Commander Hayley spoke on the line, her exhaustion apparent in her voice despite over a dozen cups of coffee he had heard her consume over the comm channel. “Jack, is there any way you could speed up your search? With what we’ve seen of the ship’s apparent size, you may not find the engineering center in time to save the Atlanta’s crew.”
“I am doing the best that I can, Commander Hayley. The drones are already traveling at a speed high enough to make timely progress, but still provide a detailed scan for the map of the ship.” Jack reached another room and scanned its interior, only to again find no engineering equipment of any significance inside the room. Determined to find the engineering center, Jack suppressed the impulse to get discouraged and continued down the hallway to scan the next room in the corridor.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I know you’re doing everything you can to help us. I guess I’m just stressed with how quickly we’re running out of time to free ourselves.”
Jack was about to respond when he received a message from one of the drones scanning the ship.
Recon unit 25 reporting.
This unit has detected a room matching search parameters.
Transmitting location of room now.
After Jack retrieved the scans and reviewed the data, he agreed with the drone’s assessment that the room was most likely the engineering center of the alien vessel, or at least a secondary hub of some kind. The drone’s scans showed many power conduits leading to that part of the ship, and the door was comprised of a greatly reinforced metal, which would be logical if that room contained the alien vessel’s power core.
“Commander Hayley, I believe one of the drones have found the engineering center. I am heading to confirm the finding now.”
“Understood, Jack. Good luck.” Deciding not to activate his jetpack and risk damaging himself from flying at high speeds through the corridors, Jack took off jogging through the ship. Using the map he and the drones had made, Jack made his way through the alien vessel, gradually making his way up several levels of the ship, traveling up ramps that were sporadically placed around the ship that led to the level above or below the current one, and then proceeding to travel deeper into the ship’s inner dwellings.
At last, Jack finally arrived at his destination, and he found himself in front of a large door that possibly contained the engineering center. The door was actually more of a large wall that had several creases in its structure where it would separate as it opened, or so Jack assumed as he examined it with his sensors. A single crease led from the all of the four corners of the door, and both sides joined in between each other in the middle of the structure, and the two creases merged together to make one crease in the middle of the wall. Nearly twenty Recon drones, which he had ordered to report here while he made the trip towards them, hovered around the door as they took detailed scans of the door and the surrounding walls to determine how to best force the door open.
After closely examining the door, he determined the best places to assign the drones to attempt to pry the door open. After he instructed the drones where to position themselves, they attached themselves to the door, and put their thrusters on full power. As the door slowly moved apart, Jack grabbed onto the growing space between the doors, and pushed them apart with all his strength. The door slowly inched opened, and finally, it was nearly completely open. Jack entered the room, and the Recon Drones detached themselves from the door and followed Jack into the chamber.
The room was colored silver, like the rest of the ship, and enormous in size, nearly five-story’s tall. A multitude of different walkways and platforms were scattered at various heights above and throughout the chamber, many populated by five feet tall upside-down pyramid-like consoles that were spread around the room. In the center of the room was a huge giant pillar, four times the width of ancient Greece stone pillars. Two metallic rings hovered in place at the center of the pillar, where a large sphere was located, crossing together each other to make an X. Jack detected a magnetic signature in some of the material near the rings, suspending them in the air. Several power lanes ran from the ceiling and other places in the room into the two rings, and other cords connected from the sphere in the pillar to the rings. Jack guessed that the pillar was most likely the ship’s power core: given how big the alien vessel was, it would take a power source of great caliber to supply energy to all its systems. He instructed the Recon Drones to scan the room and its equipment as he personally examined the power core, walking around the many deactivated aliens scattered around the place as he did so.
“Whoa! Is that thing the ship’s power core!?!” Jack heard Chief Lexton shout into the comm.
“What else would it be, their cable antenna?” Commander Hayley remarked.
“Good work, Jack. I was starting to fear we would never find the engineering center,” Captain Rick spoke.
“Don’t thank me yet, captain. I still haven’t turned this thing on yet, assuming that I can figure out how to operate this alien technology. Chief Lexton, how would you recommend I proceed?”
Chief Lexton though a moment before she replied, “Well, I suppose the first step would be scanning the core. Maybe we might be able to figure out what is wrong with it and try to fix it. You could also try to activate on of the consoles in the room. Maybe you could use that to figure it out, assuming of course, you could interpret the alien’s language. Could it be remotely possible that they happened to speak something similar to our languages on earth?”
“With the luck we’ve been having, they probably won’t have a language to interpret, just data and pictures,” Jack replied as he reached one of the consoles close to the power core, and now that he was closer to the console, he could see it in more detail than before. The device was shaped like a pyramid, but upside-down, with the point on the bottom holding the structure up. There was also a small display on the flat side of the pyramid, and there was a small, circular port on the flat surface of the pyramid, and Jack assumed it allowed the aliens to connect to the console and receive direct access to the computer systems. He summoned two Recon Drones, and they attached themselves to the device, feeding power to it. The device flickered, and then activated, emitting an orange glow from several conduits that zig-zagged across the surface of the lower pyramid faces. The display on the top activated, projecting a holographic interface. Alien writing flashed on the image, and a picture that looked similar to the power core was in the center of the display, rapidly flashing red. Several low and high pitched beeps sounded from the console, further stressing the urgency of whatever it was reporting. On the other two sides of the pyramid, a display activated as well, reporting information about other devices that Jack didn’t recognize.
“Chief Lexton, what do you suggest I do?”
“Is there any way you could connect to the console, perhaps through your drones? If you interfaced with their network, you might be able to find a better way to interpret the data. Do you know if their computer is operational?”
“If I had to guess, it’s possible the computer is at least partially online, since the console is showing displays of different systems, and it has to get that information from somewhere. The drones could be channeling just enough power to reactivate the computer systems through the console.”
“In that case, the best thing to do would be to take over their computer system.”
To that, Jack asked, “Chief Lexton, do you have the experience to do that? I may be successful in connecting with the computer’s systems, but interfacing with it and taking control of it are two different matters entirely.”
“Personally, I wouldn’t have the skills to take over the computer. But there are other officers with a great deal of computer experience that could do assist you in that task. Additionally, I believe I have something aboard the Atlanta that might stand a chance of taking over the computer.” Lexton responded.
“What would that be, Chief Lexton
?” Captain Rickman asked. “To my knowledge, we don’t have any computer equipment that would perform better than Jack’ systems, and he’s even admitted he may not be equipped to do it.”
“Remember that computer program, the Omega Virus, that the FBI confiscated from cyber-terrorists in Texas a few months ago? There’s a copy of the program aboard the ship.”
“WHAT!?!” Captain Rickman exclaimed. “Chief Lexton, do you have any idea how dangerous that program is? That program is powerful enough to hack any computer system, and slave its operating systems. They could then use their link to steal all the data they want from that computer.”
“What if someone on the Atlanta used that program to change the GM’s settings?” Commander Hayley said cautiously, aware that if what she said was true, one of her fellow crewmembers could have drastically altered Vade for their own purposes. “That could be how they managed to do it so precisely and without our knowledge.”
“That isn’t possible,” Chief Lexton immediately responded. “The program is loaded into a flash drive, locked in the ship’s security vault, and it hasn’t been opened since we’ve been down here.”
“Did anyone else know you’ve had this aboard, Chief Lexton?” The captain asked.
“I did.” Jack replied. “I had received orders to safeguard the copy while specialists analyzed it a mission to deliver it to Michigan for analysis. I had meant to inform you Rick, but it was right before this mess started, and I forgot about it since we’ve all been focused on freeing the Atlanta.”
The captain sighed and said. “Well, at least we have it with us now. This could just be the break we’ve been hoping for. Chief Lexton, how long will it take to begin downloading the virus?”
“It will take a few minutes to load the program and configure our computer systems to focus solely on this task, so it performs as efficiently and quickly as possible. The download itself may take ten, fifteen minutes at most. But, there is a complication. Jack will need to interface with the computer and ‘distract’ the computers security, causing it to focus solely on him. Once it is distracted, I can begin to download the program.”
Commander Hayley asked, “Will the alien’s computer be able to detect the program?”
“Most likely. Jack will need to protect the virus until it is strong enough to take control of the computer.”
“What will keep the virus from going after Jack while it is downloading?”
“I can set the parameters for the virus, setting it only to go after the alien’s computer. But even if it does go after Jack, I could just relinquish control of him after the task is complete. The virus takes control over computers; it doesn’t destroy or alter them, like regular viruses.”
“What if Jack is overwhelmed from the alien’s computer security?” Captain Rickman asked.
“I don’t know. It is possible that Jack’s neural circuits could be destroyed, essentially killing him, if the computer system manages to defeat him while he is connected to it. I suppose it’s even possible that the computer could take control of Jack, and reprogram him to attack us. To help prevent Jack from losing the battle against the computer, we do have a large arsenal of normal computer viruses we can throw against it, though we would need to be cautious about infecting Jack’s systems while we’re using them. But Jack, I have to warn you that it is highly risky. Just from guessing, the alien’s computer security will likely be heavily fortified. It is, frankly, highly doubtful this will work.”
“Then why do it at all? We have the ship; all we need to do is get it running, and we can get out of here,” Commander Hayley said.
“Because,” Chief Lexton replied, “it’s likely that the computer may attempt to block us access from critical areas of the ships functions, including flight control. This is our best, and possibly our only chance, of getting complete control of the ship.”
“I am willing to do it, Chief Lexton,” Jack said. “This is the reason I resigned my command: I am more useful out in the field, where my skills can be used. Captain, do I have your permission to do this?”
The captain was silent, for several long moments, thinking hard about what to do. Finally, he said, reluctantly, “Do it, Chief. Get whatever people you need. In fact, I want everyone with computer experience contributing to this.” Commander Hayley hurried to the comm unit and informed the crew of their orders.
“Chief Lexton, how soon can you start the download of the Omega Virus?” Jack asked.
“I will need at least ten minutes to retrieve the virus and load it into the computer and get it ready for deployment. Jack, if you position some of your drones correctly throughout the alien ship, we can get a stronger signal directed your way. This will give us the strongest connection we’ll get under these circumstances. Do you think you can configure your drones to do that?”
Jack computed the data, and replied, “I believe so, Chief Lexton. I will begin configuring the drones at once.”
“Great. Do whatever you need to do to get ready for this, Jack. I’ll contact you when we’re ready.”
Seventeen minutes later…
“Chief Lexton to R&D control room. Are you guys ready?” Chief Lexton asked as she spoke into her communicator as she stood on the bridge of the Atlanta, now ready to begin downloading the Omega Virus. Down below, she knew the control room of the R&D department was filled to the brim with officers manning the computers scattered around in the room. Because of the amount of computer consoles, this room was selected to be the headquarters of the group tasked to launching viruses at the alien’s computer system. These viruses, though some deadly to even the most security protected computers on earth, would most likely have had little effect on their own against the firewall, so no one worried about the viruses disrupting the alien computer. Besides the officers tending to other duties on the ship, the remaining crew with any computer experience were split into two groups: one responsible for activating the Omega Virus and monitoring its condition, and the other group, which mostly consisted of the bridge crew, was tasked to keeping the connection to the computer stable, monitoring Jack Vade’s neural circuits and his other systems, and giving instructions to the other two groups. The bridge crew would also be receiving information from Jack through the event, allowing them to keep track of the missions’ progress.
“Commander Hayley here,” Chief Lexton heard on her comm. Though her position as commander would normally result in Hayley being present on the bridge during the operation, her computer experience led to her assignment as head of the officers in that area. “We are ready to start whenever you are, Chief Lexton.”
“Understood. Good luck down there. Lexton out.” Chief Lexton stood on the bridge by the ships comm device. She checked with the other groups, and then told the captain, “All systems are ready, captain, and Jack has reported that all of the drones are in position and standing by. We’re as ready as we’re going to be, sir.”
Captain Rickman took a deep breath and said, “All right, let’s get this show on the road. Chief, divert all computing power to this operation. Use the back-up computer systems to regulate the Atlanta’s other systems. Jack, are you ready over there?”
“Yes, captain. The link between the Recon Drones is stable, and the alien computer appears to be as functional as these circumstances allow. I am ready to begin when you are.”
“All right. Jack, begin the procedure.”
“Right away, Captain Rickman. Initializing the computer link now.”
In the alien ship, Jack still stood by the computer console, where he had waited as the Recon Drones positioned themselves throughout the alien vessel to optimize the efficiency of the Omega Virus delivery. The remaining drones had connected to other computer consoles, activating eleven in total, scattered near the power core to ensure the computer was as functional as it could be under the circumstances. While Jack focused solely on distracting the computers defenses, th
e Omega Virus would be deployed through the drones, as well as the other computer viruses, lessening the risks of Jack being affected by them. Jack had also opened a connection between himself and the Atlanta’s computer system, in the event the drones failed their function and he had to download the Virus.
Having received permission to commence the operation, Jack put his hands on the flat surface of the computer console and initiated the connection sequence. Across the middle of his hands and fingers, his metal plating separated, exposing small electrical interfaces stored within. Small energy bolts began leaping off the small interfaces and pulsed onto the console, connecting Jack and the interface together. A minute went by, and nothing happened. Jack began to fear that the connection was insufficient to link him to the computer, but it was then that he felt it. He felt his consciousness being drawn from his body and into the alien computer. Jack’s vision blurred and grew dimmer, and dimmer, until there was nothing but darkness.
Chapter 13
Date: July 9, 2132.
Location: Unknown.
Jack opened his eyes, and he saw that he was no longer in the alien vessel’s engineering center. From where he was standing, Jack couldn’t see the ceiling, or any walls, and the floor was just an endless black surface that reflected his image at him. Rather than attempt to make any sense of his confusing environment, he reminded himself that he was inside the computer system and willed himself to focus on the main objective. He had to find a way to take over the computer core, without being neutralized by the mainframe’s firewall. Jack surveyed his surroundings to find the alien computer, though he wasn’t exactly sure what he should be looking for, when the room suddenly lit up behind him in a bright red glow.
Galactic Defenders- Endurance Page 10