Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghost in the Shell, Assassin's Creed, and any other franchise referenced in this purely fan-made and not-for-profit work.
Mars, Tharsis Metropolitan Area
The vast cityscape of the Tharsis Metropolitan Area stretched out as far as the eye could see, easily covering an area of 15 million square kilometers. Skyscrapers reached up into the thin Martian atmosphere, gleaming with reflected light from up and below, their windows shimmering with yet more light from within. Other lights flashed periodically along their and other buildings' rooftops, as well as from antennas and countless other spires stabbing up into the nighttime sky.
Below, the streets were rivers of artificial light thronging with vehicles of every size and color, plus crowds of people from various species that never truly went away no matter the time in Tharsis' busiest areas. Other parts of Tharsis were half-lit, such as the massive industrial blocks, from where streams of smoke and other exhaust trailed across the sky as they were blown away from exit stacks by the powerful Martian winds.
With the roaring of powerful engines, a dark-hulled dropship soared over the skyline, headed towards one of Tharsis' urban subdivisions, Memnonia Quadratic City. "Now approaching Drop Zone One." The pilot spoke up over the encoded line.
"Acknowledged." A camouflaged and armored young woman said, getting up from her seat and quickly checking her gear while heading towards the portside door.
"…bringing us in to hover…clear!" the pilot barked as the portside door opened, allowing the young woman to drop down towards an empty rooftop six meters below. She landed in a crouch, the ground visibly shaking from the force of impact, but the young woman was unfazed, already prowling forward while unholstering a flechette blaster.
Meanwhile, the dropship was moving on, climbing slightly higher while picking up speed, and after several minutes, arrived at their destination. Briefly circling the sprawling grounds of a high-class bar and restaurant, the dropship then descended, flagged down by city police. On landing, the doors slid open, allowing the men inside to jump out, most in heavy combat armor over camouflaged fatigues.
However, all eyes, whether they were city police, civilian bystanders or journalists, and even Imperial Stormtroopers, were drawn towards the imposing visage of a Dark Trooper among the new arrivals. Unsurprising, really, considering his towering bulk, made even more so by his heavy powered armor with integral weapon mounts.
"Sorgis, Jochen," a petite woman barked orders while heading for a nearby command tent, from which she could hear the sounds of heated arguing. "You have your orders. The rest of you, take cover. I'll deal with the people in charge on the ground here."
"Yes, ma'am!" the rest of her team chorused before splitting up.
Meanwhile, the woman entered the command tent, the entrance flanked by policemen and Stormtroopers glaring at each other. "Apologies for the interruption," she said before coming to attention and snapping a salute. "I am Major Makoto Okazaki, from the Imperial Security Bureau."
The Stormtrooper captain in the tent was quick and unhesitant to return the salute, but the police captain less so. "With all due respect, major," the man began after Makoto dropped her salute. "This is our jurisdiction. There's no reason for either the military or the ISB to get involved."
"And I'm telling you that's not your call to make," the Stormtrooper captain snapped. "Least of all when we're dealing with anti-government terrorists!"
"Are we even sure these are anti-government terrorists and not just a gang of criminal malcontents?" the police captain demanded while throwing up his hands. "They haven't even made any demands yet!"
"And why should we wait for them to do so?" the Stormtrooper captain barked. "We should take the initiative, and deny it to the enemy!"
"This is not and should not be a military operation!"
"Against anti-government terrorists it would be!"
"You bastard…do you even remember that they have hostages?"
"Even more reason: the Empire does not negotiate with terrorists!"
"Enough!" Makoto barked, the note of command in her voice getting Stormtrooper and policeman's attentions alike. "We don't have time to bicker like this, and as the ranking officer present, I will make the final decision."
"Major…!" the police captain protested.
"I have no issues with superior authority." The Stormtrooper captain coolly replied.
Makoto raised a hand. "Both of you have a point." She said. "We need to take the initiative, but not in such a way that we risk the lives of the hostages."
The Stormtrooper captain raised an eyebrow, and then narrowed his eyes. "There's a VIP among the hostages then?" he asked. "That's probably the reason why the ISB was so quick to respond to this situation."
"A senior staffer from the Secretariat is among the hostages, yes." Makoto said with a nod. "However, the terrorists don't actually know which of the hostages it is, which is why they haven't made any demands yet, as they're still trying to find her. It's also why they chose to attack this place on this night to begin with. And we need to extract her before they can find her."
"Are these terrorists connected to the Majestic Twelve?" the police captain asked, his former hostility gone in the face of the full scale of the crisis.
"We don't know yet," Makoto replied. "But our priority is extracting the VIP, along with the other hostages. With extreme prejudice, if necessary, but even if there is a connection with the Majestic Twelve, this seems a little too small for a major cell."
"Probably just a minor affiliate, if at all." The Stormtrooper captain mused. "Your men will take point, major?"
"We will, yes." Makoto said. "The police will provide backup on request, while the Stormtroopers will maintain the security cordon outside. If any of the terrorists make a break for it, deal with them."
"It will be a pleasure, ma'am." The Stormtrooper captain said with a nod.
"And I'll have our assault teams take up positions then." The police captain said with a nod of his own.
"Good…make a subtle show of it as well." Makoto said before giving a smirk. "I'm sure the terrorists have eyes out, so please keep them occupied."
Then she shimmered into invisibility as a personal cloak engaged, only the sound of her footsteps indicating her departure.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
An eight-foot-tall wall surrounded the bar and restaurant on all sides, but that was no real obstacle for an Augment like Makoto. Quickly dropping with only a slight rustle from the grass on the other side, Makoto switched her visor to infra-red, allowing her to see through the walls of the building before her. In addition to the two terrorists standing guard by the side doors, there were another four in a room to the side.
"Sound in." she ordered over an encoded line, using virtual communication via cybernetic implants to avoid breaking silence.
"This is Sorgis." The team's tech specialist replied. "Standing by to cut the power and landline communications on your order."
"This is Max." another one of the team replied from the other side of the bar. "In position."
"This is Oliver." Another member of the team replied. "In position."
"This is Crash." The team's Dark Trooper rumbled even over virtual communications. "In position."
"This is Marjatta." The team's sniper replied in her turn. "I've got eyes covered."
"…go!" Makoto ordered, already bringing her flechette blaster up. In the space of a heartbeat, she fired a pair of bursts, killing both men by the door. Then she was leaping forward, bursting through the door as the power was cut and interior lights failed.
Without missing the thread, Makoto kept going, firing a pair of grenades through the side room's door and killing all four men inside. Simultaneously, she switched from infra-red back to VR-augmented night vision. Across the building, she could hear the sound of shouting and the high-pitched whining of blasters, followed a moment later by the roaring of Crash's heavy rotary blaster cannon.
"Easy, Crash." Makoto warned while quietly loping down a corridor, and turning a corner, aimed and fired several bursts, killing six terrorists in barely five seconds. Then a nearby door opened, allowing another terrorist through, the man quickly taking in his dead comrades before screaming and firing wildly with his blaster rifle. "We don't want any hostages dead if we can help it."
"Hey, give me some credit here, major." Crash Zeskos protested. "You know how good my aim is!"
"Not nearly as good as Marjatta's." Makoto quipped while diving low and rolling forward towards the panicked terrorist. Knocking his weapon from his hands, Makoto briefly grappled with the man before getting behind him with the man's head in an armlock, and with a final crack he went limp from a broken neck.
"Now that hurts…really, it does…" Crash bemoaned.
"Just keep your mind on the mission." Makoto ordered, looking into the room the terrorist had come from, and finding a trio of Orion waitresses and a Human waiter tied up inside. Briefly decloaking, Makoto hushed them, the terrified staff calming down at the sight of her, before she closed the door and cloaked herself again. "Four hostages secure, marking their location and proceeding with the mission."
Loping down the corridor, Makoto checked the rooms up ahead, then around a corner to look into the kitchen, audibly hissing at the sight of two dead bodies in the latter. "Looks like the cook is dead," she warned. "Along with one of the kitchen staff. The latter looks like he was killed execution-style too."
"Bastards…" Crash cursed. "…motive?"
"Could be a hate crime." Makoto replied as she cleared out a room, killing another six terrorists and securing another five hostages, including a girl that couldn't be older than ten. "The kitchen staff looked like he was a cyborg…if I had to guess, the cook was killed because he tried to protect the younger man."
"Hero." The Dark Trooper simply said. "Even if they aren't connected with the Majestic Twelve, looks like we're up against Natural Supremacists here."
"Could be," Makoto conceded while firing a flechette on semi-auto at a fleeing terrorist's back of the head. Then she dropped low, a terrorist firing through empty air from behind her before she dropped him with a quartet of flechettes to the chest. Then checking the map on her visor, she doubled back, checking to see if she'd missed any hostiles. "We won't know for sure until we finish the investigation…area clear!"
"I'm clear here too." Another warning went up.
"Likewise."
"We have a problem…the last terrorist here is using a hostage as a shield…"
"Hold position, and get the police in here!" Makoto ordered while already headed towards Max's position on her visor's map. "All units, converge on Max's position!"
It took barely a minute to get there, and only thanks to the building's mazelike interior. Makoto's cloak flickered off as she joined the rest of her team and the police in front, flechette blasters and blaster rifles aimed at a burly terrorist holding a terrified woman before him. He kept her close with an arm around her waist, while his free hand held a knife against her throat.
"You are surrounded." Makoto said loudly and slowly. "Release the hostage, drop your weapons, and surrender."
The terrorist sneered and tightened his grip on the hostage. "We are the Avengers." He began. "What we do is not evil. We are agents of the Cosmic Will, rising up to strike a just and righteous blow against those who would go against its way, and pollute the cosmos…"
"I have a shot." Marjatta laconically said.
"Take it." Makoto ordered.
Marjatta didn't bother to verbally reply, just pulling the trigger and sending a hypersonic round flying. It didn't even take a second to cross two kilometers of distance and reduce the terrorist's head to mulch, the corpse ponderously falling as the hostage scrambled free with a terrified shriek.
"Nice shooting, Marjatta." Makoto said while lowering her flechette blaster. "Any runners?"
"No, ma'am." A police sergeant replied before joining his men in sweeping the bar, and bringing the hostages out.
"The terrorists had overwatch, though." Marjatta lightly said.
"And…?" Makoto asked.
"Not anymore." Marjatta replied.
Makoto smirked. "Nice shooting." She repeated before turning to face her team. "No casualties or injuries…all hostages secured…and the terrorists are dead…mission accomplished."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N
I call it a prologue, but in some ways it's also a pilot. Massive time-skip, thirty years no less, since the Empire conquered the Federation. I've also flipped the perspective, from the previous story's top-down POV to a bottom-up POV, specifically from one of the ISB's field teams as they go about maintaining order and protecting the Empire's citizens from one day to the next.
This way, the changes and improvements in society ever since the Empire felled the Soviet Union…that is, the Federation, can be seen firsthand. And ills, of course, but that's inevitable, and even desirable, because as stated in the chapter, there's no such thing as utopia, no matter how the Federation insisted otherwise.
It was admittedly a beautiful dream, but sooner or later, the dreamer must wake, and face reality. And utopia simply cannot exist in reality. That's even what the word means: no place, or even nowhere.
But it's not all bad. Once a dreamer faces reality, then they can finally make a difference.
Post-Conquest: Insurgence
Prologue
Prologue
Mars, Tharsis Metropolitan Area
The vast cityscape of the Tharsis Metropolitan Area stretched out as far as the eye could see, easily covering an area of 15 million square kilometers. Skyscrapers reached up into the thin Martian atmosphere, gleaming with reflected light from up and below, their windows shimmering with yet more light from within. Other lights flashed periodically along their and other buildings' rooftops, as well as from antennas and countless other spires stabbing up into the nighttime sky.
Below, the streets were rivers of artificial light thronging with vehicles of every size and color, plus crowds of people from various species that never truly went away no matter the time in Tharsis' busiest areas. Other parts of Tharsis were half-lit, such as the massive industrial blocks, from where streams of smoke and other exhaust trailed across the sky as they were blown away from exit stacks by the powerful Martian winds.
With the roaring of powerful engines, a dark-hulled dropship soared over the skyline, headed towards one of Tharsis' urban subdivisions, Memnonia Quadratic City. "Now approaching Drop Zone One." The pilot spoke up over the encoded line.
"Acknowledged." A camouflaged and armored young woman said, getting up from her seat and quickly checking her gear while heading towards the portside door.
"…bringing us in to hover…clear!" the pilot barked as the portside door opened, allowing the young woman to drop down towards an empty rooftop six meters below. She landed in a crouch, the ground visibly shaking from the force of impact, but the young woman was unfazed, already prowling forward while unholstering a flechette blaster.
Meanwhile, the dropship was moving on, climbing slightly higher while picking up speed, and after several minutes, arrived at their destination. Briefly circling the sprawling grounds of a high-class bar and restaurant, the dropship then descended, flagged down by city police. On landing, the doors slid open, allowing the men inside to jump out, most in heavy combat armor over camouflaged fatigues.
However, all eyes, whether they were city police, civilian bystanders or journalists, and even Imperial Stormtroopers, were drawn towards the imposing visage of a Dark Trooper among the new arrivals. Unsurprising, really, considering his towering bulk, made even more so by his heavy powered armor with integral weapon mounts.
"Sorgis, Jochen," a petite woman barked orders while heading for a nearby command tent, from which she could hear the sounds of heated arguing. "You have your orders. The rest of you, take cover. I'll deal with the people in charge on the ground here."
"Yes, ma'am!" the rest of her team chorused before splitting up.
Meanwhile, the woman entered the command tent, the entrance flanked by policemen and Stormtroopers glaring at each other. "Apologies for the interruption," she said before coming to attention and snapping a salute. "I am Major Makoto Okazaki, from the Imperial Security Bureau."
The Stormtrooper captain in the tent was quick and unhesitant to return the salute, but the police captain less so. "With all due respect, major," the man began after Makoto dropped her salute. "This is our jurisdiction. There's no reason for either the military or the ISB to get involved."
"And I'm telling you that's not your call to make," the Stormtrooper captain snapped. "Least of all when we're dealing with anti-government terrorists!"
"Are we even sure these are anti-government terrorists and not just a gang of criminal malcontents?" the police captain demanded while throwing up his hands. "They haven't even made any demands yet!"
"And why should we wait for them to do so?" the Stormtrooper captain barked. "We should take the initiative, and deny it to the enemy!"
"This is not and should not be a military operation!"
"Against anti-government terrorists it would be!"
"You bastard…do you even remember that they have hostages?"
"Even more reason: the Empire does not negotiate with terrorists!"
"Enough!" Makoto barked, the note of command in her voice getting Stormtrooper and policeman's attentions alike. "We don't have time to bicker like this, and as the ranking officer present, I will make the final decision."
"Major…!" the police captain protested.
"I have no issues with superior authority." The Stormtrooper captain coolly replied.
Makoto raised a hand. "Both of you have a point." She said. "We need to take the initiative, but not in such a way that we risk the lives of the hostages."
The Stormtrooper captain raised an eyebrow, and then narrowed his eyes. "There's a VIP among the hostages then?" he asked. "That's probably the reason why the ISB was so quick to respond to this situation."
"A senior staffer from the Secretariat is among the hostages, yes." Makoto said with a nod. "However, the terrorists don't actually know which of the hostages it is, which is why they haven't made any demands yet, as they're still trying to find her. It's also why they chose to attack this place on this night to begin with. And we need to extract her before they can find her."
"Are these terrorists connected to the Majestic Twelve?" the police captain asked, his former hostility gone in the face of the full scale of the crisis.
"We don't know yet," Makoto replied. "But our priority is extracting the VIP, along with the other hostages. With extreme prejudice, if necessary, but even if there is a connection with the Majestic Twelve, this seems a little too small for a major cell."
"Probably just a minor affiliate, if at all." The Stormtrooper captain mused. "Your men will take point, major?"
"We will, yes." Makoto said. "The police will provide backup on request, while the Stormtroopers will maintain the security cordon outside. If any of the terrorists make a break for it, deal with them."
"It will be a pleasure, ma'am." The Stormtrooper captain said with a nod.
"And I'll have our assault teams take up positions then." The police captain said with a nod of his own.
"Good…make a subtle show of it as well." Makoto said before giving a smirk. "I'm sure the terrorists have eyes out, so please keep them occupied."
Then she shimmered into invisibility as a personal cloak engaged, only the sound of her footsteps indicating her departure.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
An eight-foot-tall wall surrounded the bar and restaurant on all sides, but that was no real obstacle for an Augment like Makoto. Quickly dropping with only a slight rustle from the grass on the other side, Makoto switched her visor to infra-red, allowing her to see through the walls of the building before her. In addition to the two terrorists standing guard by the side doors, there were another four in a room to the side.
"Sound in." she ordered over an encoded line, using virtual communication via cybernetic implants to avoid breaking silence.
"This is Sorgis." The team's tech specialist replied. "Standing by to cut the power and landline communications on your order."
"This is Max." another one of the team replied from the other side of the bar. "In position."
"This is Oliver." Another member of the team replied. "In position."
"This is Crash." The team's Dark Trooper rumbled even over virtual communications. "In position."
"This is Marjatta." The team's sniper replied in her turn. "I've got eyes covered."
"…go!" Makoto ordered, already bringing her flechette blaster up. In the space of a heartbeat, she fired a pair of bursts, killing both men by the door. Then she was leaping forward, bursting through the door as the power was cut and interior lights failed.
Without missing the thread, Makoto kept going, firing a pair of grenades through the side room's door and killing all four men inside. Simultaneously, she switched from infra-red back to VR-augmented night vision. Across the building, she could hear the sound of shouting and the high-pitched whining of blasters, followed a moment later by the roaring of Crash's heavy rotary blaster cannon.
"Easy, Crash." Makoto warned while quietly loping down a corridor, and turning a corner, aimed and fired several bursts, killing six terrorists in barely five seconds. Then a nearby door opened, allowing another terrorist through, the man quickly taking in his dead comrades before screaming and firing wildly with his blaster rifle. "We don't want any hostages dead if we can help it."
"Hey, give me some credit here, major." Crash Zeskos protested. "You know how good my aim is!"
"Not nearly as good as Marjatta's." Makoto quipped while diving low and rolling forward towards the panicked terrorist. Knocking his weapon from his hands, Makoto briefly grappled with the man before getting behind him with the man's head in an armlock, and with a final crack he went limp from a broken neck.
"Now that hurts…really, it does…" Crash bemoaned.
"Just keep your mind on the mission." Makoto ordered, looking into the room the terrorist had come from, and finding a trio of Orion waitresses and a Human waiter tied up inside. Briefly decloaking, Makoto hushed them, the terrified staff calming down at the sight of her, before she closed the door and cloaked herself again. "Four hostages secure, marking their location and proceeding with the mission."
Loping down the corridor, Makoto checked the rooms up ahead, then around a corner to look into the kitchen, audibly hissing at the sight of two dead bodies in the latter. "Looks like the cook is dead," she warned. "Along with one of the kitchen staff. The latter looks like he was killed execution-style too."
"Bastards…" Crash cursed. "…motive?"
"Could be a hate crime." Makoto replied as she cleared out a room, killing another six terrorists and securing another five hostages, including a girl that couldn't be older than ten. "The kitchen staff looked like he was a cyborg…if I had to guess, the cook was killed because he tried to protect the younger man."
"Hero." The Dark Trooper simply said. "Even if they aren't connected with the Majestic Twelve, looks like we're up against Natural Supremacists here."
"Could be," Makoto conceded while firing a flechette on semi-auto at a fleeing terrorist's back of the head. Then she dropped low, a terrorist firing through empty air from behind her before she dropped him with a quartet of flechettes to the chest. Then checking the map on her visor, she doubled back, checking to see if she'd missed any hostiles. "We won't know for sure until we finish the investigation…area clear!"
"I'm clear here too." Another warning went up.
"Likewise."
"We have a problem…the last terrorist here is using a hostage as a shield…"
"Hold position, and get the police in here!" Makoto ordered while already headed towards Max's position on her visor's map. "All units, converge on Max's position!"
It took barely a minute to get there, and only thanks to the building's mazelike interior. Makoto's cloak flickered off as she joined the rest of her team and the police in front, flechette blasters and blaster rifles aimed at a burly terrorist holding a terrified woman before him. He kept her close with an arm around her waist, while his free hand held a knife against her throat.
"You are surrounded." Makoto said loudly and slowly. "Release the hostage, drop your weapons, and surrender."
The terrorist sneered and tightened his grip on the hostage. "We are the Avengers." He began. "What we do is not evil. We are agents of the Cosmic Will, rising up to strike a just and righteous blow against those who would go against its way, and pollute the cosmos…"
"I have a shot." Marjatta laconically said.
"Take it." Makoto ordered.
Marjatta didn't bother to verbally reply, just pulling the trigger and sending a hypersonic round flying. It didn't even take a second to cross two kilometers of distance and reduce the terrorist's head to mulch, the corpse ponderously falling as the hostage scrambled free with a terrified shriek.
"Nice shooting, Marjatta." Makoto said while lowering her flechette blaster. "Any runners?"
"No, ma'am." A police sergeant replied before joining his men in sweeping the bar, and bringing the hostages out.
"The terrorists had overwatch, though." Marjatta lightly said.
"And…?" Makoto asked.
"Not anymore." Marjatta replied.
Makoto smirked. "Nice shooting." She repeated before turning to face her team. "No casualties or injuries…all hostages secured…and the terrorists are dead…mission accomplished."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is AD 2406.
Thirty years have passed since the United Federation of Planets fell before the Galactic Empire.
Seven years have passed since the Belsavis Gateway closed.
Six years have passed since the Second Neo-Federation War.
The Empire of the Dragon stands strong. A stable class society, a healthy free-market economy, a functioning civil service, the most powerful military in the galaxy, steady expansion into the northern and western galactic quadrants, and more, all stand as testaments to the strength and endurance of the New Order.
But it does not stand unchallenged. Neo-Federation terrorists, Neo-Luddites, Natural Supremacists, anti-government forces, organized crime and more, all chip away at the façade of empire.
Not unexpectedly, for to think otherwise would be to repeat the utopian mistakes of the failed Federation. Utopia is unattainable, by its own nature, even, and to claim otherwise is to be mad at best, and to be willfully deceitful at worst.
The Empire has many responses to such challenges, sometimes even just by giving a free hand to its constituent worlds. At other times, its fleet and armies take the lead, while at yet other times, a more subtle answer is called for.
And one such answer is Imperial Security Bureau Ops Team Nine.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Thirty years have passed since the United Federation of Planets fell before the Galactic Empire.
Seven years have passed since the Belsavis Gateway closed.
Six years have passed since the Second Neo-Federation War.
The Empire of the Dragon stands strong. A stable class society, a healthy free-market economy, a functioning civil service, the most powerful military in the galaxy, steady expansion into the northern and western galactic quadrants, and more, all stand as testaments to the strength and endurance of the New Order.
But it does not stand unchallenged. Neo-Federation terrorists, Neo-Luddites, Natural Supremacists, anti-government forces, organized crime and more, all chip away at the façade of empire.
Not unexpectedly, for to think otherwise would be to repeat the utopian mistakes of the failed Federation. Utopia is unattainable, by its own nature, even, and to claim otherwise is to be mad at best, and to be willfully deceitful at worst.
The Empire has many responses to such challenges, sometimes even just by giving a free hand to its constituent worlds. At other times, its fleet and armies take the lead, while at yet other times, a more subtle answer is called for.
And one such answer is Imperial Security Bureau Ops Team Nine.
A/N
I call it a prologue, but in some ways it's also a pilot. Massive time-skip, thirty years no less, since the Empire conquered the Federation. I've also flipped the perspective, from the previous story's top-down POV to a bottom-up POV, specifically from one of the ISB's field teams as they go about maintaining order and protecting the Empire's citizens from one day to the next.
This way, the changes and improvements in society ever since the Empire felled the Soviet Union…that is, the Federation, can be seen firsthand. And ills, of course, but that's inevitable, and even desirable, because as stated in the chapter, there's no such thing as utopia, no matter how the Federation insisted otherwise.
It was admittedly a beautiful dream, but sooner or later, the dreamer must wake, and face reality. And utopia simply cannot exist in reality. That's even what the word means: no place, or even nowhere.
But it's not all bad. Once a dreamer faces reality, then they can finally make a difference.
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