9 Years, 6 Months, 13 Days After Eridani Landing
Jikse
“So have you ever done anything like this before?” asked [Orin] over the Link.
Diana paused checking that no one was near her.
“Specifically? No. In general yes.”
“That’s an incredibly non-specific answer.”
“Look I’m already past the Empire systems, the private stuff is a little more tedious,” grumbled Diana as she started to work the security panel away from the door of the room. She was halfway through the main terminal for the Port, having worked her way through the outer security an hour ago.
Diana had at first looked at sneaking onto Sek’s ship by simply jumping the fence and running to where it sat on the tarmac, but it was unfortunately locked down with physical clamps which were controlled by a terminal inside the main complex.
A lock that was unhackable given that it was wisely enough not networked. Cutting through the lock would garner far too much attention and shearing it from the ship by taking off anyway led to a high possibility of wrecking the thing. Given the amount of antimatter he had on the ship to cause a sizable enough explosion Diana did not want to even consider that possibility. How he had acquired the material was still at the top of her list of questions though.
It had obviously not been produced on the planet, there was nowhere near enough development in the criminal sector for the installation of an illegal particle accelerator, and the Empire was most certainly not operating one unless it was buried underground and hidden. Which then begged the question why they would go to the trouble of producing it only to give it to a low level street thug ascended to the throne of criminal leader for the city.
Sek was a thug after all, Diana had after pinpointing Sek’s home followed him for several days to get a feel for how he operated the criminal underground of the city. It was pitiful in comparison to even the smallest cities on Earth and Mars, even Bellona had more adventurous criminals and they were only producing illicit drugs.
Sek robbed business and stole supplies indiscriminately, at first Diana had thought it was to run some sort of protection racket, but he had never demanded money from businesses or repeated his attacks. He took and didn’t bother to even hide himself very well.
A proper criminal leader would ingratiate herself with the community, and ensure that she was both respected and appreciated. Those who paid for protection were safe, they were not betrayed and even perhaps given leniency once or twice. Common criminals were kept in check, muggers restrained and kept off of the street. The leader was supposed to fill in the gaps of what the government, or in this case the Empire did not fill. They would keep the order where there was none, put up fronts to process money from less than legal operations and ensure that the community grew under their rule.
Someone who only took, they would be disrespected and fought at every opportunity, even if the people felt as if they would never win they would fight a thug because they had nothing left to lose.
A criminal leader who was beneficial though? They would fear losing them, fear having them taken away for once that happened the low level thugs like Sek would return and ruin their community. Looking at the history for the crumbling city Diana had learned that most of the criminals had been like Sek.
They had been nothing more than thugs.
It was sad really, the people of the city scraped to get by, even in the city center where the Empire controlled it. Outside that circle where Sek had free roam he terrorized the population, he rarely killed from what Diana had seen but neither was he merciful. If someone got in his way, he and the other members of his species would kill them without a second thought.
That was the other thing Diana had been investigating, she had seen him with his guards during the bad operation and trade, and hoped that was all the people he had. Judging by the number of pointy eared cohorts he had though Sek had a veritable battalion with him on the planet.
It was a formidable number, but not insurmountable. Still numbers were an advantage, one that Diana did not think she would have for a long time.
“Got it!” said Diana as she pulled the panel off of the wall, looking at the wires she carefully clipped her Link into them and waited for the security system to fall. Like most of the alien systems the security here was an amalgamation of several dozen different types of security programs that had been clumsily cobbled together.
If Diana had to guess the Empire rarely created much, instead taking from those civilizations and planets they conquered. So long as they got them to work they didn’t seem to care about inefficiencies in the systems.
This particular hack to get through the security systems had only taken Diana an afternoon to work out. The security systems were protected by asynchronous encrypted keys, which rotated ever [hour] or so. Any person who had access to a given area received the new key on their Comm. It was in theory a secure system, except that the rotation to the new keys was not instant.
For about two seconds any device that was on the security system would rotate back to ‘factory’ standard. Hacking that particular key had taken several days of brute forcing with her Link, but now Diana had access on the top of every hour.
It was a pain to wait in between each security panel she got through, and there were more than likely additional security flaws that could have been taken advantage of, but none that she had been able to discover on first glance.
Diana frowned, Arik was probably having the time of her life gallivanting around in the alien computer systems. If the poor construction was a universal part of their computer construction she was probably breaking through everything without a second thought.
Or perhaps the poor construction was a product of being on one of the less than affluent worlds.
“I’m moving into the control room, you and [Hal] ready?” asked Diana.
“I’m ready. [Hal]’s being an idiot.”
Diana heard muffled protests over the communication line.
“Well he’s not going to stop being one just for tonight so I guess we’ll have to go in either case.”
The protests increased and Diana heard [Orin] chuckle.
“Understood, we’ll move as soon as it’s down. You sure about the second part though?”
“I am Just don’t be late.”
Diana cut the line just as the time came and the Link sent the code into the security system and the door in front of her opened. Pulling her link away and shoving the panel back into the wall Diana calmly strode forwards.
Several men and women at computer consoles looked up as she entered, but none moved as Diana matched their bored looks. Raising a hand to her mouth Diana yawned.
Infiltration could be carried out in two ways, either look and act like you were more important than anyone else in the room, or two look and act like everyone else in the room so you instantly blended into the background.
Diana was in slightly worn clothes, and she was carrying a repair kit. Hastily pinned to her shirt was the fake security credentials, although that was merely a formality. Her Comm would have served as her actual ID in the building.
One man looked up from his console and seeing the repair kit he nodded.
“You here for the bad server?” he asked.
“Yep. Want to show me the thing?” asked Diana.
“It’s over that way,” said the man pointing vaguely behind him down a small hallway.
“thanks,” muttered Diana.
The man nodded and turned lazily back to his computer console.
Yawning again to match the late night atmosphere Diana slowly walked back to the room he had indicated. Sliding the door open and stepping inside Diana rolled her eyes. The men and women outside were the paid private security for all of the ships at the Port, and they were worse than some of the controllers she had messed with on Earth back when she was on the station, and that had been with a ten-minute delay!
Pulling out her Link Diana looked at the alien server rack. Unlike the human ones which were usually flatter panels that could be pulled in and out the preferred form factor for the Empire were cubes, about a quarter meter wide and tall, while nearly half a meter deep.
Pulling the closest one to her out Diana plugged her Link into it, and bypassed the airgap for the control system of the locks on all of the ships in the private part of the Port. It took her Link several moments to figure out what everything meant but the options available to her were quickly populated.
Impounding, lock, investigative lock, administrative lock, unlock, emergency lockdown, and emergency unlock.
For a half moment Diana considered simply unlocking every ship, but then that would more than likely cause to much trouble and attention.
Searching through all of the ships in the ship Diana quickly found the ships registered to Sek, and her eyes widened slightly. There were two, not just the one like she had assumed. The transport she had obtained the manifest for was the largest of the two, the other no larger than the shuttles that were used by the Canada, although if the specs being displayed were correct it had FTL capabilities.
Looking at it Diana quickly copied all of the data for the smaller ship, but left it locked. The information would be useful later, and it was an option to get off the planet if she needed it. The cargo ship would after all not be on the planet much longer.
Unlocking it Diana left a root command in the computers so that any ship registered to Sek would unlock every night at [3AM] without signaling ay alarms. Just in case.
Pushing the server back in Diana rubbed at her eyes and picking up the unused tools walked out of the server closet. The man who had first directed her looked up, “Done already?”
“I have to get another part. Work request didn’t mention that something was fried.”
The man nodded, “Alright.”
He turned back to his hologram and Diana walked past him and back to the door. It opened and she calmly walked out. Moving much more easily through the security perimeter on her way out Diana pulled off the repair worker tag, and switched it with the light orange ones that designated Captains.
So long as she looked like she owned a ship, and didn’t try to take off without authorization no one would bother her on the tarmac despite the late hour.
Opening a door outside, Diana took a deep breath of the warmer air. The airstrip was large enough so that even those craft that could not perform VTOL maneuvers could land, which were few and far in between to her knowledge.
Moving slowly under the harsh lights that bathed the ground Diana moved towards the transport. If there was one difference between Human ships and those constructed by the Empire size had to be it. The basic transport vessel was 3/4ths the size of the Canada, had artificial gravity, and absolutely no hull whatsoever.
The vessel was in some places protected by thin sheets of metal that would have only been used on the very first generations of human ships. The Empire was far too reliant on the shielding technology. Once the generators were disabled any of their ships were useless.
Walking up to the ship Diana glanced under at its mooring point. The lights were a steady blue in color, meaning it was unlocked.
Raising her Link up Diana quickly interfaced with the ship and using the codes that she had stolen from the servers inside quickly unlocked the vessel. A small ramp slid out of the back, the larger loading ramp remaining sealed for the moment.
Dropping the tool chest and reaching into it Diana drew out the small alien energy weapon, her pistol had been far too valuable to bring with her now, and considering the very limited amount of ammunition she had left she was conserving it.
Stepping up into the ship Diana paused looking around, and trying to sense for any of the aliens. It was dark, and that lent them the advantage if the last encounter was anything to go by.
Walking forwards Diana glanced down at her Link looking for the light controls.
Something moved behind her and Diana froze, raising her weapon she looked around.
“I’m surprised you made it this far. As far as I can tell you’re all by yourself, well you’ve got those class B’s but what use are they?”
It was Sek and try as she might Diana could not pinpoint his location.
“they have uses, a little annoying. That doesn’t seem to be exclusive to them though.”
Sek laughed and lights flashed on. Diana froze, five of the aliens plus Sek were standing in front of her, weapons raised pointed at her chest.
“Down,” said Sek pointing at the deck.
Diana kept her gun raised.
Sek frowned, “You can’t kill all of us, if you lower the gun I promise I won’t have you killed.”
“I don’t have to hit you; you’re standing right in front of the antimatter containment unit. I hit that and we all go boom.”
Sek glanced back, “True, but then neither of us get what we want.”
Diana heard more movement behind her, so soft that a normal human wouldn’t have heard it. She remained still, this was the gamble but also the opportunity she had been expecting.
A small sound of compressed air sounded in the compartment and Diana whipped around as she felt something hit her neck.
“Bastard,” swore Diana as she reached up to her neck and pulled out the small dart.
The alien woman stood up and shrugged, “See Sek, easy.”
Diana collapsed to her knees feeling the drug race through her system.
“I guess it is, you might be right,” he said musing.
The woman chuckled her ears going up, “I usually am.”
Sek grumbled something under his breath in another language that Diana couldn’t understand her brain to sluggish with the drug to translate it.
Coughing Diana opened her eyes and promptly threw up, the drug in her system still present. Retching a second time and leaning as far forwards as she could with her hands tied behind her Diana emptied the rest of her stomach contents onto the floor. Taking several deep breaths and trying to get her brain to start working again Diana slowly sat back up and looked around the room, it was dark the only light coming from the bright fixture above her which focused downwards made it look as if she were on an island in a sea of darkness.
Diana groaned, “Really?” she asked.
“You honestly didn’t think I would be prepared? That I wouldn’t improve on my security now that I have competition? Dealing with these class B’s was child’s play, and now you? I was expecting better.”
Sek stepped into the pool of light and Diana glared up at him, “I got onto your ship didn’t I? Got ahold of your manifests.”
Sek’s ears moved in lazy circles, “simple tasks for anyone of my species, and I suppose for yours as well,” he said as he glanced down at the sick curling his lip up slightly.
Sek leaned down, “Although if you’re the best your species has to offer I guess the classification system of the Empire does not amount to much. Your strategy has been horrible, and alone you can’t accomplish anything. You told me you were going to rob me! That is something I would expect from a Class B, not from a Class C!”
Sek pounded on his chest, “We’re more violent, more cunning, more dangerous than those in the Empire including the class A’s. The only reason they managed to take our planet was because of their numbers! They’ve conquered and taken thousands of weak species, that is their only strength. Once we have numbers, we will easily defeat them!”
Diana blinked, “So that’s what the supplies are for?”
Sek winced and his ears drooped slightly, “They are.”
Diana slowly nodded and leaned back in the chair ignoring the wire biting into her wrists.
“Would you believe me if I said I was doing the same?”
Sek considered her for a moment, “I would. You might be weak, but even so you’re far more cunning than these pathetic class B’s. I’ve had only one or two fight back against me, and even then it’s been pathetic. You were supposed to be a challenge, but you’ve only made it plain that the Empire’s definition of threatening is far broader than I thought.”
“Well than let’s work together, you can send the majority of your supplies to your people’s planet and we send a token to my own people. As a sign of good will and cooperation.”
Sek’s grin widened, “No.”
He leaned forwards, “If your people must resort to stealing from the work of others to survive, you are weak and helpless. The Vakurian have no need for such weak allies.”
“Vakurian? That is the name of your race?”
“It is the name of the race which will rule the galaxy one day!”
Diana snorted, “You know I think you’ve just proved I put far too much thought into this or you are a really good actor.”
Sek blinked his ears going flat, “what?”
“Rule the galaxy? If you’re like my species you have maybe one small moon, a few ships, some technological advantage, and that’s about it. Your population has to be in the low millions at the greatest, and the only reason you’re still alive is because you’re only an annoyance at this point. The second you try to fight them you’d lose.”
Sek’s eyes narrowed.
“Your species perhaps. My species is stronger, I took over this entire city with only twenty men! I took what I wanted and the people here could not stop me! How could we not win?”
Diana smiled now displaying her teeth, “I’ve read your species history.”
Sek paused looking at her, “What?”
“Your history, it took me a little while to figure out the language, and the books that haven’t rotted are few and far in between. Still, it’s enough to figure out what happened here.”
“Oh?”
“You destroyed yourselves, and you were racist idiots the lot of you. Your entire history you were divided along the lines of hair color?” Diana let out a small laugh, “Hell my species was like that but it was never as bad as you! We could at least see that some of the others were intelligent, that perhaps they were like us in some ways! You though! Your species didn’t learn.”
Diana closed her eyes and leaned back, “you nuked yourselves, all because you were ignorant racist assholes. Hell you’ve not even learned your lesson! You come to this city and use the very distinctions that your destroyers used. Class B, class C? Have you even considered what they mean?”
“Shut up, they destroyed us and took our world because they knew one day we would defeat them!” growled Sek as he reached into his belt and withdrew a gun.
Diana shook her head, “They took your world because they are an Imperial culture, expand or die! It’s a mantra so common in my own history. They killed both of our species so they could take what we developed and expand. You and I? We’re nothing to them! They have killed thousands of worlds, you think they did not fight back? That they did not consider themselves special? You’re nothing, I am nothing!”
Diana took in a shuddering breath.
“We’re nothing to them, and we’re not going to win by dividing ourselves.”
“You’re wrong, since they took my world none have resisted, none have fought back against them! We are the strong ones; we took their own ships! Their own technology and we use it against them!”
“So you’re not even smart enough to build your own?”
Sek blinked and looked at Diana, “You’re lying.”
Diana shrugged, “It’s why I need the antimatter. Our FTL tech doesn’t rely on the beacons. We can jump an entire fleet into orbit of their world, rain down nuclear weapons, and disappear in an instant if we have that antimatter.”
“I’m not giving it to you.”
Sek raised the gun and placed it against Diana’s chest.
“And I’m tired of this, you’re not a threat, your entire species is weak if you feel you must spout lies like this.”
“It’s the truth, we don’t need the Empire’s technology. We’ve got better tech, and we can even nullify their shields. Open up even their strongest ships to attack.”
Sek paused, he looked at her more intently.
“I still don’t believe you.”
Diana glared up at him, “What would you believe? Would you believe that those fantastic little medical robots are an invention from Humanity as well?”
“No.”
“Well then where did they come from?”
“The Imperial Home World developed them.”
“When does the Empire develop anything? Surely you must have figured out the same things I have! The just steal tech from people they conquer.”
Sek lowered his gun slightly, “That is true.”
“The nano-machines were invented because Humanity does not have artificial gravity on our ships, we don’t have shields, we’re different. For example, my Link. I’m assuming you took it.”
Sek slowly reached into a pocket and drew it out, “this?”
“Yeah, Link show Martian escape footage.”
The Link beeped and Sek paused looking down at the device as the video played. As he watched Diana leaned forwards, ostensibly to look at it as well. Noting the time Diana smiled and leaned back into her seat. She had been distracting him long enough already, by the time she had woken up it had been over.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for the video to finish. Diana just relaxed and focused trying to sense how many others might be in the room.
Sek slowly lowered the Link, “This could be fabricated.”
“Could be, but I don’t have any reason to lie to you.”
“You want my supplies. The antimatter.”
“I wanted it, and I took it.”
“I stopped you from taking it.”
“You didn’t stop my class B’s.”
Sek’s ears went flat and turning from Diana he whipped his Comm out.
“Sek to Savior, come in Savior.”
The line remained silent.
Stretching Diana slowly spread her arms, testing the metal restraints. Feeling them biting into her flesh she continued to stretch, feeling it continue to give Diana grimaced but didn’t stop moving her arms. Blood began to run down form her wrists but she ignored it, pouring all of her superhuman strength into the small movements.
“Savior!”
“Don’t bother Sek, it’s gone.”
He whipped around to look at Diana his gun coming up. Darting forwards Diana tackled him, and hitting him to the ground knocked his gun away.
“Bitch!” shouted Sek.
Diana rolled her eyes, “that’s the best you can do?”
He glared up at her, sitting up Diana looked down at him.
“I really don’t want to kill you.”
He glared up at her, “Why not?”
“I would like to make peaceful contact with other class C races, if our two leaderships can talk we might be able to figure something out, a strategy that would allow us to defeat the Empire.”
“You don’t get it, that shipment was my way back to talking with my people!”
Diana raised an eyebrow, “As in?”
Sek turned away from her his ears perking up slightly.
Something hit Diana squarely in the shoulder, and she grunted in pain feeling something embed itself there.
“Get the hell off of him!”
Spinning around Dian stared back at the female from before, her ears were raised and she was brandishing another knife. The handgun she had still firmly attached to her belt.
Diana looked at Sek and then the woman.
“Ah, he’s all yours. The ears really don’t do it for me.”
The woman glared at her, and raised her knife.
“Were you trying to kill me? Honestly you had the chance right then, it’s really hard to hear you guys much less see you.”
“I forgot you were an alien,” growled the woman.
Diana put a hand up to her shoulder, feeling where the knife was embedded. “Your heart is that high up? Or are you just a bad shot?”
She ignored the insult.
“The Savior?” asked Sek as he slowly stood.
“We were disembarking to go back to the safe house, when it suddenly closed all hatches, and took off ignoring all of the regulations. Mon, and Guin were still in it. As far as I can tell once it broke the atmosphere it made an FTL jump.”
Sek nodded and slowly moving forwards picked up his gun and raised it.
“Where did you send the ship?” he asked.
Diana frowned and raised her hands, “Me? You captured me. How could I have done anything to the ship?”
Sek fired the gun once, letting a bolt of energy fly past Diana’s head.
Diana winced, “Well you kill me you most definitely won’t get it back.”
Sek shook his head, “then we simply beat it out of you.”
Reaching up Diana grabbed at the hilt of the knife in her shoulder, and locking eyes with Sek drew it out ignoring the searing pain accompanied with the movement.
“You can try; your fists would break first I think.”
Sek stared at her, and the woman let out a vicious snarl.
Energy bolts rained down from the ceiling and Diana rolled away.
“took you long enough!” She shouted upwards.
Diana heard a response on her Link which Sek was still holding and winced, she was going to have to get that back at some point.
Running through the warehouse as the gunfire continued to rain down Diana burst out of it and onto the street of the alien planet as the sun rose, a magnificent blue aura around it in the alien atmosphere.
A transport dropped down from the roof, almost hitting her.
“Watch it!” shouted Diana as she climbed inside.
“I’m doing my best here!” said [Orin] annoyed.
She punched the controls again sending the transport back up to the roof, reaching out with her uninjured arm Diana waved at [Hal] who glanced up as they moved towards him.
Sweeping past, Diana grabbed him and the pulled him in. [Orin] hit the accelerator as he dove into the back seat. Moving into the rising sun Diana closed her eyes and smiled. Not the best executed operation, but overall a success.
“Diana?” asked [Hal].
“Yes?”
“You’re bleeding, all over the transport.”
Diana glanced down looking at the pool of blood on the floor and in the seat.
“Oh.”
Looking at it for another moment she slumped forwards unconscious.