Ignition Broker: Chapter 30 Sleeping With The Enemy

Chapter 30

Sleeping With The Enemy

“Never forget you are alone, but that is where your strength lies. Because you are alone, you know what you can do. You also know that your enemies will need to communicate, and communications can always be intercepted, and most importantly altered after they are intercepted.” -Marcon on dealing with enemies

Realistically, most people would be concerned if they were in Arla’s position. Had she not been prepared for and trained against this very activity, she likely would have been concerned.

Instead, Arla felt the cold weight of resolve fill her, as she mentally went through her mental checklist. In a way, it was a blessing that it was her roommate that she needed to be aware of, even better was the fact that her roommate had even sworn to an oath. Not quite realizing that Arla was a master at implementing an oath and making it binding.

The oath she swore was also binding for herself, but really who was she going to tell of Chloe’s little contact? The Geminoids?

Then just as she asked herself that rhetorical question, she realized that while she couldn’t tell the Geminoids of who Chloe was, that ultimately didn’t matter. Particularly as Arla was certain that the Geminoids wouldn’t even care about her status, even if they did know.

No, the Geminoids were a pragmatic bunch, meaning that they wouldn’t be swayed by smugglers or operatives. But there was something that they would be interested in, and with the heat from the Cerusians likely to intensify over the next few weeks, it became clear that getting the Geminoids involved might not be the worst of decisions, but how much and what part of the process should they be used against?

There were a lot of moving parts, as Arla also had to deal with closing out the false S-Rankers, giving them one chance to give one final payday and give Arla the slush funds she needed to escape and start a new life somewhere else. Or tie up even more loose ends.

Sadly, right now, it looked like her Academic career would end before it even had a chance to truly start. Ironically, or maybe just coincidentally, the day that Arla had effectively given up on her Academic career. Or at least began mentally compartmentalizing what leaving the Academy and its automatic citizenship would mean, this was the first time in a long time that she found herself at Lemishov’s lab.

Lemishov himself also had his agenda, wanting the pendant she had, one that showed the flight trajectory of a now moving spacecraft.

In her mind she ran calculations. It was clear that Lemishov knew Marcon, but it was also clear that Lemishov was not working with Chloe. For starters, Lemishov had seemed to know Arla from the very start, whereas Chloe had been looking for her from the start. The idea that Lemishov was not relaying the fact that Arla’s roommate was looking for her, indicated that there was likely a second underground organization that either Lemishov worked for, or was likewise distancing himself from.

All of these calculations came to life in Arla’s mind as she began planning. She had been busy, like trying to spin plates on multiple wooden dowels. At this point it was a matter of focus, drive, and yes unfortunately a bit of luck would be needed, but she realized that there was still time.

Nets were being cast, die were being rolled, and profits were still set to change hands. That was the way that Arla knew she still had time, until money, goods, and services were finally exchanged, it meant that she still had time. The moment transactions started to change hands, that was the moment when she would need to ensure her escape strategies were in place and working flawlessly.

There was of course just one problem so far, in that she didn’t have an exit strategy, not a fully functional one at least, but she was working on one.

“What are you working on there?” An upper classman asked, eyeing the odd metal construct that Arla had been tinkering with for quite some time.

Arla had purposefully moved slowly on this project, or at least she appeared to work slowly. Realizing that the internal workings and the external aesthetics were two different criteria that this product would be judged upon. Which was why she made sure to make sure the external aesthetics were the worst and most lacking component of this project.

“I’m working on a more powerful relay node,” Arla quipped.

“A planetary relay node?” The student asked, his voice curious as he saw the structure that while having the same basic cone like shape that most relay nodes had come to be associated with, this one was clearly lacking. The main reason that this relay node appeared to be lacking was that it had bare wiring and crystals visible, but this meant that the stones were easier to access and adjust as needed. This was typical for devices that were getting routine maintenance. In fact, this section was designed to look exactly like a standard i10 relay node. Taking a moment to look over the project the student continued to ask more invasive questions. “One that is meant to encrypt communications off planets and into the vastness of space?”

Okay, not invasive, but more mocking questions instead.

“Yes,” Arla responded.

“You do realize that your power relay system is all jacked up,” he noted indicating that for the standard i10 relay node, the power and transceivers were in fact flipped. “Actually, I don’t think you have too much power, and not enough transceivers.”

“I know, I’m working on a better functioning emergency beacon,” Arla lied, giving a plausible explanation for the misconfiguration. Though secretly she was impressed that the upperclassman recognized the layout and functionality of her nodes.

“You know you can’t test this from campus right?”

“Yes, I know, besides as you can see it isn’t even functioning currently. No power.” Arla commented, indicating that there wasn’t even a way to plug this device into most standard power nodes yet. Nor was there any sign of an active charge being held on the device.

“I will warn you, that if you did get a charge into this, then you could likely take down the communications network for campus, or worse. That the only difference between an emergency beacon and a communications jammer is the duration of the burst.”

“There are a few other factors, like frequency ranges covered, and intensity, but yes, I know, which is why it isn’t charged, nor have I allowed that functionality to be applied yet.” Arla commented.

Only at this point did the upper classman give one more disapproving glare but really had no leg to stand on. Every safety measure had been apparently complied with and followed. For a moment it looked like the student was about to leave, but then seemed to notice the one part that Arla had hoped to remain mostly hidden.

“Wait, are those extra encryption and decryption processors?” He asked.

“Yes, I’m assuming this is going to be used behind enemy lines. It wouldn’t do much good to have your emergency beacon give away your final commands to the enemy now would it?” Arla suggested.

From her tone and increasingly hostile answers, it was clear that whatever reason the upperclassman had originally had to come and talk to Arla was quickly getting worn away as he was clearly interfering with her build time.

“Fine, but that stays here when you are done,” the upperclassman demanded.

“Yeah, where would I put it, my dorm room?” Arla asked.

Finally, the upperclassman left, leaving behind a briefly flustered Arla. The only thing that Arla hadn’t really expressed was just how impressed she was with the curiosity, intelligence, and most importantly the instincts that this upperclassman had. While he had not been able to fully piece together what Arla was doing, he had come close.

While it was clear that Arla would now have to leave the giant three-foot metallic apparatus here, that had been her intention all along. It was also clear from the interaction that all power sources should detached and not readily visible to the naked eye. Not an impossible task for what this component was to be used for, but not ideal to say the least.

Still, it was to be expected, as the boy was right. An emergency distress beacon could be easily weaponized to attract and disburse any and all incoming and outgoing planetary communications, if the amperage, and magnitude of the frequencies being used were powerful enough.

In this case however, the tower being assembled was a decoy, while it was now and would continue to be a fully functioning beacon. It’s true purpose lay in the fact that it would only relay very specific bursts of energy. Bursts that could be synchronized to a very particular micro relay node that would be activated with Arla’s dorm room.

Again, the idea of spinning plates came to mind, and this was no different. In this case, it was only the Tinkering data that Arla gained from the Cerusian specific class that let her know what she wanted to do was even possible.

By mirroring the symbiotic relationship that the Cerusian pendants had, and anchoring one part to this antenna, and one part to the initial node that she would soon set up in her room. Arla positioned herself to take full advantage of the fact that her roommate was not only conversing with the criminal underbelly of society, but that she would also try to inform that same criminal element of her own compromise.

The trick would be to find the unique communications methods and channels that Chloe would use to contact her handler, relay that message from the room to this relay node that would activate due to a sympathetic link and hopefully decrypt the messages that were coming and going. Messages that would be delayed on send, and post-dated with the compilation date timestamp, despite not actually being sent out at that time.

This would give Arla time to access the message from here and alter the information as needed before allowing the communications to go on as desired. It wasn’t perfect, and if it didn’t try to exploit the expected long delayed time between message sends and receipts by operatives to their handlers, it would be instantly noticed. Again, this was where knowing who your enemy was, and what they were capable of was important.

Right now, despite having a fairly clear understanding of what Chloe’s communication timeline was, she was mostly guessing on the delay between messages sent and received. Otherwise, Arla would have noticed something already.

This was also the difference between Arla, a lone operative, and someone like Chloe who was part of a network. Arla had the luxury of allowing part or all of her contraband to be confiscated so long as it was readily replaceable, and didn’t directly link back to her. While an operative would need to maintain positive control over their communications devices, lest they be lost, destroyed, or worse compromised.

“Rule 13,” Arla noted to herself, thinking of the exact rule that explained this odd phenomenon perfectly.

Rule 13: Fear makes smart people do otherwise dumb things

This phenomenon, was exactly what Arla was banking on right now.

Glowing lights and whirring of processing units.

Just as Arla was thinking about this exact phenomenon, Arla was surprised to see that her machine worked perfectly as the already active and plugged in symbiotic relay node had found a signal that was now being sent here, before it could be relayed out into space.

Arla watched as the lights glowed brightly for a moment, then taking a quick scan of her surroundings she let out a breath of relief knowing that she was alone and by herself. Realizing decryption would take time, and she needed to be away from here while it had time to do everything it was designed to do. That’s why Arla quickly sealed up the outer protective cone of the emergency beacon, before locking it away in her service closet.

With her first step complete, that is instituting a way to spy on the spy, well the second group of spies, Arla realized it was time to truly introduce herself, and what she was truly capable of to the Geminoids.

“One part down, seven to go,” Arla mentally checked off one item from her ever growing and spinning list of plans.

This was how a few minutes later, Arla found herself at the center of the Geminoid statues, mentally glancing around, until she found the one that looked most like the leader. This time the leader was not decorated as Female Admiral Gibson who led the 43rd Fleet to Victory. Instead, the Geminoid now had the more modest appearance of Grand Marshal Prajik, a military leader who led the land battle for the resource rights of some planet long since lost to time.

“You have changed, and yet you still remain you, at your core,” Arla spoke in the odd cawing language of the Lostarians.

Hearing her speak, the gaze of the statue instantly came to life and turned to stare at Arla for a moment, before a giant smile filled the Grand Marshal’s childlike face.

“You never cease to amaze me, and just what would you like to discuss this time?” Grand Marshal Prajik spoke, but while the outer shell might have changed, the voice, and mannerisms were all indicative that Arla was correct, this was the same Grand Admiral that she had spoken to just yesterday.

“I think I have something that you would all find most interesting…” Arla began.