Astrophysical (completed)

Chapter 16

Preparation to even attempt an idea as ludicrous as this one was lengthy, but even after two and a half weeks Cassie was beginning to regret this decision. Luckily, her drive and determination to see this through kept her going.

To begin with, several hours of lessons and images were given to her by SA. He had opened and showed her every file in his hard drive relating to Sovereign City. This helped in many aspects including how to navigate the tumultuous planet because of constant lightning strikes. It was exhausting but immensely helpful. Cassie took notes of everything important on the backs of Channing's journal pages.

As they proceeded, they realized the challenges of succeeding. First, security was the strictest in the galaxy. No one got in if they looked even remotely out of place. This meant two things if they were going to try and blend in. Both her and SA would have to dye their hair black since that was the only acceptable fashion in the city and they were going to have to find another army suit for SA to match Cassie. Luckily, the market sold hair dye and they bought that on one of their routine stock trips, but to get a uniform meant testing their sneaking and planning skills out on the mining facility.

They had produced a plan to tackle this about a week later, but the executing of it made Cassie nervous. She couldn't go with SA to do it since only male Sovereigns oversaw the facilities. This meant she had to sit in their little bunker for the full twenty hours he was gone, worrying whether the plan had worked.

But amazingly it had.

SA returned unscathed, unnoticed, but not empty handed. Besides the uniform he also managed to steal a schedule log of departing and arriving shuttles to Sovereign City. Cassie and SA could then set a date to execute their trip.

However, they still had a lot to do before committing to a date. Now that they had dressed the part, they needed to act the part. One of the things Cassie had come to learn from all the lessons were that people at the heart of the Regime were the ones who embodied the hatred and ultimate supremacy tones she had gotten to know on the outside. They were people with short tempers, eyes focused on finding any kind of flaw and personalities with edges so sharp, they forced everyone to stay in a perpetual state of uncomfortableness.

SA and Cassie did many run-through practice scenarios through all they thought they might encounter. SA's ability to download video manuals and reports so he could in fact act the part was invaluable because whenever she messed up, Cassie could really begin to feel the pressure and the problems this whole mission. Still, she overcame these and soon felt confident enough to set their departure date.

They continued to practice all the way up until the day before. It was here where after Cassie had just dyed SA's hair, she found her thoughts spinning as she was about to do her own. She sat on the edge of the counter mixing her dye. It made her sad to lose her blonde, but if she didn't do it, she knew they couldn't make it past the port on this planet. She gazed up at the mirror while the dye set and ran a hand through her hair one last time.

Cassie hadn't thought back to the Keimei in a long time. Part of her knew it was because of what she was doing and how she would get the scolding of a lifetime for undertaking this. She refused to even think of Ash. But in a sense, he was driving this for her.

She quietly put in the dye and then let it soak in before rinsing it. She then looked at herself in the mirror and shuddered. She didn't like the black at all.

"You okay?" SA said from behind her.

Cassie looked back at him and sighed. "No, but it's not like something I can change."