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Legend of Lunaria Captain
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 Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 4:40 pm
Setting:
Just when Van has nearly forgotten the past, General Goro calls the captain to action with a file she's been searching for for years.
NPC:
General Goro
Genbu of the North. Last but not least, Goro, who many think is simply a made up being to fill in the space, is really an entity of his own. Rarely, if ever, will he show his face and when he is seen, his entire face is obscured with a face mask and helmet. He is rather stoic but is loyal to his comrades, always providing back up whenever it is needed. He appears spontaneously when he feels like it and doesn't seem to mingle or hang out anywhere unlike the other generals (who really just seem like lazy slackers in comparison).
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:24 am
Van raised her hand to the ornate mahogany door, but didn’t knock. Instead, she glanced downward at the opened letter in her hand, her amethyst eyes a mixture of anxiety and disbelief. Why had Goro summoned her? She’d never met him before, not even when she’d been commissioned, let alone exchanged words with him. On occasion she would see him in passing when he visited the offices, but before she or anyone else could take a second look, he was gone—a true master in stealth. There was no reason for him to summon her, either; he was several ranks above her in the chain of command and any orders he might have had for her would have been directed through her supervisor.
Was she in trouble? It was possible. If her recent performance evaluation was any indication, Major Morimoto was displeased with her propensity to tread the line between legality and recklessness, even if special forces officers were more above the law than the average soldier. She didn’t like to respond to anyone, after all, but a meeting with the division general about it would be intimidating even to her.
And that was the other thing. The note hadn’t been laid on an official letterhead. It was a small scrap of paper, folded in half and sealed with wax, and Van would have lost it in her morning mail if she’d been any less careful. When she opened it, there was only a four word message written in a messy scrawl—“Come to the office.” Goro’s unmistakable stamp was printed in red, below the words.
Knowing that he was expecting her, she couldn’t afford to make him wait any longer, lest she provoke him. Despite being in the division for years, the woman realized now that she knew very little about the elusive commander. Van finally rapped on the door, a polite three times. “General. I’ve come as you instructed.”
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Legend of Lunaria Captain
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 3:17 am
The room was empty, save for a large wooden desk and chair, and a barren bookshelf. Goro didn’t like his correspondence to be lying around to tempt prying eyes, and he needed little by way of decoration. The man was a staunch believer in taking and using only what was needed, and it was this simple appearance that made him more mysterious than even the other generals. There was much more to the dark-haired man than met the eye, and his surroundings hinted nothing at what was going on under the helmet.
He wasn’t even here most of the time. It was only the accumulation of important mission briefings and debriefings that brought him away from the palace today, and one of them had just knocked on the door. He didn’t recognize the female voice, which meant that it could only be one person. “Come in.”
Her name was Tuyet Van, and she was a daughter of the Au clan, a long-standing military family aligned with the Legion. There were always several captains, colonels, generals Au walking around at any given moment, but anything and everything he’d ever heard about this one he’d read in her file. This made sense, of course, because in her line of work, she wasn’t supposed to be known.
Goro’s pale gold eyes bored into her skull when she walked in, their depths betraying nothing about him as he tried to detect fear or uncertainty in the woman. The general was pleased to find that she, too, was capable of returning such a stare. Withdrawing a thick file from the top drawer in his desk, he held it out to her, saying nothing. His appraisal of her was complete, and he nodded his helmeted head once to indicate that the documents were for her.
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 4:39 am
The captain obliged the simple order when she heard it through the door, turning the door handle to let herself in. Van took long strides towards the desk, keeping her eyes forward in an effort to look unflustered and confident. She didn’t flinch as the door clicked shut behind her; she was too busy trying to figure out what the general wanted with her. Even in the office, Goro was in full battle regalia, armor and mask and all. He didn’t even bother to take off his helmet inside. If she expected to find any truth in the man’s eyes, she found nothing but a stone wall.
Van took the file in her hands when it was offered her, feeling its heft and glancing at the cover before she decided to open it. So he had a mission for her. The document was several inches thick, suggesting months or even years of prior research and reconnaissance. Whatever it was, it was probably a long-term mission, one of the sort that Van had tried to abandon since she finished her last mission behind enemy lines as a fighter.
She was trying to formulate a way to decline the mission without invoking the man’s anger when she flipped the file open, and her brother’s face stared back at her.
Her heart began to race as the pieces came together in her mind. “This. This is...” Van raised wide eyes to the general, seeking an explanation. How could this operation have gone on under her nose for the past five years? It didn’t matter that the file had likely come from the Eastern Division. Special Reconnaissance knew everything across the Legion... or they were supposed to.
In mere seconds, her perception of her brother as a traitor had been subverted. Thanh Long was a spy. Not knowing whether to laugh or scream, Van shook her head and breathed an uneasy chuckle, looking back up at Goro. Her brother had been as good as dead to her. How could he expect her to turn around and change the way she saw him? To work alongside someone she’d so scorned for years?
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Legend of Lunaria Captain
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 3:08 am
Perhaps what Goro was anticipating the most was this woman’s initial reaction to the news. If her mission records were anything to judge by, Van was something of a hothead, someone who wanted to do things her way regardless of her instructions. Her supervisor had confirmed this in her recent performance report, and when Roa had warned him to make sure that no one from his division interfered with Thanh Long’s mission, he was referring to Van. Goro did know of the outrageous request she’d made to the other general those few years back—it was audacious, suggested an alarming independence... but it was why only she could take the mission now. They needed someone who could break a few rules.
She appeared to be too happy with the file, though, seeming relieved, as if a huge weight had been taken off her chest. While Goro could understand this particular emotion, he hadn’t called her here to give her good news. There were friends and family for that—and his relationship with this woman was neither.
“Don’t celebrate yet,” was the admonition, his deep voice rumbling from behind his mask. His gaze moved from the woman’s face to the document in her hands meaningfully, and there was another nearly imperceptible nod of the head as he indicated its importance.
Indeed, there was much more to the assignment at hand than just the first page—only a fool would take a glance at the cover and move on, and Goro was fairly certain that this woman was no such thing. He had hoped that he wouldn’t have to speak much to instruct her explicitly, because there was one particular general who didn’t know about this meeting. Above everything else, Roa was not to find out.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 4:15 am
Goro had misinterpreted her expression—it was a bit too soon to label her happy about what she’d just learned. Van was currently feeling a mixture of emotions, but she was reluctant to admit that she felt relief by it, and was even more embarrassed that the general had caught it. The smile disappeared from her face, and she bent her head over the papers, flipping quickly through the pages. After a few seconds, it became clear that the sheer volume of the file was too much for her to stand and read, so she chanced the risk of stepping forward and placing the documents on the general’s desk.
“If I may,” she muttered, looking up at him once before returning her attention to the file. It was clear that Goro wanted her to read his instructions to her rather than verbally brief her about what she was to do.
There were tens of reports, spanning from Thanh Long’s promotion to captain to more recent months. Van skimmed the cover sheets and summaries for all of them, almost too quickly to process the information, for she didn’t want to waste the general’s time. She suspected that her own mission briefing would be at the end of the document, and what Goro expected her to do would become apparent.
But when she reached the end, there was nothing. Van flipped the last report over, expecting to find another scribbled note or a hidden manuscript, but the last thing in the file was a report made in her brother’s handwriting, from eight months ago.
Something wasn’t right, and as the captain slowly came to realize this, she found herself wishing for the brief flash of happiness she’d had earlier when she’d learned that Thanh Long wasn’t a traitor after all. Van would much rather welcome that small ray of sunshine to the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach now. Still, she had to be sure, though her voice suggested that she knew the truth even as she asked with a dim sort of hope, “Where is the rest?”
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Legend of Lunaria Captain
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 2:31 am
Goro resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose at the woman’s question. Instead, his fingers twitched slightly, curling under and into a fist which he then hid behind his back. By any other accounts, the clasping of his hands together seemed like an ordinary movement, not one that was provoked by stress or uneasiness. He could see the truth dawning on her, spreading across her eyes as she flipped through the document.
“That is the last we’ve heard,” he said, likely confirming whatever fears the woman standing in front of him had. The mission had been stamped as inactive when the captain in question, Thanh Long, had failed to communicate with them for two, four, six months in a row. It was probable that he had been discovered, or less likely, had become a turncoat. There had been no reports back about his survival from the other agents behind enemy lines—he was either dead, or imprisoned, or the Goddess had taken him. For once, the Legion was blind.
It hadn’t seemed to bother Roa that one of their best had disappeared. The other general was quick to mark the man as dead, and even quicker to begin to find and train a replacement. Goro, however, knew that that kind of desertion wouldn’t be received well by the military families if and when they caught wind of what happened, no matter the justification they had. If the many clans among the Legion turned against them, it would mean trouble for all.
It was hard to admit that they didn’t know anything. This was why they were so secretive—the things they did not know were much more dangerous. Their chances of a successful rescue operation here were miniscule. There was no contact, no intelligence, and he could not send military support. It was the blackest of black operations. “Captain.” He finally addressed her. “This rescue is a ghost operation.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 3:14 am
For the first time during their meeting, Van was the one to have nothing to say. Her heart had sank once Goro confirmed that he had nothing beyond the last report in the folder. Why had he summoned her, then? To tell her to stop looking, after Thanh Long had probably died months ago? She knew the Nobles weren’t as brutal as the Legion could be, but eight months without contact was a damning sign if anything was. Van withdrew her hands from the papers, about to close the door on her brother once and for all, but Goro’s voice stopped her.
It wasn’t the rescue mission that shocked her. It was the fact that it was a ghost protocol. These black operations were fabled, stories the special reconnaissance agents liked to tell each other in order to instill a false hope of promotion and potential glory in the division. They were unofficial—off the books—and usually highly illegal. The prospect of it was exciting for anyone who hadn’t seen action since entering the intelligence department, but what they couldn’t know was that these missions were also extremely dangerous, if not suicide missions.
Van swallowed at the realization, nodding once. Beyond this briefing, she’d have no further contact with Goro. She had nothing more than the file he’d given her as information, a trail that had gone cold months ago. And the only fighters she could recruit to help her were ones she trusted and ones who would agree to accompany her—a dwindling few. She hadn’t yet processed the implications of the generals being willing to sacrifice her to take back her brother, but she did understand that if she had any questions, she was to ask them now.
The only one she could think of, the only one that seemed important, was this. “Does General Shingo know?”
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Legend of Lunaria Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:42 am
If Goro was surprised at the question, he didn’t show it. He had been expecting her to ask whether any of her family knew of the mission she was supposed to undertake now. From there it wouldn’t have been a stretch for her to ask whether anyone else had known of her brother’s mission, either, and he had been prepared to tell her that only the generals had known about that. But she didn’t ask.
Instead she’d inquired about Roa, which meant she was keen enough to suspect that there was more to hide than just the ghost operation. Or perhaps this suspicion was simply a direct consequence of being denied by the Seiryuu years before. Either way, the truth was that Goro had acted on his own, and this assignment—if she agreed to take it—was between Van and himself alone. General Shingo never would have approved, for these sorts of operations were distinctly separate from the jurisdiction of the intelligence department. They were mutually exclusive entities, and recruitment into the generals’ inner circles through these operations signified the ultimate trust.
Roa trusted Thanh Long. He did not trust Van, even with her nearly immaculate record. Van was a Noble sympathizer, he’d said. She hesitated to kill the longer she stayed in Noble territory. She refused to kill the Noble tenryujin she lived with. She could be seen with a certain blue-haired Noble from time to time, chatting with him as if they were old friends. And if she turned coat, she could easily become one of the most dangerous sources of intelligence for the Nobles.
Still, the fact that she’d relentlessly pursued her brother for his ‘betrayal’ should have proved her loyalty. This alone had quelled Goro’s doubts, and it made her perfect for the assignment. “This meeting never occurred, Captain. I trust your integrity.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:36 pm
In the next moment, any outward indication of Van’s curiosity, her dismay, and her fear receded behind the impassive expression she wore now. The sudden emotional change could have been alarming to the average Lunarian, but to those in her work it was the typical, conditioned response of a soldier who had been given an assignment. In her world, at least now, there was only the mission and the drive to complete it.
Van had no idea of the real reasons Roa had denied her earlier, even if she was aware that there were some among them who didn’t trust her. Goro hadn’t given her a direct answer; his purposeful vagueness led her to believe that no, the other general hadn’t been made aware of this operation, and no—no one else could know, except for those few she decided to take along with her. Part of her wondered why it was necessary to maintain confidentiality even to the other generals, but conversely, perhaps it wasn’t necessary to involve them. Van and her brother were simply two Legionnaires among many.
His next sentence jolted her out of her thoughts, and she stood straighter, if that was possible with her already standing at attention. He trusted her, and that was what made everything different—and more fearsome. Where she had always been ordered to follow mission protocol by every last rule, Goro was giving her freedom. Van could go about this however she wanted—by herself, or with her own private Legion.
She could even decline the operation. She could burn the files, and pretend she had never seen them. It would be to the same effect as if they’d kept the mission in the Eastern Division. Van wasn’t sure if the general had planned for this, in permitting her this liberty. It was a challenge to her skill, one that she would be hard-pressed to ignore. Perhaps those ochre eyes saw more than she realized.
The captain collected the documents from the desk, closing the folder and tucking them neatly under one arm. She bowed, her head barely lowering in the slight movement as the mixture of hesitation and pensiveness held her back. “I understand.” With that, Van left the room.
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