Alone again, Kira wasted no time logging into her account. When she first began this little endeavor, she'd learned quickly she was in over her head. Deciphering the Tsavitee's starmaps and ship logs were outside her skill base. She was decent at some hacking, but parsing information as complex as this and breaking the code they wrapped everything in? No. Not even Jin's considerable skills would have been up to the task.
That's where her friend came in—a hacker without equal, a genius among geniuses, someone the human government would kill to get their hands on if they knew of his existence.
Her friend had recognized how dangerous this task was and how committed Kira was to following it to its end. The need for secrecy was high. The starmaps and data logs from a Tsavitee ship were capable of shifting the power dynamic in the Consortium. More so, if they could decipher the Tsavitee's way of coding their information.
Their partnership consisted of each having a set of skills just as important as the other's. Kira salvaged what she could from the Tsavitee ships and when she saw something interesting, she'd find a way to drop the data package into a hidden cache on the galactic web. There, Odin would sift through the information, trying to break the code.
Until now, they'd been getting nowhere fast. Everything she found was fragmented, nearly useless, except as a reference point. The data logs from this last ship had been in near pristine condition. For the first time in a long time, she had hope Odin might actually be able to decipher it and she'd be one step closer to her goal.
The drop point this time, was in a chat room for fans of a little-known game. Most of the users uploaded fan art or fan fiction. Some good. Most not.
Kira wondered if these were real users or if Odin had created them as ghosts to give the site more legitimacy to any who might stumble on it.
She started the upload process and glanced around to see her shadows keeping their distance. Good.
The file was sixty percent uploaded when a chat box popped up.
Allfather:You're being watched.
Kira's fingers hovered over the keyboard as she paused.
Nixxy:I know. How do you?
Allfather:I know everything.
Kira snorted. That wasn't arrogant or anything. Still, if Odin knew she was being watched, it meant her friend was close. Perhaps even on the station or taping into their feeds from a ship within the quadrant. The last should have been impossible, but she wouldn't put anything past him.
The file hit one hundred percent.
Allfather:Oooh, you hit the motherload this time.
Nixxy:Can you use it?
Allfather:Maybe. This is a lot of data. I don’t know if my setup can handle it. Without the proper tools, it could take me years to run the necessary algorithms.
Kira tensed, frustration skating along her neck. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. The words felt like a blow, stealing Kira's hope.
She dropped her head and shook it before looking up. This had always been a long shot.
Allfather:Be faster if we had access to Centcom's mainframe.
Kira shook her head. Odin knew as well as she did that wasn't going to happen, and not just because of her history with Centcom. The moment Centcom got wind of what Kira and Odin had, they'd swoop in and snatch it from them—in the interest of galactic security, of course.
Any chance of finding the Tsavitee homeworlds would be gone. No finding and returning those taken by the tsavitee. Nothing. That information would disappear into a deep dark hole where only the highest levels of the military and government could access it.
She sat back, demoralized, as she looked around the cafe. Kira was one of the few using a console. It made her ridiculously easy to spot, but it also made keeping an eye on the wizards where they waited by a food vendor easier, given they weren't trying to blend in.
The man and woman watched Kira, their focus unwavering. Kira's gaze shifted away from them to where the station security watched them all from across the honeycomb.
She sighed. If she needed proof of why it would be a bad idea to get involved in Centcom affairs again, she only had to look out there.
Allfather:The wizards' starmaps could speed things up too.
Odin logged off immediately after, leaving Kira staring at a blank screen. That was unexpected. Her friend often spoke in vague terms, so she couldn't be sure, but it sounded an awful lot like he wanted her to infiltrate the wizards’ ship, find their command center and make off with their starmaps.
Not going to happen. She didn't have a death wish, and she wanted to stay as far from the strangers as possible.
A frown on her face, she glanced up at the people in question. They stood in the same spot they'd been since she sat. Unexpectedly, the man's gaze caught hers, an unmistakable challenge there. Neither of them looked away, the rest of the station fading into the background.
