Chapter 141: [ Book 2 ] Chapter 1: Covert Ops

The passenger padded through the station, wondering if he would leave there alive. It was a valid thought given what he was about to do.

He navigated through the light foot traffic, doing his best to blend in.

He had no training in tradecraft, so he took care to follow all the instructions his Acculturation contact had provided. He’d performed the steps to alter his appearance; a few bio-mod injections in his cheeks and forehead to throw off facial recognition, shortening and dyeing his tendrils, new clothing and luggage, and purchasing a PD interface purchased at every stop.

Now, he looked like a business executive who wasn’t powerful enough to warrant a band of assistants. Or a long-serving official of a noble house out on an official errand. A person who didn’t wield power but held influence with those who did. It gave him enough gravitas to be left alone by noisy admins, hustlers, and criminals alike.

The reality of his status was far different.

Though of noble heritage, he was neither an executive nor an official. He served beneath the gospel of science to better the entirety of the Pree race. He’d worked his whole adult life to earn his credentials as a chief researcher for the Ministry of Science.

The impact of their work had profound consequences for billions of their kind. But he knew no fame among the general population or even the noble class. That was reserved for the ministers whose noble blood allowed them to hold the seats of power and soak up the credit of those doing the work beneath them.

But the passenger was well known by those who mattered, those who made the real advancements. He achieved his dream, working among the elite to advance their kind, only to watch it come to a bitter and tragic end. His turn to defector would earn the scorn of his peers and a death sentence from the Theocracy.

For what he had a hand in creating, he deserved it.

He stopped at a food vendor, grabbing a meal to go. The offering was rather bland, but it didn’t bother him. He needed nourishment, his fugitive status having left him physically and mentally deficient. He bit into the nutrition bar—manufactured with a medium-grade texture that was pleasant to chew. As he stepped away, a Human purchased the same offering the defector had selected.

The fleeting moment of everyday life reminded the defector of his part in creating one of the greatest advancements to bless his people: the Pree nanite formulation.

When the Commonwealth’s interim charter was granted to the Pree people almost twenty years prior, he was the one who spearheaded the effort in collaboration with Commonwealth scientists. The nanotechnology project was essential to their strategy for enabling galactic peace and prosperity. Relations between the class one races had enough propensity for hostility without the threat of pathogens and resource scarcity causing additional strife.

With the distribution of race-specific nanites, these pressure points could be eased. Nutritional sources—such as his bland bar—could be made compatible with as many of the different biologies as possible. A common cold affecting the thick-bodied lumbering Ghupto wouldn’t decimate a population of feathered, hollow-boned Eviuns. Artificial environments were designed to provide maximum compatibility to their occupants.

The nanite program was a stunning example of successful cooperation between the races.

Too bad the Theocracy had to go and ruin it with nefarious intentions.

The spirit-crushing truth was he was one of the few scientists who granted them the capability to enact their grand scheme: cement their place in power by nullifying the Commonwealth charter. All it required was a majority vote against ratification by the ministers and regents, the leaders of their government.

For too long both the Commonwealth and the Theocracy had ignored dealing with the issue even as support for ratification grew. With the population split on the matter, a surefire path to victory was needed.

That path lay in Project Fidelity.

The Imperatrix himself came to the top researchers of the Ministry of Science with his noble secrets and grand vision for the future of the Pree. A future without the Commonwealth meddling in their affairs and corrupting their culture. That was where Cosmogenic came in.

The defector knew of the anti-Commonwealth organization as whispers and ghosts until they came into the good graces of the Imperatrix. United around a common cause, Cosmogenic and the Theocracy combined their resources to create Project Fidelity. The defector was all for it, understanding how what he was doing was all for the greater good of their race.

To have had a spirit-altering awakening while testing his own creation was the most unexpected twist of fate in his life: he’d been profoundly wrong in the stance he’d taken. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t fix it. He would seek atonement from the spirits, or die trying.

His plan had been in the works for two cycles. He nearly cracked from the pressure—almost revealing his intentions to his fellow researchers. But by the grace of the Spirits, he managed to smuggle the secrets of Project Fidelity out of the converted cargo hauler operating in an unpopulated system twenty lightyears and two displacements away.

Now, he carried the most dangerous creation in the entire known galaxy in his possession. A secret so consequential that its public release would have catastrophic consequences; the subversion of the Commonwealth’s entire nanite program. The resulting distrust and outrage would see the newly-intertwined galactic community shift away from compatible resources. Tensions between the various governments would ignite conflicts and even all-out wars as they succumbed to fear and greed.

The devastation would be unimaginable.

The battle had to be fought and won behind the scenes. Foiling the Theocracy’s lust for power over the Pree race was only part of the motivation. The Commonwealth must be informed of the flaws in their program so the same exploit could never happen again.

As high as the consequences were, so was the defector’s conviction that he was in the right. The true purpose of his life had never been so definitive; save his race from eternal domination.

That would be his greatest work.

All he needed to do was deliver the package to the Acculturation courier and see them off Sanctum. Simpler said than done when the Theocracy had sent Cosmogenic operatives after him.

A notification appeared on his PD. He pretended to check the wall displays for the latest news and docking schedule updates. In reality, he scanned for nearby threats. Only a scattering of civilians and a maintenance bot were in sight.

Sensing he was in the clear, he opened the secureComm message.

“The couriers are due to arrive in: <03:21:03> hours. Contact them via the secureComm included in this message to arrange a delivery location.”

His Acculturation contact had arranged this meet for him. It was born out of desperation; the time to stop the Theocracy’s scheme had run unexpectedly short. He’d already made the necessary preparations and was able to leave when the time came, but the courier was not yet in place. His handler had to scramble to find one.

Within hours, the defector will have completed his quest. The contact assured him once the package was in the courier’s possession, it would be safe. The defector wasn’t convinced but had no choice other than to trust the contact’s word.

Finishing his meal, the defector deposited the recyclable container in a chute, and continued on his way. He spotted a small media store, considered stopping to browse, then thought better of it. He needed time to scout a discrete location to meet the courier.

As he passed the store, he failed to notice a man discretely twist his head in the direction of the Pree, watching the defector walk by.

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Carnen flipped through previews of various spy-genre vids, chuckling to himself at the presented scenarios.

The entertainment industry’s idea of tradecraft was laughably terrible. Opponents clad in spacesuits engaged in vicious hand-to-hand combat on spaceship hulls. Explosive gunfights tearing apart hotel lounges. Sleek spaceships jacked out of orbital dockyards. The seduction of multiple partners on every operation. Every operative was presented as a master at a multitude of skills—sniper, close-quarters combat, martial artist, systems tech, mechanic, diplomat, cultural anthropologist. They were strikingly beautiful, incredibly fit, intellectually superior, sexually provocative, and instinctually blessed.

Shades of truth were present among the tropes. Operatives needed to be high-performing individuals with enough intelligence, physical capability, and street smarts to stay alive.

But in his experience, the chief differentiator the most successful operatives possessed was one few outside the business would have guessed. Something that couldn’t necessarily be taught, equipped on the body, or artificially added with a bio-mod.

Patience.

The ability to act when the time was right. When an opportunity was presented. An opening appeared. A mistake was made.

It was a simple concept, yet in practice, few had the willpower to yield it successfully.

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The scope and scale of a trial could vary from a matter of seconds to a span of cycles. Taking an extra half-second to line up a shot on a gap in an enemy’s armor. Stalking across a swamp over days in order to attach trackers to containers of stolen military hardware. Waiting for a fortified encampment to run out of food and surrender. At times, it meant saving opportunities for another day. Like letting a warlord’s hit squad terrorize a settlement for multiple nights in order to track them back to their boss’s hidden location.

In Carnen’s case, it meant resisting the urge to apprehend the target as soon as the traitorous Pree scientist was spotted aboard Sanctum. Instead, his Cosmogenic and Preservationist covert ops teams would wait until the traitor met with his Acculturation courier to capture them all at once.

There were larger stakes at play, and patience would yield a greater reward. Recovering the stolen asset was of the utmost importance, but undermining the Acculturation movement was the greater goal. The intelligence yield from the courier’s interrogation would allow the Theocracy and their Preservationists to disrupt their Acculturation opponents at the critical moment before the charter ratification vote. As good as Acculturation had been at siloing their key members and operations, there were always weak points to exploit.

Carnen—Warden Actual to his teammates—would do everything in his power to find one.

His two subordinates on his Cosmogenic team—Kemp and Stevson—understood the bigger picture. Their Preservationist counterparts, not so much.

Carnen knew the Pree team was clouded by bloodlust. They wanted the traitor caught and punished for his betrayal of their race, and felt a natural resistance to anything which might jeopardize that. But they followed his orders, and he had no reason to believe they would counterman them.

The two teams had worked together since the destruction of Auturia. The new Imperatrix—unlike his deceased progenitor—was steadfastly against the charter and authorized the deployment of Cosmogenic advisory teams to take down Acculturation. Despite the repeated success of multiple covert ops teams, Acculturation still remained a formidable threat. But their time as a legitimate entity neared its end. Carnen would have a direct hand in that.

Much like his Pree counterparts on Sentinel team, Carnen had a personal interest in a successful outcome. Whereas they fought for determining the future of their race, he was motivated by something else. It went beyond simple career progression; the goal of pleasing his Cosmogenic superiors and rising in the ranks.

What drove him was something dark and primal. An opportunity he’d never thought possible: revenge against the construct that destroyed his life.

The Commonwealth.

It was hard to remember his previous life as a Human Coalition Marine. Patrolling trade routes. Running anti-piracy ops. Taking down raiding operations. He’d killed more variety of sentients than he could count on two hands. Despite the fantastical advancements of modern life among the stars, the ability to inflict his will on others was still the ultimate power. One which he found intoxicating, greater than any alterant he’d ever consumed. He’d chased it since he got his first taste at a young age as a gang enforcer on a distribution terminal. Military service allowed him to indulge it further.

He didn’t see it at the time, but it all came to a crashing halt when the HuCo caved to the Commonwealth and their Reconciliation.

His outrage at the decision, at the cowardice and placating behavior of Humanity’s leaders, couldn’t be suppressed, relieved, or medicated. A few less-than-cooperative traffickers ended up in body bags on his next operation. That incident led to his dishonorable discharge a few cycles later. If it hadn’t been for a sympathetic military judge, he would’ve faced a firing squad.

He’d given his whole adult life to the military. To be kicked aside as some suddenly-antiquated barbarian in a new era of galactic stability crushed him. Left him on the brink.

He’d taken so many lives, how ironic the last would be his own.

Had a drunken hobo not busted through his shoddy lodging door, Carnen would’ve pulled the trigger on his stolen service pistol and ended his own life. Instead, it was the hobo who no longer breathed.

From that moment on, Carnen had reinvented himself in the world of contracting. His path drifted along, seemingly rudderless at times, but always moving. Gaining momentum, feeding on his successes. What began as runoff from the melting snows of a mountaintop grew in volume until it formed a stream, became a tributary, then feed a mighty river. One job led to another and another—bodyguard, security lead, smuggler, assassin—until one day his reputation led to him sitting across from a Cosmogenic representative.

The rumors and ghost stories turned out to be true—someone was out there actively working against the Commonwealth and its supporters.

He didn’t need convincing to sign up.

Five years and counting he worked contracts on behalf of Cosmogenic. Undermining the Commonwealth one day at a time. The work gave him what he needed, opportunities to chase another taste of the ultimate power. And chase it he did. His teams found success, gathering intelligence, confiscating assets, sabotaging supporters, disappearing opposition figures.

Preparation and opportunity would collide when a high-priority op came in from his Cosmogenic superior; the joint ops team was to retrieve a stolen asset that could grant the Acculturation movement victory. Only he was read in on the truth; the asset was a tool to swing the charter ratification vote in favor of nullification.

The implication had smacked him across the face like an instructor at interrogation training school. Retrieving the asset and capturing the Acculturation courier would all but guarantee doom for the charter. The loss of which would be a massive blow to the legitimacy of the Commonwealth—even leading to their downfall—and a humiliating setback for their biggest supporter, the Human Coalition.

They dropped their deep space surveillance op and burned hard for Sanctum. It wasn’t as much preparation time as he would’ve liked, but they had to risk it. The reward was too valuable, the consequence of failure too severe. The teams would retrieve the asset one way or another, even if they had to shoot their way off the station.

He wondered if one day some producer would make a stylized vid about the operation that was about to occur.

Carnen’s PD noted a lone Pree approaching and placed an icon tracking on the overlay. The custom interface was packed with illegal surveillance and tracking mods. A pair of cams mounted on the interface compared the older male’s physical traits to those of the traitor, the data having been provided by the Theocracy. It wasn’t a match, but there were enough similarities to pique the operative’s attention. There was no doubt in his mind that the target had modified his appearance to avoid detection. He was smart and resourceful. He had to be to smuggle away the asset that he did.

The lone male passed by the store, but the operative’s eyes didn’t follow. He continued to browse the media but set his PD cam’s to track the Pree.

Warden Actual observed the stream in his overlay, watching the suspect’s every move. The Pree did his best to act natural and blend into the crowd. But the operative could see the tension in the Pree’s body. He was afraid, as the target should be. There would be no surviving the punishment the Theocracy would dole out for his betrayal. No legacy to live on. The scientist and all his achievements would be wiped from the history archives as if he never existed.

“Warden Actual to all teams, I have eyes on a suspect matching our target. He’s heading toward the administrative block. I will follow,” the operative informed his teams over their comm. He sent out the suspect’s profile data.

“Copy Warden Actual. Sentiel Actual has him in sight. I agree, he could be our target,” Sentinel Actual—the Preservationist team lead—said. “Warden Actual, have we received new intel on the courier?”

“Negative,” Carnen responded. As good as their intel had been so far, nothing had come through on who the courier was.

They would find out soon enough.

“Sentinel Actual to all teams. Remember, if the target detects any surveillance, you’re authorized to apprehend him,” the Sentinel team commander said.

The statement was unnecessary. The Cosmogenic team were pros, and the Preservationist team competent enough to avoid detection. The Pree team leader was simply voicing subtle disapproval of the plan. It stopped short of a direct challenge to Carnen’s authority but teetered on the edge of disrespect.

Carnen considered responding. Their Pree counterparts had proven capable in their short time working together. But they were still outsiders, reporting to their Preservationist superiors. It would take time for the two teams to fully trust one another.

When the charter was nullified by the upcoming vote, there would still be opposition to the Theocracy. Still a need for covert ops teams to round up dissidents, criminals, terrorists. Cosmogenic would fulfill this need, giving all the covert ops teams, including Warden and Sentiel, the opportunity to solidify that trust.

For now, Carnen said nothing. There would be another time and place for confrontation.

The operative waited then seconds before departing the store and casually following in the direction of the target.

Weaving through the crowd, he spotted the target before he disappeared around the bend in the corridor. On one side, a Pree stood at a small circular standing table bolted to the floor. Sentinel Actual, sipping from a thin mug. His eyes met Carnen’s for the briefest moment, then focused elsewhere.

Carnen continued past the other team leader. Past the administrative block was a stretch of commercial-zoned corridor. The other teams would continue to search for the target, but Carnen had a growing sense of satisfaction that he had the right person in sight.

He registered the sensation of the pistol in his under-shoulder holster and knew he’d find out soon enough.

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