ORATOR:
"If I feared shady government organizations and dying in a nameless grave, I’d have retired years ago. No, gentlemen. Wealth doesn’t shield me. Foresight does. And foresight is what I’m offering you."
He walked toward the crate again, running a finger across its cold surface.
ORATOR:
"The Sudbury anomaly isn’t a curiosity. It's something that can change the balance of power in the entire sector, and the worst men alive are fighting to be the ones who pick it up. Lane Hackers, Technocrats, Xenos -- all sworn enemies. And yet, the moment Liberty draws near… they move as one hand."
He let that thought hang, then looked back at the Daggers, his eyes narrowing.
ORATOR:
"Ask yourselves why. Why would enemies coordinate, however briefly, to keep you away? What truth do they fear you discovering?"
He let the silence stretch a beat longer, then softened his tone, almost conversational.
ORATOR:
"Your bargain is simple. Yes -- Riegel will be yours. And the trinket, too. But not before you’ve delivered Sudbury’s secrets. I’m no gambler, gentlemen -- I deal in certainties."
The glow of the cigar traced arcs in the air as he gestured between them.
ORATOR:
"Bring me the deep scans of the anomaly, and I'll make sure your branch receives funding, leverage. The chests of the two gentlemen would also feel heavier with the weight of the medals and accolades."
ORATOR takes a step back, glancing the ashtray on the cold metallic table.
ORATOR:
"I will stay here, awaiting eagerly your return. Do we have a deal, gentlemen?"
Dagger-2 was not a fan of this particular outcome. They had agreed to the strange individuals request and were enroute back to Blacksite-7 to swap out their Dragurs for Echo level craft, this mission would necessitate something with a little more of an edge.
"You know this is a setup, right?" Dagger-7 asked over secure comms as they entered Alaska.
"Yeah, I know. No way in hell that guy would just ask us out of the kindness of his heart. He has wealth and looked like he never needed to lift a finger to do anything himself in his life. We've got scans of him from our biometric scanners though, so hopefully he's in a database somewhere. If not this just got even stranger."
It was decided they would report back to base to get directives. While Agent Winter wasn't technically in charge of Division Theta-9, she was still the agent that reported directly to the President for these things. The two flew in silence until arriving back at the Blacksite. They brought their craft down and entered the compound. As they arrived on the pad and exited the Freighters, she was standing on the platform having a spirited discussion with the load master.
"I don't give two shakes of a fuck who told you it was okay to put these materials here, get them out of my sight." the loadmaster rolled his eyes and prepared to push the items away. She grabbed the scruff of his shirt and pulled him close. "...and if you roll your god damn eyes at me again, pretty boy, I'm gonna make sure those peepers never see shit again." she released his shirt with a shove as he pushed the cargo away. "You waiting for an invitation? Spill."
"You're in a good mood."
She glared at him with her arms crossed.
"We should debrief in your office. This requires a SKIF." Dagger-7 said speaking up. Winter's demeanor changed from pure attitude to professionalism. She nodded her head once and motioned them back to her office. All business, at least she knew when to stop bitching.
They arrived at her office and once it was in lock down, she sat down at her desk and waited for the debrief.
The two detailed their arrival, the escort to the man named ORATOR, and his offer. They also detailed Dagger-2's claim to be Directive agents and everything else in-between.
"Good idea calling yourselves Directive agents...though it seemed like he still knew you were LSF. That's worrying."
"My thoughts exactly, I kept up appearances anyway. He might have been bluffing. We agreed to his terms for now. If he turns on us later, we just put a hole between his eyes for the trouble."
Winter looked back and forth between them.
"Assessment." she said. More of a question than a statement.
"Clearly a trap of some kind. I recommend other Echo and Dagger agents be on standby in system under stealth fields to prepare to ambush who ever attempts to take or kill us."
"Clearly a trap indeed, but to what end?" she rose pacing back and forth near her desk. "If he knows or suspects you're intelligence agents, surely he know you're going to report back before making any more. We don't go off half-cocked."
"He's playing a game in which we don't know the rules. A dangerous thing."
Winter paused to consider the options.
"We go with Vard's plan. We need answers and this is the best case scenario. No doubt this ORATOR will hang back and stay out of sight to avoid detection. We'll take the biometrics you obtained and see if we can find a match on him. In the meantime, I don't intend to lose this bit of information. If there is a chance that we can catch some looters stealing from Sudbury, you can bet your ass we're going to catch them and confiscate whatever it is they grabbed. We can use it for our own research and close the loop on smugglers in our own backyard."
The two nodded in agreement.
"I trust you're taking Echo craft for this mission?"
"Correct, best to have an edge. If ORATOR shows up, we tip our hand and have the stealth ships take him. If we get attacked, the stealth ships help us engage the enemy. If there's nothing there, we at least have backup for whatever comes next."
"Good plan, good hunting."
Whisper was a hard ass but when the chips were down, she always came through. The two left her office and headed down to the Echo bay where the experimental craft sat in their cradles. Dagger-7 scratched the back of his neck--a nervous tick he had developed.
"What is it, Vard?" he said looking to his partner.
"This just stinks. Stinks of a setup."
"It one-hundred percent is a setup but that's why we have our people there as backup."
Vard glanced over at the two Dragur craft sitting on in their bays.
"We should keep up appearances. Two LSF craft flying out there now could show our hand."
"...and flying those freighters out there would expose us to vacuum sure as shit. We'll be operating under stealth for much of the mission anyway. Anyone knows we're there, we pin it to that asshole ORATOR, yeah?"
Vard cracked his knuckles and made his way towards the Echo craft with Black following close behind.
The biometric results for codename ORATOR are complete. The data is uploaded to the Daggers and Agent Winter by the data team...
BIOMETRIC SCAN: ORATOR
APPEARANCE:
Human male, approx. 1.80–1.85m. Well-kept, tailored presentation. Suit is a Rheinland luxury brand (Handmacher, Stuttgart line), worn without the usual corporate pin or crest.
ORIGIN:
Body structure and limited phenotype analysis suggests birth in the Edgeworlds. Colonist likely.
ACCENT:
Shifts subtly between Liberty and Bretonian inflections. On longer words, faint hints of Rheinland cadence emerge -- inconsistent, likely deliberate.
CIGAR:
Distinct scent of Bretonian Black Leaf Reserve, an expensive export usually restricted by customs tariffs.
SHOES:
Tracked in light industrial dust, but polish and make are Kusari imports. Model: Nagano Grand
FINGERNAILS:
Faint grease residue. Composition matches Kusari shipyard lubricant, type used on heavy dock handlers.
WRISTWATCH:
Exclusive, out of production Liberty Navy analog model. Shows signs of age and use, but is serviced regularly. Model: Minuteman 800 Commemoration Edition
DEMEANOR:
Microexpressions near-absent; posture fluid. Voice remains steady, not a single nervous tell noted despite hostile environment and threats.
/ / /
Preliminary result:
At present, ORATOR cannot be reduced to a singular profile. Possibilites are as follows:
1. Foreign Counterintelligence Officer.
▷ Highly trained CI agent. Perfect demeanor and calculated speech support this possibility.
2. Independent Information Broker.
▷ Buys and sells information. Curiosity in the Sudbury anomaly and luxury items supports this possibility.
3. Mercenary.
▷ Hired by a foreign government to gather information or spread misinformation. Access to resources and lack of traceability supports this possibility.
ORATOR allowed himself a thin smile, the kind of expression that looked less like joy and more like vindication. The Daggers had played their part exactly as intended. He drew deeply from his cigar, savoring the ember’s glow, before sliding a compact communicator from his inner pocket. Its polished surface caught the kaleidoscopic reflection of the artifact’s brief light before he set it down beside the ashtray, like a gambler placing his final chip.
He tapped the device once, the gesture as casual as flicking away ash.
ORATOR:
“ORATOR. Report. Success.”
The communicator chirped, acknowledging. A low hum filled the air, followed by a reply -- not in words, but in a layered static of tones and warped syllables, like human speech heard underwater. To anyone else, nonsense. To ORATOR, perfectly clear. His eyes flicked with amusement at a particular phrase, though no outsider would ever know why.
He leaned back into the chair, exhaling a slow curl of smoke that twisted upward into the yellowed light. The device continued its indecipherable conversation with him, and ORATOR nodded once in response, as if agreeing with an old friend.
Finally, silence reclaimed the room. The cigar’s ember burned low.
He did not rise. He did not leave. He simply waited -- patient as stone -- for the next piece of the game to come to him.
"Echo-7, comms check." Dagger-2 said from the seat of one of the experimental Echo craft that Theta-9 had in their arsenal.
"Echo-7, five-by-five." responded Dagger-7. "We really need to talk to command about these naming conventions. Taking your callsign from your ship is confusing as hell."
"I don't make the rules, Echo-8. I just live by them. All others, respond with comms check."
One by one, the others responded. Dagger-2 began his brief on secure channels as they moved through California enroute to Ontario.
"We are enroute to Planet Sudbury to get surface scans. Nothing crazy--however, our mission was relayed from a suspicious third party, so keep your heads on a swivel and watch for smugglers making off with any artifacts or items. We suspect they're pulling materials from the surface and shuffling them off for profit. We're here to make sure that doesn't happen. Clear?"
Mic clicks echoed through the comm link in acknowledgement.
"Comm blackout, entering Ontario."
The five cloaked LSF ships slipped through the Ontario Jump Anomaly and into Ontario proper.
The communicator flickered to life on the table, its surface pulsing faintly as a stream of fractured, unintelligible tones spilled into the quiet room. ORATOR, however, listened with quiet focus, his expression softening into a faint, satisfied smile as the message unfolded. There was no surprise in his eyes, only confirmation. Another sequence completed. Another outcome aligned precisely as intended. The mission was a success.
The smile lingered for only a moment before fading, replaced by that familiar, composed stillness. Satisfaction was fleeting; there was always another step waiting to be taken. He reached for the communicator and adjusted the frequency with precision, dialing into the last known channel used by the Daggers. Whether it was still active was irrelevant. Men like them never truly disappeared. They always listened.
The channel opened with a soft crackle.
ORATOR:
“Excellent work, gentlemen. Lives have been spared because of what you’ve delivered. The Republic will remember your service… even if it never finds the words to say so.”
He paused briefly, the silence measured rather than uncertain, as he drew one last slow breath from his cigar.
ORATOR:
“Your man, along with his cargo, remains where we last convened. Consider the situation contained. You may retrieve what is yours at your convenience.”
The transmission ended as cleanly as it began, leaving no trace behind. ORATOR lowered the device, extinguished the cigar with deliberate care, and rose from his seat. He adjusted his suit with a habitual motion, every crease falling perfectly into place, before departing without haste. There was no urgency in his stride. Soon enough, he would be gone from Pittsburgh entirely, leaving nothing behind but consequences.
Inside Loading Bay 3, the aftermath told its own story.
Heiko Riegel -- now identified as a petty edgeworlds pirate -- and his men had been secured in a shadowed corner of the bay, restrained and compliant, their bodies intact but their presence diminished in a way that was difficult to define. Their faces bore the same hollow expression, eyes unfocused yet open, as though fixed on something far beyond the confines of the room. There were no visible injuries, no signs of struggle or coercion, nothing that would suggest force had been required to bring them to this state.
And yet, something was undeniably wrong.
They responded to instruction without hesitation, moving when directed, offering no resistance as they were handled and examined. But they did not speak. At most, incoherent mumbling.
Nearby, the crate remained where it had been left, its reinforced shell now cataloged and understood. The object within was classified as an energy accumulator: an artifact capable of storing immense energetic densities within a compact and deceptively stable form, comparable to tactical nuclear devices of old. Such devices were not unheard of, but their applications made them among the most dangerous objects in circulation. In the right hands, they were strategic assets. In the wrong ones, they were catastrophes waiting to be realized.
Records suggested similar signatures had been observed before, most notably in a Rheinland incident that had never been fully explained. A research facility lost in an instant, its personnel reduced to nothing, the cause buried beneath speculation and sealed reports. No definitive link had ever been established.
Until now, the possibility no longer seemed remote.
The Daggers had everything they needed to make their quest worthwhile, just like the mysterious man promised.
