I was almost dozing off waiting for something to happen.
Kazuki has placed me in a hidden cave-like structure about 300 meters away from the closest perimeter defense unit of the Federal Deep Space Network complex. According to his knowledge, those cave-like structures around the building were enterances to various facilities before Japan officially left the Federation. But now, they were sealed shut.
The Federal DSN complex ahead of me was a collection of a few control buildings and giant antenna arrays surrounding them. The antennas were ocassionally changing their orientation, and some personnel were walking from one building to another.
Simply trying to watch them moving around in the dark was making me dizzy. But I had to focus on finding a way into the building.
However, before I could even try, the action started. I saw some people starting to run towards a far corner of the facility. A group of armed personnel ran out of the complex to guard the area. A few moments later, alarms started wailing.
When I saw some people looking around, I stopped watching them and hid deeper into the 'cave'.
Suddenly, I heard some footsteps. Someone was running towards my position. I had nowhere to run, I could only try to hide myself.
A man appeared at the 'cave's enterance. He was... He was Kazuki himself.
"What are you still waiting for? Move!" he said, somehow knowing I was still there. Perhaps he has been watching the cave all this time.
I got out of my hiding place and started running. On the way, Kazuki gave orders to his team to keep them away. Meanwhile, I made my way into the complex. The building I was trying to get in was the rectangular one just ahead. I simply ran into the building as Kazuki tried to follow me.
Just when I got inside, I came face to face with someone. Interestingly enough, the man ignored me and kept walking. Despite my absurd clothing, perhaps he thought I was working there as well.
Kazuki finally caught up with m and got inside. I silently pointed towards the other man that just passed by me. Kazuki looked at me.
"Just... don't worry I guess." he said. "Now follow me."
I followed Kazuki through empty corridors until he brought me to a room full of computer systems. He showed me a console.
"This one has a pretty high access level. You should be able to handle it." he said.
I got in front of the console and had a look at it. The system was quite different from what we were using in the Martian Navy. Security protocols were less transparent, and most importantly, the UI was much prettier; unlike the bare-bones text-heavy one used on Mars.
"Well, I don't have access to the system yet." I said.
"Oh, yes, I know." he said. "I will enable access for you, but you will only have a few minutes at most."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because the computer will eventually figure out you are not a Federation personnel, and will lock access." Kazuki explained.
"It can do that!?" I asked in shock.
"Why do you think we are losing the war?" Kazuki tried to joke.
He entered a few inputs to the computer, but we still couldn't get access to the system.
"Damn it. Since we are in an alert status, the data access has been completely locked." Kazuki said. "I have to go to the security control room to fix it, just stay there."
He ran out of the room, leaving me in front of the console. I could do nothing, except staring at and admiring the beautiful design of the Federation systems. Without internal help, it would be impossible to find an exploit in this network. At the end... It was the people that were most vulnerable to hacking.
Suddenly, the screen on the console changed, and a pretty complex input form appeared. When I examined it, I understood that I had to input the required information to search for any data package that was sent through this facility.
Kazuki ran back into the room.
"Okay. Here are the devices." he said as he handed me a few portable disks.
I connected them to the console to take a look at the data fragments they carried.
"Those have dynamic keys." I said. "It will be hard to decrypt."
"I already told you that." he said. "Just do what you can."
"Do you know when these were sent, and to where?" I asked.
"Hmm..." he thought for a while. "Sure, they must have some metadata somewhere."
He took the console and entered a few values into the form.
"There." he said and handed the console back to me. He had filtered out most of the unnecessary garbage, but there was no metadata about where the data was sent to, or from.
"I don't understand." I said. He pointed at something on the screen.
"Look. This fragment was sent to command ship Maria." he said.
"Oh, I see." I replied. "So, if I can get the encrpytion keys used in Maria at that time..."
"...you can try to decrpyt it." Kazuki completed my sentence.
"Maybe I can try to fetch the dynamic keys from Maria." I said.
"Too risky." Kazuki argued. "We already have a database of dynamic key algorithms used in each ship."
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.
"I just did." he said. On the console, I returned to main input form to look for the Federation's dynamic encryption key algorithms.
"There." Kazuki said. "Maria's algorithms should be there."
"Yeah." I said. "But this is the algorithm. We need the key itself."
"Just simulate the transmission event to see what key we end up with." Kazuki suggested.
"You want me to send the data fragment to Maria again in order to create the dynamic key?" I asked.
"Send it to a simulated Maria, not the real spaceship." Kazuki said. I went ahead with the operation.
"The dynamic encryption key." I said. "There, we have it! Now, I will decrpyt the data fragment and search for the same data in the DSN storage."
"Exactly." Kazuki said. I decrypted the data fragment, and it was shown on screen.
What I saw on the screen... This was much a better outcome than I could ever expect. This data fragment... Even though I was once thinking that it was impossible, this could be the evidence we needed to pull the Alliance to our side!
"See?" Kazuki said. "I told you."
-----FEDERATION DEEP SPACE NETWORK-----
Start of Fragment 187-015-891-1071-1890.3
...to seemingly leave the Atlantic-Pacific Federation in order to create a large enough buffer zone on the Alliance of Asian Nations borders. The material support will continue not under the name of strategic cooperation, but rather through the free-trade agreements between those four (4) countries and the Federation members. (The agreements can be found attached to the end of Frg 187-015-891-1071-1890.7) However, the intelligence sharing will be kept at a minimum in order to deceive any Alliance espionage operations.
The Alliance is expected to cease hostilities with the four (4) countries and attempt to persude them for cooperation via diplomatic missions. However, it may take the Alliance a few months up to few years to start the process.
This state of uncertainty should last until the Crystal Mirage is completed and demonstrated, not any later than...
End of Fragment 187-015-891-1071-1890.3
-----FEDERATION DEEP SPACE NETWORK-----
"If this is true, it will change everything." I said. I still couldn't believe what I just read.
"It is." Kazuki said. "You decrypted it yourself, didn't you?"
"Yes... What is this Crystal Mirage, though? A superweapon?" I asked.
"Superweapon!? I don't know." he said. "This is why I need your help to find and decrypt the rest of the data. There is still a lot of things we don't know."
"Alright." I said. "I will just search for the matching piece of data."
"It will take too long to go through the entire thing." Kazuki said. "Filter them to the date first."
"There. Match." I said. Using the metadata, I had managed to figure out where the rest of the fragments were. Those fragments were only stored in the DSN complex in Turkey. Another example of Federation ingenuity...
"Oh no." Kazuki said.
"Maybe we can just fetch them." I said.
"NO!" Kazuki stopped me. "If we do that, the system will automatically send an access request. We don't want to get caught."
"We need that data!" I said.
"Yes." Kazuki said. "Definitely. But for now, just copy the decrypted data fragment and leave it be."
"What will we do?" I asked.
"We will reveal the fragment we decryted to the Republic." he said.
"But what about the rest?" I asked.
"For that, we need to find a flight to Turkey, my friend."