VAXTREK Version 3 (The Search for Blocks)

S1 Space: The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the StarVAX ENTERP::, its five-year mission: to explore strange new nodes, to seek out new protocols, new hardware-- to boldly address where no call-request packet has been addressed before! (and, if possible, provide some cheap shots at the failings of inferior operating systems).

"Go ahead Spock."

"The message reads:

With respect to POSIX interim standard (draft) currently developing application interfaces (C Binding) for the Destruction of non-Open File Systems, currently at rev 124.11 awaiting committee ratifications of amendments 107 thru 166 (provisional). Estimated time for completion of this phase of the specification is approximately 14 months. Subsequent specification phase (preliminary draft specification) will then commence, followed by (incorporating necessary alterations and deletions) a revision of progress so far, and a Feasability Report".

"This is decoded Captain".

"Well, what does it mean ?"

"Basically, it means they haven't gotten around to writing any code yet."

"But, if the POSIX didn't do it, who did ?"

"Captain", said Checksum, "sensors are picking up an unidentified node dead ahead".

"Red alert Mr Checksum. Raise firewall filters and arm photon torpedoes".

"Aye sir. BYPASS privilege enabled. Device PTA0 shows online."

"Open hailing frequencies Lt Uhura".

"Negative response to ARP and HELLO packets sir".

"Can you locate its hardware address, No 1 ?"

There was a pause. "I mean, Mr Spock", added Kirk.

"I have cross checked what I can make out with the Distributed Nodename Service", said Spock. He straightened up and looked directly at the captain, "it appears to be a Plague Ship".

"A Plague Ship ? Explain, Spock" said Kirk.

"Certainly, Captain. Plague ships are so named because they indulged in unsafe practices, such as booting from a wide variety of different servers, without checking the server's past interfacing history. In addition, they would often share data structures and load modules between many such systems, and rarely used a modem.

Consequently they were very susceptible to virus attack, particularly as the operating system security was non-existent. Later versions of this system, Minimal Security Demented Operating System (MSDOS) carried large numbers of viruses as part of its normal kernel.

Indeed by version 28.0, all the OS code had been replaced by self replicating viruses which emulated the old behavior, until such time as they inexplicably went into pathogenic mode. In fact, because the overall performance and functionality of these systems were so much better, this substitution went largely unnoticed until several versions later, as even the pathogenic behavior (such as removing boot blocks and erasing the odd sector (or all odd sectors)) was becoming commonplace.

Plague ships have not been in evidence for at least 50 years since the first release of Was New Technology (WNT) in 1998."

"Well" said Kirk, "See if you can patch into its record-structure and find out whats it doing in this neck of virtual space ... and don't forget to invoke safe networking practices!"

"Certainly, Captain" said Spock enabling CMKRNL. "I'll just run off a quick NETBIOS emulator. Shouldn't be more than 5 minutes ..."

" ... Captain, I think I've got something ... it appears the Plague Ship came in contact with some alien force ... it was hit with some pretty large protocol blocks ... it looks like some form of SDLC, but modified and adapted .... S ... N ... A ... yes, a new weapon called SNA. Its NETBIOS shields were no match for that protocol!"

"My God" said Kirk. "It's been utterly devasted - what life-form would use such a weapon?"

Just then, the doors of turbo-lift TLA0: opened and Whine-on the tea-lady stepped out pushing her anti-grav tea-trolley. "Tea anyone?"

She stopped dead when she looked over at Spocks console.

"Ooooooohhhhhh! Bad news Mr Spock! Thats an SNA weapon that is! Wouldn't go near one of those if I were you! Bad piece of news that!"

"Whine-on!" shouted Kirk. "You know who did this?"

"Cor yes luvey" she replied. "It was the Bug. Yes I remember them Bug people. Awl looked the same, dressed in clean blue suits and ties. Never smiled they didn't. They came down and ignored us ordinary folk. Went straight to the accountants and politicians and started on them. Lord it was terrible, the screams, the crying out in the middle of the night"

"They inflicted torture on the leaders of your people ?", queried Spock.

"Lawks no love - are you sure you don't want a cuppa? OK. No, they just kept talking real softly at them. Persuading them to buy something I think."

"Interesting", said Spock, "there was an ancient practice whereby people were employed fulltime not to develop hardware or software, but merely to sell it. It was a practice that never really caught on in Digital, and finally died out. It looks like the Bug brought this practice to a fine art".

"That's as maybe", sniffed Whine-on, "but they were something awful. They just kept on until their victim finally bought something to get rid of them. If they didn't, they started on his boss, until he were fired. 'You never lose your job buying from the Bug' they'd say. Of course, once anyone bought anything, they were hooked. They'd be put on mailing lists. They'd find out about pre-rekky-sits, which meant before they got what they bought, they had to buy lots of other things first. Then they introduced their secret weapon: The Support Con-Tract. This meant that you paid them lots of money to prove you supported them. In return, they gave you fixes that made more things go wrong, which proved you needed the Con-Tract."

"Fascinating", said Spock, "truly diabolical".

"In the end, they just wiped everything out. They kept on until everybody was assimmylated."

"Spock" barked Kirk, "see if you can locate any addresses from its Network Trace".

"Retrieving it now Captain. I managed to access the Sensors Socket Address -- it seems to be the address of its boot node." "Give it to Checksum and get him to plot a course - Warp Factor 8!"

"Wouldn't you like a nice cream bun m'dears ? Lawks what's their hurry?"

Kirk stared at the distant image on the screen. "That's no planet. Checksum, get us out of here!"

"Aye captain. Engaging warp drive. Captain, I'm getting a 'device is not software enabled' from WPA0 and WPA1!"

The `planet' seemed to loom closer. The bridge crew gazed silently as it took shape. A huge blue cube of enormous dimensions, and perfectly smooth sides filled the viewer.

The Diagnostic Supervisor entered the bridge, and gazed at the screen, with a wild look in his eyes.

"I feel a presence. A huge number of minds, but only one consciousness". He shivered. "And such an old, old technology".

"Bones, what the hell are you talking about", snapped Kirk, "you're a doctor not a psychic"

"Sorry", said Bones, "did I say something ?"

Kirk stood up from his command chair. "Mr. Spock, please join me in the PAD room. I think you might find this stimulating".

Spock looked uncomfortable. "I think you would prefer Yeoman Rand, Captain. Honestly!".

"Idiot! I want us to board the Bug vessel!!"

"Oh" said Spock, relieved. (Yeoman Rand looked decidely crestfallen).

Kirk, Spock, Pasthru and Checksum stepped on to the Transporter PAD. "Energize, Mr Scott!" barked Kirk. "Aye, sir"

The boarding party reassembled on the Bug vessel. All around them as far as they could see, were rows of rectangular objects, each with a motionless Bug machine seated behind it, ignoring their presence.

"Fascinating!" said Spock twiddling his Tricorder. "Each member of the Bug seems to contribute to the running of this huge ship!." Spock walked over to the nearest Bug. "There seems to be no evidence of individual conciousness whatsoever". He turned to Kirk.

"Captain, this is apparently what is called 'a workstation' or 'a desk'. Here, the Bug-machine can communicate with his fellow Bug using a method of communication which they call 'a memo'. It is a highly inefficient way of communicating, needing to use a verbose protocol. It's apparently transmitted using this PROFS terminal which I can deduce means Pretty Ridiculous Offering For a System. I would like to run this 'memo' through the Universal Translator"

"Ok, make it so", said Kirk, wondering what made him say that. He ran his hand through his hair. "I'm getting a bit thin on top as well", he thought.

After two hours, the Universal Translator gave up, consuming three dilithium HDA's in the process. All HDA's in VAXfleet Field Service were now in pieces on the floor of engineering, and Engineer Scott was talking to his communicator.

"I don't care if they're not up to current rev levels - ship them to us NOW".

It apparently could not translate:- "With oblique reference to the aforementioned low-end entry-level departmental-oriented worker-enabling desktop workstation, the networking interface protocol required to provide connectionless, or indeed, connection-oriented connections at the connection level (this not being compliant with the aforementioned osi stack, as such, per se) would involve recognising non-Silly Networking Atrocity protocols."

But Spock got the idea. What passed for concern clouded his face. "Spock", said Kirk. "Whats wrong?" "Captain, I think we have discovered the purpose of the Bug in our Cluster. They want to convert all networking protocols in the civilised galaxy from peer-to-peer to hierarchical" "Spock, you know what this means?" asked Kirk. "Yes Captain, all network traffic will have to route through central nodes controlled by the Bug." "But that would mean transmissions would take years!!! That's archaic!" Well done Spock! Let's get back to the ENTERP:: Remind me to buy you a drink when we get back" "Thank you Captain, but thats not necess..."

Spock stopped in mid-sentence. At the mention of the word "buy" the bug-machines stood up and started to move towards the party. The bug machines reached inside their battle dress and pulled out pieces of paper. Slowly the army of blue suits walked purposely toward them ...

"I think I'd better get them back", said Scotty, "but I canna find the right switch". Scotty groped at the TRA0: console, trying vainly to set the right combination of PAD parameters.

"Why don't you remove those stupid shades ?"

Scotty removed the rather decorative visor from his face. "Can't remember why I put it on, it seemed natural at the time". He set the PAD to Recall. The landing party reappeared.

"Well done Mr Scott", said Kirk, "that was a very close call, much longer and some real damage would have been done".

"The Bug were certainly very effective", said Spock, "how are you going to explain to VAXfleet why we needed to purchase 120 punch card readers ?"

"Never mind that now, Spock, I want all senior officers in my Ready Room by 19:00".

Another pause.

"What's a Ready Room ?", asked Spock.

"What's 19:00 ?", asked several hundred American viewers.

"What's Senior ?", asked Wesley.

"Who's that boy ?", said Kirk.

"What boy ?", said Spock.

"Over there, he's ... well he WAS there!"

Spock eyed the Captain. "Perhaps you should lie down, Jim ..."

"Never mind, Spock, have the regular cast report to the Briefing Room."

"We are facing two problems, which may be related. Firstly, the presence of the Bug Ship, and secondly, the strange behavior of several of us here"

The officers shuffled awkwardly.

"Captain, I didn't know the shower was occupied ...."

"I only meant it as a short term loan ...."

"I put the sheep back afterwards ...."

Kirk banged his fist on the table. "No, not that. We are all adopting strange characteristics". He suppressed the image of vines blowing in the wind in the French countryside.

"I mean ... Spock ! You're grinning ! Stop that at once !"

"Really Captain, I am incapable of such an emotional display. Have you forgotten my Vulcan origins ?". Spock leered.

"You're doing it again ! Pasthru, penny for your thoughts."

"Captain, why should you wish to purchase my thoughts. Indeed the amount suggested would grossly underestimate their value. Ah I see, a figure of speech suggesting that I contribute to the ongoing debate".

Kirk groaned. "Are we all hallucinating Bones ?"

Bones shifted in his chair, looking somewhat incongruous in his low cut tunic. "Yesterday, I looked into a mirror, and the face I saw was not my own".

"Whose was it ?"

"Checksum's. Damned idiot was making faces behind my back. Too much Romulan Ale I reckon".

The communicator beeped. "Bridge to Captain Kirk"

"Kirk here", said Kirk, fiddling with his uniform.

"Bug ship is moving towards us".

"Sound Red Alert. Let's get to our posts gentlemen".

All left the room except Spock. When he was completely alone, he put the trombone to his lips and played .....

"Shields to maximum!" snapped Kirk.

An explosion rocked the bridge. Spock scrambled to his console. "Captain", he shouted. "We've been hit by some form of Token Ring packets. It simply mimicked the address of the shields and came straight through!" "Start changing the shields address randomly", replied Kirk. "It may give us some thinking time."

Spock began working his console. He entered his commands to the computer and waited. The reply was not what he expected. The console said:

"Beginning assimilation of ENTERP, classification MINI.... This console is now a RJE 2780 terminal. Commands submitted on this console will be queued for overnight processing.

He walked over to Uhura. "Lieutenant, make this signal to VAXfleet headquarters" Uhura tried to open a frequency. Her console flashed "All communications to VAXfleet must be routed through BUGGYVM1. Sub-system is busy, please wait ..."

"Captain" said Spock. "That last attack let in some form of BUG virus. All our systems are being transmuted to hierarchical networks!! Checksum! What's wrong?"

Checksum had stood up from his console, gripped his throat and fell over. Bones ran over and knelt beside him. Checksum's uniform had started to turn dark blue and a tie was forming around his neck, along with a white shirt.

"My God" exclaimed Bones. "This is diabolical! He appears to be infected with some form of biological virus that's transmuting him into something"

Spock knelt beside Bones. "I think you'll find he is being transmuted into a Bug"

Bones looked worried. "Well if we can't stop this tie thing growing, it will encircle his neck and cut off the blood supply to the brain!! He'll be a vegetable, or worse, a salesman !".

"Take him to the off-line room, and do what you can."

Checksum was carried off the bridge, with a large red label bearing the word "FAULTY" pinned to his rather elegant looking suit.

"Captain", said Spock, "the main computer is acting rather strangely. It is not responding to any of my queries, except to say that an upgrade is in progress."

"What does it all mean, Spock ? Why is everyone hallucinating, and why should it affect the computer too ? And most of all, why do I so badly want to drink tea, Earl Gray, 72 degrees ?"

"Captain, something is changing the fundamental nature of this ship, and of its crew too. The frequency of these hallucinations is increasing, and I estimate that in about 24 minutes, the change will be complete."

"I believe you will find that you have somewhat overestimated the transition time."

The voice came from Pasthru, but was not his voice. He turned to face the captain.

"Pasthru, what happened to your eyes ?", said Kirk. He reached for his chair, which seemed to change shape as the entire bridge blurred. He closed his eyes. He opened them to a totally alien bridge. The main screen displayed the words:

                      *******************************
			ALPHA  MIGRATION  COMPLETED
                      *******************************
			 USS ENTERP:: AXP-1701-D
                      *******************************

"Tactical analysis Mr Fork.

"Bug ship is powering up Channel Attach Disrupters and SNA Packet torpedoes, ENTERP:: PHA0 through PHC15 and PTA0: through to PTB24: online and reading 110 Specmarks. NSA Security Rating Class A++ is in operation on all decks. We have a Turbochannel open to VAXFleet command."

PunchCard turned to face the Blue Monolith, which suddenly didn't seem quite as large as before, and smiled grimly.

"Very well then. Let's show them what this `Mini' can do !

Signal VAXFleet Mr Fork: advise them we are about to engage The Bug."

These questions will probably remain unanswered in -

VMSTrek - the Next AutoGeneration.

The previous two episodes are available (along with this one) as VAXTREK.TXT & VAXTREK2.TXT from the server appropriately named kirk.eurokom.ie using anonymous FTP.

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As usual, the authors and their employers take absolutely no responsibility for anything whatsoever.