On with the Hunt (Open, MT/PMT, Attn Slavers)

[Osea 767]

St Stepansburg Naval Base, Federal Socialist Republic of Osea

The Sailors of the Osean fleet at St Stepansburg had been ready for conflict for some months now. There had been regular exercises and the sailors of every ship in the port were as prepared for combat as they could be. However, the waiting was annoying for the sailors. They wanted to take action now that the shape of the conflict was made clear to them. They wanted to strike at the enemy now, rather than wait for the enemy to act.

It was therefore unsurprising to anyone that the sailors of this fleet began celebrating when they received their new orders. Captain Sergei Kuzovlev, commander of one of the attack submarines of the port, felt the same feelings as the other sailors at the port. They had known that they would be facing the slavers for a number of months. Yet the military was not taking action against the enemy. Others might say that the conflict had begun with declarations and agreements made before these orders. He did not feel so. For him and the other sailors in the port, the conflict had begun now.

As he issued orders, his face seemed younger than it was. The thought of a fresh battle was something that gave the Captain pleasure. Sergei had been monitoring the struggle against slavery as it had been progressing, as had many members of the Osean military. Many of their nations allies were involved in the conflict. Premier Ruhle had made a speech declaring that the Federal Socialist Republic would do everything it could in this conflict. Only now though would the Oseans be able to show their intention to keep to that declaration and play their part in the liberation.

One of his crew then walked up to him. “Sir, we have nearly finished loading up supplies”. While he said that, the crewman, a Ivan Nikolayev, had his mind on a mystery he had discovered. This operation should not require the supplies we will be carrying. Given the time we will be expected to return to port and the type of operation we are expected to be performing, we have far more supplies than we need. Something is not right with this.

Kuzovlev knew the reason behind this. It was something he could not reveal yet, though he was looking forward to the time when he could. For now, he merely acknowledged the crewman's report and carried on the business of preparing his vessel for it's mission.

K-622, Osean Waters

The Osean submarine had now left the port and was cruising towards international waters. The crew knew there was a possibility of them operating to a limited extent outside the waters of their nation, but none of them imagined the full scale of what they would be doing. Once the submarine had made it's across a distance of two thirds of the Osean waters that separated them from international waters. He knew the importance of his words now. For a long moment, he looked at the speaker, not yet ready to talk. Finally though, he flipped the switch and made his address to his crew.

"This is your Captain speaking.

Right as I speak, ships of the Osean navy move out from their ports. They move to engage one of the most vile enemies there are in this world, the slave traders. Many of our comrades move to interdict slave ships that are within reach of our ships when operating from our ports and those of slavers stupid enough to dare and enter our own waters. I know in my heart that our sailors will do all they can to liberate the tortured souls on board the ships they capture and dispense justice on those who commit such evils. I salute them and hope they achieve success. Yet we have a different mission. I am sure there are some of you who have suspected such. Now I shall reveal our true mission. This requires the utmost secrecy. Only the highest ranking members of our military command structure and the crews of the submarines assigned to our campaign even know what we are doing.

We are now going to be operating deep in international waters. The slavers require material to support their armed forces and their industrial-military complexes. If the trade that supplies them with these materials is disrupted, their ability to wage war will be weakened. This will, in the long run, save the lives of both Osean soldiers and those of our allies. To do this, we and many other Osean attack submarines will be running a campaign to sink enemy commercial ships. We will be working in a wolf pack with other Osean subs and we shall soon be hunting prey. There are many targets awaiting us, ships from nations of the IASEN and other prominent slaving nations. With us on the prowl, we shall make bleed them until they're white. We shall make them forever regret deciding to inflict the atrocities they have upon the innocents they turn into slaves. Let us achieve glory for our country comrades.

Za Rodina!"

As the Captain finished, his crew began to cheer. They were going to fight the enemy and they were going to do it in a bold way. They were finally getting on with the hunt and every crewman was eager for their ship to get it's first kill.

[Ikruchystan]

tag

[The Floridian Coast]

"Senate Resolution 71355, to join our allied nation of Osea, in accordance with the terms of the Serovskaya Pact, in their actions against slave traders, to deploy naval vessels into international waters where known routes for slave trade take place, and to offer them wide permissions to engage and destroy slave trading vessels. Further this bill strengthens our embargo on slave owning nations, and will grant contracts to privateers for personal actions against slavers. The voting shall now begin." the Senate Majority leader said from his podium.

On mobile devices, 360 Senators cast their votes. The ruling Democratic Socialist Party had a firm majority, but they relied on unanimous votes to pass this resolution alone, which they did not have. The People's Progress Party would vote no, they were strictly pacifist and would not allow this resolution. They had earlier offered alternatives in which slavers were condemned and embargos strengthened, but no engagement. Finally, the National Marxists had a choice to make. They were anti-slavery, but also anti-interventionism, strong advocates of "Socialism in one nation" which never have held full power.

The timer expired and the majority leader said "The vote is over. The Democratic Socialist Party reports 168 votes in favor, and 42 votes against. The People's Progress Party, report votes."

A young woman stood up from her seat and said firmly "93 votes against, zero votes in favor."
The majority leader expected nothing else. He turned "National Marxist Party, report votes."

The old Senator speaking for his party seemed surprised as he spoke, as if he had not read the results before speaking. 40 votes against, 17 votes in favor."

Most of the Democratic Socialists stood up, cheering and applauding. "The resolution is passed 185 to 175!" High Premier Alexander Bryce would sign it immediately.

Lightning Force, the Floridian elite special ops, soon had all their members not currently engaged receive a briefing. "Plans shall be formed to infiltrate slave trading nations and disrupt that industry by all means necessary."

[Kenzai]

A fortnight earlier

Waves of rain swept down upon the gloomy streets of Devil's Kitchen, washing them free from grime and refuse. In a foul temper not helped by the miserable weather, Johann Galbitz slammed shut the rickety door to the warehouse and glared at the lights as they flickered once, twice, thrice, before settling into stable (if noisy) life. Devil's Kitchen may have been conveniently located to the Port of Iskara, but damn if it wasn't the most dingy hellhole this side of the New Karaith slums.

He stared at the forlorn array of human-shaped things that cowered against the far wall, and the smaller group of armed men who lounged around before them, some uniformed; and he said to the small man beside him: "Business isn't so good, I take it."

"Oh yes, terrible!" the small man agreed quickly. He spoke fast, too fast for Galbitz's taste, and his eyes darted every which way like a cornered animal's. "So much international pressure. So many customers too frightened to buy or sell. Too frightened by all the war, all the embargos, all the threats of war. Whole markets drying up. The whole industry is at risk of being crippled, you know. I'd heard just last week about--"

"Shut the fuck up," said Galbitz, amiably. Crossing the room leisurely he allowed a few seconds' pause before he said: "It's simple. We're a shipping company. We transport cargo internationally. All fucking kinds of cargo. We don't give two shits what you want moved or where or why or whether you're a huge cocksucker. Except where it impacts our bottom line."

The small man nodded without speaking.

"This is a cargo we don't usually transport. Our ships aren't designed for this shit. We'll need to make a variety of adjustments. This requires us to shell out cash--"

"Best not to worry about that," the small man broke in. "It'll all be taken care of. All be taken care of."

Galbitz favoured (?) the small man with a level stare. "You'd best be certain of that. We're only dealing with a little shit like you because of the colour of your money. If it's not good enough--"

But the small man didn't appear to be bluffing, and he allowed his eyes to rest for long enough to meet Galbitz's. "It's good enough. You can ask your boss." He jerked his head to the right, and Galbitz's eyes followed, unable to conceal the momentary shock.

The boss sat upon an upturned crate. A gentleman with an R4 loomed some distance behind him His goodhumoured face twinkled, and his voice was supremely amiable. "Alienating another customer, Johann? You want us to lose all our repeat business?"

Galbitz stumped over to the man who owned the ship he sailed and dropped a briefcase on the ground before his feet. "Paperwork's in there. Signed everything. Plus his deposit."

"Excellent," said his boss, with a smile. "I know we don't ordinarily deal in slaves. But nowadays it's looking to be quite lucrative indeed—"

Galbitz chuckled mirthlessly. "Yeah, all I have to do is spend three weeks in the direct company of filthy fucking foreigners. Five minutes with that one already makes my skin crawl—"

The small man was watching this exchange with a progressively more amused expression.

"I'll finalise this deal, then," his boss said, getting up. "You go on your way with your cut of the profits, and we all go home happy."

"Fuck that," Galbitz mumbled under his breath, as he watched the two men move off farther and begin to speak in a low voice. Turning round he glared at the men standing or sitting about, guarding. Most of them were on his crew. Plopping himself down upon the crate his boss had vacated, he said, "There had better be no fucking trouble on this trip. The boss is here -- means this had better be one sweet fucking contract."

A man laughed harshly. "Already looked it up. Whoring ain't legal where we're going."

"You ever spare a brain cell for something other than your dick, Conrad?" said Galbitz.

"Fuck no. Why would I?" Conrad looked thoughtful. "'Sides, illegal means I can still find a whore in a back alley somewhere, and then slit her throat when I'm done with her. Law won't give a shit."

"That's our Conrad," said a third man from somewhere across the semicircle. "He likes 'em dead."

"Go fuck yourself, Stefan."

But Galbitz was watching the slaves. There were about forty of them -- the youngest perhaps eight or nine years old, the oldest looking about fifty. They were surprisingly healthy and clean, their skin mostly unmarked; they were clad in about as little as the chill Kenzanii climate would allow. Evidently clothing had been an additional expense -- or simply not part of the package ordered by the buyer. Yet for a dying industry, crippled by international sanctions as the small man claimed, these men and women and boys and girls were suspiciously healthy-looking. Not displaying the ordinary signs of having been bred for slavery. Silent, grim-faced, but fidgety. Sometimes they whispered to each other. Galbitz's eyes narrowed.

In English he said: "Quiet, all you." Not loudly. Not forcefully. But still they obeyed.

All except one.

The boy who spoke didn't look much older than sixteen or seventeen. His skin was uncallused, his muscles unworked. Indeed, he looked very much as though he'd grown up in a life of comparative luxury. That wasn't why Galbitz was immediately suspicious. It was what he said: "You. Explain this treatment."

Who had taught the boy Kenzanii?

The men had ceased their chattering and were staring directly at the boy. He stared back. Unafraid. Foolish. "We are taken from our homes, not given leave to bring any possessions with us, not even clothing. Marched through mud and dirt, chained together and thrown into cages, flown round in a plane's cargo hold. Now you talk openly before us of selling us overseas, of the denial of all of our basic human rights, and when we try to reassure the young and fearful you tell us to be quiet—"

Galbitz stalked forward. One hand in the boy's hair. One around his throat. He lifted him off the ground like so much air and said, in a perfectly even voice: "Do you wish to be a fucking example to illustrate what awaits your countrymen if they are not quiet when I fucking tell them to be quiet? I said I don't want any fucking trouble on this trip. And if you dare pull a fucking trick like that one again so help me I will see to it that the rest of your life is a living hell—"

"Johann!" His boss's voice cut through to his ears like a knife. "You are not to damage the merchandise. If I hear any reports to that effect I will have you chained to an anchor."

Galbitz had already dropped the boy, leaving him collapsed in an undignified heap before the slaves. They were perfectly still, as before. They might as well have not been people. "Like I would want to lay hands on some goddamn outsider," Galbitz shot back. "You have my word. I won't break him."

"See to it that you don't."

The small man was already halfway to the door, and the boss was opening a case of kilocreds, which glittered in the dim light. But he said to the small man: "Please. Don't go."

And the small man hesitated, and did not go. The money had yet to be counted.

---

Now

It was a terrible voyage, just as Galbitz had predicted. Anything that could go wrong was seen to. Parts that broke down at inopportune moments. Weather patterns that played hell with smooth sailing. Leaks, supplies spoiling, shortages. The men were grumbling by the end of the first week and there were two to come. All because of foreigners.

The cargo hadn't proved so troublesome, mind. They'd been put belowdecks in carefully designed cages. The buyer wanted them healthy and well-fed, so they weren't starved nor beaten -- and Galbitz was by now fairly certain of why. He counted once. The females outnumbered the males about three to one. The majority seemed to be towards the lower end of the age range. He wondered if they all met conventional standards of beauty to an outsider's eye -- they all looked more or less equally ugly to Galbitz himself. And they kept quiet; almost submissive. These were slaves intended for domestic duties, and by "domestic duties" he meant "a whorehouse."

Fucking perverts.

Oh, they weren't always submissive. They'd tried to break free the first night. It was that boy again, the one who'd made trouble on the first day. Galbitz had come belowdecks with two armed men, led him from his cage upstairs and given him a cabin, whose door and window locked from the outside. Inside there was no furniture. Then he'd assembled the crew on deck and specifically instructed them: whatever frustrations they might encounter over the next days, the cargo belowdecks was not to be touched. One man (perhaps Stefan) had even asked about the cabins. He'd replied with company protocol: consult the guidelines.

"The cabins above decks are reserved for passengers. You may mingle with passengers, but take care to respect their position."

Quite a lot of anger would be built up over the next week. And the men would not see a woman for another three.

Galbitz himself did not lay hands on the boy. Sometimes he visited him, and noted the dead look in those bloodshot eyes, the smell of blood and other things that filled the tiny concrete cabin. Offered him food or water, which he ate expressionlessly, or rejected just so. Over the week he gradually seemed to waste away. And peace reigned.

This left the crew able to focus on the more important things.

"What the fuck is wrong with it this time?" snapped Galbitz as he stalked through the corridor beside the cargo hold.

"Just stopped working, Captain. I'm not sure we have the tools to keep it permanently fixed." The engineer gestured to the pump, which lay nonfunctioning in a far corner of the room.

"So how long before this fucking junkyard decides to chuck the lot of us into the sea then?"

"It hopefully won't delay us by more than a day... unless this interferes with the operation of the No. 2 screw in which case we may have to cut the engines to have a look at what the actual problem is—"

"Captain!" A man was running down the passageway waving something. "I have a message here from the boss—"

"Look, just do your fucking job," said Galbitz to the engineer, and to the newcomer: "Well, what's it say then?"

"It's about a new protocol for merchant vessels from New Karaith, replacing the '07 doctrine," the man said, beckoning Galbitz to follow back towards the galley. "If a foreign vessel orders boarding in international waters, we're not to comply if at all possible; we're to fire a red flare and take whatever evasive maneuvers are possible."

"Well, that is one fucking useful message," Galbitz growled.

"Er... do we have any red flares?"

"No! We stocked up on normal and green flares because of the old piracy regulations! Fucking bureaucrats—"

"Captain, we've detected a ship!" came the incredibly ill-timed Conrad's voice from somewhere nearby.

"Is it physically possible for you to say things that aren't completely fucking useless?" Galbitz whirled on the man, who was climbing down a ladder leading to the bridge.

"No, I mean... we've been pinged. There's a ship out there. Quite nearby too. Foreign."

"Pinged." It wasn't a question. Galbitz spat. "What kind of a ship?" That wasn't a question either. What kind of ship relies primarily upon sonar to navigate?

And a moment later Galbitz was climbing to the deck himself, stepping out across it to the railing and scanning the horizon for signs, with Conrad beside him. "A submarine," he scowled. "What the hell is a submarine doing in the middle of an international shipping la—"

[The Floridian Coast]

Aaron and Dimitri met in a dark alley in Devil's Kitchen for the first time, it was too risky for them both to infiltrate all at once, they did not want to arouse any suspicion. There was no code word, they already knew each other. In case they were being listened to, they spoke in Kenzanii instead of English, Aaron was saying:

"A ship with holding cargo total 40 departed 2 weeks back. I assume we've adequately prepared their security."
No matter how subtle they wanted to be, they knew they had to be alone. They walked into the back lot of an abandoned building and looked around. They saw an old homeless man have half asleep inside of an empty crate. "Hey, can you hear me?" Aaron asked. He looked upon the poor wretch, the track marks up his arms indicated he was a junkie. Aaron handed him a sizable wad of hard cash and said "Leave us." A glow came to the man's eyes, and he excitedly took the money and walked away quickly. "Getting another fix, the poor fuck." Dimitri commented after the man left.

Now taking one last look at their surroundings, and knowing they were alone, they switched to English. "Your Kenzanii still has a bit of an accent and your grammar is slightly deficient. Let me do most of the talking from now on." Dimitri nodded, Aaron continued. "I successfully placed a tracker on the last ship that departed. Our navy was too far away to make a move, so I called our handlers, and they called Osea, they will take care of it. We will take care of the next."

Dimitri nervously lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. Leaning up against the grimy wall, he said "Please don't tell me you're suggesting you and I keep our cover aboard the boat and try to hijack it by ourselves. Even Lightning Force men should know their limits."

"That is not what I intend to do at all. There are some future slaves locked up in a warehouse downtown, I've working the graveyard shift, I'm alone guarding it for 2 hours. Sadly, they are not fit for fighting even if we arm them. Most of them are actually young women, it seems this filth of a nation is aiding in sex slave trade. They might have some special agents patrolling this port, we'll have to assume that we'll be dealing with more than simple cops. Luckily, we are well armed. You need to steal a large truck for us, for them to take cover in. You have the proper identification and papers for a cross country slave trader, do you not?"

"Yes, I do. But they don't take slaves out of here, they take them to here. It will look suspicious." Dimitri told him. Aaron nodded, but replied "I also have been provided with the proper paperwork to identify these slaves as diseased and in quarantine. That will deter any police who stop us from opening the door. They will expect us to drag them to a remote area to have them shot and burned. We'll go to the coasts instead, and head back to the Floridian Coast on what is disguised as a private yacht. And from there, as you know, these poor souls will have the choice of being sent home, or a chance at naturalization and citizenship. The plan is in motion, don't disappoint me."


3 hours later

Dimitri had pulled up outside in the truck, and the mission was ready to proceed. Still alone inside, Aaron looked through the slaves' bars and loudly said "Wake up!" something they were apparently used to as very few seemed surprised. He looked at them and said "How many of you understand English well?" After a few seconds of blank stares, 2 young men raised their hands. One of them said decently enough "What do you have to say to us?" he had contempt for Aaron, who had kept his cover so well that everyone undoubtedly perceived him as a slave trader.

"I am a liberator from a far away land. My comrade is outside, and we are going to take you somewhere safe. I know you have been lied to for so long, so I understand if you don't want to trust me. It is your choice to stay or go." and he unlocked the doors and swung it open. The man translated for everyone else locked up, and many of them argued. Obviously, some were made permanently distrustful because of what has been done to them. But they decided time was not on their side and they decided to trust Aaron, albeit with much hesitation and wariness.

As Aaron was about to give them instructions, the door to the front swung open. It was Aaron's Kenzai security partner, who he'd been working with for 2 weeks. Here at the wrong time. He saw the slaves out of their cage and said "What the fuck is going on here?" as Aaron began walking toward him. Before he could react, Aaron pulled out his knife and jammed it into the man's side, he buckled and fell to the ground. "I'm sorry, but I can't leave you alive." Aaron whispered to him, and drew his silenced pistol, placing a shot in his forehead from the front, looking straight into his eyes and emotionless. He holstered his gun, a few of the slaves drew back in fear from the killing. Dimitri pulled his truck up to the door and Aaron helped some of the weaker slaves inside. He opened a briefcase with compact food and medicine and gave them that along with a few canteens of water. "It'll be a few hours." he said to the man who could speak English, and closed the door.

"No covering up the evidence, Aaron?" Dimitri asked him as he got inside the truck. "We're not coming back here, at least not for awhile. We saved a lot of lives, and we can help the Navy from the seas when we get back home. This place is more dangerous than Homeland Defense assessed. Their may be rampant lawlessness around these parts, but when they lose that much commerce, they're going to send in their professionals. One and done." Aaron told him.

The truck made its way through the slums, they were looking for a highway in the dark, half lit night roads. Dimitri slammed on the brakes violently. "What the hell?" Aaron asked, started and instinctively drawing his gun. "Another junkie, almost ran him over, this damn cracked road halfway sinks into gutters." Dimitri said, reversing and pulling into the empty oncoming traffic road to get out of the way and drive off. "Just leave him. Ugh, look at all these bastards. Quite a degenerated nation. No state rehab, I'd assume. Fuckin' cappies." Aaron remarked quietly. Dimitri resumed driving and said "We'll back in our beautiful homeland in no time, away from this trickle down poverty."

[Anemos Major]

OOC: Tagged not for interest, but definite involvement.

[Kenzai]

They say one man is murdered in Devil's Kitchen every fifteen seconds. They're exaggerating. A little bit.

An upstairs apartment in one of the high-rise tenements saw three men seated around a card table. Across the table were littered the 8.5mm rounds of the standard Kenzanii sidearm, and a few examples of the devices that propelled them. That was the first rule of Devil's Kitchen: keep weapons in easy reach.

"Empty?"

"Empty."

"Who was it?"

"The new man. Couldn't have been anyone else."

The third man was small; his eyes darted every which way and he spoke much too quickly. "One shipment will already be a loss. Too many slave cargoes disappear. Too many taken by thieves and abolitionists. We must recover it. We must recover it whatever the costs."

The two men looked at the small man, one appraising, one blank. The blank-eyed man said: "No."

"No?" The small man's voice was quiet. "Who is paying you?"

"The July Chapter is on patrol tonight. No one who tries to leave the perimeter will get far. We'll never be able to track a car through the Kitchen, but they can. Maybe we'll even get the slaves back."

"Foolish," said the small man. "Fool, fool, fool. Who was the new man? Who did he work for? Was he liberating or was he selling it to our enemies? You know we cannot rely on the ISF. No one can rely on the ISF—"

The man with the appraising eyes coughed: "I'll look him up. But I very much doubt that we'll find his name anywhere. I doubt the records will show that he ever existed. This operation was planned from the beginning -- bears the mark of it. Very much doubt we'll see those slaves again either way."

"So why did you not go after them?"

The man's face had turned stony. "You yourself said. No one can rely on the July Chapter. But we're sure as hell not going to tangle with them. They are why we always shoot hostages—"

---

Paul Vhered lay very still in a pool of his own half-congealed vomit. His clothes were ragged, worn thin. Grime was etched into every line of his face and across his broken lips a few flecks of blood might be detected. Sometimes he would mutter something to the sky above, in the throes of gloaming. Sometimes he would return to contemplating the asphalt below him. At one point a truck screeched to a halt before him and he almost unconsciously lifted an arm towards it, as though his body (independent of its wandering mind) was unconsciously trying to avert its own doom.

It was too dark for the vehicle's occupants to see the tracking device in his hand. It was not too dark for Paul Vhered.

If one watched the street for the next hour after that one would observe the sot eventually struggling to his feet, trying to wipe his face clean with clumsy hands. Moaning about what his wife would say, were she alive. One would see him stumble into a nearby doorway. But it was only in the shadows of that doorway and inside the building beyond that Paul Vhered would, still moving as a man in a dream, speed-dial something on an unseen mobile, and enter a specific sequence of numbers. His hand might have been moving at random.

Message received and acknowledged.

---

The streets of Devil's Kitchen were not empty, even at night. As Aaron and Dimitri navigated the narrow streets they encountered a fair bit of vehicular traffic. Some of them were relatively nice cars and looked like normal people who'd gotten lost. Others were those of the inhabitants of the neighborhood. You could tell from the bullet holes. Trucks shipping one thing or another squeezed past, one of them bearing no markings, carrying an immense trailer of which (even inside their own vehicle) they could clearly hear something pounding against the inside.

At one point their ears filled with an excruciating, almost ultrasonic tone, an electronic scream, and almost instinctively they pulled over. Four cars shot by so fast there was hardly room to identify them. Black. Windows tinted. Absolutely no lights. The ISF used these cars to make a statement: We are the ruling power in the City of Iksara. We are faster than you. We don't need light to see where we're going. And we have ways to make you obey.

It was a statement well worth listening to if you wished to survive.

Within fifteen minutes the conspirators' truck had crossed the railroad tracks and the Yarden Canal. From here they were effectively out of the Kitchen, and the proverbial heat turned down accordingly. On the other side of the canal the architecture changed -- fewer tenements, wider streets -- indicating the gateway to a quarter one could call Poor but Respectable. This was Lea. A developing neighborhood, perhaps it had been the hope that Lea's gentrification would have positive repercussions upon the Kitchen; hence the government contracts awarded to construct modern high-rises. But it was not so. If anything, the Kitchen had gotten worse.

Their route -- towards the A2 West, fifteen miles north -- took them through only a corner of Lea, then out into Hamilton. The name of this neighborhood, with its anglicist implications, was perhaps unintentionally ironic; Hamilton was simply the town of the Hamils. A ghetto. The Hamils -- who, in Iksara, numbered about two million -- were foreigners, and they integrated ill into the xenophobic Kenzanii society. And yet it was surprising how closely Hamilton abutted the Leather District, one of the city's ten central neighborhoods and by comparison a whole different world. The streetlights seemed blinding in the Leather District. Screens and advertisements brought the streets to life at night. On the boulevards many people walked, and alongside them many trees were planted.

More noteworthy were the skyways high above. If they looked up they might see the vehicles of the wealthy, maglev cars tracing lines along rails suspended high above the quotidian streets. Atop the flat roofs of buildings the wealthy had single-family homes surrounded by gardens and lawns, with their own roads unusable by plebeians, unencumbered by traffic. From there one could look across to the immense skyscrapers of the Financial District and the Port of Iksara, a sea of steel and glass, utterly dominating the city's skyline. The Leather District was the edge of the city as the world saw it.

As they approached the industrial areas where the avenue merged into the A2 it seemed the city had come back to life. After two weeks in the Kitchen the Leather District was unrecogniseable, but Four Points and the distant factories looked familiar enough to remind one that this was the same city where human chattel changed hands on a daily basis. But here the streets were full. Underground bars and clubs bespoke a nightlife with more colours than blood and bile. The sounds of music here were omnipresent. Perhaps it might even liven the spirits of the slaves -- how long since they had heard song? -- but certainly the conspirators would be aware of the difficulty that lay ahead.

The A2 cut an immense concrete swath through this district. Many ramps led up from the streets, and down from the maglev rails to the grid perched a pair of trailers' height above the highway lanes. The cars that swept down from above went past at some three hundred kilometers per hour -- here, privilege meant privilege. The ramps from below merged into an immense stream of cars, pouring onto the highway past tollbooths. The conspirators' truck was directed by an automated system into a far left lane, prioritising lanes based on length of wait. And they waited—

and just as they drove forward towards the toll, a heavy barrier clanged down before them, and a gate to the left swung open, attended by armed men in the grey uniforms of the July Chapter. They were smiling.

"This way, please. We have some questions for you—"

[The Floridian Coast]

Aaron nearly held his breath, it would only be natural for Dimitri to speak, he hoped that he had been practicing Kenzaii to himself on the ride. "No problem at all, guide us in, please." Dimitri told the guard. Aaron and Dimitri refrained from making eye contact. As the grey uniformed men walked to the side and front of the truck directing them into an inspection garage, they had the choice between attempting to speak quietly, but openly, or casually, in code. They opted for the second.

"I really am sick and tired of working the graveyard shift, I used to think myself a night person, but I'm starting to question the effects it's had on my health." Dimitri told Aaron. Even as he drove, he lit a cigarette, thinking to himself "I'll keep my hands busy, it'll avert suspicion if I seem unfocused."

"The pay won't be nearly as good if you ask for another shift, and that's if they don't fire you outright."
For a trained Lightning Force operative, the conversation would be obvious to interpret. Firstly, "the mission is not going as planned", and second "It's riskier to divert from the original plan, anything we've not prepared may get us killed."

Dimitri banished from him all outward signs of nervousness, saying to Aaron as they parked "If I get fired, you'll have to buy me drinks for awhile." "If I die, continue the mission."

They stepped out of the truck, Dimitri continued smoking. It may be obvious to these guards that both of them were armed, but it goes with the trade.

Aaron thought out the potential outcomes of their plan to himself. There was a good chance the slaves were already reported missing, and that if the same number of slaves was found in the truck, it would certainly arose suspicion. But they had biohazard warning papers, so he quickly thought to himself an idea to the question he was asked the next second.

"What are you carrying with you?" one of the armed men asked rather tonelessly. Aaron spoke up before Dimitri could "Diseased pigs, unfortunately. They were to be shipped to a slaughterhouse, yet one pen was found to be infected with H1N5 virus. So they were quarantined before they could infect the others, we are taking them to the crematorium."

One of the other men nodded at his comrade and said "We shall need to open it and inspect your cargo."
Dimitri replied "That would not be a good idea sir, this strain is extraordinarily contagious, even airborne. We only handle them in our hazmat suits, which are in back if you'd like to see. Also, I'll fetch the biohazard carry paperwork from the glove compartment."

He walked around the side of the truck and looked through the windows with his peripheral vision. If something were to happen in the next second, he could land a headshot on one of them through the window, and hopefully Aaron could take down another. He hoped to himself that would not need to happen. He retrieved the paperwork and handed it to the man who he spoke to.

Aaron casually paced to lean on the back of the truck. Should the men move to arrest them, they would have to be fast, and Aaron would need a place to take cover. Dimitri finished his cigarette and stomped on it, and they both waited patiently, ready with a half second's reflex to draw their pistols and fire.

[Kenzai]

The truck passed under a grate of some kind and into an ill-lit garage whose extent could not be made out under the sodium lights. Five members of the Iksaran Security Force lounged within. Two of them carried custom-built snubnoses openly, R2 variants. A third leaned on a larger firearm of some kind -- perhaps a submachine gun. The man who came forward to question them had only a sidearm, and it hung loosely off his arm. When Dmitri retrieved the paperwork he took it and gave it a cursory glance, then gave a half-second glance to his left. A sixth man emerged from a door they hadn't noticed before. An officer.

Despite the poor illumination it was easy to tell. The light glinted off some hard transparent surface on his head -- he wore body armour, of the nearly invisible kind favoured by the Kenzanii military. A civilian might not notice. A special forces soldier almost certainly would. More important was his bearing: he carried himself with total self-assurance. As though there was nothing in the world that could stop him. He carried only the standard sidearm but one got the impression that this was a man who didn't need weapons to kill you.

The subordinate handed the paperwork over to him and he scrutinised it carefully for several moments before handing it back to Dimitri.

"Commendable," said the officer. "As fine an example of biohazard paperwork as I've ever seen. Diseased pigs, you said?"

Dimitri assented.

The officer smiled. Well. His lips turned up at the corners, and his teeth were visible. "Interesting. You weren't aware of the scanner at the entrance to this garage, which everyone who's ever driven out of Iksara would know about. Thought you'd lie to get through security. But transporting human cargo isn't illegal. Which means you're not from around here and you've got something to hide."

He paused for a moment, perhaps to let this sink in, absently fingering the handle of his sidearm. The men surrounding him hadn't moved much, but hands were tensed. Muscles coiled.

"There are two ways we can do this," said the officer. "The easy way, and the very easy way. Who're you working for?"

[The Floridian Coast]

Aaron felt fear, but he would not show it. He had many options, but he decided to be half-honest with them. He slowly, so the men would not think he was reaching for a weapon, pulled up his necklace, he held it tight in his hand. "You look like an experienced man, so you can probably guess what this is." He licked the end of it and slipped in under his tongue, continued talking with the chain hanging out of his mouth. "Do I look like someone who is afraid to die?" The agents raised their guns at him, he continued "What, going to shoot me in the leg to prevent me from biting it? If I wanted to, I would have already." He felt his defiance was his best shot at survival, there was certainly nothing, not even the chance of going free instantly, that would make him expose his country. The guards still said nothing, Aaron told them "Maybe what you really have to worry about is not the human cargo in back, but the bomb we set as insurance to ensure we escape."

Another one of the men spoke up. "You're lying, you seem to think we're stupid. You're some kind of abolitionist, no abolitionist would save some slaves and murder civilians to do it."

Smiling at him, Aaron said "Maybe I'm not an abolitionist. Maybe I'm an agent of an enemy nation of yours disrupting commerce. The missing slaves and the bomb would achieve the same, two-fold." The first guard who spoke raised his rather large gun and pressed it into Aaron's forehead. "Don't fuck with us. I don't know who you two are, but you have no exit."

Dimitri thought about what could be done, he decided to speak and see if this worked. He would tell the truth - in non-consequential amounts, maybe they would look at him and sense his honesty, and that would buy them time. "We're hired men working for a foreign government that wishes to disrupt your slave industry. We infiltrated this country three weeks prior. My partner got a job in security at the human cargo warehouse, and I stole the truck we are riding in from a lot in Devil's Kitchen. We were transporting the slaves to a port for extraction. Take us to whoever you work for, and we'll discuss terms, and then we will tell you everything."

The officer who looked quite like a professional soldier told them "We are authorized to shoot the both of you on the spot right now. We don't have to take you anywhere."

"And what fetches a better reward for you, sir? Killing two agents, or busting a whole operation? As my partner just said, we are not afraid to die."

Aaron told Dimitri, spitting out his capsule and letting it fall back around his neck, "Not worth it this time, though. Let them take us to their police, I'm sure we will work out a deal by tomorrow's end." and then turning to the officers, "unless you want to make a deal right now", pulling a large wad of currency from his front pocket equal to about $10,000 USD. The officers laughed out loud, one saying to him "I don't know what shithole country you came from, but the running rate for bribes is a lot more than that around here."

One officer said to another "They just don't want to talk to us out here, let's take them in back, lots of criminals find themselves persuaded to speak back there." They all raised their guns at once now, an officer saying to Aaron and Dimitri both "Slowly, hand over your weapons to us. And if you flinch so much as a blink beyond doing just that, we'll splatter you all over the back of that truck."

They did as they were told. Aaron lifted his shirt and removed the holster and his pistol from his hip, and then his left pant leg and lifted out a sidearm. He pulled his sleeve up and handed over a large knife strapped to his bicep, and then his other pant-leg and unstrapped a stungun. Dimitri surrendered weapons in a similar fashion. As the officers approached him, Aaron took off his cyanide capsule necklace and told the officer "Keep it, as a gift, and memory of this fun night. Do you have any children at home, maybe you could let them have it. Children love to put things in their mouth." he said, spitefully. The officer was not amused, and pistol whipped him on his center torso. Aaron fell down in greatly exaggerated pain, it really didn't bother him all too much, though he faked it well. The officer leaned on him from behind and put a handcuff on his wrist. Before he strapped the other one, Aaron tripped him and in a second's maneuver, wrapped the handcuff chain around the man's neck, and drawing the man's sidearm. He crossed his wrists as he started to hear a crack from the chain, and tried to aim a gun at the others. They shot back, the hostage was already dead anyway. A few of the bullets pierced through his body and hit Aaron's kevlar torso, which nearly caused him to buckle in pain, but he held on his feet.

Dimitri waited, and finally Aaron saved him, a blind shot in the direction of him and the officer watching him provided enough of a distraction for Dimitri to pick up his closest knife and duck out of the way. He caught up with Aaron who released the dead man he was holding, and having just a second to act he kicked the truck. It didn't harm any of the officers, but it was a split second distraction that Dimitri and Aaron used to run hop in the truck and lock it. They crouched down as the men fired through the windows, a piece of shattered glass cut into Dimitri's arm, Aaron's was already soaked in blood. "Never... park, always put it... neutral" Dimitri said, very out of breath, and he put the truck into reverse and steered it out of the open garage. "They closed the highway off to us, where the hell are we going to go?" Aaron asked his comrade, who replied "I'll drive, you shoot." as they both noticed the agents at the checkpoint were already in a vehicle of their own, behind them in the mirror.

[Kenzai]

"Sir! They're getting away!" a serviceman yelled, rather uselessly. It was plainly obvious that, indeed, they were getting away.

The officer did not deign to respond to this cry. It would do to take a moment to take stock. The two men had tried completely different tacks, one bluffing aggressively and one feigning submission, like a ludicrous inversion of the good-cop-bad-cop trope. Then they had given themselves up and immediately made a break for it, snapping a serviceman's neck in the process. So, trained killers, of international origin -- who hadn't done even cursory research on what would happen if they were stopped, yet who had played a high-speed game of attempted manipulation (which might well have worked on the petty criminals they dealt with in the Kitchen) and whose bravado of determination in the face of death had been only a ploy to gain time. A successful ploy. Now they were driving back out to the toll plaza, a chokepoint filled with hundreds of civilians.

Had they actually bungled by winding up in security? Not likely. And Lieutenant Victor Liao quietly revised his threat estimate of these two foreigners to high.

"We can't risk letting them get away," cried one of the men, already climbing aboard a cruiser.

Victor glanced at him. "Have you tried doing this?" he said, and shot out the two front tyres of the retreating truck with his sidearm. "Or this?" As the hideous skreee of unshielded metal on asphalt echoed through the entrance to the garage, he put four shots through the windshield. "Alert the city constabulary. This is a code 66 situation."

Code 66: Terrorist attack in progress. All lethal force authorised. Road closures and combat air patrols recommended.

The serviceman's eyes widened. "Code 66? You don't think—"

"I have full reason to believe these men are a ruse intended to draw us out from here. One must assume the worst."

From there they spoke little -- largely because it would have been hard to hear, under the gunfire. Three servicemen were inside the entrance to the garage, exchanging fire with a gunman inside the disabled truck who was laying down significant amounts of suppressive fire. Almost significant enough to hide the fact that there was obviously only one gunman. Who knows what had happened to the second one. He could have been dead. Or... there was a low fence on the side of the road, with a twenty-foot drop into a ditch beyond it. A man in good physical shape could get down that way. But what about the slaves he was there to rescue? At the cost of his own life even?

Victor reminded himself that the slaves had been a distraction all along, and concentrated on directing his squad. "Whoever's still shooting at you... I want him taken alive. If possible," he said. And glancing down at the dead man at his feet: "If not... I'll understand."

And a second later he realised that of course it was possible. You just needed someone who was immune to bullets.... And he felt very stupid.

The truck was out on a shoulder of the service road, the cab slightly disconnected from the trailer section. It had been quite badly damaged in the hail of gunfire. Certainly the rate of fire from within had slowed. Rationing ammunition, perhaps. Of course he couldn't hold out forever, but then he probably didn't need to. Who knew how long until the real attack would come? Victor strapped on his helmet, stepped out into the line of fire and walked briskly across the open space. Affecting a leisurely stroll seemed too pretentious, but a dead run seemed a bit undignified. A bullet hit him on the left cheek; he did his best not to flinch, though it had almost certainly knocked a tooth loose. He smiled.

Didn't know officers got the nice body armour? The expensive transparent kind you read about in specialist magazines? Well, then.

Victor flung open the door to the cab and leaned in. "As I was saying, we'd like you to come with us—"

There was one man inside. He'd been hit five or six times and one of his arms looked basically useless. He laughed, or tried to. Red bubbles came up from his throat. "It's a bit too late to negotiate, isn't it, Lieutenant?" he said, with a bitter smile. "I won't come with you. But I'll give you this for free."

He extracted a small object from somewhere on his person and threw it at Victor, who caught it instinctively. It was a pin.

When the cab blew up it sent great billows of orange and yellow and black into the darkling sky. The shockwave threw the trailer section back many feet, though it somehow did not tip over, and angry flames licked the asphalt and the guardrail and the tiny spots of vegetation that grew nearby. And a human figure cannonballed out just in time to roll over and over across the tarmac, finally coming to a stop near the halted cruiser. When it rose again its handsome face was crusted with blood and dirt.

"Shit," said Victor. "Shit shit shit shit. Who knows what the fuck is in the trailer. Don't open it."

"—" said his squad.

"There was only one man inside that truck." Victor stepped forward, rubbing his face. "Where'd the other man go? You guys see him?"

"—" said his squad.

And it occurred to Victor that the traffic was sounding awfully quiet—

[The Floridian Coast]

Aboard the CSS Solaria, middle of the ocean, heading towards the Floridian Coast

"This your fucking fault! Dimitri and I went into Kenzai with the trust that you provided us adequate information! He's dead now because your people didn't bother to find out or tell us about their scanner system. Nor did you warn us that special agents, not just conventional police, were protecting the slave trade. Did I get any info on this ISF? No! I will speak to the High Premier and personally recommend abandonment of any future operations within Kenzai. My partner, my friend, could have made it out too, and we could have saved all of those poor slaves if not for your complete goddamn incompetence!" Aaron lectured his Homeland Defense superiors with caring, he was enraged at the situation. Surprisingly, his handler was apologetic. "You are right, Aaron, I'm sorry. And I would recommend the same to the High Premier, and I will make sure Dimitri is awarded posthumous honors for his bravery." The Homeland Defense agents knew he was right. They could not defend their failure. Instead, they escorted him to a cabin and told him to get some sleep, if he could, and offered him a barbiturate which he did not take. After saying Warrior's Rites for Dimitri to himself, and holding onto his knife which he still had, his phone rang.

3 hours earlier

After hiding in the shadows and making his way to the city's wealthiest real estate areas, and contacting his handlers to make their way to an alternate location for extraction, Aaron finally got to his destination, a massive personal villa on the sea. He had no more Floridian contacts in Kenzai, but he knew one Kenzai citizen who he could moderately trust, and that person was his only hope.

"I need your yacht, Andrea. I need to get out of this country right now and I can't go to the ports, there are police there, they're on high alert."
Andrea, as she was known to Aaron, was a young Kenzai businesswoman. During a Lightning Force operation in another country, Aaron had a brief affair with her, and as Aaron correctly assessed, she was in fact glad to see him again, despite the fact that he resisted her advances. He handed her the rest of the local currency he still had on him.
"This is more than generous for renting the yacht, I told you, I'm smuggling illegal goods out of here and I need it. Please, I'll bring it back in a week, and you and I can get together then." He lied to the best of his abilities, and after some convincing, she handed them the keys. "One week, Aaron. And you owe me a lot more than the yacht back." she said, once again trying to reach her hands down his pants. He kissed her passionately to convince her of his intentions, and then left on the yacht, knowing he'd never see Kenzai or her again. After a long cruise out to sea and tense minutes of waiting, a Floridian helicopter rescued him and took him deep out to the ocean, abandoning the highly expensive vessel. Aaron thought it might help to destroy it, but he decided against.

Present

Answering his phone, Aaron heard Andrea's frantic voice. "Aaron. Why, why the fuck, are there, there are ISF agents outside of my house! They don't chase drug smugglers, what did you do? What the fuck did you do, Aaron?! Tell me!"

He replied coldly "Sorry, Andrea, but I needed a way out. I loved you, once; but, the mission always comes first."
She could not believe what he did to her "I'll tell them everything I know about you! I will tell them everything!"
"You don't even know my nationality." he snapped back.
"I know a lot! I'll tell them everything you son of a bitch! Go to hell!"

Aaron hung up the phone as he heard the sound of a door being broken down and ISF agents yelling "Down on your knees, don't move!"

He laid back on his bed and lit up a cigarette. He thought to himself how strange his conscience was. He was still stinging with guilt over Dimitri's death, but Andrea was a necessary casualty. She should have known better than to trust him. And then he thought to himself "If people knew better than to trust me, I'd be out of work."

[Kenzai]

Three minutes after Dimitri's death

Victor Liao recovered hearing in his left ear. It hurt like a bitch.

The Iksaravian Security Force had mobilised eight squads at short notice. The A2 was briefly shut down all along the toll plaza as they scoured it for evidence and pulled aside random motorists for questioning. Others busied themselves about the ditch below, searching for signs of footprints or other evidence the fugitive might have abandoned in his haste. Even as the small police station was plunged into general chaos, another maglev car ground to a halt above, and another squad of servicemen descended into the small pullout.

"—no sign of any other involvement so far throughout the toll area, but we've also lost track of the fugitive—" someone was saying.

"Ugh," said Victor. "Repeat everything you just said. In twenty-five words or less."

"Er..." The serviceman paused. "Are you all right?"

"All right," spat Victor. "No I'm not fucking all right. I've had a serviceman killed, we just lost two valuable sources of information, and we still have no idea what the fuck they were planning to do. Slaves know anything?"

The slaves were alive and unhurt, at present. In the harsh glare of searchlights they stood before the trailer, which now held only two bomb technicians combing it over for signs of tampering. They stood passive, unwilling to risk making a break for it, not here where the ISF surrounded them on all sides -- though they clearly possessed a numerical advantage. Ringing them were servicemen, searching them for weapons or other devices. They had been made to disrobe and their discarded clothing was being carried away for examination. If they were fortunate, they might be given more to wear before being returned to their owner. If.

"No sign if they do, sir."

"Lovely."

Another serviceman was running up. "We've contacted Headquarters, sir. Can you put out a physical description of the missing man?"

"I can, yes." His eyes narrowed. "Will they take ages to release it as usual? Because that won't be worth our while. I'll bet as many kilocreds as you'd like that that man will be out of the country before dawn."

"This is a Code 66 situation. Although they're already talking about downgrading it..."

"Just what we needed. Another threat to the city not taken seriously."

"Er..." The man coughed. "Not to offend, but we did have an agent tracking them from the site of the initial theft. Vhered, I believe. One, singular agent. You didn't see need to assign more."

"I assumed they were thieves, or abolitionists at worst," said Victor. "I assumed they wouldn't think we were complete morons and make up such an easily disproved lie as something about diseased pigs. I assumed they would consider the possibility that we had only circumstantial evidence of any wrongdoing on their part, and therefore give themselves up in the hope of getting the case thrown out—"

"Er—"

"I mean the first thing a competent defense attorney would tell you is that the vehicle scanners we use are five meters tall boxes with flashing lights on top and you're asked to slow down to be scanned and what I was doing was legally entrapment, and they'd try to get me dismissed or some such tangent—"

"—That kind of thinking seems a bit unbecoming of a member of the July Chapter—"

"Fuck that," said Victor. "Point is. They were violent. Showed fear, but were faking it. Claimed to be foreign agents -- if they weren't terrorists, special forces? Paramilitary? I fucked this one up. I'll be the one to fix it—"

The man handed a phone to Victor. "Physical description. Now."

---

Three hours after Dimitri's death

By the state of the city headquarters, the ISF reserved its fancy technology for impressing the masses. The computers and scanners here looked quite new, and presumably the labs were quite well equipped -- this was the city with the highest crime rate in the nation -- but the state of the interior was somewhat underwhelming, not least on account of the papers and file folders stacked everywhere.

Three superintendents were awake by this point and they were pulling together reports and sightings from throughout the city on what was provisionally being termed Case #DT4-73H.

"Said they were transporting the slaves to a port for extraction."

"That could have been anywhere. Regardless, he didn't try to leave the city. Headed back in in fact."

"Working for a foreign government, though. Presumably they had contact men on the inside. Handlers."

"Not necessarily. With phone and internet handlers can be anywhere -- here or half a world away. I'd monitor communications but at this point we don't even know what country to look for."

"If so then... he'd be looking for a way out of the country. Air or sea."

"If he kept going the way he was he'd wind up near the sea." A finger stabbed at an area on a map. "Around here."

"That's under the Northern Command radar net. Notify the military. Tell them to look for any boats or aircraft leaving the country—"

---

Thirteen hours after Dimitri's death

The room was narrow and pristine, untouched by sunlight. In one corner was the Very Uncomfortable Chair. In the center, a long table. On the other side -- near the door -- two much more comfortable chairs.

The room was occupied by two officers, one serviceman and one witness.

Paul Vhered smiled at his comrade. He was always smiling. "I can't say I'm looking forward to another exciting day of rolling around in my own refuse, heh." He was clad in a standard uniform, and perfectly clean. The grime and makeup would not go on until he was redeployed into the streets around noon.

Victor Liao said: "Think your day was bad? Fuck. Had to deal with terrorists, fucking incompetent management and nearly getting my face blown off."

The cuts on his face had been cleaned up and were already mostly healed, actually -- and Victor had plenty of scars from his days in the military already, and didn't mind; they'd not hurt his chances with the ladies in the least -- but what stung him more was being outplayed. Paul said: "Shouldn't have accepted that promotion, man. Joined the covert ops corps. Instead of a gun you get a cup full of coins to shake at people, but I've never been blown up by a grenade."

"I did enough of that shit in the army," said Victor. "Crawling through mud and minefields, camouflage. Fucking camouflage. Besides, this place needs some officers who aren't completely fucking retarded. Iksara's where I was born and have you seen it? It's full of shitholes like Devil's Kitchen and it's getting worse—"

"Yeah... It's not just the Kitchen. Hamilton's full of drug runners and there are backalley eugenicists all through Four Points. Even Downtown... five guys got cut up for their organs last week, or so I heard. But Headquarters doesn't want us using anything too 'hardline.'" Paul made finger quotes in the air over the last word. "I don't know why. Everyone knows it happens anyway and making it official would cut out the inefficiencies..."

From across the throat someone cleared their throat. Victor glanced at the serviceman.

"We have an interrogation to conduct, gentlemen," said he.

"Of course," Victor said smoothly, walking around the table to where he could face the witness, who sat strapped in, impassive. He half-leaned, half-sat on the table, briefly examining a document that lay there, as the serviceman turned the Very Uncomfortable Chair a few degrees so that his eyes, when raised again, could meet those of the witness, which were soft and brown.

He noted, abstractly, that she was rather pretty. His brain filed that information away for later use. He also noted that she was most displeased. This was something he could use immediately.

"Miss Andrea Lauterbach," he said politely. "Glad you could join us today—"

[The Floridian Coast]

"Just tell me honestly, Aaron, what does this woman know?" Rick Daniels, a Homeland Defense Intelligence Agent, asked him as he was back in the Floridian Coast and on the 53rd floor of the towering building. He added "Or better yet, why don't you just explain your involvement with her in the first place?"

Aaron sighed deeply, and thought of how to tell a very long story in the most concise way. He took a drink of water, and started to tell once of his quite honestly least interesting stories.

"15 months earlier, I was in East Vandea up near the arctic, back when it was still a disputed territory between all those nations up there. Lightning Force was chasing the late Major Hakan, who had stolen a prototype hydrogen-cell strike helicopter. It was not the helicopter itself that was valuable - it was the hydrogen cell itself. Billions of dollars of research went into it. As we all know, for a planned economy to compete in this capitalistic world, we need top of the line tech, and we need to make it and sell it first for a better price than private entities.

Hakan was marked for death by Lightning Force, and the helicopter was to be retrieved before he could sell it. He found a buyer, a corporation, and they went to East Vandea where there was no law and no one to enforce it, so they could conduct the transaction in relative safety. After some painstaking stalking, we found the corporation was from Kenzai. But we got there too late, and the deal had already been made. Ideally, we would steal it, but it was rather secured. Of course, Lightning Force can do damn near anything, we had the capability to steal it, but we didn't have the means of escape. Blizzards rage up there, water froze over. We could not realistically expect extraction for awhile. Nonetheless, the ports of East Vandea still operated, albeit far too slowly, so we used the winter to our advantage.

Since we had no trade interests with Kenzai, and they were by no means considered a friendly country to us, we opted that I would buy the solar cell, with counterfeited Kenzai currency. The counterfeits were premiums. There may have been small differences, but to notice, you'd have to be looking for it. You'd need the best technology, and reasonable suspicion that it was fake, and there was none. I met with a handler who gave me a suitcase of a significant amount of the currency, all in cash form.

The town we were in was small, about 1000 people, almost all foreign travelers, all taking advantage of this governmentless territory that no one seemed able to control. And I found the buyer, and met her, in a bar. It was absolutely freezing, even wearing heavy coats inside. This was a poor place with rich travelers, there was no efficient heating. So unsurprisingly, people were drunk all the time, liquor was one of the only things that didn't freeze up there, it was actually cheaper than water because of how much they deferred the costs of heating it up.

I told Andrea I saw her at the bidding war. There were 30 of us, so she could reasonably believe she did not remember me. It was easy to get out of her in casual conversation how much she paid. The currency I had was 50% more than the final bid, so I had reasonable expectations of buying it. I bought her more than a few drinks, and I expressed I still had interest in buying it, that I was disappointed I did not continue to bid. At this point, Hakan came into the bar, I was able to use the same manipulation on him. I also bought him a drink, and I slipped a slow-acting poison into it, so he wouldn't drop dead at the bar. He died in his hotel room in the early morning, but it's a place without the law, no one paid much attention to it.

So I continued bartering with Andrea, and boldly offered the sum of all the counterfeited currency. 50% profit tempted her, and she finally agreed. She was still, at this time, under the impression I was a businessman."

Daniels interrupted "So Hakan didn't know you were Floridian, he didn't recognize you as one or bring it up in conversation, didn't you speak Floridian English in your natural tone?"

Smiling, Aaron said "Absolutely not. English is used widely around the world, but in East Vandea, the lingua franca is Russian. I spoke not a word of English the entire time I was up there. I also imposed upon it an artificial light German accent, for cover, though I spoke it fluently and near perfectly. As far as Andrea knew, I did not even know English, and I have no idea if she does. Even yesterday in Kenzai, I spoke Russian to her.

After Hakan stumbled back to his hotel room to die, Andrea took me to her port and she handed me the cell in exchange for the suitcase. We were both quite satisfied with the deal. To her, I had achieved my goal of acquiring the cell on what she perceived was an unlimited budget from an ambitious boss, and she made the equivalent of a full quarter's profits for her corporation.

People in East Vandea were vultures, they'd soon as kill you as look at you, and steal everything you have. I took the cell out into the wilderness and attached a tracker to it, and my handler picked it up and put it back on the ship he'd take back home. At this point, Hakan was still dead in his hotel room, he had paid a few more days in advance, and there was nothing like maid service, no one would look for him. I was instructed to search his body and room for anything of consequence, leave it like it was, and meet back at the shoreline. I did as I was told, but the sea was 3 hours away, and a severe storm system was kicking up. Short on supplies, they told me I'd have to wait in East Vandea for at least a week, and that I'd be picked up as soon as possible.

At this point, I was on vacation. Both objectives were complete and I was more than happy with the work I had done. A less experienced man would distress over being left in such a forsaken place full of undesirable people, but my Lightning Force training gave me the confidence as if I was walking down the street invincible. Having nothing better to do, I went to the bar the next night, and Andrea was stranded as well. She was stunningly attractive, I followed my instincts."

"So you fucked her for a week, went home, and that's the end of the story?" Daniels chimed in, feeling happy to hear that she might not be so much of a threat to the nation after all.

Laughing quietly, Aaron said "I fucked her for a week and went home, but unfortunately that's not quite the end of the story. You see, our fourth night together, we were out in the town, both of us very well dressed and looking as wealthy people should despite the fact you had to dress in extremely heavy clothes, and we were ambushed by a gang. Two of the men held her down, I think they probably wanted to rape her. One grabbed me behind and put a knife to my throat, and the other held a gun, and he was to go through my pockets and see what kind of wealth I had to offer them.

I did everything my training taught me to do, and this was the problem, I did it far too well. I clamped down on the blade with my chin, spread my legs, and threw the man over me, slamming him into the man with the pistol. I dove on top of them, and took the gun. I placed a clean shot into one of their heads while I crushed the other's neck with the heel of my boot. The other two rushed over to me. One threw his knife at me. I caught it, and threw it right back at him, hitting him square in the heart. I raised the gun again and placed one more clean shot into the other's head, right as he turned to run.

I helped Andrea up and tried to get her to calm down. She said 'You're not a businessman, are you? You kill four people with no harm to yourself, with a blade at your throat, and you carry on like it's a regular day, you're a soldier, or a spy.' I told her I was, but did not tell her who I worked for. I simply told her my employers needed the hydrogen cell, and I made a point to not say that they 'needed it back.', as that would be all too telling, people knew where Hakan was from. She was suffering shock from the events, but she was still wanted to be with me - after all, I saved her life. And that's where the story ends."

Thinking about it for a moment, Daniels finally asked in summary "So she knows you were some kind of special agent, who spoke Russian, who was buying a stolen Floridian hydrogen cell?" "Yeah, that would about cover it." Aaron told him. Daniels said "Well, it looks like we're done here, you can go home and do what you please until we call you up for another mission. I don't feel good about this situation, but their lack of proof gives us the diplomatic advantage should any tensions arise."

[Kenzai]

"Undo these restraints, and I'll tell you everything. There's no need for—"

"Miss Lauterbach. You are in no position to negotiate. Surely your experience in Shoreditch has taught you that?" Victor paused and, for effect, pulled out his standard interrogation ploys: "You can buy the Krevatian Corps, sure -- I have no doubt that you've done it. It's easy to go under the radar in Istria, the place is fucking run by mafias already. God knows if they even have laws in all the foreign hellholes you've visited over the last five years -- Dienstad, Vandia, Karain, Parthia --"

She'd concealed her reaction quite well, Victor thought. Even affecting boredom. "I get it, you're ISF and you know everything about me ever. Your spies still get into arguments over what breed my first dog was, even my parents don't know...."

"Exactly," Victor said, without expression. "This will go much smoother for both of us if you remember our place. Now, tell us everything you know about the man who sailed out from your house last night—"

Case #DT4-73H had been kicked upstairs already by the time of Officer Liao's interrogations. It was obviously beyond the scope of the ISF, categorised as a potential threat to national security. Already life within Iksara had returned to normal with little more than tales of traffic woes for anyone out late last night. But a thousand miles away in New Karaith, administrative capital of Kenzai, five men were seated around a table. Description of the men, the table, or New Karaith would be superfluous.

"Gentlemen. About how much do we know?" asked the most important of the men.

"Only what the witness said and what little we've scrounged up from records on the Krastovia Corporation," came the response.

"Tell me about Krastovia."

"Headquartered in Ashokan, branches in Rosario and Erevtrei. Technically multinational: overseas holdings in a variety of places, mostly developing economies. What they actually do is somewhat vague. But they make a profit—"

"—see, I'm not stupid. I knew the power cell was Floridian. Hakan was Floridian. You don't auction something like that off in Vandia with legitimate intentions. I concluded that he was a defector, they'd be sending their equivalent of the Cheka after him any time soon and if he was caught with the cell he'd be in for a lifetime of imprisonment in a labour camp, or worse."

Ah, communists. "I see."

"So we worked out a deal. He'd be paid about half the market value for it and the blueprints. We'd send him to the Erevtrei facilities for genetic restructuring surgery -- make him completely unrecogniseable from the DNA level upwards, ensure that the Floridians would never catch him -- in exchange for him working for us afterwards. It was mostly bullshit, since he was hardly a valuable piece in a grand design, but it was bullshit that appealed to him. We'd take the cell, obviously useless to us, and sell it for profit. Kharanmin's got no oil reserves, and hydrogen-fueled milspec tech would rekindle their brush war against the Juls, which has always been profitable. I personally liked the idea of selling it back to the Floridians at full market value but they probably had a copy of the blueprints anyway—"

Victor was sensing the presence of a kindred spirit. "But that didn't wind up happening anyway, did it? Hakan died a couple of days later."

"Yeah. Got him out of the picture either way. Always thought there was something suspicious about that—"

"—a thirty-one-year-old field agent. Her job being essentially to scout out new markets. Krastovia reportedly has 'interests' in thirty-one countries—"

"I can see from the map that they only have official branches in four," another man interrupted. "That's counting the three in Kenzai, too."

"That's just how they operate. Krastovia's 'footprint' in any one country outside Kenzai or the other core countries will be very light. That's what the field agents are for: there are several thousand of them. Some of them live in foreign countries full-time, others merely travel. They do business with their subsidiaries, seek out new businesses to bring under the Krastovia umbrella, and make the effort to know everyone there is to know. Their tagline is 'Using free markets to build fair markets' but what they're really after is monopolies; there's one city in Leafanistan whose entire financial sector is owned by Krastovia for instance—"

"Thank you," said the most important man in the room. "More about the witness and her story, please."

"According to the testimony here, she was deployed abroad in February of last year as part of a deal conducted with a renegade Floridian officer. That was where she first met Suspect 416-A-R719, or as she knew him, 'Aaron'—"

"So you fucked him for a week, and went home?"

A soft laugh escaped her lips. "Not quite. There'd been something odd about him from the start. Something mysterious, I guess you'd say. He was carrying an enormous amount of kilocreds -- real plastic, too, not paper money -- despite claiming not to speak a word of Kenzanii. His Russian was accented; didn't sound natural. He'd speak of his home country sometimes, but in terms so general I didn't realise that he'd never told me which country it was until much later. Somehow it didn't seem that important."

"And he was an agent. Military, paramilitary, espionage—"

"Don't know," she said. "Still don't know. Military training he certainly had, but the fact that he referred to his employers needing the hydrogen cell... I'd guess spy. State or industrial, who knows. What were you guys chasing him for?"

Victor tossed aside the papers he was looking through. "Spy, made persuasive attempts to purchase Floridian hydrogen cell for well above market value, up to and including prostitution." For a moment he saw the hurt in her eyes, but he didn't care. They both knew he was right. "He interacted with Hakan, the defector, and similarly tried to buy him off. Hakan was less receptive, and couldn't be seduced. The next day, Hakan was dead."

"Probably coincidence," she said. "Novoselo makes Devil's Kitchen look like Rosario. I doubt the town's even still standing today. And a lot of people wanted Hakan dead -- the Floridians, for one. But..."

"But?"

Her voice was quieter now. "One evening, we were together, and I asked him whether he had killed Hakan. He didn't deny it, exactly..."

"What exactly did he say?"

"He put on a very mock-serious expression and said 'Is that an accusation? What reason would I have to do such a thing?' and I considered the matter for a few moments and said, 'Because he was ugly, and had a poor sense of humour, and an overinflated sense of self-importance, and refused to deal with you? Because you thought he would stop you from getting your hydrogen cell?' and he said 'Truthfully, Andrea, I didn't so much as lay a hand on him. You saw: I bought him drinks, we talked, he went up to his room. Died during the night. Maybe it was that... Lightning Force or whatever that so frightened him.' and I said 'Is that truth, or just more spy stuff? More of you not answering my questions? I don't even know what country you work for.' and he said 'You're right. You've figured me out. I killed him, and I also killed all the other buyers. I was thinking tomorrow I'll kill you for a while, and then we can go off and kill all the townsfolk.... No. The mission always comes first, when you're in the service. I accomplished that, no killing involved. That's something I prefer not to do unless I have to.' and I said 'aww, darn... I was hoping I could hire you for some contracts. The snoring of the man upstairs always keeps me awake, for starters... People who talk on phones too loudly in public are a clear menace... Drivers who don't use turn signals properly—' and he smiled for the first time, and said 'I always knew you were a romantic deep down. If there's anyone I'd betray all my principles for—'"

She stopped so abruptly that Victor was momentarily too distracted to notice the tears welling up in her eyes. And something in his heart was unexpectedly wrenched. You're just feeling sorry for her because she's pretty, his conscience told him, but no: he was imagining the scene. The couple lying in bed, blinds drawn, lights mostly dimmed, speaking about nothing of consequence. The lady coy, the gentleman diffident. Only one of them had really been in love.

And how much had he learned for his infiltration of Kenzai from her?

He wanted to tell her it would be all right and he wanted to pull out the foreign agent's nails one at a time and more than anything he wanted to be in control of the situation again—

The most important man in the room leaned back. "Well, gentlemen. This is certainly most informative."

"Surprisingly so," agreed another man. "Lieutenant Liao's analyses are always perspicacious. We had tried to recruit him into Intelligence at the end of his tour of duty, but—"

The most important man in the room waved aside the tangent. "What do we know about Krastovia's involvement in this hydrogen cell deal?"

"Very little. The whole deal was quite off the record -- took place in a third-world country without widespread internet access, few witnesses, fewer legal authorities to whom information would need to be divulged. It's clear that everyone involved was interested in keeping it a secret. But if you look at their records from—" something is brought up on a screen— "three months later, you'll see the most interesting point about this case."

The man looked. After a while he said: "I see."

"They retained a copy of the schematics, and these communications indicate that they attempted to sell them back to the Floridian Coast on two separate occasions. The whole thing is worded with utmost discretion -- 'we have come into possession of a copy of certain schematics belonging to your government, would be willing to forward them onwards, invite negotiation' etc etc. On each occasion they received no reply or the equivalent of bureaucratic white noise. This was a project into which we believe the Floridian government had sunk the equivalent of millions of kilocreds, and they are no economic titan either, being collectivists. They would not simply give it up."

"I still see. There was no need to explain that."

The other man paused briefly. There were no titles here, but the deference was inherently understood: "I'm sorry."

"And... allow me to guess... that same model of hydrogen cell, or a very similar one, subsequently entered use in Floridia without undergoing prototype testing."

"As best as we can tell, yes. The actual prototype was probably -- an educated guess, but I have my suspicions -- returned to Floridia at some point between the deal in Vandia and Krastovia's attempts to worm its way into the situation. Which implies that the agent was either Floridian, or in contact with them."

"Hm. Please examine records of Floridian citizens -- birth certificates, tax forms, anything else you can scrounge up -- in search of someone matching the profile of the Suspect, and report back to me. Whatever your findings are, I trust we shall soon know whether this is anything but another dead end."

The four men looked at each other, and at the first man, and they nodded.

But one man said: "There may be another way to resolve this question. A less resource-intensive one, as well—"

[The Floridian Coast]

The Capitol Tower of New Clearwater cast a long shadow that extended all the way to the beaches at the right times. Its sheer height made it a regional wonder, but there was no observation deck for tourists, it was the living residence and center of operations for the most prominent Floridian government officials.

Aaron checked in and after five minutes of waiting, he was given permission to speak to the High Premier. Another Lightning Force agent might have a harder time doing this, but Aaron had a personal relationship with the Floridian Coast's leader - he once saved his daughter's life. The High Premier was very fond of him, even offering him residence in the massive building he resided in - Aaron knew he would not take well what he was about to give him.

Feeling tense as he took the elevator up rapidly, he took a deep breath and prepared himself, and was escorted to the highest office in the buildings, only lower than the personal apartments. The door was open, Aaron walked in and saluted his leader. Alexander flipped off his computer screen and smiled, and asked "Aaron, what can I do for you today?" Placing a folder on his desk, Aaron paused for a minute and said "High Premier, I'm presenting you with my resignation. My contract expired before I volunteered for the last mission, and I've decided not to renew it."

Taking the folder but not looking at it, Alexander motioned for him to take a seat, and Aaron did. Alexander said to him "Aaron, you know you have every right to resign from Lightning Force at this point in time. But I'd truly like to know why, more so than whatever formalities you typed in your letter to me."

"I was always ready to die for you, High Premier. For the Floridian Coast, for world socialism. Never once did I doubt that. But I was not ready to watch my best friend die. Dimitri gave his life for me, when I should have done that for him instead. Had I completed the mission, I might feel differently. But I failed, and all I could do was escape. Leaving behind Dimitri's body, leaving behind the people I went to liberate. I'm not fit for this job anymore, sir."

The High Premier turned his chair around to the wide window behind him, overlooking New Clearwater's beaches and dozens of skyscrapers in the distance. "Aaron, I want you to know, that as you were on mission, our navy was as well. We captured four private human trafficking vessels at sea this week, including one from Kenzai. I've been told the Oseans have their sights on another one from that degenerated capitalist wasteland. We've saved hundreds of people. A few are being sent home at their own request, most have opted for Floridian naturalization. And here, in our great country, they will have a real future. They will earn more than a living wage for their work, they'll have families, and their new generations of their children will be as loyal and strong of Floridian citizens as any of us."

Politely, Aaron asked "Your point, High Premier?" Alexander replied "Even the best of us cannot save everyone. There are millions of people across this world suffering, we cannot hope to liberate them all. But you did your best. And you gave those people hope. If Kenzai sends them across the seas, we'll be watching. The Oseans will be watching. Not every mission is completed perfectly. But rather than strike a deal with those capitalists, you followed your training and found you way back home. Neither you nor Dimitri betrayed your loyalty, and that means you are a good agent and deserving of our trust."

Taking his words in, Aaron thought deeply, but his choice was made "I'm sorry, High Premier, but I cannot go back now." Alexander was disappointed, but he tried to understand Aaron's feelings, he asked him "So what will you do now? Take your Lightning Force pension and retire to a Solaria penthouse?" Aaron laughed and said "No, sir. I'm too conditioned to the fast paced life, I'll find some work in this government here, soon, after I take a few weeks to clear my head."

A little less than a half mile below, and a few miles to the East of the capital tower, four men were brought into a courtroom in grey generic jail wear and shacked at the arms and legs. A soldier who presided as bailiff to the military court said "The Honorable General Sarenz." The people in the court room stood up as an older man in a heavily decorated uniform, some of those at the benches including former slaves who had been invited to testify. Translators were present for the prisoners and the witnesses. "You four are charged with human trafficking in Floridian waters, the penalty for which is 10 - 40 years in a labor camp, if you are convicted. Do you understand the charges as presented?"

One of the prisoners angrily shouted with a thick Kenzai accent "Liar! We were more than 30 knots away from away from your territory, in international waters, this is an injustice, we will formally compain to the World Assem- Aaagggh" his speech was cut off by the tap of a taser to his neck. He was subdued and forced to sit. "There will be no speaking out of term in my courtroom." the General said, and then "Let us proceed."

[Kenzai]

The five men convened again another day. The room was different. Its walls shimmered as though made of many interlocking transparent plates, and its floor and ceiling were invisible, grey on grey and black on black. The city was different. They were in Kalhavn, facing the great western sea across which the interloper had escaped. But they were unchanged.

"Have you found the Suspect?" asked the most important man in the room. He was important enough to not be wearing a tie.

"We have," said one of the less important men. "White pages, a few years back; he would have been not much more than a child. No later records. Presumably erased."

The most important man nodded. "As I expected. Agent Karajan, what can you tell me?"

The man looked up, almost as though in surprise. "I communicated with Lieutenant Liao. He told me he had seen to it that the message was sent. He is trustworthy on these matters."

"We'll have to hope so, yes." The most important man smiled, but only just. "We'll monitor responses to see what results we get."

That morning police stations throughout the Floridian Coast received a brief message. The contents were of a sort they had probably seen before.

The message originated from the Association of Kenzanii Law Enforcement Agencies. AKLEA informed the Floridians that a wanted criminal was believed to have fled from Kenzai to hiding within the Floridian Coast, and requested inter-agency cooperation to locate and apprehend the criminal. The message contained the suspect's name, a complete physical description, and a list of warnings. The suspect is armed and dangerous. The suspect possesses training in armed and unarmed combat and has committed several homicides. The suspect is known to use deceit and manipulation and should not be underestimated. As the suspect is wanted for a capital crime, the AKLEA's branches have been authorised to use deadly force and would advise similar.

At no point did it pass through either the Kenzanii or Floridian foreign ministries. It passed from local police station to local police station. Like the most natural thing in the world.

Before Lieutenant Liao had edited it down the physical description had been even more complete, going into detail on parts of the suspect's anatomy that wouldn't ordinarily be seen on first glance, and including in the list of known aliases a number of rather embarrassing pet names.

Hell hath no fury....

"Regarding the Floridian Coast, however—" The man who spoke now had not said a word yet on either day. The others regarded him expectantly. He worked with the Department of Commerce. "We have a complaint regarding them. Reportedly a ship has been detained."

"Explain." The most important man in the room blinked, his eyes large.

"A ship bound for Azhukali, bearing a cargo of wine, slaves and bauxite, was in international waters when it was intercepted and boarded by elements of the Floridian Navy. The ship was instructed to sail into Floridian waters, where it was detained by their Navy while the crew was taken into custody and the cargo confiscated." The man from Commerce laid aside a sheet of paper and looked up expectantly at the others. "This message was transmitted to us shortly before the crew was taken into custody by a radio officer, in code. Reportedly, the event was entirely unprovoked. The whereabouts of the crew are currently unknown."

"I see," said the most important man.

"Regardless of whether the Suspect originates from Floridia's military forces, I believe we should move that state to 'unfriendly' status," said Karajan.

"Motion granted. But recovery of the ship..." The most important man stroked his beard, in thought. "This is something we'll have to put before the First Circle, you understand. There are delicate concerns at hand."

"Of course. But if they say yes—"

---

The First Circle said yes.

---

Don't have pic at the moment, pretend this looks all fancy like
Official Communiqué
Origin: The First Circle; New Karaith, Technocratic Oligarchy of Kenzai
Target: Capitol Tower; New Clearwater, Floridian Coast
Encryption: Key provided

Greetings. It has been brought to our attention that a Kenzanii merchant vessel has allegedly been detained by the Floridian Navy.

We must request an explanation for this behaviour. According to the vessel's planned shipping route it would have remained in international waters until approaching its ultimate destination, which it would not reach for another three weeks. If it can be shown that the vessel was trespassing within Floridian waters in violation of Floridian law, the crew may be dealt with in a manner appropriate to local law; according to Kenzanii law their property will be reclaimed by the Technocracy to cover any associated legal expenses. In all other circumstances, the detainment should be lifted and the crew released, with adequate restitution made for damages and lost revenue.

We anticipate that its detainment was the result of a misunderstanding and expect that the matter shall be resolved shortly. Please be in contact at the address listed below.

Savauntas Henry Calvin PhD MT RFC
First Speaker
1885 Tarathai
Council for State Affairs
Eijasav, New Karaith, CD1-X34-2

[The Floridian Coast]

Official Communiqué to the Council of State Affairs of Kenzai.

To whom it may concern:

We have read your complaint and taken it into account, and thus is our response.

1. The Floridian Military Powers Charter grants expansion of international waters up to 50 miles in an event that threatens national security.

2. Such claimed waters do not contest the claims of any other sovereign nations of the world.

3. Floridian Senate Resolution 71355 deems human trafficking to be a threat to national security, even if by foreign powers.

4. Under the above, the detainees were in fact inside of our territory.

5. The human cargo aboard was malnourished, ill, and abused, and we rescued them on humanitarian grounds.

6. Charges of rape, including rape of an adolescent, have been brought forth against two of the four detainees by the liberated witnesses.

7. The detainees have been afforded all the rights of our justice system, including the right to representation; and all of them have a presiding defense attorney at the time, and the right to remain silent, which some have taken advantage of and some have not.

8. The detainees were offered a plea deal of five year sentences with four years suspended, followed by deportation, and refused it.


Nonetheless, we are aware of your needs, and will allow you to consider this offer by our nation:

- We shall release to you, immediately, the two detainees who have not been accused of abuse of their "human cargo".
- We shall cap potential sentences for the other two detainees at 7 years, which is more than half less than the mandatory minimum.
- We shall provide monetary restitution plus 10% interest for all seized cargo aboard the ship, except for the "human cargo."

In exchange, we ask the following from you:

- The extradition to our custody of your citizen Andrea Lauterbach on tax evasion charges of deals made in our nation 2 years and 3 months prior.
- The permanent non-pursuit of an alleged Floridian citizen wanted for crimes in your nation, as our records show this man does not exist and that it would be a waste of our resources to continue such investigation.
- The remains of the deceased man who was alleged to be accomplice the above man as detailed in your investigation requests. This person is not a citizen of ours, but believed to be involved in numerous crimes within our nation as well. We believe to have a DNA sample of this man, and require his remains for forensic testing. Note that the offers of the agreement will only apply if the deceased is a DNA match.

Thank you for your consideration,
Jack R. Trenton, Floridian Secretary of State

"Forensic testing?" Aaron asked curiously as he sat in Jack's office reading the transcript of what was just sent.
"Diplomatic bullshit, of course, Aaron." Jack said, smiling, "we will give him an honored funeral, by pyre at sea. Of course, it must be low-key. Off-mission Lightning Force and his immediate family only. And off the record."
"Understood, Mr. Secretary." Aaron said. Jack patted him on the back and responded and said "You can call me Jack, you've protected me too many times to count, you're family to me."

Corban, the active Lightning Force leader, sat in the corner not saying much, but finally chimed in "And what will you do if they reject the offer?" Jack lit up his fourth cigarette since the meeting began and said after he took a deep drag "I intentionally gave them ungenerous terms to begin with, because you can always expect your opponent to want more. If they reject it, we will offer all four of the men back to them, and full price of their ship, including the liberated slaves. We can also offer them 'cooperation.' in locating our friend here and a promise to extradite him. If only he existed." They all laughed together. Trying to keep the mood light over the serious situation, Jack turned to Aaron and said "I know you're retired, but if you could just do one more mission for me. Please go out and slash the tires of that bastard from Interior who keeps parking in my space."