The Universe, 3029

[Nicholas Schuster]

Meanwhile...

D.C.S. Takashima
Black Eclipse discovery site
Great Banded Desert, Nirasaki
February 7, 3029
___________________________

"I get the sense you and this guy know each other." said Maxwell as I regained my balance and pulled at the various parts of my jump suit to get them back into position following the impromptu makeover inflicted by Bishop. 

"You could say that." I answered. "We were both...on the Half Moon together."

"Ah ha, Bishop did mention that." Maxwell commented. "He had quite a time keeping William and crew out of harm's way after your...creative exit, from what I hear." 

"I can only imagine that he did." I responded quietly. 

"Well, if you two are done getting reacquainted, we have a mission to complete. One that I guess by your presence has just taken an interesting turn." 

"Yes, sir." I answered. Then, I laid out everything that had transpired from the moment Major Hayes recruited me to break the encryption on the drive to the moment that I deployed back to the planet to stop the signal. Captain Maxwell took it all in. 

"And so you think that the source of that signal is in this room?" Captain Maxwell asked. 

"Yes sir, I do. But the radio direction finder doesn't get any more accurate than this room. So we need to figure out a more finite way to find the source. Do you have any ideas?" 

Maxwell considered the question carefully, while I eyed Bishop with caution...

[Bishop Weyland]

Black Eclipse Discovery Site
Great Banded Desert, Nirasaki
February 7, 3029

___________________________

The massive Skinwalkers silent watched and listen to the Captain and Nathan’s exchange of words. In the deep recesses of his mind memories stirred and moved like silent ghost.  Just snap shots of events and places rolled through mind. Bishop’s mind and soul were in open war with each other. Each struggling for dominance for his body. One, wanted him to remember his humanity.... the other want to weaponizing him for death and destruction. 

“Captain.... that man is responsible for the innocent deaths of two crew members aboard the Half Moon”....the words falling out of Bishops mouth in a growl. 

The Skinwalker had no control over what he said or why he said it. The Beast inside of him was loosing its control over his mind. Silently it raged for having its claws slip. The suit adjusted by injecting a small amount of combat stimulates into his body. By sure force of will Bishop fought the urge to visit death upon the man stand next to him. 

Before the shocked Captain could respond Bishop slowly reached up and hoisted his nearly thousand pound body up on to the support frames he had ran on. Like is a aerial predator he squatted on the frame, perfectly balanced and unmoving. The only sound made in the room was the slow scraping of metal.... his claws flex and together.... something he had no metal control over. 

There he sat, observing his pack members below him, watching over them like a angle of death....waiting for threats.... while the his internal war still raged. 

[Steve Jenkins]

"OK CAPTAIN MAXWELL! I'M COMING DOWN!" I Yelled loudly. Then, I ramped up my Zen really high and jumped through the hole with my arms out at both sides doing a Kubudo Crane Dive. The air ripped past my skin and made whooshing noises that sounded like somebody had a loud TV turned up on the porno channel where they kind of scramble everything but not really. A million years went by as I fell down, down, down, down, down and right as the ground came up at me I cut loose with a huge Zen scream that was supposed to stop my fall, but it didn't! 

"Damn Blakists! Stupid Zoodle, I should...."

Then the ground came up really fast and hit me in the gut and in the face, all kinds of dirt and rocks blasted me and got caught in my teeth and smashed me as they sundered my body, I flipped over and over and over and while I Rolled out of control I Thought I was going to die... 

" Oh shit Captain Maxwell, you gotta help me, I'm a sitting duck if I..."

Suddenly I felt a Huge boot drop down on me and stop me from rolling. I looked up and Screamed in terror as a huge metal man reached down and picked me up.... 

"ANALYZING ANALYZING ANALYZING" it said. I kept screaming bloody murder, I had to let it know that I meant Business. "SUBJECT JENKINS, STEVEN T. KNOWN AS AEGIS DIVISION EMPLOYEE. IDENTIFIER 55433453367-BRAVO-GREEN-49 EXCEPTION WRITTEN TO TERMINATION MATRIX. DISENGAGE."

Then the metal man put me down, I stopped screaming. Then I looked at Captain Maxwell. 

"Thanks Mister Bishop!" I said and looked at Captain Maxwell. "HI Captain Maxwell, I'm Here to serve!" Then I did a salute.

[Charles Maxwell]

"Yes sir, I do. But the radio direction finder doesn't get any more accurate than this room. So we need to figure out a more finite way to find the source. Do you have any ideas?" Nathan raised an eyebrow at me, arms crossed over his torso, head to one side. It was the expression of someone on the verge of indifference brought on by one bad situation after another. 

"Actually, I think I do. Today might be our lucky day," I replied.

"That'd certainly be a first," Schmidt chuckled. "The dice haven't exactly been rolling in our favor so far."

"You've gotta look at it from a glass-half-full perspective," I answered back. "You're no longer in a prison cell, right? That's a net gain in fortune. Now - back to the subject at hand - all we need to do is find the working terminal in this room - or whatever it is we're here to find. I would bet you that wherever - and whatever - it is, it's got some connection to the signal broadcast. And I think I know how to accomplish finding it."

I glanced toward Bishop, who'd just finished assisting Steve Jenkins back to his feet after the MechWarrior had attempted a stupifying and near-fatal swan dive into the chamber from the roof.

"Lieutenant Weyland," I began, as Jenkins saluted me haphazardly, "am I correct in thinking that you've got some high-end homing equipment in that suit?"

"That is...correct," Bishop replied, vacantly. 

"Excellent. Do me a favor, see if you can get a bead on the source of this signal," I explained, passing the rangefinder to him for context. "The gear's not precise enough to narrow it down more granularly than this room."

Weyland looked at the device for a moment. Then, wordlessly, he handed the unit back to me, and started walking, raising a pointed index finger as he did so.

"There," the Lieutenant announced in a monotone. As I looked in the direction indicated by Bishop, I saw a series of faintly flashing server lights, blinking in perfect sequence, seemingly pointing me toward one of the racks along the back quarter of the room. 

"Nice work," I advised the Lieutenant. Moving slowly toward the endpoint indicated by the lights, I motioned for Nathan to follow. Climbing down a series of server row cabinets, we found ourselves before a single powered terminal, with a keyboard, trackball, and a slowly flashing data port receptacle in prominent sight. The computer itself was displaying a message in lime green font: COMM TERMINAL 57 - SYSTEM LOCKED - CONTACT YOUR ADMINISTRATOR FOR ASSISTANCE. The data port pulsed more quickly as we approached.

"Alright, let's divide and conquer on this thing," I advised. "Nathan, since you know what's going on with that signal, I'll entrust you to breach the terminal. Here, take my Apple-Churchill kit for now. Meanwhile, I'm gonna plug into that data port and see if our anonymous benefactor actually has something in store for us. Sound good?"

[Nicholas Schuster]

"Sounds good." I answered. The terminal looked like the average medium security rig I was used to busting, and with an Apple-Churchill kit, it represented no real challenge to me. I slid into position with the devices I would need...the noteputer loaded with slicing software, and the relevant accessories from the kit, and set about preparing my intrusion. As I was getting ready, I heard heavy breathing over my shoulder. I turned to look, and it was Steve Jenkins. 

"Oh hey, buddy." I said cautiously. "You okay after that epic fall?" 

"Yes. I used dragon spirits to zen away the pain." said Steve, doing a sudden muscle flex. 

"As long as you feel better, right? What's dragon spirits, anyway?" I asked.

"It's this!" Steve said, holding up a bottle of 120-proof saké that literally said 'Dragon Spirits' on the label. 

"Holy shit! You're drinking hanazake in the desert? In here? That stuff has so much alcohol in it that it's literally flammable!" I clicked the last of the cables into the terminal and fired up the slicing software on my noteputer.

Steve nodded his head excitedly. "Yeah, I know, sometimes, after I drink a big alcohol drink, I light my burps on fire, and-" 

A loud beeping from the terminal pulled my attention out of the conversation. I squinted at the screen, trying to be sure I was reading its message correctly. 

MEDICAL ALERT RECEIVED - COMMENCING TRIAGE

"What? No, that's not what I was trying to do!" I exclaimed. Looking at my noteputer, I saw that the slicing software had hit a proxy, and whatever commands it was trying to throw at the terminal were going someplace else. I resterted the analysis on the firewall while I launched a bunch of shell sessions on the Churchill equipment to try to overwhelm the proxy. Meanwhile, I successfully brought down the SSH port on the terminal. Turning my attention back to the firewall analysis, I began to feed it a second round of commands. Unexpectedly, I felt a hard sting on my neck, and I reflexively reached up to swat hard at whatever had caused it. To my surprise, my hand connected with a small mass of metal and plastic, and I heard an audible crunch. 

I drew my hand back and looked at the object. It was a tiny, broken, copper-colored drone, with a small syringe. The vial was empty. 

"...the hell is this thing?" I wondered out loud. Before I could think on the matter further, though,  a catastrophic, deafening blast of electrical surge cascaded from the ports of the computer terminal I was trying to hack, the sum total of the arcing electricity funneling its way into the Apple-Churchill kit and my noteputer. The current carried so much voltage that the setup literally burst into flames and melted into plastic slag all at the same time, sending a conflagration of fire and smoke billowing angrily toward the ceiling. I yelled and fell backward off the edge of the sideways terminal, crashing to the deck behind the server rack. 

"What the hell - Nathan, are you okay?" Captain Maxwell exclaimed, setting down the transfer drive he was working on and sprinting over to me. 

"Yeah...I'm fine....I think. But the hacking gear is totaled. Oddly, the ship's computer seemed to take real issue with me trying to slice it."

"That's not the first kit we've lost to this ship." Maxwell answered. 

"Well, what are we supposed to do now?" I asked. 

"Can't we just shoot the computer to stop the signal, like they do in the movies?" Steve Jenkins asked, appearing out of nowhere. 

"No, all that will do is blow up the computer and stop us from turning off the transmitter. Then we'd be forced to find the transmitter itsrlf, and I'll be damned if we'd stand a chance of that given the size of this wreck." Maxwell responded. 

"Wait a minute." I said. "Hey, Bishop. Is it true that those Nighthawk suits have slicing gear? Between your armor and whatever high-end infiltration software you might have on voars, you might actually be able to bust the security on this terminal and shut down the process."

Bishop looked toward me, as though he was giving it some consideration...

Edited July 8, 2020 by Nathan Schmidt
I fixed a typo.

[Charles Maxwell]

While Nathan consulted with Bishop about his infiltration tools, I climbed back over to the server rack where I'd left the transfer drive. As I did so, Sergeant Miles joined me.

"How do you suppose we'll know if this thing is actually transferring any data?" Miles asked.

"Well, last time the computer spoke to me," I admitted, "though this time, that doesn't seem to be the case. Hello? Is anyone there?" I asked the room, half-jokingly.

"I admit, that's one thing we haven't tried much," the Sergeant chuckled. No sooner had the words escaped his mouth than I heard the sound of multiple server racks in the room cycling their fans in sequence.

"Whoa," I quipped, "that's a bit of a departure from creepy voice clips."

"No kidding," Miles answered. "I'm not sure what it meant."

Glancing down at the server rack, I noticed that the bank of ports around the receptacle to which I'd attached the hard drive had engaged in an unusual flashing of their connection  lights, despite the fact that there was nothing attached to the interfaces. In the midst of the flashing, the transfer drive's activity light began glowing solidly.

"It's doing the same thing as what I saw on the bridge. I'm pretty sure that the transfer is underway, though I'm less sure of what we're getting," I observed.

"You've been to the bridge? Then you must know the layout of the ship," a voice called out. Turning toward its source, I realized that the speaker was the captured salvager.

"There's not a lot left of the bridge, Mister - what was your name?" I asked.

"Hohiro," the man replied. "Can I ask, what did you see?"

"There was a razor beast and bad architecture," I deadpanned.

"I've seen a lot of things. Nothing I'd describe as a razor beast," Hohiro replied.

"Ask Corporal Clemmons about that," Sergeant Miles retorted. "Clemmons, are you an animal lover?"

"No, sir," Clemmons laughed. "Especially not after that incident."

"Is there something else you're after?" Hohiro pressed, "or was the computer the objective all along?"

"Our objective is our own. Just be glad that you're alive," I responded.

"Yes, but if it's the suits you're after, I can show you where they are, in exchange for my freedom," the man continued. I raised an eyebrow toward Sergeant Miles.

"Think he's telling the truth?" I asked.

"I'd say it's less than a fifty-fifty chance. I'm gonna go with 30% truth, 70% 'hoping to lead us to a gruesome death.'" Miles answered.

"That's kind of what I thought. Clemmons, see if you can get Hohiro here on the horn with Dutch and - what was his name - Kai, right? Let him share his information with them, but ask them to compare it to what we know of the wreck. If it seems to line up, we can consider a trade. Otherwise - Hohrio can continue to be our VIP guest through the remainder of this operation.

"Aye, sir," Clemmons replied.

I turned back to the server rack. As I did so, Sergeant Miles pointed at the hard drive.

"Seems the computer wants to go with you," he observed.

"You mind explaining to me how you knew that?" I asked, surprised.

"I've been staring at those lights, and they follow a pattern," Miles explained. "Short blink, short blink, short blink, long blink, long blink, long blink, short blink, short blink, short blink, over and over. It's an ancient communication technique called 'Morse code.' It translates to 'SOS,' which I'm sure you know the meaning behind."

"You just might earn your cut after all," I nodded, impressed. As I did so, the blink pattern changed again, this time, to a flurry of varying light pulses.

"Uh - is it still talking?" I asked. Miles stared at the pattern for a moment, eventually nodding his head.

"Yeah. I think it means 'NOW I AM HOME.' Not sure what that's referring to," Miles responded.

Before I could speculate further, the sequencing lights and the transfer unit immediately shut off, replaced by single, solid green indicator on the console beside the hard drive cable.

"I'm cautiously optimistic that it means we're nearly done here," I smiled. "Maxwell to Control - I believe we've secured the package. We're taking care of the secondary objective now."

[Nicholas Schuster]

Bishop stomped over to the computer station, and flipped his helmet back. I gasped at what I saw underneath. He didn't look anything like he'd appeared when I'd seen him on the feeds aboard the Half Moon. His hair was even shorter, if that was even possible, he was scarred all over, and his eyes looked dead, soulless, distant. The expression on his face was one of complete neutrality. No hint of emotion. I shuddered. It was the sort of stuff that you see in movies, but you never think could actually happen in real life. I immediately felt regret for the things I had put him through prior to him ending up in whatever state this was now.

'What do you need me to do." he said. It wasn't a question even. It was more of a statement. As if he was waiting for me to input a command, almost. 

"Well, uh..." I started to say. The cut on my face was itching. Felt like it was crawling with things. I brushed frantically at it, but didn't actually feel anything there. It was distracting. "So, I need you to tie into the computer terminal here. You've got some retractable cables in those gauntlets of yours, yes?"

"Yes." said Bishop. In a single, broad motion, Bishop reached into one of his gauntlets, and pulled out two retractable cables. Then, he forcefully punch them into the port where the other cables had been burned out. Then, he turned to me.

"Next step." said the man. 

"Well, you're going to need to run your software that you use for infiltration, only this time, I need you to bust down the security standing between us and the communications dish. I don't exactly know how to tell you to do that, because I can't see your software, so you're going to have to walk me through what you're seeing. You got a computer display or something on the inside of that helmet that you can reference while we're working together?"

[Charles Maxwell]

Bishop and Nathan busied themselves with the system infiltration, while I keyed open a channel to Bravo Team, the impromptu callsign we'd given to Dutch and Kai's expedition deeper into the wreck to retrieve the power armor units. 

"Eden to Bravo Team - the mission clock's not got much to left. How's it looking down there?" 

A quiet hiss of static met my reply. A feeling of dread began to build.

"Eden to Control - are you in communication with Bravo Team?" I asked, switching my channel over to the Mendacius.

"Negative, Eden," Captain Donovan replied, "they advised that they were moving into a shielded section of the wreck. Between that and the apparent depth at which it's buried, we lost VHF comms with them."

"Understood," I replied. "We have the objective. We're just waiting for Bishop and Nathan to get that uplink offline. Once we've done so, we're going to be bugging out of here."

I glanced over at Bishop, who appeared to be deeply engaged in the process of breaching the system, while Nathan observed.

"Give us a heads up if you need us to make a detour to find Bravo Team on the way out. Otherwise, please have a transport ready to grab us in twenty minutes."

[Bishop Weyland]

Black Eclipse Discovery Site
Great Banded Desert, Nirasaki
February 7, 3029

___________________________

Nathan’s words were like a distant echo in the Skinwalker’s wandering mind. He had to force himself to concentrate on the man’s words and under stand what he was saying. Slowly he turreted his mass head left and right taking in the sights, sounds and smells. All of which was now assaulting his hyper senses. The suits helmet had protected, controlled, organized and analyzed the influx of information coming into him... now it was is human... ish... sense had been forced to deal with the environment.... it was almost to much. He wanted to lash out.... but stopped. 

Snapping his helmet back on Bishop felt a comforting almost calming energy flow through is mind. 

“Do you have a datapad?” Bishop asked. 

“Yes.... yes I do” Schmidt responded. 

“There is a port at the back of my helmet.... plug it in” the Skinwalker ordered. 

After a few moments Bishop’s HUD flashed...

 WARNING....EXTERNAL DEVICE CONNECTED.  ALLOW ACCESS? PASSWORD REQUIRED...

In a wiper, Bishop spoke an ancient dialect, the words were of a Native American tong. 

His HUD flashed again...

ACCESS GRANTED....

The Skinwalker spoke to his suit...”Run Infiltration diagnostics... strike package Alpha”.

RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS.... STANDBY. The screen flashed. 

Bishop turned his snarling wolf helmet toward the spy “You now can control all my systems. You have full access....I have full override control....if warranted..... any attack on the suit is an attack on me.... your termination will be swift and violent” warned Bishop. 

Bishop watched as Nathan’s thermal image increased in heat, his blood pressure spiked. 

“Bishop.... we are in this together... just you and me.... just trust me” whispered Nathan. 

[Nicholas Schuster]

This hack was weird. I had never used someone's literal brain as a pass through for an infiltration before, nor had I used the high-end, slick looking Irian interface that now splashed across my screen before. No, I was used to command lines, green text on black backgrounds, wireframes, that sort of thing. This was a fully polished UI that even had some bullshit special visuals whenever you clicked buttons or moved a window around. This was paid hacking software. Legit, corporate espionage stuff. Which probably meant that it was going to rip through the Takashima's outer cyber defenses pretty easily. 

As I logged in, I noticed something weird. One of the windows contained a three dimensional, rotating neural scan of Bishop's brain, complete with EEG activity and vital signs. Another window showed a toxicology read, which was incredibly strange. And a third window was actually displaying a feed of Bishop's face in thermally view, with what almost looked like a topographical map overlaid on his image. 

"I'm gonna leave all of that be for now..." I muttered, pulling up the software payload. The tools had names that were decidedly corporate, but I could infer from their clinical, pseudo-ironic, focus-group sounding branding what they did.

"OK, Bishop, here we go." I daid, deploying what called itself 'FIREHOSE' against the target at the end of /dev/sdd1, which was the firewall into the Takashima's mainframe. The man tensed suddenly, his blood pressure reading skyrocketing while a few alarms went off on the bio-monitor. 

"Bishop? You okay? What's happening there? Should I turn it off?" 

"No.....continue. I...function." the soldier replied. I nodded worriedly. It appeared that the tool had obliterated the firewall, though at what cost to his health, I couldn't tell.

Soon, I deployed the tool marked as 'PORTHACK.' The utility cycled on, brute-forcing an attack on the server's communications ports. They fell easily, and I was able to SSH the rest of the way in. 

"Alright, bingo, I'm past the security...but there's no apparent subroutine running from this terminal that I can see to exploit.. Let me try to find the source on LAN activate the -" 

Suddenly, Bishop spoke up, in an unusual tone... 

"We are not alone. There's something else in the system with us..."