Kick the Sphere 8 (Patreon)

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 8

-VB-

Unknown SAFE branch office

“Wait, what?” one agent uttered with wide eyes and dropped jaws. “Did you just say that some bumfuck nobody mercenary from out in the boonies within our territory managed to make a non-standard FTL drive… and we missed him?”

“Yes,” another agent sighed as she continued to type into the noteputer in front of her. “The locals thought he was just fixing his mech all on his own inside the temp landhold. Except he wasn’t fixing his mech ineffectively by himself, he was building an atmosphere-capable jumpship.”

“... Do we know where he went to?”

“No,” she replied with another sigh. “Our agents in all planets and systems in the general direction that he left towards could not find a trace of him.”

“... He couldn’t have traveled that far, right?”

“It’s been months since he left. He could be in the peripheries for all we know.”

“Crap.”

“It’s not our branch’s job to keep tabs on our own citizens. We’re the foreign spy abduction center, remember?”

“Right. So we dodged a bullet.”

“Yeah. We’ll still have to report it.

-VB-

The Triad

Tharkad, Lyran Commonwealth

“Janos will be absurdly upset,” Katrina smirked in her private chambers with her husband.

Arthur hummed as he read over the same reports she had.

“Is it really alright for you to leave them be? Shouldn’t we be searching for them as well?” he asked his wife, and she shrugged.

“And where would we look? The few spies we have in the League are telling us that the League doesn’t know where this genius is. In fact, they are sure that they won’t be able to find them anymore because if they haven’t been spotted in nearby systems days after the first alert went out, then either their systems failed and the FTL was a bust or the FTL was a success and able to bypass some of the restrictions we work with. Either way, it’s a lost cause to look for it.”

She leaned forward. “No, what I am interested in is what the mercenary left. LIC agents have recovered a few tidbits that seem interesting, but until our scientists give us a verdict, we won’t know.”

“Shame. Had he been with us, he would have been richly awarded.”

“Maybe.” She took a moment to center herself before speaking again. “For now, we will make sure he and his machine do not fall into anyone else’s hands when he does show up,” she said and then paused. “Arthur, can you keep an eye out for anything Skye might do?”

“Skye?” he frowned before nodding in understanding. “Of course.”

If the ever grumbling Skye got their hands on new technology, then there was a chance that those grumbling might become rumbling of war.

-VB-

???, Earth

“Precentor Atreus, I do not mean to make you upset or demean your efforts, but how did adepts on Vakarel miss such a huge sign?” Precentor Tharkad asked with a raised eyebrow. The rest of the First Circuit watched as she continued to question him. “After all, the appearance of a new mech design alone, a ultralight mech that can outspeed the Locust with maneuverability and speed, is noteworthy.”

The older Precentor Atreus sighed as he massaged his wrinkled forehead. “From I gathered, the Precentor in charge of Vakarel HPG did not consider it to be a large enough of a news alone for him to bring it up to me. It was only one mech of its kind, and incorrectly assumed that it was a custom-made design.”

He pulled out a remote and pressed start.

The projectors showed the black and white security feed taken from Vakarel’s few street cameras and showed a regular underground street.

And then it became a battlefield as Locusts marched in.

They opened fire at something, but that changed when the mysterious unnamed and unclassified ultralight mech dropped down from the surrounding buildings and laid waste to the locusts.

It had these things attached to its feet that propelled it forward far faster than it should have been able to move. The mech also moved far more fluidly than anything else anyone in this room had seen except perhaps of the royal “lostechs” from the Star League era that they stashed away.

“The design was too foreign compared to what lightmechs should be. It is armored in places where no lightmech would have armor. It has a shield and has attachable equipment like those speed boosters.”

“All designs that we should incorporate,” Precentor New Avalon hummed. “Perhaps not everywhere but where they would be efficient. It would give our own research teams something to do other than parse through old documents and research papers.”

No one really spoke out against this, and thus, it passed.

“Any idea on where this inventor is?” Precentor Sian asked.

“No,” Precentor Tharkad replied. “If he is in the Inner Sphere, then he is better at hiding than any lostech caches.”

“Keep looking.”