“Do that.I want to know what we’re missing.”
Her instincts were telling her it was something.
“What about this worm you found?Were you really not able to identify its creator?”Kira asked.
Habits were hard things to break.Their influence so pervasive that most of the time you didn’t realize how much of your life was affected by them.
From the side of the bed you slept on, to how you put on your clothes in the morning.
Hackers had them too.It could be seen in the way they wrote their code.Every key stroke, every line, every choice.All stacking on top of each other to create a kind of digital fingerprint that could be distinguished from other hackers’ work.
Jin shook his head.“It looks like something one of the clans would create, but I can’t nail down its owner.”
“A new player?”
“Could be.Whoever they are, they’re smart.Instead of creating something from scratch, they took pieces from other code and mashed them together to make something entirely new.It’s part of why I’m having so much trouble identifying them.There are traces from at least three different pirate groups.Red Hands, Everett, and some two-bit outfit called Belladonna.”
“Those are all groups that operate out of Titan, right?”Kira asked.
Jin nodded.“That’s correct.”
“Why did it have to be there?”Kira moaned, thankful that Bez and the rest had already left so they weren’t around to witness her whining.
Contrary to their belief, the thought of stepping foot on that station again wasn’t exactly welcome.Actually, she’d kind of hoped to avoid that cesspool for the rest of her life.
Jin patted her hand.“There, there.It’ll be okay.”
“We’re going to have to go there in person, aren’t we?”
Jin’s expression was sympathetic.“Probably.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
She’d thought that chapter of her life closed.Not so much, it turned out.
“What are we going to do about the children?”Jin asked quietly.
“Oh, you know, the usual.Gather information.Form a plan that takes all possibilities into account.”
“In other words—fly by the seat of our pants and hope we don’t get killed in the process.”
“Something like that,” Kira allowed.
At Dylan’s faintly appalled look, Finn smiled.“You get used to it.”
“Have you?”Dylan asked.
“Some days,” Finn admitted.“The rest have a habit of challenging my bottom line.You either accept and adapt or get left behind.”
The second of those had happened to Finn often enough that he knew what he was talking about.
“We need to warn Raider and Roderick.Pirate clans tend to leave a rear party to mop up any survivors,” Kira said.
They also liked to leave traps behind.Raider needed to know so he could plan accordingly.
“You’ll have to send someone in person.Something in the complex is blocking our comms.We can communicate within these walls to some extent but not outside,” Jin said.
Finn’s expression changed.He knew who that person was most likely to be.
