Encapsulated

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Automation Impediment – Part IV

Data Retrieval

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station

27 April YC 127

Having transferred the rescued scientists to CreoDron security, I headed to Delphine Xarasier’s office. When I pulled the door, I heard strange sounds coming from her room. Carefully peeking inside I discovered Delphine sitting in a guest chair with a commlink in her lap, crying.

I closed the door and asked in a gentle tone, “Delphine, what happened?”

The agent raised her head, saw me and suddenly burst out of the chair spilling the commlink on the floor. In a split second she crossed the distance between us and… hugged me tight, burying her face against my chest. Taken aback I stood there not knowing what to do.

Struggling with tears, Delphine managed to say, “She, she is dead.”

“Who is dead?” I asked.

“As-as-pasia,” she stammered and was overcome by a bout of sobs.

My heart fell. Something went wrong with the rescue mission, and Delphine had lost her friend. I felt for her but I didn’t know what to say, I was never good at condolences. Then I did an absolutely unprofessional but otherwise the only right thing in the circumstances – I returned Delphine’s hug and just silently stood there with her. I don’t know if she expected any kind of soothing words from me, but I felt that a human touch, just being there for her, was worth a thousand words.

It took a while for Delphine to calm down. I just waited patiently until her sobs subsided and she was able to speak again.

“Thank you,” she said hoarsely, sniffling and wiping her face with a handkerchief.

I led her to the guest chair, then picked up her commlink from the floor and handed it to her. She accepted it silently, as she was staring in the distance, still consumed by grief.

“You need a rest, Delphine,” I said gently. “Let me take you home.”

She shook her head defiantly, “No time. I need to send you on a new mission.”

Then she proceeded telling me what happened while I was dismantling the Serpentis lab. CreoDron sent a light corvette to intercept the transport which carried Aspasia. Unfortunately, the transport turned out to be a military vessel in disguise – it had concealed rocket launchers – and attacked the corvette. In the ensuing fight both ships were destroyed.

“Damn!” I exclaimed. “I should have pursued that transport straight away!”

“What difference would it make?” Delphine asked.

“They would have thought twice before attacking a destroyer.”

“Would they?” Delphine scoffed bitterly. “Doesn’t matter now. What matters is that at the time of the kidnapping Aspasia had her datapad with her. It contains all her research notes on the datacore that Alitura sent us. You need to go to the battle site and retrieve it.”

“But it was most likely destroyed during the explosion.”

“The datapad itself, yes, but it had a military-grade datacore which was designed to survive extreme conditions, just like black boxes. The datacore can be detected by an RFID scanner and recognised by a standard ship Overview as a lootable object. I’ll send the datacore signature to your navigation AI. She should be able to add it to the Overview database.”

“She certainly is,” I said. “But are you sure you don’t want a break?”

“I won’t rest until you retrieve Aspasia’s notes,” Delphine said resolutely. “And, Vlad… I must warn you – you won’t be the only one looking for them. I have reports that a pirate fleet is heading toward the transport wreck. And I have a favour to ask you… Well, first of all, stay safe. But if you can…” her eyes glistened, and she took a deep breath, “make them pay!”

I gave her a reassuring smile, “That’s what I do best. I can also transport datacores, but it’s just a side job.”

---

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Mission location

When I arrived to the battlefield there were already five frigates circling the wreck of the transport ship.

“Hmm.. Those are not Serpentis ships,” Aura noticed.

I looked at the classification labels and saw that all the ships were named Gistii.

“You are right,” I said, “these aren’t Serpentis, these are Guardian Angels.”

“Does it change our plans?”

I gave her my best evil smile, “Not at all. Let’s cut their wings!”

Gistii Impaler

Gistii Ruffian

Gistii Nomad

The bastards didn’t stand a chance. All they could do in response to the Spike barrage I unleashed on them from a safe distance was increasing my signature radius with a target painter. A fat lot of good it did them as they died before they could get close enough to fire at me. Still, they had enough time to raise an alarm and call for reinforcements.

Gistior Defacer

The next wing that arrived on the grid had two destroyers supported by three frigates. I guess their logic was simple – two of their destroyers were stronger than one of mine – but that kind of arithmetic didn’t work when you faced capsuleers. One would have thought that the pirates learned from previous encounters with capsuleers and would send at least a battlecruiser to fight a destroyer but there you go. Anyway, to cut long story short, three volleys was all I needed to blow up each of Gistior Defacers. Then I mopped up the frigates and… received a second wave of reinforcements led by Gistum Predator, a cruiser-class Angel Forward Scout.

Angel Forward Scout

I smiled sadly and said, “This isn’t going to be any kind of compensation for the loss of Dr Aspasia Castille’s life, but a pirate cruiser looks like a decent tribute that these assholes are about to pay.”

The Predator was much tougher than the Defacers but, like them, it couldn’t get close enough to ‘predate’. I just orbited the hapless pirate at 80 km and kept firing at it from my one-fifties. Forty seconds and thirteen volleys later it was all over. One might say that 91 Spike charges was a decent amount to spend on one ship, but so was the 43,125 ISK bonus that I got for killing it, to say nothing about that dark satisfying feeling of an accomplished revenge I experienced when I saw the explosion.

I didn’t care if the pirates were going to send more reinforcements and headed full-speed to the wreck of the transport ship, casually destroying the remaining frigates on my way. Apparently, the loss of the cruiser made someone at Angels’ headquarters reassess the danger I represented, and they decided to leave me alone. I reached the wreck unmolested and activated the scanner. Soon the overview singled out an object labelled “Dr Castille’s Data Core (Property of CreoDron)”. I activated the tractor beam and dragged a small metal box with bits of molten plastic on it into my cargo hold.

Transport Wreck

“Um… may I check the contents of this data core?” Aura asked trying to hide excitement in her voice.

“Better not,” I said. “For all I know, it may be protected from unauthorised access and will erase the contents if you try to hack it. Let’s bring it back to Delphine and let her inspect it.”

“Fair enough,” Aura agreed reluctantly, and warped us back to the CreoDron station.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Automation Impediment – Part V

Crossing Enemy Lines

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station

27 April YC 127

“I’ve found it,” I said, handing the scorched datacore to Delphine.

She accepted it as if it was a treasure, and said hesitantly, “And… was there anything else?”

I guessed she was asking about Dr Castille’s remains, and shook my head, “The explosion was really violent. There were hardly any debris larger than this datacore.”

Delphine nodded and asked, “And the pirates?”

“Terminated.”

Tears glistened in Delphine’s eyes, as she came to me a kissed me on a cheek.

“Thank you, Vlad. Thank you for everything.”

I was embarrassed and mumbled something like “I was just doing my job.”

The agent returned to her table and said, “Now we have all the information we need to work on both our problems. I’ll put my whole team on resolving them. Without Aspasia, ” she paused and swallowed hard, “it will probably take more time but we’ll get there. I have a good team.”

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” I asked.

“No. You’ve done your job in space, now it’s time to do ours in the lab.”

She promised to keep me updated. There was nothing else to do, so I left her to her work and went out to find a place to stay.

The days went by and Delphine sent me daily messages informing me on the progress. Eventually, her reports became less and less frequent. When I hadn’t received anything from her for five days, I gave her a call. She explained that they hit a blocker in their investigation and said they would need a week to resolve it. Seven days later she asked me to wait for another week. Finally, I got an invitation to visit Delphine in her office.

---

5 June YC 127

When I entered the agent’s room, I was taken aback by her appearance. She looked like she aged ten years in the last five weeks. Delphine greeted me with a weary smile and invited to sit down.

She rubbed her tired eyes and said, “I wish we had Aspasia with us.”

“I am sorry,” I said. “You must be missing her terribly.”

“I am but that’s not what I meant. Without her we had hard time analysing the abnormal drone behaviour.”

“So, you made no progress?”

“We did, but not enough to find all the answers, and now we are stuck,” she sighed.

I felt a heavy weight on my chest which suffocated me. I had high hopes that the celebrated CreoDron team would crack the mystery of the destroyed Damsel, but now they were cruelly dashed. Losing Dr Castille at the critical time was a blow from which CreoDron’s R&D team did not recover.

I stood up and took a deep breath, “That’s it, then?”

“I am afraid, it is” the agent said.

I nodded sadly and extended my hand for a final handshake. Instead of taking it, Delphine suddenly locked her arm with mine and said with a smile, “Let me accompany you to the docks, Captain, before I bid you my farewell.”

Bemused by an unexpected gesture, I said, “Why not?” and we walked together to the dock where Kaukokärki was berthed. During our perambulation Delphine expressed a great interest in my Cormorant and asked a few pretty technical questions about its electrical grid. The only reason I knew the answers was my study of Caldari Destroyers in which I achieved the highest level. I was surprised at the agent’s interest which lay outside of her professional sphere – Cormorants were not drone boats – but didn’t mind replying. After all, it was public knowledge which anyone with enough money and time could acquire.

When we arrived to the dock, Delphine asked me to show her the ship from the inside. I led her in and, as soon as we entered the lounge, she turned to me and said earnestly, “Vlad, I have one final mission for you.”

I can’t say it was totally unexpected. In my experience, if an agent takes interest in one’s ship and asks for a guided tour, it means they want to talk in private, away from the company surveillance, which is ubiquitous in company-owned stations.

“But before I give you the details, I suggest you collect your belongings from the hotel and settle your account there,” she continued and, answering to my enquiring look, added, “I don’t expect you to return to CreoDron after this mission.”

I chuckled, “This sounds menacing.”

“Don’t worry, the mission is not dangerous. Not for you, at least. But I expect that you will have to relocate to complete it. Anyway, off you go, I’ll wait for you here.”

Delphine’s strangely enthusiastic tone gave me hope that not all was lost. I hurried to the hotel, packed my things and returned to the ship.

“All right, Mademoiselle Xarasier, I am all ears,” I said, dropping myself into an armchair.

The agent produced a small datacore from her pocket and handed it to me.

“You will fly to CreoDron Factory orbiting Planet VIII Moon 1 and give this datacore to my colleague, Dr. Eliane Viremont.”

“What’s on the core?” I asked suspiciously.

Delphine gave a nonchalant one-shoulder shrug and said, “My favourite playlist of synth-pop songs. Eliane has been asking for it for ages, but with all those drone problems I could never find time to send it to her. CreoDron will pay you 246,000 ISK for your trouble.”

I looked at her incredulously, “You are saying that a leading Gallente drone manufacturer is ready to pay a quarter million ISK for an intra-system transfer of a datacore with music on it?”

The agent looked me in the eye and said earnestly, “No, CreoDron will think that I am sending a top-secret research report to another lab, which justifies the cost.”

“Delphine, what’s going on?” I asked, bewildered. “It sounds like you are embezzling the company funds using your trusted position of an agent. I mean, why? Do you expect a kickback? Is it why you didn’t want to talk about it in the office?”

After a long pause, Delphine’s lips started quivering. She pressed them together and I thought she was about to cry but instead she burst out laughing.

“Oh, Vlad,” she gasped, wiping out tears from her eyes, “you should have seen your face.”

I didn’t see anything funny, so I just patiently waited for explanations.

“You see,” Delphine said, smiling, “I don’t need to send Eliane music on a datacore – it can easily be transferred by GalNet. I was just joking. But neither I have a report to send to another lab. Still, I have a mission which I can’t openly give you and, yes, I am embezzling company funds to pay for it. If the mission is successful, then it will be the money well spent.”

“So, what’s the mission?” I asked curiously.

“First of all, you’ll need to go to planet VIII and deliver the datacore.”

I looked at the agent reproachfully – that joke was getting old.

The agent shrugged, “If you want the money, you’ll have to turn up at that station for the record. You real mission will be…” she checked herself. “Just to be clear, what I tell you now is between you and me. Understand?”

“Sure,” I agreed, “as long as it doesn’t hurt Caldari interests.”

“Funny you should say that. The mission will, in fact, benefit the State. You see, I have a friend in Caldari space. I met him when he was a post-graduate student supervised by my father. Unfortunately, it was at the time when hostilities between the State and the Federation flared up. As he was a Caldari citizen, his clearance was revoked, and he returned to the State. We’ve kept in touch and I know that his research team at Hyasyoda is at least as strong as mine. Probably stronger now,” she added sadly.

“Hyasyoda,” I mused. “Who would have thought? They are not exactly known for their drone development. They are a resource corporation.”

“They are indeed. And that is why they are very interested in having efficient mining drones. Immuri – that’s my friend’s name – says that Hyasyoda wants to develop their own drone manufacturing capability to get an edge over the competitors. And this is where our interests, or rather troubles, overlap. Immuri said that their experimental drones also started experiencing strange problems akin to ours.”

“Wait a moment!” I interrupted the agent. “You keep talking about your drone problems, but what about my datacore problem? The datacore which I brought to you from Alitura?”

“Ah,” Delphine smiled, “that’s where things get interesting. In my opinion, they are the same problem. If we solve one, we solve the other.”

That sounded suspicious. I developed a certain level of trust in Delphine, but I couldn’t discount the probability that she was using me to achieve her own goals.

“Care to explain?” I asked in a neutral tone.

“Remember the corrupted drone parts that you brought to me from the first mission? They contained microcontrollers which were not there when the drones left our lab. To my knowledge, they are not produced by any corporation in New Eden and their design is… how to describe it?.. inhuman.”

“Inhuman?”

“Yes, it does not look manufactured. You are familiar, I assume, with how we grow crystals in labs?”

I nodded.

“Now, imagine that the whole microcontroller was grown like that. I just can’t see how else it could have been produced. In manufacturing, you have a modular design where each part has its own function. The MCs that we analysed had those functions all over the place, like muscles or nerves. The controlling code, for example, was spread through the whole body of the device. That is why it took us so long to extract it in a coherent form.”

“Have you analysed it? Do you know what it does?”

Delphine shook her head, “No, that’s where we got stuck. I hope Immuri can help us decode it.”

“But how is it connected to my datacore?”

“Well,” the agent said with a strange look in her eyes, “your datacore contained exactly the same code that we found in the microcontrollers.”

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Automation Impediment – Part VI

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station

5 June YC 127

Delphine looked at me expectantly, waiting for the penny to drop. It didn’t. I felt stupid.

“Erm…” I said, “You need to unpack it for me.”

“Don’t you see,” the agent said impatiently, “someone, or something, was grafting microcontrollers onto our drones. You have found a datacore which contains the code with which those microcontrollers were programmed. It’s quite possible that your datacore is the source of that code. If Immuri can find out where the code came from, we will know who, or what, was present at the site where the Damsel was destroyed.”

It made sense, now that she explained. There was one thing that caught my attention, though.

“Why did you say ‘or something’ and ‘or what’?” I asked.

“I told you that the design of the microcontrollers was inhuman. I have a strong suspicion that the modifications to our drones were made by other drones.”

“You mean, rogue drones?”

Delphine was silent for a while, then looked me in the eye and said, “They may not be rogue.”

This time, she didn’t need to draw me a map, for me to realise the implications of such discovery.

I gasped, “Is there anyone still stupid enough to experiment with uncontrolled AI evolution? Didn’t they learn their lesson from the rogue drone example?”

“Maybe they think they have control. But anyway, it’s just a conjecture. I hope we’ll learn more when Immuri’s team analyses the code.”

“Talking of which, how are you going to send the information to him?”

“You will deliver it. I have already ordered to transfer the strange datacore to your cargo hold.”

“What about your research and the code you found in the microcontrollers?”

The agent gave me a confident smile, “You will deliver it too but in a different way. All you need to do is dock at the Immuri’s station and he will take care of it.”

I looked at her suspiciously and said with a warning in my tone, “Delphine?”

“Don’t you worry about it,” she replied nonchalantly. “I can’t officially share the results of our investigation with a Caldari corporation, so I have to use some unconventional methods. The less you know about them the better.”

I sighed and said, “Aura?”

A screen in the lounge lit up and started showing footage from internal surveillance cameras. It started from the moment when I left the ship to collect my possessions from the hotel. The recording showed Delphine stand up and walk to one of the service corridors. There she opened a hatch leading to the power grid cable tunnels and put something inside. She then closed the hatch and returned to the lounge.

The video was a montage of streams from several CCTV cams, which Aura put together for this demonstration in short time. In fact, she informed me of Delphine’s suspicious activity while I was en route to the hotel, and I asked her to put together a summary. She did it masterfully.

“Thank you, Aura,” I said and turned to sheepish looking Delphine. I pointed toward the service corridor and bowed with a reproachful grimace, “After you.”

We walked to the hatch where Delphine extracted a small datacore and handed it to me.

“It was just to protect you,” she said apologetically. “If Gallente customs detected this datacore in your ship, you could honestly say you knew nothing about it.”

“I can take care of myself. For me, it’s much more important to have confidence in my ship. I don’t want to discover any surprises in the middle of a combat.”

“But it’s just a datacore!”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said firmly. “It’s a question of principle.”

I pocketed the datacore and we returned to the lounge.

“Anything else I need to know before I depart?” I asked with a touch of sarcasm.

Delphine shook her head silently.

“Then it’s a farewell,” I said and approached her for the last handshake.

She didn’t take my hand but instead hugged me tight and pecked me on a cheek. I returned the hug and patted her on the shoulder.

Her eyes glistening suspiciously, Delphine whispered, “Stay safe,” then quickly disengaged from me and walked to the exit.

I stood rooted to the spot, overcome by mixed feelings.

After some indeterminate time I heard Aura pretend to clear her throat and say, “That was… emotional.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Yeah… it was.”

There was a lot to mull over – not only in my interactions with Delphine but during my entire sojourn in Gallente space – but I decided to leave it for later as there was work to be done. I went to the cargo hold and confirmed that the strange datacore was there.

“It’s all yours,” I told Aura, “at least, until we arrive to Immuri’s station.”

“Yay!” Aura cheered. “And don’t forget to deliver Delphine’s playlist to Dr. Viremont.”

“That will buy you a few minutes,” I laughed.

“Who knows, maybe more?” she said with an enigmatic smile.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if Dr Viremont is as attractive as Mademoiselle Xarasier, you may decide to invite her for dinner.”

“Aura!” I cried in mock indignation. “It ill behoves a young lady like you to make such innuendoes.”

Aura giggled and disappeared from the screen. Obviously, she couldn’t wait to lay her hands on the mysterious datacore.