Alo’s belief that Major Anso would order the immediate abandonment of the hideout cave was correct. What he didn’t know was that a video feed of his t*****e was being sent on an encrypted digital transmission to the orbiter. Grandmaster Elyon watched the Oprit fighters’ agony with ghoulish fascination. The macabre t*****e was a long, drawn-out process, and Elyon always became bored after watching for ten or fifteen minutes.
What the Grandmaster didn’t know was that a fifth column was active within the Serefim Presidium ranks. If he had, he would have been shocked at how high among the ranks that resistance manifested. Administrator Trace had access to all encrypted Serefim Presidium messages. When he saw the t*****e videos from the planet’s surface, he conveniently ‘forgot’ to close the v
