Warning!
This thread may contains of explicit violence, gore, adult situations, language, and suggestive themes. Readers should exercise extreme caution before continuing on. The OP suggests that readers or participants in this thread should be at least eighteen years of age before continuing. Discretion is strongly advised.
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly."
The Cataclysm Begins...
Fort Vandengaarde Aerospace Defense Center
Colonel William Jay Hargreaves, Commanding
Wednesday, September 15th, 2012 - 5:12 PM
"Lieutenant, are you monitoring those IP addresses for bounce backs?"
Colonel William "Bill" Hargreaves was apoplectic at the sluggishness of New Azura's premier technicians. For over thirty minutes, an unidentified bug had been tracing the Azuran SkyGuard Defense Network, unbeknownst to the IT Department. Even now, with Lieutenant Masher's Advanced Network Defense Team (ANDT) sending counter spikes back through the servers, there was no telling how pissed his superiors were going to be.
"Affirmative, sir," Lieutenant Masher commented briskly, turning to face the rapidly approaching Colonel Hargreaves. "We've got tracking modules going through the encryption cycles, making sure that our modulations aren't impeded. If they got anything out of our system, it must have been superficial. No files have been removed or damaged."
Colonel Hargreaves was beside himself. "What the fuck are you smoking, Lieutenant? An unknown virtual threat just had access to New Azura's most sensitive defensive network for thirty minutes, and you're telling me that the damage here is superficial? What if they planted a computer virus to wipe all monitoring out?"
Lieutenant Masher shook his head. "Sir, I'm looking at the subroutines now: nothing was damaged or misplaced. A virtual attacker got through our safety protocols, but apparently didn't know what to do with the jumbled files. At worst, our networks will be slowed for awhile if he left a virus. Still, our manual servers aren't connected to SkyGuard, so we can still access our monitoring stations and reconnaissance birds for potential launches."
Bill thought about how to respond, but deliberately held his peace. Whether it would look good in a report or not, the incident had apparently been contained by the Grace of God. He'd worry about how to explain himself to General Kenmore later. Hargreaves nodded briskly, making sure that Lieutenant Masher knew of his hot displeasure before refocusing on the AEROCON screen. So far, no external SkyGuard systems had been adversely affected by the incident, though Hargreaves wouldn't count it as a win until all systems were double-checked.
What a day, Billy.
Surprisingly, the Colonel smiled a little at the thought. It was the voice of his late father that he was hearing, speaking to his soul. Bill Hargreaves didn't like to think of himself as a sentimental man, yet he constantly thought about his late father, drawing inspiration from him. Thomas Hargreaves had been a legend in the Azuran Air Force, helping establish the precursor to SkyGuard twenty years prior. If it hadn't have been for General Hargreaves and his leadership, New Azura would be dragging its ass in the dirt.
"Uh... Colonel, sir?" A voice piped up behind him: "We may have a slight issue here, sir." Colonel Hargreaves turned to face the young officer, an Ensign Pettifog by the looks of his uniform. Walking up to the monitor, Colonel Hargreaves was met with a surprising admission: "Colonel, sir? I believe that a few subroutines have been erased."
"Have you isolated the damaged folder?" Colonel Hargreaves asked earnestly.
"Sir, I cannot from this terminal here. The file in question have been completely erased." Colonel Hargreaves stepped to his left, moving to walk around the lengthy row of consoles and computer terminals that were joined together. Heading around the corner, he could see that Lieutenant Masher and Captain Edmund were also moving to view the console at which Ensign Pettifog sat.
After a few seconds, Hargreaves joined the trio at the console, looking at the viewfinder while Edmund outwardly mused: "Now, where the Hell has this file gone?"
"Ensign, look up the file registry in the CODEC. I want to see the real-time registry to know what we're looking at here." Colonel Hargreaves started to speak, then quickly caught himself. When the security alert was triggered, the defense network automatically scrambled the file headers, making it more difficult for hackers to trace through individual files. Unfortunately, with the bug already well inside the network, the scramblers had merely made it more difficult to determine which file was which. The modulations were set to a computer-specific algorithm with no human input: no two scrambling codes were the same.
"Sir, accessing the CODEC now," Ensign Pettifog said with a sour expression. The CODEC was the only network key to deciphering the scrambled file headers. It would give the technicians an idea as to what the hackers were targeting. Outside of sending a RESTORE-BOT through the original network files, there was no other way to access the file header.
Lieutenant Masher turned to face the Colonel, but Pettifog's worrisome shriek drew the attention of the entire room. "Sirs, I don't know what- um, sirs! I-I don't know! The CODEC doesn't have a missing registry key for our lost file!"
Colonel Hargreaves shot a distressing look at the Lieutenant, who returned the worrisome look. It only took a moment of action, and Hargreaves gave the fateful word. "Lieutenant Masher, contact Central Command at McPherson and inform them of what's happened. Send word out to our Political Liaison in Capodimonte, and inform the Consul General. Captain Edmund? I want you to send the RESTORE-BOT through the servers and find out why our files are missing. If necessary, we'll have to restore the servers to correct the damage."
Both Lieutenant Masher and Captain Edmund nodded their acknowledgment of the orders, quickly saluting to the Colonel. Hargreaves returned the gesture, posturing himself to give an overall command. "By order of Colonel William Jay Hargreaves, Honourable Air Force of New Azura, I am placing this facility under Attack Warning Alpha-Zulu. Repeating, we are now standing up to Combat Level Red."
Hargreaves stepped out of the line of technicians and sentries moving back and forth. A buzzing alarm bell sounded out, cascading the room at the same moment in a Hellish-looking amber light. The computer consoles adapted to the new lighting, displaying warning messages detailing the nature of the alert. The Colonel, satisfied with the uptick in activity, walked back towards his command station in the monitoring room. Even before he could sit down properly, the red alert telephone began ringing.
Picking up the receiver, Bill answered delicately: "This is Colonel Hargreaves, Vandengaarde Command Center."
"Colonel?" An authoritative voice boomed on the other end of the line. "This is Consul General Meredith speaking. I've just sent a messenger to brief Chancellor Konica on the situation. Unfortunately, he's out of position right now at his mountain top retreat in Nantahala, and it'll be some time before we can secure his position."
Hargreaves eased into his chair, still cradling the receiver. "Understood, sir. We're working diligently to find out what the hackers were doing in our system-"
Hargreaves was interrupted by the request of Captain Edmund. "Colonel Hargreaves! We're ready to launch the RESTORE-BOT!"
The Colonel placed one hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver, using his free hand to switch off his console's safety override mechanism. With a press of the flat screen, Colonel Hargreaves shouted his approval: "You're green to engage the BOT, Captain!"
Colonel Hargreaves began monitoring the progress of the technicians who were initiating the BOT on their own monitors while updating the Consul General. "Sir, they're beginning to run the Restoration Program now."
"Understood, Colonel. Keep me informed of its prog-" was all that Bill heard, before the communications link went dead. Before the surprise could register, the lights went out in the monitoring room, drawing a panicked silencing of the room's commotion. Colonel Hargreaves tentatively rose from his chair, searching for any kind of explanation in the piercing darkness. Suddenly, a shrieking alarm bell sounded throughout the room, jarring the personnel inside.
What the Fuck was that?
Unnerved, Colonel Hargreaves began to shout out an order, yet was once more surprised when the lights to the facility initialized on there on. The darkness subsided quickly, as the room's technicians began looking at one another uneasily. "Let's get some semblance of order here, people," Colonel Hargreaves finally shouted, trying to grab everyone's attention. "Mr. Edmund, we need our monitors back online, sir!"
Captain Edmund opened his mouth to speak, yet the vast number of consoles in the control room began powering back to life, rebooting as if nothing had happened at all. Up on the main viewer on the control room wall, the flickering screen attempted to load up a massive image file, yet was having difficulty doing so.
Colonel Hargreaves was nervous, uncertain. "What's going on here, Captain? Did we just get hit with a power surge of some kind?"
Captain Edmund was perplexed. "Sir, I don't think so. I can't be certain, though it almost would appear as though the computer network locked us out. As if... as if the RESTORE-BOT was being interpreted as an attack."
"Have they rerouted control to a remote location?" Colonel Hargreaves shouted furiously.
"It doesn't appear so," Captain Edmund blurted tentatively. "I don't really understand-"
"Oh, my God!" Pettifog screamed, jumping out of his seat. "Colonel! The missing file from the network was SkyGuard's Fail-Safe subroutines! The hackers placed a feedback loop into our servers, registering the reboot attempt as an attack on Vandengaarde!"
Hargreaves could literally feel his blood run icy cold. Before he could speak another word, the viewfinder on the main wall began to power to life. What it revealed was heart-stopping: a crystal clear image of the homeland territory of the Honourable Confederation of New Azura, with attack markers blinking throughout the country. From the looks of it, the computer was interpreting that every moderate-to-major military installation and metropolitan area had been attacked by nuclear missiles of varying yield.
"Christ in Heaven!" Edmund shouted. "SkyGuard is running an attack simulation, and the hackers have lobotomized our overrides, Colonel!" Hargreaves was flushed, realizing that he had no way of communicating to the Consul General, or to anyone for that matter. With the fail-safes deactivated, the simulation running through SkyGuard would be interpreted by the country's nuclear release networks as an actual attack.
The Colonel screamed at a sentry standing nearby. "Get to the morse code relays downstairs! We need to get an urgent message out to the Atomic Energy Command immediately before our silos and boomers empty their nests prematurely!"
The sentry quickly turned and ran, dodging panicked technicians as the officers intently monitored the situation, trying to figure out what the Hell was happening. It had been such a quiet afternoon, with nothing major scheduled. And in fifteen minutes, all Hell had broken lose. Hargraves rubbed at his eyes, frightened beyond all reasonable doubt. Even with the morse code relays being in the same room, it would take the AEC almost twenty minutes to get by their own fail-safe mechanisms in order to override the nuclear launch order. The silos would be emptied within ten.
"Captain!" Colonel Hargreaves shouted. "Can you obtain the target of our retaliatory attacks? We must get the warning out for them to prepare, and to get our own population to ready themselves for a counterstrike."
Hargreaves watched as Captain Edmund forcibly removed Pettifog from his terminal, scanning streaming data files with a fervent resolve. Suddenly, Edmund stopped scanning, standing from the console in a shocked posture. He slowly turned to face Hargreaves, and the Colonel frighteningly noted the pale-white face on the nigh-comatose Captain Edmund.
"Sir, it's not a retaliatory strike. The source of the initial network attack was internal. It happened from within New Azura. SkyGuard isn't launching a retaliatory strike; it's launching a preemptive one, and New Azura is the target!
Colonel Hargreaves stared blindly at the ghostly Captain Edmund. Pins could be heard in the vast control room, as an utter, eerie silence overtook the technicians and soldiers. Not a whimper, nor a sigh could be heard over the hushed quiet. Bill looked at Edmund intently before his left shoulder went numb. A sharp, stabbing pain shot through the Colonel's chest as his knees buckled underneath him.
"Oh, my God..." Colonel Hargreaves whispered, before his heart gave out deep inside him, and he knew no more.