Running a Bypass

Posted on Sun Nov 10th, 2019 @ 12:06am by Comm Tech Wulf Edevane & Commanding Officer Mickey Serendipity & Executive Officer Kenneth McTigue

Mission: The Forgotten Arm
Location: Albatross Engineering Room - 21:00 Hours, Crater Side Docks
Timeline: A few years before the Eros Incident

The door to engineering wasn't locked, or tagged with any warning sign beyond the standard drive safety messages. Wulf paused for a moment to scan his gaze over the largely printed words about all the usual Death and Hazards, then wandered straight in.

Last ship he'd been on, this whole area had been locked out by an extremely serious hardcore Martian female. She'd had a fondness for direct and incredibly rude signs so no one had any doubt of her lack of any desire to see anyone else but herself in her engine room. The distinct lack of any such explicit notice here gave the comms tech a jubilant feeling of confident freedom to tinker.

Besides, all he needed to do was run a minor bypass to ensure he had the power to intervene with any cameras, feeds or systems that needed the tender care of a full-on security cleanse and re-jig. This was standard practice and allowed him a level of control over every one of those systems he'd been instructed to run, protect, and keep clean. All part of his day to day job, plus perhaps a shift in the protocol and access rights so that he might better serve his new Captain and crew. Nothing nefarious, nothing to hurt, defile or directly spy on any private areas. These seemed like good people, and the young man definitely wanted to impress his new employer.

So, Wulf had his head deep in the workings of the mainframe, completely enthralled in the process of setting up his gear and uploading his patented security-ware to run checks when, unbenownst to him, someone else entered this hallowed space. There were wires everywhere, cables either plugged into the network or running checks via Wulf's test unit and personal terminal. His toolbox was open beside him and he was singing along with the female vocals of a chunky rock ballad that played from his hand terminal.

Fresh from the head, Ken returned to his private domain. It was known to all that engineering did not require a lock. The beefy Earther had claimed the space since before the Albatross had been called the Albatross. It was invitation-only under punishment of serious physical harm.

Thus it came as a shock to the engineer that the door he had closed was open. He ran a mental tab of who would be on board. Allegra was on the only one on the ship, and they had a solid understanding that they wouldn't enter each other's place of business unless absolutely necessary or invited. Mickey knew better, and the captain respected Ken's claim.

When he looked into his nice, clean engine room and spotted someone rummaging around the network cabinets Ken took several steps towards the man not paying attention. As he moved he pulled the prybar from his kit and stepped a step short from the man. "You shouldn't be messing with my ship." he said calmly, an edge of pure steel in his voice.

Pausing for a second in his singalong, Wulf played air guitar to the middle eight and patched in another two cables before turning back to his terminal to check its display. He looked at the weighty boot that hadn’t been there a minute ago and let his gaze follow upwards from his own kneeling position on the floor.

“Our ship,” he said, simply.

"Nah mate, nothing of yours on here. Now get up, or I cave your skull in." Ken replied, his expression not having changed from his neutral, calm expression.

Wulf sighed and relented slightly. This translated as him standing up to his full height, which came up at least an inch shorter than the nice man with the crowbar. That didn't seem to face the comms tech any, though he didn't front up ready for battle either. He simply stood there, nonchalant as if Ken had just walked into his cabin, and spoke with the quiet confidence of a tech in the middle of a very important, complicated repair job.

"All this stuff is mine," the young man explained, and in case Ken was stupid or something, Wulf waved his right hand to indicate the trappings of his trade spread across the general vicinity. Around them both, the music still played.

Ken gave the man a single up and down glance, and shrugged. Then, while making eye contact swung the fist holding the prybar squarely into the man's stomach, then used his free hand and the momentum from his hips turning back, slapped his ear. As the young man crumpled forward Ken grabbed his collar, twisted his hips again for momentum, and half-tossed him away from the computer and towards the hatch.

From Wulf's perspective, a sharp exhale preceded a whoosh of surprised sound that felt somewhat disjointed from the dull ache of pain in his gut. Probably because one side of his head stung from the flat handed blow to his right ear, though he didn't have to time to think all of that through before he found himself hurled through the air. With a rolling thump, Wulf's body skidded sideways along the shiny surface of the engineering deck to come to an untidy mess of limbs just short of the exit.

"Uuuuuuuhhhhhhh," the comms tech groaned, arms wrapping about his belly as he curled into the foetal position. Muttered curses in at least three different languages followed as he struggled to get back to his feet. "Whatchadothafur?"

Ken approached calmly, closing the three steps in measured steps. He slapped the prybar in his hand as he stopped in front of the kid. "I told you to stop messing with my ship. You didn' listen. Now you get a final chance to get up and walk off my ship." He punctuated that last sentence with another slap of the thick metal prybar in his hand.

He heard those boots on the floor. And the sound of the metal bar smacking hard flesh made Wulf wince as he clutched his left arm across his own stomach. His gaze steeled even as he knew he should stand down. Instead, he raised his face to scowl up at Ken and went the other verbal direction.

"I'm not messing with your ship," Wulf declared with all the vehemence of someone with a vested interest. "I'm improving and upgrading the network." He held Ken's gaze with a petulant stubborness that coloured his tone as he added. "And I'm not leaving."

"You're in my engine room, touching my network. I don't know who you are. Therefore you're leaving." Ken explained as he put the prybar away and stepped foward. He half-bent through his knees and grabbed the man's shirt and lifted. In the 1/3 G of the station it wasn't a whole lot of effort for Ken. He then half pushed, half threw him towards the hatch.

"I... wh...? Gerroff!" Managed Wulf even as he was roughly manhandled by the apparent Owner of the Engine Room. "There's no sign!" He protested as he found himself once again off his feet and thrown. The crazy fierce guy with the Irish accent pushed the tech to land with a rough tumble and roll, moving forward ever closer to the exit hatch. As he hit the wall with a solid bounce of a bump, Wulf glared back at the pissed off engineer from his new position back in a crumpled heap on the ground. "Hey! I'm crew!" He called back, angrier now as the bruises started to shout for attention. "I'm the new guy."

"He is, you know."

Mickey hopped off the last rung of the ladder, hung in the air for a long time due to Rhea's feeble excuse for gravity, and then clunked into the deck as his boots took hold. In one hand he held a little paper cup of fried bean curd, from which he took a few pieces and popped them into his mouth to chew thoughtfully.

"I did send an all-hands message, about 1800 hours. New comm tech, name of Wulf, will be joining us on a trial run to Luna," he gestured with his free hand to gesture to the pile of comm tech on the floor. "Wulf, meet Ken our engineer and general fix it man. Ken, this is Wulf he's our new comm tech, after the bruises fade."

Ken looked down at Wulf, then Mickey. He then let free a deep sigh, and grabbed two hands full of Wulf's shirt, lifting him up to his feet. "Sorry mate, but for all I knew you were a competitor messing with the ship. Normally Mick here tells the new people to stay out of engineering." and Ken gave a reproachful look towards the XO.

As he was dragged back up to an uncomfortable standing position, Wulf locked eyes with the engineer and simply held Ken’s gaze for a long moment. General protests of pain chimed in from all over, but the young man said nothing as he focused on bringing his frustration and fury under control. He did, just about, manage a curt nod in response to Ken’s apology though.

"A minor oversight on my behalf given our previous discussion about social interactions," Mickey said, tossing back a few more of the fried chips. "I don't know what they put on these things, chilli flakes and corn syrup. Something sticky, sweet. Gives it a pop. But just so you know Wulf, Ken there is one of the trifecta of owners. When we bought her used from the UNN, Soto and I needed a third party to lay down the fees for refitting her."

He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments.

"I inform you of this, as you'll need to work with Ken, and Ken can't leave. You can. You entered the engineering section of a ship and began to work on its wiring without getting the engineer's blessing. The fact Ken didn't fold you in two and feed you into the reactor tell's me he did listen to my last chat concerning not folding people up and putting them into the reactor," Mickey said plainly. He then looked at Ken. "And next time you find someone like this, if you can bring them to me and Soto and then we can tell you how to handle them. Might have been pushing dock inspector, or some UNN fee collector looking for the black box recorder."

Ken just shrugged, "Then they still shouldn't be in the engine room."

The XO’s voice was melodic and even, telling it like it was, plain and simple, and as Mickey spoke, and Ken didn’t punch him with a crowbar, Wulf’s adrenaline levels receded. He brought his breathing back under control, winced and rubbed a flat palm over his belly, then shook out his shoulders.

“Honey,” Wulf said. “It lasts forever.” At least that was what the lady had told him they put on the fried bean curd, but then plenty of vendors told lies in the interest of a sale. He held out his hand then in case Ken wanted to shake on it and move on.

“No need to apologise,” the comm tech said, though his dark eyes said that he appreciated Ken’s ‘sorry’ far more than the strength in the engineer’s right arm. “XO’s right, I was on your ground. I just…” Wulf looked crestfallen for a moment. He’d wanted to impress Mickey and Soto and he’d ended up doing the exact opposite, as well as alienating their third partner. Mickey’s words hit home just as hard as Ken’s crowbar had. Ken can't leave. You can.

Ken took the hand and shook it silently, nodding in something akin to approval.

“I’m sorry,” said the new comm tech as he and Ken shook hands. “I should have waited for you. There’s so much to get done. I just wanted to get stuck right into the work,” Wulf said, honestly, as he stared downwards and stubbed a sneakered toe into the smooth surface of the floor beneath them. “Please don’t kick me off the ship.” He meant it too, he wasn’t playing the stage for sympathy, that was real fear in his voice, real trodden in his down.

"Honey. Huh, yeah that makes sense," Mickey said thoughtfully. "And I have no intention of kicking you off the ship. What I do have in mind is you describing in excessive detail every mod and wire splice you just did to the comm's system to Ken. I will hope that the dire nature of that task will imprint on you the idea that any work that involves entering this compartment or altering any of the Albatross's systems need to go with the engineer."

He finished the last of the fried bean curd.

"The Hidalgo downloaded a comm's update a year ago just on the way out of Ceres Station. They got lucky that the kill code in the update just voided the reactor's containment vessel to space. Some times the OPA likes to put trojans into the wireless traffic, little bots that wake up when the reactor reaches an X-percentage of total capacity. Comm's security, ships security," Mickey then gestured to the engineer. "Ken."

Mickey’s punishment fit the crime, so to speak, so Wulf accepted such without further protest. Besides, he was kinda curious to get to know what sort of dynamic and accord he and Ken might wander into once they bashed their heads together in a more effective and productive manner. He nodded to the XO in agreement.

“Yes sir,” Wulf stated for the record, and he listened to the lesson. Yup, he had a close personal knowledge of the OPA trojans for sure, but he definitely wasn’t about to go into detail on that subject here and now. Then his terminal pinged up with a sultry sounding female voice and cut off whatever the tech might have been about to say.

“Scan complete, Wulf!” It said. “I have found 163,298 issues, 45 malware conflictions, 24 required software updates and 1 major trialware issue. I am currently blocking 1433 suspicious connections. Would you like me to purge the system of threats?”

“Hold on that for a sec, Zee,” Wulf told her, as he looked from Ken to Mickey and back again. Then curiosity got the better of him. “Zee - what’s the trialware issue?” He asked.

“Albatross Autodoc software is running an unverified and unregistered trial edition,” replied his program. “I can run Wulf-Ware 6.9, just say the word.”

“Uh, no,” instructed the tech one more time as he regarded Mickey once more in a brief, but meaningfully understanding link of their gazes. “I have some prep work to do first.” Wulf turned to Ken. “Shall we?”

"I'm gonna go throw this in the recycler," Mickey said with a sigh, heading back to the ladder that led up the spine of the Albatross. "Ken make sure the kid and his pet Porn Bot doesn't blow up my share of the ship okay?"

"I don't give a fuck about your share. Mine's the better part anyway." Ken retorted with a grin and chuckle. "Come on lad. Show me what you did."

End Scene.