Happily Ever After (The Lunar Chronicles story continuation)

Chapter 2: The ICA

Carswell Thorne turned on his side as a comm appeared on his portscreen. He sat up, his head still throbbing from what he had drunk at the wedding. Which idiot calls at night? He thought to himself. Should he answer it? Cress lay right beside him, so sweet and innocent. He didn't want to wake her up. There was a quiet snoring as she breathed air in and out.
No, he ignored the comm. Five seconds later, the comm appeared again. Stars above, who was this and what could they possibly want at this time? Thorne looked over to the clock, it read 7:03 AM. Yes, it was definitely still in the middle of the night.
The comm appeared again. He knew who it was. With a deep sigh, he answered.
"Captain Thorne, this is General Kobe."
Thorne recognised the voice all too well. He was the man in charge of the ICA, the Intergalactic Crime Association. Thorne and Cress had spent some time working with them. It had been some of the best time they'd spent together. However, they hadn't spent that much time together to begin with, yet. After they had finished distributing the letemosis cure and the plague had died out, they'd been bored on the Rampion and been recruited for a limited amount of time. Their connections to the Emperor of the Commonwealth and to the former queen of Luna had automatically made them the perfect people for the job. This organisation knew everything, freaking everything about anyone or anything in the whole galaxy. Everything was of course top secret. They hadn't been allowed to tell neither friends nor family, not that there was much family to tell. Thorne had been sent on a few mission on which he could not reveal the details, not even to some readers at home. He could only say that he'd saved Kai's life multiple times without him even knowing about it.
The commander spoke in his highly voice, "I need the two of you outside immediately. There is somethig we need to discuss."
Thorne grunted and hung up.
Thorne put a hand on Cress' shoulder and shook it lightly. "Cress? Cress? You need to get up."
"Huh?" Cress rubbed her eyes, trying to rub the weariness out of them. "What time is it?"
"Five past seven, basically in the middle of the night. General Kobe wants us outside."
The space between Cress' eyebrows narrowed. "But captain, I thought we'd stopped working for him"
Thorne sighed. "Oh I don't know. He probably wants us to do his groceries or something else he finds a matter of intergalactic importance. Come on, get dressed." He smiled at her.

Luckily, they hadn't woken anyone up on their way out of the house. Everyone had been firmly asleep after the wedding, which had ended pretty late.
An enormous white spaceship stood parked before them. Silver lines ran along the sides. The windows were pitch-black, especially designed so that people could only look out, not in. It was the newest model, released only few days ago. Naturally, it was the biggest possible size.
"Talk about modesty" Thorne whispered to Cress.
"I can hear you." The voice of Commander Kobe sounded through the speakers.
"I don't care."
They entered the spaceship and were met by a room of dozens of working people. They sat in little cubicles, each at their own desk with their own portscreen. It was weird how cubicles, the smallest working space possible, were still in fashion. There were rumours that they had even existed in the Second Era, even before the third world war. Well, ways to save money have always been popular.
The workers were all human, as the ICA had been established by the earthen leaders during the time of the first conflicts between Earth and Luna. They were a legal body, a secret service, and the earthen leaders knew about it, but Thorne doubted they knew anything that even came close to exactly what they actually did. This was slightly scary as Thorne himself had no idea where the orders came from or who the man in charge was. It wasn't Commander Kobe. No, there was someone above him, but who?
Thorne and Cress were pointed into the direction of a smaller room.
In the room, that was probably his office, General Kobe stood staring at a screen. "Oh great, you've arrived. Please, do sit down."
They did.
"Now, how was the wedding? You noticed I let you sleep a little longer, didn't you?"
Of course he knew about the wedding. Thorne grunted. "What? Three minutes later than usual?"
He ignored the comment. "It has come to my attention that there will soon be a wedding between Emperor Kaito and Selene Blackburn."
Sometimes Thorne felt like this guy had access to every security camera ever built. He probably did as well. Once in a while, Thorne looked around him to see where these security cameras had actually been located, if someone was watching. He had actually done this during the wedding, but he could have sworn there had not been a single camera present. Kobe was a huge questionmark when it came to his methods of surveillance, straightout creepy. Come on, Kobe had probably known about the engagement even before Kai and Cinder did.
"This is what I wanted to show you" Kobe said as a picture appeared on the screen behind him. The image depicted some buildings on white rock. It had to be Luna. "The people you see here" He pointed at a few dots on the picture who did not look like people to Thorne. "they're the last living thaumaturges still loyal to the formar queen Levana."
"That's impossible. They've all been captured." Cress said. Thorne felt the unease arise in Cress. She hated thaumaturges over any other beings in the Universe. After she'd been held captive by Sybil Meera for years, she would flinch or stiffen every time one of Levana's puppets was mentioned.
Commander Kobe continued his story. "The thaumaturges have been living in camps in this perimeter." He circled his hand. "We have detected some strange behaviour. People seem more nervous, they spend more time inside their tents."
Next, he showed a picture of a close-up of one of those tents. The white colour had been chosen wisely, functioning as camouflage.
"We fear they might be planning an attack on Selene Blackburn and Emperor Kaito. This wedding unfortunately gives them the ideal opportunity."
Of course this was why they had been called in. Thorne had suspected that this bond between them and the emperor, which Kai liked to call 'friendship', had influenced their assigned missions. Maybe Kobe thought it would give them extra motivation, maybe because they could gain information quicker. Nearly half their missions had involved Kai or Cinder. There couldn't be that many assassination attempts, right?
Cress' face was overrun by worry as a crease formed on her forehead between her eyes.
Thorne saw were this was going. "So what do you want us to do? Asking them to do anything is absolute suicide"
Commander Kobe shook his head. "Just find out what they're planning and stop it."
Thorne chuckled under his breath. "And how do you suppose we do that? With the help of our pink fluffy unicorns?"
The commander didn't bother to answer. Instead, he simply turned around and looked at the map.
The door swung open without a usual knock. A panting young man with defined features stood in the doorway. The commander barely had time to raise his eyebrows in response to this rude intrusion before the young man spoke. "Commander Kobe, you will want to see this."
Kobe rushed to the door, that was being held open by the employee and followed him to his cubicle. Thorne and Cress soon followed.
A crowd had gathered around the portscreen of the young employee. They shifted on their feet and there was this obscure feeling in the air. No one wanted to leave, yet no one truly wanted to watch. The commander pushed people aside to make a path through the dense mass of people.
On the screen stood displayed a video feed of the same camp on Luna as the commander had just shown Thorne and Cress. Despite being zoomed in intensely, the image was surprisingly clear.
Two bulky mutated soldiers dragged a woman, her feet dragging over the ground and her shoes marking a line in the gravel. The men marched with forced movements. This was not of their free will.
The woman was most likely in her early thirties, but patches of blood covered most of her face. Her messy bush of dark brown hair made her look like she lived under a bridge. Her back was slightly crooked and her clothes were torn and tattered. Thorne couldn't tell whether the woman was human or lunar.
"Get me an audio" Kobe commanded
The employee from before tapped on the portscreen, but shook his head. "I'm sorry sir, but the audio signal is too weak."
Other people from the camp on Luna started to gather around the scene. A thaumaturge stood and gave some speech. If only Thorne could hear what they said, maybe he could make some sense out of this, find their motives.
An object was given to the woman. It was some sort of blade, a knife.
Oh god no. These were Levana's last sympathisers, and they had adopted her measures. Thorne, Cress and the rest of the room silently watched the scene with horror. The woman picked up the blade and looked at it for long breathtaking moment. Thorne didn't doubt that the woman's actions were being controlled by the thaumaturge, but it still pained him to relive the pain that this monster created. He himself had tried being under a Lunar's influence when he had been taken hostage and used as bait by Levana in their last battle in Levana's final moments.
Thorne looked back at the video feed. Next, without flinching, the woman raised the blade and stabbed herself in the heart. Her tattered clothes reddened, but she remained standing. The horror on her face made most people close their eyes or look away. The woman stabbed herself again and again until her lifeless corpse crumpled onto the soil.
This had been an execution.