| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Sabotage |
| Date: | Tue, 26 Aug 1997 21:25:52 +0100 |
>>>>>[TO: SIGANet Archive
One problem solved, another appears. We've got a saboteur. Matt passed
me this -
+++++begin video
Blade walks briskly into the hangar, Chief Morgan looking up from the
exposed innards of Lilith's MiG. "Sir." Morning light casts long shadows
across the entrance.
"Don't sir me, Morgan, I'm a civilian. Matt, Mr Hunter, Blade, anything
except 'sir' or 'asshole'. What did you want to show me?"
"Whatever. Okay, Matt - it's Kelly, by the way - this is what we got.
Everything on this plane is shielded against EMP, which coincidentally
means it's proof against just about anything else, from lightning to
jamming. So how it got hammered by the microwaves from Romulus was a
hell of a mystery."
"It shouldn't have had a problem?"
"No way. This is the fourth Dark Shroud hop, nobody else had so much as
a flicker." Morgan shakes her head slowly. "No, sir, Mr Hunter.
Something was very, very wrong. And between Major Beamish and us - he's
been helping us check the systems, he knows a lot of electronics and
really helped out - I think I know what. Come here."
Blade leans over behind the shorter Chief Morgan, looking into the neat
skeins of electrical wiring, fibreoptic cable and hydraulic hose as she
explains the catastrophic failure.
"What happened was a series of power spikes on the electrical main. They
finally cooked the main generators, and the auxiliaries cut in
automatically when the main failed: splat, they died too. All inside a
few seconds. There must have been kilowatts of rogue power flying around
the system: see how scorched these cables are?"
"I thought these systems were all fibre-optic?"
"They are, for the data. But you still need electric power, even if the
signal's sent by light. Lose the power, lose the system. Luckily for
Lilith, the MiG has two backups. A ram-air turbine pump - " Morgan
points at the small pod deployed between the engines - "there,
pressurises the emergency hydraulics so the pilot can still fly the
aircraft manually. And there are four bottles of high-pressure nitrogen
that can be used to get the landing gear down, force down the flaps and
slats, and keep the hydraulics running when the airspeed's too low for
the turbine, like on final. Those let you at least get the aircraft
home."
"Right. But what the hell shut down the system? Since you're talking to
me, you think it was sabotage?"
"Not exactly. Not of the aircraft." Morgan turns to the open pods that
hold the IRIS and LoLite sensors. "See, here, this cable in the IRIS
pod?" The cable is flayed open, tinselly strands of wire and foil spread
back. "That's where the damage started. The cable came apart, and when
this shielding here was broken the wire inside acted like an antenna,
sucking Romulus's jamming into the electrical system."
"So, how did the wire get damaged? Someone strip it?"
"Nope. Look here." Morgan pulls a probe out of her pocket, points into
the pod. "See here? This little hole in the pod fairing?" A tiny, wedge-
shaped hole in the composite material. "At five hundred knots, the air
coming in through here is like a fragging knife, and what does it hit?
The power umbilical here." She points the probe at the ruined cable.
"All the pylons are served from a central distribution point. The crap
from the jammer comes in on one line, it hits all the others, then the
power management system, then the generators. The missiles she was
carrying are deep-fried internally too, severe damage. If IRIS hadn't
been shut down earlier, we'd have lost that as well."
Blade chuckles. "And you're going to tell me what you think made that
hole, right?"
"Right. Wasn't made from outside, the edges go outwards. Feel for
yourself. Something punched a hole from the inside. And here we get to
another problem, the unexpectedly poor reliability of IRIS. See here?
This is the adjuster for the coolant bleed valve." Morgan taps a hose
fitting, pointing to a small screw. "IRIS is cooled by liquefied gas,
it's some unpronounceable non-ozone-damaging non-greenhouse-gas
compound. The excess pressure vents here, and then out through the back
of the pod. The IRIS system controls the release rate: but it needs the
adjuster to be set right. This one, and all the others we checked, are
set far too far open. The computer puts them to "closed" and they're
dumping a litre a minute of coolant. Sometime during the flight, the
IRIS system overheats and the computer automatically shuts down to
protect the components."
"So that screw has been tampered with?"
"On all seven pods." Morgan replies sombrely. "Except it's a difficult
screw to reach with the pod assembled. You open the access panel, and
lean in with a long-blade screwdriver. But you have to turn hard,
because the adjuster is Loctited in place once it's been calibrated by
the manufacturer. The screws are _very_ stiff. And if you slip -" The
screwdriver slides off the valve and points right at the tiny, wedge-
shaped hole in the pod wall: just the right size and shape to be made by
a screwdriver blade.
"Fuck." Blade says softly.
"Yeah." Morgan replies. "Whoever was doing this opened each valve a full
turn before each mission, closed it back down afterwards. But this
fuckup meant they couldn't restore Lilith's setting. All we had on IRIS
was uncommanded hardware resets, no cause visible. Repressurising the
coolant is a routine postflight, nobody would notice that they were low.
Missions this long, it's always low. The coolant bleed rate is right on
the bench tests, the valve's been reset. All we know is, it craps out
for no apparent reason. All the time, the electronics were overheating
and the system was shutting down. We changed boards, had the software
checked, went over every electronic component... like looking for an
elephant with a microscope." Morgan shrugs.
"So someone wants IRIS to look bad. Great. Someone on the inside. With
regular easy access to the aircraft. I could really, really do without
this." Blade sighs. "I was worried about Aztlan satellite photography,
shadowrunner incursions, out-and-out attacks. Now we have a saboteur on
the inside too. This is not turning into a good day." He shakes his
head, then shrugs. "Can you fix the aircraft?"
"New generators, new fuses, replace some breakers and cables, that's
about it. Tough aircraft, Major, she'll be airworthy by tomorrow night."
+++++end trideo
And before lunch I grabbed this off the briefing room camera.
+++++begin trideo
Blade enters the room at a run, the M22 assault rifle adding emphasis to
his haste.
"What the hell's going on?"
Luttwidge stands in the middle of the briefing room, a Predator
automatic in his hand. Two coverall-clad figures - a human male and an
Ork woman - stand spread-eagled against a wall, looking miserable.
"We've caught your saboteurs, Mr Hunter!" Luttwidge says triumphantly.
"These are the technicians who maintained the air conditioning. The only
outsiders to come onto the base, the only possible suspects."
Blade stops dead, lowering the rifle. "You have got to be shitting me.
We need access to the flightline before and after every mission. Those
guys were here _once_. Count'em, once. And you're sure these are the
right technicians?"
"I put in a call saying the airco in this room was malfunctioning, and
the maintenance firm sent-"
"Two repairmen. Except the two who checked the systems were a Dwarf and
a human, and the human was black. We can even check the logs."
Luttwidge's face is a picture of confusion. "You mean..."
"The repairmen couldn't have done it, and even if they did they got away
clean. We're looking at an inside job. Put the pistol away before you
shoot a foot off. Guys, we're really sorry, the Colonel is under a lot
of stress..."
+++++end trideo
Luttwidge might be a shit-hot squadron leader, but he's no
detective.]<<<<<
-- 1Lt L R W Lynch <21:25:40/08-26-58>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
