by Chris Hechtl
“And remember, there are other ships coming. Sun Tzu's force for instance. They could get caught out in the open and exposed,” Kelly reminded them.
“Anything is possible. In the meantime, we've been planning on this reinforcement. Let's slot them in and then get everyone up to speed. I don't know if De Gaulte is going to take the message and hold off or if something else is going on that we don't know about. But, what I do know is whatever it is, I want to be ready for it,” the Neochimp admiral growled.
Heads nodded around the table.
“Then let's get to work people.”
~~~^~~~
Protodon
A day after the arrival of the Protodon picket in DD01ns was reported, the Sun Tzu task force streamed into Protodon. The news was reported by ansible to Antigua as well as Second Fleet.
Captain McGuyver reported some engineering issues that had slowed them down but not by much.
“We're still game. We'll get there and kick ass when we do,” he growled.
Commodore Samese, the newly-arrived senior naval officer hailed them. “Good luck. I wish I was going with you, but someone's got to keep the home fires burning. Give them hell.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Captain Maul replied. “Setting course for the B-95a3 jump point now.”
~~~^~~~
Antigua
April used her second deferment to get out of the jury duty, though Irma urged her to go through with it since it was a slow news cycle at the moment. April's reasoning was that something could happen at any time to change that, and she wanted to be on hand to be able to do her job.
She regretted it though when she received a short note under her door to go for a walk. She crumpled the paper up and then rearranged her schedule to do so.
Since it was the middle of the month, she selected the appropriate park and area and then went to one of the vendors there. She got some popcorn and a snack and then took a seat and ate while watching the artificial wind and sky. When the birds arrived, she tossed some of the popcorn out to entertain them and herself. She didn't know why someone had released them into the habitat. She hoped they wouldn't be so ungrateful as to take a shit on her when she left.
She started in on her email when her handler didn't arrive. She was about to give up when the woman came jogging up the path. She stopped and got a drink from the cart vendor and then went over to the pole near April's bench, scattering the birds. She set her cup down panting and then stretched. “Nice day,” she murmured.
“It's always a nice day. This is a station,” April replied.
“Testy testy,” the other woman chuckled.
“I'm rather busy.”
“We know. You are being watched,” the woman replied as she rotated her torso back and forth and then went back to stretching her hamstrings and calves. April had all she could do to not look around her.
“Paparazzi. GSN I believe. We've looked into them. I've got a sound scrambler going,” her handler said. “But we need to keep this short and sweet. Make sure they can't lip read you,” she said.
“Right,” April said, pretending to eat to cover her mouth. “I don't know what to say. Obviously, he's back. I'm visiting him, but he's not passing any information to me. Trust me; I'm not happy about it.”
“We know. Let it be,” the woman replied as she finished stretching and then drank her drink.
“I can't believe they followed me. Why?” April muttered.
“Competition. They want to know your sources. So, I'm now a source,” her handler said in bemusement. “I'll pass you some intel on a few stories. That'll legitimize my cover and your being here.”
“Oh.” April felt stupid. That was a good cover, one she'd used on Anvil and elsewhere in the past.
“We've got other sources reporting you've pressed to be in the residence. Be careful there. If you could attend some of the formal functions as his date, good. But don't push your luck. Remember the long game,” the woman stated.
“Understood,” April replied with a nod.
“Remember, we're just covering him until the war with Horath ends. Once Horath falls, we're hands off and he's open to any and all contracts. So, don't get too attached. When that time comes, you'll need to have a public falling out. But that will come later,” the woman said.
“Yeah,” April breathed, not at all happy by that news.
The woman studied her and then looked away. She drained her drink and then tossed it into the garbage can nearby. “I've got to run. Literally. Look into the inspections on level four. There is something hinky there,” she said slightly louder as she adjusted her ear piece and then took off.
“Yeah, I'll do that,” April said. She forced herself to finish her snack and email before she got up and left as well.
~~~^~~~
“Well, the good news is the paparazzi are giving us some cover,” the agent assigned to follow Miss O'Neill stated as he looked over to the pair of obvious tails. Both had their backs to the red-haired woman but one had a camera under his arm pointed at her. He occasionally snapped photos with it that way. No doubt he had a HUD built into his glasses to let him see his target.
“This just got a whole lot more complicated.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” his partner said over the link. “Do we need to have someone look into them? See if they are legit?”
“Oh, my money is on they're being legit or being some private investigator outfit. Freelance. Digging into them might blow our own cover. But we might want the Secret Service to look into them.”
“Sure. I'll make a note,” his partner said dryly. “Did she really use a voice scrambler?” he asked, clearly amused.
“Yeah. We didn't get much of the audio but that's fine. We've got Miss O'Neill's implant recordings. We'll pull a copy when she visits the residence again and go from there.”
“Roger that,” his partner said. “They think they are so smart,” he said in disgust.
“They've been operating under our noses for this long and no one knew about it. So, don't get cocky.”
“Roger that.”
~~~^~~~
Yorgi watched the presentation, occasionally sneaking a look at Admiral Irons. Admiral Irons didn't look happy about seeing April meeting with her handler. When the presentation finished, they changed to the coverage of Mrs. Garrett.
“ONI knows about Mrs. Garrett but for a long time we haven't had definitive proof of her actions. She's too canny; any attempt to follow her and she called security.”
“Ah,” Yorgi murmured. “Smart.”
“Right. We managed to spin it as paparazzi. She would then change her routine. Jenna hit on the idea of using her implants to monitor her movements. We had more luck that way.”
He played a video, obviously from Mrs. Garrett's eyes as the woman made a drop. “See? Blind drop there. And then there is this,” Monty said, cutting to another selected time chop.
“Situation is normal, so I don't know why I'm here,” the old woman said, clearly aggrieved as she sat down with her hands in her lap.
She looked over to the other woman who was sitting there knitting something calmly.
“I told you what I know. He's sticking to his schedule and hasn't given any leads about leaving the star system again. He didn't before either,” she stated with a sniff.
“We know.”
“So, we're done here,” Mrs. Garrett said as she got up and left in a huff.
“Based on that we've got a renewal of the warrant to continue to tap her implants. She signed off on security monitoring anyway so legal should be covered.”
“I should hope so,” Yorgi stated.
“What she said was ambiguous at best. Is she being blackmailed? How far back does this go?” Admiral Irons asked. “I picked her up on the run here from B101a1. It was practically at random, or so I thought.”
“It might have been her decision or the local guild assigning her to you. We're not sure about it. We do know she's had some suspicious deaths
in her past—all from natural causes. A few people who dined at her shop later died too and the authorities pointed to poison but couldn't figure out a source.”
“Lovely,” Yorgi sighed.
“I'm covered. So are you two for that matter,” Admiral Irons said with a wave of his hand. Yorgi blinked and then nodded once.
“I've got an ONI representative looking into her past as discretely as we can. Finding people we can trust is hard. Anyone who asked, we put it up as a routine background check.”
Admiral Irons nodded. “And her school? Or no, boarding house? The girls?”
“We know several girls have gone on to have good careers. But at least two went to prison and one died. One of them had her husband die in a suspicious robbery. He had been an up and coming politician at the time.”
“So, her boarding house might have been a training center for guild children. Lovely,” Yorgi murmured.
“Yes, sir, it is a distinct possibility. They say that women are more deadly, primarily because we men tend to undervalue them and overlook them. And poison or an indirect attack is a favored weapon of women. They are also rather good at ferreting out information,” Monty stated.
“Yeah, I know,” Admiral Irons said dryly. He remembered several times he talked to Mrs. Garrett to use her as a sounding board. He winced at that.
“Okay, slight change of subject, you wanted to know more about the attack on Warrant McClintock,” Monty said, checking his notes.
Admiral Irons nodded once. He had been briefed on the attack on Jethro months ago. It hadn't gone well for the attackers.
“The local ONI representative and Mounties interrogated the survivor. They did find the vehicle they were going to use to escape. Interesting note, they found an explosive device attached to the vehicle. The current theory is that they were being watched by an observer and would have been killed if they had failed or even if they'd succeeded to cut off any investigation.”
“Interesting,” Yorgi murmured.
“They are picking apart the explosive device, but there were few leads there. The survivor was put in stasis and was shipped to us when Kathy's World signed off on extradition to Federation custody. He'll be arriving on the same transport as the warrant in several months.”
“They just passed through Protodon, correct?” Admiral Sienkov asked.
“Yes, sir. They just missed the Sun Tzu movement actually,” Monty replied.
“He's going to go back to Kathy's World again. His cousin may do so as well. Commuting is a risk, as is his time on the planet as we now know.”
“Commuting may be a risk for more than just him. They could easily go after the ship and kill all onboard just to get to him,” Monty said.
Yorgi winced. “Sir, we need to seriously look into moving his family here.”
“His wife is in law enforcement. She is one of their leaders on Kathy's World actually. She is the main reason for resistance to such an action,” Monty stated.
Yorgi frowned. After a moment, he shook his head. “Who am I to argue with stubborn females?” he sighed.
Admiral Irons and Monty both cracked a smile. “Obviously Jethro has tried,” Admiral Irons said. “Possibly more than once. She might wish to remain on Kathy's World to stay out of the line of fire. If they were together, it would be a daily thing. Look what happened the last time he was here,” he said, indicating the planet.
Monty nodded. They were still dealing with the fallout from that road chase and shoot-out.
“I can see the logic in that. If it works for them, we'll just have to make it work I guess,” Yorgi said slowly. “What about their kittens? They are obviously chips off the old block.”
“I know. Kathy's World has a scout program that they are enrolled in. Since there is a large Neo population and a large Marine population and they have a Marine reservist for president, they are also starting a military academy,” Monty replied. Yorgi blinked. “A school for teens, though with Neos they can apply at a younger age. It will fast track them into officer postings.”
“And General Forth is onboard with this?”
“Yes. Pasha has put a request in for an army one or to make the military academy open to all branches, but he's primarily focused on New Texas and Nuevo at the moment,” Admiral Irons replied.
“Ah, I see,” Yorgi murmured.
“Once he is in the Cadre base, he should be protected. There are certainly enough A.I. and personnel there to watch his back. Are we still considering the Cadre missions?” Admiral Irons asked.
“We're still gathering intel on Konohagakure, sir. It is a mysterious place. We've found links to it and the guild as well,” he explained.
Admiral Irons blinked and then raised an eyebrow. “I was assigned to Rho sector before the Xeno war briefly, and then during the Lemnos mission. I don't remember that planet and I think I'd remember a guild world.”
“That's because they didn't want anyone to know, sir,” Monty replied, shifting to the new subject. His A.I. brought up the relevant material for him. “They deliberately deleted references to their world. The name by the way translates to Hidden Leaf Village.”
“Interesting,” Monty murmured.
“Based on the report from Ark Royal's disastrous visit, they have damn good assassins there. Very good to be able to pull off what they did with the limited resources they smuggled onboard. Or nearly pull it off I should say,” Monty stated.
Both admirals grimaced. They'd read the report and the casualty numbers.
“We've been digging. The best feel for their history we can get is that they were established ages ago but kept a very low profile. So low they deliberately fell off the map. Yet they have a very sophisticated industrial base. And as I said, a martial culture and assassin's mentality. Based on what we know of the Guilds, that makes them prime Guild territory.”
“So, how did they get on the map?” Yorgi asked.
“That I'm not certain about. Someone might have sold the map to their home, or they might have gotten discovered by other means. They are off-the-beaten path and in a cul-de-sac star system so rarely visited.”
“But we know about them. And there was nothing in the Encyclopedia about them?” Yorgi asked.
Protector shook his head on Admiral Irons' HUD. “Apparently not,” Admiral Irons rumbled. “They might have engineered it that way. We have to assume that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cracking them will be tough. Based on what we know, they have a Japanese ethos. A blending of ancient Japanese military ethos with something else. A strict warrior code, a reverence for their parents, and no surrender are just some of their principles. The assassins literally fought to the death. That's not something we'd like to throw the Marines into. The casualties would be tough to handle,” Monty stated. “They would never know who to trust too.”
“Lovely,” Yorgi sighed. He looked at the map. “Well, the good news is they are in a cul-de-sac as you said so they can keep.”
“Yes, sir. But that is one of the possible Cadre missions on the table at the moment.”
“Understood.”
~~~^~~~
Captain Lake was tired but elated when the first report of tangible data came back from the mind strip. She hoped it was worth it; she'd effectively killed a man to get it.
“So, it is real?” she asked Fletcher as he showed her the initial report.
“Yes. Pestilence. Project Pestilence. There is some information but not a lot,” the A.I. reported. “He was not directly involved so only knew it peripherally.”
Jenna shook her head as she scanned the report. There were markers there linking what they knew and the raw data. She didn't want to see the raw data; she just wanted to know it was there to back up the assumptions the A.I. was making. “But a literal allusion? How stupid is that? You don't do that! It's … just not done! You name it Project Tahiti or something else!”
“You forget how arrogant they are, ma'am. They don't think they will get caught. I
bet someone thought it was appropriate. Someone high enough up approved it,” Fletcher replied.
“According to what we got, and a lot of this is second and third hand, our source knew about the plan peripherally. It had been in the works for over a decade. Tau is the proving ground. They've been refining the system for years. It's a joint op, I bet from the Purity and Enlightenment Ministry and their Biosciences Ministry. Boy, I'd love to get my hands on them,” Jenna growled just as Monty came into the room behind her.
“Run that back? So, it isn't in the other sectors? That's a relief.”
She looked up and then shook her head. “No. At least, not yet at any rate.”
His face fell. “Lovely.” He grimaced and then looked up to the sky. “You do know how to ruin a guy's day you know that? We get confirmation that it's not in Pi, but then that last qualifier.”
“Sorry, sir. It is what it is. We have to plan for it.”
“I know.”
He frowned thoughtfully. Intelligence gathering was tricky. Some of it was data mining; some of it was through observation. But over half of the intel they were getting was from interviews from captured personnel. They had to sift through it, separating tactical and strategic information from background material.
Every nugget had some purpose, some use that they could and would follow-up on later. It helped to build a picture of things. Most of the tactical information though was woefully out of date and therefore of little value. But they kept it anyway.
By building a complete picture, they had created a form called the Order of Battle. Every interrogation officer had it in their implant memory, and it was updated regularly. It had everything from detailed chain of commands of every known unit to their last known war book. They filled in entries with details about the people, their history, ships, ship history, and locations, everything and anything.
Each interrogator worked on a group of prisoners in rotation. They targeted them; building a rapport and then letting them know little by little about the Order of Battle. For some, that caused awe and fooled a prisoner into thinking that the Feds already knew everything so there was no point hiding. Some of the interrogators had taken on the moniker of “Richie boys,” from history.