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Chester was not the only necrologist in the solar system. He knew this, having worked with hundreds of other necrologists over the years, and yet he never thought to worry about the Solar King using those other necrologists and their drones. That oversight became apparent the moment the first of the new lunar administrators was turned into a drone for Chester and he asked about the mystery person who’d been meeting with them every day.

“She is the eyes and ears of the Solar King,” the port master told Chester. “She scans each of us everyday, and we are observed to ensure we aren’t compromised. The Solar King speaks directly to us through her from time to time. We are looking for you and your drones because the Solar King isn’t sure if you’re dead or not.”

Chester saw the port master’s memories of being scanned and recognized the device at once as a neural gel scanner. It was built directly into the door frame of the main meeting room where they all gathered each day. Each person entering the room was scanned and so far only the Solar King’s drone had set off the flashing lights of the scanner.

“I will need to go back there in the morning and will be scanned,” the port master said. “The Solar King will know you are still alive once he sees I’m a drone. He told us if he finds you he will make you into a drone and force you to –

“Enough,” Chester interrupted the port master. “Go to bed and let me think.”

He already didn’t like the port master. There was a certain kind of raw devotion to the Solar King that none of the previous drones had expressed. Even Siecha didn’t go on about the Solar King that often. The port master, however, had a constant stream of praise for the Solar King that Chester had to consciously work to suppress.

A moment later and the quartermaster joined the ranks of Chester’s drones, along with the heads of bio and security.

“Seems I lost my bet,” the head of security said across the neural connection. “I owe Xavier quite a bit now.”

“Nah, I’m a drone too,” Xavier, the head of bio, replied.

“Perfect,” the quartermaster said, “now you two can shut up about it and your stupid bet.”

“Just tell me what you know about the Solar King’s drone,” Chester ordered them before they could carry on any further.

“Her name is Saran Depe,” the quartermaster replied at once. “She refers to herself as the eyes of the Solar King. Besides scanning and observing us, she leaves us alone to do our work. If the Solar King has a message for us about our search for you then he’ll speak directly through her to avoid the message being intercepted and word of your rebellion getting out.”

Chester didn’t like that his actions were being referred to in that way, but how else would Dawnstar view it? Chester had taken over the Solar King, and therefore the government. If that didn’t sound like a coup then he didn’t know what did. For now he let the issue slide since he had much more important things to deal with.

“Do any of you have the means of disabling the scanner?” Chester asked. “I could have the mice chew through the wiring or –

“If there’s any trouble with the scanner then the colony is to be purged immediately,” the head of security said. “Saran hasn’t given any details on how the colony will be purged, in case any of us were turned into drones by you, but there are a number of ways the Solar King could kill us all here at any moment.”

“Such as?”

“With all the shipping that’s been coming through the port it would have been quite easy for the Solar King to get explosives into the colony. Another virus hidden away in the same manner as before would have been just as easy to get here as well. The airlocks could be set up to be remotely opened. If the Solar King wants to avoid using something that you could potentially intercept and stop then he could order an orbital bombardment on the colony. He’d have to rebuild the port and that would interrupt trade for some time but it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities.”

“What if the Solar King’s drone were to, say, die in an accident?” Chester asked.

“If anything happens to Saran,” the quartermaster replied, “we all die. The Solar King was very clear about that.”

“Then I need to get off the moon before you all go in for your morning meeting.”

“There’s only two ships leaving the moon between now and our next meeting,” the port master chimed in, “and both are heading down to the capitol.”

That was not ideal. Chester had only just escaped the capitol the one time. With all the bio sensors on the capitol it was practically impossible to move about without being tracked and even though he’d deleted his own records, certainly all of his drones would be identified right away.

“Alright,” Chester said out loud as he thought it all over. “I can’t stay on the moon, but the only ships leaving are heading back to the capitol. I don’t know how the colony will be destroyed but it’ll be pretty immediate once my drones are discovered. But the Solar King would have known that I’d have a little bit of advanced notice that this would be the case. I could put on a pressure suit and avoid another virus, or even a full decompression of the colony. He would know that. But if he leaves the colony unlivable for long enough then he could just wait for me to die of dehydration since I can’t eat or drink in a pressure suit. I could seal off the mine to keep it from losing its atmosphere but I’d still suffocate without air purifiers. And if he uses a orbital strike then none of what I do here would matter. How close is the nearest mass accelerator?”

“There’s several in orbit around the moon,” the head of security replied. “I actually used to be stationed on one of them, and any of them could strike the colony within a few seconds since all they’d need would be time to aim and fire.”

An idea came to Chester, though he knew it was a long shot, but at this point it was all he had.

“Do you know where the mass accelerators are?” Chester asked.

“I told you, they’re orbiting the moon.”

“No, do you know precisely where they are.”

“I don’t have all of their orbits memorized but I could find them pretty quickly.”

“Do it, then,” Chester said. “And are they all controlled by people on board or are any of them autonomous?”

“Only the deep space mass accelerators are autonomous,” the head of security said. “The ones around the moon have a small crew of three.”

“How many of them there are in orbit around the moon?”

“There’s five.”

“What sort of defenses do they have?”

“One member of each crew is a security officer. That’s what I did when I was assigned to one. It’s a pretty laid back position, though, this close to the capitol. That said, the docking port is shielded and can only be opened from inside.”

“If you were breaking into one, how would you do it?”

“I’d start by knocking out their comms since it’s going to take a significant amount of time to get in. Then I’d cut my way through the side opposite of the docking port where the hull is thinnest. The crew aren’t issued pressure suits so once the hull is breached and the cabin is depressurized they won’t be able to fight back. But without their codes I won’t be able to fire the accelerator. To do that I’d need them alive and willing to give me the codes.”

“I’d have to make them into drones, then,” Chester said, “but to do that I can’t let them die to depressurization since it causes too much damage to the brain. I need everyone working on this,” he added and sent the problem to all of his drones.

One way or another, this was going to be Chester’s final night on the moon.