16 (DSV Nautica) Incursion
The vacuum of space lay in silence. The two ships were facing off deep in the galactic void. Unknowingly, a third ship was watching and waiting. Waiting for the teams to get back.Lyn was back on her feet and leading the teams in Flares absence. Their counterpart team over at the Black spot was already hard at work doing the same thing. They spacewalked all the way over to the Nautica, lowering toward the back of the behemoth. It was pretty impressive in size, if not primitive in operation. But then again, they didn't have the same capabilities that the Ayr'een were inherently born with.They slowed, and brought their boards parallel to the ships hull, slowly approaching an engineering airlock. They had cloaked while ago, now was showtime. Their technician, As'hi'yr'ah pulled a plate off the side of the hull, not an easy feat. The polymer from his suit interfaced with the data cabled beneath all that armor and granted airlock access. The team of 5 moved inside, while their 6th member stayed behind to ensure their exit stayed available. There would be no help from the Erebus inside. The doors slid open once Ash were sure that there was no one around to notice. They all filed inside, cycled through the airlock, and found themselves in one of the nautica's outer corridors. They were in.
Ash was busy on the outside, creating the very heart of their intrusion. A worm. Once he was familiar with the system architecture, he began creating the worm to spread slowly to all systems they would investigate. It would do anything to the Nautica's systems, except observe and cover their tracks. It was highly complex. It even removed references to the airlock they just entered in logs, and security camera footage was recycled, leaving no evidence that it had ever been opened. He worked silently and furiously, closing his eyes with the help of the suit, which acted as a programming interface and a program compiler, and finally, a wedge they had driven into the system. He had root access. It couldn't get much better than this.Lyn traveled down the cramped halls as silently as she could. Luckily she hadn't run into anyone yet. She paused near a terminal, and using a method similar to Ash's outside, planted a small amount of synthesized polymer in one of the terminals. It morphed, hardened, and transformed into a port on the console. It looked just like it belonged there. No one would ever notice. It acted as a wireless access point to Ash outside. She hurried along toward the main engineering sections. They had time, As they had determined it would be some days before they could move. But nonetheless, they were uncomfortable aboard a ship whose activities were unpredictable.
Once finished, she resumed her task, placing more nodes around on various consoles throughout the ship. They all began linking to Ash outside, whom established a link back to the Erebus."Captain. We have dual
links. One from the Nautica, and the other from the Black Spot."Aki brought the controls up, routing the links to the science team in the back of the ship. Everything was ready. Ash uploaded the worm. It began bouncing throughout the Nautica, stealing all the information it could as quietly as it could. Logs, specs, anything from temperatures of the power cores to the humidity of the air in the engineering spaces. All of it was collected and trickled across the link back to the Erebus. They began saving it in the diamond shaped keystones that served as the data storage mediums.Lyn was on her way back, when she ran into some crew members. They came out of what seemed like nowhere, rounding a corner, and seeing a group of three engineers headed right at her. She looked around frantically, for she had about 10 seconds. She pressed herself against the wall, her leg lifted over the corridor, pushing her back to the ceiling, her other leg a support against the wall to her butt. She groaned at the pain and awkward positioning as they passed under her leg, headed with urgent purpose. She shook, slightly humiliated at the position she found herself in. she groaned and landed on the cold floor with a thump, hurrying toward the exit. She paused and turned back, looking in the direction of the crew members. This was a good opportunity. She took off running after the crew that she had dodged.
She caught up with the crew, whom were working in a small control room with some others. Things looked pretty high strung. She recorded their odd language for later translation, and began the riskiest part of an already risky operation. She snuck to within 5 meters of each individual and stayed that close for 30 seconds while her suit linked and scanned their physiology, in the whole.There were a couple "Humans" as well as "Anthros", a canine, and a couple felid species as well. The wealth of knowledge was almost worth killing for. She finished scanning the last one, and moved toward the door, but it had shut when she hadn't been looking. She was trapped, and she couldn't open the door without someone noticing. She crouched in a corner, away from doors and consoles, initiating an upload of data. If she was stuck she would at least make certain that the data got uploaded safely. She had to stay absolutely quiet.Ash began the upload of data. There was tons of it. They were getting scans on everything. The physical structure of the ship was most interesting. It had its own bio-dome. Meant for extended stays in space. Even plant life. He made note of that for the curators back home. He couldn't help but feel a tingle of excitement at how advanced this race was. The most advanced races they had discovered had barely gotten spaceflight down. And they certainly had not discovered FTL. Though just because they hadn't been encountered didn't mean they didn't exist.
"Erebus, upload
begun. ETA point one cycle."It would royally suck if the ship started moving while the data was en route. The team aboard the Black Spot had already stolen the designs to the cloaking matrix and were retreating. Damn, they worked quick.Ka'ya was getting prepared to initiate a mind connection to a crew member. She would become a ghost in their minds and watch everything they did, a gross privacy violation, but they had secrets the Ayr'een wanted. The comms chair hummed and rotated. Ka'ya tapped the small pyramid on the table next to her, closing her eyes and sighing. She searched for a viable life form for her connection, and found one. A crewman on the bridge. Now that was perfect. She initiated the connection and found herself staring at an unfamiliar panel. She heard speaking as "she" punched in commands. It certainly was a frenzy of activity. There was also an oddly dressed feline on the communication screen. Ka'ya couldn't help but giggle. She decoded the commands, isolating some uninteresting access codes, but finding it very interesting that the Nautica overloaded its engines on purpose. To create this rift and trap the ship here. Now that was cool. Interesting tactic. Ka'ya made a note of that, explaining the thought processes of the crew. The biggest gut kick had yet to come though.
Ka'ya audibly gasped when she realized the ship was being crewed by an AI. Why would they do that? How could they risk the entire ship in the hands of a digital entity? Puzzling, very puzzling."Captain...the Nautica is being crewed by an AI""...Say again?""The ships captain is an artificial intelligence entity."Aki was dumbstruck."I want....to see the core."