GALAXY AT WAR - Book 4 - A Dark Time

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - April 2173 - Earth

Yu Nagata hated his job. He found it boring. There must be more to life than this, he thought as he tapped away at the keyboard.

"How much longer will this take?"

Yu sighed mentally. These ungrateful, entitled, self-absorbed rich people always riled him up.

"You don't have a virus. It was just running slow. There was a lot of jumbled data in there. I've sorted through..."

"I don't need to know how you've fixed it. Just that you have."

"Two more minutes should do it."

"Fine," the pompous, silver-haired, black-suited mega rich fathead walked away from him.

I'll bet he makes more money in a month than I do in an entire year.

Yu had had more jobs than he could remember. None of them had fulfilled him. He didn't feel appreciated. He didn't feel loved. Everything he'd done with his life seemed to be worthless. What is the point?

Yu packed away his laptop and left the sever room. "All done!" he called to the back of silver head.

Without turning around, silver head said, "Okay."

Yu walked to the lift. He was on the tenth floor of Tanaka Enterprises. The lift opened before he got there. Three executives walked out without acknowledging him. He entered the empty lift and his finger hovered over the button marked 'Lobby' before he selected 'Roof' instead. The lift moved smoothly upwards, carrying Yu with it.

~

Rebecca had found her next recruit's location through conventional means. The IT company that Yu Nagata worked for had given the information freely. With a little persuasion from herself. She flew her ship towards Tanaka Enterprises and saw that there was no helicopter already parked there. She slowed the Justice and circled the one-hundred-story building before settling down on the helipad.

"Do we have permission to land here?" asked Alexandr.

"They don't know," replied Rebecca.

"We're invisible," said Michael.

"Oh," said Alexandr. "What if a helicopter tries to land while were parked here?"

"I'll divert it," said Rebecca.

"Daddy, daddy. Come play with us," called Nadia as she rushed into the cockpit.

"Of course, darling," Alexandr left the co-pilot's seat and chased his daughter back to their quarters.

"Is he going to be able to do it?" asked Michael.

"Do what?" asked Rebecca.

"Come with us. Put his life in danger when he has so much to lose."

"I think so."

"Really. Because if he loses focus at the wrong time, one of us could die."

"Not once he's fully trained. Besides, he could lose everything he has even if he doesn't come with us. We all could."

"The Galactic War?"

"If Zeb' Zeptre wins many will die and we'll all be under his rule."

"Can you promise me he'll be safe?" Tatiana had entered the cockpit.

"No, Tatiana. I can't. I'll not deny that what we'll be doing will be extremely dangerous. Some of us may fall during the coming battles. Alexandr may be one of them. Michael may as well. I don't know. What I do know is that if we don't fight. If we let him conquer the galaxy – life will never be the same again. He may even decide that humanity has no place in his world and wipe us out entirely."