Cloaked Read online

  Von looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well it is true. I can think of several instances during my career that would support that conjecture…”

  Molly’s face was serious. “I’ve read a number of your papers. I believe your work is instrumental in not just the fate of our inner system, and Sark… but beyond, too. But it needs a platform. We need more people who understand it, and can operate from this place effectively.”

  Von started walking again, and Molly quickened to keep up with her.

  Molly continued talking. “I’m advocating we start a course. Right here, within your department, to test the concept. If it gathers traction, and we think it’s worth continuing, then we’ll expand. If it doesn’t we’ll never need run it again.”

  Von glanced over as they headed up the steps into another building. “Sounds reasonable,” she said, non-committally.

  Molly followed her through the door. “Have a think about it, and then reach out and let’s talk. Here are my holo details,” she said, pulling up a screen on her holo so she could bump the information over.

  Von hit a screen, and then held her wrist out. Molly bumped her holo against Von’s. The professor looked down, checking it had registered. “Ok. Got it,” she confirmed.

  Molly noticed another horde of students heading in through another door. Probably a classroom. “What’s up next?” she asked, curious as to what all the excitement was about.

  Von lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she shifted her bag on her shoulder. “Think Tank time,” she explained.

  Molly looked puzzled.

  Von explained quickly. “The folks involved in the discussion plug into a hive mind of their colleagues and discuss the solution to various historical problems.”

  Molly turned her ear as if straining to hear.

  Von grinned. “It’s group-think at its most advanced…” She hesitated. “Trouble is, it needs to be limited and supervised. The effects produce quite a high, and then there is a come down when it’s time to unplug.”

  Her eyes dropped to the floor for a moment. “We had a problem a couple of years ago where students were plugging in for days at a time. Missing classes. Missing meals. And then of course when they had to deal with the disconnection…”

  Her face turned grim, and she lowered her eyes. “Well, you can imagine…”

  Molly nodded her understanding, amazed that such technology was now being used in education.

  Von made her way through the door behind the students who were gathering to be a part of the session. She called back to Molly. “You’re welcome to join us. To observe… if you like,” she offered.

  Molly beamed. “I’d love to!” she exclaimed, following her new contact into the fray.

  Erm. I hope you’re not considering hooking us up to this… thing. Whatever it is.

  It had crossed my mind.

  That was what I was afraid of.

  Come on Oz. What’s the worst that could happen?

  Er… you allow all these students to access your thoughts… and me? You overload the system with the data we manage? You fry their brains. Need I go on?

  Molly went quiet.

  Ok.

  …

  …

  We’ll just observe.

  …

  …

  For now.

  Molly disappeared into the room, and the doors closed behind her.

  Gaitune-67, Base conference room

  “Why don’t you just take them out? You have the resources. The fire power.”

  Molly was nearly an hour into a briefing with the General, and only just starting to understand the deeper problems the Federation was facing.

  Lance sighed as he leaned in closer to the holo. “We do. Except we don’t know what else is on there. We don’t know what they’re planning, or who truly is behind it. We have a hint that the Leath are involved… but we haven’t got enough physical proof to go to war.”

  Molly’s brow furrowed as she grappled with the problem. “And blowing up the ship would be an act of war?”

  Reynolds nodded. “Plus it gives them the scope to say that there was nothing untoward going on there. We know there tends to be paperwork to support these missions. Papers that say that it was straight forward commercial goods, like farming equipment, or whatever.”

  Molly thought for a moment.

  She cocked her head. “But your sources say it’s equipment for fracking?”

  “Yes,” Lance confirmed. “But of course ADAM can’t be physically on the ship to verify that… which is why we need people with bodies to go and check it out.”

  Molly narrowed one eye, still thinking. “But fracking isn’t illegal on an uninhabited planet you have the rights to.”

  Lance chewed on his cigar. “This is true. But the shipments have been ending up on Teshov.”

  Molly nodded her head slowly in realization, mulling what that meant.

  After a moment she had another thought. “I take it you don’t want us to stop them and board them, in an official capacity? You’d have people to do that if that were the case.”

  Reynolds smiled. “You catch on fast. I am suggesting you do this… under cover.”

  Molly eyes lit up in secret excitement.

  Lance seemed to read her thoughts. “You’d need to stay out of it, of course. Just in case they need your leadership from outside the ship. Or in case they were discovered. You’d need to have a way of getting them out… without bringing the federation into it.”

  Molly’s eye crinkled up in concern. “You wouldn’t back us up?”

  Lance sat back. “I can’t be seen to. It would drag us into a war. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid. That is why the Sanguine Squadron exists remember.”

  Molly sat back in her seat subconsciously mirroring his movements, and taking a deep breath.

  After a moment she spoke again. “Ok, boss. Let me talk to the team, and see what kind of plan we can come up with. The exit strategy seems like it might be the sticking point here.”

  The General nodded. “Ok. Let me know how you get on. The ship leaves in two weeks, and you’ll need time to infiltrate the crew before it leaves from Estaria.”

  Molly stood up. “Yes, Sir,” she confirmed, giving him a salute.

  The General returned the salute and ended the call.

  “Close holo,” Molly said, giving the instruction to fold the holoscreen away into the table. She rearranged the chair she’d been sitting in, tucking it away under the table, and then wandered out of the open door.

  Neechie was standing there, watching her leave.

  “Come on Neech,” she chirped, wiggling her fingers to encourage him to follow. The pair wandered down the corridor, Molly deep in thought, and Neechie looking like he was considering his next realm jump with his apprentice.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gaitune-67, Molly’s conference room

  Sean and Oz had been verbally jousting. Sean’s face firmed in tension as he shifted in his chair. “That’s not what I’m saying Oz. All I said was that you have an ability to change how you ‘feel’ about things, and so it’s not that important to worry about your feelings being hurt.”

  Oz spoke over the room’s comm system. “I don’t see how that follows. If I were an organic entity would you be saying that?”

  Sean’s brow wrinkled in frustration. “Yeah but you’re not… so it’s pointless considering it.”

  Jack raised her eyebrows. “Actually…” she started.

  Joel was observing from the other end of the room. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall watching with interest.

  Jack continued. “I think the point that Oz is trying to make is valid. If you had a human who was adaptable… or just thick skinned, would you be more considerate of their feelings?”

  Sean dropped his head into his hands, defeated. Joel continued to watch. He knew Sean was old… but surely not old enough to have been around before EIs were designated Entities with rights and perso
nhood.

  Just then, Molly breezed in. “Greetings folks,” she said brightly.

  Sean looked up an expression of relief on his face.

  Molly plonked herself down in the chair nearest Sean. “Looks like we’ve got a new puzzle to crack,” she told them. “One that includes some undercover work.” She grinned like the cat who had got the cream.

  Sean’s eye brightened too. “Do tell, our esteemed leader!” he said, turning to look at her, and then shuffling his chair round.

  Joel pushed off the wall and came to sit at the table with the others. Jack swiveled her chair to face Molly, her conflict of opinions with Sean relegated to off-duty kitchen talk for later.

  Molly called out to Oz. “Oz, could you bring up the shipping route the General just shared with us please?” she tilted her chin up so that she could hear him through the room’s intercom. She found that she was talking to Oz out loud more and more so she didn’t have to explain herself for the purpose of those who didn’t inhabit her synapses.

  “Of course,” Oz responded, activating the holoscreen against the safe house conference room wall.

  Molly glanced at each of her team members as she spoke. “This is a shipping route between Estaria and Teshov. It’s mostly used by heavy industry carriers. Equipment, technology and the like. This one here,” she indicated by highlighting a route and a profile picture of a cargo ship, “is a ship that does a run every four months or so. We have no idea what is truly being transported. The ship’s manifest says it’s farming equipment.”

  Joel leaned his arms on the table. “And is there a reason we suspect this isn’t the case?” he asked looking for the reason that this was an assignment.

  Molly lowered her head. ”A number of reasons. Lemme run you through them.”

  She pulled up a screen on her holo. It had a lot of graphs and numbers on it. Sean scratched his head as he studied the hologram.

  Molly began her explanation. “This is seismic activity that has been occurring on Teshov. What we’re looking at is the base line activity that has been happening naturally for the last few hundred years.”

  She opened another screen, pushing it over to sit next to the current one. “This is recent activity… in the last six months. As you can see, it is much more regular… and more destructive. In fact, when ADAM noticed this he cross referenced it with known profiles for this kind of planet and found that the activity is activity consistent with core mining.”

  Joel frowned, pulling his eyes from the screen to Molly. “Core mining? But there are people living on Teshov. Surely that’s…”

  Jack finished his sentence. “Illegal? Reckless? Immoral?”

  Molly nodded. “All of the above,” she agreed, her face looking more serious now. “Which is why we need to find out what’s going on. The Federation suspects this shipment may have something to do with it.”

  She flicked some more data up on another screen. Then another two screens, each with profile pictures of people on them. “This is Lana Rey. She’s been support personnel on legal core mining expeditions on various rocks in the asteroid belt.”

  She nodded in the direction of the second image. “This is Dr. Ainstel Brahms. He is one of Estaria’s foremost seismologists. He specializes in energy from geological events… earthquakes, glacial movement… magnetic pole drift. The works.”

  Jack sat back. “So what? They’re involved?”

  Molly shook her head. “They’ve gone missing. Brahms hasn’t shown up for work at his government research project in over eight days now. Rey is also missing from her job in Uptarlung.”

  Joel leaned forward looking concerned. “And how have we linked them to the shipment?”

  Molly flicked back to the original screen with the shipping data on it. “ADAM has done some analysis of transportation paths, and looked at what has coincided with the seismic activity. Allowing for 2 to 21 days to set up equipment and start drilling to place the charges, he’s filtered through the ships arriving at Teshov and taken into account only those that were large enough to be transporting equipment. He noticed a pattern. And their point of origin was always Estaria. And actually - always one ship… the one we looked at several screens back.”

  Sean watched the details on the screen with intense concentration.

  Molly waved her arm over at the hologram. “We think that the personnel have been kidnapped to help on this project. ADAM estimates that if they make even the slightest error in their drilling works, the outer core could create enough environmental disturbance that life on the planet could be wiped out in a matter of days after the event.”

  Jack’s mouth dropped open, her eyes fixed on the screen trying to make sense of what they were hearing. Joel leaned forward, as if trying to hear better.

  Molly continued her discourse. “ADAM has also advised us that the most likely ship for this next trip with the scientists, and probably more equipment for boring deeper, is this one…”

  The screen changed, displaying an image of a cargo ship. Molly shifted slightly in her chair, looking over at Jack and Joel. “It’s the only one that is leaving this month. It’s unlikely they would want to hold the hostages for longer than this… Personally, I’m surprised they’re possibly holding them this long. If I were in their shoes I’d be wanting to do the snatch just ahead of the ship leaving…”

  She shrugged, thinking for a moment before continuing. “Unless they’ve already sent them on in a people carrier. ADAM suspects not, simply because of the large distances involved… and these guys don’t have access to our travel tech.”

  Joel had put his hand over his mouth as he listened. He removed it to speak. “You mean, our pods?”

  Molly closed her eyes and nodded once. “Pods, or whatever. Meaning we have an advantage.” She took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat, dimming the holograms, and raising the lights from her holo. “The thing is if we just blow the ship up, we kill the hostages. If we board, we lose the opportunity to find out what is really going on and who is behind this operation. ”

  Jack raised her hand at shoulder height, as she leaned on the desk. “But isn’t that preferable to letting them continue on?”

  Molly bobbed her head. “Yes, and ADAM is concerned that whoever is behind this might be doing it in other systems too. It’s not just the Teshov population that is at risk… and if one shipment goes missing, the operation will still survive. This makes it more of a weeding exercise…” She looked off to one side, pulling her mouth onto one side of her face, considering her own words.

  She didn’t correct herself.

  Sean turned to her. “So what you’re suggesting is that we go undercover on this ship, as… crew?”

  Molly nodded. “Yes. Oz will create personas for you. He’ll make sure you have proper cover stories and reasons for being there, and then once on board you can dig around and see what’s what.”

  It was Joel’s turn to chip in. “You’re using the second person a lot here. Does this mean you’re not coming with us?”

  Molly nodded, unaware she was sticking out her bottom lip. “The General has recommended that I stay in a position off the ship, in case you need an extraction.”