Asks the grizzled old man seated at a comically large desk empty of anything except a pen and a few sheets of multi coloured paper. The office secreted in the depths of Torus Station, is well adorned with rich fabrics and expensive artifacts, if sparse. The tall and slender woman standing before him is watching him through cold slate grey eyes. “Yes – sir. And what we know so far is not encouraging. It seems that The Company having let that old bastard Garneau lead a personal war over a vendetta is working about as well as we had come to expect from a guy who spends seventy five to ninety percent of his time in stasis, so that he could try to bring a sense of peace, calm and continuity to humanity. The ego on this guy. Fuck me.” She spits in disgust.
“Yes, yes, Gemma my dear girl, I am well aware of your feelings toward my youngest son. He wanted glory and to command from a place of visibility, while we chose to live in the shadows, and the comfort of anonymity. He’s a fool, but I can’t have him killed. So we let him run afoul of that demented doctor to test his mettle. If he comes back we can control him since we know so much about his goings on within the flotilla. And if he dies. Well then. He’s dead, and we can moved passed this debacle finally, with our hands clean.” He harrumphs in his typically gruff manner.
“Yes sir.” She smiles warmly at the old man. “Now you said you have news. Spill it, I’m rather busy Gemma.” He leans back into his over stuffed leather wing backed chair. The springs creaking under his movement. “Long story, short version then, yes? Right. The nanotech integrated soldiers, mainly the heavy weapons Fire Teams and all of the Walking Tank units caught some kind of brain bug that gave them all irreparable brain damage, and they thought they were all lost. To which your son’s best friend decided to convert them to 100% nanobot automatons, and they woke up, and are now operational, but are no longer human. They don’t eat, or sleep, or communicate verbally anymore. I guess using all of the same batch of nano bots to repair every single one of them created this hive mind between them. Scary good as a fighting force, fearless, and savage. But not human, and the rest of the crew has noticed the shift.
Also – side note. Due to the 100% uptake in the nanobots they have taken to horrific displays of shedding their biological materials. Talk of them shitting out shriveled and wasted organs. The stench is a thick all encompassing miasma aboard each ship until the last one is finished. They do it wherever they are, at any time. I hear it’s a total horror show to behold. The scrubbers and recyclers are being over loaded, and a few regular crew have gotten sick from the decaying body matter. Morale is not high.” She says while wiping her forehead, and tucking a loose strange of her dark hair behind an ear.
“Secondly, the admiral had lost faith in the nanotech integrated teams and almost immediately called on captain Morgan to jump start her Jackal Protocol. Those massive Bison drones she’s so proud of. Anyway – she purportedly had almost sixty crew members injured on purpose to fill the ranks of her fighting force, and they are taking to it slowly. Promising results from the subconscious training regimen, but less so when entirely awake, though I have reports that it’s starting to gel. Oh, also – the captain is suspected of having her more perceptive crew murdered for piecing two and two together.” To this the older man raises his hands to rest fingers interlocked on top of his head. “Did she now. I knew she had ambition, but that’s a bit much.” He coughs out the words. “Hm. Yes, a bit much.” She repeats in response.
“Also, our intelligence suggests that they have picked up a new Ghost Crew member during the resupply at the Mars Six Sub-Orbital Aerial base, but have not updated their HR directory to say who it is. Which seems odd? Do I need to notify anyone of this? That seems rather widely outside the norm.” She smirks with a raised eyebrow. “No, no, you know what, let it stand. Keep an eye on it. Let’s see if we can trace it back before anything comes of it.” He laughs conspiratorially. “Yes sir.” She says.
“Lastly, our spies at UB313 have said that this will likely be a blood bath, as the, as you said, demented doctor has a fair few surprises in store for the admiral and his fleet. Whom are due to arrive at their rendezvous point in a matter of hours from now.” She finishes her statement and cracks her knuckles, and rolls her shoulders. “Mm… well, keep watching. Find out what you can about our mystery Ghost. And let me know when the fighting starts. Is there anything else?” He says while stifling a yawn.
“Actually yes there is. We’ve noticed a signal from out beyond Pluto and Charon that has a encrypted message in it. It appears vaguely human in origin. But something seems off about it. From what we can tell two names repeat a lot. Just the letter ‘K’ and the name Kelvin.” She says. The man freezes in his spot. “Did you say Kelvin?” He sputters. “Yes, it’s here on the report sir.” She pulls a sheet of paper out of a group and softly lays it down on the desk infront of the older man. Looking down at the paper the man’s face drains of colour. “Well fuck me. He was telling the truth.”
Part Thirty Six : Ghost of the Dirty Starling.
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 