=::= Day 87 - Jenna's PoV =::=

"Do we really need the grav-sled?" Cammie asked, as she and Sarah loaded their toolkits into the cargo area at the back. "We're only going about a half a kilometre."

The engineer shrugged, "We don't need it, but I'd rather take it than have to lug all this stuff there ourselves."

"Don't forget these," Rebecca added, as she held out a carbine for me and a shotgun for Sarah.

Our engineer sighed, then taking inspiration from my girlfriend she asked "Do we really need the extra firepower boss? We're only going about a half a kilometre."

The captain stated, "I sincerely hope you don't need them, but you're taking them anyways. This planet still has a civil war going on, even if we're half a world away from the fighting. And I'm sure you haven't forgotten what Jenny told us the other day. With the government in chaos there's been renewed reports of raiders and bandits in areas well away from the fighting."

"I agree with Rebecca," I said as I accepted the carbine. "I very much hope we won't need the weapons, but if we do then we'll be glad we have them."

The Deveron Civil War was more than twenty days old now, and unfortunately all the intel and news we'd heard suggested it was probably going to continue at least another twenty days more. In fact my sister felt confident the war would probably reach its sixtieth day before it was finally over.

The good news was it seemed like the better option was going to win, thanks in no small part to the anonymous intel the rebellion kept receiving, courtesy of Jenny. Mr. Arun's forces had made a number of substantial gains, while those loyal to President Taggart were very much on the back foot.

One of the biggest blows to Taggart came just eight days ago, after my sister uncovered evidence of the president's endgame plans.

Apparently all the riches he and his cronies had syphoned away from the planet's treasury over the years were loaded onto a private ship he'd kept in a hidden location, well away from the spaceport and capital. It looked like the man intended to flee the planet along with his immediate family and a handful of close personal friends. They'd take the stolen wealth with them, and live in luxury somewhere else while the rest of Deveron-8 was left to its fate.

Not long after that information found its way into the rebellion's hands a strike force attacked Taggart's get-away vessel. The cockpit and main engines were destroyed, ensuring neither the man or his stolen wealth had any way to get off the planet. Since then he and his entourage had been holed up in a very well-defended bunker, while his soldiers fought one defensive battle after another.

Meanwhile Arun was already taking steps to prove himself a worthy replacement. In between coordinating battles he'd been doing his best to organize humanitarian aid, both locally and at the interplanetary level.

He'd put out calls for help among the population of Deveron-8, to try and raise food and medical supplies for civilians who'd been caught up in the fighting. And he also sent out some FTLs to other worlds in the sector, asking them for the same thing. He even sent Rolandan-2 an official request for assistance repairing the terraforming stations, after an anonymous report reached his people informing them of that situation.

So we were all feeling fairly comfortable that we'd backed the right person. All that remained was to bring the former president to justice, but that meant defeating the last hold-outs who were still loyal to the man for one reason or another.

"Yeah ok," Sarah said as she finally took the shotgun. "You're right, better safe than sorry."

The captain nodded, "Exactly. Stay safe, and good luck."

"Yes ma'am," Cammie nodded. "I don't expect we'll be gone that long anyways. It's probably just a loose power coupling needs tightening or whatnot."

My sister didn't seem convinced, "The fluctuations last night didn't seem like the sort of thing I'd expect from a loose coupling. Although I admit I'm no expert on such matters. At any rate do be careful, I understand there's quite a lot of power running through that structure."

The three of us were heading over to check on the settlement's wind farm, at the request of Mayor Wheeler. My shipmates and I had been taking on more little jobs like that in and around Ganvis, and in return the locals were supplying us with food and other necessities. It was our way of earning our keep, and it meant that my friends weren't limited to emergency rations and the ship's dwindling supply of recycled potable water.

Today's job was a little different in that my sister was the one who first detected a problem. She noticed some anomalies in the power grid overnight, and was concerned that might be the first sign of impending failure. The older infrastructure wasn't designed for the increased demands it was facing, thanks to all the recent arrivals. So Jenny notified the mayor, and Mrs. Wheeler asked Rebecca to get Cam to have a look at it.

"Don't worry Jenny," our catgirl girlfriend responded. "We'll be careful. Anyways I've worked on that stuff before, I know my way around the equipment."

Sarah put her shotgun into the back of the sled next to the toolkits then climbed into the drivers seat and suggested, "We may as well get started then?"

Cammie and I agreed, and the two of us climbed into the second row together. I reached back and set the carbine down with the rest of our gear, so my girlfriend and I could cuddle a bit during the short ride. Rebecca and my sister saw us off, then as soon as we were clear of the ship her ramp and main airlock closed up behind us.

It was a very short ride, only about thirty seconds of flight before we were descending towards a squat square building made of prefabricated concrete panels. It was the main power distribution and management hub, situated in the centre of the wind farm. There were a dozen tall vertical turbines arranged in a rough circle around us, each one about a hundred and fifty meters away from the hub.

The power feeds from the turbines were buried to protect them from the elements, but they all terminated inside the building before us. That contained the transformers, back-up batteries, inverters, and whatever else it took to combine, regulate, and stabilize the power that the turbines generated from the wind around the settlement.

"Oh," I frowned and blinked as the sled touched down a couple meters away from the building's front door. "What's...? That's strange."

I'd just experienced some unusual sensory effects, including a momentary wave of static through my visual senses and a constant low-frequency hum in my audio sensors. More worrying was the complete lack of activity on my built-in comm unit, which seemed to have gone dead.

Cammie was all over me in an instant, "What's wrong Jenna? Is everything ok?"

"I had a transient glitch in my visual sensors," I replied. "My audio sensors are picking up a hum, and my internal comm appears to be offline."

I added quickly, "Otherwise I'm quite fine though. I don't think there's anything to worry about."

The catgirl's ears drooped while her tail flicked back and forth and a guilty expression settled on her face. "Oh gosh Jenna I'm sorry! I forgot to mention, there's enough EMI around this gear that it can make delicate tech go a little squirrelly. And yeah, comms don't work at all within about twenty meters of the place. That's one of the reasons they put all this stuff well outside town, and why nobody lives nearby? It was cheaper to just move the problem away than to get it properly shielded."

"Are you going to be ok Jenna?" Sarah asked. "Maybe we should take you back to the ship, then me and Cam can handle it ourselves."

I shook my head and insisted, "I'm fine."

Our engineer accepted that. She climbed out of the sled then moved to the back and grabbed both toolkits as she said, "Cam you take care of your girlfriend, I'll take care of the gear."

"I don't need taking care of," I protested, but to be honest I didn't really mind a little extra attention from my girlfriend. She even made sure to help me out of the sled, which I found adorable.

Cammie and I had arms around each other as we moved past Sarah to open the door. Ella supplied us with a key, but we discovered the door wasn't locked. Cam didn't seem surprised by that, apparently that's just the way things were around here.

The catgirl swung the door open and the two of us stepped inside with Sarah right behind us, then we all immediately stopped when we discovered someone else was already there ahead of us.

The first room was like a little office rather than home to any power distribution gear. There was a small desk across from the front door, next to that was a second door leading to the heart of the facility. Against the wall opposite the desk was a storage locker and some simple monitoring equipment, complete with analog gauges and dials.

And finally, there was a young woman seated at the desk with her back to us. She had dark shoulder-length hair that was currently pulled back into a small ponytail, and was dressed in the sort of typical work clothes common to the people of this world.

"Oh I'm sorry miss," Cammie said as the woman turned around in her chair, "You're not supposed to be in here, this building's off-limits to -"

All three of us probably saw the auto-pistol at the same time, but I reacted first. My girlfriend and I were still together, and I tightened my grip on her as I threw us both back so we collided with Sarah. That resulted in all three of us tumbling backwards out the door, just as the woman let loose with a burst of fully-automatic gunfire.

When we landed in a little heap on the dusty ground just outside the building I was immediately aware of damage to my left hand. Luckily I didn't feel pain the way biologicals did, but I knew right away that I'd lost the use of three fingers. Meanwhile the tactile sensors beyond my left wrist registered an input spike before going offline. The rest of my left arm was fine though, and it was still wrapped protectively around my girlfriend.

My right arm and hand remained in perfect working order, and I didn't hesitate to put them to good use. Before the woman had a chance to adjust her aim and try again I pulled my pistol from its holster and fired two shots in quick succession. And when it came to shooting from the hip, I had the advantage of perfect hand-eye coordination.

Both shots hit her square in the chest, and she slumped back into the chair then slid down off the chair and onto the floor.

"Who the hell was that?" Sarah gasped as she pulled herself out from underneath Cammie and I.

She struggled to her feet with the two toolkits still in her hands, then yelped and ducked back down again just as another burst of automatic gunfire sounded from somewhere to the south. A half dozen bullets smashed into the side of the building where Sarah had been standing, showering the engineer in tiny fragments of metal and concrete.

"Back inside!" I stated. "Take cover!"

Sarah scrambled through the open door, I was right behind her with Cammie still held protectively against my side. I pushed my girlfriend a little further back away from the door while I paused to take a quick look in the direction the shots had come from.

There were three people armed with assault rifles heading our way, and they seemed to be coming from one of the wind turbines. The two men and one woman all appeared to be in their twenties, and they were dressed like farmers rather than soldiers. I had no idea who they were, but they had to be working with the woman we found when we arrived.

"Are they soldiers?" Sarah asked from behind me. "Or raiders?"

At that point one of the three attackers outside raised his rifle and took aim, so I ducked back in and slammed the door shut. Then I set the lock, just in case.

"I don't know who they are," I replied. "They're dressed like the first one, like farmers, but the three outside are armed with assault rifles. With luck we should be safe in here, but there's a good chance we're also trapped."

I mentally kicked myself as I added, "And we left the carbine and shotgun in the back of the sled."

Sarah reached for her commlink then sighed, "We can't call for help, due to the EMI."

"Is there any other way to -" I started to ask my girlfriend as I turned towards her. Then I saw the blood on her blouse and my processor skipped a cycle. My eyes went wide and I practically leapt to her side as I gasped, "Cam! You're hurt!"

"I'm alright," she insisted. "It's just a scratch."

Her ears were folded back and her tail was down low, with the fur all puffed out in alarm. She was standing next to the desk, looking at the rugged portable terminal the first attacker had been working on when we arrived.

I couldn't help worrying anyways. I asked, "Are you sure? Can I have a look at it? And is there a first-aid kit in here somewhere?"

Cammie just shook her head as she frowned at the computer, while the tip of her tail started twitching in irritation.

"This isn't supposed to be here," she stated as she gestured to the terminal. "Or that either."

There was another piece of equipment on the desk, it and the portable terminal were wired together and more cables snaked out of the back of the mystery device and down behind the desk.

"That looks like a military-grade comm unit," Sarah said. "The sort of thing you'd find installed on a vehicle. She was probably using the terminal as a user interface. Probably set up for transmitting encrypted text and data, rather than voice messages."

Cammie sighed, "She must have locked the interface when we came in, it's asking for a password."

"I thought comms were impossible here?" I commented.

The blonde engineer gestured to the cables, "They probably have a remote antenna outside the EMI field. It's too bad she locked the screen, otherwise we could use this to contact the ship."

By that point the immediate shock of the attack had worn off, and all three of us were starting to think of the bigger implications. It seemed clear to me these people were organized, communications meant they were coordinating with outside parties, and that meant all this could be a prelude to a large-scale attack on the settlement.

I glanced back at the locked door and said, "We don't have much time. How can we warn the others? Is there any other way we can get a message out from here?"

My girlfriend frowned as she quickly glanced around the room. Her ears were still folded back and her poofed-up tail twitched in irritation. Then her ears stood up as she nodded, "I've got an idea. C'mon!"

Cammie led Sarah and I through the second door and into the real heart of the building. Large machines hummed with power, and the interference I was experiencing grew even stronger. I was still able to function, but my visual and audio senses were noticeably impaired.

"Don't touch nothing in here," Cam warned Sarah and I. "All this stuff is dangerous and some of it might not be in great shape."

She led us to a tall metal cabinet at the back, and with her left hand still pressed against her side she used her right hand to open the door. Inside were an array of analog meters and gauges, and an assortment of large black knobs and switches.

"This doesn't look like communications gear," Sarah stated the obvious. "This is the main power regulator."

Cam nodded as she reached out for one of the larger knobs, "I know. I'm going to use it to send Jenny a message."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

The catgirl took hold of the knob, then started twisting it left and right, in what seemed at first to be random motions. It only took me a couple seconds to recognize the pattern though, and I couldn't help smiling.

"You're modulating the power output," I stated. "Clever kitty, Jenny will notice the fluctuations and spot the pattern."

A moment later I offered, "Let me do it? I can do it faster, and with more precision."

Cam nodded and stepped aside, then I reached up with my good hand and took over. There was a limit to how fast the equipment could respond to my input, so I was only able to send binary data at about four bits per second. With the transmission speed being so painfully slow I kept the message short, but I was confident my sister would notice the pattern and decode the text.

I had just enough time to repeat the missive twice before a loud bang from the front room told us we were out of time. The front door had been breached, and the three attackers entered the first room where they found their colleague's body. I could just barely hear some hushed conversation from the front room, but couldn't make out what they were saying due to the electrical interference.

Then a male voice called through the second doorway, "Y'all know you're trapped in there. Ain't no back door, no way out. And no way to call for help neither. So sit tight and stay outta our way, and nobody gets hurt. Anybody comes through this door tryin' to be a hero, they're gonna find themselves shot full'a holes. Got it?"

Cammie and Sarah and I all exchanged a look, then we all nodded to each other. Sarah called back, "Understood!"

What we needed was time, and that's exactly what they were giving us. I just hoped Jenny would receive my message, and that help would arrive before these people finished whatever it was they were up to.

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