Hidden motive

The next day, Alpha awoken by his badge, he quickly gets ready and head to the docking bay where the others are also heading. After a while all pilots gathered at the docking bay and once again the military instructor stood in front of them. "Alright everyone, I know most of you don't but it is adviced to check your ship system every now and again for any surprises." The instructor said. Quickly checking his system Alpha noticed a change.

[Name: Alpha]

[Companion: Beta]

[Ship level: 1]

[Ship type: Stellar Vanguard-Class Interceptor]

[Upgrade requirements: All rooms level 2, 1000 energy units, 1000 hull capacity, 200 units of titanium, 5 units of absidian]

[Ship attributes:

Hull capacity: 1000/1000

Energy supply: 1000/1000

Storage capacity 0/100

Damage: 20

Speed: 20mph

[Ship rooms: Control room (2), Barracks (1), Reactor (1), storage room (1), engine room (2)]

[Ship components:

Combat: Lazer blasters (1)

Defense: none

Mobility: Thrusters (1)

Utility: Tractor beam (1), Construction (1), Repair (1), Dismantle (1), Scan (1), Process (1)]

[Unconstructed room(s): None]

[Stored items: none]

'Wow, how did they upgrade my control room without my knowledge?' Is the thought that came into Alpha's head after he saw the system. His ship control room had been upgraded and he had unlocked two new functions of the ship called scan and process.

"The citadel upgraded a specific room on every one of your ships, as you have noticed all of you have a different room upgrade and that is because of the current mission you are about to undertake. You are all to head over to planet Murdoch, on the way your assistant will brief you on the mission you specifically have been given, once completed your autopilot feature will send you to the location of your reward, it's as simple as that, the time limit is the end of the day so you better hurry." The instructor said. The pilots all walked to their various ships and undocked as they flew in the opposite direction of the star of the system heading in the direction of the cold planets.

After seven hours of flying Alpha had finally reached the planet, his mission was the easiest of them all,

[Objective: Scan the entirety of planet Murdoch and send the information back to the citadel]

He activated the scan function and a small holographic representation of the planet appeared on the control room computers as information and a progression bar appeared as well.

[Name: Murdoch]

[Habitability: 46%]

[Composition:

Oxygen: 0.96%

Carbon: 10%

Chronoton Particles: 70%

Eezo: 19%]

[Available resources:

Chronal Crystals

Titanium]

[Size: 5,000 Km]

[Scan complete]

After one hour of scanning he had finally received the information. "huh, what do you know, the planet is smaller than the size of earth in all those history books. Learn something new everyday." Alpha said as another message appeared under the first one on the computer screen.

[Data transfer initiated]

After ten minutes ten minutes the data transfer was completed and the ships autopilot took control as it started flying a little further away from the planet. After what felt like three minutes the ship stopped and he saw a single container floating in space. Using his tractor beam feature his ship pull the container directly into his storage room.

[Storage capacity: 100/100]

'thats quite heavy.' he thought as he looked at the system message. Activating the process feature another message appeared.

[Processing: 0.5%]

With that he started flying towards the citadel. After one hour of flying he received another message.

[Processing completed you have unlocked the following resources]

[300 units of titanium]

[20 units of absidian]

[400 units of nanotech particles]

[Storage capacity: 440/100]

[Ship can no longer move]

[Upgrades available]

[Storage room: -100 units of titanium]

[Reactor room: -300 units of titanium, 1 unit of absidian]

[Barracks: 200 units of titanium]

The messages flooded his ship system screen, as he read through all of them he reached the final two messages and knew exactly what room to upgrade.

[Storage room upgrade commencing]

[Time until completion: 30 seconds]

"30 seconds, I can wait." Alpha said and not long after the upgrade was completed.

[Storage capacity: 340/200]

[Ship can now move at 6mph]

[Upgrades available]

[Storage room: 200 units of titanium]

[Barracks: 200 units of titanium]

This choice was the easiest as he didn't even sleep in the ship.

[Storage room upgrade commencing]

[Time until completion: 30 minutes]

"30 minutes, that's a big jump, will the next upgrade of this room be 30 hours or something?" He asked but there was no reply. "That's surprising, Beta is something wrong?" He asked his assistant. "No problems detected captain." Beta replied. "Ok." He answered as the ship was finally moving again.

While flying Alpha had lost track of time, so he was unprepared when the ship suddenly speed up to it's original speed as he almost fell from his seat. "Wow, thirty minutes passed already and why didn't you warn me Beta." He asked. "I wasn't informed about warning you, please forgive me, it won't happen again." Beta replied as the ship continued flying. Soon he docked in the citadel's docking bay and got off the ship as the others were already done, he was the last pilot to return to the citadel. "Good, now that everyone is here I have news from the higher-ups. You guys are to meet back here the same time tomorrow for we have a surprise test for you guys. Now go get some rest and enjoy the rest of your day, you deserve it." The instructor said and the pilots all headed off to do different things.

'Huh, how did that happen, how did this even happen without the sensors going off, even in the past we were able to sense very small objects, is the equipment getting rusty or is there a traitor amongst us.' The owner of the citadel thought as he received the full scan from Alpha, they had a hidden screen that would appear after scanning Murdoch to hid the real information, and what he was seeing sent shivers down his spine. "Send out command fleet alpha to planet Murdoch, let's end the activity of these aliens." He yelled out a command as on the screen one could see a base of operations set up by the enemy of humanity on planet Murdoch.

**********

Sorry I have not been posting for a while, something came up. Also check out my second book on webnovel titled

Shadowbound: The Umbra Enigma