MIGHT OF THE EMPIRE

Morale was at a low ebb after the barge debacle, and the latest SoCC meeting had done nothing to assuage this. Furthermore, Beaver had now been spotted twice engaging in suspicious behaviour in the vicinity of his place of occupation. It was only a matter of time before someone recognised him, and so he would need new accommodations away from the docks.

In the leadup to the party Pigeon had scouted the military district as best she could with her familiar, but her observations were limited to assessing the overall layout. There was little going on in terms of drills and training, with the implication that everything of interest was happening inside. The one remaining ray of hope was that John Amhurst's welcome party would expose something of interest.

Firefly's performance was once again well received. In addition to being effective in its own right, it had the key advantages of audiences eager for any sort of distraction and the absence of any competing acts. In addition to the usual suspects now familiar from previous outings, Amhurst himself was also in attendance. Taller and paler than average but not startlingly so, Amhurst's real distinction was in being the most competent socialiser among the generals so far. When Firefly approached him, he was engaged in cordial conversation with Martin and making arrangements for his accommodation.

After introducing herself to Amhurst, Firefly wended her way back across the floor to Serebrikov and Neumann. They acknowledged Firefly politely, and when pressed on their general's location maintained that Tanya was too busy dealing with a superabundance of paperwork to skive off at parties.

As the night wore on, the party atmosphere died down and guests started filtering out. As soon as Amhurst stepped outside, Beaver decamped from his sniping position across the river and began to shadow him. Despite there being no tangible signs of a tail, Amhurst paused, sensing something amiss. Hiding in shadows was his specialisation after all. Rather than take an unnecessary risk, Beaver stayed back and allowed Amhurst to proceed on alone.

At the same time, Pigeon's familiar was following Serebrikov and Neumann back to the military district. By now Amhurst's army's camp was well and truly established, and had been strategically positioned to block in the Penitent Legion. Its members were now physically obstructed from entering or leaving except through the main checkpoint. Serebrikov made her way through the camp and entered a large tent, where she then remained for a prolonged period of time.

Back at the party venue, Firefly was still lingering long after most of the guests had left, plying the staff for rumours. People were grateful for Tanya keeping the Penitent Legion in check, and public consensus was that the military was broadly competent and trustworthy. Cecil had been the odd man out, but now that he was dead and Tanya had in practical terms taken over his command, even the Legion was attracting little ire. Firefly did her best to sow the seeds of doubt with regards to Tanya's integrity, but it was an uphill battle.

Pigeon was still out spying on Serebrikov's tent. Once it became probable that Serebrikov had gone into the tent to sleep, Pigeon slunk away into the night to catch a few hours of sleep herself. There wasn't an opportunity for much more if she wanted to keep track of Serebrikov.

Not long after Pigeon had resumed her vigil, three people emerged from the tent and split off: Serebrikov, Neumann, and a stout young man Pigeon hadn't seen before. Pigeon first fixed her attention on Serebrikov only for her target to walk directly into a different tent. She then shifted her priorities to follow up on the unfamiliar man from earlier, but he had already mingled into the sea of activity perfusing the camp.

The machinations within Serebrikov's second tent made for a poor spectator sport. On one occasion someone brought in food, but otherwise there was nothing happening visible to an outside observer.

Firefly's attempts to sway the crowd at the latest SoCC meeting were similarly at an impasse. Her own propositions were receiving little support, but it was unclear where the opposing narrative was coming from. For the most part the attendees were ambivalent and without strong agendas of their own.

Once freed from the responsibilities of their respective cover identities, the team came together that evening to hatch a new plan. The spy house that Beaver and Pigeon had failed to break into some time earlier was still active, and they didn't even know whose side these people were on. Given that Pigeon's telepathic inquiries had revealed that the man and the woman who spent the most time there didn't interact and didn't seem to have any strong opinions on one another, this raised the question of whether one would notice a plausible substitution of the other.

The following day, Firefly assembled a new disguise and took up position near the post office. The woman from the spy house arrived on schedule. While she waited for her mail, Firefly accosted her, ostensibly fawning over a stylish accessory. Firefly's contagious gregariousness easily overcame the other woman's natural propensity to avoid chatty strangers, and the two maintained a pleasant conversation. What the other woman didn't notice was Firefly astutely memorising her every move and mannerism.

With the first part of the plan dealt with, Firefly then took on the task of acquiring similar clothes. After that, she transitioned seemlessly into Carol's persona, because now it was time for a SoCC meeting. This time, Pigeon was in the crowd, quietly observing the audience and telepathically gauging their reactions. All this proved ineffective however when it became clear that Carol had run out of material. After subjecting those present to a confused and rambling tirade, she then realised that she had no way to tie this back to the point she was originally making. The crowd was left too baffled to form a strong opinion with any depth to it, and there was still no indication as to where the opposing narrative was coming from. The obvious answer was that it was coming from Tanya Daguerrochev, but this didn't explain how she was disseminating it.

The next day Firefly donned yet another disguise with the intent of hiring a local teen to run down the spy woman on their bike. This would delay her sufficiently for Firefly to get in and get out before the switch was discovered. A suitably bloodthirsty and incurious youth was found, cash was handed over, and Firefly prepared for infiltration.

Meanwhile, Pigeon and Beaver were making their own preparations. The objective was to get a ladder into the spy house back garden again, but this time they had to do so in broad daylight. Given that it was impossible to avoid being seen, they settled for not being noticed. Striding across the street like they had every right to be there, nobody gave them a second glance.

After waiting a suitable amount of time after the woman had left for the post office, Firefly walked up to the front door and knocked. The man inside let her in without paying much attention, then sat down in the living room where he reassumed his post watching the street through the window. He held a newpaper as if reading it, but closer inspection of his mannerisms indicated it was likely merely a prop meant to obfuscate attempts to eavesdrop. All signs indicated that he had bought the ruse entirely.

Once she was confident that her disguise was working, Firefly made her way to the upstairs bedroom. After calling out an excuse about 'getting some air', she pushed open the squeaky window. Having been waiting below, Pigeon and Beaver clambered up the ladder and swiftly in through the window. Now that they were all inside, the team swarmed over the upstairs bedroom, rifling through every draw and inspecting every crevice for evidence.

Everything of interest was quite well hidden, and it took a while to find any hidden messages. Nonetheless they did find a false bottom in one of the draws, some scraps of notes, and some totally unsuspicious envelopes. None of the envelopes were addressed to this location and all of the messages were in code.

Taking the originals with them would arouse suspicion almost immediately and time was limited before the real lady of the house returned, so the team began hastily transcribing as much as possible. When they had pushed their luck as far as they felt they could, Pigeon and Beaver slipped back out through the window with the transcriptions. Firefly meanwhile left through the front door, deflecting with another excuse as she did so.

Success?

After the team's own initial attempts at code-cracking failed to produce results, Beaver began radioing the codes letter by letter to home base. While that was happening, Firefly decided to see if a human could succeed where a bird had failed and gather more intel on the military district. With her old stolen Penitent Legion uniform and the forged documents she had prepared earlier with Pigeon's help, she tried her luck with the main checkpoint.

When she attempted to pass through, Firefly's forged papers failed to hold up to careful inspection. She retaliated with the classic tactic of blaming someone else. That the Pentitent Legion had screwed up its own paperwork was treated as utterly plausible, and the checkpoint guard directed her to a waiting room where eventually someone would prepare some valid documentation for her. After humouring the bureaucracy and following through with the process, Firefly's legionnaire persona was able to get some valid papers for entering the military district.

Searching around inside the military district did not reveal much of interest at first. Quizzing low-ranking soldiers about the general vibe produced little results - the Legion camp was still here and it was not on fire. The rank and file didn't have specifics and drawing the attention of anyone with higher rank would be too suspicious. Searching for an ammo depot did not yield results, but remarkably searching for Tanya did. Word was her tent was receiving a lot of traffic, and on that basic Firefly was able to confirm where it was. Having obtained this coveted information, Firefly retreated, drawing little attention as she left back through the checkpoint to the relative safety of the city.

As the date of the fourth general's arrival approached, the team began to plan out their final assault. The assassination of the generals would have to be close to simultaneous. Tanya in particular was liable to simply disappear at the first sign of trouble. Once that was done, the plan for the fifth general was to intercept them before they reached town and ideally before they had any idea what was happening. It was a plan with only a single flaw; it relied on them winning a race against the most alacritous phenomenon known to man: bad news.