Free The Covenant by Annabel Wolfe

Ran continued, even as he articulated the words becoming more
    and more certain maybe Larik was right, and his confinement deliberate. He
    looked around the room. “We all know terrorists often do not hesitate to
    sacrifice their own. It’s not a covenant I understand, but it exists. How easy
    would it be to infect several of their members, or even innocent civilians and
    send them into Rapt One, knowing there would be a panic and a shut down?
    It’s a simple plan, really. It buys time, costs almost nothing, and distracts us
    from the real objective.”
    “What’s the real objective, Governor?” one of the members asked.
    He’d pondered almost nothing else for the past week once he’d finally
    figured out what Larik really said through his infuriating code, and come to
    an interesting hypothesis. The Latin message roughly translated to “It’s
    about you” and Larik had modified it in the next sentence by saying ‘or in
    this case me.”. If his old friend thought this was all about him, there had to
    be an important reason.
    Close investigation had revealed a chilling possibility.
    “The energy grid provided by the station includes several government
    buildings,” he said slowly. “At first I wondered if they had been targeted in
    some way. One of them is a museum full of artifacts from when the colony
    was first settled. There is an entire set of administrative offices, and even a
    colony banking headquarters, but they all have reserve power back ups and
    no one has reported any suspicious activity during the series of power
    outages. However, I did notice something interesting when studying the map
    of the grid area. There’s the original mantonium site in the grid. And no, it
    does not have a working reserve power source.”
    The silence following his disclosure told him they processed the
    implications. Finally the elder said, “I thought the mine was sealed.”
    “So did I,” Ran agreed. “But I spent considerable time talking to every
    official I could locate on Rapt One who might know something about it.
    Since it is abandoned and the material considered useless because of its

instability, they have it safeguarded by a security perimeter, but that’s all.
    With the project such a dismal failure, the private company that ran the mine
    itself simply pulled out.”

    52
    Annabel Wolfe
    “You’re telling us every time the power goes out anyone could have
    access to mantonium ?”
    Ran nodded, his face grim. “I’m saying more than that. I have evidence
    that the power station was designed deliberately to give opportunity for
    catastrophic failure at the flip of a switch. I’d guess the reason for the
    frequent failures and the mysterious sudden restorations is that the substance
    is so highly toxic and unstable if someone is secretly taking it out of the
    mine, they have to do so in very small amounts at a time.”
    One of the members, a seasoned retired soldier named Tercel with the
    highest rank possible ever awarded a commander, gave him a
    straightforward look. His mouth set in a thin, tight line. “The weapons we
    built with mantonium were banned because the results were so horrific the
    military could find no place to even test them, nor are we willing to risk any
    more soldiers in the attempt. Even a small amount in the wrong hands…”
    He trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish.
    Everyone in the room understood.
    “Maybe we’re wrong.” The one female member said it in her clear
    concise voice. She was also one of the youngest members, a brilliant
    political analyst and successful politician. Leeta Vitol folded her hands on
    the council table. “Where did you get this information, Governor Kartel?
    You said you have evidence about the power station being designed with
    intent to sabotage its use. All kinds of colony engineers have looked at it
    from what I understand.”
    He hesitated. If he told truth and was wrong about all of this, he could
    be in serious trouble. However,