Operation Moralltach: Briefing
This will not end well.
Ming was watching coverage of military escalation in the Heilong Jiang region. Her homeland was expected to launch a military incursion into the Primorshy Krai region of Russia. Her cousin, Fan, would be there, he was a Colonel in the Crimson Dragoons. If they were pushing into that region, it wasn't because they wanted Russia, they wanted Japan, and Korea would be in their crosshairs in short order.
How far can they push the status quo before it finally breaks? How much longer until the US gets involved and the cold war turns hot and the world is set ablaze?
God, I need something stronger than Nuka Cola If I'm going to be thinking about this.
God, now that was an interesting addition to her everyday vernacular since she came to America. Her mother would be ashamed. Good little communists didn't use the word god, ever.
But then again, she could always find a lot more than vocabulary to be ashamed of. Having a gay daughter in China will do that… Okay, I definitely need a drink before this line of thought goes any further.
Following her instinct, she got up and went to the kitchen. Their wine fridge was right underneath their liquor cabinet. Legally, none of them were old enough to have any use for either. But, as Ming had learned, when you were a member of the American Aristocracy, a lot of the little laws stopped applying to you. A couple of the big ones too, if some of the stories that Emma and Madison had told her were true.
Ming wasn't a huge drinker, but she usually stuck with scotch when she drank because she usually drank with Madison. This time, however, she decided to go with a Pinot Noir. As she was getting a wine glass and a corkscrew, she noticed the elevator coming up. They'd finally gotten tired of being woken up every time one of them came in late, so they'd turned the bell off.
"Hey babe, I'm opening a bottle of Pinot, want a glass?" She said without turning around.
The voice that answered was definitely not Madison's, "No thanks, but if you're pouring, I'll have a nice whisky on the rocks."
She knew the voice, "What are you doing here Liam?"
"Madison called me, said she had a job in the works. You didn't know?"
She twisted the cork out set the wine to breath. "She hasn't mentioned anything to me, what did she say that the op was?"
"Nothing, she just told me to meet her here and that she was on her way." He'd taken up a position behind her, leaning on the kitchen counter.
It was at that moment that the doors to the elevator opened again and out came Madison, a black haired young man with a distinctly military look about him trailed her. He had three duffel bags on his back. "Just set the bags on the couch Nate, would you like a drink?"
"No thanks Miss Victory."
Madison looked back at him, "Nate, call me Madison, you're older than me."
Then she walked into the kitchen. "Hey babe," she said, pecking Ming on the cheek.
"Hey, who's the guy with the bags?" Ming unconsciously wrapped her arm around Madison's waist.
"That is Nathan Shields, my tactical attaché, he'll be working with us on this job." Madison slipped a hand around Ming to grab the wine bottle. Ming reached up and pulled a glass from the rack and held it while Madison poured, then handed Madison the glass that she'd already poured for herself.
"Do they always do that?" Nathan had stepped into the kitchen.
Liam looked at him, "What, immediately latch onto each other and make simple actions look weirdly complicated?"
Nate gave him an odd look, but nodded, "yeah."
Liam looked back at Ming and Madison, "Yeah, pretty much. You're going to want that drink." He went to the liquor cabinet, "so tell me, are you guys black ops or something?"
This clearly made Nathan nervous. "No!" he said a little too forcefully and a little too quickly.
This guy's an amateur. Ming could tell from the look on Liam's face that Nathan had just confirmed his suspicions. But if Madison is bringing him along on this, she must have a good reason, whatever this is.
"So everyone is raiding my liquor cabinet today?"
Ming couldn't resist, she pinched Madison, eliciting that delightful little yelp she always made. "Now, now, Tianxin, they are our guests."
To her surprise, Madison pinched her back, "They are the people we are going to do a number of very illegal things with, that is not the definition of a guest."
Madison just barely managed to put down her wine glass when Ming pulled her close against her body. "You are just begging me to punish you."
There was that little grin on Madison's face, the one that reminded her just how much Madison knew she was the one in control of their relationship, being the sub. "I don't beg."
"Keep pushing it, I might just pull you over my knee and spank you right here." Then there was something new, something that hadn't been there when they'd first met. It was a certain sparkle in her eyes, like a new facet freshly cut into an emerald. It had been there during the break in, it was there again now.
"Don't tease me if you aren't going to deliver." Madison bit her lip, the same way she did when they were…
That was it, within a second Ming had her lips on Madison's. Madison leaned harder into her and brought one knee up against Ming's hip.
"Girls, I know we're friends and all," Liam's voice drew them back into reality. "But we are guys dammit and you are two hot chicks making out."
Ming looked at the two male occupants of the room. While she and Madison been lost in each other, the guys had gotten themselves glasses of Madison's top shelf whisky. "Oh, sorry," she mumbled.
"Um, I like day drinking and watching girls make out as much as the next guy, but ma'am, I think we should discuss the operation." Nate hadn't touched his liquor, but his cheeks were bright red.
"Yeah, probably, get the gear, will you Nate?" Madison smoothed out her clothes and picked up her wine again. "Liam, how familiar are you with Eddie Winters' organization?"
Clearly uncomfortable with where this was going, Liam took a long drink of his scotch before speaking. "I've been out of it for a while, so I'm not exactly still on the newsletter mailing list, but I was a good soldier for Winter. I still know a few people who run with them."
"Good, I need you to find us some low hanging fruit, some low level operations we can disrupt, nothing too big, but something Winter will notice. I want him curious, irritated, and hopefully a bit scared. But I don't want him out for blood." As she sipped her wine, Ming could almost see the wheels turning in Madison's head.
Liam did not look nearly as pleased as Madison. "Yay, so we go from breaking and entering to picking a fight with the biggest gangster in town."
"We aren't picking a fight with him," Madison insisted, then paused and thought about it for a moment. "We aren't picking a big fight with him. We just need to get his attention and drag him out into the open, then grab him and isolate him. Then I need to talk to him."
It was at that moment that Nate stepped back into the kitchen. He looked more confident and far more comfortable now that he was dressed in one of the sets of black body armor with a laser rifle slung over his shoulder and the bags containing the rest of their gear hanging from his hands.
He set the bags down and unzipped one of them. "Four AER9 laser assault rifle," He said as he laid the items out on the kitchen floor. "Four sets of second gen IIIA ballistic weave combat armor," these were thick black vests that would stop anything short of a rifle round. "Two syringes of propofol," the modern equivalent of a rag of chloroform. "Three bricks of C4," military grade plastic explosives. "Your legend for the op," he held up a folder containing a packet of documents. Madison made to grab it, but Ming was faster.
"You have a legend for this, my curiosity has piqued." She flipped through the documents, and despite her best efforts not to, she burst out laughing. I love these kinds of covers.
"What's so funny?" Madison's expression somehow conveyed concern and irritation at the same time.
"It's nothing, standard cover for this kind of op." It was, but these sorts of ops always required a level of ridiculousness.
Madison snatched the file from her, read it over, and groaned. "Well," she said in what Ming had come to recognize as her I-want-to-smack-someone voice. "At least it's no worse than any of my nicknames in grade school."
"You did have some pretty crappy nicknames in grade school." The voice was familiar, but it wasn't supposed to be there. The group collectively turned to see Emma standing outside of the elevator, a dozen shopping bags dropped to the floor on either side of her. "Why is there a guy in body armor holding a laser rifle in our kitchen?"
The room was dead silent, no one was really sure how to properly answer that. Unaffected by the crushing silence and the awkward stares, Emma stepped around the counter and looked at the gear laid out on the floor. "And why is there an arsenal laid out on the floor?"
This is her call, Ming thought turning to Madison. There aren't a lot of ways that she could handle this.
To almost everyone's surprise, Madison merely smacked herself in the forehead and sighed. "We are not good at hiding this." Then she looked back up at Emma.
"This is a bit of a long story Emma, you might want to get a drink." She paused, appeared to think about it for a second, then turned back towards the liquor cabinet.
"Actually, I think we'd better just open another bottle or three."
I don't necessarily like how this turned out. I feel like I started out strong, but I lost it near the end. I knew that I wanted to bring Emma in on the covert ops, but I feel like I may have been clumsy with it.
Either way, what do you guys think? I live for feedback, good or bad, I want opinions.
Also, anyone catch the little touch of Sunstone in there. If you haven't heard of it, it's a great webcomic by Shiniez on Deviantart. It is my touchstone for bondage and lesbian relationships.
Read and Review people.
