[Four Winds of Heaven]
Silence sat down at his desk, littered with paperwork and files. He removed his mask and waited for Curse to arrive, along with the guests that were coming. It was going to be a big operation, the biggest one of the past year - at least. Going into Gallia was going to cost him agents, something which he didn't need right now. He knew that the newer recruits wouldn't perform as well as the more experienced ones, but he knew he would lose old friends. That was a thought which affected him. He hadn't spoken to the 343rd Admiral in person, so she had better be the best around for him to put his agent's necks on the line.
He poured himself a sake and cleared a few files away to try and make himself look as professional as he cared to look. He liked to be judged as careless in some ways, the right ways. As he was doing this, a figure stepped into the dark, eerie office.
The figure was an unusual one, that was for certain. Their clothes stood out amongst old, faded Naval Forces uniforms, yet it was difficult to judge the gender of that person. A seemingly opaque black veil covered the head, only showing an awful scar running vertically across the dead center of their pale face and lips, bent in a vicious and somewhat creepy smile. The person was dressed in a sleeveless tight black robe, showing the bare arms. What seemed like strange plain metal jewelry was actually parts of the person's skin replaced with glistening steel plates on their right shoulder.
"Curse." Silence greeted the person with that one word. The figure nodded and sat to his right, crossing their legs.
"Let's hope our guests arrive on time," Curse said and sat back. After a few seconds, a quiet, metallic clinks could be heard as the person got out a butterfly knife and started playing with it, disturbing the peaceful silence around.
James Arland strode into the room shortly after, somewhat imposing even while not wearing any of his equipment. Tall, broad-shouldered and lean after months of hard living during his little adventure on Gaia, he radiated purpose and carefully applied violence. His apparel was reasonably relaxed: black shirt, Liberty Navy-issue fatigue trousers. His hair was kept neatly short, and long hours of having it pressed against his head while wearing his combat suit's headgear had given it a density and colour reminiscent of charcoal. He wondered for a moment whether he should follow the Kusari custom to bow politely in greeting, but appraising the tone of the room, he decided not to stand on ceremony and contented himself with a nod to each of the two Zenith members. The look in James' eye was pleasant, gregarious, and utterly at odds with the cold blue colour of his irises.
He stood in front of Silence's desk.
"Hello, Curse, Silence. I'm pleased we can finally speak in person. Mind if I have a seat? The others should be arriving soon enough."
"Arland-san, welcome to Yamaguchi," Silence stood up greeted the Navy officer while Curse rather rudely peered at the him. The buttefly knife was not stopping for a moment as Silence asked the lieutenant to take a seat. Both of the Zenith agents' expressions were rock solid, not revealing their actual thoughts about the future of the operation. Everyone was silent, apart from the metallic song of Curse's knife.
Lisa Jaeger appeared in the gloom outside of the office, hesitating a moment as she peered into the room before stepping inside. Her eyes flickered around at the three occupants, mostly focusing on the two Zenith agents.
Observe, analyze, filter. That was Lisa's process when faced with a new situation. She'd worked with intelligence types enough to learn that she needed to quickly filter out the superfluous affectations that they loved to slather themselves in. These types wanted to put on a show - to come across as supremely mysterious and all-knowing. Lisa, however, refused be intimidated by it. After all, they were the ones asking for her help.
Silence - the man sitting behind the desk. Leader of this organization, as far as she'd been able to tell. And the other, Curse, who seemed to go to excessive lengths to own an air of mystery. He - or she, Lisa couldn't really tell - did seem rather stand-offish, clicking a knife in a way that was obviously meant to seem menacing. Clearly Silence would be the reasonable party, here.
Of course, the third person was James, already seated. She was glad he'd been the first to arrive between the two of them. She knew him better than she'd ever known anyone, after all these years, and she could immediately tell he was tense. Lisa wasn't sure how he'd gotten out of his obligations to the Liberty Navy, but she was glad he was here, regardless.
Lisa, for her part, had chosen conservative attire for this meeting. She wore a loose-fitting black jumpsuit that seemed vaguely military but lacked any identifying insignia. Her blonde hair was up in a bun - she wore it this way to intentionally appear older and more severe - and her blue eyes shone with a small glimmer of curiousity,
She stepped up to the desk and proffered a small, stiff bow that she had practiced in the mirror beforehand. "Curse, Silence. I'm Lisa Jaeger. Looking forward to working together."
"What have I gotten myself into...?"
This was the prime question going through Leslie Durant's mind as she walked towards their assigned meeting point. She had already broken one of her core rules, which was to never get too close to a Business Associate. And now she was stuck.
"It's not entirely sentimental though, if we get her out...she'll be in our debt, and I'll at least be eternally in these guys' good books."She ran through her rationalizations, noting with slight trepidation that they were hardly foolproof. No reward, however big was worth putting her life in very real danger...
She smiled. "Maybe I've grown fond of the old lady as well..."She found that acceptable. While technically her contracts in the Exiles originated from the creeper she was about to meet...Sakuma Hitomi had provided plenty of additional jobs, as well as being there to tolerate her gentle eccentricities and what would almost certainly be considered horribly inappropriate jokes in Kusari Culture.
"You're not that cold yet, Leslie," She thought, closing the argument in her mind. A few minutes later and she was briskly walking into the appointed room, finding everyone already well-settled, their eyes on her.
She took a moment and glanced around, noting with some amusement that she was the second tallest person in the room. She'd always been tall, even in Liberty...and here it was even more pronounced. She took a moment to adjust her brown jacket and smooth the front of her old, worn jeans, clearing and focusing her mind in the process.
"Sorry for being late, guys. I hope I didn't miss too much?"
She glanced with some amusement at Curse, who was twirling in small knife around in practiced motions, creating a rather irritating noise.
"If you want something to use that on, I do need to cut up some veggies for dinner. You'll be happy to help, yeah?" She grinned, shaking her head and nodding at Lisa and James before sitting down in a chair, leaning back with her hands clasped behind her head.
The knife's dance stopped, as Curse heard Leslie's words and grinned.
"Ha-ha. Humour. Watch out though, the last man who dared for such a silly remark found this shiv a couple of seconds later in his stomach."
Silence saw Durant was about to respond with another comment and interrupted quickly. "Right. Let's not get hostile here. After all, we gathered here for one particular reason. Admiral Hitomi has been captured in Gallia, as I'm sure everyone here should already know, and it's our duty to rescue her."
He stood up and walked from behind of his desk to the common table. After he had reached below and pressed a button, the table lit up, revealing it was actually a large screen, regularly used for planning. He brought up the documents they currently had - the original recon report, the transmission logs, as well as a map of Gallia and the Taus.
"Okay. The situation looks rather horrible, considering they've chosen one of the most secure facilities in Gallia - Chateau d'If. Journey there will take a lot longer than it could seem on the first sight and will require going a long way around. On top of that, the 343rd are starting to get nervous as they haven't yet been informed of their admiral missing. Bottom line - it will be long and difficult."
He cleared this throat. "Now, Miss Jaeger was asked to assist us in gathering intel on the facility and is hopefully able to give us some sort of silver lining on that cloud because I frankly don't see any," he nodded, implicitly asking Lisa to have her say.
Lisa cleared her throat. "I went into Gallia to gather some more intel on the missing admiral, and my analysis was able to confirm her location at Chateau D'If. There's not a lot of detail about the prison that's easily accessible - for obvious reasons - but I think I have enough to go on for the moment."
She pulled out a small datapad, quickly flicking through some reference material. "Located in the Provence System, in orbit of Planet Marseille. Jointly run by the Royal Navy and Police, and houses roughly five thousand prisoners. Looks like it's the newest prison in Gallia - there were a few mentions of some highly advanced 'tracking systems' for prisoners in the reports I intercepted. Heavy patrols in the space around it. Battleship on station nearby."
She raised her eyes - icy cold even though there was a wry smile on her lips. "It won't be easy, you're exactly right. It will be essentially impossible to 'brute force' our way in, which means we'll have to take a covert approach. There are fairly regular prisoner transfers onto and off of the Chateau, typically executed by the Police. The very same Police that have a reputation as being highly corrupt - at least historically. The Police also appear to have complete authority of the prisoners they 'own' aboard the Chateau, and the record I obtained that indicated the Admiral's location also stated that she was in Police custody at the time.
"The Gauls don't seem to know exactly who they've captured, since the Corse pilot who turned her in seems to have done so without any further explanation. That's our only clear advantage - if she was in the hands of the Royal Navy or, God forbid, the ONI... well, then there would truly be no hope. As it stands, I think we at least have a chance. James can elaborate further in terms of what he and I had discussed."
James leaned forward in his seat, drawing a breath as he recalled the details of the plan thus far. "The way we see it, our options for getting in boil down to two similar approaches. The first one is that we masquerade as Royal Police, secure an appropriate vessel and the necessary artifacts - uniforms, insignia, forged documents - to convince the station staff we've come to transfer the prisoner off the station. If we provide a believable reason for transfer, and a suitable location, we could potentially have them deliver the Admiral straight to us without us having to so much as leave the docking area. This, however, necessitates that our forgeries and acting are flawless. Believe you me, if they see through the act, we are screwed beyond belief. Our disguises will not provide us with the protection or firepower necessary to fight off station security, so if we pick this option, everyone who partakes will have to be very good actors... on top of being able to speak good enough French to fool the natives, should they decide to converse in the native tongue. On top of that..."
James looked mildly uncomfortable for a second. "The... ethnicity of any participant Zenith operatives could actually become an issue. If you can't visually pass as a Gaul, you'll have to hide it somehow, or stay off-mission entirely. That concludes option one."
He paused, giving everyone a little time to let the details and considerations sink in as James gauged their initial reactions.
"Option two... Bribery. We take on an easier deception - we pretend to be freelance haulers who just happened to be stopping by to trade provisions and other goods that could be useful on a prison station. Given the levels of corruption found in the sprawling organization that is the Royal Police, we could potentially "buy" our package off station. Dicey gamble, but no more so than pretending to be Police ourselves. Failing that, we'd still have access to all our normal equipment and the opportunity to covertly or overtly secure the Admiral. As covered before - the latter options will be extremely dangerous, and should a distress call be sent off-station, our timeframe is limited to less than fifteen minutes before a reinforcing task group arrives, at which point we'll all be killed or captured. That concludes option two. As an addendum: thanks to Lisa's efforts we have access to the floor plans for all but the classified areas of the station. Once we reach a consensus on our approach, we can begin planning for exact routes, security vulnerabilities, and other fine details. For now, though, I'd like to hear opinions and suggestions. Feel free to mention capabilities or assets that could assist in our endeavour... as well as any concerns you may have. Every detail is important."
James stopped there, expectantly observing the others.
He sat back in his chair stroking his chin "I have to say I am impressed with the amount of information you have been able to gather." He leans forward slightly and speaks quieter "Your option two certainly sounds more achievable" He pauses "Begin planning a suitable route through the prison. We need guard rooms, surveillance and exit points all marked out. We also need someone to find a vessel we can use, preferably one that looks used. We want to come across as people who have been doing this for a long time." He stood up and poured himself another drink, making sure not the tiniest drop reached the table. "We don't have long. This needs to be in action in 5 days time max, they are sure to find out who she is soon and that would make our task ten times harder. Full speed ahead."