Over the next several years, Hindmarsh tested the stealth technology his customised Nighthawk Heavy Fighter was upgraded with. It was a upgraded, stealth variant of the Defender. He gave his input into how to improve the technology. But more importantly, he unleashed a wave of corruption, fear, intimidation, bribery, suicide and murder that no one could have seen coming.
During his annual leave, he returned to Manhattan where he sought out mercenaries, criminals and gangsters to kidnap the and hold hostage the families of his superior officers, spacecraft maintainence crew, and the scientists/engineers who specialised in stealth research and development.
Anyone who didn’t co-operate, had their families lives threatened and if necessary, killed. He communicated with the mercenaries and criminals and gangsters via an encrypted communications array that only operate when a ship passed through the jumpgate in Alaska. This allowed him to minimise the chance of being detected.
Some of the people he worked with committed suicide, either because Hindmarsh ordered his mercs to kill their families if they weren’t cooperating with his blackmail, or because they couldn’t take the pressure of their families and loved ones lives being in danger while being powerless to do anything about it. His superiors were the ones taking orders from him.
And nobody could do anything about it. He bribed the military police, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service and Liberty Security Force officers assigned to oversee the secrecy and security of the program. And those who refused to be bribed, were killed, driven to suicide, or had their families held hostage.
None of this happened overnight. He spent several years building this hell. There were some mishaps. He suspected some of the enlisted men and officers he worked with who had “committed suicide” were still alive. He knew one of them had faked his death but left Liberty for good, never to return. This was understandable. The very institutions that were meant to keep him and his family safe had failed. He must have felt the world had become truly machiavellian by that point. But, he kept his mouth shut too. Because he knew what Hindmarsh planned, and what he was capable of.
Hindmarsh never planned on stealing this stealth technology and selling it. He did plan on using it to make money though.
![[Image: 2-jun-2020-sig-FINAL.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/fL6Vx1Sp/2-jun-2020-sig-FINAL.png)