Disclaimer:
I Do Not Own Percy Jackson or any other works. Enjoy
}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{
Chapter II – Teacher-Student Conference
I stepped into the communications room, a small oval room with a similar appearance to the training room only smaller and with a holo-projector in the middle. The projector was a raised cylinder that was a foot high, and a radius of two feet. On the top of the transmitter were three white rings one inside of the other, a larger grey ring surrounded the transmitter two feet away as a way to allow you to know when your appearing in the projector.
I stepped into the ring, and a low hum began, getting louder and louder. If you have ever seen smoke dissipate then just imagine it happening in reverse, and you'll know how the image appeared; in less than a few seconds a full projection of a man appeared.
The man was a full 6 feet tall, his hair was black that was starting to turn grey tied into a ponytail. He had a subtle beard on his chin, and his eyes were a light blue. He was wearing a black fancy suit that included a vest, a dark green dress shirt, a black tie, and dress shoes. He looked all very official, a man who looked like he never stepped on the battlefield, except for the scars. All over his hands, neck, and face with strange scars, not from a weapon or animals, I couldn't recognize from what.
He opened his jacket and placed his hands, except for his thumb and index finger, in his pants pockets.
"Hello Perseus," I stiffened; I don't particularly like it when I'm called that but I don't usually say anything to my teacher.
"You wanted to speak to me sir?" I asked
"Yes," he began, "my mercenaries were successful in the attack on the Archives; I'm sending a data-package containing everything. I leave it up to you to decide on the possible targets. Good luck!"
With that he vanished; typical; doesn't bother to ask about my training, or gives advice on where I should go. Just pops in…well "shimmers" in…tells me about a development in "the plan" and leaves. Not that I really cared, since before I could remember I have never received so much as a compliment or any praise from him. Oh well, I gave up on that a loooooooong time ago.
Pandora had appeared by then; I turned to her and said, "Pandora, do the usual check through and transfer the data to a close circuit computer system. I'll be in my room."
{NS}
I stepped into my bedroom.
It was six feet by five feet, the walls were sea green, the ceiling was dark grey, and the floor was a dark green. There were no windows; instead one of those animated picture screens where the scenery changes every 5 or 6 minutes on the wall furthest from the door. My bed, which was under the screen, was oval-shaped with four pillows in cadet grey pillowcases, white bed sheets, and a black blanket. Next to the bed was a six-sided nightstand, the top was white and the sides were black, on top of the nightstand was a stand to put my lightsaber when I sleep.
The draws and cabinet for my clothes were built into the wall for space; there three draws with a simple red button to push to open them. I kicked my boots off and removed my belt, placed my lightsaber on the nightstand, threw the belt on the bed, and went to my computer desk.
The desk was actually a metal slab that stuck out from the wall, with a touch screen on top; the monitor was two feet by one foot, built into the wall. My chair was curved with the back coming up to my neck with a square cushion attached to the top and cushions built into the back. On both sides were the arms that were shaped like a capital L facing inward.
I sat down and lightly tapped on the touch screen causing the key-board to appear with the keys (letters, numbers, symbols, etc.) outlined in white. I pulled up the data file, and opened it to view its contents. They were all separated into different files: political figures, high-ranking military personal, persons-of-interest, military and high-security locations, etc.
I didn't have a clue what I was looking for, but I figured I know when I found it; so I began shifting through the files knowing this would take a while.
{NS}
3 Hours Later…
I sighed as I leaned back and rubbed my eyes with my left hand, tired from staring at the screen. Three hours and still nothing; every single type of situation had its own effect and downside.
An assassination would cause turmoil in the ranks, but if he killed someone like a politician or a military figure it could be seen as a move by a rival, or the work of the Presence.
A small-scale infiltration job would be easiest, but nobody would even hear of it. While it would take a group to infiltrate a major location.
I perched my left elbow on the shoulder chair, closed my hand into a fist, and leaned the side of my head into the fist. I continued to browse the files, I decided on a military leader; if a person in a high level military position would die, anyone even close to that position would go into a frenzy, trying to get it the promotion; or even better, backstabbing others to get someone else into that position for their own benefit.
The problem is whom I should go aft…hold that thought!
I found the file at last, Admiral Atlas Nightshade.
I opened it up, and glanced over the contents for about 5 minutes. A tiny smile began to form as I became intrigued especially his base of operations. I punched in a few keystrokes, calling up Pandora to give some commands.
"Pandora, fuel up Riptide, I'll be down there in 5."
"Roger" she said in a mock over-peppy-of-way.
I sighed and pulled myself out of the chair, my body stiffed from being in a sitting position for such a long time. I walked over to my bed, sat on it, slipped on my boots, stood back up, fastened my belt, grabbed my lightsaber, and walked out the door into the hallway.
The hallway walls were black, with about a foot on either side of the floor was black. The middle of the floor was a kind of a path, scarlet red tiles that were 1 ½ by 1 ½. I turned left down the hall heading to the Docking Bay.
{NS}
The double doors hissed as they opened to the docking bay; I walked in and stood in the shadow of Riptide, my personal cruiser (A/N: can't describe it look for the link in the profile).
The Docking Bay was circular, 30 meters in radius, Riptide stood in the center. In the top of the room was the docking bay doors the led to the outside; the ship was being given its final maintenance check by the Docking Droids.
The droids' main body was a sphere with a diameter of 2 feet; on the front was an electric purple 8 sided-shape visor. Around the sphere were three rectangles that were an inch high, that meet in the back and ended midway to the visor. On the sides were skinny arms with three claw on the end of each arm; on the bottom were ten skinny, long tentacles, that were 12 inches long, each with a specific tool for ship maintenance built into the ends. There were 5 of them, with each of them with a device that allows them to hover over the ship.
As the droids were finishing up, I walked around to the back of the ship, up the loading ramp, and through the doorway; I pressed a button on a panel on the side of the doorway, closing the door and causing the ramp to lift off the ground and close.
I walked down the hall, and entered the bridge; the bridge controls were a 5 foot radius semi-circle with the top of the counters at a 45 degree angle. The top of the circle was three touch-screen built-in, for the controls, in the middle of the circle was the chair for the pilot.
I repeated the same motions as before in my room, this time the screen showed an assortment of charts, diagnosis screens, and command options. On the left console was a loading screen; see Pandora always loads a her programming into Riptide's spare hard-drive in order for to assist me, leaving the computer system here at base on automatic.
The droids finished up as I began to enter commands in the center screen: activate the docking bay force field, pre-flight activation of the engines, opening the docking bay doors, and finished the final pre-flight prep. I activated the inertial dampeners, and punched in the final command as the ship rose off the ground and the doors open.
The ship rose 100 yards into a circular indoor runway, and started moving forward at increasing speeds; 200 yards and the ship headed out into space. Yes space, see I kind of…live on a space station. You have a problem with that? Any, I pulled up the command for the Hyper-drive and entered the coordinates for where I was going; once that was done I activated the drive.
Have you ever seen a supernova?
Well that's what a hyperspace window looks like; a yellow and green explosion appeared, and the ship entered it. In a split second I was in a cosmic tunnel of energy (A/N: see effect link in profile), I activated the Autopilot and turned to the touch-screen on the left, pulling up the information for the mission.
The file was Atlas Nightshade's personnel file with your standard info: a copy of his fingerprints profile, his rank, personality profile, number of missions successful and failed (not a lot of the latter). What really caught my attention was his special status; Atlas is a confirmed Conduit, with a specialty in close combat. When the Empire was tightening their grip on the Known Galaxy Territories, many Conduit groups were wiped out and most individual Conduits were killed, squashing any real opposition.
The only Conduits left today besides me are my teacher, Atlas (apparently), the Imperial Presence, and the Emperor himself.
Today there are only a handful of Conduits left in the entire galaxy.
Well look out Atlas, your about to become the last death of an endangered species.
}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{+}{
I know there wasn't any action in this chapter, but I like to build on my story. There are questions I'm sure. But a true writer never gives all the info at once.