Chapter 7 – investigations, or descent and rebirth.
Alteran date: year 6, month 5, day 1, time 14:30
"That was close." Tav breathed slumped over chin resting on the edge of the console he was tired having only slept a few hours before being called into the captain's office and then spending the hours they had tracking down access codes. He was also very angry. Someone had just tried to blow up Caelias his city!
Aikino felt the same anger but his was tinged with a brief hint of satisfaction. The last trace had managed to pull three command codes from the access logs for the database where the malicious script had been hidden. "I've got three prime suspects. Can't say I'm happy with whom they are but I am satisfied that we narrowed it down to three. Let's get these to Captain Fenri."
The young men locked the terminals after setting the repair programs to the task of restoring the damaged subroutines from backups. The damage to the research database would have to be repaired later. Quite a few projects would be set back they would have to go through each backup manually from a quarantined station depending on how far back the virus had been added to the database.
Luckily the residual paranoia leftover from their flight away from their home galaxy had kept the numerous protections and firewalls operating over most of the distributed database with only a few exceptions being the systems they'd been installing for the past year since their mining operations had been bringing in resources that enabled them to do so.
Amelius was working in one of the joint tactical science labs with Artiem Lal going over their adjustments to the experimental stun weapons when the lights flickered and the ship dropped out of FTL.
"Amelius, the terminal just locked out the research database."
"Do we still have the files for the stun settings open?"
"Yes, but I won't be able to save our changes until the research database comes back online."
"What about the tactical department's storage?"
"That's locked out as well, but still online."
He didn't want to use this but their last test seemed to have been a success the stun weapon being able to sustain a decent rate of fire while not punishing the batteries that powered it. And they had just managed to calibrate the electrical discharge to levels required to knock out a person without harming them. He pulled out a necklace with a small storage cystal; it was his private research database. He made sure the terminal was disconnected from the city network before running a custom scan to detect viruses and spy software before plugging in the storage unit and copying the files over. Feeling a little easier that a sudden loss of power to the terminal wouldn't wipe the last three days' worth of work from the volatile memory of the terminal he turned to Lal. "Take the prototype and go assist Captain Fenri with whatever annoying pest caused all the databases to lockdown."
Lal nodded grabbing the two hand stun rifle before calling the bridge to inform Fenri she was on her way up and running out the door.
Thirty minutes later Tav, Aikino, and Lal were seated in Fenris office facing him. Lal was first to talk. "Stun rifle prototype, we just finished it. Amelius thought you might need it in the event of difficulty where non-lethal resolution is desired."
Aikino brought up the three command codes next, "We have three suspects, these three command codes showed up in all the places where the damage was."
Fenri's eyes widened at the information displayed on his computer screen. "Artiem, discreetly gather your security detail and take these three individuals into custody. We don't know yet if all of them were involved or if it was just one or two of them."
Artiem nodded to the commander before turning and walking out of the room.
Aikino leaned over and whispered to Tav, "So, you like her? Cause she gave you the look on the way out." which caused him to blush.
"Aikino, Tav," the captain said nodding to each pulling them out of their private conversation, "You can speculate on Lieutenant Lal's interests later, right now I need a report on the status of our systems, and how long until we can reactivate the FTL drive safely."
"Well sir, the repair programs are still restoring the damaged subroutines from backup and should have reactor safeties up and running in the next hour, FTL will need recalibration by engineering and related subroutines should be restored in two hours." Aikino looked at Tav for the next portion of the report.
"There are still a dozen other systems that are operating at reduced capacity and the research portion of the database will take a solid month of rebuilding, we left the old database intact in case we can restore some of the files but it's quarantined from the rest of the computer network until we wipe and replace it with the backup."
"Can the rest of the databases be safely unlocked?"
"We want to run an extensive scan of each database before opening it back up, in case there are more surprises." Tav answered.
"And if one of them confesses or otherwise confirms our suspicions we can use their code directly track the files accessed and lock them down before they can activate." Aikino interjected.
"We think we can do so without triggering the virus code now that we have access codes." Tav added.
"That's all I needed to know, get to work I want our systems back in working order gentlemen." Fenri dismissed them waiting until they were out the door before letting out a sigh of exhaustion.
He had an entire city worth of people to protect on this harebrained trek across the universe, and while he wasn't close to many of them being the commanding officer of everyone who kept this ship running he considered every individual aboard not only his personal responsibility, but also family, and he didn't and never had taken kindly to threats to his family.
One of his eccentricities afforded by his distinguished position and long years of service allowed him to requisition an older style phone for his office instead of the usual communication panel. He found that every now and then being able to physically drop the handheld communication device onto the receiver afforded some measure of satisfaction when the otherside would hear the audible click and subsequent termination of the communication. It also had the other side effect that his conversations felt more private when only he could hear what the other person was saying.
He picked up his phone now and told the computer to connect him to the leading civilian researcher on artificial intelligence, an old friend of his one Qualia Senn.
"Senn, prepare that presentation for the council, I'm backing your research I don't like viruses messing up my city's systems."
"I am the presiding member of the council! I demand to know what you're doing here." Tyrien shouted a blood vessel bulging over his forehead and his face red.
"High councilor, we've been directed to take you into custody please come with us."
"I don't think so." Tyrien said bending over his desk as if to press a button on the terminal.
'Oh this is taking too long' Lal thought leveling her stun rifle from the doorway and squeezing the trigger.
Tyrien didn't even see the stun bolt coming, he slumped back down into his chair as the security detail Artiem Lal brought with her stepped into his office and picked him up to carry to the holding cell next to the first two who had left with them.
The first two suspects had come quite willingly and without argument. Ianas knew Lal from a few conversations with Tav over the past few years; he'd only looked at her asked a one word question and then followed them out the door.
The other suspect Phoebe a decent programmer had only nodded grimly to Lal mentioned that she hadn't had lunch yet and asked if they would bring her some.
Tav stared his screen blankly; they had almost the entire network working on replacing missing safety protocols and control systems. The sheer volume of systems that had been infiltrated and modified by the script without alerting the crew was staggering the program had to have been running since they left celestus.
So far all three command codes had been implicated in some manner but the interesting bit was the timestamp for when Ianas' command code had accessed those areas was after the council had stripped him of those privileges. Both of the other two command codes had been used off and on over the past 5 years.
He needed sleep but before he did he wanted to ask Amelius a few questions.
Amelius sat in his lab tinkering with a small angular device with a handle when Tav walked in. He looked after finishing whatever he was doing with the device.
"Tav! How can I help you?"
"Do you still have the deprogrammer prototype from the ark?"
"It's over in the storage closet, why?"
"Well someone may have managed to compromise certain high ranking people who may have planted some rather annoying viruses in the network."
"Certain high ranking members of the council might object to its use." Amelius warned, remembering the first time he'd proposed it.
"That won't be an issue." Tav said from the storage room filled with shelves and boxes containing prototypes and broken equipment. "Which one is it?"
"Section F, third shelf from the top it's a small handheld device with a blue and orange crystal."
Tav found it easily taking it and thanking Amelius.
Now just to get it to Lal then he could rest.
"Those who reject the path will be cleansed in the everlasting fire."
Tav heard the voice from down the hall practically screaming. Well at least he knew the interrogation was going fine.
He walked up to the guard and asked him to open the door. Walking into the room the man who had been yelling snarled at him and sat back down. Tav nodded to Lal before raising his hand with the device in his palm. He pointed the thing at Tyrien and activated it. The light was blinding it filed the room streaming through the window into the hallway behind him. Tav and Lal both squinted and a moment later the light disappeared leaving the three people in the room dazed.
When their vision cleared enough to see the high councilor had sunk to the floor face in his hands. "I couldn't stop myself. What have I done?"
Tav handed the spent device to Lal, "There is enough power left for one more shot, you'll need to replace the power crystal after that." He felt a little weak in the knees the unfocused device had spilled over onto him and Lal some and he still hadn't gotten his sleep in yet. Even the tiny bit of spillover shook him. Tav turned and left the room he was going to go collapse into his bed and ignore the city for his full eight hours.
Tyrien would have to go through and rethink ever decision he'd made for the past eight years. But he still didn't think he'd change his mind much over Ianas' cloning research. He still felt it was careless and the punishment still stood for ignoring the council's decision instead of petitioning for another hearing. Most of all it would take time before he would be able to trust his own judgment again. It might be best if he stepped down and went with the cultural exchange when they reached the other pyramid.
Review Responses:
Beyogi: Ianas being the namesake of the lantean janus obviously shares much of the same characteristics like that of having to do something even more if told not to.
He's really only banned as long as Tyrien is High councilor Tria said as much or hinted it when she caught him cloning Arwen. The main reason there is such an issue with the cloning research Ianas already told us about with his internal monologue, his previous attempts were considered inhumane because of the perceived suffering of the clones which died on the table after being removed. Plus, one he didn't talk about which came out evil. Interesting story that one, I'll have to write about it, because it involves Tyrien.
StargateFFWriter: Imagine the big grin on my face. It really is an awesome idea, considering it's virtually untouched territory most of what we know is second and third hand accounts by people who are reading about it like it's a history lesson or ancient myth. I'm really surprised that I couldn't find other fanfiction trying to touch it directly.
Aer-ki knows of it.
General note: Thanks everyone for reading I'm glad you're all enjoying the show. Also please if I do something truly stupid or start to make characters act in unbelievable ways please tell me, and even if I'm doing fine write a review telling me what you liked about the chapter, what was missing, what you want to know. I'm sure my writing has shown improvement from the first chapter to the latest. This chapter took a bit longer to write, I knew what I wanted to do but getting there was harder than it should have been. Sometimes it feels like the story is alive as I'm writing and it changes from what my mind originally wanted and goes in a different direction.