Cover for Action - an Imperial Spymaster recruits an operative
16 Apr 2020Vallysa
“It’s a straightforward question, do you want to serve the Emperor, or do you want to appear to serve the Emperor?” Senator Marcus Caio looked at the woman sitting stiffly on the other side of his quaint wooden desk. The desk itself—virtually a relic in the 34th century—was almost comical tucked away in this windowless office on Achenar, while the deep thrumming of advanced industry permeated from just outside the thick walls. Caio had good reasons for his bizarre taste in office decorum, though. In his 30 years of running sensitive human intelligence operations, he had developed a healthy sense of paranoia, and did not allow any metal or synthetic devices in this office. He had even made the woman change into a generic real-cotton jumpsuit and had inhibited her implants before entering his compound, to prevent the possibility of her unwittingly carrying any recording devices secreted in her clothing. Just in case.His paranoia was justified. The axiom he had learned in his tradecraft school decades ago was “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.” That clever phrase had cleverly saved his life, and more than once. Now too old to conduct operations himself, he held in secret the position of Case Officer, and as a senator only ran the most sensitive operations. These were the ones that couldn’t exist, and should the operatives ever be caught couldn’t be traced back to any power source in the Empire. For this reason, in this room he also had no technology of any kind. His case files were written—by hand, by him only—on paper with ink, and stored in a closely locked and guarded physical vault. There were no other records ever created, and nothing for a computer to hack.
Caio continued “You have an Imperial title and enough money to own property on the capital. What I’m asking you is if you want to actually serve your Emperor, and do something she needs even if all those trappings are stripped away from you. You see, Commander Vallysa, there is a question I have, one that has been vexing me for the last year...” As Caio filled her in on the details, she listened quietly, comprehension spreading across her face. He knew ahead of time how she would react; he was an expert profiler, and didn’t invite potential recruits into this office before he was already certain what their responses would be.
“You’ll have no Imperial backing on this, of course,” he continued. “To the contrary, the Navy will not be aware of your motives at all, and will likely send agents after you when you defect. And it goes without saying you’ll have to leave Lavigny’s Legion. You’ll have to figure out how to proceed on your own.”
She nodded. She had a serviceable infrastructure already in place of course, something to provide a legitimate reason for her to relocate across the bubble. Caio knew this, about her tourism and trade companies. They had made her rich after all, richer than anything she had done repelling the Thargoid incursion last year.
Once he finished and confirmed her acceptance of the mission, he began hand-scribing the minimal required details onto a thick sheet of paper. Vallysa stood to leave, stepping across the tiny room towards the door. When she reached it, her hand hesitated on the archaic smooth brass door handle as she looked back at him over her shoulder, blowing her red hair out of her face: “You can take my Imperial citizenship and title, but you can repossess my Gutamaya ships over my cold dead body.”
Caio almost smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
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Back onboard the Mercy, Vallysa began spinning the wheels in her head. She would need to leave quickly, without warning. Her company would understand: the senior leadership was devoted to her, and she trusted their judgement in hiring the crews staffing her fleet. It would take her some time to establish herself in a new sector of space, but Caio had assured her taking time to develop legitimate cover was paramount. She would have to join a new organization, one with no Imperial connection but a reason to be closely involved with a multitude of affairs. Something neutral, but known. Something independent, but respectable. She would start over at the bottom, and use her company and trade to work her way back into a position of influence that would allow her to complete the Senator's task.
Once the details of the dossier Caio gave her were committed to memory, she incinerated it in her ship's refuse receptacle. Hours later, she emerged from her cabin with a plan. She thumbed the intercom button on the vessel, summoning her own Operations Officer. After a couple minutes he arrived in a light jog, and she began to fill him in with a set of orders that would change all of their lives. “Jan, I have something to tell you, and I need you to have the entire company ready to fly in three hours...”