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It was the so called hour of the wolf. The very time in the early morning when someone simply couldn't sleep, having all the problems and troubles of the present and the past in mind. Usually, it was the time where someone would remember having done or said something unfortunate in the very past, acknoledging with the knowledge one has now it could have been way better.

Lying in the bed of his quarter on Nichols, Kyu simply couldn't fall asleep. The recent reports of OSI pilots were not really his business, yet they were concerning. Liberty was a very dangerous place, and the way he saw it, house space was even more dangerous than the Omegas. Less radiation, less asteroids, but way more aggressive people. The Rogues? No. From all the people in Liberty, they were the most charming ones, doing what they do with a certain kind of humor that made them amicable. The Outcasts? No. They had the tendency to ignore Zoners, even in house space. There were only very few exceptions, and Eliza Valdez was one of them. She however acted more like a Rouge in the way described earlier. With a wart like that in the face, there was probably not much else to do than treating life with humor.

But there was a third party in Liberty that made Kyu having a chill running down his spine every time he was confronted with them. Even thinking about them made him angry. The feeling of absolutely being inferior to them. They are said to be very intelligent people. Kyu however had his doubts about it. There was nothing intelligent about passionate hatred. Something that was a major trait of that party. And recently, they turned their eyes on the Omicron Supply Industries. The reports were concerning. Sure, there were certain transport pilots that didn't really react clever in encounters with the Lane Hackers. Karl Broken was one of those pilots. However, if it was only about him, the issue wouldn't have been a real thing. No, the Lane Hackers were suddenly focusing OSI, and it only got worse after Kyu himself and OSI CEO David Starr having tried to get in touch with them. There was so much more possible, yet they refused. Piracy and Assassination. Against Zoners. Damn it, the Hackers were even welcome on most freeports and even Canaria. Knowing their agents might be on Canaria, or worse, even within OSI, was a horrible thought. But maybe he was just paranoid. But maybe he was right? But then again, what to do against that? Fighting them openly wasn't the way to go. That is not what a Zoner does. There was a Conference Gunboat registered on Kyu's name, and a destroyer of a close friend who allowed him to take control over it if necessary - saying it with the knowledge of that never being the case, because what Zoner would really need a combat platform?

Rolling from one side to the other in his bed, Kyu looked at the blue lava lamp on the nightstand close to the bed. What an artifact. A classic. Something that is so old. Something that worked though. Staring at a blue wobbly blob of molten wax moving up in the water, that thought was sort of inspirational. There was a sudden thought coming to his mind, as it was something old that rendered Freeport 11 in Omicron Delta inoperable in the last month. Hell, the Core was known for using the most advanced technologies of Sirius. Kyu saw a lot of it with his own eyes when he was working for APM. They were using nomad and gammuian technology for their cause. APM Advanced Hardware, as they call it in general. But it wasn't that what they used to attack the freeport. It was a NEMP bomb, something that is so old in it's technological level that nobody seriously expected that from Core. It worked, though.

His first thought was throwing it at one of the Lane Hacker's staging points. It was immediately after that thought when he had to remind himself of being a Zoner, not a murderer. Those NEMP bombs were lethal. They weren't a joke. The one bomb in Omicron Delta caused, from what was known, a four to five digit amount of deaths. A horrible thought. No, that wasn't the way a Zoner would deal with things, especially not this one who left the Core exactly because of their cruelty.

Thinking about it really didn't better his mood. He acknoledged that himself, figuring he should concentrate more on sleeping. Maybe some progressive muscle relaxiation would do the job? So he tensed as many muscles in his face as possible, which looked incredibly stupid whenever a person did that. 30 seconds. Release. Feeling how the muscles slowly moved back to their original positions, the feeling of their relaxiation was not bad. Sighing, Kyu closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep again.

A minute later, he was putting on simple clothes and left his room, heading to the Research & Development section of Nichols.

Some of the most creative minds of Gran Canaria and the rest of Sirius have been working here, in Nichols' R&D section. They had access to incredible technologies, which in the end allowed even the Omicron Supply Industries to produce high-tech equipment like cloaking devices and their counterparts, and even jump drives. It was sort of ironic that it required Kyu to come up with the idea of turning NIchols into a self-sustaining space station by adding old but working things: Hydroponics, Oxygen Recyclers and Water Purifiers. His team was making a good progress on the development. They were currently making tests with all the ressources that have been delivered to the different OSI facilities on Lanzarote, the Vista and Canaria. He knew his team and their traits. And for what he had in mind, he had to know who he can trust.

And he knew there weren't many people checking this section of the station very often. Ideal conditions to work on some ambitious projects. Entering the R&D section of Nichols, he found an empty place, and that would stay this way for at least four hours. And that was good. That was exactly what he needed right now. Access to the OSI technological database without anyone looking over his shoulders to question it. Or why he was only wearing a simple shirt and sweatpants. Taking a seat at one of the neural net consoles, a little sigh left his mouth. And so he started browing Nichols' database for everything that could help him with the construction of a NEMP bomb. And then, the neural net in general.

It was something he had to do multiple times. There was a surpringly big amount of information about NEMPs in the public neural net. Not only theory, but also blueprints. Of course Kyu questioned that. One download, another download, gigabytes of texts, manuals, pictures, 3D models, formulae. Knowing how to leave only minimal traces, he made sure nobody would become aware of what neural net pages he accessed. No history, no temporary data. No traces. All what was left was one PDA filled with ambitious plans.

While Kyu was not dumb, he himself was no scientist. Someone with more expertise would be required to check the data. He could provide the ressources and space to produce what he had in mind, and he knew some people of his team were trustworthy enough to support this. But this was something he needed external help. Help from someone who was bored enough to work their way through the data...

With each day the plans got more solid. The teams of Nichols, Lanzarote, Canaria and the Vista were all still busy with the current Nichols Upgrade Project Kyu was leading. While all the deliveries for Phase 1 have been done a while ago, the OSI facilities and R&D sections in all those locations were stuffed with the materials and the desk criminals were focused on it, analyzing the quality and potential use of all the delivered goods and materials. There was not much to do for Kyu currently, so he had more time for his own little secret business. Taking his Conference gunboat, he used the spare time to move to the heart of Liberty: Manhattan.

Officially, he told the rest of OSI he would move there to show some presence and maybe get a few new employees for the company. Inofficially, he started to look around, opening eyes and ears for his little project. Ressources and production facilities weren't a problem, that was for sure. However, what he needed were someone to validate his data, and as much intel about the Lane Hackers as possible. The problem was, the Lane Hackers were even for Liberty still a mystery. Talking to the Navy pilots Elijah Bishop and John Mayer, the OSI Advisor learned a little bit about his new favourite enemy. Apparently, the Lane Hackers are said to not use any kind of bigger crafts but prefer snubs and in rare occasions, gunboats. So his ship of choice would actually come in handy to escort Whales through Liberty. But that wasn't what he wanted to know. Like a curious tourist he kept asking the officers, wanting to know as much as possible about the Hackers. While the Navy wasn't able to tell him about the positions of their bases, they hinted him to start his search in Magellan and Galileo.

If he wanted to find potential targets for his project, he would need to start looking there.

With the words of Elijah Bishop and John Mayer lingering in his mind, it kept the OSI Advisor sleepless. The PDA with the data was still there, lying in the shelve of his nightstand. Knowing it was there was like a constant reminder of the entire situation. Lying in bed, usually with his face to the lava lamp, the blue wobbly mass moved up and down, and every time it moved down, his gaze went to the nightstand, knowing the damn PDA was there. A PDA filled with data that could be a good reason to lose his job if anyone would find out. The thought of deleting all the data was tempting. He had a good life with OSI. Two Whales and a Conference were under his command. He had a nice apartment on Canaria and personal quarters on each OSI installation, even on the Vista. And he had to put in a lot of effort to get the position of an Advisor, which was just one level below a director. There was a chance of becoming a director with the completion of the Nichols Upgrade Project.

But on the other hand, what use has that title when the Lane Hackers continue with their work against OSI without repercussions for their acts. There was only so much OSI itself could do. The negotiations with them have failed. And escorts had a tendency of being useless when the pirate usually opens fire at the transport first. Two torpedos, enough to bring down any Whale. And the fact that OSI's escort wing wasn't nearly as skilled as any pirate didn't help either.

No. They not only pirated OSI for a very long time, but also started attacking their transports. Piracy was one thing. Killing OSI personnel another. The line was drawn, they crossed it.

Again Kyu moved to Liberty, visiting Planet Manhattan and the Trenton Outpost. His ship remained at the very usual parking spots, waiting for people to pass by. People that hopefully had some information he was looking for. For the second time, he met Elena Voigt, a young lady with dyed hair. A Freelancer. A cheerful person, smiling most of the time, which admittedly loosened his tongue. He told her about what he was looking for and what he knew so far, and in the end, they came up with a deal. She would bring two of her friends, and together with Kyu, they would follow the hints Bishop and Mayer gave him. The next day, at 16:30 Sirius Standard Time, they would meet up at Trenton again and move out to scout the Magellan system, and later the Galileo system. And they were expecting resistance, because the Lane Hackers surely wouldn't allow anyone to simply find their bases.

Thus, he contacted a good friend and asked him to borrow a little toy.

Four escorts. Designations Mercenary, Elena Voigt, Lunawolf and Heliaca, who later switched to Chrysaetos. With those four Freelancers escordting the Dreamweaver, Kyu had enough backup to face the Lane Hackers if they would get into his way. Following the hints Bishop and Mayer gave Kyu, the group moved to the Magellan system, to begin the search there.

Like a bad omen, they had been encountered by a Lane Hacker named Gustav Graves the very moment they entered the Magellan system. They first passed by him, yet he followed the group to Freeport 4, stopping them for an interrogation. They first tried to talk themselves out of it, but the situation heated up very quickly, escalating in a fight: Four Freelancers versus one Lane Hacker. And he used all the dirty tricks. Mercenary was put out of action, and it required Elena Voigt to use a very suicidal move to bring the Hacker down, dropping a mine onto his Vindicator close enough that the explosion ripped the engine of her fighter into pieces. The people on Freeport 4 luckily were able to replace it very quickly. Elena survived more or less unharmed - similar to Graves, who managed to escape with his pod.

Setting a search pattern in the Barrier Cloud of Magellan, they found all kinds of interesting stuff. A Gallic Battleship, a Jump Hole to Leeds, some wrecks. After a while they stumbled across what they were hoping to find: Deeply hidden in the Barrier, the Mactan base was welcoming them with long-range pulses, which prevented them from going in too close. Remaining in the distance, the Dreamweaver tried to scan the installation, only getting a few visuals from it. Zooming into the pictures, Kyu noticed a little thing close to the base. A node. It was sending out highly encrypted signals. Nothing Kyu was able to decrypt.

Having found what they were looking for, they moved back to Liberty, to follow the second hint Kyu received from the Navy: Galileo. It made sense, as the Dark Matter clouds were rendering the scanners nearly completely ineffective. Entering the first cloud, they stumbled across a Rogue asteroid base - it appeared that close infront of them that the Dreamweaver had to use evasive manouvers to not collide with it. Moving on, they found nothing else in the first cloud, but a little wreckage. Nothing interesting. Other than in the second cloud.

Leiden base. While the Freelancers had nothing better to do than making rheinlandian puns about that name, the Dreamweaver moved as close as possible to Leiden to get a good look on it. And on another node they found. So both hints were correct. Mactan, Leiden. Two Lane Hacker bases. Enough to work with, Kyu thought. Paying the Freelancers, they left the cloud, and the Dreamweaver moved back to Liberty, to make a short break there. Kyu was actually fascinated by what they found. He was right with his assumptions. Back when he tried to contact the Lane Hackers to find out about their current views on OSI, he did it to find out how they were able to sustain themselves. It was part of the idea to learn from them in order to make Nichols a self-sustaining space station. Looking at their bases, wich are rocks in very inhospitable places, they surely had the means to sustain them for long periods of time. It was a shame they weren't cooperative, Kyu thought. But that was in the past. For the future, he had other plans. And given that Voigt offered him to work for him again, chances were good she might end up in those future plans.

Once more the room was only illuminated by two light sources. One was brighter than the other. The blue-cyan lava lamp. The wax was in constant movement, all day long, wobbling up and down, illuminating Kyu's private quarter even when he was sleeping. Right in this moment, however, he didn't sleep anymore. His PDA beeped, notifying him about an incoming transmission. It was a transmission from Fleet Marshal Meallan Dagon, the R&D leader of the Hellfire Legion. Two days ago, OSI was contracted by him to move a certain cargo from Cambridge to Ames. Everything went well, but this was the opportunity Kyu was looking for. Lead R&D. Exactly the person he was looking for. Destiny played into his hands this time. So he dared it. Kyu asked the Fleet Marshal to validate the data.

The second light source was the PDA Kyu held in his hand, as he sat at the edge of the bed, looking down at it, reading the message. Adrenalin was rushing through his torso. His hand was twitching with the realization of him having the plans, and the means, to construct a weapon of mass destruction. With a slow movement he raised his other hand to his mouth, covering it in a mix of overwhelmed revelation and deep thought. And to prevent the twitching.

In an attempt to calm down, Kyu took a deep breath through the nose. His eyes still felt tired from sleeping, but this would not allow him to sleep again for a while. Instead, he put the PDA to the side for a moment to stand up, moving towards the bathroom. The point of no return wasn't reached yet. Everything was alright so far. The Nichols Upgrade Project was making progress, with Planetform already having arrived at Nichols and IRG being about to do the same. Paul Mendes was still negotiating with Ageira, while Kishiro and Synth Foods didn't reply so far. All he could be blamed for was using an OSI neural net access console to search for that stuff, although he knew how and when they would get checked and how to avoid getting traced. At least from the OSI-side. And then there was Meallan Dagon, who knew OSI, or at least Kyu, was now in the possession of the data. Hopefully he wouldn't keep an eye on him.

Some water to his face would help him, he thought, so he went to the sink to wetten his face. One or two splashes. Looking in the mirror after it, he saw the water dropping from his skin, just barely visible as the only light source now was the cyan light of the lava lamp.

"Time to talk to a few people."

Lanzarote was the more unpopular place to work on in the Omega-49 system. The entire station was just an array of facilities, and the Mollys often came here for a pit stop, to not have to deal with Corsairs and BHGs the Vista or Canaria. Their weird kind of talking was part of the station. In the end, Lanzarote was the place of less attention. Omicron Supply Industries was present here as well, although the presence was just minor. The station however offered space. Space to store 30.000 canisters of plutonium from Okinawa.

As all the other materials were available, Kyu only had to hire [FL-ER] to get the one ingedient he and his team needed to begin their work. Knowing Lanzarote was the last place for any other directors of OSI to show up, especially in certain parts of the station, they moved the Plutonium to their improv R&D workshop. Equipment borrowed from the inactive R&D facilities on Canaria. Nobody would miss it, at least not for the time being.

In this moment, Kyu and five other people were standing in a small hall, filled with some robotics, Plutonium canisters and the other pilfered ressources necessary to begin with the construction. Step one was to adjust all the robotics, and programming them to do the precise construction work. That wouldn't take too much time, as the robotics were capable of learning the blueprints of the weapon fairly easily. As for the work with the plutonium, they had to set up a special isolated area and a few rad suits in order to stay healthy. That however wasn't a problem either, as Lanzarote was importing Plutonium on a regular basis and thus was equipped to deal with radiation. His team had the know-how as well.

The construction of the casings and the detonators were the easiest part. So they started with it.

Days later they had the results. Two very dirty bombs. Now the only thing to worry about was how to hide them from anyone else...

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