Spooker
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Grass Eaters 3 | 20 | Parity
🕑 Added 2024-12-09 16:47:00 +0000 UTCRaytech — Olympus Campus, Mars
POV: Martina Wright, Terran (Executive)
“I thought you said Panoptes had more computing power than anything we’d ever had,” Amelia said, glaring at the Raytech exec sitting calmly at her desk.
“It does,” Martina answered. “Were the miracles during the Battle of Sol not enough to convince you?”
“Then what’s with the delay on the Buns’ latest code update? My people tell me we haven’t had access to their most important communications since last month.”
Martina sighed. “Our good friends from Znos have figured out that you guys are listening to everything they’re saying, so their State Security office has started using one-time pads for orders communication, among some other measures.”
Amelia squinted. “And Panoptes can’t just… I don’t know… crack that?”
“It can’t. Nothing can. It’s perfectly secure when implemented properly.”
“Perfect security? Is that even possible? How?!”
Martina leaned forward. “Imagine you and I have a secret language in a code book we share, where the word sausage means attack and carrot means Luna. And when I say sausage carrot, you know I’ve said attack Luna, but nobody else could possibly figure that out without knowing about our secret language.”
Amelia crossed her arms. “Yeah, sure. That’ll work the first time. But the second time those pesky operatives at the TRO hear anyone talk about sausages on the network, they’re gonna send Marines to Luna to stop our not-so-secret attack.”
“Ah, but the words change every time. When I use sausage the first time, you cross it out in your code book, I cross it out in my code book, and I go to the next word for attack. And it’ll be something completely unrelated, like zebra.”
“I see, so as long as there are words left in our code book, the messages can stay secure from other people forever.”
Martina nodded. “Exactly. It’s true information secrecy. Unlike ciphers, when implemented properly, one-time pad messages are completely impervious to statistical or quantum cryptanalysis.”
“So why aren’t all our messages sent using this system?”
“Ah, remember my caveat? When implemented properly. The code books must never be reused or shared. That means every ship must have its own paired code book with every other ship or relay station it expects to communicate securely with. If any two pairs of users ever share the same code book, cracking the message becomes trivial for Panoptes. Additionally, implementation requires that the code book be at least as long as all the messages you intend to send — in terms of data length — before you get another code book.”
“So it’s practical for use for say… orders or text communication, but not imagery or real-time sensor datalink between the whole fleet?”
“Right again,” Martina nodded. “Initially when the Buns started using these new order pads, they shared and reused them, or they used keys that were not truly random, and since we have surveillance drones in every one of their vital systems, we were able to crack their secrets easily. There were also other compounding vulnerabilities. For example, every other message on their border system contained the phrase… our lives were forfeited to the Prophecy and all that. And that responsibility self-flagellation thing.”
Amelia snorted. “Classic mistake.”
“Yup. By themselves, one-time pads aren’t normally vulnerable to that kind of frequency analysis, but with key reuse, that was helpful for us to say the least. Another mistake they made: they were producing these pads out of three orbital facilities in Znos before the codes were physically couriered to their ships.”
Amelia frowned. “I don’t remember us sending the secret squirrels that deep recently.”
“Didn’t need to,” Martina said, shaking her head. “A recon drone in Znos monitoring their station hulls was just sensitive enough to pick up the electromagnetic radiation their computers inside produced every time they generated a new code book.”
“I… didn’t know we could do that.”
“Oh yeah, barely an inconvenience. Been doing that for a century. After a while, they figured that out too. Don’t know how, but they moved their facilities dirtside and underground. One thing you gotta give the Buns credit for, they learn quickly. And now that they’ve learned we’re listening to them, their State Security offices are cracking down on all these mistakes and sticking to the textbooks. And as you know—”
“They know how to follow a script to the letter. And any miniscule sign of a communication breach causes them to re-evaluate. Those damn responsible Bun Navy officers.”
Martina nodded.
“That sucks. Is there no other way we can break it? The captured prisoners… will they know anything? Or the captured ships?”
“At best, that’ll get you the code book pairs for the ship you’ve already captured,” Martina said, shrugging. “Sometimes they reference their orders on their regularly encrypted radio, and we’ll catch that, or we can read telemetry for some of their ship modules right off their hulls, but other than those…”
Amelia sighed. “Right. I guess they’ve finally got here.”
“Here?”
“They can’t listen to our orders yet, as far as I know. But they’ve made it so we can’t listen to their most secret orders either. And that… is almost parity.”
“I know what you guys in the Navy think about fair fights.”
“Yeah,” Amelia said, pointing an accusatory finger. “This is precisely what we’ve been paying you and your folks for decades to avoid.”
“Nothing we can do about the limitations of mathematics and information theory, Amelia. But hey, at least we’re giving you a significant materiel advantage. The new ships that are going to be coming out of—”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “Now where have I heard that before? Isn’t that what you said about the Pythons? Something about the Peacekeepers. What were your exact words?”
“The Python will have the same tactical advantage over the Peacekeeper that the Peacekeeper has over the Goodyear Blimp,” Martina quoted, smiling sweetly at the admiral.
“Yes, that one. Exactly that one.”
“And what part of that was untrue?” She held up a finger for pause. “And don’t worry, we’ll make the same guarantee for those new ships too. You just make sure you have the spacers to use them when their paint dries.”
Amelia looked at her for a second and then shook her head. “What about the fuel? Are you still relying on those Malgeir fueling ships to get your supplies and people out of the Republic cluster?”
“Yeah. But the new Schprissian fuel depot at Flint is coming online in—“
“And just how much is that going to cost us?”
“You? Or Raytech?” Martina asked innocently. “Because we’ve got a sweet deal with the kitties running the place…”
Amelia gave her a dry side eye. “Ha-ha. Very funny. I swear, you guys try to shift those costs off to the Navy, I’m going to send Marines down to Olympus and start figuring out just what essential supplies for Republic security you’ve been hoarding—”
“Nah, it’s a— relax, Amelia. We know how to milk one cow at a time. The kitties— they have been responsive to a different kind of negotiation.”
“Extortion.”
“It’s not extortion. It’s blackmail. But hey, isn’t that how your diplomats got them to agree to build and supply the depots in the first place too?”
“That… is not how it went down,” Amelia pointed a finger at Martina. “And they get twenty-five years of future operating revenue on that depot. It’s a prime investment opportunity for them!”
“Uh-huh. Do they know that we’re working on a way to modify the Iris engines to take a Jupiter-sized bite out of the Flint star as a refueling planetoid, sometime in the next… ten to fifteen years?”
Amelia shrugged. “That sounds a whole lot like a problem my successor will have to deal with after I retire.”
“And we wonder why they all call our species short-sighted.”
“We don’t need good vision. We’ve got gravidar.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grantor City Safehouse Romeo, Grantor-3
POV: Skhork, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Six Whiskers)
“I need your updated authentication code for the week, Six Whiskers. This one is two months outdated.”
“I don’t— I don’t have one. Can you just… let me through this once? Please? It’ll be better for the both—”
“No. You are in serious violation of protocol. Stay here, Six Whiskers. I need to call my—”
“I’m so sorry, Four Whiskers Spazken.”
“Huh? Sorry? What do you mean— Six Whiskers? What are you—”
Skhork tried to close his eyes as a slick polymer device materialized in his right paw, but he couldn’t. They didn’t let him. He still needed to see. See his target.
Click. Pew.
Instead of falling to the floor from his modified infiltrator handgun as he expected, the four whiskers looked straight into his soul with her own blood splattered all over her face. “Why? Six Whiskers, why?”
Shocked, he stumbled back, into a soft body. It was another four whiskers, with a face he recognized. She clutched his paws tightly and asked, “Why have you forsaken the Prophecy, Six Whiskers? Why?!”
“No, I— it’s not—”
He turned to get away, and this time, it wasn’t a Znosian that appeared. It was one of the Lesser Predators he’d exterminated on Datsot. It snarled at him with a full set of carnivorous teeth. He pivoted, in slow motion, trying his best to hop away from the menace, but it was right behind him…
Skhork woke up screaming. It took him a minute to calm down from the nightmare. They’d become increasingly frequent since he landed on this cursed planet.
Skhork was not a happy Znosian.
For the past few months, he’d been used.
Completely and thoroughly used. Like a tool, or an instrument. His brain manipulated. His body forced to do the bidding of an alien chip embedded in his skull.
He tried to escape, multiple times. One of the Terrans waited by the door for him — each time — with a smile on their face as if they were enjoying a practical joke at his expense. They didn’t even stop him, just watched as his paws refused to cooperate as he attempted to step beyond the threshold they defined.
There wasn’t much he could do.
But he didn’t have to be happy about it. The Terrans gaslit him all the time, but they were at least not cruel enough to deny him that small freedom of unhappiness. Mark had once mentioned, almost off-handedly, how they could wipe away all his horror and frustration in an instant if he wanted them to. With a chemical drug, not even the total control they had over his brain. With the brain chip, they could even make him feel the maximal pleasure his brain was capable of comprehending whenever he obeyed their twisted orders.
They demonstrated it, giving him an afternoon of pure delight as he cleaned up their hideout at their command. It was incredible. According to Mark, that was similar to the pleasure of breeding that State Security had managed to castrate from their brains. For a whole afternoon. That joy — it was dangerously addictive.
Then, they offered him a choice: he could have that permanently. Every time he behaved and did as they ordered, they could give that to him. And they could take away his nightmares.
He refused. Barely.
At least this way he could still feel something genuine.
Skhork considered it though. Every time they sent him on one of their cursed missions against his own kind. With experience, they’d gotten better at ordering him around and he… well, he got better at betraying his own kind. He’d started seeing them as… not even his fellow Znosian. Just targets… of his captors. He wondered if that was how the predators thought of them; it was certainly how he thought of the predators when he was still… free.
At least all this brain controlling was useful technology that the Dominion would one day take from them after these predators were exterminated. The pacification campaigns they were doing in the name of the Prophecy would be so much more efficient when augmented by the ability to restrict or control the actions of predators. All the Dominion would need to do is come and destroy these abominations. Skhork ignored the growing voice in the back of his mind… wondering, doubting just how long that would take.
Or Prophecy forbids, whether ultimate failure was even possible.
Impossible.
The predators must have put those evil thoughts there.
“Good morning, Skhork,” Mark called out from their makeshift kitchen in the wooded hideout. He was making something— something grotesque on his metal pan. It was sizzling. “Want some scrambled eggs?”
Skhork mimicked the disgusted expression they used on his own face. “Bleh! Flesh!”
Mark grinned. “What’s wrong? Doesn’t this smell absolutely delicious?”
“Do you know some of my people believe in reincarnation?”
“Huh? What’s that got to do— what about you?” Mark paused his cooking to ask, “Do you believe in a life after life?”
“I believe when my people inevitably kill you, you will be reborn as one of the prey animals you feast on. And as you crawl out of your eggshell, you shall be set upon by winged predators. They will not kill you immediately. No, they will rip your guts inside out, leaving you alive and suffering on the ground for hours before you can bleed out.”
“Wow, that’s a bit graphic—”
“Then, it starts over and happens again.”
“That’s just—”
“And again,” Skhork emphasized.
Skhork was disappointed he did not get the desired rise out of Mark, who nonchalantly chuckled. “The beautiful circle of life. You know our powdered eggs are not real either, right?” The Terran held up the box as he read from it. “Cruelty-free. Grown from… a long list of chemicals and organic compounds in an agro-fabricator in District 93.”
For good measure, Mark held the box to his eyes, pointing at the nutrition labels. “See? Just powder and chemicals.”
“Gross,” Skhork replied, wheezing as he pushed the box away. “And totally irrelevant.”
“How is that irrelevant?!”
“A real creature had to die at some point to develop that formula,” he speculated.
The flash of a mildly annoyed expression on the Terran operative’s face told him that he guessed right. “And your people, you would never kill for any reason, right?” Mark asked sarcastically.
“Not for food.”
“Now, how is that relevant?”
This being at least the tenth time they had this identical conversation, Skhork brought up the fresh point he had been pondering for days now. “What about this: would you eat manufactured Terran flesh if it were grown in one of your chemical vats and no real Terran was hurt in the process?”
“Would— would I eat—” Mark sputtered.
“See?” he said smugly. “My point exactly.”
“Well, there are novelty black market dealers in the Red Zone where you can actually get grown human flesh that—” Mark shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Forget it. I can’t believe I’m arguing the bioethics of eating synthetic meat with an amoral murder psycho!”
“You are the amoral murder psycho!” he said, pointing an accusatory paw back at the Terran operative.
Mark flashed him a grin. “Huh. I guess it takes one to know one.”
“If annoying you with your own species’ hypocrisy is the most I can do for the Dominion war effort, then it is the least I can do.”
“Actually, arguing helps me think. Thinking up these hypotheticals makes me more effective at my actual job—” Mark said.
“Ah, I am now accustomed to your predator lies. Regardless of what you say, I will not stop. You will be annoyed.”
“Ah well. Was worth a try,” Mark grinned again as he opened the pantry to examine their ample stocks. “What do you want for breakfast then? We have roasted baby carrots and fried—”
“I want roasted baby carrots.”
“Don’t you want to hear the other options first?”
Skhork raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused. “Why? I like eating roasted baby carrots.”
Mark sighed as he took out the dehydrated packets and closed the pantry. “Never mind. Plate of roasted baby carrots coming right up… Wait, have you done your chores this morning?”
“No! I’m a Longclaw Commander, not a bred-illiterate laborer. You can’t make me do all your lowly, menial tasks—”
Mark cocked his head and looked straight at him. “Six Whiskers, go make your bed and clean up before breakfast.”
“You can’t do this!” Skhork screamed back at Mark in defiance as his limbs began to move toward his cot against his will. “This is sick abuse! This is wrong! This is unnatural and—”
“Do you want me to take away your whining privileges too, Six Whiskers?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“What is this target of yours?” Skhork asked suspiciously as he eyed the large facility displayed on Mark’s tablet screen.
“Take a guess. Look familiar?”
He examined it a few more seconds, noting the large elevators and deep holes in the ground… “It’s… a spaceport.”
“Exactly right. Hey… looks just like the one where we captured you.”
Skhork harrumphed at the implied jab. “What is your plan? To blow up the spaceport?”
Mark waved a dismissive hand at him. “Oh please, nothing quite so uncivilized.”
“I am the only civilized one here, abomination—”
“We plan to use the spaceport for its intended purpose: to launch spacecraft.”
Skhork thought for a second. “Like a surface-to-orbital missile?”
“Does everything have to be about blowing things up with you?” Mark asked dryly.
“Okay, then what are we— you doing with the spaceport then?”
“Take a guess, Six Whiskers Skhork,” Mark said.
“No, I refuse to play your silly predator games— My first guess is something to disrupt our fleet upstairs… Arrgghhh!”
Mark cackled as Skhork struggled futilely against the neural chip in his brain compelling his answer. “Never gets old. But wrong. Thanks for playing.”
Skhork folded his arms angrily. “Well? What is it?”
“Oh… you know. Just some important cargo. Exports. How much do you know about how your hatchling pools work?”
“Nothing at all. Why?”
“No reason. Don’t worry, we’ll teach you. So you can do your job right.”
“I’ll screw everything up on purpose. Sabotage everything.”
Mark rubbed his hands together in excitement. “That… was always the plan, Skhork.”
Comments
AnAbsoluteVillain
"Jupiter-sized bite out of the Flint star" take a chunk of that as-teral body. *wiggles the eyebrows*
