Nobody enjoyed the stakeout, I least of all.  The others’ discomfort had a simple explanation: as the hours dragged on into days and the Suspect stayed dormant, they grew bored, and their anxiety fed upon itself, until a cloud of nebulous speculation seemed to condense around them, crackling with energies both nervous and hopeful.  But my own emotional storm raged far more violently.  I had a much more complete understanding of the situation, and a far greater appreciation of exactly what was at stake: I knew what failure could mean, for myself and for the Galaxy, and as a consequence of that knowledge, I had much, much more to fear than did the other members of my team.

My team.  We were twelve junior Agents, then, all the others lowlier even than I.  It still seems so unlikely, even now, to have been particularly chosen to lead those particular Greys for that particular operation.  How did the Captain know to watch that Suspect, who had been largely ignored in the initial investigation by the previous Director of the VENI?  Why did the Captain choose that group of Agents for such an important mission, with their peculiar skills and relative inexperience?  Why did he single me out to lead them?

Occasionally, in the months after that first operation, I almost managed to convince myself that the Captain must have seen something in me – something worthy, something self-evident, something that nobody else had ever been able to see before.  In my more cynical moments, though, my inner critic scoffed at such vanity, and argued that the Captain must simply have played dozens of hunches in the aftermath of the terrorist strike, in a wide-ranging attempt to unmask the Vast Empire’s foes.  “Your team just happened to be the single hook in the entire fishing expedition which caught a fish,” I told myself confidently.

But now I know that the truth is neither that I am lucky, nor that I am special.  The truth is that the Captain is especially lucky: since taking over the Directorship, Captain Grey’s schemes have consistently paid dividends for the Navy, and we are closer than ever to the answers we seek.  A nearly unbroken chain of successes began that day, so many months ago on Abrae, both for the Captain and for Naval Intelligence.

But, on that day itself, no one could have predicted the successes which were yet to come, and so nobody enjoyed themselves on the stakeout.  While the others sulked in their ignorance, I confronted the awful truth: I was commanding a true Grey Op, and if we failed, we would all be disavowed.  The briefing had been clear enough on that point, if on nothing else.

While the other Agents watched the Suspect, I replayed the strange scene in my head: the briefing room’s glowpanels had been dimmed sometime before I entered, and everything was dark, save for a vague shape opposite the door.  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I picked out a slight, humanoid figure, whose features were draped in still-heavier shadows.

“I have been authorized by the Naval High Council to initiate an entrapment operation on Abrae itself,” the figure spoke, in a voice so neutral that I could not even identify the speaker’s gender, though the accent was unmistakably that of Imperial Center.  “I have chosen you to serve as Team Leader.  Your Agents––” the voice stopped suddenly, and the figure tossed a datapad at me, with no warning.  Instinctively, my left hand blocked my face and grabbed the pad mid-spin, even as my body relaxed into a combat stance.  I could not make out the figure’s face, but the corner of mouth I could see betrayed a smile.  “The Target,” the figure said, tossing another datapad.  “Details of on-site insertion and extraction are left to your discretion, Ensign Grey,” the figure finished, using the coded style of address which heralded either great advancement within the service, or impending doom.  What could I do, but nod my acceptance, and walk out?

So, I planned.  I planned, and I fretted.  I fretted, and I deployed my Team.

And then... then we caught the bastard.