Chapter 21 - The Long Game

  Sometimes, Commander Trask really hated his job.

  Oh, being a station commander sounded like fun, sure – all that authority - and with Exeter Station being the central population hub in the Caldera system, it could be said that he was in command of an entire star system. On paper, it was very impressive.

  In reality, it was a massive headache.

  The lights in Sector Twelve still refused to come online. Agent Falk might have justified the blackout as “necessary for containing Freeholder activity and preventing classified information from falling into enemy hands”, but Trask wasn’t fooled. The move had been shortsighted at best and reckless at worst.

  And yet, he couldn’t quite decide whether to be angry or grateful.

  Oh, certainly, it had covered his tracks very neatly – and in a way that couldn’t be traced back to him, no less. But at the same time, it had ruined several years of work setting up backdoors into essential systems.

  He liked to think of himself as prepared for every eventuality, but even he had never expected someone else to stumble onto his work, use it to access things they shouldn’t be able to, and then have an Imperial Agent inadvertently cover his tracks for him by shutting down an entire sector.

  If nothing else, the fact that it alerted him to Imperial Intelligence’s ability to affect the workings of his station was worth quite a bit of inconvenience. It made sense for them to have access to things they shouldn’t, of course – it was sort of their job, after all – but the extent of it was clearly quite a bit more than he had anticipated.

  “Sir?” Liera’s voice broke through his thoughts, the soft chime of the door preceding her entrance. She stepped into the room, a neat stack of reports tucked under one arm. Her expression was its usual mix of professional concern and dry amusement. “Should I come back later, or is this brooding session open to guests?”

  Trask straightened, setting his dataslate down with a theatrical sigh. “Join the misery, Liera. Plenty to go around today.”

  “No luck tracking down the cause of the blackout, then?” she asked sympathetically.

  Agent Falk had requested that he keep the details of the blackout to himself. Naturally, Imperial Intelligence didn’t want it getting out how much control they really had, and Commander Trask was experienced enough to pick up on the fact that this request was anything but.

  Oh, they wouldn’t come after him officially, of course. No, chances were that if he should let this slip, he would be having a quiet accident at some point in the future. Something suitably tragic, naturally.

  As such, he couldn’t even properly complain about it to his secretary. Did the Agent really have to ruin every good thing in his life?

  “No, unfortunately not,” he groused. “Worse, the Freeholders have scattered to the winds, no doubt ready to pop up again at the least convenient time. Even worse than that, this Kallan fellow the Agent is so interested in has somehow managed to circumvent the freeze we had on his accounts.”

  Trask leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together atop his chest as he stared at the ceiling. The steady hum of the station’s environmental systems provided little comfort against the storm brewing in his head. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose.

  He had put years into crafting the perfect narrative around the Freeholders – monitoring their movements, tracking their contacts, and carefully avoiding any overt action until the moment was just right.

  Now it was ruined.

  The plan had been elegantly simple: let the Freeholders think they were unnoticed, allow them to establish their networks and routines, and wait until they grew confident enough to make mistakes. Then, when they finally drew enough attention to be deemed a nuisance, he would swoop in with a coordinated strike, dismantling their entire operation in a single move. The Empire would praise his decisive action, the station’s residents would enjoy a temporary illusion of safety, and Trask would bask in the glow of an efficient, bloodless victory.

  And be left alone to pursue his own plans, free from… variables.

  But Agent Falk had thrown all of that into disarray. With the blackout scattering the Freeholders across the sector, any hope of tracking their activity had vanished. They would go to ground, reevaluate their strategies, and likely escalate their operations to reassert control over their fragmented organisation. For all that Falk was supposed to be a secret agent, the man seemed to have no appreciation for subtlety.

  “Well,” Trask muttered darkly, half to himself, “subtlety clearly isn’t an option anymore.”

  Liera tilted her head, giving him a curious look. “Sir?”

  He dropped his hands to the armrests and sat up, his lips pressed into a thin line.

  “I don’t see any other choice. We’ve already lost the element of surprise, and letting this drag on would only make it worse. Better to rip off the bandage and deal with the fallout all at once.”

  Her brow furrowed, though she didn’t question him further. Liera was good like that. She knew when to prod and when to let him talk his way through his thoughts. He reached for the comm panel on his desk and tapped in Agent Falk’s secure line, ignoring the faint sense of dread curling in his stomach.

  The line clicked open almost immediately. “Commander Trask,” Falk’s clipped tone came through. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Agent Falk,” Trask replied smoothly, keeping his voice neutral. “I’ve been reviewing the situation in light of the blackout and the Freeholder activity. It’s clear to me that this requires a more… aggressive approach.”

  Falk’s silence stretched for a beat too long, like he was weighing the statement for ulterior motives. “I see. And what do you propose?”

  Trask leaned forward, folding his hands atop his desk. “I’m authorising additional resources and personnel for your investigation. You’ll have full access to station security, and I’ll see to it that the civilian population is... encouraged to cooperate. I trust you’ll make good use of these measures?”

  A brief pause, then Falk’s voice softened just enough to sound almost pleased, though there was still a faint note of suspicion. “Of course, Commander. You won’t regret this.”

  And then, apparently above such base instincts as being polite, the man hung up on him.

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  Trask resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and not only at the Agent’s rudeness. Of course he’d regret this. Falk was like a scalpel when the situation called for a sledgehammer, and a sledgehammer when all you needed was a gentle nudge. But he needed Falk distracted and off his back. Giving him carte blanche to lean on the community was a calculated gamble – one that would make Trask look proactive, cooperative, and, most importantly, above suspicion.

  Of course, the downside of this approach was that he was going to be burning quite a lot of goodwill with the general populace – a problem he was going to be left with once Falk accomplished his mission and tracked down his target.

  Oh, well. People would find something to complain about no matter what he did. May as well get some benefit from it.

  “That’s… an unusually aggressive method for you, sir,” Liera observed neutrally. “You think this will work?”

  “It’s not a question of whether it will work,” he replied, rising from his chair and crossing to the viewport. Beyond the reinforced glass, the expanse of Exeter Station stretched out, a chaotic network of steel and lights stretching off into the distance. “It’s a question of how much damage it will cause—and how quickly I can repair it once Falk’s finished playing inquisitor.”

  He tapped a finger against the glass, his jaw tightening. “This will rile up the Freeholders. They’ll start lashing out, drawing attention to themselves. Falk will swoop in, claim victory, and move on. And when the dust settles, I’ll finally have room to manoeuvre without him breathing down my neck.”

  In the reflection he could see a look of understanding cross Liera’s face. “A big problem now instead of a dozen smaller ones later. Bold.”

  “Calculated,” he corrected, glancing back at her. “Falk thinks I’m giving him free rein. What I’m really doing is shining a light in all the dark corners, forcing the Freeholders into the open. If it works, we clean up the mess and come out looking like heroes. If it doesn’t...” he shrugged. “Well, hopefully I can shift some of the blame to Falk.”

  Trask allowed himself another long moment of staring out at the station under his command before turning and striding over to his desk once again. Liera politely ignored the way the chair creaked under his weight. He grumbled at the reminder of his recently expanding waistline but pushed through in favour of mentally sorting through the measures he’d need to put in place.

  If this was going to work—and it had to work—it would require more than just increased resources for Falk. The station’s population needed to feel the pressure, to be reminded that any leniency they’d enjoyed was a privilege, not a right. It was a delicate balance, of course; too much pressure and they’d risk a backlash. But Trask had learned that fear, properly wielded, was as effective as any weapon.

  “We’ll need curfews,” he said, breaking the silence. “Mandatory for all residential sectors, starting at… let’s say 1900 hours. Increased patrols, particularly around abandoned industrial and commercial zones. The lack of surveillance in those sectors was excellent for getting them to settle there in the first place, but now it’s working against us.”

  Liera blinked in surprise but hurried to copy down the information anyway. “Are you sure you want to make such large changes so quickly? It’ll be more disruptive this way.”

  “Exactly. It sends a message.” He tapped his fingers on the desk, his expression distant. “The Freeholders are here, and they’re not going away. Right now, they’ll be scrambling – they won’t have expected this escalation any more than I did. If we give them any time to regroup, they’ll dig themselves in and be all but impossible to remove. We need to hit them hard and fast. With that in mind… instate checkpoints, too. ID verification for anyone travelling between sectors. And I want the patrols to have clear orders: zero tolerance for noncompliance.”

  Liera’s note-taking stalled, and she stared at him in surprise. “That’s… sir, don’t you think this might backfire? The Freeholders have always enjoyed more popular support from the general population on worlds that employ stricter measures.”

  Trask raised an eyebrow at his secretary. That was an oddly knowledgeable comment on the social complexity of managing internal dissent. A moment later, Liera realised what she had said and flushed, looking down at her dataslate.

  “Um. Sorry sir. I… It’s a bit of a hobby, looking into this stuff. I know it’s weird.”

  “Clearly,” Trask replied, allowing some of his amusement to bleed into his tone. Still, there wasn’t much time for banter. He tapped a finger against the edge of his desk, straightening slightly. “At the end of the day, there are very few benefits to leaving a potentially disruptive element alone,” he explained.

  “Not to say there are no benefits – sometimes it’s simply the smarter play to ignore the smaller problems and focus on the bigger ones. The Freeholders didn’t bother me before because their activities were minor, predictable, and, frankly, beneath my notice. Dealing with them would’ve required more resources and goodwill than it was worth.”

  He gestured broadly, as if indicating the whole station. “But now? The situation has already been disrupted. The only reason my communicator isn’t swamped by every random official calling to demand answers is because I’ve switched it off. The blackout has stirred the pot, scattered the Freeholders across the sectors, and put them in survival mode. If we leave them alone now, they’ll adapt, dig in, and escalate. By the time we decide to deal with them, it’ll be ten times the effort and cost.”

  Liera nodded slowly, her pen hovering over the slate. “So this is more about damage control.”

  “In part,” Trask said, leaning back in his chair. “I’d rather tear out the roots now, even if it means upsetting a few people, than wait for them to grow into something I can’t easily pull.”

  Her pen resumed its quick, efficient strokes, but she hesitated after a moment, her brow furrowing. “If I may, sir... why now? It’s not like you to take such a direct approach.”

  The question was delivered lightly, almost as an afterthought, but Trask wasn’t fooled.

  He folded his hands, considering her for a moment before responding. “You’ve worked with me long enough to know I prefer to keep things... manageable. But manageable doesn’t mean ignoring the realities of the situation. The thing about instability, Liera, is that it’s contagious. If the Freeholders make this station look vulnerable, it invites scrutiny—from all sides. Falk’s people. The corporate interests. The Ministry of Colonial Affairs.” He paused, letting the weight of those names hang in the air. “That’s not the kind of attention I can afford right now.”

  Her eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly before widening again in understanding. “And here I thought you were happy with your assignment, sir,” she teased lightly, jumping to the obvious conclusion.

  There were very few explanations that would fit all the facts here – the way he had been happy to avoid any sort of conflict before suddenly switching to heavy-hitting tactics.

  Unless, of course, he was more worried about how things looked than how they actually were. That was the sort of behaviour often found in more ambitious officers. The kind that were angling for very specific promotions, that were unhappy with their current duties in some ways.

  Hardly surprising for a man in his position. A Station Commander may hold a certain amount of power and influence, but it was heavily limited by the location of the station in question. To be assigned a station on a colony world? Not even a high-traffic colony world, either, but a mining colony? Well, even a sedentary commander might rediscover his ambition in a situation like that.

  That’s why it made for the perfect excuse.

  “That’s why you’re so worried about Agent Falk poking around,” she continued in a tone of realisation. “Imperial Intelligence poking around never looks good on a record, no matter why they’re doing it.”

  “I’m worried about unnecessary disruption,” Trask corrected smoothly, making sure his tone held the correct amount of sarcasm. He let his gaze drift to the viewport again, as if pondering something far beyond the station’s walls. “This station is my responsibility. My legacy. I just want the people of this station to live as peacefully and productively as possible.”

  “Of course, sir,” Liera winked, adjusting her dataslate. “I’ll make sure the men receive your orders loud and clear.”

  “Good.” He stood, adjusting his jacket and offering her a faint smile. “I trust you to handle the details, Liera. You always do.”

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  As she left, the door sliding shut behind her, Trask allowed himself a small chuckle. Liera would report to her usual contacts – the ones she thought he didn’t know about – that he was tightening his grip on the station. She’d probably frame it as a man realising he’s in over his head and looking for an exit. Over the years of working together, she’d gotten fond enough of him to present the information in a way that benefited him.

  Even when she thought she was working against him, she was, in her own way, helping him. It was almost endearing, in a treacherous sort of way.

  The particularly stupid might even buy that explanation. The smarter ones would suspect, of course, but they would also almost inevitably reach the same conclusion Liera herself had.

  Hardly their fault, really – they were working with only half the picture.

  ‘Let them wonder,’ he thought, settling back into his chair. ‘Let them see me as a man finally stepping into his role, if only from desperation and a desire to leave it all behind. By the time they realise how much I’ve been playing them, it’ll be too late.’

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