MissingNo
Inactive Member
ON>
A chime sounded, alerting Wolf to an incoming communication request. SAINT-level encryptions and anti-tracing were active upon reception.
Wolf, already sitting at his desk, accepted the incoming communicate after a second's confusion. It had been a long time since he had been contacted on this channel and he'd nearly forgotten the correct combination of keys to put it through. When he finally did so, he spoke out with a gruff voice. "Hello, this is Wolf."
A Yamataian man appeared on the screen. "Hello, sir. This is the Lab. We have complete preliminary examination of the Rei; I was told you wished an update as soon as it was available." The man was standing before a wall-mounted console, straight and facing the comm camera.
Wolf nodded. The Sakura-class vessel Rei had been disabled with circumstances curious enough to warrant the involvement of SAINT. While Karl and Wolf had collected enough evidence to deem the Iori Star Fortress mission complete, the initial alert concerning the Rei had piqued Wolf's interest: there was likely no connection, and certainly no SAINT conspiracy this time around, but as he had nothing better to do than drill the next generation of field agents, he had put in a request to be updated. "Yes, what did you turn up?"
The man on the screen coughed into his fist glancing down at a datapad before replying. "The crew was DOA, dead on arrival. The first ship to reply to the Rei's distress call was unable to board but we assume the last of the crew were the ones who rigged the call, so their demise was likely recorded. The causes were varied, from asphyxiation from decompression to environmental damage from a presumably malfunctioning control system, and even firearms damage. Except for the last one...I'm sending you the picture for this one." The man tapped a command into his pad and a file transfer notice appeared on Wolf's screen. "The ship's MEGAMI is unresponsive, possibly non-functional, but we can't find a reason why.
"We are beginning to suspect that this was caused by the MEGAMI -- called 'Nami', I'm told -- mainly because of the picture I just sent you." The holographic photo showed a wide shot of the bridge of the vessel, untouched at first glance. The consoles were shiney under the bridge's lighting while the photo seemed to have been taken with a red lens filter, but closer examination proved this assumption wrong. The bridge really was covered in red. A body lay seated on the captain's chair, the limbs properly set with only the limp head signaling the death of the chair's occupant.
Wolf's eyes narrowed at the sight of the bridge. He had truthfully expected the results of the analysis to be rather mundane; he figured he was overreacting to a complicated ship malfunction, but the source of the trouble seemed to be more sinister in nature. "Firearms damage? Star Army in origin, or foreign? Is this blood on the bridge? What was the cause of death for the person in the captain's chair?"
"That is still a bit of a mystery." The man looked up from his pad at the camera. "The ship itself is also damaged, mostly to the computer core and power relay systems, but they appear mostly due to overload rather than external damage. The main engine also seems to have experienced an attempted overload. And the decompression damage is from a hull breach. There are no signs of external damage aside from the hull breach which is clearly from the inside-out. So whatever did this was on board at the time. We have already taken the first-response ship into quarantine and searched it, but neither ship has turned up anything out of the ordinary." Taking a breath, he continued. "As I said, the prevailing theory is that the MEGAMI malfunctioned or a virus. And, before you say anything, I know, it's supposed to be impossible. But that's what it looks like, and our lab AIs have reported system anomalies since they probed the Yamato's systems. We've since deactivated them and quarantined their cores until we can figure out what's going on.
"The cause of death for the commander was blood loss. If you look closer..." He magnified a portion of the photo, zooming in on the face of the officer. "...you can see multiple -- and I do mean 'multiple', looks like deli-sliced ham -- incisions running vertically over the body. These incisions are just deep enough to break the skin. The blood was drained and used to perform the new paint-job on the bridge and the starboard corridor before it ran out." The man shook his head. "Sir, there were no firearms discharged inside the ship aside from the crew. All scarring matches the weapons found on the crew, nothing else is present. And the crew, aside from the commander, died of environmental factors. That's all."
Wolf listened attentively as the intelligence officer elaborated, checking to ensure that the conversation was being recorded. He looked up as the photograph was magnified and arched an eyebrow at the deli-sliced ham comment: it was truly fitting, and reminded Wolf of the Mishhu encounters on the Iori. He prayed that there were no hybrids behind this disaster. "All right, I misunderstood, I thought some of our personnel died by Star Army weapons." As SAINT so often dealt with internal affairs, it did not seem like a farfetched conclusion. The most pressing matter then was the seeming infection of the MEGAMI. The KAMI unit of the Iori had malfunctioned with similar results, but SAINT itself had played a part in that. He wouldn't have thought it possible for some unknown force to pull off what SAINT had, but he figured that all tech had its drawbacks. "How will the investigation proceed? Would it be possible to activate the lab AIs in quarantine and see if they show signs of alteration?"
"The scene reconstructions put those deaths as by friendly fire, assumed to be sprites," interjected the man when Wolf commented on the deaths by SA weapons. "We have been deepening our physical evidence analysis, mostly in attempts to confirm our initial timeline. The systems are being repaired and prepped for reactivation, should it become necessary. I would recommend not doing so, however. As for the AIs, I give the same recommendation. If, indeed, we are facing a virus and the AIs have contracted it, it would be unwise..." his voice trailed off as his eyes moved off to one side, looking away from the camera as he thought over an idea. "We could reactivate the AIs within their cores, without physical interaction options and isolated from the main networks. It wouldn't be a perfect recreation of the conditions found on the Rei, but if the symptoms are the same, it may give us an idea of what we're up against." The smile of someone with a clue to an impossible puzzle showed itself on the man's face as he returned his gaze to the camera.
"I see." Wolf nodded as he explained the likely next step. "Sounds good. I'd like to be notified immediately if the AIs exhibit any of the same behaviors as the rogue KAMI unit encountered on the Iori mission." Wolf doubted he'd be involved in the investigation if there were no parallels drawn to the Iori, but he wanted to know what was going on regardless. SAINT training was beginning to get stale, and he wished to remain in the know about what was going on intelligence-wise to hold him over until he introduced a chosen pupil or two to actual field work. "If there's no connection, just send me a report when you get around to it."
"Will do." The man nodded and saluted Wolf, leaving the connection open until his superior closed it, as per protocol when one was speaking over comm lines to ranking officers.
"Thanks for the information. Good luck." Wolf nodded in return and closed the channel.
END>
A chime sounded, alerting Wolf to an incoming communication request. SAINT-level encryptions and anti-tracing were active upon reception.
Wolf, already sitting at his desk, accepted the incoming communicate after a second's confusion. It had been a long time since he had been contacted on this channel and he'd nearly forgotten the correct combination of keys to put it through. When he finally did so, he spoke out with a gruff voice. "Hello, this is Wolf."
A Yamataian man appeared on the screen. "Hello, sir. This is the Lab. We have complete preliminary examination of the Rei; I was told you wished an update as soon as it was available." The man was standing before a wall-mounted console, straight and facing the comm camera.
Wolf nodded. The Sakura-class vessel Rei had been disabled with circumstances curious enough to warrant the involvement of SAINT. While Karl and Wolf had collected enough evidence to deem the Iori Star Fortress mission complete, the initial alert concerning the Rei had piqued Wolf's interest: there was likely no connection, and certainly no SAINT conspiracy this time around, but as he had nothing better to do than drill the next generation of field agents, he had put in a request to be updated. "Yes, what did you turn up?"
The man on the screen coughed into his fist glancing down at a datapad before replying. "The crew was DOA, dead on arrival. The first ship to reply to the Rei's distress call was unable to board but we assume the last of the crew were the ones who rigged the call, so their demise was likely recorded. The causes were varied, from asphyxiation from decompression to environmental damage from a presumably malfunctioning control system, and even firearms damage. Except for the last one...I'm sending you the picture for this one." The man tapped a command into his pad and a file transfer notice appeared on Wolf's screen. "The ship's MEGAMI is unresponsive, possibly non-functional, but we can't find a reason why.
"We are beginning to suspect that this was caused by the MEGAMI -- called 'Nami', I'm told -- mainly because of the picture I just sent you." The holographic photo showed a wide shot of the bridge of the vessel, untouched at first glance. The consoles were shiney under the bridge's lighting while the photo seemed to have been taken with a red lens filter, but closer examination proved this assumption wrong. The bridge really was covered in red. A body lay seated on the captain's chair, the limbs properly set with only the limp head signaling the death of the chair's occupant.
Wolf's eyes narrowed at the sight of the bridge. He had truthfully expected the results of the analysis to be rather mundane; he figured he was overreacting to a complicated ship malfunction, but the source of the trouble seemed to be more sinister in nature. "Firearms damage? Star Army in origin, or foreign? Is this blood on the bridge? What was the cause of death for the person in the captain's chair?"
"That is still a bit of a mystery." The man looked up from his pad at the camera. "The ship itself is also damaged, mostly to the computer core and power relay systems, but they appear mostly due to overload rather than external damage. The main engine also seems to have experienced an attempted overload. And the decompression damage is from a hull breach. There are no signs of external damage aside from the hull breach which is clearly from the inside-out. So whatever did this was on board at the time. We have already taken the first-response ship into quarantine and searched it, but neither ship has turned up anything out of the ordinary." Taking a breath, he continued. "As I said, the prevailing theory is that the MEGAMI malfunctioned or a virus. And, before you say anything, I know, it's supposed to be impossible. But that's what it looks like, and our lab AIs have reported system anomalies since they probed the Yamato's systems. We've since deactivated them and quarantined their cores until we can figure out what's going on.
"The cause of death for the commander was blood loss. If you look closer..." He magnified a portion of the photo, zooming in on the face of the officer. "...you can see multiple -- and I do mean 'multiple', looks like deli-sliced ham -- incisions running vertically over the body. These incisions are just deep enough to break the skin. The blood was drained and used to perform the new paint-job on the bridge and the starboard corridor before it ran out." The man shook his head. "Sir, there were no firearms discharged inside the ship aside from the crew. All scarring matches the weapons found on the crew, nothing else is present. And the crew, aside from the commander, died of environmental factors. That's all."
Wolf listened attentively as the intelligence officer elaborated, checking to ensure that the conversation was being recorded. He looked up as the photograph was magnified and arched an eyebrow at the deli-sliced ham comment: it was truly fitting, and reminded Wolf of the Mishhu encounters on the Iori. He prayed that there were no hybrids behind this disaster. "All right, I misunderstood, I thought some of our personnel died by Star Army weapons." As SAINT so often dealt with internal affairs, it did not seem like a farfetched conclusion. The most pressing matter then was the seeming infection of the MEGAMI. The KAMI unit of the Iori had malfunctioned with similar results, but SAINT itself had played a part in that. He wouldn't have thought it possible for some unknown force to pull off what SAINT had, but he figured that all tech had its drawbacks. "How will the investigation proceed? Would it be possible to activate the lab AIs in quarantine and see if they show signs of alteration?"
"The scene reconstructions put those deaths as by friendly fire, assumed to be sprites," interjected the man when Wolf commented on the deaths by SA weapons. "We have been deepening our physical evidence analysis, mostly in attempts to confirm our initial timeline. The systems are being repaired and prepped for reactivation, should it become necessary. I would recommend not doing so, however. As for the AIs, I give the same recommendation. If, indeed, we are facing a virus and the AIs have contracted it, it would be unwise..." his voice trailed off as his eyes moved off to one side, looking away from the camera as he thought over an idea. "We could reactivate the AIs within their cores, without physical interaction options and isolated from the main networks. It wouldn't be a perfect recreation of the conditions found on the Rei, but if the symptoms are the same, it may give us an idea of what we're up against." The smile of someone with a clue to an impossible puzzle showed itself on the man's face as he returned his gaze to the camera.
"I see." Wolf nodded as he explained the likely next step. "Sounds good. I'd like to be notified immediately if the AIs exhibit any of the same behaviors as the rogue KAMI unit encountered on the Iori mission." Wolf doubted he'd be involved in the investigation if there were no parallels drawn to the Iori, but he wanted to know what was going on regardless. SAINT training was beginning to get stale, and he wished to remain in the know about what was going on intelligence-wise to hold him over until he introduced a chosen pupil or two to actual field work. "If there's no connection, just send me a report when you get around to it."
"Will do." The man nodded and saluted Wolf, leaving the connection open until his superior closed it, as per protocol when one was speaking over comm lines to ranking officers.
"Thanks for the information. Good luck." Wolf nodded in return and closed the channel.
END>
