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Description

Guild Intelligence!

Less than 24 hours ago, I piloted a dropship into battle, and then Maryetta Akira promoted me to captain. Now I was in some high security location, so high security they had to do a baffling scan of me, naked. Now they were talking about the spookiest group in the Guild, the intelligence service! On top of this, it was Akira telling me all this!

Two more guards now guided us to a door. It looked like some kind of vault door, just smaller, about the size of a standard airlock. These same guards then made each of us take another retinal scan. The bunch, Akira, her aides, all the people in this room, acted like this was just another day. Maybe for them it was.

They swung the new door open. There was a cracking sound to it, as though a seal was being broken. The guards acted quite gracious, they even seemed almost ceremonial about it. The four of us entered the new room. For all the drama leading up to this, the room seemed rather unimposing, even small. One table, the kind you find in any station cafeteria, six chairs, also the same you find in any station cafeteria. One large monitor was on the wall. As we arrived, we saw many large monitors displaying scrolling information and talking heads, which made the place chaotic.

Now, the one table, six chairs, one monitor. The walls were bare otherwise, the table empty, the lighting subdued, even dim. Just standard fluorescents above us. We went through several layers of security, about thirty armed guards, then this. It seemed like just another paradox in this whole unfolding story.

Akira waved for us to sit down; she seemed very casual about it. Her aides took their seats first. They seemed to watch me. Akira remained standing; her face now appeared a bit tired. She looked at the monitor for a moment; it was on but not showing anything, just a black field as though it was expecting to show us, showing me, something.

This was when Akira broke the silence.

“Captain Dakota, Malley, let me introduce you now to Midori and Sanja. Midori is my personal aide, and Sanja is my liaison with Guild Intelligence. You’ll excuse me not formally introducing you earlier, but there were reasons.”

Midori, the name made sense to me. She was short like me, looked like she had a Japanese background. Maybe she was from the Japanese colony near the Hyundai belt station? Sanja was harder to place, there was an odd feeling to her. I couldn’t place it. Both had their eyes intently on me, as though they were evaluating me.

Akira’s eyes darted to Sanja for a moment, then appeared a little surprised. She looked back to me.

"Malley, if it helps you, know that Sanja has empathic abilities that may make her scrutinize you. Try not to feel uncomfortable. Try to not let her scrutiny make you uncomfortable.”

I quickly glanced back at Sanja again. I swear she smiled at me just a fraction of a second, then her face returned to cold professionalism.

Akira finally sat down at the table. She no longer seemed quite like the legend. She now seemed to let the exhaustion in her reveal itself. Her voice no longer had the sound of command. She almost reminded me of my mother.

“Malley, welcome to the most secure location on the Moon. Please forgive all the security precautions. They are necessary.”

“What I am about to tell you, I would not ordinarily tell anybody other than somebody who needed to know it. By the end of this meeting, you have that need to know.”

“Midori, please don’t record this meeting. When we are done, I’ll need you to help me send a message back to the belt. We need to let the Guild know about the events here. Help them prepare, help them grieve our losses.”

“Sanja, remember this meeting. I want no formal record of it, but I am going to send you back to the belt. I want you to take measures to heighten the security there.”

They both nodded in acknowledgement, their expressions now otherwise blank.

“Malley, we have a security problem. I believe it might be a spy, maybe a turncoat, I’m not sure. I am also not sure if they’re within the Guild or the Coalition. In my heart, I don’t want to believe anyone in the Guild would betray us. Though I must be open to the possibility.”

“What just happened on Earth, the battle, was likely proof that the Ministry was aware of our coming attack. The railgun was not there in earlier intelligence reports. Neither were the reinforced positions or the additional garrison. I cannot be certain, but in my gut, I know the Ministry has compromised either our security or Coalition security.”

Akira then waved her right hand towards the wall monitor. It came to life showing the interface of an audio program. Then a message played. It was the voice of a man during a diatribe. You could hear anger, hate in his voice. It made me physically uncomfortable to hear it.

“The Ministry lacks many of the technological advantages that we have. They don’t have a meaningful lift capability yet. The official Coalition policy has been one of containment; we prevent them from leaving the planet. The Coalition has destroyed anything that looks like a launch facility. They have killed many Ministry people, military and civilian, with these strike operations.”

“The Ministry is perfectly aware of their technological deficits. They have learned to use other technologies to further their cause. What you just heard was an FM radio broadcast. They use this old method to talk to their people, get new followers, and send messages to their spies. Our analysts believe that they have detected coded messages. They could not crack them.”

“Malley, are you familiar with the Strip?”

I didn’t know how anybody couldn’t be familiar with the Strip. When the Disaster of 2200 had taken place, there was a massive migration of refugees from the west, the areas nearest the caldera and in the ashfall regions. They all moved towards the East coast of the North American continent. Seismic activity tore apart many population centers on the Eastern coast and caused the loss and flooding of enormous areas. The refugees came all the same, tens of millions of them. They built new cities from the rubble. We provided them help, traded with them. There were three large space ports along the Strip. I had piloted into all of them. I’d spent time in these communities.

I followed the lead of Midori and Sanja, nodding my acknowledgement. Akira continued.

“We have been trying to figure out how the Ministry could infiltrate their people into Coalition, maybe even Guild, operations?”

“I think it was through the Strip. The security in the cities on the Strip is porous. We even have some intelligence showing cooperation between certain groups there with the Ministry.”

“Nobody really knows how many people live on the Strip. Some people say it’s as high as one hundred million. The strip's frontier is fortified to resist the Ministry and the warlords in the wastelands beyond it. Most of the people estimate that around one hundred million people live in the Strip.

“We need, the Guild needs, to find those Ministry assets within the Strip. We need to find them and eliminate them. Do this before they can cause us more harm.”

Akira looked at the floor. She was silent, as though pondering her words. She then took a deep breath and began speaking again.

"Malley, you are going to be informed of highly classified information. This is necessary for you to fully understand what I am going to ask of you." I’ve decided you need to know these if you are going to fully understand what I am going to ask of you.”

“Right now, we estimate the population off-world, in the belt, Luna, Mars, the orbital stations, at about five million. We can’t be completely certain. The rogue colonies in the belt are not exactly communicative, neither is the splice colony. The splices haven't contacted us in a year.

“We know this. It is critical to our futures. The off-world population still needs resources from Earth. We can only produce about half of our minimum food supply ourselves. There is still a considerable trade between Earth and off-world just in food alone.”

“We also need to recover more fabrication hardware from Earth. The lack of heavier equipment limited our production capabilities. Ministry efforts stopped the last three reclamation missions by the Coalition. In one incident, they even destroyed one of our lift ships.”

Akira then turned to the monitor again. She waved her hand and a new image flashed onto the screen. It was Richard Debay. They took the video while he was on the lift ship. There were two Marines feeding him protein bars. He was eating them like a starving man. Maybe he was.

Then his voice came off the screen. He sounded more energetic than when we picked him up on the battlefield. His eyes were more alive, as though he finally understood he was free of the Ministry.

“--- you know, they really HATE all of you. They never stop talking about it. They call you ‘The Great Satan’, the minions of Hell, shit like that. It bugs them you can just fly down from out of nowhere and bomb whatever they’re doing. They just FUCKING hate all of you.”

They have intelligence, do not underestimate them. A plan is in place. They wouldn’t tell me anything about it, but they made it clear to me that what they had me doing was critical to it. If I didn’t do exactly what they wanted, they would kill me, find somebody else to do the work, to serve their Crusade.”

They possess lists of the technology they're seeking. They had me review their findings. The task assigned to me was to verify its proper functioning. I once asked them what they wanted some of this junk for. They beat the shit out of me for asking.”

“They’re moving a lot of their operations underground; I saw one of these facilities. They're aware that they're visible from space. Their plan is to conceal themselves deep underground, making it impossible to bomb. They’re building something, I don’t know what, but they think it’s going to change everything. I know this, the Ministry believes that if they can shut down your trade operations with Earth, they can starve you all.”

“They want to kill ALL of you.”

The screen froze. Richard had one of those god-awful protein bars in front of his face. Akira looked directly at me now. So did her aides. I felt like some sort of floodlight was being focused on me.

“Malley, we only learned about this in the last few hours. I have decided not to communicate this to the Coalition yet. I’m not even sure I trust the Coalition at this point.”

“It’s clear to me our survival is at stake.”

“I am going to ask you to do something for us, for the Guild.”

Description

Guild Intelligence!

Less than 24 hours ago, I piloted a dropship into battle, and then Maryetta Akira promoted me to captain. Now I was in some high security location, so high security they had to do a baffling scan of me, naked. Now they were talking about the spookiest group in the Guild, the intelligence service! On top of this, it was Akira telling me all this!

Two more guards now guided us to a door. It looked like some kind of vault door, just smaller, about the size of a standard airlock. These same guards then made each of us take another retinal scan. The bunch, Akira, her aides, all the people in this room, acted like this was just another day. Maybe for them it was.

They swung the new door open. There was a cracking sound to it, as though a seal was being broken. The guards acted quite gracious, they even seemed almost ceremonial about it. The four of us entered the new room. For all the drama leading up to this, the room seemed rather unimposing, even small. One table, the kind you find in any station cafeteria, six chairs, also the same you find in any station cafeteria. One large monitor was on the wall. As we arrived, we saw many large monitors displaying scrolling information and talking heads, which made the place chaotic.

Now, the one table, six chairs, one monitor. The walls were bare otherwise, the table empty, the lighting subdued, even dim. Just standard fluorescents above us. We went through several layers of security, about thirty armed guards, then this. It seemed like just another paradox in this whole unfolding story.

Akira waved for us to sit down; she seemed very casual about it. Her aides took their seats first. They seemed to watch me. Akira remained standing; her face now appeared a bit tired. She looked at the monitor for a moment; it was on but not showing anything, just a black field as though it was expecting to show us, showing me, something.

This was when Akira broke the silence.

“Captain Dakota, Malley, let me introduce you now to Midori and Sanja. Midori is my personal aide, and Sanja is my liaison with Guild Intelligence. You’ll excuse me not formally introducing you earlier, but there were reasons.”

Midori, the name made sense to me. She was short like me, looked like she had a Japanese background. Maybe she was from the Japanese colony near the Hyundai belt station? Sanja was harder to place, there was an odd feeling to her. I couldn’t place it. Both had their eyes intently on me, as though they were evaluating me.

Akira’s eyes darted to Sanja for a moment, then appeared a little surprised. She looked back to me.

"Malley, if it helps you, know that Sanja has empathic abilities that may make her scrutinize you. Try not to feel uncomfortable. Try to not let her scrutiny make you uncomfortable.”

I quickly glanced back at Sanja again. I swear she smiled at me just a fraction of a second, then her face returned to cold professionalism.

Akira finally sat down at the table. She no longer seemed quite like the legend. She now seemed to let the exhaustion in her reveal itself. Her voice no longer had the sound of command. She almost reminded me of my mother.

“Malley, welcome to the most secure location on the Moon. Please forgive all the security precautions. They are necessary.”

“What I am about to tell you, I would not ordinarily tell anybody other than somebody who needed to know it. By the end of this meeting, you have that need to know.”

“Midori, please don’t record this meeting. When we are done, I’ll need you to help me send a message back to the belt. We need to let the Guild know about the events here. Help them prepare, help them grieve our losses.”

“Sanja, remember this meeting. I want no formal record of it, but I am going to send you back to the belt. I want you to take measures to heighten the security there.”

They both nodded in acknowledgement, their expressions now otherwise blank.

“Malley, we have a security problem. I believe it might be a spy, maybe a turncoat, I’m not sure. I am also not sure if they’re within the Guild or the Coalition. In my heart, I don’t want to believe anyone in the Guild would betray us. Though I must be open to the possibility.”

“What just happened on Earth, the battle, was likely proof that the Ministry was aware of our coming attack. The railgun was not there in earlier intelligence reports. Neither were the reinforced positions or the additional garrison. I cannot be certain, but in my gut, I know the Ministry has compromised either our security or Coalition security.”

Akira then waved her right hand towards the wall monitor. It came to life showing the interface of an audio program. Then a message played. It was the voice of a man during a diatribe. You could hear anger, hate in his voice. It made me physically uncomfortable to hear it.

“The Ministry lacks many of the technological advantages that we have. They don’t have a meaningful lift capability yet. The official Coalition policy has been one of containment; we prevent them from leaving the planet. The Coalition has destroyed anything that looks like a launch facility. They have killed many Ministry people, military and civilian, with these strike operations.”

“The Ministry is perfectly aware of their technological deficits. They have learned to use other technologies to further their cause. What you just heard was an FM radio broadcast. They use this old method to talk to their people, get new followers, and send messages to their spies. Our analysts believe that they have detected coded messages. They could not crack them.”

“Malley, are you familiar with the Strip?”

I didn’t know how anybody couldn’t be familiar with the Strip. When the Disaster of 2200 had taken place, there was a massive migration of refugees from the west, the areas nearest the caldera and in the ashfall regions. They all moved towards the East coast of the North American continent. Seismic activity tore apart many population centers on the Eastern coast and caused the loss and flooding of enormous areas. The refugees came all the same, tens of millions of them. They built new cities from the rubble. We provided them help, traded with them. There were three large space ports along the Strip. I had piloted into all of them. I’d spent time in these communities.

I followed the lead of Midori and Sanja, nodding my acknowledgement. Akira continued.

“We have been trying to figure out how the Ministry could infiltrate their people into Coalition, maybe even Guild, operations?”

“I think it was through the Strip. The security in the cities on the Strip is porous. We even have some intelligence showing cooperation between certain groups there with the Ministry.”

“Nobody really knows how many people live on the Strip. Some people say it’s as high as one hundred million. The strip's frontier is fortified to resist the Ministry and the warlords in the wastelands beyond it. Most of the people estimate that around one hundred million people live in the Strip.

“We need, the Guild needs, to find those Ministry assets within the Strip. We need to find them and eliminate them. Do this before they can cause us more harm.”

Akira looked at the floor. She was silent, as though pondering her words. She then took a deep breath and began speaking again.

"Malley, you are going to be informed of highly classified information. This is necessary for you to fully understand what I am going to ask of you." I’ve decided you need to know these if you are going to fully understand what I am going to ask of you.”

“Right now, we estimate the population off-world, in the belt, Luna, Mars, the orbital stations, at about five million. We can’t be completely certain. The rogue colonies in the belt are not exactly communicative, neither is the splice colony. The splices haven't contacted us in a year.

“We know this. It is critical to our futures. The off-world population still needs resources from Earth. We can only produce about half of our minimum food supply ourselves. There is still a considerable trade between Earth and off-world just in food alone.”

“We also need to recover more fabrication hardware from Earth. The lack of heavier equipment limited our production capabilities. Ministry efforts stopped the last three reclamation missions by the Coalition. In one incident, they even destroyed one of our lift ships.”

Akira then turned to the monitor again. She waved her hand and a new image flashed onto the screen. It was Richard Debay. They took the video while he was on the lift ship. There were two Marines feeding him protein bars. He was eating them like a starving man. Maybe he was.

Then his voice came off the screen. He sounded more energetic than when we picked him up on the battlefield. His eyes were more alive, as though he finally understood he was free of the Ministry.

“--- you know, they really HATE all of you. They never stop talking about it. They call you ‘The Great Satan’, the minions of Hell, shit like that. It bugs them you can just fly down from out of nowhere and bomb whatever they’re doing. They just FUCKING hate all of you.”

They have intelligence, do not underestimate them. A plan is in place. They wouldn’t tell me anything about it, but they made it clear to me that what they had me doing was critical to it. If I didn’t do exactly what they wanted, they would kill me, find somebody else to do the work, to serve their Crusade.”

They possess lists of the technology they're seeking. They had me review their findings. The task assigned to me was to verify its proper functioning. I once asked them what they wanted some of this junk for. They beat the shit out of me for asking.”

“They’re moving a lot of their operations underground; I saw one of these facilities. They're aware that they're visible from space. Their plan is to conceal themselves deep underground, making it impossible to bomb. They’re building something, I don’t know what, but they think it’s going to change everything. I know this, the Ministry believes that if they can shut down your trade operations with Earth, they can starve you all.”

“They want to kill ALL of you.”

The screen froze. Richard had one of those god-awful protein bars in front of his face. Akira looked directly at me now. So did her aides. I felt like some sort of floodlight was being focused on me.

“Malley, we only learned about this in the last few hours. I have decided not to communicate this to the Coalition yet. I’m not even sure I trust the Coalition at this point.”

“It’s clear to me our survival is at stake.”

“I am going to ask you to do something for us, for the Guild.”