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Posted On:
Sep 23 2005 4:00am
Necrotroopers were not very intelligent creatures, as previously stated. They were nothing more then simple zombies designed to follow a given set of rules.
They were not "alive" in the traditional sense (as being able to live a normal life). They were merely bodies, not actual "people".
And these Necrotroopers had been given orders.
Oh yes. Very simple orders.
Sneak into system.
Check.
The Nectrotrooper in charge of overseeing the small Bird-of-Prey fleet, subconciously noted the completed order.
Engage Imperial forces.
Check.
Several of the Birds were now no longer functioning. The Imperial fire had taken it's toll on the poorly equipped Birds of Prey. And it appeared that the Empire had no intent to completely obliterate them.
But Xander Griff was by no means a fool. He would have prepared for such a contingency. Before they had left port, the computer database on the ships had been completely wiped, leaving no trace of the Union, or their point of origin whatsoever. All the Birds of Prey had been outfitted with special self-destruct devices to detonate when disabled.
The Birds of Prey who could no longer fight were suddenly given their third and final order.
Without a seconds hesitation, the Necrotrooper assigned to man the self-destruct mechinisms entered a command and a password into his terminal.
Without much fanfare, the useless vessels destroyed themselves, leaving the remaining Bird of Prey to fight on, until it too, was rendered useless and destroyed itself.
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Posted On:
Nov 9 2005 4:47am
Security protocols demanded that the Financial Officer of the Watch activate the astromechs should an anomaly be found and due to the new associate grunt's mistake, such an anomaly occurred.
Massive star cruisers employed the use of astromechs in handling of the most complex navigational computations for split second course aquisitions and corrections.
That much computation power in such a compact little droid was truly the Mechis Cluster's golden contribution to a space faring society.
Because of their quick reflexes as measured in the transferring of nanosecond computable data several forward thinking businessmen used the droids as quick backup measures in cases of emergency which was a lifesaver to the banking world.
Stored in near complete protection against all sorts of disasters both experienced and imagined, the series of droids worked independently off the power grid. It was a secondary though secure backup next to the massive banking terminal mainframes.
And so as the new associate tried to follow the person he had let through, the Financial Officer of the Watch reported the infraction and the droids automatically went to work.
The Officer shook his head in amazement as his terminal spit out the droid's activity report.
*
While the Officer was gawking over the backing up of whole complex sections of data the associate was about to cross a line of red beam situated on the staircase when the lights flickered at the activation of an EMP pulse.
"What the hell?" the Financial Officer shouted into his comm, trying to raise the associate. "Dorj? What the frell is going on down there?"
An alarm began to sound as computer terminals began to relay systems that had gone down in different sections, mostly security systems.
The red light thrown across Associate Dorj's path flickered off with the pulse and as Dorj reached the bottom he turned into a hallway and found an inoperable Battledroid.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" he stupidly called out, as a hand tried to find a reset or reactivation button on the droid.
There was a tiny blinking light on some panel but not being a droid specialist, he did not have the faintest idea what it mean't.
He tried to use his comm but found only static.
His eyes widened as he heard noise farther up the hall and, picking up a metal rod from the droid to use as a club, he moved forward.
As he did so, a blastdoor began to separate the hall from the stair as the damaged system tried to compensate by sealing off the affected areas. Partly protocol and partly scrambled programming, the way behind being closed made Dorj extremely nervous.
"Hello?" he called out weakly.
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Posted On:
Nov 10 2005 4:36am
Bruce Pit did not panic as he heard the blastdoor begin to slide slowly across the face of the stairwell. One of his contingency plans had taken into account that the possibility would occur, and in the simulators he had successfully escaped from the partial lockdown 7 out of 10 times.
He moved quickly away from the door on which he had slapped the larger, ticking device, and started toward the closing blastdoor. He stepped out around the corner just as the associate stepped into the hallway. The man barley had the opportunity to form the word "Hello" before Bruce swung the metallic briefcase swiftly upward toward the man's face. Wasting no time, Bruce dove forward and rolled quickly to his feet as the blastdoor seal the stairway off behind him.
Bruce brushed off his stolen uniform and composed himself. The man who had stepped out of the stairwell had taken him completely by surprise, and nearly ruined the mission. He had escaped the proximity sensors Bruce had set up to cover his path- perplexing but not impossible. Acting on instinct, Bruce realized how ineffective his attack with the briefcase had been. Thinking back to the event that had occurred mere seconds ago, he realized that the briefcase had only done the associate a glancing blow, and the man was probably not even unconscious.
In another situation, that fact might prove deadly to Bruce, and he knew it. However, in this case he was lucky. In about 20 seconds the associate, and the bank itself, was going to have a lot more to worry about than a marauding "ISB" agent.
Bruce walked up the stairs, slowly but with the same aura of confidence he had possessed when he first entered the bank. His next and final stop wasn't too far away. As he started down the hall he passed a sign with an arrow pointing down toward the stairwell:
To Primary Reserves
Vaults 01-35
A moment later the floor on which Bruce was walking shook slightly, as the military grade baradium detonator he had set upon the door exploded in a tremendous inferno of devastation.
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Posted On:
Jan 12 2006 12:56am
"2100 hours, assets are frozen." The Financial Officer on Duty of Record sounded out the protocol, disgusted that things had gotten this far. If there was one thing Muunillist took seriously, it was money.
"Data web backup secure." another man intoned as if checking off a list, which in fact he was.
The Officer of the Watch walked in with the droid's report and the Officer of Record saw that the backup's had powered down and shielded. The ultimate in failsafe against orbital bombardment, the astromechs were housed in an area that had no discernable access to the surface and shielded from everything short of a superlaser.
And while this did not seem such a dire emergency, there was enough circumstantial data to suggest foul play and initiate certain security protocols.
Only one protocol was not activating.
"The vault area..." one monitor had shown.
Several of the shields were not coming up in place.
"Sir? We've had an electromagnetic field detonation somewhere on these floors.." entered a Security officer and the Officer of the Watch saw that the room was suddenly coming alive with personnel.
The Officer on Record ordered all exits closed and opened a line to Planetary Security.
*
Dorj picked himself up off the floor and ran a hand over the red dribble that ..welll dribbled off the side of his head.
It hurt to touch.
"There is an intruder on the premises!" he shouted into his comm. The sound of his own voice caused his head to ache and the only response he got was static.
He picked up his piece of pipe, not sure as yet what he was going to do, and stared at the closed blastdoor.
"Oh dear," he whimpered and began to glance around at his options.
*
The Financial Officer of the Watch pointed to a monitor. "THERE!" as a shadow moved across the view of a camera. Only enough to indicate a presence but not who..
But now that they had an area to look into...
And instantly, his joy turned to sorrow as the plethora of camera monitors in that area came up as static.
"They took out the security grid on this floor. Not bad." A security leader murmured as he ordered several teams to each exit. He was a methodical man and knew that if he went slow and efficiently, the noose would tighten quickly enough.
"Where are they heading?" the security leader snapped.
"Looks like Primary Reserves.."
"Vault Section?"
"According to that shadow shot? Anywhere from 1 to 200!" the Officer of the Watch shouted back in exasperation.
Things were not looking good.
Primary Reserve.
Granted, there wasn't much a single person could accomplish by way of theft that would set the bank back but if the intent was simple destruction, the bank would wish the intruder had decided to simply steal something. At least then, the reimbursment from insurance company would have been a relatively simple and neat affair. Destruction of property was always so much more messy and settling a claim that much more troublesome.
But what if the intruder was up to something more insidious?
What? the Officer of the Watch could not fathom as he had neither the capacity of imagination for such thoughts.
And that was when the explosion was felt.
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Posted On:
Jan 13 2006 4:06pm
As the explosion rocked the Regency Bank, Bruce Pit came to the end of his planned out pattern. He smiled as he saw the red box that contained a fire alarm just a few feet from him. He popped open the box, pressed the activation switched and exploded into a sprint. This portion of his plan was the least rehearsed and most dangerous. The operational planners hoped that the explosion and subsequent evacuation alarm would cause enough chaos, at least temporarily; to allow Bruce to gain access to the sensitive areas he would need to accomplish his final objective.
As he ran down a hallway, numerous bank employee's started sticking their head outside of doors, confused expressions on their faces. A wailing alarm kicked in, and some of the employees began filing out on pre-planned evacuation routes. Bruce noticed a few heads turn as he rushed past them, but his jet-black ISB uniform seemed to be enough justification for his action.
Bruce turned a corner and stepped into an open turbolift. The machines were supposed to shutdown in the case of fire, but thankfully he could use the ISB ID taken from Urlis to override that protocol. Within moments the turbolift was sailing downward, running unusually fast because of the security override command. When the turbolift reached Bruce's desired floor he turned off the override and the lift came to a halt.
He walked forward, passing another one of the arrow signs that read Mainframe back up but turning down a different path. The wailing alarm seemed to have died of, but red flashing lights still rotated brightly in the hallways. The entire level was silent, and seemed deserted.
So far, so good.
He had two tasks left to complete, then escaping detection and getting the hell of the planet. Realizing that daunting challenge would require his full attention, he pushed the thoughts of escape from his mind so that he could focus on the task at hand.
Get the job down, then get out.
He increased his pace and made a beeline for his first target.
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Posted On:
Feb 12 2006 1:40am
There it was.
Bruce Pitt was actually fairly surprised at how well the plan been worked. Executed to perfection, it had encountered only a minor glitch (the attendant back at the vault) and Bruce had managed to deal with it before it derailed the plan. Things were only supposed to go this well in simulations.
The room was quiet, with only the low buzz of back-up generators breaking through the silence. Row after row of computers sat in the room, blinking and whirring with a strange uniformity. Everything was bathed in a dull red light- emergency power. It seemed that the explosives had done some damaged to the bank's power grid.
The bulk suitcase hit the ground with a soft thud. Pitt clicked the handles on the case and opened it. There was a small compartment set into the base of the case, but it seemed that the majority of the space in the case had some other purpose. Pitt gathered the few items from that compartment, and then softly shut the lid. Leaving the case for a moment, he moved over to one of the numerous interfaces in the room.
Banking robbing was overrated. The authorities always had too many ways of tracking or tainting the merchandise. And the chance of success was minimal.
Both no one ever missed a half credits.
Bruce shoved a security spike into one of the interfaces. The malicious code masqueraded as an advanced authorization command. It had been specially engineered for use in the situation by a pair of extremely talented slicers, and cost a bundle. The idea was the cost would be recouped if the operation worked.
Moments later he was in. Grabbing the other spike, Bruce inserted it into the computer, than manually began hitting a series of keystrokes that would bury the execution command deep in the bowels of the computers extensive programming. The worm was not going to be active, and was disguised as excess code tacked on in a hurry to finished a particular program... however it had a secret activation sequence that would be completed later... a transaction between a pair of Union controlled accounts would set the worm in motion.
Halfway there.
Bruce went back and picked up the suitcase. One last thing to do...