He hugged her and rubbed her back. “Any time,” he said, glancing over at Jack watching them. He noticed that her expression was softer than he’d ever seen it. He dropped his eyes and whispered so only Molly could hear.
“Remember… I’m always coming for you.”
Molly started to tear up, and nodded her head, still buried in Joel’s embrace.
Joel could have sworn he felt a dampness on his neck. But when she pulled away, she turned around, and kept her back to him as she removed her gear and hung it on the racks. He couldn’t tell if she’d been crying.
He glanced over at Jack, and spoke loudly so that Emma could still hear him on the intercom. “Okay, folks. Let’s go debrief, and then get Molly down for her meditation session… else you know she’ll be grumpy for the rest of the day.”
Jack chuckled lightly.
Joel was pleased that the meditation was working for her, but he also felt her absence when she wasn’t around. He watched her disappear through the door, and back to the main cabin.
Chapter 5
Planet Kurilia, Control Room of PrimeBase
“Sir, something isn’t right.”
The commander on duty, Commander Thatle, spun around from his conversation, and moved back towards the console where the ensign was reporting from.
He peered over his shoulder to view the scanners. “What do you have, ensign?” he asked, briskly. He’d spent too much time monitoring this new operator, but he knew better than to dismiss anything out of hand.
“Sir,” the ensign replied, “I believe there is something wrong with our scanners.”
“Sir,” said another voice behind him; a lieutenant was approaching. “I’ve just received a communication from security. It looks like our systems have been breached.”
Just then, the emergency siren powered up in the control room. The lights flashed red and orange, warning of a breach.
The commander opened up a new panel with his handprint, and watched as the sit rep automatically unfolded in a hologram in front of him.
He felt the blood drain from his body as he read the code.
“It’s a code 45,” he said quietly.
The ensign looked up at his commander, and then at the lieutenant.
The lieutenant searched his memory. “That’s a weapons attack… on our own systems?”
The commander nodded calmly. “That’s right. We’ve been hacked. Our weapons are offline… meaning we’re completely defenseless.”
He turned to the next console and opened another program. He keyed in his access code before turning back to the lieutenant. “We need this planet on full alert. Close all airfields and all incoming traffic — skylifts and personnel movement. If our weapons have been knocked out, it’s probably phase one of an attack. Switch communications to quantum-only.”
The lieutenant saluted and the Commander nodded in response, dismissing him to carry out the orders. The lieutenant bustled away, and, a moment later, the quantum communicators of all staff in the control room were being loaded with the next battle instructions.
The commander walked briskly over to the space-monitoring station. “Have we incoming?” he asked quietly.
“No, sir,” the operator responded. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual commercial traffic… Unless they’re using jets that are smaller than we can detect now? Though chatter about the Etheric Empire would have reported that in a general briefing, so we’d know to expect that.” The operator looked confused.
Commander Thatle wiped at his face with his hands and nodded. “Keep a careful eye out, and alert me the second you notice anything unusual.”
The operator nodded. “Yes, sir.”
So much for a quiet shift, he thought to himself.
He walked calmly back to his office to speak with the Lord High Marshall. He would need authorization to scramble the space jets.
Back in his office, he sat down, neither rushing nor ambling. He could feel all three of his hearts beating fast, all out of sync. He felt nauseous, but his training had prepared him well for this moment. Remaining calm was the best way to maintain maximum cognitive function; and this is what always gave them the edge over the Leaths, the humans, and, well, practically every other race that cared to go into battle with them.
He opened up a quantum comm channel and waited for the Lord High Marshall to respond.
A minute later, the audio opened. “Yes?”
“Your Highness. This is Commander Thatle. I’m reporting a security breach. Our weapons have been taken offline. As yet, we have experienced no further attack, and our scanners haven’t detected any incoming.”
There was silence on the line. The audio timed out, so Commander Thatle couldn’t even hear static or background noise. He waited and realized that he was holding his breath. He exhaled, counting the seconds before he should inhale again.
The waiting was excruciating.
Finally there was a noise on the line, and the audio channel reopened. “Scramble the jets, and assemble a reconnaissance team. The jets stay close; the reconnaissance should go out to the edge of our scanners to see if there is a problem with our detection. Keep me posted.”
The commander nodded, even though the Lord High Marshall couldn’t see him. “Yes, Your Highness,” he confirmed.
The line fell silent, and Thatle closed the channel. Then he quietly began issuing the orders he’d been given.
On board The Empress
The team sat, perched, and stood in the cockpit.
Molly stood with her back to Sean and his console, so as not to pull his eye from what he needed to be doing.
“Okay, folks, this is just a quick update before we get back to base.”
She brushed a strand of her dark hair out of her face. “The mission has been a success; Oz was able to take their weapons offline.”
There was applause throughout the cockpit — Pieter even let out a ‘whoop, whoop’. Joel looked at him as if to say ‘Really?’ Pieter lowered his eyes and put his hand over his mouth, making the others chuckle.
Molly continued. “But, as you know, this is only part one of what we need to do. The next stage is to take out their bases completely — electricity, services, communications, and security — so they cannot build them up again easily.”
She glanced around at the team, who was looking serious now. “Oz will know more about their systems in a matter of hours, and then we’ll be able to design a plan. So when we get back to base, I recommend you getting a few hours’ rack time while you can. Then we’ll have a full team meeting down in the base conference room.”
There were nods and grunts of acknowledgment all around.
Molly took a breath and clapped her hands. “Okay, folks. It’s one hour back to base. Paige, come get me when we’re on approach.”
Paige nodded, and the audience broke up, talking and shuffling around. Molly headed back out to the lounge, followed by Joel, Paige, Jack, and Pieter. Brock stayed up front with Sean and Crash to talk more about the ship.
Molly didn’t stop in the lounge. Instead, she headed back to the cargo area, leaving the chatter and activity behind.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she found her way to her meditation shelf: a rack which would have been used to stack equipment and cargo. She hauled herself up and turned around to sit cross-legged on the mats and blankets she had accumulated there to make it a little more comfortable.
She placed the backs of her hands on her knees, closed her eyes, and drew her focus in to her breathing.
Gaitune-67, Base conference room
Eight hours after landing back on Gaitune, the team rolled into the base conference room. Molly was looking peaceful, if not a little out of it.
“Looks like she’s dosed up on the meditation,” Joel joked to Paige.
Paige bit her lip. “Yeah. I wonder how long this is going to go on for? Or maybe this is it? She’s going to have to do it foreve
r…”
Their voices were hushed, and lost under the hum of the rest of the team talking, joking, and moving about the room.
Molly stood before them on the long, far side of the conference table.
“Okay, folks. Let’s get into it,” she said, starting the briefing.
Quiet fell over the room as the conversations ended, and attention was put on Molly.
“First off, great job on our first Etheric Empire mission. You should be pleased with yourselves; it was a huge success.”
The team applauded briefly, and Molly could see the various team members exchanging glances and smiles, proud of their work.
Molly continued. “Oz has successfully connected into their systems, and, using Etheric tech, is able to monitor and download from their systems in real time. He and Pieter will be working to figure out how their systems operate, with a view for taking out the core areas.”
She hit some buttons on her holo and it brought up two screens in the center of the table. The first screen listed out their targets.
“We’ve got four key areas we have been tasked to take out: Power, communications, security, and weapons. We’ve already taken weapons offline, but without taking out the other three, they will soon be able to restore control of their weapons, and pose a threat both on and off world. Hence part two of this mission.”
She looked around the room, making sure she wasn’t moving too fast. Then she flicked to the second screen, which was a three dimensional, layered map, showing the different networks they knew of.
“What you see on the second screen,” she continued, “is an approximation of their security networks, their data centers, their power grids and generators, as well as their communication hubs and artillery.”
Pieter looked at the screen, squinting a little to try and determine all the detail. The others just watched their task unfold.
Molly straightened up a little. “There’s one other thing you need to know at this point,” Molly added. “We have strict instructions to minimize all casualties, and to leave civilian systems unaffected.
Pieter slouched back in his seat. “There goes my idea of using an EMP to take out the main nodes for all services.”
Molly looked over at him. “Yes, that would have been a good idea. Except that their sensitive areas are all protected by EMP-proof casing. It wouldn’t work.”
Pieter looked both surprised and intrigued. Before he could speak, Molly put her hand up. “I’ll show you how that works later. But for now, it’s safe to assume it’s not an option.”
Joel shifted forward in his seat and raised his hand a little to get Molly’s attention. Molly turned to face him, directly opposite her on the other side of the conference table. Joel put his hand down. “Molly, why has the Empire decided to do such a precision exercise? I thought they were all about bitch slapping the enemy down when they needed it?”
Sean had been looking at Joel, his hands clasped on the table in front of him. When he heard Joel’s description of the Empire, he put his head down so no one could see his face; but almost everyone noticed his shoulders shaking silently as he laughed.
Molly looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Well,” she began, “part of it is because the General is under pressure to reduce the military capabilities of the Empire. Bitch-slapping potential allies is probably the fastest way to have that enforced. He has to go along with some of it for now, for the sake of maintaining certain alliances. But, at the same time, some of those so-called alliances are… well, I guess the word is ‘conspiring…’ against the Empire to attack them at a later date. This is just one way of reducing the number of allies our opposition can call upon when the shit hits the fan. The other thing is, this can’t be traced back to the General. No matter what.”
Molly paused, trying to decide whether to share the other details. She shrugged, making her decision to tell them.
“Plus,” she admitted, “I kinda have a problem with needlessly killing people. I’ve convinced the General to give us an opportunity to see if we can make this more effective, and less bloody. If we can use all our tech, intel, and smarts to take out just their military capabilities, and leave everyone alive, then I think this will set a new standard in the rules of engagement. I think we can raise the bar on how wars are fought and how politics are handled, and hopefully set an example for how individual civilizations should treat their own citizens.”
She smiled sheepishly. “Of course, if this all goes horribly wrong, I’ll be eating humble pie — and no doubt our Empress will hear about it, and give me no end of shit for ages to come…”
The team chuckled and sniggered. Paige shifted in her seat, leaning forward over the table a little. “I think it’s an excellent idea. I mean, if the Etheric Empire can fight a war without spilling a drop of blood, we’ll command the respect of those who are aspiring to do better in their efforts.”
Sean snorted. “Yeah, and inspire confusion in those battle-hungry warlords.”
Molly pulled her lips to one side of her face. “Yeah. I’m not sure how this would go down against the ‘iron fist’ attitude, but I suppose that will become apparent once this new way of doing things becomes established.” She took a deep breath. “If it becomes established,” she clarified. “We just need to get this first one right.”
She glanced around, and her eyes fell on Pieter.
“Besides, in principle, the more we know about our enemies, the more effective we can be; not just in defeating them, but in brokering peace and relationships down the line. I’d much rather have the Zhyn as an ally for the next decade, than have their planet be a post-apocalyptic mess of nuclear disaster, and a hell-hole on which only the most vicious people can survive.”
The team went quiet, contemplating the two alternatives. Sean’s head was down again, but this time his shoulders weren’t shaking, Molly noticed. He was perhaps the only one who would have known what went on back on her planet of origin in the last hundred years or so.
She took a moment to gather her thoughts, and then pulled up a third holoscreen in the center of the table.
“Okay, here are our areas of responsibility,” she announced. “Power. What we know is that each base has its own generators, a connection to a military grid, and their own backup generators. The backup generators can go for several weeks, but they aren’t capable of meeting all the base’s power needs; just their emergency needs.”
The power grid was illuminated on the map as she talked about it. “There are vulnerable areas… but each of these will need to be affected at once, if we are to be successful. This may require boots on the ground.”
She glanced over at Sean, Jack, and Joel, who sat next to each other, in front of Molly and slightly to the right.
“So, to overcome not being able to use EMPs, we’ve been considering the option of some kind of quantum pulse that will overload this and their data systems. Brock, can you get with Pieter, Oz, and ADAM, if needs be, and see if we can build something that will take out all these capabilities?”
Brock’s eyes were wide, and Molly could see him visibly recoil. “I… I… I don’t know if that is even possible.”
Molly smiled. “Brock, you are the most capable engineer I’ve ever known. Plus, you have the tech of the Etheric Empire at your fingertips. You can re-engineer anything you need in order to do this. I believe in you.”
Brock looked flustered. “Well, er. I suppose I ought to give it a go, then…”
The group chuckled. Pieter was sitting next to Brock, and slapped him gently on the back, giving him a wink. Paige smiled at him from across the table.
“Good,” Molly confirmed. “Just let me know some idea of time scales by tomorrow.”
Brock nodded, making notes on his holo.
Molly flicked her holo, and the next word appeared on screen number three. “Comms!” she called out. “Maya, Paige…” she looked over at the pair sitting together. “I want you to st
udy the social dynamics of how they are structured — their hierarchy, their ways. If we’re going to beat them, we need to know more about them. Oz can download transcripts of conversations, and anything else you need off their systems.”
Paige and Maya both nodded, taking notes on their holos, and conferring quietly with each other.
“Security,” Molly announced the next area. “Oz, if you could, finish up on whatever you need to learn for their language and programming structure. Then we need to look deeper into taking down all their security protocols.”
Oz’s audio clicked on over the conference room feed. “I believe that the Empire already has some insight — into their language, at least. ADAM has agreed to share that download, which will save a lot of time. I can figure out the rest from context.”
Molly nodded, listening. “Great, make it so. And lean on Pieter for any creative leaps; he’s a resource, in that regard.”
Most of the members around the table glanced over at Pieter, who blushed a deep red. Brock comically returned the slap on the back.
“Dude, you got this,” he told him, mimicking Pieter’s voice, accent, and intonation.
There were more than a few laughs around the table.
Molly brought up the final word on the slide. “Training,” she told them. She glanced over at Sean.
“Sean, if you would, we need Jack, Joel, and myself trained up on the rest of the toys in the armory. Something tells me that this isn’t the first time the Empire has had to head down to the surface of this, or any, planet. We need all the tech advantages we can muster.”
Sean nodded.
Molly continued. “But Crash could also do with your input…”
Sean nodded again. “Not a problem. I can do my Freddy Kruger impersonation…”
Molly looked confused. Pieter piped up to fill her in. “It’s an Earth reference. Everywhere you turn, there he is…”
Molly smiled. “Ohhhhh,” she said, still not really understanding the reference. She turned to Crash, still smiling a little. “And that leaves Crash.”
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 93