Chapter Seven: Future-Proofing

March 7, 2017. BAINE Headquarters.

Director Mills stared down at his desk, contemplating it as hard as he was the information he had recently received. "I should have suspected this long ago," he said quietly. "Now Mr. Echo has put his plan into motion, and I have done nothing to prevent it."

One of the two figures in his office spoke up. "Nonsense–we all had other priorities at the time, you especially," said Captain Steele. "We had to regroup after the invasion, not to mention prepare for another one from Homeworld."

"And…not to doubt Mr. Bridge's wisdom, but are we certain this 'Mr. Echo' character is the one responsible?" asked Valdain. "Even if these robonoids are indeed the same models he has used in the past, is it not impossible for another group or individual to have acquired them for their own usage?"

As much as Mills wanted to believe that, he had been in this business too long to put much faith in coincidences. "No, no, the odds of that are almost nil. Echo has worked with others in the past, but I find it difficult to believe he would allow a third party to pursue the same goals independently of him. He is involved in this, either directly or indirectly, and I fear we know too little about his plans to act."

"We know he has it out for Gems, both Crystal and Homeworld," Steele said. "It's possible he's stealing all this tech to prepare for some sort of attack on the temple in Beach City. Given that he used to work with Pierce, he has to know where it is."

"Not to mention, he is old enough to have personally fought in the Gem War," added Mills. "After Fitzpatrick proved his true loyalty, he now possesses enough plutonium to construct an atomic explosive of his own. Add that to the Gem technology he is acquiring, and it paints a ghastly picture…"

"But not one we aren't prepared to handle," said Steele. "Or at least, we can prepare. Aside from these robots and bizarre Rhinestone things, he doesn't have an army this time."

"Not one we know of," countered Valdain.

Steele shot him a brief glare. "Either way, he's gone from manipulating militant splinter groups and world-spanning cults to highway robbery. He knows he's the underdog this time, and he'll be looking for the right opportunity to strike. So we don't give him one. We wait for him to make the first move."

"But the first move could very well be nuking Beach City!" Valdain cried. "At the very least, we should warn them of the possibility. Better yet, maybe they know something of this Mr. Echo. Many of them were active during the war as well, after all."

"Unfortunately, we've already tried asking–none of them had even heard of anyone resembling his description," Mills lamented. "Though we will contact them about the situation, I fear there is little we can do to be proactive. However, considering Dr. Packard has been given samples from the Rhinestones to work on, I am fairly confident we will have a new lead before long."

"Until then, Fireteam Alpha will keep an eye out for any suspicious activity," said Steele. "I'll let Hugo know to monitor the airwaves too. In the meantime…I think it's time we discussed our newest project."

Valdain nodded. "I agree. We are far behind schedule as-is–and with both Mr. Echo and Homeworld up to something, we need it finished as soon as possible."

Still looking somewhat perturbed, Mills put his thumb against a scanner on his desk, opening a secret compartment. Several classified documents were inside, within an envelope labeled 'Project Aftermath.' "Yes. Although I wish with all my being it will never have to be implemented, decades in this business have told me one can never be too careful."

April 27, 2017.

Since the battle with the Rhinestones and robonoids, things had been business as usual for BAINE. A few corrupted Gems and tech smugglers here and there, but that was hardly out of the ordinary. All that was seen of Mr. Echo's forces were a few scattered rumors of more attacks on Polaris trucks, but those were few and far between. Though, as Ichigo pointed out, those were only the ones they heard about.

Slowly but steadily, progress was being made by both Gina and Rhodes. The former studied the broken shards of the Rhinestones, while the latter worked to connect BAINE's satellites into a single unified early-warning system. Their progress on both had been slow and steady, emphasis on slow.

"You hear about the thing with that Ruby?" asked Gina absently. "Can't believe one of those guys outsmarted them."

"Yeah. Never would have expected it." Rhodes was slumped over in his chair, slowly typing. "But, I guess she's not the first Gem to break stereotypes. We've got an independent Pearl, a short Amethyst…who says we can't have a smart Ruby?"

"Yup." Gina continued her work on the shards. "So…having any luck with that defense array?"

"Yes and no," he replied. "In theory, we can now detect warp signatures approaching Earth. The trouble is that every little anomaly or abnormality gets picked up by the system. There's no way to tell if it's a spaceship coming in, or just something like a meteor. And that's not even counting all the Gem ships already here!"

She paused her work to glance over. "Gem ships that are here? Potentially stupid question, but what's that mean?"

"They're not active," Rhodes clarified, "these are the ones left over from the Gem War. But whatever they're made of, their locator beacons are still going after all these years. Most of these we know are out there, but some we've been by hundreds of times and never even noticed!"

"I bet Echo'd want to get his hands on that," Gina mused. "All the tech he's been plundering lately…wonder what he needs it for?"

Rhodes pointed at the shards. "Think you answered your own question there. How else do you think he's making those?"

Gina looked down at her notes before facing him again. "Rhinestones aren't built, they're grown. Like regular Gems. Only these ones are made out of plastic." She considered the shards she had been studying. "No wonder they couldn't bring me back an intact specimen…well, whatever. He must be using the parts to repair a ship of his own."

"Hold on a moment…you said he has a ship?" said Rhodes, slowly turning around. "Like, a Gem ship? Here on Earth?"

"Yup. Apparently, it was called the Sunset Apogee, and it went down somewhere over Europe. It had the original means of creating Rhinestones, so if he has that, then he found the ship." Her eyes widened as she looked up. "Which you can now track…"

There was a short moment where the pair stared at the other, before Gina dashed over to Rhodes' side. He immediately turned the satellite network's attention to the Eurasian continent, scanning for ships. "Right, that narrows it down to about just under half, do you have any other info?"

Gina hurried back over to her research. "Okay, here, let me try something…" She began analyzing the various impurities in the Rhinestone's structure. "Okay, so a few air bubbles here, some dust there…it's gotta be somewhere dry, like a desert."

"Okay, that helps somewhat, but there's still like twenty that fit that description. Do you have anything else?"

She looked over her notes for a moment before going back to the computer. "Given that the Rhinestones need fossil fuels to build, I imagine it'll be near an oil field or something. Let's see…there!" The image zoomed in on a mountain range bordering Saudi Arabia. "That ship is sitting right on top of one of the largest untapped oil reservoirs in the world! If that's not an ideal place to build a plastic goon factory, I don't know what is!"

Rhodes looked over the area. "You're more right than you know. These mountains are way too inhospitable to risk a ground assault. Infiltration and extraction would be basically impossible, and even if a team did get in, Echo would no doubt detect them before they got close to the ship. An assault from the air is the only way to reach it."

"Then an assault from the air is what we'll do," said Gina, heading for the door. "You coming? We've gotta get this info to the Director ASAP! We might've just stopped this whole Echo debacle before it really started!"

"That's being generous," said Rhodes, following after her. "So, here's what I was thinking: we'll need to send in a team to do some quick recon, a real in-and-out kind of job. Destroy the ship if need-be, but focus on gathering intelligence. Since we can assume stealth is out the window, speed will have to be our main focus."

"Should I start putting together a team?" Gina asked.

But Rhodes had something else in mind. "Actually, I think we've already got the perfect team for the job."

May 1, 2017. Skies over Saudi Arabia.

Speeding through the clouds, the five fighter jets grew closer to their destination. "Falcon Squadron, be advised, we do not have satellite visual on the target at this time," a voice crackled over the radio. "Looks like you're going in blind."

"Roger that, Command," said Emett. "Okay, weapons check. How copy?"

"Lookin' good here, boss," Leon replied.

"All systems nominal," reported Oscar.

"Locked, cocked, and ready to rock," Vladimir said.

"Missiles ready to mess 'em up!" announced Sara.

With his team ready to go, Emett led the descent towards the mountains. "Remember, team, we're going in blind. Keep your heads on a swivel, and be ready for anything."

"What, like one guy can be a bigger threat than a whole fleet of evil alien robots?" scoffed Leon. "With everything we've been through, this should be no problem!"

Emett saw Leon's point, and agreed with him to a point. But he knew better than to underestimate someone who had been plotting against them for the past five thousand years. Hopefully, Mr. Echo was indeed not as big a threat as the Koh'i'Noor…but he didn't hold his breath.