"So…the General wants some of us to go find this lost frigate." Captain Rha spoke, observing her commanding officer in the midst of a sparring match against both Zop and Iros. Two on one and the man was handling himself expertly.
"Yep." A right hook and Iros was knocked to the floor. A narrowly dodged punch from Zop followed only for Amka to knee him in the spooch in reply. "Come on, you two wimps! I can do this all day!"
"Major, what's gotten into you?" Iros got up, rubbing his face and wiping some blood from his lip. "Why the full force with us?"
"Gah, pathetic." Amka waved them off and walked over to Rha.
"They have a point, Major. Ever since Vylat you've…changed." Rha commented.
"You too? Going soft on me?"
"No, not at all. Just making an observation."
"Yeah, better be just that." Amka huffed before resuming his previous train of thought. "I was thinking of taking a few members from your team to join me. May leave you less capable for a while but I need more people to man a frigate if I find it."
"Take as many as you need. By Irk, take all of them. I could use the break."
An announcement whistle sounded over the ship's PA system.
"Major Amka, your immediate question is requested on the bridge."
Amka swore…in Vylatian, before leaving the room. The man made his way down the corridors until he entered the bridge.
"Just what is it, Jat?"
"Uh, there's a ship requesting to dock with us, sir."
"Who and why?"
"Invader Nossa. Said she's on some official business but wouldn't elaborate as to what. Though she requested an audience with Lieutenant Tuu once she docked."
"That is absolutely suspicious…"
He paused, the silence leaving Jat concerned.
"Should I send her away, Major?"
"No…I have no grounds to refuse if she's citing official business. Tell her she can dock, but I'll want to speak to her, personally." With that, the Major turned and made his way out.
"Aye, sir…"
By the time Amka made his way from the bridge to the hangar of the vessel, the unfamiliar shuttle was making final preparations to settle down on the vacant landing pad. Gear coming to rest, the weight of the ship settling onto the deck, its engines spooled down with a lowering of its boarding ramp.
The recently-repaired veteran of Vylat made her appearance as metallic soles of her artificial feet crisply echoed with each step. Mending scar tissue adjacent to the now-artificial partition of her face, digital crosshair and remaining orange eye tracked to Mirage's leader as she disembarked.
"You Major Amka?" She pointedly queried, synthetic hand gesturing to him.
"I am, yes." The Major, half in uniform with his upper half only in a black shirt crossed his arms. His visage revealed his very unamused demeanor. "And I'm not exactly a fan of someone coming onto my ship just on official business and getting left in the dark as to what that is, Invader or not. What is this official business and just what is it you want with Tuu?"
"You aren't in the dark. You have been notified of my presence. I was coming aboard whether you authorized it or not." The Invader asserted at Amka's bravado. "As for the matter of your man, I am not at liberty to discuss it. Need-to-know basis and you do not need to know, Major. All you need to be made aware of is this matter of grave importance and you would be wise to not inhibit official Invader business."
"If it concerns my man, as his Commander, I damn well have the right to know just what it is you want to see him about. Maybe you've been on the special bus too long, forgot how things work normally. You want Tuu, you tell me what the subject matter is, pure and simple."
His daring words saw Nossa step well within his personal space with a hard glare.
"Interstellar security. Find him. Now. I will not ask again."
He glared back at her for several seconds before turning and walking over to a sound powered phone in the hangar. He punched in the number for Tuu's quarters and pressed a button to ring an alarm button to signal the other end.
"Lieutenant Tuu…I need you to report to the hangar…That Invader we were working with on Vylat wants to talk to you. She said it's something about interstellar security. I don't know. Just come in so she goes away, will you? …Good." With that he set the phone down and walked back over.
"You'll get him. But I have half a damn mind to put you on report for this if it wasn't as important as you're insinuating."
She laughed. Truly grasping at straws to save face now.
"Really, now? Report me for what? Doing my job? Be sure to spell my name correctly if you do. Two S's, not one. N-o-s-s-a. I will hand-deliver it to the Almighty Tallest myself in-person."
"Maybe I fucking will." His head turned as the door opened revealing Tuu. "So quick to forget who saved you from a press of the off button." He walked toward Tuu to meet him. "She's all yours. I'll be in the officer's mess. Come see me once she's done, I want to know what it is she wants and she's not being forthcoming."
"Yes, Major." Tuu nodded in the affirmative and continued on, stopping short of Nossa. "Reporting as…requested."
Nossa did not immediately respond to Tuu's presence or words, watching as Amka dejectedly took his leave. So prideful…peculiar. Leaving it lie for the time being, she finally turned her attention to the sniper before her, gesturing with an artificial limb to follow.
"Come with me, Lieutenant. We have matters to discuss in private." Nossa explained, leading Tuu up the ramp into the shuttle she arrived on.
"As you wish." Tuu followed her up the ramp into her ship.
Once the pair were aboard and the ramp sealed shut once again, Nossa led him deeper into the vessel to a waiting table and chair in the ship's humble galley. A smaller, long-range craft for its singular inhabitant by appearances with not a single item missing or out of order.
"Have a seat, make yourself comfortable." She moved past the empty seat, gesturing to it. "Would you like something to drink? A snack, perhaps?"
"No thank you." The Lieutenant spoke before taking a seat across from her. "Simply looking to get this over with. I'm not known for being overly sociable."
"I'm aware. I will not take up more of your time than what is necessary. Both of us have other priorities to attend to." Nossa countered soundly as she took up a waiting dataslate, perusing its contents briefly. "For the record, you are Lieutenant Tuu of Armada SOG - Mirage, correct?"
"I am, yes."
"Excellent. Lieutenant, it has been brought to my attention that up until very recently you were officially listed as KIA at the conclusion of the failed invasion of Praxxus 7 in the opening hours of Impending Doom I. Obviously, that is not the case as you sit before me, very much alive and well. Unlikely as it is to be a glitch in the system, it is strange that you go from being officially dead to serving in recently-formed Special Operations unit behest General Vaukt."
She paused, folding an arm around the dataslate to better observe the marksman's body language and expression in reaction to her inquiry.
"The reason we are having this discussion is I have been tasked with investigating this abnormality to ensure there are no faults in the network. I would not have need of this discussion had I not ran into a Level 9 Security Clearance block on your personnel file that conveniently coincides with your untimely "demise" on Praxxus 7 until resurfacing on Mirage's roster. I do not expect you to delve into information beyond my security clearance, but can you shed any light on this matter for my formal report?"
"It was a condition of my previous commander's onboarding that we would be officially dead in the system given the nature of our unit. He said we could not leave the unit unless it was in a body bag and yet I'm sitting here, advising the Major on how to form a similar unit to the one I was a part of." The Lieutenant paused. "Obviously I cannot expose operational details, but we answered to the very top. I suspect my transfer out of that unit had something to do with my own report and that the General would pull his very creative strings within the bureaucracy to make the transfer happen."
"I was out of action from that point on Vort. I was kept in reserve, possibly because I was a material witness." Tuu began his brief recollection. "Then after what the Captain went through in Tallum that was witnessed by, then, Captain Amka of four Irken holding off companies of VDF infantry, armor, and militia…I was approached by the Major and offered a promotion and position in the unit. I accepted. Anything to keep me from waiting in boredom. I'm certain if it was necessary for the investigation IIA could locate me for further statements."
Nossa mde personal, quick-hand notes as Tuu spoke. His prior commanding office required them to be listed as KIA…for what purpose? What did blatant deception and lying to the network benefit the Empire at large? Deniability? To who? The Empire justified itself to no one. No need to being the superior of all.
His assertions of being a material witness to some affair after his transfer drew immediate interest.
"So I have heard the rumors from those deployed to Vort. Your account corroborates those claims. Major Amka was wise to enlist a soldier of your caliber in his ranks." She placated briefly. "You stated you were being held in reserve as a material witness. To what ends? Why were you transferred from this clandestine unit on the eve of a major operation that could have used your qualifications?"
"I…thought it was a reward. I made a report to the General about some suspicions I had with my unit. Off the record…I'm bitter about it given what I heard about the aftermath. I hold no ill-will to the members of my former unit and my squad's former second, Lieutenant Volx, was killed in action against the Vortians. I hold Captain Corr and Commander Vult responsible for her death. I'm not sure what their decisions were that led to her demise, but I wish I could have been there to help prevent it."
Her note-taking ceased immediately at the mentioning of a "reward". Names and ranks were promptly taken once provided by the marksman in short order.
"I can imagine it not settling well to be denied participation only to find out one of your own lay among the dead in the aftermath." She reasoned, an attempt at sympathy as far as an Invader could muster. "Perhaps your "reward" was two-fold in surviving Vort to serve the Empire elsewhere…but these suspicions that motivated this decision to reach out to General Vaukt…tell me about them."
Tuu sighed, rubbing his eyes before speaking again. "I had suspicions my entire team was becoming a bunch of defectives. I couldn't bring my concerns to my commander given I suspected he himself was defective…so I went straight to General Vaukt when the opportunity presented itself. The very next day I was transferred out of my unit and…assigned to HQ for lack of a better place for me. The General wanted to make sure I was alive in case IIA needed me from what I can guess. A corpse can't provide statements."
Nossa masked her surprise behind a stone-set visage of calculation. Was this the breakthrough in her weeks-long subterfuge? Dead-end after dead-end of classified this and top-secret that. General Vaukt as cagey and difficult to get more than a passing's worth of conversation out of. High Marshal Zha equally uncooperative amidst managing her campaign. Pushing the wrong people too far would see it all collapse in on itself and be for naught…but Tuu's cooperation may very well have broken everything wide open.
"It started with two of the female members of our team…First Sergeant Aero developed these funny…chest pillows. Later, we picked up Corporal Hesa from Sub Zero Station where…she was also present with these funny bumps and disconnected from the Control Brains, yet she wasn't immediately shot. Then…everyone else started changing. More muscles, deeper voices, the other women also getting funny bumps. It's all so…I was certain there was something going on. Only myself, Corporal Rha, and Sergeant Rem remained unaffected but I don't know if that's still the case."
"You were wise to uphold your integrity in reaching out to General Vaukt on the matter, Lieutenant." Nossa complimented with the intent to coax more information willingly if need be. "Your observations coincide with biological functions of maturation seen in other species. A sign that PAK programming and inhibitors have been tampered with. A violation of the Imperial Standard and definition of defective. All of these physical changes in your squadmates…did their behavior change at all? Their actions? Was there any particular reason why you, Corporal Rha, and Sergeant Rem were excluded from this?"
"I don't know why we were excluded…but…" Tuu sighed again. "I can't give you the details, but needless to say, there was an instance where our team stumbled upon a mass grave. They were just bones but First Sergeant Aero completely broke mentally. Refused to move just…sobbing on a pit of old bones. It took both Lieutenants, Corporal Rha, and Sergeant Vard to get her out and she was still shaken for hours after. That's about the one surefire instance I can provide for you. It was an awful sight but it's just a bunch of old skeletons, right?"
"Correct. Skeletons belonging to the deceased and nothing more than bones taking up space. An irrational, illogical response to have." Nossa conclusively responded amidst note-taking. "Have you spoken to anyone else in any capacity about these matters?"
"No. IIA never showed up to question me. I think they were just too busy dealing with issues on Vort or being ambushed by militiamen to even make time for me." Tuu paused, mulling over that. "Did it just get buried or something? Forgotten as some low level incident in a war zone with mass casualties?"
"Entirely possible that may have been the case." The Invader reasoned, looking up from her dataslate after saving her findings, conveniently leaving out the suspicion that General Vaukt may have been equally involved in whatever was going on.
Nossa set the dataslate down, interlacing her metal hands before her as she leaned closer to Tuu.
"What you have told me today? Do not speak of to anyone else. We would not want your well-meaning report to be turned against you by the same people you intended to reach out to, now do we?"
"...No, not at all." Tuu paused. "My commander wants to know should I tell him that this was the gravest importance of Imperial security and that I can't say further?"
She settled back into her seat, never breaking eye contact with him unnervingly.
"You will tell him nothing, Lieutenant. His displeasure with you will pale in comparison to incurring Internal Affairs' wrath. You and I both know what it means to find yourself on the wrong side of IIA. Your former squadmates may very well have by speculation alone. You spoke up to not join them. Do not throw this away to find yourself right next to them for other reasons. Am I made clear?"
"...Yes, yes of course." This was all seeming stranger by the minute. Just what was Vult involved in that necessitated this?
"Have you anything else to add to the record, Lieutenant?"
"The Corporal I mentioned, Hesa…she's…I don't know what's going on, I wish I knew, I wish I could tell you. But I never detected the slightest hint of disloyalty from them…all fine, upstanding soldiers but…these physical changes can't be ignored."
"Indeed they cannot, regardless of their supposed loyalty." She concluded, making to stand after compiling the last of her notes. "I have no further questions, Lieutenant. Come, I'll walk you off."
Tuu followed Nossa off her ship. What was done was done, his conscience was clear as it ever could be. As he was previously instructed, he made his way to the mess hall. Little did he know that Amka had already sent off a message to Vaukt over his personal encrypted channels about Nossa's very unannounced visit. He may not have been fully involved, but his loyalty to the General came before the Empire. Such was the man's popularity across much of SpecOps.
"Good, you're here. I was worried I would have to leave with much of the team before you got back. So what was this all about?"
"I can't say."
"What?!"
"I can't say. I'm sworn to secrecy.
"I'm ordering you to tell me."
"I can't, sir."
"Why can't you fucking tell me you mite?!"
Mite? Weird insult. "...If I told you I would have to report you to IIA myself for violation of the Imperial Standard, sir."
That was enough for him to figure out what it was all about. "...All right."
"All right?"
"I would've been happy enough just knowing it involved the Imperial Standard but just trying to get that level of information is akin to pulling teeth."
"So I'm not in trouble, Major?"
"No, not at all, just doing your job. You're free to go."
"Thank you, sir. Best of luck on your mission."
"Thanks."
The two men left the mess hall, Tuu to return to his quarters and Amka to head off to retrieve a lost frigate. Nossa had her breakthrough she needed to bring to Grimm and Xilch. A Priority One missive issued to the Supreme Commander and a course set, Nossa took to the stars once more. It was perhaps what they needed for the plot to move forward…