Agents of Chaos
29 Mar 2022Iridium Nova
Over the last week or so I've been working with the Dogs of Lore on various support projects in the surrounding systems. This has involved information gathering but also mass altruism. Philanthropy is something I never really thought much about before. It's not like I'm greedy, despite my wealth, it's just that when I think of giving people money it usually has something to do with paying off certain well placed individuals as part of an intel op. The Dogs help a lot of people and act something like a charity in this region, though perhaps charity isn't quite the right word. Maybe "self help" organization. Many of these operations have involved financially supporting promising individuals and projects aimed at improving the quality of life for humanity in their purview. The idea is that the money is meant to get them started, and if we bet on the right people, they'll be able to turn that advance into real growth and progress.But, as usual, no good deed goes unpunished. This sort of win-win scenario tends to have an oft-overlooked loser: the people in power who now have to share with the young upstarts. As a result, I've managed to draw some heat. Not because of the donations, really, but rather the efforts I had to go through to get access to the individuals whom would make best use of the money. These are generally people the competition considers "dangerous", "unstable", or "disruptive". That sort of selfless act has a tendency to make enemies and get you labeled things like "collaborator", "terrorist", or "sympathiser". But that's nothing new for me, and hasn't been too much of an inconvenience so far.
The most interesting thing that's come of all this really has nothing to do with the downtrodden riff raff or the oppressed intellectual elite we're helping. It's actually come in the form of some odd reports and alarming rumors about a group of individuals who have been wreaking havoc in the local systems. They've so far evaded all attempts to intercept them, are rarely seen, and seem to have astonishing abilities, which some have described as "almost magical". This immediately gave me the idea that these guys are hackers. Probably really good ones too. In fact, it could very well be the same guys who had me scratching my head about what was going on in Marsonna about a week ago. If it is the same guys, we know they're capable of screwing with PFed data, which could give them abilities that appear magical to some, and would make them damn hard to catch, if not impossible. Their MO is not apparent at this time. They seem to cause mayhem wherever they go, and I've come across a few settlements which have been decimated or altogether annihilated, the local factions scrambling to pick up the pieces and recover. Their exploits have earned them the name "Agents of Chaos" among the locals, and the rumor is spreading, bringing fear and paranoia in it's wake.
Since hearing these rumors myself, I've begun investigating, pursuing leads and clues, doubling this with my philanthropy for the Dogs. As yet I've only managed to determine that one of them is an Imperial, formerly one of Zemina Torval's personal guard. This juicy tid bit of a clue came by sheer luck, in the form of a technician at one of the ransacked settlements. He had cleverly hidden in the bunker after the alarms went off and came out later after the fighting was over. At the site of a firefight, he had found a fragment of exotic armor among the bodies of the facility's guards, which he collected and later determined had come from one of the Agents since nobody posted at the facility would have that kind of armor. He agreed to sell it to me and I ran it through my usual research process. The armor is of a unique design issued to Torval's personal guards. It's custom engineered so that it'll only fit one individual, which makes the identity check a lot easier. The guy must have been downed during the raid, but given the state of the place, his buddies likely finished the guards off and rescued him.
I get the feeling it's going to be much more difficult to nail down the other Agents. I'm not even sure I should. I mean, there's not much reason for me to care, other than for the poor souls these guys are killing. Funny how once upon a time I would have embarked on a quest of justice to stop these murderers. Nowadays I tend to consider the possibility that everyone has it coming, one way or another, and maybe these Agents of Chaos have a good reason to go on a galactic killing spree. I've been in this line of work too long. It's turned me into a psychopath.