章 132: Chapter One Hundred And Thirty-Two
Horizon Colony. Lera System.
Samantha Traynor looked into the bright sky of Horizon. Even during the day, the sky was so clear here. The sun never seemed to hide behind the clouds. Which was a shame because then she wouldn't be walking around half blinded.
"Was it always this bright?" the brunette grumbled.
Her mother chuckled.
"Sam, you really need to stop spending your days staring at monitors and data pads" she gently chided "Try to remember that you did grow up in a farming community, you know a little sun won't kill you. Besides at night the star gazing here is amazing".
Traynor still would have preferred some cloud cover.
"If I want to stare at the stars and planets, that's what digital telescopes and long-range visual data analysis are for," Samantha said good-naturedly.
Unlike her mother, Samantha sounded British, this was due to all the years that she'd spent studying on Earth at Oxford University.
"So, has the Alliance war-machine got you doing anything useful these days?" her mother asked "Anything that you can talk about, anyways?".
Neither of Samantha's parents approved of the Alliance or its navy.
"It's called research and development, Mum," Samantha said with a sigh "Working with the kind of stuff that I do, it means working with cutting edge technology".
Which she enjoyed greatly.
"As if the Systems Alliance needs more weapons" her mother muttered, before raising her voice "I just don't want you to end up dying on some Godforsaken backwater rock like that Alliance Hero that you were so obsessed with a few years back".
Samantha blushed.
"It's Commander Joan Shepard and I was NOT obsessed" the younger of the two women protested "I simply admired the woman for her accomplishments".
Her mother smiled.
"Oh well that explains the posters" she then said "You know your father told me that you'd start playing for the other team as soon as he saw them".
Samantha groaned in embarrassment and diverted her attention to the GARDIAN defence system she and her mother were now walking by. Idly, she wondered what was taking the Alliance officer and her team so long to set it up. The actual construction seemed complete, and the new generator was online, which probably meant that any delay was an issue with the calibration of the gun's auto-targeting systems
"Mum I'll be back soon I just want to check on something" Traynor said.
She then went over to where the GARDIAN defence system had been set up.
"Lt Williams!" she called out.
Then she remembered to salute.
"You're military?" Williams asked.
Samantha nodded.
"Communications Specialist Samantha Traynor, ma'am, on shore leave; normally assigned to R&D back on Earth" she asked.
Which was in a totally different part of the galaxy.
"You're a tech head? What the Hell are you doing all the way out here?" the officer wondered "Is this where you're from?".
Not as such as the colony had only been founded eight years ago.
"As I said, ma'am, on shore leave visiting family," the Com-Specialist said to her superior officer "I was hoping that I might be able to help you with your project. Seems like you're having some trouble. Not that I think that you aren't capable or anything".
Ash smiled.
"Let me guess your neighbours are still moaning and you figured that you'd see if you could do something to speed me on my way?" the officer asked.
Samantha frowned.
"Ma'am, I'm in Alliance R&D. I got the chance to study at one of the best schools on Earth because of the Alliance" Sam said "Trust me when I say that you could not find a bigger fan of the Alliance out here than me".
"Sorry, Traynor," Ashley said before she wiped sweat off her forehead. "I've been in hostile territory for a while now. Hasn't been easy for me, calibrating a giant gun is a little outside of my comfort zone. I guess for you it's just another glitchy computer right?".
Traynor looked at the controls.
"Well, I can see one problem right away" Samantha reported "There's some kind of malware in the system".
Ashley wasn't exactly shocked to hear that and the Specialist picked up on that.
"You don't seem surprised to hear that your systems have a virus" Samantha commented "And it's not like any malware I've seen before. I don't think anyone local did this''.
Ash looked around to see if anyone was listening in.
"Traynor, I take it that you've heard about our fringe colonies being attacked and the people abducted, right?" the Alliance officer asked.
Samantha nodded.
"I heard it was slavers" she then said.
Williams snorted with derision,
"That's the official story" said the marine"Traynor, you seem way too intelligent to ever believe the party line".
Samantha had been wondering about the information that was being supplied. Slavers were being blamed but the attacks didn't do a lot of property damage and if so many people were being sold then why was there such a demand for human slaves.
"Well, back on Earth there were rumours that Cerberus was involved somehow" she said.
Ash nodded upon hearing this.
"That's more than just rumours" the alliance soldier confirmed "The most recent attack was at the Fehl Prime colony".
Traynor hadn't heard about Fehl Prime being attacked, as far as she knew Ferris Fields had been the last sight of an incident.
"Did they say who managed to take down an entire colony?" Traynor asked.
Ash shook her head.
"All they mentioned in their report was something about seeing swarms of insects in the area" she replied "and one surviving Marine claims he encountered a Cerberus traitor, who may have aided the enemy" she told Samantha.
That alarmed Sam.
"Hold on you think that there's a traitor, here on Horizon" Samantha soon realised.
"I KNOW that there's a traitor on Horizon," Ashley said with a sigh. "That virus you detected? It's just the latest bit of sabotage. I could have had one of my techs fix it but I'm hoping that if the culprit thinks that I can't fix this attempt at sabotage, then they won't do anything that can actually hurt people".
"But… but what if someone attacks the colony?" Traynor asked, "You won't have time to purge the system and get the gun online."
Ashley smiled.
"Don't worry. As long as I can get to the controls, I can quick-reboot the system and bring the targeting software online" she assured Samantha.
"That's a big risk, don't you think?" Samantha asked in concern.
Sometimes you had to take risk.
"Trust me, I learned from the best," Ashley replied confidently "Commander Joan Shepard, saviour of The Citadel".
Traynor smiled.
"You know the Hero of the Geth War?" Samantha asked.
Not that it had been a real war, more of a lot of border skirmishes really, if you didn't count the battle for the Citadel, or at least that was the way it would be recorded in the history books.
"I thought I did," the Alliance officer said with a grunt.
Samantha was too busy looking up at the sky to catch the bitter tone in Ashley's voice. Finally the colony had gotten some cloud cover, only it wasn't a cloud that had blocked out the sun it was a ship. A very big and downright unfriendly looking ship.
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