Marque
Pink is for boys, too!
From his seat on the interstellar transport, the seventeen-year-old rubbed his magenta fingers over the dust jacket of the book in his pocket. The black tome was small enough to fit almost in the palm of his hand, and would have otherwise been unassuming but for its contents. The aggressive language and rallying cries upon its pages were not what drew the interest of the Zeltron teen, however, but a small datachip affixed inside the back cover. It was there now, avoiding the scrutiny of customs officials, but he would soon use it for far less unassuming purposes.
A signal passed through the cabin of the passenger liner, indicating the transport's descent into Praesitlyn's thick upper atmosphere. The vessel rumbled as it passed through the outer fringes of one of the planet's famous dust storms on its way to the primary spaceport. Marque gripped his seat with equal parts nervous and yearning, spaceflight was not something he was accustomed to, but his fear of sudden destruction at the hands of an inept pilot or mechanical failure was far eclipsed by his impatience for the challenge to come. He could feel it building from the pit of his stomach to the furthest tips of his fingers, and he flexed them in anticipation.
Marque's transit to Praesitlyn was no accident. The data chip had proven a tough nut to crack, but eventually it had led him to a manufacturer who was very unwilling to give out their client list. That was a small matter for the young Zeltron, whose nimble fingers were a well-known characteristic of his species. His were attuned to the touch-sensitive datapads he carried in his pack, and well adept at manipulating their contents to access the nether regions of the HoloNet. The manufacturer's front-facing site may have been fairly secure, but their shipping application had a very permissive attitude when it came to what their business partners could see. Slicing the credentials of one of their corporate clients was a simple matter once Marque had located one without much internal security.
The manufacturer was much more pliant after that.
It was the vast amounts of encrypted data that had first attracted him to Praesitlyn. The chip's original contract had been initiated there, and such a large contract had to come from someone with money. And money was, by far, the easiest way to track someone over the 'Net, as Marque knew well. There were all sorts of means to hide an identity, mask routing, obfuscate locations and handles, but nothing could avoid the undeniable patterns made by the exchange of currency. Bitcreds and credpal didn't do nearly enough to erase the digital trail related to the exchange of goods. An exchange that had lead the teen straight to the planet Praesitlyn.
He had tried to poke around the encryptions from afar, but once on the HoloNet they became a black box. Marque needed hardline access, wireless was just simply not up to the task. So when the transport shuddered as it settled into its berth, the boy felt the butterflies in his stomach jump. He practically floated out into the spaceport with the rest of the disembarking passengers, but when he reached the outer edge of the spaceport, his heart jumped instead.
There was no city!
Despite having been born on a world of equal parts city and country, Marque had never really lived anywhere but the city. His schooling at Silverleaf had been on Denon, one of the most populous urban planets in the galaxy. A view without durasteel and transparisteel skyscrapers dominating the horizon was just plain wrong!
Marque shivered in discomfort, swallowing as a knot took hold in his throat. He knew Praesitlyn was a mostly rural world, but nothing had prepared the Zeltron for what that word meant. Rural. He worked the word over in his mouth, feeling its gentle texture, its laid-back diction, the wholesomeness that resonated through his being as he spoke it. Rural. He shuddered again, feeling exposed, paranoia settling in. The gathering of buildings near the spaceport was but a small oasis of life amongst the vast plains of wilderness beyond, and try as he might to steer clear of the edges, Marque was quickly enlightened by just how small the town really was.
The boy shook his head to clear his mind. It would be better once he found a place to plug in, he told himself. Remember the objectives. Get on a hardline, access the encryption, and go to town. What little of it there was, he thought wryly.
Dusty air greeted the brown-haired Zeltron as he unlocked the library door. With easy access to the HoloNet from the communications station nearby, coupled with the smaller population of the settlement, it was a small wonder that the library was unused. Marque had tossed a few credits the way of the barkeep whose suggestion it was, not that the man had come right out to say it. It was amazing what a mere mention could put into the front of someone's mind, the boy thought with a chuckle. His telepathic powers might not be anywhere near the strength of the numerous Force-wielding warriors of the galaxy, but the Zeltron's racial endowment served him well in a pinch.
His equipment set up around him —an amassed array of datapads connected by ugly, red wiring connected to the port he had discovered in the library's decrepit wall— Marque took a deep breath. He placed his hands on the table where he was seated, his head bowed in silent reflection. The variables raced through his head once more, but he was confident they sided with him. Besides, what was a challenge without some risk? With that thought in mind, Marque began.
sub main {
while(cutThruDaNoise($ARG[0])) {
$output = nabCodedSignal($ARG[1]);
print ($output);
}
}
[member="Solan Charr"], [member="Juwiela Melec"], [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"], [member="Braha Saca"], [member="Tugoro Taidarious"], [member="DasGeneral"], [member="Armand Temi"], [member="Alena"], [member="Roth Tillian"], [member="Geneviève Lasedri"]
A signal passed through the cabin of the passenger liner, indicating the transport's descent into Praesitlyn's thick upper atmosphere. The vessel rumbled as it passed through the outer fringes of one of the planet's famous dust storms on its way to the primary spaceport. Marque gripped his seat with equal parts nervous and yearning, spaceflight was not something he was accustomed to, but his fear of sudden destruction at the hands of an inept pilot or mechanical failure was far eclipsed by his impatience for the challenge to come. He could feel it building from the pit of his stomach to the furthest tips of his fingers, and he flexed them in anticipation.
Marque's transit to Praesitlyn was no accident. The data chip had proven a tough nut to crack, but eventually it had led him to a manufacturer who was very unwilling to give out their client list. That was a small matter for the young Zeltron, whose nimble fingers were a well-known characteristic of his species. His were attuned to the touch-sensitive datapads he carried in his pack, and well adept at manipulating their contents to access the nether regions of the HoloNet. The manufacturer's front-facing site may have been fairly secure, but their shipping application had a very permissive attitude when it came to what their business partners could see. Slicing the credentials of one of their corporate clients was a simple matter once Marque had located one without much internal security.
The manufacturer was much more pliant after that.
It was the vast amounts of encrypted data that had first attracted him to Praesitlyn. The chip's original contract had been initiated there, and such a large contract had to come from someone with money. And money was, by far, the easiest way to track someone over the 'Net, as Marque knew well. There were all sorts of means to hide an identity, mask routing, obfuscate locations and handles, but nothing could avoid the undeniable patterns made by the exchange of currency. Bitcreds and credpal didn't do nearly enough to erase the digital trail related to the exchange of goods. An exchange that had lead the teen straight to the planet Praesitlyn.
He had tried to poke around the encryptions from afar, but once on the HoloNet they became a black box. Marque needed hardline access, wireless was just simply not up to the task. So when the transport shuddered as it settled into its berth, the boy felt the butterflies in his stomach jump. He practically floated out into the spaceport with the rest of the disembarking passengers, but when he reached the outer edge of the spaceport, his heart jumped instead.
There was no city!
Despite having been born on a world of equal parts city and country, Marque had never really lived anywhere but the city. His schooling at Silverleaf had been on Denon, one of the most populous urban planets in the galaxy. A view without durasteel and transparisteel skyscrapers dominating the horizon was just plain wrong!
Marque shivered in discomfort, swallowing as a knot took hold in his throat. He knew Praesitlyn was a mostly rural world, but nothing had prepared the Zeltron for what that word meant. Rural. He worked the word over in his mouth, feeling its gentle texture, its laid-back diction, the wholesomeness that resonated through his being as he spoke it. Rural. He shuddered again, feeling exposed, paranoia settling in. The gathering of buildings near the spaceport was but a small oasis of life amongst the vast plains of wilderness beyond, and try as he might to steer clear of the edges, Marque was quickly enlightened by just how small the town really was.
The boy shook his head to clear his mind. It would be better once he found a place to plug in, he told himself. Remember the objectives. Get on a hardline, access the encryption, and go to town. What little of it there was, he thought wryly.
Dusty air greeted the brown-haired Zeltron as he unlocked the library door. With easy access to the HoloNet from the communications station nearby, coupled with the smaller population of the settlement, it was a small wonder that the library was unused. Marque had tossed a few credits the way of the barkeep whose suggestion it was, not that the man had come right out to say it. It was amazing what a mere mention could put into the front of someone's mind, the boy thought with a chuckle. His telepathic powers might not be anywhere near the strength of the numerous Force-wielding warriors of the galaxy, but the Zeltron's racial endowment served him well in a pinch.
His equipment set up around him —an amassed array of datapads connected by ugly, red wiring connected to the port he had discovered in the library's decrepit wall— Marque took a deep breath. He placed his hands on the table where he was seated, his head bowed in silent reflection. The variables raced through his head once more, but he was confident they sided with him. Besides, what was a challenge without some risk? With that thought in mind, Marque began.
sub main {
while(cutThruDaNoise($ARG[0])) {
$output = nabCodedSignal($ARG[1]);
print ($output);
}
}
[member="Solan Charr"], [member="Juwiela Melec"], [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"], [member="Braha Saca"], [member="Tugoro Taidarious"], [member="DasGeneral"], [member="Armand Temi"], [member="Alena"], [member="Roth Tillian"], [member="Geneviève Lasedri"]
