Y: 2142
Inter-Academy Round 10 Fortescue Points: 1271, Rank: 3, PR: 0.723
Term: 4, Round 5
Daedalus Financial Position: +4,700,000 bitcreds
----------------------------------------
“What’s next?” Cisse asked as they watched the prototype work. The comment drew a rare chuckle from Daedo.
“Can’t we enjoy this for a moment?” Ikaros said in awe.
It was the world’s first working Troika Reactor. Daedo’s initial ideas were made into reality by alien experts as Nader called them or, perhaps, they were just the alien equivalent of school children. It had taken them months at their new base to overcome the myriad of issues despite the detailed roadmap and technical designs that Daedo had memorised. In the end, it was nothing like his initial idea, and it was slightly different from the plans he recalled viewing in Master Nader’s secret room. It had taken everything that Cisse and Daedo could bring to the table. They had made sacrifices but, without sacrifice, progress would have been impossible.
The Troika Reactor created and stored anti-matter in a net positive reaction bringing humanity ahead by a century in one fell swoop. The design was such that it could annihilate as needed, but the piece de resistance was the ability to store anti-matter. It was possible to extract and use in a much smaller reactor with just an annihilator, one which could likely fit in a mech and, possibly, an exo but that would be stage two and three.
“Anti-Matter storage, management and micro-annihilators,” Daedo said.
“Is that all?” Cisse asked laughing, maniacally.
Ikaros was concerned for Cisse’s mental state because that was not a healthy laugh, “Perhaps Cisse could have a break, a holiday, maybe just for a week?” Daedo looked to immediately reject the notion but halted his initial reaction and contemplated the suggestion for three full minutes. Everyone just waited patiently because it was bizarre behaviour for normal interactions from normal people but, increasingly, the interactions with Daedo, were headed further from normal, just small changes, month after month.
Ikaros was concerned for Cisse one moment and Daedo the next. There were small, noticeable changes over time. He wondered what was causing these changes in his son. Was it the pressure, his implant and AI or was he just growing into the man he would become one day? All these options were equally scary.
“Myrmidon just checked your work records, Cisse. Analysing the data, I recommend an eight-day vacation visiting ancient sites in South America. You can go wherever you like but be back in nine days ready to work and Vannier can take you,” he recited.
Cisse peered at Daedo. “I am happy to take a break, I’m just a little concerned at how efficient you are at stalking and reading me even if it includes my dream holiday.”
“Would you like an itinerary?” he asked, his expression was deadpan.
“No!” she exclaimed, sounding anxious about the offer.
Despite his concerns, Ikaros couldn’t help but laugh, “We should call the others,” he finally suggested. They are angry enough about being left out of the initial start-up.
Daedo nodded, “I already messaged Vannier to return with the carrier.”
Daedo rejected the proposal to remove himself to a safe distance by Vannier but, at the same time, he insisted the rest of the squad did fly out of range of the most severe catastrophe. It was possible to conduct the test remotely, but the milli-seconds lost in communications could have been the difference for Myrmidon or Cisse’s AI if disaster struck. Strictly speaking, even though the calculated risk of failure was insignificant, they should have conducted the test remotely. Daedo wasn’t perfect. If he were perfect, he would have been with Vannier in the Carrier 100km away. He wanted to be there for the test, to be there in person when the Troika Reactor fired for the first time.
----------------------------------------
“So, it just sits there?” Barran joked.
“Yes, idiot, it’s a reactor,” Picard replied. “It generates… heck, I don’t know how many gigawatts it generates, Vannier?”
“It just sits there, Picard,” Vannier giggled while shaking her head at Picard.
“What?” Picard looked from Barran to Vannier in disbelief that her friend would betray her to Barran of all people.
“Ask Daedo,” Barran suggested.
“No! I want a short answer,” Picard stated.
“Watch and learn,” Vannier told Picard and pinged Daedo over comms. “What’s the power rating of the Troika Reactor prototype, and short answer please.”
“Theoretically, circa ten million terawatts, but we have it limited to one terawatt due to the capacity to handle the load with the internal storage and annihilator hybrid …,” Daedo replied.
“Thanks, Daedo,” Vannier said cutting him off.
Vannier smiled at Picard.
“Know it all, you’ve spent so much time with him that you have an unfair advantage,’ Picard accused.
Kang scoffed, “She’s taking one for the team, and you make it sound like a benefit. You want to swap roles with her?”
Picard scowled at Kang. All her friends turned on her in the space of thirty seconds and she suddenly realised that they had made a pact to limit her when it came to Barran bashing just like Daedo had a limit on the reactor. She sniggered at the comparison which transformed into a laugh.
Vannier looked at Kang who shrugged.
“I know your game!” Picard announced to her friends. Vannier made no sound but made an ‘Oh,’ with her mouth and winked at Picard.
“You’re wrong this time Vannier,” Picard stated, emphasising each word slowly, “You are so wrong.”
Barran looked confused, “It looked like she nailed it to me,” he said.
“She did,” Kang said and began to circle the reactor. “This thing is safe, right?” she asked Ikaros because she trusted him as he was down to earth, unlike his son who lived with his head up his ass. Ikaros looked at her kindly, “No,” he said honestly.
“I like you Mister,” Kang said before circling back to her friends.
“Vannier,” Kang asked, “Can you find out from boy wonder how far away we need to be to survive, if this thing blows?”
“We already know,” Vannier replied, “100 kilometres reduces risk by ninety percent, but it would be best to be on Mars for one hundred percent.”
“So, this has enough juice to destroy the planet?” Kang asked and Vannier nodded. “Okay, I see a flaw in boy wonder’s logic,” Kang said.
“What happened to the no nickname rule?” Barran asked. He didn’t spend much time with Kang normally, so this was the first time he heard her speak this way, attributing a nick name to Daedo twice. He let the first-time slide, but not twice!
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Kang laughed, “Perks of not being in Daedalus PM.” She tapped her bodysuit boldly labeled CIV, where her friends had a zero.
Kang and Axel-Zero held status similar to Ikaros and Cisse in the new regime. The only difference was they were tutored along with the five remnants of Squad Zero.
Barran looked at Vannier, his face showing a small amount of anger and he spoke way too loudly, while not quite shouting, “No one told me this when I signed up!”
Vannier looked confused for a moment, before comprehending his concern, “Did you read the fine print of the Daedalus Military Contract?”
“Of course not, I trust you guys!” Barran exclaimed.
“And therein lies your problem, Y-Boy,” Kang said.
“This is not fair!” Barran raged and turned his glare on Vannier. He really liked nicknames, and Kang was flaunting her power in front of him.
“Kang,” Vannier scolded, “We’re still a team.”
Kang mock saluted, “Sorry, Miss Zero Two.”
Vannier laughed at Kang’s cleverness. She was in Squad Zero, and she was number two in command. She also had red hair all of which resembled one of the most popular stream characters in history called Zero Two.
The group let it drop for a minute while they were waiting for the stream to start. Barran was busy with his helmet on and after ten minutes, he breathed an exclamation, “Yes!”
He immediately walked up to Kang and asked, “How’s it going K-pop?”
While Kang fumed at the sudden turn around, both Vannier and Picard could not help but laugh at Barran’s insightful revenge. After a quick review they realized that the nickname rule only applied internally to the Daedalus Private Military.
Mace arrived to witness the end of the laughter. She stopped, looked at them for a moment in contemplation, before shrugging and announcing, “Stream is good to go.”
The Daedalus team would all be present for the historical stream. They had set up sensors to collect a 360 capture so participants could view in VR as if they were present. If they happened to be an expert, they could access VR terminals and view data from the reactor or, if they were interested, Myrmidon had created a VR representation of the reactor.
They would not be interacting with the physical reactor but with a virtual representation. Mace, Ikaros, Axel-Zero and Myrmidon had worked on setting up a world class stream for the historic event. It was being released on the Daedalus channel, Daedo’s old channel, which he created when he was nine years old playing CyberMech. Axel-Zero and Barran only had to inform a few people of the event before the news spread. They had waited until today to make the announcement and it flew through the mass media like wildfire.
Only Master Picard was not present for the stream. He and Mace’s parents would ensure no unhappy surprises occurred, otherwise their security systems would give fair warning of a significant attack. This was the biggest day in Daedalus’ short life, and it was just the beginning. Daedo’s HUD, which was primarily used for combat, was giving him the countdown. He had been forced by the rest of the team to present with only Cisse joining in. It was his and her moment, other than their silent partners who were lightyears away.
Countdown, 3 2 1, start. “Some of you know me as Daedalus,” he began, “but my real name is Etana Daedo, and I am the commander of Daedalus Private Military.” Vannier thought he was doing wonderfully, despite being an introvert who didn’t like the grunt work. “You may not know that the Daedalus corporate entity was recently folded into our military arm as an ancillary department.” He walked around the reactor continuing, “The Daedalus team has prepared this VR presentation to inform you of our breakthrough, a breakthrough that will change, not only our planet, but it will also facilitate our reach for the stars. It is a new reactor called the Troika Reactor. You will be able to access information in the VR at any time, bringing up output readings, input and visualisation of the controlled particles and reactions. I will pass on to our world-renowned quantum reactor researcher, Ms Cisse Reas.”
Ikaros smiled. Cisse used to work for Fortescue, and he imagined that this breakthrough, ten months after her departure, would cause quite the ruckus. He thoroughly enjoyed imagining it. Cisse began a dumbed down, walk through version of what the reactor did. She explained its current capacity and also its theoretical capability. Its full potential was a million times that of the current peak reactors used by the leading corporations to equip their spacecraft. After a ten-minute overview, she handed back to Daedo.
“The design and technology will be made publicly available on the IPO,’ he stated calmly, “After we reach an agreement with the Big Three.” The feed was then cut.
“So, when will they attack?” Barran said jokingly.
“That’s not funny,” Axel-Zero warned.
“They will talk,” Daedo said.
“How can you be sure?” Axel-Zero asked.
“We showed them the raw power. Would you attack a base that had a reactor capable of blowing up a planet?” he queried Axel-Zero.
“Oh,” she said, “I feel so much better now.” Everyone laughed as her tone implied that she was no longer worried about an attack but a reactor capable of blowing up the planet, a slightly larger impact according to her internal risk assessment.
“The views are rolling,” Vannier stated excitedly. They watched in awe as the VR presentation that was being streamed live to a handful of major media services began to explode in terms of viewers and commentary. Barran laughed and exclaimed, “You had ninety million subscribers, wow that was impressive.” It seemed that there were many people who did not want to miss the next Daedalus stream. After a week, the account had over a billion subscribers which was the most subscribed channel on the planet, and it happened in just one week. The current global population before decimation by alien species was approximately 15 billion.
----------------------------------------
Daedalus’ members popped into the secure VR room from different areas of the base and the globe and included Mace, her parents, Gabe and Adele, Daedo, Vannier, Axel-Zero and even Barran. Only Kang and Picard were excluded as their roles didn’t touch on the topic of the meeting. “Nothing is guaranteed,” Gabe said, “But I do concur with your assessment that the Organisation is not governmental but a servant of its corporate masters.”
“Ones with reach into governments, hence the high-level of interference with the EUDF but, without its support,” Mace added.
“In our research, our best estimate is that the Defence forces will stay behind,” Daedo said.
“Why?” Gabe asked a pertinent question.
“We know they are severely underfunded and underprepared so I can only speculate that their role is to reduce panic as the elite class vacate the planet via the spiral,” Daedo said.
“That’s an excellent point. So, they will just publish that whilst a few rich people and their private militaries are vacating, and the populace need not panic because all the regional Defence forces remain,” Gabe pondered the reasoning as he paraphrased.
“Except they’re hiding the fact that the private militaries are better funded by a factor of a hundred to one,” Axel-Zero added.
“That much?” Adele asked with concern.
“Yes, I reported on this and that is why we have done everything that we have done,” Mace said exasperatedly.
“We’re sorry we didn’t take you more seriously, and we’re on the right side now,” Gabe stated.
“It’s understandable because I wouldn’t take a bunch of thirteen-year-olds seriously either,” Vannier chimed in to soften Mace’s criticism of her parents.
“Let’s move forward, not back,” Daedo stated. Mace peered at him for the slight reprimand. Her features were non-committal in regard to remorse or anger.
Gabe nodded, “This brings us to the currently proposed meeting wherein you should do a video meeting to assuage their fears which will lower their guard. If you were to commit to a face to face meeting now, it would prove to be a major security risk,” Gabe advised.
“Noted,” Daedo said, “so can you summarise the latest report and update everyone here?”
Gabe nodded and, although it was VR, his avatar nodded following his physical movements. “We have been directing our investigation into a low risk segment with a possibly high reward and that segment included the targets of our operations when we were in the Organisation. If we can understand what the Organisation was really after with these people, it will help us identify their agenda.”
“You don’t think it ties directly to what we were just discussing?” Vannier asked.
“It’s possible,” Gabe agreed, but I think it goes much deeper, to a wider conspiracy.”
“We have a few key findings,” Adele said, “When we access all the data from the targets their communications and work show a pattern.” There was an unintentional dramatic pause. “They were all involved in some fashion with inter system and interstellar mass colonisation,” Adele said allowing the revelation to sink in.
“So ... that means they have been suppressing projects and research?” Vannier asked.
“Yes,” Gabe answered. “and this tied in very well with alien conspiracy and is probably why we didn’t scrutinize and question our role as agents.
“The real question is why,” Mace queried.
The discussion continued for some minutes, and Mace noticed that Daedo had withdrawn. He was becoming like this more and more as each week passed. She had known him for almost a year and, he had always held his cards close but, this was different. The paranoid part of her worried it was to do with his cybernetic implant and Myrmidon. Daedo and his AI were closer than anyone else. In fact, he was closer to his AI than other humans. Daedo’s bandwidth was legendary but was that a warning sign instead of an achievement?
She pondered her reasoning while watching him out of the corner of her eye and felt that her logic was sound. When he retreated like this, it was because he and Myrmidon were working on a complicated problem. She wanted to reach out to him. After they became so close during the defence of the base, they had drifted apart while he and Cisse worked on the Troika day and night. But he was hard to reach, even for her. Perhaps she should have a conversation with Myrmidon, and the insightful idea made her chuckle to herself.
“I have an idea why,” Daedo suddenly interrupted the conversation, alert and present after returning from his deep contemplation.