Tisis

Red-handed (N)

Like so many other times now, I sit on the ground beneath the colony, enjoying the already significantly cleaner water.

Yup, fixing the sewage system was really a win-win situation...but still, the biggest problem remains.

Just as I initially thought, the thrusters are well beyond repair.
We don't even have a fraction of the parts we'd need to get them up and running and while the generator output is stable, I would need to stress it hard to even just generate a spark from the thrusters, if they were operational...and blowing the whole colony to pieces would be kinda detrimental to my efforts to get rid of Julia and fulfill my promise.

But what others options do I have?
I need some sort of thrust to topple the colony, but the thing weighs multiple Megatons...not even the blasted dragon-thing and the swamp monster together would be able to do something about this size.

...this is so frustrating...the thing is too broken to do anything useful, but still intact enough to not just sink and be done with it!

I pinch the bridge of my nose and chew on a piece of seaweed I picked up nearby, while looking over the set of recent reports to 'Gaia'.

Everything's looking good, except for the report about the suddenly increased data flow...naturally the data flow would be increased, seeing how I'm supervising everything remotely, but I can't just tell them to stop looking for abnormalities without making them suspicious that I am not who I claim to be.

Thus far I've managed to make them shut up, by telling them that I probably caused the increased flow of data, because of the immense amounts of I need to going through...which is actually the truth.

I must say though, I heavily underestimated the humans and their resourcefulness.
At first, I thought it was just Sirus, but compared to some of the people in the colony, Sirus' intellect simply pales in comparison...I've even known quite a few Asmodei, who would have lost in a battle of minds against these humans.
I guess there really is all kinds...

Just as I prepare my next set of orders, an alarm pops up in my peripheral vision and switch over to its source.

It appears to be originating from the office of a high ranking...oh wait, I know that woman. Eva, I think her name was.
Though...what is the researcher girl doing with her?
Let's see...cause of the alarm was the use of the trigger word 'Gaia'...and the research girl seems to be worried...this doesn't bode well...

I disconnect from the reports and tune in to the conversation the two of them are having...good thing they never figured out, that pretty much any area of the ship has both video and audio surveillance...although I most certainly could have done without a few of the pictures I got to bear witness to...

"...just to get this straight, Miss Marple...you said, you are worried about Mistress Gaia and her recent orders?" Eva asks.
Nope, not good...did I overdo it after all?
"Yes, Mistress Eva. I...we have not seen hide nor hair of her for weeks now."
"Yet she is responding to your reports and issuing orders?"
"Yes...and that is the next thing. Her...priorities seem to have changed."
"How so?"
"Yes well, how do I put this...before, we were mostly tasked with understanding the system and how to circumvent the various security measures put into place by the Asmodei...she hoped, that if we cracked the layers of security, we would be able to access the blueprints and potentially find a way to turn the colony back upright, which is, as I am sure you are aware, the biggest problem we have at the moment."

Yeah right, I'm sure that's exactly what she was planning to do...

"And...as of late?" Eva asks, resting her head on her crossed hands.