[Tk3997]

And lastly

Spoiler for Part 3:

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A LONG ways away from the previous location…

O’Neil was currently enjoying a long boring elevator ride up to the top floor of the Intelligence Branches Local HQ… Could this thing move any slower? He grumbled mentally he was about to begin a round of 99 bottles of beer when his cell phone suddenly snapped his attention back to the real world. He swiftly snapped it up and answered the call. “Yo, O’Neil here what’s up?” he didn’t give this number out to anything besides close friends and associates so he dropped at pretense of propriety.

“I’d condemn your total lack of etiquette, but I don’t have time.” Felix answered across the line with a resigned sigh before quickly getting to business. “Listen we think we have a solid lead, but it’s time critical and we aren’t sure on possible Op-For. Now you know me I prefer to fight with overwhelming superiority and all present feel much the same so we were wondering if there was anyway you could maybe pull some strings and get some more shooters out here.”

“How long are we talking about?” O’Neil inquired suddenly get dead serious.

“Maybe a day, two tops.”

“You don’t ask for much…” O’Neil scowled quickly running through all the units he had pull with and there current locations he was unfortunately drawing a blank on any that could arrive in that time frame to there present location. “I’ll need to make some calls.”

“Well no hurry, but you might want to make it quick. We’ll do what we can on our end to skew the odds as much as possible, but anything you can send couldn’t hurt.”

“I should get too it, I’ll keep you advised just don’t do anything stupid okay?”

“Like I’m gonna put my ass on the line over something like this!” He scoffed. “Anyway gotta go.” And with that Felix terminated the call.

“Great just one more thing that needs to be done…” O’Neil sighed, but on the bright side the damned elevator finally reached its stop. He stepped out and proceeded at a brisk pace toward his original destination a bit more urgency in his step then he’d have normally had. He’d been here a number of times before so he wasn’t really challenged and quickly reached his goal, the office of the Chief of Special Intelligence Operations for this sector. Upon entry he forwent the normal formalities and in a rather odd move for him dove straight into business. “Sorry to show up and your door step with this Fisher, but I was wondering if you might be able to help me out with something…”

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Not long after:

“Four guys?!” Felix balked slightly as he was informed of what there “reinforcements” would consist of.

“That’s all I could find I mean the place is a backwater in the middle of TSAB space no less. We don’t exactly station crack troops in garrison waiting to run off to answer emergency calls in the middle of largely uninhabited blue zones. I had to call in favors just to get these four.” O’Neil responded slightly indignant.

“How soon will they arrive?” Felix just moved on he’d hoped for a bit more, but his expectations had never been that high to begin for all the reasons mentioned.

“The first pair will arrive within the day the next about twelve hours after them, if your intel is wrong and you can put off going in for say three and a half to four days I can probably get a full combat platoon to you.”

“We highly doubt the intel is wrong and besides Murphy is likely to assure it’s right in this case as that would be the best possible way to screw us.” Felix responded bluntly.

“True enough and I’m afraid I really can’t do much else at this point but I leave it to and wish you luck.” O’Neil frowned.

“Assuming it’s vaguely possible we’ll get it done.” Felix responded wearily messaging his temples.

“I’d expect no less. Anyway I’ve got a feeling about all this so I’m going to start working my end a bit harder looking into this I’ll let you know if I find anything, until then?” He casually inquired if there was anything else that needed to be discussed.

“Later.” Felix informed him there wasn’t and the line shut down. Felix leaned back and rubbed his temples even harder; so much for totally overwhelming force. Oh well they’d just have to make do like they always did, somehow… On the “plus” side it was seeming like he needn't have worried about taking this position as it was ending up just like the “good” old days getting shot at, never having enough resources, running all over the place and largely living on caffeine. On top of all that this was of coruse in theory also supposed to have been a job for him to “take it easy” for a couple months, yeah that had worked out great. Though this was about par for the coruse really as it often seemed nothing could ever be really easy for him… After a few more seconds of lazing about he finally grudgingly pushed himself up from his chair to go report all this they could start planning out what the hell they where going to do.

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The senior members of the group had once again gathered in the former chief’s office come conference room to discuss what the hell they where going to do about the likely impending criminal raid on a number of local archeological dig sites. Felix was the last to arrive and looked less then upbeat as he entered. “Well the good news is that I managed to get us something.”

“And the bad news?” Vita questioned bluntly.

“That ‘something’ consists of four guys I don’t know and two of them won’t arrive until right around when we expect the bad guys too.” He answered plopping down in on of the chairs in the room.

Irene frowned she’d been hoping they could pull in some significant reinforcements for this, but her own contacts had come up dry on that front as well which meant they’d have to make due with what they had which in two days would be a bit less then a dozen mages even so… “Without significant reinforcements and no idea of Op-For committing to an assault seems rather risky.”

“I don’t know even without support we still have quite a bit of firepower right here between me and the stooges we’ve got three mages near S ranks. It would take something rather extreme to stop all three of us.” Vita was a tad more optimistic and eager to give it a go as you might expect. The fact she had a strong feeling Zubov might well show up didn’t hurt either…

“She has a point, we don’t have numbers but we have some definite quality here even so I don’t really like running into fights basiclly blind.” Felix was a bit torn on some level he was with Vita he doubted they could have enough forces to seriously threaten Her, him, and Pixy never mind the rest but assumptions like that could be rather disastrous if they ended up being wrong…

“Why do we have too?” Pixy suddenly piped up from off to the side drawing attention to him. “Go in blind that is. After all we’re pretty sure we know where they’ll be and when, but that doesn’t mean we have to attack them straight up the moment they arrive.” He drawled casually.

“A surveillance mission?” Irene questioned aloud.

“We’ve got a couple of spooks just sitting around twiddling there thumbs I’m sure they’d be happy for the work.” Pixy grinned.

“The problem with this is that two sites have been indicated as possible targets are basiclly in totally opposite directions from here.” Vita pointed out.

“If we use our lower ranking members for the surveillance and then us heavy hitters stay here we could reach either site fairly quickly.” Felix counter easily.

“And what if they hit both at the same time?” Vita asked pointedly.

“Then we’re probably screwed so let’s just hope they don’t.” Felix shrugged.

“This could work out well with other things I wanted to do anyway now that we know these guys are after those dig sites I rather want to know why, and if we remain here we can keep searching records and such trying to figure out what the hell there goal is.” Irene remarked likely this plan more and more, and at this revelation of her intent for those left behind most everyone else suddenly like it markedly less. It was too late now though and plan was decided upon all that remained was working out some details and informing the other still unsuspecting participants of there roles…

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An Hour or so later:

After briefly reviewing the orders given to him on the PDA Kou looked up at the man before him. “So basiclly you want us to go traipsing around a festering jungle for some indeterminate period of time observing a site that our suspects may or may not show up at some indeterminate time in the near future.”

“More or less.” Felix replied.

“And why exactly are WE doing this?”

“Because you’re intelligence specialists of coruse; this is your kind of mission to a T!” He responded sarcastically.

“Why don’t you cut the crap and just admit it’s because you’re pretty much all higher ranked then us and this is a shit detail?” Kou shot back brusquely.

“Well sure if you want to get all negative about it.” Felix shrugged.

Kou seemed about to launch into some sort of tirade when he suddenly paused. “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“Immensely.” Felix was utterly unrepentant.

“You’re such an ass.” Kou muttered almost like he was just realizing this fact.

“It’s nothing personal man it just feels really good to be ordering someone else to do something onerous and unpleasant for once; I can’t help but be upbeat. Stay alive and maybe you’ll get to enjoy this too someday, but in the meantime you’d best get going your ride leaves soon!” Felix responded indifferent to the insult as he was indeed riding high on being spared this mission due to his position and rank; maybe this officer gig wasn’t all bad after all.

Grumbling unintelligibly but unwilling to give his tormentor any more fun Kou grudgingly made for the door. “Have a nice trip!” Felix called after with a little wave.

“Bite me old man!” Kou answered back refusing to make eye contact as he marched out the door. Felix smirked at his back as he left he acutally did like the kid, but he was still a bit of a pain in the ass that could use to be taken down a peg now and again. The irony and hypocrisy of this line of thinking was totally lost on him as he was too busy savoring the moment to consider it.

Content with life for the moment he leaned back at his desk in the temporary office and smiled a big dumb smile he’d be heading to bed within fifteen minutes and he could think of little that could ruin his mood in that timeframe. Thinking that was of coruse a huge mistake as Irene entered the office mere moments later lugging a large cardboard boxes which she unceremoniously dumped on his desk causing the entire structure to reverberate under the impact.

“We need to go through these archeological records for anything odd, but they’ve had a staffing problem so a bunch of it hasn’t been digitized yet. I’ve got your friend going over the part that has been, but there’s plenty that hasn’t as you can see. I’m gonna go put on a pot of coffee before we get started.” So saying she quickly wandered off toward the small break room off the office. Pretty much the moment her back was turn Felix smile became a gigantic frown and the festering jungle suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad deal after all…

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Meanwhile Nearby:

“It’s just a quick job this time just do this thing and then you can bum around and watch us, no extra strings!” Atuwe ranted to himself as he and his device continued shifting through the mountain of utterly mundane dig and survey reports. “There’re always strings, always!” The bastards had done it again they’d managed to rope him into another mess he could probably do without, and not for the first and certainly not the last he asked himself why the hell did he keep hanging around these people?! If he didn’t get paid promptly this time though so help him he had blackmail material and the skills to make sure it as disseminated far and wide. If he got screwed again lives WOULD be ruined…

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Kou had been placed in charge of preparing for there little camping trip though they were expecting another pair of agents from intelligence shortly one of which would acutally lead the operation. From what he could see in the orders he’d been give it looked like he was going to get to do all the grunt work to get things ready so this other guy could swoop in and take over once the vaguely interesting part began, whatever what was one more shafting added to the list? Well first thing first namely he needed to go collect the gaggle of screw ups that they were apparently going to try and pass off as a proper recon team.

The process of gathering them proved a tad annoying none of them seemed to be where they where supposed to be and he found himself answering the same set of questions repeatedly since he was locating them singly for the most part are we really go to have to gout into the jungle, for how long, whose in charge, and so and so on. It was rather annoying overall and then when he finally gathered them all up he had to repeat 90% of it again in a proper briefing.

Finally though the team was largely prepared and they gathered at the local helipad, normally they’d have preferred to wait for the two newcomers before briefing and heading out, but time was a factor and besides they’d have a fairly long flight out to fill them in on the details. Finally about five minutes before there scheduled departure with everyone else already aboard the helicopter the last two members of the team arrived.

“Agent Kusanagi.” The senior man greeted him tersely; Intelligence agents didn’t normally salute each other. “I’m Special Agent Macmillan.” The man was older looking to be about in his mid 20s and he wore the standard “uniform” of an intelligence agent a nearly pressed black suit, Kou rather hoped his barrier jacket would be a bit more appropriate to their intended destination. “and this is Agent Keller.” He gestured toward his younger female partner she threw Kou a quick smile when he glanced over at her before Macmillan drew his attention back to him. “Everything’s ready I assume?”

“Just waiting on you sir everyone else is aboard.” Kou replied indifferently.

“Then let’s not keep them waiting any longer.” He responded and headed for the helicopter his female partner meandering along behind him with a considerably less rigid gate, Kou follow behind both still a bit unsure quite what to make of his new CO, but at least he seemed serious about his job if nothing else.

Meanwhile back inside despite having not been waiting long several of the people inside where already a tad bored though so far only one of them had taken it upon himself to try and do something about it. “So what’s this place like anyway?” Shin asked the helicopters pilot curiously as he poked his head into the cockpit area; uninvited of coruse.

“It’s a jungle.” She responded bored.

“That’s it just, it’s a jungle?” He pressed slightly disappointed.

“What do you want here? Like I said its jungle just like 95% of this planets land is and one acre looks pretty much like the rest from 10,000 feet and they’re all hot, wet, and unpleasant to spend any length of time in for the most part.” She responded irritably.

“Touchy…” Shin quipped to himself and then glanced back to see the last of the team including the new comers boarding at the rear. The pilot must have seen it too as she quickly began warming up the aircraft for flight. Shin was smart enough to know when to take his leave and quickly slipped out of the cockpit and back into the cabin leaving her to his work. A few minutes later everyone was accounted for and the chopper got airborne and headed outbound toward the suspected target areas with it’s largely less then thrilled cargo aboard.

And lastly some author ramblings!

Not much action going on in this chapter and not much Vita either, but hey let’s face it investigations aren’t really her thing so what are you gonna do? So what WAS she doing for most of this? Taking allot of naps perhaps? Fear not though she’ll be back to show off what she’s best at next chapter… indiscriminate destruction.

Felix of course is still around plenty being the main character and all and a couple of background guys of mine get some spotlight too mainly Atuwe and O’Neil who shows that yes he DOES do something besides nap in his office all day. Irene is around quite a bit too and her and Felix seem to get on rather well…

This chapter acutally ended up bigger then I expected and I even edited some scenes out that I felt didn’t really add allot to the plot and were holding up my progress. It was mostly some Vita/Pixy stuff and a bit of fluff about the Recon teams forming up which I admit in this final product feels a tad forced and rushed, but I was tired of this chapter and wanted to move on. I may write these up later as Sound Stages of a sort. (Probably not being the lazy bum I am)

When will the next chapter arrive you ask? Why when it’s done of coruse!