On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

I looked at my sister and one of our better female operatives, Luciana, as they sat at the small metal table, nursing mugs of hot coffee, looking exhausted. Still, I guess they did have to travel through the night after completing their mission. I’ll cut them some slack.

“So, how did it go?” I asked them. “You didn’t run into any problems I hope? It was pretty crazy here, so I’m looking for some good news.”

Aliyah and Luciana exchanged a long glance, Aliyah’s face twitching. Others might not have been able to pick up on it, but we had been together forever, so I was easily able to see her tells. And this one wasn’t a good sign. Oh god, I can feel another headache coming on… tell me you didn’t get drunk and blow everything.

“Don’t worry about it Trey, god, you can trust me to get shit done when I need to!” Aliyah said proudly, sticking out her chest.

That doesn’t work on me…

“Indeed yes, no hay problemas. We achieved the mission goals and made contact. As for the providence of what we gathered…” she looked back at Aliyah. “I leave it to you two to judge.”

Yeah, something happened that Aliyah has bullied Luciana into keeping quiet about. Still, if the mission was a success, I guess it doesn’t matter… but I’m still going to be pissed if she did something dumb. After all, she managed to stay sober enough during the casino operation…

“All right. In that case you can go Luciana. I expect you want a shower and your bed, it was a long drive out here.”

“I am most grateful. Gracias. Well, until later, Aliyah.” With that she scuttled out, coffee in hand, as if eager to escape from any possible interrogation.

“So, want to tell me what really went down sis? You aren’t fooling me. Like you said, I’ve sharp eyes, and I always know when you are trying to bullshit me. Out with it, I promise not to be mad, so long as you got what we needed.” Oh, I’ll still be mad, but…

Aliyah took a long slow drink of her coffee, trying to keep herself calm, but… hmm, she seems… embarrassed. Odd… I didn’t think she could even look shy…

“Okay, okay… I admit I had too much to drink, I couldn’t help it all right, Trey! The girls there were just adorable, so totally my type. And there were three of them! God, if you’d have been in my place and there were three hot guys, you’d have been making a fool of yourself too. But I got the job done, so please… just don’t fucking ask, okay? We both agreed to forget it, so it didn’t happen. Just let me give you the info!”

Yeah, she is definitely embarrassed. That’s just darling. If my sister was like this all the time, more girlish, rather than a rough and tumble tomboy, maybe those girls she fancies would like her for once… I’m curious about what happened even more now, but screw it, mission first…

“All right, we can put that aside for now. So go on, lay it on me. What’s the intel? After the mess here, I’m hoping for good news.”

“Well, firstly… I’m now 100% certain he works for some sort of intelligence agency or military. The girl Shaeula, too. As for the other two he was travelling with…” she shook her head. “Nah, no way. I think they were genuinely his family. A risky move, but one that would provide a totally plausible cover for covert action. Fucking sneaky and low though. I hate that guy…” she grumbled.

I… see. If she hates him, he must really be a piece of work. Shame, he was a real hottie, I’d have tried to get to know him better…

“So, you think he got word of our target too? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Well he definitely knows more than he should.” Aliyah agreed, finishing her coffee. If he knew his sister, right now she should be demanding a drink, but surprisingly she stayed silent. “I managed to get more keywords out of him, he felt a little bad so I used that to…” she trailed off. “Never mind that… anyway, ether and aether definitely seem to be codewords for something, and I think it has to do with whatever was affecting everyone in that casino. The way he talked about it, it didn’t seem to be chemical like we thought, almost… almost biological.”

“Shit. Bio-terrorism is the worst. If they have some pathogen that can leave people weak and easier to influence… no wonder this is an off-the-books operation, no way the Government or the Military would want news of that getting out. When we are done here we’ll hit the showers and decontaminate. Full procedure, I ain’t having us spreading that shit. We’ll do the target, too.”

“Ugh, I hate decon-protocols.” Aliyah mourned. “Got any more coffee Trey? I need to keep a clear head to think.”

More coffee? Shit, who stole my sister and replaced her with an actual girl?

“Fine, I’ll get you some.” I went over and got her a fresh cup from our coffee machine. In the business, the two things that every soldier… err, contractor needed was good coffee and good booze. You could live with shitty food, ill-fitting boots and weapons that would jam at the drop of a hat, but if your coffee and your booze was shit…

Handing her the coffee I waited, and after a long pause she continued. “I did get a name that might be their organisation, or at least a pseudonym, as when the cute devil Shaeula said it, the guy reacted, looking alarmed. It was… Seyley, Sealie, Seele or something along those lines… good to see she was running him through the mill just like she did me…”

Her last sentence was nearly too faint for me to work out, but it sounded like she had some girl trouble. Might explain why she is so off-colour. “Good job sis, that sounds like some info we can work with if needed. I’ll ask around with my contacts to see if anyone has heard of them. We’ll keep why under wraps for now though, since it is extra-mission.”

“Yeah, well whatever organisation they are, their guys are good.” Aliyah sighed, taking a long draught of her coffee. “My ass still stings where… uh, never mind that.” She covered with a cough. “Anyway, that guy, he’s a damn monster, can really take a punch, but his actual skills are… well, rudimentary. He knows some Muay Thai, some Eastern shit, maybe some Krav Maga, but… he’s no expert. I’d expect special forces to be better trained. But his physical skills are unreal…”

Okay, now I know why I’m getting a headache… “So, sis, Aliyah. Dear. Level with me. When you say he can take a punch, you didn’t get into a drunken brawl with a target you were supposed to be probing cautiously, did you?”

“Uh, yeah, no way I’d do that.” Aliyah laughed, but I could tell it was forced. “It was compensation for… no, that isn’t it, it was… a friendly spar. Yeah, totally friendly. Just like we do at the barracks.”

Bullshit, sis. Total grade-A bullshit. Your eyes are swimming, something really went down that you don’t want to tell me. I guess I can ask Luciana later, but…

“It isn’t all bad though!” Aliyah offered to change the subject. “I managed to get his phone number, as well as his sister and that devil Shaeula! We swapped for mine and Luciana’s, but of course we used our backup burner phones, so there should be little danger of any shenanigans.” She downed the rest of her coffee, putting down the cup.

“Nice. Good news at least. Still, I daresay they are using burners too, so…”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Him and Shaeula, maybe, but the sister… not sure how much use it’ll be, but I daresay if we ever did need to contact them for any reason…”

My sister was rubbing at her ass with one hand, while the other was stroking her lip. It didn’t seem she was aware of it though. Shit, she’s acting strange. I know she really fancied this Shaeula girl, but she’s also calling her a devil? What did she do? Oh well … more importantly…

“One thing. Early this morning our target went mad, thrashing about in his bonds like a damn madman. If we hadn’t learned from before and upped his restraints to a stupid level, he might have got out again. He was raving about ‘some fucker destroying his Territory, ruining all his hard work and hoarded resources’ before he passed out. He still hasn’t woken up.”

“Territory hmm, yeah, that fucking guy… I mean, the person I went to meet, he mentioned Territory in response to the casino. As for the ‘resources’, want to bet that’s the ether, the bioweapon maybe? Yeah, shit, I bet that’s it. That bastard, and the devil… they asked me if we had taken away our target and seemed really pleased that he was going to be hundreds of K’s away from Vegas… I bet they went and destroyed his hidden stockpile while we were doing their dirty work. Fuck, really pisses me off. Makes me wish I hadn’t forgiven him for… but no, it was half my own fault for getting drunk and tricked… still, it makes me so fucking mad…”

Filtering out all the angry incomprehensible ranting I considered the likely scenario. If we assumed this was some sort of experimental bioweapon that could weaken and make people susceptible to being tricked, then… perhaps the casino owner had bought if off terrorists and was spreading it around his casino to facilitate the cheating. A totally inane small-scale use of a dangerous weapon for sure, but then, most people were fucking idiots… Though there was something still nagging at me. Oh yeah… the odds… I’d always had a knack for seeing patterns. I wasn’t as quick to violence as my sister, though I could certainly put the hurt on when times called for it, but I was more alert, usually. Coincidence? It could be, the sample size was small… Still, that wasn’t really much to do with the mission. We’d identified the mysterious target, captured him and even brought back some extra info. We’d get our money, and with the winnings my sister managed to bag, which was a small miracle in itself, as unless she was cheating she was nothing special as a gambler… Yeah, we are going to be able to refresh some of our out-of-date gear, give everyone a bonus and have a nice vacation…

“Well then, I guess that this Seele or whatever must have got word of the bioweapon and sent out some agents to the US to destroy it. Guess we were on the same team in a way. No point worrying about it, is there? We can hand off our target to the client and take a nice long break. Anywhere you fancy?”

Aliyah looked down, deep in thought. “I don’t know Trey. Let me think…” she was rubbing her bottom and face again absentmindedly. “Maybe… somewhere abroad for a change?”

Sure, sounds nice. Being a group of tourists for a while might be fun.

“In that case, sure. Why not ask the guys what they fancy? As for the other organisation… we’ll make brief mention of it on the final report, but I don’t think we need to go into too much detail. Sticking our nose in where it isn’t wanted is bad for us smaller PMC’s. Curiosity killed the cat and all that…”

“It sure did, Trey. It sure did. Besides, might be nice having that shit owing us a favour. Just how will I collect? Hahahaha!” she was clenching and unclenching her fist, magnificent muscles tightening.

Shit guy, you may be handsome but you sure don’t have any brains if you’ve managed to rile up my sister this much. I’ll pray for you man, I hope you don’t meet her again, or else she’s going to kill you…