If it was ending…
Now, on the other side of the unmarked sled–ride, Bowie found himself in the warehouse, overwatched by a team of contractor-types, getting a multimedia presentation of the planned mission Reiser seemed a little too proud of.
“This is our target, Jack. Museum of Kublaren History. Zhee went in there yesterday and trashed the place. Then the koobs showed up and had a big shoot-out. Final score… a lotta dead zhee. Koobs put up the win, but just barely. Thanks in no little part to us here on Team Nilo.”
Jack Bowie cleared his throat for no reason at all. Reiser’s game faltered for a second.
“So,” began Bowie, jamming up the narrative flow of the proposed op. If only because he needed a moment to think about what he was actually seeing, and what had been said so far. “The contractors and the new slug throwers… they are… Team Nilo?”
Reiser looked officiously uncomfortable with the question.
“That’s currently need-to-know, right now, Jack… and uh… you’re not need-to-know. Just stick with the presentation and do your bit and we all get to the bonuses, my friend. Never mind about what’s going on out there with the koobs and their instructors.”
Silence.
“What if I need to know?” said Bowie flatly.
Reiser stopped and put down his laser pointer with a barely concealed impatience. He picked up a fresh cup of kaff and took a short sip to regain some of what he’d lost. The briefing, though held in a dark yet surprisingly clean and new-smelling warehouse, had come complete with a complimentary craft service table sporting hardboiled eggs, fresh pastries, and even hot-brewed kaff of the expensive variety.
“These guys really know how to war,” Reiser had remarked when showing Bowie to the briefing and letting the taller man know he could avail himself of the tasty sundries provided. It was hard to say what Reiser had been more impressed with, and was trying to impress with… the side table of food, or the slick briefing tech.
It all felt very important to the man. That much was evident to Jack Bowie.
The briefing presentation being projected showed the museum in digital render from top down. Now as Reiser spoke, the presentation began to scroll down and then iris into the infiltration route to the objective.
Reiser hadn’t even used the word “infiltration” yet. But Bowie had been through enough of these types of operations and planning briefings to know which way the mission, and it was definitely a mission, was going to go.
Infiltration.
Kill a bunch of people along the way.
“Clean” had been the working term back in the groups he was active with while attached out of Repub Navy.
“Three stories below the museum, beyond what will appear to be an antiquities storage room,” continued Reiser, “you’ll find a secure high-tech vault in the basement. We need you to access that vault and bypass its security systems. Once inside, you should expect bot sentries of some sort to respond violently. Then we suspect you’ll come to a secure chamber full of very rare antiquities. That’s when you call it in secure and we come in and remove the antiquities via armored convoy. But we—”
“What kind of rare antiquities?” interrupted Bowie. He’d done plans, devices, military hardware, even intellectual property… but never antiquities of any sort, and these were “very rare” ones at that. Considering the amount of trouble Team Nilo was going to even during the planning and briefing stages, the nature of the target itself seemed important. This mission gave an appearance of being separate from the rest of the players. Secret. Off the books. This was something new for Team Nilo. Or at least in Jack’s limited experience since he started playing ball. It spoke of layers. Yeah, this is where Intel and the Spy lived. That was part of the job. But—interesting that it was only peeling back now. Something didn’t…
“Listen. Jack…”
Reiser looked around at the contractors and seemed to have some internal conversation for a half a second with himself about how far he was willing to go. How much he was willing to tell. Maybe he was even having it through some kind of comm in his ear with someone else monitoring the meeting. Who knew? Whatever the outcome, the older spook seemed to reach a conclusion and resign himself to a path forward. A decision to tell all. Or, at least… as much could be told. And in the process make it seem like it was everything.
“Savage, Jack. There are Savage artifacts down inside the vault we need you to access and clear.”
The words hung flatly in the air between them, the presentation tech’s projection lights catching dust motes flying through the half-lit darkness.
The implications of what Reiser had just admitted were clear and known to all without needing another word spoken about a subject that made people uneasy due to its nature. Savages. Savage artifacts were as dangerous, as deadly, and as valuable, as it gets.
Dangerous how? Oftentimes they were merely hazardous to one’s health. Who knew what bizarre chemicals, strange viruses, or lethal yet fantastic effects the seemingly ancient and randomly inexplicable tech devices could produce under unknown circumstances? Miracles and wonders? Plagues straight from Pandora’s box? The Savages had reached a level of science that made modern galactic research seem like Stone Age voodoo. Savage artifacts were inherently dangerous in and of themselves.
You fooled with them at your own expense.
Deadly? People killed for them. Plain and simple. And “people” meant government entities too. Savage artifacts held the keys to quantum leaps in black site R&D. The Republic
