Earth, Amazon Rainforest; {Imperial Year 2755}
Nairdesh Sudaan beat his way through the undergrowth. The trail was overgrown. He had been away far too long. The treatments still brought back unpleasant memories. Time would tell. As he stopped engrossed in introverted thought, the terminal in his pocket began beeping incessantly.
Taking it out and turning the device on he looked at the small screen. A man appeared on the screen, a familiar man, he had worked with Nairdesh in the ISA. "Good Morning, Kovar, what brings you to my little neck of the jungle?" The man chuckled briefly before getting to the point "I need to pay you a visit." The man looked stern. "We need you." Nairdesh was taken aback.
"Absolutely not, I quit, finished, over! I am no longer an agent."
"You are the only one for the mission."
"Nonsense, this is the Imperium, there is always a plan B, and C, and D..."
"Not this time, it's about New Rhodes."
"That colony is dead, abandoned!" snapped Nairdesh with irritation, before closing down his terminal and angrily removing the power cell.
He continued his journey back through the jungle. His home was up ahead totally hidden by the dense trees. Many years ago this jungle had been almost extinct. Tens of thousands of species were completely destroyed. Since that time, humans had matured enough to correct the destruction they had caused to their home world. A grid of sentient computers oversaw the re-growth of habitats such as this. Stratospheric force field projectors were able to protect humans in them from wild animals, and the animals from humans.
Nairdesh pushed his way through the jungle in frustration. He had just spent over a week recovering from his wounds both physical and mental. He was not going back. He reached the clearing that housed his home. It was a five story high construction designed to cause as little disturbance as possible to the local environment. The building was, by imperium standards not expansive. The landing pad outside was partly overgrown, he had been away far too long.
Keying in the code to open the door he found with some relief, that the house had kept itself clean as he had instructed it to. The calm, carefully modulated voices of the computer uttered a phrase that annoyed him greatly "There are fifty eight new messages on your public channel, and one new priority message on your personal channel."
His first instinct was to delete the new message, it was undoubtedly from Kovar. He had a feeling however that he would end up seeing the message anyway. He stepped into the two-story function room that led off the hall. "Computer"he said "privacy mode and display most recent private message." The windows became opaque, and the room was plunged into darkness. The holographic artwork in the centre of the room flicked out to be replaced with the image of the deputy director of his old ISA taskforce. The man was tall and lean, of Asian ancestry. He spoke.
"Mr Sudaan, I know that you have retired from the service. Yet we must ask for your skills once again. You no doubt remember, even after treatment, the invasion of the New Rhodes colony. Your heroism saved the lives of a great many people.
Unfortunately we failed to evacuate everyone. An AI was left behind. Normally this would be an unfortunate casualty. This time however the AI was a strategic planning AI. We cannot risk the possibility that the K'runn will succeed in extracting valuable data from him.
We cannot allow this to happen. We are mounting a mission to rescue the AI. If it fails, or the K'runn succeed in cracking his defences, then they will have a major intelligence advantage over us.
You were the last agent on New Rhodes during the Invasion, you are certainly the only one well enough to send on a mission. We need you, Mr Sudaan"
The image paused. Nairdesh slumped down into a chair. He knew the ISA's methods; they would not give up. He knew that he had to submit to their wishes. If the mission failed due to his absence he would never be able to live with himself. He understood the uncounted deaths that could come from the K'runn gaining an intelligence advantage. The prospect of returning to that organisation, if only for a short time was, distressing and uncomfortable. They had left him they had betrayed him, eventually they returned for him, but not before he had been taken captive...
He wrenched himself from the self-reflection; the needs of the many outweighed his own petty preferences. He would go and face his daemons, even if it cost him his life, especially if it cost him his life.
The next day Nairdesh was sitting in the back of an atmospheric shuttle on the way to the ISA headquarters. A young man attended. He could not have been more than twenty-two, probably still a trainee. The building loomed up ahead, imposing in its austere design. The cavernous hole in the sheer wall that housed the landing bays was about two thirds of the way up the side of the building.
The shuttle banked into the huge space. The control board crackled "You are cleared for landing in bay A-Forty Seven. Switch your controls to remote pilot now." The vehicle shuddered as the distant computer took control of it.
The shuttle landed gently on the polished smooth floor of the docking bay. A man dressed in a minimalist suit came though the door at the far end. He stood at the vehicle door, and greeted Nairdesh as he walked down the ramp. "Good morning sir, please follow me." The man turned, without waiting, and returned though the door in the far wall. Nairdesh followed hesitantly.
The room beyond was a large lobby of sorts. He noticed several standard concealed scanners. It was good to see that standards hadn't slipped recently. There was a staircase leading down to another level. They stood at the top step. Below was a veritable garden of sorts. A tall, dark haired woman was walking confidently trough it. She climbed the stairs towards them. When she arrived she shook his hand warmly. "Mr Sudaan, I am Alka Alzamora the new supervisor of section 12, Task force 2, of course."
"Obviously." He replied curtly, looking pointedly at the snake symbol on her shoulder. "The military wing."
"Quite, We don't have all that long. The 'False Profit' will be here to pick you up in about half an hour."
"And I take it 'everything will be explained en route'?" he replied sarcastically. Evidently his tone was lost on her, she replied "Quite, if you will follow please?"
Comments suggestions improvements wanted also a title would be nice
