Chapter Five

Orkhana

Sienele resisted the urge to fidget as he waited for news of their missing ‘guest’. The Lucians had returned from their attempts to recapture the Sirhan, somewhat ruefully admitting to having been unable to keep the individual from escaping, and now only the colonel was unaccounted for.

An unaffiliated individual, recently an enemy combatant no less, is running loose around one of the Alliance’s primary supply facilities. I am uncertain how it could get worse, and afraid to ask because someone might take it as a challenge if I did.

It was not… yet… a disaster, but it was certainly approaching the realm of such things.

“You should relax,” Kriss rumbled from beside him. “She will return.”

“I am quite confident that she will. What I am concerned about is what she will get up to in the meantime,” Sienele countered quite crossly.

“You worry too much. There is nothing here that could make her any more dangerous than she was.”

“That is not a comfort.”

Kriss laughed, amused by it all. “You lack the drive to fight, my friend, to see yourself challenged. You spend too much time trying to avoid challenging yourself for it to be healthy.”

“The challenge I seek is preventing such challenges from becoming an issue.”

Kriss snorted, shaking his head. “Might as well spit in the air to turn back a storm. The universe supplies challenges for us all. Trying to stop that is like trying to stop the galaxy from turning. Face what comes and be happy for the chance to prove yourself, worrying about what might be in the face of what is? That is the way of children and fools. I count you as neither.”

Sienele half turned to focus his full gaze on the Lucian.

“Why Kriss,” He said after a moment. “That was positively the most philosophical thing I have ever heard from the throat of a Lucian. Going soft in your recent days, are we?”

The Lucian growled, tapping the handle of the captured Terran knife he wore on his belt. “Try me for how soft I am and we’ll see? No? I did not think so.”

Sienele was about to retort when Kriss cut him off with a casual nod of his head.

“Our time of wordplay is ended, here she comes.”

Sienele twisted back to see that the Colonel was indeed returning, casually walking their way. Her helmet had been returned to the snap that held it to her hip, her expression serious for humans he believed. It was the smell that caught his immediate focus, however, and Sienele sniffed at the air as she came to a stop in front of him.

“It’s smoke,” She said in Alliance Standard. “You’ve got a nice little infiltration cell in the facility. Very professional, tight discipline, proactive leadership. They spotted me coming and burned out their gear before abandoning their base of operations. You’ll probably be getting reports of the fire anytime now.”

Sienele huffed. “You should not be chasing off on your own. This is Alliance territory, and you are a soldier of a non-allied polity.”

She just waved him off. “Former soldier, please. I retired even before the last mission. At this point I expect that SOLCOM has probably burned my access to the ground. They’d be crazy to leave any of it in place after I left with you lot.”

“That is immaterial to us, however much it might be of consequence to you,” Sienele snapped. “Do not do this again.”

The Colonel just inclined her head slightly. “Let the bad guys get away. You got it. Anything else?”

Kriss laughed, causing another flare of irritation to burn through him, but there was little Sienele could do about either at just that moment.

“Remember your place,” He said instead. “Do not wander off alone again.”

*****

That’s the entire talking down? Sorilla thought as the alien spymaster chastised her and gave her her marching orders. Not good.

She’d expected more, actually. Threats, promises of imprisonment, an interrogation. Something.

She was, after all, as he had implied. As far as the Alliance was concerned, she was, if not an enemy combatant, then very little removed from one. Keeping her in check was, or should be, an absolute priority. Finding out what she’d acquired in the time she’d been out of his scrutiny, that had to be one of the uppermost things in Sienele’s mind.

If it wasn’t at this particular moment in time, she had to assume it was because the spymaster didn’t intend for her to escape his control before he did know… if at all.

That was not… exactly a surprise, but it was troublesome.

Sorilla began shifting her plans around, moving up the ones that required her to be a little more… proactive… when it came time to take her leave of the Alliance.

She wanted to see this mission through to the end, felt it was important enough to risk her life, but she wasn’t suicidal after all, despite what many might believe.

“Understood,” She said aloud. “In the meantime, I did get some information from the fire. The infiltration cell had what appeared to be Ross tech in the possession.”

Kriss and Sienele exchanged glances at that.

“Not unheard of,” Kriss said thoughtfully. “But concerning.”

“Indeed. The Ross do occasionally sell their technology, but the costs are invariably high, and the access required to even get on the purchasing lists is quite significant.”

Sorilla highly doubted that the cell had either paid for the kit they had or had been on any purchasing lists. If the Ross hadn’t handed it to them personally, she’d wager good money that they’d done so through cut outs.

It wasn’t time to let the Alliance in on that particular theory of hers, however.

Allies of the moment they may yet be, but Sorilla was well experienced enough to know that could change at a moment’s notice and, retired or not, there was never any doubt as to where her loyalties remained.

“If they’re that well funded, then you have a big problem,” She said instead. “When were the Sirhan brought into the Alliance?”

“Not long ago,” Kriss said simply. “By your counter, I believe it was less than ten terran years.”

Sorilla nodded thoughtfully, wondering for a brief moment where they’d gotten the length of a year. But considering all the equipment and people they’d captured during the war it really wasn’t much of a surprise that they had.

“Not long enough to entrench themselves then.”

“No,” Sienele said darkly. “They were clearly backed… and I do not believe any of us have any true doubt as to who those backers are.”

Well, I never did believe him to be stupid, Sorilla thought with some personal amusement. The situation, at least the surface situation, within the alliance was fairly obvious. The Ross was clearly connected to these shadow operations within the Alliance. However, that was blurred a little in her opinion by the fact that they had used it to mount other operations against other groups that were hostile to the Alliance.

She expected that Sienele was currently thinking along the lines of a rogue black ops unit working within the Alliance to further their own idea of Galactic Security.

That would be bad enough, if it was what was happening, but Sorilla no longer ascribed to quite that notion.

The Ross were advancing their own interests, and likely working to undermine the Alliance just as much as they were any other group such as SOLCOM. That made her current situation a lot less stable than she might have hoped, unfortunately. A rogue group that was still working in the interests of the Alliance was something that would be embarrassing for the Alliance to admit to, but only that.

An internal group actively working to bring down the Alliance?

That was a completely different ball game.

Sorilla was certain of only one thing in that regard - she would need to play this very carefully if she wanted to get out the side alive and free to return home. Granted, those were secondary priorities compared to giving the Ross a true and decisive kick in the proverbial balls, but it was a very close secondary priority to her mind.

“If they’re running an operation this dark right under the noses of the local administrators,” She said slowly. “Then they’re running others in other secure locations as well.”

Sienele looked unhappy at the very mention of that, but he grudgingly nodded after a moment’s thought.

“This is going to become… irritating.”

*****

Portal Ship

The subject infiltration species has reported back.

The conclave paused, immediately accessing the referenced report, and consuming it before anyone else said anything.

Entropy again. Destroy that world. End this farce, do it now.

That would be presumptuous, and just as destructive to our cause as even the worse Entropy might achieve there.

Concern is not with what entropy achieves there, but what comes later.

The world is not worth the results of destroying it. Cease your idiocy and focus on solutions.

The obstinate member of the Conclave fell back, his formulations silenced in the swirling mix of space time between the remaining individuals. Others refocused on the issue at hand.

The alliance is coming closer to the operation. However, it is unlikely that they understand the scope. It will appear to them to be nothing more than the games they play with one another.

Agreed. Let them burn this operation. Grant them the minor victory, with the sacrifice of a few of our agents we can satisfy them while maintaining operational stance across the spacetime field and only suffer a minor setback.

The conclave’s formulations became cluttered, messy for a time, before cleaning up again in agreement.

Very well. We will instruct the infiltration species to do such.

Agreed.

*****

Hayden’s World, Subcontinent

The electric flitter landed softly on the large mil-spec pad, dwarfed by the assault shuttle that was sitting there as well. Gil Hayden always felt small when he came to visit the Aidas, either one of them. The Sarge, as every person on the planet would always call her, didn’t believe in doing things halfway. When she built something, it was built to last, and it was built to handle far more than she ever expected to need it to handle.

In the colony a flitter pad was a quarter the size, built from aluminum and composite mesh, spaced out to handle double the lifting capacity of any of the Colony’s private or public flitters and not one bit more.

Here on the Sarge’s land grant?

Well, he wasn’t certain the pad could land an actual starship, but Gil wasn’t one to bet against it either.

“Ho, the pad!”

Gil turned, smiling as he saw Cassius Aida waving as he climbed the small hill to the pad and waved back.

“Welcome back, Gil,” Cassius said cheerfully. “What brings you this far from the colony?”

“Just received an official request from SOLCOM you might want to have a look at,” Gil said, retrieving the pad from his jacket and handing it over.

Cassius accepted it easily and glanced the request over quickly before nodding, “Finally making it official then?”

“They have,” Gil nodded. “The request is for the Colony to expropriate the tether site and the surrounding land for SOLCOM’s use with an eye to creating an embassy location.”

“Hold on,” Cassius said, tapping a few commands into the pad, access the local network and pulling down files, before handing it back over. “Our counteroffer.”

Gil smiled, checking it over. “Ninety-Nine-year lease on the tether site, as well as Embassy buildings, the remaining to be made available for rent at your discretion?”

“Sorilla’s,” Cassius corrected mildly.

“Of course,” Gil accepted that point, it wasn’t one he wanted to argue with anyway, so it was an easy concession to make.

Since Sorilla had opted to remain in Alliance territory there had been some strictly unofficial shifts in her legal status within the Solar Commonwealth. Nothing untoward just yet, but the rumblings among some in the circles Gil traveled boded ill for the lady in his opinion.

He hoped she made it home soon and was able to solidly put an end to that particular line of bullshit.

For the moment, what he could do was help position her land grant for the things she had already set in motion.

“I will be sure this is put under the noses,” Gil promised. “Along with a fairly strong hint that the Colony is inclined to side with your daughter on this. That would be enough, normally, but…”

Cassius grunted, waving off the apologetic tone. “I understand, and so would she. Sorilla doesn’t make decisions without considering their consequences and being willing to deal with the outcome.”

“That is something the colony is well aware of,” Gil smiled. “We have her back, Cash, I promise.”

*****

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