Cats Cradle

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This is a collaborative story between Dartz and HRogge.


Prologue

Operations Status Report
Operation Maulwurf: 12/02/15.
Posted by Jet Jaguar.

It has been two weeks since my last report. Since that time, we have continued to monitor communications between Roland and his handler. So far, there has been no indication that either Roland or his handler are aware their communications are being monitored.

First of all, it’s clear that Roland is little more than a useful idiot. It seems he inserted the security breach on his own, with the intention of fixing them when no-one else could. He was paid by his contact to keep them in the system, and add more system vulnerabilities.

Second. Now that we have records on where and how many of these vulnerabilities were inserted, fixing them should be no problemo. However, the SSC module is to be kept offline until we’re certain all the bugs have been swatted.

Third. Our intention was to find a link to his handler, their location and or identity if we were lucky. Cortana was able to get us a location for Roland’s handler. A number of messages seemed to either be sent to, or received from 2462 Nehallennia, which is a minor Senshi outpost.

Our collected data is attached to this posting. In it, the hack as referred to as the ‘VSW project’. The meaning of VSW, I don’t know.

A second stroke of luck strengthens the link to Nehalennia. The Space Patrol is currently searching for two suspects whom they believe may have been involved. Ford Sierra was able to use her position as a Bounty Hunter to get information from the local patrol office. Both suspects were from Nehallennia.

While strongly suggestive of a link, it’s not a confirmation. Once is happenstance, two is coincidence, I decided to go looking for my third confirmation.

I made my way to Nehallennia and landed covertly on the asteroid’s surface under my own power, placing a small camera and radio receiver/recorder on the asteroid’s surface to record traffic coming in and out of the main landing bay. It’s something I did a number of times during the war. I retrieved it after letting it record for a week.

Analysis of the recordings confirm that Nehalennia is a Zwilnik waystation. At least three known zwilnik ships were recorded either arriving or departing. Also, several unencrypted radio transmissions seem to suggest Naoko Sato is present on the station. This is too interesting to be left unconfirmed.

While this is enough cause to order a full Great Justice strike, I would prefer to hold off at this stage. Firstly, we have only a strong suspicion that the robbery was ordered from Nehallennia. We don’t have any information as to whether the ghost hacking techniques originated from there also, or were developed elsewhere.

Our objective is to locate whoever developed this ghost hacking, and retrieve them and their research. Attacking Nehallennia too soon may spook the developer. We’d lose any links to them.

My Primary objectives at this point are:

  • Confirm that Nehalennia is the location Roland is being controlled from.
  • Recover information on who developed Ghost hacking
  • Determine if it was developed at Nehalennia, or elsewhere.
  • Find how far information on these Ghost hacking techniques have spread.
  • If the hack was developed there, get the data. If not, find where and move on. Leave
  • Preferably capture the Mad responsible alive.

As a Secondary objective

  • Confirm Naoko Sato's presence.
  • Find out what, if anything Naoko knows about this.
  • If Naoko Sato is present, capture.

Tertiary objective

  • Thionite runners handled by regular OGJ forces. Need a strikeforce on standby close enough to hit quickly.

We have come to the decision that the best way to achieve this would be to first infiltrate Nehallennia undercover to investigate. We can also attempt to gain access to Nehalennia’s computers. We can choose our next course of action depending on what the results of this mission are.

If we find that Nehalennia is the source of the hack, then myself and the Engel Gruppe will lead a raid against the base, preferable backed up by a more conventional force to handle thionite runners and prisoners.

If not, We’ll have to hold off taking down Nehalennia until after we’ve followed the trail to the end. We can’t risk spooking whoever was responsible. Getting Naoko Sato must take a back seat to getting a hold of this ghost hacking.

Ford Sierra and Cathy (SSAM 343-GS) have volunteered for the mission.

-Jet