Earth 1
They were calling it Project Armageddon.
Six weeks earlier, two field agents had gone into Ray Palmer's apparently abandoned house. They had found, and removed, his main computer, laptop, tablet, all the storage devices they could find. Everything was password protected, of course, but Felicity Smoak was far from the only hacker in the world. Within three days, the contents of Palmer's files and folders were an open book to their weapons specialists.
X
Rip Hunter, escorted by John Diggle, arrived at an army base in Florida and was, in essence, handed over to the military. That he found himself being kept in semi-confinement was not unexpected, although it did irritate him a bit - with the future of humanity at sake, why would anyone doubt his willingness to co-operate?
One of the Time Master ships obtained by Savage had already arrived from Kaznia. He was assured it was one that Savage's technology specialist, Nikki, had not worked on. They took him to the bridge and looked at him as if they expected him simply to flip a switch and get the engines going.
''It doesn't work like that'' he pointed out. ''You guys must know about password protected systems and so on.''
He sat in the captain's chair, and he thought. He'd never known Frazier very well, but he dredged up what he'd heard about the legendry Time Ship Captain. From what he'd heard, the man had lived for his work. What Time Master related password would he have chosen? Rip's first half dozen tries didn't work. He was afraid to go on, in case he triggered some kind of security protocol.
''I'm going to have shut the A.I. manually'' he finally announced. ''Then reset the whole system.''
They hadn't like that. The distance between Earth and Mars was getting longer - who knows what Stein and the others were doing over there?
''Look'' he argued. ''This ship will get there. It just means the journey's going to take a bit longer. ''
X
It had taken the best part of a week to get all the disconnecting, reprogramming and reassembling completed.
''Look'' had been his usual answer to the daily moans about the delay. ''This isn't the newest, best maintained, Time Master ship''.' Which was true, Frazier had evidently been more of a gung-ho pirate capturer than an engineer.
He was on the verge of programming the A.I. to respond to his vocal commands, was in fact supplying a sample of his speech for analysis, when the security head honcho stopped him.
''It's my voice it'll respond to'' Talbot declared. ''You fly - I give the orders.''
''OK'' Rip had become resigned by then to his place in the scheme of things, but he had worked a bit of revenge into his modifications. ''The A.I.'s name - the key word for orders - is Slartibartfast.''
Talbot gave him an indescribable look - perhaps he had heard of 'Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. ''
The official 'diplomats'- actually military and secret service - Rip suspected, came on board. They set off - 'chasing after Mats - as one of them put it.
X
Ray had programmed an emergency fail-safe into the depths of his computer's hard drive, something the government techs failed to notice when they began to harvest Ray's work. Its function was simple - to send a 'I'm being hacked' message to Felicity Smoak.
''I'm the hacker's hacker'' she informed them as she carefully tracked which files and folders they were accessing.
She also tracked the uses to which those files and folders were being put, the projects that were being developed.
X
Lyla looked up, startled, as her door was thrown open and Felicity rushed into her office.
''That ship - the one Rip's on -you have to find a way to stop it or turn it back - now!''