"It's just a pile of memes and shitposts," I flatly concluded as we neared the end of the data package. "Not exactly the sort of stuff I'd have expected for this." Or maybe it was, considering the faint recollection I had for the organization from the peripheral memes.
"It does appear rather sporadic and random, with little clear pattern or reason." Veronica's eyes glowed briefly while she double checked all the bits again. Then she shook her head. "Commander, I do not see any sort of hidden code or methodology to this packaging. It feels put together quite haphazardly, if anything."
I grunted and rubbed my chin, thinking. Maybe...no, I can't descend down a spiraling logic path of 'they know I know.' HORUS would always win were I to succumb to such madness. I had to grit my teeth and concede that I didn't know what all these outer trappings were.
But then we still had the core of the package itself that was nestled inside all of this. Almost prominently so, an audio-only file that stood out from the rest with just how plain it was. Like it was a little present whose wrapping paper was the omninet.
Veronica played the message now and I listened intently in, wondering if it was just going to be a full minute of somebody maniacally laughing. But to my surprise, it revealed itself to be a taped conversation between what sounded like two individuals. One that was quite...illuminating, at that.
"That was amazing work on the hydroponics! I was so bored of my mind watching that stream, seeing those clones explode was finally a breath of fresh air! Tell me though, did any of them bite it?"
"Ah, no. Sorry, but for the funding you've given, I can't do much."
"Ahem."
"Much, sir."
I paused the recording and glanced at my adjutant's avatars. Her eyes were closed while she processed and ran a cross-analysis check, likely already having anticipated my inquiry already. She also already had an answer, opening them up to deliver the report. "Vocal analysis identifies one side, with a high degree of certainty and within acceptable error margins, as Ayden Von Hessin. Head of House Hessin."
"And the other?"
"Insufficient data." Guess we'll have to play it out a little longer. I resumed the undoubtedly secret conversation and stared flatly at the fluctuating sound waves.
"Hmph, do remember your place. That being said, I also have to ask: What was the entire thing about that hacking incident? I hope you're not expecting a bonus or anything for that."
"Ah, no, sir. That wasn't me, but I think I know who did it. You have to know your friendly competition, after all."
"Well, are they for hire? I'll buy them too."
"I'm afraid not sir. If anything, I'd encourage you not to get involved with them." They coughed loudly. "Please, trust me. They're very bad for business."
"What? Come on." Yet Ayden dropped the matter all the same with a huff. "Oh very well. Now then, regarding your next job-"
The recording then abruptly ended there, only a fragment of whatever agreement was going on between a tyrant...and the likely leader of the local insurgency movement. I felt a tug in my gut when I realized the setup that had been going up. My earlier suspicions had been right. "The rebellion movement had been a controlled device for House Hessin."
"That would appear to be a valid, logical conclusion to draw upon from this new input."
"No wonder why they never actually caused trouble when it was under Ayden, but suddenly have it all out for us. They're House Hessin agents, or at least hired actors in that manner." My jaw tensed and I had to carefully relax it lest I start grinding my teeth. "We're not letting this go on. Veronica, can we track down the source of this transmission?"
"I can at least narrow down the search greatly thanks to its broadcast flagging our detection system." Veronica paused for a moment before noting, "If it had not been for the additional bundling of that seemingly pointless content around the audio file, then I think we would not have noticed it even."
Especially because if it was just a voice call through the omninet, there's little we can do to notice it unless we suddenly announce total surveillance on everything. Which...I mean, there's an argument to be made for public safety and security, but that goes beyond the pale. It'd also probably be the quickest way to upset the organization that may be or may not be against us.
Guh. Now I was getting a headache from just trying to wrap my head around them.
So let's just focus on what hurts my head far less, like finally catching the 'leader' of this insurgency movement.
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Things moved very quickly from there. Between Veronica's narrowing of the region and our established local informant, we were able to pinpoint who it was. A 'freelancer' named Xing that Rowles quite gleefully brought in at mech-point. She also handled the interrogation, saving me the indignity of needing to talk to them. Which was good.
I don't think I had the discipline like her to refrain from running my mouth when Xing made their defense.
"It's a job, and I'm just following my orders."
Boo-fucking-hoo. That ain't flying as a valid defense for the very unimpressed tribunal. If anything, I think that we were being generous in just prosecuting the attacks on our hydroponics facilities. Had we released it to the civilian courts, easy way to tack on additional charges for the collateral damages from their indiscriminate robot ambushes.
Maybe next time, don't plant search and destroy bots on civilian roadways.
We also did try to pin the hacking incident on them, only for Xing to vehemently refuse the accusations with an actual alibi as well. Yeah, go figure. Veronica and the others checked, went over it again, then reluctantly confirmed that it actually couldn't have been them. Not unless they actually had more resources at their disposal like cloning. But at that point, I think they would've had done a better job on trying to sow chaos among us.
In fact, upon learning that we were still on the hunt for that mysterious entity, Xing actually offered to turncoat for me. Not the Cavia Committee; I, myself, personally. They claimed to have contacts in the darker parts of society that could help identify elements linked to the cult that they belonged to. If that wasn't enough, then how about just giving up those other business acquaintances who had supported their efforts all the while? Not everybody had access to a black market printer after all. So if I was willing to show just a bit of leniency, strike a plea deal with them behind everybody's back to get things to ease up, then they'd be willing to become my agent in turn.
That raised up a few questions for me, though I'll admit that the dominating one had been 'Are you that much of a rat?'
No way.
I didn't trust Xing as far as I could throw them and employing them to get back to the job, just on my side this time, would be so morally distasteful that I couldn't stomach it. So even if it made my life arguably higher, I took the more challenging path of having them prosecuted all the same. Ironically, it turned out to have been a smart choice because Erica contacted me not longer after with a very exasperated look.
Apparently, higher-ups at Harrison Armory had caught wind of us having arrested the insurgent leader and had been somehow convinced that they also were the one behind the training accident as well. They weren't believing us insisting that Xing couldn't have been, that the real perpetrator was still out there. So they were insisting that I turned them over to the megacorp now.
Shit. Not good.
I tried to reason with Erica, only to find that she absolutely was already convinced and on my side. But her hands were tied- this was straight from the main office. Harrison Armory probably wanted the matter resolved and over with already to show that nobody messed with them. And in typical megacorp fashion, they probably didn't care if it even was the right person.
Just that they were there to take the blame all the same.
The timing was too convenient for it to not be a purposeful wedge being driven in-between the state and the company. My suspicions were heightened when I learned from Erica that this had apparently come from an anonymous tip-off to the main office, explaining why she got blindsided by this too. I also discovered that this was apparently going to probably affect the conditional support that would be sent to support her. So if I denied this extradition request, the budding relationship between us and Harrison Armory could very well just shrivel up. Including that request for an economics expert.
At the same time, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps there was more than justice at play here for the company. Xing was an underworld agent that could perhaps be utilized elsewhere, because what megacorp didn't have a need for a deniable asset? Especially one whom the company was convinced had hacked them. So the best way to secure a defense against that was to hire said hacker. Too bad that again, they were entirely wrong about who it'd been.
So all the same, I was trapped between a rock and a hard place. Wonderful. In this case, it might as well be between an asteroid and a moon. So I weighed my choices, and came to the rational decision to at least try and look like I was trying to work with them at least. Because well, I didn't have any reason to protect Xing- especially not after they were processed and deported by my administration.
It didn't matter if they were the hacker or not. We still had plenty enough charges to revoke any residency, citizenship, whatever from them. At which point, once we kicked them out of the Cavia system, then Harrison Armory could choose to do with them whatever.
I supposed that I should be more troubled that I was probably condemning them to whatever debt slavery the megacorp had planned for Xing. But well, they weren't cooperating and giving me names, saying that once they gave them up, they'd lose all value. Which...I guess was probably the entire point of withholding them. Plus, I wasn't going to let them stay anyway.
Hi future Lancer that would undoubtedly tangle with Xing. Please don't take me down with them.
That being said, if we were going to do it, then we'll do it right and proper. Which meant pushing them through the whole legal procedure that Veronica and I had crafted, letting all the paperwork formally go through to firmly revoke all state guarantees. It was a fine test of our theory if nothing else.
I did maybe abuse my power just a little by expediting the process the moment it hit my desk, but I knew that nobody was complaining. Congress if anything was very happy when I announced that we'd caught the culprit behind so many troubles as of late. Their cheers though drowned out the warning I gave out about the hacker still being out there.
I didn't know that in just a few days, I didn't really have to worry about them specifically either. Because there was a bigger can of worms that was being slowly screwed open, and I was powerless to stop it.
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Because Harrison Armory wanted to make this transfer a show of their pride, they wanted this hand-off to be highly publicized and covered by their own in-house media team, Purview Media. Which in turned triggered Melhof to deploy his own complement of the CBS, leading to this event actually being broadcast and televised quite wildly. Everybody, even those at work, would surely be keeping an eye on their closest screen to see the fate of a rebel.
Which naturally meant I got very paranoid. This absolutely reeked of another convoy ambush. So I'd be damned if I got caught off-guard again, especially if a certain organization decided to show Xing how the real serious folks attacked a military troop. So I took command of this escort personally, tasking Rowles and a vanguard to sweep ahead.
Thankfully, it seemed like Erica had a similar idea and had her own also checking the route thoroughly. The hand-off itself with be at the space port, which meant that there was plenty of distance to cover between the holding cell and our destination. I helped coordinate the effort myself, listening in on the various incoming reports while keeping a wary eye on the armored carrier ahead of my own vehicle.
"Veronica, how's the local data traffic?"
"Frankly sir, it's a mess," My adjutant grimly reported. "With plenty of media crews covering and streaming the event, any previous threshold of significance has long since been met. So I won't be able to make out if there's any secret chatter going on behind all the noise."
I grunted, not pleased. But little we could do unless we decided to pick a fight with the reporters. "Do the best you can. Alert me the moment you notice any sort of uptick or fluctuation."
"Yes sir. I'll be nearby." I blinked for a moment, perplexed by that promise, then shook my head. I had more pressing issues to worry about.
The next report was from Major Rowles and it made me bit back a bitter curse. It was trouble. "Commander, we have a situation. A road ahead of you has been rendered unusable." I pressed for more information. "Somebody's gone and mucked it all up. Ripped out giant potholes in the ground, then tossed it all about to make giant mounds too. It's like a barricade."
"We can't go through?"
"Not without a construction crew. Do you want to halt the convoy and call for one?"
I thought briefly, then shook my head at her through the screen. "We'd be sitting ducks. We have to keep moving. I'll chart a detour myself."
Rowles thankfully caught on quickly and nodded. "We'll expand our coverage. We might be running a little thin, but we'll do our best."
I quickly relayed the change in plans to Erica as well, who certainly wasn't happy to learn the plan wasn't as secured as before. Though she certainly seemed to get her hackles up at the thought of an upcoming fight. I simply hoped it didn't come to that.
Bringing up a map of Kavgarad, I swiftly plotted a new course and sent it over to the drivers through the immediate local network. That way, nobody from the outside should be able to catch on even if they were able to somehow crack our encryption that quickly. The convoy replied with affirmatives and our wheels kept spinning, not stopping for a moment. I very purposefully chose a theoretically less busy route, one that would hopefully mitigate any sort of collateral damage should worst come to worse.
I did consider also turning back to further postpone or cancel the public hand-off, but with how widely televised this event was going to be, that would be a bad look to both my administration and Harrison Armory. Which meant that unfortunately, sticking my neck out now was ironically the long-term play now. Yippee.
Not soon after we had begun on our detour, more reports from our patrolling vanguards came through about additional roadblocks. All of them following the same worrying pattern, which made me search my hazy memory. Right, I think HORUS did have a little unit like that, no? This reeked of their work. Issue is, the roadblocks also now interfered with the detour. But it wasn't anything I couldn't work with.
More adjustments to the routes, filed and sent to the other drivers. They were getting antsy, I could feel, and I knew that the average trooper riding alongside probably wasn't feeling any better. But to their credit, they kept professional in my presence, cracking only the occasional joke or snark about the scenic view. One that they kept a very close eye on.
Just as I thought that we were clear of the roadblocks, the head of the convoy radioed me. "Commander, I've got a mech ahead of me. Sherman, HA-CL-13." One of Erica's then. "They're saying that the route ahead is blocked, we gotta make a turn here."
"Another detour adjustment," I grumbled, halfway through pulling back up the map when my hand froze. "Hold on. Why didn't they alert us to this through the radio beforehand?"
So that's when the gunfire started. Bloody imposters.