"You punk ass b****!" screamed the communicator. The voice on the other end was so loud that the small device nearly vibrated off of the desk.
"Hey, don't leave your dirt on a server that's so easy to hack." replied the digital voice. "Tell you what, you give me...mmm, 30 million and I make it go away permanently. Plus any other dirt that you have laying around. I'll even scrub whatever you want from all the drives in Sirius."
"I...what? For 30 million you'll eliminate all the dirt everyone has on me? So this...isn't a stickup? Or blackmail? Whatever?"
The digital voice laughed coldly.
"Oh no. If you don't pay me, all this disgusting s*** is getting released for public consumption. Just consider the 30 million payment for keeping my mouth shut and making sure that you learn a valuable lesson about keeping your dirt out there where anyone can hack it. Payment to this account." the voice said. They sent the account number to send the 30 million to. The voice on the other end cursed audibly. Within a few moments, she heard the sound of credits hitting her account. 30 million.
"I hope you choke on it." the voice on the other end spat and closed the connection.
The young woman smiled at the screen as the connection closed. She looked to her bank accounts and saw that she was doing fairly well today. A rich politician had an affair with his political rival and she had made a cool 200 million from that. Funny how something that could end both his marriage and political career made him very ameniable to paying the "fine". The most recent guy, some guy from a Kusari cooperation, had just given her 30 million to keep his fetish quiet. She shivered involuntarily at what she'd seen on the drive. Some people were creeps. She yawned and stretched in her chair.
"I think I've earned a bit of a respite."
She stood and walked over to her small kitchen, her oversized shirt the only thing she was wearing. The cloth swished around her knees as she put in a microwave meal and watched it revolve around in circles. Say what you want about old technology, it was cheap and it did the job. Better than buying one of those fancy ass machines to instantly reheat her meals. The ancient device beeped indicating that the food was ready. She took it out and munched on her meal looking at all her screens. She had come a long way since the old days.
She grew up on Rochester with her dad. Her mom was some rich aristocrat in Liberty circles so she was essentially a bastard. After she was born, the woman had dropped her off at the Junker base and neither of them ever heard from her again. To be honest, it never really bothered her. She had more of a family with the Junkers than she could have had with a mother in the picture. They always protected her from the world beyond and make sure she was well taken care of. She always had meal to eat and she always had a place to sleep. Her father had made certain of that. Her dad was her hero. He always worked hard to make sure that she had a life that he could never have. He wanted her to go to college on Manhattan. Get a degree and make a life for herself...but he came to find out that just wasn't her.
As she grew, she learned from the Hackers that frequented the station on their regular visits. She learned about computers, technology, networks, engineering, and how it all came together to make a complete product. She learned about trade lanes and jump gates. She began to learn how math factored into hacking and how different equations could easily break encryption protocols that were supposed to be super secure and nigh unbreakable. The further down the rabbit hole she went, the more proficient she became in her craft. Before her 16th birthday, she's cracked some of the toughest encryption protocols that hackers twice her age had yet to even attempt at. She took hacking and supply requests to make money. She redirected orders meant for other people to those that needed them. Before she was 18, she was a multi-millionaire. When she actually turned 18, she had built her own ship using spare parts in the hangar much to the chagrin of the mechanics that used them to repair ships as they came through. Even though they were annoyed at her, they were impressed at what she'd been able to build.
The Hackers called her a prodigy, the Junkers called her a shining example of what it meant to be a Junker, but she just considered herself a normal girl with a burning passion to understand all things technological.
Her father had retired when she was 22. On his last run, he'd gifted her the family Salvager. He told her to take her passion to beyond Rochester. She worked on the ship with a feverish passion. By the time she was almost 24, the ship was completely retrofitted to what she wanted. During that entire time she continued taking hacking requests. She shipped both illicit and legit goods to those who needed them through couriers that she paid handsomely to not ask questions.
When it came time to leave Rochester, her home of nearly 25 years, she had cried. Her father consoled her and told her to explore the stars but to keep in regular contact or else he'd make empires heads roll until he found her safe and sound. The flew the HV-Data_Breach into the stars and never looked back...now here she was, a year after leaving him at 25, hacking people's data and extorting them, or taking regular orders for hacking requests or parts.
Her system pinged with a request a very old code had come through one of the nodes she monitored.
"Did you hear about the data breach at Interspace Commerce?" said a familiar voice. Cursing she picked up the communicator. She knew who that was, she'd been wiping his records for weeks since he'd resurfaced from no where. F***ing Leo Masuyo a.k.a. Jacob Keller. A giant pain in the ass. When he ran his mercenary outfit, he always demanded the moon and stars of her when she was just 15 years old. He was a huge pain in the ass every time he called. She decided she wanted to have a little bit of fun with him this time.
She held a brief conversation with him, even making him squeamish when she said his real name. She hacked into the node where he said he was and turned the cameras to face him. He looked different from how he had before. Long gone was the stupid powered armor he always wore and he stood instead in dirty overalls and a dirty face. He had rogueish good looks. She wasn't normally into Kusari men, but she could see her going out on a date with him and having a meaningless one-night-stand...or two. He needed parts for a ship with a few blackmarket parts thrown in. She agreed to 150 million and the parts delivered by her couriers in a few days. She cut the communication and sent him the account codes. A few moments later he transferred the money. As one last trollish message, she sent him a heart emoji and sent the message that the parts would be delivered soon. She looked at the cameras to see his reaction. He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and tucked the communicator back in his pocket. Laughing she cut the feed.
"What's that smell?" she asked no one in particular and sniffed her shirt. "Woah. It's me. I need to get a shower." she said trudging off towards the showers, still eating her rapidly cooling meal.
She stepped out of the shower, drying her hair with a towel.
"Data Breach" she said aloud. "What's the status on the fabrication bench?"
"Current progress is at 89%. Estimated 2 hours to completion."
"For real? Identify what's taking so long."
There was a pause as the AI she'd installed ran the numbers.
"Current materials are insufficient for quick fabricating. Materials need to have impurities removed before they can be applied to project."
She groaned out loud as she pulled a shirt over her head.
"Scan data files obtained over the past year. Find a location where we can get higher purity Iridium."
Once again there was a brief pause before the AI spoke.
"Unknown. Analysis indicates that there is a 63% chance that higher quality Iridium can be found somewhere in the Omicron systems."
"Screw that. I don't wanna get a colonoscopy during an encounter of the fifth kind." she said referencing the ancient movie she'd watched with her dad. "Will lower quality materials damage the project at all?" she asked.
"Negative. Time to completion will be longer, however materials are sufficient enough to complete project with no defects."
"Great, keep working on it. Inform me when it's done."
"Please be advised, user NULL, this will be the last of the Iridium ore stores. Cargo will need to be replenished before another attempt is made at a new Prototype."
Damnit. Another kink in the plan. It was made worse when she didn't know where to get Iridium from the source. She'd look through some databases and see if she could find any hints to another location that wasn't in the Omicrons. Those systems made her uncomfortable.
She'd been working on this project over the past year but wasn't certain if it would bear any fruit. She had the idea far earlier when she was learning from the Lane Hackers on Rochester when they taught her about Trade Lanes and Jump Gates. Her couriers would need it if they would be able to pass undetected throughout the house systems delivering their ill-gotten goods to their clients. She'd gone through two dozen prototypes already. Each one more dangerous than the last. She had a power problem, the amount of power the device required wasn't practical to equip on any ship much less a freighter. The last one had nearly thrown her across the room when electricity arced across the room and necessitated a two day stay in a hospital on Planet New Tokyo along with a stern visit from her father on the merits of safety when doing experiments.
"Safety just slows things down, dad." she said out loud to no one in particular. She'd said the same thing to him at the hospital which resulted in her getting a head slap from the old man.
Speaking of, she hadn't talked to him in a while. She went to her console and pulled up her communication node and sent a request off to Rochester. A few moments later a grizzled old man sat down in front of his terminal.
"There's my girl. I was wondering if you forgot about the old man."
"Never. You'd come find me if I did and make me never forget it again."
He laughed a jolly laugh.
"How are things going on your front?"
"Things are good. Made about 380 million credits today."
Her dad had a coughing fit at the number and looked to the screen in shock.
"Hacking is profitable I see. I should've got into it."
"You'd hate it. I have to deal with the scum of the universe some days...although sometimes I get cute clients." she said thinking of Leo.
"You're probably right. I'm glad you checked in though. Remember Robbie? That young Junker fellow that fancied you back when you were younger?"
Ugh. "What about him?"
"Turns out the idiot tried to pirate the wrong convoy. Hit up a Zoner passing through Bering. Got his ass fried by a Zoner Cruiser that was just behind them escorting them. Never saw it coming."
"What? A Zoner? Aren't they like, pacifists?"
"For a girl that's got her hands in all kinds of databases, you still don't know a lot about the world." he said using an old adage. "They're far from pacifists. They're more defensive than anything. Rumor has it they're ramping up their defensive stance in the past few months. I just wanted to let you know to keep your nose clean and not piss any of them off. Knowing you, I'm sure you've got your hands in a lot pies rooting around looking for things. Just...be careful, okay?"
"I will dad. How are other things?"
The two talked for about an hour before her dad said he was getting off to go to bed. They wished each other well, said their good-byes and ended the call.
So...Zoners attacking people. It wasn't unheard of. When she was younger she'd heard of then protecting their stations with a ferocity but never anything like escorting their vessels through space. With her couriers passing through a lot of Zoners systems, she'd need to make sure that they were aware of this development and ensure that they kept their weapons on hold when passing near Zoners or their stations. Silently thanking her father for the information, she passed on the word to those she had out in the field. All acknowledged her instructions as well as a few stating they'd already seen some of the heavily armed Zoner ships passing through certain systems to their stations. Whatever had kicked the Zoner hornets nest seemed like something she needed to get her head wrapped around. Plus, she had some time to kill while the fabricator spat out her newest prototype.
She sat down at her terminal and started typing away, jumping from database to database searching for any clue as to the sudden change in the political climate where the Zoners were concerned. She found a lot of references to a "Zane McAllister" but when she searched for his info she found nothing on the man himself, not even in their Defensive Fleet databases. Seems a lot of his personal information had been scrubbed from the net. A wise precaution for someone leading a powerful fleet. She searched for anything on his background and found some breadcrumbs that he may have been Bretonian Navy at some point, a Zoner news story about a Nephilim being found in the outer reaches of Sirius space, and that was pretty much it. Nothing that would indicate a reason for the sudden buildup of Zoner forces.
"You'll give up your secrets." she said typing faster, determined to find the information she sought.
So as it turned out, there wasn't much to find. Zane McAllister wasn't anyone special. He seemed like a good man though. Just someone who was protecting his home. IT was admirable, he reminded her of a younger version of her father. She looked at the clock and noticed that only an hour had passed since she began her searching. She screamed in frustration at the time it was taking the prototype to be finished. She jumped to her feet and pushed off the chair, causing it to roll away at a rapid speed and into the table behind her. She walked down the winding halls of the old Salvager that she'd run through as a small child to the room where the fabricator was and looked through the shatter proof glass at the device being printed.
Her continued failed experiment which required Iridium for the base and Vanadium to mimic Trade Lane and Jump Gate signatures, Superconductors due to the amount of sheer power the device required to operate, Quantum Multiplexors and Arrays to channel the sheer amount of data being processed every pico-second, and Counterfeit Software to run the entire thing. The problem was she couldn't get past the Superconductor stage because every, single, time she applied power to the device it either exploded, shot her across the room, or killed power to the entire ship. She wasn't even going to attempt this thing on a planets surface because didn't want to blow out an entire power grid when something went wrong.
It's purpose was simple. In her lessons with the Lane Hackers when she was younger, she learned of sensors that were placed on the Gates and Lanes by Ageira Technologies back when they began creating these technologies. The idea was, that any one in a House police or military faction, could track anyone who came into their system if they used their gates or trade lanes. Going so far as to remotely scan these ships. It was called TLAGSNET. She wasn't sure how many people actually knew about it but it was a clear invasion of privacy. Now she wasn't any kind of activist nut or anything like that, but she liked her privacy and she was sure other people did too...especially those who trafficked in less savory goods that the Houses didn't appreciate. That was where her idea for this device came from. She didn't have a name for it yet, and each time she attempted to make it work she nearly f***ing killed herself, but it was something she wanted to do. Not only for herself or for her couriers that shipped things to people who needed them, but also because...well...f*** being remotely scanned.
"Alert, user NULL, device has failed to complete. Iridium stores depleted."
"What? You said that it would be finished with what we had left!"
"Unforeseen impure sections of Iridium Ore lead to degradation of-"
"Shut up, just...shut up...power yourself down. I'm going to unhook you from the core and verify your code and sensors. You shouldn't have missed that."
"Acknowledged, user NULL. Powering down."
She'd built the AI when she was younger but it never seemed to get her name right so she'd always just left it blank in the code. The result was whenever it said her name it said "NULL" with a deadpan voice. It used to make her laugh, but slowly it just became her nickname. People would call her Null at Rochester, they called her that when requesting things. Eventually she'd expanded it to "RTRN-NULL" as a reference to a line of code. Something about it stuck.
She walked down to the AI core and pulled the drive out, sitting it down on the table near a terminal. The AI had never been perfect by any means, she'd always tweaked it here, changed a line there. Probably why it missed the Iridium Ore issue. She needed to sort through the code, check the sensors and reinstall the AI after a cold boot of the core...then after that she'd need to source a new location for Iridium Ore. Her previous courier had been shot down somewhere in the Omicrons for smuggling Cardamine. She'd heard a Corsair had taken him out. Served him right, smuggling that s***. Slaves and Cardamine were things she'd never advocate for. Mary Jane, sure, but Cardamine? Screw that.
"Well, I can get the Superconductors no problem." she said aloud while she rested her hand on her face and scrolled through the lines of code in front of her. "Maybe the Counterfeit Software too, but that'll be hard to come by. Last I heard I think Kepler had some but that Dark Matter storm would screw up the Data Breach and I'm not in the mood to fix radiation damage again. The last time I'm pretty sure I got dosed enough to glow. The Quantum devices I can come by no problem with my connects in Pennsylvania. The issue will be the Iridium and Vanadium...maybe the Software too."
As she sorted through the code she sighed.
"I really need to get a roommate so I stop talking to myself. I'm going to crack if this keeps up...there!" she exclaimed at the end of her last sentence. "Damn. The software wasn't interfacing properly with the sensors. Kept crashing the API. Just need to alter this...to...this." she pressed enter and recompiled the code. After she did, she pulled the drive, socketed it into the AI core, and power-cycled it. The system came back up slowly, doing it's checks to make sure everything was functioning.
"Big Stupid POS AI now operational. Greetings user NULL."
"Forgot to change the name again. You change one line of code once when you're pissed off and it always comes back to bite you later." she sighed again. "Guess I'll go see who can sort me out some of the items I need to finish the prototype and see if I can't kill myself again."
"Would you like me to make some coffee?"
"Shut up, Big Stupid POS." Null mumbled as she shuffled back to the bridge. "Yes." she eventually said as she rounded the corner to the stairs.
Good news came the following morning. Several of her couriers had delivered many of the items she needed to continue working on her project. The bad news was she still didn't have any of the ore required to continue the building of the frame of the item. So, she continued to hack databases looking for any reference of Iridium or Vanadium.
What little she'd been able to find was an obscure reference to Iridium in the Omicrons somewhere. While she wanted nothing to do with those star systems, she didn't have much of a choice in regards to getting the materials. She'd sent her craziest courier, Speedy, off to investigate those claims. She swore the man had a death wish with some of the crazy s*** he was willing to do. When she asked him to head out and investigate he had done this stupid mock salute before terminating the communication. What a nut job...though she figured she wasn't far behind considering what she was trying to do with her project. The Vanadium had been much easier to source it's locations than she had expected. She had guessed that Ageira had tried to keep it's origins somewhat secretive since Trade Lanes and Jump Gates used the same material in their construction...but she had been wrong. She had found several bases throughout Sirius and Gallia that sold the material. She sent off another courier to go and pick those up.
A few days after she had had the Vanadium delivered to her, Speedy reported in saying he'd located a source of Iridium in a system called "Omicron Delta" but was concerned for his neck considering there Core hanging around. Bounty Hunters with capital ships and a nasty habit for blowing up anyone within their space. This posed a problem. She told Speedy to get the hell out of there by whatever means he could and went back to the drawing board. While she'd been trying to source some other metal, Speedy had reported back in saying he had docked at a Freeport out there of all things and found that they had the finished metal for sale in abundance. She told him to chart the quickest route back to the Data Breach and bring along a cargo hold full of the stuff for testing. Within a few days, he was back at the ship and they both tested the metal, indicating that it had a 99% purity rating which was just insane. Immediately she sent Speedy back off to fetch another haul as well as all of her couriers. Within a week, she was ready to resume her testing. She tasked her couriers with assignments and went back to work on her project.
It didn't really even have a name. She had just called it "the project" for the longest time so as to not draw any attention to it by any authorities or would be "do-gooders" as she called them. It was better to keep it under wraps and not let it slip that she was doing anything illegal. She resumed the previous fabrication and it finished within 30 minutes. After which she began building the next prototype version of the device. She spent several hours soldering the items on to her PCB board and ensuring that the Quantum devices functioned as they were intended. She made sure that the Superconductors were able to hold the charge that she needed them to and put everything together. The result was a circular disk about two feet in total diameter.
This was the furthest she'd ever managed to get with building the device. She had an idea on how to code it but had never made it further than assembling the device before applying power and nearly killing herself or blowing up her ship. The device just used too much damn power. Then she had a sudden thought. It's obvious nature making her resist facepalming herself...she didn't need everything to be powered on.
"Data Breach." she said speaking to the ship's AI.
"Awaiting commands, user NULL." it replied.
"Power off all systems except life support. Place life support on minimal levels."
"Affirmative. Standby."
Slowly she heard different ships systems power down. The air in the room slowly became stale.
"Systems powered down. Life support at 25% of normal."
She went to work. The last time she'd tried this she had nearly killed herself but she hoped with the ship powered down so much that she wouldn't blow out every conduit in the ship like she had last time. She applied the ground first, ensuring that all safety protocols were followed. Her dad's voice in her mind chastising her. She applied the primary lead and hoped that it wouldn't explode, wrenching her eyes shut and expecting a jolt of pain. To her surprise, nothing happened right away. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that the device was powered on. She whooped in excitement for only a moment before the ships AI spoke up.
The AI's voice warbled and disappeared. Null closed her eyes mumbling a bunch of curses under her breath before opening them and uttering one word aloud.
"Hey dad!" she said from her hand terminal. She had hacked a nearby relay in Texas to connect to her father on Rochester.
"Hi sweetie, everything okay?" he asked concerned. "Why is it so dark where you are?"
"Promise you won't be mad?"
The man's face darkened. "What did you do." he asked as more of a statement than a question.
"I kinda might have maybe...broke...the Starhawk" she said using the original name for the ship.
"That took longer than I thought it would." he said closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Where are you and how much oxygen do you have?"
"Well...that's a funny story too...I kinda sorta might have reduced power to it's minimum level for a test and...I'm almost out of oxygen..."
"Where are you at?" he said looking tired as he walked around getting his equipment and signaling other Junkers that he needed their help.
"I'm a little bit away from Beaumont. Before the power loss I was at lower D3 at plane with the base."
"Alright, get your ass to Beaumont and stay there. Just because you're an adult doesn't mean I'm not going to ream your ass when I get there. You stay put, you hear?" he said, his voice ensuring there was no room for arguement.
"Understood." she repeated. Her father had a look of frustration only a parent could pull off and terminated the connection.
She went to the room where she had powered up the device and disconnected it. She cleaned up the room of her experiment. Against her better judgement, she threw her device in the reclamator to be broken back down to its base components. The only items she had left was some Iridium and and a few Superconductors. They wouldn't be able to figure out what she was working on just from that. She pulled the AI controller and hoped it wasn't lost, reset the IFF back to the ships original name and left for the airlock.
She suited up in the VAC suit and entered the airlock. A few moments later the outer airlock opened and she leapt towards Beaumont, using the small maneuvering thrusters to give her some more inertia. One of the first things she learned being a Junker was how to navigate the scrap fields in a VAC suit to check wrecks for valuable components. So dodging the giant chucks of metal was as easy as breathing for her. As she did so, her mind began to wander. She had completely fried the ship and her father was more than likely going to take it away from her because she had done so. It was a family ship and he was going to look at this as her tarnishing their family heirloom.
A piece of scrap loomed into her field of vision and she expertly dodged around it with the small maneuvering thrusters. Her thoughts wandered to the fact of her father taking away the only thing she had to her name and a place to research her project...a project that she failed at again, and again. She had to accept that she just wasn't going to manage to get this project to work on her own, she needed to reach out to someone with the expertise bounce ideas off of. She could reach out to her Hacker friends, but they would probably completely take over the project and kick her out. They had enjoyed teaching her when she was a youth, but she was an adult now and they weren't ones to allow an outsider into their midst when working on a project as important as this one.
Beaumont loomed in the distance, growing ever closer. As she approached the station she sent a brief communication to the tower along with her credentials and they accepted her into the airlock. After it has pressurized and the inner airlock opened. Her father was standing there with his arms crossed and a look of unbridled fury in his eyes.
"Hey papa." she said avoiding his eyes.
"Don't you papa me, Jenna." he said using her actual name. She winced at hearing it. He didn't call her that unless she was in serious s***. "We did a pass by of the ship on the way in. Do you know how much damage you did to the Starhawk?"
"It's fixable, right?"
"Best estimates is it'll be in dry dock for months. Give me the activation keys." he said holding out his hand. There it was, he was taking it from her. "You're 25 years old, Jenna. You need to learn a little responsibility before it gets your ass killed." she held the keys out to him and he snatched them out of her hand. He sighed looking away from her. His stiff form relaxed a bit before he looked back at her. "I've got more bad news."
"Don't see how this can get much worse."
"Because you severely damaged a Junker vessel, a Salvager no less, it's the opinions of many that you lose your privileges until such a time that you can learn to be a little more responsible."
She felt the color leave her face. She was shocked...and then she became angry.
"Because I damaged the ship a little bit?! They're taking away my very identity?!" she screamed.
"One, you didn't damage the ship a little bit. You crippled it. The Engines are fried, the Weapons system is dead, the Life Support module exploded out of the ship. Hell, the god damned power plantliterally melted. This wasn't my decision. I fought for your status all the way to Texas from New York but even my voice wasn't enough to quell the decision. Two-"
"So...just like that." she said interrupting her father and scoffing. "I don't have a home. If I would have known that the Junkers would throw me out on my ear at the first indication of trouble I'd have left when I turned 18." she turned to leave, throwing the helmet of the VAC suit to the deck. It bounced off the floor and rolled away as she stomped away.
"Sweetie-" her father tried to say, reaching out to stop her from leaving.
"No, f*** you, old man. I don't need your pity." she said spitting the words out of her mouth. She didn't mean them of course. She loved her father, and she knew that he had fought for her to remain but his words weren't enough. She stopped a little ways away and sighed. "I didn't-"
"I know." he said walking up behind her. He gently turned her around and gave her a hug. "You've got your mothers spitfire personality after all. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Just because you don't have the Junker rights anymore doesn't mean you can't still come visit me and the stations. You just...might not be looked on too kindly for a while."
She understood even though she was furious about it. She thought back to her past and wondered if she had been a nuisance rather than a bright light to the other Junkers. She had always believed others had looked at her and saw someone they were proud was a Junker...but had she misremembered that? Had everyone actually thought she was a problem child? A Bastard from some Liberty Elite that didn't even want her? Her father let her go and gently touched her face.
"Just promise me you won't get yourself killed?"
"Progress waits for no one, dad. A lot of times it isn't safe either."
Her father nodded, understanding.
"I'll have your things transferred to your berth here while you figure out what to do next...I'm sorry. Maybe your light burns too bright for the Junkers. Whatever you do, I know you'll be great."
He smiled one last time and turned away, heading towards the bay, probably going out to recover the ship and see what could be saved. She knew she had upset him with her antics, but she had a desire to change things, to shake up the universe. Progress really did wait for no one and often times it caused problems from those who wanted to stifle that progress, those that wanted to keep the status quo. However, she was going to change that or die trying. As she arrived at the berth her father had reserved for her, she thought of all of the people she had met while traversing through space. The drunk crazy Junker in the fields at Pittsburgh. The bloodthirsty Xeno in Colorado, the Starflier guy in Cambridge-
She sat bolt up right on her couch.
"Of course. They have scientists. They have people that deal with f***ing jump drives for crying out loud. They might be able to find a solution to my problem!"
She made a quick communication and sent it off to them, hoping they would reply. She contacted one of her couriers and told them to leave a cypher at the location she had hinted at in the communication. She just hoped they were smart enough to deduce the hints and find the protocol. Otherwise she was back to square one. Next she began reviewing her plans and adjusting them as needed.
She needed a ship and she had an idea on where to get one, but it wouldn't be easy, it would cost a lot of credits, and it might piss off a lot of people. But it was necessary for her uses and it might require her changing allegiances, but right now she was a free agent anyway. She called up the number on her communicator.
"Hey, you got some time to stop by Beaumont in Texas? I got a proposition for you and a way to earn some credits, what do you say?"
She wasn't one to wait for a reply. She was always someone who took the initiative. While she waited for a response from the Starflier guys, she proceeded with her secondary objective in obtaining a new ship. There was one vessel out there that both provided luxury accommodations and the ample space she needed to continue with her project. The problem was it was they were built in a place that didn't welcome Junkers, even those that were skating on thin ice and one bad report away from being thrown out entirely...and that place was Kusari.
She knew that Shikoku was more or less a star system that was considered by many to be independent. Yet it was still technically within Kusari's borders--and they hated Junkers. She didn't know why either. She never looked too closely at the politics of the Junkers when she probably should have. All she knew is she was always told to avoid both Kusari and Gallia. She wasn't too worried about avoiding Gallia, that entire place seemed too uppity for her tastes. Kusari though...that one stung. There were a lot of beautiful places there that she simply wasn't allowed to go to or see as a Junker. When she was still independent operating on her own without the security blanket of the Junkers, she'd gone there for some of her experiments and had always loved watching the traffic outside of New Tokyo. Now, that was a distinct impossibility.
Her target, was a Renzu Liner. It provided great accommodations and had ample room for her uses. While it lacked the defenses of a vessel suited for war, she wasn't going to be going out looking for trouble. It could defend itself well enough and if she decided to upgrade the armor on it, it would be able to take a beating before giving in. Again, the problem was actually getting one as a Junker. Technically it wasn't illegal according to different laws but it wasn't going to be an easy thing to get within Kusari space. She thought about setting up a shell company and buying one that way, but they only built the Liners on a contractural basis. Meaning they only built as many as were needed. Considering how many creature comforts the ships had, it made sense that they would only spend the money building one when a client ordered one. However, she needed a ship now; she couldn't afford to wait. She contacted a few mercenaries she knew and brought them onboard and explained her plan.
Renzu Shipyards was finishing up a Liner for a stupidly rich client...the same one she had taken 30 million not that long ago, in fact. She'd already taken her "fee" from him, but considering his disgusting fetish, she decided to take one more thing from him to really drive the point home. Anyway, the plan was simple...from her perspective anyway. This would only work one time. After she pulled this heist, the protocols would change and they wouldn't be able to do this again, so they had to get it right the first time or else the jig was up. The shipyards had safety protocols in place in case a reactor on a ship went critical. The ship would be undocked from the mooring points and pushed out at cruise by an automated tug ship. It would be pushed out 5 to 10k away from the station where if the reactor exploded, the shipyards and other ships in the berth wouldn't take any damage. The plan was to trick the station and ship sensors into believing that the reactor was going into overload. This would result in all of the engineers and builders evacuating the ship and it being dropped right where she needed it...but she couldn't pilot the ship remotely effectively. The distance lag was too much to navigate the ship away from pursuing forces. That was where the mercenary team came in.
They would be shipped in ahead of time as "finishing parts" in containers with ample supplies to survive until she pulled the trigger. The actual shipping parts would get redirected to her for the finishing touches once she had the liner in her possession. When she faked the overload and everyone evacuated off the ship, the team would break out from these containers, secure the ship, and pilot it back to her. During that time, she would be hacking the station to ensure that the defenses couldn't shoot at the unfinished ship. At the moment there weren't any shield generators or weapons systems installed so they'd be flying without support. It was critical that she disable as many things as she could before they piloted the Liner to the drop-off point. Else they wouldn't make it out of the system before they got destroyed.
She was already in the station systems looking around, it looked like locking it down was beyond her ability as it required a physical human interface and a key at a terminal that was off the external network to do so. She guessed it was because of another hack that had occurred, requiring security procedures to be updated. That meant that fighters and bombers would flood out of the station after they realized what was happening like bees protecting their hive. The time table she had for them realizing the reactor wasn't going to overload was three to five minutes. So her team had three minutes to secure the ship and prepare to move it to her drop-off.
It was a tight operation, the mercenaries said as much when she explained her plan. They were experienced professionals so she listened to them when they added to her plan and tweaked it to be more effective. The one place she wouldn't budge was them requesting an escort wing to transport the ship. This needed to be a snatch and grab operation. They would carry weapons just as a precaution if the ship had a security team on board even when it was pushed away from the station however. She was hoping that wasn't the case. She didn't want anyone to die just because she needed a new ship...
"Progress waits for no one..." she heard herself say--remembering what she said to her father before he left Beaumont.
The hope was, if they were quick and effective as they said they would be, the ship would be well beyond Renzu Station's reach within minutes and out of Shikoku shortly thereafter. If they were able to get through the radioactive s***hole of Kepler and into Colorado, they would drop the ship at the Ultramax where she would be waiting for it to dock. As soon as they disembarked, the final second payment of 200 million credits would be transferred to them and she would stealthily get aboard the ship and depart for Texas . There it would remain far away from traffic but close enough to Beaumont for supplies. She would work on completing the ship and modifying certain systems for her uses. She estimated that the process would take around two months. She was probably going to need to reach out to other traders beyond her couriers for specific parts. That much was obvious. The Salvager's retrofit had the help from other Junkers so she hadn't needed assistance from others. After the incident with the Salvager however, she doubted that she would have that kind of access to any Junker stations for the immediate future. Just thinking about that pissed her off.
She picked up her communicator and triggered the comm.
"Team Romeo." she said into the communicator, the scrambling software giving her voice a digitally scrambled sound. "Standby for insertion into the Liner. Operation proceeds within two hours. Mark."
The mercenary team was in place and she was at her console. While this operation wouldn't be inherently difficult, it would come down to timing. Almost perfect timing.
"One minute until operation start. Remember, this all comes down to timing." she said over their encypted comm. link. "You will have approximately three minutes to get from the hold to the operations deck to engage cruise and get into the Keiun Cloud. If you're fast enough, the Renzu Shipyards shouldn't have enough time to react fast enough for you to escape."
The comms. all clicked acknowledgement from the members of the team. She set to work.
She had been inside the station systems for days now. She had been monitoring the people in the station on cameras and had got the hang of the data flow within the station. She had also amended her plan to fake a theft onboard the station of some rare component which would hopefully lock the station down long enough for the mercenary team to get the ship to Cruise speeds. It wasn't going to prevent them from taking the station back off lockdown once they realized what was going on, but it might buy them a minute or two which in this kind of operation was paramount to gold.
"Engaging false alarms. Now."
She triggered the reactor meltdown alarm onboard the ship. She watched on the cameras as everyone evacuated the ship in a quick manner. The engineers stayed back a little longer than the others trying to sus out the cause of the meltdown, but when they realized the reactor read it was going critical, the rest of them sprinted to the exit. Right on cue, the ship was released from its mooring clamps and had begun being pushed out from the dock. So far so good.
"Romeo Team. Ship is clear, I say again ship is clear. You are good to engage Phase 2."
Once again, the comm. clicked. The leader she assumed. She no longer had eyes in the ship since it had been disconnected from the mooring platform, but she expected him and his team were moving quickly throughout the ship, securing it and ensuring that no one was left aboard. She glanced at the timer. It had been just over four minutes since the operation had begun and a minute since it was disconnected from the platform. They had two minutes left before the teams aboard the station began to get suspicious. She monitored the station and saw it was still on lockdown but noticed that the security team was starting to get suspicious earlier than she had anticipated. As it turns out, her faking something being stolen and the ship being pushed out at the same time had aroused some theories in the security department.
S***, she hadn't considered the two parts of the plan clashing. It might look like the thief would have planned the ship being pushed out to escape. She cursed herself audibly, she had over looked a simple part of the plan. That's what she got for adding something to the plan hastily before thinking it through. She queued up the comm.
"Be advised, human element has begun to get suspicious early. Cutting time down by one minute."
"Acknowledged, Overwatch." came the clipped reply from the leader. "Team is at operations deck. Preparing checks on the systems before engaging cruise. Time to cruise one minute."
She looked back to the cameras. The security team was rushing out of the security office and the supervisor had taken the station off lock down just as the Renzu Liner outside had engaged cruise. Faking the theft had bought them a minute more than they would have had otherwise.
"Overwatch, cruise engaged. Piloting the ship into the cloud. Estimated time to Kepler, five minutes."
"Copy Romeo team, they shouldn't follow you far into the cloud. Their fighters and bombers won't survive the radioactive s***hole that the system has become. Keep your head on a swivel heading to Colorado. Xenos are known to patrol that area."
"Copy, Overwatch. Will acknowledge once clear in Colorado."
The hard part was out of the way more or less. It had gone about as well as she thought it would. Her blunder with the theft part of the plan could've caused more problems if the security chief onboard the station had more balls and released the lockdown early. An alert pinged indicating someone was reaching out by code. She saw who it was and grinned maliciously she activated the comm. and called the number. As soon as the call engaged, she heard a tirade of curses.
"How DARE you steal my ship! You think that you can get away with this you bulbous RAT?!"
"That's rich coming from you. Calling me bulbous. Have you looked in the mirror lately?" she said, her digital voice making her sound even more snide than she actually had.
"I already PAID you for your silence. I paid you to LEAVE ME ALONE."
"What can I say? I decided 30 million wasn't enough. Your disgusting fetish deserves you lose a few more things just to really drive the point home. I deleted all your s*** on the net so that people wouldn't find it. That was what the 30 million was for. This little purchase is for you to ensure that you don't ever do that nasty thing again." she said emphasizing the last point. She couldn't even mention what she'd seen when she found his files. It still made her skin crawl.
"When I find you...that's going to be YOU on those images." he said with a deadly calm and cut the connection. She looked at the communicator and shrugged, putting it down on the console. She wasn't concerned in the least. She'd been very careful over the years to never let any one know her name, her voice, or her appearance. Someone as stupid as him wouldn't be able to find any information out about her. Her info had already long since been deleted from the Junker archives too. That's the reason she only frequented Rochester and Beaumont bases as she was recognizable by people she knew, not because of a database.
"Overwatch." the console chimed. "Renzu security team began experiencing problems soon as they jumped to Kepler. Looks like the radiation in system did indeed slow them down just as predicted. They said something over the comms. that they'd be reporting this to the authorities and ran back to Shikoku. We also had some problems with Xenos. Ship got a few scratches but nothing serious. We managed to escape and are heading to drop off."
"Affirmative. Payment will be sent as soon as ship is docked at Attica."
"Copy. Barring any further complications, this will be our last communication. If you need us again, let us know. Was good working with you."
"Same to you, complements to your team for their professionalism and effectiveness."
The comm. clicked once and the transmission was cut. She would certainly use them in the future if the time came. She did her usual clean up of her activities on the networks and wiped all the drives on the terminal she was using before exiting the small rented room. As she walked down the hallway, she threw the communicator she had been using in a recycler to her right. The gears in the bin grinding up the small device. She pulled the hood up over her head. It was meant to make her look like just another down on their luck Rogue that frequented the station. She kept a series of small knives out of sight of others just in case she was accosted by someone. Being a smaller woman on a Rogue station could lead to you being attacked, ****ed, or killed. If anyone accosted her, they'd get a four inch blade right under their chin for their trouble.
She saw the ship dock and the mercenary team exit the vessel. She flipped open her small hand terminal she had recently bought and transferred the 200 million to their account. She saw the team leader look to his terminal and nod. He spoke to the other members of his team and they departed for what looked like the bar. Now here was the trick. There was no doubt cameras facing that airlock, so she wouldn't be able to go through that way. She left the area and headed away from it. Even if that freak in Kusari couldn't hack the cameras, he could probably hire someone to to hack the stations records later to find who had got onto the ship after the team had left it.
Attica had once been a prison installation, so there were other ways onto the Liner that just through the airlock at the mooring platform. She had a small lithe frame that benefited her for getting into tight spaces such as this. She nonchalantly walked down to the cargo holds onboard the station where commodities were sold. When no one was looking, she quickly ducked into one of the conveyor systems that ran the length of the station and made her way towards the Liner. She glanced at her pad every once and a while to ensure she was heading the right way. An hour and change later, she arrived at the ships cargo doors that were sealed shut. She input a code on her terminal and the doors hissed open.
She had known Renzu Liners afforded a lot of luxury, but she wasn't in anyway ready for what she saw when she entered the ship. It was beautiful...and she was going to hack parts of it up for her new headquarters. She would have to make a mental of renovating it to keep the same amount of luxury that it had now...she wasn't sure she wanted to ever go back to the Junker life after seeing this. She quickly sealed the cargo doors and made her way to the command deck, once there she initiated the decoupling request to Attica and departed, heading towards Ontario.
"Alright...time to get this girl back to Texas and get started on the renovations."
She spent the first week acquiring the items she needed. She'd put out a notice to people in Sirius to bring her the materials she would need for the retrofit and had been thoroughly impressed with the amount of people that brought them either to her ship or to Beaumont. Towards the end of the deliveries, the foreman on the station was practically screaming at her to get the things off of Beaumont because they were taking up so much space. Initially, she loaded them onto the Pilgrim Liner docked with the station just to get them out of the main bays. Afterwards, she then began the arduous process of bringing them onboard the Data Breach.
Everything only JUST fit onboard. The bay was filled to the brim as was the living quarters, the engine room, and even the command deck was overflowing with the materials she'd purchased from the traders around Sirius.
"Not much room." she mumbled as she squeezed around the items on the command deck. "Now I just need a place to berth the ship to get to work on this retrofit...can't very well do this in open space. Someone might stumble on to me when I'm defenseless out there and I can't very well work on the ship under cloak." she said to herself. She began pacing on what little room she had on the command deck, tapping her temple with her right hand that was next to her ear. "Who could I talk to for something like this?" she wondered aloud.
She paced back and forth for an hour trying to figure it out until caving and beginning her search. This went on for a few days. She came to the conclusion that there weren't many places in House space where she could safely moor the ship during it's retrofit. She was sure that creep in Kusari had the house militaries and police out searching for it. He was just rich enough to have a few in his pocket. Saying nothing for the ship being stolen anyway. She continued her search until coming across a company stationed in Cambridge.
"Hmmm, NSE. Nebula Shipping Express eh?" she began her systematic checks of the company, ensuring that there weren't any things to be concerned about. Their security was more difficult to get past than most companies which gave her some begrudging respect for them. Once she'd broken through she looked around and smiled. They would fit the bill perfectly. She closed her windows, disconnected from their databases and began her communication.
"Why hi there NSE folks! My name is RTRN-NULL..." she began.
She had her response from NSE. They seemed amenable to her communication which surprised her. She'd expected them to be pissed that she had hacked their databases but realized that they had an air gapped device deep within their station. Clever. She appreciated those who gave half a thought for security. Maybe one day she'd be able to get to that device, but for now she put it to the back of her mind. They said Omicrons so she fired up the engines and headed out from Texas. The trip had been uneventful except for the few times she'd needed to cloak through Rheinland space due to military patrols in the area.
When she got to Omicron Theta, is where things went disastrously wrong. The Renzu Liner had never meant to be flown for this long without a maintenance period of some kind. It didn't help that the ship wasn't even finished before being snatched out of the hands of it's builders. As she came into the system, two of the three engines gave out. Luckily for her, they hadn't overloaded, they'd just powered down. The ships sensors indicated a critical fault in one of the ODN conduits providing thrust to the engines. The third and only function engine was starting to show the same symptoms. Any attempt at activating cruise now could leave her "dead in the water" so to speak. The problem was, she didn't have time to troubleshoot the problem herself as that same ODN conduit that powered the cruise engines also powered parts of the life support system. She had about 8 hours of oxygen left which wasn't enough time for her to figure out the problem on her own.
She limped the ship over to a nearby Zoner station named Corfu. During the impulse speed flight there, she quickly reconfigured the ships IFF to some random name so as to not give herself away after transmitting her request for cargo to all of Sirius. She didn't want to be identified as that Renzu Liner. She then followed that up with imputing some random bulls*** data into the navigation computer so as to show she came from Kusari instead of Liberty.
She arrived at the station hours later and after a brief discussion with those onboard, they permitted her to moor with the station. The damage to the ship was much more extensive than she had thought. The Zoner technicians she spoke with told her she was lucky the ship had made it as far as it had. It had hairline structural damage throughout the entire frame of the ship and it would require months or even years in drydock to repair. They asked her why the hell she'd flown an unfinished ship this far. She responded with vague answers saying she'd escaped from a rich ex-husband that had abused her. The story was dark enough that most people didn't ask questions or nodded in solemn understanding. The Zoners gave her a fair amount of currency for the ship to use as scrap and deducted their fee for troubleshooting it when she arrived. She offloaded her cargo to the station and watched as the ship she'd flown here slowly begin being moved away from the station by Zoner pilots.
"Son of a b****" she cursed. "Back to square one."
She went to the bar, ordered a drink and sat drumming her fingers on the bar thinking of her next move. Her drink came but she didn't touch it. She just kept staring off into nothing. Considering her next move.
"Ya know." a voice said "Most people order drinks and actually...ya know...drink them."
She sighed and turned to look at an elderly man with a smirk on his face.
"I know...just thinking."
"Mmm, dangerous notion." he said with a smile taking a seat one down from her. "Credit for your thoughts?"
"The ship I was flying was basically scrap when I got here. I've got no ride from here and most of my plans are ruined." she said darkly.
The old man chuckled a laugh that only someone with age could.
"Seems like a dilemma." he said. "...and an opportunity."
NULL looked at the old man with a mix of an inquisitive look and a glare.
"The hell are you on about?" she asked.
"Today is the day I'm retiring. Been exploring space since I was a lad. Doing trade runs, escorting people, shuttling families back and forth, and so on."
"...forgive me but I don't see how--"
"Suush." the old man said holding his finger to his mouth. The old man had actually suushed her. "Since I'm retiring with the fortune I've earned over the past 40 years, I'm in the market for a project. That liner out there, that's the ship you came in on?"
NULL nodded. Starting to understand his thoughts.
"I take it you sold it to the Zoners already. Well, I just bought it off of them shortly before coming here to speak with you. They told me some girl had brought it in after escaping from an abusive husband." he looked her up and down once. "Whatever kind of abuse you went through, I'm sorry. However, I now have two ships and I only need one. I ain't got no children or anyone to pass the ship on to so...I figured I'd sell it. Wasn't expecting someone looking for a ship on the day I retired. They said you might be interested."
"What kind of ship?" she said, suddenly interested. The old man chuckled.
"She's an old girl. Old like me. It's a Bustard Carrier. Though, I never really had much use for the carrier part of the ship. Never bothered installing anything other than a Jump Drive and Cloak to get out of hairy situations. Upgraded the armor several years ago as well as overhauled the shields. Only standard weaponry, but she can hold her own."
"How much?" NULL asked, sounding more desperate.
"500 Million." he said flat out. He must've been expecting NULL to blanch at the price because when she pulled out a credit chip, swiped it across her terminal, and handed it to the man, he had a look of shock and curiosity on his face.
"Sold. What's the ships name?"
"Er...never really gave it one. Just called 'er ol Buster. How'd a little young thing like you get that kind of money?"
She looked at him flatly and added a cold tone to her voice. "You sure you want to know that?"
Gone was the good natured old man and in it's place was someone who was clearly uncomfortable.
"Er, no. Hand me your terminal and I'll transfer you the codes."
After the transfer was complete, the old man walked away, glancing backwards over his shoulder a couple of times before rounding the corner near where the Renzu Liner last was. She downed her drink and walked quickly towards where the ship she had just bought was located. When she got to the window, she saw an old Bustard Carrier sitting outside of the station. Her eyes grew in size. It was bigger than the Renzu by at least a factor of two. She had more space to store the items she'd purchased for a retrofit and the ship could hold it's own much better than the Renzu could have ever dreamed to. It had a better, more redundant, power system onboard too she was sure. She walked through it's hallways for a few hours, examining everything. The old man had installed a bunch of systems that automated several of the ships functions, allowing for a very limited crew to need to be onboard. She could manage these systems on her own without any need for help. It was a big upgrade from the Salvager and Renzu liner that she'd had before. Thinking of the Salvager lead her to thinking about her father. She'd need to follow up with him before long or else he'd get worried about her.
After her tour, she had the equipment she purchased onloaded onto the ship. There was more space for everything, but it was still crowded. After it was onloaded, she departed from the Zoner station and continued on the course she'd laid in before breaking down in system. She reconfigured the blank IFF to read "Data Breach" so that NSE would recognize her when she arrived...plus she loved the name.
"Back on track." she said to herself. "Next up...NSE. I just gotta hope that my luck keeps on holding..."
NULL had dropped the ship off at the Freeport in Omicron Delta and departed for all points nowhere. She'd seen a huge Zoner ship departing as she did as well. The captains voice reminded her of someone but couldn't place it. Just as she was about to ask, the massive ship departed, cloaking as it did so.
"Spooky place." she said to herself. She'd already seen a few Zoners tangling with some alien looking things on the way into the station. "The Omicrons give me the creeps." she said again powering up her small rental ships cruise engines. "Time to get out of here for a little while."
She flew for a couple of hours, eventually arriving in a system called Omega-48. She'd landed at a cold planet named Gran Canaria in the system and got herself a rental unit for the week. She needed a break from the oppressive spaces of bulkheads and gravity plates anyway. She loved the life but the oppressiveness of the Renzu Liner followed by the Bustard left her feeling super cramped up. The view of the sky out of her window and the feel of normal non-recycled air blowing through her hair was enough to let the nerves that she hadn't known were knotted up finally relax.
"Never knew I needed a vacation until right this moment."
As she said so, her communication unit began ringing. She picked it up and saw the picture of her father.
"Dad! I meant to call." she said. As she spoke, she noticed the somber look on her fathers face. "What's wrong?"
"This inmate #7743329." he said in a robotic almost practiced voice. "I am initiating this call to let my family members know I am well. I am incarcerated due to breaking Liberty laws. Any further communication must be cleared by Liberty Law Enforcement Officials. I am being treated fairly and am without harm. Any and all shipments will be subject to scans by the guards and can be taken away at a moments notice. I am well. I love you."
She had tried interrupting him to ask questions, to tell her where he was and why he'd been arrested but he continued on with his statement before the call cut out. Likely they had muted her end so that he could give the statement they had given him without interruption. A few moments after a text came through to her.
"Checkmate, you little bitch. I told you I'd get my revenge. This is only the start."
She knew who'd sent it. That creep in Kusari. He said he'd get her back for what she'd done to him. He'd found out her weak spot somehow. How much did he know for certain? She'd have to dig into that to find out for sure that she hadn't been discovered. Maybe he only knew her father was someone tied to her somehow...but he went straight for the throat so that was probably her answer. He wanted to play that game? He wanted to make it personal? Fine. Good thing she kept all the nasty shit he'd been doing. With a few commands she published it to every neural net, news agency, and public place that she could. An hour later, she got another ping from him. He was screaming vows of destruction, salted earth, etc. She ignored it and went to work on finding out a way to free her father for the trumped up charges...she also needed to look up how much he knew about her and where he could've got the information from if so.
"I have work to do." she said pulling out her terminal. "Would be easier with the Data Breach but hopefully it'll be ready in a few more days and I can really rain hellfire down upon this bastard. First...I need to figure out a way to spring the old man."
She searched through archives upon archives trying to locate something that she could use to spring her father coming eventually to rumors of a man who did suicidal missions just because he was looking for a rush...or looking to die.
"Whiplash? What a name." she said out loud sending them a communication. They responded nearly immediately.
"You understand, this will mean the deaths of Liberty lawful assets, destruction of Liberty government property, and all the collateral damage that follows." the message stated matter of factly.
She considered their statement. Her father may have done some things that bent the law, but he never did anything that was outright illegal. He was an honest man who had been thrown in prison due to her own failings. She had been careful, but it hadn't been enough. Was she really willing to kill to free her father? What would he think?
"No killing." she replied. They responded a few moments later.
"Don't be naive. An operation like this there will always be death. Getting someone out of a prison, even a light security prison, will require force. Subterfuge is only something done in the holo-movies. Accept my terms or I move on."
"Geez, this person is a hardass." she said outloud. "Double payment for no kills. Consider it a challenge. If you're half the mercenary I've heard you are, you should be able to do this no problem. Or are you not the famed 'Whiplash' I've heard so much about?"
There was a long pause before they sent one phrase.
"Good-bye." and the comm link cut followed by a full block from the sender.
"Fuck!" she screamed and slammed the terminal closed. "Am I really going to have to advocate for murder to get my dad out of there?" she said curling into a ball.
That night, she sobbed herself to sleep. For the first time in long time, she felt helpless.