Vas hesitated to say he had told them this would happen. But he had told them this would happen. Together with Captain Setaro and several squads of Stormtroopers, he waited in Miss Roolek's apartment. The Senator rushed in and threw himself on the ground before them and hugged his wife's corpse.
"Who did this? How could you let this happen?"
I told you so.
"We were first alerted that something was amiss when the security systems showed a small malfunction," Vas recounted. "The stationed troopers immediately entered the apartment but found your wife, healthy as ever, reading something and no one else was in the apartment. The alarm system was checked and qualified as being in working condition by a team of our finest technicians."
"Tell me what happened!"
"The second time, two days later, the alarm system failed completely and all sensors went offline. The teams entering the apartment found your wife deceased and the intruder was nowhere to be seen."
"I will have you demoted for this incompetence. I will have you put on trial for this. I will …" The Senator slumped down, clinging to the remains of his wife.
"We need to talk about the hutt in the room. Your wife, she was killed with a lightsaber."
The Senator seemed to really look at his wife for the first time. A grievous wound tore along her stomach, nearly cutting her in half. Even the spine was severed and the whole wound was cauterised by super hot plasma. The only weapon leaving such wounds was a lightsaber.
"Do you have any reports of a Jedi operating in the area and potentially cooperating with the rebels?" the Captain asked with a flat voice.
"No, mam. This doesn't help us clear up this case in the least. I don't want the Inquisition involved. It only makes the situation more messy."
"There we agree. If we get some concrete proof of a Jedi's involvement, we can call them. Maybe this was caused by … a plasma cutter…"
She fell silent, thinking about another possibility but they both knew there was none.
Vas looked up to see one of the technicians trying to get his attention and he walked over to him, to give the Senator some room.
"Sir, we have made a full scan of the system. It was switched off by Miss Roolek's protocol droid."
"He isn't a TC-series, right?" He couldn't have made such an obvious mistake.
"No, Sir. It is an RA-7."
"Where is it right now?"
"Follow me, my team is checking his circuits right now."
Vas looked over to the Captain who stood awkwardly next to the grieving senator and made a shooing gesture in his direction. He nodded and followed the technician into the adjacent room where they had stripped the droid on a table. All the decorative coverings removed, it was a hot mess of wires. The technicians seemed to know what they were doing as they took the droid apart, cutting wires with confidence that could only come from having done this dozens of times before..
"We are looking for any anomalies. Any parts that don't belong or anything really. That workstation over there is hooked up to the droid's brain and tries to find bugs or any backdoors in the software that would allow someone to take control of the droid."
"And what if the droid decided to develop a bit more free will than accepted for a protocol droid and went rogue?"
"We will find that as well but it is unlikely. When we scanned it briefly a few days ago, when this house arrest was set up, it behaved entirely normal. My guess is there is a trapdoor somewhere or Miss Roolek ordered the droid to shut down the system."
"That last theory could fit, considering her record of letting rebels into her house. Maybe she managed to make contact with them again –although I would love to know how– and the rebel then killed her. But the flaw in that logic is that she could have disabled the system herself. Why send her droid? It doesn't make sense."
"Too lazy?"
"I don't know. She didn't feel like the type. She was much too anxious to allow other people or droids into her trust."
"Sir, we found something," the technician behind the workstation said. "There is some kind of malware attached to the droid's consciousness. It can be remotely triggered, forcing the droid to follow the instructions and wipe its memory of that time afterwards."
"Can you find any of these wipes in the droid's memory?"
"Yes, there are …oh, there are a hundred and thirteen of these wipes ranging from two minutes to half a day within the last year. A few of them might be maintenance or other issues but the majority looks like it was caused by that program."
"The last year? That means the rebels had infiltrated this house long before the kidnapping. I don't suppose you can see if Miss Roolek knew about it at all. Maybe by finding out what triggered the software to activate."
"The software responds to long-range communication on a specific frequency, so it is unlikely the software was started by Miss Roolek."
"When was the first of these memory wipes?"
"Almost exactly a year and a month ago but the metadata indicates it has been at a droid repair facility to get a servo changed."
"Well, they had to implant the software at some point."
"That makes sense," the technician mused. "I doubt it would have gotten past the firewall in an activated state."
"What's the name of the shop?"
"Rido's droid repairs. He is a trusted partner of the local garrison for years now. Maybe someone broke in. Who knows what happened in these three hours of missing memory."
"Wait? Did you say he also repairs droids for the garrison? Isn't that usually done by our own technicians?"
"Well, technically they're not our people, they're not much better than militia. They don't have anyone skilled enough to work with droids. And yes, I read it in one of the service records of a damaged droid aboard the Challenger."
Vas had an eerie premonition.
"How did that droid get aboard?"
"We needed replacements for some of our droids, especially these medical droids and the Captain … convinced the garrison to hand them over."
"The droids who were in the same shop where this droid got infected?"
The technician's eyes widened as he realised. "But that means-"
Vas held one finger to his lips as he looked around if there were any droids nearby.
"Is the security net still deactivated?"
The technician nodded.
"Search it for the same malware."
Vas pulled out his commlink and whispered, "Zero, if there are any of your surveillance drones or centipedes still in the apartment, deactivate them immediately."
"Understood," the Scout trooper said without even questioning the order.
Vas stepped into the main room and looked at the medical droid who had accompanied them in case Miss Roolek needed medical attention.
"Sergeant Alphabet, send one of your troopers with the medical droid back to the Challenger. There are troopers who need its attention."
Neither the Sergeant nor any of the troopers questioned the order but the Captain perked up and scrutinised him. With a nod to the other room, he gestured for her to follow.
"What is happening, Agent?" she asked after she had stepped into the room and looked at the carnage on the table.
Vas closed the door behind her and she looked at him even more suspiciously. One hand even wandered down to her blaster. She didn't seem to trust him much.
"We might have a situation. This droid was infected with malware that allowed someone to give it instructions via long-range transmission. We are not sure how far it has spread. Maybe it is just this droid but there is a possibility even some of the requisitioned droids on the Challenger are infected."
"The security net of this apartment has the same malware," the technician added.
The Captain looked around nervously. "Are you saying there might be droids on my ship that are controlled by the enemy? Could a droid pass on this malware to another?"
Vas looked questioningly at the techs.
"Maybe, there is no physical component needed. But the program would only be useful on droids able to receive long-range communication."
"No," the Captain added with an increasingly worried face. "The rebels would only need one droid on the ship to receive instructions who could pass them on via short-range communication then. I want all droids on my ship checked immediately."
Captain Setaro was worried but she didn't grasp the full problem. "Captain, one very important question. We think the malware can't get past active firewalls. Did you shut down the Challenger's main frame since we took these droids aboard?"
The Captain's knees buckled under her and Vas caught her at the last moment, lowering her to the ground.
"Last week, a maintenance check-up but only for fifteen minutes. Maybe that wasn't enough to get my ship?" she asked hopefully.
"We have to assume every droid or electronic system is compromised. But if they had access to the mainframe already, I doubt we would still be in control of the ship."
"Captain, where are you?" the senator's angry voice yelled through the other door.
She suddenly became aware of her surroundings, used Vas' hand to get back to her feet and straightened her uniform. Looking at Vas, she growled, "Get me my ship back, I'll keep this idiot occupied. If you need anything, tell me and you'll have it."
She kept his gaze for another few seconds, then put on a fake smile and headed for the door.
"Senator, I am here. Don't worry, why don't we sit down and-"
The door closed and drowned out her cheery voice. Vas turned to the technicians. "None of you is leaving this room or using any kind of commlinks until this matter is resolved. I don't trust the standard imperial encryption with something like this."
Vas activated the highest encryption his ISB-commlink offered. "Constable Dalle, do you copy?"
"Yes, Sir. I am currently questioning one of the troopers who let our rebel escape."
"Leave him, and get into your Stormtrooper armour."
"Sir?"
"Do as I say and call me back once you're ready?"
Deactivating his commlink, he turned to the techs.
"In the meantime, we have to find a way to check how far the malware has spread. Can we check it while the systems are running?"
"No, those systems are protected by the firewall from every access. The firewall has a dozen fail-safes. It will most likely be the last system running if a Star Destroyer is attacked. To prevent the enemy from getting sensible data."
"Which means we would have to shut down the Challenger's mainframe to look if it is infected and in the process, we're exposing her to just that threat," Vas said.
"Worse, if someone actively monitors the droids –which I would do if I were them and just staged the assassination of Miss Roolek– they would notice what we're doing and might initiate some kind of suicide mission for all of them. There are at least a few thousand droids on board."
"But they can only be activated by a specific frequency. If we get one of the other ships to flush that specific frequency with static, they wouldn't be able to do anything."
"Unless they have some kind of deadman switch that activates them once the frequency is blocked."
"That's not possible," one of the other techs intervened. "They would have to have them under control the whole time."
"Unless…"
As the techs dove deeper into their discussion, Vas' commlink buzzed.
"I'm ready, Sir. What are your orders?"
"Do you have your helmet on? I don't want any sound getting to the outside."
"Yes, sir."
"You need to find any kind of droid and deactivate it before it can send any signals."
"Like a mouse droid, Sir?"
"Yes, any kind."
"One moment … argh, got one. One deactivated mouse droid for you."
"I'll send you a file. You need to check whether it is also on that droid. Do not –I repeat– do not use any terminals connected to the ship for it."
"Can I use a datapad?"
"Disconnect it from the ship's net, then yes."
"Can you tell me what is happening?"
"The droids on board might be compromised and in the worst case even the main computer."
After a few seconds of silence, Dalle said, "The datapad found a similar program. It says ninety-seven percent similarities."
"That's what we feared. You will commandeer two regiments of Stormtroopers, secure the main frame, main and auxiliary reactor, engine room and the armouries. Do not let any droid inside. If someone gives you a hard time, direct them to the Captain. We'll be with you soon."
Addressing the techs in the room, he said, "Gentlemen, follow me. Take only what you need to modify one of the shuttles into a powerful frequency blocker."
"Activate the jammer," Vas said and rushed out of the shuttle. He gave the big loader droids an especially critical eye. Since the Captain had ordered the acquisition of supplies from the planet, a steady stream of cargo had been brought onto the Star Destroyer, the food and water to feed almost forty thousand people for one day was in the dozens of tons and enough to keep a shuttle occupied the whole day.
The loaders –borrowed from the local garrison as well– were simple machines but with their brute strength alone, they could damage the Challenger and its hangars quite a lot.
"Deactivate these loaders and every other droid you come across. Start a scan of all other vehicles and if possible remove the malware," Vas yelled at the techs as he and Alphabet's squad rushed towards the lifts on the far side of the hangars.
"Constable Dalle, what is your situation?"
"We've had some very persistent droids trying to enter the main reactor but they're on a timeout now. All other locations are secured as well. We-"
A priority message blocked out the answer and Captain Setaro's voice came through his comm.
"Agent, tell me you're the one blocking that frequency."
"Yes, I am. Don't worry, we will have this situation back under our control in no time."
"Next time I want you to inform me before you do something like this. I got a few anxious calls from the Senior Lieutenants aboard the Hydra and Orion, they were preparing their ships for an attack. Standard rebel procedure. Block comms and then attack."
"I didn't want to involve more people. It would give the enemy more time to react."
"I hope you can trust me that I'm not working for the rebels."
"Obviously I am. But at the moment we can't be sure how far this infection has spread and it is safer to say nothing.
"Wait a moment," The Captain said and only when Vas reached the lift, did she speak up again. "An alarm was raised in the med bay! Medical droids are killing patients."
"Damn. We are on our way."
The door to the lift was about to close when one of the techs yelled out in surprise. The loader he had been working on, suddenly dropped its cargo and accelerated towards one of the parked shuttles. Vas stepped in the door to stop it from closing and pulled his blaster.
"That's what I wanted to prevent. Let's go boys," Vas said and opened fire on the loader. His meagre shots didn't even pierce the strong plating and the loader closed the distance to the shuttle and smashed his bulky arms into the cockpit.
When Sergeant Alphabet and his squad opened fire with their heavy blaster rifles, the loader at least noticed their presence. By then the shuttle and all the supplies inside were a mess. The blaster bolts pierced its hull in dozens of points but such a simple construct as a loader was hard to destroy and it hulked towards them now that they got its attention..
"Focus on the left leg," Vas ordered and shifted his aim as well as they retreated further The droid casually swatted a TIE-Fighter away. Its panels screeched over the ground, broke and the cockpit slammed onto the ground.
Under the concentrated fire, the leg gave in and the big machine crashed to the ground. But it wasn't done yet. Crawling on its two arms, it turned to one of the other nearby TIE-Fighters.
"We need to stop it before it reaches them," Vas said and in lack of better options, he ran forward, avoiding the still flailing legs and jumped on its back. The tech had been trying to deactivate it peacefully but for that, it was much too late, so he unloaded his pistol into its core, destroying it beyond the point of repair. Finally, it slumped to the ground, its servos groaning one last time until it lay still.
Vas looked over to the other loaders who stood peacefully where they had been deactivated but one tech was missing. Holding on to the rampaging loader, he had been thrown off when it attacked the shuttle. His pulped remains lay in the wreck of the shuttle and Vas had to look away as his stomach turned.
"All stations report!"