"Here it comes," I muttered.
"We require that you proceed to Pluto and neutralize the Feral threat there. Despite the positive aspects of the Connahr field's renewed stability, there is one large negative aspect. Since it is now overlapping Pluto again it is severely agitating the Ferals there. The Shards are growing their Spikes longer and ramping up the frequency of their launches. Our models show that within five days the first of the Spikes will be long enough that the Feral payload will have the velocity required to leave the orbit of Pluto and threaten the inner planets. The last thing we need is the infestation spreading throughout the solar system, or reaching Earth.
"If you successfully neutralize the threat, you and your ship will return here to the facility in northern Canada where you will be granted your pardons, fully debriefed, and then integrated into US forces. I'm sure you agree that this is a very generous offer, and I must stress that it will not be repeated.
"On a personal note, I am looking forward to speaking with you soon, Jake. I'm sure we have a lot to tell each other. Good luck."
With that, the message ended and she winked out of existence.
"Shit, I see what you mean about your sister. She is cold," Marty said.
"I do not like her," Metra said.
"It doesn't really matter what she wants, anyway. We were going to clean out that infestation with or without her requiring us to do it," I said.
I have to admit, I chafed a bit at the thought that she'd think she had gotten her way and made me do what she wanted.
What was really blowing my mind was the idea that somehow my sister was not just in a secret US government agency that used alien equipment and apparently knew all about the Union, but she seemed to be in charge. She'd always been cagey about her job, but I'd assumed that was because it was really boring.
Meredith had been recruited out of her master’s program almost ten years ago by a staid mid-sized management consultancy and had settled in. She was obnoxiously well paid, but that was pretty much the extent of what I knew about her work. Whenever we talked, she was always much more interested in making sure that I was doing the "right" thing.
"Would you like to respond to this message, Jake?" Brick prompted.
Without even thinking about it I answered. "No. We'll hash it out with her and whatever agency she's a part of, but that can wait until we're on a better footing. After we clear out Pluto. We don't want them as our enemies, but we definitely will not be 'integrating' with US forces."
"Fuck, yeah!" Marty said.
I wasn't a die-hard government hater like Theo, and to a lesser extent Marty, but I was getting there. The backdoors in everything, the secret alien tech. My sister a spook. For all I knew Marty was right and the government had disappeared my grandfather. When we got back from Pluto and I had a big enough stick, I'd find out the truth.
"For now, everybody get back to work. We're on a clock, it seems."
Chapter Forty-One: An Unexpected Find
METRA LEFT, RETURNING to Pax to continue working on her hauler. Brick's bots were breaking down the unit I had torn out of the Solar Tap, and with luck it would have enough materials to finish the Redemption. Until then, I had time to kill.
I briefly brought up the design interface, thinking about building myself a new weapon. Inspiration didn't come. I closed it again almost immediately.
Idly, I studied the map of the base instead. Everything was labeled, and the base was almost elegant in its simplicity. It existed to provide Sol with the Connahr field, and to protect the base itself from outside interference either from Ferals or people like me but less well-intentioned. It was noble, in its way. For whatever reason the Union had declared our primitive offshoot of Humanity off-limits, letting us live in our natural habitat. An Enclave World.
I was just about to close the map when something caught my eye. An unlabeled section—a room off a Connector node not far away.
"Brick, what's this room?" I asked, pointing to the map.
"It is an unlabeled secure space. There are no sensors in it, so I cannot tell you what it contains. It is likely to simply be empty, as if it were an important space it would have been labeled on the internal map."
My first thought was it was probably someone's room. That's generally what the spaces off of Connector nodes were used for. Officer quarters, or guest quarters. Rooms that didn't require much of anything except space and life support. For people that were too important to sleep in the barracks with the common folk.
"I'm going to go check it out," I said, and stood up.
The base was small, so the walk was short. I was standing in front of the closed door a minute later. I was quite surprised when it didn't open for me automatically.
"Open this door, Brick," I ordered.
"I cannot. The locking mechanism is on a separate circuit. This is commonly used for personal spaces inside of stations. You will need the proper access key, or you can use your Link and I will break the encryption."
Before he had finished half of that sentence I had raised Excalibur, powered the chisel tip, and with the help of my Engineering vision Augment, had plunged it into one of the three locking mechanisms on the door. The metal crunched with a satisfying sound, and the first of the three locking mechanisms became useless.
"...Or, you could do that."
"I already have a key,"
