Junko smacked the side of the terminal in frustration. She was an engineer, not a hacker. Had she been in a more charitable mood, she might have conceded that she did have a good deal of experience working with computing systems, and her understanding of the engineered functionality of the environments like this space station contributed to her ability to access and use such access to any systems controls. At the moment, though, she had found another network dead end, and was feeling anything but charitable. Slipping around the terminal's access restrictions had been easy enough - even setting up the terminal to slip into the station's network undetected hadn't been too difficult - but she had rapidly discovered that the station's designers had implemented widespread compartmentalization of systems; whether from paranoia or prudence, she couldn't tell. Intent aside, the effect was that the most critical subsystems and classified information were secreted away in closed circuit networks, inaccessible but from terminals in specific physical locations in the station.
Thwarted again, she took her hands off of the input panel and stared at the network map shown on the terminal's display, trying to intimidate it into surrender. To her great surprise, it worked. A rather evil grin began to spread across her face as her access, with a few keystrokes, command inputs, and packet exchanges, began to widen. The information turn-around time was a little longer than she could have liked, though some lag was inevitable given that she had to route her access path through a remote terminal she had access to that had been accidentally left connected to another terminal that, finally, was properly connected to the compartmentalized network. After another moment of bypassing the secure terminal's restrictions and security she declared success, nearly every level of the station systems laid bare for viewing and, potentially, manipulation. As for getting around the station, her access revealed schematics for restricted maintenance passageways spreading throughout the starbase. She flagged the routes, and control feeds for security overrides and surveillance systems, for rapid access later, tying the interface to remote control from her communicator, secreted underneath her disguising robes. Laying a hand on the terminal – this time more of a satisfied pat – she turned around, suppressing her grin and stilling her features as she did. “Success, Jalen-Heisho. I have a complete technical readout of the station available, and access to system controls; there are a number of alternate, secure routes we can use to move around relatively unseen. If you'd like, I can set up your communicator for remote access.”
