The Tau Ceti Agenda

'Okay, Robots, converge on these coordinates.' Major Roberts passed along Suez's position DTM to the unit.

'Well, Danny, looks like we have a couple minutes to kill. Might as well see what we can see, huh?' Suez put his visor on full zoom and started scanning the hangar opening for a good, covert entry point.

Chapter 12

October 31, 2388 AD

Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha (aka Ares)

Madira Valley Beach Spaceport

Saturday, 6:20 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

Saturday, 2:20 AM, Madira Valley Standard Time

On the thirty-minute flight to New Tharsis, Kira and Allison began filtering through the data she had downloaded from the battle cruiser. The biggest issue was that all the data were encrypted using fairly state-of- the-art algorithms. Allison was fairly confident that she could decrypt the files using techniques she had learned from other CIA AICs during her training for this mission.

Allison could easily manage flying the single engine cruiser, the decryption, and DTM the datadump at the same time. The biggest issue was if Kira could stay awake through it. Hopefully, the data would be interesting enough to keep her alert.

It hadn't been just any battle cruiser that Kira had decided to infiltrate. After four years of spying on the Seppies from a fairly influential family, she had come across the fact that the Separatist battle cruiser Phlegra was special for some reason. Why it was special and what was just so special about it needed to be uncovered. Kira knew that the ship was different because it had received some very interesting visitors over the four years that it had been commissioned at the Madira Valley Spaceport.

Elle Ahmi herself had made multiple trips to the spaceship and even been aboard during several of the test flights. What would Ahmi care about the test flights of a common battle cruiser? Kira would've understood if it had been a supercarrier or hauler, but a simple battle cruiser? There was something important about the Phlegra, and that is what her trip to the beach had been all for—to uncover the truth about the battle cruiser.

So, start DTMing anything you get unencrypted. Kira leaned back in the pilot's seat and yawned. She looked out the window at the treetops as they flew by underneath just a few meters away. Then she looked up at the night sky filled by a major portion of the limb of the gas giant that Ares orbited. 'Breathtaking,' she sighed, and tried to relax.

Her arm itched where she had been shot, so she rubbed at it subconsciously. The immunobooster had done its job, and the wound was healed nicely. There was little scarring at all. It still itched. She still rubbed.

Okay, I have several files now complete. Feel free to start in on them, Allison said.

Well, have you read any of it yet?

Not yet. I'm busy flying and decrypting.

Got it.

The first file was fairly mundane, mostly of flight manifests for materials for the different Seppy military ships at the Madira Valley Spaceport.

Here is the battle cruiser's manifest list.

Yes?

Looks like the ship has only skeleton crew and supplies. Shit, the hangar deck was full of people. If that was a skeleton crew, I'd hate to see how crowded that thing gets with a normal one. Kira continued to look through the manifest list.

I've got another one decrypted.

Good. Kira ran her fingers through her hair and continued to read. Looks like the Phlegra's captain hasn't put in any requests for next month's supplies yet. Other ships' lists are here, but not Phlegra's.

What do you mean?

There are no other supply lists past today's date for the ship. Odd, isn't it?

An interesting piece of data anyway. Maybe the captain is a procrastinator.

Maybe . . . Kira yawned. Supply lists were boring and were not going to keep her awake. It might be interesting to follow the money trail, but it was no immediate smoking gun that she could see. Besides, that type of work was far too tedious for Kira to wrap her head around after such a long day. She would need to sleep before she could think more about it.

The next few files were similar and fairly anticlimactic. There was one very short memorandum from the White House marked 'Top Secret' and signed by President Moore three years prior about a field test of a prototype QMT site-to-site test with the U.S.S. John Tyler. Kira had no idea what that meant. The fact that somehow a highly classified document from the White House made it to Tau Ceti startled her and told her that there was a highly placed mole somewhere within the U.S. government.

There was a second file marked with the three letters 'QMT' that immediately caught her eye. It was large, very large. Kira toggled it open in her mindview, and to her amazement, a report with U.S. Department of Defense markings appeared. The report was again Top Secret. Somehow it had been pilfered from a U.S. classified database.

Aha.

What?