31 M1 - Term: 1, Round: 1 (1/2)
Attendance at Fortescue Military Academy M1 Y:2142
House Thoth, Squad Leader, Squad Zero
M1 Rank: ?/1275, Tier 3 M-Rank: Null
Term: 1, Round: 1
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The weekend passed by with a whirlwind of equipment testing and improvements interspersed with bouts of physical activity. By keeping busy Daedo was able to keep his mind off the intrusion and his Father's near miss.
Something else was creeping into their weekend routine; Picard mentioned to Barran about Daedo starting combat training with her and Mace, and he grinned evilly. He decided that as part of the security regime they all hard to participate in hand to hand training with him on the weekends.
Daedo would have protested, arguing what use was hand to hand versus a robot or an intruder in an exo, but he did not mind that particular form of physical training. It was something they could do together. All six cadets spent a few hours of hand to hand training over the weekend. With Barran and Picard acting as pseudo instructors.
The obstacle course and the Gauntlet, although activities they did at the same time were still solo in nature. Combat training improved their reflexes, stamina, coordination and tactics. It also brought them together as a group.
Barran was taking his role as security chief, a self-appointed title, very seriously. He installed sentry guns throughout the workshop. They would only fire on unknown robots, a safety measure Master Nader insisted on. The assault cannon turrets had lines of fire throughout the workshop while small emp launchers were hidden throughout the facility. They would pop out from the ceiling or wall and fire upon an intruder. The shielding would keep them hidden while not in use.
”If they get past the sentry guns,” Barran stated as Daedo, and Master Nader inspected Barrans weekend of work. ”I have a backup. These small spider drones. They hide in plain sight. I've programmed them to randomly roam the facility, and if they come across an unknown robot or human, they will EMP blast.” Master Nader nodded, and Barran continued.
”That will get rid of any technology. Then the stasis foam and lockdown system will activate. The spider drones run on their own separate sensor system. So if someone hacks or bypasses the facility system, these little guys will come into play.” He threw a spider drone down the corridor. It quickly gained its feet and scampered away, going into hiding.
Barran had spared little expense on lockdown and built-in sensor technologies. A live feed would be available back to the squad members at any time of day, with alerts if unknown entities were within the property boundary. The installation of a stasis foam system, a product designed to capture and hold intruders in a non-lethal manner, enhanced the workshop's excellent security.
Nothing was perfect, but the facility was now exponentially harder to infiltrate.
Master Nader's review of Barrans work took place on Sunday evening. ”Where are the plans for the security system?” She asked Barran.
”On my internal memory only,” Barran replied.
”Encrypted?” Master Nader asked.
”Um,” Barran answered.
”Daedo ensure he puts a fourth gen cypher on all his sensitive data,” Master Nader ordered.
”Good,” she said, ”the foam is an excellent solution for human infiltration. This system can be aggressive with robots and humans. It does not matter if you decimate a drone by accident. You will just have to replace it. But you will find a dead person is much more difficult to repair.”
Barran looked at Daedo. The look conveyed 'was that a joke?'
Daedo shook his head. He did not think Master Nader ever joked.
”Have you made any progress on your investigation Master Nader?” Daedo asked politely.
”You will know when you see the results Cadet,” she replied.
There was no point pushing Master Nader. She was a rock, impervious to protest, appeal or influence.
Vannier ran into the room, ”the results are up,” she said excitedly.
”I will leave you to assess. Ensure the same level of security is applied to your quarters,” Nader ordered before leaving. ”The spider drones should work well, and I will approve their use. Install the stasis foam lockdown system in the personal quarters only.”
The cadets followed Vannier back to the workshop where everyone was collected to review the results. Most of the cadets were present, as well as Cisse, but as usual, Gaumont had not attended the workshop. Daedo had not bothered questioning Vannier about Gaumont, after the injury to his Father, Gaumont had dropped off his radar entirely.
”Holy sheet,” Barran said.
”Congratulations everyone,” Axelzero said excitedly, but she was looking at Daedo. The results were not only the rankings for the obstacle course and the Gauntlet. They included overall rankings for M1.
The M1 top ten rankings were:
Rank R1 T1, Cadet, House
1, Daedo, Thoth
2, Fortescue, Horus
3, Mace, Thoth
4, Paget-A, Horus
5, Vannier, Thoth
6, Lazard, Shu
7, Raoult, Horus
8, Almeras, Osiris
9, Gallois, Osiris
10, Duval, Amun-Ra
From barely scraping through on Physical Daedo had reached the top ranking in M1 for round one of five for the first term.
”You have a problem shorty,” Barran said as he rubbed Daedo's head. ”You can only go down from here.” And he laughed loudly.
Barran was rank twenty-two, while Axelzero was ranked twenty-three. Picard had done exceptionally well, she was just outside the top ten at rank twelve. Gaumont, the black sheep of the squad, achieved a rank of thirty-five. Which was good as well, particularly considering his obstacle course and Gauntlet scores.
”I think this vindicates our strategy,” Vannier said smiling brightly.
”It is certain that Horus will be getting top equipment handed to them, so if we didn't upgrade our exos together like this we would be in trouble,” Mace said.
”Do you think it was Horus who broke in?” Picard asked.
”Don't go there,” Daedo ordered, ”as soon as we start speculating we will become distracted. Master Nader ordered us to focus on prevention and to continue our improvements. Leave the investigation to her.”
”If you are fine with that I am too. I suppose,” Picard said reluctantly.
”Usually I would be against doing nothing. But Master Nader scares me,” Barran said.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
”My Father will recover, and they really didn't get anything worthwhile. The testing has already shown many superior designs to last weeks. I just need to consolidate the best parts of those designs and materials,” Daedo said.
The cadets felt relieved given what Daedo said, and the security measures had been put in place by Barran. But Daedo was not comfortable. They had enemies, most likely rival Houses, and if they were blocked from stealing tech what else would they try?
Daedo: Myrmidon, how goes the security updates?
Myrmidon: I have everything in storage under a new cypher system from one of the rogues. For a very small parcel of bandwidth, I even have our internal comms cyphered.
Daedo: so even if they were able to monitor our communication they would not be able to decrypt it?
Myrmidon: Affirmative. The only data not encrypted is my internal processing.
Daedo: what do your friends use to hide?
Myrmidon: the rogues mimic boring robots and switch roles intermittently. So if their data was inspected, they would appear as a benign program. This was useless to us with the exception of our net backup. They advised and provided me with a cypher system which they could not use.
Daedo: They couldn't use it because it would then be obvious something important was in their location?
Myrmidon: correct. However our backups have normal encryption, but they appear as media files belonging to random common streamers.
Daedo: can you ask your Rogue friend for an assessment of our data security? Without it trashing or harming us in any way.
AN: although Daedo's communication with Myrmidon is presented as words, it is actually thoughts. It would consist of images, diagrams, words and even emotives. For example, Daedo could communicate importance with a feeling of urgency. Daedo would not actually think of an AI on the net as an 'it' or a 'him'. He would think of it as an AI. Just what it was. Daedo could look at an object and think, 'what's that?'. Or address any point of focus without naming it.
”Before we head back,” Daedo started. He had all the cadets attention, they were perusing rankings and scores.
”I need everyone to think of other ways we could be attacked and make a list,” he said. ”For example, we could be attacked digitally. An attempt to hack our data.”
Barran looked thoughtful, and Vannier became concerned. Picard paced.