Blood Vendetta (Semi-Closed)

[The Floridian Coast]

OOC: I'm basically bored as hell and looking for an RP with someone who wants to do this immediately. All I ask is you have basic RP skills and you write with complete sentences. First come first serve.

- It starts with an assassination and I need an adversary. Claim responsibility (not publicly, in the RP context) for whatever reason you find compelling.
- No full scale war, think of it more like an espionage drama with a good mix of violence and dialogue
- Use characters, one or a few, I don't want statements from nations


Background: High Premier Alexander Bryce is the very popular and well loved leader of The Floridian Coast, a geographically small but highly populated nation of seven semi-autonomous city states under the rule of the capital, New Clearwater. While The Floridian Coast are social democrats, the Bryce family has a status and respect that imitates royalty. He has two daughters, Larissa and Emily, and an adopted son, Aaron. They are all in their late teens and early twenties and all hold positions of power. Larissa Bryce is Senator on the high council from Solaria, a large Southern city-state of the Floridian Federation. She is giving a speech before a huge crowd in the courtyard of New Clearwater's Capitol on the growing power and influence of the Floridian Coast and the nation's future.

IC: "We have fully modernized, and expanded our grid of renewable energy to our rural constituents. And our cities shine with the light of progress brighter than ever. The modern world is not won by the arms race, but by the energy race, and we as Floridians shall be the leaders of the future!" Larissa was interrupted by thunderous applause and cheering. She smiled and was feeling relieved as her speech was going so well. She thought about the child inside her, and had hope that her family was at its best. She continued "Thank you all. It makes me proud to see you all out here, and in a way, I think that you are as much leaders as I am. We have brought this nation forth to its glory together. We are one." The crowd cheered once more louder than ever. She paused and looked down at her notes, it was time to wrap up the speech and get inside to her father, she had so much to tell him about.

And then, she felt that she had lost her sense of time. She was on the floor by the podium, shot three times in the chest. She felt no pain from the wounds, she realized with fading consciousness she was dying.

A gunman ran down the empty side of the plaza. Lightning Force guards shot him in the leg. Aaron, who was standing on the second floor balcony above, lept down. Before Lightning Force caught up with the man they had shot down, Aaron was on top of him. The assassin still had his gun in hand and aimed up at Aaron and shot. The bullet grazed Aaron's left hand. Aaron drew his ceremonial knife from its holster and plunged it into the assassin's neck. And then again, and again.

The crowd was in chaos and panic. Other officials on the stage had ran to Larissa and felt for a pulse, the found none. As police surrounded the assassin, they found the gunman with his head nearly severed off. A pool of blood formed around him. Aaron fell back crying, dropping his knife to the ground and ignoring his wounded hand. More gunshots were heard. Another man was running from Lightning Force, and seemed to have escaped.

[Transnapastain]

Johnston Simmins always felt at home in large crowds. He never understood how people could suffer from agoraphobia, how they could be afraid, or feel trapped, in social settings. To him, milling about in a large crowd was second nature. Becoming one with the atmosphere. Mao had written that a guerilla fighter, or a revolutionary should be but a single fish within a school, and while he had no love for Socialism, he had to admit that good ole Mao had a point.

Funny that he should have referenced communist teachings while operating within the Floridian Coast…they had socialism in abundance in their policies, and he was only somewhat worried it may be rubbing off on him. His faith in the Lord, whoever, kept him strong and virtuous amidst the sea of heathens he now lived and worked amongst.

He and his team had been placed in the Floridian Coast nearly six months prior to this day, their mission was to gauge the attitude of the populace towards religion, Christianity in particular, and the Church of God’s Will, official religion of Transnapastain, in specific. Having determined that the populace was not receptive to religious instruction, mainly through what was perceived as governmental influence and suppression of the peoples natural belief in a higher power, the teams primary concern switched to removing the influence which allowed the atheism to prevail.

This mission was not necessarily condoned by the government of Transnapastain. The Protectorate operated within, and outside of, Transnapastain and the Directorate, with some autonomy. The general attitude of the Protectorate’s leadership was to allow the secular government to worry about matters of state, whereas they would attend to matters of faith. Sometimes, though, defending ones faith required a proactive approach, and the nation of the Floridian Coast, in the eyes of the Protectorate, constituted a clear threat to a religious way of life.

He and his partner, William South, had been given coded instruction by their handler in country, that a high ranking and socially favored politician would be making a public appearance in front of the capital building, within the capital of New Clearwater. They’re instructions were simple; attend the speech, and eliminate the target if possible.

Security around the senator was tight, but not as tight as it could have been, regardless, the orders received from their hander had not indicated to Simmins that this mission was of such importance to the Protectorate as to require a suicidal action to carry out. There would be other chances.

As the speech approached a close, Simmins reached up to adjust the dark sunglasses he wore, brining the sleeve of his button down shirt across his mouth. Quietly, he keyed the UHF transmitter built into the sunglasses, and spoke into the microphone concealed in the button of his sleeve. The UHF bands were unlikely to be monitored, and the signal should fade into the background “noise” of any cities communications, regardless, the transmitter was only good for a couple of hundred feet. He spoke quietly

“Jackson, I say again, Jackson.” the code word for abort, he and William should now begin making their way out of the plaza. It gulled him that he and William had not been able to get close enough to the Senator to take her wretched , Godless, life, but, as he said, there would be other chances.

Unexpectedly , the ear bud in his ear cracked to life “Negative, I have a chance, and I shall take it.”Williams voice, faint and tinnish in his ear, declared. Apparently, William was a bit more gulled by the failure than he was.

“No.” he said, somewhat louder than the whisper he had intended. “There will be another day, abort” he said, as he moved up towards the front of the crowd, where William had stationed himself. Getting there had not been easy, and making progress through the crowd, even as the speech was winding down, was hard. The senator was beloved by her Godless people, and they flocked to see her and hear her words.

He had reached the midpoint of the crowd when he heard the shots. Three rapid reports from an unsurpressed pistol. The pistol, he know, would not be of Transnapastaini manufacture, but a generic model either purchased within the nation, or, more likely smuggled in. Though he could not see him, he prayed that William was running.

He ran, as well, trying to blend in with the stunned and fleeing crowd, though now that he was in the center of it, getting outside the area before the police closed in seemed doubtful. As he approached the perimeter of the plaza, his suspicious were rewarded. Local police, and the more elite Lightning Force operatives had secured the area, and were attempting to stop any subjects from laving the scene. He moved towards their blockade as nonchalantly as they could, trying to use the crowd as cover. As he reached the edge, he stooped, hiding behind a knot of citizens. He watched, and waited until no officers seemed to be looking in his direction. He noticed that officers appeared to be searching several subjects, and knew that, were they to search him, they would find the radio transmitter, the microphone, and, worse, the handgun he concealed in his waistband. Even if he were innocent, he would not appear to be, and he had no desire to fall into the hands of the Godless authorities of this nation.

When his chance came, he bolted through the crowd, and sprinted towards cover. He departure, unfortunately, did not go unnoticed. Several shouts to stop and whistles blew behind him. He ran on regardless. He heard the whip-crack of a round passing nearby, and begin and run in a zigzag pattern. More shots ran out as he fled, he ran into a nearby café, vaulting over the rail and through the entrance, through the dinning room, and into the kitchen. He ignored the astonished cries of the patrons and the outraged bellows of the chief as he fled through the rear door, down an alley and away from his pursers. Lord, he prayed guide me away from my enemies, and protect me from their wickedness.

He came to the mouth of the alley, and noting that the street was clear, proceeded across into another alley. After several blocks, he entered a clothing store. He selected a new shirt, a white polo, vastly different from the blue button down he had on, and a pair of black dress pants to replace his jeans. He purchased them with cash, and walked to the next restaurant he found. Entering the bathroom, he changed quickly, putting his clothing into the bag, throwing the sunglasses and wired microphone into the trash, burying it under several wads of paper towels. He exited the restaurant, and walking around the rear, through the bag of clothing into the dumpster.

Feeling confident that he had eluded pursuit, at least for the time being, he set off to find a pay phone to make contact with his handler, and hoped extraction could be arranged before the dragnet closed in on him.

[The Floridian Coast]

OOC:Transnapastain is given the place.

Any other nations wishing to get involved in this can TG me and I will decide if I need anyone else.

[The Floridian Coast]

In Alexander's private residence, his immediate family sat around the dining room table, grieving. The High Premier had spent the last few hours handling the whole ordeal, and it was painfully frustrating. The authorities had determined the dead man was a professional, and there was nothing to trace. The weapon, the clothing, everything on him came from generic providers. The man's race could have been from half the world, there were no leads. Hopes were hinged on finding his accomplice. Alexander needed a chance to mourn with his family and express his feelings, the grief and sorrow burned inside of him.

"I have arranged for a state funeral to take place in two days time."

Aaron, always practical, replied "How can we possibly secure that father?"

His father looked down towards the table and said to his son "Half the nation will go to New Clearwater for attendance. Securing it seems nearly impossible, but we can assume that the murderers are not the type to attempt terrorist bombings or the sort. About 50 of us will be aboard the SCS Leviathan. As for my people, they will gather on the beach in overwhelming number. I can't say I'm comfortable with it, but I cannot deny them their right to mourn at my side."

Floridian state funerals were at sea, by means of a burning pyre, an honor reserved only for the most revered of the nation.

They talked longer, attempting to ease their pain by sharing good memories of Larissa's life, but the situation was bleak. Aaron asked Alexander "Father, will there be an autopsy?" Alexander was slightly angry at a stupid question "Of course not, there is no need. We have the guns and the shells, it would give no aid to the justice I will take for my daughter, and I swear to the stars I will have her death avenged to the highest degree."

Emily burst into tears, Aaron put his arm around her and said "Father, I only asked, because I wanted you to hear from us and not a doctor. She was with child." Alexander took a moment to process the news and asked "And she planned to carry it to term?" Emily told him "Yeah. She and Corban had decided they'd like to start a family, so she went off her pill." Corban was Senator Larissa Bryce's Lightning Force personal bodyguard and attendant, and as of a year ago, her lover as well. Alexander had a hard time thinking of what to say, everything overwhelmed him. Finally, he told Aaron and Emily "Please then, invite Corban to the funeral. He must be devastated at the loss of his child. My... my grandchild. Now, I have so much to do, and I think keeping busy is the only way to keep my sanity. I must go." He whispered to Aaron as he left "Take care of Emily, my son."

Going back up to her room, Emily would attempt to sleep. Aaron met up with Corban in an empty floor of the Executive Tower. They embraced and sat down, and lit up cigarettes inside. "Corban, I fucked it up. They should have taken him alive. This wasn't a lone nut, this is part of something, a conspiracy. And now we'll never get justice for -" Corban cut him off "Listen to me Aaron, we will hunt them down. They, they killed my daughter. And the love of my life. And I felt that rage you did. I shot him in the leg because I missed, Aaron. And I was seconds away from emptying my barrel into his skull. It doesn't matter if he's dead or alive, what matters is I failed. Worlds I'd give to have been in the bullets' path." Corban slammed his fist down on the table. Aaron put out his smoke and put his hand over his friend's and told him "There was nothing any of us could do. But there's something we can do now."

They walked downstairs to the computer. Aaron, being the vice chancellor of Homeland Defense, had the highest password ranks he'd need. He was able to open files on the shooting of his sister, and found a discovery of only 10 minutes ago the High Premier was surely learning of now. A microphone and sunglasses were found in a Chinese restaurant's trash right nearby the courtyard. Clothing was found in the dumpster after a search began. All of them had the same fingerprints, but the prints led nowhere. "What do we do now?" Aaron asked his friend. Corban told him "We wait for the camera footage, and then we go hunting."

Meanwhile, Emily too could not help but try to look for answers. A mathematical prodigy, she began sifting through threats to her sister and the nation and assembled a statistical outline. Religious tensions ranked first, energy ranked second, political extremism third, in terms of frequency of threats assessed by Homeland Defense. She began looking through anti-Floridian religious groups, the list was long. She hoped her father would be out late, the last thing he'd want to see is her on his computer, involved in things she shouldn't be.

[Transnapastain]

Every time Johnston heard a siren wailing in the distance, he was sure it was coming for him.

And, as he peaked out between the moth-eaten curtains blocking the sunlight from entering the slummy apartment he now occupied, he reflected that, in this part of town, sirens could be heard almost constantly. He stepped away from the window and sunk wearily down into the couch. It was lump and several springs poked into his back as he tried to relax. He lay his head back and closed his eyes. In the kitchen, the steady drip of a leaky faucet droned on and on. He tried letting the sound lull him into sleep, but his was too tense to let sleep overtake hm.

After changing clothing, he had made his ay out of the immediate area before hailing a taxi cab. The address he had the cabbie drop him at had no significance to him, or the other members of the Protectorate team operating in the Floridian Coast; it was merely a random address he had memorized out of a local phone book. After paying the cabbie in cash, and a tip of exactly 15%, hopefully giving the cabbie no reason to remember him, he departed. After wandering for several blocks, he finally spied a public pay phone. He strode over to it, and, picking the receiver, dialed a phone number. The number connected him directly to a voicemail that offered no greeting other than a short tone, after which he left his message…

“Movado, I say again, Movado. “ he said. The code word for mission success. After a short pause and a deep breath, he continued. “Number 6 compromised, number 7 moving to location Sierra.“ With that, he hung up and strode away from the phone.

The call he placed was to his handler, whom he knew as “Ned”. The number he had dialed connected to a cheap, minute based phone with a set amount, but renewable minutes before it became useless. They were fairly common in any nation that catered to tourists, and weren’t usually monitored. Better yet, they were cheap and could be easily disposed of. Ned should be disposing of the phone now, and then moving to meet him at location Sierra, in this case, a video arcade. There, he would be taken to a safe house.

He had met Ned, who whisked him away to a part of town the police didn’t travel to unless they had to, and never with anything less than four units at a time. Ned escorted him into the dingy apartment he now occupied. Johnston knew that the safehouses in the Floridian Coast for the Protectorate teams were operated by a religious organization native to the nation known as Guiding Light. The members of Guiding Light had allied themselves with the Protectorate agents, and constituted much of their local manpower. Guiding Light tended to operate in low-income, high crime areas, trying to use the poverty and desperation of the downtrodden denizens to garner support for their cause. They preformed humanitarian services, such as food drives, bake sales, and car washes to raise money for a number of local charities…and to fund the Protectorate counter-government operations, as well as their own side projects. While they may have been a charity organization officially…Johnston was sure the intelligence community within the Floridian Coast referred to them by a different word; terrorists.

After debriefing with Ned, who advised him that Senator Larissa Bryce had indeed been killed, and that authorities were reporting that the gunman had, after exchanging fire with police and Lightning Force officers, been killed in his attempt to escape. Worse news, a man hunt for a second subject believed to be involved in the assassination, whom had fled from authorities only moments after the shooting, was being “sought for questioning.”

“Wat about extraction?” Johnston had asked. Ned shook his head.

“We’re trying, but its difficult. They’ll have your picture, because the public cameras are everywhere. Your face wont come up in any criminal history scans, but it’ll be in the system now, and will certainly trigger an alarm if you try to go through customs. Protectorate assets don’t have what we need at the moment to get you out, but we’re contacting Home, “ the capital H was audible in his speech, “to see what they have.”

“Home?” He asked. If Ned was trying to get help form the more capable Transnapastaini Foreign Intelligence Service, then things were truly grim. The Protectorate preferred to run their own operations, and leave the TFIS personal to their own. Too often, the two intelligence services found their goals conflicting, leading to rivalry, and, more importantly, botched missions.

“Will they even help, I doubt his mission was approved by them.“ TFIS did not like getting blood on its hands. Mostly tasked with monitoring ELINT and SATINT sources, its HUMINT divison was capable in skill, but lacking in experience. Transnapstain’s insular nature did not easily facilitate establishing human intelligence sources within foreign nations. The Protectorate found that its religious backing enabled it to make stronger connections with local groups within most nations it infiltrated, where as TFIS did not have that common ground.

“They’ll have to. They wont be happy about it, but they’ll be even less happy if you’re caught, interrogated, and happen to let it slip that we’re responsible. Being that they can’t completely disavow us, it’ll be more embarrassing to let the truth come to light.“ Ned replied. Reaching into his pocket, Ned withdrew a small black capsule wrapped in a clear zip-loc bag, and placed it on the table. “You’ll want this, however, in case their investigators prove more vigorous than we’ve anticipated.”

Johnston reached forward a picked up the cyanide capsule, placing it in his pocket. “I’ll put it in if I leave here, or if they’re getting close.” He had no real intention of using it unless things were very dire indeed. He was confident his pursuit determined techniques had thrown the authorities off his trail long enough for Ned to effect a extraction for him. Even if things did become dire, he wasn’t sure he’d want to take the pill. He had a strong aversion to dying, even if the alternative may be a lot worse.

Ned smiled coldly, maybe sensing the agents trepidation. "You know what they’ll do to you if they catch you.” He said matter of factly, “You’d be better off dead. Regardless, if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for your countrymen, you’ll save untold number of lives by taking your information and mission with you to the grave. They’ll want you alive, so don’t give them the chance.” Ned relaxed a bit, and continued speaking, maybe hoping to set Johnston’s mind at ease. “No worries, just lay low here, and I’ll come for you after a few days, with a ticket for a one way trip back to civilization.”.

And so he waited, attempting to sleep inside the filthy confines of his humble abode. Slowly opening his eyes, he learned forward and picked up the hand gun from the coffee table in front of him. He pulled the slide back part way, and ensured that a round was indeed chambered. He set the gun in his lap and lay his head back. Just in case. he thought, patting the cool metal frame of the pistol, Just in case…

[The Floridian Coast]

Corban and Aaron had to take a detour in their investigation. One of Aaron's underlings had called him to tell him that there were intercepted messages from the Islamist militant group Fatah Haamid, a terrorist group in the Floridian Coast who advocate for Islamic theocracy worldwide, mainly made of exiles from a small and distant nation of an ongoing civil war. Emily called seconds later and told Aaron what she found on religious groups, naming FH as most likely. Aaron lectured Emily for getting involved but was secretly glad to have her expertise as well. There was heavy chatter about the assasination of Senator Larissa Bryce, and Aaron knew who he needed to find.

They went up to a midtown apartment in New Clearwater, and on the 3rd door of the 8th floor, they knocked. A man approached the door and looked through the peephole. "Has the infidel regime come to end my life?" he asked bitterly. Aaron raised his high calibur desert eagle up to the man's lens so he could clearly see it. "You are sure to die if you don't let us in within 3 seconds." Aaron told him. Corban motioned for him to calm down. They were working unofficially and didn't want to draw attention to themselves. The man opened the door and sat down on his couch. He was a middle aged Imam, dressed traditionally, looking as if he quite expected his guests.

Neither Aaron nor Corban sat down. Aaron got straight to business. "You are going to help us, there are things you know and I don't have time for bullshit, I don't even have time to hurt you, so I'll be clear. You help us or I will place a bullet through your skull, and I can certainly make sure the crime is placed on a more militant member of your cult." "And how will you make sure of that?" the Imam asked unafraid. "Because the vice chancellor of Homeland Defense can do whatever he damn well wants." Aaron snapped back.

"And who is he?" the Imam asked while pointing to Corban,
"An informant from to you from FH?"

Corban spoke for the first time, angrily. "My family is from the Carribean, not your filthy desert. I am a loyal Floridian, unlike you. I am of Lightning Force, and I am looking for revenge, so maybe you should not be the one asking questions."

The Imam looked back at Aaron and said "I have nothing for you, I have been on house arrest for the last four months and I am not allowed internet, phone, or visitor. You know that." "You have a television." Aaron told him, "You know what I want to know about." "I have nothing to do with the death of an infidel whore." the Imam replied spitefully. Aaron absolutely lost his composure. He slammed the man in the face with the back of his gun, shoved him off his couch and dragged him to the wall, where he put him in a chokehold.

"YOU DARE INSULT MY SISTER IN FRONT OF ME?! I WILL RIP YOUR SKIN OFF YOU TERRORIST TRASH!!!" and Aaron threw him on the ground again.

After coughing for a moment and feeling his wound, the Imam felt these men would really kill him. He tried to stay calm and told him without making eye contact "FH has long given up on the Floridian Coast long after the arrests and expulsions. This land will only be purified when Allah mercifully brings this Earth to an end. We have completely and absolutely ceased operations here, we've moved on, we're looking for another homeland. And you know why we can't go back to ours, with the Coptic Christian uprising against the Ayatollah. My country too, is without hope. We do not want to kill your politicians, we are fighting for our survival overseas."

Aaron placed the gun against his head and said "I think you're lying, what are you doing then? What is FH's next target?" "The cabal behind the tyrannical Christians in my country."

"What fucking cabal?!" Aaron demanded from him, as Corban was using all his self-restraint to not kill the man right there. The Imam replied "The Christian Liberation Alliance. They advance Christian interests in the world, with an iron fist. Lots of members, loosely connected. Guiding Light in your own country, The Church of God's Will from Transnapastain, Holy Vision from the Nordic nations, The Messianic Coven in the Caribbean. It's a powerful, unspoken alliance. They funded Coptic Christian genocide of Muslims in my country. They have agents everywhere. In your nation, even, and they're operating right under your radar." Aaron suddenly thought back to his call to Emily. The Christian Liberation Alliance was fourth most dangerous and second most well equipped, third most fanatical. High ranking statistics.

"Come on Corban, we're leaving." As they proceeded out the door, the Imam asked "So, the enemy of your enemy is your friend? Maybe you could arrange to have my house arrest suspended, vice chancellor." Aaron turned back to him and said "When every single last person even remotely connected to my sister's death is dead, I'll flip a coin over it." and spat in his doorway, slamming the door behind him as they left.

Aaron called his father. "Father, I have acquired some information, I think Guiding Light may be connected to Larrisa's murder."
High Premier Alexander Bryce paused before saying anything. Part of him wanted justice as soon as possible, but it distressed him that his son was in harm's way so soon after he lost a daughter. He finally asked "Are you sure, my son?" "Yes. We've found a good source. Emily has been helping us with research."

"She should not be involved, she is too young!" Alexander told him, feeling very distressed and sickened. Aaron told him kindly "She's 17 father. She is a Floridian ambassador to our allies up North. She is capable. And... she is at home, and will only help us from behind the computer screen, I promise you that."

"You keep that promise my son. And Larissa's funeral is in 24 hours. Please take time out of your investigation to attend. There will be time enough for catching those behind this."

"Corban and I both, he is with me. And we promise to be back home by the next night, we'll leave for the sea burial with you, of course." and with that, Aaron hung up.

The High Premier called an emergency meeting of some of his staff, which occurred instantly thanks to high technology mobile devices all government officials had. The police chief of the Floridian Coast, Hans Trilsch, and Secretary of State Jack Trenton, Alexander's closest friend, both answered the call and spoke on mobile video. "High Premier. My deepest sorrow over the loss of your daughter. I cannot express my feelings in adequate words, and I apologize to the highest degree for my police force's inadequacy."

Alexander had no patience for formalities. "There was nothing you could do, this was a highly organized strike against us as a nation. But I need to know, what would be the best course of action for hunting down suspects from Guiding Light?"

"A direct incursion into their territory would be undesirable. Many street gangs offer them protection and they themselves are very well armed. The entire Eastern fringe of New Clearwater is a wasteland. Degenerates who have refused government employment offers, who have refused drug rehab and all the other kindness we offer so they can end their lives of crime." The police chief realized he was trailing off and then continued "I see no way we can just search blocks of their territory."

Jack Trenton entered the conversation with his own solution. "Then your police will have Lightning Force escorts. The gangsters may shoot at your men, but they will not shoot at our elite soldiers. They know that Lightning Force can kill 50 of them for every kill they get. And if... and if someone is desperate enough to shoot at Lightning Force, then we'll know they are fugitives of a very, very grave crime. Right now, they know there is no drug traffic or murder fugitives worth ending their lives over. And they know exactly why we're there, because our police has one objective only in these trying times."

Alexander was satisfied. "Your cunning, Jack, is a rare quality. I beg you to cut down on your smoking, maybe down to a pack a day, so I can have your genius much longer." It was the first joke he'd made in this whole ordeal. It felt strangely comforting. "Police Chief, you will make an incursion into the Eastern neighborhoods, and you will have Lightning Force escorts. You will have search warrants for all Guiding Light suspected compounds. And you will have amnesty contracts, for any drug dealer, murderer, or any undesirable who wants to sell out the cult they have foolishly aligned with. Don't disappoint me, Hans."

[Transnapastain]

Subrosa, Transnapastain, later that same day

“Well, you’ve really fucked this one up, haven’t you?” Executer Hans Brandt mused aloud. A strong smell of bourbon whiskey wafted from his breath as he spoke, and his red face indicated that he was slightly past the point of “merely tipsy.” Gathered in the office were Brandt, Executer of Transnapastain, Julian Harris, Head of State, and also the Lord Proctor of the Church of God’s Will. James Schmidt, the Director of Transnapastain’s Intelligence Service, and Eric Culler, commander of the Protectorate Sword’s Foreign Actions division. The late night meeting had been called to discuss a rather interesting, and disturbing request that the Transnapastaini Foreign Intelligence Service had received.

“I don’t think-“Culler began

“That’s apparent.” Brandt interrupted with a snort, “Where in your charter are your people authorized to order and carry out assassinations?”

Harris spoke up. “Their charter does state they have the authority to “neutralize threats to the Church, or the spread of the faith. The wording provides a wide latitude for action on behalf of the Protectorate. As it operates with less of an interest in politics, and with more focus on accomplishing its true mission, the preservation and spread of the faith, that latitude is necessary." Culler nodded along with Harris as he spoke, and allowed a smug smile to cross his face. He enjoyed seeing Harris setting the drunken old fool straight. The smile abruptly disappeared when Harris turned on Culler. “Of course, when one undertakes an action of such magnitude, one should generally have given a thought to the aftermath. Assassination’s are not to be undertaken lightly, as it obviously was in this case. You killed a senator in an out of the way nation that no one in Transnapastain had even heard of before now. Her death will accomplish nothing but further galvanizing that nations people against accepting our faith. Further, should they have managed to capture any of our agents, or the local contacts, and manage to trace the assassination back to the Protectorate, then the nation will be implicated.” Harris stared daggers at Culler, “Did that not occur to you? Did you think that, since it was a Protectorate matter, the nation wouldn’t face any fallout. Should they choose to invade, are we going to hold them off with the Swords 4 divisions…one of which is currently deployed to Brazul? No, Brandt was right, you didn’t think, and you have placed both the Church and the nation in a very precarious position.”

Culler stammered, he did not expect to be taken to task in this meeting. “Your Grace, I’ve already informed you that I ordered no such operation. Nor did the commander for that area of operation. It appears the mission was carried off on the orders of a local handler.”

Schmidt spoke up, reading from his tablet PC “I was able to pull the operations order from the archives at Minerva. It says, in summation, for the two agent, code names 6 and 7, to attend a public speech by the Senator in question and to eliminate her if possible.” He paused. “The timestamp shows this operations order was filed and approved by your office seven days ago, in accordance with Protectorate operational procedure, as far as I understand it?” Schmidt said, glancing to Harris, who nodded agreement. He had merely stated the facts. Schmidt did not hold any technical rank over Culler, and had no place, or interest, in dressing him down when one of the others present would be more than willing, and able, to do it for him. He merely provided the ammunition for their guns, he never fired the shots.

“Seven days ago.” Brandt said softly, with a slight slur on the S’s. “You’re office was aware that a plan to eliminate a major member of a foreign government was underway and took no steps to send an abort code, no, instead, you authorized it!” His voice had risen until he was nearly shouting the final words of the statement. As if to punctuate his sentence, he slammed his glass of bourbon whiskey onto the table hard enough that Schmidt was afraid it was going to break.

“The Executer is right. “ said Harris, calmly, “While you may not have personally ordered her termination, you failed to countermand what was clearly a botched operation. The fault lies at the top, and the buck stops with you. You are dismissed from your post, and this meeting, turn yourself over to the guards outside, they will escort you home, where you will await court marshal for incompetence and dereliction of duty. “ Culler blinked at him several times, his eyes pleading for mercy he knew he’d never receive, and then strode form the office. Harris knew he wouldn’t run, the guards, handpicked men from the Protectorate Shield division, already knew they would be arresting him, if he tried to escape, he’d be shot “resisting arrest.”

“Now that the trash has been taken out, shall we discuss damage control? “Harris asked after several moments had passed.

“I’m going to get another drink.” Brandt said, standing, and wobbling at first. “

“You drink too much Hans, and its going to kill you, or worse, make you useless to Us.” Harris said. It was clear the us was pronounced with a capital U.

“Pah.” Brandt said as he poured more whiskey into his glass with an unsteady hand, some of it splashing out onto the sidebar, “Since we can speak freely here, I’ll say that I’ve served the Order for more years than you pups have been alive. I’m not worried.”

Harris spoke up quietly. “If that’s true, then you should know that one can never speak freely when speaking about the Rose. Remember it, Hans, before its too late.”

Before Brandt could retort, Schmidt cleared his throat. “We have no reason, as of yet, to think the Floridian government is aware of our…quasi involvement in the death of Senator Bryce. Signals intelligence indicates the gunman, an agent of the Protectorate identified as William South, who I might add, was flagged in his profile as being a bit of an idealist and quite irrational and should have never been assigned to that theatre of operations-“

“More mismanagement on Culler part.” Brandt quipped between gulps from his glass

“was killed. Ironically, it seems he may well have been killed by the Senator’s brother, Aaron Bryce, who is also Vice Chancellor of Homeland Defense, though we’re really not sure what that entails. It appears the second agent, Johnston Simmins, in addition to his handler, Edward Hughes, have so far eluded capture. All other agents have been issued immediate recall notices and are leaving the nation by civilian transport with in the next 72 hours. In addition, all operations within Floridian Coast have been terminated.” Schmidt concluded and looked up from his tablet. “We're positive Simmins is compromised, and we've chosen to assume Hughes is, as well, incase the SIGINT regarding South was inaccurate. We don’t want to send Hughes into a trap.”

“We do have to try and extract them, though.” Harris said after a moment. “Simmins and Hughes, I mean. Any thoughts on how we can do that, Director?”

“A submarine, the TNS Jude, has been dispatched from the Eleventh Fleet, and is en route to a point outside Floridian waters. Coded instructions were sent to Hughes via VHF SatCom, instructing him and Simmins to obtain water transport and rendezvous with the Jude.” He pasued. “This was the only method we could effectively implement on very short notice. We would have preferred to have them leave aboard a friendly civilian freighter, but as no Directorate nations, or any the nations we could trust with this operation, have any trading contacts within Floridian Coast, we thought that having a transport attempt to dock would arose too much suspicion, aside from that, any ship we could get on such notice would be Transnapastaini flagged and inside their waters, and that would be undesirable. If all goes well, the two agents will acquire water transport and arrive for pickup undetected at 0500 hours 3 days from now.”

“And if things don’t go so well?” Brandt asked.

“If their escape is compromised, and they don’t arrive, the Jude sails by unremarked upon. If authorities are pursuing the vessel, or it appears they are observing it in any way, as it approaches the Jude, the Captain ahs orders to fire on the vessel, and ensure everyone aboard is killed.”

Silence followed that statement, until Harris broke it with a single utterance. “Hard world, old chaps.” He said, as if quoting something. Brandt simply finished his whiskey in a single gulp.

“Quite. “Schmidt agreed, “However, we have no reason to believe the Floridian’s are onto our agents. AFSRC had a Parcase satellite trio cruse over the area, and found no Floridian naval vessel in the area of the rendezvous point. Further, while we were unable to get any information on Floridian satellite tracks from the Keller Initiative of AFSRC’s own records, their watching to see if any satellites hold a geosynchronous orbit in that area.. If they detect one, we’ll abort. “

“Alright, good work Schmidt.” Harris replied with a nod. “With luck, this situation won’t get any more bungled that that fool Culler made it already.

---

New Clearwater, Eastern District
Floridian Coast

When sleep did finally come, it was restless and dreamless. Johnston tossed and turned through out the night. Regardless, his mind was bleary and his movement slowed when he heard the apartment door bang open. He fumbled for the pistol he had placed under the pillow, as he brought it out, he brought it to bare on the intruder…and jerked the muzzle up and away when he say Ned standing in the doorway.

“Good thing I’m not Lightning Force.” He said, chuckling, “or you’d be fucked.”

“What’s going on? Why are you barging in here at…what time is it anyways?” asked Johnston as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He hadn’t bothered to undress, and strode past Ned towards the bathroom.

“We go our extraction orders.” He said quietly. “They want us to make our way to Citria, about 24 miles north of here, and obtain water transport. A submarine is going to meet us in international waters and take us home. We’ll lay low for another day for so and the-“ at that moment, Ned was interrupted by cell phone. He pulled it from his pocket, and looked at the caller ID. “Excuse me.” He said, and stepped away.

Meanwhile, Johnston set about his morning business, he had just turned the shower on and was waiting for the rust-colored water to warm up to something beyond “utterly freezing” when Ned barged into the bathroom. Johnston made no attempt to cover himself, and looked at the intruder humorously, “Do you mind? This ones occupied.”

“We have to go, now.” Ned said urgently. “Get dressed.”

“Why, whats going on.”

“Police and Lightning Force have began raids of the Light’s holdings throughout the Eastern portions of New Clearwater. We pay the street gangs protection money here, but all the hard currency in the world isn’t going to make them fire on police…and the entitlements and absolution contracts they’re liable to offer will make them sell us out. So, we go. Now.”

Johnston heard enough, not even stopping to turn the shower off, he rapidly got dressed, pausing only long enough to grab his firearm before both men dashed from the apartment. They ran rapidly down the dark and gloomy stairwells of the tenement building. They smelled of stale urine and dried vomit, but Johnston thought he smelled something else. After a moment, he realized what he smelled was fear, and it was coming from him and his accomplice.

They piled into Ned’s car, and, after trying for several agonizing seconds to get it to start, the engine finally caught, turned over, and the two sped into the pre-dawn light. In the distance, Johnston could hear sirens and shots, and the steady beat of a helicopters rotor blades. “They don’t mess around, do they?” he remarked to Ned.

“Doesn’t appear that they do. Lightning Force will shoot first and never bother to ask questions. I only hope we can get out of the distract before they finish cordoning it off."

Turns out they weren’t fast enough.

As Ned brought the car around a corner, he cursed. Ahead, several police cruiser and an armored personal carrier bearing Lightning Force markings blocked the road. Officers were allowing traffic through, but only after stopping he drivers, and checking their identification. Most of them were carrying assault rifles and none of them looked like they were inclined to show the slightest bit of mercy.

“Think we can get through, we have good false paperwork.” said Johnston.

“Do you want to take that risk? Do you think that they haven’t traced our names to a list of known Guiding Light affiliates or that they don’t have your picture from a security recording in the plaza? I don’t think so.” Johnston had to admit he had a point.

“Well, what then?” he asked urgently. They were only seven cars from the checkpoint.

Ned was quiet for a moment. Johnston was about to ask him again when he spoke up, “See that alley right there?” he asked, indicating an opening a few car lengths ahead of their position. When Johnston nodded, Ned went on. “I’m going to head down it, when we get to the end, we’ll bail out on foot, and run in different directions. You know the place, you need to be there by oh-five hundred hours three days from now. We’ll try and meet up again, there’s a dinner outside of town, called Calare’s, its on Route Eighty-three, north of here, you can’t miss it. Get there. I’ll be headed there too, if we meet up, fine, but don’t wait any longer than fifteen hundred hours, if I’m not there, go on, you better believe I’ll be leaving you behind if you don’t make it”

“Alright, I’ve got it.” Said Johnston.

The line of cars ahead began to move forward, and, as they came to a stop, Ned declared "Alright, here we go.” He jammed the accelerator to the floor board and the little four cylinder engine strained under the pressure, the car rocketed forward, Ned cut right into the alley, flying down it as quickly as he dared.

The alley ended 150 feet later in a T junction. Ned slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a stop in the middle of the T. “Go, and good luck!” he declared as he baled out from the vehicle, engine still running. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, reaching into his waistband for his hand gun.

He rounded the corner just in time to encounter four police officers and two Lightning Force officers exiting an apartment building with two men in custody. They saw him and raised their rifles. “Halt, drop that weapon, do it now!” One of the officers declared.

Ned knew he had no choice. He tossed his pistol to the ground and raised his hands in surrender.

Meanwhile, Johnston continued running. So far, he had managed to avoid any patrols and search teams. He did his best to continue running westbound, trying to escape from the impoverished eastern district. Through divine intervention or luck, he did so, and soon found himself in an immensely nicer part of town.

I have to fine a vehicle, without one, Ill never make it to Citria. he thought. He knew he couldn’t steal one, as it would easily allow the police to track him. As he walked through the suburban neighborhoods, he spied a teenage boy washing a vehicle. The vehicle as old, and didn’t look like much, but, as he neared, a smile crept over his face.

“Hey partner?” He called, “Does the engine in that thing run good?”

The boy looked up at him, “Yeah man, it doesn’t look like much, but it has some punch where it counts, why?”

“Cause I need a car. Like right now. Mine broke down a ways back, and I’m on my way to meet my fiancé for our wedding, I don’t care what your car is worth I’ll give you 3,000 hard currency.” To entice the boy, Johnston pulled a wad of bulls from his pocket and showed the boy. He realized anyone with any skill in observance wouldn’t fall for this lie, but he was counting on the boys youth and the prospect of easy money to blind him to the ridiculousness of the lie.

This gamble paid off. The boy’s eyes lit up at the sight of the large sum of cash. “Hell yeah mister, its yours. Tanks full, too.” He said, tossing Johnston the keys. Johnston handed him the cash, got into the beat up old car, and drove away, headed north.

Hours later, he was still headed north on rote 83. He made it to Calare’s without any trouble around 1300 hours. He’d enjoyed a leisurely lunch, not because he was relaxed, far from it, but because he needed to stretch out his purpose for being in the tiny dinner for as long as possible. As 1500 came, and went, he realized that Ned wasn’t going to show. He paid his tab, and got into the old jalopy, and started the long trek north to Citria.

[The Floridian Coast]

At Sea

Not too far off the beaches of New Clearwater at all, High Premier Alexander Bryce could see a vast gathering of people who covered the horizon. Many held candles, and in the late morning sky still dark, little fires lined up like stars. Floridian state funerals always took place in the dark, Alexander hoped that a burial in the middle of the night would make the event more low key, and would avert potential disaster if terrorists were still determined to strike against them. But his citizens' loyalty astounded him. He knew many of them travelled across the country for this, and were now standing in a dense crowd on the beach to mourn the death of his daughter.

The smaller vessel which departed from the appropriately named Leviathan held Alexander, Aaron, Corban, Emily, and Jack up front, with about 50 high ranking Floridian officials and some allied nations' dignitaries, also aboard. Not being a religious nation, Floridians had no ministers, and funerals were often made of friends sharing words on the deceased. Jack Trenton, a natural master speaker and Alexander's closest friend gave the first and longest address. He spoke without flaw, though even he had been overcome by the sadness and the enormity of the ordeal, and was beginning to tear up towards the end. He concluded and walked back towards the aft of the vessel, stopping along the way to embrace his friend Alexander. Corban and Aaron shook hands with him. For them, the funeral was a strangely calming break from their relentless pursuit of the those behind Larissa's murder. Aaron had been in a rush all his life, but he didn't want this moment of calm to end too fast. He knew he'd not get anymore sleep until he got somewhere in his investigation, despite his few hours of rest earlier in the night, his eyes were bloodshot and he was exhausted, but he'd ingest a Lightning Force issue amphetamine alongside Corban later to keep going.

Emily walked up to speak next, standing next to the closed casket. She had told no one she had intention of speaking, and it was a surprise to her father and brother. She paused for a minute in nervousness but began.

"My older sister, Larissa, was always the source of all my hope. Growing up as the High Premiers' children is not always easy. I would always worry, when I was younger. There were wars, and internal conflicts, there were times when my father would go out to the scenes of disasters or out to riots, to try to bring unity and hope to our people. I was always so scared, for him, for us. And Larissa would tell me 'Don't worry, dad knows what he's doing. Our country is going to be even more amazing when you are old enough to be part of all of this.' She would tell me that when she still so young herself, before she was a Senator, but she knew how to comfort me. And 5 years ago, when we were in our most dire situation, with war on our own soil and I could heard bombs and mortal shells outside, Larissa took my hand and said to me 'There are Lightning Force men all around us who are the best in the world, and they will protect us from anything. And there are our soldiers out there, driving back the enemy every day. And everywhere we loved to go, we'll go again, it'll be rebuilt twice as beautiful, all of this country, and you will be able to do anything you want with your life.' She was right, about everything. She didn't just say comforting words, she told me the truth, she believed in our nation, with all her heart."

That was all Emily could say. She walked back and Aaron hugged her tight, she began weeping with heartbreak. Her father wanted to tell her how proud he was of her, but he thought he'd wait until they were back home, or else he'd lose all the composure he kept for so long. Jack gently took Emily's arm and walked over to the side of the ship to praise her in her father's place.

Corban joined seven of his Lightning Force comrades for the final procession. The Floridian Flag was draped over Larissa's casket, in this purpose, it was reverent and patriotic to have it burn. The pyre was ready. Alexander was given a torch, and everyone in his family, and Jack as well. Corban kept one for himself. The five of them each lit a part of the bottom of the pyre, and laid the torches down upon it. Aaron was the last to let his go, he whispered in a way barely audible to himself "I wish you could hear me, dear sister. I wish you could see, I will avenge you. But like the stars in this sky, you shine long after you're gone. You're in my heart, and that part of you will be with me through all of this, until I make it right."

The pyre holding the casket was lowered into the sea and set adrift. The fire caught quickly and burned brightly. The materials used for this purpose made the smoke glow a light grey, almost white colour. The tens of thousands on the shore and the hundreds of thousands farther away all could see the bright flame. Many Floridian citizens felt the way Aaron did; unable to move on until justice was done. But for Aaron, it burned in his veins like nothing he'd ever felt, like an emotion too powerful to be human. As soon as the ship reached shore, he'd be calling Homeland Defense and asking them for the latest update.

Homeland Defense HQ Building, downtown New Clearwater

A prisoner in this building would have no bearings of their surroundings, they could be 50 stories up or 50 underground. The police inside the building received 13 captives from the raid. 9 of them were dismissed as petty criminals, lacking the proper identification for trivial reasons and not a threat. Some of them would be released in a few days, some would be sent away to work camps. 3 of the other 4 were identified as Guiding Light members. They were isolated throughout the building. Homeland Defense knew they'd have important information, and would let them wait a few days in solitary confinement to contemplate a life in those rooms, if they were uncooperative.

The last man was identified only as "Ned", according to a drug lord who had claimed that he saw him take in a man who looked like the second gunman that he had seen on television on camera. His gang patrolled the shady neighborhood closely, to watch for competition to eliminate and snitches to hand a much worse fate too. Perhaps the irony was lost on the man that he himself had become a snitch, but with 20,000 entitlements and a ticket to the outlying island territories of the Floridian Coast, with the understanding he would not be heard from again, he had all he could ever ask for.

Ned had spent the last few hours in a 6ft. by 6 cell, with no windows, only a metal toilet and a water drip for drinking, and a painfully bright light on the ceiling that was on at all times. He was still wearing his own clothes, after he was searched for anymore weapons or anything of consequence. The door slammed opened and two policeman masked and covered completely in black uniforms dragged him out. They took him to a room across the hall and threw him into a chair, handcuffing him behind it.

A thin, middle aged man with a rough looking face, dressed in a decorated uniform, entered the room. He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it up, he took a deep drag and exhaled through his nose, while he gathered up papers. He sat down in another chair across the table. He spoke to Ned with intermittent eye contact.

"My name is Chancellor Ryan Anders, of Homeland Defense. I'm going to be truthful and clear with you, I would suggest you do the same with me. I'd first like to tell you that you are extremely lucky that my Vice Chancellor Aaron is not here right now. He is the brother of Senator Larissa Bryce, and to describe him as enraged would do him an injustice.

Now I know, you are not the second gunman we've been looking for. But I also know that you know exactly where he is. You know who he works for, you know how he plans to escape.

I also am aware you have spent quite amount of time with the undesirables of our nation, in the filthy East of this otherwise beautiful city. And I want you to know, that experience could not prepare you for the type of people you'd meet in Sand Harbor prison. The very few who are too sick, demented, and violent to give an opportunity for redemption in a work camp. Men who have raped and killed their own children, men who have slit throats with dull plastic.

Or if you prefer, I could simply order a transfer for you, and walk you down this downtown in the sea of my citizens out there, neglecting to have any of my men properly protect you, with them standing quite too far back and ahead as you try walking through my streets, and facing people who have lost a very dear member of their first family."

He was met with silence, but he only stood up and said "I am, however, a person in a respectable position. If I can't be persuasive, I shouldn't try much harder. I am going back to my office now. You can speak with one of my Lightning Force guards, whose training includes this very purpose. He'll be in just a minute from now. Why don't you take a chance to think about cooperating? Of course not all the help in the world will free you, but I can arrange for you to be sent somewhere where you won't regret making the intelligent choice, where you'll be glad you have all your limbs and senses and that you can still breathe. Think about it."

[Transnapastain]

Somewhere inside the Homeland Defense building

Ned listened to Chancellor Anders speech without blinking, or altering his facial expression in the slightest. He had been trained in torture resistance techniques, and, though he was afraid, he would not show it.

As Anders turned to leave, he spoke; “I have thought about it, you Godless son of a bitch. You’re Sand Harbor Prison is no match for where you’re going to end up one day, and nothing will ever save you from that. You’re wicked, and you will burn. Though I may not be alive to see it, I’ll be watching.”

Anders simply kept walking, not even choosing to dignify his comments with a response. The door clanged shut, and agonizing moments ticked by, where seconds felt like minutes, minutes turned into hours. The light in the room, unlike his cell, changed color, intensity, and frequency and random intervals. First blue, then white, then red, then appearing to be out, but actually ultraviolet. HHis ears detected some noise just at the range of his hearing, it sounded like white noise, constant and unchanging. Ned laughed aloud, If this is the best they can do… he thought.

As it turned out…the shifting lights and static weren’t the best they could do…not even close…

After they had left him to simmer for an unknown length of time, three black clad, masked men entered the room. Town of the carried weapons, not firearms, but some sort of clubs. The third took a seat in front of Ned. He learned back, lighting a cigarette, and blew a stream of grayish smoke into the air.

“Tell us who you work for.” One of them demanded

“Amnesty International, they decided your nation needed to be put out of its misery.” Ned retorted.

To his surprise, they laughed, but there was no detectable humor in that express. “Funny man, huh? Jokes on you, pal. Now, we can do this the really easy way, or the really hard way. Easy way is you tell me what I want to know, like the Chancellor said, and we make your life a not-quite-living hell forever. Or you don’t, and I make promise you, whatever images you hold in your mind of your non-existent Christian hell…will pale in compression to what’s in store for you.” He learned back, “Your choice.”

Ned spat at the man, but missed by a wide margin. The glob of saliva hit the one-way glass window on the wall, and slowly slid down towards the floor.

The man interrogating him, without changing his voice away from the completely clam and unconcerned tone he’d first addressed said “I’m going to take that as a no.” With no preamble, or telegraphing, he jammed the lit cigarette into Ned’s cheek, sending searing pain throughout his body. Ned screamed aloud trying to bring his hands up to pull the burring cigarette away, unable to do so because of the restrains. He jerked and trashed on the chair. After several agonizing seconds, the man withdrew the cigarette and asked another question, “Who was the second gunman, and where is he headed?”

It was then that Ned realized that you could have all the theoretical training in torture resistance you wanted, but if your threshed for pain was low, it wouldn’t do you a world of good. He knew in that instant he’d break, so he tried to focus on prioritizing the information he’d reveal, details bout Simmins had to come out before those of his nation, Simmins, like his own, life wasn’t worth th lvies of thousands of Transnapastaini citizens, should this event lad to war. He also knew he had to find a way to kill himself, or goad the guards into killing him.

The interrogator was a professional, that was not likely to happen.

“I could tell you…” he managed, panting and sweating, the acid sweat stung the burn wound, sending fresh waves of pain through his body, “but then I’d have to kill you.”

The man laughed amicably again, “That’s pretty good, I like how you did a little role reversal there. You should have been an actor, because you’re a failure as a spy.” One of the guards who had moved to flank him behind, brought the butt of the truncheon he carried down on Ned’s genitals. New spasms of pain coursed though his battered body, he howled in pain, thrashing even harder in the chair.

“Lets try a simple one…what is your name?” he asked again

“Edward…Edward Hughes.” Maybe if I give him something truthful, he won’t hurt me again and I can regain some composure. Ned thought desperately as he closed his eyes in a grimace against the pain.

“There, now that wasn’t so hard. What’s your friends name?” the interrogator asked

“I don’t know. We never used names.” He lied

The interrogator didn’t buy it. “You lie. We have reason to believe you were is handler, and the other Guiding Light scum we’ve brought in confirm that you picked him up and brought hi to that safe house in the Eastern portion of town after the assassination. Don’t lie to me again, I don’t like being lied to. “ he paused, and Ned flinched, but no pain overtook him this time. “What is your friends name?”

“I only knew him as Johnston….but his assumed ID here was Gerald Butler.”

The man pulled a piece of paper from a folder and looked at it. He smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes. “You didn’t lie to me that time, very good I’ll take 10 years off your sentence for that. “

“What am I down to?” Ned inquired

“990 years.” The man answered, deadpan. “Though we might consider returning you to your own nation…where would that be, Mr. Hughes?”

Right as the man finished asking the question, a guard behind him struck Ned at the base of the neck with something hot and painful. Intellectually, Ned knew they were trying to get him to cry out the first thing that popped into his brain, by making him make a sound at the same time he was thinking about the answer to a question. It is universally known that even pathologically liars always think of the truth automatically before they utter a lie, this technique seemed designed to get him to blurt out that thought.

He resisted…this time. He knew, however, he needed to die, and soon, or he would doom many, many others with his inability to resist.

“No? That’s alright, we’ll come back to it, all the time in the world with you, old boy.” The interrogator said. “How about telling me where Mr. Butler, or Johnston, if you prefer, is headed.” When Ned didn’t answer fast enough, The man learned forward and jabbed the stub of his cigarette into Ned’s chest, putting the flame out as he did so. Ned cried aloud, “North! He’s headed north.”

“Where” the man said, and pressed harder

Ned screamed aloud, but managed to stammer out, “Citria He’s going to Citria”

“And what is in Citria that he wants?” the man asked, relenting a bit with the hot cigarette.

“Boats, he needs a boat, he-“

It was at that moment that he was damned and saved all at once. The door to the integration room burst open. The integrator looked up, the two guards stiffened to attention, almost as if my reflex. The man who strode in look incredibly strong, and, more to the point, incredibly angry. He seemed tired and worn, but the fire that burned in his eyes told Ned this man may well be his salvation, whilst being is damnation.

The interrogator spoke up, pulling the cigarette out of Ned’s chest. Ned sagged forward in visible relief. “Vice Chancellor!” The man exclaimed, “this is most unusual, as you know we are interrogating a prisoner-“

“I am not blind, Agent, I can see that. However this man is now in my custody, and is to be remanded to me at once. I will continue this interrogation.” Said the newcomer. Ned recalled Ander’s had mentioned the Vice Chancellor of Home Defense was named Aaron, could this be him. Judging by the rage is his eyes, Ned was sure of it.

“I must protest, the prisoner was right in the middle of-“ the integrator began

“Save it, or, better yet, shove it, it matters not a wit to me, Agent, all of you, out of the room, now!” he bellowed. The men fled as quickly as they could, the door was closed and bared behind them.

“So, we meet at last. You may not be the man who murdered my sister, but you are as guilty of it, and you will pay. You had better believe that. I hope you’ve made peace with your God, spy, because your time is short.” Aaron said as he stood towering over Ned, seemingly larger than life.

“The only regret I have in life…is that we failed to kill your mother, too.” Ned stammered. He assumed such a remark would enrage the man…he was not disappointed.

Aaron kicked over the chair he was lashed to, and began savagely kicking Ned in the side, Ned bellowed in pain and fear as he felt several of his ribs pop. He knew that he had to keep it up, however, or the man may come to his sense, or, more likely, someone with authority may come in a stop him from beating him to death.

Between the kicks, and the pain, Ned shouted defiantly “Heard you have another sister, would love to get my hands on her...maybe even get inside her.” If there was one way to anger a brother, it was to speak of fornicating with his sister. So it was the world over

So it worked here

Aaron let out a bellow of rage and redoubled his efforts. He brought him combat boot down on Ned’s face, shouting “Shut your foul mouth you wrenched, foreign, spineless, theist!” The boot shattered Ned’s jaw, knocking almost all of his teeth from their sockets, and broke his nose. A kick to the side of the head from Aarons steel toed boots sent Ned reeling. Another savage stomp into the pt of his stomach ensured he couldn’t speak any more, as the win rushed out of him. He heard the door open, and the sound of booted feet running into the room, a shot of “Aaron, no! You mustn’t!”

Aaron was beyond hearing. Beyond caring. He’s acts guided by vengeance and rage. He pummeled Ned with his hands, finally dropped to his knees, straddling Ned and pounding his head with punches, so fierce is bloodied and maybe even fractured his knuckles. As the blood flowed from Aarons hands, he stopped punching him. He wrapped hi strong hands around Ned’s throat and pressed, hard. Ned gasped for air. Behind him, he saw another man run up to Aaron and grab a hold of him around his own neck, trying to drag him back. Aaron nearly effortlessly shrugged the man off, sending him staggering backward. He pressed harder, and harder, the world going dimmer and dimmer…the last thing Ned saw before he died were the tears streaming down Aaron’s face…

[The Floridian Coast]

"I told you not to come here, Aaron! This man is a professional, he wanted you to kill him so he could die rather than reveal more." the voice was Jack Trenton's, checking on the situation on the High Premier's behalf.

Aaron stammered, trying to defend his actions, trying to deny mistake he just made. "He, he t-told us where the other gunman went. We can, we can find him, we can get him. He didn't have anything... I mean, I didn't want to fucking kill him... not yet. I wanted to know, I... my father will never forgive me for this."

Jack picked up Aaron off the floor and told him "Alexander would have done the same thing to this bastard, maybe worse. But he knew that he wasn't fit to perform an interrogation of a man part of killing his daughter. Aaron, you killed the man who shot her. We'll get the other one. But we needed more from this man. It was not your place to be here."

Anders entered the room again. "Holy shit" he muttered at the sight of the mangled body, it was truly a disgusting sight. He turned to all the men around him and said "Not a single one of you will ever speak of this so long as you live." Nervous replies of "Yes Sir." came back to him in a few seconds. Jack looked at Aaron and said "And you do not need to tell your father this."

Clenching his fists, Aaron was disgusted with himself. "I can't lie to my father. I walked in here and killed this man in less than 5 minutes." Jack grabbed his shoulders and half way yelled at him "Oh for fuck's sake, Aaron. Your father, and no one here, cares anything at all that you killed this piece of shit. You did a service to our nation, truly. But he will worry about you. He already is. He thinks you are suicidally inviting danger into your life, that you're trying to get yourself killed chasing Larrisa's murderer, that's not true, is it?"

"It's not true at all. I don't want to die anytime soon, and I don't want my father to lose another one of his family. It's the last thing in the world I want." Aaron said. The bullet wound on his hand had reopened from the beating. He was bleeding profusely and not noticed it so far.

"Get some medical attention, stitch that up. And go home." Jack told him. But even despite all that had happened, Aaron protested "I have a job to do! I have a mission. It's my oath to pursue the mission to my last breath!" The pain in his hand severely stung him, and his right wrist was dislocated from the blows he rained down upon the man. He had to face reality, he could not even hold a gun for awhile, he was not fit to keep doing this. Jack walked with him outside and told him "You are the Vice Chancellor of Homeland Defense, that will not change. At least until you are ready to take up full charge of Homeland Defense, or lead this nation after your father." The thought scared him like nothing else. He told Jack painfully "Emily deserves that so much more than I do. She is father's real child, and she is an infinitely better person than I. She had more courage aboard that ship this morning than I had this entire mission." "Maybe so", Jack said, "But you are as much your father's as Larissa or Emily, and I know that with certainty." The balcony they stood on overlooked the vast expanse of New Clearwater, it was a city that covered the horizon.

The glass doors opened and Corban, dressed in full Lightning Force uniform, walked out to them. "Mr. Secretary." he said, nodding to Jack. He turned to Aaron and said "Aaron, we have been together through all of this. I know we didn't know each other too well beyond the formalities of me protecting your family, but I'd like to think we've become somewhat of friends since this whole fucked up mess started." "You know we are. I couldn't have made it this far without you." Aaron said back to him, he gripped his left hand in worse pain than ever, and it was still hard for him to breathe. Corban gripped his gun in holster and told Aaron "You're injured. People who love you need you right now. I'll finish this." Though humour was hardly appropriate, Corban tried for it anyway "Come on man, you got 2 out of 3. Save one delusional cult motherfucker for me to rip up, eh? After all, she was my love, and had my child." Aaron reached to his side with his right hand and in pain pulled out his own pistol and handed it to Corban. "Take it, always brought me luck."

Instead of going to the House of the First Family, Aaron headed to his own apartment, a penthouse high on the beach of New Clearwater. "Belle is going to be so pissed, I've hardly talked to her in 2 days, didn't even have the time at the burial." In the atrium of the skyscraper, in a private room, a doctor was stitching his hand up and placing his other in a splint. Aaron knew the doctor well and he was the only one he thought he could share personal things with at the moment. He cringed in pain as the doctor kept working, and as he finished up, told him "She loves you. Go tell her everything, she is the one who will listen. It'll help you deal with everything." He feared the thought of telling his girlfriend what he had just done, but he had to trust her.

Corban boarded a helicopter, in a fleet with the most elite men of Lightning Force. It was due to Citria in a very short time. The target would have already made it there, but if they were lucky, he'd be awaiting extraction for awhile yet. It was time to close him. "I'll keep my promise, Aaron." he muttered to himself. He found the kevlar around his body making it hard for him to breathe perfectly, but the adrenaline in his veins canceled out all momentary discomforts. He talked with the men next to him. "It's always something, always fucking something with these religious freaks. The Muslims and their jihads, the Zionist extremists, new age mass murderers, I thought that Christians were relatively harmless. But after all this, I'd like to find the pope of whatever church these people work for and have him hang from the Capitol Tower of New Clearwater."

"But the Premier would never allow that." his comrade said to him. "Despite every justification for it, if we find the nation behind them, he wants to avoid war. I'm a veteran of the Homeland War, it's not something to be envied. We can't burn down a nation, or worse yet risk ours burning, for one person's life, even our great Senator. Corban. Larissa believed in the greater good. You must as well. And you must consider, this cannot go on forever. Find this man and capture him, or put him down if we must. But then we need to start letting go. Look at the Vice Chancellor. There is not a loyal Floridian who would think his actions deserve anything less than a medal. But look what he's become. He's suffering, Corban. Don't suffer for this too, we've all had pain enough, even the enemy."

Corban agreed, and looked at all of his men at once, and said "He's right. We'll take this guy down. And then we move on. There are missions around the world that require us." and putting his arm around his friend's shoulder he asked "Will Aaron and I ever feel alright with this?" "I hope so." he simply replied. Their conversation was over, they had to go over protocol, Citria was getting closer by the second.

[Transnapastain]

The 14-mile drive to Citria was the longest drive Johnston had ever made. Even though it only took him 3 hours, and most of that time as spent doubling back on his route to look for, or throw off pursuit, it was still the most harrowing time of his life. Every time he passed a police cruiser, his stomach leapt into his throat. Only his training was able to keep him from being too visibly nervous to be obvious, though if any police officer had engaged him in conversation, he would have clearly seen the signs, and, Johnston was sure, have known exactly who he was after an ID check.

He was worried that Ned may have talked. He did not know the man very well, and while he was sure that Ned would not have sold him out, he could not afford to be careless. He decided that the enemy had to know everything, and so he needed to be crafty to stay one stem ahead of him. The extraction wasn’t supposed to occur for another 2 and a half days, and he had no way to signal TFIS for a quicker extraction, and was sure one couldn’t be mounted even if he could. He was sure they knew who he was; they probably didn’t even need Ned to tell them his assumed identity. He had to assume they knew where he was going, which meant he could not check into a motel, not even a seedy one in the cities slummier districts. If they knew the details of the extraction, they knew he would need a boat. In a city like Citria, he should have no trouble finding and stealing a watercraft, though he figured they would be watching all the public marinas, meant mean he had to steal one from someone’s private dock, if he could find such a thing. He could not simply steal a boat and head out to international waters. That would make him safe enough, legally, but he doubted that an invisible line in the water would stop his pursuers, and, worse, if he loitered at the extraction point, they may spot him, and the sub coming to get him, which may be enough tot race the attacks back to his homeland, if they didn’t know that already. He desperately hoped Ned, if he had broke, had managed to conceal that fact.

He spied a small gravel road about 3 miles outside of the Citria city limits. The vegetation out here was badly in need of a trim, and he decided that he could conceal the car at the end of the forgotten driveway well enough that it may serve well as a hiding spot for the next three days. After he pulled inside and looked around, he smiled in satisfaction. The overgrowth would hide the car well enough from the road, and the trees should hide his presence from aircraft as well. He seriously doubted anyone would come out this way anytime soon, judging by the disuse of the road and the untamed weeds that choked it.

He needed supplies though. He could not use any of the credit cards he had obtained while in country, but that was not an issue, because he had plenty of currency left. He decided he would head into town to purchase some supplies to hold him over for his ad hoc camping excursion. Nothing to elaborate, he decide, could not be too obvious about it. Buying a tent and sleeping bag and the like might make the clerk, or the police who questioned him, suspicious. Some water, canned goods, toilet paper, a blanket, to anyone he checked out with, it’d simply look like he was buying things for his home. He’d have loved to have purchased a little booze to clam him down, but that might require him to show his ID. Further, he knew back Home, stores had special ID scanner to verify their authenticity, that was bad enough, but what most people didn’t know, is that the same ID scanner linked into the Office of Public Order’ LEADS database, and would alert police if an ID with a warrant block was used.

Johnston drove the car into Citria and began to look around. He spotted a supermarket and headed inside. He made his purchases without obviously arousing any suspicion. As he carried his consumables to his car, he decided that he would drive to the docks district and scout it out, see if he could find any useful information. He headed towards the coast, and began to cruise past the public marinas, ship ports and harbors slips, looking for a good place to pinch a boat from in a few days time.

It occurred to him then that he had no idea about the waterways around Citria. He wanted to obtain a marine map of the area before he set out. He had to make sure the boat he stole had a GPS system, or at least a LORAN device so he could accurately navigate to the rendezvous point. He did not trust his kills was a map and a compass, and he’d be lost at sea forever if he tried to navigate by the stars, as he heard the sailors of old did.

“I didn’t join the Navy for a reason.” He muttered under his breath as he pulled into the parking lot of a boat rental store. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but the place didn’t seem to busy. He didn’t take particular note of the back sedan parked in the lot as he passed by it. As he entered the shop, his blood froze. At the counter were two Marina police officers and a third man in a lighting force uniform. As he stepped in, he caught a glimpse of a poster that the officers had handed the man. On the glossy paper surface, he clearly recognized his own facial features. Both officers turned to regard the newcomer, the Lighting Force man continued speaking with the shop owner. One officer regarded Johnston, then turned his attention back to the discussion occurring. The seconded looked, then did a quick double take, he started to turn towards Johnston, his hand falling to the butt of his pistol.

“Hey, yo-“ he started, Johnston never let him finish that sentence. He yanked his pistol from his waistband and fired, catching the officer, who was only a mere 10 feet away, directly in the face. The bullet entered his right cheek and exited through the base of his skull before impacting into the wall behind the counter. The man crumpled to the ground as Johnston turned right and attempted to take cover from the other two officers. The Marina officer ducked back through a door lading to the rear of the shop, while the Lightning Force man leapt over the counter, pushing the shop keeping to the ground, as he drew his own pistol. Through the rining in his ears, Johnston heard the Marina officer shouting into his sholder mic “Control, 11-99, repeat, 11-99, shots fired, officer down, 1108 Seaway st, need backup at once.”. Bare moments later, the Johnston heard a sharp tone emit from the radio and the broadcast from dispatch “All units, citywide 11-99 for unit M171 and M172, available units respond code 3, 1108 Seaway, officers need immediate assistance, shots fired. Repeat, shots fired.”

“Great, brought the whole city down on top of me.” Johnston muttered as he stuck the gun around the corner and fired several times at the wall the second officer had ducked behind. He was satisfied to hear a shriek as the bullets pierced the paper-thin walls and struck the man. The officer toppled forward onto the ground. Two down , one to go. Johnston thought. He stuck the gun around the corner and fired once, moving across the open door way as he did. Two shots blew past him, one narrowly missing his head. He flattened his back against the wall, and dropped his magazine from his pistol, checking. 4 rounds left he thought, see three in the magazine, and knowing one was in the chamber. make them count/.

“Give it up, you murdering bastard!” shouted the Lightning Force officer from inside.

“Fuck you and your mother!” shouted Johnston. He need a distraction and fast. Quickly, he looked around. The front of the shop, to the left of the door where Johnston now stood, had a large window set in it. Quickly, he bent down and scoped up a rock, holing it in his off hand, he brought it to his chest, taking a deep breath, he flung is arm out, brining the rock 180 degrees before letting it flying through the window. At the same instant, he leaned around the corner, brining his second hand up to his pistol, and took him at the officer.

The gamble worked. The officer was crouched behind the counter, his head and upper torso showing, and the shattering glass and cause him to turn his attention to the window. Johnston quickly snapped off 3 shots, and was rewarded when the third one punched through the officers shoulder, closer to the neck, where his vest wouldn’t protect him. He cried out and spun around, letting go of his gun as he toppled to the ground. Johnston splintered into the shot, and leaped over the counter. He saw the Lighting Force officer laying on the ground, clutching his wound and staring daggers at Johnston. The shop keeper was against the far wall. One of Johnston’s rounds had gazed his side, and he was holding it tightly, blood passing through his fingers as he moaned softly, his head came up as Johnston crossed over the counter.

“You murdering mot-“ is about as far as the officer got before Johnston put the last round in his pistol through the mans head. He fall back instantly, eyes rolling into hi head. The slide on the handgun in Johnston’s hand locked back on an empty chamber, smoke rising from the barrel. Johnston merely dropped it, as there was no reason to worry about concealing the evidence against him now. He scooped up the Lighting Force officer’s pistol. He leveled it at the shop keeper but hesitated. The man stared at him, eyes pleading for mercy, and dulled with the pain from the wound. e wont die Johnston thought critically That would isn't serious, it just hurts a lot, even if medics don't get here for a while, he'll live.. Johnston slowly lower the pistol he had trained on the shopkeeper, there was no point in killing him, the damage to his cover had been down, and, as with the discarded gun, there was no hiding the evidence. He jumped back over the counter, and went to the first officer he shot. He could hear sirens now, getting rapidly closer every second. He knew he had to hurry. He checked the first officers firearm, and found it was different than the Lighting Force officers gun. He ejected the magazine, threw it behind the counter, finally he racked the slide, ejecting the chambered round, and dropped the gun next to the first slain officer. He removed the police officers firearm from his holster, and the two magazines from the mag pouch on his duty belt. He pulled the slide halfway back, and ensured a round as chambered before moving to the second officer, who was still breathing but unconscious. Johnston ejected the magazine from his pistol, and gathering his spare magazines as well. As he was searching the wounded officer, an idea came to him. He removed the officers radio from its pouch and, disconnecting the shoulder mic, he keyed the radio. “This is M172.” He said, hoping he’d guessed the right unit number for the officer, “Subject fled, headed southbound on foot, units can slow down their response." Remembering the wounded shopkeeper, and seeing the second officer struggling to breath, obviously in severe pain, a pool of blood forming under his unconscious body, he hastily added, "Need EMS response this location for critically wounded. One officer is DOA, I'm wounded, and I have a wounded civillian here too.”

The answer was almost instant “M172 is clear, EMS is standing by for officers to secure the scene. All units continue.”

He swore softly, they thought he was headed southbound, now, and would hopefully head in hat direction, giving him some time to flee north, instead, but, as he should have known, they weren’t going to call off the response, and because there were wounded, he doubted they would even slow down the response. His lie would fall apart not too long after officer arrived. He stuck the radio in his back pocket and fled out the rear door of the marina. He knew he couldn’t go back to his car, now, there’d be no escaping from the city that way. He decided he would attempt to lose pursuit in the harbor, maybe hiding amongst the shipping containers and moving equipment. He sprinted towards it, the rapidly approaching sounds of sirens wailing behind him.

[The Floridian Coast]

Citria

One of Corban's longtime comrades, Dimitri, was the driving the armored car. He was a much better driver than Corban, Dimitri grew up supporting himself in poverty by illegal street racing, he was the best their was. They caught up with two ambulances in both lanes headed towards the injured policemen. Dimitri swerved into oncoming traffic hard left and missed a motorcycle by inches. More cars were coming up ahead, and there was now a barrier dividing lanes. Refusing to turn around and waste time, Dimitri floored it, and screeching tires burnt as he sped up and swerved back far ahead of the ambulances as soon as road was open again. He braked hard in the parking lot of the shop, nearly hitting the cop car by an inch. "Nice driving as always Dimitri." Corban said in a rush as he exited the car.

He saw the first marina officer outside with a headshot at barely glanced at him, he was absolutely dead. Inside the store, he saw the Lightning Force officer dead the same way. He headed towards the back on instinct, wondering if the target ran out that way and hid nearby. Encountering the last officer shot was a brutal sight even for a hardened man like Corban, blood soaked him. He felt for a pulse and barely felt a small one. He slapped the side of his face to try and get a response, and found none. The sirens of the ambulances stopped as they parked outside. Two other Lightning Force men came forward and one said "The EMS is here, and we're not forensics, let's head South.'"

"Something's not right here..." Corban said. He looked into the man's eyes for any sign of life and noticed a wound on the side of his head. It wasn't a shot. He looked up and saw blood on the table. "Look at this. Wound to the temple. He was shot through the wall, he staggered, and he fell here. Right to the temple. That's a knockout, right there." "What are you saying, sir?" the other of the two asked. "I'm saying he couldn't have made that call." Nervously pondering Corban's logic, one of them said to him "You sure you want to risk the suspect escaping on an intuition?" Corban had to admit, he had his doubts. "No, I don't. You two head South right now, stay along the coastline, he won't try to run back into the city. Dimitri and I will head North. Both of you, call for local police backup."

Walking back to the front of the store, Corban saw Dimitri talking to the shopkeeper, was who being hoisted onto a stretcher by paramedics. The shopkeeper was strangely apologetic, he said to Dimitri "I wish I could have done something, but he was a trained man. He's very dangerous and very quick, please be careful. Forgive me not spotting him faster, I tried..." Dimitri said to him "You're a civilian, you're not expected to have a gun and be trained to take down dangerous agents. Get well, we'll probably have the bastard by the time the doctors stitch you up."

Dimitri was younger and more idealistic, increasingly discontent with the situation, telling Corban "For everyone whose dead we may as well have just bombed the fucking city, we'd get a dead assassin and the same results." bitter sarcasm expressing his anger at the situation. Corban didn't have time to have a conversation, instead he just grabbed Dimitri by the collar and said "Are you afraid to die?! Because you picked the wrong line of work if that's the case. You took an oath to your nation. Are you Lightning Force or not?" Dimitri shrugged off Corban's anger and flatly replied "No, I'm not afraid to die.", it was a lie, but the adrenaline in his system gave him a little confidence. "Good. Now let's go, we'll head North while our other guys head South. Police are blockading all the roads just in case he tries to escape the shores."


New Clearwater

Aaron opened the door of his apartment, after struggling somewhat to turn the key with his injured hand, he swallowed another painkiller. The expensive and luxurious furnishings around him did little to make him feel at home again, the familiar was a reminder to him, in his despair, that he might never feel normal again.

"Belle, are you here?" he called out. His girlfriend, a school companion of his sister Emily, ran down the stairs and hugged him tight. She moved back a little keeping her arms around his neck. Her green eyes were a little red now like Aaron's own, he hoped she had not been crying worrying about him. "Aaron, oh you injured your right hand too? What happened to you, love?" He took her hand and walked her over to the sofa, and let her lay down on him. "I've made a lot of mistakes, Belle. I thought I could handle this, seeking justice for Larissa, but I don't think I can anymore. I don't even know if I can do my job." despite being injured, he tried to stroke her hair a little to let her know that he hadn't lost the feeling of loving her in all of his rage. Belle took his hand softly and told him "Emily told me you were going after some cult that was behind this. You didn't catch anyone?"

Sitting up a little, Aaron knew he'd have to tell her the truth about everything. "We did get someone, a foreign agent who harbored the gunman who escaped. They interrogated him and found out the man was running to Citria. Corban has landed there by now with Lightning Force, they're going to find him before he escapes." "That's good news." Belle said, knowing he had more to say. Aaron continued "I wanted to find out what country sponsored him. I tried to interrogate him, I thought I could find out, and Jack could go to wherever he was from and demand extradition of those responsible. I thought we'd have enough leverage to get them and execute them, so my sister's death would be paid in full. So I interrogated him. But, he was already strained from the earlier questioning. I guess he knew he'd die, and wanted it to happen quickly, before he'd betray his handlers and reveal too much, that's what Jack and Anders seemed to think."

He paused. He felt ashamed. Belle turned around and kissed him. She whispered to him. "You can tell me, Aaron, I'll understand." Aaron gave Belle a little space as his voice naturally raised, he had to stand up. "I told him who I was, it was a mistake. He fucked with my mind. Said he wished he could have killed my mother. Said he'd like to rape Emily. I was sickened by him, after all I'd been through his defiance just enraged me. I expected fear from him, I thought he'd give me what I wanted. I didn't expect... didn't expect him to trick me into giving him exactly what he wanted. I killed him, Belle. And now we might not ever know who did this. How can I live with that?"

Standing up as well, Belle looked deep into Aaron's eyes and said. "You loved Larissa so much, I know you did. Aaron, to be honest, in a fucked up way, I'm glad you're the way you are. I'm glad to know you go so far for someone you love. It makes me feel safer with you. I know you came home expecting me to hate you for this, but how could I?

Take that uniform off and come upstairs. Let's forget about all of this." she said to him, smiling. Aaron wanted to do as she asked, but he still felt so many things all at once. "Corban, was going to call me, when the Citria mission is complete." he said, feeling guilty to still be thinking about work. Belle picked up his phone off the table and said "Corban can call Jack, or your father. And you'll hear about this in an hour. But come on, for me." Aaron held his phone for a minute, and then popped out the battery and laid it on the table. He smiled at Belle lifted her up, she laughed and Aaron tried to keep a smile as he remembered how much pain his hands were in. He carried her up the stairs and decided it was time to feel normal again, somehow, even just for a little while. He thought about Belle's words and what they meant to him. His dedication to the ones he loved, his greatest strength and his worst flaw all at once.

[Transnapastain]

Rounding another corner, Johnston ducked inside a warehouse. The dock works were lightly populated at this time, which he was incredibly thankful for. The warehouse was dimly lit, and packed with crates of all shapes and sizes. He ducked behind a few of them and pulled the radio from his pocket. He wanted to see where his pursuers were, if he could. He turned the volume knob down and listened to the chatter.

A lot of it was the units cordoning off the boat rental shop, establishing a perimeter, and trying to secure the crime scene for processing. However, he caught one bit of info that made his heart sink. “Car 17 to dispatch, permission to make a broadcast?” when the dispatcher acknowledge in the affirmative he continued “all units responding on the Seaway street shooting, be advised witness stated suspect is a white male, around 25 years of age, brown hair, blue eyes, maybe 180 to 200, 5’9 to 6’1. Last seen wearing dark blue jeans and a black t-shirt. Subject is armed, and may be in possession of a police radio. All units, use KDT communications if possible, or switch to tactical channel 5.”

Johnston turned the radios channel dial until the LED screen told him he was on “TAC5”. However, no sound emitted from the channel. Knowing he was taking a risk, he attempted to key up. When he did, the radio let out a short beep that did not sound encouraging, and the LED light up, asking him to enter a three digit pass code. He tried the two crew numbers he knew for the slain and wounded officers respectively, but the channel refused to come in. He swore quietly, and dropped the radio onto the concrete floor of the warehouse.

Water, he thought I’ll seal a boat and make for one of the off shore atolls.. with luck I can find a cove to hide out in, I’ll stay on the island for a day or two, then head to the rendezvous.. He went to the door of the warehouse and looked around. There were boats in sight, but he doubted he could inconspicuously hijack a tanker ship or cargo freighter, let alone run the thing by himself. Determined he’d begin moving north again, and try to find a motor launch, or a jet ski, or something At this point, I’d take a canoe he thought bitterly as he exited the warehouse.

As he stepped back out, he caught a glimpse of movement to his right. He whirled, the pistol in his hand coming up. He spotted two Lightning Force officers making their way down the coast line, about 100 yards back. They spotted him too, and began to quicken their pace, shouting for him to surrender. He fired a few rounds in their direction, but would have been seriously surprised if any of them found their targets. Without looking to see if they even flinched, he ran north again, trying to find something to buy him some time.

As he ran, he began to drift west again, back towards the city. This didn’t really fit with his plan, but, he hoped it might throw off his pursuit a bit. Every time he began to think he may have eluded the Lightning Force officer hot on his trail, a bullet would crack past him, or he’d hear a shout for him to surrender himself. Each time that happened, he ran harder than he thought he ever could.

He burst around a corner and into an alley running between o squat, concrete dock office buildings. Headed westbound again, he skidded to a stop. Abut 50 yards ahead were three police cruisers, and a van with a dozen or more officers gathered around them. Most were armed with assault rifle. They were gathered around the hood of one of the cruisers, and he could see, though not hear, a man with sergeants stripes on his sleeves, speaking to them, most likely giving them a briefing. They hadn’t seen him in the shadows, but it was clear they were closing the net on him. He had to get out onto the water before they pinned him in. He backed away from the rally point and returned to the mouth of the alley.

As son as he broke cover to run across the parking lot towards a few more warehouses, bullets whizzed by him. He hazarded a glance to his right as he sprinted, and saw the two pursuing Lightning Force men were gaining on him, only 50 yards away, taking cover near a crane. Shouts from behind him told him the gathering police officers also heard the shots and were moving out. He fired several rounds towards the Lighting Force men offhandedly, which ricocheted off the crane with a spang. He made it to the cover of the warehouses, but the police were hot on his trail. He knew he had to move fast, and be lucky, or he’d been in deep trouble.

As he ran down the alley between the two buildings, he cut right, headed towards an inlet where he had seen some boats. As he crossed the next alley over, a few shots whizzed by him; Lightning Force again, hot on his trail. He made it to the some harbor wall and looked down. Tied to a dock below was a small motor launch from a cruise ship. There were a few people around it, it was obviously taking on some supplies for the boat. The scene struck Johnston as vaguely illegal, as it was odd to send such a small boat to supply a ship in port. He could, however, care less if those men were smuggling nuclear warheads into our out of the Floridian Coast as he ran full speed down the stairs. He fired at the men gathered around the boat wildly, not actually intending to hit them, but to get them to flee.

They scattered, some of them diving into the blue water of the ocean, others running down the docks away from him. He got to the bottom of the stairs. He could hear booted feet on the wooden stairs above him. He knew he had to hurry. He ran and jumped the last few feet, landing in the boat and rolling on the deck, he got up and scrambled for the controls….a look back towards the stars showed the Lighting Force officers coming down them rapidly. More officers were taking positions on the harbor wall, readying their assault rifles

This is going to be close…, he thought as he reached for the throttle.

[The Floridian Coast]

The target had started the boat and sped off at full speed. Some of the policemen armed with their assault rifles shot at the boat with no success. Corban and Dimitri looked around the dock for the fastest boat they could find. As Dimitri ran along the docks and looked more, Corban called in for a helicopter, he knew there must be one in the sky. "This is Alpha-23K7, target is seaborne and heading West, need a bird immediately. Do not engage, only follow." He waited the longest 5 seconds of his life before a response of "Affirmative, orders given." And he looked up to sea a low flying police helicopter over the city going out into the sea.

Corban turned and looked for Dimitri, he was not running back, but then he saw in the water his partner pulling up on a jetski. Corban ran out to the edge of the dock, frustrated. "A jetski? That's the best you could do, a fucking jetski?" Dimitri motioned for him to come aboard and said "A racing jetski, and the water is calm today, no wind, we'll be fine." Corban made a solid leap aboard it. His Lightning Force uniform was not particularly designed to handle moisture, as Dimitri hit the throttle, Corban felt heavier as his uniform soaked in the wake. Luckily for him, his gun was quite water resistant. They trailed West for 5 minutes with no sight of the stolen boat ahead, and a small speck in the air that was the helicopter up ahead. Corban did not bother to follow the protocol to identify himself, which was perhaps shortsighted since the suspect just posed as a police officer. "Did he change directions?" Corban asked the control center, who immediately responded "No, he's dead head, continue onward, the bird is over him."

Slowly but surely, the stolen vessel appeared on the horizon. Dimitri was relieved, they were faster. Over the rushing of the waves, Corban shouted as loud as he could to Dimitri, barely audible at all "He's not going to stop. I don't know where he's going but there's no land ahead, and his fuel tank will outlast ours, maybe even the helicopter, they have no armed men to shoot him aboard anyway. What are we going to do?"

The boat became fully visible now, it was looked quite large in comparison the thin and compact racing jetskis they were aboard. Dimitri shouted back "We board it!" Corban nearly fell off instinctively wanting to stand. "Have you lost your FUCKING MIND DIMITRI?" After a few seconds, and them becoming nearly parallel with the boat, Dimitri yelled back to him "Trust me!" They pulled a little bit ahead of the boat. Neither Corban and Dimitri nor the target had any reasonable angle to shoot at each other. After a few seconds, Dimitri screamed to Coran "Jump off!", and Corban's instincts seized control of his body and he did what his subordinate told him. He fell 10 feet under water and had the wind knocked out of him from the impact, but held his breath and surfaced as quickly as he could. Dimitri took an abrupt turn in front of the stolen boat and Corban couldn't tell if he jumped off or fell off. But Dimitri's plan was evident now. The jetski was pulled under and shredded the propeller. Corban held his breath. "Don't explode, please don't explode." he said to himself. It didn't. The stolen boat was thrust sideways as the target tried to get out of the way at the last minute, and came to a halt. Corban dove underwater. He'd undoubtedly be seen boarding, but he didn't want the target to have more than a few seconds to shoot at him. He reached the side of the boat and thrust himself upward.

The target noticed him as he was half way to his feet and took a shot. It hit Corban squarely in the chest, but his high grade kevlar held out well. Corban fell back underwater, and heard the muffled sounds of more bangs from above. He couldn't believe what he had done, he was dead any second now. Doing the only thing he could think that would prolong his life, Corban went directly under the boat. He felt sharp pains from holding his breath, and he felt his gun may be useless now from prolonged submersion. For the first time in his life, he had no idea what to do, but resolved to do something. Figuring the target would expect him to come up along the other side, Corban swam back to where he came. He would charge at the man and hope he was out of bullets. But the target was quick sighted and saw him come up again. He aimed his gun and hit an inch away from Corban. He had to reload, but Corban was helpless, and he had another set of rounds on him. Corban was too exhausted to do more than crawl his way up to him. And then a shot rang out from behind, and the target fell to the ground. Dimitri was alive, though looked like just barely. Blood streamed down his face, and he too was laying down as if he leg were broken. Corban looked up at Dimitri as if he were a hallucination "Aye didn't see me, did you? This water isn't too clear to begin with, quite ironic consider the capital's name. I had quite a distance to swim and I think at least a few of my bones are broken. Agh..." The helicopter lowered itself down. Corban glanced at the target, he was dying but not dead. He picked up the gun by him and threw it into the sea, and then walked over to Dimitri. He lowered him down into the water and told the men in the helicopter, "Someone dive in and get him, he needs urgent medical help! Bring him back, suspect down, I got this until backup arrives, just save his life!"

Corban walked back to the target, who was laying on his stomach. He turned him around. The man was still fully conscious. Corban said to him "It's over. Do you wish you had surrendered and avoided this?" The man looked up at Corban, and replied in a tone just above a whisper "No." Corban naturally had his gun pointed at him, but holstered it, he wouldn't need it. He stopped for a moment to remember the pain in his own chest. He knew he was probably bleeding and would have a major bruise, maybe worse, but he'd be fine. Looking back at the man, Corban said "You're not lying. I can tell. Why don't you tell me the truth some more, think of it like a deathbed confession. Is your name really Johnston?" The injured man was breathing heavily and tried to sit up against the railing. Corban knew he was not struggling for his life, that he probably just wanted to move his body and know he was still alive for the moment. He leaned against the edge of the boat and said to Corban "Yeah. That's my real name."

Johnston seemed almost as if he wanted to talk, Corban pressed on. "What nation are you from, who do you work for?" It became apparent to Corban before Johnston's answer that he crossed the line of what one would easily share. "Go to hell." Johnston said, opening his eyes to say it but closing them intermittently. He added to that before Corban could speak again "I don't think I have more than a minute left now. I'm not scared. What can you do to me? Nothing."

Sitting back himself, still on high alert but starting to feel a sense of calm, Corban looked into Johnston's eyes and saw a certain type of courage that he hadn't seen in many. Corban kept eye contact with Johnston and told him "You're right. And I'm not going to do anything to you. You're an agent. Had you been one of ours, you'd be one of our best. A whole nation hunting you down and we went through hell to find you." Johnston bit his lip for a second to try and phase out the pain of his gunshot wound for a moment, and gritted his teeth, but replied to Corban, still lucid "Are you congratulating the most hated man in your nation?" and Johnston and Corban both very lightly laughed for only a fleeting moment. Corban told him, with a much more serious demeanor "Senator Bryce was mine to protect. And I loved her. I wanted to have a family with her. I'm not going to give you absolution for anything."

Feeling himself get colder, Johnston knew his time was running out. He used most his strength just to speak and asked Corban "Have you ever wanted to know about the loved ones of people you've had to kill?" "No." he said back flatly. Johnston continued on, feeling as if he owed it to himself to have worthwhile last words "I have a family too. I wanted them to have a better world, where people were more righteous, more virtuous. Not like us. I can't help but wonder how much of the good inside us we've lost doing what we must. Even as I fought for the good of the world, and for the purity of this world God gave us." Corban listened carefully to what he said, and told him "Your family would be proud that you fought so hard. But you're still my enemy, the kinship we share through blood and honor isn't enough to change that." Johnston slumped back down, now unable to find the strength to even maintain eye contact, he said to Corban "God will take me home. I have nothing else to say to you." those seemed to be his last words, as Johnston closed his eyes for the last time. He heard Corban's voice, clear but growing ever more distant "I took an oath to die for my nation, to never betray it even at the price of my own life. I'm sure you kept your oath then too..." Corban's voice faded out and Johnston's earthly life ceased.

Corban saw Floridian speedboats coming up in the distance. He walked over to Johnston's lifeless body and closed his eyes. Saying to him, now dead, "I think I still hate you. But you have honor." He would make sure the man would be cremated without any disgrace to his corpse. He stood on the aft of the boat and waited for the crew to arrive. He spoke to himself in his own mind "There's been enough anger in this nation to burn down half the world. Maybe it's best for things to end here, to not start a war. Enough people have died already, peace has to be found sometime."

[Transnapastain]

Aboard the TNS Jude
International Waters, just outside of Floridian territorial waters


“No Captain, we are negative SONAR contact. There is nothing at the rendezvous point.” The SONAR man said, holding the headphone against the side of his as he spoke, staring into the computer screen ahead of him. Quietly, he stated “I don’t think they made it, sir.”

Captain Rance Hildebrandt sighed. “Such is the nature of the games these spooks play. Loaded dice, if you ask me.”

The SONAR man nodded. “Shall I continue to monitor, sir?”

“By all means, I don’t want to leave them behind if we can help it.” Hildebrandt said. As he turned to leave the bridge, the radio operator called out, “Captain, dispatch from Taupran.”

Hildebrandt strode over to the radioman’s station, “Lets see it, then, son.” The man finished decoding the VHF SatCom message, and passed the tablet to Captain Hildebrandt. He studied it for a moment, then nodded. “Taupran reports Parcase satellites operating in the area of the rendezvous observed what appeared to be a high speed boat chase between several unknown subjects, though what appears to be Floridian police units participated in the chase, as well. There is a high probability that our men were compromised.” He informed the bridge crew.

“What are your orders then?” asked the XO

“Continue all ahead, well pass through the area and set course for Salvacion. There’s nothing more we can do.” Replied Hildebrandt. “We did what we could.”

“As ordered” replied the XO, who began giving orders to the helmsmen. Captain Hildebrandt began coding a message on the tablet to transmit to Taurpran. He worked the stylus over the screen

“Jude reports message received, Negative contact at point 09087. Mission believed to be comprised, aborted, returning to port.” He wrote and handed it to the radioman. “Encode and transmit.” He ordered, “XO, you have the com.”

“XO has the com.” said the XO, reciting the age old reply.

Hildebrandt strode form the bridge to his ready room. Closing the door, he sat down at his desk and pulled a glass bottle containing a dark amber substance. As the submarine knifed its way through the dark, cool ocean waters, he poured a bit of it into a glass and, raising it above his head, he offered a salute to the two men he’d never known, saying “ The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” He drank the liquid in a single go, setting the glass softly on the desk as he did.

Subrosa, Transnapastain

“Well, that’s it, then.” Said Brandt as he looked up from the report he had been reading. “They never made contact with the Jude, which has changed course and is headed for Salvacion.”

“Is that it though?” Harris mused. “Do you think they were killed outright? Did they talk prior to their death?” he glanced at Schmidt.

“We don’t know for sure.” Schmidt admitted, a rarity for him. “Again, signals intelligence suggests that they obtained some information from Hughes, but after that, we don’t know what happened to him. We’re sure he wasn’t on the launch boat, the Parcase pictures were good enough to identify Simmins, and we’re damn sure he’s dead. That means they either killed Hughes, or he’s still in custody. If he’s dead, that’s wonderful, if he’s not…” Schmidt let the implications hang in the air.

Brandt finished his thoughts. “Then they may well be able pull it out of him.”

“Quite.” Said Schmidt. “I’d like to note, though, that Simmins should be recommended for some sort of posthumous award.” Schmidt looked down at this tablet, then resumed talking, “Based on the intelligence we have been able to gather from media reports, signals intercepts, and the preliminary debriefings of Protectorate agents returning home from the Floridian Coast, Simmins manage to flee the immediate area of the assassination, remain undetected for nearly 24 hours, before what appear to be blanket raids on religious extremist groups within the capital were mount, and forced him and Hughes out of hiding. After successfully escaping the cordon, and ensuing manhunt, he managed to make it 24 kilometers to the disembark point for extraction, incapacitate three police officers, hijack a boat and nearly make it out of the area before being subdued by the nations elite operatives.” In a rare move, Schmidt expressed a personal opinion, “He was one hell of an agent.”

“I’ll be putting him up for the Knights Sword with Diamonds, for that.” Harris said, “My personal endorsement. The prize money will go to his family, of course, says here he has a wife and two young children, damn shame he didn’t make it out.”

“Not for lack of effort.” Said Brandt, raising his glass in salute before taking a long gulp of the whiskey it contained. He set it down with a grimace. “Have AFSRC put Floridian Coast on our watch list. We’ll want to know if they make any major military movements in the next few months. Further, flag any Floridian passports, or any know allies of the Floridian Coast. If they enter a Directorate nation, or the Seabelt, we need to know about it.”

“Those precautions are already in place, Executer.” Schmidt said. “We’re also trying to get some agents, TFIS, not Protectorate- “ Schmidt said, with a sideways glance at Harris, “into the nation, merely to monitor. No direct actions with in the FC will be authorized.”

“Good, good.” Said Brandt. “I’ll forward a memo to Friedman that any diplomatic contact received by the Office of Foreign Affairs regarding Floridian Coast should be routed to my office, as well as Schmidt’s, at once. Top priority.”

“Very well, then. I think this meeting is adjourned?” asked Harris, glancing between the two other men.

“I think so, yes. Though, Julian, We-“ and it was clear Brandt wasn’t meaning the Transnapastaini government, “would like for you to be a little more careful in the future. As you know, plans have been set in motion regarding the Church and its standing, and we don’t want to upset them, do we?”

As Brandt strode form the office, he glanced back at the Executer, a ghost of a smile playing across his lips. “And how do you know this wasn’t one of them, Hans, old boy?” he asked, leaving the dumbstruck Executer to contemplate that ominous statement.