Anabeth: New Beginnings

Chapter 6 - The Intruder

The peace talks began the very next morning and went on for several days. There were mostly only minor disagreements between the two delegations that were easily settled. For the most part, things were going smoothly. Everyone seemed invested in the meetings and, much to Ana's delight, the Senators even got along outside of them as they tried to either get to know each other or reconnect after spending time on opposing sides during the war.

During her own free time, Ana either spent time with Satine, Obi-Wan and Grace, or hung out with Korkie and helped him study for his exams. Whenever she could, she would get a word in with Padmè, however it proved to be a little harder with her being occupied with the other Senators most of the time and having lengthy call home to check on Anakin, Ahsoka and the twins.

Now that they were almost a week into the peace talks, the Senators had long laid the foundation defining what space belonged to the Republic and which to the Confederacy and had made great progress in agreements on the usage of hyperspace lanes and the taxation of trade. They were now onto their final big topic of military and disarmament, after which they would only have minor details left. If everything went well, they could have a peace agreement signed in no more than a few days.

Today, as always, they had taken an hour for a dinner break during which Ana had visited Grace with Obi-Wan and Satine and sent some files Windu was still waiting for to Coruscant. When she returned to the meeting hall it was already dark. Thankfully, they only had about an hour and a half left on the schedule.

She and Obi-Wan took their seats to the left and right of Satine at the head of the table while the delegations slowly began to sit down at their respective sides as well. Ana briefly glanced down at her commlink to ensure Bo was still sending her the all clear signal, indicating that all guards were in position and there was no security threat.

Since there seemed to be nothing to worry about, the talks continued once again. Everything seemed well for a good few minutes when Ana's commlink suddenly let out a single small beep. It was nothing out of the ordinary, since Bo had often sent her small status messages the last few days as well.

Though when Ana went to check was this one was about she was briefly horrified to find that the all clear signal from minutes before had suddenly changed to alert her of a potential security threat. She exchanged a brief look with Obi-Wan before quietly getting up from the table to leave the room.

Once she was out of the door, she quickly called Bo who picked up immediately. "Ana, we might have a situation."
"What's going on?" Ana asked warily.

"Our cameras picked up an unidentified person headed your way a few minutes ago," Bo began to explain. "He entered the blind spot that's down the corridor from you, but he never came out. I sent some guards to check, but there was no one in that blind spot. And there are also no vents or rooms there, it's just a corridor. And the guy seems to have just vanished."

"Let's not take any chances. Raise the alert level and put everything on lockdown. No one leaves their current position until we find this guy," Ana decided. Someone accidentally stepping foot in the wrong corridor had happened a few times before, but them vanishing in said corridor was new and certainly very suspicious.

Ana waited for a moment for Bo to speak again.
"Everyone has reported in," the head of security informed her. "No one is unaccounted for and no intruders were spotted so far."
"Well, the guy has to be somewhere. Check the cameras surrounding the blind spot," Ana instructed.

"Nothing," Bo told her shortly after. "Unless... Ana, do me a favor and step into the view of one of the cameras in the corridors that's empty right now."
Ana was slightly confused about the request, but proceeded to do so anyway.
"I'm right in front of one," she informed Bo, looking straight into the camera.

"This is bad," Bo mumbled. "We can't see you, meaning the camera you are in front of, and probably every camera in your area is on a loop. The guy who went into the blind spot could be anywhere right now."

"Why show us that the guy was heading into the blind spot in the first place then?" Ana wondered.
"Maybe they wanted to get us to trigger the lockdown protocol. There a few doors that are usually locked that open with it," Bo theorized. "I'll send some guards to check them out."

"Great. But we also have to get the hacker looping the cameras out of our system, or finding the intruder is going to be a lot harder for us."
"I don't have a coding specialist capable of that on duty right now, though," Bo informed Ana.
"I'll come and do it. Just get those doors checked," Ana replied.

Ana hurried down the hallways towards the command center. By the time she got there, Bo had already had her men clear a workstation for her and she could begin immediately.

"Whoever this guy is, he's good," Ana mumbled as she looked at the code. "When did you have the last server reboot?"
"Two days ago. But we ran standard security protocols right after and they didn't detect anything," Bo replied.

"That's because he didn't get in during the reboot, or at least he didn't stay in. He used the reboot to slip in, create a master key for himself and log back out. Master keys are part of the system, so the security protocols didn't detect anything. And afterwards he simply had to use the key to gain access to the system," Ana explained.

"And what is he doing in the system?" Bo asked anxiously.
"Hang on, I'm pulling up the history of the key," Ana replied. "Let's see, he logged in, and put all cameras on a loop when our intruder entered the blind spot. He hasn't logged back out yet, but he's just been sitting around and waiting."

"Well, let's not take any chances and throw him out," Bo proposed.
"That will make it impossible for us to track his signal though," Ana remarked.
"We won't need to if we catch our intruder. Let's focus on him," Bo insisted nevertheless.

As Ana went ahead and deleted the master key the hacker was using and preparing to kick the guy out of the system, Bo's commlink began to beep. When she picked it up, one of the guards she had sent out to check the doors was on the other end.

"It seems someone was in safety room two," the Mandalorian reported. "He climbed into the old ventilation system that is still in place there."
"Thank you. Remain in the room incase our intruder climbs back out. We'll see what we can do from here," Bo ordered before ending the call.

By now, Ana had gotten the hacker out of the system and turned to look at Bo.
"Old ventilation system?" she asked curiously.
"A few years before the death of my parents a new ventilation system was installed in the palace. In most places the old one was simply replaced, but in some spots new ducts were installed and the old ones covered up."

"And do we know where exactly the old ones are still in place? Are there schematics?" Ana asked.
"There might be some renovation plans digitalized that you can access from here," Bo replied.

Before Ana could start her search though, the screen went dead in front of her eyes and the room turned dark.
"Seems one of the remaining pipes leads to the generators," she stated.
"Which means we know where our intruder is right now, let's go," Bo was already putting on her helmet to use its night vision function.

Bo hurried out of the door, Ana, who was using the force to find her way in the dark, right on her tail.
"You know what this means, right?" Bo asked.
"Yeah. No power means no server, means our only way of finding the guy is a good old fashioned hide and seek," Ana replied.