Hunters of the EmpireThe man’s cup of caf shook on its plate, the vibrations sending ripples along the dark brown liquid’s surface. The man didn’t spare it a glance, though the vibrations shook the very earth below his feet. To pay attention to the micro-quake was to break his cover, even slightly; if the millions of denizens didn’t need to pay it mind, neither did he. Idly, he flicked the old-fashioned data pad’s screen. Older models of ‘pads were favored on Riflor. They tended to be more durable than the cutting-edge types, and durability was a definite plus when the tectonic plates on the planet shifted like they were balanced on butter.
The man picked up the cup and emptied the last quarter-inch of caf that had been cooling inside. He stood, large hands smoothing out his business suit. In his ear, a small ear-bud comlink beeped for his attention. He tapped it.
“Hello?” the man said, tucking the datapad into an attaché case.
“Sir, the trustees have a message for you,” the voice on the other side of the link said softly. “Shall I patch them through to you?”
“Go ahead; I’m not busy,” said the man. The link went dead for a few moments.
“Anderson here, Commander,” said the same voice a moment later. “Secure link acquired. Command does want an update, though.”
“The negotiations are going well. I think we’ll have the deal closed in the next few days,” said the man, speaking in code for the benefit of any who could hear him. “I’m confident that we’re approaching a middle-point to agree on.”
“Good. We’re ahead of schedule,” Anderson laughed. “But it’s to be expected of you and your team, sir.”
“Of course. Only the last Iotas of the deal have to be worked out. It’s nearly a slam-dunk from here.”
“Roger that, Commander. Anderson out.”
The man tapped the earbud comlink and he kept walking, a speeder coming up to him at the curb. He smoothly climbed into the back seat of the vehicle. Two men sat in the front seats. The driver glanced at the man in the back seat with one eye, while the man in the passenger’s seat turned around.
“Orr,” said the man in the driver’s seat. A pair of bright red eyes blinked slowly at the rear-view mirror, reflected. “We’re close. Damn close.”
“Good news, then, Zaun?” Commander Orr replied.
“We’ve got a bead on the target, sir. We know that our contact is hiding him, and we’re close to finding out where. Just a few more days.”
“Good, good. Let’s go meet him, shall we?” the Commander suggested.
“Right, sir. Your meeting is in five minutes.”
*** *** *** *** ***
Orr and the third man, Lock, walked slowly into the low-set building. It was a well-designed building, formed to bend, but not break, due to the hundreds of micro-quakes that shook the planet every month. This meant that it wasn’t very tall, but instead had a large floor space that was divvied into many smaller rooms. The two ARCs wore suits and carried briefcases; with their slow pace, it suggested powerful businessmen who knew what they were doing and were in no hurry.
As slow as their pace was, they were quickly admitted into the building and led to their meeting - one of the chief manufacturers in the city had its headquarters in this building, and the pseudo-businessmen had a meeting with the man. They had no wait, waved through door after door until they reached the executive offices. The secretary checked them out for only a few moments before waving them in.
The CEO, an aging man with a fading head of hair but still with the glint of intellect in his eye, stood up when the two men walked into his office, and quickly gripped Orr’s hand.
“Ah, my friend, welcome back,” said the old man. “I daresay it’s a good sign you’ve brought along your comrade?”
“Of course, Alexi,” Orr smiled. “We do seem to have more progress when he is here, no?”
“So! To business, then,” Alexi said, returning to his chair. The two ARC men took the seats before his desk, balancing their briefcases on their laps. “If you can provide transportation, I will buy the electronics components from you for an additional four credits per unit.”
“Please, Alexi! Transportation costs far more than four credits per unit; hell, it’s almost twice that! I have to cover costs for my bosses as well. I suggest...”
*** *** *** *** ***
Another fruitless day of negotiation passed with the two sides approaching a compromise. Orr, however, was never pushing for a deal; the sole reason they were even dealing with the CEO of the manufacturing company was to get into his office. Lock was a capable slicer, but he, in this case, was just to carry gear and hide it in Alexi’s room; they’d placed several listening devices, but this was the first time that they’d managed to sneak a mini-slicer droid into the man’s office.
The two men descended to the road as the triple-sunset dipped below the horizon. They climbed once again into their speeder, Zaun at its wheel.
“Mission accomplished,” Orr said, turning to the second back-seat passenger. “Are you getting a good feed?”
“I am,” the woman said, a heavy datapad balanced on her knees. “Sound quality’s high, the devices are all responding as they should. I’d like to settle into the terminal at base before I start anything overt, though.”
“Very well. Zaun; back to the ‘office,’ and quickly, if you will,” the Commander ordered. “I’d like to close this out as quickly as possible.”
*** *** *** *** ***
The three ARCs stood around the bank of screens, CPUs, and keyboards they’d helped the woman set up a week ago. She sat in the center of it all, hands not even on any of the keyboards that lay before her. Her specialty wasn’t needed yet. The numerous listening devices in the room were giving a feed.
”So... Mr. Finch, have the latest components been of help to your research facility? I only ask because I have a good deal of respect for the noble endeavor of medical research.”“Ah, Alexi, you poor fool; they’ve fed you that lie for so long, and it’s so patently untrue,” Orr sighed.
”Of course, Alexi; your company produces the highest-quality devices we can get in this sector, and our scientists are most thankful for it. The Blanchard Corporation thanks you.”The woman flinched. “Bastards.”
“Calm, Sleicer,” Orr cautioned the slicer. “Keep professional. I know you’ve a history with this group, but we’ll take them down from one piece at time.”
Jana Sleicer indeed did have a history with Iota’s current target, Blanchard. It’d been led by someone else, and with a different goal, those years ago, but it was the same organization in most senses of the word.
The men continued to chit-chat on the other side of the listening device, unaware they were being observed. However, nothing else of importance was said, just the speech of men who had traded in the past.
Quickly, the two men ran out of things to talk about, however, and each made their excuses. Finch left first, the quiet click of a door shutting heralding his exit. It was only a few minutes until Alexi, too, left, as the hour was getting late. They waited minutes as the CEO’s office sat in silence before Sleicer set her hands on the keyboards.
“Activate.”
The tiny droid attached to the underside of one of the guest chairs blinked alive, a red eye glaring into the dim office. It dropped to the carpeted floor, its thin, spider-like legs carrying it forwards. Sleicer moved the machine’s controls, darting it around the heavy wooden desk. With the press of a button, the tiny droid hopped to the top of the desk and panned its optical sensor around.
“Where, where...there,” the female slicer murmured, the sensor locking onto a sleek data module. With an almost lazy flick of her finger, the droid scurried over to the module and latched onto the device. A high-tech piece of machinery, the slicer droid had been uploaded with many of Sleicer’s personal hacking algorithms, and was more than capable of cruising past the firewalls and security protocols of Alexi’s computers.
In moments, the droid had bypassed the CEO’s defenses and stripped all of the data it sought. It blinded the security programs but left them intact and unaware of its intrusion whilst it read and sent the multitude of data to its master.
Sleicer smiled and leaned back in her chair. “My bit’s complete.”
The screen before them shook momentarily as the tiny droid detached, hopped into the desk-side trashcan, and self-destructed. Orr nodded slowly. “Now we’ve got what we need to start taking them apart.”
*** *** *** *** ***
The three ARCs and their civilian team member spent an hour and a half digging through the data that the tiny droid had sent them. The next morning, they looked over the information relevant to their mission, and began the final stage of their own operation. All of the next day was spent planning, until they the three ARCs climbed into the speeder as the sun was setting.
“Anderson,” Orr said into his earbud as he and his team began their final preparations. “Command is aware of the next link in the chain?”
“Roger that, Commander. They’ve green-lit your op.”
“Of course they did. We’re moving in as we speak,” Orr said. His ground team was in their speeder, Zaun once again behind the wheel. They wore light body armor underneath hoodies and long athletic pants. Each had a handgun concealed in his belt and a folded-down SMG with a silencer in easy reach. Orr had another piece of equipment in his lap: a stripped-down HUD of an ARC helmet, the optics and computers removed from a helmet and turned into a single-eye visor that would be mounted on his head. It had stripped out all of the identifying pieces - like the death’s head helmet - and left only the high-tech bits, like comlink, optics, HUD, and so on. Each ARC had his own.
The speeder slid to a stop before a warehouse. A man with a visible sidearm stepped forwards to the speeder. Its right-passenger window slid open, and the barrel of an SMG poked out, and then fired a burst. Only a heavy cough emerged from the weapon, the long silencer doing its job to quiet the weapon.
The guard gurgled a few times before he collapsed, falling dead to the ground, chest leaking blood from the close-range barrage. Orr opened the passenger door and slid the visor onto his head. “Let’s move in,” he muttered into the link. The other two doors slammed open and the other two ARCs climbed out.
Zaun and Lock approached the warehouse’s door, and stacked either side. Orr nodded at Lock, who lifted a heavy combat boot and brought it smashing down on the handle. The door, a thin piece of durasteel and old metal, slammed open at the kick, and then took a short step backwards. Orr and Zaun turned the corner, one after another, guns at the ready.
Men in black armor turned at the sound of the door slamming open, but the two closest fell with a dozen bullet holes in their chests as the two ARCs fired on the run, silenced SMGs spitting hot lead into the men. Lock dashed into the room, sweeping along the left wall. Zaun dodged from cover to cover, laying down spitting silenced rounds at the enemy force and swept right. Orr moved forwards, taking shots at the confused mercenaries and inexorably advancing.
The mercs were well-trained, and against normal opponents, they’d be effective. Against three of the Vast Empire’s elite Special Forces, however, they stood no chance. The gunfire overwhelmed one man after another, precisely aimed shots drilling a merc with almost every shot. Orr frowned - they were getting plenty of shots in, but the mercs weren’t falling at the rate expected. The SMG rounds didn’t seem to have the desired effect every time, the small shells not quite enough to punch through the men’s armor.
Orr yanked a grenade off of his belt, and tossed it into the mercenaries’ midst. The men had no idea, beset on three sides by an enemy they could barely keep up with, and the fireball engulfed four men. Two others got knocked down by the concussion, and the last three fell, rounds finding a way into their skulls.
Lock killed the last two men, a bullet to the head ending both in a matter of seconds. The echoing sound of gunfire died down.
“Clear!” Orr muttered into his link.
The other two members of his team echoed the statement, and walked to the center of the room. “Lock, Zaun - check the back rooms. I’ll check in here.”
The two men nodded. Orr flipped over the mercs one by one, sorting through their pockets for useful documents or even datapads. His comlink crackled in his ear, and tapped it.
“Here.”
“Orr -” Anderson’s voice started, but it was consumed by static. Orr frowned. “Lock, Zaun - finish the clean-up. I’ve got to talk to Anderson, and this damn building’s got shit for reception.”
The ARC commander left the building, and stood next to the speeder outside; this planet’s sun was already below the horizon - it was practically night. “Anderson. What is it?”
“Command wanted an update, and -”
The warehouse wall exploded outwards, a huge flame engulfing the building. Orr was thrown backwards, and blinked in disbelief and anger. The last two men of his team - Lock, Zaun - they were indubitably dead. He spat out a mouthful of blood; he’d bitten his tongue, then growled, under his breath - “Blanchard.”
*** *** *** *** ***
“Sir, we’re almost to Fort Sexton,” Anderson mumbled in the seat beside him. Both ARC men wore unmarked uniforms, and sat in they rode in a military shuttle in Tadath airspace.
Orr slowly closed the small book he was reading. Anderson raised an eyebrow.
“Isn’t that a rather old text, sir?”
“Every officer should read this book, Anderson. Why, the very thing we’re coming to Sexton before echoes something I just read,” Orr said. “It said, ‘Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions.’ Even if Blanchard knows we know where they live, they must think themselves infallible to have taken down two ARC teams. But these men and women we’re about to go recruit - oh, they’re quite a bit less subtle than we are.”
With a bump, the shuttle settled onto the landing pad, and the two men walked the halls of the Vast Empire’s greatest fort. “Phoenix Company - they fit the bill. Blanchard won’t know what hit them when these guys are done with them.”
They stopped outside a large conference room. Anderson consulted his datapad once more, and nodded at the Commander. Orr raised his hand, and knocked on the door.
