Chapter 3:
"I hope it's satisfactory."- he said while unveiling one of the best mobile rigs money could buy. "It'll do." - she responded facetiously. However, her euphoria induced hubris soon came crashing down upon actually opening the command line. The GCN was notorious for upping its security after a live broadcast of a state funeral got hijacked by slicers to play the infamous 'Jealous Jawa Vol. 69' instead. Even the real Shyrack would probably struggle with this task, let alone a pretender like her. "You have 20 minutes." This was turning out disastrous. The chair she was sitting on might as well have been an electric chair.
Not knowing what else to do, and lacking the skill for more sophisticated attacks, she decided on a brute force port knocking attack. She would leverage the rig's raw power to randomly try every connection port on the GCN network in the hopes of maybe discovering a back door. She only needed to type a few lines and the attack was a go. Now she would just have to wait and hope that something comes up.
"Done already?" The Zygerrian had already moved to mocking. "It's executing, give it a minute." A minute came and went, then five, then ten. Things were looking dire. In the hopes of maybe discovering some kind of hint, she opened the GCN's main page on the holonet. Maybe, just maybe, it would volunteer some kind of solution, something that could save her life. "Boss, this isn't happening. Let's just space her." He certainly wasn't one to keep the faith. "Her time isn't up yet! At least give her that much, boss." Her faithful defender, always in her corner. But it was time for her to face reality: she just couldn't do it. She had hit the low after the euphoric high. There never was a chance for her to do it. She started thinking about her life up to that point, in that dark rancid hole called Level 4097. Perhaps a blaster bolt through the skull was a kindness compared to life there. Still, there almost was a weird sort of comfort to that place. If misery was one thing, it was certain.
Then suddenly something happened. A cryptic error message sent back from one of the ports. "How odd" she thought. Ports weren't usually in the habit of volunteering information. 'Expecting connection from' followed by a random string of numbers and letters. Could this be it? She had to figure out what this was and quickly, there were only five minutes left.
"Why would you respond with a debug message? Whom is this message intended for?" Her mind raced with all those questions. Four minutes left. She decided to go back to the GCN site, frantically scrolling through it as the time evaporated. 'Live news coverage?' - "No." 'Commitment to objectivity?' not it either. And then it suddenly hit her: 'Emergency Broadcasts!' Of course, the government would need some way of interfacing with the network. The address it requires would then be the ID for the local government network. She quickly started looking through one of the address dumps on her favorite slicer boards. One minute left. Who else but the real Shyrack came to her rescue. An old post by them detailing how to spoof a government network address. She started to type like a madwoman. 25 seconds left. Attaching a recording of a selkath opera. 15 seconds left. Checking the NAPT table to make sure the packet got forwarded correctly. 5 seconds left. And run!
'Syntax error'
The light from the red text seemed to engulf her whole world, the last bit of hope drowned by it. This was it. For all her efforts, she would still wind up with a hole in her skull. She slunk back in the chair and soon was met with a blaster pistol pressed against her skull. "I'm truly sorry but there is no other way" - "Come on, just let her go!" - "You know I can't do that." Suddenly Ves started to giggle uncontrollably. The giggle soon turned to a mad cackle and finally full-throated deranged laughter. "Just put the poor rat out of her misery." The Zygerian sounded almost empathetic. But before the Weequay could fire a shot, Ves had already leaned back forward and started typing again. She had seen it, the one mistake that nearly doomed her:
She had typed 'urn' instead of 'run'.
She quickly fixed the mistake and this time it executed flawlessly. She got up off her chair, holocom in hand. She turned it on and sure enough, senate deliberations were replaced by Tragedy of the Kolto Act I Scene 1.
The Zabrak woman nearly knocked her over when she jumped to hug her. "I knew! I knew…" The Weequay boss put away his blaster, and gave her a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. Even the Zygerian seemed to nod respectfully at her from his corner. She had done it! She had done the impossible.