Your name is Ayako Tomioka, and you are having a bad day..
You curse at the workload you have been given, managing the required paperwork to maintain the permits needed to obtain and keep the huge stockpiles of military hardware. As much as you remember, the Imperial government has already moved to doing their administrative work on electronic systems, but whoever it was you were communicating with in Fleet Activities Comberth keeps insisting that the paperwork be done on actual paper and sent by courier as opposed to submitting electronic copies. Normally, this would have be a waste of everybody's time, but all of the papers have had tamper proof verification seals attached to them, typically only used to verify highly sensitive documents, usually of the top secret variety.
You don't know why, but at this point in time all you could care about is how much trouble this was.
You sigh at the thought of more paperwork, and think about the new clerks that VSS hired at about the same time as you. While in theory, they were intelligent and qualified, you can't help but feel that they just might not be putting in their best efforts.
Which leads to your other problem: the low whine of your assistant's grumbling. While Xian has really been a great help, he seems to find everything in existence to be a problem and refuses to keep quiet about anything. He even grumbles when you assign him tasks to complete. While the work gets done, sometimes you wish he would just keep quiet.
"Those bloody fuckers in the archives, I keep telling them that we need the goddamned permission hard copies on hand and easy to find, but they kao pei and tell me the soft copies should be enough for any audit by the Imperial authorities-"
You tune him out. The past hour has been nothing but an infinitely repeating broadcast about how the rest of your staff should die in a fire, their families beaten to death by rabid cows... And several other things in several languages that you barely understand. Perhaps maybe at this point you should probably report to Lee Bashkan about the… diligence of the administration department.
Speaking of the boss, he hasn't reported in for more than a day, which is odd, given the fact that he would usually call every 12 hours or so for a quick check in while he was on the planet.
Either way, you are interrupted in your thoughts as the alarm klaxon goes off. The normal lighting shuts off and the red emergency lights kick in. The office goes dead silent as the ventilation stops. You instinctively put on your helmet and engage the life support systems on your space suit. You make a quick glance to check on your assistant, Xian, who has already done the same and is now unfolding the stock on his rifle. Wait,
rifle? Why does he have a rifle under his desk?
Nevermind. You have more pressing issues to deal with.
You stand up and walk out of the office, making your way to the depot CIC. On your way there, you notice far more activity than normal, as the normally sluggish mercenaries move with purpose, carrying boxes of infantry smart explosives and handing them out to everyone they could see, while others are taping the same explosives to the walls and bulkheads before activating the proximity fuses. You even see a few of them dragging heavy weapons into position and setting them up, creating killzones in the corridors.
Entering the CIC, you see that several of the tables have been kicked over to face the doors with some of the staff in powered armor taking cover behind them, pointing heavy weapons at the entrance.
Looking around the room, you try to figure out just what exactly has gotten everybody in such an atypical state of activity. The console for sensor readouts catches your eye, as it shows several contacts on the screen. While it has been a while since you had to interpret sensor data, you can make a educated guess that there are several big contacts making way towards the depot at combat speed, four of which are, at the very least, cruiser sized.
The CIC supervisor, one Jane Tsai, notices you walking in and greets you with a quick dip of her head, as she continues to watch over the rest of the staff while they attempt to break through the jamming.
"I heard the alarm and came here as quick as possible. What's the situation so far?" you ask, trying to keep calm amidst all the excitement.
"Multiple contacts on long ranged sensors, a screening element of light cruisers and several capital ships, five probable battleships. They're claiming to be Imperial Navy on a freedom of navigation exercise," the CIC supervisor replies in the typical slow drawl of hers as if nothing was wrong.
You tilt your head in confusion and question her, "But why are we preparing to repel boarders?"
"All of the larger contacts are on full burn towards us." She snorts derisively. "The last time something like this happened back when we were in Eisenwald space, it was some kind of 'arms inspection'." She air quotes at the mention of arms inspection.
"Long story short, it was a ruse. We saw through it, killed them all and spaced the bodies. So rather than wasting time with playing nice, we are going to skip the ruse part and just kill them all." You can hear the veritable blood lust coursing through her voice and a quick glance shows her tail is, quite concerningly, flicking side to side, with a bit of force behind each swing.
Just as you decide to ask about what they are going to do if the inspection turns out to be legitimate, the comms operator calls both you and Jane over, as he plays the incoming transmission coming from one of the contacts.
"Veritas Security Services Depot Foxtrot Charlie Two Papa Papa Victor Eight Eight Zero Six Five Two. This is HIMS
Kongou, Imperial Navy, flagship of Task Force Soyeon. This is a inspection under the auspices of the Mercenaries Armaments Control Act by the authority of Rear Admiral Constance Vickers. You are ordered to power down all defense systems and receive our boarding teams. We are authorised to open fire if you refuse to comply. Reply back on Channel 16 to signal your compliance. This message will be repeated three, say again, three times. Failure to respond after the third repetition will be deemed as non-compliance and will be responded to accordingly. I say again. Veritas Security Services Depot Foxtrot Charlie..."
You look at Jane and state the obvious. "I think we should give them a response."
She nods, "Yeah, it will give us more time to dig in-"
You shake your head at that response. "This is probably a legitimate inspection by the Imperial Navy. Not to mention that we are severely outgunned by multiple cap-"
"You know those could be decoys right?"
Turning to the sensor operator, you ask, "Are those decoys?"
"They aren't decoys, ma'am," the man on the console replies. "The contacts are radiating a lot of drive emissions, so either they used capital ship engines to build those decoys or they are capital ships. The second is more likely."
You turn back to Tsai and she shrugs. "We die either way if they aren't an arms inspection? Lee left you in charge, so I guess you can choose how we die?"
You sigh and reach for the phone attachment on the communications console. The comms operator gives you a thumbs up to signal that you can speak whenever.
"HIMS
Kongou." You glance at the helpful post-it note stuck on the console. If anything you took some pleasure of forcing other parties to use the full designation of the depot on comms. Though, at some point perhaps it would be easier to get it renamed. You dare not bring it up with management, lest they stick the depot with
another stupid overly pretentious name. "This is VSS Depot Foxtrot Charlie Two Papa Papa Victor Eight Eight Zero Six Five Two. We are currently unable to accept boarders until we have cleared the depot of armed explosives. Over."
You did not expect a immediate reply, but it came in loud, angry and overbearing. "What bullshit are you trying to feed us? Is this some attempt to delay the Imperial Navy while you destroy all the evidence? Need I remind you I have a baker's dozen warships watching you like a hawk? Would you like to complay, or shall I have my task force use your rock for gunnery practice? Over."
"They are pointing fire control radars at us Ma'am, they have at least one battleship radar on their side," shouts one of the operators.
You sigh at the thought of having to deal with another overly aggressive hotshot when you already have a entire asteroid filled with them. "Jane, how long would it take for the team to take down all the mines?"
She takes a moment to ponder before she speaks into her suit radio and waits for a reply. After a minute or so, you can feel the room start to quiver and rumble through your boots.
That probably was not a bad feeling, nor was it your nerves making themselves known
"We just took all of the explosives down," you hear your CIC supervisor report.
If not for the fact that your helmet was in the way, you would have been rubbing your forehead in frustration. Instead, you settle for just sighing very audibly. You reach for the comms set once more to send a reply.
"HIMS
Kongou, we will comply. Over."
Replacing the comms set, you start to make your way to the main hangar. You hope that the maintenance crews were good enough to clean off the scorch marks and remove the shrapnel before the inspection team arrives.
About an hour or so later, the depot staff have managed to take down the heavy weapon emplacements and cleared up all the shrapnel from the corridors. The scorch marks, however,are there to stay. At the moment, you have decided to take over the depot wardroom to host the inspectors, given that it's probably the least questionable looking part of the place.
There was much grumbling and glaring as you politely ask the staff to leave the cupboard stocked with assorted expensive beverages and the comfortable lounge chairs. However, they quickly evacuate the room when they heard the swishing tail and growls of the tiny fox girl following you. You sit down and set aside a huge stack of fodders and several tablet displays. While the new admin staff is still working hard digging through the archive strongroom for the required hard copy documentation, you have very little confidence that they will be able to find the papers required before it was time. You sigh at the thought of having to come up with something to placate the inspectors.
Jane pats you on the back in some misguided attempt to console you. "At the very least the depot looks like it belongs to proper mercenaries?"
You stare at her with a flat look. At this point, there are no words to express your displeasure at your current situation. Her ears press flat against her head and she somehow manages to look even smaller than she really is, from your silent, vitriol-filled stare.
Walking over to the cupboards, a quick inspection revealed that the containers containing the good tea leaves are missing and you will have to make do with the bottles of pre-brewed tea. The disgusting, overly sugared, factory mass-produced for the lowest bidder kind of tea. Grabbing three bottles, you take a seat at the table right next to Jane. While the rest of the Imperial Navy investigation team combs through the depot, their leader will be interviewing you.
You really wanted that nice hot cup of tea before your day got worse. Again. As you open your bottle and take a sip, you feel the deck underneath you start to shake and tremble, the telltale signs of sombodies in powered armor approaching the room. The shaking stops and the door opens, revealing a pair of troopers decked in full powered armor carrying heavy weapons. You would have ignored their attempts at intimidation, were it not for the fact that you would recognise those colours anywhere.
After all, there is nobody in the Golden Orchid Empire who would not recognise the black and blue warplate of the Imperial Royal Guard.
The man walking behind the two slabs of metal and guns is unremarkable. Regulation navy space suit, with Captain's insignia on his shoulders. He walks in, his back straight, full of confidence. Both you and Jane stand up and walk over to introduce yourself.
The Captain notices Jane and looks at her quizzically; she returns the gesture. It appears that both parties were somewhat acquainted with each other. You interrupt their moment by clearing your throat and introducing yourself.
"Good day, Captain. My name is Ayako Tomioka. I am the administrator of this depot and in the absence of our commander, the person in charge of this outfit."
This breaks both Jane and the Captain's weird staring match and he replies to you, looking you right in the eyes, his voice strong and his pronunciation clear. "Captain Daniel O'Farrell, Imperial Navy."
He gestures towards the table. "We've got a lot of ground to cover, so why not we get started?" He looks at Jane. "I'm sorry, but I would like to speak to your administrator. Alone."
Jane nods in response and grabs her bottle of tea before leaving the room.
Both you and Captain O'Farrell take a seat. He speaks first. "So. Do you know what is the purpose of this inspection?"
You shake your head. Honestly you did not know what's the point of all of this. You were careful with your paperwork and permits and there shouldn't be any problems. "I am not sure myself."
He takes out his own tablet and scrolls down through it. "There are some discrepancies in your expenditure of munitions for a PMC unit of this size. Furthermore, your unit has put in a lot of requests for high end military equipment. We want to make sure that it hasn't end up on the black market.
"There are two things I need from you. Firstly, I need access to your mission logs-"
"I'm afraid I can't comply with your request," you say, summoning all your confidence and bureaucratic intransigence. "Our mission logs are privileged information, and I cannot release them to you without the express authorisation of Crossbone Vanguard commander, Lee Bashkan."
Captain O'Farrell gives you a mild look. "I was under the impression that you worked for Veritas Security Solutions."
You wince upon hearing that name. "Crossbone Vanguard is the Egon system force's callsign."
An awkward silence settles between you two. Captain O'Farrell is the first to break out of it. "So, call him."
"We can't. He hasn't checked in for more than a day and we have been trying to get a hold of him since before your task force arrived in system."
He raises his eyebrow. "Are you sure he's still in the system? Because it sounds like he ran away."
You roll your eyes at the accusation. Lee Bashkan is many things, but he isn't a coward. Nor has anyone in your company done anything illegal. "We haven't heard from him in two days and given that he checks in every twelve hours, this is highly unusual. We were planning on investigating but something troublesome and annoying came up and we had to deal with that first."
You don't know if the captain noticed the implication that his inspection was troublesome and annoying, but if he did, he wasn't showing it, as he tapped on his tablet and continued on.
"Moving on, I need to check on your permits. Hard and soft copies."
You hand him a tablet and he goes through the summary data. He has a full team going through your computer systems and equipment anyway. You take a quick look at his face in some attempt to divine what he was thinking. He reveals nothing.
"Well, your soft copy permissions are in order, but you know those can be easily forged. We would like to take a look at the hard copies."
At this point, given that Xian has been radio silent the past hour, you figure that he hasn't found the paper permits yet. So you decide to bite the bullet and tell the truth. "We…" You try to think of words that did not make anyone sound incompetent. "Misfiled the permits."
Captain O'Farrell gives you a flat look. "You misfiled the permits." He pauses to process what you just said. "You misfiled the paperwork for enough military equipment to wage a small sector wide war." He rubs his forehead. "Either your administration staff is grossly incompetent or you must think that I and by extension, the Navy, would be stupid enough to accept such a excuse."
He stands up. "If you excuse me, I must make a report to my superior. Have a good day, Miss Tomioka."
He walks right out of the room and the two suits of powered armor follow him.
Right after that, a bunch of VSS staff floods right back into the room, taking over the rest of the empty couches. It seems that they were quite literally camping outside the doors and waiting for the chance to be reunited with their comfy couches. You sigh at their lack of professionalism.
Several hours later, you get word from one of the Imperial Marines walking around the depot that the captain was looking for you in the shuttle bay, and so you make your way to there to have a word with him.
It seems that he has finished touring the rest of the depot. You notice the Imperial Marines have started to clear out from the corridors and the VSS staff were cleaning up, putting back the things taken out during the inspection.
You meet up with the captain in the shuttle bay. He stands there waiting. When you approach him, he speaks. "The commander of our task force is willing to give you two days to cough up the paperwork, both the mission logs and the hard copy permits. If you do not turn up with the required items, we will confiscate all your weapons and equipment. Once you have everything in order, you may contact
Kongou on Channel 14 and we will send people over to finish the inspection."
He turns around and walks towards his shuttle without saying anything else. How rude. You get the feeling that he does not like you or has something against you.
Not that you have time to care about such things. You need to organise a search party for your boss and get Xian to unfuck the paperwork.
Hopefully, the next two days will be better.
