System Supervillain, 130

This got really fun to write.

Chapter 130 – Sending a Message

The sound of dial-up internet called, and we once more found ourselves in the digital realm. This time, however, we were in the commlink of whichever gel-nak had been unfortunate enough to meet us. Unlike the other gel-nak digital realms I’d seen, this felt more personal, more lived in than even the wider gel-nak network had. Probably due to some signs of individual preference or nonstandard organization.

Stolen Victory was clearly thinking the same thing. After all, I wasn’t the only one Web Mistress had carted to different gel-nak ships while we were cleansing the fleet of their kind. Unlike me, she apparently found words appropriate to describe what we were seeing.

“The ships were like a hospital. Sterile, plain, regular, everything in specific places. That command center was like a bunker. Still plain, and orderly, but designed to actually be used. This is like someone’s apartment. They left their shoes by the door, and tossed their coat over the chair, rather than putting it in the closet, but that doesn’t matter, since they’re going out in a few hours anyways.”

“A good analogy, Victory,” Web Mistress nodded. “Most personal devices are like this, in some way. Means that while you usually don’t have to worry as much about really bad encryption or countermeasures, they’re usually as bad or worse than corporate mainframes due to how they have their own organization that only the individual knows, rather than any set standards.”

FX chuckled. “The personal touch is why I still had a job before I met Master, even though AI art looked sophisticated enough. But on more important things, do you think the lizards will be able to disarm the bomb?”

“Doubtful,” Foxtrot said. “They’re a cold-blooded species, after all, and Master just tossed their entire planet into an ice age. From what we’ve seen, the Warrior and Leader caste don’t have the skills to disarm the bomb, and the Worker caste would need time to suit up before going outside.”

“But the Warriors could just decide to disintegrate the bomb,” Titania pointed out. “While there might be some radiation release, the bomb won’t blow up if it is rendered into its component atoms.”

“Well, then, it is a good thing that I took the time to slag the door,” Pyra grinned. “Didn’t want anyone coming up after us, so I just melted the doorframe a bit. Won’t stop someone really determined, sure, but it will take more time for them to break through, if they even think to get to the rooftop to begin with.”

“Oh, I’m sure that they’ll think of it, eventually. However, it may take a moment,” I said, smiling. “They’ll be expecting us to try and reach the ground, so we can make an escape, or looking for us in the air, if we can fly. We’ve also shown how dangerous we are in close quarters, where they can’t truly bring their numbers to bear. No one wants to be the first to volunteer to rush into the blender, so there will be some hesitation before anyone goes up there. Enough time for us to get back through the portal, at least.”

The scenery flickered as we moved to another node. This one had the sterile feel of the gel-nak ships, but also felt smaller, more limited. Another flicker, and we were in another node, that looked just the same. Web Mistress smiled, and said, “We’re back on Earth.”

I nodded slowly. “Status of the room outside?”

“Four Warriors on guard, on this side. One Worker at the controls. No one else in the room, but we’re still in the middle of one of the gel-nak transports. Getting out normally would mean cutting our way through a bunch of lizards.”

“Right, do we need to get out to turn off the portal?”

“Only if you want to be so gauche as to personally cut the power cable with your sword, or something like that. I can just flip the switch, metaphorically speaking, and turn it off. And if I forcibly log the current user out, and delete all access codes, before re-encrypting the system to my standards? Then it will be some time before anyone can turn the thing back on. At the very least, it will give us the remaining…” she paused to check the time, “three minutes and fifty-eight seconds before the nuke goes off, making the whole exercise pointless.”

“What about the second ship? Will they have a similar gate?”

“Yes, but because of how the quantum mesh works, you can’t have three gates active at once. They shipped two, because they aren’t complete idiots, and decided that backups are nice. However, the backup is currently in storage. It would take at least an hour to set it up and activate it. And before you ask, the reason the second gate is in storage is because you don’t keep replacements for vital equipment that can easily get broken out where it could easily be damaged.”

“Excellent. Do it. And then take us to the command deck of the carrier. The ice sculptures are still there, so I might as well make another announcement, showing off my new trophy. Oh, does the Empire have inter-system communications? I never bothered to check.”

“User logged out,” Web Mistress said, happily. “Access codes deleted. And just encrypt it with a 479-digit alphanumeric code… done.”

Pyra chuckled. “A 479-digit password? And I thought the ‘create a strong password’ prompts were bad.”

“Oh, this is nothing,” I chuckled. “Normally, when she’s setting up a system for her personal use, she chooses a random number between ten and ten thousand, and makes that the number of characters for the password, which she can only manage thanks to the Eidetic Memory talent, giving her a photographic memory. She’s annoying like that, sometimes, but it means that her administrative accounts are nigh-unhackable.”

“Nigh-unhackable?” Titania said, incredulously. “That sounds like the definition of unhackable!”

““Nothing is unhackable,”” Web Mistress and I said in unison, though her voice was more annoyed, while mine was mirthful. She glared at me, but I just blew her a kiss back, before looking back to Titania. “Anything can be hacked, with enough processing power and time. And that’s just with the brute force cracking methods. Another technopath, like Web Mistress, might be able to sidestep the encryption entirely, for instance. Or someone with direct hardware access might be able to do something. There may be hidden back doors in the depths of the code, or hardware vulnerabilities put in there by the manufacturer. And, of course, there’s always the chance someone could mind control her, and make her ‘hack’ her own systems.”

Everyone besides Web Mistress was staring at me, even as the technopath ripped us from the control console to the alien carrier’s network, a little more forcefully than normal. I just shrugged. “The first time I got the girl drunk, she went on a rather extensive rant about it. And she brings it up again and again, every time someone tries to say a system can’t be hacked.”

“Well pardon me for wanting people to understand the complexities of cybersecurity!” Web Mistress said in a huff. “If people go around saying that a system is unhackable, then they get stupid and lazy, which takes half the fun out of breaking into a system. It is like you breaking into an office building where the night watchman forgot to turn on the security system or lock the doors before taking a nap. It is offensive to a true professional to see someone disregard the possibilities like that!”

Stolen Victory chuckled softly. “I guess the reason we haven’t heard this rant before is because most of us just assumed that you would take someone saying a system is unhackable as a challenge. And we never pictured someone being able to hack your systems, so we never thought to ask. That would be like asking me if I knew how to wield a sword, or Pyra if she knew how to practice fire safety.”

“Well, that’s just how it is,” I said as I removed the Emperor’s head from my blade’s storage dimension, and picked it up. “So, Web Mistress, if you would do the honors?”

“Sure, sure.” The next moment, there was the scream of dial-up internet once more, and we were all on the command deck of carrier that had been the centerpiece of this fleet. With the atmosphere evacuated thanks to the Uprising Controls, there wasn’t even an unfortunate smell to deal with thanks to the vacuum preserving the corpses. Of course, we all had the Life Support (Self-Contained Breathing) power, either naturally or through our gear, and we had comms so the lack of air to carry sound didn’t matter, so we were fine.

I adjusted my powers, getting rid of Niflheim, since I’d already used it, and didn’t see a need to cause any more ice ages today. In its place, I went with a Transform power to create ice sculptures. Didn’t need to be anything fancy. Just a spike rising up from the deck plating to hold the head at roughly chest level, between the Supreme Commander and Ship Commander’s chairs. A nice addition to the tableau I’d shown the Gel-nak, just after they’d come to Earth.

“Web Mistress, I don’t think you ever answered my question about whether the Gel-nak had inter-system communications. Other than the gates, is there anything we can do to push things further?”

“No, they don’t have instantaneous communication between star systems. Or, if they do, it wasn’t mentioned in any of the systems I’ve been able to access, or the System files I’ve looked through. I mean, administrators can send mail through the System, but everyone else has to play by the rules. However, that doesn’t mean each system is cut off.”

“What, they use mail carriers or something?”

“Pretty much. All licensed freighters in the Empire have to carry a Message Core. Basically, a stand-alone, black box system with its own receiver and transmitter. Messages going to their next few projected ports are stored in the Core before the ship launches, and are transmitted automatically when they arrive. Successfully delivered messages are wiped from the Core, usually being replaced by more messages.”

“So, putting everything on whether one ship makes it?”

“No, not at all. They send copies of outgoing messages to all ships heading that way for a month after they were originally uploaded to the mail system. The system on the receiving end checks for duplicates, and deletes them, so someone isn’t getting twenty copies of the same message. Of course, that’s just for normal, civilian mail.”

“And for the urgent, or military stuff?”

“Dedicated couriers for something urgent. Both civilian and military couriers exist, naturally. Also, the military has a dedicated version of the Message Core system, but with better encryption.”

“Good, good. Now, here’s the big question. Can you arrange it so that couriers on the planets Moscow and Rio are connected to take a message everywhere in the Empire? With some kind of Imperial override to make everyone in the systems get it? Preferably while charging the Empire for the privilege?”

Bloodmoon laughed. “Oh, that is clever, Master. You’re going to spread the news of the Emperor’s death so widely that it will be impossible to control the spread. And people are going to start filling in the blanks on their own, which will cause a lot more chaos. I love it!”

Web Mistress just smiled. “So, activating the alien equivalent of the Emergency Broadcast System? Yeah, I can do that. So, what are you going to say?”

“Leave that to me,” I chuckled, as I moved behind the command chairs, so everyone could see me, the ice sculptures, and the three severed heads, with the Emperor’s head in the center. “Ready?”

“Go for it,” Web Mistress nodded.

“This message goes out to all the ambulatory luggage calling themselves the ‘Gel-nak’. Not just those on Earth, or the planets connected to it by the portals in Moscow and Rio di Janeiro, but to the entire Empire. Look now upon your oh so mighty Emperor! I, Iceblade, the Rhuk of Earth, faced your Emperor, who is unworthy of my even remembering his name, in single combat, and bested him, even though he was surrounded by guards, cowering in a bunker. He is dead by my blade, and I show you his head as proof of my deed.

“To the pathetic walking suitcases that are invading London, by now, your leaders will know that the portal that had connected you to the invasion point on Thraxl Prime has closed. It is closed quite permanently, I’m afraid, for Thraxl Prime has descended into an ice age of my making, and, just to ensure the cowardly lizards on that rock cannot escape, I have detonated a nuclear device on the world, destroying the entire invasion point. You may thank the pitiful security of your Worker Caste for your survival, as it was that which allowed me to so easily turn off the gateway, and prevent the blast from following through to this side. Not that it will help you, any, for you all failed to prevent me from getting past you and executing your Emperor. Such a dishonor would no doubt taint your entire family lines, to the point where some would question whether they ought to be expunged like mutant deviants.

“To the intellectually deficient geckos who currently occupy Moscow and Rio, your choice is simple. Flee this world, and live in dishonor, or stay, and have your corpses desecrated and your honor forever besmirched, as you are skinned alive, so that your hides may be turned into garments and the bags to carry them, and then your still-living flesh is turned into meat for the pot, and your bones boiled for broth, all captured on video, so that your Empire, and those species you conquered, can see how to properly handle your kind.

“To all the Gel-nak remaining on Earth, the only chance of not suffering such dishonor and desecration is to give yourselves over to the authorities of the lands you invaded, praying for their mercy. For when I arrive, I will carry the storms of winter in my wake, and from the icy mists the Rhuk will hunt you, and find you, and consume you. And you will have only yourselves to blame.

“And to the people of the Gel-nak Empire, know that, one day, I shall turn my gaze upon you. When that day comes, the hottest jungle shall become a frozen forest, and the driest desert shall become the winter tundra. And the Rhuk shall hunt, from system to system, until the System itself says that there are no more Gel-nak to pursue, not even a child. But I am not without mercy. Any world which rises up, and slays the Leaders and Warriors shall be spared my wrath. Any world which submits to those the Empire had once conquered will not face eternal winter. So, to all the Worker Caste and Slaves of the Empire, who outnumber the Leaders and Warriors by one thousand to one, think hard on what the best choice is for you, and your children.

“This is the promise of Iceblade, the Rhuk of Earth.”