by Tobias Roote
It meant they were not as big a threat as they could have been had they evolved their own jump drives. People who understood technology tended to be more adept at using it and this always reflected well in battle. Knowing what a weapon can do, and more importantly, what it cannot, is essential to know how far to push in a fight. Often it was the difference between victory and defeat.
It was a simple matter to sabotage the jump software by creating a hidden loop routine causing it to malfunction when activated. The system would think they had jumped, but the ship would remain where it was. How quickly they discovered the fault, was down to how well they understood the drive software. She felt it unlikely they would go anywhere fast, unless they restored the system from a backup. She didn't have time to track that down.
She really needed to access their battle computer, or she would have to physically compromise their shield generators. She had tracked the possible location of the secure computer to the bridge, and that was heavily guarded in the main part of the ship. RIGA didn’t believe her invisibility would extend to getting through their security and there was no way she could fight half the ship on her own.
Her warning tingle started up. She activated all her senses within twenty feet of her position. There was nothing, all was quiet. The ship almost seemed to be sleeping. In spite of it she continued to work.
RIGA pulled up the deck plan of the ship. It was very large. There were six shield generators spaced evenly around the vessel. RIGA calculated their output and discovered that the ship had built in major redundancy. It would be difficult to disable enough of the generators to give her fleet an advantage. All she could do was install a worm which would cause the controllers to degrade in use. She had no idea how long it would take and as the shields were active it would start almost immediately. All she had to do was gain access to the battle computer.
Then, it came to her how she could gain access. She would need to get back to the hangar deck. Checking her sensors to ensure she was still undiscovered, RIGA reactivated her invisibility. As she opened the door to leave the cabin, the tingling, which, in fact, hadn’t actually stopped, resurfaced and was now warning her of something seriously amiss. Poking her head out of the doorway RIGA couldn’t see anything at all. The coast seemed perfectly clear.
She was about to begin walking towards the hangar bay, when she caught sight of the cameras in the corridor. Whilst they couldn’t see her, she noticed that three of them were centred on the door of the room she had just vacated. The other two were covering the corners of the corridor junction, one of which she was about to reach. She stopped short of the corner and pushed her sensors out beyond her usual limit recognising that they might react with equipment in the surrounding rooms. It wasn’t good news.
She decided to get a closer look, ensuring her invisibility was still active, and shield on, she walked around the corner and stood still. There was an officer pointing a device directly at her with a group of guards either side, all holding blasters and lasers.
“FIRE!” he shouted at some response from his gadget. She had no time to react.
They all opened fire on her directly without apparently being able to see her. The device must be some kind of electrical field detector, because every single shot hit her shield head on. Standing her ground, she was unable to move forward, or see from the shield’s reaction to multiple blaster fire. But when someone activated an EMP field, RIGA knew it was time to act, before it was aimed in her direction. It would kill her shield and Armillo invisibility and leave her defenceless.
So much for the short route to the hangar, she thought.
Leaping backward in a somersault, she turned, then ran full speed for the other corridor. Without knowing what was there, RIGA had already deduced it would be another officer, identical group of guards, and possibly the same equipment. Her only single advantage would be that they wouldn’t be expecting her, believing she was still at the other end of the corridor, where the fire had erupted - it was her only chance of escape.
Aiming directly for the opposite side of the corridor turning, RIGA leaped at it maintaining her speed, using the bulkhead as the floor. Her speed so great now, that when she her feet touched the wall the friction of her forward momentum allowed her to run vertically up the wall, then parallel to the ceiling in an arc until she lost momentum and dropped to the ground.
The guards, not having seen her speed around the corner, but heard and felt the rush and impact of air as she passed, had no time to react as she landed behind and turned to disarm them. She took out the guard with the EMP device first, then used her physical force to push him into the others, further adding to the confusion. It all happened so quick, that RIGA would only see it properly herself in replay later.
Three seconds! It required no more time before they were disarmed, but otherwise unhurt. She had no time waste. RIGA had to move before any other EMP guns were brought to bear on her. With so many, in a confined space she wouldn’t survive without a shield.
It was important that she avoided contact with crew at all costs. RIGA needed time to get to the hangar before the search parties cornered her. It wouldn’t take long with that device the officer was holding. Dammation, she should have grabbed one, it would be useful to know what they were detecting her with. Maybe her sensors recorded the data. If she came across them again she would obtain one of the devices.
As guard teams scrambled down corridors, RIGA was careful to hang back, or speed up to avoid them. It took her twenty minutes, but eventually she made her way back to the hangar.
As she re-entered through the emergency hatch, her ship came on-line.
‘RIGA, is all well?’ Gossie asked.
‘Their shields and battle computers are locked down and I need to somehow break into their loop. I have an idea how to do it, but need more time.'
‘Take what you need, I will keep the drone on standby,’ Gossie responded.
Her sensors picked up a guard proceeding towards her vicinity with another one of those detectors. He wasn’t patrolling which meant something had alerted him. He was talking into his comms unit.
“I’m getting a signal I tell you, the spy is here, in the hangar. I’m heading towards it now. Get reinforcements down here now.” He continued to guide the reader in her direction as it picked up the signal.
RIGA activated her sensors, reaching out toward the guard. Picking up emissions from the scanner she was able to read the data-flow and visualise what the reader was displaying. It was showing some kind of electrical field signal and it was coming off her!
While continuing to monitor its transmission, RIGA tapped her neck band, switching her shield off. The display stopped transmitting.
“I’ve lost it, the signal has stopped. What does that mean?” the guard was saying into his comms unit.
RIGA didn’t hear the response but could see the fear in the guard’s eyes as suddenly, realising he was alone with no means of tracking her, he began to look around, warily.
So, she thought, they had an instrument that detected personal shields. RIGA thought she recognised Pelon’s influence. He must have introduced these since her arrival and departure from the Pinnacle ship.
Her hearing picked up the thud of heavy boots on deck, as reinforcements began to arrive in the hangar. Time to disappear before they came up with an EMP in her area.
RIGA headed for the next level, intending to select a fighter out of the way of the increasing activity her discovery had created.
In the end she went up two levels and found what she was looking for, a fighter where the hatch was already open, evidence of maintenance being carried out, meaning there would be tools she could use.
Inside, the pilot area was cramped. Luckily, her small frame fitted the space well enough. It took her a few minutes to diagnose the correct section of the panel in front of her, after that she went to work with her wandering tendrils, it was quicker than working out how the panel came apart and she wanted as little evidence
of her interference as possible.
She found the interface module that connected the fighter to the drones. It was also, very importantly, directly connected to the battle computer. There were, unexpectedly, no safeguards between the simple three-way link.
It took her longer than expected. Humans were such poor programmers it took such a lot of code to make something work. Her time was spent trying to work everything out. In the end she attached her worm to a dozen different files.
‘Gossie, are you ready?’
‘Yes, I presume you are about to create mayhem, as usual?’
‘Prepare to jump me out on my command - I may be too busy to do it myself,’
RIGA had been learning her way around the cockpit and whilst she might do things in the wrong order, she could now activate the fighter’s electronics, leaving the drive and weaponry off-line for the moment.
Flicking the ‘activate cockpit’ switch, she was rewarded with dials and controls illuminating, registering the fighter’s environment. As different parts of the cockpit came online, they automatically connected to the ship, and opened a channel to the battle computer. When it recognised the handshake as originating from an authorised source, it allowed access to its processing area. The upload of diagnostic data began, amongst its data-transfer, was RIGA’s virus.
Upon reaching the main processing area it immediately mutated, finding homes in millions of new files, some in the shield controls and others in the weapon units. Each time it replicated it mutated, becoming a completely different organism. Because the code was more advanced than the computers abilities to recognise it, and the source was within the authorised network, the virus spread rapidly, and completely without discovery.
An alarm sounded and red lights flashed across the hangar deck creating a weird lighting effect where shadows appeared to be darker. Something had registered the unauthorised start-up of the fighter.
The guard that had been wondering around with the shield detection device was first to arrive and ran towards her location with his blaster drawn. RIGA watched him, while continuing to interrogate the Goliath’s battle computer. She had belatedly discovered it linked to the security section and was now trying to isolate and download the log-files from the ship’s intelligence office.
The security officer had now reached the fighter and was creeping around to access the hatch. RIGA pointed her weapon toward the opening, while she continued to concentrate on accessing the secure files of the enemy’s clandestine operations.
The guard leaped around to put himself directly in view of the cockpit. RIGA’s suit still created her invisibility, so the guard could only see the cockpit, illuminated and activated with no sign of any occupant. Despite this he had implicitly understood the enemy spy onboard had the means with which to disappear, or not be seen. At the same time he was reluctant to inflict damage to the cockpit of the fighter. So, he paused and held his stance. Brave of him really, she thought. She was mostly protected by the seat and cockpit bulkhead, but would shoot him if she detected the trigger was tightening.
“They’re in the fighter on WD4 deck, get up here, NOW.” He spoke urgently into his comms unit. RIGA didn’t bother listening for any response, she could already hear other guards coming. Time was running out.
RIGA had other ideas about getting out of there. She knew that Gossie could jump her from here without fear of entanglement, the term she gave to the potentially lethal problem of jumping into an unknown location.
She watched on her sensors as she detected targets approaching them from all sides. She paid particular attention to the guard in the hatchway. It’s just a matter of seconds, she thought as she realised she was running out of time. Downloading all the files she could, she watched as other security guards surrounded the fighter, looking into the cockpit and seeing nobody there. RIGA knew they were about to open fire so switched on her shield, just as laser beams erupted from behind her.
‘Jump me, Gossie.’
Seconds later she reappeared in the small control room, still in a partially seated position.
Jennings looked bemused.
“Did you succeed?” he immediately asked.
Distracted, RIGA didn’t respond.
Captain Jennings, who was still seated, waited while RIGA churned through the data files she had obtained from the enemy ship.
“Gossie, is RIGA all right?” he asked.
“Yes, Captain Jennings, RIGA is currently digesting a vast amount of information,” Gossie answered him.
“Humph! I know she’s a mental juggernaut, she did a similar thing on my ship,” he said. “That thing she does with her hand, linking into electrical connections and communicating directly with computers, that’s not something humans should be able to do.”
“RIGA has implants to help her work alongside AI’s - these enable her to interface with computers as well. Her job requires that she can work at the speed and levels of all intelligent machines.” Gossie gave a full, but misleading answer to his comment.
“We call people that can interface with machines, cyborgs,” Jennings spat, his growing disgust evident.
Gossie responded. “We call people who are biological, ‘human’ to differentiate their status from people who are artificial, or non-biological,” she said simply.
“Humph!” He continued to glower at RIGA, who was still filtering data, whilst listening to their conversation.
RIGA finished her analysis of the information she had retrieved from the TELLUR, the name of the ship they called Goliath. It was the Tochin command vessel and controlled the actions of all ships, in both Empirum and Terran space. As such, there was a mine of information for the ESSG to work with. Of prime importance to RIGA at this moment, however, was the whereabouts of the Osachi.
“We need to leave. According to the ship records, Osachi is at the following coordinates. Plot the fastest course there, we leave immediately,” RIGA instructed.
“Gossie, open up a channel to Captain Xandarl,” RIGA said, looking over at Captain Jennings who was looking disgruntled.
“Hailing them now.”
“Captain Xandarl, I have successfully infiltrated the large battleship, called the TELLUR, and sabotaged its systems. Details follow as an attached file. The ship will shortly be open to attack, although how the sabotage will actually affect their systems is unknown at this point. Effectively their shields should be compromised and with luck their weapons targeting capability. We have another mission of vital importance and must proceed immediately,” RIGA announced across the vidscreen link.
“Well done, RIGA. Please ask Captain Jennings, to advise if he wishes us to proceed with his ships in the battle fleet, or does he have other orders for them?” Xandarl responded not aware that Jennings was an enemy, so giving him the courtesy due to him as a fellow ship Captain.
“A moment please, Captain Xandarl,” Jennings responded directly.
He turned to RIGA with a black look.
“Are you going to tell me what is going on?”
“We are going to rescue Osachi. We do not need your ships and will return here once we have accomplished our mission. You must decide whether you wish for your ships to participate in the battle, or to remain where they are,” RIGA replied.
“I need to contact the Tesperadus,” he said, directing his communication to Gossie’s interface.
“That will not be possible, I’m afraid Captain Jennings,” RIGA said regretfully.
“WHAT? Why ever not?” Jennings shouted, he stood as if doing so made a greater impact.
“For the safety of Osachi and the paramount importance of maintaining the secrecy of this mission,” RIGA responded.
“Gossie, have you plotted our course yet?”
“Yes, it’s all in the jump queue. Ready on your command,” Gossie advised.
“What’s your decision regarding your fleet, Captain Jennings?” RIGA turned to him.
“My fleet will take no part in this without my authority and I won
’t give that unless I can talk to my officers,” Jennings spluttered. He was intensely unhappy, and RIGA noticed the distinct change in his body language since she had returned to the ship.
‘Gossie, I have completed my analysis of the intelligence records retrieved from the TELLUR. You should read the full results of my QDE episode relating to it.’ RIGA passed her a file and left her to digest its content.
“Captain Xandarl, please ensure that the Terran fleet maintains its current position, provide communications jamming and continue the operation against the TELLUR without them,” RIGA informed her colleague on the GEN Vasta.
“Affirmative, RIGA, we have additional fleet support arriving from Epsilon Gamma. We will re-route ships to the Terran fleet and advise them to stand down. Xandarl out.” The click signalled the closed connection. He had understood her unspoken order to restrict the Terrans’ movements.
Captain Jennings rounded on RIGA, his fury evident. “How do you get to decide all of this Ambassador Rigel, or RIGA? Whoever the hell you are. Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do with my fleet?” he shouted at her.
He turned to the interface. “Gossie, I order you to return me to the Tesperadus - NOW!” he demanded.
“Unable to comply Captain Jennings. I’m under orders to follow Ambassador Rigel in all matters,” Gossie responded calmly.
“Just who, or WHAT are you, RIGA?” He turned back to her and pulled out his blaster, pointing it directly at her chest. His other hand held a tiny device which he also aimed in her direction.
He fired.
25. Rescue of Osachi
The blaster, operating in such a confined space meant that the whole cockpit was affected by the ricochet of hot plasma as it bounced off RIGA’s shield and dissipated against the bulkhead.
As the smoke and glare cleared, RIGA stood unharmed in front of the astonished Captain. RIGA placed one hand on his blaster and the other on the device in his hand and smiled as she removed them from his possession.
