Episode 80, One-convoy-one-trick
12 Jul 2024Ryuko Ntsikana
Episode 80, One-convoy-one-trick
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While the Diamondback Explorer was a fine ship, nothing is without its faults. Those who envisioned a ship of exploration passed it down to the engineers who designed it. Those same engineers had rarely traveled further than the systems they called home. A ship meant to go deep into the beyond, having one zero-g toilet was a sin. To have the computer, which controls most things on the ship, to be given command over the toilet itself was absurd, yet here we are.
The Explorer was not a purpose-built stealth scouting ship like Nyx’s Scout, but its AI could play the chameleon if given the right encouragement. Modifying the embedded firmware required the carrier’s own AI to crack the manufacturer's encryption and then apply a security firmware patch. This would now allow the ship, when recognizing it was being scanned, to activate the new divergent scan data routines. This new and rare routine would both return a predetermined false report, based upon whatever we wanted those scanning us to know, while querying their own systems to return a complete manifest, on a sub-channel.
Since the updates, the AI had developed a quirk in something as mundane as waste management. Part of the time it would work, the other part it would misinterpret the commands and reset itself. Sometimes resetting the nearby small kitchenette would clear it, other times it required resetting the lighting or magnetic gravity plating.
The AI itself could detect no issues and no report recognized that a problem existed. Thankfully this gremlin was isolated to minor subroutines and nothing major like the hyperdrive or weapons and shielding. While not a game-ending event, it was damned well annoying.
I stood in the small, cramped head, staring at the flashing red indicator on the control panel. "Waste Management System Error."
"Tara, we've got another issue with the zero-g toilet," I called out, my voice echoing slightly in the confined space.
From the cockpit, Tara's voice came through the intercom, tinged with amusement. "Again?"
"It's not funny," I grumbled, tapping at the control panel uselessly. "Can you reset it from the bridge?"
"Give me a moment," Tara replied. I could hear her working through the ship’s systems, her fingers dancing over the console. The lights flickered briefly as she rerouted power and executed a manual override.
After a few tense seconds, the red indicator turned green, and the system hummed back to life. "There you go, all set."
"Thanks," I said, relief washing over me. "I swear, I can't keep dealing with a computer that decides when I can use the bathroom."
"Maybe you should take it as a sign," Tara teased.
"Maybe you should focus on keeping the ship running smoothly," I shot back, but there was no real bite in my words.
Leaving the head, I made my way back to the cockpit where Tara was monitoring our course. The logistics convoy we inserted ourselves into flew lazily around us.
"Everything good?" I asked.
"For now," Tara replied, her eyes scanning the readouts. "We’ve been scanned several times, and each time the divergent scan data coding engaged.”
Pulling my linked data tablet out of my suit’s thigh pocket, I accessed the ship’s current scan reports. “Looks like we have a complete manifest on all of them, and none appear to have been detected.”
Tara turned her head, looking up and to the left, at one of the distant security escort ships. “If they had, I imagine that fellow there and his cohorts would not be too pleased.”
I nodded in understanding. “This is a one-convoy-one-trick routine. By the time they make their berths and go through their maintenance cycle, if they have an engineer among them as observant as Lianna, they will catch the discrepancy and want answers.”
“She is proving to be an asset in that regard,” Tara commented, turning in the pilot’s seat to look over her shoulder.
“I couldn’t tell the others without giving myself away and placing us both in a dangerous position of learning what I am,” Tara continued her voice steady but with a hint of concern. “But I was able to retrieve the doctor’s data from his encrypted drive as he and Nyx neared the ship. I stored it in my neural processor in case it is ever needed as a safeguard. I could not allow what he had done to be repeated or to come back on you.”
I paused, allowing the moment of silence to hang in the air, wondering if I should tell her I had already guessed as much but thinking better of it. "You have all the data?"
Tara nodded. "Yes, and it's secure. I have already created a new synthetic DNA strand and stored it within. No one else can access it but me and no scan would be able to detect it if I were compromised. Without me, it is as if it never existed.”
Tara unbuckled herself from the pilot’s seat, turning around so that her eyes met mine. Even though she was evolving past programming into actual emotions, her protective desires and feelings had only deepened and I could see that in the way she looked at me. I could tell that she knew my feelings ran just as deep, and that was something that I could not hide as a playful smile appeared automatically on my face.
“Pay attention to your flying. Don’t want to bump into one of these fattened merchants and cause a scene.”
Tara turned back around and buckled herself back in as her head cocked to one side.
“You still thinking about keeping that doctor?”
The thought of the ancient Terran book on a doctor who reanimated a body using the parts of the deceased kept playing in my mind, but I could not remember the title. Frank or Franken something.
“I honestly don’t know.”