Notes: Almost to the Dun-Dun-DUUUUNNN!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Two

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Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Two

Photo by Scott Rodgerson 

The sticking point was Carlisle, as Elanus had so quicklypointed out. Kieron had been ready to argue that point until Elanus hadelucidated, in detail, the many and varied ways they could take out themercenary base.

“They’re sitting geese, if you’ll pardon my Eartherism,” hesaid once the two of them were back with Catie and Bobby. Communications withLizzie and her passengers were open once more, carefully protected against eavesdroppersthis time, and the feed had been absolutely awash with ideas. Elanus had takenthem all in, mixed them together, and offered them up on a silver platter toKieron in less than fifteen minutes, which was good since their hour was almostdone.

“We control external communications, and thanks to the stormsthey have no chance of getting off-planet, not with a ship and not with aweapon. We have the technology to do everything from set off an EMP to releasea Regen-resistant virus inside their base without them being able to do shitabout it. Except shit, a lot.”

“Eww, Daddeeee.”

“I’m just saying, between Bobby’s knowledge of their layoutand Lizzie’s potential for orbital bombardment, we’ve got options.”

“All of which presume we’ve gotten Carlise out in advance,” Kieronpointed out.

“True,” Elanus agreed. “So I think we’ve got to take atwo-pronged approach to our interaction with them. We don’t have a lot of timeto waste on specialty tech, so I think we’ll have to open with offering themthe concealment tech.” Catie and Lizzie’s cloaking technology wasn’t energybased, at least not wholly; there were layers upon layers of it, all of themcombining to give the girls skins that could hide from everything fromradiation detectors to infrared to the naked eye.

All they had to do, for the sake of appearances, was hideone of them from the naked eye. Luckily, the metamaterial that could do thatwas something Catie could easily replicate. “It’s jussst simple atomic-leveloooptical laaaattices, Kieron,” she told him when he looked dubious. “I could maaakethat in my sleeeep!”

“You don’t sleep,” Lizzie put in.

“Why are you so llliteralll? Ugh!”

“That’s a decent opening gambit to talking with Trapper,” Kieronsaid. “But it doesn’t address how we get Carlisle out.”

“Patience,” Elanus told him. “It’s not the opening gambit tothe entire game, of course. That’s going to involve Bobby going in and doingsome detective work.”

Kieron frowned. “I don’t like the idea of Bobby going inthere without support.”

“He’ll have support,” Ryu said over the com. “In that youall will be close by, talking him through whatever it is he’s doing.” The “obviously”was very evident in his voice, even though Ryu didn’t bother to say it. It wasclear that Elanus felt the same way, and even his girls were sanguine about theprospect of Bobby rolling into a base full of hostiles alone for the sake ofgathering intelligence.

Kieron wasn’t so sanguine. Bless his family, he loved themto pieces but none of them had been trained in group tactics or, consequently,gained a sense of group responsibility. They were all of them shooting stars,the best of the best, capable of doing so much on their own that they didn’tneed to rely on anyone else to cover their backs for the most part. WhileKieron was willing to admit he probably had an overdeveloped sense ofresponsibility by comparison, he still wasn’t comfortable with putting so muchof the heavy lifting on the little bot’s shoulders, especially since Kieron wasa hundred percent sure that Carlisle wouldn’t be alone right now. No, she wasgoing to be surrounded by multiple guards at a minimum, likely all of themheavily armed. They might even have EMP pulses of their own, ready to defendthemselves against an incursion from Bobby after what had happened last time.

“I think…” he said slowly as he worked his way through theproblem, “I think we’re going to have to come up with a plan that allows forBobby to work from a distance.” He explained his worries, and to his creditElanus immediately incorporated those potential restrictions into his plan,bouncing ideas off Kieron rapid-fire.

“We incorporate shielding against an EMP.”

“That’s imperfect and could result in Bobby being strandedin their base, no way.”

“Then we part him out so that all of him doesn’t need to goin.”

“He’s already lost over thirty percent of his starting masssince we got here, and you don’t have the right parts to replace it. No.”

“But it’s far from fatal, and—”

“No.”

“Fine. But if you’re thinking I’m going to give youthe go-ahead to handle infiltration on your own after what happened to you lasttime in there, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I’m not. I promise. But…if we can get the timing justright, we ought to be able to combine a few of our other plans to make the oddsof getting Carlisle out of there without further injury to her or us way morelikely.”

“Do tell.”

So Kieron told him. At first no one said anything at all,and then Xilinn started to laugh. “It will work,” she said. “That willdefinitely work. They’re not going to want to keep her around if you can pullthat off, especially if they’re trying to focus on negotiations with Elanus atthe time.”

“It attacks her dignity pretty severely, though.”

Kieron shrugged. At this point, he didn’t have any spaceleft in him for concerns around his mother’s sense of dignity or lack thereof. “She’ssurvived a lot worse. She’ll survive this too.” Or she would if he had anythingto say about it.

She might never forgive him for saving her, but at leastKieron would be able to live with himself. He didn’t have to be able to livewith her.

He nodded at Catie’s countdown timer. “We’ve got less thanhalf an hour to decide whether this is doable or not. Let’s not waste it.”