[b]The Revenant[/b]
[i]With [@Athol][/i]

	Sadaet had the data drive on his desk ready to plug in. Stryker had, rather sheepishly, knocked on his door and asked if he could help get into the device. His voice was stuttering like he was somewhere else, his cheeks were blushed, and he had been looking over his shoulder every few seconds: Sadaet, figuring that the captain was probably in a rush to get laid, took the drive and bid him a good night with a slight smirk. He shut the door and tossed it onto the table in the corner. In the room, particularly the closet, laid the Revenant’s internal networking hardware. Sadaet had lobbied Stryker to give him funds to purchase some computer equipment to set up a small, enclosed network within the ship that was totally isolated from any of the larger electronics and systems. He had reasoned that any collected intel was to be first tested and decrypted on this closed network to detect viruses or other malicious software before it could get to the ship. As advanced as cyber warfare and viruses had gotten, there was simply no way for it to jump to the ship if there were no physical or wireless connections to the main system.

	The result was a mess of whirring and bleeping boxes in his closet that provided an almost comforting white noise at night. After years of fighting, Sadaet had developed an annoying case of tinnitus that kept his ears ringing if there wasn’t anything to drown it out. He liked to play music or one of his podcasts – usually something boring like economics or obscure scientific research – on his speakers to help him go to sleep at night. But, in a pinch, usually if he got too drunk to turn on the music, the server would at least keep the ringing from interrupting his sleep. It served the crew well, however, and Sadaet had used it to test out software before. At least a few of the devices picked up by the Revenant’s misadventures had some sort of anti-handling measures on it, so he felt a little bit of relief that they weren’t directly plugged into the ship. If SAL had plugged into the ship with some of those viruses in there, there would have been some nasty consequences for the crew when his target discriminators were overridden and he shot at everyone.

	Sadaet had stubbed out a cigarette in his ashtray when he heard a ring come from the door. He looked up from his monitor and dropped his headset from his ears to his neck. The beat of lofi music was drowned out and he got out of his seat to answer it. The door slid open, and Sadaet made eye contact with Val. Sharing an equal height, he had to look her up and down to confirm that it was, indeed, the cyborg that he thought she was. He nodded his head: “How’re you doing? What do you need?”

	“There’s something that needs to be decrypted, I came here because you have it,” she said simply.

	“Well, I do,” replied Sadaet as he looked back towards the data drive that was on his desk. “If you want to help, then that’s good. I’ll let you take a spin on it.”

	Val walked into the room silently, taking note of his eclectic decorations and surroundings. Sadaet hadn’t seen much of her since she came aboard with the crew and always considered her to be an introverted weirdo. He hadn’t really gotten to know her over a drink or several, and had his own preconceived notions about people who decided to replace their bodies with cybernetics. Regardless, he showed her the workstation where the drive was ready. “It smells awful in here,” she remarked upon sensing the faint odor of cigarette in the air.

	“Well, the captain lets me do it in the room,” Sadaet quipped. “If you don’t like it, I’m sure you can turn that little robot nose off and be just fine.”

	The computer spun up and blew through its welcome screen, before Sadaet scanned his fingerprint and offered up a password to get into the system. On its screen was a simple blank wallpaper that read in white letters on a red background: “TEST SYSTEM, DO NOT NETWORK.” He snatched the drive from his desk and searched for a cable with a piece of red tape around it, which he plugged into the drive. The system initialized its drivers and began talking to the piece of equipment in his hand, which he laid down. A file folder came up on the screen, with only one option to access the data inside. He tried clicking on it, but was instead met with a password lock. Sadaet closed that out and looked over at his second monitor, which was running the software tracking anything introduced into the system. So far, nothing was making its way through the fake network like a virus would. After Val cracked open the actual drive, he’d need to run a full scan on everything just to make sure, but it seemed alright for now.

	Val stood a good distance behind him, observing the Solarian as he looked back. He scanned her and recognized her off-putting posture, hesitated for a second, but then pulled a cigarette out of an old mint tin in his pocket. He motioned for her to take one as well, but she gave him an icy look. He wondered if cigarettes, alcohol, or anything else that “mere mortals” like himself enjoyed did anything for her anymore, but didn’t voice his thought. Sadaet shrugged, lighting his cigarette with a silver-plated flip lighter and inhaling deeply. He finished setting up the continuous scan on his network and tapped his ashes into the ashtray beside his keyboard. The man stood back, bathed in the red light of the computer monitor, and pulled out the chair for Val with an inviting hand wave.

	“It’s all set up… I suppose you can take a crack at it now,” he said.