Systems In Chaos: Dissention

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The glow of the holographic screens flickered casting shadows around the room as Galvin flipped through documents, reports and other sources of information that he had been able to dig up in the Zeuti database. There was a lot of information, he just wished he had more.

He was looking for some sort of hint. A direction. He needed to figure out whom he could go to. He needed someone to get some leaked information about what was happening in the Alpha Centauri system. Hell, he’d even settle for rumours but he had no measure of an idea of where to begin. Usually the Zeuti Guardians kept archived files on those information brokers that could be of use, should an investigator be required to dig up some information for a mission. But, now that he was looking for one to help him, he couldn’t find anything. All the brokers that had helped him in the past were either dead or missing. All the ones he had used for the last sixteen years were gone in some way. Sure, he figured that many would have gone to ground during the war, but he wouldn’t have believed all of them would. After all, this was a great time to make money. There were all sorts of people looking for information on the Hadi Empire; on their movements, what they were doing, how Kalorin and Fathom were faring and if the Hadi had attacked the Independent System or not. Corporations, small time business men looking to make it big after the war, United Alliance officials and intelligence officers, smugglers looking to take advantage of the limited incoming supplies and resources to the Centauri system, and Guardians; they were all looking for information, and yet no brokers were available. Not the ones that had the skill or ability to gather reliable information outside of the Home system, anyway.

Galvin wiped his brow of the sweat the beaded down the side of his face. His frustration was making him burn up. Something just felt out of place. Why are all the brokers gone? There has to be one that I can find... He doubted it though. And there is that other thing. While surfing through the archived files he had gotten a little sidetracked when he had decided to take a break from his research. It had only been a couple of hours since his meeting with the Titan Council so he had time that he could still afford to waste. Burning out and getting overworked wasn’t going to help him or anyone else. Besides, he hadn’t slept since being on the Salem and even on the ship he could never sleep well. He had decided to revisit a few of the deeds that the other Titan’s had accomplished. He found one entry that had confused him. Titan First Seat Daego Vix’s entry was strange. The information was scarce and limited in detail:

He had become a Learner at the age of six, like most. He and his Mentor went missing for a year, when he was sixteen, but returned. He became a Lord at the age of twenty. He and his old Mentor still did missions together, and neither of them took on a Learner after Daego had graduated. When Daego was twenty four he and his master went missing again. They had been boarded by pirates, according to United Alliance personnel that had served with the two Lords. Pirates that two Zeuti Lords, apparently, could not handle. They were gone, assumed captured and dead, for almost  two decades. When Daego had reappeared on Europa, he was now a forty three year old and his old Mentor was dead. The word was he gave his life so that one of them might finally be free. After Daego had come back to the Order he rose quickly. He became a Titan within two years, and the First Seat two years after that, and now he has been head of the Titan Council for the last eighteen years and the most powerful Zeuti to date.

It wasn’t the usual thing that someone, whom had become a complete stranger to everyone he had known, to become a Titan and First seat in four years. But, then again, Galvin had only been a Lord for a couple of years when Daego had returned and would have only been a babe and a small child when he was around in the past. He didn’t know how the Titan Council worked back then, it was true, but he found is hard to believe they would allow someone to rise so fast nonetheless. But, Daego had.