Old Habits Die Hard Pt. 1
13 May 2016Desert Fox CXVII
Sometimes the punishment isn’t nearly as bad as they want it to be.For my incompetence and carelessness, I had been put to a tribunal in front of what was left of the old Council of Nine. They debated about what to do with me; everything from execution, to forced suicide, to public dishonor, and I had to sit there and take it like a good soldier.
Of course, I did take it like a good soldier. What else was I to do? I had shown great incompetence and carelessness; I’d almost lost invaluable military secrets to the Federation and gotten thousands of Imperial troops killed.
The entire process, between tribunal dates, reschedules, fact-finding, appeals, counter-appeals, and actually processing the paperwork, took months. By the end of it all, I was burnt out and ready to take whatever punishment they deemed worthy, no matter how severe.
Finally, however, they came to a decision; since I had retrieved the drive before it could be decoded, I was shown a great mercy.
I suppose that’s giving the game away too early, I suppose; kind of ruins the suspense, honestly. Doesn’t matter though, does it? You know I’m not dead, since I’m here telling you this whole story, and if I had been publicly dishonored you’d have heard.
That’s not true exactly. This could be my last will and testament, and I suppose I was dishonored, in a way.
Like I said, because I managed to retrieve the data drive, the council spared me; all they did was demote me to Centurion and take away my cohort.
“All they did.” Listen to me, speaking like some boot private who just had his leave revoked. I should be mortified, I should be ashamed of myself and penning my letter of resignation from Imperial service right now.
But I’m not. I’m…. I don’t know, relieved? It’s as if an enormous leaden weight has been lifted from my shoulders. No more meetings, no more press ops, no more long nights worrying about battle lines and troop deployments.
The best part though? The part that really made this all almost worth while?
I was in the field again. Finally, for the first time in years, I was a throttle jockey again. My office wasn’t my bridge, and my desk wasn’t my commander’s chair. I’m out in the black again, pounding the pavement, as it were. My salary is shit and my benefits have been slashed, but I can reap again, I can take the fight to the Empire’s enemies.
I still have to take orders, but I was always good at that. Leadership was never my strong suit. For all intents and purposes, I’m free.
My ship is my home, and my home is my ship.
And so for the past month, I had been living rough in a stealthed out cobra, cutting a bloody swath through Federation territory, raiding convoys, burning cargo and ambushing Fed patrols.
It felt good to be out of the stuffy world of administration and politics and be back in the trenches. It was one of the reason’s I’d joined the navy in the first place; to get away from my mother’s obsession with status and her incessant attempts to marry me off to some senator’s daughter.
Oh, mother… She had been so happy when she’d found out about my promotion to Praetor; said that I was finally moving up in the world, and that the Empire was right to recognize my worth. The news of my demotion had crushed her. Dad was… He didn’t say much. Just nodded sagely and asked if I was alright.
And Lydia… We don’t know each other enough for her to really care. I’d left for the navy before she was old enough to remember me and I visited too infrequently for her to form any meaningful memories.
I had been home for six months when she was 15 or 16 to work for my father’s mining company, but it wasn’t long before I was off to the Academy and gone again. This demotion is probably just another item on the long list of events in her absentee brother’s life
I shake my head at the thought and continue gnawing on the ration bar in my hand; I really should take some leave time to go visit them. Despite my mother’s overbearing attitude and my father’s pathological inability to refuse her anything, they’re my parents, and I love them. It would do me some good to spend time with Lydia too.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Sighing and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I toss the mostly unfinished ration onto the deck behind me and go back to staring intently at my scanners.
For the past week, I had been tracking a notorious Fed assassin named Slade McKinley. The name might sound pretentious, but this guy is no joke; he’d already killed a senator’s wife, two viceroys and blown up a passenger train to take out a planetary governor. And those were only the ones we know about.
I’d picked his trail up in Altair and traced his metaphorical footprints back to this no-name frontier system. A cursory scan revealed a few uncharted iceballs and a rather sizable planetary base. Not wanting to give him a hidey-hole to go to ground in, I raided the outpost and destroyed it’s communication array. I won’t go into the details, but rest assured the place is a smoking ruin; railguns and missiles do a number on airtight facilities, if you know what I mean.
After my little party planetside, I entered into deep orbit around the system’s white dwarf and started the waiting game.
It’s like a stakeout from one of those old holovids; the boy in me would have been quoting Lance Gladius if I hadn’t been so hopped up on caffeine. Instead I just stared a little too intently at my scanner, puffing on the occasional cigarette.
A couple hours and four cups of instant coffee later, my heart is beating out of my chest and I’m still on the verge of falling out. Just as my eyes start to flutter shut, I hear it: that faint little tick. My eyes spring open and dart up to the top right of my canopy.
1 new contact.
Grinning, I lock the target, and as the scan is going, I power up my engines. The whole ship whirrs and vibrates as the turbines spool up, settling into a low hum after a few seconds. My grin only widens when the scan is complete; Slade McKinley, wanted for 32 counts of murder and 23 counts of assault, flying the Python War Horse.
He’s already in orbit around his HQ moon, and by now he probably knows the place is nothing more than molten metal and shattered concrete. At any moment he’s going to break off and-
“You son of a bitch!”
-Get mad and come at me stupid.
This is going to be too easy.
He’s making a beeline for me, so I disengage my FSD and drop into real space. After boosting 5K out from my drop point, I throttle to zero and engage silent running. When he drops in, I’ll be able to get position on him and ambush him with rails. If I’m going to do this, I want every advantage I can get. A fair fight is a lost fight, after all.
After only a minute or two of waiting, I see the telltale flash of light and long contrails of a ship dropping in. He’s already got his hardpoints deployed and is ranting on open comms about what he’s going to do to me when he finds me. I just scoff, switch off my short range radio and line up for my opening salvo.
Tenderly, I curl my finger around the trigger, ready to loose two tungsten slugs at his bow. With the lightest of pressures, I depress the tr-
“Commander, urgent message from Legion command.”
With a huff, I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and release the trigger. My railguns discharge the energy they’d been building up back into the capacitors with a sad whine. Son of a bitch.
Lisa, my shipboard AI, had been cross with me ever since I’d ‘let her get captured,’ although I’m pretty sure it has more to do with not installing her again after I’d recovered her. Apparently it’s terribly boring not being hooked up. I tried explaining to her about my injuries and the subsequent and lengthy trial, but she was having none of it.
As a result, she’s been avoiding me as much as a shipboard AI can, and doing her best to make my life as difficult as possible in as many little ways as she can think of. Which is why I suspect I’d gotten the message hours ago, and she waited until the most inopportune time to tell me about it.
Grinding my teeth, I glance up at the tiny camera observing the bridge. “What’s it say?”
“Abort current mission: Return to HQ immediately.”
“Goddamnit,” I mumble under my breath. All this fucking time wasted. I glance out into the black; McKinley is still searching for me, and presumably still spouting threats.
After a brief moment of hesitation, I pull away and hit the throttle. “Lisa, plot a route back to Carthage.” She doesn’t respond, but a route pops up just the same. Shaking my head in frustration, I drop a heat sink and hit my FSD. Sit tight, motherfucker, I’ll be back for you later.
---------------------------------------
The sun is just cresting the horizon as I guide my ship into port. The city around me is still rebuilding after the brutal civil war with the corporate troops of Carthage Electronics Inc. We’d taken Port Elissa and forced CEI to surrender and sign an armistice agreement, but much of the system had suffered extensive damage, especially civilian centers and industrial zones. Recovery would take time and will probably only finish in time for the next war, where we’d wipe CEI off the map once and for all. For now, though, the people have time to heal.
After sending a quick ping to command, I stand up with a groan and the creak of stiff joints, stretching the kinks out of my body. Three straight days in the cockpit will do a number on you, let me tell you.
Yawning and rubbing the rough bristly stubble I’d accumulated, I glance down the hall into my quarters. I’d need to shave. And shower. I sure as hell aren’t walking around in public looking the way I am.
After so long without it, my uniform is constricting and uncomfortable, and yet oddly comforting. I may be on the front line again, but I am still an Imperial officer, and goddamn proud of it. No reprimand or demotion would change that.
Speaking of demotions.
I glance down at the fresh new Centurion patch I’d sewn onto my sleeve. I could see where my Praetor rank had been; the area was a darker shade of grey than the surrounding fabric and the marks from the old stitches were still visible.
I might be glad to be back in the field, happy not to have the weight of responsibility anymore, but goddamn if that yellow eagle didn’t look sad and dejected. I’d spent the last month telling myself that this whole situation was a good thing, and in many ways it was, but there was still that part of me that was extremely disheartened at being stripped of my rank and essentially humiliated in front of the whole Legion. Throughout my whole trial, Legionaries and Centurions had stared and whispered when I passed. I could never make out what they were saying, but I can guess: “There he is, the Praetor that lost all those secrets. I heard they’re going to execute him.” Or something to that effect.
That’s part of the reason I took the assignment in Fed space. To get away from the stares and the gossip. And the Legion let me do it, I suspect, because they wouldn’t have to deal with me, and if I died out there I would stop being their problem.
So why call me back?
The question plagues me all the way to the Hall of the Legionary. My heels beating a constant rhythm on the polished marble floors, the sound reverberating off the high arched ceiling as I go over the possibilities.
Could they have reversed my sentence? No, if that were the case I’d be going to the court chambers, not the Ops center. It probably has something to do with my assignment; could something have gone wrong?
My mind races all the way down to the basement and into the maze of corridors that is the heart of the Legion’s operational arm. The ceilings are lower down here, more oppressive, and the halls are lit in dim white track lighting. The walls are rough and coarse, having been cut directly into the black granite of the mountainside, while the floor is smooth and shiny from almost a thousand years of foot traffic.
Finally I arrive at the Ops center door, a steel blast door anchored directly into the rock. After a moment of hesitation, I slap my hand onto the scanner and step through.
It’s dark, lit only by the faint blue glow of dozens of holo terminals arranged around the circumference of the room. My breath condenses in the frigid air, which is chilled to near freezing to keep the huge banks of servers from overheating. In the center is an enormous round table surrounded by high backed chairs, with four rotating holo screens in the center. Each screen shows a different portion of the galaxy, with multicolored arrows, lines and circles superimposed on it.
Standing beside the table is my new boss, Legate Titus Varro. He’s reading from a datapad and hasn’t noticed me yet.
Gritting my teeth, I step up to him and snap to attention. “Centurion Fox, reporting as ordered.”
He looks up from his datapad and gives me a once over. After a brief pause, he waves his hand in a dismissive manner. “Relax, Fox. There’s no need for that here. Nobody important is watching.”
“Aye, sir.” I relax my spine and let my arms hang loose at my sides. “I am ready for debriefing, sir.”
He waves his hand again. “Forget that. I have another assignment for you.”
Normally, the breach in protocol would have elicited more of a response from me, but the prospect of an actual assignment took the forefront of my mind. “An assignment, sir?” I say, doing my best not to sound too enthusiastic.
“Yeah it’s…” He trails off, glancing around at the technicians sat at their terminals. “Come into my office. We’ll go over it in there.” Looking around once more, he gathers his things and heads towards one of the side doors.
I follow him into his office. It’s in sharp contrast to the rest of the ops center: well lit, with white walls lined with several packed bookshelves and the odd degree or award.
He’s already sitting behind his glass and brushed steel desk and pulling something up on his terminal. Not wanting to interrupt him, I take a seat opposite and wait patiently for him to speak.
After a couple minutes, he turns the screen to face me. On it is the picture of a man. He’s mid forties, slightly overweight with salt and pepper hair, deep worry lines and dark green eyes.
After a moment of studying the picture, I look up at Titus with a questioning look on my face. “Who is this?”
“That,” He gestures at the screen. “Is Sylvio Carontello, the new regional director of the Federal SIS.
Nodding, I turn my eyes back to the picture. He doesn’t particularly look like a man in charge of one of the most effective intelligence organizations in the galaxy. He looks more like someone’s jovial uncle, or the owner of a mom and pop grocery store. But I have no doubt that this is a hard man and no stranger to violence.
“What’s the job?” I ask, still looking at the face.
Titus slides a thick folder over to me. “Asset retrieval: everything you might want to know about him is in the dossier, but the long and short of it is that this man is a valuable source of information for us. You are to locate him, secure him and deliver him to us.”
I nod again and pick up the folder. “How do you want him?”
“Alive, and preferably intact.”
I start flipping through the pages, glancing at the surveillance photos and miniature star maps contained within. “Where do I start looking?”
“It’s all in there. Everything from his office location to what color ties he prefers. Two weeks from now he’s traveling to the border to inspect a couple black sites that were recently raided by Imperial forces.”
“Which I assume was the plan.” I glance up at him to see he’s got a slight grin on his face.
“Don’t miss a beat, do you? So, while he and his escort are en route, you’ll have a small window of opportunity; they’ll pass through several uninhabited systems in deep space, at which point you’ll engage the escort, grab him, and high tail it over the border. Extraction teams will be waiting on the other side.”
With a final nod, I flip the dossier closed and rest it on my lap. “I’m leaving immediately, I assume.”
“Right you are.”
With a grimace, I begin to stand, but Titus holds his hand up. “One last thing, Fox. You won’t be doing this alone.”
Warily, I settle back into the chair and narrow my eyes ever so slightly. “Oh?”
“You’ll be working with a mercenary with extensive knowledge of how the SIS operates. Don’t ask me where we found them, because I don’t even know, but we think this will give you an edge.”
I grind my teeth at this; I severely dislike working with partners, especially on something as sensitive as this. They tend to get in the way and muddy everything up. But if this is what command wants, who am I to argue? I’ll just have to do my best to mitigate the risk.
“Who is he?” I inquire icily.
“No idea, but command says they know you from before the arm.” He indicates my white polymer hand protruding from my cuff. “Asked for you by name.”
Really? Who could it be?
“A lot of people knew me before the arm, sir.”
“Be that as it may, contact them the moment you’re in the air and set up a meet. I want this done quickly and quietly, Centurion.” With that, he flips the screen back around and gives me another dismissive wave.
I stand up and snap to attention before turning on my heel and walking out.
Prick.
“Golden Tide? Where have I seen that name before?”
I’m in Nefertiti’s bridge, docked in Marker Depot and staring at the contact info for this merc. It had nothing but a contact freq and a ship name. No picture or personal identifier, but goddamn if that ship didn’t sound familiar. I’d worked with a lot of mercs in my career, but the name just didn’t click. Who could this be?
Shrugging, I input the contact freq and wait for a connection.
After a brief moment of waiting, my console beeps and displays an automated message:
<Voice comms unavailable>
I frown, unsure of why this merc is refusing or is unable to accept voice comms.
Whatever.
With a sigh, I input my message and hit send. I’m not waiting long before I receive a one word reply:
<Acknowledged>
The Silver Sun is a dingy little reaper and merc bar in the seedier part of the station. It’s not a place I’d normally frequent, but it’s perfect for a meet up: quiet, out of the way, and its patrons tend to keep their mouths shut. That being said, I don’t want to go in there in uniform, so I elect to adopt my field clothes: A black armored vest over a grey synth cotton shirt, a pair of black cargo pants tucked into a pair of ratty old leather combat boots and a holster belted to my waist. Look the part, play the part.
I arrive twenty minutes early, so I order a tall glass of the house signature amber ale and settle into a booth to wait.
Turns out mercs like good beer, so by the time the meet is set to start I’d already downed 3 glasses and was signaling for another.
Just as the bus boy is setting my glass in front of me, I hear the front door open. He’s in the way, so I can’t see who had just entered. I slip him a couple extra credits and tell him to fuck off, since whoever is behind him is almost certainly my contact. He thanks me profusely and scurries off.
Standing behind him is-
Oh shit.
“Hey there, flyboy.”