The Data Waves Hold No Faces

[Nyx]

In the darkness of her quarters, surrounded by piles of empty energy drink cans and discarded junk food wrappers, Nyx's pale blue eyes roamed her terminal's screen. Her latest project was a worm program that would infiltrate unprepared networks, and open up a 'back door', letting her in to the sweet files found within such defenses. Her first target was the hated First Order. She was hacking a lesser known network, one that was used to to log shipping manifests for First Order ships in the region. Seemingly unimportant, but both Nyx and the Resistance could use that intel to formulate some new plans. So now she was going to get it.

Her fingers flew across the terminal's interface as she began to insert her worm, first by slowing down defenses. And how did she accomplish that? Overloading them, of course. Any manning the network would find themselves frustrated as it was hit with tons of junk data, slowing to down to a Hutt's pace. As the network's firewalls struggled to cope with the new data, Nyx grinned as she piggybacked her worm onto some of the data, watching with a feral grin as her worm searched for a way in.
The worm was easily detectable by someone who actually knew what they were doing, but Nyx counting on there not being anyone there with a basic idea of how the networks operated.

[member="Sentiri"]

 

[Sentiri]

A day off of from active service. A day off for Sentiri meant she could focus on her own personal work. She was never one to tire from expanding her knowledge or accomplishing task after task. The Chiss woman didn't know how sitting idle felt, nor did she desire such a thing. Sentiri couldn't think of many worse fates than boredom. While some fool wasted their time in a cantina or on some resort world, she would progress to greater heights, far above anyone who dared to deem her their peer. Sentiri was nothing if not ambitious.

So, alone, she sat in her quarters. Not expecting company, and not desiring to needlessly waste time on appearance, she still wore her sleepwear from the night before. Her shoulder-length, straight hair was disheveled with the sweat she had earned the day before. Spread about her were a number of monitors, two holoprojectors, a flimsiplast keyboard, and hardwires running through everything and into various ports she had installed herself. Intelligence operatives within the First Order were technically civilian employees rather than enlisted soldiers or officers. While there were barracks for agents to reside, Sentiri chose to live in an apartment close to her main posting on Dosuun.

There were several reasons behind that decision, far from the least of which was the hardware she had acquired and used. Random inspections would too easily discover her off-hour activities and certainly shut down her side projects with more than just a mild scolding. In an apartment, her computers were easier to hide, and she had modified the surveillance in her quarters as soon as they were under her name in order to avoid detection from the First Order.

Aside from that, there was also the issue of her being Chiss. That wasn't an issue to Sentiri, but there were certainly several anti-non-human fundamentalists among the First Order. On duty Sentiri was safe, but off duty there was simply too much unstructured time, and she didn't want to take any chances with any of the more aggressive members of the military. Regardless, the apartment suited her desire for solitude anyway, so her comfort level was unaffected by such base prejudice, and instead allowed her to focused her efforts on slicing projects.

The displays in front of the woman flashed and illuminated the otherwise darkened living space. Her eyes scanned over information coming through. Absent-mindedly, she used a free hand to grab one of the wafers out of her meal ration tray to munch while her right flew over the keyboard resting on the floor. Sentiri's first project had been to gain access to secure servers regulated by the First Order. Some were easier than others, and her work directly within certain departments had given her guidepoints. One of her first jobs had been with logistics, so she had started there.

A few weeks later, she had a monitor dedicated to logistics in the hopes of gaining high entry points through that server. Sentiri's left hand paused and her jaw hesitated for a moment mid-chew. Glancing at her logistics monitor, she noticed a small glitch moving through the code. An eyebrow rose on her normally expressionless face. Following the glitch for a moment, she recognized the telltale signs of a worm. Sentiri had a decision to make, but whatever her decision was, she couldn't alert her superiors. That would only sell out Sentiri's side project. And despite her disobedience, Sentiri was loyal to the First Order, even if she had an odd way of showing that loyalty.

As her brain chewed through the problem, she restarted chewing the bland food in her mouth. Allowing curiosity to get the best of her, Sentiri placed two blocks of firewalled code in the worms path, not for the intent to halt progress, but just to see where it was this worm was going and perhaps glean a little bit of information out of the discovery of this intrusion.

[member="Nyx"]​

 

[Nyx]

All was not right in her kingdom.
Two firewalls that should not be there had sprung up in front of her trojan horse. The grin dissappeared from her face as her back sprang into shape,her eyes pouring over the data she was receiving. No one at this facility was supposed to know what they were doing. . . so why was the Black Hat herself getting blocked from her prize? This would not do, no, not at all. This was her domain, dammit! No one was showing her up at her own fething game!
But what to do? She hadn't exactly prepared for this turn of events. This was supposed to be easier than taking candy from a baby Jawa, and now there was someone actually defending this damn thing.
Hmm. Wait just a moment. . . this was the only path being blocked off. Back at the main server, they were still waiting the attack out. That meant there was only one true defender, here. The shipping manifests now a secondary objective, Nyx settled into her chair, deep in thought. Here, she had someone formidable, someone with an inkling of skill.
Too bad they didn't realize they were dealing with the Black Hat. Leaning forward, her fingers input commands into the terminal at a speed of 82 words per minute. Her first act was to double the amount of pure junk data being hurled at the FO server, slowing it even further. Her next step was to detach the bug from it's ride, and send it straight at the firewall.
Perhaps some would consider it suicide, but the Black Hat did not accept defeat. Every wall had it's cracks. The worm sniffed alongside the junk data, looking for a way in. She needed this section for both the personal revenge and the shipping manifests, and she'd be damned if she was giving up anytime soon.
Now, she had to sit back and wait for her rival to retaliate, or join her in waiting for the worm to get through like it eventually would.

[member="Sentiri"]

 

[Sentiri]

As Sentiri waited for any sort of reaction to her meddling, she gulped down the remainder of her rations, not savoring any of what little taste there was. Food was just a necessity to her after all. Shifting the logistics servers over to her main screen, the Chiss woman sat back, pulling her keyboard with her, and, still on the floor, leaned against the side of her too-stiff bed. While numbers flew by on the displays in front of her, she ran a hand through her hair until it rested against the back of her scalp, strands of jet black hair sticking out and falling in every direction between her slender fingers.

Fun and illuminating though her codeplay with this attacker may be, if there was a legitimate threat to First Order security, that would be a problem for Sentiri in more ways than one.

First: how would Sentiri explain how she came to such knowledge? And on her day off no less? She couldn't just call herself a helpful citizen when she had illegal computers, mainframes, and access. Agents more senior than she might be able to get away with it, but not a newcomer such as Sentiri. Her ambition would be her own undoing. Sentiri had been caught because of that before; eight years later she knew better. The woman would have to create some sort of incidental diversion in order to cover for herself if this information really needed to come to light.

Second: just what was this threat against the First Order?

Sentiri didn't have time to think that part out as she began to see a variation to the previous attack. This time, instead of subtlety, it appeared the slicer was using brute force. With so much junk data, Sentiri considered the possibility of the system crashing on the First Order's end. On top of that, the worm was no longer as well hidden, instead it was fitting its way into her firewalls, looking for an entrance. The Chiss knew it wouldn't be long before the worm was successful.

With the system slowed, the agent knew that she couldn't just continue to defend the server. Besides, not much time would pass before someone would notice. Even if the Ubiqtorate wasn't directly watching the logistics servers, someone at logistics would take note and report the disturbance. If the situation came to that, anything afterwards was out of Sentiri's hands.

Fine then. How about this for a way out? she thought. All of that data was coming from somewhere. Even if the origin was being pinged remotely, the information could still be traced. After sitting idle for what were really just a few moments, Sentiri's hands returned to her keyboard. Flying swiftly over the keys, she prepared a tracer spike. Converting larger bits of junk data into raw information, the slicer pieced together everything she could.

Let's see just where you are.

>Send

[member="Nyx"]​