It took ten hours for Javaed to become more pissed off than pissed, and when he finally became sober enough to think straight, he started unleashing a string of some of the most vile curses ever spoken. After calming down slightly, he turned on the lone telescreen in the room and listened to the news while pacing up and down the room.
"As all of you know, this afternoon, a rebel warship disrupted the peace talks by attacking Levo militia vessels in orbit right above the capital. This attack shall not go unnoticed. A good pilot was lost in that attack, Captain Tempest. Why should a pilot of ours die during peace talks? Perhaps the time has come to seek protection from the Confederation against these renegade Rebels!" came the voice from the telescreen, belonging to the prime minister of Levo.
Javaed stopped in his tracks, his face unreadable. Moving quickly to a data node, he spent an hour searching through various files available to him due to various contacts, masking his every move perfectly. He quickly found the file of one Captain Tempest, and skimmed through it. Noted neutrality. Considered a possible danger. Other files, on more recent events, helped Javaed establish a picture of what had happened. A newly built Corvette had carried two Rebel agents off Levo - most likely back to Palshife - belonging to a commander who was injured during a fight. Captain Tempest was mentioned as the culprit of various crimes, by one of his most reliable contacts.
According to his character, Javaed would have to look for an occupation very soon or risk being noticed - If there's anyone besides me on this damned planet who has a clue what he's doing - but what had occured here certainly required looking into.
However, there was the undeniable question; what could the Rebellion do? They couldn't attack Levo without ruining their entire mock "good guy" theme. With the news that the Rebel cruiser had started the attack spreading like wildfire, already effecting New Istanbul and Propus, who were both in fear of similar attacks from the Rebellion, putting it out would be difficult. But then there's the fact the prime minister said Tempest was dead. Showing up alive is all he has to do to change things. But, of course, even that might not make a difference. It would just prove that Tempest betrayed Levo for the Rebellion.
To turn the tables slightly, what would be needed was for another rumour to spread, and Javaed knew exactly what. The Terminus , a heavily modified Clipper, belonged to another of his colleagues, who was going by the name of Saire Landane. The Terminus was a work of art that Saire and Javaed had designed together while they were working on New Ireland two years ago. It had a masked Rebel IFF beacon, had a faked cloaking device, two faked mass drivers, and hundreds of tiny, subtle signs of being a Rebel vessel.
Saire Landane was dead, of course. He had died of a heart attack two weeks ago - at least, that was the official reason. There had been a brief investigation into him being poisoned, and some trace - which hadn't been picked up during the investigation - of the intervention of the Confederation.
All Javaed needed now was a reason for the Levo police to open up the investigation again, and take a look at the Terminus. There were plans, hidden away in that ship, to assassinate the Levo prime minister. If everything went as planned, and it became public that the Rebellion were trying to assassinate a neutral prime minister, but were stopped by Confederation agents, New Istanbul, New Ireland, and New Scotland would be Confederation by the end of the month.
Let's hope I'm not playing any of my cards too quickly, he thought.
With Levo's already existing friendship with the Confederation, there should be no problem simply asking them to look into it, but 'Javaed' had to be clean as long as possible. For that reason, he sent another message to Talsir, who had contacts directly with Levo.
Talsir, I need you to ask the Levo government to look into the death of Saire Landane with more detail -Javaed
Once again, the message, sent by communicator, was entirely impossible to intercept, detect or trace, and the encryption could not be broken anyway.
Levo police reacted quickly after their government's orders were received. Storming the place where Saire Landane had been living before he died, they made a thorough check of the apartment. The Confederation traces were uncovered, and it was suggested that the Confederation had murdered him for no reason, until the ship was investigated. Unfortunately, before a closer look could have been taken at the fake Rebel technologies, the ship exploded, reacting to the people entering.
Everything happened very quickly, then. Saire Landane was officially confirmed to be a Rebel assassin, the plans found before the ship exploded and taken out - information on exactly how the police would go about investigating the ship was easily available to agents such a 'Javaed', 'Talsir' and 'Saire', who had organised the fake evidence such that the self-destruct only occured in the last place they would investigate, the engineering bay.
"Earlier today, a Rebellion plot was uncovered to assassinate the prime minister of Levo, Roan Dyhara. Dyhara is currently being guarded closely to prevent such happenings occuring again, and Levo has been locked down for the time being. Individuals may only enter or leave the planet if they display identification cards and surrender all weapons at the spaceport," the INN later reported.
"A vessel known as the Terminus was investigated, and various markings were found proving it to be a Rebel vessel. The ship self-destructed as police attempted to enter the engineering bay, and it is believed that the Rebellion outfitted the vessel's engines with some device that they did not want to be discovered. The Rebel agent, one Saire Landane, was stopped by Confederation c-int agents, and unfortunately had to be killed."
Javaed only half-listened to the news. He had found an engineering position in the spaceport - not the area that was now sealed off. Now, he would not have to worry about being suspected. He was, quite simply, just an engineer. The only thing he could do with now was a wife who was a citizen of Levo. Once he had finished with his job here, such people could easily be terminated, one way or another.
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