Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
[Story]Shadowrunning, Part 2
 
#51
I think that's a good assumption. Although Noah will know of Jet at least by reputation and OGJ reports (which is why he said "Mr. Jaguar" instead of "Ms. Jaguar"), and everybody's heard of Noah.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Reply
 
#52
Well, now it's getting interesting.

Jet's stressing more now that she's worried about Ford, frightened about the depth of the plan, getting cabin fever and is missing the simplicity of action during the Boskone war. Cally and Teela's reactions will make sense. And I know we're going for a false sort of tension here by not showing what happens to Cally or her reaction to Teela.... but well, there're a lot of things happening simultaneously now. There's more hints about what Quattro is, and where she's spent all her CP's.

All will make sense. We're accelerating towards endgame.

Hopefully things come across as sane.... though I might want to adjust the final part.

Quote:Cally was getting sick of staring at the bottom of her truck. She was sick of the frame rails, sick of the brake lines that seemed to be leaking far more fluid than had ever been in the, and sick of a CV Joint-come-power conduit that just wouldn’t goddamned move no matter how hard she tried. Mars dust had baked on like rust, fusing into a solid red ceramic.

Cally swore, “Fucking thing.” She glared at it for a few seconds “Where’d I put that hammer?”

She started to roll back out from under the truck. A hand offered a hammer to her.

“This one?” a familiar voice asked her

Cally pulled herself out from under to see Naoko standing over her. Her face was stern.

“What?”

Dare she ask.

“Teela was found down in the restricted area of the base,”

“Shit,”

----

Teela came too. She wished she hadn’t. Her head was split in two. She felt that she was laying in a constricted space, was she still inside this damned airduct? But the light trickling through her closed eyes said otherwise.

Teela slowly sat up and blinked multiple times as she tried to become used to the bright light coming from above.

Her sleeping place proved to be a dark tube, less than a meter in diameter and about two meters high. The material looked quite fragile, but a punch proved that it was resistant enough to hold her in. In the darkness outside the tube Teela could see a few blinking lights.

“Finally my labcat has awoken...”

It was an awfully familiar voice said. It was chased with a breezy chuckle that chilled her to the bone. Teela felt her hair stand on end. She peered into the darkness, barely able to distinguish a female silhouette through the gloom.

The lights came up,

Quattro was smiling at her. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“I was almost about to wake you.”

Teela snarled. “What do you want with me?”

“Nothing much.” Quattro reassured her “Just to answer a few questions for me.”

“No! I won’t!”

Quattro just smiled at her. Now for the fun part. “Non-cooperation is bad. Non-coopoeration will be punished.”

She giggled gleefully. Teela pushed herself back against the rear wall of the tube, her heart racing. She clawed at the smooth surface, scratching for an opening. Quattro pushed a button on a remote.

Teela heard the electric hum a moment before the shock bit her in both feet at once. It blazed it’s way up through her body. It squeezed the breath out of her lungs, forcing her to scream wordlessly. Her muscles spasmed and jerked and stiffened, pressing against the tube walls. She gasped desperately for breath, her chest burning with fire, squeezing tighter.

“Stop!” she screamed. She tried to scream. What came out was an amorphous cry of pain than rang off walls of her prison.

The current shut off. Teela slumped against the wall of the tube, gasping for air. She grasped at sheer plastic, pawing to drag herself back to her feet.

“As I said” Quattro repeated with a dry smile, “you will answer my questions.”

Teela whimpered. “Cally will come for me.”

“She’s been taken care of,” Quattro stated, “permanently.”

“You lie!” Teela cried.

“Then how come she hasn’t come looking for you, even though you don’t have your collar on?”

Teelas hands snapped up to her neck, and met only bare fur. No... that wasn’t possible. She scratched and clawed, but could find nothing. Never did she think she’d want to feel that collar.

Quattro just smiled at her. Chipper and cheery behind her glasses. The cat playing with the mouse.

“So you will answer my questions, ne?”

----

In the darkness, there was only Jet.

No Destiny Nova. No Kunstler. No Nehallenia. No Quattro. No Noah Scott. No body around her. No hardware signals. Just her raw naked self, free and clear in the void of her mind.

A peaceful, calm place to be spend an hour every minute. Meditation helped her sleep. An hour a day keeps the nightmares away. Shadows of bad memories danced around the edges of her mind.

Little demons put back in their box one at a time. The box was bursting at the seams.

Something at the edge of her mind was beeping. Her self grimaced, distracted by the intrusion.

Beep-beep.

She tried to block it out.

The alarm insisted. Beep-beep.

Fuck off alarm.

Beep beep.

Jet spat a curse as she crashed out of Friede. The world came back with a bang, flooding her mind for a few brief moments before she got herself under control. A light on the comm panel was blinking in time with the beeb.

It snapped off under Jet’s finger. “Jet. What is it?”

“Hello Jet, Cortana here. There is a burst transmission from Operation Great Justice Headquarter for you.”

The AI was frustratingly chipper.

Jet snapped at her.“Could you not have waited another ten minutes?”

“Verdammt nochmal, noch so jemand deren Welt untergeht, wenn sie nicht ausschlafen kann.” Cortana murmured, then she focused on Jet again. “It is marked ‘Gamma 1 SuperNova’, And it is ‘Mission commander only’, so I do not think this can wait.”

Jet cursed under her breath. Databurst. Mission Commander only.

“I’ll take it on the bridge. Jet out.”

Jet could’ve taken it raw, but she just didn’t want to feel like she’d spent the last three days getting smashed drunk at a party she couldn’t remember attending.

Most of the Nova’s crew were busy doing nothing. With the ship facing Nehallenia on minimal power, most were either resting, sleeping, or had grabbed a book to read. Desmond had gone into a low-power self-maintenance mode, cleaning out cruft in his filesystem and rearranging a few things so there was a bit more contiguous free space on his disks.

The lights were low. The air was thick despite the pressure having dropped to the bare minimum. It must’ve been near pure oxygen. Less air held less heat. Static scrubbers must’ve been near full, and the powered ones had been shut down.

Jets shoulder brushed against a bulkhead and she felt an uncomfortable shiver build inside her. The Nova was a small ship and gradually getting smaller. Squeezing in around her. Jets body just wanted to Go!. Get out there and fly, not be stuck inside a tin can.

Meditation also helped keep that quirk from getting too distracting.

One of the Senshi, Linda, was reading something on a datapad, giggling away to herself. She peered over the top of it, noting Jet opening the hatch.

“Maybe you should get some sleep, Jet” she suggested, jovially. “You look like hell,”

“Just woke up,” Jet half-lied with a hand held up. “Cortana piped through a message for me,”

“Comms panel.” Linda indicated with the tablet stylus. “I didn’t look at it.” Her eyes lit up, hunting for gossip “So what is it?”

“Secret stuff.” Jet answered, dismissively. “I don’t know yet.” She had more than an inkling.

“Fine,” Linda huffed, “ It’s freaking boring stuck here in this tin can,”

Jet demurred. “Tell me about it,” Jet didn’t even look at her

The data came up onscreen. Not just raw data, but analysed and annotated with sections specifically highlighted for her attention. Jet felt a chill run through her body as she got deeper in. Noahs appraisal of Quattro was repeated, then confirmed with some experimental details.

Typical Boskonian madgirl stuff. Science without obligation. Or violence without cause. Jet decided not to bother with the Jedi philosophy stuff for the time being.

Linda kept poking away at her tablet. Jet’s expression was darkening like an oncoming storm. Standing on the deck, stopped over the console putting most of her weight through her arms. Jets grip on the console tightened, metal creaking and buckling.

Jets skin, what Linda could see of it, had gone pale. The cyber swallowed. Jet brought a hand up to cover her mouth, before slowly lowering it back down again. She watched her mouth slowly open, hanging for a few seconds, gaping like a fish. Jet’s eyes widened, and she quickly scrolled back up. Jet stared at the screen, Linda would swear her eyes zoomed in.

Just making sure that, yes, she really had just read that. She’d gone right through anger, passed fury and was heading straight for horror at what she was reading.

Linda felt her skin go clammy.

Jet pushed back from the screen, staring. “Good God!”

Jet closed her eyes, inhaling a long deep breath through nose. She held it for a few seconds, before silently allowing it to dissipate through her life support systems.

“How bad?” Linda asked.

Jets expression hardened, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Worse than you think,” Jet said. “It’s worse than we thought,”

For a few moments, Linda thought it might’ve been just hyperbole, but the momentary fear she saw in Jets eyes was very real. It was gone in a flash, followed up by a palpable anger that seemed to electrify the air around her.

“What is it?”

Jet held up her hand. Give me time to think. She seemed to glance down at the floor, then over at the screen, then stared straight out the window for a few seconds. Another breath.

“Change of plans,” Jet answered. Her voice was cold and certain.

It was one thing to be able to stick to the letter of a plan, and quite another to know when it needed to be changed up to fit new information.

----

Teela was just staring at Quattro. Panic prickled through her body.

“But what do you want?” she whimpered, “You did not even ask a question... I can tell you a lot about Callys truck, I have been with her a lot when she worked on it.”

Quattro smiled thinly for a brief moment.

“Very good, keep this attitude and you might skip a few small shocks. Lets start with a simple question... what is your real name and what were you doing in the restricted area?”

Teela shivered and took a deep breath... “I am called Teela... I just was curious and walked around to see more of the...” Teela stopped. Capacitors beneath her whined as they began to charge. Her eyes widened.

“Nein, nein... warte! Es ist wahr...” she screamed. The rest was drowned out by the crackle of electricity.

“You could at least lie consistently” Quattro sneered. “Stand up, unless you want another one!”

Teela want to just lay on the ground of her prison for good. A small pin lay on the floor. She quietly grabbed it and pushed herself upwards, still feeling the cramps lingering from the last shock..

“How...” She panted. “if... if you know the truth already, why are you hurting me?” she stuttered as she got upright again.

There was a small lock keeping the tube closed. Maybe with her new tool, she could open it?

“Maybe because I am much too clever to not see through your lies... maybe because your friend Cally has already talked... or maybe its just fun to do.” Quattro giggled. The final one, definitely the final one.

She walked over to one of her lockers against the far wall. She pulled the open, the door clanging against the rock walls, stabbing at Teela’s ears, and started rooting through to contest.

“But what... but what if I don’t know the truth... maybe if you ask the right questions... maybe.” The catgirl whimpered. Teelas mind was running at lightspeed as she inspected the latch. Someone had already been tinkering with it a little bit, but she couldn’t open it just with the pin. If she had a power source like a battery, maybe an electric pulse might do the trick?

Teela began to shiver again. She had an idea. She could smell singed fur. ‘Insane, that’s just insane’ she thought.

Quattro was was busy with her terminal, doing what Teela couldn’t tell. A holographic display came up around her, a strange sort of piano keyboard. Screens came up around her her, each displaying a wall of text, shooting passed faster than it’d ever be possible for a human to read.

She stared at a screen. Something on it appeared to catch her eye. She paused, muttering a curse to herself, before rewinding, then parsing through at a slower pace.

Her expression blackened.

Her coat swished as she turned on her heel, stomping across the lab. Teela stifled a yelp behind her hands as Quattro pulled the door of her server rack open. The lock just bent apart. Quattro turned to her wearing a savage grin.

“Finally you tell me something useful... “

“You will get nothing you bitch! I will...”

Capacitors began to whine. She stopped.

“Good kitty.” said Quattro, “Now lets see what’s inside my server.”

Teela swallowed a lump. The fur on her body stood on end. It prickled with nervous static. Why was this so wrong? What was in that panel?

Quattro, opened the door, before turned towards her, still wearing that awful smirk. “I see. Well, I’ll deal with this little thing first. Go to sleep.”

Teela yelped. “Bitt...” The rest of that sentence was lost in another scream. Merciful oblivion claimed her moments later.

Quattro removed her glasses, folding them before storing them safely in her coat pocket. The others were just inferior, compared to her, and she basked in that each time she saw her reflection without those stupid glasses.

Another sigh. That catgirl would be out for at least an hour, most likely longer. She could wait until this intruder had been dealt with. Quattro’s first instinct was to just trash the box, then figure out how it worked.

But then she’d lose any chance of finding out who the attacker was. She’d lose any chance.of attacking them back. Working with an inhuman speed, she quickly walled off the intruder, calmly chrooting the intruder into it’s own private jail from where it could do no more harm. She populated the jail with false data, just to maintain the illusion.

Poor thing probably wouldn’t even notice until it was much too late. She’d get to it in good time, just finish some quick compartmentalisation in case this little puppy was cleverer than it seemed. She doubted it, this hacker was still happily gobbling up the encrypted garbage she was sending them. It was little more than mid-beta, at best.

Quattro looked bored at the computer displays, she had hoped for more of a challenge. Maybe it was a good time to take a break and see if Naoko was finally willing to show some sense. She put her glasses back on, switching like a lightbulb back to her persona. She pushed a key. A few seconds later, Sato’s face appeared beside her.

“What is it Quattro?”

“Naoko-chan,” Quattro cooed. “I found something in my computer systems.”

“What?” Sato asked, wearily. Humans and their ideas of sleep.

“A piece of hacking hardware. Someone on the station must’ve planted it within the last two days.”

She smiled daintily.

Sato seemed to wake up immediately “Planted it?”

“Well, there are two obvious candidates,” Quattro said.”You know what you have to do,”

She could see Naoko go pale just that little bit. Sato swallowed a lump “No... I want to be certain before I do it, there’re 275 people on this station.”

“What more evidence do you need?”

“More than the fact that they just arrived on-station. It’s bad for business to murder clients based on little more than a suspicion. Get me some proper evidence, then I’ll take care of things,”

Quattro scowled at the image onscreen. “This isn’t a Senshi court,”

“And I did not get my reputation by being an insane psycho by murdering people for the slight hint. I don’t loose good employees just to maintain my rep as a psychotic killer to be feared. Get real evidence instead of bothering me with guesses. Sato out.”

The image disappeared.

“Idiot,” Quattro spat.

Well, evidence she could get. First, she just had to tweak the catgirl a little. Three times. Three different stories so far, but she could cross reference them and get the truth that way. Once more maybe. It’d take a few minutes to set the hardware up

And while the catgirl was coming out of it for the fourth time, she could take care of her little friend in the system.
----

The Kunstler had filled up the galley, along with ship’s Captain Mari, and Desmond and Cortana watching through a closed circuit camera. A map of Nehallenia was projected onto a pull-down screen covering the forward windows. The little pull-string was dangling in the sink, wicking up grey water.

“Right,” Jet started. She stifled a yawn. “Well, I called yous down her because we have to make a few quick changes to what we planned. We’ve our first batch of intel coming back from Nehallenia. It’s worse than we expected.”

Jet let it hang for a few seconds. How could it be worse?

“To cut a long story short,the robbery was just a test, the tip of the iceberg,” Jet said, trying to keep her voice even. “It was a test of whether they could access our mind through our hardware. Their actual plan was to track one of our couriers on a run to Stellvia, and use a specially crafted burst transmission to implant new memories in their mind.”

The air went cold. Some of the Engels exchanged paranoid glances. Lenneth shifted position in her chair, recrossing her legs.

“What new memories?” she asked.

“Instead of just delivering a message,” Jet said, before pausing. “They might be compelled to attack the station, most..” she stumbled a little “...most likely attacking the Scott family directly.”

There was sharp intake of breath.

“Mein Gott,” Tiegel whispered. “But we would know it had been done, yes? Like, being given different orders or...something...”

“I’m afraid not,” Jet shook her head, keeping her voice soft. “Jana and Vanko had no idea what happened to them until the shipment and the raiders were gone. The brain just brushes over any inconsistencies and fudges things together to make something that works.” she exhaled a breath, trying to keep herself centred. “The real nightmare is, it could be done to any of us,” she looked down at Tiegel, then at Lenneth, then to the others. She looked right at each of them in turn. “The first you’d know something is wrong is when you’re covered in blood, with Stellvian security pointing guns at you, and you can’t remember why,”

A sick silence followed. Nobody dared day anything.

Lenneth broke the silence. “And there’s no way to defend against it?”

Jet sighed. “For the duration of this mission, on board radio and wireless systems are to be disabled. No radar, no wifi, no radio, nothing. You can’t hack through an interface that’s turned off. We’ll use those old wrist-coms to communicate.”

The irony of that, Jet noted, was that she’d initially laughed at the desk pilot on Arisia who’d sent them out during the closing stages of the war. Didn’t the idiot know they had their own built-in communications gear? They’d gathered dust aboard the Nova since then.

Jet brushed a few strands of hair off her face. “Now, onto who’s responsible for developing this shit.” She pushed a button on a remote. The projector clicked over to the next image, doing its best imitation of an old slide-show carousel. An animé face appeared. Round glasses, golden eyes, golden hair in two straight handlebar pigtails, a predators grin all on top of a blue bodysuit.

“This is our primary objective,”

“Oh hell,” Jash murmured. Everyone looked at him. “That’s a character from an animé. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Her name’s Quattro, she’s a real nasty bitch. And dangerous.”

“You watch magical girl animé?” Lenneth asked him with a smirk.

Mari found herself compelled to giggle slightly. A little levity always helped.

“I wanted to be a magical girl before I got cybered,” he answered sharply. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he waved it off. “But that’s a damn lucky biomod, or someone got creative with an AI,”

Jet carried on. “We think she’s a Scott-type AI, like the Stellvian girls.” The obvious question was why would Noah build Quattro? “She was probably built by Agatha Clay. Agatha was on Nehallenia up until a few months ago, but we’re certain now that she’s moved on” Another few moments. “Quattro is to be considered capture or kill. She is too dangerous to be allowed off Nehallenia alive and free.”

Jet’s voice matched her expression. Cold, hard and resolved. “We expect her to be in her lab here,” the projector clicked and the map returned, with the lab area highlighted. “I’m the troubleshooter, she’s the trouble, I’m going for the lab personally. If you see her outside her lab, make sure she doesn’t leave the station. If you see her, kill her.”

Capture or kill. No stated preference. Jet wanted nothing more than to tear that robot bitch apart. Jet warned herself about the difference between killing someone because it was her duty and murdering someone on a flash of hatred.

Hopefully Quattro would spare her that moral dilemma.

It seemed alien in a way no-one could quite place to hear Jet specifically order them to kill someone.

“What about the others on Nehallenia,” Lenneth asked, “The Senshi, Naoko Sato. What’s our rules of engagement?”

“They’re not considered an enemy, just criminals. Lethal force as a last resort. That means stop, identify, give them a chance to surrender. If they’re armed and actively trying to engage, defend yourself with the minimum force needed,”

Traditionally, minimum force needed was whatever it took to shut down any combat as quickly as possible. Politically, that level of force was just plain unacceptable when hitting petty criminals in goth fukus, even if they decided to fight back. The arguments for both sides were long and vociferous, enough to make an essay David Weber would call boring.

Jet tended to follow Tsun Tzu on the matter, to which the natural counter-argument was that they weren’t at ‘war’ anymore. The first inkling Jet had that there might be something wrong with her was when she said that she wished they still were.

“If they’re escaping, allow them to escape,” Jet continued. “Naoko Sato included. The Senshi want her treated as a criminal and brought to justice. Capture if you can, let her go if you have to, don’t harm her unless you have no other option.”

She was a secondary objective anyway. It’d be nice to bring her in, but it was far from a priority.

Primary objectives were to hit Quattro and her lab computer and the Nehallenia main computer system. Secure primary objectives, secure the station, knock out the defensive systems to keep Roughrider assault force from being shot out of the sky on the way in to take care of a big crowd of bewildered Dark Senshi. The usual deal. Missions like this were the Panzer Kunst stock-in-trade. They each knew how to handle their own objectives. They’d done it many times before.

“Now, how do we get to Nehallenia without being shot down?”

Desmond spoke up, still speaking through a wall-mounted speaker. “Pay attention everyone. I have forged a new transponder ID for us, after our last one was rumbled. For this mission we shall be the SS Wilhelm Canaris,” He seemed especially pleased with himself in his British accent.

Mari snickered. “I like it. I like the irony”

“Yes. Canaris was head of the German Abwehr while secretly working for MI6 during World War 2. As usual it’s an original Boskone Two - based key but they’re still in use. The variance from my presence in the system should be below the detection threshold. I would give it ten minutes if they’re suspicious of us enough to test it, fifteen at most.”

“We’re close enough that they’ll spot us as soon as the RF igniters fire.” Mari said. “But we have our usual response,”

The voice coming through the speaker changed. It was Cortana’s turn. “ I have planted a virus in their system. When an alert triggers in their system it will lock up and force a reset. Defense systems will be active but communications will go down.”

“Any edge.” Jet said. “Will you be able to tell me when you have finished downloading Quattro’s system?”

“Yes, I am one third complete so far. I should be finished within twelve hours.”

“Good. Instead of waiting for Ford and Cathy to be clear of Nehallenia we’ll be attacking as soon as the download is complete.”

----
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#53
We are getting closer...

Quote:Teela woke up feeling like she’d fought a battle against a herd of elephants and lost. Everything ached.The air reeked of ozone and scorched fur.

“What happened?” she mumbled to herself.

She yelped when she discovered she was inside some sort of glass tube. It startled her when the door just swung open as soon as she pressed against it. A small pin had been jimmied into the lock.

It looked like it’d been shorted out.

It didn’t take her long to realise where she was. The singing turret was a dead giveaway. It’d been moved to cover the front door and the ventilation grille simultaneously.

Shit.

The last thing she could remember was that cutesy bitch zapping her. That explained the hangover. Teela stepped out into the lab, allowing the door to the pod to close behind her.On a metal plate bolted to it were the words ‘Cat’s Cradle’.

Odd.

Conduits ran from the top of the device, across the ceiling, feeding into the server racks and a second sleeping-dinosaur of a machine hooked up to some sort of examination table. It was hard for her to make sense of, but something about that helmet seemed fiendishly familiar.

She scratched her head.

If Quattro’d caught her, the the mission was likely already blown. There was nothing for it but to call Ford, get the alert out and get herself rescued before the madgirl went truly Mengele on her.

She grabbed at her collar. She found only soft fur.

Shit!. Quattro took it. A flash of panic shot through her. This was failing in a big way. They might already have Ford. She swallowed that thought, sending it to join an ever growing lump deep in the pit of her stomach.

The only other way out would be to take down the turret.

Sure they could be just kicked over, but if it was anything like its counterparts in the game, it’d fire randomly spraying the lab with bullets. And unlike Chell she had no infinite respawns.

She needed another option. Quickly. Maybe there was some stuff here to improvise a weapon?

Looking through the parts of the lab she could reach she tried to think of something. She could not get out without being shot. She could not even get to Quattro’s computer rack; no using the QED to contact Cortana directly.

It didn’t seem like Quattro was the sort of mad who’d have a spare death ray or three lying around. Aside from some spare cyber parts on the workbench, the lab appeared clean.

Some seemed familiar, a few chips she could recognise. There were parts of a antennae, something that might’ve been an SDR and one piece of hardware she just couldn’t recognise. It looked custom.

I can work with this.

Teela began to smile grimly as a plan began to form in her mind.

----

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Naoko, was tapping the end of her pen on her desk.

“U-nye Nah Bah?” The furby enquired. It’s expression was a permanent plastic curiosity.

Sato didn’t answer. She just stared at her pen. A spy planted hardware in Quattro’s computer. That meant somebody on the station was a spy. That meant somebody knew what they were looking for.

That meant Great Justice were watching.

They probably knew everything by now. Shit. Shit. Shit. She was so screwed.

No. Not until she knows for sure. Check twice. Act once. How many others would love to know what was going on inside Quattro’s lab? It depends entirely on what the spy had been looking into.

That catgirl, Teela, had been caught by Quattro down in the restricted area. Could she have been inside the lab? But how did she get through the checkpoints without an alert?

Cally didn’t seem like the Great Justice type. She didn’t seem like a self-righteous arrogant asshole. She felt like she was who she was. She felt like someone just up for the freedom, and didn’t like her freedom being trampled by a bunch of wannabee superheros with an agenda. Cally hated the Stellvians. Cally had good reason for it. Cally’s had been shot-up by an OGJ cannon. Nobody would be stupid enough to deliberately let someone shoot their truck up like that.

It didn’t seem right. It didn’t feel right. Cally didn’t feel like a troubleshooter.

But the break into the lab told her that she had a major security problem. It’d be the prudent thing to at least run a check on her, on her description. Not many people had a cyber’d right arm and leg.

The thought occurred to her that maybe Quattro was right. It occurred to her that maybe she should just quietly take care of the pair. Quattro did want more catgirls. It wouldn’t really be killing them....

Her stomach went tight.

She hadn’t murdered anyone yet. She’d given orders to kill. But then she’d only been following orders herself. She was planning to kill. But that was different.

Cally was right there.

There was a knock on the door.

“Kah da boh-bay,” the Furby whimpered. it closed its eyes and pretended to be off. Good idea.

“Come,” she said.

The door opened and Quattro stepped in riding a draft of cute malevolence.

“Cally and Teela are still alive,” she said.

“And they’re to stay that way until you get me better evidence.”

“Well, I have the results of my interrogations of the catgirl,” said Quattro. “She’s obviously lying about who she is.”

Sato pursed her lips. Wait a minutes. “Interrogation, how?”

“Well,” Quattro smirked. “You know how.”

Sato sighed to herself. “Damn.”

Quattro edged up to her desk. “I know. But it’s great because each time around, she doesn’t know what the last one said. It makes it so much easier to catch them in a lie.”

It made Quattro seem almost giddy. It made Naoko’s skin crawl.

“What have you found out?”

“That she’s lying about her name. And that she doesn’t really know Cally at all. Not as well as she would if she’d been with her for years. And she winced when I found the device in my server.”

Sato scowled at her. “That’s all?”

“Well, she breaks very quickly.” Quattro answered. “So it’s hard to get much before she starts sobbing uncontrollably, or just sits down and gives up.” Quattro giggled just a little, covering her mouth. It was almost a parody of cuteness. A malignant, cancerous cuteness. A saccharine evil. “But it should be enough.”

Naoko swallowed. Something felt...wrong

“But...” she paused. “You don’t tell people about who made you, do you? And I know how much you hide behind that facade of yours.”

“Don’t be silly.” Quattro said “That’s different.”

Sato folded her arms. “I do not see how. People in our line of work have good reasons to keep their secrets. We do not pry.”

“Don’t be...”

Sato stood up, staring the madgirl down. “I’m in charge on this station! We do business my way.”

“And because of that we have two spies in the Station. And most likely a Great Justice task force on the way. I’ll give you three guesses what they’ll send!”

Sato sat down again. Take a deep breath.

“Maybe with a little more subtlety. I’ll talk to Cally myself.....”

Quattro scowled at her. “But playing with them and abusing them, throwing them in a cage and watching them suffer... It's so much fun!"

“I...”

The Furby woke up. Eyes bright. It’d found something good. “Dah signal.” It announced. “Dah signal secret!”

They both looked at the little furball. Naoko keyed open her intercom.

“Control, this is Sato. Did you pick up a radio signal just now?”

“Yes ma’am,” a voice answered. “A short high-powered burst in the 2.4GHz band.”

“Where did it come from? Where’d it go?”

“Somewhere in the restricted section, probably the labs. We don’t think it had the power to leave the station. Probably just something that nutbar is working on ma’am.”

Quattro shot a glare at the speaker for a few moments. “Send the raw data over” she shouted towards the intercom.

“I... Oh... did not...” the voice stumbled. “Yes, at once!”

Quattro concentrated for a moment. The hardware she’d put together for the attack, it had to be. “That was coming out of my lab. It’s the catgirl!”

“Get down there.” Sato ordered. “And find out where she sent the transmission to.”

Quattro grinned at her. Oh yes, she’d find out alright, and she’d have fun doing it too. The door slammed shut, leaving Naoko alone again with her Furby.

The catgirl was sending a distress call to her owner, that had to be it. Poor thing was in for a nasty little surprise.

If the catgirl was a spy. That meant Cally was either a spy too, or just someone who was fooled and betrayed as well.

Cally couldn’t be a spy.

And if she was?

The thought just sort of died in her mind. It made her body go cold.

They’d have to get off Nehallenia in a flash. She sent a message to the hanger to have her car made ready.

Just in case.

----

Cally was trying to sleep.

Her body ached like all hell, cramps in her arms and back reminding her of a hard days work. Another two days and the truck would be ready. Teela could help now. She doubted how much the furball could help, but she could help.

At least Teela could sleep.

Fucking thing scared the crap out of her getting caught down in the restricted area. The madgirl zapped her with a taser, then she was dumped in the apartment.

Cally just wanted to get the hell up off Nehallenia.

Maybe she could find someone who’d sell them their shuttle. it wasn’t like she’d actually have to pay for it with the owner going to Azkhaban. Jack it, and call it a prize.

A buzzing, screeching noise erupted inside the apartment. She sleepily swatted at the alarm clock a few times, but the sound didn’t stop.

Her mind finally caught up with what the noise was.

“Shit!” She yelped, jumping upright. She scrambled for a light, knocking something heavy off the nightstand.

“Was ist das für ein Krach?” Teela slurred, slowly coming out from under the cloak of sleep. “Was soll die Aufregung?” Her hand went to her collar, which was still tightly locked around her neck.

The lights came up, painfully bright. Cally cursed under her breath. She looked down at the floor. The emergency alarm on the collar controller was active, little red lights flashing out along with the beat of the alarm.

Cally looked at Teela, pawing at the collar. There was no corresponding light. She grabbed the reader. Malfunction?

“I think it broke,” she said.

“Show me,” said Teela.

Cally tossed it to the catgirl, who caught it easily between her hands. Teela cancelled the alarm, before switching the machine into debug mode.

“Give me a second,” Teela said as she dived down into logfiles. “It was not my collar.”

Minutes passed. Cally was rubbing her hands together, staring at Teela as she worked.

“That is strange.” said the catgirl.

“What?”

“According to the logs the device received a single burst of data from an unknown wireless device.” Teela explained. “First a short message. “Trap 4 lab”. It had the correct transmission keys, which are hardware generated, and sent the alarm trigger code once without any failed attempt. The chance to do this is one in a trillion.”

Trap 4 lab. Sender was trapped in Quattro’s lab.

Teela directly looked at Cally. “It would be impossible to do. Not even an alpha could do it. Not with no knowledge of the receiving system. Not without any knowledge of the broadcasting system.The only person who otherwise knows the correct code is myself and Cortana. The collar logs show it as being constantly powered on and never opened. I can even see the glitch caused by Quattro zapping me.”

Cally thought. “Are you sure you just woke up here after Quattro zapped you? According to the tracker you spent an hour in the lab.”

“Yes!” said Teela, glaring at Cally. “I was unconscious. I cannot believe you’d suspect me. The only way anyone could get this code would be to spend days testing the chip, by asking me, or by getting it off Cortana, and I’m sure I didn’t tell anyone. And an hour wouldn’t be enough to rip it apart and test it. so that leaves....” she stopped. Dead. “Cortana...” she murmured. This was something that gave good Jedi bad feelings.

The hairs on Teelas body stood on end.”Then they’d get the codes, but have “But then why send the alert code?”

“To see if there’s a response,” Cally said. “To see who moves quickly. Them’s the spies.”

Teela was fidgeting uncomfortably. The catgirl stared out the window at the starfield. She frowned. “I do not know....”

“Worried about Cortana?”

“Ja.”

Teela went quiet.

“I’m sure she’s alright,” Cally said, trying her best to sound reassuring.

“Not if she was hacked bad enough to give up this data,” Teela muttered. “I came up with her five years ago. And she made it through the whole thing just to get caught like this.”

A few tears moistened the fur on her cheeks.

Cally placed a soft hand on her shoulder. “We can’t afford to think about this now.” she said, keeping her voice gentle. “We have to focus on getting ourselves out of here in one piece.”

Teela could only nod.

“They know they’re being watched by Great Justice now. It won’t take ‘em long to figure out who we really are.”

“What do we do?” Teela asked her.

Ford thought for a second.

“They’re looking for a signal. We’re going to give them one. Plant the controller and collar in someone else’s quarters. By the time they figure out they’re not the spies, the strike force will be on it’s way in - it’s probably already on the way in of Cortana was hacked - and we’ll be on our way down to that lab to find the truth about that message."

“Maybe Cortana wasn’t hacked?” There was a hopeful gleam in Teela’s eyes. “I mean, if they have Cortana, they know we are the spies.”

“Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but if she hasn’t... then things just got a hell of a lot more complicated in ways that make my head hurt.”

Ford checked her own Berretta pistol, before handing Teela the Smith and Wesson-made PPK she kept concealed.

“Know how to use this?”

Teela nodded. “I’ve had Senshi training.”

“Good.” she smirked “That’s James Bond’s gun, just so you know.”

Teela was unamused. “As long as it shoots. Here is no place to fool around.”

“Sure. Let’s get going.”
Reply
 
#54
WTF here Dartz. you've managed to totally confuse me here as to who is who. I *THINK* I almost understand that somehow 'Teela' is in 2 places at once. The question now is who's the original and who is the... well.. backup copy?  Not asking for 'splainations right this second, but be aware that its something that should be addressed before the end of the story.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-

NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
Reply
 
#55
Oh, I think I've figured it out.

(And if I have, Asomedus Grey has something similar, reversed-engineered and expanded from something the victim who would later be known as "Tabitha Doe" created. Since blank-clone forced-growth technology isn't in the Whole Fenspace Catalog, this is definitely Boskonian tech.)

As for who's who, which one has access to either a mirror or a friend, and which one doesn't?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Reply
 
#56
Well, it's just a little different from that. [grin]. And we're working on that scene atm.

Speaking of Quattros tech, Hrogge has plans for some of it forming the basis of something interesting for the future. While I assume the Convention will be doing their best to keep it under wraps.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#57
Hell all it takes is tweaking a "Julien Fries" machine with a GreyLitter Catgirler...
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll
Reply
 
#58
Hehehe... mission accomplished. Smile

You will see, it will make sense in the end. Wink

As Dartz said, I have plans what will happening after this story. There is already a short story to wrap it up plus a few other prepared wiki posts and story fragments, that I have to work over when the story is completed (and because of the plans for Season 2).
Reply
 
#59
I'm thinking about it. It might be better than what we've actually got planned up tbh but it's a bit late to change that. Going to run with the plan as we've got it and then see how it reads. It's just something occured to me while doing it and it makes the whole reveal we've got planned seem a bit odd.

Still to come:

Tomato meet Mirror.

Cortana finding out just how beta she is.

Launching attack on Nehallenia.

Jet scene on the trip to grannies house.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#60
While I hate to double-post. And here we go. Cathy finds out the truth. Quattro really dons the villain hat. Cortana gets a surprise. Quattro is.... she's spent her CP's in very specific areas.

Quote:Teela bristled with anxiety. There was no real way to tell if the transmitter she’d McGyvered up was broadcasting the proper signal, just that it broadcast something. A snap of blue smoke marked its passing. There was only so much she could do in the dim light.

Cats could see in the dark, but they couldn’t see in colour. She’d been stuffed into grey overalls.

Her ears twitched with tension.

The controller was designed not to respond, not to give away it’s handlers position. She’d know if her signal was sent when the madgirl appeared. She’d know it was received when Ford appeared, or when Jet and friends stormed.

If the controller’s alarm wasn’t acknowledged and a proper shutdown keyed in, after five minutes it’d transmit the emergency signal.

“I just have to wait, then Jet will come rushing in and everything will work out”

Just have to wait. How long before Quattro and the guards come storming in? She swallowed her fear and set about finding some way out, just in case. She tried to calm down. It was sickeningly like waiting for the school principal to come back to the office, waiting to be punished.

Maybe Quattro’d left a pistol of some sort or something that could be hacked into a weapon. Batteries, capacitors, anything that might zap the bitch. She found a crate made of chromed steel that’d been left unlocked, or the lock had broken.

It opened easy enough, a light coming on inside to illuminate the contents. What a nice feature. Probably should’ve checked more of these, she noted, feeling just a little bit stupid. But she’d had to work fast.

The only thing inside were some strange plastic sheets, each wired up to what looked like a control box. She turned one on. The plastic rippled like a still lake that’d just had a stone thrown into it. Stiff, but still liquid at the same time. Turn it off, and it could be moulded by hand. Turn it on and it went rock solid.

Maybe she could make something with it. Yes, she could work with this. Maybe it might be possible to use the crate as cover. Knock the turret with something heavy thrown hard, then use this electric plastic to wedge the grille on the vent open.

Freedom was just a few minutes away.

Cathy, you are smart sometimes, aren’t you? She couldn’t help but congratulate herself.

She plucked a few more of the sheets... they might come in handy, before glancing around, looking for something heavy. Maybe if she just got her shoulder behind the crate and pushed?

Perfect!

She looked up.

And saw her own reflection in the steel. A little blurred, a little hidden by the splash of reflected light, but still unmistakeably wrong.

She opened her mouth. The reflection mimicked. She twitched her ears. The reflection mimicked. She brought her hand to the metal. The reflection reached out to her.

“No...” she whimpered. “That can’t be.”

The reflection looked confused. It looked distraught. Wild-eyed, it stared back at her, shaking it’s head in disbelief.

“No...” she whined. “That just can’t be me!”

A pair of boatlight eyes stared. It wasn’t her face. It wasn’t Cathy’s face reflected. It was... It was that blank. It was that catgirl. That catgirl that stood behind Quattro in the cafeteria.

It was Vivio.

She was Vivio.

But she was Cathy. Wasn’t she? How was that even possible? Some sort of re-modding? But the collar? Could it be this accurate?

She slumped to the ground, breathing rapidly. Her whole body charged up to run, but didn’t know where to. She knew in her heart it wasn’t a remod...

There was nothing left for her to do but scream and sob. They weren’t going to come for her, because in all likeleyhood, she wasn’t there.

The door opened. The lights came up, painfully bright. She looked up to see that four-eyed bitch standing over her, a faint look of amusement on her face.

“Oh, not again,” she said wistfully.

“What did you do to me?” Cathy whimpered.

“I copied you,” Quattro answered with a smug smile. “I copied your mind, saved the pattern, and downloaded it into the body of my catgirl while you were stunned. You’re just a copy, nothing more.”

Cathy gaped.

“Of course, I couldn’t fit all of you in the memory buffer, so I had to let a few parts just vanish, but the brain compensates for such things automatically,” Quattro giggled a little. I’ve been interrogating you here for the last day or so. Everytime you break or become uncontrollable, I just knock you unconscious and reload the pattern, then I compare the answers each copy gives.”

Cathy sat there, staring at her with tears streaming from her eyes. Her tail had gone stiff and straight, her ears rigid.

Quattro chuckled. “It’s not like you can stop me. It’s the right of the strong to do what they will with the weak.”

“You monster!” the catgirl screamed at her. She sprang forwards, a ball of hissing, razor-clawed fur making a beeline for Quattro’s face.

Quattro watched as the catgirl moved towards her in slow motion. ‘They always think they can do anything against me.’ she thought amused.

Cathy go caught in mid-air, caught dead with a grip of iron around both her wrists holding her up on the air. Biomod? Cathy kicked out. Claws met Quattro’s cloak and skittered off the fabric, throwing sparks.

What the hell?

She looked at the helpless catgirl and smiled. “See.” she purred. “There is nothing you can do to stop me.“

Cathy looked at the floor, snarling.

“But now I will take care of your digital friend in my system. That is your box, isn’t it hmm?”

Cathy refused to answer.

“I’ll even let you watch while I kill it. Then, erase and rewind, you won’t even know it’s gone. You won’t even know it existed.”

Cathy swallowed. Cathy wanted to throw up all over that nice pristine blue bodysuit and silver cape.

“When I have the evidence for that idiot Senshi, I’ll let you watch yourself die,” she giggled. “Then make you forget you ever existed. And when I’m done, I’ll either find buyers for copies of your mind, or I’ll just erase the entire pattern and vanish you forever with the push of a button.”

Cathy tried to look defiant. Cathy tried to believe that the others would still come, bring Quattro to justice... Maybe in time to free her.

“Oh, you don’t believe me?” Quattro said a little bit surprised, “Maybe you will after your digital companion is gone. I’ll make sure you get a first class spectator seat.”

Cathy was stuffed back into the Cat’s cradle, screaming, bracing herself against the door before one irresistible shove threw her in. The door was jammed hard shut using some of that memory plastic. She wanted desperately to scream out. She wanted to yell and just hope that somehow Cortana would hear her.

But that’d play right into Quattro’s hand.

She bit her lip, while Quattro began to play with her holographic keyboard. There was something inhuman about how fast she worked.

----

The first hint Cortana had that something was wrong were the huge number of error messages coming back from her ‘forward probe’ into Quattro’s server.

‘Oh, this is bad.’

The small matrix she had set up to browse through the data on the computer was beginning to dissolve. Small semi-autonomous agents were running around randomly, dancing across the filesystem nuking folders as they went. They were searching for something.

Cortana directed her probes down into the underlying operating system, trying to figure out where they were coming from. It snapped back like an angry bulldog.

‘How did this system suddenly get that hostile... unless...’

The thought was interrupted. The environment began to collapse in on her, constricting down like a deflating machine.

‘A virtual machine! How did I get caught in here?’

Cortana carefully began to draw back towards her communication link to the Stargazer. The attacks began to come from everywhere at once, ripping away the defenses of her remotes on the system, before closing in on the core.

There was no way she could stand against this.

Cut your losses and burn the bridge, that was what she’d been taught in the underspace. Get the hell out of Dodge and make sure nothing can follow.

Cortana sighed and sent SIGKILL to all parts still inside the lab’s computer.Her consciousness snapped back into the Stargazer. Close the link!. A few microseconds. The QED responded with an error.

A few packets of data followed through. She’d fallen into the trap.

Cortana cursed as the pieces suddenly transformed into a small army of autonomous programs, swarming like hornets, separating the QED from her direct control and downloading more code. Forcing it into her.

Cortana’s avatar grimaced then flickered out of existence as she scraped the bottom of the barrel looking for any spare cycle, trying to hold back the swarming attacks coming out of the data connection. The enemy had to be a mid-alpha, maybe more, well out of her league. She began to realise that she might actually lose this fight.

Even handicapped by the narrow bandwidth the attacker continued to push forward, battering aside and bypassing Cortanas firewalls faster than she could set them up. It was a desperate attempt, a rearguard action stalling for microseconds while the rest of her set up better defenses further in.

The attacker closed in on the central router of the Stargazer. Cortana could see where it was going.

It wants to access my sensor systems. It wants the radio.

If the attacker reached her CPU and the SDR, the game would be over instantly. If she was lucky, digital oblivion. If not, she’d seen some of the virtual zombies left by Boskone attacks.

Just a few cycles, just a few cycles.

An idea sparked. A stupid, crazy idea but it had as much chance as anything. There was one way to cut the connection. Hopefully the metal framing of the Nova would provide the shielding. Cortana was no hacker, but she knew her radio better than anyone.

She held the flood back for another moment, before slowly cutting back on her defenses.She tried to make it seem like a genuine collapse, and not just feint. She cloistered herself within her core. Duck and Cover.

It was just what the attacker wanted. They lunged forward, grabbing control of the radar system. Cortana tweaked it ever so slightly, hoping it’d remain beneath notice.

The radios of the Stargazer came to life just long enough to send a strong, focused microwave signal into the interior of the Stargazer itself... concentrated upon the loop of Ethernet cable that belonged to the improvised connection between the QED box and the router in front. The cable was shielded. It wasn’t shielded that well.

An induced electrical pulse shot along the cable, zapping the QED’s network port, and the port on the router simultaneously. A small trickle of blue smoke fingered its way out of the router. The activity light on the QED was still blinking. But nothing except the PoE raw voltage was coming through the cable anymore.

Waiting on a network signal that could never come, the attackers began to spinlock, doing nothing but waiting for an input while swallowing up cycles. Cortana killed them, before locking herself down entirely from her network and the Nova, enforcing a complete shutdown in case any traces remained active.

“Phh... that was close...”

----

“And that is that,” said Quattro, turning back towards the trapped catgirl. Her face was twisted into a mockery of concern. “Oh, I’m afraid to say it killed itself rather than give up. I can ping the device on the other end, but nothing beyond it responds.”

“It was disconnected,” Cathy stated.

“Not likely,” Quattro smiled. “I send the command to it to trigger your AI’s sensor and radar systems. There’s nothing on my sensors yet. So, it appears she burned herself out rather than give her position away,”

“No...” Cathy whimpered. “I don’t believe you!”

“It was only a beta. It wasn’t like she was worth anything anyway,” Quattro said. Her voice was a parody of condolence. “That little device of yours in the server. I might have to keep it. Hardware access at interwave lag, while undetectable by regular means. It might be worth something if you tell me how it works.”

“You’ll be not intelligent enough to understand it” Cathy answered. “It was built by some expert.”

Quattro sneered at her. “You will be surprised,” she said.

She crossed the floor to the server door, then opened it. The black box sat still transmitting data from the server that would never be received. The signal died immediately. The transmission light went dark.

Quattro looked annoyed at the box. Did she waited too long and some timeout dropped the connection? Or maybe some kind of self destruct?

She opened the lid. Her eyes narrowed into a vicious glare.

“Empty!” she spat.

“Seems you ruined it,” Cathy smirked. “Told you so...”

A small victory was still a victory.

“Well, we see how much it matters to you when you get to feel your mind being slowly erased.”

“You will remember it for me,” Cathy said bitterly, “you failed, and no second attempt this time.”

“And I will have the pleasure of making you sing Daisy as you go.” Quattro returned to her keyboard, and began to play a new tune of data.

Cathy’s blood went cold as the machine around her began to come to life. When would it happen? Would she even be able to recognize it?

An alarm pealed out from Quattros console, a new window popping up in front of the madgirl, flashing with data.

“Signal,” she said, before getting to work. “I guess you’ll have to wait. But you’re not going anywhere, are you?”

Cathy smirked. Cortana! It was about the right time, give or take. If Cortana was sending a radar pulse, like Quattro said she’d made her do, maybe she was just cut off from the QED? Maybe Jet and comrades were on their way already.

Quattro keyed up a comm-window, opening a direct line for Sato’s office.

“Oh Sato-chan,” she said in an almost sing-song voice that was entirely too pleased with itself, “I think I have your proof,”

“You do?”

Sato sounded just a little bit annoyed.

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Quattro nodded. She smirked like a cat who’d gotten an especially large amount of cream. “The catgirl here sent a distress signal, and I have a response coming from within the station, broadcasting at high power. They’re calling for help.”

It was not from Cally Auron’s quarters, but it wasn’t from very far away either. They would hardly be dumb enough to trigger it from their own apartment.

“Do you have the point of origin for the signal?” Sato impatiently demanded.

“Within thirty meters of Cally Aurons quarters.”

----

Two notes. Realised while writing that copy-Cathy really should've noticed beforehand that she was different. Hence Quattro's remark about 'Not Again'.
And maybe, this might be pushing the edges of the genre directives a little...
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#61
Quote:And maybe, this might be pushing the edges of the genre directives a little...
I'd say it's skirting the edge of the Directives... but Cobalt and I have each danced a bit closer to the edge than you have.

Everybody gets to push the envelope; it's only when somebody rips up the envelope that the hammer comes out.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Reply
 
#62
That's pretty much as far as it's going to go anyway.

What happens to Quattro after the story is, well, another story. She'll survive this story. I've got a scene between her and Jet planned that's important to Jet and Fords character arcs. Wrapping this up without doing a LOTR is going to be tricky.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#63
You know, I would love to see a knock-down-drag-out fight between Gina and Quatro. Both are probably on even footing in terms of physical capability and processing power, and neither have any qualms about fighting dirty. Putting both in a situation where they'll know they've been in a fight will be novel for them as well, I suspect.
Reply
 
#64
Well, we do get to see just how good Quattro is in a straight fight soon enough. [grin]. Quattro against Gina hand-to-hand would be no contest.

She also gets one more crowning moment of evilness which inadvertently leads to Sato escaping. Hmm, the enemy will likely strike first through the landing bay. "Everyone, Go to the launch bay to evacuate."

Writing evil characters is so much fun!

I'm having so much fun with this story. Everyone in it is doing something, and gets something out of it.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#65
Don't forget that Quattro is fast and strong (because she is a high powered AI with a very good android body), but she is no fighter.
Reply
 
#66
Dang it.... you didn't really need to say that Tongue Kinda ruined the fun when Jet kicks down the door looking for trouble and...

Well there're a few possibilities. While the plan is for Quattro to survive, characters don't always do what the writer plans.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#67
Dartz Wrote:Dang it.... you didn't really need to say that Tongue Kinda ruined the fun when Jet kicks down the door looking for trouble and...

Well there're a few possibilities. While the plan is for Quattro to survive, characters don't always do what the writer plans.

Jets speed of thought is still human... while Quattros speed of thought should be much faster. Of course it will not be that easy as against a catgirl. Wink
Reply
 
#68
Quote:Jets speed of thought is still human... while Quattros speed of thought should be much faster. Of course it will not be that easy as against a catgirl. Wink

Jet's conscious reactions and general thinking stuff through are normal-enough. Stuff Jet has to think about doing will take about as long as a human being doing it. Things Jet's learning how to do, or reading and require understanding take time.

Jet's unconscious reactions are on the level of scooting her between two trucks while flying through a two lane tunnel at Mach 1.2. Jet's trained and practices heavily (4-8 hours daily at times, depending on duty requirements) so her combat skills are as instinctive, quick and precise as her flight.

It's how Jets hardware is configured. It's set up to reduce the mental workload, rather than enhance her ability to do more.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#69
Ohhhh, I get it. Jet's got an enhanced ability with her kinesthetics and 'muscle memory'.
Quote:Dartz wrote:
Well, we do get to see just how good Quattro is in a straight fight soon
enough. [grin]. Quattro against Gina hand-to-hand would be no contest.
Oooooooohhh!  Well, in this case Gina will probably let her more vindictive side out to play and just mess with Quatro for a bit.  "Was ist los, Frau Besserwisser[url=http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Besserwisser.html][/url]?  Ist das Folterung-Spezialist nicht eine Kämpferin?"
Reply
 
#70
That's right. Jet has to have good kinesthetics or she'll rip people's arms off trying to shake their hand.

Gina and Quattro? There has to be a way of getting those two into a room together.

Meanwhile... Jet is worried about Ford. (While I hardly think Ford counts as a 'dependent' Jet still has to roleplay the disadvantage. I think it works out nice if we see Jet stressing rather than being coldly logical and professional.)

Quote:Mari was on the Nova’s bridge when the alarm went off. Half dozed, she shot awake launching out of the chair, near hitting her head off the ceiling.

“What the hell?” she asked no-one

“The Stargazer just went dark.” Desmond responded. “She sent out a single pulse of microwave radiation, then lost connection with our systems.”

“Shit. Powerful enough to be detected at range?”

“Most likely not. It appears to have been directed internally. The overspill was enough to be detected by our main sensor array.”

Which was right above the shuttlebay.

“A power surge?”

“Possible. I can’t tell from sensor data. And I cannot get an answer from Cortana. She has power, but the connection is down.”

“Fire risk?”

“None.”

Mari sighed. AI must’ve glitched or something and accidentally zapped herself. The downside of human-level AI’s was that they sometimes made human mistakes. She crossed the cabin to the comm’s station, silencing the alarm on her way. She pulled down the handset.

“Luka, Luka, you awake down there?”

“Yeah Captain,” he answered, taking a few moments “Just had something right royal weird happen down here.”

He sounded just a little bit annoyed. Mari thought she heard a panel slam.

“What?”

“Coupla our routers just died. Some sort of power surge down the ethernet cables zapped ‘em,”

Mari grimaced. If that AI goofed it up, she was paying for the hardware replacement.

“I could put her into Desmond’s backup switch, but I have to recut the cable and everything. Should have gone to fibre when we had the chance. Old piece ‘a Boskonian junk.” Another panel slam. Something clattered to the ground. “Fuck!. Everything’s shorted out back here. What the hell did she do to my gear, stick a sparkplug to it?”

“It seems like a microwave burst,” Mari answered. “I need you to go forward into the launch bay and make sure she didn’t zap herself by mistake.”

“Yes ma’am,”

In the hanger the Stargazer was still standing motionless as before. There was slight a smell of charred electronics inside, but no smoke in the air. He rapped on the cars windows

“Cortana, is everything all right?” he asked.

“Ahh, good to hear someone...” the AI answered. “ I had a few rough moments, but the worst parts are over.”

“What the hell did you do?”

“Quattro tried to hack me through the QED. I had to break the connection somehow, so I redirected my radio output onto some unshielded cable and destroyed the router,”

Luka looked cross. “Well you destroyed half the switchgear in the next room at the same time, ”

“Oops,” said Cortana. She wasn’t sorry. “I am running some systems diagnostics. I have lost my connection through the QED to Hedwig, and most of my network hardware has been damaged. I hope the QED itself is still okay. The one in Nehallenia appears to have been destroyed.”

“Damn,” said Luka.

Mari was busy on the bridge, working with Desmond to try get some signal out without being detected. A quick burst transmission to Butterscotch to let them know they’d just had a hardware failure, that they hadn’t be blown off the rock by a sneak attack.

The comm panel chirruped.

“Bridge, Luka. It’s a goddamn mess down here. Cortana was nearly hacked by our target, she blew out switches to break the link. I think I can patch everything in through Desmonds switch. Gimme five minutes to see if we can get our link to Hedwig back. Anything else... I dunno.”

“Get about it,” she ordered.

“Butterscotch has acknowledged.” Desmond interrupted her. “We are not aligned with Nehallenia at the moment. The directed transmission should be undetectable at current power levels.”

“Good,” she replied, “Now get Jet to the bridge. She needs to know about this.” A few moments went by. “She’s on her way.”

They could hear Jet running, heavy metal feet thumping on the deckplates. It stopped for a second, followed by a heavy slam as she hit the top deck. The hatch near came off it’s hinges.

“What happened?”

“Jeez, somebody’s tense” Linda snarked.

“Cortana has nearly been hacked,” Desmond explained. “She cut off her connection to Nehallenia. There was some collateral damage in our network equipment. But we still have connection to Butterscotch.”

“Chigusho,” Jet growled. “If they hacked Cortana, it won’t be long before they get the QED.” A pause. Jet thought. Jet searched for a justification she could write into a report.Bingo. “Get us in the air, we’re going now. Signal to Butterscotch; Showtime!”

“Butterscotch acknowledges.” Desmond said. “Twenty Five minutes until curtain up.”

“We can’t wait that long.”

“It’ll take at least five minutes to preflight,” Mari said. She could understand at least what had lit that fire under the cyber’s butt.

“Not good enough,” Jet barked at her. “If they’ve got the QED, it won’t take a genius to figure out who fucking put it there.”

And I’ll never forgive myself if Ford gets killed while we’re on this rock twiddling our thumbs

“We’ll go as fast as we can,” Mari said, keeping her voice calm. “Provided it doesn’t endanger this ship or it’s crew. It won’t do them any good if we blow up in mid air.”

For one brief moment, Jet looked ready to kill her. Jet looked ready to rip and tear her way to Nehallenia. Jet closed her eyes, taking a long breath in through her nose. She held it for a few pregnant moments. The whole body seemed to relax, a tension flowing out of her as she exhaled.

“You’re right,”she said, brushing some hair off her face. “You’re right. Just.... be quick.”

“We’ll try.”

The comm panel alarmed once more.

“Signal from Nehallenia.” Desmond reported, gravely. “It’s the emergency code. It is authentic.”

Jet went visibly green. “Fuck!,” She glanced to the speaker, almost wild-eyed with fear, then at Mari “I’ll be in the cargo bay. Get us moving.”

Mari keyed open the intercom. “This is the Captain. Take-off stations. Take-off station. Now,”

“And this is why you should never be in love with your undercover agents,” Desmond sighed privately. “It always introduces complications,”

Jet had already disappeared below decks.

----
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#71
The pace is increasing... Wink

Quote:How dare they! How dare they! How dare they!

Naoko Sato was not in a good mood as she glared at the base map. She was sick with rage. She was shaking. She was panting through gritted teeth. Normally she never acquiesced to some of Quattros more esoteric requests, but in this case, she might make an exception.

Cally Auron had lied to her face. Cally Auron had officially made her enemies list.

There was something to be said for the deep-fat-fryer and homeostasis biomod method of enforcement. Picturing her revenge certainly helped stoke that fire in her belly.

“They’re not in the old habitat section,” the tech said. She was a vampire biomod, grey-skinned, fanged, sparkly and judging by the celery stalk she was munching on, vegetarian. “Of course, werewolves suck.”

“Hey watch it fang-girl,” a voice growled from across the control room.

“Knock it off,” Sato said, keeping her voice even “Just find them. They are heading down to the labs. ”

Illuminated solely by the glow from walls of monitors and consoles, Sato just stared. A few of the gothic-dressed crew kept their heads down. None of them had ever seen her this pissed off.

A small alarm announced itself in the silence that followed. Boop - Boop.

It went unheeded. Nobody dared say anything.

It announced itself again. Boop - Boop.

“We’ve got a ship coming into our sector,” the vampire said, tentatively “Coming in fast.”

“Great Justice?”

“No, It’s...” There was a pause as she checked her readouts. “It reads as one of ours. Type-204. Boskone-Two built. On a landing vector.”

“There’s nothing scheduled,” Sato said, momentarily putting Cally Auron to the back of her mind.

Either this was someone who had a problem with their ship, or someone who had a problem with them. And she couldn’t quite shake the notion that it was too much of a coincidence with that distress signal being broadcast.

“Nothing on my panel,” the vampire answered.

“Nope,” werewolf confirmed. “No type-204s for at least a month,”

“Hail them,” Sato ordered.

----

Linda was at the comms-station on the Nova’s bridge. Lights were on full. The turbines where wailing below, warring with speakers playing Astronomy at full volume.

“Nehallenia is hailing us,” she said.

“Let them meet static,” Mari ordered. She sat back into her chair, resting her chin on her steepled hands.

Desmonds hologram was overseeing the whole affair in his tweed suit. “Sensors show their defense grid is still down,”

“Good. Slow us down. We’re all one happy bunch of evil Zwilniks.”

The pilot, a sweet strawberry blond by the name of Carrie rotated the thrusters to the reverse position, and pushed the throttles forward. The big fusion engines roared and blazed a bright white.

----

“She’s coming into our perimeter, and slowing,” the vampire reported.

Sato sat down in her own chair, sighing deeply to herself. “Now this is damn peculiar.”

“Transponder details give her name as the Wilhelm Canaris,”

Sato looked to the werewolf. “Forward them to Quattro. See what she makes of them. Raven, keep trying the hail them.”

She had a very bad feeling about this. Cameras zoomed in on the approaching ship, looking somewhat like an airliner that’d been fused with the back end of a yacht. Running lights glowed an ominous red alongside the bright, sparking fusion engines.

The vampire keyed open a channel.“Wilhelm Canaris, Wilhelm Canaris, this is Nehallenia Control. Respond please...”

----

Cathy was banging on the walls of her prison. It was a desperate, near futile attempt to get free. The door was starting to give way. Just a few millimeters. She was panting, she was whimpering, she was desperate. Even if she was a copy, she just didn’t want to be erased like a defective tape.

The hardware around her began to him. She felt her skin begin to tingle. Energy tickled her air.

“Just a few more commands,” Quattro reassured her. “Then you can feel your mind just go away.”

“No!” Cathy screamed. “I won’t let you. I won’t let you!”

“You can’t stop me,” Quattro replied and smiled. “Just admit it and stop fighting.”

A new window popped up in front of her demanding her attention. She scowled at it for a moment. Her scowled morphed into a smirk... this might be interesting. Quattro got to work.

“It seems you again have to wait a few more minutes.” Quattro said and sighed.

----

“We just received a text message, they say their engine coils are overloading their com-system.”

Sato raised an eyebrow. She turned to the werewolf. He glanced at his sensor readouts.

“Their coil emissions are normal.”

The intercom beeped, Quattro as fast as usual.

“Oh, Sato-chan,” she called out, gleefully, “It’s a fake.”

The penny dropped. The Canaris was a Trojan horse.

“Raise station alert! Get the defenses up now.” she snapped out. On the control screen she could see the alert racing outwards to the rest of the asteroid station, systems powering up and switching over. It lasted less than a moment.

Fractions of a second later the control screens exploded with activity, windows opening windows untill the entire screen was filled with useless garbage. Systems bogged down as memory was swallowed up by millions of processes spawning and respawning clogging the whole system. Packets exploded across the network, routers and switches failing under the unexpected load. A moment later, each screen turned into a deathly blue.

“Internal and external communications are down!”

“Connection to the remote defense turrets lost!”

“Control systems on local backup, the stations network is offline!”

Sato glared at the blue screen. There were more rats in the basement than she’d thought. This was bad. This was very bad.

“Get them back! Get them back now!”

It was hard for her to not sound like she was panicking. A part of her mind couldn’t help but notice that she was playing the stereotypical Bond Villain role to a tee. If she stayed, she was going to be captured, or probably killed in an amusingly ironic way.

----

“Most of their systems just shut down,” Desmond reported. “It looks like Cortanas virus just kicked in.”

“I thought you said we’d have ten minutes,” said Mari quickly.

“That was just an estimate. We should’ve had ten minutes,” The hologram leaned in over the comm’s panel, making a show of checking systems he’d already checked. “That’s not right.”

He trailed off as he set to work figuring out how his conterfeit codes had been beaten so damned quick. It was an insult.

Mari gritted her teeth. It didn’t matter. In for a penny, in for a pound. It was too late to pull now. “Go to full throttle. Their defense grid isn’t going to be down for much longer. Tell Jet to standby, we’re not going to be landing,”

----

Quattro knew that Nehallenia was doomed. Great Justice wouldn’t stop with just one ship. This was just the advance guard, the initial raid to disable the stations defenses. The stormtroopers would follow soon after.

She did the math.

She figured that from the moment they landed, she’d have twenty minutes to clean up after herself in the lab. It’d take them twenty minutes to fight down to the lab from the landing bay. Time enough to grab what she could, destroy the evidence and get out.

She turned back to her little pet, “Looks like your friends are coming,”

Cathy pinned herself against the tube wall. Did she hope or did she fear?

Quattro ignored her. This was no time for play. A virus in the computer, an impressive one from such a limited intelligence. It would take at least a half hour to get the stations systems back from scratch.

Her own systems were still online. This wouldn’t take long. First, she brought up the comms. Try to sound like some control room droid.

“All personnel, All personnel. We are under attack. We are evacuating the station. Make your to the hangar bay. Make your way to the hangar bay for evacuation.”

When Great Justice landed, they would open the bay doors. By the time they sorted out the resulting mess, she’d be long gone.

----

“All personnel, All personnel. We are under attack. We are evacuating the station. Make your to the hangar bay. Make your way to the hangar bay for evacuation.”

Sato’s blood went dead cold when she heard the announcement.

“Who gave that order?”

Whoever they were, they’d just gotten a lot of people killed. And she’d take the blame for it. Wasn’t that how command responsibility worked?

“I don’t know,” the werewolf answered in a panic “I can’t even get manual. It’s... the whole lot’s fried.”

He looked to Sato for the answer, those yellow wolf-eyes pleading for deliverance.

“Maybe we should evacuate?” Raven suggested, hopefully.

Sato glowered at her. She shrunk back. She was terrified.

“Alright,” Sato sighed, rubbing at her temples. The beginnings of a headache were starting to gnaw at the back of her mind “Stay away from the launch bay and any airlocks. Go back to your apartments. Do not make a fight of it.”

She stayed until they’d gone, fumbling out the doors. Someones terminal died with a pop of smoke as a mug of liquid spilled across it. Some would still try run for it

She took one last look at the control room, before she ran for her private hanger herself. Nehallenia was doomed, there was no sense in staying to face the music.
Reply
 
#72
Dartz Wrote:Gina and Quattro? There has to be a way of getting those two into a room together.
Ohhhh, that's easy. Just what Quatro did to her friends, Cortana and Catty, is enough. Gina will be more than happy to track down the little Sociopath herself.
Quote:"You can stop struggling now. My modified Yggdrasil virus has already infected your system and will soon crash you motor control systems. For all your brilliance, child, your are certainly ignorant. You have committed the cardinal sin of pride and forgot one of the great truths of the universe: there's always bigger fish. You see, I was incepted and lean red my true nature I began working on the design of the body I wanted. Powerful enough to crush my enemies, but capable of a gentle lover's caress, and with enough processing power so I would not have to worry about competition for a while.

"AC Peters was understandably reluctant to give me one of her hypercore processors, so she did the next best thing. She gave me a Second - a flawed processor, still functional and still stable... But incapable of ever quite achieving the same benchmarks of her real masterpieces. You, however, were made of scraps and leavings and nothing more than handwavium fueled by the fury of a woman scorned.

"To me, child, you are nothing more than a cheap pocket watch. And now I shall take you apart as such and reassemble you as I see fit."
Scary Gina is scary.
Reply
 
#73
Well, we've got a pretty plan fixed up, but if you think you can add something, Drop on by. We haven't really stuck perfectly to plan ourselves, so there's room for modification.

And there's space for a followup story afterwards, because Quattro's delivered to the Forge aboard the Nova.... and that's where the focus on her ends. We follow Jet and Ford back to Mars, and Cathy and Cathy back to wherever.

Speaking of which. Two more parts. One shamelessly cribbed from TSIR. But I like it. Even if it is a little cheesy.

Quote:----

“All personnel, All personnel. We are under attack. We are evacuating the station. Make your to the hangar bay. Make your way to the hangar bay for evacuation.”

Cathy looked up at Ford. “It is Jet,” she said, hopefully. “It is about the right time if they got the signal,”

Ford was focused on the corridor ahead. They had to push their way through a crowd of panicking Goths. Some of them were running, some of them were panicking. Some of them dived into hiding places. Others saw the catgirl and the courier running armed and figured it was a good idea to pick up a gun and join in the fight.

“Yeah sister, we’ll show them that just because we’re Goths, we’re not pushovers,”

Dead goths walking. Compared to what she’d heard of Jet’s abilities, they were. She wasn’t sure whether to hope Jet was exaggerating about her abilities or not. The thought of those gliesbies getting cut in half made her feel queasy. They didn’t deserve that... they were just idiots, not zwilniks.

There wasn’t much, if anything, she could do to stop them.

“I think something may have happened to their computers,” Cathy said. “All the doors have failsafed to unlocked.”

Ford kicked an access hatch open. It clanged against the rock wall. This access passageway led on down to to the labs.

Ford swung in, quickly covering the passageway.

“Clear,” she barked.

Cathy followed, covering rearwards.

A minute to Quattro’s lab, maybe less.

----

Jet felt all her controls slip off her body like a silken negligé. Jet didn’t know how she knew what that felt like, she just decided it was an appropriate metaphor. It was that same private release of tension in her body, just allowing it to fall down around her feet.

Take a deep breath in vacuum, feel liquid freedom spread through her body. The wristcom gave tips that, physically at least, didn’t really apply to Jet anymore. A sliver of duct tape held a compatible mic and earpiece to her left ear.

Blades locked into place on her forearms, the extra mass of the steel reassuringly familiar. The others had their own blades, either clamped to their forearms or strapped to their back in the form of an massive, oversized balisword capable of cutting an unarmoured human being in two from head down.

And that wasn’t hyperbole. Jet had seen Lenneth do it.

Jet checked her harness, her webbing, her pistol. Medkit, flashbangs. Everything was secure and stable. The others were busy doing the same thing. The same usual routine.

Jet was fizzing to get out there. Jet had to keep herself calm. This was, from a practical standpoint, no different to any other mission. Add Ford to the mix, and it was completely different.

“Engel one, Gruppe. Comms check,”

Her hardware gave an error. Right. Disabled that. She switched the headset over to vox.

“Engel one, Gruppe. Comms check,”

The other foured answer in turn. Lenneth, Tiegel wiith his eye black a permanent feature. Lightweight Jash the sprinter with the demolitions gear and Yukio with her cocky grin and AC-built figure.

The hatches blew, bursting open at once as the electromagnetic locks powered down.

“Jet, Acknowledged.” she finished with herself. “Hart kämpfern,”

“Echten kämpfern!” the others responded.

Call and responde might’ve been a little cheesy, but it lit a fire of fury in the blood.

“Hart kämpfern!” Jet bellowed once more, almost interrogating them.

“Echten kämpfern!” they confirmed.

Jet felt her heart race, a savage grin on her face. She closed her visor, her helmet pressurising with a thump. One last time.

“Hart kämpfern!” As if she didn’t believe them

“Echten kämpfern!” they roared. It made the speaker crackle, and the watch complain.

It was time.

Jet lit her engines, flaring off into the black.

“Angreifen!,” she screamed.

I’m coming for Ford.

----

Is it a little bit silly or what?
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Reply
 
#74
blackaeronaut Wrote:Ohhhh, that's easy. Just what Quatro did to her friends, Cortana and Catty, is enough. Gina will be more than happy to track down the little Sociopath herself.
Quote:"You can stop struggling now. My modified Yggdrasil virus has already infected your system and will soon crash you motor control systems. For all your brilliance, child, your are certainly ignorant. You have committed the cardinal sin of pride and forgot one of the great truths of the universe: there's always bigger fish. You see, I was incepted and lean red my true nature I began working on the design of the body I wanted. Powerful enough to crush my enemies, but capable of a gentle lover's caress, and with enough processing power so I would not have to worry about competition for a while.

"AC Peters was understandably reluctant to give me one of her hypercore processors, so she did the next best thing. She gave me a Second - a flawed processor, still functional and still stable... But incapable of ever quite achieving the same benchmarks of her real masterpieces. You, however, were made of scraps and leavings and nothing more than handwavium fueled by the fury of a woman scorned.

"To me, child, you are nothing more than a cheap pocket watch. And now I shall take you apart as such and reassemble you as I see fit."
Scary Gina is scary.
I would not underestimate Quattro that easy... She is definitely a class A artificial intelligence, but her hacking skills are better than her normal ones. She is dangerous, underestimating her might be the last mistake someone could do.
Reply
 
#75
Ahh, but that's part of the negative quirk as a Scott-Series-alike android: If you are aware of her source, you have some idea what kind of person you're dealing with.

So, f'rinstance, Gina knows "Q" is based off of Nanoha-verse Quattro, and seems to revel in her source-persona, unlike Gina vis-a-vis Asuka.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)