Ravens of Eternity

89 Spies and Stalkers

Miko dropped two more amplifiers into her shielded pocket and snapped it shut. Though there were more out there, she decided that three was enough for now. She couldn’t wait to get back and dismantle them.

But there was something else she needed to do.

One other thing that had started to seriously bug her was Commander Chase. She noticed that he seemed to get progressively more obsessive with Eva, even if she didn’t realize it herself.

It came down to a few of his words and actions. If he was addressing any of the pilots, most of his time would be spent talking directly to Eva. Or if he was monitoring their vitals for the Admiral, he paid more attention to Eva’s statistics more than anyone else’s.

And there was that moment when Miko caught the commander leering at Eva when she wasn’t looking. It had only happened for a few moments, but during that time, he seemed... predatory.

It all just seemed like he paid too much attention to her, what she did, how she thought. It all caused Miko’s protectiveness to shoot through the roof. They had spent so much time covering each others’ backs out in the field that it simply became second nature to her to look out for her friend.

So she headed straight towards the officer’s dorms where the commander was staying. She needed to see firsthand what kind of notes the commander had on her friend. And just how badly his obsession had festered.

Unlike the pilot’s dorms, the officer’s dorms were much more spacious. There was still a large administrative building, but it wasn’t flanked by dormitory wings. Instead, the officers lived in a small hab neighborhood off to the side.

Since she had no need for the admin area, she headed straight for the habs. There were dozens of them in neat rows, and almost all of them were two stories tall. Only a very few had three stories, or were otherwise larger than the others.

.....

Miko had no idea which one was the commander’s hab, and she most certainly didn’t have the time or the ability to go through them one by one.

She glanced around to make sure no-one was looking, then fished a small mechanical device out of one of her pockets. It was about half the size of a flash drive, and was made of a dull grey titanium alloy, but she had painted it with some light blue accents.

She powered it on through her DI and performed some initial systems checks on the device. Tiny panels all along it slid open as it unfolded in her palm. Moments later, it had turned into a miniature drone, complete with tiny little thrusters.

Miko tossed the thing in the air, and it zipped off at great speed all around the hab area.

She kept her cool and instead monitored and controlled the drone through her DI, so it simply looked like she was walking and looking around. In fact, she was spying on everything around her instead.

Before she could do any sort of poking around, however, she was immediately stopped by one of the base’s soldiers. Also unlike the pilot’s dorms – this place was slightly more secure. It was all rather pointless given the base’s security systems, but sometimes some people needed extra reassurance.

It appeared that the officer’s dorms employed a guard.

“Stop right there!” one yelled.

Miko froze and turned to look at him as he ran up to her. The last thing she wanted to do was get in trouble, so she didn’t run or fight or anything like that. Even though she would have easily done either.

As the guard came closer, she decided to have the drone perform a simple signal scan of the habs in general. She automatically filtered out any that appeared to have multiple occupants. Since the commander appeared to be a loner, it made sense for her to simply rule these out.

She realized that he had a huge grin on his face, which threw her for quite a loop.

Is this person crazy or something? Should I pretend to be lost?

“Ah, I thought it looked like you!” he said. “Raijin, right?! Did I say that correctly? I’m such a huge fan! Well, for you and Freya! So glad to have you both on base!”

The huge six-foot-something musclebound guard immediately began doting on her. He might have been physically imposing, but they both knew that she wasn’t any kind of weakling. In fact, she had neutralized far more people than he ever would.

And though she was a terror, she was also adorable.

Miko sighed and gave him a smile. He was just a fanboy, and probably wasn’t paying attention to what she was actually doing. So she continued having her drone do its thing and scan the area.

She presumed that the commander had a ton of medical equipment, and so tagged every hab with a larger than average stock of meds. A handful of habs immediately stood out, as further scans indicated they housed sophisticated medical equipment and supplies.

As she did so, the guard prattled on about her ‘Cast, and how it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. The awe was clear as day in his voice. Nervousness, too.

“...and then that time you both made that pirate dance in the middle of a firefight! So hilarious!...”

All Miko could do was smile and nod as he went on.

She took a gamble and sent her drone into one of the medical habs. She hoped that she could figure out which one was the commander’s living quarters quickly. It flew in via an open shutter on the second floor and ended up in a rather spartan bedroom.

The bed was unkempt, and the occupant’s clothes were strewn around the floor. The drone hovered closer to one of the dirty uniforms and scanned it. To her chagrin, it was tailored for a woman.

It meant she had gone into the wrong hab first. She sighed as she sent the drone new commands, and had it check out the second one quickly.

“...oh oh! And that time you hacked that one guy’s mecha and it spasmed for five minutes straight! I couldn’t believe it!...”

Another nod and a smile. Her eyes began to glaze over a little as he went on, partly from his fawning, and partly from the attention she gave her drone.

The drone buzzed into the second hab through its heating vents. As it traveled through the ducts, it performed various scans all around it, and identified the locations of some critical devices.

Miko had the drone come out into the kitchen, where a well-used datapad sat on the counter. She noted that everything was placed absolutely orderly. Tumblers had been placed side-by-side, in descending order. Containers were placed flat against any walls and squared against everything else around it. Spaces between things were exact.

Even the datapad itself sat squarely on the counter. Although it showed some wear and tear, it was clear that it was taken care of well. The screen had zero scratches on it, and was immaculately clean. There wasn’t a smidge of dirt or grease anywhere on it.

The drone activated its screen, which noted that it belonged to one Commander Ryan Chase.

Miko didn’t even hesitate and began to hack in. She was also a bit worried about sticking around too long, and getting found out. But she figured that as long as she had kept the guard’s attention, no-one would figure out what she was doing.

“...ah, anyway, sorry to bug you like that. Huge fan, blah blah. And by the way, is, um... is Freya single?”

Miko couldn’t help but giggle a little as the musclebound guard became suddenly bashful at the thought of Eva. Her friend had a kind of transformative effect on people, it seemed.

“I believe she is seeing someone on Sol,” she replied. “However I am not entirely sure. Her love life is not my business.”

The guard deflated slightly, and sighed.

“Well, not like she would’ve even looked my way to begin with. I’m just some nobody.”

Miko wasn’t sure how to react to that, so she just patted him on a beefy arm.

As she did so, she broke into the commander’s datapad without any issues. His personal security was laughably weak, and she struggled not to laugh out loud. As she comforted the forlorn guard, she had her drone copy over all of its contents, then had it bury one of her worms.

Afterwards, she used her access to open up all of the other networked terminals and access points that the commander had in his hab.

All of that happened in a flash.

“Say,” he continued, “what’re you doing here anyway? This place is sort of off-limits. I can’t let you walk around here without the proper auth. If you’re lost, I can help you though.”

She shook her head.

“I am just being a tourist. This entire asteroid is very interesting to me, and I enjoy exploring all of the little nooks and crannies. I am hoping you will allow me to look around? I promise not to go inside any buildings.”

The guard scratched his head as he thought about it. After seeing all of her ‘Casts, he was certain that Miko was an upstanding person with a good moral code. Seeing her in person only reinforced that notion.

Besides, she seemed so nice and polite – how could she do any wrong?

“I guess it’s okay,” he said. “Just don’t do anything wrong, alright? Definitely don’t record anything. And if anyone bugs you, just let ’em know I gave the OK.”

She happily nodded in agreement and thanked him profusely before he moved on to complete his patrol.

Once he was out of sight, Miko snapped up her drone and left the dorms nonchalantly. Now that she had gotten what she was looking for, there wasn’t a need for her to stick around longer than she had to.

Doing so would have resulted in more attention than she wanted.

And as she headed back to her hab, she reviewed the data that the commander had compiled. Among his many personnel datafiles, the largest were of the four pilots undergoing Promethean Core testing. This made sense, since he was there to monitor them.

However, what alarmed Miko was the fact that Eva’s file was larger than the others combined. They listed all of her medical and biological data in excruciating detail. There were audio files of their conversations. His notes were ridiculously numerous, some of which were completely false, or at least, he had come to the wrong conclusions.

Some of the files were video files – many of which were taken surreptitiously and from incredibly odd angles. These alarmed her greatly.

Miko frowned and couldn’t understand why he stalked her like that. It’s not like he couldn’t just approach her.