Eric was oldest. Already seventeen years old, he stood out among the other Scouts - taller, better built, his left eyebrow gleaming with three steel piercings, he was handsome, fashionable, intelligent - and, of course, his family were rich by the standards of Weaver colony. His father was the Mayor of Weaverwille himself, who lead the resistance during the Apoctic invasion.
Right now, he was stretched out on the floor, waving a copy of The Patriotic Freeman. "Check this out." - he pointed to an artist's drawing of a necron ship, with the supposed locations of key systems marked out in bright green - "Those vessels' main advantage over ships built in Allanea is their superior power source. Procuring the secret of necron reactors had long been a goal for Allanean scientists..."
Sandra looked down on him from her perch on a large, cloth hassock. "And... I'm not sure where you're going with this?"
The other Scouts looked on their leader - it was almost inevitable that Eric was always accepted as the leader of the group - as he continued.
"Now, Sandra. Suppose we somehow had a necron ships. You think little Mr. Morgan here -" - he nodded at a younger Scout, aged perhaps sixteen, short and a bit wide - "Could pilot it if he got aboard? His Dad sent him through a piloting class... it's not much, but it could do."
"I suppose." - Sandra shrugged - "They might have some weird controls, but that ain't the point. The point is, how would Mike Morgan, or anybody else, get aboard a necron ship? And wouldn't all the necrons shoot him if he tried?"
Everybody laughed. For a second, Eric fell silent, as if inspecting Sandra's hair (or the right half of it, at least, painted bright pink). Then he asked:
"Now what if the necrons where all away elsewhere... say, on parade or something. Could Mike steal it then?"
"Maybe." -Mike shrugged - "But how would I get to Duat?"
"You wouldn't." - Eric shrugged - "I hear they mind-scan all tourists or something. But... suppose a necron cruiser touched down right here on Weaver. And the necrons were, say, distracted... do you think you could do it then?"
"Okay, Eric." - Michael Morgan looked perplexedly at the older man. - "What have you been smoking, and where can I get some?"
"The newspaper." - Eric reached behind his back, and then produced a wrinkled copy of the Weaver Courier. - "Here, please. Necron cruiser arriving in port next month on a friendly visit. Necrons to participate in joint parade to celebrate the anniversary of our victory over the Apoctis invasion."
"Happily," - he continued - "I have... connections. In other words, I have a key for a secondary gate. I copied it from a guy who works at my Dad's office."
There was a pause. Silence hung in the tree house, thin and tense like a stretched guitar string.
"Wow." - everyone said at once.
"You are... serious." - Sandra added.
"Yes. Better yet... I have a plan."
*
Over the next weeks, as older Allaneans prepared for the parade, small and interesting things occured.
For example, Headmaster Genk at the local high school lost the key to the school's emergency storage - where lasguns, grenades, and other weapons were kept in the case of a war. (Nobody dared call the Weaver residents paranoid after the Apoctis invasion). He found it two days later, and was far too busy preparing parade floats to check on the inventory. Later this would turn out to be a mistake.
Sandra Kowal - Eric Gardiner's young friend with the two-colored hair - had suddenly become far more involved with her Girl Scout troop. Soon - nobody quite knew how - she persuaded six other girls in her troop to volunteer work cleaning the trucks parked in one of the planet's militia bases. It was assumed by management that this was due to bursts of patriotism caused by the oncoming anniversary parade. Technically this even was true.
It was perhaps only due to the fixation of Weaverville authorities on the parade that nobody noticed that something was a bit off.
