Once he had made his way out of the sentries' view, Tevan crept to the north wall of the compound's swoop garage. In a shadow outside, he took his pack off and laid it down. He then made his way, through the darkness, to the main building. There, he pulled out one of the slickest pieces of technology he'd seen: a jamming device that was virtually undetectable. Only a detailed diagnostic would find something out of place, and even then it wasn't always easy to determine what. The jammer was one of Imperial Intelligence's latest sources of pride, and Tevan had heard that developing an effective counter-method to it was a while in coming.
Tevan selected a segment of an exterior power cable that was relatively concealed and stuck the jammer on. The power flow of the conduit would further hinder any attempts to locate the jammer- not that the smugglers would be looking anyway. They were mostly asleep in the small...barracks? Could one even call it that? It was mostly just a large storage unit with some cots and bunks set up.
Tevan's observations showed that no more than six people were active at this time of night, and that was on a busy night. There were always three or four sentries patrolling the perimeter, and sometimes one or two people inside the main building.
Tevan moved to a side entrance and tested the door. It was unlocked, and Tevan slipped inside. The corridor was not dark, but the lights were relatively dim, either from low-power settings or poor maintenance. Tevan crept along quietly, listening for any sound. At each door, he pressed his ear to the metal, trying to see if he could determine whether the room was occupied. He heard nothing, though that certainly wasn't conclusive. He passed the short corridor to the stairwell, went to the first room on the left, and went inside. There, he laid a small device in the far corner of the room, then returned to the corridor. He reached the stairwell and moved up to the second floor.
As he moved along the corridor, hand on blaster in case of discovery, Tevan heard only two things: the low hum of the lights and his very quiet breathing. He knew the control romm to which he was making his way would have at least one occupant. Tevan was banking on the hope that the occupant would be alone.
He turned left into the corridor where the control room was located. Just beyond the door to the room, Tevan saw another small room, with another staircase leading back down to the first floor. Tevan crouched behind the corner in the shadows, then pulled out a slim, flat remote. Watching the door closely and listening, he pressed a button on the remote, and counted to ten. Sure enough, after ten seconds, a short, somewhat stocky man walked out, turned right, and headed down the stairs.
Tevan quickly and quietly moved into the control room. It was mostly filled with a bank of computers, moniters and consoles that ran along the walls. Tevan saw a blinking red light, indicating that something was messing up the environmental controls. That, Tevan thought with a small grin, meant his little device was working perfectly. It was meant to simulate an energy spike indicative of a faulty power coupling, and it was doing its job. But Tevan knew he only had about a minute. So he found a scomp link and pulled out a small tube. It was a modified droid scomp link access arm, meant to quickly access computer data. This one was rigged to find the central database and copy it all. Coupled with a state of the art security-slicing program, it took about thirty seconds to download all the information Tevan needed.
(Stay Tuned for the Exciting Conclusion, Coming Soon!)
Friday, February 1, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Episode from Tevan Keanu's Past #1
Nothing in the darkness moved. Not even tree branches or blades of grass. There was no wind to speak of. Just the warm night air.
That's how it seemed, at least, to the two sentries standing guard on the perimeter of the Bloody Fist base. They didn't see the shadow move across the pathway behind them, not even in their peripheral vision. There was no way they could. The sentries had fallen victim to the same mistake that many others before them had, in many different places: light pollution. By standing so close to the light posts which illuminated the base's gates, they ruined any benefit of natural night vision. And so Tevan Kearu was able to move into the base unnoticed.
The Bloody Fist smugglers had made several mistakes, far beyond the sentries' blunder, which allowed Tevan easy access. First, they had set up shop on a world so full and teeming with animal life, and large animals to boot, that sensor alert systems were troublesome. The smugglers had installed them, of course. The problem lie in the fact that a large portion of Baroonda's animal population was nocturnal, and would frequently trigger the sensors at night, when the sensors were most necessary. This led the smugglers to leave them turned off most of the time. They would periodically activate the sensors to see what was around, but nothing ever was, besides large predators and their smaller prey.
The second mistake was that the smugglers were too predictable in the way they managed their sensors. Tevan had been on-world for a little more than a week, studying their patterns and habits. They always activated the sensors at dusk, and at 2 hour intervals until sunrise. That told Tevan how long his window of opportunity would be. Further, the sensors used at the base were cheap, low-grade models, favored by small operations like the one Tevan was observing. Even further, whoever manned the sensors didn't pay a lot of attention to them, which was much more important when your sensors were little better than trash compactor fodder.
Tevan had run exercises, small test runs, to see just how attentive the smugglers were. Even when he was running full speed through the jungle, right towards the base, the smugglers had given no obvious reaction. So either they were very patient and devious, or very stupid. Tevan felt confident that he was up against the latter.
The mission was a simple, at least in its objective: infiltrate the base of the Bloody Fist smuggler's organization, download their complete files, and upload a program into their main computer that would allow Imperial Intelligence to track message traffic and shipments. Of course smuggling was against the law, but beyond that, Tevan didn't really know what the big deal about the Bloody Fist was. They were a very small operation, relatively speaking, with personnel numbers only in the hundreds, and their cargo rarely got more exciting than foodstuffs or basic maintenance materials. But his role was not to question, only to perform. Whatever Bloody Fist had done wrong, besides the obvious smuggling, they had caught the attention of Imperial Intelligence, and that was a serious matter.
That's how it seemed, at least, to the two sentries standing guard on the perimeter of the Bloody Fist base. They didn't see the shadow move across the pathway behind them, not even in their peripheral vision. There was no way they could. The sentries had fallen victim to the same mistake that many others before them had, in many different places: light pollution. By standing so close to the light posts which illuminated the base's gates, they ruined any benefit of natural night vision. And so Tevan Kearu was able to move into the base unnoticed.
The Bloody Fist smugglers had made several mistakes, far beyond the sentries' blunder, which allowed Tevan easy access. First, they had set up shop on a world so full and teeming with animal life, and large animals to boot, that sensor alert systems were troublesome. The smugglers had installed them, of course. The problem lie in the fact that a large portion of Baroonda's animal population was nocturnal, and would frequently trigger the sensors at night, when the sensors were most necessary. This led the smugglers to leave them turned off most of the time. They would periodically activate the sensors to see what was around, but nothing ever was, besides large predators and their smaller prey.
The second mistake was that the smugglers were too predictable in the way they managed their sensors. Tevan had been on-world for a little more than a week, studying their patterns and habits. They always activated the sensors at dusk, and at 2 hour intervals until sunrise. That told Tevan how long his window of opportunity would be. Further, the sensors used at the base were cheap, low-grade models, favored by small operations like the one Tevan was observing. Even further, whoever manned the sensors didn't pay a lot of attention to them, which was much more important when your sensors were little better than trash compactor fodder.
Tevan had run exercises, small test runs, to see just how attentive the smugglers were. Even when he was running full speed through the jungle, right towards the base, the smugglers had given no obvious reaction. So either they were very patient and devious, or very stupid. Tevan felt confident that he was up against the latter.
The mission was a simple, at least in its objective: infiltrate the base of the Bloody Fist smuggler's organization, download their complete files, and upload a program into their main computer that would allow Imperial Intelligence to track message traffic and shipments. Of course smuggling was against the law, but beyond that, Tevan didn't really know what the big deal about the Bloody Fist was. They were a very small operation, relatively speaking, with personnel numbers only in the hundreds, and their cargo rarely got more exciting than foodstuffs or basic maintenance materials. But his role was not to question, only to perform. Whatever Bloody Fist had done wrong, besides the obvious smuggling, they had caught the attention of Imperial Intelligence, and that was a serious matter.
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