The Mission

Chapter 7 The War to Change

Charles held Alatem close after she'd begun to thrash in her sleep, calling his name. She awoke with a start grabbing him holding him close and tight, as if his and her lives both depended on it. Sighing she fell back to asleep after making Charles promise that he'd never leave her. Charles laid there awake for a while thinking about his rescue of Allie, it had seemed too easy.

As quietly as he could he turned to his wrist com, "Cici analyze tonight's exercise, something is bothering me about the whole thing."

"Compliance, anything I should look for in particular?" Cici queried.

"Yes, check for transmissions on secure channels, withdrawing of guards, doors left open and unlocked that normally wouldn't," Charles commanded.

"Analyzing, shall I awake you when I have results?" Cici stated.

"Yes, then we can plan and go from there," Charles said, something was off and all his combat training kicked in it had almost been staged all clones? Hmmmm yes, something was definitely off.

A sharp tone jerked both Charles and Alatem awake, "Agh god! Shut that damn noise off!" Allie complained.

"I apologize to you both, but I thought you both would want to hear the results of Charles's inquiry," Cici stated.

At this Charles sat up quickly getting out of bed not bothering to dress, Alatem sighed as she watched Charles naked body stride to the control room. Groaning she got up to follow him, first stopping to pee.

Walking into the control room, Alatem groaned when she saw that Charles had put shorts on, she liked him naked.

"I did as you asked, and analyzed everything from the rescue last night. It was as you feared, there were discrepancies also you were seen when you both came back to the ship by a human," Cici stated.

This quickly snapped up Alatem's attention, "Ally," she started, "Can you tell from these readings who it was?"

"Analyzing data now, from the readings it appears with ninety eight point five percent certainty to have been your uncle's oldest son," Ally spit out a tinge of hatred in its voice.

Growling Alatem looked at Charles, "I thought, no, I hoped that little prick was dead, especially after I saw him killed twice!"

Charles nodded looking at the scanner, suddenly his eyes flew open wide, "I think I might have a solution!"

"Also," Cici started, "from all the vids from last night, almost all the vats were empty as if they were expecting you."

Alatem backed away from Charles as the look that crossed his face was one of almost pure hatred and rage, "Damn it! That's the last time that will happen. Cici, pull all the plans for this scanner, the plans for the tkx1000, also the bio-med scanner, analyze them and see if there is a way to integrate all three into one compatible system"

"Printing all plans now, Charles wouldn't the post mort scanner also help?" Cici prompted.

Thinking a moment Charles nodded why not? Hell if he integrated the first three the last would surely help.

Charles spent the better part of the day testing his idea, at first nothing seemed to meld at all causing Alatem to start to worry. After five hours Charles was almost at his wits end, what the hell had he missed? He knew that there was a way to integrate any piece of equipment he made. Another five hours and he finally found the problem, laughing he couldn't believe that he had missed something that simple. Another two hours and he drew up plans for Ally to start fabricating, though in the mean time he had to put up with its advances.