“Only ten teams are ready” Auton said, “We need another six for the plan to work, so it looks like the only option is plan B”
There was no point hitting only some of the satellites, that wouldn't achieve anything, except be a minor inconvenience. Auton's plan B was the only option, although he hinted there was a plan C, but nobody would like it. Sheryl agreed with him, that was only if absolutely necessary. It was a couple of hours later and they had all been working flat out. They didn't know how long they had to accomplish their mission, it could be hours or days; there was no way to tell yet. The whole of the planet had gone into a frenzy, some factions continuing their assault with bombs in a last-ditch attempt to make up ground. Others were getting closer to their goal of hacking the Elite's subordinates, the ones with the arsenal of weapons.
“How are we doing?” Sheryl asked, anxiously looking at her watch and the cryptic feeds that were coming through the deep web.
“We think we're almost there” Jarrah said, “We just need to place the equipment in and secure it, we've tested it all and they all work fine. We can test it a few more times to make sure though”.
Sheryl shook her head to indicate that she didn't want to waste any more time. She had confidence in her team; they never did anything half-assed before so she was pretty sure they wouldn't start now. Jarrah enlisted the help of as many of his friends as he could and they began hauling the machinery into the craft. There was only a small area to crawl through to get inside and fix everything in place, and it took a great effort to lug the machines up the ramp and push them through. Gina was small enough to get inside but lacked the strength to do the final grappling with the equipment to get in place and screw it in safely. That only left Mateo who could squeeze through and do it, the rest of them tried, but got stuck and had to be pulled back out in a number of embarrassing ways.
Mateo was an IT genius, give him a computer and he'd create whatever you desired, but put him in a nuts and bolts situation, a screwdriver and a few pipes, and he was utterly useless. Jarrah had to talk him through every step, careful to ensure Mateo didn't wire the hard drives into the fuel cells and vice versa. Eventually everything was fixed in place and Mateo climbed out physically exhausted. Sheryl turned the big screen on so everyone could see it and beckoned them over.
“We should probably all have a look at this” She said.
Everyone wandered over to her, glancing at the sixty-inch screen in front of them, a feed from the deep web flickering into life.
“What are we looking at?” James asked, unable to make out much from the shaky picture.
“I think it's a video feed from one of the groups, they've sent out a team to try and assess the situation. The official TV stations aren't reporting anything. It's as if nothing is happening anywhere in the world” She replied.
“So, they need to get out and do some recon themselves?” Mike asked.
“Yep, looks that way” Mateo replied, “Are all the groups doing this?”
Sheryl nodded, her eyes still on the screen. In front of them, phasing in and out was a grainy image, two armed resistance fighters, somewhere in a city, but they couldn't make out which one or what country. They could only see the full figure of one of them as they walked forward, in front of the camera. The camera was strapped to the other fighters' helmet, the only reason you knew he was there was the odd clearing of his phlegmy throat and the occasional glance down as he scratched his itchy groin.
“So, have they asked us to send a team out?” Danny said, hoping for more than just a head nod from Sheryl.
“Sorry” Sheryl replied, “Yes, we've all been asked to assemble two people to go out to each of our nearest areas and feedback what's happening. Without it we're blind, with no idea what is going on out there”.
“We don't have anyone armed left” James replied, “You stood them down from their duties”.
Sheryl stood up and went to grab herself a cup of tea.
“I did, and I stand by that decision” She said, “No one else knows we've abandoned plan A, that's all they have, we have more. They don't have Auton, he has predicted that this will escalate quicker than any of us realise, certainly any of them realise”.
The video feed on the screen continued crackling and breaking up before starting to stabilise, and they saw that the two resistance fighters were approaching a hill in the middle of the city.
“So, when do we launch?” Samir asked, everyone else joining in with the question.
Sheryl turned to Auton, who had remained strangely silent so far, yesterday they couldn't get them to be quiet.
“I will leave that decision up to you Auton” She said.
Auton still stood there, quiet, no movements. Was it thinking about what to do, or had it fallen asleep?
“Auton” Monique said giving Auton a nudge.
The nudge caught Auton off guard and made them jolt in surprise. No one had ever done that to it before, and they didn't know what it was.
“What was that?” Auton asked confused.
“It's called a nudge; I thought you'd gone to sleep”
“No, nudge.... nudge, okay, no, not at all. I was trying to calculate the optimum launch window. Given the current situation and the likely probability of escalation, we would need to launch within two hours”
They all knew they had to do it soon, but two hours seemed too soon, none of them had imagined it would be
