Sunday. Earth Standard Time 09:00. Third Fleet Command Ship, CNS Olympia
“What happened to them?” Admiral Petrov had been distracted.
“The Psi-Corp agents that we sent to retrieve the financial information from the cadet were found dead by intelligence,” Rear Admiral Anderson stated.
“How? Is the cause of death known?” Petrov stopped what he was doing.
“We’re unsure. Intelligence has not released the autopsy reports. It strongly implies a counter-espionage team was working in or near the academy.”
“No, the cadet did it,” Petrov shook his head.
“With respect sir, he’s recognized as a level three or four telepath. We had three level fours and a level five telepaths on sight. Their combined strength should’ve overwhelmed his barriers.”
“And yet they are dead now. What does that tell you?”
“Do you want me to begin working on another operation?”
“Not at this time. Your dismissed,” Petrov sank back in his chair.
“Sir,” Anderson saluted and walked out of the room.
Petrov looked at the screen and shook his head. He had ordered this operation and once again blown up. That accursed cadet struck back against them again. He shook his and decided to distract himself with work. A hint of worry was clouding the admiral’s thoughts.
Monday. 14:30 Co-Ed Dorm
The group made it back from lunch. John egged Thomas on but didn’t accept a free meal. He did accept a free drink though. Alice was tired and was sleeping in their bedroom. John was watching the Ocho occasionally as he was sitting at his terminal, RC Car racing was the current competition being televised.
John was doing some background research on Admiral Petrov. After a while of doing that, he shifted gears to try and find where he was hiding a large portion of his wealth. The one common thing all of those that are wealthy and in power shared was a habit of hiding money. In his time as a field agent, he had spent his fair share of days researching financial activities and all of them had slush funds they wanted to store off the record money.
Petrov was no different, though in all fairness John was no stranger to this either. He was on the right track trying to hunt this slush fund down. He couldn’t go after the known accounts, but John, not able to get his chunk of flesh, was willing to settle for most of the slush fund. He started the VI routine to track the money. He logged off and laid down on the couch.
Just as he did that a call came in.
“Afternoon Rich.”
“Hi, John, sorry for the delay in responding I haven’t been home in a while. Congratulations on your first year. And obviously for getting engaged,” Richard Lief was smiling.
“Thank you. She’s asleep in the other room. The second year is busy as hell.”
“It only gets busier, for you especially,” Rich was smiling.
“I’ve heard that. The med students probably have it worse than command in terms of homework.”
“That’s not far off, but command has the weight of the world that you have to bear. I’m sure classes are already proving that.”
“That they have,” John smiled and nodded.
“Have the two of you set a date?”
“Not yet, we’re probably going to hammer most of the details out over Thanksgiving.”
Richard was looking incredibly happy, “Well, I’m happy for you. I’m not sure whether or not any of your siblings or your mother can attend.”
John winced slightly at that. His family dynamic was not a normal one and he didn’t feel a part of the family as much as Richard thought the family ought to be.
“Richard, I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But I’ve been aware for well over a decade now that your wife and kids didn’t want me around. It’s ok though. That message was more for you than anyone else.”
“John, I’m sorry they didn’t treat you as well as you deserved to be treated.”
“Don’t worry about it. Water under the bridge. Your heart was in the right place. I’ll keep in touch and let you know of any updates or dates we set.”
“Thank you, son. Have a great year and it was great to hear from you.”
The call ended. John never had anything against Richard, his heart was always in the right place. He felt compelled and responsible for taking care of John when the ship he was on serving on was located in the aftermath of the massacre on Mendes 8. The main issue with the adoption of John was Richard’s lack of communication with his wife and kids about adding another kid to the family.
John got up and stretched, then decided to lay down on the couch and take a nap. He fell asleep pretty quickly. He was only asleep for about an hour when Alice woke him up by kissing him.
“Hey there sleepy head, let’s go down to the lounge,” Alice was smiling.
16:00 Lounge
Kevin and Thomas were playing cornhole when Alice and John walked in.
“Yo, how’s it going?” John said.
“Good, I’m kind of bored. Like almost missing school,” Thomas said.
“Shut your whore mouth, you dickhead,” Andern was stunned at what he heard.
John and Alice both shook their heads. Alice sat by the other girls. John took a seat on the couch. He pulled up his tablet and was checking things. The VI program he kicked off that morning had found the admiral's secret accounts. He loaded up another VI to transfer seventy-five percent of the admiral’s slush fund. He transferred the account details between VIs and started the new one.
“It’s Stromboli night here guys,” John said.
“Love me that stuff,” Kevin said.
“I have no words,” Alice was highly critical of any Italian or Italian American food they served here.
John convinced Alice to play a game against Kristin and Andern in cornhole. They ended up playing three games before they broke for dinner. Alice and John were up two games to one. The group of friends headed to the cafeteria and sat down after getting their food.
John looked at his tablet before starting to eat dinner. The VI had finished reducing the good admiral’s slush fund to about twenty-five percent of its original amount. The money would be cleaned in thirty to thirty-six hours. He keyed in a couple of things to the tablet to have some of that money be invested and the rest stored in unmarked credit chits.
“So, any fun plans this evening, or are we just hanging out in the lounge?” Nathan asked.
“Got a call I need to take after dinner, but when that’s over that sounds like a pretty good plan to me,” John said after taking a bite of food.
“What’s the call about?” Alice looked surprised.
“Intelligence needed to talk to me about something. Probably related to that mess in the spring,” John looked unconcerned.
“Think something else was going on?” Andern asked this with a mouth full of food.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ok, shut your mouth until there’s no food in there. Would they actually do that?” Kristin was shaking her head.
“When isn’t there something going on? Rich people with power, which most fleet admirals are, are loath to admit their mistakes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were starting something again,” John shrugged, “I am not going to lose any sleep over it.”
The group bounced around from topic to topic. Study plans were lined up for the foreseeable future. Everyone agreed that it was going to be brutally busy until fall break. Where they were going was also brought up. John let the group know about a couple of different places in the Florida Keys that were up for rent.
“So which place has the detached in-law suite?” Andern asked.
“The rest of the place could be on fire or a hot mess and that’s the only thing that would matter to you, wouldn’t it?” Nathan asked.
Andern just nodded in affirmative in response to that.
“Well, I’ll get the place booked within a week or two. Let me know what works for y’all,” John stood up and grabbed his tray, “Heading to take that call. Cya in a bit.”
17:45 Secure Communications Room
“Director, good evening.”
“Evening John. Well, none of this will come as a surprise to you but the officers that attempted to assault you were third fleet assets.”
“Any electronic records of the order from Petrov?”
“There’s no paper trail. Good thing you extracted the details,” LeCroix shook his head.
“So, nothing we can crucify him with then.”
“Correct.”
“Well, win some and lose some. The Psi-Corps isn’t going to try anything funky now that four of their members are dead. And Petrov himself will likely be shitting bricks knowing he just messed up.”
“I’ll let you know if anything else comes up.”
“Roger that. Have a good one director.”
John got up and left the room. When he was about to leave the communications office when he heard someone ask for him. John turned around.
“Cadet, you have another call for you. The same room will work.”
“Hey, perfect timing,” John gave the officer an awkward thumbs up.
John turned around and went back into the room. He sat down at the terminal and accepted the call. An image of Admiral Petrov appeared.
“Can’t say I wanted to see you again, sir,” John crossed his arms.
“Where’s the money?” Petrov scowled as he spoke.
“You’d have to elaborate. I had four telepaths try to kill me the other day. I’m not as good at remembering things as well as I did before. I do recall this would constitute a violation of our little agreement.”
“I don’t enjoy repeating myself.”
“I checked the account list that intelligence had on you lot this morning and all the money was there. Was damn tempted to just nuke your asses again but I had orders not to. So, I didn’t.”
“I’m not going to ask again cadet.”
“Good, so we’re clear that I didn’t touch the money,” John typed into the terminal and pulled up the balances on all the accounts that were affected by the original VI attack on the leadership of the Third Fleet, “As you can see the money is still there.”
“I’m not talking about those accounts.”
John shook his head but internally he was laughing like a megalomaniac super villain, “What accounts? This is the list of accounts I have. I don’t have any others.”
“I know it was you.”
“Are we going to continue this stupid circular argument? I don’t have any other lists of any other accounts. I’ve been ordered to stand down. Do you realize how fucking hard it is to even get one new account? Trust me when I saw it’s a pain in the ass to track down.”
That was a bald-faced lie. John’s VI that he programmed can do in hours what would take a normal agent day to track down. But the good admiral here wasn’t aware of all the tools John had access to. Or what tools he was willing to implement.
“I’m going to ask you one more time…”
John interrupted. “If you’re going to ask where your fucking money is then the answer is the same as I told you the last four fucking times you asked it. Look, I’d love to claim credit for taking shit from you. Seriously, I would take ownership of doing that since your overall douchebaggery is generally annoying to me. But once again, I… DID… NOT… TAKE… YOUR… FUCKING… MONEY… Is that clear enough for you or do I need to draw you a picture?
“Cadet, if I find out you did this, I will hurt you.”
“Careful with the threats admiral,” John’s tone of voice and appearance changed, “If you try to hurt anyone that I care about, I will make it my life’s mission to watch you suffer before you beg me to end your wretched existence. You don’t want to try me. I know everything about you.”
John ended the call. He flung open the door and headed to the lounge. He sent a message to LeCroix that the two had exchanged insults and threats. And that apparently some of his hidden accounts were absconded with.
18:15 Lounge
“You look pissed,” Andern not so subtlety stated.
“Traded threats. If that asshole even looks in my direction again, I’m going to fly into a…” John caught himself before he finished the sentence, “Never mind, best y’all not know where I’m going with that.”
“Done and done,” Kevin said laughing.
“Yeah, if shit goes down, I’m running with you. True you seem to be a magnet for bullshit, but I like my survival rates near you,” Thomas said as he tossed a bag.
“What he said,” Jessica agreed.
“Let’s hope things don’t progress to that point. That’d be pretty bad actually,” John said as he sat down
The group continued their chat from dinner about fall break. Everyone liked the larger house; an added bonus was it had a huge dock and wasn’t that far from a reef. That meant good snorkeling and possibly a whole lot of fresh fish to cook and eat. John booked the house.
“Thomas, does your boyfriend want to come with us to fall break?” John asked, “House is booked by the way.”
“He probably would mark him down as a yes, but I’ll find out by tomorrow and let you know.”
“Cool. Once you let me know I’ll get flights booked.”
“No funny business,” Jessica glared at him.
“Fine,” John was pouting a little.
22:00 Earth Standard Time, Third Fleet Command Ship, CNS Olympia
“Intelligence believes the Alliance was responsible for the cyber-attack sir. It appears the cadet is in the clear, kind of,” Admiral Anderson shook his head.
“Clarify please,” Petrov wasn’t happy with the news.
“The VI the Alliance agents used was most likely originally programmed by Lief, but it was a much older version of it and wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as the one they used recently.”
“So, from the information, we just received the cadet was not the one that was responsible for liquidating those accounts,” Petrov was rubbing his forehead, “I threatened him not an hour ago.”
“That was, to be frank, unwise, sir,” Anderson sank back into his chair.
The terminal in front of Petrov beeped a message had been sent to him. Petrov looked at it for a moment then shared it on the large screen to the right of Admiral Anderson.
“That’s a list of our…” Anderson drifted off.
“Anonymous sender, but we both know who it really came from. It seems the young cadet wasn’t bluffing. I filtered the list right now and there are three hundred fifty people that are connected out to a third cousin of mine.”
“Jesus Christ,” Anderson had seen his wife and children’s names on the list.
“Cancel all plans for any retaliation against the cadet. Let the other fleets know, he’s off limits,” Petrov shook his head, “Any further actions will result in mutually assured destruction. Or him winning entirely.”
“Sir? Are you sure? He’s just a single cadet.”
“Anderson, you haven’t received all the debriefs I have regarding this one. We can assume his telepathic abilities were grossly underreported. His intelligence is off the charts, which is matched by his adaptability and physical attributes. And he is absolutely vicious bastard if he’s pushed.”
“Why the hell is he in the academy?”
“Naval Intelligence thought it’d be better if he were an officer and not a secret agent. They were concerned with promoting him.”
Anderson was rubbing his forehead, “I’ll make sure to let them know.”
“Good, I’ll be sending Director LeCroix notification that at a minimum third fleet will take no more action against the cadet and are strongly suggesting the other fleets do the same.”
Admiral Anderson collected himself and then stood up. Just before he was about to leave the office he stopped and turned toward Petrov.
“Sir, what are we going to do when he graduates?”
“Imagine what he’d do if we set him up to die and he doesn’t die?” Petrov shook his head as he asked the hypothetical.
“I’d rather not, sir,” Admiral Anderson turned around and headed to his room.
He had some communications to send out and three operations to cancel. The door closed behind him.
“I doubt God himself could stop him from the reaping he’d sow.”
22:00 Co-ed Dorm
Alice and John just got back to their room. They were sitting on their couch together looking at possible venues for their wedding. John was trying to convince Alice that they needed to settle on the number of guests first because that ultimately determines what venue they could host things at. That suggestion flew right over her head.
“I’m just saying, hosting the reception at a place that seats a thousand when only two hundred are present is overkill and wasteful.”
“But what if it’s a better place though?”
“I feel like this is the second circular conversation I’ve been in today.”
Alice looked at him, “Are you really out of Intelligence?”
John grunted a small laugh, “I am out, but I will always be an asset of sorts. It cuts both ways though.”
“So, no operations while we’re on vacation again?”
“Well, there shouldn’t be any but since I’m so fucking awesome you never know.”
Alice started to snort and then laughed at John, she finished that with a punch in the shoulder, “I love you, but we really do need to work on your modesty.”
“I am the most modest person known to mankind.”
“Riiiight… That my love is not modesty,” Alice rolled her eyes; she was clearly not convinced.
The couple pivoted back to the wedding discussion. There seemed to be a growing consensus that the wedding ceremony itself would be a pretty private affair, limited to under two hundred or so people. The reception would be much larger.
This talk continued for about thirty minutes more when Alice decided she needed to take a shower. John logged into his terminal and a message came in for him.
“Evening Director. Was about to head to sleep.”
LeCroix was smiling, “Impressive counter op son.”
John shrugged, “Skimmed most of the slush fund of a corrupt asshole, put the fear of God into them, finally convinced one fleet to stop its shit, and put a few coins into my pocket. Yeah, I’d call it a good day.”
“Yeah, about that last bit.”
“Oh yeah, where are my manners? Here’s the location of the credit chits. I held back a five percent cut for expenses and ‘emotional distress,’” John air-quoted the last bit, “And I did not intend on holding all of that money to myself. Just wanted to say that. Plus, that’s only like twenty million credits.”
Director LeCroix laughed, “Received confirmation. The Second and Third Fleets have agreed to cease planning future ops against you. No word yet on the first fleet. Keep your head on a swivel just in case.”
John ended the call and walked into the bedroom smiling. It ended up being a pretty good holiday weekend. It was time to get into the normal routine again though. There were new goals to look forward to. Maybe people wouldn’t actively try to sabotage his fledgling career. John just smiled at that. Too damned many people wanted to see him fail. His career was going to be one challenge after another. That suited him well enough. He wanted to be there and smile at all the people that desperately wish him to fail.