eatthepen | Chronic Swanicles 2 (Reply)

This misadventure of the reprehensible Corporal Swan was originally written on Cohost in response to a prompt from Andrea @CERESUltra, 'Mech Pilot who teaches their mech's simplistic remote control AI to do tricks like it's a pet'

"Yes. Ma'am."

"That seems a rather complex and specific malfunction. I am reasonably confident that the engineers' analysis will show that auto-balancing was involved. If your AI was malfunctioning, your mech should have faceplanted."

"The load gyros were unaffected by the malfunction, ma'am."

"Then would you please explain what, exactly, caused your mech to misbehave?"

"It was... a hack, ma'am."

"A hack? You claim someone hacked you, in the middle of a secure training exercise in Sub-4?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Who the hell could have hacked you?! It was only your squad and Lieutenant Verres's down there!"

"Corporal du Tenti, ma'am."

"Swan, du Tenti is many things but he's not an infowar technician. Are you suggesting he made some sort of undetectable malicious transmission? According to the logs, all he did was tell you over the radio to 'beg'."

"That was the hack, ma'am."

"Corporal Swan."

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I'm aware that you like to play with your systems."

"I prefer to describe it as 'experimenting', ma'am."

"I'm aware. Nevertheless. Are you telling me that you have induced, in your mech's AI, an exploitable vulnerability to voice instructions over open radio channels?"

"Only from fleet personnel with registered voiceprints, ma'am."

"I'm denying your request for a review. The result will stand, and I'm telling your squad why."

"Ma'am-"

"I think I'll give du Tenti a commendation for exposing a critical vulnerability, too."