The Codex
Codex Entry No. 4: Titan School of Intelligence Services
The Titan Academy was a joke when it was first created. It was a no-name school on some barren rock beyond the Belt. It wasn’t until the facility proved it’s worth by partnering with the Lorvelle family to produce the Maines that the Academy gained any kind of prestige. Since then, Titan had been the home of several hundred innovations in various fields of science. Few people thought of the Intelligence School though.
By far the smallest of the three schools, the Intelligence School was not typical. It’s students were allowed to cheat, so long as they didn’t get caught. Getting caught cheating was worse than failing courses since it was thought that getting caught doing clandestine activities at school reflected on an individual’s field potential. Most recruits who came to the Intelligence School transferred to the the School of Soldiery within the first year. However, for those few who stuck with the program, the Intelligence School was the most rewarding experience of their lives. It certainly was for me.
Intelligence School students were frequently hired by their fellows from the science schools to steal their peer’s research. The Intelligence School turned a blind eye to it which the School of Sciences chaffed at the notion. Academy took the position that such activities helped the school by helping ot plug security liabilities early and helped the students by allowing them to practice relevant skills in an unstructured environment. It had nothing at all to do that the Dean of the Intelligence School had enough dirt on the University president to get the man ejected from the academy. Anyone who says so is… Well, they would have been visited in the evening by someone like me.
In any event, this school was very secretive and had access to many special privileges the other schools did not. I am sure when the Dean got us those privileges, he had no idea they would be the salvation of Titan.
----------------------------------------
Chapter 5, "…Now you don’t!"
“The boy will never amount to anything, James! He’s not worthy of being a Maine! If he wants to skulk around in the shadows, let him!” – Kiley Maine to James Maine the night before Thomas James Maine left for Titan.
----------------------------------------
My eyes snapped open in a dark space. Looking around, I couldn’t see any light, so I quickly used my fingers to call up my eye contact, well, by then they were pretty much implants, to see in the dark.
It’s cold in here, it’s dark, and everything is metal… This place is clearly body sized, so… I’m probably in the morgue, I determined to which Zeus chimed in, oh, you are in the morgue! Just not the morgue I wanted! It’s clear on the other side of the ship!
We’d gone over the plan several times while I’d been in The Library. It was simple enough, although I still took issue with some of it. Particularly the fact that only I was making a jailbreak.
“Riku Ito and the rest are going to be liabilities,” Zeus counseled, “you are lucky enough to have me to help you manage your nanites and all the changes to your body. They don’t. Riku is heavy enough that there are some sections of the deck he would fall right through. Some of your other classmates are currently nuttier than a Snickers bar thanks to the bad nanites. I don’t have time to go through the files to determine who’s good to go and who isn’t. Besides, the more people with you the less chance there is that you will make it to the shuttles.”
I knew he was right, but it felt so- So wrong to leave people up there. I knew it was the best course of action though, so I pushed those feelings deep within me, and hoped I could suffocate them before anything too heinous came up.
I may have been able to break the lock on the metal hatch near my feet, but I decided that I would try a different way first. Curing my foot up, I slammed it against the door a few times before waiting. Sure enough, light flooded in and the rack I lay on was slide out by a coroner’s assistant.
Playing dead, I heard the man grumble, “Fucking old ass ship! Creaking and groaning! This fridge better be on, because if this body is spoiled-“
My eyes snapped open, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as I rolled and used the momentum to drive my fist into the man’s throat.
That man is likely to need therapy, Zeus commented as I search around the room for some clothes, from his perspective a corpse just rose from the dead and locked him in a small, cold space.
He knew what he was signing up for when he agreed to take part in a military expedition, came my cold response as I managed to find a pile of discarded clothing. Some of it was Martian uniforms, but none of those would be good for getting me off the ship. A lab coat was fine, except that I had no pants or boots, so I would still clearly be an escapee.
I’m going to need to pull someone in here, I decided, but even if I do there is no guarantee that the person will be the right size!
Does size really matter? Zeus asked with a buzz which came off an awful lot like a chuckle. The A.I. became serious again and offered, I can help but you’ll need to wait a few minutes.
Tell me what you want to do first, I said as I searched for anything in the room that could be used as a weapon.
If you go over to one of those terminals then hold your hand over the keyboard and grant me permission to assist with a complex task, I can access the ship’s intranet and ping someone in your size to come down here. This room doubles as an infirmary for this section of the ship. I’ll just say there is an issue with their latest blood work, Zeus explained.
Clever, I praised, do it.
Halting my search for a moment, I walked over to the small computer terminal built into the wall and held my hand over the keyboard.
Do I have your permission to assist with a complex task? Zeus asked.
…Yes, I agreed, still somewhat hesitantly.
To this day I still think Zeus had a calming program that allowed me to operate in those early days without freaking out, but I’ve never been sure. If not, then I had to really be out of my mind to accept his help.
From my fingers I watched as thin veins of silver extended from my finger tips and sunk into the keyboard. There was no other outward change, and once the veins of silver had retreated back into my hand Zeus said triumphantly, you have five minutes until Lt. Winters arrives.
With that, a big countdown timer appeared in yellow lettering that I was sure Zeus generated in augmented reality for me. I quickly found place to hide and gripped a larger scalpel I’d borrowed in my hand.
Looking down, I realized, I can’t get blood all over this uniform! So, I pitched the scalpel at the cork board across the room and watched as it stuck there.
Two seconds before the timer finished the doors to the room opened and a voice called, “Hello?”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
I listened as the man approached and circled around the wide base of the medical platform so that I was right behind him before rising up and seizing him just as I had the doctor. Once he was down, I stripped him down and put him in one of the empty coolers.
As I pulled on his clothes Zeus proudly said, you made that look easy.
I’ve had a lot of practice, I admitted, tugging on everything of the uniform and could and correcting it in the mirror. Earth’s uniforms were very barebones compared to Martian ones. In those days the “uniforms” were just jump suits with some washed-out and muted colors to differentiate officer and enlisted status with symbols to indicate rank stamped all over the place. Of course, none of that tells anyone how I was so familiar with Earth equipment.
As I recollected briefly at the beginning of this account, I had recently done what was known as a “Practice Op” to those of us in the Intelligence School. It’s quite literally a mission we are assigned from Command to test our abilities. Traditionally, they are only as hard or as easy as what your stats show you can handle, and an observer goes along with you. My operation hadn’t been traditional.
All these years later I can admit to it, seeing as it doesn’t really matter anymore, but I was ported on a full tour of the solar system for six months. At the end of that term, I was credited in full for my courses, but in between all of that I had been to Ceres and Russia dealing with an arms dealer who was very fond of Martian tech. During that time, I had become very used to impersonating an Earther, and I’d gotten very used to their equipment.
The fit of my stolen uniform seemed right, as did the shoe size. As I exited the lab, I followed the route highlighted to me by Zeus through my augmented eyes.
I wonder how much of their functionality survived; I thought absently as I walked.
Zeus replied anyways with, All of it and more. I was impressed by that bit of tech. I thought it may be useful for you.
I was surprisingly touched by that consideration. I had sunk more hours than I should have into those, and while they were useful, I was also relieved I hadn’t sunk many sleepless nights into the contacts for nothing.
The halls of the ship were narrow with just enough room for two small people to walk abreast, and the floor was made of an open metal grate with a sort of mesh beneath it to catch anything that fell through. You could see the piping and down into the next floor through it, which was unnerving a bit as It drove home how much of a budget this ship was built on.
What sort of ship are we on? I asked. I hadn’t thought about it much until I really began inspecting, they crappy surroundings.
This is a modified cruiser which was, when new, a Champagne-class. It’s one of the oldest on record, and per Martian databases it’s in mothballs at a facility orbiting Jupiter. If I had to guess, they modified it from there and ported the crewmembers silently to that facility before this invasion, Zeus answered.
Sounds like I have more than one traitor to deal with then, I replied darkly.
Looking back on it, I- I may have put too much on my own shoulders. In that moment I was already thinking of ways to get the Service to let me cut a bloody swathe through the ranks of traitorous Martians who’d assisted with this invasion. Certainly, I knew even by then it wasn’t a small matter.
Zeus and I had talked several things over while in the mental space, and amongst them was the concept that whoever had helped with this invasion had a great deal of access to security around the academy. Had they not, then the orbital batteries surrounding Titan would have torn this whole group to shreds before they were able to come near Titan.
The idea that one of my own people, likely one of my teachers, would turn on us all burned me. I could feel my increased heartrate and blood pressure each time I thought on the matter. I would seek retribution for the invasion, and I knew I would even then.
Familiarity with Earth facilities and systems came in handy, as I learned later that some other escapees who attempted what I was doing got caught because they kept looking at the keypads funny.
Martian ships and facilities don’t use keypads, and we also don’t use four-digit passcodes. We have eight-character passcodes and biometric locks. Much more secure, and much easier as words play better in the mind than numbers. Thanks to some tampering from Zeus, I had the proud passcode of 1-2-3-4, and had used it to get all the way down to the shuttle bay before I had a problem.
It would seem there is something we overlooked, I mentally thought at Zeus as I exited the elevator and let my eyes sweep the space. There were a total of twenty-one shuttle craft, all of them being loaded with equipment.
It would seem so. You have an officer rank, so you should be able to walk around unmolested, but… I don’t think we will be stealing one of these, Zeus admitted.
I smirked as I started began casually walking around with my hand held at my sides, and gave hard looks and the occasional approving nod to random soldiers who met my eyes.
I did one or two laps around the area, noting each crew as I did so, before at last picking my target. It was a shuttle in the very far left corner, and outside of it was a man who had made a makeshift recliner out of several crates and ammo boxes. His uniform had more stains than it should have, and his face hadn’t been shaved in at least a day or two. This was a man who didn’t want any trouble, and my ticket to the surface.
“Ensign,” I said stiffly, approaching him with my best attempt at a concerned officer’s face.
The man slowly rose, gave a lazy nod, and said, “Sir.”
“What the hell are you doing sitting around like the Queen of the Nile?” I asked, my arms crossed in a stance my instructors often took.
The man sighed ,and said, “Sir, the deck guys have this. I’ll fly the bird when it’s time, but nobody wants a tired pilot, yeah?” “Let’s come back to that,” I said stiffly, looking up and down his uniform with great flare and drama to help me deliver my point, “I’d like to see you manifest. Now.”
The man grimaced, and sat back down in his makeshift recliner before opening an ammo box and handing me a clipboard.
“Here you are, sir,” the man said.
Looking over the list I was pleased to see there was plenty of extra room, at least enough that two or three extra people could be on there.
“Why am I missing from this?” I asked shortly, narrowing my eyes. The pilot frowned, standing back up and joining me in looking at my list.
“Er, I don’t- I don’t know, sir,” The man admitted.
“Uh-huh. You mean you forgot,” I accused.
“N-no! I, uh, I thought I took care of everything and went over it!” The pilot defended.
Nodding for a moment, I leaned closer and said, “I’m not really in the mood to fill out anymore paperwork. Are you?”
The pilot shook his head.
“Then why don’t you just pencil me down and we’ll fill out some correcting paperwork later… If it comes up,” I offered.
The pilot raised an eyebrow before nodding.
“Sounds fine sir. I’ll see you at launch then?”
“Yes. I’ll be around until then if you need anything,” I said giving him a backwards wave as I turned to leave.
Impressive, Zeus said, but that manifest called for armored men. You don’t have any armor.
That’s why we have to go pick some up, I replied, exiting the hangar via the door marked “locker room”.
There is a trick that you learn in any basic training environment for when you stuff goes missing. Odds are, you lost it. Of course, most people accuse someone else of taking it because they think it makes them look better. In that same spirit, most instructors roll their eyes and say, “Of course”.
I had done my fair share of that kind of thing, just like everyone else, and something I had learned the hard way was the same thing the people who hadn’t had a silver spoon in their mouth had grown up learning: It’s generally faster and easier to take something from someone else than trying to get your own, as long as you don’t get caught.
I’m going to pull armor out of these lockers. Once I get my hands on some kit, I need to know the best place to stash it, I told Zeus.
Grab your kit and just wear it out, Zeus said.
I should have thought of that.
It didn’t take much snooping to find a locker with the items I needed. Earth’s combat armor hadn’t changed much in the last century, and was still a vest, bump helmet, pads, and a trauma kit. Their weapons were firearms, like ours were at that point, but they were just very well maintained military stock from before the Intelligence War. I only recognized the pieces from books I’d read as a kid. Despite being antiques, both the rifle and side arm seemed in good order. They were more than enough for me to graduate from swinging my fists and choking people.
Once I had my gear, I staked out in a stall in the bathroom and waited until I heard people suiting up. Once it began, I waited a few minutes and left with the trickle of people making their way to the shuttles.
As I passed by the locker I’d borrowed my equipment from, I saw a man standing in front of it, swearing someone stole it. I suppressed a smile hearing that thinking what everyone else was. Of course.
I boarded my shuttle without trouble, and settled into a jump seat quickly. The others on the shuttle with me weren’t grunts, lucky for me, but instead technicians. They all chattered more than they should’ve and I got a few decent snipets. The one that stuck out though was about my people.
“Did you hear that we lost ground to the Martys? Like, they have a guy that turns invisible! Can you believe that? He apparently blew up a whole platoon!”
“I think we lost a guy that turns invisible,” One of the others said, “They’ve lost several subjects from the upper decks. I heard they have one though that could deck a tank!”
No doubt that last part was Riku. I know for a fact that in less than two years after that comment was made, Riku would, in fact, deck a tank. It tipped over with a single punch. I was there. That’s another story though.
As the shuttle descended, I closed my eyes and mentally readied myself. I was going into the heart of an invasion against my people.