Travel to Irvina is cheap(ish). We take a mid-grade option, one that lets us get to the city fast—a matter of hours instead of days, considering the size of the planet—but not startlingly so. Again, perfectly in tune with the kind of Advanced Classers we’re trying to impersonate.
The blimp we board is grey-and-white for its body, with a dark green highlight along the metal struts that hold the airbags together. The struts and lighting strips run along the inflated body to the starship engines, where Mechanics and Airship Crew work on the craft.
We follow the System-map to our private cabin. After disabling the couple of listening devices in the cabin, as well as paying for additional privacy restrictions, we relax.
Not that anything we do could truly be hidden if anyone is looking at us specifically, but it’s like finding information on the internet in the old ages. If you knew the website you were looking for, had its IP address or domain name, you could find it. But what if it was never linked? Never indexed? Then finding it requires you to know exactly the kind of questions to ask.
And we’re just floating pages, one of trillions of individuals. Even if they knew to look for us initially, our journey through the artificial Forbidden Zone and our secret entrance makes us the equivalent of a website that changed its domain name and swapped out IP addresses without leaving an auto-forward.
Can we be found? Maybe. It’d take a lot of effort, but eventually, if they swept everything, they’d find us. For now though, so long as we don’t pop up on any major security alerts, we should be invisible.
And that anonymity will be our weapon.
“Thousand hells, that was tiring,” I say, flopping down on a nearby couch. It conforms to me, leaving me staring at my friends as they make their own ways to their seats.
“Acting like a fool?” Ali asks.
“Funny.”
Mikito smiles slightly, before she grows serious, Hitoshi appearing in her hands. She strokes the shaft of her weapon. It’s an unconscious motion, a comforting one for her. “What do we do now?”
“We get to Irvina. We find a place to rest. Then, carefully, we look for a way to contact Katherine,” I say.
“How?” Mikito says.
I turn to look at Harry, curious if he has any suggestions. The Brit snorts when he spots me looking at him but then falls silent as he contemplates my question.
“Exactly,” Mikito says, her voice growing heavy. “I’m not sure what we’re doing, John. Or what even we can do. This isn’t a bunch of hopped up corporations or an Empire. This is the Galactic Council…”
“Scared?” I say, a little surprised.
“Not for us.” She waves between her and me.
“Hey!” Ali says, realizing he’s not being included.
“But they’re targeting Earth too. They’re trying to take away its seat. They’re attacking our friends. And we’ve got a plan you say, but it’s not enough. Because it only solves the short-term problem. And it doesn’t deal with…” Mikito waves at me, over my head.
I’m surprised to see Mikito say this out loud. She’s often silent about her doubts, and it’s rare to see her vulnerable. Then again, it’s one thing to risk your life. It takes a different kind of courage—or a painful lack of empathy—to risk the lives of others.
“Truthfully, I’m not sure.” I frown, leaning back. “Not in the long term. Not yet.” I exhale, harshly, forcing myself to breathe. To circulate oxygen that I don’t need because I have to. “Maybe I do need to talk to the Administrators. But if so, it’s obvious the discussion has to be somewhere…” I trail off, unsure of what to say. Somewhere secure probably. That they control. Or I do. Problem is, they could have just contacted me if they wanted to talk.
Unless there’s a reason they didn’t. And if so, I don’t know what it is. No matter what I do, no matter how much I test the Skill, the Class, or push at the library, there’s nothing.
“But we need to sort this issue about Earth’s seat first. After that…” I sigh. “After that, we’ll have to get them to focus on us.”
I pause.
“Me.”
The pair nod. Knowing my secret, they realize what I’m trying to imply. That I’ll have to chat with the Council eventually, somehow. Figure out a way to have a discussion without being caught or locked down. If it is a discussion they want, which I doubt. Their actions are impetuous, weird. If they just wanted to speak, a simple message would have sufficed. If they wanted me dead, they could have acted immediately and ended me. Used assassins.
This… this makes no sense.
Unless they’re conflicted about their response. Or have other restraints I don’t know of. Or maybe they’re just trying to deal with more than one issue at a time. And this gives them a convenient excuse to finish off Earth.
Harry nods. “So firstly, contact Katherine silently. Work out who she needs. Then try to convince them to help. Or dissuade our detractors.”
I pull out a piece of chocolate, this one gold-foil-wrapped, and chew. I dismiss the minor mental buff it gives, instead enjoying the warm gooeyness and the thickness as it lies on my tongue. When I clear my throat, the pair stare at me.
“I think we might want to look at it the other way. Instead of bribing or cajoling people, we play the other side of the coin. We try to dissuade those who are going after Earth from voting. Maybe have them abstain…” There are a few raised eyebrows, but I hold up my hand. “Listen. We got the Erethrans. And I’ll speak with Duchess. But otherwise, what do we have?”
“Have?” Mikito says.
“Boy-o means leverage, right?” At my nod, Ali continues. “Political, social, economic leverage. Not Earth, just us.”
Silence is all that greets his words. For all that we might be high-Leveled or dangerous on an individual basis, we’re also, in many ways, unremarkable. Like most Adventurers, we pour most of our Credits into building ourselves up rather than building an economic engine.
We have little true political power. Sure, I helped the Erethrans and there’s some leverage there, but it’s leverage I’ve already tapped. Pushing further is probably a bad idea. The current Empress is less predisposed to like me than the Empress Apparent.
Socially, we have some strength individually. Harry has his fans and subscribers, his sources and contacts. Mikito has her fan club. But compared to the social strength of a single planet? Laughable.
“We have you.” Mikito says, her eyes floating above my head. To where my Heroic status sits.
No Title, no accomplishment from the System for it, but a Heroic Class, even one that’s broken like me, is still a power.
“Yeah… exactly.”
A threat. Using me as a rogue element, just as we did before. Someone who can go out of his way to find, hunt, and kill those who would act against us. But if we can do that, so can our enemies. And taking that step might be one too far.
With that dour thought, we fall silent.
***
Of course, we don’t sit there in silence, mulling over our lack of options. Harry does as he promised and researches Earth’s opponents, working with Ali to get a detailed analysis of the problem. Ali’s also—carefully—accessing information about Earth and Katherine’s status, looking for public data about her. We know where she and the surviving embassy personnel are living but figuring out a way to contact her is the tricky part. Thankfully, details about her aren’t particularly hard to find.
“You sure this is accurate?” I raise an eyebrow, staring at the garish newspaper that fills my vision. It’s displayed via my Neural Link, and one of a dozen different tabloids that Ali made me download. The one I’m regarding has a photo of Katherine on the arm of a rather robust gentleman who looks like a cross between a warthog and an anime character. In the Galactic equivalent of a suit, which involves lots of flowing tails and a hovering set of cloth-like wings.