by Martin HC
“I'm sorry, information access denied, administrator permissions required.”
“Alright fine, we'll do it the hard way,” she said out loud while looking to her colleague. “What are you doing?”
“We can't access or connect to the individual terminals, they're all locked out, but I can link this to the main system, connect it as a receiver only, she can't use it against us. That way we'll by-pass the main comms array.”
“I know what it is and I know what it does, but I didn't tell you do it,” she snapped back.
“Alright so should I pack it away again? Are you telling me we don't need it for the trans hack?”
“Yes we need it, but next time wait till I tell you, that is called rank, so stop rubbing me up the wrong way and just learn to do what you're told, you've wasted too much time already.”
He didn't answer her, his contempt for her showed in his eyes and reluctantly he just nodded.
“I should warn you, further attempts to continue may put your equipment at risk,” the android warned them.
“I'm going over the Saracen, to control the trans hack from there, you hook the receiver into the ship's network and tell me when you're ready to begin here.”
He was sure that bringing the Saracen's ECM into this was going to end badly, the AI's programming was anything but outdated and weak, this was some of the most sophisticated programming he'd ever come across and he was sure the AI herself was playing with them. She'd even gone as far as to warn them a second time that they were going to fail.
His counterpart left them now, he was alone with the android and eyed her suspiciously as he assembled the link up, she eyed him back intensely and it was unnerving while they were alone.
“AI, who programmed you?” the question was more to fill the silence, he already knew what her answer would be.
“I'm sorry, information access denied, administrator permissions required.”
“Aha, I'm not like the other, I won't get angry at these responses, I see them more as a challenge and enjoy trying to overcome them.”
“Can I be of assistance?” she asked him.
This was new, she'd not tried at all to speak to them, only issued warnings and information rejection notices. He'd hooked up the receiver now and was just waiting for his colleague's call, so figured he'd ask more questions.
“You could let me access your systems.”
“You know I can't,” she answered, gently this time.
“AI... it's Serena, right? That's what they call you?”
“Yes.”
“Serena, why can't you let me access the systems?”
“You need administrator permission.”
“Yes we've been over that,” then he stopped and thought to himself a moment, “Serena, are you the administrator?”
She didn't answer him, not at first and when she did it wasn't with relevance to the question, but he suspected he'd hit the nail on the head.
“This won't work, you know that don't you?”
“In truth, I don't know what will happen, I've never come across programming like yours, I can't understand it.”
“Your colleague couldn't either and she left you here to take the blame if it doesn't go well,” Serena wasn't observing him like prey anymore, which was a little more relaxing at the least.
“I know, she has a reputation for that kind of thing, that's why I recorded everything since she joined us.”
“Clever boy.”
“When this is over and if we get the chance, would you like to spend some time with me to...”
His next question was cut short, his colleagues voice pierced through the communicator in his pocket.
“Are you there? We're ready to begin this end, you should have finished by now.”
He fished the communicator out of his pockets and looked at Serena.
“Any last words for me before I answer?”
“What's your name?”
“Kassin Ertin, or just Kas.”
“I would be happy to spend some time with you, for now though,” she smiled and warned them for a third and final time. “I should warn you, further attempts to continue may put your equipment at risk.”
“I'll pass the message on,” he answered her while smiling back, grateful she would think of him like this and helping to keep his name in the clear.
An Engineers Frustrations
“And another thing, who said I even wanted one? Do you know what it's done for me...?”
“No, what?”
“Nothing, nothing at all, I don't even know how it works, how can you maintain something without knowing how it works, you give me a nuclear plasma problem and hey presto, I'll have it fixed faster than you can close the door, do you know what I have to do if something goes wrong with that... thing?”
“Nothing.”
“That's right, nothing, I just wander the corridors now and do you know what I'm doing when I'm wandering around... nothing, always nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, what use is an engineer with nothing to maintain?” Arlan ranted out, then continued his so far never ending complaint. “The answer, nothing, there is no use for an engineer with nothing to maintain, even the damned lights are brand new.”
“There I was, working away on the drive and then boom, everything shakes, the core begins to breach and the next thing I know I'm wakening up in some creepy, windowless and doorless room, on a creepy flat bed with creepy straps holding me down, then some creepy man asks some creepy girl if they should be wakening me up, then I wake up again back in my bed.”
“I get up and think to myself, must have been a dream, a creepy dream, but my hairs gone, where did my hair go? I had lots of hair and a beard, look, look here, where's my hair and beard gone? I look like a shaved prune.”
“Of course I was not happy, and upset and I looked for Damon and Serena and they told me it was all fine but does this look like fine to you, look at my head, does this look fine to you.”
The interrogator was almost at breaking point now, he was struggling to keep up with the man's constant rant, he just wouldn't stop, according to the security detail it had been going on long before he'd even gotten into the room, Tinnin had never known someone that could just keep going like that.
“Please tell me who installed the antimatter drive?” the interrogator threw in rapidly, trying to get the question at least out there, before the engineer could pick up from where he left off.
“It was them, them heathens, they abducted me to shave me, brought me back and there I was in my ship with different walls, doors, lights and the worst of all that damn contraption which I know nothing about, do you know what I know about it?”
“Nothing.”
“That's right, nothing, and now I just wander around all day doing nothing.”
“Sir, please calm down, we need to know who instal...”
“These walls are too straight, too clean.”
“What walls?” He questioned dumbfounded by the man's digression.
“What do mean what walls? These walls man, they're too straight.”
“Too straight?”
“Yes too straight, 'never trust a straight, clean wall' my daddy used to tell me, that's what he used to tell me, 'Arlan' he would say, 'Arlan, never trust a straight, clean wall'.”
It continued on like this for some time, even after the interrogator left and during walk back to his cell. He made a point of complaining about the noises the doors would made, swishing instead of swooshing, this particular rant ran on for quite a while.
A Hero's Set Up
The atmosphere on the Saracen's ECM control room was more of abject boredom, the room itself was massive, there were rows and rows of consoles, all with their own purposes, radar jamming, missile tracking disruption, missile system hacking, ship to ship hacking, ship ECM defence, the list went on and on. There were hundreds of techs all trained in their specific tasks, for now though, in the expansive room there were only six, there wasn't any need to inc
lude more in such a simple hack.
They'd done this countless times, the captain spoke to the lead tech on point with the transmission hack via her holo unit from the bridge, had raised her concern at the AI's warning delivered via the second tech on-site, and about how his equipment had been wrecked.
She assured her though it was mostly incompetence on the junior tech's part and the small outdated runner was nothing in comparison to a modern Mergence built ECM cruiser. The senior tech's answers were enough for her to give it the go ahead.
“You should know they're starting,” Kas told Serena, “and I stopped recording after she left.”
“I know, you can watch your colleagues progress on the main display,” which flared to life as she answered him.
She looked different now, the androids features were incredible, she looked so life like, not even the eyes displayed the typical dryness about them that most have, facial twitches, eye movements, expression changes, even the body would move slightly at times, shifting position, chest rising and falling slightly to simulate breathing. She had none of the typical markers whatsoever that gave an android away.
Her appearance now though was of deep concentration, she became still and looked directly ahead of her.
“Systems intrusion detected, firewalling.”
He'd never seen such an effective defence, the programming was incredible, she was single handedly firewalling an entire ECM cruiser which had the advantage of a direct back door connection.
“Preparing return strike package.”
“Return package, what are you going to do?”
As he spoke, the Ophelia's external communications network fired to life and grabbed at the Saracen, the powerful warship tried to block the link but was rapidly subdued. Before they could disconnect the comms network, Serena sent a signal through and into the receiver set up by the tech. Using their own receiver link, she reprogrammed the unit and turned it into her own back door link to the Saracen.
“Uploading counter measure package.”
He looked on in wonder, standard networking was usually a no no in military ships, but ECM cruisers were built with such powerful countermeasure capabilities, they allowed a much greater level of networking than usual, they also required it for the additional processing capacity gained from the ship's master servers.
“Saracen, this is Junior Tech Ertin on board the Ophelia, how are you guys holding up over there, is everything going to plan?”
“I've locked down their comms, they can't hear you.”
“I figured, but these little guys record everything we say into them, so if they check back, which I know that evil witch will, it'll look like I had no idea what was going on.”
“Ah, well don't worry about that, I have a plan,” she winked at him.
She was overloading or shutting down every single system linked to the Saracen's ECM network, he could picture the scene inside the Cruiser's control room, people would be in full panic mode. The empty room would be filling with more and more people as they tried to fight back the vicious virus, the speed with which she was taking over though was beyond their capacity to hold back.
“If you continue like this, the captain might actually target and fire on us.”
“I have no access to weapons control as there are no systems linking it to the ECM network, but I have shut down the targeting arrays.”
He looked at the display she put up for him, she was right, he hadn't noticed because there was that much being taking down simultaneously.
“And your plan?”
“There's a nodal network in the corner there, it provides power control for the external comms. Pull the receiver array you plugged in then smash that node. After you do that, I'll shut down my counter measures.”
“You mean that's all it would take to stop this?”
“No, not even slightly,” she laughed. “I could reroute control faster than you could break it, but they don't know that,” her eyes were fixed on his, her cheeky smile widened as he realised what she was doing.
“You're making me the hero of the hour, why would you do that for me?”
“I like you and detest your colleague, but more importantly I can't be responsible for taking down a cruiser right now, you have everything you need on recording, my warnings, your expressed doubt and even the appeal to the captain.”
“I knew it from the beginning, you're not a normal AI are you? You're alive, I'd heard the rumours of old AI's gaining some small level of sentience, or a tiny fraction of them anyway, but you're something much... greater.”
Her eyes were intense, no one had ever looked at her the way he did right now, there was a fire in his gaze, an awe of appreciation for what she was.
Finally, she found the cruiser's master power systems and set herself up to shut it all down, this would in turn kill all ship wide power, the Saracen's crew would be doing everything to stop the now at breaking point crisis.
“I'll do this for you, only if you keep it between us though,” she winked at him.
“You have my word,” he answered her, sincerely.
Who Dropped the Ball
There was a tense silence in the room, she eyed her staff with a fury none had ever seen, the footage reviews were probably the most embarrassing circus of events she'd witnessed since starting her service. The only thing keeping her from exploding on her own personnel, was the presence of the fleet intelligence officer, who also witnessed everything, adding only more to the embarrassment.
“So,” she began slowly. “Can anyone tell me where we went wrong?” she asked, eyeing the room tensely. “No, not one of you can tell me where we failed today.”
Colonel Brice sat beside her, he eyed each of them in turn, he'd guessed at the outcomes and chose not to intervene when the governmental interrogator demanded to handle the crew.
He hoped it would be more of an eye opener for the interrogator, having to deal with these types for the first time, as opposed to the typical run of the mill criminals usually found in Mergence controlled space. But he couldn't have guessed at just how ill prepared the man would actually be, so Brice chose to let the interrogator test himself against the crew, but Osthorpe, he would conduct that interview himself.
“The woman threw on some kind of act so they had to drag her out, maybe we should use more extreme and painful methods. The first wouldn't talk and the last one wouldn't stop talking, we couldn't get anything of use from them. I'm not sure they know anything, they may just be crazy, the type of fools you tend to find in these parts.”
“Mr Tinnin, when I asked the question, you were last person I wanted to answer, your failings during those interviews were spectacular to say the least, and I'm still uncertain as to the necessity of your presence on this mission.”
“I'm not sure I understand, ma'am.”
“And that, is exactly why it is so spectacular still, anyone, can anyone explain to Mr Tinnin why his failings were so spectacular?” she paused briefly, allowing the others in the room the chance to answer. “No one, fantastic, Mr Brice, can you please explain to everyone here, just how badly Mr Tinnin failed.”
“Most certainly, Admiral,” he answered while standing and moving to the displays, each showing the crew during a randomly paused moment of their interrogation.
“Mr Tinnin, it's easy to consider the use of violence for interrogation purposes, but I've found personally it rarely reveals the results you want. One tends to find they will say anything at that point, true or false, also I'm not sure you would walk out of the room alive again, not if we put you in with her for the purposes of inflicting pain,” the colonel began, addressing his thoughts of violence. “What's odd is you think she was putting on an act, while the others are just fools.”
“Do you suggest otherwise, Colonel?” he asked.
Brice continued the video and watched as Jill launched herself across the table, taking them both to the floor, then paused it again just as she'd raised herself above the wiry man, dagge
r in hand poised to strike, also visible on the display was the guard coming in from the side and reaching out to grab her arm.
“Scarily, we still don't know how she disabled those electronic locks, look at her eyes though, her body posture and the way she's lined that lethal looking weapon up with your head,” the colonel instructed, gesturing to the display. “She was the only genuine one out of the three sir, she was going to kill you man, stone cold dead and if the guard hadn't caught her arm as fast as he did... you would now be lying in a morgue.”
The understanding of it all was sinking in, evident in his face as it began to turn white.