A dark shape floated silently among the shards of rocks, shattered eons ago in cosmic creation, slicing through formless gas lit from behind in a cascade of purple and black.
It made no noise, gave off no light, and moved only to avoid the shards.
And then, a single stab of light beamed out from the bow, slicing through the void in a frenzy of motion before coming to rest on a hull not a kilometer distant.
The light stayed lit as the dark shape slowly altered its course, coming to rest so close to the other ship that one could have reached out and touched it.
Slowly, agonizingly slow, a ring of metal extended out and touched the hull, before latching on to an external docking port.
And then all was still.
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A man of fourty years climbed up out of the captain's chair, not hurrying but moving purposefully, each action measured exactly, efficent and conservative. As he made his way towards the hatch he touched a panel on the wall, and the already dim lights shut off, leaving him in utter blackness.
He needed no light.
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His captain waited for him, his boss, his mentor. As he stepped out of the airlock, they embraced before moving to the lounge aboard his mentor's ship.
"It has been a long time, Adamo."
"Indeed. With the communications blackout, i could not send word to you, but i can give you the report now, in person. All the agents are in place, ready to begin. They are at your command, old friend."
"You have the roster? And all other copies have been destroyed?"
"It is here. There exists only one other copy, stored away on a derelict in deep space, past dangerous territory. Only the dead could find it."
"Excellent. I will begin transmitting orders as soon as i am within Liberty space again. Adamo....This is a dangerous venture, what you are proposing. i hope you know jsut how dangerous it is for you. Even a rumor, one drunk agent saying too much...."
"I have given much thought to this. Your men are not scalawags, they are true, upright, assidious and loyal to our cause. They will not betray us, and you possess the only physical evidence that could be used against us."
"As it may be, but still.."
"my friend, you worry too much! Besides, you are not the one taking risks, aff? The potential rewards here are vast, vast beyond belief. I am will to risk anything for our goal."
"Indeed."
"Now please, my friend, let us talk no more of business. How does Ciatria?"
And so they talked for many hours, reminincing and remembering, predicting and foretelling, as old friends do. But time came, and work was to be done. So slowly the two ships drifted apart, one deeper into the hinterlands, and one back to the shining glory and decaying rot that is Liberty.
He sat at his desk, surrounded by shadows, computers humming in the background, toying with a single piece of paper.
But it was impossible to concentrate. He leaned back, losing himself in thought as his ship slowly drifted closer to Manhattan.
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The streets were brightly lit from the noonday sun, reflecting off the highrises and the storefronts. This was downtown Civic Center, the brain of Liberty, where every other person wore a uniform of some sort or another. This was dangerous terrritory.
The Colonel strolled down the sidewalk with his camera and tacky shirt, looking for all purposes like a silly tourist. He passed a small trinket stand, walking further before turning back and stopping.
"Hello my good man. How much would it be for a newspaper, a coffee, and that wonderful necklace there?"
"Thirty credits, sir."
"Thirty?! That's extorsion! The Rogues don't even charge that much for a layover!"
"I just dont like foreigners, sir."
"Frakking Xeno! Somebody aught to start a war with you people! Fine. Here's thirty credits, fool."
"Thank you, sir."
After recieving his merchandise, the Colonel walked throughout the Center for several hours, buying many other things, and ordering several items on hold. He then moved quickly back to his ship, filing a complete flight plan at a leisurely pace before undocking.
He waited until he was out of Liberty space and well into the Borderlands before breaking open the necklace and inserting the infocard into his terminal.
Adamo sat at his desk, waiting for his secretary to gather the files he had requested, his hand slowly tapping out a rhythm on the keyboard. The door creaked open, and Adrianna walked in, dumped the files on his desk and stormed out.
Adamo sighed. He really should have made up with her, but it was vital she be as far from him as possible. Vital to the plot, which was not really the same as vital to him.
He turned on the terminal and began to work his magic, tapping away at the keys for hours, cross referencing, filing, reporting, all the activities of a modern bureaucracy. When he was done, there were two hundred and seventy six new companies scattered across the four Houses, and over a thousand fake employees of said companies, representing almost two hundred million credits in laundered money.
Money that was Vital to the Cause, if not vital to him.
He leaned back and thought again of the deserted island on Cambridge where he was hoping to retire when this was over, unlikely as it was that it would ever truly be over. There would always be the next duty, the next mission only he could undertake, the next emergency, the next time only he could save people, or planets, or the whole frakking galaxy.
He returned to reality slowly, resisting the whole way, before finally ackowledging that there was more to be done. He sent fifteen messages coded using a one time pad, each to a seperate transceiver that then relayed the message to the next buoy in the chain, or the previous one, or back to him, before finally a terminal far off, Admins only know where, beeped and awoke the Colonel from his sleep.
It took three hours for the shipboard computers to run the complex mathematical equations necessary to gather, analyze, expand and then collapse the original signal from fifteen seperate frequencies, and another hour before the timelock programming on the transceiver matched the stamp spelled out in the messages frequencies. Only then did ten lines of gibberish spill out onto the Colonel's terminal, still requiring further manual decryption. He tapped the ciphertext into a tablet, which had previously been brutally violated and had both the wireless transmitter and reciever ripped out, before rising from his chair and walking to the bathroom.
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Massive amounts of pain pounded through his head, but the Colonel did not even tremble as he spat blood and examined the tooth he had just rippped out using a pair of pliers. Slowly, using the utmost care, he probed the root with a toothpick for the catch. Triggering it, the tooth popped open with a click and revealed a small disk nestled inside what was now apparently a prosthetic, although one of extremely high quality and made from his own tooth. He popped the disk out, slid it into the tablet and waited the five nanoseconds it took for laser to read the required length of key, burn it off the disk, and then run the key against the ciphertext in a Vernam table before finally displaying the decrypted message, which even then still used code words and phrases.
The Colonel all thought it a bit much for an scheduled update of little importance. His mouth still ached quite horribly.
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An hour later, having transferred the funds to the sellers and arranged for transportation of the merchandise,
The Colonel examined the five fighters in the relative peace of the Freeport's hangar. Fingering the freshly replaced tooth, he gave a small snort, satisfied with the work the Junkers had done. The five Eagles in front of him had all the requisite markings and IFF transceivers to put on as Xenos.
Turning slowly, he called the Junkers who had done the job over to his ship to give them their final payment.
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It took the Colonel almost five hours to finish getting the blood off of his ship's deck. He could still smell the charred flesh from the main reactor. It would have been so much easier to simply use a gun, but discretion was the better part of valor, and a knife did the job just as well, although his suit would have to be thouroughly cleaned.
It was too bad. if they ever needed another set of laundered ships, a new crew would be neccesary.
Forgetting such thoughts, the Colonel whistled a cheerful little tune to himself as he vented the garbage to deep space.
The odd thing was that his tooth didn't hurt anymore.
It was the first time he had been out of the Badlands in a week. His eyes ached as the sun cascaded through the viewscreen, illuminating corners that had been accumulating dust and cobwebs.
A small *ping* echoed through the cockpit. He was approaching maximum range at which he could be detected by the navy. He reached over his left shoulder to a keypad, and, after typing in the appropriate sequence, flipped the main engine killswitch. With a shudder, the entire ship went silent. Lights, computer, engines, even the docking thrusters all died as his ship slowly began venting heat into space.
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It took two hours for the drifting ship to reach the coordinates, drifting as it was. By then, the cockpit was cold. Bitterly cold. Shivering despite all his self-control, The Colonel finished his calculations. By measuring the angle between distant stars, he had been able to correctly judge his current position. He slowly stood, stretching his legs as he did before walking back to the cargo hold.
Working the manual controls, he first sealed the interior airlock door before venting the chamber to space. When that was finished, he manipulated the robotic arms within and jettisoned his package before returning to the cockpit.
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In the dark silence of space, the jettisoned package continued its slow roll as inertia took effect. When the mechanical timer within activated, lights flared on the surface, flipping on and off in incomprehensible patterns. When the self-diagnostics within finished running, the transmitter activated, broadcasting an immensely strong signal across hundreds of extremely low frequencies. It continued this for ten minutes before shutting off.
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All of Liberty heard the message, but by the time a Navy patrol arrived at the scene, the self-destruct had done its job, with hydrogen tanks and a miniature nuclear fusion reaction ensuring the total destruction of any evidence. All the pilots recovered was a small plaque bearing the words "And so it begins", evidently jettisoned moments before the explosion.
~MaGiCTimEWarP~
New orders had arrived from the homeland. The Liberty plot was to be put on hold, as The Colonel had another assignment.
He slowly read the text before him, translating the Italian as he went.
"Freeport 9.." he muttered to himself, before turning and accessing the terminal in front of him.
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It was a long trip, from Kepler all the way out to the Omicrons. He had plenty of time to read all the assembled dossiers and files on FP9. His daughter's husband, and his father before him, had long realized the strategic importance of FP9 and the Zoners docking policies, and prepared accordingly. He himself had done a tour of surveilance there in his youth, recording all the comings and goings, the residents and governance. He would need to stop by Barcelona to update his files though, as he had been serving in Liberty for well over the standard update cycle. Everything he had would be woefully out of date.