***Tirnanog, Thich Fortress City***
***Gunner***
Getting into Thich’s inner city was easier than expected. Simply being flown in as one of the scouts was the best idea I ever had. The only problem I had now was that the situation I found myself in was slightly different from what I expected to encounter. But it was nothing I couldn’t deal with.
After going through Ivona’s description of her life with the Thich, I had gotten the impression there would be so serious safety asures in place. Not only against foreign intrusion but also against Thich’s own citizenry. In fact, I was prepared to violently bust my way out of a military complex to go into hiding among a suppressed population.
Things weren’t quite so totalitarian.
It seed like all the safety checks I feared were aid purely at newly inducted exiles who had yet to be vetted. This academy Ivona described must be mainly ant for teaching and indoctrination, providing a double-door system before the newcors receive citizenship.
It was a vetting process which didn’t apply to the rest of society.
I humd and scratched my cheek while watching the street. Admittedly, the Thich as a whole were without doubt a militant and hierarchical society.
At a glance, it looked like any other city with people busily moving here and there. There were differences to Earth, like the predominantly linen clothes which were wide and flabby, similar to the other clans’ fashion preferences. From ti to ti I noticed so leather armour mixed in. Thich’s preferred colour was a sandy brown compared to, Aerie’s blueish grey, or Jeng’s leaf green which shed well with the forest they lived in.
It suddenly struck that most of the clan civilians I encountered so far seed to prefer colours which camouflaged well with the environnt they were living in. A thought I would have to keep in mind.
Nonetheless, the overall practical fashion sense among the clans was the sa – wide trousers and jackets which were easy to move around in. In most cases, they were simple clothes that could be easily discarded.
I couldn’t help but notice that while the overall style was similar for everyone, there were people with better and worse clothes. The stern expressions of those in less fancy outfits beca only obvious on a second look.
After watching their behaviour for a while, I also noticed people changing the side of the road when soone in military garb used the sa side as them. Clearly to avoid becoming the target of scrutiny for soone in a higher social position. In so cases, it even looked like the higher-ranked party expected this behaviour.
And then there were those who were off the worst, marked by iron collars around their necks. They usually followed soone who didn’t have a collar or took care of the wagons which ca down the road from ti to ti, drawn by so type of lizard.
nial labour in the form of slavery. Just as I had been warned.
The houses and the streets were made from concrete. The entire city was built like so madman had stacked building bricks on top of each other whenever more living space was needed. With each brick representing a container-like housing space. Or should I rather call it living space?
Just by looking at the effort put into building this, it was apparent that Thich City was the oldest colony in Tirnanog.
Surrounding the hive-like central structure was an impressive wall which would have no trouble repelling adult sahernas. Judging by what I had seen when flying in, it was at least a hundred tres in height. There was also a large structure of similar construction on the outside of the wall, presumable this academy of theirs.
In case the wall was breached, the citizens could easily seek shelter inside their insane hive city. Any pursuers would have no easy ti if they were forced to fight an angered population among the convoluted brick structure.
Above it all towered sothing akin to a dieval castle or palace, though there had been modern building considerations flown into the structure.
Any general tasked with assaulting this city would either have to pay a high price in lives or consider pounding it with artillery till none but dust remained. I wasn’t naive enough to think that there weren’t underground bunkers. Maybe a tunnel system too? Those were features I would add if I were in charge of designing things.
My eyes locked onto a pair of drunks who were hollering while they swayed into a side alley which disappeared inside the labyrinthian hive city. Nodding to myself, I leisurely followed them making sure not to look too eager.
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After landing, I had dodged out of the hangar which housed about two dozen of those stinky bats. It was a large structure built into the outer wall. Thankfully, my uniform and acquired rank allowed to leave unchallenged. anwhile, my fellow scouts were without doubt already questioning why ‘Raja’ had shirked his duties and ran off instead of reporting in like the others.
Oh, threatening to piss oneself always worked wonders when it ca to leave without permission.
I had to get rid of this incriminating uniform, urgently so.
While impersonating soone of high rank was sotis the best solution to get access to high-security places, it also required detailed knowledge of the organisational proceedings which ca with the job. Sothing I simply did not have – not yet at least. I nonetheless had the firm intention to acquire this knowledge at the next opportunity. The prisoners back at the fleet had already given a good idea of how to pretend to be soone of high rank, but I didn’t want to risk my neck on purely theoretical knowledge.
First, I needed to observe one of the ‘big bads’ in the field to copy their mannerisms.
So for the mont, it would be best to ditch my current uniform and disappear among the naless masses of low-ranking workers and service providers. What most people didn’t realize was that so of those unseen masses had access to places which were normally reserved for the highest of generals.
Whistling good-naturedly, I caught up to one of the wasted revellers just as he fumbled with the lock of a downtrodden door. The wood was scratched and withered, not giving the impression it could hold off the agrest of this world's monsters. The other reveller had continued down the alley once delivering his much more wasted companion to his ho. They looked like drinking buddies who destroyed the alcohol stores of a nearby pub. At least the generous sway in their steps told they couldn’t have gone far in their current state.
While watching the guy’s efforts of fumbling with his keys, I shifted my sensor suit to his living arrangents, sensing no other people inside.
Nodding, I took off my scout’s jacket and put it on backwards to hide the military insignia on it. anwhile, my facial features shifted subtly, making look more like a close relative of Raja’s than the man I impersonated himself. Which was another reason to ditch this identity. If questioned, I knew nothing of the man. Thankfully, the strong winds on the bat had discouraged my riding partner from holding a discussion which would have easily revealed the ruse. Just as anticipated.
Like I always said, the key to becoming a good spy was the ability to improvise and to switch identities as often as possible.
If soone gave a closer inspection now, they would question what I was doing with my clothes. But a glance from the main street would mark as an indistinct guy leaning against a wall, not a military scout who was clearly out of place.
My bat-rider’s clothes were still made out of leather, making stand out sowhat, but it wasn’t like there were no people in leather at all.
Thankfully, it was already getting dark and there were no street lights. Belatedly, I wondered what to do about being caught outside when the monsters ca, but the inner city didn’t look like it was especially protected against a monster breach. None of the doors looked like they could hold back a night terror.
Maybe the wall and the soldiers provided enough protection to be lax about safety? Or the local critters didn’t cause the sa level of trouble as in the other regions.
I gave it an hour, patiently waiting while watching whether the traffic on the nearby main street would decrease. If people suddenly started disappearing inside their houses or so bunker system, I wanted a heads-up about it.
In my opinion, an hour was a generous amount of ti to allow that drunkard to fall asleep.
There was always the danger of him having so mutation which allowed him to sense or recover quickly from his delirious state. But if he still could get drunk in the first place, there was little chance of it being the case. According to my research, most mutations to one’s tabolism made it either impossible to get drunk or they kept things the sa. The guy also hadn’t looked like he was partnered, so even less of a risk there.
After a quick glance up and down the alley, I crossed over to the door the man had disappeared in. All I could sense inside was one sleeping man. Standing right at the door, I could even hear him snoring without my enhanced senses.
A look through my X-ray vision told that the lock on the door was rudintary. Nothing like the stuff I was used to. A roughly engineered deadbolt with a normal handle having primary control over the locking chanism on the other side. Which ant picking the thing would be a waste of ti.
I pulled one of my universal keys out of the hidden skin pocket on my forearm, a wire with a loop at the end, which did a marvellous job of getting in between the doorfra and the door to open the lock from the other side. I only had to slip the loop onto the handle and pull.
Three seconds were all it took to have standing in a poor apartnt with the drunkard sleeping on a sofa. I wrinkled my nose at the sight and went straight for the lockers where I started my search for suitable clothes.
I moved quickly, but silently, so I wouldn’t wake the man who would provide the outfit for my next identity.
Ten minutes later, I was out the door and dressed as an average Thich citizen, with the nice donor of the clothes being none the wiser. He hadn’t woken up, which thankfully spared the trouble of doing sothing about him reporting a stranger stealing his clothes.
It would have been troubleso if I had to kill him to hide my traces. Or if he had reported so kind of robbery. Ideally, he wouldn’t even notice the missing clothes.
My uniform ended up set afla in one of the dirtier side streets and a newly minted mber of Thich society ended up strolling back onto the main street while I wondered which problem I should tangle next.
There had to be a recruitnt office sowhere. Authoritarian regis were notorious for keeping detailed records of their citizens. From there, it should be easy to find the first trace of Evanne.
If I found the ti, paying a visit to a weapon stockpile or so other highly flammable installation would be nice. Fire made going to places so much easier. I liked it when everyone was screaming while the dumb sheep lost their heads in a panicked evacuation attempt of normally strictly secured buildings while the spy from next door took his ti perusing so classified docunts.
Yeah, I should probably stick to the classics on a mission like this.
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