Hyde Rival on Earth

The JE team monitored arrivals to Earth orbit, so they were not surprised when Hyde Rival's massive flotilla arrived. Galileo called Olympia over to the monitoring station: “Wow, what a huge fleet! Looks like they're transfering crew and cargo to shuttle craft, for the ride down to the surface. Fortunately, we can track where they land, as well as where they end up off-loading everything.”

Olympia pulled up some confidential files at the security station: “Yep, and that fits with recent reports from our operatives here in the city. Apparently, Hyde Rival sent agents to Earth months ago, and they began preparing facilites here ahead of the actual fleet arrival. By the way, we know where most of their new facilities are located, thanks to our elaborate tracking network. Looks like a major facility was just established not far from where we are now, right on the river bank. Could that be used as a launching point to attack us here?”

Galileo listened carefully, then responded with an action plan: “Well, let's try to find out! We can send one of our surveillance droids over to their new robotics facility, which appears to include a dock providing access to the river. The droid is small, hopefully it can sneak in and let us know what's there.”

The little droid was quickly sent on its way, arriving at the river dock less than an hour later. Olympia and Galileo intently watched the live video feed from the droid as it approached the dock, then located an open doorway, and carefully creeped into the robotics workshop. Olympia whispered: “Amazing that the droid hasn't yet been discovered. Our brave droid is very carefully moving behind and between each robot mech warrior. So far so good....”

Suddenly there was a bright flash – and the video feed abruptly disappeared. Shortly thereafter, a new message arrived at their communications station – from Hyde Rival! “How dare you spy on us so blatantly! We detected your droid well before it landed at our dock, but allowed entry to see what it would do – then destroyed it with our laser turret. Know that we can repel every attack, and that we will destroy anyone who gets in our way!”