Young Writers Society

"Adam, you never told me about all this," Bella muttered, looking over at him curiously. He looked from Bella to Adelaide, and back again. "Who told us about SPEW waging war?"

"Well..." Adam looking like he was trying to find a way out of the question.

"Well?" Adelaide asked expectantly. Bella stared at Adam, waiting for him to say something of use, and hoping she wouldn't have to suck space...that didn't sound at all pleasant.

"Well, Sabradan told us. The boss. I dont know if someone told him first or not, but he's been acting kinda funny lately as well."

"Explain," Adelaide commanded.

"He's been so active, plotting and planning. Usually he sits back and lets the underbosses handle the day to day work. Lately he's been mapping out every move we make and no one questions it. They all just go along with it."

Adam picked at a spot on his shirt, wanting to aoid eye contact, trying to think of when everything started being strange. He saw the meeting, they were back on YWS. Sab took a bite of some sort of pastry. Nothing seemed strange.

"How about We go back and investigate for you," Adam suggested, "Then we can tell you exactly what is going on."

"Why should I trust yout two? You have given me no useful information and now you request I set you free."

"You'll never figure out what's going on by killing us, it'll just start a war."

"We'll report back here in a week," Bella added, trying to help the situation as much as she could.

"Well..." Adelaide pondered this idea for a moment. "That sounds like a simple enough idea. You best be back here in a week though, or i'm sending the SPEW agents after you." Bella and Adam nodded before running back out.

"A lot of good that did," Bella muttered under her breath as they walked.

"Do not dispair," Adam replied. "Not all was lost," he reached into his pocket to pull out whatever it was that he had gotten...

It was a recording device.

Adam had brought it along, hoping to copy SPEW files onto it, but now it contained a detailed log of everything that had happened, including how Adelaide had detected them. It wasn't the complete schematics of the SPEW Station, or even their latest warships, but it would aid them in planning the next incursion.

Or maybe it would tell them that SPEW wasn't a viable target.

A pair of fighters escorted the shuttle full of CCF Assassins to the perimeter, before breaking off. The entire time on SPEW had been less then twenty minutes. After this, all records and logs pertaining to Adelaide's Operation where erased.

"Checkmate," Adelaide said finally.

"Twenty minutes," Grif said. "I must be getting better." Grif stood up.

"How soon until the Gryphon comes online?"

"I estimate about three hours," Adelaide said smiling. The CCF would never know how close they got to leaving SPEW with a heavy cruiser.

"Now what?" Bella asked, following Adam closely. He was practically running through the halls, and she was having trouble keeping up.

"We tell Sabradan. He'll have a plan...he always has a plan."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Adam turned the corner and went through a secret door.

But he wasn't sure, Adam was already weary of the CCF. As involved as he was, he still kept everyone at arms length. Bella seemed different though. He knew he could trsut here.

"This way," He led her down a differnt path, a hidden path within the hidden path.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere safe," With a last look into the hall Adam slid the door shut. A number of screens lit up at once.

"What is this place?"

"My office. From here I have access to most of YWS, Not even Sabradan knows about this."

"I thought you trsted him?"

"I do, for the most part. Right now we need to figure out what on Earth is going on, Help me search for anything odd that's happened in the last few weeks." they sat at seperate terminals and started searching the YWS database for recent events. Hoping to find a reason behind everyone's odd behaviour.