~Chapter 1: Ordinary People~
“...in the light of the changes on the ground that have occurred during our tenure, I recommend that Phase Two of Operation Red Dust should be commenced in the event that Mediator Actual achieves mission success. The discovery of Ancient Belkan military complexes of this size and scale is an unprecedented event in all of Bureau history, and when corroborated with the conclusions of the Testarossa Report the implications are nothing short of disturbing.
I therefore additionally recommend that the Council expedite the attachment of 1SRF’s assets to Red Dust operators for Phase Two. Details of Phase Two’s-”
Right. Let’s just stop here, shall we?
Not the most interesting reading material, your own reports.
What was there to see, anyway - you’d already had to have read through them at least ten times before, spent some hours painstakingly editing them, only publishing them after making certain they were not written so plebeian that they insulted the intelligence of the readers, nor so high-brow that it should seem droll and obfuscating.
But Verossa Acous begged to be forgiven in that regard. He wasn’t used to having lull time the first week he returned from a long-term assignment. Normally, there wouldn’t be any. Instead there would be after-action reviews, follow-up meetings, calls to and from so-and-so important persons.
Annoying, but it was also the norm.
So when the Red Dust review session dissolved an hour early, he had suddenly found himself adrift. He’d brought nothing with which to occupy himself in the meantime. So he tried to read his report for the sake of being busy at first. But after a while his mind had begun to wander, and as a result he found that he had quite the fertile imagination when idle.
His favorite daydream so far was the one where he would, just for once, ditch the drab, prosaic official writing style normally required of these passages, and instead use some flowery romantic tangential nightmare of unbelievable length, utter lack of clarity and stunning archaicness to dilate on his otherwise very simplistic ruminations on the mission, playing it for the laughs.
And for the outraged responses he’d get from the Council should any of them, god forbid, read the reports themselves instead of delegating it to their secretaries as every self-respecting partisan bureaucrat should.
Of course, he wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing in reality. It would be quite inefficient, since the number of probable victims was a grand total of one. And that one particular person he didn’t want to cross.
In any case you only pissed your boss off on purpose when you could get away with it, and there was no way he was getting away from his. In fact he was currently in the process of doing just the opposite. Even as he had been reading his report for what was likely the umpth time, his languid steps took him ever so slightly further down the hallways of the Bureau Headquarters.
Ever closer to her office.
That didn’t prevent him from stopping from time to time to admire the scenery, though. He had time, and there was lots to admire. The Intelligence wing of had an excellent vantage point of the internal structure of the Bureau’s main base, after all.
Headquarters was an Granterre-class space station, the only one of its class in all the Bureau’s history. Dwarfing all the others by far, it came in at about less than half the size of Mid-childa, within which the Bureau main office itself only made up what was known as the Black Star, a structure suspended in the ‘core’ of the overall construct.
Surrounding the Star were six orbiting half-rings known as the ‘Viridian Bands’, their primary purpose being agriculture and the preservation of wildlife within both green and marine ecosystems, which in turn allowed the base to be self-sustaining. This section was his personal favorite by far, though he visited it less than he’d have liked.
The outermost layers were twofold. Closer to the HQ were a smattering of floating platforms attached loosely to the Star by way of turbo-elevators. These served as hangars for the Navy’s ships, and by extension was home to the main bulk of the Bureau’s military presence on the dimensional seas. The outermost was what seemed like a network of thin, shimmering rings - in fact foci for the giant Dimensional Barrier Rift generator that defended the HQ in battle, and also served as a dimensional transfer relay should it ever need to be on the move.
The overall design was, he reckoned, quite quaint, and not at all like the other space stations of Bureau make. Which was probably why there were always rumors floating about that the HQ was not built on the Administered Worlds.
All things considered, the theory had merit. While the technology required to build artificial biospheres already existed in Administered Space, some parts of the HQ remained a mystery. A black box, so to speak. The power source of the Granterre-class station was classified information, even for him, and there were no known blueprints for past or future such constructions anywhere in the Infinite Library. That only added another layer to its reputation as a ‘black box’.
And then there was the fact that the HQ was recorded to have been in use even in the early era of the Bureau’s existence. So while few people said it out loud, many -himself included- held that Headquarters was a relic of older times, preserved (perhaps even captured), refurbished and remodelled for the Bureau’s uses.
Verossa himself paid the question of the builders’ exact identities little mind, though. That, no one knew for sure.
Perhaps, he mused, the High Council knew something while they had still lived. But what they might have known had died with them. All they had to go on nowadays were the whispers that made the rounds from time to time, and whatever the Infinite Library could dredge up.
But that was the field of a certain bookish young man he knew. Well, he felt for him. Not much else, though. They all had their own problems to deal with.
And mine is right here, Verossa thought as he stopped in front of a pair of sliding doors with a sign at the side with “Lt. Gen. Y. Hayate, Head of Intelligence” graven into its side. Funny how the military liked all its newfangled toys, but could stick with something as old-fashioned as engravings on marble and metal for centuries on end.
He tapped the comms panel on the left of the entrance. “Inspector Acous, to see the General.”
“Verossa? Come right in.” The voice on the other end was pleasant. Even a little flighty and girlish. Quite unlike what you would expect of one of the most powerful people in the Bureau.
He stepped in front of the door, and with a barely perceptible hiss they slid open.
The room within was fairly spartan. No fancy decor. No excess furniture. Not even the smallest award closet, never mind that its inhabitant was one of the Bureau’s most decorated personnel. Just a nice rug, on which was perched a modestly-sized glass table, with a pair of bookcases on either side. A very Terran thing to do. Terran, which Hayate Yagami so happened to be.
“You’re early today.” She was seated on a fur-lined armchair to the left of the table, a cup of tea in her hand. Freshly made, he noted. She was dressed in the style that had become customary for her recently - navy dress blues with a khaki coat draped over the shoulders. “Something I should know?”
She was also not alone. Opposite her, in a seat -and with a drink- of like make, was Fate Testarossa Harlaown, all dapper in the black and white of the Enforcers, complete with customary leggings and crosstie.
“No, not really,” Verossa said. “Things just happened.”
“Right. Tea for you then?”
“Naturally.” He had always been a tea person. It helped that she was already proffering the cup. And that it smelled really good. Say what one might about Hayate Yagami, but one could never say she didn’t make grade-A tea. “Hope I’m not intruding on anything like this. Am I?”
Hayate shook her head. “No, no, not at all. I was just chatting with Fate a moment ago. Nothing important really.”
“So she says,” Fate harrumphed. “But don’t believe a word of it. Just a moment ago she was wailing on me about all the extra work we’ve brought on her.”
Verossa raised an eyebrow. “Hmm, really? For shame, Hayate, when we toil day and night for you! As your ever loyal right hand, I am grievously hurt by this affront!!”
Not the most normal start to an official meeting. But then again this was probably going to be the last moment of real levity in their conversation. Might as well milk it. He already had a hunch of what the rest of it would be about. And judging by recent events, it wasn’t going to be fun.
Hayate threw up her hands in mock despair. “Well, what did you expect me to say? Thanks to you two I’m the most feared person in the Council, if only because I’m now its official bearer of life-changing bad news. First a resurgence of Belkan-era attack drones on the black market, and now Belkan foundry complexes on Non-Administered Worlds. At this rate we’ll need another world-ending super-weapon to top all that.”
“I think that’s the least of our worries really. We’ve already had three cases of world-ending threats thus far. One defected and one went to bed. The last one tried to get off-planet and got blown to space dust for its trouble.” Verossa said.
“Right,” Fate was quick to add. “3-0 to the home team. All things considered I think we have a pretty good record where world-ending weaponry is concerned.”
Well, that was over-simplifying things quite a lot. But the point was made, and that was the purpose.
Hayate pouted. “I was just exaggerating. Doesn’t mean we should get cocky about a record we set nine years back though. There hasn’t been anything quite like that since.”
“Come on, look on bright side already. It’s nine years well spent reorganizing ourselves,” Fate said. “Can’t say that wasn’t a good thing. And as politically incorrect as that may sound we actually have those Incidents to thank for all the changes we’ve made so far.”
Too true, Verossa thought to himself. After all, it had only been in the aftermath of those two major attacks on Mid-Childian soil for the Council to really wake up to the need for much-needed reforms in Bureau structure and policy. And even then they had barely managed to push two key measures through.
The first measure had been meant as a successor to the now-disbanded Riot Force 6. It paired up elite Special Response Teams gathered from all arms of the Bureau with a small naval group of battlecruisers and frigates, with the combined unit taking on such emergency and quick-response operations as the Riot Force had been the prototype for.
The second had merged the Inspectors and Investigators under the umbrella organization of Intelligence, eliminating the over-complicated and bloated dual command system and allowing for greater cooperation between the two parties. A sub-motion was also passed allowing the larger organization greater leeway in the use of the Enforcers, who had been hitherto a jealously-guarded Navy resource.
In the aftermath, Chrono’s 4th Fleet had taken on the role of housing the 1SRF once it was fully staffed. Genya Nakajima had been the inaugural Head of Intel, helping to smooth the transition into the new system.
It wasn’t until Hayate took over as top dog that the new system had been tested, though. So of course she understood its benefits. She just needed to complain about the workload every now and then. Working as the intermediary between a vast intelligence network and an even larger administration could be really overwhelming.
But right now, it seemed that mood had blown over.
“Yeah. Edur, the Void Plane, the Eclipse...none of those problems could have been so easily contained if we hadn’t done what we did back then.” Hayate sighed, suddenly seeming a little more weary. “Our people can be a real pain to take care of sometimes, but I’m truly proud of them.”
Verossa laughed. “Figures. You have a photo of the
Negros on your desk. Of all people. They’re the biggest pain in the neck ever.”
“That’s
Los Espadas Negros to you, Verossa. And if either of you doesn’t like them, better get used to them. You’re going to be seeing a lot more of them soon enough. In fact, they’re part of the reason you’re here to see me at this hour,” Hayate said.
Oh great. First thing on the back-to-business menu: working with the Black Swords. The closest thing the TSAB had to Riot Force 6, and made up of the craziest people in Intel and 1SRF put together. They had been responsible for the handling of the Eclipse Countermeasures, as well as the commando op that had ended the Edur System campaign.
The shit was way thick if they had to be called in. “Okay. Who did we piss off this time?”
“Considering what you found out, a lot of people?” Fate rolled her eyes.
Hayate nodded. “Correct. By our estimates so far, the illegal trade in Belkan-era ordnance and equipment is valuated in the trillions, maybe beyond. And that’s just from the networks we’ve made inroads into, not including what we’ve found more recently. That much you all already know.”
“Mmhmm,” Fate noted. “That we do.”
Verossa just nodded. They had worked together on the proliferation of illegal technology since before the Saint’s Cradle incident. This was nothing new.
“Now let me fill you in on how this is different. Previously, we would just track down the culprits, do a sting op and then close the case. That’s what Lethe was supposed to be.”
Nods again.
“But this time they were waiting for us, weren’t they, Verossa?”
Verossa furrowed a brow. “I did think that was likely, but we couldn’t confirm it at the time. Does Chrono’s situation report suggest that?”
“It does,” Hayate said, not batting an eyelid as she did. "Listen. From what you’ve told the Council a Fortress City on Lethe is no castle of sand. And yet it didn’t last a day against whoever it was that attacked you. From what we’ve seen, there was significant material loss, but they had the means, and they were definitely in a rush. They knew there was something there worth taking, and I’m willing to bet that it was you and the information you possessed.”
Well, lucky us we got out while we could, eh?
“Hang on. If they knew we were coming, couldn’t they just have stopped us while we were trying to get in, and not while we were getting off-planet?” Fate asked.
“The report also states that a dimension transfer rift was detected on Lethe early in the last day of Operation Red Dust, and then once more a few hours after that. They probably only discovered your presence during the exfil phase and gave chase, before getting off planet themselves after realizing that they’d missed your boat,” Hayate said.
Verossa grimaced. “That’s not the last of them we’ve seen then. Sorry about blowing our cover, guys.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was part of our overall plans in Lethe. No one expected to blow the lid off something this big in the process.” Hayate said.
“How big is big, anyway?” Fate asked.
“It’s just unbelievable, frankly,” Hayate admitted. “we have at least 2 new types of Gadget Drones, nothing like what we’ve seen before. And that’s just what we found. There’s still the files the search teams brought back. Those are heavily encrypted, and keys are nothing we’ve seen before. The codebreakers say it’ll take at least another two weeks or so before we even get an idea of what’s going on.”
“Oh, hell,” Verossa muttered.
“So you see,” Hayate said, leaning forward in her seat, “the situation is still very uncertain.”
“And that’s where we come in,” Verossa said.
“With a lot less fanfare this time.” Fate nodded gravely.
“I assume you managed to convince the Council to give you full discretion?” It was a rhetorical question, Verossa knew, but sometimes he wondered how Hayate was able to get around the quarters of the administration that often complained about the leftover lack of transparency in the Bureau. Namely the civilian authorities in half the Administered Worlds and some conservative commanders.
Well, that even
those boneheads could see that this wasn’t the time for bickering just made the situation all the more serious.
“That’s correct,” Hayate noted. “Their methods are going to be best for what lies ahead, and both of you already have some experience in that field. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
Verossa pondered it for a moment. Smallest numbers for greatest force. Inconspicuous. Efficient. Little combat ethics. Yeah, that would be a job for the Black Swords alright.
“So is this an undercover op?”
Hayate nodded. “And not just any form of cover either. Have a look at this. This was taken by the 4th Fleet’s advance party during a sub-orbital ground sweep, just before they bugged out.”
With a sweep of her hand, she called up a large screen projected on the wall behind her.
“See this?” Hayate asked, tapping the middle of the screen even its colors shifted to the familiar “Becoming part of this war machine is going to be your job.”
Verossa recognized the feature Hayate had pointed at immediately. It was Ridrogoa, its buttressed spires lying in ruins, ringed by fire and smog. On its outskirts was a curious assortment of ships whose formation could only be called irregular. He began to analyze it.
They were an odd lot. Didn’t bother with standard formation. Hell, some of those ships didn’t even have guns, relying on the tiny dots -flight capable mages, he realized- milling in and around the floating masses for security. Their sizes were also disparate, more so by far than could be expected of most naval assault groups. Their largest was a converted last-generation frigate. The smallest was a floating sky barge. Most tellingly of all, there was no standardization. In fact most if not all the craft were customized in one way or another. Paint, improvised armor-plating, weapons in nonstandard hard points, even one or two full-blown nose jobs.
Kaiser, there’s even some laundry sticking out of that one on the left. This is no army. This isn’t even some regular force. This is-
“What do you think?” Hayate asked, breaking his train of thought.
“We’re going to slip in as mercenaries,” Fate said.
Hayate nodded. “One hundred points.”
Yeah. No shit. Verossa massaged the back of his neck. This was shaping up to way more annoying than he expected.
And he didn’t like that one bit.
2013-03-18, 21:26
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