The Cylon hybrid stood up a little straighter and it’s tub. Water splashed. It looked a little more alert, a little more lucid than usual. Most of the time and spoke gibberish and none of the humanoid Cylons paid it much attention.
“The final test is within range. Is the moon at the right height? Is the orbit elliptical. Sending signal. Awaiting reply. Handshake handshake. Packet received. Orders acknowledged. Countdown. Countdown. Prepare to test CNP. Testing vendita gonfiabili response is slow. Is the eagle on the mountain? Awaiting test results. Looking at the sun in the moon and the fish is in the water we do not know the consequences of this plan. Genocide. Genocide. The children come to kill the parents. If the test fails when we continue?”
A nearby model six spoke to a Cavil. “What is it talking about? What final test?”
Cavil answered in his agitated voice. “We have managed to draw a colonial Battlestar close enough to the border to test Baltar’s CNP program. “Before we end humanity, we might want to know if the program export even works? If it doesn’t, we can delay our plan no harm no foul.”
“Doesn’t that risk detection. If the colonial fleet finds out they may pull the program out of all their ships?”
“That certainly is a possibility. Most likely the Battlestar Mercury will blow up. The flight will go on alert and investigation will be opened. In 24 hours to be nothing left to investigate.”
“What’s the test?”
“The usual. Power systems are shut down. I think we’re going to see how the humans can operate a Battlestar without artificial gravity. That should be interesting. I think I’ll activate some security cameras and record the chaos for my personal entertainment.”
The six just shook her head and walked away.
* * *
Maria Ramirez sat down at a workstation and activated a number of video screens. As a network and systems administrator the problems that the Battlestar was having we’re all on her shoulders. 30 years old, she was a lieutenant. She had no interest in command, all she cared about was systems.
Many systems of been a straighter set up for themselves dashboards to show status. With the click of a mouse she could drill into a situation and get details. What she was seeing puzzled her. Is had been eight hours since the order had been made to shut down all network hardware and operate the ship manually. She did not expect zero network traffic. There were some systems that did not have manual control consoles or keyboards that had to be operated remotely.
The level of network traffic was too high. She had seen the same dashboard when the system and the ship went in for maintenance four months ago.
This traffic figures were excessive force ship that was supposed to be without network operations. The first thought that occurred to her it was that somebody left a router on or several. Very often junior members of her staff program devices to restart periodically and power up.
They were idiot technicians enlisted people who could not follow orders or worse yet didn’t know how to think. The status board showed every single piece of network hardware in this ship was powered down.
As a network administrators she had a small computer connected to the network sniffing for traffic. She connected into the machine from her console, delicate fingers dancing on the keyboard. With a couple of mouse clicks she was looking in the log file. The traffic showed network addresses from hundreds of systems. It was as if the computer network was completely active.
It wasn’t doing very much but every piece of hardware seem to have power and occasionally transmitted or received packets. This was odd and she ran a couple of scripts to analyze the traffic. There was definitely Communications traffic between Shipps network and the long range communications array.
They were encrypted messages. She transfer the file to a more powerful computer system and started trying to crack the messages. This of course created network traffic and scared her results. This was very odd however.
She ran her hand to her long nonregulation black hair which was strict with white.
The situation was just out enough to require a report to command. She stood up and left her a small office and begin the 300 me to walk to the CIC. She decided to report to the officer of the deck and request another meeting with the Admiral and the XO.
To her surprise, the Admiral and the executive officer were in CIC. They were both looking at a print out. It looks like some kind of orders. She stopped short and saluted, even though this was not really necessary in the command center.
The admiral answered without returning to salute, deciding in his own mind not to humiliate her on her breach of protocol. She’s been an officer for eight years and should’ve known the protocol, but his computer geeks we’re so important that exceptions were always made for them. “Report.”
“I’m seeing some odd traffic on the network in excess of what they should be with all the network hardware shut down. I believe the ship is being actively compromised at this very moment.”
“By whom?” Martha Rogers looked up.
“I have not fully triangulated the traffic to and from our communications array. However, the general direction seems to be forward. This would place the recipient in cylon space.”
“Are you saying the cylons are remotely hacking our computer systems?” The admiral asked incredulously.
The CAG standing in CIC in her flight suit turned her head to listen.
“I suppose it could be a colonial ship on the wrong side of the armistice line,” Ramirez opined. “I don’t write orders, I don’t question orders I just follow them.”
“We are 15 fracking minutes from the armistice line at 25K pH,” Rogers swore.
“Who gave us those orders?” Ramirez asked.
“Fleet command,” the CAG chimed in. “I was cc’d”
“Let me see the orders please?” Ramirez asked.
Rogers backed away from our own workstation which had an open electronic-mail message on it containing the orders. Ramirez bent over the keyboard and begin typing furiously. She then walked away from the keyboard and stepped up to another workstation.
She was typing furiously. After a long silence with half of CIC staring at her she looked up.
“The orders are fake. A very cleverly built fake. Even the md5 signature is almost exactly the same. But it’s not. These orders will be written by a computer system on this ship. We have got to get the ship away from here. It is my believe that we are under cyber-attack right now. The ship is in danger.” She crossed her arms in front of herself looking confident.”
“Begin jump prep,” the admiral ordered.
Before he even finished the sentence, Eva Lawson was on a telephone talking directly to her air wing. Combat landings don’t even worry about what the LSO says every bird on the deck right fracking now!”
The light started to flicker, and then the power went out. Several seconds later at the auxiliary batteries kicked in and some of the control consoles lit up. People started to float off the floor. Paper started to flutter in the breeze of air circulation.
“AG is down!” Rogers shouted.
The CAG was tethered by her telephone cord her feet above her head. She continued talking while pressing down the talk button. “CAG to air wing. Mag lock check. Artificial gravity systems may be down use caution when landing magnetically attached to the deck we are jumping out of here.
“Continue jump prep,” ordered the admiral.
“Insert jump key,” someone shouted.
Ramirez gripped her console with both hands. “NAV computers are operating normally on backup power.”
“Air Wing status!” The admiral barked.
“On the deck,” Lawson reported. “I think the LSO was having a stroke.”
“Board is green!”
“10 seconds until we cross the armistice line,” Rogers reported. “the engines went to full power when we got hacked.”
“Jump!”
Video footage recorded in the slitherine.com BSG Deadlock game.
There was a flash of light. It was preceded in followed by queasy feeling in their stomachs. The jump has been successful. Gravity gradually kicked in on auxiliary power. Everyone gradually settled back to the floor.
The admiral walked over to Ramirez who was straightening her uniform and staring at her display.
“Lieutenant Ramirez, he ordered. Fix my ship. I don’t care if you have to restore to the pre-refit backups. I need to ship operational and then operational fracking yesterday.”
“Yes Sir,” she replied. “I’m taking a few quick backups so I can try and find out what the root cause of all this was.”
“Whatever,” the XO said. “admiral, I need to speak with the LSO immediately he has completely lost it.”
“He’s in my wife’s extended family,” the admiral said “I will go with you. I don’t wanna fire him.”
“The final test is within range. Is the moon at the right height? Is the orbit elliptical. Sending signal. Awaiting reply. Handshake handshake. Packet received. Orders acknowledged. Countdown. Countdown. Prepare to test CNP. Testing response is slow. Is the eagle on the mountain? Awaiting test results. Looking at the sun in the moon and the fish is in the water we do not know the consequences of this plan. Genocide. Genocide. The children come to kill the parents. If the test fails when we continue?”
A nearby model six spoke to a Cavil. “What is it talking about? What final test?”
Cavil answered in his agitated voice. “We have managed to draw a colonial Battlestar close enough to the border to test Baltar’s CNP program. “Before we end humanity, we might want to know if the program export even works? If it doesn’t, we can delay our plan no harm no foul.”
“Doesn’t that risk detection. If the colonial fleet finds out they may pull the program out of all their ships?”
“That certainly is a possibility. Most likely the Battlestar Mercury will blow up. The flight will go on alert and investigation will be opened. In 24 hours to be nothing left to investigate.”
“What’s the test?”
“The usual. Power systems are shut down. I think we’re going to see how the humans can operate a Battlestar without artificial gravity. That should be interesting. I think I’ll activate some security cameras and record the chaos for my personal entertainment.”
The six just shook her head and walked away.
* * *
Maria Ramirez sat down at a workstation and activated a number of video screens. As a network and systems administrator the problems that the Battlestar was having we’re all on her shoulders. 30 years old, she was a lieutenant. She had no interest in command, all she cared about was systems.
Many systems of been a straighter set up for themselves dashboards to show status. With the click of a mouse she could drill into a situation and get details. What she was seeing puzzled her. Is had been eight hours since the order had been made to shut down all network hardware and operate the ship manually. She did not expect zero network traffic. There were some systems that did not have manual control consoles or keyboards that had to be operated remotely.
The level of network traffic was too high. She had seen the same dashboard when the system and the ship went in for maintenance four months ago.
This traffic figures were excessive force ship that was supposed to be without network operations. The first thought that occurred to her it was that somebody left a router on or several. Very often junior members of her staff program devices to restart periodically and power up.
They were idiot technicians enlisted people who could not follow orders or worse yet didn’t know how to think. The status board showed every single piece of network hardware in this ship was powered down.
As a network administrators she had a small computer connected to the network sniffing for traffic. She connected into the machine from her console, delicate fingers dancing on the keyboard. With a couple of mouse clicks she was looking in the log file. The traffic showed network addresses from hundreds of systems. It was as if the computer network was completely active.
It wasn’t doing very much but every piece of hardware seem to have power and occasionally transmitted or received packets. This was odd and she ran a couple of scripts to analyze the traffic. There was definitely Communications traffic between Shipps network and the long range communications array.
They were encrypted messages. She transfer the file to a more powerful computer system and started trying to crack the messages. This of course created network traffic and scared her results. This was very odd however.
She ran her hand to her long nonregulation black hair which was strict with white.
The situation was just out enough to require a report to command. She stood up and left her a small office and begin the 300 me to walk to the CIC. She decided to report to the officer of the deck and request another meeting with the Admiral and the XO.
To her surprise, the Admiral and the executive officer were in CIC. They were both looking at a print out. It looks like some kind of orders. She stopped short and saluted, even though this was not really necessary in the command center.
The admiral answered without returning to salute, deciding in his own mind not to humiliate her on her breach of protocol. She’s been an officer for eight years and should’ve known the protocol, but his computer geeks we’re so important that exceptions were always made for them. “Report.”
“I’m seeing some odd traffic on the network in excess of what they should be with all the network hardware shut down. I believe the ship is being actively compromised at this very moment.”
“By whom?” Martha Rogers looked up.
“I have not fully triangulated the traffic to and from our communications array. However, the general direction seems to be forward. This would place the recipient in cylon space.”
“Are you saying the silencer remotely hacking our computer systems?” The admiral asked incredulously.
The CAG standing in CIC in her flight suit turned her head to listen.
“I suppose it could be a colonial ship on the wrong side of the armistice line,” Ramirez opined. “I don’t write orders, I don’t question orders I just follow them.”
“We are 15 freaking minutes from the armistice line at 25K pH,” Rogers swore.
“Who gave us those orders?” Ramirez asked.
“Fleet command,” the CAG chimed in. “I was cc’d”
“Let me see the orders please?” Ramirez asked.
Rogers backed away from our own workstation which had an open electronic-mail message on it containing the orders. Ramirez bent over the keyboard and begin typing furiously. She then walked away from the keyboard and stepped up to another workstation.
She was typing furiously. After a long silence with half of CIC staring at her screen she looked up.
“The orders are fake. A very cleverly built fake. Even the md5ve signature is almost exactly the same. But it’s not. These orders will be written by a computer system on this ship. We have got to get the ship away from here. It is my belief that we are under cyber attack right now. The ship is in danger.” She crossed her arms in front of herself looking confident.”
“Begin jump prep,” the admiral ordered.
Before he even finished the sentence, Eva Lawson was on a telephone talking directly to her air wing. Combat landings don’t even worry about what the LSO says every bird on the deck right fracking now!”
The light started to flicker, and then the power went out. Several seconds later at the auxiliary batteries kicked in and some of the control consoles lit up. People started to float off the floor. Paper started to flutter in the breeze of air circulation.
“AG is down!” Rogers shouted.
The CAG was tethered by her telephone cord her feet above her head. She continued talking while pressing down the talk button. “CAG to air wing. Mag lock check. Artificial gravity systems may be down use caution when landing magnetically attached to the deck we are jumping out of here.
“Continue jump prep,” ordered the admiral.
“Insert jump key,” someone shouted.
Ramirez gripped her console with both hands. “NAV computers are operating normally on back up power.”
“Air Wing status!” The admiral barked.
“On the deck,” Lawson reported. “I think the LSO was having a stroke.”
“Board is green!”
“10 seconds until we cross the armistice line,” Rogers reported. “the engines went to full power when we got hacked.”
“Jump!”
There was a flash of light. It was preceded in followed by queasy feeling in their stomachs. The jump has been successful. Gravity gradually kicked in on auxiliary power. Everyone gradually settled back to the floor.
The admiral walked over to Ramirez who is straightening her uniform and staring at her display.
“Lieutenant Ramirez, he ordered. Fix my ship. I don’t care if you have to restore to the pre-refit bac ups. I need to ship operational and then operational fracking yesterday.”
“Yes Sir,” she replied. “I’m taking a few quick backups so I can try and find out what the root cause of all this was.”
“Whatever,” the XO said. “admiral, I need to speak with the LSO immediately he has completely lost it.”
“He’s in my wife’s extended family,” the admiral said “I will go with you. I don’t wanna fire him.”
