Chapter 242: Going Down the Rabbit Hole
I put down the tablet with the picture of Pippa Flynn on it and laid back on the couch, closing my eyes. There were too many things going through my head right now, and I didn’t know what was possible and what was nothing more than a conspiracy theory.
Like, take the formation of the L-series ships. They were literally the front line between the rest of the universe and the Alliance Headquarters.
I had once made a sarcastic remark to Pippa about how if the Alliance was so powerful, why did they need humans to defend them? But maybe they didn’t. Maybe that line of defense was less about keeping unwanted people away from the Alliance and more about keeping the Alliance away from the universe.
Could Pippa really do something like that? Take over the Alliance? It really doesn’t seem possible.
I didn’t want to go from underestimating her to overestimating her. That would be just as detrimental as well.
My thoughts continued to go down the rabbit hole, unable to stop analyzing every interaction that I had had with the girl. And yet, nothing really stood out as being wrong. Maybe I was becoming too paranoid.
I picked up the tablet again and went back to staring at the picture.
Just because she wanted to be the center of everyone’s attention didn’t mean that she had the ability to take over the Alliance.
Sure, I was planning on doing the same thing, but I had Jun Li and his ability to take over anything and everything.
And Pippa had Stargazer...
I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts under control.
"Jun Li," I said, turning off the tablet and gently throwing it onto the coffee table in front of me.
"Yes?" answered the AI almost immediately.
"Can you hack into Stargazer?" I continued, not too sure how to ask this question. Was I going crazy?
Fuck it. Better to be safe than sorry.
"I am already in his system," confirmed Jun Li.
"Find everything you can about Pippa’s movements, and Stargazer’s, too, for that matter," I said as I pulled off the fur blanket covering me and stood up.
"Is there anything in particular that I am looking for?" asked Jun Li. I stretched my neck back and forth, trying to get rid of the stiffness.
"Anything involving them taking over the Alliance," I answered concisely. All five of my mates’ heads shot up and stared at me.
"You think they could?" replied Jun Li with a question of his own. His voice was soft, almost thoughtful.
"Impossible," said Da’kea with a shake of his head. "The Alliance is impenetrable to AI hacking."
"I think that I managed to get Jun Li into more than a few ships for him to take over, no matter how good their systems worked, just by going there myself," I replied. I didn’t really want to think about it, but I was not dumb enough not to explore all the possibilities before discounting them.
"You think the Alliance invited Pippa to their headquarters, and she took them over?" asked Midnight, raising his eyebrow.
"She knows about the Great AI War, and she knows how to manipulate things to get what she wants," I said with a sigh. Really, it would be so much easier if she was just the dumb cheerleader, but I wasn’t going to turn my back on an enemy just because it would be easier.
"But she was taking the drink, too. The one that was killing most of the human females," reminded GA. I nodded my head in agreement, but there were two possibilities. The first one was that she wasn’t actually drinking that crap. After all, we had no idea what was in the cup; she was the one to tell us.
And second, the most disturbing one of all was that she wanted to manipulate her genetic code to become an Ethawainian. What better way to become the center of everyone’s attention than to become the one thing everyone wants most?
I scrubbed my hands over my face, wishing that I could just turn my brain off for a while.
"I’m going for a swim," I said, turning around and walking out of the living room. This rabbit hole was getting more and more complicated. I scoffed at the idea that a 19 year old girl could lead me on such a merry chase. I was going to figure out this problem one way or another. And she had better hope that she wasn’t involved with siccing the dogs on me.
I was a petty, vindictive bitch when I wanted to be.
I entered my quarters and went straight to my closet. Finding the drawer that I threw my bathing suits into, I sorted through them with a smile on my face.
I needed to get my mind off this crap, and I had the perfect idea about just how to do that.
----
Midnight and the others followed Jun Li’s direction to one of the lower levels of the ship that had been designated as a ’swimming pool’.
"Do you think she is right?" asked Tha’juen as the five of them got off of the lift. They walked a few steps down the corridor until they couldn’t go any further. A giant set of doors were in front of them, blocking the way forward.
Midnight stepped forward and put his hand on the scanner beside the door, requesting entry. There was a soft beep, and the doors opened to reveal a completely different world.
"What—?" breathed Ye’tab as they entered the room. It looked like this whole level was dedicated to nothing but water.
The moment they stepped forward, their feet sunk into fine, warm sand. It appeared as if a sun was shining down on them, the light so bright and warm. There were craobhs that none of them had ever seen before.
The trunks were practically bare; only rough bark protected them. Looking up, Midnight could see long leaves at the very top with small, brown seeds nestled at the base of the leaves.
None of the males bothered to answer Tha’juen’s question, too caught up in the scene in front of them.
"Welcome to paradise," said Mei Xing, coming in behind them and looking around at the single room that took up almost an entire lower level of the ship.
