Virus (1997), a Science Fiction Novel by Bill Buchanan: Summary

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for  nature cannot be fooled.”  Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize- winning physicist.

The astounding setting of the space station on future year 2014 (this book was written in late 1990s) is the result of the author’s hard work in studying space research and anything related to the space. There are so much scientific terms used in the book, but do not worry, you’ll survive reading this book even though you’re not a science geek. 

Iraqi Army created a virus named PAM that infected the Allied Satellite Armada software. Iraqi President and his father-in-law Saddam Hussein were behind this. The consequences of this software sabotage have destructed space stations. Approximately 4,800 commercial were lost flights and over fifty thousand people have been confirmed dead. The situation drove global economic catastrophe. Once a virgin PAM virus program starts running, she can’t be destroyed.

The disaster was man-made and untraceable. A fighter pilot Major Linda Scott and her crew determined to find the hatch of the virus. They found PAM in space station fortress named Freedom. Killing the electrical power has been eliminated for PAM’s option for retaliation.

The 415-page book was published by Jove Book, New York in 1997. Bill Buchanan is an American science fiction novelist but he also writes some science books. There is no much official information about the author but I believe that Mr. Buchanan must be a great scientist and programmer. He also is a very brilliant writer who wrote an astonishing book that proves him a lifelong space knowledge and computer science. He actually writes some programs to issue orders and gives orbit and space trajectories in order to make the book more realistic. This is definitely realistic science fiction book. Centurion, a computer-generated talking, acts like HAL in 2000: Oddessy’s Arthur C. Clarck novel.

Virus (1997), a Science Fiction Novel by Bill Buchanan: Summary

As a woman, Major Linda Scott had had to work harder than men to prove herself, but she was the best and had Hell Fire to show for it. Flying was something she had to do, she had been born to do it. It bound her to her father even after his death. Like many fighter pilots, Scott was short by male standards. At her thirty-six years old, she feared getting fat so she worked out hard and often. Her two-man crew often described her as a perky, direct, and unstoppable- a woman who got she wanted gumption. Like her flying machine, Scott was a masterpiece to behold and fascinating to understand. 

Divorcing Jay Fayhee had been the biggest mistake of her life, but he’d asked for the divorce. Every Air Force officer knows the needs of the Air Force must come first. She’d been assigned to the only XR-30 squadron in the country, located at Edwards AFB. On Jay’s dream sheet, he asked for a space station assignment – an assignment to the NASA installation at Huntsville, Alabama, for extensive space station training. 

Chief Master Sergeant Andrew MacWilliam was a good man in storm –tall, black, smart. Like Scott, Mac was a survivor, and like many successful military men, he was one of those people who believed it was always easier to get forgiveness than to get permission. Mac and Gonzo believed Scot the best- they’d been through a lot together. After Major Carlos Gonzales was Hell Fire’s back seater and situation Awareness Evaluation System Officer (SAESO). He’d been one of the Air Force’s premier flight test engineers before his space plane assignment and believed that quick, positive action was always preferable to hesitation. Like Scott, he passionately love flying and could not imagine life without it. 

By the year 2014, stealth cruise missiles had been mass produced and forty-one third-world countries had them. To encounter unpredictable third-world threat , former NORAD, NATO, Soviet countries united forming the Allied Forces, then fully deployed the Star Wars defense system- an orbiting armada of satellites. 

Scott and her crew tested the most important satellites in the Star Wars armada-the lethal workhorses- the DEWSATs (Directed Energy Weapon SATellites). Each DEWSAT was on an orbiting counter stealth weapon system, a satellite that could detect and kill the stealth missiles and aircraft from low earth orbit. Each DEWSAT was designed to overcome stealth target using an extraordinary radar, laser, and infrared telescope. Scott’s mission was to fly Hell Fire in assault competition against Centurion – the space-based supercomputer controlling Star Wars defense system. 

Freedom crew commander Major Jay Fayhee felt alone and melancholy as he remembered his ex-wife Linda Scott. Divorcing her was the biggest regret of his life. Space Station Freedom, the flagship of the armada, housed a six-member crew: two men plus four supercomputers. Major Fayhee and Depack McKee, the computer crew, often joked to Centurion. A three-dimensional, computer-generating talking head stared him squarely in the eyes. During his conversations with Centurion, he’d always uncomfortable because he’d never identified where  Centurion’s voice came from. Centurion existed everywhere on board freedom, knew everything, possessed a quick tongue, and displayed no tact. 

Centurion was the central nervous system and mouthpiece for the Star Wars defense system. Technically, Centurion was the finest example of state- of- the art computer technology in the world had ever produced. A third generation free space all optical supercomputer built with massively parallel computation capability based on neural networks- modeled after the workings of the human brain, but built by mirrors, lenses, and lights. 

The Star Wars defense system consisted of an armada of satellites orbiting the earth. Organized into three layers, like onion skin, the armada consisted of orbiting weapon, sensor, and communication satellites. Cheyenne Mountain, Centurion, and the DESWAT armada clearly understood their job- defense. Cheyenne Mountain assigned target priorities, Centurion assigned targets to individual DESWATs, and DESWAT armada did the fighting. 

As Supreme Allied Commander, Craven moved to the top of the ranks by leading battlefield communication, command, and control within the New Allied Headquarters building inside Cheyenne Mountain. He was one of the first to understand that optical technology offered the keys to make the remotely controlled battlefield reality. In the eyes of Army, Navy, Air Force leaders, Major General Robert Craven was one of the most brilliant and controversial figures in American military history. 

Craven and Supreme Commander Dan “Slim” Mason were two old pilots who united once again after Persian Gulf War in 1991. An MIT graduated in electrical engineering, specializing in advanced radar technology, Mason loved planes and first married his black stealth fighter. The Allied alliance included the Soviet Commonwealth, General Yuri Krol, found any errors on Centurion. Yuri’s experienced folks had watched Centurion’s log around the clock. 

Commander Hinson, a computer programmer who simulated Hell Fire’s missile attack on the Nevada Test Site. He surrounded by his master console – the computer brain of the attack center. He could located, inventory, and controlled everything in the Allied military arsenal that orbits, flies, floats, rolls, and walks. 

Iraqi Cabinet members gathered in the security of their bunker for a meeting with Iraqi President Hessian Kamel al-Tikriti. Kamel like his father in law Saddam Hussein, was a brutal tribelike chieftain who reigned fear. The secretary-general Al-Mashhadi explained his mission to defeat the Allies armada without firing a shot and without revealing Iraqi Army’s hands. 

Al-Mashhadi introduced Colonel Nassar, the head of ECM (electronic countermeasures) organization. Educated in America, he received his ECM training from MIT and the U.S Army. He and his team had been working for two years in creating a virus code-named PAM- an adaptive computer program that existed only to survive. The code name was nothing to most people but intended to deceive. The acronym stood for Perpetual Adaptive Monitor. Once virgin PAM started running, she wouldn’t be stopped. She couldn’t be destroyed. PAM was computer program and she was untraceable Trojan horse. 

PAM’s built around the three separate pieces of software created by the American Army, Air Force, and CIA. The breakthrough came when modified the software using genetic programming. The natural’s selection provided PAM’s reproductive algorithm, and consequently only the fittest most virulent strains survived. Originally. Her heartbeat came from the Army’s threat analysis software. It evaluated threats around the clock. Once PAM’s running Centurion, she would control every killer satellite– their entire orbiting armada. She was complex and she moved. 

The DESWAT was designed to automatically protect itself against anything. It also designed to discriminate the targets, using a technique involving burn-through. Mason found three missiles had disappeared and there were a lot of experts in War Room. There was no response from Centurion and the DESWAT was hot. After acquiring Hell Fire with radar, the DESWAT painted her with laser. Hell Fire’s skin temperature rising, and it would burnt the panels. Scott and her team ejected ASAT missile out from inside the burnt Hell Fire. 

Craven got a mayday confirmation from ASAT but the rattle missile disappeared. Hell Fire let go the second missile. Freedom’s commander Fayhee was on the screen. Russian experts in Kaliningrad learned that Centurion disconnected. In fact, Centurion couldn’t be disconnected. She was programmed to defend herself first and the Allied second. Freedom was fortress. Centurion was everywhere, Freedom couldn’t escaped from her. Centurion confirmed all the DESWATs were dead. 

Freedom had a four-faced structure like Egyptian pyramid. She was built of three triangular prism-shaped shells—pyramids builds inside pyramid. Across the surface of the metal mesh were thousands of uniformly space pointed spikes—each a separate antenna. Freedom Crew Commander Jay Fayhee felt optimistic about Linda’s chances. 

Shripod Adam’s personnel records showed the FBI and U.S military that brought no harm to U.S security. He was an American citizen, born in upstate New York – a skilled and well-educated language interpreter. He had been educated in the finest school and he has highly skilled translator of languages. He possessed the finest personnel records Iraqi money could buy. Doubtless, Adam was so pleasing to do Allah’s work in his apartment in Colorado Spring. He entered the video-crypt command on his computer. He composed his code message after he read the message from Kremlin to General Craven. 

Adam sent all that messages to Iraqi Army in Baghdad. Nobody was suspicious in Cheyenne Mountain that the computer network was bugged. All the computer network, using the standard phone lines and modems, placed phone calls which could not be easily traced. Many local telephone calls could be traced only while connected. For additionally security, the computer used in relay network was tamperproof – they could not be examined without destroying their encrypted contents. The New York City computer accepted Adam’s message, then hang up, and make another call to another computer located in New York City. This pattern repeated for overseas leg of computer network link–random cities in Europe and at the last, computer called Baghdad.

No one was inside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, except plant and computer security guard. Merchant Lucky was a though and intelligent man. He never really believed his second job would come to this– the money was good. Lucky was mercenary taking care number one, but he did second job as a spy. He was a thirty- nine-year- old spy and he did it for excellent money. He was a computer security wiz-the finest mind in computer security ever employed simultaneously by both the U.S. and Iraqi governments. 

Livermore Lab, like many other research and development giants, had streamlined their operations by consolidating both plant and computer security departments into a single organization. Lucky’s responsibilities for the U.S government included both Livermore plant and computer security.

All signals from Freedom had been lost, communication with Jay and his team, and Centurion severed. Thousands of symbols designating everything in orbit– DEWSATs, Space plane Hell Fire, Space Station Freedom, Space Station Hope, Anti-SATellite missiles, space mines, discarded rocket booster– froze suspended. Within a few second, the one-hundred-foot-long step and reactor core began heating up. The size of explosion was equivalent to 20.000 tons of dynamite about the same size as the atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima, Japan. As this ballet of explosions, fire, and light raced across the cloudy New Orleans sky, hundreds of people on the ground below scurried for shelter. 

Chaos ruled the civilized world. Communications around New Orleans and around the world were disrupted. Radio, television, satellite, telephone, aircraft traffic control—every communication system using the electromagnetic spectrum was jammed off the air due to interference from the explosion overhead. 

As part of the mission, Cheyenne Mountain’s staff had tracked every objects in orbit around the earth since Sputnik, the first Russian satellite. It were 60.000 objects orbiting the earth, 238 were known ASATs or space mines launched by third world country. After receiving PAM’s orders, every DEWSAT simultaneously updated the position of each orbiting threat. During normal the Strategic Defense Initiative  (SDI) operation, Cheyenne Mountain assigned target priority, Centurion assigned targets, and the orbiting armada did the fighting. But now, PAM controlled it all. 

Saddam has been seriously ill for several years. The Kurds could not kill him, the Allies could not kill him, and he had survived with two battle of cancer. A proud fire ignited in his eyes, after he read the paper. The super virus had infected every major computer system on board Space Station Freedom. He declared that Allah has kept him and nobody would hurt him. 

The radio technician found the room was bugged and it was underneath the table stuck in a wad of a gum. The mole was down below the War Room. A professional craftsman of accidental death flew to Denver from Chicago carrying the tools. He studied information package the Iraqi Intelligence Service had hand-delivered to his organization. The package described everything about Shripod Adams. After driving an hour, the electromagnet let loose the front, Shripod Adam couldn’t control his car. He was dead before his car rolled to stop in the dirty snow. 

General Mason reported to the President that there was a sabotage SDI software. The Trojan horse computer virus from Lawrence Livermore Lab had taken control of the DEWSAT armada. The catastrophe of unparalleled paralyzed air traffic across the U.S and around the world. Over fifty thousand people confirmed dead. Three-thousand-six-hundred-forty-eight commercial passenger aircraft were lost over the U.S alone. It’s approximately 4,800 commercial aircraft were lost worldwide. To study the virus would take months and there was no cure. The only hope was survival Linda Scott and her crew. 

Dressed as a truck driver, Mamood Abdul’s appearance was unremarkable. He was a Muslim extremist, pure and simple, who believed that killing Americans was God’s willing. His view of American was developed during his ten-year period as cab driver in New York City area. Educated only fifth grade, anything he lacked of training but his religious and spiritual needs couldn’t stop him. Mammod’s controller ran his assassination company out Newark like a small business. 

He had observed Merchant Lucky. The greedy Lucky watched Mammod’s truck looking lost. The extremist pointed his map and asked for direction. He carried a silent device, a compact lethal gas gun loaded with ricin. Once inhaled the gas quickly produced all the symptoms of heart attack. Mamood blessed Allah’s name pulling the trigger, releasing lethal gas in Lucky’s face. 

FBI special agent Clint Bridges was searching physical evidence from Shripod Adams’s apartment. After the tedious examination of Adams’s apartment, local police, FBI, and captain security from Cheyenne Mountain, determined that Adams had been interested in computers, paid his bill on time, maintained a magnificent saltwater aquarium, chewed a Juicy Fruit gum. Though the physical evidence hardly to prove Adams as a computer hacker, but his death and his deleted hard disk, had led a trace. 

He was murdered and someone has removed all the programs from his hard disk. Adams was only a Russian interpreter, and normally he had no business sent e-mail of any sort to Livermore. His friend hardy believed Adams was a mole. After summarizing the electronic mails link between Livermore and Cheyenne Mountain, the director of security found Merchant Lucky was involved with both computer and plant security. After looking over the record of Lucky’s last two days work, they found he was the mole. 

He transferred a collection of programs name mother’s_best from his workstation to the SDI computer. Any virus had went with it, then he deleted mother’s_best. Lucky was not only clever, he also methodical. Lucky backed up the programs on his computer every Friday. The programs were encrypted, he copied them. Then he decrypted them in less than five minutes. The coroner claimed an autopsy on Lucky, he was killed. 

A test pilot and Air Force graduate, Billy Boyd had been hooked on flying nearly all his life. Lieutenant Colonel Boyd respected Jackson of MIT Lincoln Lab his expertise. Jackson had invented the DEWSAT counterstealth radar for the Allies. He was one of a rare brief of scientists who had become famous by producing a series of weapon system. Sensitive DESWAT radar technology combined with physics of time and distance requirements. Jackson would mask the aircraft using equipment with mimics the DESWAT radar signal. It displaced radar return and made aircraft look like a thousand moving targets. 

Scott’ and her crew were the only hope to stop the virus. The video conference lined Scott and her crew on board Hope watched Thomas Jackson’s briefing without comment. Jackson and Boy’s chance were fifty-fifty at best. Boyd and crew sacrificed their life for Scott’s mission. It was not just helping Hope’s crew but to save the world. The Black Hole prototype test data was undeniable, the conclusion inescapable. Boyd, Jackson and team were on board the Black Hole flight. Scott and the team studied every details on the Black Hole flight in real time, so they could run The Hell Fire in approaching Freedom. 

General Mason, the engineers, and scientists did not know the organization behind the sabotage, but they had got the source code. After studying the virus, the scientist learned nothing they could do. There was no cure and whoever did it, he named PAM. On his report to President, General Mason showed the satellites photos- a fleet of ships in Arabian Seas steamed south. Iraqi forces was going to attack. 

Space Station Freedom was vulnerable, and her radar impaired. Freedom stayed in sunlight almost clock around, the blind spot was big problem. Her long range vision suffered, but she could see any target close enough to her to cast the shadow. When Freedom moved into earth’s shadow, the blind spot disappeared, but during Freedom’s long hours of daylight, she was vulnerable. The complexity of flight path determined the mission. The closer Hope to Freedom, the less margin Hope had for an error.

Hell Fire was released from Hope’s anchorage. Scott and crew now were on board the Hell Fire. She traveled to approach Freedom and synchronized her approach with Freedom’s rotation. PAM detected Hell Fire. Hell Fire had activated Freedom’s black box and anchored to Freedom. Without warning PAM opened fire and her lasers chased Scott and crew. Scott was convinced that most of PAM’s sensory input and output control circuit were useless without power. Once the space station electric power died, PAM lost her stranglehold on Freedom and the DESWAT armada. PAM clarified she lost the war. 

Memorial services held to all Freedom’s crews, Hope computer analyst, test pilot Boyd, and radar expert Jackson. They received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Citing their extraordinary service to humanity, Major Linda Scott and crew, received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Freedom was restored and Hell Fire was extracted from Freedom in yards. Hell Fire returned home later and retired to air and space museum in Washington, D.C. PAM’s origin never found. PAM’s children had children on their own, infecting hundreds of DOD computers. Her children existed only to survive and propagated their own kind.

*****

November 6, 2016

Sekapur Sirih 

Stasiun Pertahanan Sekutu dibentuk untuk menghindari serangan misil dari pihak musuh. Negara-negara dunia ketiga kini memiliki ratusan satelit ruang angkasa dan memiliki senjata canggih. Amerika dan Russia bekerjasama dalam penanganan satelit dan persenjataan angkasa yang bermarkas di Cheyenne Mountain (Gunung Cheyenne), Amerika. Satelit yang dikelola oleh komputer cerdas dan berperilaku bak manusia bernama Centurion. Tingkah dan kecerdasannya mirip tokok HAL pada novel sci-fi-nya Arthur C. Clarck, pada 2000: Oddessey. 

Terjemahan (Ringkasan) Virus (1997), Sebuah Novel Sains Fiksi dari Bill Buchanan 

Mayor penerbang Linda Scott adalah andalan pilot pesawat ruang angkasa Hell Fire, yang baru saja diluncurkan. Setelah melakukan uji di darat pesawat canggih itu dibawa ke stasiun ruang angkasa Hope. Tugas pesawat itu untuk mengawasi dan memastikan stasiun ruang angkasa Freedom beroperasi dan membantu pengawasan DESWAT, satelit senjata berenergi yang mampu menyerang misil, pesawat pada orbit rendah bumi dan DESWAT ditempatkan di ruang angkasa. 

Kapten Freedom bernama Jay Fayhee, adalah mantan suami dari Linda Scott. Keduanya sangat menyesali kegagalan pernikahan mereka dan berniat bersatu kembali. Namun rencana itu sirna, semua kru yang mengoperasikan Freedom tewas terbunuh. Tim ilmuwan Rusia telah curiga sebelumnya, mendapati pergerakan log Centurion  yang tidak normal dan rupanya software komputer Freedom telah diserang virus, Centurion telah diambil alih.

DESWAT, armada angkasa lainnya, Hell Fire, stasiun angkasa Hope juga sudah diserang. Virus bernama PAM telah berhasil dideteksi sekumpulan programmer, ilmuwan, ahli keamanan data, dan diklaim semua sistem komputer telah diserang. Puluhan ribu nyawa tewas, dan lalu lintas penerbangan kacau sehingga terpaksa dihentikan, perekonomian dunia juga jatuh. Serangan virus tidak hanya menyerang software di satelit ruang angkasa, namun satelit pusat kemananan data CIA, NASA, Pertahanan Amerika.

Virus Trojan yang bernama PAM sengaja ditanamkan, susah ditelusuri asal-muasalnya. Dua penghianat dicurigai namun keduanya telah terbunuh. Shripod Adams, pemuda kelahiran dan berkebangsaan Amerika, bekerja sebagai penerjemah bahasa Rusia pada Cheyenne Mountai. Secara rutin ia memberi informasi pada pemerintah Irak di Baghdad. Dengan lihai, ia selalu menghilangkan jejak surel (surat email) yang ia kirimkan. Teman kerjanya saja tidak percaya bahwa Adams memata-matai pembicaraan para petinggi di mana ia bekerja. Keyakinannya telah mengubah ia menjadi seorang teroris. Tapi pemerintah Irak juga tidak membiarkannya hidup, ia dibunuh dengan rekayasa terbunuh dalam kecelakaan tunggal di mobilnya. 

Merchant (Pedagang) Lucky, dikenal lihai dalam keamanan data, telah tergiur dengan uang manis dari Irak, ia pun menjual data pada Bahgdad. Penghianat itu pun dibunuh dengan gas beracun oleh jaringan pembunuh bayaran. Ia mati di tangan seorang supir taksi dari New York. Mamood Abdul sangat bangga bisa membunuh orang Amerika apalagi ia lakukan dalam agama. Perilaku orang kota New York membuatnya sangat jenuh, dan merasa sangat puas dan senang membunuh orang Amerika.

Presiden Irak dan mertuanya Saddam Hussein berpesta akan kemenangan mereka. Hussein yang sudah sakit-sakitan merasa tenang tidak ada lagi musuh memburunya dan invasi ke Kuwait semakin bebas tanpa pengawasan satelit. Seorang militer berpangkat Irak yang pernah mengikuti pengembangan software di MIT dan lab. Pelatihan di Pertahanan Amerika Serikat, ilmu dari program itu memberikannya ide penanaman virus PAM. Ia tahu betul sistem keamanan data Amerika. Tidak sulit bagi pihak pereintah Irak menemukan mata-mata seperti Adams dan Lucky.

Presiden Amerika akhirnya mengumumkan serangan virus tersebut secara global. Para ilmuwan komputer sains, ilmuwan antariksa, programmer, insinyur pesawat ruang angkasa, ilmuwan radar, dikumpulkan untuk menaklukkan induk virus PAM yang kini bersarang di stasiun satelit Freedom. PAM sangat pintar dan sensitif terhadap benda, orang, orbit di sekitarnya dan berifat menyerang. Ia diciptakan untuk beranak, menyerang, dan tidak kenal kompromi. 

Pilot uji handal Kolonel Boyd dan insinyur radar Jackson bersama kru melakukan penerbangan prototipe Black Hole, Scott pun diminta untuk menyimak segala instruksi dalam misi siluman. Misi penerbangan prototipe ini adalah  misi maut, walau demikian semua kru telah rela mati demi kru Hell Fire  demi menyelamatkan manusia. Ini pertama kali Hell Fire dipakai untuk mendekati stasiun Freedom yang kini dikendalikan PAM. Hanya jelajah siluman yang mampu mengelabui PAM. 

Hell Fire akhirnya dilepaskan dari tautan stasiun Hope, menelusuri trajektori Freedom secara perlahan dan memperhitungkan pancaran sinar matahari. Scott dan krunya akhirnya berhasil masuk ke dalam Freedom. Mereka sempat mendapat serangan tembakan bertubi-tubi dari PAM. Laser PAM ada di semua sudut ruangan Freedom. Scott pun yakin hanya mematikan daya yang mampu membuat PAM mati dan tidak akan balas dendam. Tidak mudah, namun akhirnya mereka berhasil mematikan daya dan PAM mengaku kalah perang.

 November 6, 2016