**Planning the Fall**

Posted on Fri Feb 7, 2020 @ 8:06pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit
Edited on on Fri Feb 7, 2020 @ 8:07pm

983 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Nibiru
Location: Fuijan Provence, China, Earth

= Coastal province of Fujian, China =

Riding in an all-terrain ground transport along a narrow dirt track that passed for a road, Cmdr. Jameson Hill held onto what was generally termed the "oh shit handle" as the transport rocked, bounced, and shuddered it's way down the road heading towards the observation point where Section 31 had set up a protected observation point, masked by cloaking technology adapted from reverse engineering a confiscated Romulan cloaking device. Over the past two years, Section 31 had maintained the observation point, agents using the guise of being part of a wildlife protection unit tasked with protecting the natural area in this region of China which had remained much as it had been for thousands of years.

Located in the Wuxi Mountains, the region had provided the finest oolong and black teas for generations. To protect the plants from which the leaves were harvested for the teas, the region was considered a World Heritage site and tea harvests were carefully managed. The region was sparsely populated, making it a favorite locale for illicit activities such as the meetings which had been taking place in a tea drying facility for at least the last 6 years, possibly longer.

They were still about 4 kilometers from the post when the overhead roar of an aircraft was immediately followed by a brilliant flash from somewhere ahead .. an explosion brought about by a phaser strike from the unmarked shuttle which had just overflown their transport and was now banking around for another look at the battered old Venicle on the narrow, supposedly unused road.

"We've been made!" the driver shouted as the small shuttle roared overhead, flying so low that the wash from it's engines made the transport shudder in protest.

"How the hell did that happen!?" Hill shouted, twisting in his seat to retrieve the phaser rifle which had been hidden beneath a false crate of supplies.

"Don't know.. must have been something.. that was the observation post going up.." the driver answered as he swung the transport around on the narrow road, bouncing over rocks and ruts in the roadside as he turned. "Maybe someone got careless with a transmission, maybe they got lucky with a satellite.. worry about it later.. we need to get out of here before that shuttle comes around again or ground personnel alerted by whoever is in that shuttle show up!”

The jets flew over again spotlighting them before they suddenly disappeared into the sky. It was almost an eerie silence before the sound of a large shuttle flew past them high above. An object fell from the sky, at first silent before it hit the ground in the distance. A small explosion sent a series of smaller cylindrical objects spiraling out into the air for an instant before they exploded sending a deadly hail of shrapnel out creating a heavy cloud of smoke and dust which filled the air.

“Get us out of here.. do it now!" Hill ordered while pulling his secure comm from it's place at his belt and sending a message back to his commanding officer on a secure channel. Reporting back quickly he ran down the events taking place from the explosion at the observation post and the current status of it's officers as unknown.

Though he didn't hear it over the roar of the old transports straining engine, the tell-tale bursts of dirt along the road behind them was enough to send him ducking down as explosive projectiles impacted the rear of the transport with startling force. The driver was hit, a crimson splatter staining the windshield and then the world turned upside down as the transport hit the side of the road and flipped.. there was a moment of extreme stillness and then the transport exploded into blazing fireball.

The shuttle slowly moved into a position hovering over the wreckage, then it banked away and flew to the smoking ruins of the surveillance post where it landed. A team of dark suited, armed men approached and boarded then ship. After a moment, it’s pilot sent a message on a coded frequency as the ship lifted off once again. “Flight One to Control. Intruders have been neutralized. Unauthorized surveillance structure has been breached. It’s personnel put up a fight, no survivors. The transport has been neutralized as well. No survivors. Ground personnel confirm recovery of the missing data device. No data was transmitted, there was no transmission equipment in the outpost. The ground transport crew was now they’d been getting information in and out, which is why they were able to stay hidden for so long.”

The response came, “You’re sure.”

“Absolutely. There were survivors at first when we got there. They were armed but had no comm units of any type. We’d have picked up any transmission coming from within the restricted area.”

“Clean up crews are on the way. There won’t be any trace of them within 2 hours. return to base. Good work. It’s taken far too long to get our asset into position. Ow that we are so close, the last thing we want is to lose access to the President and Council at this point.”

The pilot acknowledged and the cut the transmission.

The ma turned toward the being standing near him. The tall alien watched through wide set eyes, it’s facial features resembled a Terran catfish, wide mouth with flat lips, sensory ganglia to either side of its mouth. Finely scaled skin, which looked wet and was in fact slick with a natural protective slime coating. “if they are wrong..” the Haek representative said, his words understandable if somewhat accented and vaguely hissing.

“If they were wrong we’d be under attack. Be confident. We have planned this with meticulous care. When the time comes .. the Federation President and his advisors will fall...”



To be continued .. when the time is right.

 

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