Eternal City Crystal Tokyo

Intelligence Gathering

Minako Aino, Lady Venus of the court of Crystal Tokyo, frowned as she strode up to the room where they would be meeting. "Is the briefing ready?" the lovely blond asked quietly.

Her second in command and aide Major Motoko Kusanagi smiled slightly, her blue black hair framing her face, her visor style sunglasses hiding her eyes. "Yes, we got in the full reports from Europe and Asia as requested," she noted calmly, her eyes sweeping the halls like a good bodyguard. It might be the Palace, but that didn't mean they were perfectly secure.

"Ma'am!" a officer in Royal Marine livery saluted, the young man stiffening at attention.

"Officer Wisner, good to see you," Minako nodded hello. "You've coped quite well since the time jump that landed you here in 2985."

Dan Wisner shrugged slightly, smiling. "Thank you, ma'am," he nodded before opening the door for them.

The room was full of busy conversation, talk that fell off a bit as they entered then rose once more. Ami Mizuno and her wife Rei Hino were side by side, while at the head of the table Queen Serenity was talking to them along with her husband, Endymion. Saionji was sitting nearby his friend Touga, both working over a data-screen. Utena Tenjou and her wife Anthy were there as a courtesy, neither of them government officials, but they both possessed great power and had traveled far more than anyone else in the room.

"Hello everyone, sorry I'm late," Minako apologized, the women in the elegant Greek style robe smiling slightly, "we needed to get all the data together."

"We asked for the briefing quite suddenly," Serenity nodded slightly.

Motoko Kusanagi nodded slightly, the woman dressed in a simple uniform in tan colors. "Especially after our security failure at the palace," she said to them frankly, "a error I am willing to resign for, if needed."

"Oh, stop being a martyr, Kusanagi," Touga growled out, his flashy red hair flowing down his back. "How could your teams spot something we didn't even know about?"

"Still...," Motoko started stubbornly.

Saionji Kyouichi leaned forward, the green haired man looking curious. "Have we figured out what they hit us with?" he asked pointedly.

Ami nodded, the blue haired woman activating a holographic projector build into the chair. "The attackers were highly advanced boomeroids, almost indistinguishable from baseline humans," she said briskly, "at least until the attack programing triggered."

"After which they transformed and tried to kill you," Rei said flatly. "How did they manage that shape shifting...?"

"We were lucky to get some remains to study due to First Fang Za'tair of the Khanite," Ami noted, "from what we could determine by studying them, the bioroids bones were coated with a bone simulating ceramic and stuffed full of advanced nanotechnology."

"Which were unleashed through the bloodstream when the attack order came, letting them reconfigure their bodies on a cellular level," Utena noted, the pink haired woman frowning thoughtfully. Several people looked surprised she was so informed and she snorted as she said, "I read a lot between trips."

"So how did they get past our security?" Rei asked, clearly feeling a bit cross that her lover had been threatened.

Minako gave her friend a slight frown, "Rei, these things scanned as pure human under every detector we threw at them. The physical augmentations were no worse than what you can buy on the street, and the bone coating bounced our scans back as normal bone."

"I'm sorry," Rei sighed, "it's just..."

"I know how you feel," Endymion noted, "I don't like thinking we're vulnerable to attack."

"They won't get this by us again," Motoko noted firmly. "We've upgraded sensors to detect the fake bone ceramic, and we think we've tweaked another system to spot the nanoprobes, even in their resting state," she explained.

"But that doesn't mean they can't spring something on us that we don't know about," Serenity noted a bit sadly, clearly regretting that someone was spending such efforts on killing them.

"Do we know for sure who launched the attack?" Touga asked thoughtfully.

"Mesa and Manpower," Rei snapped.

"Actually, we do not know for sure," Minako corrected severely. "Yes, this looks like their style and they're the only ones we know who have the technology to do it, but that's not proof."

"Point," Endymion nodded, "they could have been contracted by a third party to do this."

"Mind you," Saionji offered wryly, "we've gotten in Mesa's way enough times that they'd be glad to take us out."

Rei looked like she wanted to argue about Mesa being the enemy, but subsided reluctantly. "I don't understand why they're so intent on breaking into Earth controlled territories," she grumbled, "there's a lot of worlds out there."

"I wonder about that myself," Touga admitted, frowning.

Minako took a small device out of her dress as she offered, "I have a updated security briefing on Mesa, if that'll help."

"Let's hear it," Serenity nodded regally.

"Mesa is a world colonized early in the first waves outbound from earth, using the first Jurai stardrives," Minako said, giving them the background, "organized by some of the losers in the corporate wars."

All the figures around the table stirred as they remembered those wars. Hell, most of them had been at ground zero when they started in Megatokyo!

"Nergal felt very badly used over reparations they had to pay, as did Genom and other companies," Minako noted, "they decided they wanted a world to control, where the only laws they would have to deal with would be their own." She called up a holographic stellar map, "They struck out past Jurai's traditional territories into what was then unexplored space, and found a Earth-like world to colonize."

Minako checked her notes, "Genom ultimately felt that simply specializing in Boomers was too limiting,and began to build engineered lifeforms under the name Manpower."

"And by now Manpower has pretty much taken over Genom," Ami noted regretfully.

"In modern times any company that doesn't want to deal with ethics or too much regulation bases themselves off Mesa," Minako said seriously, "including Nergal, Manpower, Simeon, and other groups. Basically, if they're corporate scum they're on Mesa."

"As to why they want access to Earth territories, there are several reasons," Motoko said, smoothly stepping up to carry out her part of the briefing. "One is that we're interfering in their operations outside our sphere of influence."

"Jurai and our patrolling the Non-aligned Worlds," Saionji noted, "I guess it's putting a crimp in their operations?"

"Quite a bit," Motoko agreed, "Mesa in general prefers to keep a low profile, especially in selling what amounts to bio-engineered slaves. It's illegal in Jurai and at least illegal on paper in the Non-aligned Worlds. Not to mention Negal using the various Ruri clones as part of their starship navigation system."

"You know, I said we should just carpet bomb Mesa, but did anyone listen? Nooo!" Saionji mock sighed, sitting back.

Everyone just ignored that. "They're getting more aggressive on Earth too, trying to set up operations in Roanapur and England. We caught them at both, naturally," Minako noted.

"Another reason Mesa targets us is that we're a example that they're not needed," Motoko added, "we get by quite nicely without their illegal biotech and immoral practices. And if we can, why not others?"

"So they're worried we'll cut into their market share?" Serenity asked, blinking.

"Pretty much," Minako admitted.

Endymion shook his head, his expression faintly disbelieving. "So we can be certain the technology came from Manpower and Mesa," he said with a frown, "is there anyone else who has a motive to hit us like this?"

"There are factions on Jurai who want Earth either under their control or defeated," Touga noted. "They do not like us having a technological edge."

"The Khanite sees us as a rival," Utena noted, "but they're not the type to try a assassin. They'd just launch a attack instead."

Saionji snorted. "You're right about that," he agreed. Looking thoughtful he added, "I suppose a few of the five-planet groups out in the League might want us gone, if only to allow them to go back to full scale piracy again."

"Not to mention those Isolationist fanatics," Rei noted sourly, "they'd love to see us leaderless and forced to retreat back to Earth."

"Never happen," Endymion shook his head.

"Yeah, but do they know that?" Rei asked, pointing at him. She looked over at Minako, "Any luck on shutting them down?"

"No, damn it," Minako scowled. "The few members we've captured all had neural mines implanted, their memories wiped themselves automatically," she said.

"We're having somewhat more luck tracing their funding, but it's still slow going," Motoko admitted with a sigh.

"It's rather depressing hearing how many people want to kill you," Serenity noted mildly, the white blond haired woman shaking her head ruefully.

"A good ruler is known by the quality of her enemies," Utena offered, reaching over to gently pat Serenity's hand.

"Agreed," Endymion nodded, patting her shoulder.

Serenity took a deep breath and nodded. Looking at Minako she asked, "Taking the evidence into account, what does your gut say about who is responsible for the attack?"

Minako looked torn, the usual caution a intelligence officer had warring with Serenity's request. Finally she sighed as she admitted, "Mesa."

"Well then," Serenity looked around her group of councillors, "what steps should we take about them? Because I feel we cannot let something like this pass."

To be continued...

Notes: Mesa/Manpower were involved with the two 'road trip' chapters to Roanapur, as well as the space adventure Alucard, Devillady and their team went on. As well as the attack on the palace over in 'Magical Atoner Lyrical Alicia.'