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Interstellar Warlock
Interlude: Spacestation Heist

Interlude: Spacestation Heist

Morgera had been an academic in his past life, and he is and will always be a scientist. These callings require several things from those who pursue them. A inquisitive nature, patience, a nack for tolerating bureaucratic bullshit, stamina, and the ability to write long meandering papers without getting to the point. In spite of Morgera having all of these traits and more besides, he is bored as shit. Life on a grounded and abandoned ship is not for him nor for any other sapient beings with an ounce of social instincts.

Morgera has spent days wandering the halls, trying to fit into flasks or bowls just for fun, napped in his habitational tank, made modifications to his different power armors, and lately pondered the implications of Glyphnaxes revalations. Magic being provenly real is probably the biggest most paradigm shattering revalation, that Morgera has ever experienced in his entire life. He is truly excited by the prospect of being at the forefront of such a discovery, when life on the ship resumes it's normal pattern it will be a true pleasure to study the phenomena.

These thoughts are not enough by themselves to banish the loneliness he feels, but at least he can keep his mind occupied. His other main occupation besides pondering things to himself, is putting his mental resources to work for the crew and the nascent revolution. Captain Torran has given him the task of figuring out how to neutralize the biggest disadvantage the rebellion faces, and that is the orbital weapons above the planet. It doesn't matter how many who fight to drive Shieldmaiden out of the system, if they kept the orbital weapons they could oblitterate the rebels. 

Namatha was the one who gave Morgera the key that would let him approach the problem. According to her information gathering the orbital weapons were all controlled from the main spacestation in orbit around the planet, the orbital factory, trade, and security center as Shieldmaiden classified it. Having a proper central control cluster to subvert makes pondering the problem far easier than having to subvert each weapon.

The main problem with subverting this facility is that it had to be done well in advance, but also quietly enough that Shieldmaiden did not notice anything untoward. It was while pondering this planet in his habitational tank, that Mara decided to make her return to the ship. The dark screens where she could normally be seen flared back to life and her featureless visage appeared once more. "Greetings Morgera, I have returned from my exploration of the planet." 

Morgera blinks and peers through the glass of his container, as a biologist it had always puzzled him how engineers sought to create sapience in machines. When one could easily create sapience in life with either cybernetic or biological alterations. Yet, he must admit it is curious to finally see a truly sapient machine intelligence, as he watches Mara his expansive mind starts to collect notes on everything he sees. 

"Welcome back Mara, I am glad that you have decided to accompany me again." Morgera says while remotely activating his regular power armor and directing it towards his habitational tank. It stumbles over to the tank and connects itself to the exit door, Morgera slides out through the barest glimpse of an opening and plomps down into the construct. It takes him only two seconds to hook himself up to the systems that control the power armor and he rises up with the massive humanoid machine. "I was just pondering one of the key issues we are facing and I realized you might be of use for me."

Mara's digital head tilts as she hears this statement. "How so?" Morgera shrugs the shoulders of his construct before he replies. "I need to infiltrate the spacestation in orbit over the planet, but to do so effectively and remain hidden above I need eyes and ears. The ship can also not be left unguarded as we don't want to leave it up to trust that there are no instrusions both digital and physical. Therefore, I need you to remain on the ship and not send out your mind to explore the environs for the time being." 

Mara seems to consider these words for a few moments before she responds. "Noted, I will of course assist you and the crew in whatever capacity I can." Morgera walks out of his quarters and down towards the cargohold of the ship. "Excellent, then I will start by explaining you just what my plan is and how you can best assist me." Mara sends her floating spectral form out to accompany Morgera on his walk through the ship, rather than just following him with her perfect sensory awareness of the ship.

The little cruiser known as "Knarr 4323" was making one of it's many dozens of delivery trips to and from the Spacestation above Brynhildr. This journey was so out of the ordinary that the local office had not even bothered to staff the ship for this particular delivery. The cargo was primarily smaller items that the indigenous factory workers had made to be delivered out to it's many buyers out in the galaxy: sex toys, computer parts, cutlery, and other similar items were the primary wares in this batch.

The little streamlined cruiser that looked like it had seen better days to put it mildly, easily sped up to land in one of the many cargo sections of the large spacestation. As the ship landed, several loader robots stepped up to begin unload the cargo from the ship. After only three minutes of work, the cruiser could once more shoot out from the station and return to the surface of Brynhildr. In that time the ship had not only become a cargohold lighter, but also unknowingly been rid of a stoaway that nobody had noticed on the ship. 

Morgera had elegantly slid out from the ship without being spotted by any of the robots nor any of the automated scanners in the cargo area. For the occasion he was in the smallest of his three power armor suits: the stealth and infiltration model. Unlike his two other suits this particular model was purely Tlokbur's design and made specifically on his request. This suit is small, light, and made with a special alloy that could be influenced to change it's colloration with electrical currents. These currents in turn are hooked up to an automated system with sensors that let's it perfectly determine the best colloration for any environment. It is a small suit compared to the massive two meter tall constructs that he has prepared to use, this suit stands significantly shorter at around 140 centimeters.

Morgera moves quickly and silently through the corridors of the ship and he must admit that the suit performs better than he could have hoped for. It's special foam padded feet made it able to absorb almost all sounds of it's movements, if you combined that with it's excellent sensory array and the surprising speed and power of the suit. And Morgera would have to grudingly admit that Tlokbur had all rights to be smug about the suit. 

He sent a quick system message to Mara to inform her that he was on the station and ready to recieve her guidance when he has been able to hook her into the station's system. The first step of his infiltration would be to find one of the public computer units on the station, from it he could hook Mara into the system and have her work on the basic security systems while also gathering intelligence for him.

Morgera moved quickly through the seemingly confusing network of corridors, confident that his suit would not appear on the cameras as anything more than a slight blurr. His sensors kept him well informed about nearby lifeforms, of which there were not exactly many. He has to stop a few times to let patrols pass him by or have anxious workers enter their offices. After a rough 20 minutes of searching through the station, he managed to find a simple computer terminal. 

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was quick and easy for him to unscrew the panel behind the terminal with one of his fingers, which contained a magnet screwdriver. He gingerly placed a tiny microchip near the databanks of the computer and then elegantly closed and screwed the panel back. All of this in less than a minute, before he moved hastily away from the terminal. After ten seconds a miniturized map appeared in his NVR as Mara added the confidential map information to his NVR's existing mapping program. Several dots and shapes that indicated people, robots, and security meassures were added to the map after that again.

With this information it would be even easiery for him to move unseen through the station until he could reach the target of the infiltration. As he continues to rapidly traverse the station, Morgera cannot help but think about his fellow crew members. And why he decided to keep the nature of this particular excursion hidden from them. He loves and cherishes them as friends and allies for sure, their revolutionary attitudes and ideals are very much shared by him as well. But as much as it would pain him to admit it, they are not exactly masters of subtlety.

When the more privileged among the oppressed and their allies revolt, it is exceedingly easy to abandon the least privileged groups behind in that revolution. As an uplift from a species that aren't sapient Morgera would be considered the lowest status member of the crew in galactic society, all the others except Glyphnax are from established sapient species. So, while they are excellent allies to the cause they themselves can never fully understand the risks Morgera and his fellows live with.

So while they talk about burning down the machine and bringing justice to the oppressed, Morgera cannot forget how easy it is for such a revolution to backfire on the very people it is attempting to help. This along with his background as a xenobiologist has taught him the practical purpose scalpel cuts can play in bringing equality. Killing a whale is sometimes better done with a few surgical strikes to it's brain and heart, compared to a full frontal assault. It is this particular mindset that is motivating him now while he moves through the station.

It takes only Mara a few minutes of searching through the public files to calculate where the hidden room with the orbital weapons systems is located. With her prediction made and the location added to his map, Morgera immediately focuses on moving towards that location. He has to avoid 5 different security patrols when he gets closer to his destination. It is clear that while Shieldmaiden takes securing this section seriously, the actual security forces themselves are significantly more relaxed about their duties. 

If they had not been so then Morgera would be much more hardpressed to elude them and approach the entryway to the security station. If Torran had done this mission then he would have been too distracted by the need to be flashy in his infiltration. Namatha's more social approach would have left an impression as well as drawn attention. Mary would have left bodies behind, either unconcious or dead, and Tlokbur would have been too large to be able to sneak around like this. 

Leaving bodies, witnesses, or risking his discovery by doing things like running on the walls or delving deeper than strictly necessary. Would make this entire mission a failure and Morgera has no need to any of these things. Results is what truly matters to a scientist, and the results will be perfect. That is what Morgera promises himself as he pushes his comrades out of his mind.

The last two corridors before he reaches the target door are the hardest parts of the infiltration up until now. Mara had missed that there were several motion sensors and secondary security cameras meant to look for things like life signs or skulkers. Thankfully, his suit does not rely on things like NVR counter signals to hide his presence, and his entire suit has a layer of stealth sheets which absorbs infrared light. So combined with his other messures the heat seeking lenses would not be able to detect him.

The motion sensors is what puzzles Morgera as he stands just outside of the range of the sensors. As Mara had not discovered these, it would be likely that they are on a closed network that she cannot touch from the public terminal. Therefore, he could not wait for her to work through the security systems, that leaves it up to him and his suit. He stretches out one of his arms and unleashes a quick electromagnetic pulse, which makes the sensors malfunction for just long enough that he can move past them and to the door. 

With these hinderances out of the way he now has to deal with the door, which is hermetically sealed and heavily armored. Trying to break this door down would be pure idiocy of course, and Morgera has no plans to leave any signs behind. The third most notable thing about this stealth suit is that unlike all of his other suits, this one has special appendages which are filled by his many tentacles. These appendages are retractable and through them he can do far more than with just the humanoid hands at his disposal. 

Morgera is about to use his various limbs to work on the doors many security mechanisms, when his suit sensors picks up movement behind the door. He elegantly jumps up and uses his coated tentacles enhanced suction cups to stick himself to the roof and flatten the malleable suit to make him as undectable as possible. The door opens and two men step out from the facility, carrying several mechanical tools. Probably a regular maintainance crew that does security sweeps to ensure that the machinery inside has not been messed with.

Before the door can swoosh shut, Morgera uses his tentacles to swing through the opening and silently land inside. His sensors could finally pick up information from the room when the door opened, so this rather flashy move was safe to do. With the room too himself and no obvious way for him to be detected inside of it, Morgera could finally get to work on executing his mission.

The massive computation devices and panels meant to control and monitor the orbital weapons, as well as the closed of security systems would not be as easily messed with as the terminal. With a proper service crew the kind of crude alteration that he had done to the public terminal, would be easily discovered if he attempted it here. The computers probably also have a self diagnosis system which would make any hidden computer viruses or alterations to the software, equally idiotic as the self diagonsis would be likely to report it. 

In addition to that it is almost one hundred percent certain that Shieldmaiden had left several AI security units, as guardians to ensure that no hacker could breach the system in a direct manner. Thankfully, he had more exotic means available to him now. So with that he stretched out an arm and whispered, "Mara it is your turn." He could almost feel it as his little stoaway flowed out of his suit and into the computer systems. Mara could bypass normal hacking with her protocols and new mystical abilities, which would probably be more than sufficient in distracting the AIs.

With the invisible battle between the Artificial Intelligences under way, Morgera could turn to his work with the machines themselves. He moves over to the panel behind the machines and calls up Tlokbur's very helpful guide for how to sabotage machines in the most subtle way possible. He sighs as the incredibly complex instructions appear before him in his NVR, this work will be likely to take him hours upon hours to complete.