2.24.2

Insidious Intent

“They’re planning a False Flag,” Captain London announced when he heard the details for himself. His voice hit gravel. A mix of grievous assertion and utter repugnance. “Damn it!”

Upon reuniting with their ship, the team immediately delivered Celeste to Ishioka for a checkup. The doctor seemed only too happy to entertain another Channeler and get a second data point for her research.

Eames kept Celeste company. As Guardian to the same Sanctuary, they took to one another. Him genuinely happy to see her rescued, and she comforted by a familiar face. Celeste even looked moved that someone from Mercedes came after them.

And it gave the crew time to debrief together.

“What’s a ‘False Flag’?” Astrid immediately pressed. “What is that?

“It’s a tactic as old as propaganda itself,” the captain asserted. “A faction stages some kind of attack, usually by an opposing force they despise, to spur people against that group.”

“Staging an attack? With children?!” Astrid could feel new wrinkles carve into her forehead with each scowl.

“It’s not ideal for us. But for the S.O., they’re going right for the kill.” Anders spoke up. “This will put a nail in the coffin for the Channeler debate. If they can make an enemy out of their most sympathetic target, the children, whose going to stand up for Channelers?”

“I warned that apathy was your enemy here, Hale,” Captain London reminded. “Those on the fence, without any strong opinions either way? They’re about to be given reason to pick the other side.”

“You said so yourself that kids are among the strongest,” Dell glumly supplied. “The force of fifty Channelers, focused on a single task or target, they could do a lot with that energy.”

“It’s got to be a soft target. Something public. Something galvanizing for the indifferent,” Captain London explained. But he looked utterly appalled, and that put Astrid ill at ease.

“We can’t let it go that far!” Astrid rebuked. “Let’s go in, right now, and get them!”

“Those kids outnumber us, they may even outnumber the S.O., Astrid,” Anders talked her down. “You really want to put them in the middle of a gunfight? The Opposition has fifty hostages in there, and they’ve already shown they don’t care much about casualties.”

“We need back up,” Tenya insisted. “At the very least, I say we head to the nearest Sanctuary, and pick up more Guardians. If the Opposition wants to bring the public into this now, then so can we!”

“That would still take days. If we came back and they were already gone…” Romo argued.

“There’s a solution here, we just have to find it!” London pressed them.

“There was this name Paulsen gave us,” Dell tried. “Serena Cordette. Does that mean anything to you, Captain?”

“No more than it must be someone of stature. They said it like we should know it.”

“I do,” Ramsey spoke up. “I pass through the Septimus gateway station all the time. Three times a year sometimes. Serene Cordette is the head of their Security. Specifically, Cargo and Customs.”

“She’s a customs agent?” Tenya balked.

“No, she’s practically the department,” Ramsey reported. He too, seemed disturbed. “She oversees every crate that passes through. Not always personally, but she has access to every one.”

“Cargo,” Dell put together. “Like freight boxes and the like?”

Ramsey nodded.

“That’s just who you’d need to sneak that many kids past a gateway without filing for them.” Captain London’s expression grew further distressed.

“Septimus,” Anders named. “That’s where they’re going to take them.”

“Romo learned Septimus could be sympathetic from the Opposition’s own data,” Tenya added. “Weakening them with a staged Channeler attack hits two birds with one stone. Turn everyone against the Channelers, including Septimus! And undermine the colony before they even think of seceding. And they certainly won’t protect the Channelers after this.”

Captain London jabbed his index finger on the tabletop. He looked, to Astrid anyway, truly furious.

“This is a military tactic!” he growled. “Not civilian. This has EMS written all over it.”

“Sir?” Anders asked.

“False Flag, targeting a future threat that isn’t even a threat yet? It’s a devious plot, yes, but it’s brilliant if it works. Undercuts integration, our alliance with the Channelers, and any government or military entity that would stand with them. If this attack gets off the ground, it’s not just the Channelers that get screwed, we all are!”

“So, what do we do?” Anders asked.

London sighed and braced himself over the table. After a full minute, he shared his thoughts.

“Maybe… the smartest move here is to let them take the kids to Septimus.”

“What?!” Astrid spoke out of turn, but so did three others, including Ramsey.

Captain London demanded calm before he continued.

“We know where they’re going, now. Pull them out of there now, or later, we risk the children either way. But if we wait, we can use their plan against them. If they can use the public eye to spur opinion, then so can we, when we shut this crap down, in front of everyone! And expose this terrorist group once and for all!

“No fighting out in the boonies where no one can see what the Static Opposition really is, or what they’re doing! No more denials and blind eyes, no more turning the other cheek!”

An impassioned and fiery plan that held merit to anyone with a clear mind and steady heart. But Astrid, she no longer had either.

“You-” Her voice stuttered. “Captain, my kids are down there! Ten minutes away. And you want me to just… leave?”

“It will be a sacrifice on your part, I know that, Hale. But this isn’t just about you. We have to make a better call for everyone.” London spoke to her directly. “Listen to your team, trust them. We need more people. We need to do this with intelligence, not just anger. If we barge in there now, and foil yet another plan before anyone knows any different, what changes for your people tomorrow?”

“They wouldn’t be kidnapped anymore!”

“No. Just imprisoned right back into the Sanctuaries, right?” Romo posited.

Astrid gaped. While it should have been more respectable to disagree with a peer than a superior, a twist of betrayal still snaked its way into her stomach. “Romo?”

“We have to think long term here, Astrid. If we could get them back, and change the future for them, shouldn’t we try that?”

Astrid looked from one face to the other. Some resolute, as though they awaited her to reach the same conclusion. But Ramsey, Dell, and Tenya, mostly just looked sad for her.

“If you can offer a better solution that allows us to reach those kids, protect them, and expose the S.O., I’m all ears,” the captain put to her.

But Astrid, stymied, disappeared into a mental storm cloud that rendered her silent.

~~~

The captain gave Astrid some time to cool down. The group collectively paused the debrief. Some went to throw a few more questions at Celeste, others wanted to explore the option of bringing more Guardians in.

But the Channeler herself stormed in the cargo hold. She reasoned it a good thing that the Aldebaran remained in port. The last thing she needed was the engine sizzling away at her nerves while she navigated her own implosions.

She couldn’t take it. People could throw logic at her all day. Quote tactic manuals, historical references, even give presentations on how much waiting could help them.

But she felt only a sickening drop in her gut any time someone suggested they move even one iota farther away from those Channelers.

She couldn’t do it, Astrid insisted to herself while she stomped a line in the hull. The captain laid out the advantage of getting ahead of them and waiting for them at Septimus. The Opposition would bring the kids to them, even.

But what if they were wrong, Astrid wondered. What if they made too many assumptions, and the Channelers were taken elsewhere? Perhaps she raged blind, overprotective, and selfish. But to walk away and hope for the best, it felt wrong.

Anders came to find her. Which would be easy to do with her crystal taking the brunt of her frustration. Within, she channeled the notion that desperately wanted to tear out of there with a couple of teammates and put an end to this. Now.

“You okay?” he asked needlessly when she finally tromped closer to him.

“They’re down there. Right now. This doesn’t feel right!”

“I know.”

She stopped her pacing to face him. She awaited his lecture, to hear again, all the reasons why she needed to respect the chain of command and trust the captain.

She almost dared him to try reasoning with her. She needed the outlet.

Instead, it wasn’t the officer that reached out for her. In the dim light, Anders gently drew his fingers along the edges of her arms, as though to ask permission to find his way inside.

“I know,” he said again. “I’m so sorry, Astrid.”

The light of her crystal fluttered out with her emotion, destabilized by the shift in mood he all but commanded with his fingertips.

She relinquished her hold on the pendant, and though he couldn’t quell the storm in her spirit, she answered to his silent request and allowed herself to be folded into his arms.

He held her as fully as he could manage, against his chest and stomach, and cradled her head against his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again while he stroked her hair. His voice sounded steady, and Astrid clung to his timber. “I didn’t want this for you. No one saw this coming.”

“Those are my kids,” she said again. The anger in her morphed to a mournful sound that clutched in her heart. “I can’t abandon them now.”

“You’re not. They know you’re coming. Even if we can’t tell them, they know.”

Astrid pulled her face back. She wanted to cry, but her helplessness couldn’t compete with her fury.

“I never imagined this is what we’d be dealing with,” Anders told her. “I’d do anything to make this easier for you.”

“I know you would. I know.” She could feel it through his body while he held her. A basic desire to just make anything better, however he could. He pulled her so tight she needed to lean into him or lose her balance. “But I think what I need is going to be hard for you.”

Anders raised a brow. Finally, his lips shifted into a fond smirk. “What are you plotting?”

“I think I’ve got it.” She licked her lips while an idea formed together in her mind. “How we protect the kids, get our reinforcements, and let the S.O. expose themselves. We’ll even be able to track their movements. That is, I assume so, once I talk to Dell.”

“You have a plan?” Anders quirked a brow with a twinkle of pride in his eyes. “You want to get to the part I’m not going to like?”

“Anders, I am not leaving this planet without my kids.”

“Yup.” His hands moved to her waist to firmly set her back to stand on her own. “There it is.”