A couple of hours since the events on Mars had ended.
Littleman was nowhere to be seen, Vark had returned to the dwarf section of the ship. Lisa had assumed they were off dealing with the aftermath of the events. She, herself was perplexed by the way the events played out. It seemed self-evident that Phosphoros and his backer could kill them if they truly wanted to but had decided to play these odd games. She believed that this seemed more like a test than a true assassination, they were testing the boys' powers.
Lisa was tired of having to always ask permission, so she decided to act out on her own. She had Bolat intelligent reports for mars and knew who the major players were, she asked the boys' to go grab them and bring them for a visit.
All told there were now 8 new people in the meeting room. 4 of them were from Mars and 4 were well-placed spies for the other factions. Lisa had them all sitting on one side while she was sitting alone on the other. She had asked Null and Infy if they could stand behind her in their hybrid mode. Even if Null still looked like a young child their aura in hybrid mode had the desired effect of projecting strength.
Lisa stared at each representative until they looked away. She wanted to make sure they were all in the right mood for this conversation.
"Some of you might know me, others won't. Who I am doesn't matter but what is important is the lessons that have been learnt today. Powerful people will want today events to be forgotten. I am sure you have already discovered all physical evidence of today's activity has already been removed or modified. So my question is what did you learn?" Lisa knew that if she could get one of them talking the others would soon follow.
"Why should we talk to you! you're an alien loving traitor" the spy for the lunar faction had decided they have been stupid for leaving him armed. 'stupid alien lovers, I will gain some honors for killing them and maybe I can move home' these were his last thoughts as they pulled out their gun and tried to shoot Lisa.
The bullets hit against Lisa's shield and fell to the floor. The agent's heart was then tossed on the table by Null. No one had seen him move.
Lisa sighed. "Nulla misericordia, non secundi casu. Clearly, he learnt nothing from today."
The remaining 7 representatives were shocked it had happened so quickly they didn't know how to react. The General was first to recover.
"We are outmatched in every conceivable way, our weaponry has no effect, our tactics are outdated. Nothing we currently have will be able to match them"
"You are correct, today's enemy was from the lowest class of alien. They lacked armor or planning but they did have shielding. Shields are ubiquitous in the galaxy so you need to be prepared. What else did you learn from today?" asked Lisa. She was hopeful they realised they were some other forces at play in the universe without actually telling them.
I few of them made some minor observations about fighting style and technology but hadn't come close to getting to the answer she was trying to lead them to. She was about to ask Null to cast mirror image to drive home the point when she was interrupted.
"Oh you gathered them for me, how thoughtful," said Littleman
"I will be blunt, today never happened. It was a terrorist attack by an advanced religious cult. I have already spread the word over the different networks. The demons were genetically engineered animals created by the cult. That is the message you will sell to your people and if you abide by this. You will continue to have 8 more years of protection." Little man was being very direct to them.
Littleman had gone to council with all the evidence he had collected and threatened to release it publically. The Council knew that if it was released publically it would be catastrophic for them. Even the hint that the council couldn't enforce its protection would lead to many races testing it out and that would overwhelm their resources causing chaos.
In the end, the council had to declare that it would openly protect the solar system for the next 8 years until their contract was over.
Littleman opened up a gate for each representative to return them to Mars he didn't want anymore contamination to occur. As they were entering the gate the General made one final statement.
"Maybe it is time, we did some research into Hogwarts. Hope to see you again sometime Lisa." This had made Lisa happy as she had understood the hidden meaning behind the comment. At least one person was now thinking about paracausality.
While Lisa and Littleman were talking about what the council had decided, Null and Infy were having a different discussion. They were discussing the benefits and drawbacks of gates vs teleporting. They had been using teleportation to move around lately and ignoring gates.
"Gates allow for bidirectional travel, allows for scouting out the other side, and can move a larger volume of items. While teleporting is less predictable and gives us the element of surprise and our pre-teleport location can't be tracked. I think we need a gate spell for moving between friendly areas" said Infy.
"I agree but is it possible to make it with non-field technology? It seems the gate Littleman used was pure technology" asked Null
"why would we want to?" Infy was confused by Null request, making it using Zallium shouldn't be a problem but without using fields would be near impossible.
"We were lucky this time that the barrier spell Phosphoros used was weak to true magic, I don't think it will be next time" Null was upset by the barrier spell and also the later spell that was used to incapacitate them.
Infy agreed with Null reasoning and they decided to spend the next few days trying to design some form of gate technology, while the last of the resources were being collected to upgrade the other ships.
The next couple of days passed, Chris and Jania had recovered from the battle with the demons. Jania was keen to start training she blamed herself for getting hurt. She should have been stronger and been able to resist the stun effect. Chris wanted to train so that next time he would be able to do something other than just watch.
The two of them had hit a wall with their training, they had reached the limit of what being self-taught could do for them. They couldn't identify ways to improve without a mentor or some more information.
Infy and Null had emerged from their room, they had spent the last few days meditating. They believed they understood the physics behind creating a gate with technology but they were no closer to creating an actual device. They would have to put the project on hold as it was now time to upgrade the Aethon, Pyrois and Phlegon.
With all the resources already gathered it didn't take long for the ships to be finished upgrading. It had taken a few more days of testing and calibrating but now all the ships were mission worthy.
Now that the contingency plan was ready it was time for Jania to leave on her mission. This was going to be her first solo mission and it was only to gather intelligence and then return. To avoid detect of using fields and other monitoring devices she would have to start from far away and fly in under her own power. It was expected the whole mission would take at least 2 weeks.
They now had a firmer idea of what she was looking for so the mission had a solid objective now.
"Remember the plan is to stay hidden and find evidence on the whereabouts of the arkships. If you get discovered you come straight back your life is worth more than the mission" Chris was giving her the same talk he had given her multiple times before.
"Chris, I get it, I will be safe. I know you are worried about what Pythia had said but I think it best we just make decisions when they come instead of trying to second guess everything." Replied Jania, she was excited this was going to be her first solo mission.