Outer Olympus

Outer Olympus: Chapter 2

While Taroh would never lose an opportunity to mock the Enforcer's incompetence, he had to admit that in terms of actual direct cybersecurity, the Outpost was doing its job rather well. The code Viola had given him was a competently created one, which Taroh's favorite cracking algorithms would take months to solve. All the important systems were air-gapped, so no hacker, no matter their skill, could ever connect to the system remotely. It might have been fair if the person who designed the cybersecurity system had described it as near unbreakable. Taroh liked to imagine they had, because it would explain why the Enforcers were so complacent as to let their guards down in ways that completely invalidated all of that work. The air gap was pointless when it was so easy to find a place where one could just plug directly into the system. The only thing that had barred Taroh entry to this place had been a single security camera (Taroh had been able to sneak in to a blind spot, open up the circuity, and set it to a loop by hand) and a physical lock that had only taken Taroh a minute to pick with a homemade set of lockpicks. Rooting through the wires and communications lines to find the cables connected to internal systems instead of just externals had taken some effort, something Taroh liked to think most hackers would have trouble with, but it wasn't the most complicated workaround either. And then there was the password. In all honesty, Taroh found getting the Enforcers to simply tell them the codes to be incredibly boring- there was no clever problem solving on his end, just being handed the key instead of figuring out how to pick the lock. And Viola was so smug about how well it went, which was an enjoyable kind of infuriating. But Taroh couldn't deny how effective it was, and it was hard to be disappointed for long when he was busy figuring out how much damage he could do with full access to the internal systems of a minor military outpost. Infamously, near the beginning of the rebellion, a small team of rebel infiltrators had snuck into Malgium Fortress on Babylon and seized control of its long range missile systems, using them to cripple the Hegemony's military infrastructure planet wide. It was one of Taroh's favorite war stories, but a minor outpost like this didn't have any powerful weaponry- there was an assault transport in the garage, but that couldn't be controlled remotely. Even if there was weaponry, Taroh didn't really have an interest in causing damage to Maintenance Six- the city was crumbling enough as it was. The first thing he did was one of the oldest tricks in any infiltrator's book- looping the camera feeds so that when the Enforcers looked at their security feed, they would just see repeating footage of nothing happening and think everything was fine, while having no idea their cameras were not working. It was a much different way to do this than how he had done it mechanically to the camera outside earlier, but the commands were basically muscle memory by this point as he dealt with cameras so frequently. This time, however, he kept the live feed technically going, but streaming only to his computer, not the base, to make sure he could be aware of the location of any of the Enforcers at any given time.

"Your intel was right, Viola," Taroh said, smiling. "Looks like there's only six of them." He moved onto the next, possibly most mission critical task- shutting off the locks. There were mixed security theories on the value of having doors that were remotely electronically controlled. On one hand, the computerized method left vulnerability to a cyberattack, like Taroh was currently doing, but on the other hand, in the case of a group of armed attackers storming the base (say, the type of peasant uprising the station was here to guard against) having remote control over interior doors was of extreme tactical value. Right now, Taroh was glad this was what the Enforcers had prioritized, because it gave him quite a deal of control over the base. A single press of a button and a door on the third floor slid open with a quiet hiss.

"Confirming the coast is clear?" Geode asked, staring at the window that had opened in front of them.

"No Enforcers nearby. You're good to go," Taroh replied, glancing at the security footage. A second later, he saw Geode gracefully roll through the window, turn, and smile at the camera. For all Geode's caution when it came to this type of plan, they still did love to show off. Taroh turned to Viola, flashing a smile of his own. "Showtime," he said, excitement dripping into his voice.

Geode moved through the Enforcer station with a practiced pace. They needed to be fast, but recklessness didn't pay in this type of situation; even with Taroh's guidance, they made sure to check around every corner they went around. This station may have been nearly empty, but it wasn't big enough that six Enforcers couldn't easily surround them. Despite this, it took under a minute to reach their goal, which was simply another window. Wordlessly, they withdrew a spool of cable from their backpack, attached the base of the spool to the edge of the window, and let the length of cable fall. They tapped their feet impatiently for the next few minutes, the wait the most unpleasant part of the whole operation. Geode could climb the cable up to the window from the alley below in nine seconds (they had timed this) but Viola and Taroh were not nearly in the same physical condition. As Viola finally reached through the window, Geode grabbed her hand and pulled her through.

"Having a good time?" Geode asked as she caught her breath.

"Of course," she smiled, wiping some sweat off her forehead. "Everything's going just as I planned." She tried to make the face of a sinister mastermind, but between her exhaustion and cheeky smile, couldn't quite pull it off. Geode laughed, moving to help Taroh in.

"Well, hope you don't want to rest too long, because we do need to get moving," Geode said, fishing for a look of disappointment from Viola and finding none. They felt a bit bad pushing Taroh so hard, but the kid was maybe the most excited one here, pulling his bulky laptop out of his bag to continue to look at the diagnostics of the base.

"There are only six Enforcers, but they can cover ground fast. If they start to leave the office, we could be in trouble fast," he said. "That said, the path to the garage is clear." The target the three of them were coming to rob was the station's garage maintenance supplies. The plan had slowly been constructed after Taroh had read the news about the Enforcers last round of budget increases (now accounting for 34% of the Maintenance Six overall budget) that provided the Enforcers with all sorts of expensive new technologies they wouldn't end up regularly using. The garage itself, in addition to its eight patrol cars, had six rapid response hoverbikes, two Harpy Interceptors, and a Galahad light tank. Of these, only the patrol cars and three of the hoverbikes had ever been used, but stationing the lot here required a considerable amount of equipment that the Enforcers did not particularly value despite their high price tag.

With Taroh controlling the station's systems, getting into the maintenance room was easy enough. It was a mess of boxes and shelves, kept in no particular order, dust suggesting most of the contents were rarely used. Viola was quick to start rooting around for stuff to grab, while Geode wandered over to the window overlooking the hangar proper. The two Harpies dwarfed the other vehicles in the room- even a single pilot starship was by necessity much larger than most ground based vehicles- and they stood in silent watch over the massive room. The Harpy was a vehicle with an unusual symbolic history; while it was a Hegemony Fighter, and these ones bore the White Sun symbol of the Hegemony on their wings, stolen Harpies had also composed most of the rebellion's fighter fleet. Because of this, the rebel pilots that Geode had grown up idolizing had been Harpy pilots, so even seeing this Hegemony weapon standing starkly in the cold imperial hangar conjured thoughts of heroism.

"Think we can steal one of those?" Taroh asked. Geode couldn't suppress a small smile.

"Absolutely," they said. "But what would we do with it? We don't exactly have a hangar to park a spaceship." Geode had a policy of being realistic, even in the face of a temptation like this.

"Not even Castle could hide something like that easily," Viola replied, continuing to sort through boxes of parts. "And can you two give me a hand? You're the ones who know how much this mechanical stuff is worth!"