. They became standard issue for engineers after a fatal accident killed two engineers working on a frigate outside Space Station Burroughs orbiting Mars. I freak shower of rocks and ice no bigger than rock peas had bombarded the station and caught the engineers off guard. No one really realizes how fast Mars, and by extension anything orbiting Mars, is moving through space.

Carl and I spent the better part of the afternoon just walking around the ship, especially along the route we would be taking between the security break room on level two and the Messa Mesa. The idea was to establish a history of video disruptions so that a view of the records would not show that the disruptions had only occurred during the “trade”. The video records were stored in the ship mainframe and except for crucial areas of the ship; they were not monitored real time. Still, we had to establish plausibility for after the fact. It was this kind of forward thinking that made me trust in Carl’s plan.

While I worked my shift at the Mesa, Julia had to get a deflector planted near enough to the break room to make it look like the holo vid we had targeted was on the fritz. Carl had laid out this part of the plan particularly carefully.

“On level three just below the security break room, there is an access tunnel running between an exercise room and a storage area. We can get to the access tunnel from the storage area.”

“I thought there was shielding between each level?” I asked cautiously.

“There is, and believe me its extensive,” Julia piped in, “but the entertainment feeds for level two are routed from a panel in a comms router on level three. And the feed for the break room…”

“…runs through the access tunnel,” I finished.

“You’re brighter than you look,” Julia said with a smile.

“What happens when some security officer complains to maintenance about the holo vid acting up?” asked Duncan. He was surprisingly calm, after having committed to the “trade”.

“I’ve had Julia install a program in the mainframe’s maintenance request system,” Carl replied. “It’s filtering all the requests coming through the system and capturing anything coming up for that location. If a maintenance request comes through, it will reroute it to me. If no one reports the problem, she’ll insert a report into the system, hidden from the maintenance team. Either way we will have a legitimate request in the system when Derick and I show up to ‘fix’ the unit.”

After the incident with the bomb, security was understandably a little tighter moving between levels, especially levels one and two. We had to have a legitimate reason for traveling to level two; well, a legitimate reason and REALLY good fake ids, also ala Julia.

Carl and I were in the Messa Mesa right around 22:00. These plans always work better if you do them at shift change, right?

“So far so good,” Carl started. “I got the maintenance request at about 11:00. SOB’s marked it as ‘urgent’. I guess they are worried about the game tomorrow night too.”

“So no problems with Julia planting the deflector on three?” I asked.

“None. She’s in the system right now building our alibi. Duncan’s on his rounds; should be in the break room in about 25 minutes.”

Duncan moved around the ship pushing a cart carrying boxes on snack and drinks used to restock the concessions in various places, including level two. Before he started, Carl and I had taken down the broken monitor in the Messa Mesa, packed it in a box, and places it flat on the cart, with all the other boxes packed on top. Duncan was the “driver” tasked with getting the broken monitor in and the holo vid system out. It was up to Carl and I to swap the systems.

“Here, put this on,” Carl said as he handed me a stack of clothes. It was the uniform the maintenance guys wore. The cook working that night had gone into the back to get something, and no one else was around, so I swapped clothes right there.

“Here’s the id,” Carl said. “Your Ben Gardner and I’m Brad Jolie. Julia will wipe us from the system when we’re done.” Carl clipped the id to his shirt. “Your clear on the plan?”

“We walk down with the tools, show them the ids and the paperwork, then we go in, swap the monitors, leave. Duncan meets us back here with the holo vid and we install. Simple, right?”

“Right, but the key is to stay calm if they question us. Act like we don’t care whether they let us onto level two or not. When we are done we rendezvous in the secondary engine compartment, and split up from there. Hopefully they won’t track us back to the Mesa.”

“What if someone recognizes us?”

“Have you ever been on level two? I haven’t. As of…,”..Carl looked at his watch, “thirteen minute ago, Carl Benson and Derick Ryan don’t exist, and won’t for another 77 minutes. You ready, Ben?”

“Ready Brad.”

If only life were so simple.

It took us fifteen minutes to get from the Messa Mesa to the level two entry port nearest the break room. The security officer on duty took our ids and the work order and punched them into the computer system. Julia must have done her job, because he handed them back to us without a second look.

“Think you can have it fixed before the game tomorrow?” the officer asked.

“Probably,” Carl replied without hesitating. “These systems are complicated, but it’s usually just a matter of replacing a component or two. Won’t be able to tell until we look at it though. You a Mariners fan?”

“Damn right,” the officer responded. “should be a good game though; Phobos Five has a hell of a rear guard.”
“We’ll see,” I responded as the officer let us through.

Duncan was nowhere to be found. There were three officers in the break room, one male, two female, playing some kind of card game. Glancing at the concession it was obvious that Duncan hadn’t been here yet. Where the hell was he? The schedule was tight. Carl and I needed at least 30 minutes to swap out the systems. If Duncan didn’t show up in the next 15 minutes, the plan was off.

The other issue of course was the three officers. We had hoped that the room would be empty at this hour, but knew we couldn’t count on it. Julia was monitoring the audio feed, but of course had no video. It was my job to get her the name of at least one of the officers, to see if she could get them called out. I had to get the name spoken out loud. I wandered over to the game, trying not to draw attention to myself.

It looked like the game was poker, and old Earth game still popular on Mars. The three were watching each other closely, but one of the woman glanced up at me, making sure, I wasn’t signaling to the other. She probably assumed I was checking her out, but I was really trying to catch the name on the tag. A banging at the door to the break room got all of them to look up, and I managed to get two of the names. I couldn’t get the third without being obvious.

The banging at the door was Duncan, trying to maneuver his cart through with the extra weight. The door slid closed as Carl and I pretended to work on the reported holo vid unit. I managed to speak the names of the two officers out loud without attracting their attention. I counted on Julia’s skill with the system to augment it as necessary. Sure enough, the comms unit of one of the officers buzzed. It was the woman who had looked at me as if I was cheating.

She glanced at the communicator. “Shit, I have to go after this hand. Are you going to bet Rodriguez?”

The man apparently was, and the game continued. A second communicator went off, this time for Rodriguez. That was not one of the names I had discovered, so I assumed Julia had overheard and decided Rodriguez was a better bet for some reason. They finished the hand, then all three of them left the break room. The third one must have decided there was no reason to stay. Nothing to see here, move along folks.

We didn’t speak as Carl and I removed the holo vid from the wall. By the time we finished, Duncan had unloaded the old unit from his cart, and waited for us to box and load the new unit. Then we installed the old unit on the wall as Duncan put the concessions back in place over the box with the holo vid. Carl and I left as Duncan finished stocking the break room.

“Hey Gardner,” the officer at the level two portal called out as we passed. Shit, this could get ugly. I stopped and looked up without speaking.

“I wouldn’t bet too many credits on Phobos,” he grinned. I laughed, trying to look mildly offended as we turned to leave.

Have you ever watched a Hontoo game on a holo vid system? The colors are crisper than you would expect, and the action, well, there’s no better way to watch Hontoo, not even being at the game live. Carl, Duncan, Julia, and I watched the game surrounded by several excited fans, some of whom had never even seen a holo vid. They had no idea that the Mesa hosted the system courtesy of the four of us, but the “mysterious benefactors” were spoken of with gratitude. The Messa Mesa was very popular last night, and Lisa was very happy with the receipts the next day.

There is no public report of a missing holo vid system from Colonial Security. I assume there is some sort of investigation going on, but both Carl and I believe that they are too embarrassed at having the system “traded” from right under their noses to broadcast the situation. We both have gone back through the adventure and can think of nothing that would link the event back to us, though we both know it is just a matter of time before they find the system itself and take it back.

In the mean time, it’s Phobos Five in the final game against Verne Seven tomorrow. The Messa Mesa will be serving its special spicy Caprolagus with Jalepenos, so come on by!