#### **Chapter 28: A Council of C.A.T.s**
The weight of their next move pressed down on the siblings. Kuro began running endless simulations, trying to find a weak point in W.A.O.'s global network. Renji cleaned his weapons, his methodical movements a way of processing the impossible odds. Hikari sat by the fire, her usual perceptive silence now heavy with unspoken worry.
The tension was broken by an unlikely source. Midnight, Renji's sleek black cat, padded silently into the room and leaped onto the central table, right in the middle of Kuro's holographic map of the Atacama Desert. He sniffed at the glowing red dot representing the broadcast array and then, with a flick of his tail, sat down directly on top of it, obscuring it from view.
"Even the cat knows it's a bad idea," Kuro muttered, trying to shoo Midnight away, but the cat refused to budge.
Then, Agent Mochi, the calico, leaped up to join him, followed by a stray ginger tomcat that Hikari had recently adopted and named 'Yuzu.' The three cats sat in a triangle on the map, a silent, furry council, staring at the three humans.
Hikari began to laugh, a soft, genuine sound that cut through the gloom. "They're telling us we're looking at it the wrong way," she said.
Renji looked from the cats to the map, a new thought sparking in his mind. "They're right. We've been thinking like soldiers. Trying to find a way to attack the fortress." He looked at Kuro. "What if we don't use their arrays at all?"
Kuro paused, his mind shifting gears. "The signal needs to be global. Pervasive. It needs to reach multiple, shielded targets simultaneously. The only network that has that kind of reach is…" His eyes widened. "…the StarLink satellite network. It's civilian. Open-source. W.A.O. wouldn't be watching it with the same level of paranoia."
The plan began to form a daring, impossible gambit. They wouldn't attack a W.A.O. facility. They would hijack one of the most sophisticated communication networks on Earth.
"It's insane," Kuro said, a thrill of pure intellectual challenge in his voice as he started running new calculations. "The encryption is next-generation. The uplink protocols are decentralized across hundreds of ground stations. It would take a miracle."
Renji stroked Midnight's head, a grim determination settling in his eyes. "Then we'll make one," he said. "Find me the weakest link in that chain. Find me the one person we need to get to."
The target was no longer a place. It was a person. And the Kyro Syndicate was back on the hunt