By David C. Daoust
“Can anyone even pretend to be surprised?” Dakota continued on her latest rant, in the latest lab she found herself working in, “I mean come on, of course the sand people attacked…”
“Sand people?” one of the lab assistants asked, “Sounds like some crazy monsters in a sci-fi movie…”
“Ha! yeah!” Dakota agreed with a laugh, as she began to rerun wires from the inside of the large cylindrical device they were building, “What are they called? First Wavers?”
“Yeah, I think so,” the assistant answered as she held the control panel Dakota was working under out of the way, “I’m not really from here…”
“So you got a group of people here, all happy and comfortable in their ways…” Dakota began as she continued feeding wires, “And then blam, a whole ‘nother group of people show up, pretty much shoving them out of the way, and not only refusing their life style, but making it that much harder to continue to live as they want… I’d say, at that point, you are already sitting on a powder keg…” Dakota said as she finally got whatever she was working on to snap into place, “Add the deaths from the Black Lung nanites… and boom!”
“Only real question,” Dakota began as she took the panel from the assistant and snapped it into place, effectively covering the wires she’d just run through the device, “where did they get Battle Drones?”
“Right?” the assistant agreed quizzically.
Ultimately, that was only one of the real questions Dakota had been pondering lately. For not only had she acquired more information on the nanite infection after she’d effectively blown the whistle, but the Otomo Corps presence on Twin Crown had vanished completely. Without a trace!
Where’d they go?
As far as she could tell from the added information found in the stolen holo-pad, and much to her horror, the nanites were less about profiting off medications, and more about degrading the limitless free-energy source that powered all of the Onion! Which she could only surmise meant Otomo Corp wanted to put a price tag on energy! All these questions filled her with anger, though none of which she could find the answers to, given her current predicament.
The moon’s governing powers, under Red Faction, had agreed to drop all charges on Dakota’s part of the land speeder heist once she agreed to help end the black lung infection for good. You’d think they’d be appreciative of her warning to begin with. Apparently they were being thrifty on what they managed to get out of her further.
Unfortunately she did not have enough pull to get the dark haired stranger, Colin, who had helped her retrieve the information, out of trouble as well. She was, however, glad Margo managed to vanish before she too was captured.
Dakota had spent the day before building the previously small Ion Cloud device. Once triggered a vast network of ion charged air would sweep over the entire moon, appearing as a light blue ‘cloud’ with tiny bolts of lightning flickering through its mass. A device meant to neutralize the nanites long enough for the host to expel them.
That was before the battle drones appeared on the horizon. Plans changed, the device had to be amplified. The previous settings would have probably fried the nanites for good, as small as they were, leaving most other electronics with only a minor hiccup, for maybe ten, twenty seconds.
Now though, that they wanted to take down the roving battle drones that were currently dismantling the port town, they needed to amplify the device’s effect. Meaning, anything with any form of electronics would be shut down for a good long while, two hours or more, before it would return to normal functioning once the resultant Ion Cloud finally dispersed into the atmosphere.
In truth, Dakota had not only finished the device, but also amplified it a good twenty minutes ago, now she was just dragging her feet, moving wires around and looking busy. She was sure if they knew they could fire the Ion device, they would forgo the safety procedures she had insisted upon before she agreed to amplify it.
Dakota didn’t know exactly who these people were, that could be effectively injured, possibly killed in one case, but she wasn’t about to allow them to just ignore anyone. Something every government managed to do in some way or another, all under the guise of greater good- madness in Dakota’s opinion.
Dakota understood the urgency, given the situation, but she was going to buy the soldiers at least enough time to return, empty handed or no, before she allowed the chance someone could be flat out murdered by something she had built. The dangers outside weighed on her though, as she knew more and more could be injured, every minute she waited…
