Thwarting the Succession
Metropolis region — Barvigrard constellation
Hek system — Planet IV
Krusual Tribe Bureau
1 September YC 127
I hoped to finally get information on the whereabouts of Dagan today; instead, I got another mission. I tried to contact Keita Eslin several times in the morning but her commlink just gave me an auto-reply, informing me that its mistress was extremely busy and would get back to me as soon as she could find some time in her packed schedule. Frustrated, I made my way to Keita’s office and confronted her.
“Oh, Captain Korff,” the agent said distractedly, typing something on her datapad, “please sit down. I think you may be quite useful.”
I nearly chocked on that brazen statement, “Me? Useful? I came here in anticipation that your Bureau and you will finally make yourselves useful to me!”
My outburst grabbed Keita’s attention and she looked up from her datapad, “Um… in which sense?”
“In a sense that you will give me information on Dagan that your field agent was expected to collect at the training facility.”
“Ah, that!” she smiled charmingly, “In this, Captain, our interests are perfectly aligned.”
I narrowed my eyes, “What do you mean? I’ve heard that line before, but so far the ‘alignment’ was all for your benefit.”
“I would be happy to give you everything our field agent gathered on Dagan, but the problem is we can’t exfiltrate him from the facility. After you eliminated Tabar and his lieutenants, we hoped that the remnants of his forces would scatter. Unfortunately, one of Tabar’s remaining lieutenants, an Ammatar called Mizara Nefra, has returned to the training facility and taken over.”
At that stage, I was quite fed up with delays and excuses.
I raised my eyebrows imperiously and asked in a peremptory tone, “And what are you doing to extract your agent, Agent Eslin?”
The agent’s smile did not falter but became a bit strained, as if it took some effort.
“Me? I am writing a brief for a rescue mission for which, as I said, you may be useful, Captain Korff. It is in your best interest to assist us in this operation, if you want to receive the intel on Dagan ASAP.”
I remembered Sister Alitura’s characterisation of Keita Eslin and rolled my eyes. A little sly, she said? That was hands down insidious!
I gestured at the agent’s datapad, asking her to show me the mission. When she passed the device to me, I pressed my thumb on a sensor without looking at the brief and went out of the office.
As I was walking to the docks, I called Aura and asked her to prepare the ship for immediate undocking.
“What’s the rush, Cap?” she asked curiously.
“Got a mission,” I said tersely.
“To do what?”
“Don’t know. It’s in the brief. Feel free to read it.”
Aura’s eyes widened, “You mean you didn’t? Cap, you shouldn’t be accepting missions without checking the brief. What if the agent asked you to fight a titan?”
I shook my head in annoyance, “She wouldn’t. She is just Level 1 — titans are above her paygrade.”
“Okay, but what if she pays you peanuts?” insisted Aura.
I snorted, “Doesn’t matter. As I said, Keita is Level 1 — whatever she pays is below my paygrade.”
There was a short pause while Aura was reading the brief after which she said, “It’s not too bad, Cap. The objective is a bit vague — ‘run interference for the Krusual spy in Tabar’s training compound’ — but the pay is decent by Level 1 standards. The Bureau will pay 200,000 ISK as a main reward and 96,000 ISK as a time bonus. By the way, the time bonus period is almost four hours. Even if you have a beer or two before the mission, we should be able to finish it in time.”
“I just want to get it over with,” I muttered.
“Ready when you are,” Aura said brightly. “The engine is warm and the pod is loaded.”
Metropolis region — Barvigrard constellation
Hek system — Mission location
We landed on the grid about 100 klicks away from the recruitment and training base. It was guarded by three ships which Neocom classified as Mercenary Rookies. I was taking my time to inspect the surrounds with my camera drones and other sensors, when the guards targeted Kaukokärki and sped in our direction. That was new. At such a range, I usually had to take a hostile action against the hostiles before hostilities commenced. Either I was getting famous among smugglers, or they were on high alert after their boss had been killed.
The Rookies certainly had a long targeting range — they yellow-boxed me before I could target them — but their effective firing range was much shorter. While I was marvelling at their quick reaction to my arrival, they closed the distance and were already 60 kilometres from me. I stood my ground — meaning I didn’t move the ship — and targeted them back. As soon as target locks were acquired, I shot a volley at the closest guard. Alpha! As usual, the first line of defence was just cannon, or should I say railgun, fodder for me. I quickly dispatched the remaining frigates and waited for further developments.
The developments did not make me wait long — almost immediately another group of four frigates emerged from the dock. It contained three Mercenary Fighters and was led by Mizara herself. Surprisingly, all of them were flying Caldari frigates — Mercs in Kestrels and Mizara in a Merlin. The fact that an Ammatar smuggler who did the biz across Minmatar-Amarr border chose a Caldari ship filled me with pride. Obviously, she preferred our military tech due to its superiority over the local products. So I thought until Mizara fired a weapon at me. I facepalmed. It was a missile! A goddamn missile on a ship bonused for hybrid turrets! Using missile launchers on a Merlin was like hitting a nail with the side surface of a hammer head — you got a result but it wasn’t as good as it could be with a blaster.
I shook my head ruefully — that abomination had to be destroyed. I mean, destroyed first. Others also fired missiles at me but at least they had enough sense to fly missile boats. For that, they would live a few seconds longer. As it turned out, only six seconds longer, since it was all the time I needed to blow up Mizara’s Merlin.
When the fight was over, I turned my attention to the training facility. My camera drones showed a stream of smaller ships and escape pods fleeing from the station. I called Keita Eslin.
“Hey, shall I pick up your agent?” I asked her showing the livestream.
Keita bit her lip, thought for a moment, then shook her head, “No. We haven’t been in touch since Mizara arrived, so we couldn’t tell him that you would come to rescue. And since there are smuggler forces remaining in the station, he has to keep radio silence to avoid detection. Better let him make his own way out of the facility. He will contact me when he is safe.”
“As you say,” I shrugged. “Anything else I need to do here?”
“No, the mission is accomplished, Captain. Thank you. Feel free to return to the base,” said Keita and ended the call.