Dastardly Plans
Unfortunately for his piece of mind the answer always came back simply not long, tactically it was vital information for their Allies as knowing which of their operatives would be on the Exile list would enable them to plan effectively so they would survive the closure of the Junctions leaving them alone with the Federation with their personnel gutted and their Organisation is total disarray so easy pickings for the Federation in the wake of the Exile. That state of disarray that would be inevitable once the Exile was over had long been the fear of all the remaining Intelligence Organisations still fighting the Federation in the now so called Federated Empire who had found out about the coming Exile and the closure of the Junctions to the Independents, so knowing who would be on the Exile list would be information they would slit the Hidden’s throat to get. The problem was while that knowledge was vital to their Allies survival as a cohesive fighting machine so must be told due to the Alliance contract the Hidden signed with their Allies, at the same time knowing it would be detrimental to what Dayfad had come to think of as his Duty to the Latent Mould Mutants carrying the Red and Orange Medi-pendants due to be Exiled. While most of the people carrying such pendants would not be affected until the Exile that could not be said for any agent carrying one, he had no illusions about the ruthlessness of some of their more dubious Allies such as the Empire’s Pantheon who would cull their compromised agents with brutal efficiency at the same time getting the most from the sacrifice. Dayfad could see a bloodbath ahead as the Pantheon and to a lesser extent the Allcon Choirs had a drastic rise in suicide missions using their compromised agents as cannon fodder in the months to come it was the main reason he had delayed sending the information as long as possible and contacted those amongst those organisation he could trust, people he knew would be personally effected by the coming storm.
Finally he sighed coming to the same conclusion he always did after reading the letter namely he could no longer delay the inevitable bloodbath he saw eventuating from this information which meant he had to warn young Michael and the other operatives he secretly warned that the jig was up and very shortly the game would drastically change and the foretold bloodbath would be set in motion as once the information was Officially loosed amongst their Allies anyone with a suspect Medi-Pendent would shortly thereafter find themselves labelled expendable which of course was nothing new agents had always been expendable to those organisations to a certain extent but this would bring a greater danger as they would be moved to the top of the list of expendable personnel available for suicide missions.
The greatest problem other than the rising death toll they knew would occur would be the tightening of Assets that would undoubtedly follow during the restructure which would put a damper on many of their present underground salvage operations especially young Michaels. Hopefully the young Archangel had taken all due precautions to cover his tracks thoroughly enough to survive the coming audit of his Choir’s Assets in the coming months he had after all given him fair warning that once the second independent confirmation of the importance of the Medi-Pendent crossed his desk the information it would have to be Officially sent to all the Hidden’s Allies including the Committee in charge of the Allcon Angelic Choirs.
Dayfad grimaced Michael was just one of the people about to be affected by this information and their surreptitious salvage operation curtailed to a great extent by the information when it was sent which was why he was sitting here dithering which was in fact a useless pass time as he couldn’t get out of sending the information, to do so would be breaking the Hidden’s Charter not something he could in all conscious do as it was the only safety his people had as it kept them out of the everyday cutthroat politics of the Quorum by keeping their identities safely Hidden from sight and the Hidden themselves non-political in structure only answerable to the Quorum as long as they complied with their base Charter and the Master of the Hidden could wear a Psi oath that they have never knowingly broken their Charter before the Quorum.
Well he may not be able to sit on it anymore but there was still a way to delay the impact slightly, hopefully it would be enough time to give their true Allies time to duck and cover and hide their tracks further if need be. First he wrote a high priority Data-flash to each of the people that needed warning using the personal coding they had arranged for this venture then sent them off using the Hidden’s Communication Node a hub of fast and high powered relay satellites they had strategically planted throughout the Human Corridors using the Wildfire Freighters as cover, extra relays were sneakily obtained by subverting the normal communication network of the Human Corridors by inserting a highly encrypted programming sub-routine into the base operating system of the satellite system maintained by the Federation, it had been painstaking work and had been an ongoing project for the last forty years as each Corridor system had to be visited and the master relay node had to be reprogrammed with the changed operating system for it to work, thankfully during the War and the decade following it the massive job had been accelerated with the help of a certain Archangel in charge of the Research and Development Choir of Allcon Intelligence. Young Michael had also seen the potential gain to be obtained by subverting the present relay network already in use by the Federation to their own use as a secure network during the War and had some of his people attempt to infiltrate their own programming into the base code and to their surprise found the Hidden’s encrypted relay already totally entwined into the system. Having tracked the addition down to the Ghost Legion and their mysterious Intelligence Arm called the Hidden he had eventually made a pact with the Hidden namely he did a little blackmail saying he wouldn’t tell if his Choir could use the secure network as well, in return he promised that it was a secret that would not pass outside his own Choirs knowledge and even his Choir would not know it was the product of the Hidden, additionally they would help with the massive recode work needed for the remaining satellites which would extend it even more.
That vital warning done he then started on the more Official notification he needed to write, he had two weeks before the next scheduled Data-flash exchange with their Allies, he could easy delay sending off the information until then without effecting the Charter by being sneaky, first he would send the information to the Quorum basically notifying them of the intent to Communicate to their Allies the information they found and confirmed by the specified two independent sources, using the same message to tell the information to the Quorum namely the meaning of the Medi-Pendants and how the information now confirmed had to be shared with their Allies under the rules of the Charter as it effected them more then themselves. He also made sure to list all the pro’s and con’s which would set them to arguing uselessly over it for the next two weeks before officially giving him permission to send the Data on. Dayfad snorted over that, it was not as if they could veto it without breaking the Charter themselves but it would help the Hidden‘s standing amongst the older Quorum Captains by having the courtesy of notifying them first so they could plan for any impact it would cause their own operations.
With that in mind he continued to type up the Official Quorum Notification attaching the numerous reports which contained the Information he intended to condense into Memo form and send to their Allies in the next Data-Flash. Dayfad well knew he was in for a boring fortnight as the Quorum would argue over what to include in the resulting Data-Flash from the Hidden add infinitium going over and over all the information and impact on the Confederacy in annoying detail, information he had already explored and greatly added to in the past months since he obtained the base information from Larabee by way of Kevin. While originally reviewing the Reports he knew would one day be read by the Quorum he had been very careful to remove any reference during their review before storage including any way to trace the original sources of the information contained in the reports merely mentioning that the original information about the pendants and additive was obtained from Federation Fleet personnel by way of one of the Hidden‘s operatives and had been investigated during the time that passed before the necessary secondary independent confirmation from another source not Allied to the first source namely Federation Fleet occurred, the report then on went to say that the second confirmation came from a civilian in Allcon space and was confirmed not to have any connection to Federation Fleet so could be counted as a valid second independent source under the Charter.
On top of that he added the Report from the Hidden’s Laboratory giving chemical confirmation of the disquieting information about the anti-Mould Mutant additive found in all Federation medication and the reaction to it being how they judged who was LMM and given the red and orange Pendants and placed on the to be Exiled list. He added that report as well as the summary of their results it would be an eye-opener to many of the Captains who read it, reactions to Federation Medicine had long been a plague to the entire Confederacy. He hoped it would quietly stop some of the small industrial accidents that had been plaguing Morrigan’s production lines he had traced back to Genesis Cluster but couldn’t prove as more than speculation. If the accidents didn‘t stop he would take action by bringing the situation before the Quorum as the Master of the Hidden and requesting sanctions against the entire Genesis Ship Cluster as penalty for the interference. Morrigan was the new the Pharmacy Ship on record, hindering their production now that they were finally starting to take up the mantle of their responsibilities in this fashion was detrimental to the Confederacy as a whole and curtailing it was well within the Hidden‘s Charter.
The heart of the report complete he paused at the summary section, then a truly diabolical smile briefly flashed across his face as he set to work summing the information up then added the Hidden’s own evaluation including their speculation that once the Junction closed that additive would be upped to lethal levels to eliminate any lingering Mould Mutants left in the Federated Empire part of the Human Corridors making any attempt of faking the Colour of the Pendant by their Allies to remain behind out of patriotism inadvisable as any Mould compromised operatives would be at an extreme disadvantage once the Junctions blew as there was no guarantee the Federation wouldn‘t start adding it to food or water supplies then as their plan would then move onto genocide as they no longer needed it to identify any mould mutants it would become full out elimination of any LMM or AMM remaining in their territory as according to the information obtained from their Federation Fleet source normal or non-mould mutated humans were not effected by the additive at all, even those with the EMS mutation did not react to that additive as it was created solely to react with the metabolism of people with the Crystal Mould Mutation both latent and Active.
As he wrote that he smirked and it wasn’t a nice expression it was the fierce and terrifying grin of a Master Hunter who knew their prey was loosing ground as he had just cut off yet another potential escape route for that same prey because while it was completely true and probably part of the Federations overall plan to eliminate every Crystal Mould Mutant from their new consolidated Empire that way, his little bombshell would also ensure the Sith amongst the Quorum would forsake any tentative plans they presently had of escaping back into the Human Corridors before the Junctions blew if discovered before then. It felt immensely good to eliminate yet another available escape route for the Sith who ordered the murder of his family on MesaTex a feeling he would have to remember whenever he needed to contain his impatience when the Quorum meetings got annoying in the weeks to come.
Once the notification was complete he laughed as he sent it to the Hidden’s Communication Node where it would be coded according to which Ship Captain it would be sent to with the morning data-flash given that here were six hundred and eighty-nine Captains to notify it would be Monday at the very least before a special Quorum meeting would be held more likely Wednesday and even then most of it would be Proxy’s doing the arguing not the Captains themselves citing questions and complaints they received in the form of Data-flashes from the Captains they held proxy for. Given the travel time it would take the actual members of the Quorum to reach the temporary meeting hall presently set up in Tartarus as it was not only the base of the Patrol Citadel but also the only System completely governed by members of the Legion in the form of Tartarus Conglomerate, since the War this had become the usual way such meetings were conducted hopefully that would change once they could make use of their greater technology again and hopefully create a better communication system than the primitive Federation satellite relay system presently in use but that was a research project for after the Junctions closed as on the Journey such communication research had been unneeded as the Ships travelled together so rarely encountered a situation that needed communication outside the length of a Corridor.
Sitting back once he sent it off he started closing down the computer he used only for his work as the Master of the Hidden. That was the best he could do to delay the information under the Charter but it should hopefully give their true Allies a chance to cover their tracks better if needed as even this sleight delay could mean life or death. If all went well he had delayed it a fortnight letting it go out in the normal data-flash exchange with their Allies, by his estimate the Data would probably take another week on top of that to reach all the recipients in the massive maze of Corridors that made up the Human Corridors on the other side of the Junctions known as the Federated Empire. If he was really lucky the Quorum might get into a true tizzy and cause a greater delay missing that data-flash but even then it would only delay the inevitable another month the information would eventually be sent.
Once his consol was closed he left the small office he had been working in by way of the sealed door which made it accessible again only by confirming his voice print, retina, fingerprints and Crystal Resonance. Once the hidden door was sealed and hidden from sight and detection he walked to his normal desk in the larger office he used as Candela’s CEO and started reading the data work his assistant had left behind, checking the results of the orders he had left to be implemented while he handled his job as the Master of the Hidden.
Frowning at the cost estimates quoted by the project manager for speeding up the outfitting of just a few of the higher end apartments so they were ready in a month instead of closer to Winter he sighed and started digging into their report while he knew Kevin would consider the cost incidental as long as his daughter and her family as well as the Maybourne’s and the Orphans had a roof over their head when they arrived on Dis-Pater and emotionally he agreed with him on that, as the Vice CEO of Crystallum he found it unacceptable as the quoted cost was pretty outrageous. With a sigh he set out to tracking down exactly what was costing so much simply to make a few apartments habitable.
It didn’t take him long the high cost came from they way the Chamber infrastructure was set up you couldn’t isolate a single apartment only work in set blocks already predefined by the standard Port Chamber design, a Port Chamber was designed as a pie, each slice of the pie so to speak was self-contained and it was further divided into five inside the resulting pie slice. A slice whose boundaries was shown to cover the ground covered by one of the top Penthouse Apartments and progressed right down to the pie slice in five level increments for fifteen levels making it three times five levels of Apartments, then you reached the warehouse Levels. These warehouses covered another five levels and contained warehouses in various sizes but it all remained inside the same pie slice bordered by the same Penthouse Apartment high above them. Under the five levels of warehouses came the Mall levels which contained three floors of Shops, a level full of recreation areas which also contained the train station for the Port mono rail system which went through all the Chambers and another level of storage used by owners of the shops to store their spare stock. That level also contained the master boards and other necessary controls to maintain the Port Chamber including the centrally located but secured section where the Warp Array was kept.
The problem was that each pie slice was self contained as far a power relays, plumbing and air circulation and filtration not to mention the environmental systems that made the Port Chamber liveable during the long seasonal extremes of a Dis-Pater year. While usually the pie design wasn’t a concern as it made the massive Chambers manageable not to mention most of the infrastructure was already in place after almost a year of work in this case it was a problem as the power systems had yet to be installed and that was the problem as it needed to be installed before the rest of the place could be made liveable namely adding the internal walls and other needed equipment to make the apartments needed in Chamber viable such as kitchens, bathrooms and light fittings. It was the Power needed for the Chamber if it was occupied that proving to be the present problem they were already augmenting the old Warp Array presently in use just to do the structural work and even that only worked because they were only working on a section at a time. To make it cost effective and the apartments they needed actually liveable they had to not only supply a temporary Array to power the section via a shunt but work with the existing wiring structure and use it as it was intended, the base wiring of a pie slice was actually divided into easy manageable sections covering five levels of the pie slice which meant to make the apartments they wanted liveable without a lot of extreme expensive they had the work not just on the Apartments they wanted but the top five levels of the pie slice they chose and make it all habitable which meant renovating eleven Apartments not just two or three as they originally planned which was why it seemed expensive and once the wiring and internals were installed they would still have to supply a temporary array to power those same five levels of the pie slice until the entire complex was complete and the new Warp Array installed.
Dayfad grimaced while Kevin could easily make a Shard Power Array for the job the true problem was if they could get that many apartments completed in time before the Caelian’s and Maybourne’s arrived and needed to occupy them.
Sighing he sent a query to the project manager asking for a time estimate to go with the cost estimate he had already sent him. That done he put it into the pending folder and moved on to the next problem he and his staff had to deal with. First he created a project to evaluate the Modular Skiffs for conversion to ground transport as per Kevin’s idea making sure he included Kevin’s request for an enclosed cabin due to Dis-Pater’s extreme seasons, thinking about it he created a new section labelled planetary transport and moved the satellite navigation project Kevin had him start when he first encountered the Skiffs under that section and set about creating a budget for that section.
Next he moved onto the work needed to set up a new company around the re-cycle plant including the allocation of possible start up funds and created a shell company and then sent it to Lanthorn’s Corporate lawyer to draw up the Datawork offering Lemnos a half share if they could match the offer.
That done he started a high priority message to Cody Montague the Ship Cluster Lawyer explaining the public story concerning the Morrigan mess, namely that Frederica Standfishes died on the Evening Star and the two Standish children should inherit her entire estate including rights to her genetic contribution as well as her husband Daniel’s as he was a Lost Ship child and as she survived him by a few months she had Widow‘s right to his seed at the time of her death to create future children so it should be Morrigan’s right to use it for the same purpose, he also added there was Terran Legacy involved from Fredericka’s mother so he would have a fight on his hands with Genesis, offering him breakfast in the morning to go over Morrigan’s assets and rights which he wanted looked into while he was in Frisco as Guiding Light had been finding a lot of disquieting errors and missing Data from Genesis regarding their time as oversight of Morrigan all of which could be confirmed later in the day as he was having lunch with Maude Standish at noon break to go over the Armageddon Bonding Contract he and Cody had already talked about between Kevin and young Ezra. Adding that as far as he knew Maude Standish intended to leave for Frisco on the first available transport that night or early Saturday morning.
Running through his mental list of things to do he sighed and sent Vulcan and Gaia Corp Kevin’s notification that he would soon have Plasma demolitions available made from Plasma dust adding both Kevin’s and young Ezra’s Artillery Tech Ghost Certification licence numbers to show it was a legitimate offer and that they would not be faulty.
That done he rested having completed all he needed from that conversation with Kevin he had already arranged the guards and other things needed to relocate both the Caelian’s and the Maybourne’s to Dis-Pater, he would deal with the construction of the Ghost Survey Scanner Kevin wanted later as they would be skirting a lot of Quorum rules to make that piece of equipment, if they weren’t so close to end game and the closure of the Junctions he would have vetoed it out of hand, thankfully it would take months to build and even longer to survey Crystallum’s numerous claims throughout Redemption, by then the Junctions would be blown so it wasn‘t really a problem just something to keep very tight security on in the coming months.
Noticing the time with a grimace he pressed his intercom he said, “Monica! It’s late go home to your children I’m almost late for the dinner appointment I have with John Montague and his ditzy daughters so I’m leaving anyway!”
A laugh came through the comm. “I‘ve already sent the poor woman home Uncle Day. I’ve just been waiting for you to get off the computer and realise you’re actually hungry, Rose and Gloria say they will have dinner waiting in the dinning room when we get there, fair warning young Brendan Dean is still on vacation and invited so will be joining us eventually so expect sex and bonding as a topic before he gets here as they will try to get you to put in a good word for them, they dragged him into their bed last night as a toy-boy filling.” John said dryly.
Dayfad snorted, “Do they have any idea who his mother is?“ he asked in disbelief as he closed down his computer and joined him in the outer office.
John laughed, “Not on your life, they would have run screaming not made him their toy-boy last night if they knew about the Judge. I doubt they’ve even worked out he’s a Warrior since they‘re still mooning over him and planning on dragging him back to bed tonight?” he said in real amusement.
“Your ex-wife has a lot to pay for the way she ruined those girls, every time they come visit they act more ditzy than the last and this sudden prejudice against Warriors they’ve started to show is ridiculous considering you’ve always been one and Guiding Light is the Patrol Citadel, I know that marriage was to cement the alliance between the two distant branches of the Montegue Clan that had grown to distant but you and that woman really had nothing in common your Guardians should have chosen better.” said Dayfad shaking his head.
“She was actually the best of the lot and the only one amongst the Mining Montegues I thought I had the best chance of bonding with eventually you know I spent time with them all they was why I stayed with the O'Neill's so I could visit without committing. As for the girls they’ll learn, why do you think I’m not going to tell them young Brendan is a Warrior until they break up or get preggers, at best I’ll get those girls to see how idiotic they are acting or the Judge and I will at the very least get some grand children out of it.” John Montague said with a frown as he contemplated his brainless twin daughters and his admittedly nasty plans for them.
Dayfad laughed at his friend, “Creator, I can just see you and the Judge fighting over visiting rights for the kids if it happens?”
“Dealing with Judge Dean is the only downside to the plan but surely you realise exactly who came up with this plan in the first place and offered young Brendan to be the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter as potential daddy,” John said dryly.
Dayfad laughed himself sick, Judge Dean was distantly related to the Tanner’s through her mother, the Judge had never been in line for the Captaincy of Guiding Light as she was not only born to but married into another ship and chose the Law instead of Officer training, she had been gifted four berths on Guiding light for herself and her children when she answered the call for anyone related to the Tanners to fill the Citadel‘s berth‘s. Dayfad wasn’t surprised the Judge was making sure some of those spare Dean Berth‘s were filled even in such an underhanded way, she had given up a lot to answer Guiding Light‘s call as her unborn son lost his natal berth as her Husband had divorced her for it an crossed young Brendan from the Ship Registry when he was born denying him any rights as his son, he added to the insult by selling the Judges Berth on his ship and sending the berth money to Guiding Light bankers and barred her from his Ship as well. Which was why young Brendan was only a Dean as far as the Registry was concerned the only place his paternal parentage was listed was in the genetic register to prevent inbreeding amongst future generations.
“I don’t know what has you so amused we both know if young Kevin wasn’t a Battle Psicon you’d be begging me to throw them at him instead.” John said with a glare as they walked towards his quarters.
“True but it isn’t so vital anymore as I found a little surprise on MesaTex named Rowena who is about two and a half,” smirked Dayfad proudly.
John snorted, “He’s also about to enter a fucking Armageddon Bonding Contract, Uncle Day! You have nothing to be proud of. I always said our beloved Captain has to be insane being the prodigy of a Tanner and O‘Neill but he didn’t have to win me our damn bet by not only accidentally Twinning a fucking Fed but Courting another Warrior Battle Psicon to boot thereby confirming the insanity just doubled not got cancelled out as you bet.”
Dayfad laughed, “I was hoping it got cancelled but I knew it was a forlorn hope by the time the War ended I just refused to admit it, he‘s a damned Tanner alright they always get into the strangest messes without trying.”
John snorted, “The Tanner’s and the O’Neill’s are the pot and the kettle Uncle Day and you know it, I grew up with Morgan so I know of what I speak. Kevin was bound to show his heritage sometime no matter which side he got it from,” he said with a laugh.
Dayfad chuckled as well it wasn’t as if he could deny that, John had indeed been a friend of Morgan so he knew his O’Neill’s too well for Dayfad to successfully fight the accusation. “So you and the Judge have been plotting?” he said pointedly changing the subject. “Are you sure you can handle that if it works?”
“Damn right we’re plotting, the Judge wants grand children as much as I do just for different reasons plus in case it missed your notice we both have spare berths to fill so even if young Brenden bonds elsewhere later there will still be plenty of bunks left,” and wasn‘t that still a sore point, he hadn’t forgiven his ex-wife even twenty years on how dare she register both the girls for their old ship behind his back by having the pregnancy deliberately induced while he was on Guiding Light denying one of them their rightful berth on Guiding Light as they agreed when it was discovered she was having twins and the call for Crew for Guiding Light went out, he really didn't know what had gotten into that woman it wasn't as if the Ships weren't both Patrol.
“Don’t worry Uncle Day, I can deal with the Judge and I’ll at least get to claim Kevin as real family as part of the deal as they are related if it happens and don’t tell her but the Judge is a fine figure of a woman I wouldn’t mind getting to know some more even if she’s damn annoying at times. Just make sure you have young Brendan take plenty of recreation breaks while he’s building Wisp if they don’t catch this time I’ll continue making them miss count their calendar and a few other dastardly things like sabotaging their Patches the same way the Judge is her son's so hopefully one or both of them will catch a slight case of preggers which is when I‘ll happily tell them he‘s a Warrior and introduce the Judge to scare them shitless to get any bonding thoughts out of their heads, that will make them sign over the children so they could be transferred into a gestation bank.” Not that he thought that would be hard to get them to do their mother had them brainwashed so they would be begging to get rid of the kids anyway they could once they realised he was a Warrior, he heard on the grapevine Sonya, bitch that she is, threatened to disown them if they brought home a Warrior.
“I can see Dinner will be entertaining just remember to remind them Brendan has to be on the Shuttle back to Deuce in the morning as he is the main engineer in charge of building Wisp and his vacation will be over.” Dayfad said dryly.
John smirked, “Oh, Don’t worry about that Uncle Day, I’m pretty sure they’ll be stuffed up this visit, all three of them enjoyed that salad I had made for them special last night, secret dressing and all. I’m betting the touch of last years TriNov and this years January Senata oil in the dressing will do wonders for their love life and fertility.” he said dryly before he swept into the apartment he was presently sharing with the twins leaving Dayfad speechless for once in his life.
Hours later he checked his office and found Kevin’s request for a Braithwaite update on the Banking situation and a order to do a security evaluation on one Philip Anthony Atwater of Atwater Corporation with a general rundown of why he wanted the security evaluation. Frowning he could see the point best to make sure before Kevin’s neophyte War Cluster was compromised which reminded him he needed to find out how long before someone he trusted on Asclepius had time to check Kevin and Larabee’s twin bond and evaluate how much of a danger the defrocked Priest was, such Sith based Psi programming was a mine field waiting to explode and it made him itch having him so close to Kevin.
Before he left for the night he typed up the order to start the security evaluation on Atwater and sent it to the right section then went to his quarters to get some rest Cody would be here for breakfast and he had a long day ahead dealing with Maude Standish.
