Conflicting Objectives XXXVI

Sveta proceeded with telling John stories concerning incoming crewmates that she specifically remembered due to their peculiarity.

In most cases, they were arriving in groups of several people without vehicles or only with some secondary ones that could carry the minimum weight, so obviously majority was not in a perfect shape, often requiring medical treatment.

The fact there were wounded people involved was changing the standard procedures and affecting the security checks, including PEC id transmission identifying the crew members' assignments and allowed to view them in a database every member of the Future project had installed in their respective implants.

Of course, as it was already brought up in several conversations Marlow had, there was a number of swaps done in relation to incidents happening on the way, cuasing the database to require adjustments to include the changes in personnel, therefore a chance existed where a specific person was wrongly included or excluded from the list and their profile affected in the same way.

Having said that, as per Glitter's explanation, it was not only that initial checks were done under emergency protocol, but also some of the people were reporting damage to their PECs, resulting in data lose, which - in many cases - turned out to be irreversible. For some reason, Jeanne was not fully clear about the numbers of such incidents, which alarmed major - sure, electromagnetism at certain degree could toast any PEC, but it should not be excluded from the list because of being deemed an accident. After all, if someone wanted to hide information or had any business in manipulating about their data, deliberately damaging their id transmitter was the easiest way.

- So, you are saying there was over a dozen of such events? - John asked Sveta after she finished telling him about the crewmates acting suspicious upon arrival - Also, are you certain these were the only cases someone's id could not be verified?

Glitter shrugged, forgetting about wearing only a towel, and nearly got her naked body exposed again.

- Ursus has quite a complex network of sensors with a considerable reach - she started answering - It will catch anything with a set perimeter as long as there is signal transmitted. Besides, there is also a visual confirmation of anyone approaching, so even with PEC completely off, I can still spot anyone who gets close enough. Of course, due to the size of this mecha, it pretty much became a landmark in the area, which can be spotted from afar, thus I cannot exclude a possibility of people hiding something intentionally as they notice its silhouette. However, chances are slim that someone gets past the sensors that easily, so from my point of view we are aware of most of the cases we had for no id being transmitted.

What Sveta said so far was already plenty useful, but John wanted to push the topic a bit more.

- Still, there is a chance someone could get past you unnoticed? Even if probability is minimal.

Glitter sighed and nodded.

- Of course. I didn't deny it, just the amount of work it would have required for a low chance of success is not worthy the effort. It's simply easier to just break something with your PEC and blame it on some sort of accident. That's the reality. Having said that, to do something like that, people who got here with us do seem to have various agenda, don't you think?

Marlow smiled slightly.

- Well, it's not like I'm asking you about the details for no reason. Even before we left Earth, most of us knew this won't be a simple expedition, right? I guess, whenever there is something to gain, people will have different, and quite often, conflicting objectives for participating. You said it yourself before, being here for the sake of your family. It's a commendable thing to do, a grand reason indeed - John really meant that, though he was also aware it could mean that she was one of potentially easy targets to follow orders if her family was threatened, but decided not to say it loud - On the other hand, I have no family, only few friends and the most valuable thing in my life is my job, which is also the reason why I had to participate in this whole project.

Sveta's face expression became darker all of a sudden.

- You say that, but you think too highly of me - she said, while walking through the room towards the spot where John was sitting - I do provide for my family, yet there were many times I thought about giving up on this, just leaving this burden behind, and always ended up feeling disgusted with myself, continuing to help them out. Thus, I tend to feel that I only repent for such thinking and this haunts me regularly. I know that you also must have your own worries and problems, but just now I felt I would have preferred to have it like you, being here due to different circumstances that would involve only me. Now, I want to apologize to you.

Glitter was now standing in front of him, having quite an intimidating face, looking unlikely of her - or rather, looking nowhere close to how Marlow usually saw her.

- Don't worry about that - he said reflexively - I get that my situation may appear easy compared to what others are going through in their lives. So, if you don't mind, we could go back to the previous topic...

- I think you misunderstand, John. I do want to apologize, yet not for my words before, but for what is going to happen next.

Sveta dropped her towel intentionally this time and sat on his lap. The very moment she did that, John tried to move his hands, but could not do it for some reason - somehow, his body felt numb.

- What's going on? - he managed to ask, though also his voice got way weaker - Did you do something? - he moved his eyes towards the drink she served him.

Glitter's was giving him a bitter look.

- Apologies, John, but it's the only way for me to be sure you stay safe. I honestly regret doing this, and I hope that you will forgive me. You may not understand this today, but you will surely realize why I did that - she closed her face to his own and gave Marlow a kiss.

As they were kissing with John being completely defenseless, his vision started to get blurry and he finally lost his consciousness.

- I hope the next time we meet will be in different circumstances - Sveta left the unconscious John with these wrods.

When he woke up, major found himself lying in the bed in her bedroom inside the Ursus, located just next to the room where they were drinking juice before.

His body felt heavy and numb even now, though he could already move around, contrary to the moment when he fell asleep. Due to slight diziness, Marlow first sat on the edge of the bed, inhaling air deeply several times to think clearly for a moment.

In a matter of minutes, he was feeling good enough to stand up and look around - unaware of what kind of motive Glitter had, whether it was some stupid prank or something else, John started looking for her, yet she was nowhere to be found. Moreover, it looked like Ursus was in power saving mode right now, thus the interior was pretty dark, making it hard to move around.

Fortunately, both Marlow's PEC and cybers were fully operational, so he started with the most logical approach and tried to first contact Sveta herself, but with no luck, then other people outside, who could provide him with update on the situation. However, there was no reply no matter who he tried to contact - even open channel broadcast did not work.

For a moment, John thought that something might have been off with his PEC in the end, but additional diagnostics he did ended up ruling out this possibility.

Still, while the simplest solution did not work, there were ways to go about this situation - relying on his cyber-arm energy to emanate light was an option for Marlow to be able to walk around without issues, though it needed him to tinker with the hand for a moment.

Once having a way of investigating his surrounding, he needed to figure out what happened to the mecha he was in, therefore he started looking for any control panel with access to the mainframe.

Most mecha had a number of different panels to be used when operating them, but none of existing machines of the kind were as complex as Ursus - majority was not of such a big size, meaning pretty much all panels would be placed within cockpit, completely unlike this colossus' interior, having multiple rooms and sections responsible for a specific function of the mecha.

Learning to operate such a beast of a machine was a long process as every pilot was required to not only obtain ability to control it, but also to understand its construction to be able to do a basic maintenance and react properly in case of potential malfunction or any other incident. While this was already a hassle, understanding its construction from engineer's standpoint was even harder.

In his life, Marlow had chances to encounter Ursi on several occasions, obviously having the most interactions during his participation in Future project and - despite having some of engineers and mechanics tell him about its functionality - he was still considered a newbie when it came to doing a proper maintenance. However, this was enough to be familiar with the standard layouts concerning section connectors, which allowed to pinpoint the common locations of control panels.

What he needed now was pinpointing his current location against the schemes he had saved on his PEC. Since Ursi were originally intended to function as industrial mecha, the interior was created in a way that allowed for a team of people to stay inside for longer periods of time, hence there were usually five rooms to sleep in, two of which were connected to the main cockpit and three leading to engine rooms through maintenance corridors. This meant John had to figure out which room he ended up in after exiting as different section meant different location of a control panel.

With the layout displayed on the side, he walked towards the door - unsurprisingly, the door was locked and, due to being a type of a secure airlock, trying to force the way through was unwise.

Knowing how sturdy these are, Marlow checked the panel next to the door first, but it turned out to be offline - he tried to power it on, without any luck.

The next option was to use the manual safety, for which he had to open the control box - switching to manual required a bit of a trick to set the connectors properly and only after these being lined up, opening the lock was possible without the power source. It took John several minutes to get it done and for the airlock to react.

A short gap appeared in the center, but too small for him to pass through, forcing major to use his strength to widen it enough to squeeze past it. Once he did and lighted up the next room, it became obvious he was in a bedroom originally designed for a maintenance crew - it was a staircase, leading in several directions, including stairs up and down.

Being more or less aware of his location now, Marlow had to decide which way was the most reasonable to take in order to bring back the power and further investigate what happened. Having thought about it for a moment, he decided to take the route that was not the shortest, but gave him more options in case the selected control panel is also offline - route to the main engine room.

Due to its size and all connected mechanisms, said room was located in the central part of the mecha, in its torso - it was a practical approach, made for the best possible balance of the machine. From his current location, John had to go one level down and proceed left at the intersection. The route was supposed to be as simple as possible for the crew members to be able to react on a short notice.

Reaching the entrance to the engine room took him about two minutes - if he had rushed, knowing his way around, it would be easy to get there in about one minute. Unfortunately, he encountered yet another blockage at the entrance - engine room was supposed to have the airlock open in case of emergency shutdown, which pretty much confirmed the lack of energy was not a result of malfunction.

Having yet another closed door in front of him, Marlow repeated manual control procedure and finally managed to enter the key area he was aiming for - it turned out the engine was fully operational, but set to hangar mode.

Hangar mode meant Ursus was using its engine purely for balancing - due to its weight, even when on standby, these huge mecha required a specific amount of energy to be spent at all times to keep it from falling down. Of course, there were also safety motors in case of engine failure, but these would only suffice for short term support and would break after several hours if engine was not made operational again.

When reaching out to the control panel, which was in safe mode, yet still online, John noticed a memory key hanging next to it.

- Quite a peculiar spot for something like this - he thought to himself as he took it down - I guess it's worth checking, but it would be a risky thing to do already now.

He hid he device inside his cyber-arm and went to check the control panel.

Only a minute or so from accessing it, Marlow noticed peculiar settings, which resulted in safely closing the section he was locked in and only allowing opening it from the inside. Since the moment of waking up, John was trying to understand what Sveta was thinking and he was now sure that she meant no harm for him - at the same time, the way the place was secured, it was definitely disturbing and made him even more worried, even if it did not seem to be possible anymore.

Glitter's behavior, her putting him to sleep, then all these secure measures - all these things felt scary and Marlow knew he had to act quick. While his usual self was careful about any connections to his PEC, he automatically disregarded that and connected the memory key.

- I left you something that should help you undestand, but please, keep it confidential and not share with anyone, unless you are absolutely sure they can be trusted - it was a voice recordning from Sveta, followed by a data set being uploaded to John's PEC.

What showed in front of his eyes upon accessing the data made major seriously angry - it turned out that Glitter was at the mercy of one of the humanity's biggest corporations, RuzDet. Originally, a company dealing with energy distribution, it expanded into resources market and was known for extensive mining in space. There were rumors about it often abusing its workers, though no one in RuzDet was ever held accountable - however, the data Sveta shared, it showed that not only these rumors were true, but there were many more offenses never made public.

Looking shortly through only a few documents he received, Marlow quickly realized how big of a problem it was - RuzDet was not only controling Glitter by holding her family hostage, but they also had a number of different agents already here, on the New Gaia, some of them having reached the planet by different means than the ship called Future.

Sveta was following their orders, while also gathering evidence on them, and it seemed she had to leave the First Haven for some reason, though this particular information was something that was missing from the memory key.

John felt many dots connecting right now. He knew there were different parties involved in the process of discovering new places to utilize and was sure people in the crew came from various organizations, but what he saw here was even more complex and was explaining why there would be so many incidents related to Future project.

If RuzDet was capable of transporting their agents outside of the project, how many other could have thought about the same? Future's crew went through so many hardships to get to this place, all for humanity's sake and yet, there are those whose personal gain is more important than anything else. Sure, even for Marlow money was important too, but not at the cost of other people's lives.

It crossed his mind to share this information with Ryan the moment John sees him a gain, but then he remembered Sveta's words - can he really trust colonel with this? No, he had to be careful, proceed with caution and be sure to not disclose anything rashly.

Either way, he could think about further steps later on. Now that he knew what was behind Glitter's actions, major had to focus on getting out of Ursus. Anything else would come after.