A/N: I spent some time thinking about the weak spots in Palpatine's whole scheme, and I think I found a few, some more obvious - or, more appropriately, less inconspicuous - than others. We shall see whether they will matter (read: this may or may not become AU), I am exploring the possibilities on the go.
MIDDEC headquarters are one of those places that make war and, say, health insurance look alike.
There's several rooms, each of those contains several terminals, each terminal is controlled by one person. Several more people are flocking to and fro. Perhaps a certain giveaway of the military character of the place are the simple uniforms, or maybe the cold urgency and focus with which everything is carried out. But other than that, a random visitor would not think that he was looking at one of the many low-profile but key installations in the war.
Of course, there were no random visitors.
The people at MIDDEC, or Military Intelligence Department of Decryption, are of a special kind. They like puzzles, and they are generally not very exuberant, albeit exceptions are to be found. They do not mind spending their days, and, admittedly, nights, glued to their screens. In fact, they rather enjoy it – to pit their minds against those of the enemy, the challenge – and they are not immediately aware of the immense ramifications their work has. The enemy encryption is just another puzzle.
MIDDEC has a sister department, MIDENC, which is staffed by a very similar breed of people in a very similar environment, only the task is switched around: these people are responsible for ensuring no one can hear what the Republic's forces are talking about. It is only natural, then, that people change places between the two departments rather often. In fact, it is a policy of the Republic Military Intelligence to transfer people between the workplaces after they complete their assigned tasks. It is good practice.
Dor Palana, a Duro, was assigned to a group which was tackling a particularly troubling package of intercepted messages, supposedly communication among elements of Separatist leadership. His previous job at MIDENC was verifying safety levels for senate-military channels; such work was considered boring by the community, so he was rather excited to lay his hands on a real challenge. He ran the usual gauntlet of standard decryption routines, to get a feel for the puzzle at hand, and was wickedly satisfied to see that there was no pattern: that should really be an interesting one to crack.
It was two days into Dor's new assignment when his human Corellian colleague, Ana Shtilek, plopped beside him for lunch with a datapad and started right away.
"I think I may be on to something. I ran several evolutionary reconstructions and allowed parameters on the complex plane – and this is what I got."
She showed Dor her datapad and grabbed a bagel.
"See how the distribution looks sort of like a Sierpinsky carpet? I think that's what has been giving us the trouble, we were doing parameters on only one dimension, so we couldn't notice," she pointed to the pattern on the screen and bit a good chunk of the pastry.
Dor immediately forgot about lunch.
"Am I a Nerf herder. Yeah. Take the generating function of the Sierpinsky pattern, stretch the raw data over the complex plane and use that function as a factor. The rest is an obvious projection back on the real plane."
He handed her the datapad back. Ana was, however, quite taken aback at Dor's apparent certainty – and apparent shock.
"I know this exact code. It's one of ours. Don't tell anyone."
Not much of a clarification. But she knew that the Duro was serious, very serious.
"Let's go. We'll use your datapad only. Disconnect it from our network. There may be a mole."
People at the MIDDEC/ENC were not just math and computer wizards with practically eidetic memory and super-human security clearances, they were also trained in some basic intelligence field work. The risk of infiltration was very much present, so the employees were told to keep an eye on each other – and what to expect from an enemy agent.
Ana was remarkably calm. "Okay. Let's go to our lab, it should be empty now." She entered a few simple commands and her datapad temporarily ceased to exist in the central network. Running the decryption was fast – and indeed, the seemingly random noise turned into patterns.
Dor copied the calculations to his personal disk and turned towards Ana. "I've been validating security levels for this exact crypto back at my last gig at ENC, along with all the other senate-army channels. It's… let me see…"
It was quite an unusual sight to see the deep-blue Duro pale. "I think this is one of the direct senate-clone channels… so it's from the Chancellor's office, because the committees only have channels to the army HQs. And I'm pretty sure that the official office-clone channel is a Riemann-Zeta thing, not fractal generating… so this has to be the Chancellor's direct one. Yeah. Triple C."
"We're dead," Ana nodded, still calm. "But we need to tell people. Do we tell boss?"
"I guess we have to risk it. But we'll tell other people, too. We'll tell our team, and I guess a message for the ENC wouldn't hurt. If someone's willing to talk to us in the RMI brass, that would be even better."
"This is weird, though," she mused as she copied the data to her own disk as well. "The same encrypt? Why would a mole do that? And how could a mole here do that? I mean, what's the point? Even if they know what we're saying, they're not stupid to forget that we'll be able to hear their innuendos as well."
"Yeah, you're right, this really is weird… Shall we let our exalted leadership worry about that?"
"Tell you what. You talk to the Powers That Be, I'm copying this to several more places and getting our team up to speed."
"Just tell them how to slice it. Not the other part."
The group of six people assembled at the inconspicuous round table probably represented the powerhouse of the galaxy. With two exceptions: no one from the Chancellor's Office and no one from the Jedi Council. The room was an office tucked away in an old Republic Naval Academy compound that used to serve as a mock command center and now was utilized as a place for top-level military meetings when the armed forces didn't want anyone else to know they were talking. The Navy closed the campus down some years ago as it relocated to a more prominent district, but it had a habit of not letting go of its property, much to the dismay of many investors - and it also had the habit of not publicizing its reasons for doing so.
The Navy, the GAR and the by far least visible uniformed service, the RMI, started holding the... private meetings on military matters only days after Geonosis, as soon as personal issues in the highest echelons had been dealt with and the supreme commanders of the military branches had picked a stable core of their staff. Usually, two people from each service sat at the round table; all in all, about a dozen individuals knew about these top-level, low-key gatherings. The sessions were not regular, being simply called together whenever one service felt it had something to share with the others at this level, and the topics ranged from discussing joint campaigns to matters of budget.
Or, sometimes, there were cases such as this, when the RMI stumbled upon a fish too big for the official channels.
"We've ran the tests four times. All of them agreed: the codes are one hundred percent similar. So, no, this is not a random thing. The chances of that happening are among the lowest numbers we've ever worked with, and that says something." The MIDDEC representative forwarded the screen of his datapad to the central holo, so instead of the usual galactic map, now there was a number of, well, numbers and several charts floating above the table. That was pure show, he knew, because none of the others could interpret the figures correctly. But it was sort of impressive.
"So what are the options?" A grey-haired woman with Republican Navy insignia and a calm voice opened the debate. "I personally find it highly… confusing. I confess that I do not see a purpose in such a setup."
"We're not sure either," the head of RMI, a general, replied. "It may be that a CIS mole planted the code into our systems simply so that they could listen in to the Triple C channel. However, since we obviously know our codes, they would have to realize that we could listen right back, so we're pretty sure it's not that simple."
"Could it be that they wanted us to find out and feed us misinformation?" A GAR general drummed his fingers. "Plant the code, let us discover it and then send us on wild bantha chases all over the galaxy."
"That is definitely an option, too. We'll need some time to confirm that their transmission on that channel are real," the Intelligence man switched the holo to a different set of pictures, "but from what we've decrypted so far, it looks real enough. These messages were intercepted two weeks ago," he highlighted a few lines, "and they describe the Separatist deployment around Saleucami right at that time quite accurately. And more matches like this are coming in with every decrypted message. But, that's still no proof, so yes, the smokescreen option is still on the table."
"If there is a mole, they may start chasing us around when the mole finds out we decrypted it. There is no risk in that for them: old intercepted messages really aren't of much use for us now, and they only add credibility to whatever nonsense they send our way," the army man shook his head and the RMI head silently congratulated him on a very fine specimen of paranoia.
"Why copy a code for that? It would only alert us that something is wrong with such a planted channel of theirs," the Navy lady shook her head and turned back towards the Intelligence officer. "General, obviously you know by whose design are we using the encryption for Triple C?" she inquired further.
"Well, not exactly. The Chancellor's Office gave it to our ENC department to test and implement. That's standard procedure – the civilian authorities have their own departments to come up with cryptos, and we have got each other's clearance. That's one of the questions I don't feel qualified to answer on my own, though. Do we ask them or not, and if we ask them, how much do we let them know? I want general agreement on this before I do anything."
"Intel's asking for consensus? That's a first," quipped another GARSH representative. "I don't exactly feel like knocking on the civvies' doors and asking politely, but we don't really have a choice, do we?"
"Actually, we sort of do. I have several people in the civilian secret services. But none of them high enough to access information like who designed what code right away, so it would be very risky. A misstep could easily ruin the trust between the agencies."
"You have mentioned that you have mutual clearance. When the RMI was assessing this clearance, did you have access to any materials which might help us now?"
The Navy lady was almost too astute, the head of RMI noted. "Unfortunately, not this type of information. We had a look at their recruiting procedures, their internal safety regulations, we had our guys run their cryptos – things we needed to know about their operation, not the specifics. So did they."
"Sir, if I may speak…" The MIDDEC representative was very aware of the fact that he was vastly outranked by anyone present and rather a guest of honor at the meeting – after all, it was his department that ran across the problem – but as he was there, he played his part. "We did temporarily have access to their encryptions. We, um, might have forgotten to delete that data. There could be clues there."
The head of RMI took great care to flaunt genuine surprise. "While I would normally probably have to reprimand your department, colonel, I think I may just pass that opportunity up. Do have a look into it, please."
It was all a show they both rehearsed before the meeting, making it just obvious enough for the others to notice and sending off a clear signal: we can afford to play you like this. Don't ask. Don't try to interfere. This is our job. There was some tension in the supreme command of the Republic's military and the last thing the RMI needed was to be used as a chip in the power game the GAR and the Navy were subtly but constantly playing.
The assembled leaders of the two branches, to their credit, got the message. "Your subordinates seem to enjoy an unusual amount of privacy," the Navy hawk-lady's tone was polite and cold. "I'm sure you will know how to investigate further. But, please, do kindly take the care to inform us of your progress. This is too serious a matter."
Serious for what exactly, the RMI leader was mildly amused at the show this fine woman was putting on. Oh, she was playing along, that was all right.
The GARSH representatives, on the other hand, were not amused. Of course, they were working with clones, so it was to be expected their behavior would be… less refined, to say the least. One of them impatiently waved his hand. "We have no time for games. This is very serious, indeed. The RMI will do their investigation, we have to decide what to do about the facts we have now. I suggest we take an hour to discuss the measures to take in our branches and come here again. Will the RMI have any new information by then?"
"Indeed we will." Ah, you can play the game, too, though you do have a… distinct style. "Going through the relevant archives should not take long," the man from MIDDEC added. Besides, our people are doing it right now anyway.
"It is settled, then. We shall meet in an hour." The other Navy admiral stood up. "Thank you, lady and gentlemen. Let us get to the bottom of this."
