Territorial Governor Jarvis Mann /// Earthtown House of Commons
The meeting had been going on since the news broke, representatives from the Corporate Union, the Alliance, his staff, a number of other publicly held positions, the surgeon general, one or two “specialists” from the free union, and over a dozen lawyers had been sequestered off into a tightly packed meeting room. The constant droning and raging between the different groups had become an indecent buzzing in his ears. He could feel the pressure building behind his eyes signaling the oncoming Migraine. As he rubbed his temples his focus drifted again, to say today was a political nightmare was an understatement.
The 4 o clock cycle headlines all said roughly the same thing “A nobles secret visit to earthtown, leads to shootout on highway 4” blazed across every major source of news in Terran territory. Damned paparazzi, while they werent wrong, Jarvis wished more than anything they had let him finish his dinner before giving him another emergency to deal with. Over the past 7 years since his first election he had been constantly putting out political fires, and none of them had been easy. Today started like any other Tuesday to him, yet had led to one of the most delicate situations, he had taken stock of everyone else in the room and saw: panic, concern, calls to arms, calls to negotiate, all overlapping itself. Focusing back into the conversation, he noted the surgeon general was trying to explain alien biology to a few of the less educated members of this council.
“They’ll decimate the population of Eathtown for this…”
“No, we need to negotiate were “savages” to the empire we have no standing…”
“Was this organized crime, or a militia….”
“So what other choice do we have….”
“You broke the treaty not us…”
“They were saved….”
Again and again just constant pointless arguing. Then he focused on his old friend the Surgeon General who was trying his best to keep several “diplomats” engaged.
“Unlikely, sir, what's more plausible that they have suffered some wounds, maybe a few concussions across the entire squad, but at last report every member of the squad was stable, just wounded.” The Surgeon general, a man of Stoic composure was to his credit keeping his composure explaining advanced biology terms to the professional mouth breathers.
“Their armor has multiple layers of reinforcement, including an external metal composite, hardened interior of bioplastic, and liquid carbon kevlar padding. Then assuming the guards still had power running their suits, they would implement immediate emergency surgery, and wound patching.” Jarvis would have to buy his old friend a drink after this, taking politicians through complex military and biology step by step like you would a child is a skill few had the patience for, and yet he was damn good at it
“Surgeon General Meyers, in an attempt to order this chaos, are our patients going to suffer any long lasting effects?” Jarvis had put on his best loud and listening voice, in an attempt to gather the attention of every arguing party in the room.
Looking up in mild surprise, Meyers looked up from the small group he had been talking to, and was surprised to see the room had quieted all eyes on him.
“Well as many of our surgical staff has learned from experience, the Djikitions are surprisingly difficult to kill, having most of their critical functions stored in a central muscle stack they call a Qwoo. This evolutionary feature allows them to suffer massive amounts of trauma, but as long as the Qwoo is mostly intact, they can regenerate over time. From the last report the noble, his handmaids, and the single watcher who volunteered for inspection had no damage to this organ mass.”
The silence beckoned him to continue, and the governor motioned for him to finish.
Sweat began to bead down his forehead and jarvis couldn't figure out if it was because he was warm or if it was the stress “ the other watchers which are composed of two Freckians, a Prud, and a Yeritian suffered minor fractures along their skeletal structures, and the Prud may have a concussion. The knight has refused medical services, and we assume his suit is still functional so the AI may have onboard systems to care for its occupant.”
“So overall, your saying so far our guests are fine?” Jarvis asked, wanting to keep the focus of the group.
“Yessir.” quick, concise, effective really ought to buy him two drinks Jarvis noted.
“Alright Marc, you go and run an official statement, say something along the lines of no serious injuries to our guests have occurred and investigations are underway.” Jarvis said, turning to one of his junior staff members.
With a nod his staffer took some notes and left without anything else, he had trained them well. Turning back to the group of barely contained political piranhas, he took stock of what he had, a shootout by Alliance marines on a corporate highway, Wraiths moving in force, and the cleanup of the damages. Deciding to target the only group not in the room.
“Thank you Meyers, please take a seat. There might be something we need from you in a moment but I'd like to instead focus on the wraiths.” Jarvis said curtly.
“Sir, if i may?” an alliance officer had raised his head as he spoke
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“Yes, and you are?” Jarvis asked
“Sub-Admiral Koval, intelligence.” the naval officer said as he stood with a salute.
Leaning back in his seat Jarvis looked at the man, thin, organized, old enough to have fought in the Fall, and most importantly very military in both presentation and vocalization.
“Well sub-Admiral I assume since you're offering yourself up to this committee you're the man in charge of surveillance of the Wraiths?” Jarvis said, not wanting to allow any group to take the momentary introduction as momentum to spew their arguments.
“Yessir, I had several undercover agents, as well as a constant SIIS team assigned to the Wraiths.”
“And how did this happen, because this is a pretty big failure on everyone involved.” Jarvis said lining up a political killing blow if needed, but hoping the admiral had been prepared for this.
“Well sir, it may help if i explain how we got to this point.” the admiral said, a dangerous move in this battlefield, more information in Jarvis’s experiences only lead to more damage, but it was his choice.
“Alright then, go ahead.” Jarvis said, pulling out a new piece of paper.
“As some of you may or may not know, Nullskip, a drug that grants a boost in psionic ability temporarily, is a highly addictive and enjoyable substance. Now it is outlawed across all Terran territories, in large part due to its addictive nature, but also because one of its manufacturing processes is rather gruesome.” Koval said, the sounds of pens taking notation on the speaking officer was more dangerous than any bullet.
“May i?” Koval asked, holding up a thumb drive, Jarvis nodded in response.
Plugging the drive in and booting up the main monitor everyone's HUD began to light up as the files were downloaded locally.
“To create it non synthetically, you need an already psionic species, like a Djikition, and put a spike tap into their brains.” an image of a sprawled out Djikition its Qwuoo having a number of electrodes and steel medical implement sticking out of it. The dozens of larger muscle fiber tentacles bound and tacked down like some morbid taxidermist project. Gasps and heaves were heard as many members of the committee were shocked by the image.
“You then pump the sentient filled with hallucinogenic drugs, and hit the organs with a variable electric current. Stimulating life-like experiences. During this process the spike sucks the secreted fluids out of the brain, this process will eventually lead to death. The secreted fluids are then enriched and the drug is almost finished.” Koval said as the image shifted again to a lab with a large machine with several large cylindrical devices that seem to be pouring out a blue clay like material.
“From here the drug goes through an additional dilution process to turn it to a liquid, then its shipped out.” a new image appears on the page of a group of workers, in the nude except for apron, masks, and gloves, working in some dingy home made laboratory. It didnt stay long as an image of several Wraiths wearing the iconic black clothing loading up a large delivery van full of stacks of blue vial filled crates.
“Now my undercovers had learned that the Wraiths had begun kidnapping/drug-ring, in addition to their other criminal behaviors. Recently they have become the number 1 supplier of natural Nullskip for earthtown.” more pictures Wraiths moving into drug dens and taking credsticks for the vials.
“So we've taken great pains, had our agents infiltrate their organization in non member roles, since members are forced to go to a wraith Cookout, and no one would voluntarily do that…”
“Why not?” asked a suit from the corporate union, a young blonde woman who seemed attentive enough.
“...because they eat aliens, sentient aliens, and every member must eat whatever is being served. It's more of a religious affair than anything. But again our agents do not eat Xenos” Kolav said, turning and facing the young women.
When she seemed hesitant to ask another question the sub-admiral continued “ what they don't eat, they rip and sell, basically controlling the organ black market and now they supplement it with Nullskip. So we had proposed several assault plans to strike a number of their stash houses and labs, but before the paperwork was finished, and the assault commenced they recalled all Wraiths, into this building here.” an image of a large concrete compound situated between several industrial buildings and the highway appeared on everyone's HUD’s.
“Then all communication went dark, all our agents went no contact, and the SIIS team said no movement in our out. Until today, we weren’t sure if they were even still there, then a high frequency encrypted message gets detected, and next thing we know the Wraiths roll out the raiding party.” a new picture showing a number of pickup trucks and HMVEE’s rolling out of a garage filled with Wraiths.
“After the shootout, we raided the facility, and we did take casualties; they had fortified and hunkered down. It took some time but we were able to clear the building, and we discovered that most of the Wraiths had left already. how? we have no idea, and are still investigating, but rest assured we will discover how.”
Jarvis watched the tactical video reminded of the Fall and his time in the army before returning his attention back to the room. “Alright, so do we know where the message came from even if we can't read it?”
“Not yet sir, we're still backtracking the packets to find where it came from.” Koval was honest at least.
“Sigh alright, i cant say this wont end up escalating but for now Koval you need to coordinate your investigation with the Union representatives, and my office, we WILL be appraised as things develop.” Jarvis said, hoping to buy the sub-admiral time for a satisfactory result.
“Yessir” he said before sitting down.
Unsure if there was anything else Jarvis looked up “anyone else have anything on the Wraiths?” silence was the only answer
“alright, next up were going to discuss damages, as you all know the union owns highways and alliance polices everywhere else. This was agreed ion the Transitory act of 13.0.43…”
The door opened from behind Jarvis as the room looked up to see marc enter
“Sir our guests are requesting to be on their way.” Marc said stopping the conversation.
“They are?” Jarvis said looking to the Surgeon General “Meyers any issue with that, because we cant hold them outside of a medical emergency.” he asked.
“No, according to my specialist's examination they should be fine to move.” Meyers said, looking down at his computer.
“Alright, Marc, tell whoever needs our permission to let them go, Sub admiral Koval, since you're intelligent, please contact someone to follow them immediately.” Jarvis said, drawing his attention to the door then the room.
Both Marc and Koval gave a nod and excused themselves from the Meeting room.
“And lets pray they feel merciful….” Jarvis said under his breath before turning back to the group at large “alright as i was saying….”