- OOC:
- This story flows on directly from my Interrogation Ancillary Skill and continues Serpent’s story on Antariah.
Pherik ‘Serpent’ Zail sat across the desk from Major Joshal Khamarr, founder and leader of the Antariah Imperialist Party. In just six weeks he and his followers would be contesting elections on the moon of Antariah, potentially restoring Imperial rule and then, all being well, taking the world into the Vast Empire.
First, however, they had to overcome a potential wrinkle in their plans.
“The Imperial Remnant seeks to sabotage us?” Asked Khamarr.
Zail nodded. “The agent, Canis, spilled all under interrogation. Since he could not secure your allegiance, he was ordered to bring down your party and ensure that the pro-Republic parties win the election instead.”
“But why?” Asked the politician. “Why would they favour Antariah remaining with the Republic over joining another Imperial faction?”
This had been among Serpent’s first questions to ask after Canis had broken. “It’s purely a matter of logistics. Antariah is a lot closer to VE holdings than Republic ones. If the Imperial Remnant should ever decide to take you through invasion, the Republic will be a lot slower with aid and reinforcements than the VE would be.”
“I see,” Said Khamarr, who as a former Major in the Imperial Army understood such tactical considerations well. “So, with Canis’s capture is the threat ended?”
Zail shook his head. “Alas not. It turns out that Canis was just part of a cell operating here on Antariah. The rest of the cell were originally going to act in your favour, assassinating key political rivals and supporters. Now, with the change in direction by Imperial Intelligence, I fear it likely that they will turn their skills upon you and the AIP.”
The Major took this news stoically, but Serpent saw a slight narrowing of the eyes.
Are you now regretting your decision to support me and the VE over them? I’ll bet you are, but you are also smart enough to know that there is no going back now. Sometimes Zail hated the double-dealing of the Intelligence game.
Eventually Khamarr asked, “And what are you going to do about it?”
“I have the location of their safe house,” Said Serpent. “I’m going to raid it and wipe out the entire cell.”
“Alone?”
“It will have to be. According to Canis, they have managed to access the secure frequencies of my reports back to VENI. If I call for assistance, they’ll know that I am on to them. Likewise if I simply change frequencies.”
The Major frowned. “Won’t they already be alerted after we captured Canis?”
“No, that’s covered,” Said Zail with certainty. “I’ve already contacted VENI and told them that Canis managed to kill himself during captivity, and had yielded no useful information.”
“So you will have surprise on your side when you hit the safe house?” Asked Khamarr.
“Indeed I will,” Said Serpent, and added silently,
I hope that it’s enough.-----
Serpent waited until nightfall and made his way to the twenty-third district of Var-Antariah, the moon’s capital city. He travelled in non-descript clothing, a long coat concealing his body and the collar turned up to obscure his face. Partially he wished to avoid being identified by the Imperial Intelligence agents he sought, but also because he wished to avoid the scrutiny of any citizens of the city. While Zail was not famous, he had drawn attention from some political commentators due to his constant presence at Imperialist rallies and events. His cover story eased over the why of his presence, but it did not change the fact that his face had been shown several times on news stories and political debate shows.
He kept his pace smooth and nonchalant as he headed down the street where the Remnant safe house was located. The buildings around here were mostly shops on the lower levels with residential above, and Imperial Intelligence were masquerading as a newly opened designer furniture store. Zail wondered idly just how they had come to decide on
that cover, and just how a bunch of trained assassins could successfully pass themselves off as experts on Thyrferran wood chairs.
Across the street from the safe house and about three doors down, Serpent paused before a butcher’s store. The place had closed for the evening, but there was still a door beside it that led to the apartments above. He glanced back and forth along the street, then knocked at the door. Fortunately, the response from within was swift.
“Yes?” Asked an old man with dark skin and stark white hair.
“The third floor apartment is vacant,” Said Zail, who had researched the whole street carefully earlier that day. “I’d like to rent it. Starting
now.”
The man was confused. “
Right now, you mean?”
“Right now,” Said Serpent, and held out a fistful of credits. The man frowned, but when his eyes zeroed in on the denominations of the currency, he broke into a big smile and invited Zail inside.
-----
For two days Serpent remained in the apartment. He ate and slept little, surviving mostly on instant meals and bottled water, never venturing out. Zail kept constant vigil on the Imperial Intelligence safe house, watching the comings and goings of those within.
He had broken the captured enemy agent, Canis, and was operating under the plethora of information the Imperial had provided. Serpent was perfectly open to the idea that Canis had seeded his confession with a few lies, but was reasonably sure that he had been able to sort fact from fiction. Among the nuggets of useful data, Zail had been provided with the number of enemy agents in the safe house cell. Seven. Serpent, knowing well the make-up of comparable units and missions in VENI, deemed this number to be accurate.
However, he only saw three coming and going in his 48-hour surveillance, and it was the same three at that.
So, three are on recon missions, leaving four permanent people behind. Or less if there are one or two on longer term missions elsewhere on the planet. If I time it right, I can be facing at most
four hostiles inside. Certainly doable, but far from a sure thing.Zail had been training hard these past few months, developing his close-combat skills among other things. However, it was his cursed marksmanship skills that he feared would let him down. He had been working on those too, but as ever they were lacking.
With my hand-eye coordination it’s a good thing that I was never a TIE pilot.He wished that he had back-up, he wished that he had more time to survey and observe, but none of those were options, and his combat skills were not going to magically improve just by sitting around. At the end of the second day, Serpent went in.
-----
The luminescent green sphere of the gas giant of Antarak had set, plunging the moon of Antariah into the dark of night. Not that it was ever truly dark in the thriving metropolis of Var-Antariah, for the city centre was a bright mass of neon lights and towering illuminated skyscrapers. And while the twenty-third district was far from that centre of nightlife, the street lighting was still clear and bright, certainly more so than Serpent would have liked.
When the street cleared from the end of the evening rushhour, he slipped from his rented apartment and, again in his long coat, jogged swiftly towards the safe house. The furniture store had closed an hour previously, but he had no intention of using that as a point of ingress anyway.
Just like the apartments above the butcher’s, the store had a door beside it that led up to the living area above. Zail did not doubt that all the rooms above the furniture shop, approximately three or four per floor for two floors, were owned by the Imperials. Even if they did not need all that room, he reasoned, it would not do for them to have locals lodging in rooms adjacent to where Intelligence was working.
The door, its metal old and beginning to rust at the edges, had a very run-down looking security lock upon it. Again, Serpent did not underestimate the intellect of his foes, and knew that within the old lock housing the Imperials had probably installed state-of-the-art security. He reached to his side and pulled out a little gadget from VENI that would solve that problem.
Glancing up and down the street to ensure that he was unobserved (and, for good measure, standing in close to the wall so that any security cameras on in the nearby store would not spot him), he attached the small device to the locking device’s card reader. Instantly the fake identi-card began to run through thousands of permutations and calculations, trying to give the lock what it wanted. A few moments later and the lock’s display light turned green and the door slid open.
Zail stepped inside quickly, and only now, as the door shut behind him and freed him from the observation of passing Antariah citizens, did he draw his gun. It was a compact Heavy Blaster Pistol, and he gripped it tightly in two hands. Before him, stairs covered in worn red carpeting led up to the second floor. The walls had faded wallpaper, and there were very ugly light fittings on the ceilings.
If Serpent had expected some hyper-modern Intelligence facility, with clean steel walls and floors, he was sorely disappointed. This place seemed to simply be someone’s home. That actually boded well. It confirmed that Imperial Intelligence had not had time to invest heavily in this place, and so it could not have been an extensive operation. That cut down on the amount of traps and other surprises he was likely to encounter. Still, Zail proceeded with caution.
The stairs creaked as he advanced up them. The landing at the top vanished around a sharp left-turn, and he neared the corner slowly, gun ready. At the top he peeked around the edge and saw a short corridor with three doors (two on the left, one on the right), and another set of stairs at the end.
Serpent advanced, straining his ears for any sounds or voices that would give hints to what lay in the rooms nearby. He paused at the first door, unable to hear anything, and took a deep breath. Slowly, bracing himself for action, he reached up and pressed the door release.
The door opened and he snapped his blaster pistol up before him, aiming into the room. It was empty, just a bland bedroom with two single bed and a few clothes hanging from a railing on the wall. So, he had found the barracks of at least two of their number, more if they shared and slept in shifts. Zail was disappointed, but it was not over yet, as his beating heart and quickened pulse indicated. Turning back to the corridor, he moved towards one of the doors opposite.
Which opened before he could reach the release controls.
The man standing there was dressed in a nightgown, with a toothbrush in his mouth and a dozy, almost-asleep look on his face. That look turned to horrified surprise as he saw Serpent, but it was the last thing that he ever saw. Zail’s training took over, he raised the gun, and squeezed off three shots.
Two caught the man full in the chest, taking him down instantly, but even at point blank range Serpent’s aim was notoriously dire. The third shot passed the Imperial and went into the bathroom beyond, obliterating a faucet and sending a shower of water into air. Zail knew that the three shots, plus the noise of the water, was sure to draw attention, and he cursed himself for not simply striking the man with the butt of his gun and knocking him out quietly.
Almost immediately, the third door in the corridor opened and another Imperial Agent, this one fully dressed and considerably more awake, leapt out and went straight for the intruder. Zail turned, trying to bring his gun to bear, but was too slow. The woman was on him, a palm-first blow to his hands forcing the gun from Serpent’s grip, and the brunette killer followed it up with a round-house kick right at Zail’s face.
A half-step backwards tried to get Serpent clear of the impact, but he was too slow. The woman’s booted foot connected with the right side of his head, though only a glancing blow. Zail shrugged it off quickly, and called on his recent martial arts training to engage the Imperial in hand-to-hand. He dropped into a fighting stance, legs wide, and curled his now-empty hands into guarded fists.
The Intelligence Agent obliged him by pressing her attack, coming right for him. She threw off a series of punches and kicks which Serpent knew for feints. He blocked and parried, always returning quickly to his guard, not wishing to give her an opening.
Varying her assault, the woman dropped low in a sweep, forcing Zail to jump clear. Alas, the VENI man had lost track of his surroundings, and Serpent banged awkwardly against the wall of the cramped corridor. The split-second distraction was all the opening his foe needed, and she snapped off another kick, this one right into his stomach.
Zail doubled over in pain, barely resisting the urge to throw up. Seeing him prone, the woman drove an elbow down into the back of his head, driving Serpent to the floor. He hit the worn capering with grunt, his body aching, and Zail wondered just how he was going to get out of this.
And then he saw his answer, and smiled. His blaster pistol, lost in the opening moments of the fight, was in reach! Before the Imperial could notice, Zail threw himself forward, grabbing the weapon and rolling onto his back, bringing it to bear.
He heard her scream “No!” as he opened fire, but it was too late. A few shots sent her to the floor, quite dead.
Serpent, breathing heavily, slowly got to his feet. He was just pondering his next move when his attention was drawn to the stairs up to the next floor.
The sounds of multiple footsteps were clearly audible from above. Imperial reinforcements were coming for him!
TO BE CONTINUED...
- OOC:
- 2385 words. The first half of my submission for Special Warfare Combatant Tier 1. When complete, this story will be the third part of my ‘Antariah Saga’, with parts four and five to be resolved in my Special Warfare Combatant Tiers 2 and 3.
After Action Report: Having completed his interrogation of Agent Canis, Zail knows the location of the Imperial Intelligence safe house in Var-Antariah city, capital of Antariah. Serpent surveys the location from a nearby apartment for two days, noting the coming and going of the Imperials. Finally, when it only has four people present, he sneaks in. On the second floor he encounters two agents. One he surprises and kills quickly, but the second is skilled in close combat and is hard to overcome. Tired and hurt, Zail now hears more Imperials coming his way...
