Chasing the Shadows

[tenkalus]

“Sir, I have the report from Mustafar. All agents in the system were lost.”

“What?! Do we have confirmation of that?” The Major in charge bellowed. Why was this happening on his shift?

“Yes sir. Agent’s Whisper and Two-Hands were confirmed KIA and junior Agent Songbird was…. Well sir.. We found forensic evidence that he didn’t survive.” The speaker handed the officer a datapad with reports and holo’s of the carnage that had befallen their people. His face scrunched up in disgust as he saw the still pictures. At flipping to the resting pose of Two-Hands, the man fought back bile and cringed. He had to screw his eyes shut and turn away. “My god….” he exclaimed. “Who is capable of such animosity? These agents look like they were mauled by a wild animal....”

Just then, the door to the command module at the Ministry of Intelligence slid open and a cadre of soldiers and uniformed men came walking boldly inside. The lead of which was in a white Colonel’s uniform with a long imperial grey coat over top of it. He had a close cropped haircut with a streak of platinum white shot diagonally over his skull. A young man, the Major noted. Probably some political placement given the obvious authority the younger man carried. Behind him was an agent that the Major had thought was on administrative leave, given his proximity to a certain deceased comrade.

Senior Imperial Agent, Alexius Stormhall kept his hands firmly in his pockets and had an air of boredom about him as he trailed in the flapping coat tail of the Colonel in white.

“Everyone out!” The Colonel yelled.

No one moved. Confused glances were being tossed to the Major who frowned himself. “Colonel, what is the meaning of this? This is a secure area.” The fact of the matter was that this young Colonel, whoever he was, was not an officer in the Ministry of Intelligence. An admiral could walk through that door and not have authority and jurisdiction to order a cup of caf, let alone clear the room.

Without another word, the Colonel took out his code cylinder and jammed it into the Major’s terminal, overriding all screens and authenticating his personal credentials. The screen flashed to the color coded encryption system used by intelligence to gauge operational authority and quickly toned to a pulsing black.

The Major’s eyebrows rose a few inches in surprise. “Clear the room immediately!” He ordered. Then and only then did the workers at their stations move. He would have to commend them for their discipline later.

Stormhall waved belatedly at the intel personnel when their backs were turned.

When the room was quiet and the door was shut and sealed, the black clad troopers went around to each station and disabled any security cameras monitoring the command center.

“What can the Ministry do for you Colonel?” The Major piped up with a hint of fear creeping into his voice. What was going on?

“What you can do, Major,” the Colonel responded as he turned his frosty blue eyes to the Major, “Is tell me why your incompetence has caused a security breach!”

More confusion, “Sir?”

The young officer sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated as though he were dealing with a child. “You have a rogue agent, Major, and now I have to deal with it. You will give me everything you have on Agent Lucadonus Lestroud.”

The Major shook his head, “Sir, that’s not possible. Lucadonus Lestroud was killed in prison three months ago. I saw the coroner's report myself.”

“Lucadonus Lestroud is cunning, Major.” The Colonel said icily, “And very much alive. He just ghosted three of your agents on Mustafar and made off with enough supplies to wage a private war with the Empire. More than that, he was privy to knowledge that could be dangerous to the Empire if given to the wrong people. His very existence is an affront to our way of life, and you are going to help me deal with him.”

Things were starting to make a little bit of sense to the Major. Lestroud had been one of their most promising agents. He was trained by Alexius Stormhall, which explained the man’s presence, and by all accounts, had been leading a very promising career. The Major had seen the former sniper’s jacket when he’d transferred to the Ministry and had been shocked that someone so young at the time, had earned enough medals to make some General’s think twice about standing next to him in dress uniform. The man had been a hero.

The official report was that Agent Lestroud had contracted some rare optical disease that one in a thousand humans were susceptible to from the planet of Felucia. Something about plant spores in the air that mutated when coming into contact with certain cells in the body. The Major had never paid much attention to the disease, as he wasn’t a doctor. He’d just known it was a tragedy, for the military to lose such a skilled soldier.

But fate had stepped in for Lestroud. The Empire rewarded it’s loyal servants, and so the powers that be decided to transfer the soldier to intelligence. They put money and resources into his training, obviously believing that his visual impairment was temporary. Apparently, they’d been wrong. The file had read like a horror story for Lestroud. He’d joined with the Ministry, his former credentials and identity had been erased from public record (in standard practice for a field agent), and he’d been given a new name. Lestroud had been given the best medical care the Empire had to offer, but suddenly took a turn for the worst.

The report said that there was nothing the Ministry could do to recover his eyesight, and was forced to medically discharge Lestroud from service. Agent Lestroud, as a career soldier, fell on hard times and blamed the Ministry for his eyes failing, and had gone to lengths planning to bomb the command center in the heart of Dromund Kaas. Luckily, security caught him, disarmed his explosives and sent him off to be incarcerated for the rest of his days. Last the Major had heard was that Lestroud’s luck had turned poor one last time, as he’d been the victim in prison of gang violence in prison and had perished in a riot. It was a sad end to a good operative.

Now this Colonel was claiming that Lucadonus Lestroud was alive, and taking out loyal agents to the Empire. So many questions sprang to mind. How had the man escaped prison? And why was that report falsified. If that report was false, then what else had been a lie?

“Do you have any proof, Colonel?” He asked, suddenly very aware of his confidence returning.

The higher ranking officer sneered and inserted a datacard into the reader slot on the Major’s terminal. A security vid of a star port began cycling from camera to camera and eventually froze as the familiar form of Agent Lestroud became visible in the feed. He was sitting at on a bench waiting for a flight off planet. The recording was labeled Mustafar Star port. It had been captured 24 hours prior.

The Major was about to speak again, but stopped and shut his mouth, looking back at the still frame of the recording. Lestroud’s eyes were different than he remembered. They were…

Glowing? Perhaps some kind of lens flair on the camera?

The Major snorted and shook his head as the Colonel began talking about how the Ministry would reclaim their rogue agent. “I’m sorry Major, do you find this breach in security amusing?”

He just looked up and shook his head, “You were just saying you had military assets on station to take Lestroud into custody?”

“So you were paying attention. Outstanding…” the Colonel responded with dripping sarcasm.

“It won’t work.”

“Oh. Please, by all means, educate us on the inner workings of the Ministry of Intelligence, Major. Why will two of the most skilled black ops agents the military has to offer, fail at retrieving a single man on a ship with no escape, en route through hyperspace?”

Superior officer with black clearance the Colonel may have been, but even so, the Major glared at him silently for a moment before pointing at the feed on his screen. “Agent Lucadonus Lestroud was one of the most promising operative’s I’ve ever seen. I’ve been doing this for 30 years, Colonel, and not once have any of the operatives under my command been identified on a security cam. Look at this again.”

The Colonel begrudgingly did so. “He’s looking at the camera….”

“Purposefully. He wants us to see him. He wants us to know this was him.”

Alexius Stormhall finally spoke up, stuffing his hands back into his pockets. “Look’s like ole Luca is about to kick someone’s ass.” He said lightly with a smirk.

The Colonel stared at the screen and into those glowing eyes. “It doesn’t matter. He’s still outnumbered and outmuscled. Our men will bring him in for interrogation.”

“Beggin your pardon, Colonel.” Stormhall said as he scratched his nose idly, “But if I know our boy there, your men are already dead.”

[tenkalus]

Instinct was a dangerous thing when you added training on top of it. Even when he was a child, Luca had been a highly aware individual. He’d been the best at hide-and-seek with his play group, both in hiding and seeking. The instinctual caution and clarity of mind had served him well also as a sniper in the military. He’d picked the hides that had the maximum effective cover, mixed with the maximum effective angle to his target, so he could deal the maximum amount of damage.

Naturally, the military Corps had offered a certain level of occupational training before he’d been deployed to his first theatre. But it had only enhanced his instincts and sharpened his prior senses. Add to that, the tradecraft that the Ministry had injected, and you had one highly dangerous man.

And so it wasn’t the clothing or the looks that gave the soldiers away. In truth, Luca hadn’t anticipated the spooks to act so quickly. He figured he was going to make some waves by showing his face on a security cam, (a pointed message, if ever he’d offered one), but it had been unexpected and perhaps even flattering when they’d dispatched the black bag team to take him as he was leaving Mustafar.

At the end of the day, the one thing that had sealed their fates, had been a simple oversight. It was the haircut.

Luca himself had grown his hair out some and left it occasionally wild and unkempt to give him a natural camouflage in society. All too often, soldiers would keep their hair short, close cropped for men, and tightly wound in a bun for women. Spies were a bit trickier to spot, as they were trained to blend in. But soldiers? Soldiers tended to have a certain muscle build. They carried their shoulders back and stood broad. The pride, of the two men sent to retrieve him, ultimately gave way to their demise.

As he traveled in the lake of civilians, Luca now always wore his blackout shades. In truth, he had to. His eyes were too sensitive to light and only through the darkened filter of the lenses, was he able to see without a mind-splitting headache. Though while the shades offered him practical protection, they also allowed for a tactical diversion. Someone with normal levels of human eyesight would not be able to see his own eyes through the lenses as he could see theirs. They would be looking at black mirrors, allowing him to shift his eyes back and forth to canvas a situation while keeping his head still. No one would be able to tell he was looking out of the corners of his eyes while feigning sleep.

He noticed them almost immediately. Dressed as civilians with simple carry on satchels at hand or slung over a shoulder. One went to sit in the cabin somewhere behind him, the other was in front and on the right side of the ships aisle. It put 2 rows and the aisle itself between him and his stalker, and an unknown amount of distance between him and the man somewhere behind him. They wouldn’t take him on the ship, he knew. It was too crowded with civilians.They were trained not to make a lot of noise when they engaged when possible. Which was fine with Luca because it bought him time.

They were using tactical spacing on him. If he tried to do anything, they had him pinched from both sides, he couldn’t run either, since the transport took off and headed to the drop off at a space station a few sectors over. But they also hadn’t been so tactical as to notice that he’d noticed them. They were playing things cool, not looking directly at him but glancing around the cabin randomly when the flight crew started their safety brief.

More than once the man’s eyes flicked directly over him, to gauge whether or not his cover was still intact. If he hadn’t been certain before, that was enough to convince him. These men were soldiers, not spies. Special Ops maybe, but soldiers all the same.

But Luca wasn’t so vain as to be insulted by the lack of skill being sent for him. It would allow him to move unhindered for a little while longer before other operatives started hunting him down. That was when the real challenge would start. A soldier was predictable. They followed regulations and rules they’d been spoon-fed until they could recite them by heart. Their situational combat assessments were laughably basic when thrown against a trained spy like Luca Lestroud.

The flight was meant to be approximately an hour and a half. At forty-five minutes into the journey, Luca stood, feigned a yawn as though he’d been sleeping. He glanced at the pursuer in front of him and noticed he was twirling a stylus through his fingers. A nervous habit, probably. Right now it was inconsequential, but it might be something he could use eventually, and so he filed the knowledge away for later.

He turned out of his aisle and kept his head straight as he headed to the rear of the cabin toward the refresher. Luca stopped just after the drawn curtain separating the fresher stall and the main cabin and took his shades off, inspected the lenses inside and out as though looking for smudges or spots. In reality, he flipped the shades over so he could inspect the mirrored surface of the front side, so he could look behind him. The soldier behind him had gotten up when he did and was following him back. Apparently he was intent on engaging when Luca when he couldn’t escape. It was smart in a way, Luca would always give credit where credit was due.

But it was a gross underestimation of Lestroud’s skills. That, and the fool hadn’t signaled to his partner for backup.

Soldiers…. Always looking for personal glory.

Luca returned his shades to his face and closed the curtain behind him. He reached out and opened the latch to the fresher station, letting the mechanism click audibly as it swung shut again.

The soldier came through the curtain and shut it behind him again, then reached into his satchel and removed the hold-out blaster he’d carried on.

In truth, the man should have pulled rank at the onset of the flight. He should have taken Luca at the port before the system jumper had taken off. If he’d told the port security that there was a terrorist on board, he might have had a chance. But Luca knew he wouldn’t have, even before he knew he had a tail. A Sith Spec Ops soldier on a republic controlled world would have had to been undercover. Republic authorities to act on a tip from an undercover meant questions, and anyone undercover couldn’t risk that.

The soldier reached for the latch to the fresher, thinking that he had Luca cornered and could slot him quietly. He swung the door open and aimed his weapon into the toilet that was completely empty…

He realized a second too late that the latch hadn’t been all the way shut. He’d heard the door close, but the mechanism hadn’t actually made it past the slot. With his shoulder holding the door open, he was surprised to hear a throat clearing behind him.

His reaction time was good, Luca reflected quietly. Instead of turning to engage, he tucked the hold-out under his opposite arm, pointing behind him at Luca and pulled the trigger. But the weapon didn’t go off. Luca had closed so fast that he’d been able to palm the top of the blaster and flick his thumb over the safety before the trigger fully depressed. In the same move, the soldier tried to turn with the blaster to assault Luca, but he had an elbow already flying at him. An elbow that slammed pointedly into his throat.

The move stunned the soldier and made him stumble back into the stall. Luca followed him into the space meant to fit one large sized sentient being. Humans were hardly the biggest creatures in the galaxy and so there was just enough room for the two of them. Luca moved swiftly, knocking the blaster down to the floor before wrapping his left arm around the soldier’s neck from behind. He snaked his right arm under the soldier’s matching appendage and locked his wrists as both of the spies’ hands met. With a quick kick to the back of the knee, the soldier pitched forward into the commode basin. Luca now had the man at his mercy. He was choking from the elbow strike and now had pressure on his neck which was cutting off his airflow further, and he couldn’t fight because he had only one arm to stabilize himself.

This was a game of blood. The soldier would have likely triumphed if they’d been on open field. But in close quarters, he just didn’t have the training to compete in the game. That he’d been pitted against a master player had further put him at increasingly bad odds. Unfortunately in this game, there was no place for mercy.

Luca grunted and jerked his grip upwards as he twisted and was rewarded with a sickening crack as the soldier’s C3-C5 vertebrae were dislodged.

The man slumped in his grip and Luca hauled him up to a seated position on the commode. He quickly tossed the hold-out into the garbage bin and shifted some trash around to cover it. He was surprised himself, when he stepped out of the station and was face to face with an elderly woman waiting her turn.

“Sorry ma’am, my friend there had some bad food, you might want to try the lavatory at the other end…” he said instantly, shutting the door behind him before she got a good look at the corpse within.

Her face scrunched up with empathy and tutted. “Ohhhh, poor dear.”

Luca smiled charmingly, “Yeah. Guess he just caught a hard break…” he remarked as he pushed his shades back up his nose, then returned back to the cabin beyond.

One down, one to go.

[tenkalus]

The second soldier proved to be both easier and more difficult at the same time. As a former sniper, he liked to keep things quiet as much as possible. Silence allowed for freedom of movement and increased survivability. But just occasionally, his ministry training paid off when it steered him in the opposite direction. Sometimes, a good distraction was what you needed in order to slip away into obscurity.

So Luca did what anyone in fear for their life would do at having discovered a threat to the sanctity of peace and justice.

He called security.

Or more accurately, he sent them a message. He prepped the message packet on his datapad from his seat and set it to execute as soon as a holonet link could be established. The message wouldn’t travel through hyperspace, so as soon as they reverted, he received the confirmation beep that the message had been sent top priority to the security forces aboard the space station, that was to be the system jumpers final destination.

The message was simple. It detailed that a passenger aboard the shuttle had been following him since Mustafar, and he’d seen them twirling what looked like a detonator stick around his fingers since the shuttle took off. He hadn’t wanted to start a panic and feared for his own life and so he was requesting immediate station security to arrest the man. The file gave a very detailed description of the soldier and his seat number on the shuttle for confirmation.

At best, they’d shoot the soldier on the spot. At worst, the Republic forces would take him into custody and blow his cover as a spy, or at the very least they’d tie him up long enough for Luca to make his escape and vanish from the Empire’s scopes for a while.

The sublights propelled the shuttle to Outreach Station within another 20 minutes, and as they docked, Luca made sure he was one of the first one’s off. He had to make it seem like he was scared. His sudden movement would spark the remaining soldier into action and move just as fast.

His planning worked flawlessly, which was amazing for something thrown together on the fly. He’d been prepared for a fight, and had cobbled together plan’s B-E in case something went wrong. The best laid plans, rarely survived first contact with the enemy, as the mantra went.

But plan B was unnecessary. He made it off the shuttle at a quick double-time walk. When he was out of the docking tube, he saw the security forces hurriedly waving civilians through their checkpoint. He really wished in times like these that he could have had a set of eyes put into the back of his head. He’d have killed to see the look on the soldiers face when the Republic forces converged on him from all four sides and asked him politely to step aside with them to answer some questions.

He chanced the glance over his shoulder and made eye contact with the soldier as he protested loudly and pointed toward Luca. The ravings of a madman it seemed. He was even still twirling that stupid little stylus through his fingers at increasing speeds as his anxiety spiked.

Luca locked gazes with the man since the republic forces had their attention on their new bomber suspect completely, and pulled his glasses down slightly so his golden-yellow eyes were visible even at a distance. He winked at the soldier and grinned, then pushed his glasses back up and adopted a look of horror before shouting,

“DETONATOR! HE HAS A DETONATOR IN HIS HAND!!!”

Screams of panic erupted from the terminal and civilians began running in every direction. The soldier had a flash of anger and lunged forward, trying to break the circle of guards around him to get to Luca. The sudden movement spooked the guards and they gunned him down right then and there.

It was ideal. Now the Republic would never know there had really been a spy in their midst, either on Mustafar or at Outreach station. Or rather, they’d have their suspect clearly dead. The now crispy soldier’s partner would be found dead in the fresher station on the shuttle and the Republic would wrap up that case with a nice shiny bow. The terrorist from Mustafar had hopped the shuttle off planet and found a Republic soldier following him. He killed the soldier on the shuttle and tried to blow up the terminal as well, but security had caught him before he could act and in the ensuing struggle, the terrorist had been killed.

Luca was never there.

A few minutes after the shots were fired, security had the terminal calmed and locked down again. They made to find the passenger who had tipped them off, but Luca was already gone. Given the circumstances, they didn’t blame him. A frightened civilian coming that close to a terrorist was a scary thing, and they’d probably fled as soon as the commotion began. So Luca’s tip immediately became anonymous on that evenings HNE report.

By the time the Ministry found out their retrieval team was dead, Lucadonus Lestroud was already back in neutral space.