Spider’s Web
Part 4
Moyra Kelly, her critical and essential equipment, her grandmother, and the local handlers all relocated to one of the newer safe houses. It was based in what was essentially a refugee camp, further up into the mountains to the south of Jefferson, and across the rivers. Being so close to the primary UN base, while having its benefits for potential espionage, seemed risky for other reasons. Friendly fire at this juncture could ruin much of Moyra’s logistics, and while she had some disaster and successorship planning in place…that was a less than optimal scenario.
Moyra quickly realized that “refugee camp” belied the construction and organization of the smaller town. The portion that she moved into was, by Freehold standards, somewhat slapdash built, but functional enough. Her grandmother settled into assisting the town’s leadership with resettling others fleeing Jefferson and her own Hamilton. Half mountain resort, half mining town, and a whole lot of boiling hatred for the UN, made for an interesting place to expand operations.
Moyra barely managed to ensure all of her equipment made the relocation without issue and that the provided encrypted hard lines were to her satisfaction before the next disaster struck. DalesOP provided a rundown of the actions that he and Damocles managed while she was out of contact for three days during the transition.
Skylight frantically advised the command team that Skywheel Three was going down, and that they had no contact with bridge staff. Some escape pod beacons were heard, and rescue ships were already en route.
Moyra relayed Skylight’s information to one of the sister stations for dispersal, along with Skylight’s belief it was caused by UN forces attempting to take over full operational control. From there, the story made it to the news despite the UN’s filtering. Between the devastation of the anchoring lines and the damage to the UN’s base “Unity,” the resulting disorganization actually assisted their cause. A rallying cry, the obviousness to other citizens that there were people fighting back, and less piecemeal than perhaps the UN was pretending…the team establishing new contacts with freelancers became rather busy. In turn, this left Moyra, Damocles, and DalesOP reviewing two-way applications nearly nonstop, on top of their other duties.
The UN forces dithered about taking complete control of a skywheel to use for their landing operations, but the information that Moyra pulled indicated they were more than a bit surprised at the aggressive defense. Two days later, Moyra saw the order come down to preserve the resources they had on hand, which meant that dedicating more personnel for a skywheel which “these crazy people” might take down immediately was a tactic the UN could ill afford at the moment.
Skylight was, temporarily, safe.
Damocles relayed that, while blaming the UN was useful, Naumann had reason to believe it was caused by Freehold personnel denying the asset to the UN. Skylight took small comfort from the idea her friends went down fighting.
In the background, Moyra felt the constant need to slowly spin down Hespera’s network without setting off Braknck too much. Bowler Hat paid handsomely for every UN bureaucrat’s name, and Moyra understood the life expectancy once a bureaucrat’s name appeared with a bid was often measured in days, if not segs. Whenever a handler got word that a contract was being fulfilled, the team worked to ensure that UN surveillance of the area and several others failed at the same time.
The income helped keep Braknck in line, but she suspected he was getting antsy. Every time the UN upped their bribery for information, he made noises that worried her. Main comm’s chatter remained primarily restricted to comments about what was heard on a sister station. He remained unaware that several of the team had relocated physically and anything else outside of Jenkins’s role in acquiring the information about the initial bureaucrat.
Between the group’s income streams, some of which were drying up just from normal ebb and flow, and her own personal income, she and her grandmother were doing well enough. The reactivated military contract provided other income, as well, permitting her to focus on the actual tasks at hand. She suspected the town council for the “resort” also had other responsibilities. As long as they didn’t conflict with hers, she didn’t care enough to expend precious energy figuring it out.