Tales from the Service: Guest of the Bureau

2950-01-11 – Tales from the Service: Guest of the Bureau 

Nojus here. Duncan and I are well, which most of you know, since there wasn’t much of a fight at Hallman three days ago. Nate’s ships formed up as if to give Fifth Fleet a proper fight, then more or less scattered and ran. Fifth Fleet destroyers running ahead of the main fleet body caught a couple of haulers they were using to carry supplies, but none of their cruisers or large support ships were placed in any real danger.  

With the last of the Incarnation ships in the system being a few lurkers poking around the edges of the stellar grav shadow, it seems the threat to Berkant is pretty much dealt with. What the bastards expected to accomplish here is still a mystery, but whatever it is, I rather doubt things went according to their plan. 

As for Hallman itself, the Incarnation seems to have done extensive building work on the surface, but from orbit it all appears deserted, with no-one answering broadcasts. Admiral Zahariev has not authorized a landing party yet, suspecting a trap, and does not even trust the place enough to leave major fleet units in orbit around the moon. 

Despite the anticlimax, everyone here aboard Saint-Lô is in high spirits, and I can’t say I blame them; this is the first time Nate has been prevented from conquering a Frontier world. 

As per Duncan’s instructions (which were likely governed by Naval Intelligence requests), we’ll be continuing with another section from Duana’s account, whose odd provenance was discussed last week. I’m not sure how Naval Intelligence wants the public to think of its subsidiary bureau’s methods by the release of this material, but I will say from the feedback we’re getting that this is not exactly going to paint the Bureau of Counter-Intelligence in happy pastels. 

“Good evening, Mr. Cole.” 

The man with the bag over his head jerked upright, his muscles straining against the bonds that tied him to his chair and the bolts that affixed the chair to the deck.  

Duana smiled. Unlike many Ladeonist radicals, K.B. Cole had only the power of human muscles at his disposal, so neither the bonds nor the bolts were in any danger. To be sure, Cole’s large frame and bulging arms were quite impressive, but the limits of human biology still fell far short of tearing steel. 

Though she couldn’t see Cole’s face, Duana could easily guess the things that were going through his mind. He probably remembered little of his abrupt extraction from the club; most likely, the last thing he remembered was being serviced by one of the establishment’s resident women of ill repute. Every moment she left him in silence, he was piecing more of the picture together.  

“Sorry, miss.” The voice muffled by the man’s head-sack trembled with an almost effeminate tone at odds with K.B. Cole’s size. “Are you t-talking to me?” 

The act was good, and it might even have been convincing, had Duana’s associates not already identified K.B. Cole from archived biometric data filed during one of his stints in a Galactic West penal colony. That the screening interviewer at the local Naval design bureau had been fooled by his gentle-giant idiot savant act was almost forgivable, given that Cole was a borderline genius with several psychopathic traits and driven by the impossible utopian fables of Adris Ladeon. 

Unfortunately for Cole, though he was a human male, and Duana knew how to deal with those, Ladeonist radicals or otherwise. “Come now. I’ve been following your activities for some time now, and I must say, you know how to impress a girl.” 

“I’m n-not sure I-” 

“Mr. Cole, we have you on the whole scheme.” Duana stepped away from the door, letting her favorite pair of interrogation heels click on the metal floor of the holding cell. “It was really quite impressive. Do you know how rarely anyone gets a full day’s head-start on us?” 

Something in the big man’s posture changed; his shoulders rose a little, and his back straightened. When he spoke again, it wasn’t with the timorous gentle-giant voice. Cole’s new tone was a low, pleasant baritone oddly similar to that used by narrators and paramours in romance holo-dramas. “I was hoping it would be thirty-six hours at least.” 

This too was an act, Duana recognized, but it was one she could work with. Ladeonists, as a creed with no sense of universal truth and a well-earned social stigma, often found themselves moving through the rest of Reach society by slipping from one assumed character to another. Someone like Cole had probably long since forgotten who he really was, so it was a waste of time trying to make him drop the act entirely. 

“If there wasn’t a war on, it would have been.” Duana paced around the bound man, spiraling closer. “But if there wasn’t a war on, where would you find an enemy agent to sell those plans to?” 

“If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. You can’t stop what’s coming.” 

Duana had heard the theme of inevitability, of history leading inexorably toward the future dreamed of the Ladeonists, far too many times from far less competent people, to believe a bit of it. If humankind had a foreordained destiny, it wasn’t to turn to Ladeonism, but she was only too happy to seem sympathetic if it got Cole to talk.  

“Of course I can’t change history. I’m just one little spider sitting in the middle of one little web. But do you know what I can change? What happens to the flies that get themselves caught. If you’re right, it doesn’t matter one bit whether you tell me what I want, except that it makes the rest of your life a lot better.” 

Cole’s bagged head turned left and right as he tried to face Duana, who was now directly behind him. “Better how?” 

“Longer, for one. A lot longer.” Duana reached out and put one hand on the big man’s forearm. He flinched away from the touch, and Duana didn’t doubt that if he could free his hands, he’d have snapped her neck without a second thought. “I can think of a few other ways, if you can keep up your end of the bargain. 

Cole remained silent for several seconds. A man as smart as he was could certainly tell that Duana was only manipulating him, but he could probably also guess at the miserable and short future that waited for an uncooperative Ladeonist agent in her custody. At length, he sighed. “Tell me what you want to know, take the sack off my head, and I’ll consider it.” 

Duana chuckled, using that throaty tone she’d found highly distracting to most men. “Do your considering first. I’ll be back later.” With that, she walked past him to the doorway leading out of the cell. 

“What-” 

Duana snapped her fingers, and the rest of Cole’s shouted question was lost as a soundproof gravitic shear-barrier leapt into existence in the archway behind her. Just as easily as she had separated herself from the man, she put him out of her mind. After all, he’d be right where she had left him in the morning. 

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Tales from the Service: Cut Loose from the Bureau

2950-01-18 – Tales from the Service: Cut Loose from the Bureau

“This is ridiculous.” Duana tossed the doc-pad back onto the desk. “He pulled thirty segments of military secrets, and nearly sold them to Nate. Now you’re going to just let him go free?” 

The Director shook his head. “Mr. Cole is no longer a threat to Confederated security. We can take to a magistrate, especially after your, err... preferred methods to bring him in scared away several potential witnesses.” 

Duana scowled. “What we did at that nest of degenerates was send a message.” 

“Indeed. And that message came at the cost of convicting Cole, since he’s not willing to incriminate himself or roll over on his Incarnation contact. We may only hope that it was worth it.” 

Duana, recognized the rebuke, blanked her face and nodded sharply, though inside she bristled. He wasn’t the one risking his life walking into scum-warrens looking for the worst elements of society’s dark underbelly, the kind so corrupted of body and mind that they would side with the Incarnation’s grim, technologically-enforced conformity. The Director sat in his office high in the Bureau’s local headquarters, seeing to his teams’ logistics and administration needs that, while important, promised far less peril. If he had ever been a field operative, it had been decades ago, long before the Incarnation’s cybernetically-enhanced super-spies and their legion of Ladeonist lackeys had come onto the scene. 

“At least give me another few days with him. I can make him talk.” 

“You have had him prisoner for eight local days. That’s one longer than we are allowed to hold anyone by law already. Cut him loose. Send someone to follow him and make sure he stays out of trouble for a few days if you absolutely must.” 

Duana opened her mouth to protest that the first of those “days” was the thirty-seven minutes between time of capture and local midnight, but shut it again without saying anything. Local law, and thus the Director, did not care about these details. That Cole had refused to cooperate under a whole week’s interrogation was embarrassing enough, especially since Duana had a reputation for breaking or doubling most of her prisoners in forty-eight hours or less, and Cole’s resilience was already beginning to eat away at her undisputed top-operative spot in the Bureau’s local pecking order. 

At last, Duana gritted her teeth and nodded again, picking back up the doc-pad. “Understood. I’ll put him back on the street.” 

With a wave, the Director dismissed Duana. As she left his office, she glared at the primly-suited men in the anteroom who would probably be the boss’s next appointment. They had the look of political messengers, not anti-espionage operatives, and she could only conclude that they were from the planetary administration, bearing yet another spurious complaint about the Bureau. Perhaps, she grimly mused, they’d have more complaints if the Bureau were to simply pack up and leave the world to the saboteurs, insurgents, Ladeonist terror cells, and psychotic opportunists that her “message” at the nightclub had reached. 

At the cell block, Duana’s glare stifled the good-humored grin of the duty officer. The duration and lack of success of her interrogation of K.B. Cole had long since become a whispered joke among the guards, and normally she would not have minded the banter. Now, though, having to admit defeat, she was in no mood for humor. 

“Get me some restraints and call me an aircar.” Duana handed the Director’s doc-pad to the duty officer. “We’re cutting Cole loose.” 

“Loose? Isn’t he dangerous?” The man picked up the device and flicked through its text briefly. 

“Extremely. But he’s becoming a waste of Bureau resources.” This was easier to say than that she’d failed to break him for so long that he was becoming a legal and political liability. “He’s a true believer, but at least he’s smart enough to lie low for a while before trying anything again.” 

The officer tossed Duana a case containing hand and foot restraints, then put a hand to his earpiece to summon an aircar from the annex’s motor pool. Duana didn’t bother to wait; she flagged down two of the other guards and marched into the cell block to Cole’s cell. After making sure the guards had weapons drawn, she killed the gravitic shear-barrier and walked inside. 

“Is that you again, Miss?” Cole’s voice was calm, though a bit muffled from the sack covering his head. He was allowed to remove it only three times per day, and never when Duana or the other field agents were present, but that never seemed to disorient or distress him. “You’re wearing different shoes.” 

Duana scowled; she hadn’t bothered to change into the interrogation heels that clicked so resoundingly against the metal plating floor in the cell block. “Wouldn’t want to get those dirty, would I?” 

“There’s no dirt in here unless you brought it, love.” Cole rolled his shoulders. “Where are we going?” 

The burly man’s perceptiveness had long since ceased to surprise Duana. “For a ride. If you’re a good boy, you might not even get out until the end.” She opened the case and approached Cole’s sturdy metal chair, verifying that all his existing restraints were still intact before getting within arm’s reach. 

“Haven’t I always been a model guest?” The note of triumph in the man’s voice told Duana he suspected he was going to be released. Undoubtedly, he’d detected in her tone some of the defeat she felt. 

Duana flicked the restraint cuffs onto Cole’s wrists and ankles, where they automatically tightened. Though not physically linked by a chain or cable, the restraints would prevent him from moving his hands or feet more than thirty centimeters apart or moving any of his limbs quickly enough to land a blow. Still, she stepped back and drew her stun-wand before disengaging his chair restraints; Cole outweighed her by almost three to one, and she didn’t want to give him any openings. 

As the cuffs bolted to the chair clicked open, Cole stood slowly, flexing his limbs and rolling his still-bagged head from side to side. “You know, I’m going to miss this place a little bit.” He took one hesitant step, hobbled by the restraints. “But really, I’m going to miss our little talks.” 

Duana stepped backwards into the doorway, where the two guards she’d left there flanked her. “Is that so.” 

Cole, following Duana’s voice, walked slowly forward. Though she couldn’t see his face, she was certain he was smiling. “Maybe you don’t know it now, but so will you.” 

 

Nojus here. As the dust here at Berkant continues to settle, this week we continue to provide passages from the account sent to us by Naval Intelligence about the activities of its subsidiary agency. Despite us warning our contacts that the audience reaction to these entries has been mixed at best (in terms of positive reactions to the described activities of the Bureau), they have urged us to keep publishing selections from the extensive documents they’ve given us. 

Duncan and I have discussed why Naval Intelligence would push us to keep publishing stories that paint Bureau operatives as gung-ho and barely constrained by legal niceties, if at all. We don’t have any good theories, except perhaps that this is, just like Duana’s raid, a way to send a message to a certain crowd. If that’s the case, then whatever that message is, it’s probably not a friendly one. 

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Tales from the Service: Victorious over the Bureau

2950-01-25 - Tales from the Service: Victorious over the Bureau 

The post-Incarnation-departure situation here at Berkant has provoked quite a bit of datasphere curiosity. Admiral Zahariev’s staff has not issued a major media release since their announcement of the Incarnation fleet’s withdrawal, leaving most observers to speculate wildly as to what “Nate” was actually doing here. 

While I cannot offer any answers, the Admiral’s people have allowed me to spend a few days on the surface of Hallman in recent weeks, following in the footsteps of the ground troops and the investigative teams who have been picking their way through the remains of the Incarnation base there. 

Despite all the fears of the local Marine commanders, the extensive planet-side installations on Hallman were all but deserted when the Marines arrived. The only personnel still here were a few hundred construction technicians and a few dozen guards, and these few retreated into a local cave network as soon as the Marines landed in force. Only a few of these have been killed or captured since, but they have caused little trouble to Confederated troops. 

The facility itself was definitely intended to be a fortress, though it remains incomplete. According to the Naval Intelligence analysts I’ve spoken with who have analyzed its layout, it was probably intended to house enough surface-launch missile batteries to repel all but the heaviest fleet assaults, but none of the equipment or personnel meant to occupy the bunkers, magazines, revetments, and watchtowers of these battery sites arrived by the time of the Incarnation withdrawal. 

All of these answers to the question of what the groundside facility is do not however explain what the Incarnation was doing here. They couldn’t have expected to complete, staff, and equip a fortress like this even in twice the time they were in-system, and it seems quite unlike them to start an undertaking of this magnitude with no real hope of having the time to complete it. My analyst contacts have indicated that this might indicate dissension in the previously monolithic Incarnation military institution, where one faction kicked off the Berkant expedition and another sabotaged its next stages (whatever they might have been) by starving it of necessary supplies or ships. 

Most likely, the leader of the construction unit stranded here could shed more light on the situation, but this officer (the equivalent of a captain) is still hiding in the caverns below the facility with the rest of his personnel. Only a few stragglers from this group have been captured or killed so far. 

I am trying to get an interview with one of the captives taken here, but in the meantime, here is the final snippet I culled from the account of the Bureau of Counter-Intelligence agent who bears the pseudonym Duana. 

Once the prisoner had been loaded into the rear cabin of one of the Bureau’s unmarked prisoner-transport aircars, Duana dismissed the guards, preferring to do the ignominious deed herself. That such a determined malefactor as K.B. Cole was going to go free still didn’t sit well with her, but the Director’s word was law to anyone who wanted to keep their job as a Bureau field agent. 

The cameras in the rear compartment showed Cole struggling to remove the black bag over his head as Duana got into the pilot’s seat. If the big man was disappointed by the simple grey and black polymer of the padded bench and cabin walls, he didn’t show it; he merely stretched out as far as his confines and restraints would allow. 

Duana requested takeoff clearance from the annex flight control system, then flicked on the intercom. “Don’t get too comfortable back there, Mr. Cole. We’ll be in motion shortly.” 

The man opened his eyes, and Duana couldn’t help but shiver as those cold orbs locked onto the camera lens. “It’s not your fault, you know.” 

“What’s that?” Duana saw the indicator on the board go green, so she twisted the controls to lift the aircar off its landing pad. After waiting a moment for the landing gear to retract, she brought the nose up and locked it on an intercept course for the nearest arterial airway. 

“That all our talks didn’t go where you wanted them to.” Cole tried to look out one of the windows, but the opaque material prevented all but the most diffuse light from entering. “You really are quite persuasive, though perhaps not as frightening as you would like to believe.” 

Duana scowled; she shouldn’t have cared about the miscreant’s opinion, but for some reason, she found that she did. “Our mistake was trying to treat you like the rest. I should have just sent you back to Kahler.” 

At the mention of the prison colony where he’d spent several years, Cole’s muscles tensed, and his calm demeanor darkened. “Perhaps you should have. It would have been better for your professional reputation, hmm?” 

Duana briefly wondered what clue had led the man to this accurate assessment, glad Cole couldn’t see her. “You know how hindsight is. Maybe next time.” 

Cole smiled. “There will not be a next time. Of that, I am quite certain.” 

Duana wondered if his certainty stemmed from his desire to avoid doing anything worthy of Bureau attention in the future, or from his desire to avoid being caught the next time. Either way, she somehow doubted that the BCI file on K.B. Cole would be shut for long when she left him standing by the side of the street in the evening gloom. 

The aircar merged into the main traffic airway, and Duana left its controls on automatic while she scanned the city map for a good place to leave her departing prisoner. In the end, she settled on leaving him exactly where she’d found him. The club that her team had pulled Cole from had long since repaired its damaged wall and resumed normal operations, and perhaps leaving Cole near such a convenient source of harmless dissipations, she could delay the hatching of his next scheme. 

“It has been quite the interesting stay, you know.” Cole broke the lengthening silence. “I really think all the time alone with my thoughts between our talks has done me good.” 

Duana didn’t know what to make of this observation, but did know that Cole and other high-intellect Ladeonists loved to plant seeds of doubt and suspicion, hoping that these would keep slower-thinking opponents busy. “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” Duana pulled the aircar out of the airway and took it down toward the smoky haze covering the city’s seedy southern sprawl. 

Cole chuckled. “By the way, where are you going to drop me?” 

“Right where we found you. We’re not a taxi service, after all.”  

“You’re not going to drop me in the river or some inconvenient place?” 

Technically, Duana could have done just that – and she had done in the past for lesser captives being released – but she had decided it wasn’t worth the risk of irritating a man like Cole. “That sounds like a waste of both of our time.” 

“Thank you.” 

As the aircar weaved between the buildings, descending toward street level, Cole sat up straight and tried to stretch his shoulders as much as possible within the limits set by his restraints. Duana’s hand hovered over the restraint release control until she felt the landing gear begin to deploy, then she pressed it. 

As the cuffs fell from Cole’s wrists and ankles, Duana keyed the intercom again. “Exit on the right, Mr. Cole. And do stay out of trouble.” 

“I hope to do so, Miss.” 

The aircar touched down with a bump, and Cole reached for the door controls, only to find the door swinging up and out of his way of its own accord.  

As soon as he’d clambered out, Duana pulled the aircar back into the air, ignoring the piqued whine of the alarm as the car closed the door once more. A quick glance at the rear camera showed Cole standing on the street, watching her departure until the sooty haze swallowed him up. Duana hoped that was the last she or any BCI operative ever saw of K.B. Cole, but she doubted that her agency would be quite so lucky. 

 

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Tales from the Service: The Hunt in the Tunnels

2949-12-28 – Tales from the Service: The Hunt in the Tunnels 

Since the few prisoners taken here at Hallman remain under heavy guard and Naval Intelligence scrutiny, it looks less and less likely that I am going to get access to interview any of them before the fleet returns to Maribel sometime in the next few days. Fortunately, one of the brave Marines who have been hunting the Incarnation holdouts in the natural caves that riddle the local rock strata found me and agreed to sit down and talk about his experiences on Hallman so far. 

This Marine, Corporal Bozidar “Boz” Rosenfeld of the Tenth Recon Batallion was only too happy for me to use his real name in this account. 

Though there is a little left of the account of Duana that was sent to us, it does not pertain to the same suspect or plot. I’ve decided that this feed has used more than enough of its weekly space on this account. 

“Boz, you got anything yet?” 

Boz Rosenfeld made sure to mute his helmet microphone before groaning. If he’d found anything, he would have radioed it, and Lieutenant Arjuna knew that perfectly well. If the platoon’s leader was checking in on him, it signaled impatience. The real question was, did that impatience originate in the Lieutenant’s own balding dome, or had it flowed down the chain from on high. 

“Sir, nothing definite. We’ve found a few places they’ve been through, but the bastards have cut so many cross-tunnels down here that we could wander for weeks.” Arjuna knew all this, too; this was Boz’s way of determining whose impatience he was dealing with. 

“Acknowledged. Let me know if anything changes.” 

Boz muted his microphone again and cursed under his breath. Had Arjuna been alone in his impatience, he would have chewed Boz out for telling him things he already knew; the abrupt answer told the corporal that a higher officer had come down into the caverns to check on the progress of the platoon’s search. Major Gorov – or, stars around, possibly even someone higher up – had heard his report, as useless as it was. Either someone had realized that Company D simply didn’t have the manpower to comb the entire cave network, or someone was looking for a scapegoat, and Boz didn’t want to be a scapegoat. 

“What was that all about?” MacGowan nudged Boz’s shoulder. 

“Someone upstairs is getting antsy.” Boz pointed toward the intersection where the other two members of the fireteam were crouching to peer at the silty sand, looking for boot-prints. “We find something?” In the tight confines of the caves, the Marines had left their heavy armor-suits behind; their much lighter environment suits clung to their broad-shouldered frames, providing much less protection and firepower, but much more close-quarters maneuverability. 

“Waste of time. Just waiting on you, Corporal.” MacGowan hefted his heavy railgun to his shoulder. “If anyone asks me, we should just seal-” 

Boz saw movement in one of the narrow side-passages branching off the intersection and tackled MacGowan into the cover provided by a knobby rock formation. There was a shout of alarm, then the rattle of automatic railshot and the intermittent snapping of laser pulses filled the cavern air.  

Boz brought up his carbine and peeked out from behind cover, but by the time he did, it was all over. Moralez and Feng were pressed up against the undulating walls, their weapons steaming, and several scorch-marks on the rocks added their trails of smoke to a fresh haze of rock dust. 

“Damned Nate.” Feng shouted, evidently forgetting for the moment that the caverns echoed any sound for miles. “Must have been three or four of them, Boz.” 

Boz tunred to check MacGowan, and as he did, he saw the blackened scorch-mark on the wall behind where the other man had been standing. 

MacGowan, clutching the left arm where he’d received a glancing laser strike to his suit’s ablative coating, shook his head when Boz reached over to inspect it. “I’m all right. Thanks, Boz.” 

Moralez peeked out into the intersection, but seemed not to see anything. “They’re gone.” 

“Probably not far.” Boz helped MacGowan up, then activated his comms microphone. “Lieutenant, we just ran into a small patrol. Dropping a place beacon. We’re going to try to follow them.” 

“Understood, Corporal.” 

As soon as Boz had ended his communication, Feng cleared his throat. “That’s damned insane. Those bastards know the tunnels better than we do. They’ll lead us into a trap.” 

“I know. Which way did they go?” 

Feng pointed down one of the narrower passages, so narrow they would need to travel single file. “They ran through the intersection and went that way.” 

Boz nodded, then produced a metal spike from his tool belt. “Fix your HUDs on this place beacon.” He switched the device on, then set it on the floor, where it quickly sprouted spindly legs and augured its bottom half in the rock. “We’ll go that way for about two hundred meters, then hook left and try to stay within three hundred meters of the beacon. If we get split up, home in on the beacon.” 

For a moment, none of the other Marines understood Boz’s plan; all they saw was him pointing in a direction almost perpendicular to the one the Nate troops had fled. One by one, though, they all seemed to get it, and none of them wanted to speak it aloud in case the echoes carried. 

As soon as he saw in their eyes that his whole team understood him, Boz started down the tunnel he’d pointed to at a stiff jog. “Come on, before we lose them.” 

MacGowan, Feng, and Moralez fell into step behind him. 

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