Private The Flame Must Not Be Extinguished

[Suhara Villow]

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Tag: Torn Eskol

Aris. A suffocating world of a thousand environments that seemed as if they had been specifically built to be as inhospitable as possible to sentient life. The worst one of them was the rainforests around the equator. It pressed in on all sides like a living, breathing entity that threatened to swallow everything that entered it. Enormous trees with thick, vine-choked, and knotted trunks stretched skyward. Their canopies blotted out the sun and cast the world on the forest floor into a dim green twilight. Fungal growths strangled the trees, leaving some entirely hollow.

The air was so thick with humidity that at times Suhara Villow swore she was more swimming than walking through it. The smell didn't help, either. It reeked of decay; the scent of rotting vegetation and stagnant water clung to everything like a second skin. Everything itched. No matter how tight their uniforms were, it seemed that biting insects always found a way in.

Suhara sighed.

She missed the lavender's blossoming in the summertime. She missed the cooling sea-spray coming off the Great Miroitement Sea during a spring at her family's chateau. Her family... She hadn't thought about them for a while. Her mother and father had been such big supporters of the dictator and his Vanguard Party. It had hurt Suhara deeply to make that declaration calling for a revolution against that bastard Olan. But her conscience could no longer stand by. Still, she wondered, what happened to them? Did they disown her to save their skins? Were they put under house arrest? Might they already be dead?

She loved them dearly. But she had loved freedom more.

Suhara took a look around the camp and scoffed. Yeah, right. This freedom.

The encampment was a patchwork of camouflaged durasteel and repurposed starship hulls forming the skeleton of their base. Everything was damp—supplies molded faster than they could be used, weapons rusted despite endless maintenance, and sleep was a luxury few could afford, given how aggressive the Dark Empire's patrols were getting. Power cables snaked between tree roots, connecting prefabricated barracks, an armory, and a makeshift command center located inside the wreckage of an old Imperial Shuttle. Ragtag soldiers crowded around fires trying their best to dry their soaked uniforms. When Suhara passed, they rose to salute her, but she turned them down with her hand.

I've got to find a way to stop them from doing that, she thought as she entered the command post. A thin, wiry, middle-aged man going bald was waiting for her.

"Report, Pieree?" she asked him.

"Nothing from Anton-group yet. Though Fergal Team reported back a successful raid on the northern Imperial Facility. They made it out with as much gear as they could carry. No casualties," he replied, not looking over the datapad he was pouring over. Her second-in-command was always a man of focus. "Waiting to get another report about what they managed to get when they get out of the comms-jam net."

"Let's hold out hope for Anton," she shook her head. They were probably dead. She had never asked to be made Supreme Commander, saying that Pieree take the role instead. He had been a General within the Chantemer Defence Forces and was far more qualified for the job than a lowly naval rating like her. But the resistance cells had refused and demanded that she take up the mantle. She was the single thing that had united the cells and had given them a chance to overthrow the dictator Olan Poutine.

What chance...

Ever since diplomatic talks with the Galactic Alliance had fallen through, the Liberation Army had been forced to raid Dark Empire listening posts to get the heavy equipment they desperately needed. Though the Imperials were in a more vulnerable state, it didn't mean that this would be easy.

"Ma'am!" one of the soldiers came bursting into the command post. "One of our patrols ambushed someone on the camp's perimeter. Captured them alive. They're not wearing any Imperial uniforms."

Suhara's right eyebrow rose. "Did we take any casualties?"

"No, ma'am," he shook his head, "Not a shot. I think they took him by surprise."

"If he's alive and none of ours are dead, then I doubt you got him by surprise." Pieree finally put down the datapad. "If anything, I expect that he could have killed the entire patrol at any time he wanted."

"Only one reason he'd go to this much trouble. He wants a talk." Suhara glanced at Pieree, folding her arms. She turned back to the soldier, "Bring him in. Don't bother trying to cuff him. I suspect he's already gotten them off."

 

[Torn Eskol]

Suhara Villow



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SIA SPECDIV
AGENT ESKOL




The assessment by the soldiers to her, was absolutely correct. Jayce had perfectly planned it- led the troops on a false chase, a wild goose chase. Left clues that any seasoned soldier would take up on. But no fight. No quips. No traps. No, just a simple request. So far, Jayce had managed several curious things, and, caused quite a stir among the troops. Especially as he was lead, uncuffed, but flanked on all sides by the Supreme Commander's forces.

He was lead, at gunpoint, surrounded, to the Supreme Commander's office. Or, rather, what you would consider an office. More of a command post, he noted, as he was lead in. Jayce was an unremarkable man in appearance- average in height, average build- no tattoos, no cuts, no scrapes, no scars. But, his eyes. His eyes were eerie, glowing, almost in the right light. He looked like a supernatural predator in some spaces. An eerie, dull gray-white glow in the darkness.

If one were to look at Jayce in the force, it was to see many faces, many thoughts, many minds. He was everyone, he was no one. He was scary to be around. He breathed murder, lies, deception. He was obviously a spook of some kind. Some tool, some arm of someone. He was just too.... too him. Even surrounded and flanked by guards, without saying anything- he was sat down in a chair in the Command Post. He was again, patted down for any weapons, communication equipment, anything. He only had one thing on him- a small communicator.

He clicked his teeth.

"Must be tough, living out on the fringes like this, huh?" He said, leaning back in the chair, folding his hands. He seemed very relaxed, very calm. Almost as if he believed he was in control of the situation. Truth be told, he liked his odds. If things went south- a camp full of hungry, tired, exhausted rebel troops against him? He liked those odds. Jayce turned, pointed at a soldier, and said her name. He turned, and said his name to another. And another. And another. Around the room, he went. Pointing, simply saying a name, until he got onto the Supreme Commander herself.

"Supreme Commander. How lovely it is to meet you and not just read about you."

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[Suhara Villow]

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Tag: Torn Eskol

"Wha-" one of the partisans started forward.

"You've been watching us for a while." Suhara Villow motioned the partisan to back off before turning back to this man. Her second-in-command stood to her right. She could easily have been mistaken for Pierre's daughter as she barely came up to his shoulder, and he wasn't that tall.

Her facial features - a low nose and fringe cut - were as simple as the thin brown double-breasted greatcoat she wore. The heat was bad, but the biting insects were worse. Unlike Eskol, she was demure. She would have been easy to miss in a crowd if it wasn't for the dozens of men and women that surrounded her, willing to fight and die for her. There was an aura around her that, despite her stature, exuded authority.

"I know you're not the Milice." Her mention of the dictator's dreaded secret police seemed to chill the room. "Because if you were, we'd all be in a torture cell right now. You're not the Empire because I doubt they'd possess this much... tact."

Her eyes narrowed as he looked him up and down. Every alarm bell screamed in her skull that this was some trap. Not a trap that involved her walking out of her command post into a line of blaster barrels, but something more long-term. A hidden jaw waiting for her down the line. An offer she couldn't refuse, followed up by a payment she couldn't afford.

"And you're certainly not here for wine and cheese. You're here for something. I'll keep it simple: who sent you, and what do they want?"

 

[Torn Eskol]

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SIA SPECDIV
AGENT ESKOL

Suhara Villow​

Jayce smiled, a sinister, knowing smile. He pointed up to the sky, clicking his teeth. "Actually, if I was any of them, I doubt we'd be having this conversation. I woulda just bombed you from low-orbit then went out for a smoke." He took a deep breath, glancing around all the partisans. "Point is, though, I ain't those people. Cause none of you are dead, none of your families are in a cell, and you all had no idea I was watching." He turned back to the Supreme Commander. "And it only took me a week of reading, digging, and then two weeks of being on this planet watching you."

"You can call me Sandman. I work with the Foundation." He leaned forward in the chair, letting the statement take hold. Whether it was true, whether it wasn't, and to let the partisans and rebels in the room die down with their talking. His cold, unnervingly glowing eyes never left the Supreme Commander.

"Now, my, and the Foundation's information and espionage skills may be top-tier, but the rub is that if we wanna do what we wanna get done, we're gonna need... some more heavy hitters. Some more experienced tacticians and Starside Commanders.."

He kept his position, his words simple, his accent Inner-Rim. It was fake, naturally, but he was so damn good at what he did that there was no-one in that room who could tell that it was in fact, fake. That and the dialect coaches he had been through over the years had made them perfect.

"You help us, we'll help you. The Foundation has lofty goals, things it wants to get done. But it'll need people like you to do it. Your people, too, are welcome to come." He leaned back in the chair, crossing his leg over the other, taking in a deep breath.

"Do you have anything to drink? Got tired of the rainwater I've been living off of, here."

 

[Suhara Villow]

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Tag: Torn Eskol

Suhara's heart skipped a beat. Though she hid it well by crossing her arms.

This was everything she had hoped for. Actual support. While their cause was a righteous one, righteousness doesn't buy you heavy equipment. She had tried this same thing with the Galactic Alliance, only to be stymied at every turn by its corporatist masters intent on keeping their puppet's throne on Chantemer. Olan Poutine was good for business after he had crushed the workers' unions. Their extraction rights to her homeworld's rich resources weren't going to be given up without a fight.

She had heard of the Foundation in distant whispers from her smugglers. They were taking the fight directly to all tyrants and dictators across the Galaxy. Maybe one day, that crusade would include Chantemer. Attempts had been made to make direct contact, but outreach had been forced to be quiet and discrete. Poutine's agents were now everywhere across the galaxy, searching for her and her partisans. If they got even a whisper of her location, they would come down on them with everything they had. Nearly a year of fleeing from one end of the galaxy to the other had left her fleet ragged and her partisans exhausted.

Though small, the Foundation could give her ships safe ports and her troops safe shelter.

Maybe her secret messages had somehow reached the Foundation, but she doubted it. All this sounded like an actual coincidence. Two parties simultaneously looking into each other. Maybe the Lady of Nivéaurore was looking down on them after all.

But this was too good to be true. There would be some sort of price.

She motioned to one of the partisans, "I want a gathering of all Commissar-Captains. Here. Now." The soldier nodded and dashed out of the command post.

"You've done your homework... Sandman," she said, turning back to Torn, "You should then know that - while my men share many of the ideals that the foundation does - our priority lies on our homeworld. I'm not going to send my countrymen to die far away from home in the name of people we've never met for nothing, no matter how noble and just the cause. Superior moral fiber does not solve an ammunition shortage. That means that if we were to serve as line troops for the Foundation, the help that your superiors are willing to offer would need to be substantial. What authority to negotiate do you possess?"

She motioned to one of her men who had returned to the command post with a cooler. He pulled out a large wine bottle and poured a dozen glasses and cups on the central table.

"Château de l'Étoile Rouge. Some of the men brought cases along when we fled Chantemer." Suhara offered Torn a battered metal cup. "We might be rebels and partisans on the run. But we aren't savages."

 

[Torn Eskol]

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SIA SPECDIV
AGENT ESKOL

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Sandman clicked his teeth and leaned back, thanking the Partisan for pouring him a glass. He cheersed to the Supreme Commander, then took a gentle sip.

"They wouldn't send me, and I wouldn't come, if you were savages. If you were a potential problem, I'd ask to take care of the problem myself."

He leaned back in the chair, a quiet moment to reflect how best to answer her. He was a contemplative man when he wanted to be, and his words here carried weight- he knew that, so picking them carefully was paramount. He took a deep breath, taking another sip. The silence was growing, he knew that. But the eerie way he just stood silent, thinking, also had an effect: it gave him an air of authority, of importance and finality.

"I got enough authority to tell you that they sent me. That also means, that they sent me." Sandman leaned forward, folding his hands on her desk.

"Ask and you might receive. I'm not sure what they'll be willing to do for you- but me?" The killer, the assassin, took a sip. "Well. I can do a lot for you, if you so desire. Not to brag but-" He looked around the room, then swirled his index finger around, indicating to all of them.

"I've wiped worse people off the board. I've helped wipe adversarial rebel groups like yours off the board. And if you need help, I'm here. Can't promise an orbital bombardment or anything, but. I can-" He reached to his waistband, taking off his belt. Behind his belt buckle, was a small punch-knife. Carbon-fiber, no metal. He slid it across the desk. He knew the implication: he was never unarmed, he was holding weapons. But it was also purposeful: I could have killed most of you in here at any time.

"Do what I do best for you. We're happy to help, if you're in need. Your planet isn't the only one who needs help. Our ambitions lie in the stars, not just in planets. But we can help."

 

[Suhara Villow]

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Tag: Torn Eskol

Suhara remained silent as he spoke. "A second please," she said, almost whisper-quiet as she turned around and walked to the other side of the tent. Ten men and women had gathered in the corner, not appearing much different from the common soldier, but Torn would know from his weeks of observation that these were Political Commissars. Elected by their respective units to represent their interests and voice their concerns, these soldiers were often the best and most experienced members of their peers. Many of them boasted the scars to prove their service.

During battles, they weren't exactly fond of taking prisoners.

"Don't trust 'em," one of the Commissars said as Suhara joined their half circle huddle.

"Same here." Suhara nodded. "He's a Milice in all but flag and name. But we're going nowhere in terms of equipment. My officers in the liberation fleet are already telling me that they're starting to see systems fail. They'll keep failing unless we have shipyards we can safely dock at."

"I don't doubt that we can't trust him," another commissar said. "At the same time, I don't doubt we can afford to say no. As much as we want to go back home to our families, we have to be alive to do so."

A bunch of nods and murmured affirmatives.

"Biggest worry I have is can we afford to pay the Foundation's price?" Suhara massaged the bridge of her nose to stop the massive migraine developing

Pieree spoke. "If we cannot fight for the liberation of others, how can we fight for our own? We have to be honest. We will not return to Chantemer today or tomorrow. It will be months. It will be years. Until then, we will grow our strength and wait. Wait for a single crack in the criminal Olan Regime's dam. And when that crack comes, we will flood through."

"Succinctly put, as always," Suhara smiled. "What do the men think?"

"Word's already spread. Anything to get off this wretched world."

"Them and me too. Tell them to start packing." Suhara said before returning to Torn. "You're a dangerous man. As long as you keep being a danger to our enemies and not to us, I'll be happy to call you my friend. The Foundation will have their heavy hitters for ground combat. I'm sure you've already seen what a few squads of my Partisans are capable of. You'll now have a thousand of them. As for my fleet, we've got several Frigates and Cruisers, but they'll need some time at a dockyard to rest."