The Hacker by Remfer

The Hacker

   Ever since ISBD (Inter-solar-business-database) was created, phishing credits have been almost impossible. Countless hackers have tried to hack the ISB database to no prevail. Even a giant swarm of mother ships haven’t been able to destroy the guards outside the big database space station orbiting Neuron Five. The black market is in disarray. No black market dealer can make any cash off of copyright fraud. A local group of ex-mafia members have gathered the ISCNM (Inter-solar-cash-now-mafia) in order to invest a group profit and make money just to keep themselves living. Although this might seem their intent, they have a bigger goal, one that they call operation BLEACH. While the authorities know of their plot, there is no evidence and so they cannot convict a single member. While this is the only known group there are others. Their goals are the same, but they come from two different worlds.

Chapter 1: The first strike

   For years the ISCNM has been preparing for this day. Operation BLEACH has cost them over 45 billion credits. On the outskirts of the Neuron Five system a group of red ships have gathered. They are hidden for now, but won’t remain there for long. Around the giant station twenty blue and silver mother ships patrol the area with who knows how many inside the station, waiting to defend it. Suddenly a giant heat ray is fired across the vast distance between the red ships and the station. The blast hits a shield and the shield drops. Instantly a small internal alarm is sounded and eight hundred ships emerge from the station. Another heat ray is fired and is stopped half way by another ray coming from one of the blue and silver ships. A large war engages with bombs, and lasers going every which way. Stray blasts bounce off the incredible inner shield of the station. It only takes the ISCNM a moment to realize they don’t stand a chance. A second later all the ships are bugging out and flying as fast as they can towards the farthest system they can find. The remaining seven hundred-fifty ships return to the station and the initial twenty begin to patrol the area again. Little do they know that a pure black ship is lurking just outside of their range.
   A few hours later the ISCNM regroups on Nebincar Six. All the ships are parked right outside an asteroid. A secret base hidden to the federation. Inside is the council meeting. They have been discussing for hours the incredible defeat.
   “Well, it was worth a try.” Zendiburn said to the rest of the council. Had we known there were eight hundred ships in there we wouldn’t have attacked yet.
   “But you didn’t know. And you have forced death upon twenty percent of our fleets.” The council leader, Bevneck, said.
   “We must simply upgrade our weapons, then we can defeat the enemy before they can come out.”
   “Have you lost your mind? If we upgrade our weapons we could destroy the hole ISBD!”
   “Then we should upgrade our defenses.” Zendiburn said stubbornly.
   “And where, Zendiburn, do you intend to get forty billion more credits?”
   “Phishing.”
   “Zendiburn, this is not the mafia it once was! We do not phish any more! If we get caught…”
   “If we get caught, then we go to jail, if we don’t go phishing, we still go to jail for our giant raid on the ISBD.”
   “He is right you know,” Venderfall said, leaning over and whispering into the council leader’s ear.
   Bevneck waved him away, “Very well. We will give you a two-day rental on all of our top phising tools. Do you have any targets in mind?”
   Zendiburn looked down ashamed, “No sir, I do not.”
   “Then how do you intend to phish for the money?”
   “I have a contact inside the federation who can provide account information. He owes me for when I saved his job back in the 43rd.”
   The meeting was adjourned and all the mafia left to their homes, except Zendiburn who stood in the middle of the council room. What was he thinking. There was no way his contact would give him the information he wanted, not even after the 43rd.

Chapter 2: The 43rd

   The 43rd was a group of young warriors who were taken from the other armies of the galaxy and placed together. They were merged with artificial intelligence and became the ultimate warriors. After the training they split up to take on the many fights of the universe, including the fight against CHOAM’s deadly zombies that he was resurrecting to sell for a free profit. After a while most of the 43rd were rejected from contracts because they finished it too quickly and most people thought that they would take all the jobs from the regular humans. Zendiburn had once been in the 43rd, but went A-wall on it when they tried to morph him with technology. A few years later he met up with his contact and helped him to get a contract to keep him going for a few weeks. After the contract was almost over the owner of the store that he had been working for tried to blow him up, luckily Zendiburn had been there to push him out of the building before it collapsed on him. Later Zendiburn learned that his contact had gone into the federation for work. At the time Zendiburn had hacked his contacts computer to get account numbers and passwords, but now with it all stored in the ISBD…
   As Zendiburn flew off towards the federation he tried to think of what happened to his other comrades. He knew they made an alliance, but he couldn’t remember what it was called. Suddenly a news flash appeared in front of his monitor with a quick summary of The Next Generation’s latest attack on the Basilisk Armada. The Next Generation that was what had happened to the rest of the 43rd. They were so poor they made an alliance that could declare war on other alliances so they could keep their lives in one piece.
   Zendiburn realized that he was heading towards Blood Angel territory and reset his course to steer around it.
   Trailing behind him was chrome colored ship. It silently followed Zendiburn’s mother ship without any heat being produced for Zendiburn’s radar. Its cannons slowly slid out of their hold and a small swarm of parasite ships came out ready to surround Zendiburn. Suddenly a blast emitted from the mother ship and flew out to meet Zendiburn’s ship out in the void of space. Immediately the parasite swarms lunged out towards the new target and crawled into the holes made from the blast. An EMP was triggered and the fleets were silent.
   In his thingypit Zendiburn activated the rearview monitor. The chrome color of The Next Generation’s ship loomed into view. It wasn’t one of the official ones though since it didn’t have the insignia, but even still, that ship could destroy his ship with a few more hits of that blast.
   Zendiburn hit a button on his ship and dozens of small fleets loomed out into view. They charged at the chrome ship but were vaporized in another one of the ship’s blasts.
The two ships were facing each other now, weapons at the ready. Instantly Zendiburn dove down and fired a rear torpedo out at the ship. It flew right into the thingypit’s dome and exploded. A huge dent was made in the oval, but the steel held fast. The enemy ship fired a volley of missiles that found their marks and blew more holes in Zendiburn’s ship. Segments flowed everywhere, Zendiburn made a note to go back and retrieve them afterwards. He spun his ship around and stalled it. The ship began to slowly drift towards a planet, but then began to pick up speed. As it fell it used all the energy now not being used to fire a blue ray. The ray sped around the planet and then launched at the enemy ship, now with the speed gained from the orbit. The blast hit dead on and a blue field emerged around it. The enemy ship started disintegrating but then fought back against the weapon, then the EMP kicked in and the ship stopped moving.
Zendiburn fired up the engines again and moved towards the enemy ship. It began disassembling the ship until it could see almost into the thingypit. Then Zendiburn moved his ship away and blasted the enemy ship into segments for the taking. He quickly rounded up the stray segments and built some more bio-farms and warehouses.
He reset the course and began to slowly move towards his destination.

Chapter 3: The Contact

Zendiburn moved quickly to the loading dock so that he couldn’t be scanned as a member of the ISCNM. Once he landed he quickly got out of his ship and made his way to the guard barracks. He peeked through the door and looked for his contact. He saw him sleeping on his bed over in the corner. Just like him, hiding from the rest of the world. Zendiburn moved quickly over to his contact and shook him awake.
“Dentrack! Dentrack! Wake up!”
“Huh? Wa…who…where…ifenel…” Dentrack sleepily said. He rolled over and went back to sleep.
“Dentrack! Its me, Zendiburn!”
Dentrack woke up at that and drew his gun. “So, finally coming back after all those years.”
“Dentrack, I need a favor.”
“A favor? Like what? I do owe you a favor, but I am not going to lose my job over it.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t lose your job.” He sighed, “I need a small list of credit accounts with about one hundred million credits in them at least.”
“You’re kidding me right? If they find out that I gave you the accounts I could lose my job.”
“Dentrack, come on! I need the accounts. My life is at stake!”
“Always the dramatic weren’t you Zendiburn.”
“No! I’m not joking! The ISCNM is going to kill me if I don’t get the accounts. I need forty billion credits within two days!”
“Forty billion? You know that I can’t do that for you. If suddenly forty million people found that they have mysteriously lost a hundred million credits…well, I could not only lose my job, but it is possible that the ISBD will lose its credibility.”
“Well, you can change the account passwords once your done. Just give me the account info for someone who has like a trillion credits so that they won’t realize that forty billion credits have disappeared.”
Dentrack sighed. “Ok. Let me just take a quick look at the list.” Dentrack lost focus and seemed to be staring behind Zendiburn. Suddenly he came back into focus and smiled at Zendiburn. “I have one account that has forty quadrillion credits and doesn’t really keep track of his credit information. You won’t even need phishing tools. I’m giving you the information now.”
Numbers scrolled across Zendiburn’s eyes and then the information lodged into his brain. That was the one thing that he was given during the 43rd. Implanted computers in his eyes that could be accessed by thought.
“Thanks,” Zendiburn said. He turned around and walked over to a LAN terminal. He accessed the account withdrawal and typed in the account information. The total sum of the credits was shown. He accessed the transfer area and entered his account information. He typed in forty billion credits and then added one trillion more for personal use. He hit transfer and then went to the transaction screen. He took out one of his tools and hooked it up to the terminal. He typed a few strokes on the keyboard and the tool went to work deleting the transfer log. The tool deleted its own logs that it left behind and then Zendiburn logged off, unplugged the tool and walked back to his ship. He couldn’t believe that Dentrack actually gave him the account information that he wanted. He quickly left the federation base and looked at his account. He had his forty billion credits he needed for the council, and an extra trillion for his personal use. Not a bad day. And he had two days to hack the account again. This time though, it would be harder since Dentrack would have already changed the account information and emailed the person that had it saying that the account password had been reset.
Zendiburn accessed the fleet terminal design system and started a new design for a fleet of one or two ships that would cost about half a trillion credits. He also accessed his secret asteroid base and purchased a half trillion workers to make credits for him. At 130 million credits or more every ten minutes he would be able to re-supply his ships whenever he wanted.
A couple of hours later he purchased one ship in his Black Moon Fleet. With over 1 trillion health and 1 trillion defense, and 99% absorbency, this ship was not going down easy, and with over a quadrillion attack and 99% accuracy the ship could destroy anything that got in his way.
Zendiburn flew smugly back to the asteroid base sending out a signal to the council members saying that he had the forty billion credits they wanted. Zendiburn reclined in his chair with a smile on his face and waited for the jump to end.

Chapter 4: The Trace

The council had all gathered by the time Zendiburn had gotten there. As he walked in he heard a burst of applause as he walked up to the center ring of the council. He turned to look at Bevneck. Bevneck stood up and spoke. “So, you have returned before your two day trial. Do you have the credits?”
“If I didn’t I wouldn’t have called the council.” Zendiburn said coldly. Bevneck had always had his doubts about Zendiburn, but this time Zendiburn was sure all the doubts would disappear. “And they are being transferred as we speak. You should have them about…now.”
Instantly after he said it forty billion credits were transferred into the ISCNM account.
“Very good Zendiburn, I have already recommended you to lead the fleet into battle.”
“With all due respect sir, I feel like phising a bit more for credits to give to the ISCNM.”
“Very well. You will have a terminal for phishing on your ship.”
Zendiburn cursed under his breath, he didn’t want to go to war anymore. He liked hacking better, but he couldn’t show his disapproval in front of the council like this. “As the council wishes. I will return immediately to my ship.”
“Very good, this meeting is adjourned, captains return to your ships and prepare for the upgrades to arrive, then move out towards the ISBD.”
The meeting was over and Zendiburn quickly made his way to his ship. He looked at the hacking tools for a while. Then he looked out towards the infinite stretch of space. He looked down and decided then and there that he would fight until he died. He started up the terminal that had been placed in his ship and quickly did a scan of the news from the previous hour. Nothing new, so Zendiburn went to sleep.
A couple of hours later Zendiburn woke up when the all systems go alarm sounded and every ship in the station left. Zendiburn fired up the ship and flew along with the rest of the fleet. It was only a matter of hours before they reached Neuron Five. They gathered together and prepared to fire at the station, but before they could Zendiburn stopped them. He quickly released his Black Moon ship. It circled around the ISBD and then opened fire destroying all the sentries outside.
Another ship came out of the station sensing the heat results from the blast and was instantly incinerated. An alarm sounded and the eight hundred ships inside the station emerged. They all opened fire on the Black Moon ship. The ship was destroyed, but it was able to kill a small ten percent of the ships. Before the federation ships knew what happened, the ISCNM fleets were upon them blasting away. The federation was overwhelmed and was almost destroyed. They fled back into the station and were rewarded with a shield powering up and covering the whole station. The ISCNM was about to open fire and destroy the remaining of the ships but before they could a white flash appeared out of no-where.
Zendiburn saw it before he felt the heat. The white blast consumed all the other ISCNM ships except his. It continued to grow in his view but then faded out. There wasn’t even segments left. All the other ships had been disintegrated in the blast. Zendiburn looked for the attacker. He couldn’t find anything, then a green ray hit his ship and he went unconscious.
The mysterious attacker’s ship floated towards Zendiburn’s ship. It was invisible against the black of the void. It slowly opened its cargo hold and consumed his ship. Inside the ship a computer’s voice sounded through all the compartments. “Trace completed. Zendiburn’s ship captured. Now sending bounty request to federation…”
A black-gloved hand moved over controls like a spider. The computer’s voice came back online, “Mail stopped.” The owner of the glove smirked. Finally, this traitor would get what he deserved. The man with the black glove rested back in his chair. After years of tracing his actions, the man had finally captured Zendiburn. Zendiburn was good at hiding, but his phishing scheme was going to be the last thing Zendiburn regrets.

Chapter 5: Infinite Reality

Zendiburn woke up in a small enclosure. He looked around and saw that there were no visible doors or windows. The room was completely white and his hands were tied behind his back. He stood up and walked around the room trying to figure out what happened. He remembered the green blast, but couldn’t remember anything beyond that. He went over to a corner and sat down and waited.
An hour went by before a small crack appeared out of nowhere on the far wall. The wall moved in towards the room and a robot walked through the new door. The robot was all chrome and was humanoid. It turned to look at Zendiburn and he could see the small insignia on the robot’s chest. In the top corner of a silver square was the Next-Gen symbol, but besides that the rest was the silver square with a black, faintly outlined shape of a shadow of a ninja with two dagger blades protruding from the sides of the armless body. Zendiburn realized that the arms were crossed and there were actually daggers not just blades, but it was hard to see because it was all a shadow. The robot moved over to him and stood him up. “Move.” It said stubbornly. Zendiburn didn’t move an inch and the robot grabbed him and its hands became tazers, quickly short-circuiting Zendiburn’s implanted computer, which quickly came back online. Zendiburn, not wanting to feel nauseous from the computer short-circuiting again, quickly moved out of the room and walked right in front of the robot as it guided him to the main thingypit. The thingypit was huge. It looked like a whole control room on a planet with computer screens everywhere.
The chair in front of Zendiburn swiveled around and a man wearing all black, and a black hooded robe, stood. He walked slowly, yet it seemed to take a nanosecond for the man to reach Zendiburn. The robot behind Zendiburn released him and left through the doorway behind him. The man quickly shot out a hand and grabbed Zendiburn by the thought. He lifted him up and his hood fell back. His hair was in a buzz cut almost, but that was just a side thought. The man’s left eye caught Zendiburn’s attention. It turned from a blue iris color to a red. The man’s grip was like a claw, there was no escape. Zendiburn realized that this was what a member of the 43rd must be like when they weren’t trying to look natural. He looked completely different from Dentrack. He was tall, and as Zendiburn limped there in the left hand of the strange man, the man brought up his right hand. From it three thick steel claws erupted from the top of the glove. Zendiburn could see that it wasn’t the glove that was doing that. The man continued to hold Zendiburn there, but slowly lowered his hand so that it wasn’t as alarming, but Zendiburn could see that it was poised to strike.
The man began to speak. “So, after many years of tracing your movements, your whereabouts, and all the other things that I had to trace, I finally got you.”
“What do you plan on doing to me?” Zendiburn gasped under the pressure from the hand.
“What do you think? I plan on killing you.”
“What? Why would you want to kill me? I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“No? What about the phishing?”
“Oh, that…well it wasn’t a big felony was it? Besides, wouldn’t the authorities be the ones trying to find me?”
“That isn’t the reason you’re here Zendiburn.”
“Then cut to the chase, I don’t have all day.”
“Your right, you don’t. You have about ten minutes to live. So I will cut to the chase. When you were in the 43rd you made a pact with the federation. But you went A-wall and now here you are…”
“So, you’re going to kill me because I went A-wall?”
“Exactly. Your life ends here, and, to top it off, your execution will be witnessed by the federation.”
“Your crazy.”
“He he, your humor doesn’t amuse me. Computer,”
“Yes?”
“Get me the head of the ISFBI.”
“Right away.” Instantly a screen next to them turned on. The face of the head of the ISFBI loomed into sight.
“What is it? Who is contacting me?”
“I have a certain Zendiburn here.”
“You caught him? Very well, we will send a ship out to meet you.”
“That’s not on the agenda. You are here to witness the execution of him.”
“NO! The bounty is for him being turned in alive!”
“I’m not after a bounty.” The man raised Zendiburn up, turning off the audio from the federation screen.
“Your crazy!” Zendiburn choked. “Why don’t you at least tell me your name before you kill me?”
“Since you are about to die, and the federation can’t hear, I suppose it is safe.”
“Well?”
“My name…is Remfer.” His right hand slashed around in an arc and the sharp knives at the end of his hand sliced through Zendiburn’s neck. Remfer brought up his hand; there was no blood on the knives. They had been specially made for stealth and no evidence left at the scene.
Remfer dropped the body and immediately the body was sucked down to the ejection hatch.
“Computer, as soon as we’re clear in deep space, eject the trash.”
A few beeps were all that were heard as the computer registered the command and set it into action. Remfer walked slowly back to his seat. All his missions were finally over…

Well, not all of them…