“What have you got?” Persimmons asked, stone-faced.
“RI-6 is moving to active status on two different missions and one of them appears to be a joint operation with the P.S.S.,” reported Orange.
“Let me see the data we have so far,” said Persimmons.
After scanning the data, the stone façade began to crack, replaced with an expression that more resembled a wolf on the hunt than anything else.
“This is good news, Agent Orange,” he said.
“Is it, Agent Persimmons?” the other agent asked, “it places our own operations under tighter scrutiny when it fails.”
“If,” Persimmons lifted a finger, “if it fails. Which, were we to move under the cover of darkness and discretely assist their efforts, would have a much greater chance of success.”
Persimmons gave a sharp chin jerk.
“Issue orders for our agents to get out of the way. We don’t want to lose anyone because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Friendly fire isn’t unusual and these aren’t even our friends. Also,” he added contemplatively, “I want two of our direct-action teams standing by, one to finish the job if for some reason the royal hit team can’t deal with target two.”
“And the other? I’d also like to go on record saying I think this whole operation is unwise. It could set us back months,” warned the other agent.
“The other direct-action team is to stand ready to extract our intelligence team if by some miracles, one of the parties involved in tonight’s shenanigans successfully back tracks our taps into their command and control networks,” said Agent Persimmons.
Orange sucked in a breath.
“Do you think that likely?” he asked with concern.
“Who knows what kind of technology the Spine’s Little Admiral has picked up from ourselves or even from alien technology from beyond the Rim? One is never wrong to be over-prepared,” Persimmons persisted, “but Agent Orange, I’m surprised at you. I would have expected you to be all in favor of bolder action, considering the amount of time and effort we’ve sunk into what should have been a secondary operation out in the galactic hinterlands.”
“There are old agents and there are bold agents, Agent Persimmons,” Agent Orange quoted a well-known Imperial Intelligence saying.
“But there are no old bold agents,” said Persimmons, completing the saying, “I understand your reluctance to endanger all of our hard work, but in my opinion, even in a failure we risk very little and unless we’re prepared to terminate three competent Royalist and Parliamentary action teams, this operation is going to happen with or without our assistance. As such, my directives stand. Furthermore, our last data dump from back home didn’t just include code keys and contacts in Royal Intelligence. We’ve been given the go-ahead to take action and terminate if possible.”
“Long live the Empire, Agent Persimmons,” Agent Orange said, saluting.
“Indeed,” Persimmons said, returning the salute.
***
“Bagel Nine, this is Croissant Three, Milkshake is a go, I say again, Milkshake is a go. I need confirmation you are ready to toast,” said a quiet voice over an encrypted channel deep within a hidden tunnel that accessed the fourth basement level of the Winter Palace.
“Just mind to your blending and leave the toasting to us, Croissant. If everything goes as planned, Pop-Tart will be inside the toaster before anyone realizes the cooking is afoot,” said Bagel Nine, “and if there’s a malfunction with the electricity, we have enough Bagels on site to finish making breakfast.”
A new voice cut into the channel.
“This is Croissant One. A lot of good sausages are going to fry today, Bagel Nine. I want your word you’ll be on the breakfast plate with the Syrup if and when we need you,” said the new voice.
“We’re full of Syrup and ready to Jam, Croissant One,” replied Bagel Nine.
“Good, because the chefs back home are ordering take-out if this meal burns,” threatened Croissant One.
***
Ironically, Operation Milkshake with its goal of penetrating into the deepest parts of the Palace didn’t kick off in basement level four with the croissants, but in another part of the city entirely.
Inside a modest four-bedroom home in one of the nicer gated communities of Capria’s Capitol City, a couple was slow dancing to light music emanating from the small home’s holo-system.
“It’s been too long since we’ve had a free moment just to slow dance,” said the man, lifting his arm and gently pushing on her back.
“Agreed,” said the woman, spinning slowly in place with a smile on her face, then the arm came down, she tucked herself into the crook of it and they shared a deep look into one another’s eyes.
Then there was a click as the green light of a home security system panel beside the door flickered, off and back on, settling back into full operational status in less than a micro-second.
“It’s probably nothing,” the woman sighed, spinning out of his arm until they were both standing facing each other and holding hands, refusing to look at the security panel.
“Agree,” said the man, giving her hands a squeeze before releasing them and stepping over to the bookcase at the side of the room.
“People have false alarms all the time and this isn’t even that,” she said firmly, “normal people with normal problems, which this isn’t even.”
“How could I disagree with such a lovely lady of the night, especially when she’s making sense,” the man said with a twist of the lip before sliding on a gauntlet resting on the top shelve. With one smooth motion, he scooped up a scabbard sword leaning against the solid hardwood book case and shucked the sheath.
“And yet,” she noted with an edge in her voice, “I notice how you’re still acting as if we were under siege. Note,” she added, “how I’m not mentioning the ‘lady of the night’ comment.”
The man winced.
“Too much?” he asked receiving an elegant nod.
“Then I am eternally grateful for your kind regard. And don’t worry if I actually thought that if we were under siege, you’d already be in the panic room. Like you said, this is probably just a normal occurrence. A minor electrical surge perhaps?”
“In a house with both a direct hook into the main power grid and a private generator,” she said and then bit her lip, “blast. Now I’m starting to do it too.”
He made a placating gesture.
“Even the best computer systems have their issues. Maybe the light bulb filament is starting to give,” he shrugged.
“It’s a holo-system, no filaments, it would have to be an emitter issue,” she reminded him.
He grimaced.
“I thought I told you to go with the more mechanical system. The fewer high-tech pieces, the fewer point failures,” he grumbled.
“I used the security company you recommended,” she pointedly reminded him.
By this point, he was standing in front of the door.
“It’s clear looking out the peephole,” he said.
“Good,” she said with relief.
He pressed a button beside the peephole.
“It’s still clear,” he said, immediately tensing and moving to the side of the door fast enough, it was like he was burned.
“I take it that’s a bad thing,” she said, swiftly striding to a tall porcelain statue of an ancient Egyptian cat.
“I took a still image, it was supposed to boot up when I pressed the button but the peephole still showed clear,” he said, crouching down beside the door and activating the vibro-blade in his hand.
“Oh, bother—and it was such a nice night too,” she said, kicking the cat hard enough to shatter the porcelain and then bending down to grab something inside the pieces.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he promised, voice tight with tension, “system activate. Repel intruder mode.” Nothing happened.
She didn’t quite make it to
whatever she was reaching for before there was a puff of smoke out the upper right corner of doorframe and the main door leading into the house fell inward leaving only the doorframe and a couple of inches all around the frame intact.
A person in tactical armor jumped through the door only to have four inches of hardened vibro-blade planted in his chest.
With a kick, the man, a former Royal Armsman and sword instructor, shoved the intruder off his sword.
“Contact!” shouted someone outside the house.
“God and King Jason,” he roared, meeting the next operator’s through-the-door vibro-sword-to-blaster rifle and shoving the other man back through the door.
A hail storm of blaster bolts flashed through the open doorway, causing the man to spin around a black hole in the side of his ribcage.
“I love you, Elaine,” he said, meeting her eyes before lunging back toward the doorway and the certain death that lay beyond, sword raised.
“Duncan!” screamed the women.
There was a high-pitched whine as Duncan tossed a plasma grenade he’d picked up somewhere on his trip from the dance floor to the front door and it sailed through the door.
Falling over, the former armsman and sword instructor fell to his knees and curled into a fetal position beside the door, unmoving.
There was a boom outside as the plasma grenade ignited. Several screams and a wave of super-heated steam billowed in through the door, scorching Duncan’s clothing, arm and back but eliciting barely a twitch.
The metallic sound of an action being engaged followed by the whine of a weapon powering up and the ragged sound of rapid breaths followed.
The moment seemed to go on forever as nothing happened.
“Manual activation with voice override, Elaine Three-O-Nine. Hob-64 is to take control of the domicile and activate intruder repulsion systems and call for emergency services. Immediately!” she shouted.
“Hob-64 assuming control of domicile protective systems. Counter-hacking enabled. Distress call initiated,” there was a pause, “eight intruders are down. Pressure sensor anomalies detected on the front lawn. Other forms of scanning negative,” there was another pause, “pressure sensor anomalies approaching the front door.”
“Engage fire suppression systems, Hob-64,” Elaine instructed the droid core installed in the panic room of the house in case of just such an emergency.
There was the sound of sonic weapons firing.
“All legal defensive measures ineffective,” Hob-64 said mechanically, “activating illegal upgrades and wiping current data-feeds to avoid incriminating evidence.”
There was the sound of a pair of blaster turrets dropping down and opening fire.
“Blaster turrets ineffective. Hostiles have reached the doorway. Highly recommend, Designation Elaine, immediately retreat to reinforced protective room until authorities arrive,” advised Hob-64.
Elaine glanced down at the fallen Duncan. She knew what she had to do but she couldn’t leave him. Not like this.
“No,” Elaine screamed, leveling the snub-nosed pulse rifle previously hidden inside the porcelain cat at the door and opening fire.
Her pulsar bolts splattered off the battle-armor of a previously invisible home invader now standing on the doorstep.
Over a dozen bolts flashed out of her snub-nosed pulse rifle within a second and a half, all of them completely ineffective at anything other than breaking through the operative’s chameleon field.
The new operative leveled an oversized blaster pistol, one designed to exactly match the size of his extremely human-looking gauntlets, at Elaine.
Still screaming, Elaine kept the nose of her snub-nosed pulse rifle down and continued to fire center mass at her opponent.
Then Duncan pulled the tip of his still-vibrating sword out of the shredded carpet it had been resting in and slammed it into the lower leg of the operative aiming at Elaine.
His vibro-blade sparked off battle armor and then sank into the joint of the invader’s leg at the same time he/she or it opened fire.
Elaine spun around and fell with a thump.
“No,” Duncan coughed blood, trying to raise his sword for another attack but a crystal-encrusted duralloy boot stepped on the sword, forcing it out of his hand and firmly onto the floor.
The operator leveled his weapon at Duncan’s head and a screaming figure in a tight, form-fitting, black tactical outfit landed on the operator’s back. The force of the impact failed to so much as rock the operator but the vibro-knife immediately jammed into his neck armor had a much greater effect.
Pointing the pistol over his shoulder and falling into a forward roll, the home invader opened fire. Blood sprayed and whatever the shot to the head failed to do, a quarter ton or more of power armor finished.
Rolling back to his knees, the operator came up pistol leveled, only to see another person in the same skin-tight black tactical outfit charge into the room and shift his aim.
The first shot took the home’s latest reinforcement in the chest but other than a small puff of smoke, the blaster pistol had no effect.
Ignoring the blaster pistol, the new combatant raised a short four-foot vibro-blade and charged.
The blade whined and sparked off the operator’s forearm guard and the invader in the battle-suit went to a small, hand-axe-sized, crystaline boarding axe tucked away in the back of his/her or its battle suit and went on the attack.
A tense exchange followed, then the operator in now-malfunctioning, chameleon armor stiffened. Head snapping around, the operator dropped a grenade and then lowered his/her or its head charged directly at and then through the wall of the houses.
As the home invader crashed through the wall, the lithe figure in the skin-tight black tactical gear flipped the couch over with a grunt, right on top of the grenade, before bolting to the stairs leading up to the second floor of the house.
The person barely made it to the foot of the stairs when the couch jumped a foot in the air and then settled back down.
Hesitating, the figure took off her head mask and hurried over to the fallen woman in the back of the main room.
“Elaine, are you okay?” she asked, shaking the fallen woman.
Elaine groaned, moving around uncoordinatedly.
Making a snap decision, the young woman in black administered a stimulant with a med-stinger applied directly to the neck.
Elaine stiffened and then sat bolt upright.
“What took you so long?” she demanded, reaching over and holding the arm sporting the blaster hit.
“We came as fast as we could, Sister,” protested the younger woman, “as it is, we’ve taken losses today. Serious losses,” she said, looking at the fallen sister on the floor and then out the door where several more sisters had engaged trained operators with battlesuits with nothing more than vibro-knives and blades.
“Who was it that dared to attack us?” Elaine swore and then her eyes landed on the former armsman.
“Duncan!” she exclaimed, struggling to rise.
“Just a minute, you’re in no condition to walk. The Sister-Hospitaler will be here momentarily and she can look at your paramour,” said the Sister.
Elaine looked at her flatly.
“Who did this?” she demanded.
The other woman looked away.
“The initial attack was a RI-5 breaching team but the battlesuits look more like an imperial direct action team,” she said finally.
“RI-5! The sisters are supposed to be deeply embedded in Royal Intelligence. How did a breaching team make it all the way into my house without so much as a boo from the sisterhood?” Elaine asked harshly, “unless it was deliberate and a High Priestess ordered you to lower your guard?”
The Sister in black tactical gear looked shocked.
“We honestly had no idea this attack was taking place until there were shots fired. This is our failure, Sister, not the sisterhood turning against you!�
�� she said agitatedly.
“We’ll see about that,” Elaine said, levering herself to her feet with the help of the younger woman.
“Give me your communicator,” she ordered.
The younger sister hesitated momentarily before handing the device over.
“This is Elaine Three-Feathers, Priestess for the Three for One Society. I am hereby taking emergency command of all Society Assets on the planet for the duration of this emergency. If you are mandated to another mission by higher authority, then by the Compact Directive 483-271A, you are ordered to declare it and leave. Everyone else is being re-tasked. I want to know where those imperials that participated in this attack are hiding. Run them to ground for me, Sisters,” then her voice turned lethal, “I also want the names and locations of everyone involved in this attack on the Royal Intelligence side. Give me names. All the way to the bottom with the lowest trigger-puller right up to the top of Royal Intelligence itself.”
“Are you sure this is wise?” queried the Sister still supporting her.
Elaine looked at her flatly.
“We have a One back on the Throne and in direct control of this Star System for the first time in three generations. If that doesn’t give me priority authority, I don’t know what does,” she snapped and then started hobbling over to Duncan where a sister-medic was working on the fallen armsman.
“Is he dead?” she asked, steeling herself.
“He needs a tank,” said the sister, using a can of New-skin and a re-bonder while working at his side, “but if he doesn’t go into shock and die on the way there, he should make it,” she said clinically.
Elaine looked at the way Duncan’s head lolled from side to side as the medic worked on the blaster hole in his side and felt something inside her break.
“Take care of him,” she said in a thick voice.
“Of course, Sister,” the Sister-Hospitaler said, nodding seriously before looking back down with disdain at the man she was working on.
Elaine clenched her fists together but said nothing. They were young. They were all young, so very-very young and there was nothing she could say right now that they would understand.
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