LF Friends, Will Travel

Collateral damage: Part 3

"Found her!"

The file was slammed onto the desk with a great amount of force, causing Jan to jump as his train of thought was broken, looking up in shock and annoyance at the rude intruder who had just burst into his office unannounced.

"What the hell are you doing..."

His annoyance trailed off as he looked up at the person who had barged in, a surprise turning to worry as he took in the sight of the now dishevelled diplomat.

"Claire? Are you OK?"

"I am now sir. I mean Jan. I know who we're looking for now. Amander Blake!"

The previously nervous and quiet demeanour was gone, replaced with the caffeine driven monster in front of him, bags under her eyes and a manic energy permeating her entire core. Jan had last seen Claire 50 hours ago, after the entire diplomatic team had gone all hands on deck trying to find who this mystery Terran was.

"Have you slept since we last talked?"

"Couldn't. Annoyed me. Couldn't work out who was on the video. Most time I've ever spent researching someone is two hours and that guy was in witness protection!"

There was an animated energy to Claire, even through her obvious exhaustion, that universal force of someone very good at doing something, explaining how they did said thing after finally cracking something difficult.

"She wasn't on any of the major facial recognition databases. Scythen, Gretoian, Kirken. Moved to private databases, Riven Conglomerate. Yazzak Corporation. MediaSplat limited. Nothing. We're basically already at about 97% of the known galaxy at this point, so whoever this was, was clearly making an effort to hide. But everyone leaves an impact somewhere, and I found a picture of her in a Zorthian news article of all things."

That was an unexpected name to be brought up. The amphibians are a minor one planet member of the Terran Alliance who had only just recently joined the galactic community.

"It referred to the group evacuation of their failed colony: Mountain stream. One Amander Blake, captain of the trading vessel Texas Forever. It got easier now I had a name, but at that point I was thirty hours in, and finding Blake's past wasn't easy."

"The last sixty years she's continually had genetic and physical facial reconstruction every five years. In addition to the standard military reflex and stamina upgrades she had before, but more about that later. Nothing major, but enough specifically to mess up facial recognition. Uses a different place each time, with places that only report the barest of legally required information. But in the end I found everything! Because I always do. Because I am god!"

With a flourish Claire pointed at the thick folder of information on Jan's desk. He looked at it for a moment, flicking through the tomb of information he'd been given. He could read this in his own time, but Claire's expression told him that she was waiting for him to ask the obvious question.

"So who is Amander Blake then? Who are we looking for?"

"Amander Blake, Born in Lubbock, Texas, United States of America on February 16th 2197. Oldest of three children, no currently known living relatives. Entered the United states military at the age of 21 in 2218, when they were offering free regeneration and uplift facilities for all members. Of course three years later the great colony rebellion happened."

Jan remembered that shit show. Rising tensions between Earth and her colonies had resulted in a full out war in the Sol system. People had always assumed that nuclear weapons would be the armament of choice for humanity's next great war, but it turned out that once you reach the scale of planetary warfare just dropping lumps of rock and metal on each other from orbit was far easier and far more destructive.

"Involved in both the invasion of Mars and Titan, highly decorated in both campaigns and bonded with the military AI Drake during this time; back when the laws around the hashing of AI were a little more sketchy. Both of their records get kinda... spotty after this. Partly because of the collapse of the previous power structures and transitory governments, which made record keeping annoyingly sparse. Partly because everything I do find after this is censored past recognition."

Which meant Amander has training. Lots of it. Jan thought bitterly.

"Officially both Drake and Amander were involved in every conflict from then to the end of standard time. The Conglomerate Wars, Alpha Centauri, the Sagittarius Anarchy. Most of it redacted: if we ever run out of black ink it will be because of this document."

Claire's demeanour turned more solemn, the energetic movements dissipating as she continued.

"She was on Orion-3 when the God Plague happened. Looking that up, the situation looked bad."

Bad was an understatement. The God Plague had an average 50% mortality rate over the entirety of humanity. Averages are deceiving however: Sol had plenty of time to prepare stasis chambers and the logistics of freezing every Terran Human, ending up with a 5% casualty rate. The Orion sector was patient zero, with some planets ending up with a 95% casualty rate.

"Was released from stasis and cured in 2 Post-Stasis Time. Nothing major to report until the Hatil war, 7 PST. Similar redacted records as before, but this one ends with a court martial, for treason of all things. Not guilty, probably because her last station was the T.C Odin".

T.C Odin. The planet cracker. The Terran Conclave had found the galaxy full of life, and one of the first things they'd done was destroy an entire planet in response to a minor provocation.

Jan could remember exactly where he was when the news of the destruction of Tavaris broke. He remembered all the rage and anger he'd felt, at the God Plague, at the Hatil's first move on Terrans entering the galactic community and declaring a war. He remembered all that melting away to be replaced with the horror of what had been done.

Sure the Hatil had started it, but a year into the war everyone knew they were so technologically behind Terrans that they were no real threat. Not enough of a threat to wantonly kill millions. The public backlash had been immense.

Many have theorised that the destruction of the Hatil colony single handedly calmed Terrans down, showing what happens when you go too far: As if the current Terran aversion to getting into a full scale engagement again was an over correction to what they had once done.

"After that, Amander and Drake spent their time doing various jobs, everything from courier service to bounty hunting. The main thing they have in common is their lack of interaction with Terrans. Most recent line of work is as a independent surveyor of unmapped areas of the galactic map"

Claire gave a yawn, finishing off the summation of fifty hours of straight research.

"Amander has a simple, if worrying profile. Strong willed and motivated by ethics, distrust of authority, no real long term goals. Is willing to bend the rules but doesn't seem the type to be actively criminal. Probably in this situation because the Raha did something they shouldn't, not that I expected anything else."

"So basically we're looking for someone who isn't going to come to us for help due to a distrust of the government, who has enough training and knows how to stay hidden if they don't want to be found?"

It could have been worse. Not by much though.

"All we can really do is put out a Alliance wide notification to look for Amander and her ship." Jan said. "Hopefully the Raha also have just as much difficulty in finding her as we will."

Jan gave a deep sigh, knowing how bad this was.

"Go get some sleep Claire, I'll get the notification out"

"Waay ahead of you sir."

Jan watched incredulously as Claire just slumped down on one of the chairs, collapsing in exhaustion and falling asleep in seconds.

"That is not what I... never mind."

Jan couldn't help but think back to the destruction of Tavaris. If that was how far Terrans were willing to go against a mostly harmless enemy, how far would they go against an actually dangerous foe? If this spiralled out of control, what would a war with the Estorian empire actually entail?

The diplomat desperately hoped he'd never have to find out.