X Squared: Birth of a Merchant Prince (7) UPDATED

[FourFingers]

Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6

Part 7

updated below ----------------------------------

Karrak was once more staring out of his room’s large window onto the vastness of space his mind lost in thought. He had been given to contemplation more and more these days wondering about philosophical questions regarding existence and his own place in the universe.

Karrak was a man in his early 50’s and wearing the years well. He had broad shoulders and a lean muscular physique, a testimony to his love of physical fitness. The man was over 6ft in height, dark of hair though now showing the grey of his age and had the most piercing grey-green eyes. There was an air of confidence about him borne not from arrogance but the sure belief in his own abilities tempered through experience.

“There is an incoming message for you sir, it has been encrypted using a technique not known to us,” his communications man informed him.

“Put it through to my office viewer and secure the channel Mr. Rajkin,”

“Yes sir. Patching through now,” replied Rajkin

He turned from the window to face the main viewer which appeared to have just materialized out of the wall. It had been hidden behind a holographic wall panel which deactivated when the viewer came online.

The viewer lit up and displayed the ‘unable to decrypt message. Encryption method unknown’ screen. Karrak took out a small metallic disk from his pocket and inserted it into his desk control console; he punched in his authentication code and uploaded the decryption key.

The face of two Teladi appeared on the viewer followed by a message informing him of successful decryption.

“Good profits Karrak of the Vampires, we wish you favorable trades and your enemies to be impoverished,” the Teladi greeted him.

“May your profits run high and your losses low,” Karrak finished the formal greeting.

“Does everything go according to plan Karrak of the Vampires?” asked the Teladi

“The Adaptive Remote Intrusion (ARI) program worked as you said it would, allowing us to retrieve the data from the Teladi research station for the growth of the super spaceweed.

We have received the specialist biological equipment needed to grow them from Magalixt and our scientists are now experimenting and should have the first samples in one wozuras time,” informed Karrak.

“The Werewolves should have the Argon data on bacterial transformations and specific toxicity taken from the Argon research vessel ‘The Balmora’ as they are now in possession of the ARI program and the team of hackers.
I assume you were able to secure the required items and managed to deliver them to the Werewolves?” asked Karrac.

“We have acquired the needed items and have arranged deliveries to be made. We will speak with Sazix’st of the Werewolves to confirm all is as it should be.
We must make preparations for unexpected visitors before we leave, be aware our informants tell us the PPA is investigating and we know they are tracking us, so they will be tracking you also,” the Teladi replied.

“The PPA?” Karrak asked sharply, “they can be troublesome and very annoyingly hard to shake off.”

“Do not concern yourself; we have made suitable arrangements to discourage further pursuit. We must depart now ourselves, we will contact you soon. Good profits to you.”

“Good profits,” replied Karrak as the viewer powered down and faded into the wall.

Karrak removed his disk and pocketed it thinking about the scheme he was involved in. It was highly dangerous and very risky but it was certain to be extremely profitable. The only unknown factor which worried him was the two Teladi he had just spoken with.

He did not trust them, which in itself was nothing unusual especially with Teladi. These two thou were different, he could sense that they were dangerous. They had knowledge about things he was not even aware of and he made it his business to be aware of all major happenings among all the races.

They had their own unknown agenda and needed his resources to help fulfil it; this did not worry him as that was the normal course of things among pirate alliances.

What worried him was the fact that this agenda did not seem to be centred on making vast sums of profit, practically unheard of for Teladi agenda’s.
They had somehow managed to gain access to and steal unique prototype software from a Boron advanced research facility which even the Argons did not fully know about.

The ‘Adaptive Remote Intrusion’ program or ARI program as they called it could be used to hack even the most advanced security measures. Any other pirate would be hacking the universal banks and stealing unheard of amounts of credits but Karrak did not rise to his position by being stupid.
Such a move would destabilize the universal economy and his credits would be useless on top of which all the races would join to obliterate him.

No, if he had his way he would be using it to access top secrete information and cutting edge technology then selling it to the highest bidder.

So far they had used it on two major occasions; the Teladi spaceweed research facility which he could at least appreciate. The sly Teladi had been devising a way of enhancing the potency and addictiveness of the spaceweed plant thus with a little manipulation they would have seized the market. Well they had the data now and had acquired the equipment to produce the ‘super’ spaceweed and should have the first test batch in one mazura time.

The other more recent theft they had carried out was on a biological research vessel belonging to the Argons. The data itself was regarding the transformation of common bacteria and manipulating toxicity levels something to do with curing disease or some such matter. He could not see why they had stolen such useless data, they could not use it nor could they sell it and they had now involved Argon secrete service who would be investigating this theft.

There was no profit in it which was something to worry about as it was a Teladi idea.

Karrak ran through all the information he had and tried to work out what the agenda of the two Teladi could be. He sighed “I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered as he opened the comms and spoke to Mr Rajkin.

“Get a message to Calanor; tell him to bring his squad back here. I have a little assignment for him.”

“Yes sir.”

Karrak closed the comms and returned to his window trying to glean some answers from the stars but as usual they remained silent and distant.

“The Boron secret service, the Argon secret service and now the Profit Protection Agency, things are beginning to get too crowded,” he said to himself.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lieutenant Toki Gilharno sat scanning through data pads and reviewing security logs and internal scans from the research vessel ‘The Balmora.’
Bacteriological and toxicological data had been stolen from the ships data banks along with other method and protocol procedures.

The research itself was as far as he could see of minor consequence, the transformation of bacteria and manipulation of their toxicity levels didn’t threaten national security.

What did pose a serious threat to security was the fact that someone had managed to steal the research from an Argon military research vessel. Granted the vessel was not top of the range and its security measures were not cutting edge but it still should not have been possible for someone to hack into it especially via remote access.

General Ban Dana had assigned Toki to deal with this and find out how it was managed.

Ban Dana was preoccupied with other matters, something connected with TerraCorps. He had asked him to track down and locate a prisoner designated as 14776A; the file reported him to be a small time criminal with background links to pirate factions. He had been apprehended over 5 mazuras ago while trying to steal a TS class ship with his partner.

Toki had tracked him to be now onboard a prison transport ship flown by a Captain Minaro headed for the prison planet Artur. He had sent the message to Ban and had updated him on recent progress.

A ringing chime announced the presence of someone at his door.

“Come in,” called out Toki

“Excuse me sir but reports are coming in from the trading station that there has been a large explosion,” informed the agent.

“An explosion?” asked Toki sharply “do we have any details and has the general been informed?”

“The details are coming in now sir; I’ve put it through to your data-pad. The general has been made aware and would like you to provide a full report when more details are available,” reported the agent. “Also the admiral is asking to see you sir,”

Toki grimaced ‘he probably wants to know what’s going on too,’ he said to himself.

“Thank you agent that will be all,” he said out loud.
Toki pulled up the details of the explosion on his data-pad and read silently to himself.

The explosion had occurred under 10 mizuras ago at the hotel ‘The Lavisca’ there were no casualties reported yet but many injured. The explosion had wrecked half the 5th floor as well as the floor above and below causing extensive damage.
First suspects as always was the terrorist group known as ‘Sektor 21’ though it was too early to point fingers.

On a hunch he opened channel to the the comms desk, “can you put me through to Nazeera?” he asked.
Nazeera was the agent assigned to track Tchak’ta the PPA agent.

“She’s not responding sir,” replied the comms officer.

“Where was her last known location?” he asked worriedly

“Last transmission was from the hotel ‘Lavisca’ on the Trading station in this sector.”

“Thank you, monitor the station and find out if she was caught in the explosion and where they are taking the injured. If she calls put her through directly,” he ordered cutting the channel.

‘If she was at the hotel then that means Tchak’ta was also at the hotel and he would bet his last credit that he was on the 5th floor,’ Toki thought to himself.

A beeping sound cut through his thoughts.

He opened a channel and said “Yes?”

“Sir the admiral would like to see you. He’s being very insistent.”

Toki sighed, “Very well tell the admiral I will be with him in 2 mizuras.”

Toki gathered up his data pad and had another quick scan of the details. He then left to make his report to the admiral.


Part 8

[pixel]

interesting development

one thing though... .....'thou' should be 'though' unless it is again US English.

Out of interest FourFingers, which character is most like you?

[FourFingers]

ye all may rest easy, for I hath managed to get mine 'Word' to speakath in true English (back to uk English!)

hmmmm.. interesting question, not sure if its just one character, although the closest would be Lan since i put him (or will put him) into situations which require him to make a choice based on his reality. and since i'll be making those decisions they will reflect a little of me..

Ryhan on the other hand has his decisions made based on the premise "If it makes me feel good why not!."

[pixel]

you never said what you thought of 'prime numbers'

*pixel slaps himslef for crass commercialization*

[FourFingers]

you never said what you thought of 'prime numbers'

*pixel slaps himslef for crass commercialization*

Yea i was reading all 6 chapters and wanted to wait till i read em all... now that i have you had better be writting the next chapter as i post!!!

There's no way ya can leave the story just as it's getting to the juicy bits, wanna know about this 'special club' and about his parents, who killed em, why they killed them, what kind of revenge he's planning.. soooo many questions!!

It's good, easy to read and was picking up pace... ya better have a good excuse for not carrying it on... hmmmm..?

[FourFingers]

Added a bit more to the story.

[pixel]

Added a bit more to the story.

very nice! Things are getting complicated but I have a feeling a story-thread is being spun (as opposed to bits being tagged on), looking good

As for Prime Numbers things are happening with it but I am pretty busy with work and play at the moment (eg Stag Weekend I'm helping to organise in Edinburgh next weekend)

[KiwiNZ]

Good second part. The introduction of the work Toki does reads amusing hehehe I always wondered who got the message through to Ban Dana about Julian being on that particular transport Well incorporated!

Looking forward to the next chapter.

[FourFingers]

Good second part. The introduction of the work Toki does reads amusing hehehe I always wondered who got the message through to Ban Dana about Julian being on that particular transport Well incorporated!

Looking forward to the next chapter.

I had thought most people would have forgotten about the begining intro of the game.
I had to watch the intro several times to get the info i wanted, i kepts getting the urge to press escape i was so used to it!

Some poor guy had to trawl through all the arrests and prison manifests tracking down a small fish in a giant pond... while Ban takes all the glory!