It had been a while after the long hard fight with the Imperial Dominion. There was a time of peace now, which all were enjoying throughout the Vast Empire, but more so on Abrae than anywhere else. Grent would be enjoying it too, were he not on the VE homeworld under special assignment signed by the Naval Commander in Chief himself. Grent chuckled to himself at how it had all happened. The squadron had been resting and generally lounging about, when Joamer had walked in with a very serious face. The room instantly went quiet, and everyone focused. The Squadron Commanding Officer, who now really
was an officer (and no-one let him forget it), announced that he needed a volunteer for a dangerous assignment that didn’t involve any sort of flying, and was based on Abrae. That was a shock. Strill were a fighter squadron, after all. Sure they were commandos as well, but Naval Intelligence were usually the ones doing anything like this on Abrae. Yet Strill had been asked … nay, they had been
ordered to do it. Joamer approached Grent, and though he had asked for a volunteer, the SCO knew full well that Grent had experience of special operations, having been asked to do it before.
And so he found himself in a well furnished office, in front of the wookie who was the NCC, and a hologram projection of, what seemed to be, a bunch of static. Grent stood at attention, in full uniform, upon entering the room, hat held tightly at his side.
“Petty Officer Notimo, reporting for duty as ordered, sir!”
Grent’s previous experiences meant that he could understand the vast majority of Shryiiwook, though he was rusty on a few of the more choice swear words used by some of the species. The Vice-Admiral had clearly read this in his file, no doubt, and as such there was no protocol droid present to translate, “[Please, sit, Petty Officer,]” the NCC was saying, Grent translating it in his mind, “[You must be wondering why you are here.]”
“Yes, sir,” Grent replied.
“[This is Captain Grey, of VENI,]” the wookie indicated the hologram, “[He will be briefing you.]”
“Thank you, Admiral,” the static filled hologram suddenly had a datapad in front of him, and appeared to be reading it, “Petty Officer Grent Notimo. Callsign Gurlanin. Nicknamed Gur by your fellow squadron mates … 19 years old … born on Qiilura, of all places … received the Imperial Guardian medal, and contributed to Strill’s Captain’s Own medals … speaks Basic, Mando'a, and understands Shryiiwook … mother and father still living on Qiilura … Impressive record, Petty Officer, especially for one so young.”
“Thank you, si-…”
“Are you loyal, Mr. Notimo?”
“Sir?”
“Are you loyal?”
“To whom, or what, sir? To the Vast Empire, my friends, my family, and my squadron? Yes.”
“Good answer. We have a problem with loyalty that we need someone on the outside to solve. One of our informants has gone rouge, and taken a large amount of intelligence with him. Naturally, we could storm where he is hiding, and take it all back by force. However, we need to know who he’s now working for. As such, we are providing you with fake information to replace the old. Are you still up for this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You realize that what I say from here on in has to be kept within these four walls, and you cannot back out once you have heard it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You also understand that to repeat any of what has been said here is tantamount to treason, and will be treated, and punished, as such?”
Grent thought about backing out right then and there, but stuck with it now. He was intrigued, and itching for action, “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Your target is an Ithorian named Belvic Ignar. He runs an electronic systems store on Abrae. Datapads, computers ... that sort of thing. As it happens, he is currently hiring new staff. He would smell a rat, and hide, if he saw one of us come into the shop, which is where you come in.”
“Guess I better start brushing up on my computer knowledge then.”
“There’s a man waiting for you outside. He’ll give you the crash course, then you’ll be on your way. You’ll be given a full briefing on the flight to Abrae …”
---------------------------------------
Grent walked into the shop, named Ignar Computers, and looked around nervously. He had never done anything like this before, and preferred to have some sort of weapon on him, but Grey had not allowed that. His job was simply to get into the server room, and switch the data. “The Ithorian’s not very smart, and he’s likely got all his stolen data on a server somewhere in his shop. He rarely leaves, so you’ll have to be careful” he had been told in his full briefing by a human female who refused to indentify herself.
It was simple enough to get the job, with the VENI providing him with a false identity, and a very extensive, but very short, slicing course. In his younger days, back in his gang on Qiilura, Grent had done his fair amount of slicing, but those computers had virtually no security on them at all. Even so, the questions he was asked by his interviewer, a Bothan female called Chi’kar, were very easy to answer. He was hired on the spot as a sales assistant, after signing a few forms and checking his details.
After a while of serving customers, Grent approached Chi’kar.
“A customer has asked about a computer that they reserved. Says it was put on the system or something. Where do I go to fi-..”
“Out the back. Staff door combination is ‘2256’. First left is the reserved items room. Use the computer to find it. It’s unlocked.”
Grent thanked her, and made his way out to the back. He had no intention of finding any item, other than the server. The pilot-come-commando skulked around. Suddenly he saw the Ithorian come out of a room, and head towards the refresher. The alien was too busy mumbling to himself to notice Grent quietly slip through the doorway, before the door shut. Upon turning around, Grent found his goal. He logged onto the computer connected to the server, to find it locked. That was not a problem. Using a standard set of key presses, the Navy man was able to open up the command prompt, and start a couple of sub-routines usually used by the software developers. He was in. Now he had to find what info he needed, and quickly. Going into the network, he found the server, and found that it had another, more secure, password system. He was going to have to go through the firewall. Fortunately for him, VENI had provided equipment for just this purpose. He brought out his new datapad, and plugged it in. To bypass the firewall, he had make sure his datapad’s data looked like legitimate data. He activated a program on the datapad, which immediately started looking at the packets of data going through the firewall. Within seconds, it had found the correct ‘port’ and within another few seconds, it had determined what packet shells to copy, to give its data a disguise.
Now he was through the firewall, he had to access the root files of the server, from which he would have complete control of the system. That was no easy task, however, as only the administrator had those privileges, and even then, there were more safety checks. Grent knew of another bypass, however, and tricked the server into thinking it was being shut down. This put the root files on public display, as the server started to run the shut down routines. Grent’s datapad latched data onto the root files, then cancelled the shut down. With full access over the system, it was a simple case to search for the files he needed. Now came the difficult part: Grent had to make the files look exactly like the old ones. Again, he turned to his trusty datapad, and
Had it clone the originals’ outer look, transfer them, and replace them with the fake copies, which slotted into the cloned shells. If anyone looked at the files, it would seemed to be that they hadn’t been touched. In reality, the data on them was useless, and would activate a tracking virus on any device that they were opened on.
His job now done, he made for the door, datapad and cables hidden away. Just as he made the door, he was abruptly met by a shocked, then angry Ithorian.
“What are you doing in here? Who are you?” he bellowed. Not hard for a species with four vocal areas.
“I’m Freiud Klutz,” Grent said, quoting his false name, “I was just hired this morning, and I was looking for the ‘fresher. This door was open, and I thought …”
“You thought wrong! Now get out of here, and don’t let me catch you back here again! You’re fired!”
“But, I was just …”
“NOW!”
Grent walked briskly from the shop, collecting what little pay he had earned from an apologetic Chi’kar.
“He’s been unusually grumpy over the last week or so. Don’t take it personally. I’ll give you a call after he’s calmed down, and see about getting you back on staff.”
“Thanks, Chi’kar.”
“Anytime, Freiud. Farewell.”
It had gone better than planned. Grent had been worried about how to leave the shop without arousing suspicions, but it turned out his fears where short lived. He took out a comm link, after finding a quiet alleyway, and spoke the key words into it, affirming that it was mission success.
All he had to do now, was find his way out of here ….
- OOC:
- WC:1,642
AAR: VENI needs someone on the outside to do a job, and they chose Strill, who in turn choose Grent. He gets briefed, and gets a new job as a salesman, before finding the computer he needs to slice. He activates sub-rountines to bypass the initial password, then finds he can bypass the server password, and needs to bypass the firewall security. He does this by monitoring data traffic to find the right ‘port’, and cloning ‘packets’, which is what data is sent in. He then accesses the root files by tricking the server software into giving him access. Then he finds the files he needs, and knows that if he just copied them direct, it would be easily noticed, so he clones the files, extracts the data from them, and puts the new data in, making it appear as though it’s all still the same. Then he nearly gets caught, and gets fired by the irate Ithorian.
NB.
Using VENI was the best way I could think of at the time that didn’t involve combat. Also, the methods used in this post to crack security are based on real life methods I’m currently studying (Computing Forensics). The only one that was mainly assumption was how he gained access to the root files. There is a way similar to this, however, I couldn’t find it in my online searches to double check my information.
