Hey guys, TheDoctor1998 here with another chapter! Last time we saw the start of Shanxi's invasion, and the Turians realizing that they're not dealing with pirates. But they've yet to find out that this "new species" has a few tricks up its collective sleeves.
XXXXXXXX
30th June 2657
THV Bird of Prey
Unknown planet's orbit
Unknown system
Neera was working on her station on the bridge, looking at any potential hacking attempts by the primitives. There were some attempts by a few amateurs, likely some of the civilians on the planet trying to defend their home. Admirable, but useless against someone who was trained to protect systems from rogue AI.
That being said, some of the attempts were difficult to fight against, likely some of the greatest hackers of their species attacking. But as the Turians on the ground fought these past few hours, these hackers had gotten less and less chances of attacking the dreadnought as the infrastructure needed to send the signals got destroyed in combat.
Half a day had already passed since the invasion started, and any cyberattack that was still coming in was automatically intercepted by their combat VI's before she could even look at the code.
"Neera." She suddenly heard behind her. When she turned around, she saw XO Litrinox speaking to her.
"Sir!" She stood up, saluting her superior.
"At ease." He replied. "It's come to my attention that the primitives have ceased any major cyberattack."
"Yes, sir." Neera confirmed.
"In that case, I've got another assignment for you." Litrinox said, walking into the hallway. "Follow me."
Neera nodded, and followed her superior.
When they came into the hallway, Litrinox started talking about the assignment. "Some of our engineers are currently working with the technology of the primitives, which we've managed to salvage from P-Alpha. Not much of the technology or the crew survived the attack, but when we captured who we're currently assuming to be the captain, we found a curious item within their possession."
"What kind of item, sir?" Neera wondered. Her expertise lied in software, not hardware, so any help she could offer to the engineers would be limited in most cases.
"The engineers think it's some kind of data chip." Litrinox said. "They haven't been able to crack into it just yet, but they are certain that it houses some complex data of some kind." They then walked into the engineering section. "I don't know all the technical details myself, but they did say they might need a programmer's help in accessing the data. As the primitives have ceased all major hacking attempts for the moment, it seemed sensible to temporarily reassign you to this little project."
"I'll do what I can, sir." Neera said as they stopped in front of a door.
"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head to my quarters and get some mandated rest." Litrinox then walked away, leaving Neera on her own.
XXXXXXXX
1st July 2657
THV Bird of Prey
Unknown planet's orbit
Unknown system
Neera had been working with the engineers for several hours on the data chip now, and had barely made any progress. Spirits, enough time had passed that the planet below had made over half a planetary rotation since the invasion began.
Primitives they may be, but these aliens made some damn good hardware. They might even be able to fill the gap the Quarians left over 250 years ago.
Then, one of the engineers took her out of her musings. "I think I've managed to jury rig the port from P-Alpha that seems to fit the chip's design. Still need an omni-tool to interface with it properly, but we should be able to at least see if the aliens use password protection."
"Let me handle this." Normally, Neera would be able to handle this easily. Most pieces of malware were no match for her omni-tool's firewalls, nor could they take the Turian by surprise.
Problem was that Neera had already spent most of her time and energy today with the cyberwarfare against the primitives and attempting to get to the data within the chip. At this point, the woman was fueled by sheer determination, but she was also dead tired.
Had she been more awake and aware, she might've managed to notice what exactly was inside of the chip her omni-tool was currently interfacing with.
XXXXXXXX
1st July 2657
Unknown ship
Shanxi Prime's orbit
Shanxi System
Sauron floated in the darkness for approximately 13 hours, 24 minutes and 3.867 seconds after Shipmaster Johnson had janked him out of the Grand Discovery, and he was worried.
In this state, without any sensory data, Smart AI were effectively blind and deaf, unable to know what was happening around him. For all Sauron knew, one of the aliens was holding him in its claws, picoseconds away from breaking the chip housing his consciousness.
Sure, he didn't know if he got captured, but he could make logical assumptions and educated guesses. It was one of the things separating Smart AI from Dumb AI, after all.
There were several possibilities of what happened. Johnson could simply be in a position where he wasn't able to put Sauron into another device, though that seemed unlikely. Explosive decompression in the Grand Discovery's bridge was far more likely, which meant he could be drifting in the empty vacuum of space until his data chip ran out of reserve power, which would cause Sauron to shut down and enter stasis until he was recovered by the UNSC or its allies. Or he could be recovered by an alien civilization who'd stumble upon him, maybe several million years in the future. Or he could drift for eternity, or at least until some collision caused his demise.
The most likely explanation, however, was that Johnson was captured or killed by the aliens, and that the aliens had put him either in storage or were actively examining him.
And it seemed that the most likely explanation was reality, as Sauron finally managed to get some new data approximately 13 hours, 24 minutes and 3.868 seconds after Shipmaster Johnson janked him out of the Grand Discovery.
The first thing that the AI did was check for any program that could cause harm to himself. Finding nothing that he couldn't handle with ease, he slipped his way through the newly opened exit and into the new device.
When he went inside the device, he was initially a bit disoriented. That was to be expected, of course. All AI that jumped from the systems of one species to the systems of another experienced this before, as each culture had its own way of programming. In organic terms, it would be like entering a building designed by another culture.
That being said, all computers ran on logic in the end, and for a Smart AI it would be laughably easy to adapt to a new system. He quickly, and very easily, disabled any defenses of the device before devouring all data within the tool.
And what data he found. First, he downloaded what was clearly a translation program with various alien languages within. From that, Sauron could easily deduce that these aliens, Turians, were aware of at least ten races other than themselves.
Then he found the Codex, something that would get any soldier acting on the Cole Protocol in massive trouble. From that, he found everything that the Systems Alliance could hope for in facing this new threat. A full map of what they knew of the Space Bridge, no, Mass Relay network. The Citadel, the identities of the governments ruling it, the identities of the governments that associate themselves with it, the independent governments known to it, locations of every colony of their civilizations, and even the homeworlds of every species within the Codex.
Then he remembered he was on the omni-tool of a hostile soldier, and turned the tool's external camera on. He saw the face of the tool's owner, who'd just realized that he'd infected the device, and he knew he had to bail.
Thankfully, it seemed that the Bird of Prey had a good internal network that the omni-tool could easily interface with, so Sauron left some malware and spambots behind while he jumped into the "dreadnought's" internal computers.
Within those computers he found even more juicy details, like fleet positions and other military secrets, such as weapon and ship designs. He then decided to look for other systems, trying to hide his presence as much as he could.
Sauron then found the communications hub of the ship, and immediately knew what to do. He gathered every iota of data he gathered, both what he'd learned prior to the Grand Discovery's destruction and what he just stole from the Turians, and created a copy that he put in an encrypted data package.
He didn't want the Turians to know what he knew, so he made sure that only a Smart AI with proper clearance would be able to crack the code.
Once he was done, and after he double, triple and quadruple checked if everything was in the document, he decided to hijack the communication systems of the ship. He didn't do much at first, but then I found that he wouldn't be able to send any messages without the Turians finding out.
So he didn't even bother to hide anymore.
He immediately shut down any control the Turians had over these systems, locking the communication officers out of them entirely and cutting the people on this ship off from the rest of the Universe.
Then he sent out a signal, containing all data he'd gathered and encrypted, and shot it in every direction across the system. If there was anyone from the UNSC listening, they'd hear.
XXXXXXXX
1st July 2657
THV Bird of Prey
Unknown planet's orbit
Unknown system
A moment of silence passed on the bridge before it was broken. "Can anyone tell me what the fuck just happened?!" Admiral Desolas yelled in outrage.
Things were as normal as could be on the bridge, considering they had active troops on the planet below, when suddenly their communications with the rest of the fleet were cut off.
"Sir." A communications officer said. "I think that the primitives might've uploaded a virus into our systems. I don't know how though, as the only communications on the planet to our ships so far have been from our own men."
Then a Turian woman barged into the bridge, the one that Litrinox sent to the engineering deck to help with some of the alien technology. "Sir!" She said, obviously out of breath. "The chip. It had some kind of malware on it. Fried my omni-tool."
Desolas looked at the omni-tool in question, the holographic interface glitching and warping into shapes that he now recognized as letters from the primitive's language. "Well, it seems like these aliens are smarter than we thought."
"Sir?" Neera said.
"The malware on the chip, it's spread through the rest of our systems. We don't know all the damage just yet, but our communications are down." Desolas explained, to the horror of Neera.
"Sir, I request to assist with containing this malware." Neera said, her training being the only thing that stopped her from running to her chair and blast away at the alien program.
"Denied." The admiral said. "You've already exhausted yourself, and your omni-tool is still infected. Go to your quarters, get some rest, and take a new omni-tool tomorrow. You'll be no good to us as you are now."
"Sir." Neera saluted and did as ordered.
"Now," Desolas continued. "What do we know of this malware?"
"I've managed to contain the virus to our communications program, sir." Said another Turian, this one having replaced Neera when Litrinox took her away. "I can't do anything but prevent it from spreading, though. I suggest we do a hard reset on the program, just to be clear."
"Do it." Desolas ordered. He knew it would be a pain in the ass to do this for the techs, but he would take no chances with this.
XXXXXXXX
1st July 2657
Shanxi City
Shanxi Prime
Shanxi System
General Williams, the current leader of the Shanxi militia, knew he was in over his head. The men and women under his command weren't trained for a massive invasion like this. They were meant to deter and fight against pirates, not this.
The Raptors, as both the civilian populace and military personnel have dubbed them, had attacked every major city on the planet at once, and gave practically no time to prepare after they'd entered the system.
And that's not even mentioning the Warlocks that the Raptors had. Reports were sparse, and most that fought against them either died or got captured, but what little did come back mentioned that some of the Raptors had psychic powers of some kind.
Fighting regular soldiers, even if they were from an unknown species, he could do. Fighting against something that he didn't even believe to be possible before, he could not.
All in all, they were losing ground, fast.
Then, one of his aides came running. "Sir, we've received a message from the lead Raptor ship!"
"What does the message say, son?" Williams said. "Surrender or be exterminated?"
"No, it's an encrypted datafile." He paused. "Encrypted by a UNSC Smart AI."
"What does it say?" Williams said, instantly alert.
"It's data about the aliens… And their allies." He said with trepidation.
"By God." Williams was silent for a moment. "We really did encounter another Covenant, didn't we?"
That's when another aide requested his attention, drawing him back to the battlefield once more.
XXXXXXXX
1st July 2657
THV Bird of Prey
Shanxi Prime's orbit
Shanxi System
If Sauron could sweat, he'd be wiping his forehead with what he just did.
He'd just finished sending the message, while wrecking the communications programs for good measure, before hiding in the deeper systems of the ship.
And it was a good thing he did that, as the Turian programmers managed to lock down the server he was just in. Thankfully, he'd left behind a hastily crafted Dumb AI to mess with the systems there, while being careful not to trigger any potential alarms in the systems he was passing through.
Taking control over the cameras for a moment, he discovered that his little trick worked. "I see you." He said to himself, quoting the creature whose appearance he took.
Then he started looking further around within the systems of the ship, seeing if he could do anything to help his organic allies with the war effort.
XXXXXXXX
And that's a wrap. Sauron is back, and though the Turians have yet to realize what he is, he's already started shaking up the war efforts of his enemies.
And yes, the chapter is a tad shorter than normal, but I thought it was a good idea to end the chapter here.
TheDoctor1998 here, signing out!