A frown on his face, the handsome, graying Sidhe let the filmy gallery doors slowly iris closed behind him, the roar of the gallery itself easing until it was buried behind the deceptively fragile-appearing portals.
“Again the debate turns to corruption within Pax government bodies and institutions.” His companion, a wiry Sidhe garbed in the same heavy slate gray, indigo and crimson robes the first man wore, rasped as he ran slender fingers through thick, close-shorn hair. A massive signet ring was the only jewelry he wore, a beautiful gold and platinum crest with griffon in rampart, floating through the dark brown locks as he continued his frustrated gesture.
“As if we haven’t heard enough of such things.”
“Fret not, Orsin.” The first man finally spoke, a soft, melodious rhythm that both soothed and demanded. “Today’s uproar won’t be the last. The Praetors will see to it.” He turned golden brown eyes that danced in the subtle lighting of the corridor to his companion.
“But let us not speak of rebellion and corruption. What news of our Isivir initiative?”
Orsin reached into his robes to draw out a small disk no larger than a coin. Gentle pressure on its closer surface sent a line of blue light from the top of the disk, racing around to the bottom. A flicker later the line was painting several holographic pages to the disk’s right, softly glowing planes that detailed information the disk was holding in its miniature database with scrolling script and interactive images.
With the disk sitting in the left hand center of the top page, serving as a holder of sorts, Orsin quickly scanned the data crowding onto the page’s surface.
“Looks like Colonel Vaughn is currently in evaluation on Viper Island. While she has more than half the sequence to complete, preliminary results are excellent. Her insertion into the Isivir should be flawless.”
“And Doctor Finn?”
Orsin frowned, a sliding motion with his thumb across the disk’s surface summoning the next page, also packed with information and imagery.
“Lost to a Viseith assassin on the Indurin.”
Instead of being surprised by the revelation, the first man merely nodded, as if expecting such news. He thoughtfully pursed his lips. Report after report was appearing on his desk about the Praetors’ ever building audacity. This most recent attack by their covert arm only served to underscore the boldness at which the rebels were taking their fight to the Pax and her governing council. It was getting more and more difficult to hide the Praetors and their activities from the elected representatives of the people of the Pax in the Assembly with such attacks growing in frequency.
“And who does Isivir Command have in place heading up their search team?”
Orsin scrolled through several screens of text and data before answering.
“Deks Rountree.” He reported before looking up. “I thought a request was initiated against Rountree being involved.”
Hands behind his back, the first man nodded.
“That was the intent.” He confirmed. “The council felt Rountree was too well known to be involved in the search. It’s no secret he’s an Isivir operative. But there’s also no denying the man’s loyalties. He’s Pax. That much Isivir Command could guarantee in the various discussions the Covert Operations Committee had with Director sev’Arbrantus. With such uncertainty within their own ranks, they had to go with reliable assets to see the job done the way the Pax would see it done.” His eyes narrowed slightly in consideration. “I’ll suggest to both the COO and the council we leave him in place. For now.”
As his associate returned to his report on Colonel Vaughn’s progress at the Isivir Viper Island complex, the man pondered his own words concerning the Isivir and the security breaches within the Pax’s covert operations arm.
At one time it was thought the only thing more loyal than the Isivir to the Pax was the governing council itself and that, just barely. However, with repeated blunders in recent days committed by the venerable agency combined with Viseith operatives being captured with sensitive Isivir information, the Pax’s covert operations were under narrow scrutiny. Recently installed in her position as Isivir Director, Loutann sev’Arbrantus had the dubious task of restoring Isivir honor and dependability while simultaneously achieving ongoing goals of thwarting the Viseith and maintaining various Isivir operations throughout the Pax and beyond.
Despite her efforts, and those of the Covert Operations Committee, confidence in the Isivir remained shaken. Wedded to that was the festering tension within the previously secure ranks of the loyal factions outside of the Assembly. Unrest within the Druidic Circle and the Guild Houses was putting pressure on Assembly representatives to do something about the losses being incurred against business and corporate interests, direct results of Viseith and Praetor activity aimed at Pax institutions. And, while the Ministry of Extraspacial Affairs maintained staunch support of the governing council, murmurs of discontent from the other ministries were getting louder and louder.
The bureaucrats were unhappy and who could blame them? After all, they were taking the brunt of the covert Praetor assault, both in the verbal battle raging in the Assembly and behind the scenes as the Viseith bombed, shot and mutilated them at will in their attacks against government installations and complexes. When taken together, the uncertainty and tension was making his job in the Assembly of Representatives difficult, to put it mildly.
A motion out of the shadows captured both men’s attention before he could ponder further on the matter and they looked up to see a knot of Internal Security Division black shirts striding along the corridor towards them, faces grim above their characteristic black suits. In their midst was an equally grim Juresil Korva, the left side of her beautiful face marked with her order’s telltale tattoos, graceful etchings of blue that followed delicate lines along her jaw and over her cheek.
“Sorry, sir.” The ISD detail commander rasped, a broad shouldered Teserin with a jagged scar marching across the right side of his gray skinned face, just above the wire-thin microphone leading back to his com unit, hidden inside his ear. His left hand kept straying towards the unmistakable bulge of a weapon inside his dark jacket, bulges each detail member wore with familiar ease.
“She had news net ID and got past our perimeter before we could stop her.”
The man’s deep blue eyes slid from the commander to the Korva, measuring and evaluating. She, in turn, returned the favor, her dark brown eyes unflinching as they stared defiantly back.
“How far into the Assembly complex did she reach, commander?” He asked in a soft voice that only just hid the steely determination beneath.
“To the Lords’ Chamber, and the lobby on the tertiary level, sir.” The commander quickly reported, pinning the Korva down with a hard look from his indigo eyes. “Not far, but if she’d been a Praetor, . . .”
“I’m no rebel.” The Korva suddenly spoke up, twisting to hurl a hard look of her own at the ISD commander before returning her eyes to the man. “The Circle embraces the Pax today, as it has for millennia.”
“Then why the covert attempt? If the Circle wishes to speak to the Lords, the Assembly or even to the governing council, they know the proper channels to go through to, . . .”
“Would those proper channels allow us to speak of the horror we are about to embrace??” The Korva suddenly interrupted with enough ferocity she earned two heavy ISD hands on either shoulder to hold her in place.
“The agents of chaos have awakened, councilor and the Pax walks the line between creation and destruction courting their favor!”
The councilor’s eyes narrowed as he reassessed the young druid, her face filled with the passion of her conviction. Agents of chaos? Who could the Korva mean? None of the client species the Pax governed were involved with the Praetor rebellion, nor did any member race within the Pax adhere completely to one side or the other.
And her destination left questions as well. The lobby before the Lords’ Chamber? Dominated by hereditary Halinor nobility from pre-Pax days, the Lords’ Chamber had largely ceremonial power. True governing power lay within the hands of the Assembly, a cross section of elected representatives from the various races within the Pax and, of course, the governing council. An attempt to speak with the Chamber would’ve served absolutely no useful purpose.
He frowned as something occurred to him. Unless, . . . there was one possibility. The Circle had access to historical records that stretched back to the time when Alisar battled Senisar. It was possible one of their archivists, during a search of ancient documents following the Viseith intrusion several cycles ago, had discovered something else in the files. Something that mentioned these ‘agents of chaos’.
As hereditary masters of the long dead Alisar kingdom, the Chamber may somehow be aware of an ancient force that once troubled the Sidhe and the Circle was trying to re-ignite old powers to deal with the reappearance of that ancient evil; a typically druidic response to a crisis such as this.
An eyebrow slowly rose as the thought process continued to play itself out in his mind. This, of course, assumed these ‘agents of chaos’ were evil to begin with. Usually he’d let the clerics and the mystics deal with vague entities that stood outside the realm of science and technology, the things he could put his hands on. But if these creatures were something more, a military threat that could further exacerbate the situation with the Praetors, then it stood within the boundaries of what he needed to be concerned with. Regardless, it sounded like a matter to be brought before the council, where Teserin, Halinor and Juresil could all examine the issue under the shield of the Pax charter.
In the meantime, tur’bretheal. No use disturbing plans already in place.
“Prepare a brief for the council’s perusal, mistress Korva.” He quietly ordered. “We would know what the Circle knows concerning these ‘agents of chaos’. Commander?”
“Sir.” The ISD agent nodded to the two holding the Korva in place and they smoothly picked her up under her arms and began to carry her back down the hallway.
Caught by surprise, the Korva had no chance to protest the rapid exit until she was nearly out of sight. Then it was almost too late to hear her. But hear the councilor did, and her words had enough force to gnaw at his bones and clutch at his heart.
“They nearly destroyed the Sidhe once, councilor. Don’t be a fool to think they’ll give up the opportunity to do it this time!” And then she was gone, pulled too far down the corridor, with its heavy sound proofing and security force fields to be heard further.
“What do you think she meant by that?” Orsin wanted to know, looking over at the councilor. The gray haired Juresil shrugged, a gesture nearly lost beneath his heavy Assembly robes.
“Hopefully we don’t find out until after we have the Crown of Oberon in our hands and the Praetors have been defeated, my friend.” He replied. “I’ll not see the Pax fall to malcontents after surviving the turmoil of thousands of years of intergalactic dominance.” He looked back at his comrade, his face abruptly chiseled from stone.
“We’ve worked too hard to watch it slip away now, Orsin.”
As if that glimpse into his mind was more than the councilor was willing to part with, the stony expression vanished, replaced with the same faint smile he wore when dealing with his fellow politicos.
“Now, let us put the Praetors and the Circle behind us and discuss matters more suited to career bureaucrats. Shall we see what your data disk holds in terms of those trade negotiations with the Dat’Eseen? The Commerce Guild is balking, I hear, on their demands to use Guild shipping into the Sordi Expanse.”