Chapter 155 - Prelude

“The militarization of the Athen Enforcers is going smoothly.” Major Derfas announced while Henry Lesion stood behind him. It was the same meeting room used for the Consortium, except now Oliver Athen was on the throne.

“Good – how about the progress on building a war economy?” Oliver calmly asked as he eyed the faces of the other Five Families leaders, with Leonard standing behind the throne.

With the unification protocol of the Consortium now firmly in place under Oliver Athen, the leaders of the Five Families were now on track to be the de-facto leading administration in the new semi-autonomous planet of Athen.

However, unification is not as easy as it sounds, and Oliver was well aware of it. The number of resources needed to be put into logistical extension as well as the spread of jurisdiction of enforcement was hampered by local resistance.

A semi-autonomous planet did not happen overnight.

“I have my best people on the job to formulate the logistical backbone for the Athen Enforcers. We have multiple industrial districts from the Vittas along with the raw materials needed to sustain a two year civil war based on our simulations.” Verna Portu reported.

Benedict Vitta nodded in agreement. “We have performed multiple vertical mergers with a number of factories and engineering design companies to form three separate military contractor bodies that can fulfil any request from the Athen Enforcers. The three are split into ammunition, military equipment and weapons. We are already in the process of mass manufacturing IFVs and New Saint Peacekeepers energy rifles.”

“As for my end, we’re ensuring our hospitals can withstand the expected number of casualties. We’re working on mass producing neutralizing agents for the more common chemical agents that the criminals from the Beyond usually uses. We are also training a medic to be embedded into every single squad to ensure consistent combat power.” Felton Seras reported.

Oliver nodded. “For my side, the Keepers will act as a special division under the command of Maddy. We will pinpoint key highly defended targets and leverage on our autonomous exosuits to break through.”

The Keepers were touted to be much more efficient in urban combat, with a single Keeper being able to synchronize with up to five other drones, effectively being a combat squad on its own with perfect communication and synchronization. The technology effectively circumvented many of the issues that usually occurred during such battles.

Their method of control was via the black goo, so it was also immune to electromagnetic disruptions commonly applied by conventional militaries. It was basically a consistent secure communication line, which would heavily benefit the adaptability of the Keepers to stay up to date on battlefield conditions.

“Have we received any more information from our embedded spies?” Oliver asked Leonard.

“None, sir, the rebellion has gone into lockdown. Their cybersecurity protocols have drastically improved and it’s impossible for us to gleam any information. None of our informants embedded within can leak intelligence without being exposed either.” Leonard replied stoically.

“No matter, our simulations have accounted for every possible rebel action. We have contingencies in place for every potential outcome, though I suspect with our overwhelming technology and logistical advantage, we will win easily.” Major Derfas grinned. “The rebellion can send as many spies as they want to us, all they will find out is their overwhelming loss.”

***

“Gillian!” An angry voice suddenly startled a girl out of her deep slumber, causing her to panic and stand up from her lecture hall seat. “How dare you sleep on your first week! Explain the reasons why technological advancement and levels are not uniform throughout the known human galaxy!” The lecturer pointed to a three-dimensional map that was being holographically displayed now.

“Erm.. erm… I don’t know?” Gillian stuttered and blushed. Her classmates began to snicker and laugh at her, while the disappointed lecturer merely shook his head.

“I really don’t know how you got accepted into this university in the first place! An outer of all people even… Stand at the side for the remainder of the lecture so you don’t block the others.” The lecturer ordered.

A wave of laughter erupted through the hall as she meekly stepped to the side, shuffling through the aisles. “For the enlightenment of our dear Gillian, the reason why technological advancement is skewed is due to the distance between the various human states. Think back to our previous lecture on the development of technology on Ancient Earth. Just because someone had invented something new did not mean that the rest of the world was immediately in a position to adopt it.”

The lecturer used his hand to point towards the galactic map. “While the S-Class states sound like they are extremely advanced and might be envisioned by many of you to live in a higher dimension, the gap is not as far in terms of scientific comprehension. Where the real gap is in the resources available.”

“The closer you go to the supermassive black hole in the heart of our galaxy, the more material you will find as well as locations that are perfect for manufacturing exotic materials far beyond anything we have.”

One of the students raised his hand. “Doesn’t this mean that the S-Class states theoretically could retain control over the rest of humanity through sheer technological advantage?”

The lecturer smiled. “How long does it take for us to travel from where we are right now to Loeric, our capital planet?”

A brief discussion broke out among the various students. Many of them had spent their entire lives here in Athen, and had not travelled beyond the inner zones! “Erm, maybe less than an hour?” One brave student explained.

“It takes close to a week of continuous travel to reach the Loeric Empire’s capital system.” The lecturer showed a star chart of the movement through the systems with a bolded line. “The main method of intra-system travel is sublight propulsion, be it nuclear or experimental exotic engines. However, there has only been one established way to achieve interstellar travel – warp beacons.”

Many students nodded. Warp beacons were fixed manmade structures at the stable points of equilibrium taking into account all sources of gravity from the local star system. Humanity was easily able to solve the n-body problem of any configuration with great effectiveness in the Galactic Era!

“The warp beacon ranges are not infinite. They may only allow a ship to perform a safe jump between nearby star systems of about 6 light years away. Each jump requires charging time as well as a short travel time of 6 hours in the warp. A ship might also need to change between multiple warp beacons in the same local star system depending on which direction it is travelling in. Do you all now understand the issue at hand?”

The lecturer caused the galactic map to zoom out, while a route was traced from Athen to the centre of the human-controlled section of the galaxy. “It will take us maybe five years at our current D-class engine technology and warp beacon method to reach the centre.”

“But sir, with the technological advancement of the S-Class states, they should be able to reach us much faster. The Council can travel between the centre states to us in a short week.” The student who asked the previous question did not understand.

“And why would they do that? Don’t forget that energy cannot be created out of anything. The amount of energy expended to travel that distance will need to have a strong justification.”

“Erm, perhaps just for sheer dominance?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, wasting all that energy for a meagre star sector like ours? They would be better off heading deeper into the true centre of the galaxy and alien territory, where the materials are dense. Humanity functions on sheer greed and profit – if there are no gains to be had, it is considered a futile endeavour.”

A subdued silence fell over the students. The sheer realization that there were humans far beyond their realm of imagination that could not give a shit about them shook them from within. However, at this moment, a loud distracting snore reverberated through the lecture hall from Gillian who was fast asleep while standing.

“GILLIAN!” The lecturer roared as he stomped up close to Gillian, angered at the blatant disrespect shown. “OUT, NOW!”

Gillian sleepily nodded, lazily walking out of the lecture hall as she yawned. Many students shot her glares of anger, some even wondering why was she even at the University of Athen.

Her long black ponytail bobbed as she walked through the sterile metal hallways which were not crowded as the other lectures were still ongoing. However, there were still a few students loitering around, waiting for their lesson or simply hanging around.

She stood out as one of the rare outers who had been accepted into the University for unknown reasons. With the inners being the majority, the few students she walked past her showed faces of disgust and apprehension at her tanned skin, avoiding her like she was an infected patient.

Gillian shyly avoided them, walking slowly back to her dorm. She had her own personal room that had four bunk beds inside, as no inner was willing to associate themselves with her. The rare few other outers were all in different faculties and were probably facing the same issues.

Closing the door behind her, the previous meek face disappeared to make way for a stern demeanour.

She quickly walked to the table with haste, pulling out her multi-terminal. In one fluid motion, she retrieved a chip from the multi-terminal, before reaching for a nearby personal bag and pulling out a nerval plug adapter.

Sliding the chip into the adapter and plugging it directly into her personal nerval jack in her neck, a slew of personal data from students and lecturers appeared in her mind, allowing her to browse all the data she had managed to copy out from the multi-terminals of anybody she passed by.

“Sigh, looks like Professor Truf is either clean or really good at hiding. I got nothing important again…”Gillian unplugged the adapter, chucking it into the bag. It was merely the first matriculation week, and Gillian had been trying every module as much as she could in order to get into close contact with the lecturers. Why? Because she was a spy for the rebellion!

Months of dedicated research on her part had already helped her to nail down the personalities of all the lecturers. In order for her modified multi-terminal to work, she had to get close enough for long enough. It sounded like something simple that could be accomplished during a lunch crowd, but the lecturers did not eat with the students!

This meant the current window of data collection was now when she could theoretically try as many modules as she wanted before making a final choice. She was effectively planning to attend almost every introductory module.

On the table, she crossed out yet another module on a long list of modules that she had already checked out. The list of modules was almost reaching the end of the paper.

“Most of the professors seemed to have nothing shady on them… It’s either they are really clean, or they have really good hidden data.”

It was not a matter of encryption, as her modified multi-terminal would copy every single data bit raw from the device in question. She had yet to come across any significant data cache that would help the rebellion in any way.

“They are launching the massive offensive in three weeks, I need to dig up as much information as possible.”

The rebellion already knew that many of the secret research projects and technology being developed were in the university, but it was notoriously hard for the rebels to infiltrate the University as there weren’t many inners dissatisfied with the current status quo.

Gillian had hacked the university system to allow herself and a few others in, but she could not expect to be hidden forever. This was an accepted risk of the role she took on, knowing that eventually the gaping hole in the University’s system will be exposed.

“Next target… Doctor Theria…” Gillian knew about the information that the White Fang had collected on him, but it was not very accurate. It only mentioned that the Doctor seemed to be facilitating some sort of worm plague that had been spreading through Rockhold, but they had not collected any concrete evidence of this.

The only evidence they had was the video Ceres had retrieved from the secret lab of Doctor Theria trying to stabilize a infected patient. The evidence was not damning enough, and Gillian wanted to find out how deep did Doctor Theria’s research go. She was naturally biased, but she believed Doctor Theria did not only have Rockhold as his only sample source.

“If Doctor Theria is clean too, I’ll swap over to Professor Dekil, the inventor of the X-12 Stimulant, but I doubt I’ll get anything since he’s such a high-profile target… He’s not teaching any introductory modules either.”

She grabbed her stuff, arranged her hair and checked her expression in the mirror, returning to the same meek shy look she had adopted before. “Perfect.”

Adjusting her behaviour to act shy and meek, she left the dorm, still avoiding the other students but still passing them closely, allowing her modified multi-terminal to copy data from them. She had perfected the blundering aloof approach to a tee as she apologized for a few close shaves.

Checking the location of Doctor Theria’s introductory module, she headed to a biological lab, which was currently empty. She was ahead of the timetable by half an hour due to her leaving the previous lecture early, which meant she could use the extra time to snoop around the lab.

The biological lab was not a simple barebone top bench workshop, but an actual functioning biological lab. A few rooms had restricted access, but Gillian had no intentions of physically breaking in this early. The main area however already had more than enough interesting specimens and ongoing research projects to investigate.

Countless native organisms to Athen were trapped in cages or enclosures all over the main area, which made it effectively a zoo. Thousands of petri-dishes were stacked into server-like racks under cryogenic preservation.

She checked the lab for cameras, of which there were plenty in the corners of the ceiling. “Hmm…” Gillian wasn’t flustered – this was all part of the job and she had been trained by one of the rebellion’s best hackers in the first place. How could she be stumped by a simple CCTV setup?

Gillian quickly pulled out her multi-terminal, activating a program that allowed her to view the power flow of the lab. It immediately showed the rudimentary power and data flow of the cameras all converging on a data panel near the front of the lab.

“How convenient, a wireless router connected to the same data panel.” Gillian easily hacked the wireless router, changing its data reception port to that of the cameras and checking the footage.

“Shit, the cameras are all live, the footage isn’t stored on the camera itself.” She might have hacked the University system, but it was only the student admission system. The University was not that inept at cybersecurity, but Gillian simply took it as a challenge. “For now, I need direct access to the data panel and computers in the lab if possible…”

Gillian sent a command via the router to the cameras, causing them to slightly slowly change their viewing angles by a mere 5 degrees, which would have looked like a small gradual shift on the screen. While this does not sound like much, it allowed Gillian more space to navigate between the blind spots of the cameras to reach the data panel at the front.

Using a wire to plug her nerval jack into the data panel, she quickly manipulated the camera footage to go into a loop, allowing her to freely roam the lab. Without hesitation, Gillian immediately utilized the data panel to try and gain live footage of the restricted areas.

However, it was unsuccessful, as the restricted areas were all a separate system on their own, with no physical connection to the main data panel. “Shit, guess this is as far as I can go… wait, what’s this?”

One restricted area was not cut off, and the terminal within was even able to be accessed by her. “Jackpot! Or so I hope. Let’s see what’s inside…”

Gillian’s eyes flashed with blue lines as she rapidly read documents in the terminal. Many of them were interesting but useless to the rebellion overall. She needed to find out as much as she could about what secret weapon or technology the university was developing if they had any.

Suddenly, she found a document that stopped her right in her tracks. “A-689 with X-12 Stimulant Field Test Final Phase: Combat Scenarios – Mass Conflicts?” As she read the contents of the document, her face showed a tinge of horror and disgust, but her professionalism held strong. “I must get this to the rebellion, otherwise it’s over for us. The Rockhold attack is nothing like what was predicted!”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about them, my dear spy.” A voice suddenly laughed behind her. “You should be worrying about yourself.”