Wolf in Hiding

It had been a couple of weeks since the Jeager had left the Handeln System, It was on it's way out of the Core regions of the empire and headed towards the border regions.

It had made good progress in getting out of the core regions. The range difference between the old FTL drive and the new one was quite substantial. So the Jeager didn't spend much time in each star system and instead, It utilized it's other FTL drive that had already finished Cycling while in FTL and jumped out of the system as soon as possible.

But there was still some delay involved as they needed to go from one Lagrange point to another when they wanted to go towards a certain direction. So there was still some travel time involved in a system.

Along the way, The jeager picked up various supplies that it needed. Like some high grade fuel for it's thrusters and sub light engines. Also for it's generators.

Surprisingly, They hadn't bought much fuel while they were still in the Handeln system. The supply officer had deemed it better to buy straight from a manufacturer instead. That way, they cut out the middle man and got a better deal.

That's why they picked up the fuel from one of the refinery systems. After Kita saw the comparative cost, he realized just how much premium he had been paying just to get the Fuel shipped to them. If they bought directly from the refinery, they could save quite a bit. So he kept a mental note to keep this in mind.

As the Jeager made Brisk progress towards it's destination, Kita had been quite busy all this time. Although much of the hectic things had already been handled, but there was still a lot to do.

But as he was going towards the Lab to discuss a few things with York who had basically taken over the Lab and had been holing up in there recently, he got a notification from Elena. It seemed that she had found something.

So he turned his destination and headed towards her officer.

When he entered the office, He found her behind a terminal quickly typing away at it. She wore her usual casual clothing and didn't bother dressing up.

When she noticed him entering, she stopped whatever she was doing and turned towards him.

"So, What's so important that you wanted to talk about?"

"Huh? You seem irritated, Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?"

"No, just have a lot of work."

"I see. Take a seat. I've got something for you."

Kita took a seat and watched As Elena began to do something again on her terminal. A few minutes later, She turned towards him and said.

"I've sent you a file detailing the background of all the crew aboard the shore. Although I had it already done a week ago, but the new recruits took a bit of time as they weren't in the list. So I had to go back and check them out."

"And?? What did you find? Are they all clear?" Kita said while opening the file Elena just sent him.

As the document projection popped up in front of him he browsed through the document a bit.

It was quite a comprehensive list that went in quite deep into their personal and professional lives.

Elena had dug up everything that was available about them publicly and even some private matters that many would want to hide.

Everything about all of his crew members had been laid bare.

There was also a note for beside each of them. The Note outlined what Elena thought about keeping them.

Kita was quite impressed at what he saw. But he also saw quite a few problematic aspects about some of his crew members that Elena had mentioned was fine to keep.

"Are these really fin to keep them?" Kita said while pointed at them.

"Yes, I've looked through everything personally, It's okay to keep them. They are making an honest effort towards changing their lives for the better. We should help them by giving them the opportunity to do that."

"I see." If Elena said so, it was probably fine.

But as he kept browsing through the list of names, A name popped up that surprised him. So he quickly opened it and began to read through.

The More he read the more he couldn't understand how it was possible.

He turned to Elena with shocked eyes.

"Noel had such motives in mind?"

"Unfortunately." Elena said as she gave a slight nod.

It seemed that Noel was a sleeper agent from the government. Osritch had hired the guy based on his past experience aboard the Jeager and hoped that it would be a great to have him.

But it seemed that he had been there because he had been assigned to keep the previous owner, the daughter of a prominent family in check and to find out dirt about them to use against them if any such situation arised.

When Osritch scouted him out, he was again assigned to keep an Eye on Kita this time. That's why he had readily agreed for the job and had joined the crew.

It seemed that he was a wolf in sheep's clothing all this time!

"What do you want to do with him?" Elena asked.

There wasn't much he could do in the first place. He could always fire him. But that would let them know that Kita was onto them.

So Kita wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

"I'm not sure yet. I want to take some time to decide. Give me a few days to make the decision."

"I hope you know that just firing him would actually alert the government that you're onto him right? Although it's a quick fix to the situation. It might make things more sticky for us in the future."

"How about keeping him?" Kita suggested.

"Well, he's only a ticking bomb that's waiting for his orders to detonate. If he gets those orders, I'm sure that he won't hesitate to do whatever he needs to do." Elena reminded him.

"I see...."