Chapter 13: Snippets From a Not-So-Random Chat Room

TERRA CHAT: Room XDFJAR514329KUR5 (Anonymous)

Morgana: You know, I forgot how often you jump into action. Didn’t you think there was a better way to alert them then, you know, violating OpSec and revealing yourself?

Tristan: Oh hello, Morgana. Fancy meeting you here.

Morgana: That’s not answering my question, damnit...

Tristan: Calm down, will you?

Morgana: You know the rules. No endangering mission security!

Tristan: Well, let’s put it this way. If you could come up with a better way to convince a semi-innocent woman that she was about to face mortal danger than interrupting a good dream, I’d like to hear it. Oh, and let’s remember, the time pressure of an incoming attack.

Morgana: I hate to be ghoulish and all, but could you have just not warned her? With everything else going to hell around us...

Tristan: Morgana, please. First of all, you would have saved the girl too. Maybe you could have found a way to divert that hov-tractor after it got hacked, or whatever, but in the moment, you would have done the exact same thing...

Morgana: (sigh) you’re right.

Tristan: I wasn’t finished. The SECOND thing is that you know Lancelot’s feelings on the Donovan girl, and those four on that ship. They may be the best, hell, our ONLY shot at getting into that system and seeing what the hell is going on. Without physical confirmation, we can’t get anything past the bitheads at Terran Intelligence who are either sincerely wrong in their beliefs or being paid to come up with misinformation. I mean, I saw one report that had a wild conspiracy theory stating that alien infiltrators were behind the attacks and it had a regional director’s endorsement for god’s sake.

Morgana: Wait, you’ve penetrated TerInt? I’m surprised you’re still here then.

Tristan: I won’t lie to you and say it was easy. I was only able to get second node access, so I wasn’t able to get the real good stuff, you know, the SpaceBurger spice mix, the completed DNA database of the Royal Family, who shot JR...

Morgana: Wait, who’s JR and what does he have to do with House Katain?

Tristan: Nevermind. It’s an old joke that’s not important right now.

Morgana: I can never tell when you’re joking and when you’re serious.

Tristan: Trust me on this, I’m serious. We may have advantages in this interface, but it limits our real-universe effects. We need people like those five if history isn’t going to repeat itself. And besides, Lancelot has already decided we’re all in. He’s proposed bringing the five of them together, not just that, but at the Last Bastion.

Morgana: Oh my, and to think I accused YOU of acting precipitously...

Tristan: (laughs) I’m staying away from the Hyperpulse Generator traffic, because when the reply from the Bastion comes in, it might melt a few subsystems.

Morgana: LOL. The sheer level of the “YOU DID WHAT?” could probably be seen with the naked eye from space.

Tristan: yup. But I’m using my time well. I’ve deducted that identity of the hacking collective that induced that hov-tractor “malfunction”. I can’t prove it, they seem reticent about putting that kind of correspondence on a server somewhere.