Cloaked Read online

  “Greetings of the day to you, Dean Radcliff. Allow me to introduce myself…” The Ogg spoke with a refined accent. A lilt of his native Ogg-tongue but with the precision of excellent schooling in Estarian ways.

  The Dean, too curious to insist he schedule an appointment, beckoned him into the room, and indicated at the chair in front of his desk. “That will be all, Amy,” he told his assistant.

  The Dean sat down again as the Ogg made his way into his office and sat down.

  The Ogg continued his introduction. “My name is Raj Ghettie, of the Northern Clan of Cambodrian. My family has extensive ties and business here on Estaria, as well as an interest in supporting the education system.”

  The Dean had worked with many enterprises and representatives with big trust funds and contributions that needed to be allocated for philanthropic causes. His face brightened at the thought of where this might be heading.

  The Ogg continued. “We have a heavy interest in maintaining what we call ‘vallitseva tila’. The balance in all things.” He paused, studying the Dean’s reaction carefully, as if his next word were dependent on how he responded.

  The Dean leaned his arms on his desk, nodding with interest.

  Raj Ghettie took it as a cue to continue. “We feel that the education sector is a huge part of this process. So much so, we would like to pledge some financial aid in exchange for lending some direction to some of the material taught.”

  The Dean smiled, satisfied that his first reaction had been entirely accurate. “Of course. This is something I’m sure the board would be open to. However - I must ask - what kind of influence are you expecting?”

  “Oh, nothing too drastic,” Raj explained with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We’re mostly impressed with the breadth of study available. But we’d be keen to ensure that the university remains… traditional. None of these newfangled courses like media studies, or reinterpretive history, or journalistic methodologies.” He chuckled at the thought of the subjects.

  Radcliff nodded sympathetically, his fake smile playing across his face. “Yes, I concur with that sentiment entirely. These people will argue anything to give a degree away these days.”

  “Quite,” Ghettie agreed. He paused for a moment before continuing. “I assume you’ll want to do your due diligence before you accept our contribution. But I think in essence we can work to move this forward fairly quickly…”

  Ghettie stood up to leave. Radcliff stood too and walked around his desk to see him out politely. He stopped, thinking of something new. “Mr. Ghettie. I’m grateful for your interest… and I look forward to accepting your generosity. But I wonder…?”

  Ghettie finished his sentence with a knowing look in his eye. “Why now?”

  Radcliff bowed his head a little. “Indeed.”

  Ghettie’s confidence suggested he’d anticipated the question. “We live in uncertain times. Times where we all have a responsibility to ensure our crafting of the future. I myself have suffered a health challenge, and swore that when I was able enough again I would do everything in my power to make that change in the world that I would like to see before I die.”

  He placed his hand on Radcliff’s shoulder as if he were a long time friend. “I know that for those of us in the game of educating young minds we are very in touch with this concept. And our own impending mortality.

  Radcliff nodded, sympathetic to the gentleman’s health problems. “Yes. Yes, of course…” he muttered. “One has to ask though…”

  Ghettie removed his hand from Radcliff’s shoulder and turned to leave. “Yes. One must,” he agreed. “I’ll have my people send you over some material to consider. We should talk again in the next week or so.”

  And then he strode out of the office, leaving the door open.

  Radcliff could see Amy sitting in her desk, watching a little awe-struck by the stranger who was able to walk into the university and speak with her boss without an appointment or a good reason.

  Her eyes remained on the door out of her office.

  “Amy,” Radcliff called through from his office.

  Amy’s attention snapped back to him. “Yes, Sir?”

  Radcliff’s voice was enthusiastic and motivated. “Have the board meeting scheduled for the end of the month brought forward to next week. There are some pressing matters for us to consider.”

  Amy had already started pulling up the details to alert the board members and their assistants.

  He ambled over and closed his door, and her attention was pulled from her screens as she heard it clunk shut.

  Curiouser, and curiouser… she thought to herself, returning her eyes to her task.

  Gaitune-67, Base conference room

  “Ok, how did we get on?” Molly asked looking over at Joel.

  Joel straightened up and then stood up, regarding the assembled team in the base conference room. “Looks like we have a plan,” he reported, pulling up a screen on his holo.

  Each team member looked a little more on edge than usual. No one had been told who would be going undercover, and apart from Pieter, everyone else was at least part excited by the possibility. Pieter sat looking morose, like a kid who didn’t want to play this game.

  Brock noticed. “Hey, cheer up buddy. May never happen!” he said, slapping Pieter’s arm, and only then realizing how what he had just said was totally not true.

  Pieter glared up at him. “Fifty-fifty chance I have to do the whole undercover thing. I tried to tell Joel it just wasn’t my bag…”

  Brock lowered his voice and leaned in. “And what happened?” he asked, concerned.

  Pieter shrugged anxiously. “I never got past rehearsing what I would say in front of the bathroom mirror.”

  Brock giggled. “You loon. You should know you can just talk to Joel. I did… back when there was ops stuff I didn’t want to do.”

  Pieter turned his head so they wouldn’t be overheard. “And what happened?” he asked softly.

  Brock shrugged with his easy relaxed way. “He took me out of it until I got enough training to feel good about it.”

  Pieter considered it for a moment. “I also didn’t want to let the team down. I mean, surely no one else wants to do it either.”

  Brock pointed around the table, sweeping his finger, and encouraging Pieter to look. “See all these folks here?” he asked.

  Pieter mumbled to the affirmative.

  Brock posed his follow up question. “Notice the air of excitement in the room?”

  Pieter nodded.

  Brock grinned down at him. “Every single one of them is excited by the prospect. There’s no shortage of people who want to volunteer. If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. You shouldn’t feel like it is any reflection on you, or on your commitment to the team.”

  Pieter nodded again, his shoulders relaxing a little. “Thanks, man,” he said quietly, nudging Brock on the arm.

  The two sat up straighter and started paying attention to the meeting that was getting going.

  Joel pulled up a screen with a bunch of names.

  “Ok,” he told them. “Oz has gone in and created back stories for each of the folks who have been selected for this mission.”

  He glanced at the screen and then his notes. “What you see on screen is the ship’s manifest. This is the crew that is down to take the ship from Estaria to Teshov. Those who have been selected for the undercover part of the mission are: Sean…”

  Sean fist pumped the air near his body, in silent jubilation.

  Joel continued to read off his list. “Brock, Maya and Jack.”

  Maya grinned.

  Jack nodded politely, only her eyes betraying her secret lust for a good undercover mission.

  Brock’s eyes widened as he wobbled his head from side to side in a silly gesture of excitement. At the same time his mouth was chewed up in pretend anxiety… probably covering his actual mixture of anxiety and excitement.

  Pieter’s relief was palpable. He slumped in his chair
as if he’d just escaped being abducted by little gray aliens.

  Joel allowed a second or two for the muttering and excitement to subside, and then continued. “Learn your back story and make sure you collect your ID cards and make them look like they’ve been used. Carry them around with you. Get used to answering to your cover ID name. I and others will be testing you.”

  Maya was still grinning, her fists clenched in thrill under the table so that she didn’t undo the somewhat professional air she had been cultivating of late. Paige noticed though, but said nothing. Her expression was a little more serious.

  Joel was still talking. “If one of you gets caught the strategy is to remain undiscovered for as long as possible, unless you need to prevent real harm from coming to your team mate. Once the ship docks, we will be there to meet you, and as long as we have the intel we need, we will have Federation arrests made.”

  He scanned around the room. “This means we need to keep the ruse going for the duration of the journey. Which is several weeks.” His face was deadly serious. “This could be the most difficult task you’ve ever undertaken.”

  “For those not undercover, your role is support any which way you can. Paige and Pieter, you will be responsible for monitoring all communications and feeding them intel or back story prompts as they need. You’ll also be looking at any clues they gather and running checks to build up our picture of this organization to make sure we get what we need. Once we have it, you need to alert me so that we can make necessary arrangements with the Federation to come and step in when we dock.”

  Paige nodded, and Pieter even sat up a little to acknowledge his role.

  Joel glanced around the room, engaging with each team member. “Molly and I will be reviewing everything as it comes through, making necessary adjustments.”

  “Crash,” he said, turning to their pilot, “we need you to work on any contingency plans in case one or all of the operatives are discovered. We need a way of pulling them out, without endangering the rest of the team, or the kidnapped scientists.”

  Crash lowered his head for a moment, and then raised his hand to get Joel’s attention.

  “Yes, Crash,” Joel acknowledged, lifting his eyes from his holo and his next item.

  Crash shuffled his butt cheeks forward in the chair. “Joel, if one or more of our team is discovered, is it under our remit to extract the hostages too?”

  Joel glanced at Molly before answering. “We should run through a list of the scenarios. It depends on how much they know about us. Innocent life is, as always, at the top of our priority list to preserve.”

  Molly nodded her head silently, her eyes on the desk in front of her. Crash sat back, satisfied he was going to receive more input before he needed to hatch his hair-brained master plans of transportation badassery.

  Joel began to wrap the meeting up. “We have twelve days before the ship leaves. Those undercover need to arrive there a day before departure for vaccinations and medical evals. There’s also a bunch of admin that needs to be done before a trip like this, so read the packs the company sent to your server addresses that Oz has marked. Any questions, let me know.”

  He glanced around. “All good?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Ok folks. Let’s move out…” he announced, dismissing the team in his usual manner.

  Gaitune-67, Common area

  “Who did you get?” Brock asked Maya.

  Maya was studying the back story to her new identity on her holo. “I’m called Marissa d’Senigle,” she announced proudly. “How about you?”

  Brock tilted his head, trying to read the name on the ID card. “I’m Mr. Tallus Copernican,” he said slowly, mouthing out the sounds.

  Maya smiled congenially. “Well I’m very pleased to meet you Tallus,” she said, bowing with a flourish of her hand.

  Paige watched from the sofa. “Honestly. You make it sound like it’s just a game!” she snapped.

  Maya spun round. “No, we’re not. We’re just having some fun,” she explained.

  Paige huffed, and went back to her holo. “It says here that you studied economics before dropping out. I mean… what if someone asks you about the economic situation in the inner system?”

  Maya sat down next to her friend, and linked her arm, resting her hand on the top of Paige’s forearm. “Well then I’ll tell them there was a reason I dropped out,” she said gently, but smartly. She paused, then spoke with a little more gratitude. “I understand you’re worried. But it’s all going to be ok. I promise.”

  Paige looked up at Maya, the anger melting from her eyes. “I hope so,” she agreed, not entirely convinced.

  “Besides,” Maya continued, “this is not much different from what I would do nearly every day when I was working on a case. And then I didn’t have any back up. Just an editor who would come and bail me out if I got arrested or something.”

  Paige looked horrified. “You know, I never know when you’re joking or serious when you say shit like that…’

  Maya grinned, and winked, moving the conversation back to Brock. “So… Tallus,” she said emphasizing the use of his new name. “Where you from?”

  Sean wandered into the common area, looking perplexed. Brock turned as he approached, his city of origin as Tallus, forgotten. “You ok?” he asked the uncharacteristically emotional Sean.

  Sean scratched his head. “Yeah… Looks like I’ve been placed on the highest risk role…”

  Brock frowned. “Thought you’d be pleased about that?”

  Sean nodded slightly, flipping his ID over. “Yeah. I would normally. But this looks like…” His voice cracked a little. “It looks like it’s a desk job.”

  He practically gulped as soon as the words left his throat. He looked up bewildered, only half seeing Paige and Maya in front of him.

  Maya giggled. “Dude, it looks like you’ve just been handed a pile of turds. What’s the problem?” She watched him, unable to contain her mirth at his expression.

  Sean looked tired and stressed. “A desk job,” he repeated, this time more emphatically.

  Paige started chuckling. And then Brock joined in. Sean glanced over at him, horrified.

  Brock patted him on the back. “Welcome to the world of 9 to 5!” he chuckled. “It’s ok. We’re here for you. You will get through this,” he said in his best therapist’s voice, pretending to council him through the traumatic realization of what was to come.

  Sean shuffled over to the arm chair and allowed his knees to collapse him onto it. His eyes scanned and rescanned the ID card. “How could they do this to me?” he muttered in disbelief under his breath.

  He became vaguely aware that Maya had leaned forward and was doubled over laughing her head off. Paige put her hand on her back, as if trying to soothe her bouts of hysteria.

  Brock sat on the mocha table in front of Sean. “Bump me your back story,” he suggested, holding out his holo. Sean pulled up the document, and then bumped holos with Brock.

  Brock got up and ambled over to the arm chair on the other side of the holoviewing area, reading as he went.

  He sat down. “Says here your name is Rex. Sounds kinda badass to me,” he said encouragingly. “In fact, Rex sounds kinda tough. You might get a chance to show this posse who da boss is… desk-jockeys or no.”