The Constant Star (26)

THE STORY SO FAR

It is a separate AI system and will maintain Council security for the duration of this conflict.”

“Agreed, that is the safest course of action.” Jupiter addresses his colleagues, “I would advise we keep this meeting brief, and move all further decision making to the Needle’s Council-room.”

“Look what pandering to one child has wrought…”

“Save it for the Needle, Saturn.”

She glares at Jupiter as the four of them stand to make their way from the room, “There will be investigations into all that has happened—and why—once this is over.”

The analytical array in front of Bear scrolls, his curious eye finds an anomaly in the scans. A slight peak in signal strength emanating from one of the relays wired under the floor of this level. Bear frowns and makes note of the location before heading out to investigate.

It’s only a few hundred meters to the panel, and once there he unlocks it and lifts it to the side, “Huh, you shouldn’t be there.” Bellerophon scans the relay and the foreign device connected to it. An encrypted signal emanates from the strange tech, “Skata, how many of these are there?” He reaches into a small toolkit and begins trying to work it free, but it is strongly magnetized. And potentially boobytrapped. He completes his scan and replaces the floor panel, then flips his communicator on, “Sir, ready to report.”

“Affirmative, meet me here.”

A set of coordinates flashes briefly on Bellerophon’s screen. He immediately begins making his way to the rendezvous.

After a few minutes the streets become narrower and less crowded. The coordinates lead him to a wall behind the pilot training office building. Jupiter walks out of a back door, fresh from the Council meeting and obviously frustrated, “Report.”

“Sir, I found a foreign device attached to one of Janus’ AI relays. I scanned it and it is sending out a signal as well as receiving data. I was unable to remove it with the tools I had.”

Jupiter analyzes the scans Bellerophon shows him, “What will it take to remove it?”

“Good tools and about an hour of work, Sir.”

“I doubt highly there is only one of these. We don’t have time to spend an hour on each one. How about ten seconds and an EMP grenade?”

Bear smiles a ridiculous grin, “Yes sir, I reckon that would do it.”

“Janus is designed to recover quickly from such pulses, this invasive tech looks to be vulnerable. Come with me.”

Bellerophon watches Jupiter open a panel into the wall and step inside, “Holy sk…”

“You coming, Agent?”

“Agent?”

“Congratulations on your wartime promotion.”

A slightly stunned Bellerophon follows Jupiter. Behind the wall is a set of stairs leading to a large, hidden chamber containing a number of scientists all hard at work. In the centre of the room is a matte-black ship unlike any Bear has seen before, “This has been a top-secret operation for several years. This craft has been designed to navigate within Janus completely undetectable by any of his sensors. When the stealth technology is turned on, even the naked eye has a hard time seeing the craft. It is the latest in our covert technology and has been waiting for a mission like this. You are going to find the invasive hardware that has been placed on Janus, and use this craft to travel undetected to those zones. Then you are going to use EMP grenades to disable them. She does not yet have guns, and the stealth technology has very little armor. So keep out of sight and if you encounter resistance be very careful. Do you understand, Agent?”

Bellerophon can barely keep himself from jumping in excitement, let alone try to subdue his excited grin, “Absolutely, Sir.”

“Good. You start immediately. Only one thing left to do. What are you going to name her?”

“Sir, I think you already know the answer to that.”

Jupiter smiles, “I guess I do.” He points toward some tactical special-forces armor, “Get suited up. The Pegasus awaits.”

20

It doesn’t take long for Macy to come calling. Her meeting had not gone as well as she hoped, apparently, “Hey Siff, how’s it going? Got some bad news I’m afraid. Seems the assholes up top don’t feel like negotiating. They’ve got units working their ways through the tunnels and vents to get down here. They’re also working on changing the elevators to run on generators off the grid. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were gearing up for a possible full-system reboot to get control of the systems we took over.

“All this means that our tactics have to change. And things are likely gonna get a lot more violent than they would have had to. So I need to ask, I know it’s barely been an hour, but have you made a decision? What do you want to do?”

“I think.” Dammit, why do decisions always have to be so hard? I just started making friends. But if I don’t go to the Chosen Ones I’ll never forgive myself. It’s what I’ve wanted my whole life, “I want to go. I want to go to the Chosen Ones.”

“Fair enough, that was the deal.” Macy is obviously disappointed, “Thanks for all you’ve done. As of this moment, everything I tell you is going to be top secret: don’t tell anyone. Anyone. Because if you do it could compromise your mission and probably end up with you being dead. Hear me? I’m being serious here.”

“I hear you.”

“Okay, follow me.”

They head down several flights of stairs below ground level where Macy uses her hands to open a secured locking mechanism, “We’ve managed to build and compile this equipment over the last ten years. Even most of our own forces aren’t aware of how well equipped we are. Come on in.”

A thick door slides sideways to reveal a large hangar filled with weapons, vehicles, and equipment. There are workers making their rounds, inspecting everything to make sure it

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