“What’s our next move?” Maphira asked of the gathered council.
“From what we can tell,” said Dr Con Dew Ratroti, “the Mechanists have gone all-in on this Project Bender. Without our good friend Vai stuffing up the energy with a 500KW solar system, we’d be goners by now. We have a chance to end this once and for all, destroying the Conclave of Mechanists and its influence, so long as we get to Bender before they do.”
Rylee nodded and pointed to several spots on a map, sprawled out on the table. “Bender has been reported here, here and here. Just rumours, but it’s all we have to go off at the moment. We’ve got our best researchers gathering solar energy information that will hopefully help us pinpoint Bender’s location.”
“What’s the plan once we know where it is?”
With a firm nod, Ratroti confirmed that Rylee could continue. “We move in as quickly as possible,” Maphira’s sister said. “We’ll assemble a small strike force to engage Bender and disable it. Then we’ll bring the robot to an allied solar energy farm and overload the robot with so many KWs that it blows sky high. The logistics of that will be discussed further once we have a solar energy case study or two to analyse.”
“Makes sense,” Maphira said. “I suppose my only concern is how we stop the Conclave of Mechanists from finding Bender first.”
“Well,” said Ratroti, “we could actually use your help with that. We’re setting up a ground-based satellite dish that should scramble all Conclave devices searching for Bender by releasing a certain frequency over the city. The thing is, everyone’s so busy repairing the base that we don’t have the manpower to send someone to the hardware store for electrical supplies. At least, we didn’t until you arrived.”
“Seriously?” Maphira asked. “I get back from risking my life for the Resistance and the first thing you get me to do is go shopping? You know what, I won’t complain. At least it should be pretty safe.”