Author Note

Several guests have sent me positive reviews, thank you for the support.

Also I can't decide on what to call Augment's Gothic new ship. I'm stuck between calling it: The Infinity and Beyond (a name I got from Takao-kun) and the Flighty Temptress (suggested by Joe Lawyer) Since I like to get my reviewers involved with my stories I have decided that you guys will chose the name for me. You can vote for either The Infinity and Beyond or The Flighty Temptress.

This chapter ended up a little shorter than the others however it should still average at over 5 thousands words per chapter meaning that this story is already more than 20 thousand words, which was a lot of work.

Reviews

davycrockett100

Thank you.

The Observant Reader

I'm glad you like it.

JanusGodOfPossibilities

Thank you.

DanielAlvarado

I hope you keep enjoying it

Joe Lawyer

Replying to your reviews would take a while so feel free to message me if you want something addressed.

Augment Gothic 4

Gothic's Ship. On Route To Risa.

From the outside of my ship, which as of yet had no name, it did not look like anything special. In fact, compared to the smaller Federation ships I'd seen at the Starbase, it wasn't even that appealing to look at. It did somewhat resemble a runabout, though, a class of vessel that was coming into common use and getting more and more popular, however there were stark differences that were plain to see even before I had gotten inside the craft.

For starters, while the nacelles were somewhat tucked under the ship, much like a runabout, my craft had wings that went over the nacelles, and those wings supported the weapons. The wings also making atmospheric flight much easier. It was also longer and somewhat wider than a runabout. Its impulse drive was at the rear of the craft, as expected, but it was large engine. For a smallish ship of smaller mass, this gave my ship an incredible amount of thrust while at sublight speeds.

That much higher than normal sublight speed, combined with the vessel's maneuverability, meant that in a ship-to-ship engagement, were everything else was equal, I'd have an important advantage. Should I face a craft that totally outclassed mine, well, I should have enough speed to run away and/or enough maneuverability to make getting hit by weapons' fire very, very difficult. Even its warp drive was more powerful than that of a standard runabout.

While my ship's origins were still a mystery, no one other than myself seemed all that interested in solving it, which for Starfleet was incredibly strange. Those guys never saw a mystery, no matter how dangerous, that they didn't want to poke and prod till it blew up in their faces. If I was prone to conspiracies, which I suppose I was considering the strange circumstances I found myself in, it was almost like the ship was shrouded in a notice-me-not or nothing-important-here field. Sure, the ship was completely legal for me to own, despite being armed with decently powerful set of twin disruptor cannons, like those that could be found on the older model Klingon Birds of Prey, but given that no one knew where it had come from, you'd think it would have been carefully investigated.

Yet no one at the Starbase seemed to care! Perhaps it was due to the size of the craft? It was barely any bigger than a runabout, small enough to even fit in a standard shuttle bay, but it was large enough to have a cargo hold that could hold a fair amount of supplies, well, as long as the crates were stacked well enough. Perhaps 'cargo hold' was being a bit too generous to describe the space, really it was more like a glorified storage room with a ramp. Still useful, though. It also had a bedroom for the pilot and I wasn't entirely sure if the Starfleet runabout actually had one of those. The runabouts we saw very frequently in DS9 didn't quite match up to the one we saw in TNG, so maybe there were variants for long-distance travel. I had to constantly remind myself that the shows only gave us a tiny glimpse into that universe.

Unlike Starfleet I did care about where this vessel had come from, but there was nothing even in the ship's computer that could shed light on its origins, although I did suspect it had been built somewhere within the Federation, even though it had disruptors for weapons. The reason I thought this was because of the familiarity of the ship's power source, a standard warp core used by most Federation worlds in their ship design. There was nothing exotic about it at all.

The warp engines of my ship were fueled by the reaction of matter (deuterium) and antimatter (anti-deuterium), that were mediated through an assembly of dilithium crystals, which were nonreactive with antimatter when subjected to high-frequency electromagnetic fields. This was the same as any other star ship, the only difference was the size of the warp core and the amount of power it could produce. For its size, my ship was fast, heavily armed and pretty well shielded, but it didn't require much energy to run when compared to a ship the size of something like the Enterprise.

Also, my vessel, like all Federation starships, was equipped with Bussard collectors, which were optimally positioned to collect interstellar particles. Collection worked best in regions where particle density was high, such as in star systems or nebulae. The Bussard collector normally collected hydrogen, especially deuterium, for fuel replenishment, but could be reconfigured to collect various gases like sirillium and plasma particles. A Bussard collector could also be reconfigured to expel gases or plasma.

It even used the same defenses as most Federation starships. As I had recently learned, the deflector shields operated by creating a layer, or layers, of energetic distortion containing a high concentration of gravitons around the object to be protected. On starships, even ones as small as mine, the shield had six sections, forward, starboard, port, aft, dorsal, and ventral. Shield energies could be emitted from a localized antenna or dishes, such as a ship's navigational deflector, or from a network of emitters laid out on the starship's hull.

Neither matter, nor highly concentrated energy, could normally penetrate a shield. When shields were energized at a high level, most matter or energy that came into contact with the shields was harmlessly deflected away. This was important in starship combat, as shields were essential for hull protection. When the shields were up, only minor hull damage would be expected during combat. In the 23rd and 24th century, without deflector shields weapons were capable of causing catastrophic damage to starship hulls almost immediately. Hull armor meant very little, at least not these days, though in the future this might change. I had vague memories of the Defiant having ablative hull armor, so there must have been some advances in that old technology.

What was different about my ship, aside from its dark colour scheme and wings, was its stealth system. My vessel couldn't cloak, by any means, but it could hide itself very well from long range sensors. That was a huge advantage. Short range scanners were something it couldn't fool, though, as Starfleet ships had many sophisticated ways of detecting things at that range, however given the vastness of space I would be able to avoid detection for the most part. They'd literally have to be quite close by, in galactic terms, to even know I was there. This was yet another reason why I wondered why no one was looking into the origins of my ship.

I had quickly learned how to fly the ship, the pilot training programs I had taken on the Enterprise's holodeck serving me well. Surprisingly, it hadn't taken much time at all to figure it all out, as it was very easy to pilot what with its simple intuitive controls and its built in neural uplink, something which fed information between my brain and the ship using a headset; this allowed me to control the ship with my mind alone if I wished to, with no need to even touch a control console. This technology was somewhat known to the Federation, however few people could withstand having all that sensory information inside their heads, much less actually use the link to control the ship. It caused a kind of sensory overload in humans that wasn't harmful per se, but it could cause intense dizziness and nausea. Being an augment with an enhanced brain and cognitive function, I didn't have to deal with these side effects.

As soon as I'd formally registered my ship and gotten my pilot's license from the Federation I had decided to head out and see more of the galaxy. Annika hadn't wanted to come along, as she disliked space travel due to her parents dragging her across the galaxy at a young age, and rather that put any pressure on me by asking me to stay she'd given me her blessing to go forth and have fun. We'd talked and had come to the decision that when I returned to Earth we could carry on with our relationship if we both desired to, which meant that someone else might come along and woo her in the meantime, but I wasn't too worried about that as she'd not dated much in the past and no other guy was going to compare to super human me. At least not in the bedroom department.

Since the ship was cruising along on a steady course at warp there was really nothing for me to do, so in order to pass the time I'd decided to read up on the planet I was heading to. I'd already learned a lot about what the world had to offer in terms of its entertainment, which was a lot, but there was more to the place than clear seas, white sandy beaches, huge holiday resorts and over-the-top hedonism.

Risa was the capital planet of the Risian Hedony, a Federation Member State, homeworld of the Risian species, and a well-known tourist planet. It was the second planet in orbit of Epsilon Ceti B in the Epsilon Ceti star system in the Risa sector of the Beta Quadrant. By shuttle at low warp speeds it took weeks to reach the planet from Earth, for me it was only a matter of days away as I could reach warp five.

The world relied on an incredibly sophisticated and mostly automated weather control net to make the stay of their guests as simple and as pleasurable as possible. If those automated systems ever failed, Risa would be in great jeopardy. Without the tech Risa was a world ravaged by intense storms, and often disrupted by powerful earthquakes and tidal forces from its three moons.

In this day and age Risa was famous throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants as a place of tourism and recreation, and was often referred to as a 'pleasure planet'. It got that reputation because of its constant, stable climate, its attractive landscapes, and most of all, its very friendly locals.

Its native species, who were notorious for their incredibly open sexual mores, numbered approximately three billion, and the planet hosts about one billion tourists at any given time. This meant it was far less populated than Earth, and some of the other more settled Federation planets, most likely as a result of the planet's extreme weather and seismic instability during much of its history, prior to the invention of their weather control net. Hell, even their open sexual mores might be a result of their planet's normally extreme conditions over the ages.

Many resorts on Risa also had elaborate gambling casinos, though there had been many more in the past, but since humans (and many other Federation planets) no longer used true money anymore, it was mostly the aliens who gambled.

Risa was first visited by Humans and Starfleet in 2152 when the Enterprise (NX) had arrived at the planet and several crew members took shore leave. Those crew members included Captain Jonathan Archer, Ensigns Hoshi Sato and Travis Mayweather, Commander Charles Tucker and Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, legends in their own right in this time.

Also Captain Picard had already or would soon visit this planet if I recalled episodes from the show. I couldn't find out the details, as they weren't part of any public record, though hopefully I wouldn't run into him as I wasn't a big fan of his, at least with regard to some of his decisions.

(Line Break)

Space Port. Risa.

Given that there were up to a billion visiting tourists on the planet at any one time, the spaceport was rather busy and just like in my time you had go through customs before you could start your vacation, so I had ended up waiting for a while in a big line. As I waited I got to listen to a simply riveting machine voice talk about the planet, repeating many of the same facts and figures I'd already read about. I listened as I didn't have a choice in the matter.

Visitors to this world, no matter how many times they have already been here, never cease to be awestruck at the pristine beauty, the brilliance, and the perfection of the planet. All who bother to learn, though, are fully aware of the all-too synthetic, mechanical nature of its beauty, only possible through the most sophisticated artificial weather control system in the entire Federation. That system alone kept storm patterns and global temperatures completely predictable and controlled, but as far as the vast majority are concerned, that is more an asset than a liability. It is an expression of triumph, a monument to the vast ingenuity of sentient life, to what we can control, to what we can create when we set our minds to it.

Looking out from an arriving shuttle, visitors are rarely able to tear their gaze away from what they see, the vast resorts, from towering themed hotel complexes looking out to the ocean, to a wide variety of amusement parks, extending throughout the mainland, to the jungles, the islands, the cruise vessels, made to look straight out of a history book, and of course, the long stretch of beaches, wide enough to provide the proper balance between peaceful tranquility, and friendly community.

I figured that the machine was going to talk awhile. I promised myself that when I next got the chance I'd replicate myself some noise canceling headphones and something that played music.

(Line Break)

Hotel. Risa.

Eventually I'd gotten past customs and had found the place I was to reside in for the next few days, though I planned to stay on the planet for a few weeks. Since there were extensive accommodations available for tourists all over the planet my intention was to move around and stay at quite a few places.

The first place I was staying at was a rather nice hotel that was a stone throw away from the beach and was located in a lagoon of great beauty. After unpacking I had decided to park myself in a deck chair on the hotel's patio and to enjoy the sunshine of a binary star system, instead of heading down to the beach. Since a suntan was essentially short-term damage to the skin, I was curious to see if a Khan-era augment could even tan.

Once I had sat down I reached into my bag and pulled out a thick, pre-Federation, hard cover book that I had borrowed from the library I worked at. The author was known to me, however the story was not, and I was looking forward to reading something that might never have existed in my universe for one reason or another.

However, I found myself quite distracted by the many pleasant sounds around me, the roar of the waves, the rustle of the leaves of the nearby tropical foliage, the endless happy chatter of people in the hotel, and what I guessed to be the joyous laughter of the beautiful young women who seemed to populate Risa. I don't think I'd seen even a single unattractive Risian male or female yet.

Then I heard a voice say my name, my actual name, not the one I had chosen for myself. I would have told the person off for using it only when I turned around I was struck dumb for a moment.

The woman I saw had windswept, flowing red hair and a petite figure, with pretty green eyes, and she was wearing a scanty one-piece beige colored swimsuit. The color wasn't attractive, but everything else sure was. Once I looked at her face I discovered that she was human. That explained the beige color choice; humans in this century tended to favor sedate colors and had awful taste in clothing.

"Yes?" I asked once my brain was working again. "Can I help you?"

Since the people who knew me personally were either on Earth or on the Enterprise I had no idea how this woman recognized me, or how she knew my old name.

"My name is Natalie Romanov," she introduced.

She didn't sound Russian, but that didn't mean anything as she might never have even set foot on Earth. However, I got the impression that that wasn't what she was really called, and that made me curious.

"You can call me Gothic," I told her.

The woman's smile became more confident.

"It's Lieutenant Natalie Romanov, actually," she then informed me. "I'm a member of Starfleet Intelligence".

I'd wondered a few times whether Starfleet Intelligence would have someone keeping an eye on me and my movements. I wasn't the only known augment around, by any means, however most of my fellows only had minor enhancements, at least when compared to mine. This was because the risks of genetic engineering, in terms of unexpected complications, increased exponentially the more a person's DNA was messed with, so most augments today were nowhere near as strong, as tough, or as fast as I was. That made me far more dangerous than the rest. Add in the historical connotations of being a Khan-era augment and it wasn't crazy to think I'd be under surveillance for a while, at least.

"I would show you my identification," Natalie then said, sounding sheepish, "but as you can see, I don't have much on me".

People in this dimension seemed to undervalue pockets for some reason. It was only in the last few seasons of TNG, for example, that the Starfleet duty uniform moved away from that ridiculous unisuit style. I had a mind to wear cargo pants everywhere, complete with a multi-compartment utility belt in protest! As for the ID, I had no idea what identification an intelligence agent would even carry, nor would I even know how to authenticate it, so using it to prove who she was would have been completely pointless.

"You don't need ID," I told her. "If you say you're with Starfleet Intelligence then I believe you".

Although I did find it pretty odd that she was here talking to me if she was meant to be spying on me. She'd blown her cover.

"I just didn't want you to get the wrong impression," she said.

Since I didn't have much of an impression about her, I had no idea what she worrying about. In fact it was a pretty odd thing to say.

"Please sit down," I offered, while gesturing to an empty chair next to mine. "You might as well tell me whatever it is you came over to tell me".

If she wasn't here to keep tabs on me, then she must have had another reason for talking to me and I wanted to know what that was. She might actually want to talk to me in a non-professional capacity, but somehow I doubted that, otherwise she wouldn't have mentioned who she worked for without even being asked.

"Thank you," she said, before taking the offered seat.

She didn't say anything after that, just looking at me, so I decided to guide the conversation.

"I assume you've heard of me," I said causally.

The Federation was big, but gossip traveled faster than even Warp 9, so I didn't doubt that talk about the augment from another time and dimension had already spread far and wide.

"You've made quite an impression throughout the fleet," she informed me.

I imagined that many people both in and out of Starfleet took special notice of everything that took place on board the Enterprise; it being the center of so many important events. That would include noticing the people who stayed on board the flagship.

"Particularly in Intelligence, I presume?" I inquired.

She nodded.

"I suppose I should be flattered," I then said.

Again, nothing was said for a while after, and I found this incredibly annoying because it meant that this agent might be playing a game with me, maybe even as some sort of passive interrogation technique.

"Why don't you tell me about yourself?" I requested.

Somehow I doubted that she would be forthcoming, but her answer could be useful in figuring out what the game was here.

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

Thus answering a question with a question and giving nothing away.

I pondered that for a moment. Let's send up an easy question and see what happens.

"Did you join Intelligence right after leaving the Academy?" I inquired.

She didn't take long to answer

"More or less" she said.

Well, fuck you bitch. What kind of game was being played here? Let's throw in some flattery with mild insults.

"Either you're one of the best field agents they have, or you're a novice at this and have no idea what to say," I reasoned.

She raised an eyebrow while looking at me.

"How did you know?" she wondered.

Again, with the fucking childish evasions. I noted again that she wasn't telling me anything, which meant either she was a cautious newbie, trying to piss me off, or very good at her job.

"I'm genetically enhanced," I said, like that should explain it all. Let her come to her own conclusions as to what that nonsense meant.

She nodded.

"Are you busy?" I asked. "Tonight, I mean".

Now I was wondering if this was going to turn into some sort of James Bond-esque adventure that she would drag me into. It was either that or she was some file clerk at Starfleet Intelligence who really didn't know how to talk to men, even on a planet where she could have a dozen Risian men in her bed in 20 seconds. I was leaning more towards James Bond, but it was pretty annoying that I couldn't figure out which it was, and since I couldn't, I really wanted to find out more about her. And didn't that just stink of an intelligence outfit having created a fairly accurate psychographic profile on me. I fucking hated being played.

"No," she simply replied.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound; let's see where this led.

"How about we have dinner together?" I asked.

She looked at me again, but I still couldn't tell if she was just out of her element here or if she was a pro who betrayed nothing and was manipulating me with every word. Enhanced brain and cognitive functions aside, I was still a complete neophyte at all this cloak and dagger shit.

"Tempting," she said.

Again, another non-answer. How utterly un-fucking-surprising.

"1800," I stated rather than asked.

She nodded.

"Well, there's bound to be a restaurant near here," I reasoned, while glancing around.

One of the natives would be helpful in finding a suitable location.

"Would you agree to…come to my room instead?" she asked nervously.

That surprised me to hear, and that nervousness was sounding pretty fake now that I'd had some time to analyze her behavior.

"I have some work I've brought along, which needs finishing," she told me. "I'd prefer to do so as soon as possible".

She was either a terrible spy or very good at pretending to be a bad spy. I really had to find out which it was. I just knew I was going to regret this.

(Line Break)

I looked up from my dinner and noticed that my dining companion had barely touched hers. She was looking around at her surroundings, which included a window with a truly spectacular view of the lagoon and for the life of me I couldn't tell what her mood was.

"Is this your first time here?" I asked.

She looked up at me, and her face gave me a look of confusion.

"Hmm?" she muttered in a distracted manner.

For a moment I tensed, my eyes darting around the room, now wondering if this had been a trap of some sort from the start and something was about to go down, however everything continued to remain peaceful.

"I was asking whether or not you've been here before," I clarified.

She shook her head.

"No, I haven't been to Risa before now," she told me.

Finally! A mother fucking straight answer! Well, she fit in better than I did, all she wore now was a different coloured one piece bathing suit with some transparent fabric wrapped around her waist to act as a skirt. In my time it would have been a cover-up, but as it was transparent, not much was covered up.

"Let me guess, you're not exactly here on vacation," I said.

Again, she looked confused.

"I'm thinking that you're a secret agent who gets sent to exotic places around the galaxy," I told her.

She smiled at me.

"Well, sometimes that is what happens," she admitted.

Again, she wasn't actually telling me anything of substance, and I couldn't tell whether she was doing it on purpose. It was making me a little crazy. So crazy, I was seriously contemplating telling this chick to fuck off and just walking right out of here.

"But not all the time, of course," I said.

She shook her head and sighed.

"Sadly no," she replied.

I leaned back in my seat, my patience continuing to wear thin, and looked over the rim of my sunglasses so that I could study her.

"So are you here for work or pleasure?" I then asked, "because not knowing is going to drive me crazy. I know people come to Risa to have fun, and that includes copious amounts of casual sex, but I get the sense that that isn't what this is about".

She narrowed her eyes as she leaned forward and then she beckoned me with her finger.

"You're right," she said. "I'm here on assignment."

I wasn't convinced that this was the truth, but I played along. Given this elaborate and increasingly ridiculous conversation, I was likely the target of that supposed assignment.

"Doing what?" I inquired.

Before she answered I wondered for the hundredth time if I was somehow all wrong about this. Maybe she was just trying to impress me, and she was, in fact, just a file clerk. Knowing how crazy my life was, I wouldn't bet on it.

"This is highly classified," I was informed. "Intelligence has been receiving reports of Syndicate activity in this area for the past several weeks. We suspect that they have a base of operations here on Risa".

While my knowledge of the criminal factions in this galaxy wasn't very detailed, at least when compared to an intelligence agent's, I did have some idea of what she was talking about. Still, I figured I'd best make sure.

"The Orion Syndicate?" I asked.

Now she looked amused.

"Is there another 'Syndicate' we should be aware of?" she asked back, with a laugh.

Given how out of date I was I felt that my question had been a legitimate one, for all I knew there were hundreds of criminal 'syndicates' scattered across the quadrant. Of course the Orion Syndicate was the only one talked about in the shows, but I couldn't exactly act like I had all that knowledge.

"There have been a lot of recent withdrawals of large sums of latinum from certain monitored accounts in the Bank of Bolius. The money was transferred across a few sectors and then physically brought here to this lagoon," she was now telling me. "Aside from that all we know is that in an establishment a few blocks away from here there is a man who has suddenly become very wealthy, with no discernible explanation, and he's been seen with people connected to the Orions while gambling at the casinos".

If this man was human, then he was acting very oddly, as aside from myself I'd never met any human who would do anything for mere latinum.

"We suspect that the Orions are planning something that will happen soon, and that it involves the man I've been investigating," she explained. "And it's something important enough to warrant paying someone so much gold pressed latinum".

Something didn't add up here.

"Why didn't you check in to that resort?" I asked.

She'd be able to keep a much better eye on her target if she was staying inside the same hotel after all.

"We didn't want to risk me being spotted by the Orions," she told me. "I report regularly to my superiors, and we can't take the risk of anyone spying on me while in my quarters giving updates on my investigation and thus destroying my cover. That was why I had to stay here and work; I was analyzing the information we already have and then confirming everything with my contact at Headquarters".

This answered a lot, but not why she was telling me all of this, or why it still stank so much of a set up.

"I'm obviously not authorized to know this sort of thing," I stated simply.

Which made this all the more confusing.

"Of course not," she agreed.

We stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

"So you want my help," I stated plainly.

That seemed to be where this was going, in fact almost certainly from the very first word.

"I do," she said.

Despite her supposed need I saw no reason why I should help her or play along with this whole farce. Sure, it made sense, on paper, maybe, for her to want my help in particular, given my unique abilities, but to choose me over the probably thousands of Starfleet officers probably on the planet at this very moment that she could ask? Not likely. And didn't that put it in perspective.

Another issue was that I hadn't come to Risa for that kind of thing. I was far more eager to get to know the natives, intimately. However, I also wasn't on any kind of deadline so I could go be a spy and then have my fun. Plus, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was a good chance that this was actually a Section 31 operation, meant to test me in some manner, and unlike Starfleet Intelligence that organization wasn't above doing things like making people disappear if they saw a threat to the Federation. Which meant not cooperating now, when it would supposedly help the Federation, might be very unwise as I could suddenly be ruled a threat.

"We'll need a cover, won't we?" I wondered, my decision made.

While I'd read about fictional spies on missions and seen the James Bond films, I really had no idea how undercover operations actually worked.

"We are a newly married couple," Natalie Romanov informed me, "and we're on our honeymoon".

Either this had all been planned well in advance, which wouldn't surprise me a bit, or she was making everything up as she went along. I still couldn't tell for sure.

"Well, then you'd best tell me the rest of the plan," I said.

Which was exactly what she did once she had taken out a small computer and had switched it on. Soon a map filled the screen, dots indicating where the man, whose name I still hadn't been told, had been meeting with suspected Orion crooks. I couldn't help but notice that the locations were all near weather control substations.

"All the casinos he's been spotted in are near weather control substations, quite a coincidence," I said. "Let me guess, this man used to work in weather control before he suddenly got super rich".

A file was then brought up which told me the man's name, which was Jason Leeds, and he'd come from a planet I'd never even heard of. He had, though, worked at a few different weather control stations on the world of his birth.

"They're tapping into the weather control net," Natalie then informed me. "With the right technology they could target a specific location with, say, a thousand lightning strikes, or an earthquake, or even a flood".

Indeed, these Syndicate people could do a lot of damage if they somehow took control of the weather, even hold this planet hostage. I think I remembered a TNG episode that played out exactly like this, but in that case they were just making a political statement rather than anything truly nefarious. Probably why Section 31 hadn't stopped it before it happened. Those kinds of groups probably never even made their radar, not when there were some hardcore criminal/evil organizations out there who wanted to do real damage.

"With residents and tourists unable to escape the planet, due to threats of storms and unstable weather, they could effectively hold the entire planet ransom," Natalie was now saying, "and it would make a lot of people unhappy, causing civil unrest all over the planet".

Not to mention the effect it would have on trade, and in all the chaos it would be very easy for all sorts of crimes to take place as what law enforcement there was on this planet, assuming there was any at all, would be too busy trying to keep order to deal with any criminals.

"And it will happen soon," the agent added, "just as we feared".

If this was something real then someone did need to act to stop it, especially since I didn't want to be on a planet with such dangerous weather. Furthermore, even if this was all an act I wanted to know why someone would go to all this trouble. Which meant I would be playing along for now.

"So either we need to find this Leeds and 'ask him' what he's doing," I said, "or we break into his hotel room and look for clues. Maybe he's got a computer we can hack into?"

Natalie smiled.

"Funny you should suggest breaking into his room," she said. "That's exactly what I had in mind".

I knew that no matter what happened the next few days, things were going to be very interesting. Hopefully in a good way.