Hidden menace

[TriCore]

[font=Agency FB]OMICRON MINOR. TOLEDO.

"Commander, we have just received an emergency message. However..."

"However what? What is wrong with it, captain?"

"It uses an emergency encrypted channel reserved for critical situations, originating from Liberty space. The message itself is decodable, but the cyphers it uses are quite old, we have changed them more than a years ago. Not only so the message integrity seem to be messed up, checksum challenge failed. Hold on a second...

Tracing the message to our Alaska receiver, it somehow passed through the Navy gate, although we know it blocks any incoming and outgoing traffic.

Commander, it could have been possibly forged. Someone is trying to trick us."

"Liberty... That old..." - he closed the eyes and sighed for he knew what that meant. "Pray it is only a trick, captain. Patch it up on screen, I need to see it."

---

A face came up on the screen of a middle aged man, he was scared. It was Johnson. One of the top agents operating in Liberty, he was posted there five years ago, but almost a year ago all contacts with him were lost, he did not came up and after many unsuccessful attempts to find him the Order has finally put MIA status, believing he was probably caught by the special forces. It was a relief to see him alive for the moment but after he started speaking everything became clear.

"I hope you can hear me, if you got this message then there might still be a chance. I am running out of time and I am pursued... " - for a moment he paused catching up the breath. "This isn't just Navy. The others were right, we underestimated..." - the record went static and distorting, occasionally coming up. Parts of transmission were clearly lost, which explains integrity check failure. Even with most sophisticated restoration algorithms a lot of blocks were beyond any hope of repairing.

"...none made out. The entire team has been exposed and they pinpointed them one by one. Maria tried to get out but they rigged the ship. Our hideout has been ransacked. There... *hiss* someone... *cracklings* ...betrayed us. Misleading us. But I found... something hidden deep."

"Transport heading to something... it's called Altair. Whatever it is, find out."

"There is more... There is... they call it "agency"... *static*"

"...these are the leads."

Display shown two pictures.

The camera became shaky. Johnson turned around quickly grabbing pusle pistol off the nearest table. The speakers were crackling from the noises on the background. Gunfire shots were clearly heard, lots of shouting.

Camera fell down on the floor, Johnson's body was lying nearby. Someone came close, and picked the camera. It was a young woman, hispanic looking, unlike the soldiers in the room standing at the background she wore a highly decorated coat, it had a strange insignia Markus never saw before. With a sneering smile she threw the camera into the wall breaking it up.

---

For a few moments commander stood still, only face muscles nervously ticking, silently starting onto screen and frozen display frame showing the transport take off from the snowy landscape. Using remote control he quickly reversed the record holding for a moment at some points, but the record was of poor quality, shaking and distorted. Pieces of pictures were falling out, probably shredded by bad transmission quality and routing satellites messing up with original data. He locked on the picture of oddly shaped cargo pods being loaded into the transport vessel. On the background he could see hundreds of those arranged and ready to be loaded. None of those were seem familiar, unless... Unless they were made to carry...

"Dear god..." - slipped off the lips of commander. Both realizing what those pods can possibly carry in them.

"Find all whom we have close to Liberty at patrol! Patch comms on emergency channel, NOW!"

Captain quickly picked up pilots from the database who were matching criteria, routing their communication to HQ, but only five names came up.

"Listen up, pilots! We have an emergency situation. Proceed to Liberty space at once, maintain low profile, start scanning all transmissions. You are to find a Navy transport vessel carrying a highly dangerous material, possibly of Nomad origin. We believe it has set destination to edge worlds. Proceed with caution, do not scare it off before you are in visual range. Once you have established contant and verified your target - remove any escort quickly, capture the transport and bring it back safe here before heavy Navy reinforcements arrives. This mission is of paramount importance to the Order and humanity. We are unable to send you reinforcements at this moment, other operatives in space are unavailable at this moment, we will send you backup as soon as possible, but for now you are on your own. Callsign 'Orphidian' will lead the group. You are authorized to enter any system to complete this mission. Command out."

He returned back to the screen, switching between frames rapidly, till the one at the end. Who the hell is that?

"Is... Is she infested?" - very cautiously asked captain.

"No, captain. Not infested."

[ophidian]

LEVEL 3 TOP SECRET: FOR EYES ONLY

ORDER SPECIAL OPS REPORT
DATE: 13.04
SPEC OPS MEMBER / CALLSIGN: Rand Seith / Order|Ophidian
OP PARAMETER: Wing Commander
SUBJECT: Classified Operation Summary
TYPE: Dictaded from audio logs


Ensign Ophidian entered to Isis' Spec Ops briefing room to be questioned by Fleet Admiral Malacos' Operations Advisor and several Spec Ops commanders. The doors closed behind him and the guards outside the room started blocking the doors, arming weapons and going on full alert status.

Ophidian slowly moved towards the seats of commanding officers and saluted them briefly.

Commander: Ensign Rand Seith, you are summoned before us to report about the incident happened today, regarding the capturing of Liberty Navy transport XXXXXXX| ID Removed for security reasons | and your first hand observations regarding the notions of Keepers, your experience over Toledo together with the ground crew. You may start, when ready.

Rand slowly cleared his throat and started speaking in a formal manner. It was a report logging so he had to be brief and out of emotions as much as possible. He tried to forget the massacre he saw on board the transport and the blast he suffered on Toledo...


------------------- LOG STARTS --------------------

This is Ensign Rand "Ophidian" Seith. I am answering this Spec Ops report interview as the wing commander of our primary fleet special operation that took place on 13.04 under direct orders from CIC Apophis regarding the emergency call of operative "Johnson" who was reported and filed as MIA about a year ago according to log files.

Liberty operative's message stated a high-risk intel and first degree dangerous asset was on the move from Liberty by the Navy.

As I am not of high rank to know all the mission details, I have been briefed to gather the emergency wing and head to Liberty space to stop one Navy transport carrying an unusual, Nomad origined cargo.

As of 21.00 standart Toledo time, me and four other craft jumped off to New York as secretly as possible. 21.04 was the time when we spotted the transport ID'ed XXXXXX | ID Removed for security reasons | and the escorts.

Navy craft engaged our wing and we had to fight with the escorts. The transport and its primary guard managed to make it to Colorado system and to Kepler after two skirmishes we had.

We had to divide the wing into two and using the Kusari pasage, half of my fighters managed to block and trap the transport near Planet Junyo in Shikoku system.

After the escorts were neutralized, I had to dock on to the transport to force the crew to follow our wing and obey the orders. The captain seemed to agree but his anchorman decided to go hostile and I shot him several times at his chest and his head.

After the takeover, we headed to our home space over Kyushu, Tokyo, Honshu, Okinawa, Nagano, Tohoku. However, in 92, we picked the satellite imaging of a Keeper fleet, probably being after the asset.

Cargo scans didn't show much except for some Nomad cells and artifacts of some sort that I have never seen before as wel as cargo holds looked like Rand stopped for a brief moment and continued... pods.

When we came to 92, we had to divide the fleet and all my wingman headed before Keepers to block them while I tried to escort the transport back to Toledo.

Things... got complicated after that.

Transport captain sent a message regarding his engines failing and then he suddenly dropped off all communications.

I decided to dock back on the transport and take it to Toledo manually as I was a smuggler before my Order days, I had the experience to fly one of those things.

God, I wish there was a way to explain this... The captain was... all over the console. I mean, he was splittered as if he.. bursted from inside out. His chest ripped, parts everywhere... I had to fly the ship within all that bloodbath and it wasn't pleasant. I managed to dock the ship on Toledo after a brief flight and then something strange happened. It took Rand a while to calm down and speak slowly after remembering the captain's body...

We are used to getting electomagnetic brain attacks and messages from Nomads and Keepers but I have never felted such rage and power before. And it was like a message to all, as all the ground personnel heard it at the same time, some fainting, some falling on to their knees. I fell off to ground as well. One message keeped ringing in my ears. It was about eternal darkness coming. I saw ... visions. I cannot understand them yet but they were nasty and I was reduced into tears because of fear.

I have no clearance to check the cargo but from what I heard of rumors, there are... people in those things in some strange conditions. That is all I can say about the operation.

After his report was over, commanders dismissed Rand and started discussing over the information. Rand didn't even care what it was about as he was too tired and afraid of the whole mess he has seen in the last two hours. He headed back to his quarters slowly, without being able to stop his tears comiing off.

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