Anke looked around at her bunk on Carrier Saar. Given her position, she doesn't have to share her space with the rank-and-file operatives. Saar provided a quiet backwater for BDM operatives to rest and work discretely, without the hustle-and-bustle of the AESIR facility. A holographic screen floats above her desk, glowing faintly in the darkness of her room. An unfinished after-action-report from an earlier incident showed on the screen. She had recently been called out to deal with a Hessian incursion within the Hamburg system. Once the threat was handled, Anke came back to the Saar, where she could work in peace, and ponder her next steps.
"I really need to figure out what I'm going to do," Ricin muttered under her breath as she lay in her bunk. With Viper's disappearance, her work had been put on pause while the command structure of the Buro planned its next move. She met Direktor Siegfried upon his emergency promotion. She was impressed with his experience and willingness to stop back into the fold without hesitation. However, it became clear that the work she had been planning to start on would likely be put on pause, as priorities shifted from the top-down. Feeling restless, she got out of her bunk and sat at her desk, her unfinished report glaring at her in the darkness, almost daring her to complete it.
"Politics and bureaucracy, getting in the way of progress," Anke thought as she typed away aimlessly.
All-in-all, this left Anke at a loose end. Should she abandon her work, something she put years into, for greener pastures? Where would she go next? She had put her blood, sweat, and tears into the Buro and its mission, and fought alongside Rheinland on hundreds of occasions. Her retirement was anything but guaranteed. She had been in the cockpit for nearly a decade, without much to show for it. Her connection into the organization, and its subsequent projects, had gone missing and was presumed dead. Relationships within the Buro were professional at best, and thus, she felt no sense of camaraderie or loyalty to the operatives she worked with over the years.
And then of course, there was the incident with the Kolleda. A project years in the making, with Viper spearheading the operation, that failed miserably in their eyes. Hundreds of casualties, and for what? Unknown ships, since that incident, have been popping up all over Rheinland, and preliminary reports indicate that the infestation has spread to Gallia as well. The ineptitude of the Rheinwehr at large both during and after the operation has left the Buro with an impossible cleanup task. After all she and Viper had sacrificed, it ended up being in vain, the very thing they wanted to stop ending up being a larger threat to Sirius than previously imagined.
Anke felt the heat rising to her face, her restlessness now giving way to anger. Anger at her position, her career, and the house she had served valiantly for nearly a decade. An award sat on her desk, a recognition from Viper herself for help with completion of BACHTRATOXIN, their most recent joint project. She finished the report hastily, no doubt missing a few details. She climbed back into her bunk, determined to get a few hours' rest before deciding her next move.
After a brief rest on Saar, Anke deployed to the forefront of Rheinland's territory, Sigma-15. The Crow Nebula swirled strangely in the distance, the beautiful blue clouds and multicolored suns offering far more to the eye than the yellow and brown drab that was seen much throughout her home in Hamburg, or in Frankfurt, her base of operations. There was no real reason to come here, other than for Anke to gather her thoughts. Sigma-15 had been secure for months now, and incursions by the enemies of Rheinland on this front were few and far between. But it's a system where she had flown thousands of times, defended her house on countless occasions, and negotiated numerous deals, both with allies and enemies. The hustle-and-bustle of Rheinland and the Buro was impeding her from thinking clearly, and she needed a clear head to prepare for what she was about to do.
Anke's Valkyrie eased out of the trade lane that took her to Hammersee. An ugly planet with not much going for it, it was a perfect place for her to lay low, away from the prying eyes of the Rheinwehr and her Direktor. She requested permission to land over the comms channel, and within 15 minutes the docking ring's arms activated, drawing her ship towards its ugly brown surface.
The MND had safehouses all over Sirius, and here was no exception. But, she didn't want to alert her colleagues of her presence. However, there was a place for her to lay low for a while. At the edge of the town surrounding the spaceport sat a dilapidated building, seemingly abandoned. For Anke, it was perfect. She headed up to the small apartment that she acquired some years ago. The Buro wasn't aware of it, as the deed was put in a name other than her own. But it would suit her needs for now. She entered the room, dust swirling around like the nebulas she had seen on her flight over. It had been some time since she had been here. Covert work wasn't really her specialty, and she saw little reason during her career to make use of the space. She had debated back and forth for years on selling it, but a gut feeling had told her to keep it, in case things had soured between her and the Buro. Viper had drilled into her the idea of a backup plan in case something went wrong.
But she had decided that her time with the Buro was over. Working quickly, she left Carrier Saar on the pretense of a routine patrol, stuffing a week's worth of provisions into her packs, and deployed her Valkyrie before too much word would get out. Anke didn't take much with her off of Carrier Saar, ensuring that nothing she took would set off alarm bells. However, she had a list of contacts, written out on pen-and-paper, that she had accumulated over the years. Many of them had been crossed off, if they were dead, but many still remained. She sat at the old desk she had stuffed into her apartment years ago, her eyes scanning the document from top to bottom as she decided who to contact first.
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