| Chapter 7 | Chapter 9 |
Beka vs the Port AUthority - Chapter 8
"Come on, Harper," said Beka to herself. "What's the hold up. You were supposed to spike the power twenty minutes ago."
The plan had started out textbook perfect. The operations center of the port was busy around the clock but the area around the employee door leading to the administrative portion had been deserted and Beka had had no trouble getting in using the combination that Trance had deduced earlier that day. There had been no guards in the corridors and Beka had slipped unnoticed through the passageways eventually concealing herself in the womans restroom nearest the door to traffic control 's administrative office with nine minutes to spare. Unfortunately it seemed that Harper was reading from a different page of the textbook than Beka, as 0023 had come and gone with no interruption to the power.
"Damn it, Harper, do it," cursed Beka.
As if that had been the command to start the operation the lights in the bathroom dimmed, brightened, dimmed and then regained their normal brightness.
"About time, muttered Beka. She picked up the tool bag, carefully opened the door and checked to be sure there was no one in the hallway then walked briskly down to traffic control's administrative office. Once there she removed the EMP generator from the tool bag, made sure it was set it to the setting Harper had told her to use, raised it up to the lock and pressed the activation button. The results were totally anticlimactic. The generator simply made a beeping noise and the lock appeared unchanged.
"Ok, Harper, lets see if you knew what you were talking about," She took the stolen pass card out of a pocket in the tool bag, swiped it thorough the card reader and entered the factory default combination. There was a faint clicking sound and the door to the office opened slightly.
The room was dark. For a moment Beka considered finding a light switch and turning on the lights but decided against it. She didn't know if the room was normally left dark when it was empty or if the light outage was a result of Harper's work. If the room was normally left dark and she turned on the lights she might not have time to turn the lights off if a security guard entered the room and the fact that the lights were on would immediately raise suspicions, and probably a search of the room It was better to keep them off. Fortunately she had come prepared for such a possibility. Reaching into the tool bag she pulled out an elastic band. Attached to the band was a small lamp. She put the band around her head, switched on the lamp and began to scan the room. A moment late she was swearing under her breath.
"Oh Crap!" she said. There were no retina or fingerprint scanners visible on any of the computers in the room. Instead the computers that were on showed a simple login screen with a dialog box requesting user name and password. Harper had been wrong about the operating system the Fenree port authority system was using. She was going to have to try to hack the system the hard way.
"Think Beka" she thought. "The Fenrites must have put in a different system so they could use local resources rather than depend on the FTA to maintain their system. With no biometric security systems installed that means the password is probably the only security on the system. All I need to do is hack the password and user ID. I bet somewhere in this room someone wrote theirs down. I just have to find the somewhere."
She began searching the computers and the desks, examining the sides of the monitors, lifting up keyboards and opening desk drawers looking for something that looked like a password and user id. Eight desks later she found a piece of paper taped to the underside of one of the keyboards. On the paper were printed the words 'dalison' and 'tommy' This looks promising she told herself. She sat down and the desk and entered the two words into the login box and clicked the enter button. A moment later she was staring at a menu display. "Jackpot," she muttered.
Beka glanced at her watch she had already wasted 45 minutes. She still had time but it was going to be close. She started selecting menu items looking for something that would call up the files on the Sakaemasu. Thirty minutes later she had located the file and the Sakaemasu now had a clean bill of health. She was in the process of closing down the system when she heard a click as the electronic lock on the door released.
The only concealment in the room was the desks. Turning off the light on her headband she dived under the one she was working at and pulled the chair in close hoping that it would offer sufficient concealment from a casual search and that the security guard wasn't the conscientious type who would do a careful search of the room.
The door opened and the guard stepped into the room his flashlight flickering around the office. Beka wasn't concerned about being captured, she had a gauss pistol in the tool bag and was confident that she could subdue the guard in a hand to hand struggle if it came to that. But combat wasn't the issue, the success of the operation depended on no one realizing that the files on the Sakaemasu had been altered. A dead or unconscious guard would immediately alert the port authorities to the fact that someone had broken into the traffic control administrative center.
Fortunately for the guard his inspection was a cursory one and Beka remained undetected. After a quick scan of the room the guard left and the lock clicked once more. Breathing a sigh of relief Beka climbed out from under the desk. She checked the time. She was going to have to hurry.
| Chapter 7 | Chapter 9 |