The district they would meet was quiet. It was all pre-arranged. The handler told him where to go and at what time to be there. He had scoped out the area beforehand too, of course. There were two cafés opposite of one another. He found it to be quite a waste of resources. Why would there be two cafés so close to each other? Wouldn't they take the customers of one another? Turns out one of them was just a front for various delegates and spies to meet. There were cameras all over the place and it was a sort of neutral zone, where they could meet with one another without citizens potentially ruining anything. Naturally, it worked as a café as well. But the staff were government employees. Most citizens preferred the other café as the workers there were told to be rude and it worked. It had one of the lowest ratings of any café in the entire district.
Further down the road was a hardware store, a toy store, two convenience stores - again what a waste and this time not one of them was a front - a charging station, and the connection to the metro and other public transport. It went up to thirty floors and there were various apartments on higher levels. They were interconnected with little bridges in between the floors. The top floor had an open park area, with some plants so that people could imitate the environment that they came from. Every fifth floor had a bridge to another building, but not all of them were interconnected. The hyper lanes were a lot higher up, so no one had to worry about traffic. There were two alleys that would go to another block, which he had inspected. They were clean. A cleaning robot had got stuck there the last week and due to it's repairs, the alley was a little dirty and a homeless Oolog had made himself comfortable there.
This would be his third assignment. Jolof Flistrait was still quite green behind his feather, but eager to make an impression. The task was to discredit the Ubaric Regime in the eyes of the Kenjodan Empire. The Kenjodan had become vassalized many centuries ago, but after the two galactic wars their influence was waning and voices within the Kenjodan realm were raising that they should break their shackles and fight against their Ubaric overlords. This is where Jolof came in. He arrived at the café and sat down in the booth he was supposed to sit in. He ordered a cup of Jav and waited. The handler came in exactly on time, not a second later. He slid into the booth with Jolof and had a cup of tea placed at his table without question.
"Flistrait, glad to see you as discussed. These are your orders and I need you to memorize everything I say. Am I speaking too fast for you?" The contact was a Kenjodan, like him. Jolof sipped his Jav "No, that's fine. Continue." The contact spewed forth a waterfall of information as he sipped his tea from time to time:
"Great. You are taking an express shuttle to Tybby II, a planet bordering the Ubaric Regime. There you will be posing as the now deceased ambassador Kael Orath. Kael Orath is replacing a diplomat working with the Ubaric Regime who disappeared a few months ago. We did that. You are the replacement and will be engaging with high level Ubaric contacts. You will be feeding them the information we give you in a convincing manner. If you fail, we will deny your existence. You will receive further instructions on Tybby II. The dossier will be handed to you in the shuttle. Memorize everything in the dossier. Once you leave the shuttle leave everything behind in the shuttle, it will be destroyed after it leaves. You will receive everything you need for living once on Tybby. Any questions?"
"Kael Orath. Dossier. Tybby II. Sounds clear to me, sir." The handler gave a nod of approval, had a sip of the tea, got up and left the café. Jolof stared at the two drinks in front of him and slowly drank his Jav.
* * *
Fourteen months later and Jolof is already deeply entranched in Ubaric-Kenjodan politics. He had worked himself up the ranks and was regularly meeting with top officials of both the Kenjodan and the Ubaric. Slowly, but steadily, he was feeding the Kenjodan bogus information from the Ubaric Regime and their plans. Alleged talks with the Zelvan Interstellar State. Fleet movements away from the border with the Oolog Ordained Order, thus weakening their defenses and inviting an invasion from the Empyreal Communion. In the last galactic war the Kenjodan had lost a vital system, Yillion, which had an Arc Furnace that was supporting the Kenjodan economy and cut off Uranna Colony from the rest of the Empire. His coup d' grace was about to come: a fake whistleblower that would release very convincing, very real looking documents that described a pact between the Oolog Ordained Order and the Ubaric Regime to split the Kenjodan Empire in half. Each would get half of the systems and integrate the Kenjodan into their own empire.
Jolof was driving the whistleblower to the palace of the sector governor, Abil, on the day of the revelations. He felt it was too important to leave to a driver. On top of that he wasb eing stalked by a counter-intelligence officer from the Ubaric for at least a month in a half.
"Get in," Jolof barked to the whislteblower Gitu, daughter of Siga. She was nervous and her ears were back, a sign of nervousness and agitation. She rushed into the hovercar as the rain began to pour down. Tybby is a tropical world and it was rain season.
"I can't believe this. My ass is out here, man! We need to get this to the-" she looked back in a panic as Jolof started the hovercar and sped off. "Did you see that?" Gitu asked. Jolof adjusted his rear view camera. A car was behind them and he felt he recognized it.
"Hmm.. fuck." He muttered to himself as he headed up towards the intercity lane. They were in a suburb about twenty minutes from the governor's mansion. A noble of house Utin, governor Abil has been ruling the forge world of Tybby II for many decades. Quick witted and sharp, she has navigated the treacherous world of nobility within the Kenjodan Empire efficiently. She was already paid off well in advance by a lobby group to accept whatever information was to come to her in the 'near future' as gospel and disseminate it into higher Kenjodan circles. A notorious embezzler it was very, very easy to get her on the 'right' side. Now they just had to make it look right.
"Hold on, we will take the express way." Jolof sped further upward and they headed onto the express lane. They were only fourteen minutes away from the Abil's luxurious multi-tiered mansion, but they couldn't raise suspicions of the local police.
"Fuck. This is how I die. I just wanted to get back at all these fuckers, man. They took everything from my family. They have this coming to the- AH!" Gitu screamed. Jolof sped up and turned off the limiter. He began to pass other hovercars quickly. THey sped by at high speed and the hovercar made sounds neither of them had heard before.
"Warning. High speed. Warning. High speed." A monotone voice repeated over and over again in Kenjo speak. "What the fuck Vrax!" Gitu shouted at Jolof with his pseudonym. He had to make it to the governor's. The detective was right on his tail and now had her siren on. Cars around them scattered or slowed down, but Jolof went faster. The lights on the lane borders began to flash and warnings popped up. "STOP!" said one billbaord that had adapted immediately to the situation once the police sirens were on. The lights flashed bright red in high intervals in the rear view camera.
"Oh no. Oh no oh no. By the emperor, oh no. What are you DOING OH!!" Jolof swerved down towards the buildings. He went off the lane. An extremely dangerous maneuver. The detective followed suit. He swerved in between delivery drones and other hovercars. He took a longer route past a billboard and swerved back around it. The detective sped right past them, he turned back to the right and banked hard, Gitu held on to whatever she could as she temporarily floated upward on certain maneuvers.
"You madman! I will die! I will die!" She shouted but Jolof remained focused. The sweat from his ears and paws increased, his heart was racing. He prayed that a random transport truck would not show up out of nowhere. He hurried back on the express lane and shifted the hovercar back into place. The other cars barely reacted as he shot towards the mansion. Soon the mansion appeared in the distance. Surrounded by lush greenery, and immaculate gardening, he continued until he reached the security checkpoint. He slowed down of course, as to not set off the guards, but they seemed on edge already. One of them raised it's arms, another aimed his rifle at them.
"Halt! What is your business?!" The guard with the raised arm shouted. Jolof lowered his window and nodded. "The governor knows what this is about. Tell her this is 'Pheonix'." He was sweating like crazy but kept his hands on the wheel. Gitu sat with the documents embraced tightly to her chest as she panted. "Never again. I am going to be far away, soon. Far, far away."
The security guard wandered off to the booth nearby, then the gate opened and they drove in. It was done, they were safe. Just as they entered not one, not two, but seven police cars arrived at the mansion's compound. The guards raised their guns and shouts were exchanged as they approached the governor's mansion. The governor was already waiting at the top of the opulent, magnificently white, stairs. They did it.
* * *
Once the documents were released, the relationship between the Ubaric and Kenjodan suffered and the Ubaric Regime scrambled to mitigate the damage done. But the fallout was there and impacted the Ubaric-Kenjodan relations. All in all the operation was a success but the impact was negligible. Relations soured but the main parties involve were soon replaced. Various Ubaric diplomats and workers involved were court martialled and sentenced to hard labour or executed.
Many in the Kenjodan Empire that were implicated got away due to their noble ties, or simple bribery. The Ubaric shadow council negotiated directly with the Kenjodan Emperor to ensure things would go back to normal soon, and the Oolog could not take advantage of the situation.
The situation would remain tense, however, over the decades as the cold war would remain frosty and this was just one of many, many events in the spy vs. spy games of the two federations.
