Spark of The Rebellion Chapter 10

Summary/crash course:

Troy, a prince of Iassor, sees the state of his kingdom for the first time on his 18th birthday. He meets a commoner named Damen Servo who he empathises with but is immediately met with hostility when Troy reveals himself to be a royal. When a vigilante rumoured to be dead, The Scorpion, saves him from a street riot, Troy begins to investigate who this vigilante is and why he has decided to reappear now. After weeks of digging archives he discovers that Iassor's own intelligence agency is deleting files regarding the Scorpion. He loops in his siblings, Asher and Ester, who set out to find concrete proof of Intel's sabotage and present it to their father. Intel has now tracked down Troy's link as a breach in their system and dispatch a hunting party. In their attempt to escape, Troy kills a man dressed in riot gear (Damen Servo) and all three are arrested by Intel.

The second half of the story surrounds a spy from the main story, Jim, an earther that was presumed dead following the Congo Massacre. This Massacre was a bioweapon attack that killed many world leaders, save for president of South Africa, Shawn Duncan. This war ending event, resulted in South Africa and the Belt escaping all war reparations provided the alleged culprits that caused the massacre, SEKT, were executed. The world thought they were. 

Jim in his search for the truth, finds a document detailing that SEKT along with Adrian, their chief and the one known the Iassor as the Scorpion, was alive and were involved in Protocol Crimson Pulse. When he approaches one of the surviving members, Helena, she brings him to Adrian who is in exile with his wife, Emily. Upon hearing Crimson Pulse, Adrian's cybernetic eye (which is linked to his brain through a brain-computer interface) defaults to self-detonation which is narrowly avoided by Emily defusing it with an EMP grenade. The activation of this protocol draws the attention of Arthur's royal guards who engage in battle with Jim, Helena, Emily and Adrian. Emily is killed in the process leaving Helena and Jim to question Adrian's motives: Revenge for his wife, or justice for his kingdom. They devise a plan to reach out to four of the most senior SEKT generals on the list Jim shows them and raid a datacentre to retrieve the true copy of the document since the one Jim has is corrupted. 

Five days later, and the city is crawling with Intel agents 'searching' for the missing royals. Helena and Jim have a conversation where it is revealed that Helena has royal blood and is Arthur's half-sister and thus has a right to the throne. But since she was born out of an affair that Arthur's father had with a commoner, her royalty was kept a secret. However, her mother was found to have a rare gene only found in the original colonisers of the Belt. A gene that made them immune to Secronium radiation, a dangerous, but incredibly powerful mineral found on Iassor. Arthur's father ordered that Helena's mother be experimented on to test the effects of this gene. After it was extracted from her, leaving her for dead, Tirius initiated the Sec-user programme which bred SEKT, including Adrian. Jim fears that Helena may be used by Adrian as a means to acquiring the throne. The only obstacle standing in his way are the three royal children currently missing. Jim realises that he must find them before Adrian does in order to ensure Adrian's militant ideals do not come to fruition.

Some key terms used in this story:

Link: Similar to a mobile phone and a computer combined into one but it contains a chip linked to a person's ID.  

Holodesk: A holographic projector that is commonly used to take virtual meetings, share information, or used as a second screen. 

Secronium: A rare metal only found on Iassor. The ore had a natural ability to create electromagnetic interference, scrambling all electronics and communication networks. SEKT soldiers are immune to the radiation emits and use this metal as the basis for their enhancements. The most potent user of this technology is Adrian Salacron.

***

The throne room had been cleared long before Arthur summoned his Chief of Intelligence.

What remained was space. Too much of it.

Afternoon light slanted in through the western glasswork, casting a glare onto the marble tiles. The banners of Iassor hung motionless from the vaulted ceiling, their sigils fixed in perpetual triumph above a room that felt anything but victorious.

At the base of the dais stood Intelligence Officer Brabham.

He had positioned himself precisely three paces from the lowest step — not too close, not too far. His hands were folded neatly behind his back, chin level, shoulders squared beneath the immaculate black of his suit. The knot of his tie sat perfectly centered. There was something almost mathematical about him. As if he’d been fashioned with a compass and ruler.

Arthur had not taken his throne.

He stood instead near the long row of glass panels, his reflection faintly superimposed over the city stretching far below. From this height, Iassor looked orderly. Structured. Secure.

It was a lie.

Behind him, Brabham waited without prompting.

Arthur let the silence stretch. He wanted to see if the man would fill it. Offer something unscripted.

He did not.

“Tell me,” Arthur said at last, still facing the glass, “what progress has been made.”

He kept his tone measured.

Brabham’s voice carried cleanly through the chamber. “We have expanded the surveillance review to include all transit corridors within a twelve-kilometer radius of the west entrance. The overhead tram system logs have been isolated and reconstructed. Civilian comms packets from that quadrant are undergoing cross-analysis.”

Arthur turned slowly.

“And?”

“There are irregularities.”

“Irregularities,” he repeated. “Clarify.”

“Segments of footage were corrupted. Several data clusters appear to have experienced interference within a narrow time frame. We are working to determine whether the disruption was environmental or deliberate.”

The faintest emphasis rested on the last word.

Arthur studied him more closely now. There were no visible signs of strain. No dark crescents beneath the eyes. No tremor in the hands. If the chief of intelligence had not slept in six days, he concealed it expertly.

“And the witnesses?” Arthur asked.

“They report seeing the princes exit through the west entrance and board the overhead tram.”

“And yet your report categorizes those statements as unreliable.”

“There are inconsistencies in their recollections. Certain phrasing overlaps in a manner that suggests suggestion or coercion.”

Arthur resumed walking, slow and deliberate, pacing up and down the row of glass panels.

“You believe they were coerced?”

“It is a possibility we cannot overlook.”

“And so,” Arthur said, stopping a few steps above him on the dais, “you dismiss their testimony entirely?”

Brabham did not react to the shift in tone.

“We prioritize verifiable data.”

The air in the throne room felt denser now, as though the marble itself were listening.

Arthur’s hands folded loosely behind his back, mirroring the posture below him.

“Six days,” Arthur said quietly.

Brabham inclined his head slightly, waiting.

“Six days,” Arthur repeated, letting the weight of it settle into the stone between them. “My children vanish from within the most surveilled perimeter in the Belt. Your systems register interference. Your witnesses are deemed compromised. Your footage corrupted.”

He descended from the raised platform to meet Brabham at eye level.

“And what you bring me is a collection of obstacles.”

Brabham’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

“Your Majesty, deviation from established protocol in circumstances of this magnitude risks compounding the error. We are conducting a methodical review to prevent false leads.”

Arthur’s composure fractured then. Not explosively, but in a slow, visible crack.

“I do not need due process,” he said, voice rising at last. “I need my children.”

The echo rolled upward into the vaulted ceiling.

Still, Brabham did not flinch.

Arthur stopped directly in front of him, closing whatever distance remained between them.

“I cannot afford delay.”

Silence stretched.

Arthur’s fists curled at his sides. He recognized the language. The careful phrasing. The defensive layers of process and compliance. It was how Intel buried things when they wanted time.

“I want a report with something tangible by the end of today,” Arthur said, voice low now but no less dangerous. “Not terminology. Not classifications. Results.”

Brabham inclined his head. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

Arthur held his gaze for a moment longer, searching for the slightest crack.

There was none.

He dismissed him with a flick of his hand.

Only when the intelligence officer’s footsteps faded beyond the doors did his rage subside.

The doors opened again.

Arelia entered.

“Well?” she asked.

Arthur shook his head once. “Corrupted footage. Missing comms. Witnesses deemed unreliable.”

Arelia’s expression sharpened. “You think it’s deliberate.”

“I know it’s deliberate.”

“You think they took them?”

“This level of incompetence and sluggishness is unheard of from them, especially in matters as urgent as this. They are hiding something they don’t want us to find.”

She absorbed that in silence.

“We need oversight,” Arthur continued. “External pressure. Someone independent.”

Arelia glanced at her link. “I’m meeting with the neighboring ministers regarding food tariffs. I could raise the matter with Sable. Ask for an external investigative authority.”

Arthur exhaled through his nose. Queen Sable of the Kvynn sector had inherited the position of chairperson for annual resource management meetings ever since she’d come into power two years ago at a controversially young age of seventeen after the immediate deaths of all her older relatives. Since then, Kvynn steered clear of all political relations and so the position of chairperson naturally followed; a person that facilitates the gathering rather than make any decision of their own.

Despite her inexperience, the death of her eldest sister and both her parents had changed her overnight. A princess Arthur saw as no more than a child grew to inherit an incredibly prosperous kingdom that she’d kept together for two years now. A natural. Kvynn was a corporate spine of a kingdom — infrastructure, finance, manufacturing, data. Minimal military. Kvynn harbored the second best investigative organization, behind Intel. With the number of business deals and political decisions made at Kvynn, data security and privacy policy were very tight; something Intel simply threw around as legal terms to cover their asses in court. Sable was good, but Intel was a whole different ball game.

“She doesn’t have the resources to evade Intel,” Arthur said. “And if she did, she wouldn’t deploy them. Neutrality is her currency.”

“Neutrality is also leverage,” Arelia countered. “If she requests transparency, it doesn’t look like an accusation.”

“It looks like weakness,” Arthur replied.

Arelia stepped closer. “Arthur, our children are missing. And if Adrian gets them—”

“That won’t happen,” he cut in, too quickly.

“The same way this Intel situation shouldn’t have happened?” she asked quietly.

Arthur looked away.

“We are losing control of our own intelligence apparatus,” Arelia said. “If we don’t widen the circle, we’re cornered inside it.”

Cornered.

The word settled.

And then something clicked. A realization.

How had he not seen it?

“I need to make a call,” he said.

He turned toward the west wing.

“Who are you calling?” Arelia asked.

He didn’t slow.

“You really don’t want to know.”

***

Arelia watched her husband retreat to the west wing of the castle. She knew exactly where he was going to make that call. The panic chamber. It was the only place in the palace not wired by Intel surveillance. Arelia’s link chimed, a reminder to leave for her meeting that would be in one hour. Most royalty would have a secretary that would be in charge of scheduling her day, her meals and her possibly her wardrobe too, but she’d never trusted anyone to have that information. Far too many kings and queens have had spies lurk under their nose, aware of their every move, waiting for a shred of vulnerability to strike. She’d encouraged Arthur to take similar precautions but he had always called her paranoid…until recently, of course.

She pulled up the location of the meeting and summoned an escort from the castle. Shortly after, six armed soldiers lined up in two rows before her, kneeling. “I require an escort to Kvynn. I need to meet with someone on the thirteenth floor of the royal palace.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” the lead commander of the group replied.

“Wait for me at the palace hangar and prepare my ship for departure,” she said.

The commander bowed his head and the battalion left for the hangar while Arelia rushed to her bedroom to get dressed.

By the time she’d arrived at her room, her clothes had been ironed and laid out on her bed. A single maroon dress of the finest synthetic silk skimmed her ankles. Iassor’s sigil marched down the sleeves which extended long enough to conceal her hands. Two golden strings wrapped around her ears just as Arthur wore his, and the third—reserved for the queen—running down the middle. As she examined her braids in the mirror, she fought to hold back tears thinking of the day she’d have to hand down the crown to her children. Her children that were probably lost, cold, and afraid, right now.

She drew in a slow breath, eyes closing as the last flicker of emotion settled behind her ribs. When she opened them again, her face had relaxed into that practiced poker face—jaw loose, lips set in an unreadable line between smile and frown. Her hands lowered to her sides, hidden by her sleeves, and her gaze flattened into something that didn’t look at a person so much as through them. When descending into a shark tank the last thing she wanted to do was give them a whiff of blood.

She walked briskly over to the royal hangar where her transport awaited her, a single thought circling her mind: Where are they?

When Arelia entered the hangar, Commander Colt had brought together five crews consisting of five people each. One crew for her ship and one for each of the four escort dog-fighters that would accompany her to the Kvynn border. Though four was entirely unnecessary just to travel to a neighboring sector, she was going in to negotiate for a decrease in tariffs. Image and appearance were half the battle.

“Your Highness,” Colt greeted with a quick bow before stepping onto the elevator platform with the queen.

As it slowly lifted both of them onto the bridge of the ship she asked without looking in his direction. “Have you cleared the flight channels, Colt? I don’t like traffic.”

“The flight path we are taking is cleared for the next hour. Our arrival is expected by the Kvynnian border control. All that is left is for you to show your identification chip on approach.”

Arelia lifted her sleeve to check her embedded chip, finding it all operational. “Let’s make this quick.”

The hangar door opened slowly, the jet engines of the transport igniting and gently lifting the carrier off the ground.

An automated voice chimed in on the transport’s speaker. “Please remain seated until the takeoff sequence has completed.”

“Tee dash alpha zero zero one, radio check,” Colt spoke into his mouthpiece.

After several exchanges between Colt and the supporting jets, none of which Arelia understood fully, the commander turned off his mouthpiece but kept his ear piece patched in to monitor the radio chatter on the secure channel.

Arelia’s link flashed signifying a notification. She noted the time. Right on schedule.

She accepted the call and tapped her ear piece. “Mark.”

“Your Highness,” the Minister of Resources replied. “I am on the way to Kvynn and should arrive ten minutes before the meeting due to some delays at the ship port.”

“Then we’d best have our debriefing for the meeting now,” Arelia said, signalling for Colt to leave her chambers.

The general bowed and exited the room swiftly. Arelia cast her link to the holodesk on in her cabin. “You’re on broadcast, what have we got?”

“As you’re well aware, the meeting is being chaired by Queen Sable. In attendance are all the major royals of the Belt accompanied by their respective ministers.”

Arelia scrolled through the attendance list.

“Has Sable’s minister published the agenda yet?” Arelia asked finally.

“Yes. We can both scroll through the details on our own,” Mark said. “The only important discussion point I wish that we are aligned on is item 7.”

“Export and import rates for perishable goods and their quality control,” Arelia read out aloud. “The food poisoning in Iassor is going to come up there for sure.”

“Yes,” Mark agreed. “And considering we both know that the Scorpion’s appearance, the disappearance of the royal princes and the food contamination crisis are too conveniently timed to be a coincidence, I think we should both agree on the story we ought to spin to the council.”

But that didn’t mean that Adrian caused the contamination. If anything, the reverse may be more plausible. Adding to that, just five days before Adrian’s parade through Iassor’s streets, Intel noticed that a copy of a document with all SEKT survivors had been copied internally. They didn’t catch the spy but Arelia suspected that he was reporting to one of the kingdoms. That was the real elephant in the room. Arelia ordered Brabham to ensure all content on Adrian was erased save for Arthur’s personal paper copies of Crimson Pulse. If that document no longer existed, she could claim it was falsified. 

“I have some ideas,” Mark said.

“Shoot.”

“Seventy percent of our food is imported. We can shift the blame to the quality control services on the suppliers side,” Mark said, his voice a little hesitant.

“We received denatured food due to negligence during the shipping time,” Arelia completed.

“Exactly.”

“That won’t go down well with our suppliers,” Arelia said. “Are we sure we want to do this when we are so dependent on their supply and we know there was nothing wrong with the products when they arrived at our docks?”

“Yes and no,” Mark said. “They cannot afford to lose Iassor as a buyer. Not now.”

Arelia’s fingers paused mid-scroll. “You’re assuming they believe we have alternatives.”

“We don’t,” Mark admitted. “But they don’t know that.”

Silence stretched between them.

“We don’t need to accuse them publicly,” Mark added. “We raise ‘concerns.’ We request independent oversight. We demand tariff reductions to compensate for damages. Quietly.”

Arelia leaned back in her chair. “And if Sable sides with them?”

“She won’t,” Mark said. “Kvynn exports materials. Not perishables. This isn’t her battlefield. If anything, this proposition may sit very well with all food importers.”

“And it buys me some time to weed out the recipient of that document,” Arelia muttered under her breath.

She took a deep breath. “Okay, we’ll run with this for today. Are you still on schedule to arrive for the meeting?”

There was some muffled chatter on Mark’s side. “Unfortunately, I haven’t taken off yet. Some delays at the hangar entrance, I am told. I’ll have to send my apologies forward for being late.”

Perfect, she thought. Just perfect.

“Alright, Mark… I’ll see you in the meeting then?”

“Of course, Your Highness,” Mark replied.

The automated voice chimed softly from the cockpit. “Approaching Kvynnian border control.”

Arelia severed the projection.

For a moment, she allowed her composure to slip — just enough for her fingers to tighten beneath the fabric of her sleeves.

Where are they?

Then her spine straightened.

“Commander,” she said through the cabin intercom. “Prepare for approach.”

She checked the time. Twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Colt did well to clear the slipstreams.

“And once we are through, patch me through to Queen Sable.”

***

The minister coughed up blood, buckling over from the punch to his gut. Mark looked up at his aggressor. One green eye. One blue. He was flanked by four soldiers of similar stature. The cold metal of a pistol pressed against his head. A robotic, scrambled voice came from the suit.

“I won’t ask a second time, Minister,” the man said slowly. “Cooperate. Or die.”

Questions

1. How's the pacing of this chapter? Does each POV end in an appropriate spot?

2. If you've been following the novel, how are you finding the pacing so far?

Previous chapter: Spark of the Rebellion Chapter 9: A candid conversation