Operation Musket

[Manticore]

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Tau-23 was far too dark for her tastes, Lisa Jaeger mused while she idly rotated in her chair. She was taking a momentary break to stare out of the "window' along the wall she was facing, contemplating the dimly-lit vista of the Tau-23 system.

Well, it wasn't truly a window she was staring at - it was a screen set into the wall. At least it was a nice screen - high resolution, razor thin, and featuring all the latest bells and whistles - but her eye was able to detect something slightly artificial about the view. Still, it was a live feed from the tiny bank of cameras nestled atop her ship, and a slightly imperfect view was well worth the tradeoff in protection from not having windows here in her control room. When Lisa had bought this Camara freighter originally, she had also commissioned a complete remodel of the interior. The practically nonexistent living quarters had been expanded to an acceptable level for long-term travel, and most of the cargo hold space had been converted into things she could make better use of - server storage, a functional workshop, and this room. Her personal sanctum, at the heart of the ship. She did it all from here - flew the ship, monitored goings-on across Sirius, and did most of her actual work.

Right now, she was about to dive into the third of those. As a "cybersecurity contractor" for several lawful organizations across Sirius, she could do most of her work from right here in this room, nestled in her sinfully comfortable desk chair. Said chair was situated in front of a large desk surrounded by at least a dozen screens and monitors of varying sizes.

With a small sigh, Lisa turned back to this desk and went to work on one of the larger screens. Her fingers flew across a keyboard, entering commands as she methodically probed at the edges of a nearby network. The network in question happened to belong to a station floating out here in the rock fields - Java Station, owned and operated by the IMG. Nothing more than a cog in this plan, though it was a cog chosen only after much careful deliberation. Java met their unique requirements as a Sirian owned and operated station, in Gallic occupied territory, that saw a lot of traffic from Gallic corporations but lacked the direct "protection" of a Valor parked within scanning range.

Despite being only twenty years old, Lisa had nearly eight years of experience doing this kind of work, and her mind quickly started to build out a concept of the external-facing pieces of this network. It was a rambling network, without the tight station-wide security oversight that most military and government operations tended to employ. Groups like the IMG and Zoners tended to expand their systems without too much thought or concern about security, which left plenty of gaps that made Lisa's work so much easier.

Sure enough, it was only a few short minutes before Lisa had located a suitable entrance location. A couple of pre-written script executions later, she was in. Once inside the network, she went straight for the systems that controlled docking activities. The core docking system was more or less the same on every station - it handled approvals, assigned bays, and took control of inbound ships on their final approach. Lisa quietly uploaded an isolated instance of JADE - her AI - into the system. From here, JADE could handle the next steps without Lisa's direct involvement, and the instance would purge herself once the job was done - eliminating any trail that could lead back to Lisa.

Everything was now in place. Lisa pulled up an internal comms menu and targeted her rear cargo hold - now carrying just four pieces of human cargo. Operatives of the Liberty Navy's ESRD - including her longtime business partner James Arland.

"We're ready. I'm initiating Operation Musket. JADE will be guiding you from here."

Unlike the instance of JADE she'd placed in the docking system, the four operatives had access to the AI's full suite of features and processing capability housed within their suits of armor - thanks to a secure low bandwidth link directly back to her Camara. While they got themselves out of the airlock and into open space, Lisa looped herself into Java's sensor suite - peering through the station's eyes in search of a suitable target.

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