Roars doctor Jang furiously into the receiver. His voice reverberates off of the hewn rock walls of the hidden comm’s alcove. “I’m not that fucking dense you bastards. I have ample defenses, both here on the base, with our trained tactical operatives, even the regular administrative staff of UB313 have combat training. I have my private special forces, plus something extra I had been working on concurrently with my genetics program. So no Mr Jones, I am not going to run this operation into the ground. I have The Company right where I expect them to be, and in so doing, am pushing ahead with a rather important expansion that will take us towards my goal of interstellar travel.” He growls through gritted teeth, his tone a seething hiss full of poison and skin rotting venom. To the uninitiated he would look nonplussed, to those who know him well, they would be running for the closest air lock to escape his wrath, and punitive tendencies.
“Well, good doctor, need I not remind you how many billions we have wrapped up in your projects, and our exoplanet colonization goals. Don’t fuck this up, or I’ll have you eating your own body parts in a universally broadcast cooking show, for my pleasure.” With an audible click the line goes dead. Not just disconnected but dead – dead. The thick glass of the orange yellow bulb is fizzling with smoke, as the whole terminal is fried at doctor Jang’s feet. The long range communications terminal now a molten slag pile which is now untraceable, and entirely unusable. Pulling the receiver from his ear he slams it repeatedly against the now blisteringly hot and oozing slag pile. The only thing connecting doctor Jang to his black market sources of credit will now be nearly impossible to recover even if the base becomes over run, or briefly gets taken by the forces of The Company. All of the internal memory, chips and sensors have been scorched beyond recognition. The base, and by extension Doctor Jang and his people are cut off and alone. A simple gesture which says “you’re on your own.”
“I didn’t come out all this fucking way, so some oligarch prick could second guess my every move and question my genius. Fuck you Jones!, and fuck you good.” Jang bellows. “When everything comes together you shall not get anything from me. Cock sucking fucking mother-fucker!” He shouts, adding emphasis with finger pointing and fist pumps in the air. Straightening his clothes, and fixing his glasses in place on his face, he readies himself to leave the sound proof alcove hidden on the UB313 bridge facility. Stepping out of the alcove with a whisper of smoke and the smell of burnt wiring doctor Jang walks along a short hall that is obscured from the bridge by a cut through made from hewn rock. If you were to look right at it from the center of the bridge, it appears to be an unbroken wall of grey yellow rock. But once you step through it you briefly interrupt the illusion of a straight wall.
Much of UB313 is built this way. With twists and turns, dead ends, and stairs that lead nowhere. Unless you are well worn being aboard you don’t venture out to no places without planning on dying. It helps to curtail snooping, spying and people generally being nosy. On more than one occasion the doctor has gone on a walk about only to stumble over a dehydrated and mostly frozen corpse of someone who likely got turned around and lost in the maze of tunnels, stair walls and hidden passages. Orientation here leads through the medical bay and directly to where you will work. Being an untrusting sociopath with psychotic tendencies he likes his staff to remain silo’d into separate cells. No one knows everything, and there are few friends intermingled between departments. Life here is full on tension and suffering, just the way he likes it. People give him their best work or they disappear. Very few threads left behind in the black ops insurgency that doctor Jang heads up on UB313.
“One can only surmise from the flurry of activity from our benefactors that something, or someone is on there way here. This is it, ladies and gentlemen of UB313. The fight has come to us, as expected. Though we do not, as of yet have the asset under our control, I assume it will only be a matter of time before it is. So sound the alarm! We are to move to pre-battle ready schedules. No exterior sorties unless authorized, no R&R leaves, and turn up the sensitivity on all of our sensor arrays, antennas and scopes. They should be about two to three weeks of high velocity travel distance from us by now. Turn on the sentries if you would, please.” Croons the now giddy and flushed red doctor. “Uh, sir? The sentries? What are those sir?” Asks a man whose face is obscured by a low hanging monitor. “Oh right! I forget just how much I do around here myself. It’s a bit of a surprise really.” Laughs the doctor heartily.
Part Thirty: Ghost of the Dirty Starling
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