The Dreadnought was packed to overcapacity. Even when the SFC had fewer Marines remaining among its ranks, it also had fewer operational battleships, and offering 6 for this mission was already stretching it thin.
But House Arthas’ plans could not be denied. So, during the month of preparation, the Dreadnoughts were modified to hold 1500 personnel each.
Thus, when I entered my new cabin, I found two beds stacked one over another instead of just one.
“Are you going to move over, or just stand in the doorway?” an annoyed voice huffed behind me. “These bags are heavy, you know.”
“Let me think for a second,” I replied, tilting my head left to right in a mock display of consideration.
“Move over, you enlarged oaf!” The voice impatiently called out, not at all amused by my antics.
With a smirk, I entered the tiny cabin and wondered at the genius who considered a 3 by 3 sqm room able to hold two people for an extended journey.
“Dibs on the lower bunk,” I said quickly and the voice groaned in protest.
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Don’t want you falling on my face while I sleep,” Tommy grunted as he shoved his way inside the room to place his overweight bags on his bunk. After struggling to lift both, he threw the one that didn’t make it high enough to the ground, exasperated.
The closet barely held enough space to hold two biosuits, so we got creative filling every available spot with our clutter. My miniscouts, custom weapons, and parts got their little spot under my bunk.
Tommy hopped on his bed and relaxed. I calculated we had 7 hours before the engines would take us on our way and got comfortable. I stared at the slight curve of Tommy’s weight on the bunk’s frame. It wouldn’t be that bad to share a cabin, I decided. A bit suffocating, yes. It was a year of travel after all and there was little space left unused in the whole battleship, but he was my buddy. We could plan things better this way.
With that thought my optics scanned for any electronics. Specifically, microphones or little camera feeds that would notify me the security forces were keeping an eye on us.
When nothing came up, I felt some tension leave my shoulders. We hadn't brought attention to ourselves yet. No one knew of the scuffle with the Overlord Queen but us four. No one had found my spying chip introduced to the Ortheon II’s mainframe, or what was left of it for that matter, and connected it to me. At least I hoped so.
This was also the first issue of the trip. Get myself ‘online’ while the bustling activity inside Concordia GG got me a semblance of cover.
With a sigh, I rummaged around the box under my bunk. I had prepared a new drone model specifically for this mission, a little robotic critter that would hopefully go unnoticed while it installed the chip. It was so small, barely a finger tall, with four legs and two arms. I placed it inside my left pocket.
“Going anywhere?” Tommy asked when I stood up and made to rise but I stopped him. His eyes widened in understanding and asked in a hushed voice, “Ah, is it time for the thing?”
“Yes, and it’s better if I’m alone, I’ll need to be sneaky,” I explained, and he looked at me weirdly as if he didn’t understand what I had just told him.
“Yea, about that–” he said but before he could finish a knock came on our door and we both zipped our heads towards the sound, alarmed.
“Who is it?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“It’s Ella, open up,” Ella replied and when I did I was greeted with her bright smile. “How are the boys doing?” She asked, looking around me at the tidyish cabin.
“As you can see, we can barely fit with Amon’s size being what it is. How’s bunking with Gardenia?” Tommy asked back, sitting on his upper bunk with his legs hanging.
“Great! She is so tidy, really, the moment we went in she started cleaning the whole cabin.” Ella said, pressing her lips together.
“Oh dear, did she kick you out?” Tommy asked with a knowing smirk and we saw the discomfort appear on Ella’s features.
“She had to… clean, so it was better I wasn’t there that's all,” Ella said in obvious denial, puffing her cheeks.
“Haha, have fun dealing with that for a year! Who knew Gardenia was such a clean freak,” Tommy laughed and Ella considered it for a moment before shaking her shoulders and assuming a beaten look.
This was fun and all but I didn’t have time to play around. “Excuse me but I have something to do,” I said but before I could make it past Ella, Tommy called out.
“Amon, wait. Give me a moment, Ella you too, come inside and close the door,” Tommy said, and I obeyed because he had suddenly gotten serious.
“Ella, Amon here wants to sneak around the ship,” Tommy said with a look and I stared confused as an understanding passed between them.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
“W-what..?” I said as they both turned to me.
“Is that right?” Ella asked but before I could answer she continued, “You do realize that lately, you stand out even more, people take notice of you, how are you going to sneak around exactly?”
“I...I will..,” Huh? I hadn’t noticed that. “Can’t help it, I need to get a connection to the ship’s mainframe, we can’t remain blind during this long ass trip,” I said trying to explain the gravity of the situation.
“So just ask you, dumbass,” She said, exaggerating her motions.
“Ask what?” I asked, still puzzled about where she was going with it.
“Ask us! We are here to help out, you can’t be doing everything by yourself.” She said a little exasperated.
“But it’s dangerous. What if you are caught?” I told her and she shook her head.
“Our life is dangerous, you think we care for a little more excitement?” She said and I could see her brows furrow.
“But–” I tried to no avail.
“No buts, tell us what we have to do,” She hurled her raised finger at me which didn’t leave me with much of a choice.
Why was I being stubborn? I wondered. It wasn’t like she would have to go into the server room herself, the drone would do all the hard work. I looked at Tommy then for some consolation and he nodded at me.
“Okay, okay I get it, who wants to go stand outside the server room and wait for my little drone to install a chip in the ship's mainframe?” I asked both of them.
“I’ll do it,” Ella said quickly before Tommy could offer a word.
“Are you sure Ella? If you are caught, the security forces…”
“I’m sure, don’t worry about that, we’ve done more dangerous things in the past years than your little spy work,” She replied. “I just need to wait for it to finish its job and bring it back here, right?”
“That’s right,” I said and laid back on my bunk. I saw the certainty in her eyes, and decided to trust her, “I’ll be controlling it remotely, if something doesn't feel right bolt right away. Don’t stick around waiting for trouble.”
“Yes, Sergeant Serious,” Ella teased. I handed her the little drone, which she examined for a moment before putting it out of sight. Tommy followed after her. He would be on the lookout.
I guess they had a point, I couldn’t be as sneaky as I liked anymore. My reputation was creating some spillover problems that I hadn’t anticipated.
With my app connected to the drone, I watched its camera feed on my HUD but there wasn’t much to see apart from a blank black screen. Ella would need some time until she made her way to the Dreadnought’s servers.
That unfortunately happened to be a level below the bridge, and right next to the security forces crew cabins.
I can’t say that I liked my friends sticking out their necks for my projects, but if they wanted to help so much, I could at least give them the chance.
My leg danced to a restless beat. Waiting alone in the cabin didn’t help take my mind off the fact that Ella might get caught and interrogated. The bred brutes had only one setting and it was rough.
My eyes went back and forth between staring at the walls and the black screen before me.
At last, after some time had passed, the camera feed started showing. I watched between Ella’s fingers a corridor leading up to a security door and then turning right out of sight.
It was empty, and Ella moved casually up to the door and peeked around the corner. I could barely make out anything but I noticed a table blocking the way forward with occupied chairs laid out. Three security officers were chatting lazily among themselves.
I heard her whisper a curse before she retreated a step and brought the little drone in front of her face.
“Amon, can you hear me?” she said and I made the drone lift a hand in acknowledgment. “Okay, I’ll distract the guards, you go do your thing.”
“Be careful,” Tommy said beside her. “If you need help just call out.”
She was being reckless. If there was a voice output on the little drone I would have told her to abort, but before I could think of something she placed the drone on the floor and turned the corner in confident strides.
I heard a surprised gasp from the guards almost immediately, but I didn’t dally to check what was happening. My drone climbed to the security pad with its critter legs clinging tightly to the metallic door.
When it got into place over the pad, I initiated the hack. The emitter sent out a weak connection that immediately found purchase to the door’s secure system. With an automatic upload, my software worked its way inside.
While they were not in lockdown mode, these security doors did little to prevent intrusion software sent from inside the ship. SFC wasn’t as mindful of internal sabotage as it should be.
Still, if I did something major, I would be picked up by anti-malware software and forcefully booted out of the connection. So all the intrusion software would do was initiate an instruction error which would partially open the sliding door and freeze any camera feeds that were connected to this room.
The system’s logs would show that the door got stuck before closing. If only the guards didn’t notice now, I held my breath as I pressed the imaginary button.
I winced at the hiss of the door sliding open. It stopped as soon as it happened, leaving a tiny gap for the drone to skitter inside.
“What was that?” One of the guards asked loudly while questioning Ella. I didn’t wait to find out so my drone disappeared between the towering hardware.
My camera feed showed a lit room, with servers built like skyscrapers blinking blue, green, and red lights.
I followed the tightly packed neatly organized cable roads to the central server. It stood proud and tall but the robotic critter hiked its height easily, finding purchase on the myriads of ports and extending cables.
Somewhere above the middle point, it stopped. My instructions made it pull out the chip held in a body compartment and unscrew a part of the server's protective plate with one robotic arm. I counted time with heartbeats.
The plate leaned outwards, ready to plunge to the floor, but the little drone caught it in time. With careful insertion, the chip was placed in an open slot on the motherboard and the plate was screwed back on.
“Huh, why is this door open?” I heard being called out from outside. My mic was barely able to pick up the noise.
I twisted the camera feed to look at the door. A shadow was looming in the tiny gap from outside.
“Hey, who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Ella, there you are, I’ve been looking for you for ages. Sorry officer, first time on this ship, we must have lost our way,” Tommy said.
Cold sweat started forming on the back of my neck, I had to hurry. The little drone slid down to the ground and made its way to the exit. I crept near the gap, checking for the guard's attention, but it seemed to be occupied by Ella and Tommy.
I rushed out and almost froze as the three officers surrounded my friends in a not-too-friendly manner.
My mind raced with ideas for a distraction. Something that wouldn’t get my friends in further trouble.
I skittered across the corridor and hid behind the corner. With the wireless connection to the drone established, I searched the security door’s system for something. Open, close, lock, alarm. There wasn’t much I could do but maybe…
The door slid open with a hiss. I saw the guards take note and move to the opened door.
“Anybody there?” One of them called inside the room.
Another instruction error made it close partially.
“This thing’s broken.” A second officer said and hit the door with a kick.
The door closed.
“There you go, fixed it.” The officer grinned.
The door opened partially.
He kicked it again.
The door closed.
The door opened.
The door closed partially.
“Erm, officers we are gonna go,” Tommy said to the distracted trio as Ella scooped me up from the floor.
One of them shooed us away. The other was banging at the door with frustration. The third simply laughed.
We made our way back and I disconnected from the drone when I saw my friends enter the cabin.
“That was fun,” Ella called out, and I just looked at her. I was still stressed. I wiped my wet palms on the bed.
“Let’s see what we did all this for,” I told her and they sat around me.
My HiRON5 connected to the mainframe and went in without an issue. Looking around the servers, files, and folders flashed before my eyes and I started digging for information.
A high-priority report attracted my attention. I read the title out loud.
“Fleeing Derkal, House Orion has fallen.”