The analysts froze as Rochelle himself opened the door to their claustrophobic little room.
"Working hard or hardly working?" The little guy spoke in the eager monotone that filled others with such dread. "Hah," he laughed at his own joke without waiting for a response. "Hey, not sure if you guys want it, but this is the raw, unedited footage." He produced a small data stick from his belt.
The analysts eyed each other nervously. The old one stayed quiet; the young one didn't know how golden silence was yet.
"Sir… um, we aren't supposed to use those. All those connections got blocked up."
"I brought you an adapter, and a screwdriver if you need to install it. You also have my permission to use this one; it's encrypted, secure, everything. Don't worry about it." Rochelle smiled his smile. "By the way, love that 'devil egg' note. Perfect—exactly what we are selling." The man produced both the screwdriver of vandalism and the data stick of insecurity, and with a deft movement, popped one of the plastic USB blockers off the computer kept in the back of the room.
Before he could insert the drive, the old man saw fit to speak.
"We were just wrapping up. I think we have a pretty complete picture of what happened on that station. We could always use a second opinion, but we really saw almost everything. If there is more stuff that didn't make it to us, I would be rather shocked. If you don't mind clarifying, what's on that disk that we don't already have?"
Rochelle paused, gently aware of the leverage he had here. But then, if the two really had all the info, there wasn't anything to gain by way of the lever.
"Oh? You got all four hallway combats?"
"Yeah," the youth responded, foolish and eager in his willingness to respond. The old man knew youth could only learn by experience.
"Evacuation? Theft of Marine 3's armor?"
"Hey man, if you already know all this stuff, what are you paying us for?" Rochelle laughed. He liked the youth; the youth was very direct in ways that almost nobody was. The chutzpah was a refreshing anathema in the corporate world. Some middle manager was going to slaughter that kid someday.
"Look, I think the best possible chance humanity currently has is analyzing the full data here. Honesty is the best policy, and I want our compilation to the top to be complete."
"Very noble, sir. I have confidence in our report," the older man tried his best to reassure the politico.
"Don't be such a brownnose; it's just self-preservation. You saw that thing, right?"
The analysts had seen that thing.
"Anyway, I've gotta run! Keep up the good work!" Rochelle walked briskly away, off to the update he needed to send his own higher-ups.
He settled into the cozy, modern apartment chamber on board the ship. It was modest, but not without luxury. He sat at the desk and, via biometric key, unlocked the tablet and the controller for the quantum communicator. It was almost time; from what the Red Solstice had detected, the mines deployed at likely Lagrange entry points had been tripped. Something had tried to enter the system and it had been destroyed. Rochelle knew it to be the not-insignificantly costly, and likely crewed, gravitational gate deployment vessel.
It was direct sedition, but so was releasing information publicly. Both carried the death penalty—sort of. Nobody had to know. Least of all the Boss. The boss who was likely to call very soon; it was their scheduled time.
The boss would be unhappy but unlikely to be angry. The current narrative was that of an alien invasion; Rochelle didn't know the details, but that invasion seemed to have the bigwigs spooked. The bet was that they would eat up the story of aliens being aware and hostile to their environments. The goal was that they would ask Rochelle's permission before they entered the system. Naturally, if they knew the exact reason their flag-dropping ship died, it would be "curtains for Mr. Rochelle."
Rochelle reviewed the AI-summarized data and sent a kind non-order to one of the commanders recommending that the "demon egg" be recovered. Rochelle wanted to deliver it personally to the bigwigs if possible. He called the Magus and invited the senior members of the Red
Solstice to the voice call.
"Howdy all. I have a meeting with the prime stakeholder in about half an hour. I want you all to give me a summary of all the information we have so far, and our goals."
Rochelle knew all the goals. He briefly checked them, but his mind wandered as the old men chatted dourly about the minor details of their missions.
The Magus was politely silent until Rochelle prompted him.
"Grand Magus, you know the prime stakeholder thinks very highly of you. Are preparations on that planet going well?"
"Yes, Rochelle." The Magus was polite when the chat was not private. "Indeed, preparations are proceeding, but with significant delay. I estimate only a fraction of the population will be protected in the event of a worst-case scenario."
"Local troubles, huh?" Rochelle didn't mean to sound dismissive, but somehow the dismissive tone was what he had been trained to deploy.
"Yes. You are aware of the history of this planet?"
"Yeah, it had some clone seeding and was very successful in early growth. High ROI, perfect planet."
"That's the happy version…"
"Something is wrong with the planet? Did it grow some powerful sovereign lunatics?"
"I'm looking for permission to speak freely. It's an ugly truth."
"Honesty is the best policy, Grand Magus." It was always nice to get the morality slam-dunk on the Magus.
"Are you sure? I refrain from speaking because you know this meeting is recorded; I don't want to ruin the meeting. This is the kind of story that I think might put us in Syndicate crosshairs—the sort of thing that might put an Inquisition on our tail. I think the truth of this planet is likely intended to remain undiscovered, for PR reasons at the very least."
There was a little bit of chaos as the old roosters in the remote call gabbled among themselves with loose anxiety.
"Well, don't keep us in suspense. We are a fact-finding ship; we know how to keep a secret." Rochelle never understood how so many clever people could lose sight of the simple facts of the mission. He supposed this was why he talked to the primary stakeholder and they didn't.
"This planet is a demographic nightmare. It's one-half clone, one-fifth hybrid, and one-fifth natural-born human."
There was murmuring, and the Magus spoke louder.
"I think this was mistakenly sanctioned by the Syndicate, likely by an individual. I don't know how the shareholders are going to react."
Rochelle didn't bother raising his eyebrows. "This is the first time I am hearing of this. Can we verify this story?"
Another nameless old bureaucrat on the naval vessel piled on. "Is there a military situation down there?"
The Magus's eye seemed to twinkle through the grimy planetary web-camera and the full four-second lag it took him to speak. "I have documentation down here. We can burn it—cover one of the sins of your masters. And no, there is no current military situation, though it may only be years away."
"Why would we ignore the problem? It's a real problem on the planet; it needs to be diagnosed… verified."
"Is that our business?" the Magus asked.
"Absolutely! This comes from the top," Rochelle responded. It was their business; a checkup on the health of the colony was part of the proposed plan, and Rochelle had received a blessing in the last meeting.
If anyone had a problem with this simple statement—and Rochelle could see hints of discomfort on a few of the old-timers' faces—they kept it to themselves. Perhaps the discomfort was only their age.
"Magus, should we join you on that rock?" one of the old salts asked earnestly. "This old vessel isn't made for war; it's made for peacetime operations."
Rochelle cringed internally. The alien invasion narrative was onboard his own ship; it couldn't be helped, but these were supposed to be professional cynics, hardened by years of brutal realpolitik and corporate backstabbing. What did this old officer, whom he hadn't even noticed until now, have to gain by abandoning ship?
"I think that is up to your corporate guidance," the Magus deflected.
"Well, I'll be updating it within the hour." This was one of the reasons religion didn't belong on Rochelle's ship. Not that Rochelle was the captain.
Nobody else had anything important to say. The meeting was cut short, ending early. Rochelle had five minutes, which meant five minutes of shoddy planning.
The awkward pre-call anxiety bothered Rochelle for a moment. Uselessly, he fiddled with the physics toy on his desk—eight hourglasses, each set for a different planet.
He deployed the quantum relay from one of only a few tubes the ship contained, and the zero-latency call began. Somewhere outside the ship, precious metals were evaporating into nuclear components as the little quantum computer shredded its atomic structure, desperately dictating the fickle and unlikely flow of electrons across the galaxy. Encryption was not technically necessary on the device; the message deployed itself directly to the receiver in a physical hardware form. There was no "transmission" as commonly understood. Interception would have denied the message to the recipient, at least as understood by current science. Encryption could happen locally on their machine if you wanted to prevent snoopers; certainly, it was cheaper that way.
"Mr. Rochelle?" That was the boss man on the other end for sure.
"Howdy. Crew is restless, but the plan is simple: deploy to the planet and hunt that monster."
"It escaped the station?"
"Yeah… hijacked a shuttle." Rochelle kept quiet about the recovered and stripped-bare gunship.
"The knights are dead then?"
"They escaped with it."
"What!?" The bigwig let slip an instant of emotion.
"Strange happenings, I know. We are recovering the site. Got a full report on the alien; it left some of its tech, and we are currently recovering it."
"Rochelle, I'm not sure this is a data collection mission anymore. We have reason to believe there are hostile assets in your system—more than just that soldier drone."
"Any details on them?" Rochelle knew he himself was the hostile asset and that the details would be unknown. He had made sure there was zero way to trace the mines back to the Red Solstice. "Maybe we can hunt them."
"We are pulling your location right now. I'm gonna transmit some specs we have."
Rochelle involuntarily raised his eyebrow a fraction.
"Don't give me that! You need to know; we need to be ready! In fact, if you have the opportunity, burn that planet to the ground."
"It's that bad, huh?"
"You proposed scorched earth. That's what we want."
"Whoa… to push back, my proposal focused on preserving assets and population. I want that on record."
"No, we want scorched earth. Company policy, from the top. Your proposal dictated this." Rochelle's heart sank. He was a dead man walking. A week ago, he could have flown home, shot the CEO, and had better odds of living through that fallout than this one. Unless...
"Did you even read my proposal?"
"Yes…"
Rochelle rolled his eyes.
"Okay, okay, you got me. Maybe I didn't read the entire thing. Did you really propose preserving assets and population?"
"Absolutely."
The prime stakeholder swore. "Well, if anyone else reads that proposal, I'm toast. Probably you and everyone else below me are, too."
Rochelle knew this was a lie. Syndicate HR wasn't punitive, nor were they retaliatory.
The stakeholder continued, "The bigwigs saw the phrase 'scorched earth' and you are telling me it was probably out of context? They loved the idea anyway. That's the policy right now."
"Look, I'm worried that whatever happens, I'm gonna get the stick, ma'am. I wasn't gonna write something crazy like that for fear of being blamed, even if I'm already dead."
"I get it, I get it. A moment of weakness on my part." The boss man hated being called ma'am—it made her feel like a grandma. She kind of was.
"So if I get any aid, it's gonna be for scorching the earth alone?"
"All these games are tiresome. No, it's gonna be an evacuation of assets. It always is." The stakeholder was getting existential. Rochelle had won; his internal glee kept his face stone-cold. Victory was when the enemy defeated themselves.
"So can we summarize the guidance? We are falling out of alignment."
"Burn that stuff down. Jam the entire system. I don't want ANY comms in that system. Standby for new orders. They WILL come."
"What do we do about the people already on the planet? Reinforce them?"
"What? No, absolutely not. Grim reality: we can't save them."
The call ended. A drone collected the remains of the quantum transmitter.
Rochelle had what he wanted. Hero of the people-in-waiting, he suggested that the captain resume an orbit around the planet and begin jamming the airwaves. Things had worked out better than expected. Insurance was great. Man, was he glad he delayed help; he would have looked so stupid if command had shown up four hours ago. What a wonder a few deaths could buy.
Then, stealing a minuscule amount of data on the still-open and validated line, he transmitted the codes to detonate all the mines the Red Solstice had placed only twenty-four hours ago. That little quantum computer was pretty slick, any evidence of the crime would be found in electrons lost in an explosion at this instant.