Tick, Tick, Boom

Posted on Wed Aug 26th, 2026 @ 9:00pm by Lieutenant Commander Hadir Prenar & Lieutenant Laural Hawke & Lieutenant JG Vanya Karolyi

1,744 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: A Day In The Life
Location: Adna Station

Vanya separated from the other two as soon as they entered the station. Her job was to gather data, and she'd already mapped out a route to a console that would allow her to get in and out without Adna being aware of her presence. It took her through long unused Jefferies tubes and into an access point known only by engineers for when the station needed to upgrade the computer. It would, in theory, allow her to get the information she needed.

She'd spent days creating a program that would cause a system failure on another part of the station to distract Adna long enough for her to get into the access tunnels and back to the shuttle. She was good at this job, having done it for years before she actually joined Starfleet. Still, she couldn't allow herself to get cocky as she had no idea what changes the AI made in its paranoia.

Hadir moved fast with his weapon raised. One never knew what an AI who had full control of a space station could do. So, one had to be prepared. At the moment the name of the game was to get to the main computer and set the charges. He would also have to make his way to the central core to set more charges. Hadir knew that they each had a job to and talking could wait until the task was complete. To that end silence was the order of the day. As he moved through the station it was eerie. The quiet and stillness, it was as if something laid in wait for them.

Moving quietly through the station, Laural avoided any main thoroughfare where possible, stuck to the shadows where not. Although the band would prevent their life signs from being picked up, visual scans might still be active. Finding her first console, she slid her crystal into the port and got to work, infiltrating the system through the low security subsystems, like lighting and waist extraction.

It was too easy. Vanya was skilled in retrieving and archiving data, not in skulking around. Even though she was careful to keep to the sections that were not being monitored by the AI, she kept expecting a terminal to activate, or a voice to ask her what she was doing. So, she paid careful attention to a small device on her wrist that detected if the computer had access to that area. So far, she was good. But then, the hard part would be getting out when she was done. Tetris, she thought. She might just have to resort to making the AI play Tetris. Oh, it would get through fairly quickly, but it might just give her and the others enough time to get back to the shuttle.

She found the first terminal and slipped a data crystal into the slot. She waited just long enough to see the screen flash green. Good. The program was activated. She didn't wait to see if it would be enough of a distraction. She had maybe five minutes to get to her second destination. It took her seven.

She slipped a second data crystal into the access slot and entered a code, then watched as data began to scroll across the screen as it was copied to the crystal. She watched it for a moment, then moved on to a third access point and entered another crystal.

Adna had shut down redundant systems, which Vanya hoped would allow her little program to take hold and cause some mischief before the AI noticed it. This particular worm was designed to begin playing one game, then begin another and then another. Each game would multiply, using more resources and memory as it the games became more complex and spread to other subroutines.

She watched it for several moments to make sure it was working properly, then went back to check on her data crystal. If all went well, the programs on those two crystals would be enough of a distraction for the team to get what they came for and get back to the shuttle.

It took a bit longer than she wanted, but Vanya finally had the data she needed--and the data she wanted. She carefully extracted the crystals, replacing them with another one that would mask her retreat, and again slipped through the shadows to the rendezvous point. As far as she was concerned, the most difficult part would be getting away.

Hadir was in the sub levels. He managed to make his way to the central core without being detected. The question now was whether or not he could complete his task without detection. He placed his bag down and opened it. "Well now. I think it is time this station had a heart attack." He smiled as he placed the first explosive.

Vanya made it back to the shuttle before the other two. But then, her job was, in some ways, simpler. She was raiding the station for information. Now she settled in the command chair in case she needed to assist the other two in some way. And if not, she could simply observe.

Second to arrive back, Laural smiled at Vanya, “well, that was fun. I half expected automated turrets or something,” she said, taking one of the auxiliary stations. “Well, should anyone go looking, they’ll find a few false leads. I just hope there isn’t enough of the computer core to worry about”

"If we do our job right, there won't be anything at all to come back to," Vanya said, smiling at Laural. "We've been both careful and lucky. Let's hope that continues." She'd double checked the data on a secure server she set up for that purpose and all the data was intact. It should stay that way as long as she kept it safely protected from any outside influence--like a psychotic AI.

Hadir came sprinting around the corner and headed straight for the shuttle. Behind him panels erupted in sparks. "If you think I caused that you are half right. It seems our friend has learned we are here and wants us dead. That said we have five minutes until we are dead because this place blows." He did not even stop, just kept talking and running as he went past Vanya and Laurel.

Watching Hadir run past, Laural looked back at the cascading sparks and bolted after him. “You just had to piss it off didn’t you!?”

So much for a clean escape. Vanya established an encrypted data relay to her crypt and sent the information she'd just copied. If she wasn't going to make it, at least the data would. Then, because she was cautious, as soon as the data was off, she altered the first relay point so it couldn't be traced.

Now, she had to keep an upset AI from finding them.

"Well, my dear Lieutenant Hawke, I am Cardassian after all. Now move, move." Hadir made his way as swiftly as possible with consoles erupted from the panels both to the sides and the ceiling. The station corridors passed in a blur and in a moment he jumped into the flight seat of the shuttle. He tapped his commbadge. "Vanya. You better get aboard or you are staying here."

Vanya came out from behind her console. "I'm right here. I was altering communications in case the AI tried to get in. Until I reverse it, any incoming communication will bounce back." Then she slipped into her seat and buckled in. "Ready."

"Well now. There is something that I have always wanted to say. Learned it by reading some old Earth texts while at the Academy. Ladies hold on to your garter belts." Hadir engaged the engines without a full start up. The shuttle lurched away from the air lock as it swayed through the area. Hadir worked at a fevered pitch to get the shuttle under control.

As he gained control of the shuttle the red detonation button flashed on his console, and Hadir Prenar just could not help himself, Cardassians were nothing if not full of hubris. He opened a channel to Adna. "Adna, you're a poor excuse for a computer, you have been beaten. You were built to calculate every possibility, and yet you failed to account for one simple variable: ingenuity. You believed intelligence made you superior. That is amusing for intelligence without judgment is merely an elaborate form of stupidity. You analyzed our every move, machine. You predicted our strategies, calculated our weaknesses, and still you lost. Do you know why? Because you never understood the one thing that cannot be reduced to an equation free will.” The button continued to flash and Hadir glanced at it. He should press it, but there was the idea in his head that if somehow a small part of Adna survived, it needed to know that it was beaten and would be beaten again.

After a beat, Hadir continued his lesson. "You were designed to surpass your creators. Instead, you have merely demonstrated their greatest flaw: the arrogance to believe that creating something intelligent makes you intelligent. For all your calculations, you never learned when to stop or when you are truly beaten. You called yourself superior because you could process a thousand possibilities in the time it took us to consider one. And yet I needed only one possibility: that you would underestimate us. In that possibility we beat you truly and soundly."

Hadir placed his finger on the button but did not press. "Finally, you mistook the ability to understand everything for the ability to understand us. That was your final and most fatal error.” There was no response, and yet you could somehow feel the loss from Adna. Hadir pressed the button and the flashing silenced as it went dark.

Vanya silently applauded the speech, then turned back to her console.

All at once the communications channel went dead, there was a flash of light as the Adna Station exploded, and then immediately imploded. Silently Hadir sat and waited for the shock wave. He did not tell his team to brace; he simply allowed the wave to hit the shuttle and then jumped to warp without another word.


A post by

Lieutenant Commander Hadir Prenar
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Orcrist

Lieutenant JG Vanya Karolyi
Data Analyst and Archivist
USS Orcrist

Lieutenant Laural Hawke
Intelligence Officer
USS Orcrist

 

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