• Every meeting must have one clear decision maker. If there’s no decision maker — or no decision to be made — the meeting shouldn’t happen.

• No more than 10 people should attend.

• Every person should give input, otherwise they shouldn’t be there.

• No decision should ever wait for a meeting. If a meeting absolutely has to happen before a decision should be made, then the meeting should be scheduled immediately.

The above list is based on the article that can be found here http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/quarterly/speed/start-up-speed-kristen-gil.html

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Sorry for my sci-fi readers (if there are any:) )

   Lisas uncle got us into the Harbor by mid day and from there we got on board a boat heading for the space port. The boat was loaded with some sort of wooded decorations, and were taged to be delivered on our city of destination. The trip took us 4 hours, during which we had a final look over the lives that we were leaving behind. We were nostalgic, but the self conservation instinct was above all.

   Just before we got into the space port naval area, we got into the container with all of our supplies. The flight will take 2 days, and being boxed, will create some certain unpleasant situations. But it was our only way out.

   Ten hours after we left, on the main street of the Predo, a small dust storm started. It was kind off unusual for this time of the year. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the road, twenty hunters space shifted. The humans that were around that area froze in fear. They did not have any time to react. From each vehicle bursts of two thousands projectile per minute started hitting the surroundings. The sound generated by such amount of destruction was unsupportable by normal persons.

   The killing spree lasted for ten minutes, during which none of the vehicle moved. On an area of 1 square kilometer everything had abundant holes in it. The hunters stop shooting and started moving down the street to the place where few days ago the hunter was destroyed. The news came as a shock to Roger. He was enjoying his early dinner when one of his officer burst through the door with a scared face.

“We are being attacked by the iXon. They have invaded our planet and they are few blocks away.”

“It must be a consequence of the small fight we had few days ago. Call the men, get on position. This is our home and we will not go down easy.”

   In the following minutes, the harbor area got fortified and people prepared with what guns they had or were provided. They were on position and waiting for a counter attack. The presence of the incoming hunters was signaled using an encrypted signal on all bandwidths.

   Once the convoy entered the harbor main intersection the firing signal was given. From all the roofs around and some ground level position, plasma launchers started to fire. Two hundred plasma bombs headed for the center of the intersection. What was there evaporated instantly and left behind a four meters deep crater. The remaining hunters split off from the group and fired antimatter artillery rounds at the source of each shooter. The minutes after, the sky turned red, as the harbor area was flattened by the explosions. Nobody stood a chance, not even the attackers.

   The whole assault happened very fast as the destruction itself. The local authorities managed to get there only after 30 minutes from the reporting of the incidents. When they arrived the agents were amazed. Nothing survived and no available clues or wreckage could be found of what has happened there. This planet was never equipped with surveillance satellites or mid-level air drones. The only ones that had the sufficient knowledge and tools were the Federation Navy. So they were called for help in the next 24 hours.

  When and outside, humanoid like civilisation, made first contact with them, everything changed. Their first reaction was to sequestrate the diplomat and try to communicate with his mind. The outside view of this process was not so peaceful as intended. Because the original mind was strong and evolved, not like the animals on iXon home planet, the whole body put up a good fight. It lasted for 15 minutes until the body failed and dropped dead. This gesture was not taken nicely by the friendly traders (Mouhan as a species).

   The small peaceful meeting turned into a save and rescue mission , where the Mouhan team started shooting in all directions trying to escape. The casualties in the iXon numbers were large, hundreds of them lost, they were never prepared or armed for this moment.  Because of the supervised evolution, the iXon never faced danger and conflicts, so their militaristic industry never developed too much. But this was about to change. Once the Mouhan contact team fled away, the common mind, dictated all around the planet to create the new caste . The warrior caste. All the research and engineering was focusing now on weaponry and flight research.

   It took them five years to develop a four billion warriors army, seven years to develop personal shields, ten years to develop space flight, twenty years to establish an orbital defense and twenty-five years to perfect the interstellar flight. The enemy had to be eliminated. There should be no other sentient left in this universe. After forty years of focus and desire for revenge, they developed a fleet of over four thousand ships. Now the time had come.

  The common mind order the ships to start scouting, star after star. Where sentient beings were found, they will be either sequestrated or eliminated. Two hundred years after their mission started the iXon were occupying the whole galaxy. The common mind was more powerful than ever. It was satisfied.

Until…

“I knew that I could trust you. The boarding is at 20:00 local time in the Hangar A 43 and I am sure that you will not be late”

“Should I get any special outfit?”, I asked knowing that this was a covert mission

“No, but the contrary. Please be in your Academy outfit. Will fit perfect in the disguise that we are preparing and more details regarding the mission you will get them when will meet. Goodbye.”

“Yes sir, I will be there. Goodbye”

I closed the communication and headed for the cafeteria. I had lots of jokes and one good cake. All ended abruptly when the clock got 19:00 and I had to leave. Went to my dormitory, change myself in the uniform and headed to the meeting point.

I wasn’t the first one to get there. Two other persons were waiting. They were the two officers that were going to join me on the ship. I was briefed by the superior office that arrived ten minutes after me.

The mission apparently was a simple one, based on its description, at least. All I had to do is to get the ship in AG45 sector, that contained a small red dwarf, get into an orbit around the second planet, stay there for the next twenty hours and return. What could go wrong.

“All systems are green and ready for launch.” I said to the office on my left. An old person with the body of a youngster strong and well proportioned. Based on the scar on his faced, I presumed that he participated in the last Great War.

“Let us begin.”

I got the corvette class ship out of hangar, got my sub-light engines to eighty percent strength and headed to the designated jump location. The ship was able to navigate between stars by its own jump engine, which was not so efficient, or the jump gates, which provided enough power to traverse the galaxy in one day travel time. Today we were using our build it jump system, because the system we were heading to was not colonized or settled for mining.

“Flight control, this is corvette Promoteu, requesting jump permission to AG45 sector.”

“Prometeu, what is the scope and duration for your jump?”, flight control replied in the communication device.

“This is officer grade 4, Michael. We are heading there for a final test and evaluation for the Captain Certificate. We will be gone for maximum 24 hours.”

“Your credentials and scope are verified. Please proceed.”

I switched the sub-light engines to stop and engaged the jump system. The ship opened a small vortex in front of it, and jumped in. It took us about 20 seconds to travel over 300 light years. The invention of jump system was one of the greatest discoveries done in the last two thousand years. Arrived in AG45, I’ve started the sub-light engines and went to the defined orbit.

“What are we expecting to happen here” I asked the two officers, which made themselves comfortable in their chairs and staring at the displayed video provided by the surveillance cameras.

“We detected a few weeks ago, some space / time anomalies. It happens every 4 universal hours. We are 10 minutes before the next one is expected to happen.”

I never realized how slow time can pass by while waiting in space. I had time to think about my final exam, and what I will do after I get my Captain Certificate. Will I join the military, will I get into commercial transport.. so many possibilities…

“It’s starting”, Michael said and pointed to a portion in space.

The stars behind that place disappeared. A uniform black wall appeared and expanded from a small point into a sphere. I covered, based on our calculations, around two hundred cubic kilometers. Its growth stopped and in the following moments several objects started to take contour inside and lasted for over an hour. The dark bubble disappeared leaving the objects in the emptiness of space.

“I am detecting a strange gravitational  wave”, the second officer told Michael.

The objects were perfect spheres and they started to move from their starting point in opposite directions. They had an acceleration of 2g.  We scanned the objects but found no emissions or energy patterns, instead some warnings appeared.

“Sir, the material that the spheres are made of is four thousand years old and the interesting part is that the creation time of them did not happen yet”, the second officer said.

“So if I get this right, you say that they come from the future?”

“Based on their composition it seems so.”

“Are you following any of them?”

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“Here, please take my vehicle”, he handed me his access chip, “You will be payed on arrival. Now please go, hurry.”

I got into the vehicle together with the girl, we added into the vehicle navigational system the destination and went on our way. I was driving one of the old electric models, it felt nice, but hard to control. It had no automated driving system, so all commands were triggered by the driver.

“So what’s the big secret? Why are you in a rush to leave this planet?”

“Well is hard to tell and if I do, you might get you involve in this too.”

“I will take my chances. As you have seen, I did so far and somehow I am already involved”

“Everything started when I was working for the local Academy, while I was making my major in space and time shifting. During my research, I made a major breakthrough two months ago. I could shift atoms to a total different dimension. Usually, the power generators that use space shifting, just create a ripple into the space fabric and use the energy generated by the irregularity.  I even wrote a small article in the local Science magazine about my finding. My colleagues were congratulating me, everything was going nicely, until one day. When two persons arrived at my door and requested me to stop my research or there will be consequences. They left without telling me why or what consequences.”

“Did you contact the authorities?”

“No, I never thought they were serious. I was living in the campus near the university. You get constantly bad jokes or pranks from students and I never heard from them again until yesterday. When I arrived at my laboratory, everything was trashed and on the wall behind my desk was written a message. – Run or die -. I immediately called the police and they started the investigation. At the end of the day I went home, escorted, for my protection. I was so afraid, you know..”.

“Did they find anything, any hint or trace on the perpetrators?”

“No, not exactly. It seems everything was well planed. No video recording, no sensory data, nothing. It’s like they were never there, except for the mess.”

For few moments she lost her focus and just stared out of the window onto the street. But the silence was broken by her:

“Three hours ago, I was sleeping when I heard some noise coming from my kitchen. I went to see if someone is there, of course, together with my baseball bat. Nobody was there, but the wall was having the same message. Then I turned around and my bedroom was on fire. I grabbed my jacket and ran out of the building to my father. He was the only one that knew the story and could help me. The rest, I guess you already know.”

“Interesting story. But do you think that leaving this world will help you in any way?”

“I don’t know what to believe or think no more. All I know is that, the person we are going to now, will help me with a new identity. The rest … it’s so confuse right now.”

She seemed to be so afraid. How life can get difficult exactly when you don’t expect. Talking about life’s changes! Suddenly, out of the nowhere, the vehicle begins to shake and a high pitch sound was heard from the behind. Two hunters! We were hit with rail-gun ammunition, a precise and fast way to kill. Slick, yet brutal, two persons vehicles, equipped with two rail guns each and a deflective shield, usually used in urban guerilla warfare. What were they doing here? This planet has no military establishments.

In the first intersection, I made a hard 90 degree turn, almost smashing all the garbage bags on the side of the street. This vehicle has no matching engine power with those of the hunters. I needed to improvise .. fast! More shots were fired and the rear part of the vehicle took most of the hits. The bullets went through, passing us at few centimeters. We could not stay inline with them, because will guarantee us sudden death. With less than half-distance away from our destination, I have started to make the vehicle wobble to give the pursuers an increase in targeting difficulty. When we reached the Harbor Bridge, I had an idea how we could escape from the chase, but this side was one of the dangerous areas in the city, where the local crime was at home.

Out of nowhere, a plasma missle hit one of the hunter’s vehicle, making it burst into flames, while the second one that was following us, tried not to be caught in the explosion. For a few seconds, I got a high pitch in my ear and when I look behind the hunter shifted out of dimension.

“Ohh that wasn’t good, it was an iXon. Why are they looking for you?”

We went for another few hundred meters and pulled over in a back alley. It was unbelievable, several iXon agents were following us. How was that possible? Since the blockade, they were never seen around and this was 10 years ago. Somebody knocked in the window, I got out of the vehicle and saw Roger.

“We don’t take kindly on aliens around here and you still me owe me money. Leaving you to get killed will not help. Remember, you have left 12 hours to get my money.”

He turned and left, waving some sign in the air. I’ve noticed some movement on the surrounding buildings – plasma snipers – from one of them was still visible the launch fumes.

It took us more or less an hour to get to the girls contact. It was a small back alley bar, with very little to none, outside light. We got inside, being welcomed by strage looks from the existing customers. They were mostly harbor workers that got out of their shifts. The barman waived at us.

“I guess he is our contact”, I said, still looking around for any possible imminent danger.

“Yes , it’s my uncle.”

He gave us two Bergiman beers, “Just to blend with the surroundings”, he said and smiled.

“I heard you are in trouble, your father contacted me two hours ago. I’ve prepared your documents, you will be ready to leave in two hours.”

“Great, then my job is done here, I would like to get payed so I can continue my day.”

“Please wait” she said. “The situation just got way more complicated. I will pay you twenty thousand dolars to get me out of this planet to the safe house.”

“Sounds prommising, but I want half now and half when I’m done”, I said, trying to see if she really had the determination and the cash promised. I really could use that kind of money, I owed around ten thousand to Roger. Or, my mind said to me, I could buy myself new documents and make myself disappear from this hole.

“Ok, then we have a deal”, the girl confirmed and raise her hand for a deal shake.

   It usually lives around 150 solar years, time in which it manipulates the entity attached, to learn as much as possible about the surrounding world and make it more sufficient for its offsprings. If the sequestrated body does not usually live that much, it heals it, making it to last as much as needed.

    Every solar year it eliminates offspring spores, in the day of the annual solar eclipse. The process takes around 20 minutes and each parasitic iXon eliminates approximately 200 spores. The success rate of surviving for each spore is low. If they survive the first 3-4 days, then they will reach with ease their maturity.

   During over the next 10.000 years of evolution, the iXon learned to protect their spores by deploying them, in special places constructed by the sequestrated beings,  that will offer protection from predators and natural events.

   After a complete life cycle each iXon left the hosting body and transcended to a pure energetic form, that continued living on the same planet but in a different plane of existence. It took them another two hundred thousand years of evolution to control the result of their transcend. They managed to remain conscious and live after death by creating the Great Common Mind. It represented all the iXon personalities that ever lived and transcended.

  The following time period was used by the Common Mind to learn how to communicate with the living iXon’s. The astral entities being a grouped intellect offered their physical offsprings, guidance and illumination. Together they manage to take in sequestration all forms of life on their planet and create a sentient monopole over their hosts.

   They started using breeding techniques, to raise useful entities to host their new hatched spores, this way they created a specialized caste system that contained over 300 branches. In the end, the living iXon’s were the hands of the Great Common Mind and so they became themselves, hosts of the transcended ancestors.

   In the next one thousand-year, they easily reached a similar post modern civilization, and prepared themselves for the early stages of interstellar travel. Peace and prosperity flourished in their solar system, until one day they were visited by another sentient civilization. That day was to be known as “The day of acknowledgment”.

   We are under the Great Federation protection, but there is no guarantee on security, so we need to be prepared, better to be safe than sorry. In the last 20 years, I grew up seeing my fellow citizens manage to resettle over 5 planets, re-establish a post modern society with the support of the free traders and the humanitarians from the remaining federation states. What we left behind was not only our homes, but also all our heritage, 500 years of culture and evolution were destroyed within 48 hours. They never saw it coming, most of us were caught in the chaos of the attacks. Anti-mater bombs! Seven worlds shattered, turned to dust! For each planet an iXon jumper phase shifted and detonated. Some manage to board the refugee ships, but most of us didn’t stand a chance.

 Revenge, one day .. but now is time to focus, without this exam I will be a nobody and my dream would remain just a dream. I continued reading the federation book of astro-navigation, when my communication block lighted green. An incoming connection:

“Yes, Lauren here.”

“Hi Lauren, care to join us for some tea and cookies? Today is Martha’s birthday.”

“I would but I need to … well, ya, why not?”

“We are in the level 4 cafeteria.”

“Will join you soon. Bye.”

“Bye.”

   I need a break, to clear my thoughts. On my way to level 4 I got a com. connection from my superior officer:

“Hi Lauren, we have a survey mission and we would need a captain. Unfortunately, there’s no one, of those accredited, left on station. And you, being only one week away from that certificate, would fit in nicely. I could put a good word for you at the exam. It is not mandatory but it involves flying, which could be considered as a training.”

“Are there any chances of sanctions for me? In case if someone from the federation transit control finds me flying.”

“Yes can be, but you will not fly much in the public space and we could attach a training module to the ship. It would trick most of the controlling bots.”

“Well sir…”

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   I closed the alarm, got dressed and grabbed my chip card. Today will be interesting. I have to payback Roger. I still owe him for the damage that I did last week and he has me under strict supervision. He got himself one of those thermal tracking drones. Every time I get outside, that thing is following me. You can’t even spot it. The only detection that you have, is a small electro-magnetic anomaly that is somewhere around you at 5 m distance. If you would be a casual citizen you would not even notice it. My luck is that, in presence of phase shifting generators I have a strange high sound in my left ear.

   I’ve gone down the building and across the street in a nice small Spanish fast food. The owner is a decent guy and the food is as good as you can get in this neighborhood. There are no fancy diners or restaurants in the east side of Fulwork. Is a low-income area. Tall residential storage’s with cheap fast foods. Most of the residents from here are working in the Deuterium processing plant.

“Hi Cortez.” (I said). “A coffee and what ever you have ready for this morning.”

“Hi Jack. Still tired from last night? I’ve seen you arriving home. You didn’t look in one piece.”

“Well I’m ok, could have been worse. What does not kill me, makes me stronger. And I smiled at him.”

“And out of too much strength one day your body will fail. You need to keep it down with this phase shifting.”

“What are you my mother? Please… My head still hurts. Can you just bring something to eat.”

Little annoying some time, the old man, but he wants what’s best for me. He knows me since I was a kid. He even knew my parents. What history I have in this place of world.

   I was eating my breakfast, when a young woman (around 25 I guess), entered with speed inside and rushed to the counter. There wasn’t much space inside, so everybody turned and looked at her. She started speaking fast and in Spanish to Cortez. After few moments I’ve seen him change his face color to red. “That must be something really bad” I thought, I never seen him like this since I know him.

  After some moments of silence he came and sat with me at the small corner table, where I was finishing my coffee. He took some seconds (maybe to get some courage) and then he said:

“Jack I have a favor to ask you. It will not be for free. I have some money saved for bad days.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Well my daughter Lisa, is in trouble. She needs to get very fast off this planet. I have someone in Predo who can help her, but I need someone to take her there. The roads are not that safe, you know…”

I never knew that he had a family and especially a daughter. What could be that important that she would need to leave this world.

“But what is the problem? Maybe I can help…”

“Sorry Jack but is out of your league and out of anybody around here league. Will you help us?”

“Well…”

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