Episode 307: Cassandra Lockdown, Part Three
And the blast doors to the command deck come down.
Crewman: Lieutenant Commander! It’s like every alarm on the ship has gone off. We’ve got fires on every deck. We’ve got hull breaches. We’ve got….locks are opening.
Joshua: They’re accessing your computer. Focus on the munitions, please. I don’t like the idea of what they –
Harry: (yelling) It’s a Cassandra!
A “Cassandra” is a cyber-attack that activates every alarm and lockdown system as if the ship were suffering a catastrophic failure. Brian reaches for his sidearm and scans the bridge for something to shoot. Harry’s on the horn to Security.
Harry: Send a security detail down to munitions. (to the bridge crew) Work on getting these doors open. We need to override. The Captain’s not on board…okay.
She taps the intelligence officer on deck.
Harry: What are the protocols for overriding these alarms?
Intel Officer: I’m not sure we can.
Nika: Arden. Help her out.
Nika gestures and we start moving.
Arden: Okay.
Rina: I’ll see if I can’t do something on the locks.
Nika: (to Rina) Rick is down there. Get us out.
Down below, Rick hears the alarms go off. Before him, the four men disconnect their databook from the computer and keep going. Rick follows, looking around for anything he can use as a club. There are various wrenches and a fire axe or two.
One of the men stops to look behind them. Rick ducks behind some cover to avoid being seen and cautiously puts eyes on the group again. It looks as if the one man is standing back to provide look-out while the others go ahead. But where are they going?
The look-out has got a commanding view of the path behind them, but the compartment they are all in is at least twenty-five feet high. Rick decides to take the high road and continue tailing the men from above.
Back on the command deck, people and personnel are sorting themselves out to the task of shutting Cassandra down. Harry and the Intel Officer have their heads together, working out how to circumvent the protocols locking down the ship.
Brian: (loudly) Let’s move the civilians to the back of the deck, please.
The crewman Arden is helping gives him a look and Arden steps back.
Arden: Okay. It’s your ship.
Rina: (to self) Fine. They can open their own damn doors.
Rick pauses before climbing up the missiles to find a different channel to comm his crew on. As he’s doing so, the automated alarms calmly advise him what to do.
Alarm: Move to safest area. The safest area for you is Doorway A-13. Wait for door to open.
Very helpful. There being no time really to talk, Rick begins climbing. On the way, he spots a power loader suit, a sort of wearable walking forklift with articulated waldo arms outfitted with power clamps for loading the munitions. Huh. Looks like there really are robots involved. If only marginally. Rick notes it and moves on.
Back on the command deck, Nika grabs Brian away from Arden’s direction.
Nika: Brian!
Brian: Nika, what’s up?
Nika: Connelly. Tell me what the protocols are when all the alarms go off, what is the first thing that happens down in the munitions bays. Do they lock down? What happens?
God forbid should someone steal a nuke. Or set the damn thing off while still aboard Decatur.
Brian: I don’t know. It’s not exactly my field. I’m a Tactical Officer, not a Security Officer. I’m guessing yeah, the bulkheads would lock. It’s possible the fire suppression systems would come on.
Rina: Nika, what’s this about munitions?
Nika: Rick is down in the munitions bay. He was following someone and they were accessing the computer. Somebody blew the computer—
Rina: Yeah-yeah, I’m there, I’m there. What’s wrong?
Nika: If you were to blow the alarms, what would be your goal? What would be the first thing you would try to do to create chaos here?
Rina: Lock down the ship.
Nika: That’s what they just did. Paranoid Schizo-Woman. Tell me what happens. If you want to lock down the ship and get all of these people out of your way, what would you take? What would you be trying to do?
No hesitation from Rina.
Rina: I’d try to take the ship. I’d scramble the personnel off it. We’re being hijacked.
Nika: That’s my concern. Harry? Commander—?
Joshua: They were Blue Sun personnel.
Arden: Or disguised as Blue Sun personnel.
Joshua: Okay, disguised but maybe they are Blue Sun personnel. For the sake of argument—
Nika: (prompting us) Quickly!
Joshua: What do you do—does Blue Sun need to steal a planet buster?
Nika: No. But if they want to get it out of the way, they just have somebody in the munitions compartment blow this place sky high.
Paranoid Schizo-Woman much?
Nika: Harry. Are there any passageways to get us down there through the lockdown?
Harry: Nika. The automatic bulkheads have sealed. Nobody’s getting anywhere.
Rina: Atmo vents. Sub-ceilings.
Nika: There are no vents, no crawlspaces, no nothing?
Harry: There shouldn’t be. Everything’s that’s keeping atmosphere on the ship is keeping the atmosphere in its own sections. We’re working on shutting those down but it’s going to take some time.
Nika: Yeah. I know that.
Harry: If the Captain were on board, she’d have the override codes. I don’t.
Security measure, to be sure. But….
Nika: How far away is she? Is she in radio contact?
Rina: Can we suit up, walk outside? Get in that way?
Harry: Distress calls have been sent out all over. I have no idea what other people are going to respond to this. We’re sending out a message saying that we imminently going to explode. Not intentionally. We can’t control that either.
Nika: Yeah, I know.
Arden: Is the Captain on the planet.
Harry: Yes.
Arden: That’s the target.
Rina: What? They’re after her?
Nika: That’s a stretch.
Arden: No, if this ship can’t respond to something that needs responding to, then it’s discredited.
Nika: It already can’t respond, it’s under construction.
Is this a ploy to keep the construction work from being completed? What the heck is being mounted to Decatur’s hull, anyway, and who would benefit it never going online?
Harry: People blew up Parliament. Maybe it’s the same people.
Down in the munitions bay, Rick continues watching and waiting for an opening to make his move. The compartment is pretty big—100 feet on a side—with the loader bots in the center section of the floor, next to the freight lifts that travel between decks. Look Out Man is holding his position, watching the bulkhead door they’d last come through. Examining the man as best he can, Rick doesn’t see any weapons on him. The man appears to be unarmed. Rick gauges the distance between him and the Look Out. He’s on a missile group right above the man. All Rick needs to do is step off, fall from above and pile-drive the bastard into the deck.
So he does.
Look Out Man only has time to look up and see Rick coming for him, but Rick’s too fast to allow the man to dodge. Rick hits the man like a ton of bricks and the man goes down without a sound. Odd. He definitely had time to yell a warning. Why not? The only conclusion Rick can come to as he secures the unconscious man is perhaps the man was trained as a scout and unaccustomed to making any noise at all.
Whatever works.
Rick searches him, finding no weapons. There’s an ident card and Rick puts it in his pocket. It might come in useful. He grabs the unconscious man by the ankles and drags him out of there. There’s got to be a place where he can stash the man where he can’t be seen…
Meanwhile, back on the bridge Rina is going over the door locks, trying to hack into them to get out of there. Joshua wonders if there’s going to be another bulkhead locked shut beyond the one on our side. If that’s the case, the controls for that door is going to be out of reach on the far side. And then there’s the fact that the controls on the doors believe there’s hard vacuum on both sides and will resist being opened.
Brian goes over to a locker near the command console and entering a code into the lcok, opens it up. It’s a weapons locker and he starts yanking weapons, including grenades. Rina eyes them enviously.
Rina: Grenades. Now look at that. Now why can’t we do that?
Arden: Cuz we’re not a Naval ship.
Rina: (turning back to her hack) Like that’s ever stopped us before.
Harry and the intelligence officer are furiously working through the manual to bypass the door controls. Had this been Harbinger, it would have taken maybe a minute. Decatur, however, is a larger and a vastly more complex ship and her current crew have had her for only about a year. Hence the manuals. Nika eyeballs Harry and calls out to her.
Nika: Commander? I have an expert hacker over here. (to Arden) I don’t care what Connelly says. Help her. I’ll keep Connelly busy. (to Brian) I know we’re not security personnel but at least let us help, okay? Rick is downstairs. And he’s not armed, because we came aboard unarmed.
Arden and Joshua move to help, Arden to hack and Joshua to pore over the manuals. Brian considers it for a split second.
Brian: Harry, they might be waiting for an opportunity for the computer systems to be opened. Have you thought about that?
Harry: Yes, that’s true. That is a possibility.
Nika: Or they could be getting ready to blow us to hell.
Brian: Well, it could be both, but if you break down security—
Arden: If they’re trying to get into the system they wouldn’t have tripped the security protocols to make it harder to get into the system.
Brian: No, but it puts everyone on an even playing field.
Arden’s not entirely convinced and Brian moves to cut him off before Arden can make it to the computer systems. Nika intercepts Brian.
Nika: He can do this, okay?
Brian: Forgive me if I’m not 100% confident in what the side effects of what he does might be. If you unlock the system—
Nika: Do you want to die? Did you want to die? Did you want me to leave you there, on the ground, bleeding out?
Brian: I am dying.
Nika: Is this the time or place? Really?
Talk about dying later. Work on living now. Then again…
Nika: If you want to have this fight right now, standing on the bridge, we can do that.
Brian looks ready to chew nails and Harry goes up to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.
Harry: Remember your blood pressure.
Brian’s expression changes and steeling himself, he turns away to stand over Rina to watch what she’s doing with the door controls. Harry returns to the computer screen, intensely focused on what she sees there, and says softly to Nika at her side.
Harry: One of the side effects of Brian’s treatment was a thinning of the blood vessels in his brain. If his blood pressure gets too high, they’ll burst and he’ll die. (A pause) It may have caused some other psychological effects.
Nika: Ya think?
Harry: He’s alive. As you said.
Nika: And he’s pissed. I don’t blame him for that. I’ll remember that when we have that conversation later. Thank you.
Arden: And many many Quaaludes.
Nika looks at Arden and thrusts a finger at the computer.
Nika: Get us in.
In the missile room, Rick searches the man for weapons and comms. Finding nothing of real use, Rick starts tying the man up with his own belt then pauses. The unconscious man isn’t huge, being of a size with Rick, but he’s all solid muscle. He’s clearly in great physical shape and if Rick had to hazard a guess, he’s say the man was a martial arts master. Given they’re of a size, Rick decides to strip the man down for his uniform as a disguise. The man’s compatriots would see after a second that Rick is an imposter, but that extra precious second could give Rick the edge he needs to take the others out. The man has no weapons on him but he does have a nice comms system, better than ours, and a Blue Sun ID. Rick appropriates both items as well as the man’s clothes. Rick puts the clothes on and after tying the man up, stashes his unconscious self under the missile rack.
Rick puts the comms on, hoping to find the other saboteurs chatting to each other. He hears a calm voice saying:
Saboteur: We have accessed Section 11-F. This should be the one. Everything okay up there, Alpha?
Rick: Yes.
Rick uses all the showmanship he’s got to passably imitate the man he’s just taken out. Apparently he’s successful, because the man at the other end continues as if nothing is amiss.
Saboteur: No time for nerves. Don’t let those alarms bother you. We’ll be in and out of here in two minutes. You just wait. Just like in simulation.
Rick recalls what he’d seen when taking the clothes off the look-out. The man was ripped, clearly a martial arts master, and Rick gets the feeling that these guys have done more than just simulations. If Rick hadn’t literally gotten the drop on the guy, chances are very good the guy would have mopped the floor with him. Luckily that was not the case and now Rick is in a position to listen in on the others and try to head them off.
Rick advances and pokes his head around the corner and sees the other three of them at a reinforced bulkhead door, trying to affect a bypass. Rather like Rina’s doing on the bridge, had he but known. They’ve pulled off the plate on the lock controls but this being a missile room, they’re having a harder time hacking into it.
Rick draws back around the corner and starts scanning for a channel to the bridge on his stolen comms. He finds a public/all-ship channel. A man’s voice fills it and it’s obviously not a recording, but a live person on a live mike. Going by his military experience, Rick judges it’s not an officer but an enlisted on the line.
'Man: We have ascertained this is not an emergency. It’s a computer malfunction. Everyone stay where you are. We are not expecting any danger. If you wish to return to your ships, the doors are sealed now so you’re going to have to wait. I suggest you all get comfortable.
Rick breaks into the channel.
Rick: I need to speak to one of the military officers—
Man: Who am I talking to?
Rick: I cannot get on a different channel. I need to speak to one of the officers now.
Man: Who am I talking to?
Rick: I just need to speak to one of the military officers.
Rick can hear the man at the other end of the mike pause and then answer back in a whisper.
Man: There’s nobody else here. I’m assuming that this isn’t a real emergency. I just told everybody that it wasn’t. How are we doing? Is the ship gonna blow up? Is there a fire on board? I mean, we might get one of the doors to the ship open. I’ve got like, thirty-five people here.
You have to give the man credit for taking control of the situation, even at the expense of a lie that could bite him in the ass later. Thirty-five people locked in a room, stampeding with nowhere to go, could turn into a meat grinder in a flash. Rick answers back just as quietly.
Rick: It’s a false emergency as of right now. But I know where the people that are attempting to break into the systems at the moment so I need to talk to someone who knows the layout of the ship, so they can tell me what is in the munitions door these people are trying to go through. It’s in Section 11-F.
Man: Okay….um. The communications systems are going haywire, they’ve taken over every frequency with these alarms, the automated alarms. But…
Rick: Is there anyone with you that is familiar with the ship or who knows what Section 11-F is? Can you ask them and then tell me?
Man: I’ll go check. I don’t want to alert anybody by yelling ‘ammunitions’.
Rick: Yeah, yeah.
Man: I’ll get back to you. Stay where you are,… or, you know, just wait. I’ll get back to you.
Rick peeks around the corner to see if the other saboteurs overheard the conversation over their comms and nope, the others are still trying to push through the hack. Rick notices the sound quality on his purloined comms is much better than ours. The effect is surprisingly subtle, with the sound seeming to come from inside the wearer’s head, so finely calibrated are the ear pieces. Rick notes the saboteurs’ channel and the all-ship channel and swaps back and forth between them to make sure he’s got them down, then switches back to the all-ship to wait for further word.
Back on the bridge, Arden susses there’s a way to access the data he needs without breaking into the system, legally as it were, as well as breaking it open. Trying to find the legitimate way in would be time-consuming but possible. As he’s mapping the path he needs, Nika leans over to Harry.
Nika: Harry, do you mean to tell me that your security personnel don’t have emergency overrides for doors that have trapped people inside? Serious oversight.
Harry: You don’t have doors open to a vacuum that you can just open with a security code.
Nika: Right, but if they come down accidentally, doesn’t the security quartermaster have security overrides for that?
Harry: Yes. If the doors lock automatically, we can unlock them. Unless the ship is telling us that there’s poisonous gas, vacuum, or other things on the other side of it. It’s to protect people from killing themselves.
Nika: (dryly)Yes.
Harry: (snaps) It’s an Alliance ship! I didn’t build it!'
Harry never loses it. Never. Nika just gives Harry the look.
Harry: You don’t know the smarts of the typical Alliance security guy is. You don’t want them opening doors of airlocks into space.
Joshua: (quietly) Do we really have time for this argument? I mean, really?
Nika: I’m just asking!
Joshua: I know you are. But.
Arden pipes up from the terminal.
Arden: Is there a way to clear out the invalid messages to the ship?
Harry: A way to clear out invalid messages?
Arden: Somewhere messages are coming to the ship telling it that this-and-this is bad and this-and-this is going to happen. Is there a way to filter that out so it will only take the proper access code rather than the all-alerts?
Harry: You can basically use the same technique that Cassandra uses to tell us that things are going haywire to tell her everything’s fine. So you might actually be able to capture the Cassandra and point-by-point you can probably make a path through the system. You couldn’t shut down everything on the ship.
Then that’s what Arden’s going to do. Starting with the hatch codes from the bridge to the munitions deck. He starts looking for the most efficient path between the two locations. Across the bridge, Rina gets that bulkhead door open to the corridor just outside. It goes left and right and she sees there are doors sealed at either end.
Rina: Nika. Door.
Nika: Hit the next one.
Rina: All right. Can I get a gun?
Rina gets moving to the next door. Brian moves to follow Rina.
Brian: If you could move to that door over there—
Rina: Why?
Brian: Weapons locker.
Rina: Can I get a gun?
Brian: Maybe.
Rina: Tell you what. I open the door, I get a gun.
Brian: Fair enough.
Rina gets to work on the weapons locker. Nika comes up behind Brian and takes the gun off his belt.
Nika: (to Brian) You’re gonna give me one, too.
Brian: When the door opens.
Nika: Okay. (gives gun back)
Brian: I don’t know…
Nika: Grenades would be more fun.
Brian: You haven’t been very cooperative so far, so I’m not so sure. You’re a little bossy, Nika.
Joshua: For God’s sake.
He’s followed Brian, Nika, and Rina off the bridge and points to each of them, respectively.
Joshua: You’re military, you’re supposed to be military at one point, and you’re just Goddamned paranoid. Why are you frikkin’ arguing?
Nika: (to Brian) You were the one who picked a fight on the bridge.
Joshua: Leave it alone. Just leave it alone.
Nika: (wryly) Have you not figured this is how we blow off stress yet, Joshua?
Joshua: Yes, I have but it’s really pissing me off at the moment.
Nika: You know, it could’ve been worse, Joshua. In the old days, we’d be taking advantage of the lull between doors to make out against the bulkhead.
Joshua: Feel free. Go right ahead.
On her knees at door to the gun locker, Rina just eyerolls the entire exchange and keeps on hacking the lock.
In the missile bay, Rick is sussing out the tactics. There’s still three men to take down and he may not be able to drop down on them from above a second time. That sort of thing generally only works once before the opposition gets wise to it. Could he call the men off from the others one by one, take them out? Maybe. Could he release the missiles from their racks and roll them on top of the enemy? Possibly. At the moment, they are in a section with a 10-foot high ceiling and Rick’s in one with 25 feet of clearance. The missiles would have to roll just right to clear the ceiling and the doorway.
So that’s right out.
Even the loader robot at the other end of the bay is a non-option. It’s too big to fit into the smaller compartment. At best, all Rick could do with it is threaten the opposition with a robot arm thrust through the doorway for a smash and grab.
No, he’s going to need another alternative.
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Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
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