And since anyone who isn’t a local is easier to spot, it’s much easier to run your ops away from prying eyes. Or at least, that’s what X explains to all the junior field officers who get assigned to him. They arrive feeling glum—because some mistake they’ve made, or indiscretion they’ve committed, has ruined their career and forced them out here into the gulag of the Carnivale. The Carnivale, truth be told and let’s be honest, is the joke of jokes in the Dark Ops community.
But as X likes to tell the other Nether Ops pooh bahs: “What do they know!” And everyone laughs. Because Dark Ops are like little goblins playing wicked goblin games, and Nether Ops… well, they’re actual monsters.
In Nether Ops, you don’t just know how the steaks are cut—you cut them.
After butchering the corpse.
X threaded the maze of the old building, deftly navigating its semi-abandoned darkness and gray skylight lighting. There was a new girl at reception. Pretty. She carried a subcompact blaster and had several decorations that could never be admitted to in open hearings.
Nether Ops was like that. No one ever knew how many times you did something noble enough to get an award.
But they also never found out about the failures.
He passed her and checked in with a few of the juniors, receiving status updates on three ongoing operations in various stages. And then he moved on to his office.
Everything was quiet for a beginning-of-the-week morning.
After last week, of course, it was best that it all be quiet now. Nothing really to crow about. Of course, you could never crow in the first place, even if you won, but especially not after that fiasco.
What was needed now… was a story.
X had sent a man out there to die, and, well… What’d you expect, old boy? Now it was time to sit down, collate the reports, and organize some kind of narrative that was mostly true—because of course by week’s end he’d be on someone’s carpet explaining how everything went so sideways.
So he started the kettle and sank down into his vintage leather chair. He petted the kitten that called his office home and stared out into the rain as he waited for the kettle to boil. Only when all was ready, mug in hand, did he pick up the first document. The one he’d created himself. The one that detailed who the operative was. The recruitment reports. The initial interview. The mission briefing. And of course the bio.
A bright and shining navy officer from a fine family. They’d recruited him to play the fallen-out-of-favor-turned-arms-dealer-rogue they needed to stage their little playlet.
“Our Hamlet,” he had told the juniors, for Operation Ghost Hunter.
He read his own briefings once more, moved on to the reports that had come in from the trainers, then picked up the first report from Ankalor. That was where the operation had begun in earnest. Infiltrate the inner circle of the main weapons dealer supplying the Mid-Core Rebellion.
And X began to tell himself a story.
“This is the story of you, Tom…” he murmured as he flipped through the dry reports and incident logs of the watchers who’d been watching their dear boy, that bright and shiny naval officer.
Because the chiefs in Nether Ops didn’t do reports. They did stories.
And so X began to tell himself the story. The story of Tom. He needed to understand it just as much as they would. And he needed to tell them what they needed to hear, never mind the facts.
“You find yourself staring in the mirror,” he began. “And waiting for the contact. Waiting days on end in the heat with the mad and the drunks. Because that’s what all spies do, Tom. Especially the ones who are afraid of losing their way. They talk to themselves in the mirror without ever moving their lips. Because they’re the only person they can talk to who knows the truth. Who knows who they truly are. And because they can’t tell anyone else, and go on living. You’re standing in front of the mirror, Tom, in a cheap hotel on dark, dangerous, and violent Ankalor. Waiting for the contact…”
***
That’s you, Tom.
The guy standing in the dim bathroom in the worst hotel on Ankalor.
That’s you.
You don’t look like a Repub Navy officer. Not anymore. But of course you’re not supposed to. You’re not even you anymore, Tom. Not now. Maybe later.
But not now.
Right now you’re Tom.
You still shave. You still dress smartly. Khaki combat trousers and high-quality safari boots. There’s a mostly clean white shirt out in the terribly dark bedroom you’ve been hiding in for three days. You’ll put that on before you go.
It’s been six months of being Tom.
And as you stand in front of the mirror in the dim bathroom looking at yourself, you try to remember who, exactly, you used to be.
You lean in close.
You lie to yourself and think something like: “There I am. I still exist. I can be seen. I know the way home.”
Except that’s a lie.
You’ve almost completely disappeared from the galaxy.
You pick up the smoldering cigarette, ash it, and continue shaving. Ex-navy officers still shave. It’s a habit. Even if they have been thrown out for moral violations. Gambling. Contraband. Smuggling. And a few other things to make you seem just dirty enough to be attractive to all the wrong people. Or at least that was the highest of hopes for your handlers at the Carnivale.
No. You’re not you anymore.
But you’re not supposed to be.
You pick up the plastic glass the low-range hotel has provided. It’s filled with scotch, and you take a drink.
You wince.
Because you want to?
No. Never. You were never a drinker.
Because it helps complete the down-and-out-defrocked-naval-officer look.
The lying never stops. Tell just one… and then you have to tell them all.
You smile.
Yes. You are still charming.
You always were.
***
Now you’re out among the zhee of this planet, among them and their braying calls to prayer. The zhee are not the original inhabitants of this planet, Ankalor. They murdered whoever those people were about the time the big sub-light colony ships were first struggling out into the void.
The zhee are fanatics.
Fanatics about their beliefs.
Fanatics about trade.
Fanatics about weapons.
Fanatics about themselves. Everyone else is just prey.
Y’know… fanatics.
That’s what makes this planet the premier weapons market along galaxy’s edge. Just beyond the fringe of civilization. That’s why freighters are hauling into orbit on the hour to pick up more weapons than anyone can possible know what to do with. Except that, too, is a lie. They know exactly what they can do with them. They’re doing it in a hundred brushfire conflicts across the galaxy as of this late hour in the Ankalorian day.
For a hundred years it’s been just the mercs, bounty hunters, pirates, and local warlords availing themselves of the “Night Market”—which is where you buy weapons of all conceivable types to destabilize governments, fight battles, and murder your opponents in their sleep. Whenever someone in the dark underbelly of the galaxy needs to do a big job, they pull into the docking ports that make up the bulk of the city, the closest thing to civilization the zhee have to offer. But now… well, now things are escalating. Now that the Mid-Core Rebellion is working up to really be something… there’s a whole lot more money being spent. Because everyone is real excited to kill each other.
You’re not a navy officer anymore.
You’ve fallen from grace.
That’s the role we’ve crafted for you. You are our Hamlet.
At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to look to the target.
Frogg is the target’s right-hand man. A bistro, as the zhee like to call it, is where you meet him. He looks like a toad. Short. Hunched shoulders. Bulging eyes. He was a major in the Legion u
ntil he got thrown out for being a violent sociopath. Except they had it all wrong. He was actually a psychopath. Crazy, violent. And utterly callous. The opposite of all you ever were.
Excuse me… once were.
What?
A dashing naval officer. You.
That’s what Repub naval officers are supposed to be. Dashing. Handsome. Brave.
You were once all those things.
This man Frogg is the opposite of all that. He is small and dangerous and vicious. He is the opposite of you. Or who you once were.
“So we need a bit of a work?” he whispers as you sit down over thick black coffee in the market on this sweltering day. The zhee press about you, never minding your galactic civ need for personal space. Their grotesque man-donkey bodies are covered by the long black robes they wear. Their low harsh language is frequently cut by a braying donkey laugh that comes from their donkey faces. They would be almost comically sad and hilarious in the same bizarre showbiz moment, if they weren’t so violently dangerous.
The zhee are viciously dangerous.
You nod at Frogg, because the cover the Carnivale built for you is the strong silent type. Look a little afraid, X told you, that’ll make you seem desperate. And pros see desperate as a form of dangerous.
You are afraid.
“Someone’s got to go out there and find out who’s supplying the Mid-Core Rebels, my dear boy.”
X again.
That someone is you. You are X’s “Dear Boy.”
And you’re not even you anymore.
It’s like you never were.
“It’s like you never were, mate,” says Frogg. “Drummed you right outta the service they did. Like me.”
You manage to look uncomfortable about this.
You are uncomfortable.
The man with whom you’re having this unpleasant but pleasant talk has killed more people than the most…
Well, according to Nether Ops Intel, he’s killed a lot of people.
Dangerous and vicious.
“I was ex-Legion. Got kicked out for beating a fag to death. At least that’s what I say. Now me, I don’t mind the faggotry. I’m not a judgmental lad that way. You’d be surprised if you know what I mean. Nah, I beat him because reasons. Faggy had nothing to do with it. Know what I mean, mate? But my CO caught wind of that little beatdown and out I go. Which was a good thing for me, and it could be a good thing for you, depending on what you can do for me and Scarpia. Mister Scarpia that is.”
In the Ghost Hunter briefings and at the Carnivale, Scarpia—Mister Scarpia—is known as the target.
You clear your throat like the proper gentleman naval officer you are. This part’s delicate. This is the pitch. This is how it all gets started. So be careful, Mr. Nobody-Arms-Dealer-Named-Tom. Because there’s a real chance you’ll never get to be who you once were. Never again. Especially if they smell a rat.
Dangerous and vicious.
“And,” you begin, you smooth operator, you. “What exactly can I do for you… and Mr. Scarpia?”
Frogg, who Mr. Scarpia calls Froggy, watches you like the reptilian he fantasizes himself to be. Except he is just a man. Just like you. On a world full of strange aliens who regard you as barely a life form and certainly not on their level. They would kill you and experience no more regret then someone butchering a chicken for dinner.
And they still murder each other according to tribal grievances that go back a thousand years.
“Explosives. Big ones. Very, very, big ones,” says Frogg like some kid gazing at sweets in a shop and telling the clerk which ones he’d like.
You lean back and watch him because you’ve got to be on this date too. Even though you’re interviewing, it can’t seem that way. It’s got to seem the other way. Like they’d be doing you a favor to let you play. Let you provide some stuff to kill with. The rumor is that Scarpia is the dealer for the MCR. Even though they use many, he’s considered “Numeral One, my dear boy.”
It’s got to seem like that.
“Surely…” You throw out an arm to encompass the bazaar and the phenomenal amount of weaponry and explosives on sale here. And this isn’t even the Night Market. “Surely you can easily find what you’re looking for?”
Basically you’re telling them to stop wasting your time. Except that you’re flattered they’re wasting it with you.
Because you’re not scared, Mr. Nobody Tom.
Except you are.
Remember when you were looking at yourself on this unbelievably hot morning in that sweltering little dank hotel and wondering if you had gone too far? Wondering if there still wasn’t time to go back? Because… you’re afraid you’ve gone too far. This is off the star map. This is uncharted. There are obstacles. There’s the edge. The edge of the galaxy,
Don’t things, people, fall off edges? If they go too far?
Well, you have no idea how far “too far” is.
“Not this type,” says Frogg dreamily as he dismisses some N-50 heavy crew-served blasters with an auto-drone function stacked nearby. “We need something bigger. Real big stuff. Stuff the navy keeps around to crack the occasional asteroid or take out a destroyer. These blokes can’t get that real deal apocalyptic stuff, try as they might, Tom. Heard you did. Heard you were connected to the knowing of things and people that deal in such big devices. Or did we hear wrong?”
You have no idea how far “too far” is.
But you will.
05
To meet the man, the man known as Scarpia, the man connected to the MCR, the Mid-Core Rebels, who the news networks tell you are little more than a nuisance and your handlers tell you are blossoming into a real live threat to the Republic… To do that, well, you’ll have to do a few things first.
“Do us a few things first, mate. Then square’s square and we do some better deals and cut you in on a big trade that’s going to not just make us rich… it’s going to put us in charge. Someday.”
That’s how Frogg puts it.
An explosive powerful enough to knock out a destroyer is the thing you’ve got to do for them. Except those things are hardened against external explosions rated up to Romula nuclear space mines of the Savage Wars variety.
“Pick up two if you can, mate,” says Frogg cheerily.
But internally—as in getting one of those things to go off inside the ship—that’s a whole different game. You could take out a capital ship with that.
You thread the streets of the bazaar, back to your filthy little room. And later that night, when the air is all hot and swollen with fear, rage, and casual murder, and the streets seem only a little cooler than the stifling heat of your unconditioned room, you think about heading out. To visit your contacts at the Grand Ankalor Bar while all the zhee are crazy from the heat.
They won’t mind that you’re not staying out of sight now that you’ve contacted Frogg. They’ll understand the need to show up at the bar. Because of the heat.
Why are you making excuses?
“Because they’re watching, dear boy.”
We’ve taught you that they will always be watching you, before the first contact, and definitely after. So take the stage, Hamlet, and do everything with a reason they can understand.
You lie in your room and wait to make your next move as the fan barely turns overhead.
You should stay in.
The warm air swirls around and you sip the liquor you’ll be nursing all through the night. You have a novel to read, but your mind drifts to the inhabitants of Ankalor.
They say it’s the heat that makes the zhee crazy and homicidal and genocidal and weapons-hungry like no other race in the galaxy. So to hell with personal responsibility for collectively being a race of murderous scumbags.
Except the zhee are crazy everywhere they go.
The news networks don’t tell you that because the zhee have a powerful lobby in the House of Reason.
So it’s the heat. Or economic disparity. Or specism. Or whatever reason the
y can sell to the masses.
But… your life is on the line. Hard to read when that’s going on. Hard to read when you could die at any moment. So you lie there and watch the fan and think about getting out.
You smoke and wish for a gin and tonic in a tall glass with square-cut ice cubes and maybe a lime. Over at the Grand Ankalor with all the journalists. The calls to prayer echo over and off the fat spires and the crawling slums of the zhee.
It’ll be more dangerous out, at night.
It’s always crazy, but the daytime craziness is just business for the zhee. Nighttime craziness is some kind of pleasure fair of murder and insanity. So best be careful. Everyone is warned that you take your life in your hands when going out at night on Ankalor.
You dress in the one suit you have and again find yourself staring in the mirror, trying to find you again. You’ve been doing that a lot lately. You wonder if she’ll even recognize you if you survive this assignment.
For a brief moment, you imagine returning home when this is all over. She opens the door, and she knows. She knows all the done things that needed doing. Even though you’ve taken a thousand hot showers to wash off all the blood and stink of where you’ve been… she knows. It’s there. Underneath the cologne. She smells the blood.
Because there are done things that needed doing, darling.
And then she closes the door on your face and you might as well just fade back to Nether Ops because they say, over there at Nether Ops Command, there really is no going back.
They told you that when this all first began.
They did.
But you thought you were different. You volunteered.
You take the needle blaster out of its hiding place in the cruddy, dingy room that shows nothing but religious zhee programming. The silencer goes in your breast pocket. Your blaster in the shoulder holster. And then you leave your hotel for a better one, in search of information to locate powerful explosives in order to blow up a Republic destroyer.
Kill Team (Galaxy's Edge Book 3) Page 4