CHAPTER 38
Low Earth Orbit
International Space Station
Tuesday
2:30 a.m. Turkey Time (TRT)
Monday
7:30 p.m. Eastern Time
Karl had been in the DSIHM, looking out the portal and meditating on the world, when the message had come. The nausea from microgravity had gone and the only nausea he had currently was likely from the intravenous bag of nanobot spike proteins he’d given himself an hour earlier. There were plenty of them in the MDGE cooler. They were his. He had paid for them. He had no qualms taking them as he needed. So, with that in mind, he had started a treatment sequence on himself the day before. He’d just taken his second dose. He had calculated that he might need another dose in six months, maybe, but if the medicine worked, the viral infection in his brain would be cured. He just hoped he didn’t get prions as a side effect. Hell, he hoped he didn’t have the beginning of prions from the virus infection he had already. The spike proteins on that damned virus variant were long enough that they could fold and wrap up other brain cells, causing the dreaded “wasting disease” prions.
The view from the large viewport in the DSIHM was nothing short of breathtaking. They were about to roll over Egypt any minute. He was waiting to see if there were noticeable cityscapes in the lights that he would recognize. If they ever really were to put hotels in LEO, he hoped they had a big window just like this one. Then there was the message from Marcus. A few seconds later was the message from Talbot.
“Uh-oh, Karl, it’s time for some trouble!” his AI, Alvin, told him in the high cartoonish voice.
“Alvin, it’s not nice to eavesdrop on people’s emails, chats, or conversations,” he scolded his AI pet.
“Sorry, Karl.”
“Forget it. And you are right. It is time to get to work,” he said. “Open up the internal map file called ‘Easy Button.’”
“Very well. Here is the map.”
A wireframe three-dimensional map appeared in his virtual view. It had red dots representing work he’d already been up to. And there were green dots showing what was left for him to do. There were just a few important and very key bus breakers and software toggles he needed to see to. Then there was the all-important final blow. But he had to follow the steps laid out or the plan wouldn’t work as it was supposed to.
For the past few days Karl had been placing small magnetic dongles in unlikely-to-be-discovered places. The ISS was big. There were lots of nooks and crannies about and Karl had lidar and Wi-Fi mapped them all. Many of those spaces were very near key communications lines, telemetry systems, power conduits, and various other systems. Each of the small dongles contained a piece of malware code that could be initiated wirelessly through induction onto the internal wiring of any system. Ingersol and Talbot had designed the things and used them to slowly steal billions from various banks, businesses, governments, individuals, and organizations around the world for over a decade. In places where they could get a direct USB connection it was even easier. But everything nowadays was spoofable and had a big, wide-open front door with the wiring leading into it, the central processing units and graphical processing units, and most of the motherboard and daughterboard components and chips, broadcasting microwave digital leakage that could be connected to from many tens of meters away. More than half of the systems in the world weren’t properly shielded from direct motherboard or ancillary processing hacks from wireless broadcasts. If a person was smart enough, that weakness could be exploited. Ingersol and Talbot, well, they were more than smart enough.
The wireless systems would work on most of the weaker disconnected systems within the ISS such as the amateur radio system the astronauts would use to sometimes communicate with civilians around the world. There was the station’s Wi-Fi system and a few others. But the main secure systems of the ISS required a direct assault. All Karl needed to do was make certain he had a beacon dongle plugged into the right places. Between Ingersol, Talbot, and their contacts at NASA and DoD they had every wiring diagram and every line of code used on the ISS before they had gotten there. They knew exactly where to hit it. They knew exactly how to hit it. And they were winding up and getting ready to punch with everything they had.
Karl pushed through to the Columbus Module and back through Node 2. There were the all-important ISS DC/DC Converter Units, DDCUs. Those systems were the key power buses providing the one hundred twenty volts direct current secondary power to the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Electric Power Distribution Units—PDUs. After the PDUs were the Power Distribution Boxes—PDBs. The main power from the large solar panel array outside the space station came into the JEM DDCUs, through the PDUs, on through the PDBs, and from there to the rest of the ISS. The JEM was the main line of defense from power anomalies. It prevented any spikes in current or overvoltages from making it through to the rest of the systems on the ISS. The only systems having their own distribution network were the legacy Nodes there before the JEM was put into place. The NASA/US Lab Module and the ESA Module each had their own DDCUs. Karl would need to get there as well.
Karl pulled the tiny sugar-cube-sized metal box from his waist-pouch and activated it. Then he reached in behind one of the main panels on the DDCU junction box and let it go. The magnetic base on the device quickly pulled it to the panel and stuck it into place. It immediately started handshaking with the processors inside the DDCU looking for a weakness to exploit. Nobody had expected simple on-site hacks for the ISS so they hadn’t been firewalled for such. Oh, all the electronics were ruggedized for erroneous space radiation surges from solar flares and such, but not for a direct coupling attack on the motherboards. The little device worked its magic and soon Karl saw the green dot turn red. When they needed it, he and his friends would have complete control of that system.
While the primary power systems ran through these modules and nodes, the secondary power did as well. There was a redundancy in system to the design but not a redundancy in path or location. Taking out one system could be piggybacked with taking out the other if the attack were physical in nature. And the planned attack, well, it would be very physical in nature.
Karl quickly placed the next box and pushed himself forward into the U.S. Lab Module. From there he hit the ESA module and had then made his way back to the DSIHM. He had worked up quite a sweat in the process from all of the moving about and from the stress of maintaining the appearance of a tourist in everybody else’s way. He looked at the wireframe model of the ISS in his virtual view and saw but one green dot left and it was in the DSIHM itself.
“Last thing before suiting up, Alvin. Play me a song.”
“Okay!” The background suddenly filled with the Chipmunks’ version of Stray Cats’ song “Rock This Town.”
“Interesting choice, Alvin,” Karl said. Looking at the map in his virtual view he pushed and swam himself through the microgravity to a panel on the wall just outside the door to his suite in the DSIHM. He slid the cordless socket driver from the pouch around his waist and fit it on the bolt head at the upper right corner. He backed the bolt out and placed it in his pouch. He followed the procedure three more times and then tugged the panel free from the wall. It had magnetic seals on it, so he stuck to the panel on the wall adjacent to him to keep it from floating about and bumping into things it shouldn’t be bumping into. Then he turned his attention back to the opening in the wall he’d just created. There in the wall was the main circuit bus bar keeping the DSIHM from doing what it had been designed for. He traced his finger down the long cold metal crowbar looking for a switch until he found the safety interlock pins keeping it from being thrown into the on position. He smiled as he gripped the bar in his right hand and pulled the three safety interlock pull-pins until they locked into the open position one after the other. As Alvin had said, it was indeed time for some trouble.
He used the mental mouse and keyboard and opened the encrypted messenger application.
T,
All systems are in place. Throwing the bus bar on DSIHM now.
K