Chapter 158 158 Collecting Evidence

At Lieutenant Laletta's direction, Avery, Kassandra, and Jasmine made their way over to the light cruiser's hangar.

When they arrived, they already found Grito and Vi'ivando wait for them with an escort of four Alliance Police officers that were going to be assisting with the collection of evidence.

"Yep, definitely Snyder Heavy Industries work. The frame is a bit different, but this is clearly just a modified version of their current Borz model."

"A good assessment, but there is also the possibility that this is a merger of designs between the Borz model and Farkas model. There are elements from both of the mass-produced frames sold by Snyder Heavy Industries."

Being the knowledgeable enthusiasts that they were, Grito and Vi'ivando were already discussing the ship Dustin and Sasha had been piloting.

From their words it was clear that this was not a typical craft that they made and was something specially put together only for the company to use.

"Ah, the owners. Let's get their input." Vi'ivando said once he spotted Dustin and Sasha.

As if he and Grito had completely forgotten the actual reason that they were here, the two of them began questioning the confused Dustin and Sasha about their vessel.

"I get that you're both curious about an unfamiliar ship, but we do have other priorities to attend to first." Avery said, chiding the nephew and uncle pair.

The two quickly apologized, and then once order had been restored, Lieutenant Laletta chose the people that would enter Dustin and Sasha's ship.

Due to its size, not everyone could board. So, the two original occupants, four members of the Alliance Police including Lieutenant Laletta, and Avery along with Grito and Vi'ivando were going to be the first group to enter and collect what evidence there was to find.

Once onboard, the two Baccigan engineers seemed to forget Avery's earlier reprimand almost immediately, as they took out their tools and looked ready to open the nearest panel and start rummaging through the vessel's systems.

"Can't you two control yourselves for just a few minutes. Come on, we're going to the cockpit to access the main computer. The whole reason that you two are here is to monitor the situation and make sure that nothing goes awry." Avery said, dragging the two members of his team along.

In the cockpit normally meant for just two people, things became a bit cramped for their group, but the Alliance police officers still stayed at attention with their weapons ready just in case. They were not going to take any risks with Dustin and Sasha.

Fortunately, everything seemed to be going well. Dustin and Sasha were cooperative and had pulled up their message logs and were just about to download them onto external data drives.

"Stop! Don't hit any other keys."

At Grito's warning, Lieutenant Laletta and her subordinates tensed up and pointed their weapons at Dustin and Sasha. They had not seen whatever Grito had, but they trusted his judgment since their commander did as well.

However, the two employees of Snyder Heavy Industries merely looked confused and terrified by this development. As far as they knew, they had not done anything wrong.

"Lower your weapons. These two weren't trying anything." Vi'ivando said, diffusing the situation.

He then explained that a degradation virus embedded along with the data logs that would wipe the main computer's memory if anything was downloaded off of it. No doubt a failsafe installed by Snyder Heavy Industries in case of the current situation Dustin and Sasha found themselves in.

Without any tangible evidence from their ship, it would really just be their word against the upper brass of Snyder Heavy Industries. No doubt the company would lay all of the blame on them and state that it was Dustin and Sasha's own personal directive to divert the migration path of a strexnoid collective.

"Marlow, check the program and identify it as well."

At Lieutenant Laletta's command, the chief engineer of Commander Berk's light cruiser joined Vi'ivando and Grito and examined the well-hidden program set to release a virus if certain conditions were met.

He had been monitoring everything like the two Baccigans, but until it was pointed out to him, Marlow had missed the virus.


"What they said is correct Lieutenant. There's a sophisticated degradation virus that will delete everything if we try and download anything."

"Can you remove it?"

Marlow merely shook his head at this question. He was fairly confident in his skills, but the program that would release the virus was intertwined with every data log. It would wipe everything the moment that they tried to download anything.

Of course, this did not make it impossible to use the information as evidence. It was still all stored on the vessel. Though bringing an entire ship into a courtroom would be burdensome to say the least. Also, there was no way of telling if Snyder Heavy Industries could remotely activate the virus and wipe the main computer once it was presented as evidence.

"What about you two?" Lieutenant Laletta said to Grtio and Vi'ivando.

"Sorry, but trying to remove the virus will simply activate it. It's a sophisticated piece of software. Maybe if we had the original designer's notes we could do it, but I'm afraid it would take quite some time to properly analyze it, and there's a possibility that we might activate it on accident during the process."

Seeing that they had hit a wall, Laletta was about to contact Commander Berk and update him on the bad news when Grito came up with a suggestion of his own.

"While we might not be able to get rid of it right now, it should be possible to trick the virus. We just need to give it a new target and make it think that it's erasing the ship's main computer while we download the relevant information."

At this suggestion, Officer Marlow's face lit up, and he latched onto the idea as well.

Almost immediately the three experts began discussing amongst themselves. Spitting out technical terms that no one else onboard could understand.

Eventually they seemed to come to a consensus on how to go forward.

"And you're certain that this will work, Marlow?" Lieutenant Laletta asked.

"It should ma'am. I couldn't have gotten this far on my own, but those two really know their stuff. They're practically geniuses."

With the endorsement of the best Alliance Police engineer around, Lieutenant Laletta agreed to the proposed plan and sent out orders to collect the necessary equipment that would be needed.

A few hours later, the cockpit of Dustin and Sasha's vessel was nearly filled up by a large computer that Grito, Vi'ivando, and Marlow had assembled.

Their plan was fairly simple. They were going to clone the entire vessel's main computer onto the one they had just assembled.

Naturally, this would activate the degradation virus, but they had already accounted for this.

On the clone computer was nearly forty zettabytes worth of junk data.

No matter how fast the virus worked, it would take it at least a few minutes for it to destroy all of that information. In that time, all they needed to do was download the relevant data again to a separate external drive.

"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. But that is the gist of it." Vi'ivando said after Avery reiterated a simplified version of his understanding of the process.

After a few more checks, the three engineers were ready to begin.

"You go ahead and do the honors Marlow. This is Alliance Police business after all, and we're outsiders here." Grito said.

With a smile on his face, happy to have been able to work with two inspired minds in the same field as him, Marlow cloned the ship's entire computer onto the newly assembled one.

Immediately both systems started to collapse, but the clone had far too much data on it for the virus to chew through quickly. Before it touched even a single file of what they wanted, all of the ship's records were transferred to an external drive and its connection was cut before the virus could reach it.

"It was a success lieutenant. We have the logs from Snyder Heavy Industries, as well as the cypher to unencrypt them. We still need to go through everything and catalog it, but if there's any damning evidence that was on this vessel's computer, we've got it." Marlow said, a triumphant expression on his face.

"Good. Now let's get out of here. We're going to strip this place apart. We'll trace any part of this ship back to Snyder Heavy Industries if we can."

Having obtained the data that they wanted, everyone disembarked from the ship. Though, Grito and Vi'ivando had reluctant looks on their faces since they wanted to be part of the disassembly process. This was a whole new craft they had never seen before.

"So, did you make a copy for us?" Avery asked once they were back aboard the Dauntless.

"Of course. We did it before the Alliance Police had even identified the relevant files." Grito said, pulling out a data drive he had stashed away.

"Wait! So that whole thing that you did with the clone computer was unnecessary!?" Kasandra said, baffled.

"Yes, it was just a bit of fanfare. A show to put on for the Alliance Police. Of course, the method worked without a hitch, but there are easier ways to work around that virus. Now, had it been a bit more complex that might have been our best option. But I already have an anti-malware program I designed that can take care of a virus on that level. Honestly, the Alliance Police need an upgrade. Though, I suppose it's not like their best are working here. Some of their engineers in the capital are as sharp as me." Vi'ivando said his chest puffed up proudly.

"Well, all that matters is that we got the information. Obviously, I understand how amazing the two of you are. Grtio, you can expect a bonus for this. Vi'ivando, you're being paid in secure transport, but if there's anything you want, I'll get it for you so long as it's a reasonable request."

Avery was satisfied that they had secured the evidence for themselves as well. He had plans to turn quite the profit with the information after all.