>>6318993
>>6319032

>Bouncing a signal off of them to remotely quickhack the turrets.

Harper slides a smoke grenade into your hands. “Just in case.”

You accept them with a raised eyebrow. “I got you those codes, didn’t I?”

“Hey, I never said I didn’t think you could do it.”

His confidence is truly inspiring.

The maintenance drones bob like exhausted gulls in the atrium’s half-light. One of them banks low, wobbling as it executes a patrol loop. Just close enough for you to make out the flickering LEDs on its chassis, and the whine of stressed circuitry like a distant heartbeat.

Perfect.

You extend the link.

Jack-in sequence initiated.]

The drone wobbles as the first thin thread of data crawls through your modem and into your skull. There’s no cinematic flash – only a dry pressure behind your eyes, a sour taste like copper, and then the world narrows to packets.

[NODE HANDSHAKE]
target: maintenance.drone.unit#B-114
firmware: CivWerks_v3.76 (delta+patch)
open ports: 0x1f4 (diag), 0x3A2 (telemetry), 0x0A0 (remote uplink).

Your mental HUD blooms: hex streams, stack pointers, a jagged lattice of auth checks.

[EXPLOIT VECTOR SELECTED – IMP]
payload: zip-burst; jitter timing @ 7.4ms
stealth: high | audible-reboot: low
blowback risk: medium (telemetry watchdog)

Something within your brain cackles as you execute the program. Data packets like jagged glass spill from your skull, surging through the connection with careful timing. They aren’t words as much as timed disruptions – tiny, corrosive cadences masquerading as maintenance pings and spoofing TerraComm certs, unzipping once they’re past the firewalls.

Rewriting drift vectors. Opening channels to nearby drones.

You taste static.

[ROOT ACHIEVED – UPLINK OPEN]
watchdog loop: suspended
remote telemetry: rerouted
turret – link: probable @ 2.45GHz

The light on the drone changes form an uncertain red to a steady green. You exhale, wobbling slightly as the linkage hums in unison with your heartbeat, and direct the drone back on its flight path. Even before it links up with its flock, the subroutine within its guts is already going to work – spreading your connection through the remaining drones.

All that’s left to do is breach the turret.

>>Please roll 2d12 Hacking (2d8 Intellect, upgrades to 2d12 for Rank 2 in Hacking)
>Best out of three.