I was still seething at my own failure by the time I arrived back in Aldrat. It appeared Nilf Abruskur wsa still reeling from my failure as well.

We dropped the ball on this one, Roc Wieler, and those putrescent, motherless Angel freaks made sure to capitalize on it. Our only consolation is that it cost them, too. We’ve managed to root the Angel spy within our ranks – the one who tipped the Cartel about your visit to the historians. They’re in a world of trouble right now; you can trust me on that.

I bit my tongue for the moment. My own hostility at this game Nilf had been playing, keeping me in the dark, sending me on missions with limited information, putting myself and my crews in unnecessary danger, was second only to my remorse at the historians whose lives were lost during the last engagement.

From our initial interrogation of this captured Angel agent, we have learned that just before the Cartel blew up the outpost, they managed to find and make away with the data we needed on the Wildfire Khumaak. The historian that was supposed to have a text for you relating to it was tortured into handing over his research and was then killed.

Nilf paused, letting his words sink in, letting the blame sink in. Even though he had used the royal ‘we’ in his speech, it was clear who was going to shoulder the blame for this failure. The only reason he hadn’t hung me out to dry already was that he still needed me; and better me than having to put trust in some other random capsuleer, though if push came to shove, I am sure there were hundreds whom could do the job.

They’re offering us a deal. We give them back their agent, and they give us the information we want. They tried to make a bid for the Wildfire, but there wasn’t a chance in hell we were going to entertain that idea, especially once we discovered who their agent was. We negotiated it down to the agent, but we have no intention of making a fair deal with them, simply because when it comes to the Angels, there is no such thing. They have no desire for the safe return of this traitorous scum; in fact if they could kill him right now to shut him up, they wouldn’t hesitate.

I silently agreed with the Angels’ sentiment. This traitor, whomever he might be, had traded lives for money, put profit over morality, and it sickened me.

In addition to providing us intel that the historical texts on the Khumaak have been taken, our captured agent has also revealed something else; its location. His testimony and a good deal of other intelligence we’re receiving is pointing to one of the Angels’ main staging outposts in Metropolis.

Finally, something tangible. I felt we were close.

The defense forces posted at this place are impressive, Colonel, beyond even your capabilities. We’ve come up with a plan to lure some out and reduce their numbers to something you’ll be more easily able to manage. We forced subversion on our Angel prisoner, made him tell his superiors that we’re sending a huge ambush fleet to the meeting point. This should goad them into bringing along a bigger reserve of manpower, most of which will be drawn from that base.

While we’re having the meet, you sneak in, bypass the remaining resistance, and grab the texts that were taken. Underneath the central command center, we’re told there will be several data banks. The documents we’re looking for will be in one of these. You’ll need to deactivate the security firewalls, which means some hacking. You’re looking for a drive cluster called “EDF-285”. Grab it and get the hell out of there before the Angels figure out the game.

Lovely. This time Arsten Takalo wasn’t around to divert attention from this flaw I possessed; I had no hacking skills.

“When’s the meet? I’ll need time to prepare.” I asked.

“You have four days, Roc Wieler.” Nilf replied.

Four days was a long time for a capsuleer to engage in accelerated neural learning. In four days I could easily inject the skills I needed directly into my brain, and probably even get in some hands-on practice time.

I’d also been meaning to pick up a Loki T3 cruiser for quite some time now, so figured now was as good a time as any to kill two birds with one stone; I could pickup the required skillbooks I would need to learn Hacking, and do up a couple of fits for a Loki while I was at it.

Only problem was, I would have to go to Jita, the market hub of the New Eden, right in the heart of Caldari high sec.

Well, I’d been through worse.

NILF ABRUSKUR’S RAPIER IN ALDRAT

We’ve had analysts from the Krusual and Thukker tribes going over the doucments you recovered from our agent’s private compound. They’ve made one more promising discovery so far which we want you to follow up.

Something I had learned in my experience was that the more people were involved in keeping a secret, the less likely that secret would remain such.

Too many hands were getting involved in this mix, and it made me much more cautious than I typically would’ve been. It was almost borderline paranoia and conspiracy theory; I was expecting the unexpected at every turn. It wasn’t the way I preferred to live.

As a military pilot, I was very straightforward. If you were my enemy, I’d shoot you in the face. If you weren’t, I’d fly your wing with pride.

Intelligence operatives were masters of making things overly complicated and convoluted for no other purpose than to maintain their mystifying stereotype to outsiders; and in this case anyone not part of the Intelligence Division was considered an outsider, myself included.

There was no trust, no straightforwardness. I needed to know that the person I was talking to, the person assigning me to life and death situations was trustworthy. If not, it was a fool’s errand each and every time. I would be more likely to cheat death by putting a pistol to my head and hoping for an empty round than by continually working for Republic Fleet Intelligence, at least in this “need to know” capacity.

Just the same, I would do my sworn duty. That is who I was. And that was the main differentiation between me and Nilf. If I said it, I’d do it. There was no reason to doubt.

They found a communication from our source inside the Ammatar Consultate. It seems she sent a package of information on the Wildfire Khumaak to the system of Jark for pickup not long ago. Our guess is that due to the sensitivity of the information and the amount of attention it’s attracting, our asset in the Consulate could only get it to the border, not across. This could play in our favour though. Due to its location in the San Matar constellation – the heartlands of Ammatar space – there’s a good chance our agent didn’t make it out there yet. We have to be careful where our operatives are seen sometimes.

I continued to listen to Nilf’s briefing, but at the same time I casually brought up military intelligence on the San Matar constellation. Average security status was 0.8, and it wasn’t deemed Amarr sovereignty, so I would have no outright issues with their military forces. So far, things seemed straightforward, for a change.

The drop-off location inside Jark is a complex known as Tili’s Red Light Palace.

My eyebrow shot up of its own accord. He had my full attention.

Initial Intelligence is that it’s just another merc RR dive, nothing special. Once you have arrived to the area we’ll forward the exact location of the cargo.

I had to re-read the real time transcript on a side monitor to catch up on what Nilf said. My mind was still back at Tili’s Red Light Palace.

Speaking of which, I trust I needn’t remind you how important those documents could be, or indeed, how sensitive. Proceed with caution, do not take any risks.

Sensitive. Caution. No risks. Condoms. Got it.

—

JARK SYSTEM

The Onslaught was at full crew capacity. I had never seen so many volunteers for a mission. You could smell the testosterone hanging in the air, the pheromones seeping through the air ducts.

I was thankful to be isolated in my pod; I’d wager the body odour levels were high out there as well.

Nilf commed me:

Okay, here we are. Head for the brothel complex on your right. It’s the one in the middle where you’ll find the package.

It’s an odd sensation sometimes, being a Capsuleer. With experience, you learn how to control your thoughts, how to allow Aura to differentiate between commands and random stirrings. Some pilots verbalized these commands, but that was more for their own benefit and focus than for Aura.

Unfortunately, she often read your strongest thought impulses, responding to those core instincts in each of us, ignoring surface thoughts altogether.

In this instance, even before Nilf commed me, my ship was heading towards the brothel, as soon as I saw what it was on my overview.

If my men (and women) aboard were as excited as I was, this would be a fantastic mission. I had already told them that should all go well, we might just dock up here for a day or two, taking some leave time. They deserved it. Hell, I deserved every orgasmic moment of it, though even thinking about sex was a little premature.

We were just out of range to initiate docking procedures when an unexpected comm came my way.

Well boys, looks like we got ourselves another poddie trespassin’ our domain here. Why don’t we show him what happens to uppity eggers who think they can hang with the big boys?

I could never catch a break. Did these yokels really think they could stand against a Command ship of the Tribal Liberation Force with one of the most well decorated and well respected Matar Colonels at the helm?

You would think I would’ve learned that the amount of eating your words done was inversely proportional to the amount of boasting you did ahead of time.

These guys were serious business.

Multiple Battlecruisers, several frigates, they warped in and pounded me with their initial volleys. I had to align my ship away, giving the Onslaught some distance from the Brothel; the last thing I wanted was civilian casualties and being tied publicly to this place.

A second wing warped in with triple the ships of the first. I launched my valkyrie drones, my artillery cannons straining with the exertion of overheating. I hadn’t seen this large a mercenary force in a long while.

They launched spider drones, which quickly snagged me, but I was smart and had a plan. I would micro jump back to the brothel, engaging the bigger ships that had fallen behind in distance, and at the same time putting distance between my ship and those spider drones.

Are you freaking kidding me? I thought to myself as my drones didn’t micro-jump the 300 km with me. They simply sat motionless, watching as the spider drones quickly made their way back to me and webbed me, allowing the numerous battleships I had engaged to pommel me without any drone support on my side.

I spent the next two hours barely surviving what should’ve been a routine encounter, all due to one foolish noob mistake. Let that be a lesson to all of us.

Finally, I had junked all the ships, and was trying to make my way back to my Valkyrie drones. I couldn’t target the fast-moving, hostile spider drones with my artillery, but at a current velocity of 34 m/s, there was no way I would ever get back to my drones.

Thankfully, I was smarter than drones.

I warped away, then warped back in at 100km range.

I made it about 100m before the spider drones had closed the distance and webbed me again.

Thankfully, I was smarter than drones on the second try.

I warped away, then warped back in at 0 km range, and hit my afterburner, pushing in the opposite direction away from my drones.

I made it about 100m before the spider drones had closed the distance and webbed me again.

Thankfully, I was smarter than drones on the seventh try.

I warped away, then warped back in at 100 km range, near my drones, the enemy spider drones finally out of their aggression range on the far side of the brothel.

Take that stupid drones! I mocked myself.

I scooped up my valkyries, and approached the brothel.

Using an RSS specialist that had been assigned to this mission, we managed to retrieve an encrypted transmission the RSS Ammatar spy had hidden on the brothel broadband. Even with the specialist, it was still a wholly incomprehensible string of 1s and 0s.

I bought the specialist a shuttle, and sent him on his way.

After the day we had endured, my crew and I weren’t leaving just yet.

If Nilf had issue with that, well, then it was just that much sweeter now wasn’t it.