"Hackers R Us"

[LeftEar JoNs 0]

03.25.09

SS Excalibur NCC-2004 C

Buccaneers of the Blade

“Hackers R Us”

 

Commander Left Ear JoNs and Midshipman Kansas JoNs were both currently located within the offices of the main security department. It was later in the second shift, so the offices were mostly deserted, with one lone crewman on watch duty who gave the ships executive officer a wide berth on general principle.

 

The two women would be undisturbed, which was just how Left Ear liked it. Every few minutes or show, she would visually scan the surrounding office area for any sort of unwelcome intruder, out of habit. The lighting was dimmed, and her natural eyesight was more then capable of picking up any sudden movement towards them. In the pirate business, the threats could come internally from your own crew as well as externally; if you weren’t alert, you would be dead before you hit the decking.

 

The two Caitian felines were working at a desk in one of the private offices, set just off the main communal work area; the department offices were clean and well maintained, unlike some of the ships that Left Ear had served on. She watched quietly as the younger Kansas manipulated a Starfleet security program, with the results from the calculations showing on the holo-monitor screen set on the top surface of the desk.

 

The information display was a jumble of biographical information, numerical coding, and letter based coding, and grids and charts. It was almost a foreign language to Left Ear, but she recognized the launch program at its core operating procedure as a security application that was usually used to track suspects who gave off some sort of bio signature.

 

The sixteen year old midshipman understood the various computer applications perfectly, and manipulated them with an ease that usually only came to those who had been working with programming for a solid fifteen years or so. Her paws, though gawky and wide at this young age, flew with an inborn agility over the keyboard inset as she entered line after line of corruption code, enabling her to freely manipulate the remote data base that her program had accessed.

 

It should be noted that Kansas was not a computer expert, and if she did happen to possess such a skill level, she would probably be serving within the ships science department rather then the security force. The Kitten did however possess a solid working hacker knowledge of various civilian and military computer system applications, and could remotely hack into a system and use any inherent programs to her advantage; she had picked up a good portion of her skills by studying with Left Ear’s father, Va’Rirr, back home on the family clan ship. And Va’Rirr was very good at what he did.

 

The young leonine feline’s ears suddenly want all radar scope, swiveling this way and that as her excitement level spiked. “w00t! We got tone Commander! Permission to fire the torps and take out some text?”

 

The elder panther-like Cait smiled at her cousin. “Permission granted Middy. Send those files into digital oblivion.”

 

The files in question all showed side by side in bright green on a black screen background:

 

= = / = = Imperial Fleet Command = = / = =

= = / = = Criminal Profiles/Known Pirates = / =

= ** = = Caitian/Feline Species = = ** = =

 

JoNs Clan, Multiple Files, JoNs Clan

 

= = / = = Imperial Civilian Galactic Police = = / = =

= = / = = Criminal Profiles = = / = =

= = ** = = Feline Species = = / = =

 

“Aye sir!” With a juvenile enthusiasm, the Excal middy entered the needed commands and the combined multiple family and single individual criminal records of the two felines as well as their entire immediate family were wiped out of their hardcopy existence in the Imperial data files. If any local agency tried to do a search on the JoNs family, it would be a much harder task, and the wipe gave mercenary JoNs family as well as their pirate officer kin some leeway by not having Fleet criminal profiles that could act as a noose around their collective necks.

 

“That’s it?”

 

“Yep. Doesn’t matter how many codes and passwords Imperial headquarters changed or rerouted after we hi-jacked this starship; there’s always gonna be some sort of digital back door or program that can be tweaked so’s we can get where we need to be in the root systems. That’s why we could never remotely access from the the clan ships, Fhirebrrand and Falyn Anjel; we needed a ship that was designed and built with the same systems as Earth command, like the Excal. These are some bitchin’ toys we have here Guardian.”

 

The young one had her tail all corkscrewed from happiness.“So … whaddya want me to do now? I have about twenty minutes before the main security programs in play at Fleet Command start to figure out that the systems been breached.”

 

Left Ear went quiet for a moment and then her deep green eyes lit with a gleam and her fanged smile turned a tad bit evil.

 

"M’Vess, I’ve told you before that you really freak me out when you get that look … "

 

“Hush. Pull up the Criminal Bio files for Corizon and Rue; wipe whatever you can before the fail safes kick in and start to trace you.”

 

“ … ya don’t want me’t wipe all the crew Bios I can get my paws on?”

 

“No way; it’s not profitable for us if we do that for the whole crew with no payment.”

 

The kitten kept her attention on the monitor screen as her paws started to click away at the keyboard and search out the personnel files that the older panther had requested, but her ears flipped back in ‘silent cat speak’ to let Left Ear know that she was still interested in more of an explanation.

 

“This is how it usually works Kitten: I put the word out among the crew that we have access to and can do some damage to biographical profiles stored in the Fleets criminal database, and that they contact me if they are interested in having their past wiped out or in some cases rearranged. I negotiate a price, they pay me, and then you do your thing.”

 

“ … they wouldn’t come to me?”

 

“No; the client comes to me because I’m your Sponsor. That’s how it works. And, I take three quarters of the payment, and you get the quarter share. That share’ll go up as you get older and advance in the ranks and start to branch out on your own business.”

 

“Well, how come we don’t just erase all the Bio files for the entire crew? There ain’t that many of us, I mean, what – two hundred if that? I can do it in just under two hours jus’ as long as I keep bopping around the system so’s the security programs at the command site can’t trace me.”

 

“Listen Kitten, you have to understand that this crew of reprobates ain’t the same as the all for one and one for all mentality that our mercenary clan ship works on. This crew is full on pirate, they are not blood family, and the all for one and one for all functions on a much smaller concept. Everyone on board this ship can be very dangerous should they choose too. Instead of being based on a big group, the honor code in play among us is based on smaller groups and individuals who share a mutually convenient alliance with one another, and we all collectively watch our backs.”

 

“So we have an alliance with Corizon and Rue?”

 

‘In a manner of speaking. Or I should say that I choose to foster an alliance with the two of them, and that extends to you by default. As long as the Captain keeps paying me and doesn’t go space happy or starts to make dip sh*t decisions, I’m loyal to him and I back him up. And, Rue seems like she’s from a good stripe, and you never want to tick off the chief doctor of any boat you’re serving on Kansas – the medicos are damn valuable. They're the ones who heal us when we get sick or hurt.”

 

Left Ear swished her tail once before continuing. “As far as the rest of the officers on this boat are concerned? They’re all easily replaceable by the next officer under ‘em. They can pay us for our wipe services.”

 

The two cousins lapsed into silence as Kansas worked and her elder Guardian watched her young charge work. The panther’s eyes flicked to the digital countdown timer that was visible in the lower left-paw corner of the computer holo-monitor screen and noted that the young one only had about four minutes left.

 

“Kansas, you’re cutting it pretty close … “

 

“It’s good. I’m ….. almost ….. there…..Now!”

 

With a last paw flurry of activity across the keyboard, the golden furred feline backed out of the Imperial computer systems, throwing her paws in the air to celebrate with a happy yowl.

 

The ships Ex Oh was a bit more sedate, instead choosing to favor her charge with one of her rare though genuine smiles and ruffling the younger ones mane affectionately with a big and powerful paw. “Nice going Midshipman, now let’s go grab some chow.”