Part 41
DATE:FC+155

Becky straightened her dress as she stepped out of the car. She'd hated corporate events before she'd founded Star Bright. She doubted this was going to be any better.

"Look on the bright side," said Ashleigh as she got out too. "It isn't raining."

Becky chuckled as they grabbed their bags. The weather was always a talking point to deflect from something serious.

When they went inside there was a big sign. 'Star Bright, Moat Room'

"That's the first sign I've ever seen like that," Becky mused. "It makes it seem real."

Ashleigh laughed. "It is real. It's been real for a long time. I'm not sure if the staff know what we do though. Just that we've hired all their meeting rooms to try and keep it as discreet as possible. It gives us plenty of breakout areas if private discussions are needed. Are you okay with the updated slide deck?"

"Yes. I don't know who went through them, but they are a lot more professional than what I put together."

"GWPP has a full sales department. They spruced it."

Becky asked, "So, what's the latest tally of who's coming?"

"Laura. Yvette, GWPP's top lawyer. Three from HILLSAT. Five from GCHQ. I know there was a reach out to Defence Intelligence, but if they are sending anybody is anybody's guess."

When they got to the suite, housekeeping were bringing in jugs of juice and setting them beside rows of bakery items along the bar."

"Thanks," Ashleigh said to the person laying things out. "When we start, the bar area needs to be kept closed. It's a confidential meeting."

"Yes, miss. We've already been told. That's why it's being done now."

"Great. And if we need refills?"

"The phone near the bar. There's a housekeeping button. That will call us."

"There will be a few drivers. Is it okay if they sit in the public lounge?"

"Sure. We'll keep them fed and watered."

Becky had finished connecting her laptop to the display when the first guests arrived.

"Hello. I'm Becky." She held out her hand and shook theirs. "This is Ashleigh. There's a few more of us, who aren't here yet."

"Ah, okay. I'm Paul, CEO of HILLSAT. This is Sharon, our satellite expert, and Trevor our networking guru." He looked around the room, seeing lots of spare seats. "Is there more coming?"

"Yes. Hopefully you'll like what you hear. We are interested in interfacing with all three of your sites. While we wait for others, help yourself to drinks and some pastries."

Evan and Liam came in, with Laura beside them. There was one of her bodyguards, who stationed himself by the door. Ashleigh suspected there would be at least one more, further down the corridor.

"Congratulations," Ashleigh and Becky said in unison as they saw Laura. It was the first time they'd seen her since they'd found out she was pregnant.

Laura actually blushed, her hands reflexively going over her stomach. "Thanks."

"Thanks for the new slides," Becky said to Laura.

Laura laughed. "It's still your words. Just with a bit of sparkle added to wow the crowd."

Yvette, the lawyer came rushing in. Ashleigh went to greet her having had several calls when they'd been trying to get the CAA to authorise satellite deployment.

Over the next ten minutes, the rest of the guests arrived, settling into clumps of familiar faces. Just as Becky rose to begin, the door opened again. A man slipped inside, choosing a seat apart from the others.

Becky stiffened. She recognised him from the GWPP investigation team's dossier — NSA.
"Chad, it's good you could make it," she said evenly.

The man flinched at the use of his birth name, not the alias he had been working under. Becky wasn't sure how he knew about the meeting. They'd not told anybody in America, but he'd managed to cross the pond and arrive in time. Impressive.

"Okay," Becky said, looking around the room. "We've got several different companies or establishments here. I'm not going to name them out of courtesy. If you're happy to name who you represent, then do so when you ask a question."

The silence that followed was heavy. Everyone understood the implication: she had chosen to name only one man. Chad sat rigid, the weight of every eye on him, the sole delegate stripped of anonymity.

"For those that don't know, I'm Rebecca Head, co-owner of Star Bright. We are the creators of the starships Aurora and Eos."

As Becky fired up the slideshow, she took the opportunity to glance at the team from HILLSAT. They were the only ones in the room that might not have known who they were.

"We aren't here to talk about the ships. We are here to talk about communications via the interdimensional tunnel. Some of you might be aware we are building a new communications satellite called Earth-1. It is the first in a series of satellites to increase speed across the solar system and beyond. Our ships take about three seconds to travel 150 light years. Communication is even quicker. We estimate 3ms for any link on Earth."

Becky paused as HILLSAT had a quick conversation between them. She noticed that the other groups had been taking notes, including Chad.

She looked at the three people from who she thought were Defence Intelligence when she said. "The important thing for security is the communication tunnel is structured differently to the ship tunnel. If someone got a communication device and managed to understand it, it would not help them transport anything other than a certain range on the electromagnetic spectrum."

The person who appeared to be the most senior in the Defence Intelligence group gave a slight nod at getting that message. "Roger Smyth, DC of Defence Intelligence. Good. Your ship tunnel technology is too dangerous to leak. If that got in the wrong hands, it could have serious consequences."

Becky nodded, relieved that the distinction had landed. Laura leaned forward, her voice calm but firm. "And that's why we're here — to make sure the communication tunnels are understood as separate. The ships are another matter, and we'll address them in the right forum."

Laura gave Becky an apologetic look for interrupting her speech. Unfazed, Becky continued, "What am I hoping will be achieved today? Three things. One, to recruit a partner to host the links in the UK, east-coast USA and west-coast USA. They are already established gateway provider and I'm presuming able to comply with legal requirements such as Investigatory Power Act or US Wiretap Act.

"The second is to make sure this is done so that intelligence companies understand what we are trying to accomplish and how. They have expertise to bring to the table, as well as their own requirements. We want to have a line of communication so there aren't misunderstandings."

"Finally, I want to try to put an end to the threats we've had. We've kept quiet as we don't want the public thinking we've got aliens in the basement. Yet we don't appreciate governments breaking into our offices or kidnapping my daughter and her best friend. Eight-year-olds don't need those memories."

Becky sighed and Ashleigh came across. "That is the pitch. Does anybody have questions?"

Someone raised their hands. "Patricia, GCHQ Emerging Technologies Division. You've talked about three gateways. One in the UK and two in America. Do you plan to place this in other countries?"

"I'm sure any partner would want to grow to cover additional markets. With the reduced latency and easier to deploy hardware, I'm sure other countries will want to have links. However, because the latency won't fluctuate in any significant way, it could be implemented as a spoke system, always connecting to one of the three hubs. So, an email from India to Brazil would need to go via one of the three hub sites."

Chad's eyes widened with that. He obviously understood the implications for the NSA. He wasn't alone. GCHQ had asked the question, and it seemed they liked the answer.

"That is down the line," Becky reminded them. "And I do see two issues. One, the internet was designed for resilience. This brings in huge dependencies. The second, the countries might resist such obvious interference."

There was a third point, but Becky didn't want to voice it aloud. It was why she wasn't as concerned as she might be. If there was a world government, the design would change. Like military, intelligence would be global rather than country."

Paul from HILLSAT spoke. "Do you plan to sell your technology to the implementing partner?"

Yvette, their lawyer spoke, "We'd licence the usage. We'd provide the hardware for the tunnel side. The partner would provide their expertise for the network side, the legal implementation and the security as per Tier 4 certification. The contract would include an anti-tamper clause. If the tunnel device was tampered, opened or moved offsite without authorisation, our agreement would be null and void. The reputational damage would be the least of your worries."

"We're already Tier 4 certified," Trevor from HILLSAT said proudly.

"Why do you think we invited you?" retorted Ashleigh.

"The contract sounds ... harsh," Paul said.

"It is for your safety as much as anything," Becky said. "You don't want to mess with it and open a tunnel to the centre of a star, do you? And if you are thinking it would be unfair for termination if someone stole it, then you would have failed in the security of the site. What we are asking for is no more than you provide for government satellite equipment. If you behave, you've nothing to fear."

Paul rubbed his chin thoughtfully. It was a lot more to take on than he'd expected.

Roger Smyth interrupted. "Your clause protects Star Bright, but it locks out the government. Lawful access needs to be maintained."

"You have it at the network side. The tunnel is just that translated to the endpoint."

Laura leaned forward smoothly. "That's the distinction. The lawful intercept obligations sit with the gateway partner. The tunnel hardware itself is inert without the network. That's how we keep our engineers out of surveillance politics."

Smyth gave a curt nod. He didn't look satisfied, but he couldn't argue the logic.

Ashleigh moved from her seat towards the three HILLSAT attendees. "Do you want to go to one of the other meeting rooms, and we can discuss the contract in more detail?"

Paul glanced at his two colleagues who nodded. "Let's see it. I'll need our legal to check it but let's see what you suggest."

Yvette followed them out of the room. This was the reason why she'd attended.

"So, any queries for the floor?" Becky asked, again.

"How do you open an interdimensional tunnel?" asked Chad.

"Easy," Becky responded pointing to the device on the desk. "I press this button here."

A ripple of laughter came from the attendees. Some were amused, others uneasy.

Evan spoke for the first time. "The button is just the trigger. Unless you had a good grasp of theoretical physics, it would mean nothing to you. The only one who might start to get a grasp is Riccardo." Evan pointed to a chap in his late twenties sat with the Defence Intelligence group. "You obviously read mine and Liam's paper and recruited the best students that studied underneath us. Smart move."

Riccardo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn't like the limelight, but preferred sitting in the lab.

Becky took the floor again, "But we are here to talk about communication, not how the interdimensional tunnel works. For safety reasons we don't talk about it. We don't want the technology falling into the hands of terrorists or other nefarious organisations."

She didn't know how they would feel about this statement. GCHQ didn't seem to care. UK Defence Intelligence were difficult to read. There seemed to be some thawing, but their third person, who hadn't been identified, was scowling. Chad just sat there, looking impassive.

"Any more questions before we turn to security of the Earth-1 feed?"

There weren't any. Laura got up, and grabbed several small tablets.

"Laura is kindly distributing tablets containing detailed schematics of Earth-1. The only way we can talk actual facts is if you have the details. While you look things over, why don't we have a comfort break?"

This wasn't for politeness. When she was coming out of the stall, she bumped into Ashleigh.

"How's it going?" Becky asked.

"Interesting. We're basically going through the expectations about what they can and will deliver, and what we will. We've got a GWPP expert on the line, so we can have things tied down. They'll need to go away and come up with a formal proposal, and we can work from there. I've highlighted how much money they're going to make on the transatlantic links."

"Ah, so that way they know that we know and they can't pull the wool over your eyes?"

"Exactly. What about in there?"

"I don't know. We're having a break before we start talking about Earth-1 security. Defence Intelligence might take a nap while we do this bit."

Ashleigh laughed and left, heading back to her meeting.

Becky was surprised to see some mixing. Chad was talking to Laura. Evan was in conversation with his ex-pupil. Even Liam was talking with someone.

Covering the security of Earth-1 was a lot more productive than Star Bright had expected. GCHQ added some things, and even Chad found one loophole. As expected, Defence Intelligence were quiet, but they didn't nap.

It was only as they were finishing that Ashleigh and Yvette reappeared. The three HILLSAT personnel had gone to study the contract. As they approached the door, Eos appeared.

"Let us give you a lift home," Laura said to Chad.

Chad shrugged and was soon on his way.

"When you say, lift home, do you mean to an American airport or actually his house?" Becky asked Laura.

"He probably thinks the airport. I think he'll freak when he gets home. It's nice to keep up the pressure on them."

* * *

"Do you think today helped?" asked Becky that evening.

"I hope so," Ashleigh said. "We've tried but—"

"Was that Mrs Haynes?" Jenny exclaimed interrupting Ashleigh.

She was watching a news item on Earth First. She rewound it, so she could show her Ma and Mum. "Oh, and is that Uncle Luke?"

"Yes and no," Becky said after watching the briefest glimpse of them. She really had to use her imagination to recognise them. Jenny's ability to identify them after such a brief glance was surprising. "I'd say they are undercover."

"Ah, so not Mrs Haynes and Uncle Luke," Jenny said, and clicked play to continue watching.

Becky glanced across at Ashleigh, who gave a shrug. Sometimes Jenny seemed a complete mystery. She often acted like an eight-year-old, but then there was her knowledge and never wanting to miss out on something.

"Let's see if we've satisfied some of the intelligence agencies," said Ashleigh. "But if there are investigators undercover, perhaps we should pay more attention to Earth First too."