I've spent most of the day working on the COMM message, only in two previous occasions have i actually done this specific task, and i knew it would take time, and a lot of my concentration.
Usually the job is left to an automated system with the proper codes to pretty much turn nonsense into the intel you expect at the end of the process. However Leisner's "Shadow Print" technique was different, it required a live person to work alongside a decoding system to decypher the data.
I've been at it for about nine hours; and even with the many cups of coffee to keep me alert it has taken a toll. I haven't eaten since this morning's breakfast. I could've asked General Gennai to give me a hand with this.
However he's running the Recruitment & Training Department with only a Captain and a Private in his staff. This has forced him not only to be our Chief of Military Operations but also MOS (Military Operations Specialist, SS (Support Specialist) and PO (Provisions Officer) while looking at our ranks to fill those positions.
I wonder how long it will be before he asks to be demoted, i give it about 3 months. We get so many new recruits, and our officers get overwhelmed with duties. Sometimes we just give a rank to a new member based on their experience and we hope for the best.
The process is about eighty completed, should be another hour or so before i can see what Dwayne sent me.
What could have been so damn important to risk his squad into Omni-1? and where was his backup? was it an op the Council of Truth sent him on, or was it another of his "i'll do this while i'm bored" crazy missions?
I look around my apartment and i think about all my surveillance measures, the small cams outside my door, the ones in the corridor leading in and inside my place. Will i have time to defend myself and the intel i have if someone wants it back, and very likely anyone near it dead?
For the last two hours i have double checked my small cache of weapons and even now i'm wearing my best armor. ready for anything. But still; here in one of Old Athen's apartment complexes, the omnis have been known to infiltrate and assasinate clanners.
Their best can walk into town with false documents and go right up to my door, blow it open in a matter of seconds and rush in for the kill.
I hope i don't have to deal with that, my security deposit probably couldn't cover a demolished apartment, and being perma dead would certainly affect my reputation as a Commanding officer.
"You can't lead people if you're dead", General Voislav used to tell me. I wonder where he is these days; he smuggled himself out of Rubi-ka shortly before i was given the lead by General Sisterclamp and afterwards he dissapeared without a trace.
I miss my younger days, hell i even shot my own foot trying to be like my father. Boy did he never let me forget it. I wonder if he'd approve of all the changes i've made within the Mercury Dragons, he founded the clan after all.
Eighty five percent done, good. Soon i will know what this is all about, soon.
Private Log - January 12, 29478 7:30AM
My typical morning of smuggled omni executive branded coffee (which nobody knows i drink) was interrupted when an old friend sent me an odd relayed COMM message.
It was audio only, but after a triple-verification voice scan i knew it was really Dwayne.
"Wind... man i wish you were here brother."
He always called me brother when things were bad.
"I've just lost most of the squad, we're in the sewers under Omni-1 and it looks like the entire sector is coming down on us, including the 'corns."
The Unicorn Company, the most elite, most deadly enforcers of the Omni-Tek Corporation; yeah, things were really bad.
"They're jamming our signal and if i'm correct they've probably messed with our insurance patterns as well by now. If i was them, i would have."
I pause the recording and do a quick grid level 5 search on the insurance records for the past 2 months. No results on his name or any of the aliases he used, as if he never existed. I will do a more thorough search after i listen to the rest. I unpause it.
"We got maybe ten minutes, fifteen tops, before they corner us completely. Leisner is with me, he figures that he may be able to use the old subway relay system to send out a message on a timer so... after this is over when they stop jamming the area the message will go through."
Yeah, i probably would have done the same, if i had a fixer as talented as Jonathan Leisner at my side, which is rare among the clans. Most fixers think they can hack anything, but in truth only a handful can do what Leisner is capable of.
"I hope you remember the old picnic me and your old man had in Rome a few years ago, that was fun, and quite educational."
I pause it again. He's just given me a very clear clue as to what he's doing... no, to what he did.
Years ago he sent a message to the Council of Truth from Rome when the squad got their hands on some delicate intel. Leisner then used a very unique trick to conceal the intel in the voice patterns of a recording which appeared to be a simple damage report on the squad. It was a specific technique he'd develop which he had taught the chief of communications at the CoT building, Dwayne and my father, who luckily in turn taught it to me.
It's something we rarely used, unless it was a last resort because we didn't want the enemy to learn about it. I remember how to extract the data; but before that, i had to listen to the rest of it.
"Now those were the good days; me, your old man and the rest of the boys kicking some omni ass into the ground without having to explain much to Radiman. Radi was a great politician and peacekeeper, but when it came to pounding down the vultures we were the ones to handle it."
Vultures, that's what he liked to call the omnis. He's talking as if it's the last time he will be talking to me, that and he needs to keep talking so Jonathan can mask the data in his voice.
"If things go down the way they look they're going to, i need you to promise me to buy a round of drinks at the Happy Rebel for the old Black Wolf crew. I mean it Wind, no sad shit, i want everyone to get drunk and cheer my name dammit!"
He's making it sound real, too real. I think he means it. The Black Wolf crew...how many of them are there even left? either retired or handicapped old commandos that usually hang out at Tir's notorious bar.
"Make sure to tell Linda... well you know how i feel about her."
His wife, no... girlfriend, they never married. He never proposed, but they've lived together for most of his 30 years of service. No kids, but i think they were happy. I wonder if they still live in that old safehouse? how can i break it to her? damn Dwayne, i hope all this was worth whatever you're sending my way.
"Listen, i'm really sorry about your old man. I never... well, apologized for saying he was a traitor, even after you told me what had really happened. And, well... i'm sorry brother. I really am."
Damn, he is dead. No way he'd apologize to anyone unless he knew there was no way out.
"I wish i had more stuff to say or give, but the data we managed to get our hands on was turned to bits when one of the vultures blasted Runt's datapad in the first firefight. So this is a lose-lose situation now. We'll try to take as many as we can, but they will be back when their insurance kicks in, nothing they can't afford."
He's trying to make it sound good, without anything to lose he just want them to think he's sending his goodbyes even if they manage to record the message on transmission and play it back. Smart, just like Dwayne to take advantage of a bad position.
During the entire conversation i've blocked out most of the background noise, now i allow it to sink in. Heavy weapons fire in the background, screams and moans of fighters from both sides getting hurt or killed. Things are grim, yet they keep fighting.
"Ok kid, we gotta go, it's just me and Leisner now. Take care and watch your six Wind."
The recording ends.
Watch my six. Yeah, he always told me to watch my back. My father had trained him well, probably the reason Dwayne called me brother, besides the fact we both respected him.
I knew the decoding would take hours to decypher. The complex method that Leisner's "Shadow Print" technique would be easy to execute for transmission, extremely hard to detect even if someone was looking for abnormalities and time-consuming to whomever would be on the receiving end to get the intel.
I went to work.
It was audio only, but after a triple-verification voice scan i knew it was really Dwayne.
"Wind... man i wish you were here brother."
He always called me brother when things were bad.
"I've just lost most of the squad, we're in the sewers under Omni-1 and it looks like the entire sector is coming down on us, including the 'corns."
The Unicorn Company, the most elite, most deadly enforcers of the Omni-Tek Corporation; yeah, things were really bad.
"They're jamming our signal and if i'm correct they've probably messed with our insurance patterns as well by now. If i was them, i would have."
I pause the recording and do a quick grid level 5 search on the insurance records for the past 2 months. No results on his name or any of the aliases he used, as if he never existed. I will do a more thorough search after i listen to the rest. I unpause it.
"We got maybe ten minutes, fifteen tops, before they corner us completely. Leisner is with me, he figures that he may be able to use the old subway relay system to send out a message on a timer so... after this is over when they stop jamming the area the message will go through."
Yeah, i probably would have done the same, if i had a fixer as talented as Jonathan Leisner at my side, which is rare among the clans. Most fixers think they can hack anything, but in truth only a handful can do what Leisner is capable of.
"I hope you remember the old picnic me and your old man had in Rome a few years ago, that was fun, and quite educational."
I pause it again. He's just given me a very clear clue as to what he's doing... no, to what he did.
Years ago he sent a message to the Council of Truth from Rome when the squad got their hands on some delicate intel. Leisner then used a very unique trick to conceal the intel in the voice patterns of a recording which appeared to be a simple damage report on the squad. It was a specific technique he'd develop which he had taught the chief of communications at the CoT building, Dwayne and my father, who luckily in turn taught it to me.
It's something we rarely used, unless it was a last resort because we didn't want the enemy to learn about it. I remember how to extract the data; but before that, i had to listen to the rest of it.
"Now those were the good days; me, your old man and the rest of the boys kicking some omni ass into the ground without having to explain much to Radiman. Radi was a great politician and peacekeeper, but when it came to pounding down the vultures we were the ones to handle it."
Vultures, that's what he liked to call the omnis. He's talking as if it's the last time he will be talking to me, that and he needs to keep talking so Jonathan can mask the data in his voice.
"If things go down the way they look they're going to, i need you to promise me to buy a round of drinks at the Happy Rebel for the old Black Wolf crew. I mean it Wind, no sad shit, i want everyone to get drunk and cheer my name dammit!"
He's making it sound real, too real. I think he means it. The Black Wolf crew...how many of them are there even left? either retired or handicapped old commandos that usually hang out at Tir's notorious bar.
"Make sure to tell Linda... well you know how i feel about her."
His wife, no... girlfriend, they never married. He never proposed, but they've lived together for most of his 30 years of service. No kids, but i think they were happy. I wonder if they still live in that old safehouse? how can i break it to her? damn Dwayne, i hope all this was worth whatever you're sending my way.
"Listen, i'm really sorry about your old man. I never... well, apologized for saying he was a traitor, even after you told me what had really happened. And, well... i'm sorry brother. I really am."
Damn, he is dead. No way he'd apologize to anyone unless he knew there was no way out.
"I wish i had more stuff to say or give, but the data we managed to get our hands on was turned to bits when one of the vultures blasted Runt's datapad in the first firefight. So this is a lose-lose situation now. We'll try to take as many as we can, but they will be back when their insurance kicks in, nothing they can't afford."
He's trying to make it sound good, without anything to lose he just want them to think he's sending his goodbyes even if they manage to record the message on transmission and play it back. Smart, just like Dwayne to take advantage of a bad position.
During the entire conversation i've blocked out most of the background noise, now i allow it to sink in. Heavy weapons fire in the background, screams and moans of fighters from both sides getting hurt or killed. Things are grim, yet they keep fighting.
"Ok kid, we gotta go, it's just me and Leisner now. Take care and watch your six Wind."
The recording ends.
Watch my six. Yeah, he always told me to watch my back. My father had trained him well, probably the reason Dwayne called me brother, besides the fact we both respected him.
I knew the decoding would take hours to decypher. The complex method that Leisner's "Shadow Print" technique would be easy to execute for transmission, extremely hard to detect even if someone was looking for abnormalities and time-consuming to whomever would be on the receiving end to get the intel.
I went to work.
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