Gabe knew exactly what to expect as he boarded The Hollywood, he had been there before. He didn't want to be here. The Hollywood brought back too many painful memories for him, the war, the deaths and Marla. Damn it, he thought, stop dwelling on the past and think about the job at hand. He turned slightly and smiled as he watched the graceful stride of his companion, damn, she sure is pleasing on the eye he thought, but then he had programmed those looks himself. She was the latest from Technature Limited, she was the T1A Holographic Artificial Intelligence Unit, with transportation option, the best on the market. He called her Tia, she was his perfect partner, he mused. Pleasing on the eyes, quiet unless asked her opinion, intelligent and logical. She was almost his exact opposite, excluding the intelligence of course.
He asked Tia to check the station for other life forms. Tia cleared her throat, she didn't need to, it was the sign that she had finished her task and was waiting for him. Report he said, there are 10 other life forms on the station and three other ships said Tia in her slightly husky voice, he had programmed that too, perhaps he should alter it, but he liked the sexy sound of it. Damn, he must stop thinking of her as a woman, she was a piece of kit, just like any other, well no, not like any other. Perhaps he should get a male version instead he thought as he checked the surrounding area for danger. He asked Tia to use her extra senses to check on levels he couldn't. She quickly detected a trace of an unidentifiable substance, she stated it was almost like an aroma in the air, she would take a sample and try to analyse it later.
Gabe was a soldier, until the war ended and there were too many soldiers. He had joined the Technature team as a deep space explorer, but that really meant errand boy. He was sent out to check reports of new aliens etc. to find out about their technology, but as this meant he was alone and his own boss, he liked it. The Hollywood wasn't a usual part of his route, but the boys at Technature Ltd, had requested (ordered more like) that he check out, a report of strange new alien contact, as he had a personal knowledge of the station. The Hollywood was still in good condition and there were always people and things on board, but officially she was a decommissioned space station at the edge of human controlled space.
Gabe asked Tia to double check the information she had gathered and find out if any of the life forms or ships were unknown? Tia checked the information and told him that the request could not be obeyed as some of the information was classified. Gabe asked her to dig deeper into the classified files, but Tia responded almost immediately she could not access these files, as she did not have the necessary security clearance. Hack the system was Gabes' response. Tia refused stating that it was an illegal action, damn it, Gabe thought. I really must find a way to bypass her legal systems.
Back on board The Gryphon, his own ship, Gabe tried to alter Tia's programming. The trouble was he was no expert in such things, all he wanted was to bypass the legal over rides in her system. After an hour of trying he finally admitted defeat and had to confess to himself that he felt slightly uneasy about tinkering with her programs in this way. It made him feel tacky, like he had done something morally wrong. He plugged her into the ships mainframe, to update and repair her systems, undoing anything he might have attempted.
He went back to his study to try hacking in the old fashioned, harder way. He managed to find out that all the new alien report files were classified and that it was Military Intelligence that had classified them, but he also discovered that Technature Ltd had given him the job knowing that the records were classified. Further delving into Technature left him with no evidence but a nagging certainty that something was wrong. The whole thing stunk of cover up.
Then the lights flickered and as he tried to exit the computer network, the power on the ship went out, luckily the back up was independent and kicked in immediately. He unhooked the computer and went to see if this was the only part of the station without power.
Outside in the hangar, the rest of the station seemed OK. He mused on how the hangar used to be full of travellers and he wondered what would happen to the station, now there was no war, and no need for people to travel to the outer reaches of human controlled space. He thought about reporting the glitch and then decided against it, not wanting to draw attention to his illegal hacking of the corporations system. He was now certain that something more was going on. The power came back to his ship and he quickly checked all systems.
