Worm in the Apple
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer

Prompt: sabotage

Thumbnail art by  technicolorpie, color by  marmelmm



“Status report,” Captain-major m’Gen said. The kam felt strange about giving orders; he was in the Army, while he was aboard a Fleet vessel. Still, the need was pressing, and he and his team’s expertise was required.

The Electronic Warfare ship ShZB-597 had been lurking in and out of hyperspace, studying the small Terran ship that was patrolling the boundary outside the Lalande System. M’Gen and his team had shown great skill in infiltrating and subverting the Terran AI on Pluto during the recent conflict, and they had been ordered to assist in solving this latest problem.

The senior sergeant, one of his lead technicians, half-turned in her seat. “The latest algorithm is almost ready to send, Sir.”

That made twenty-five attempts at finding a key that would unlock the walls of code that shielded the abomination. M’Gen’s tail twitched, the bony spur ticking on the deck plates. “Send when ready,” he said.

A fraction later, the carefully-crafted string of code was sent, and the technicians sat back to watch the small ship’s tactical display. The hologram showed a nested series of globes, ten in all, surrounding a ‘danger’ blue core which symbolized the target of their hunt.

Thin shafts of gold approached the outer shell from six different directions, pierced the outer shell, and moved on.

One shaft stopped at the third shell; another paused at the fourth before easing through it, while the others maintained their steady progress.

“Approaching Shell Ten,” one vir said unnecessarily. This was the innermost and most complex barrier, and the reason why m’Gen and his technicians had decided upon multiple lines of attack. The captain-major extended a fingerclaw and chewed on it as a single filament succeeded in getting past the tenth shell to touch the light blue globe at the heart of the display.

“Contact,” a kam said. “We are accessing a low-priority processing block. We are so far undetected.” Several technicians breathed sighs of relief before returning to their consoles. The tiny hole bored into the AI would have to be very slowly and steadily reinforced before it could grow, but they had gained a clawhold.

“Congratulations, everyone,” m’Gen said. “Well done. We shall see what we can learn of this thing now.”