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Tarrick looked at the plaque above the throne. It was a gilded rectangle about a foot wide and eight inches tall. Stamped in the surface was a quotation. Tarrick leaned closer, and read aloud, "None can rule the Kingdom of the Free."
"Hm." He pulled out a small, grey plastic box from his black satchel. He selected a light screwdriver and carefully unfastened the mahogany-mounted plaque. He looked around momentarily, and slid it into the fireplace.
He then settled into the throne. What to do first?
He paged his secretary. "I'd like a list of the most senior staff who resigned."
Immediately, a report slid through the fax machine on his desk. Tarrick gently sliced it off and read it. "Hm. Status Aran, Chief Royal Aide; Benila Valens, Foreign Secretary; Commander-General Michael Hack, Minister for Defence; Lieutenant-Colonel Smith Cockroft, head of the Falcanian Legislative Intelligence Executive; seventy-six minor ministers and officials. All whereabouts currently unknown."
Tarrick calmly scratched a colossal welt diagonally across the old King's desk, shredded the report and threw the fragments into the fire. The loyalists to the old King. They'd follow him to the grave.
Tarrick paged his secretary again. "Have our new minister for transport ground all Jay Starlings, pending a fleetwide recall. We don't want another accident, do we?" |
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Sky Safety First!
Lord Protector Tarrick today made the first decision of his much-vaunted protectorship of Falcania, in revoking the Airworthiness Certificates of the Jay Starling supersonic transport, pending a design review. We barely need remind our readers of the horrific accident that befell the old King, due to a design flaw that top engineers are blaming the design team at Jay Industries. The Daily Icarus, thanks to its new status as the official, Protector-endorsed newspaper of Falcania, secured an exclusive interview with professor of engineering at Featbridge Academy of Technical Design.
"The problem lay in the afterburner valves," reported Professor John Cupitt, a member of Lord Tarrick's inquiry team. "To achieve takeoff speed, Starling needs to taxi under afterburners, which inject fuel into the exhaust, which ignites, providing much more thrust. The injector valves of Starling, we have discovered, are occasionally prone to malfunctioning, sucking the burning fuel back into the tank. When this happens, it is very common for the fuel tank simply to explode.
"As such, our team's findings are sufficient to revoke Starling's Airworthiness Certificate, grounding all operators. It is an inconvenience that Starling is the exclusive vessel used by all Falcanian airlines, but this is a necessary action to prevent more incidents."
"Frankly we're lucky this is the first accident," he later added.
Jay Industries CEO Benjamin Valens, brother of disgraced former Foreign Secretary Benila Valens, is expected to contend the ruling of the inquiry later this month. |
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Members of the Bazalonian Security and Intelligence Service (BSIS) had in their hands a copy of the Daily Icarus, they had access to essentially all the newspapers in the entire region. And this one caused a bit of a stir.
"This reaks of propoganda... I mean the new 'Protector-approved' status." One of the agents in this group spoke.
"It's like Jhanna under Viannor, control the media, control the masses."
"This is an ill omen... Could the incident have been ... on purpose."
"You mean that Tarrick assasinated King Falcon?"
"Perhaps, well, either case. By grounding the airlines in the entire nation he's shutting down transport. Which means if we are going to do anything, it's going to be have to be done old style."
"So, what are you planning of..."
"What we are going to do is get the plans of Jay Starling and get the design evaluated by an engineer."
"But which engineer has the necessary security clearance?"
"I know one, but the problem is how to get the plans?" |
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Eating A Bazalope Burger |
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Benjamin Valens stepped out of his limo. It had been a whitewash, really. Half of his corporate lawyers hadn't turned up, and neither had Jory Georgo, the technical consultant, who was to demonstrate the falsehood of the plans. Meanwhile, Tarrick's lawyers provided expensively-produced diagrams and animations to illustrate to all and sundry that after moderate-to-excessive use, the valves in the afterburner injectors were prone to heat damage, allowing the fuel suckback which killed the old King. Valens' appeal was overturned and Jay Industries was forced to pay ŧ330,000 in costs.
It was late in the night that he heard gunfire in his hallway. Before he knew it, a bag was pulled over his head and he was dragged out of his bed, bare feet scrambling on his plush carpet. "They've got him! Open fire!" He was dragged behind an outcrop, his orange silk pyjamas pressed against the wall as his captor returned fire. Then he was dragged into a side-room and the bag was removed from his head. It was a low room, a pantry or something, and surprisingly the man standing above him wasn't wearing a special forces jumpsuit, nor a FLIE combat suit, but merely black clothes.
"Special forces are just outside the door," panted the man who'd dragged him in, dressed similarly in black cargo pants and a grey shirt. "I took two of them down. We have to get him out of here."
"Right you are," replied the man standing over Ben. "Sorry about this, sir. Nighty night." He slipped a hypodermic needle into Ben's neck, and he was out cold. |
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Falcania |
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Winging It Since 2004 |
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BazAir & Bazalonian Government Joint Press Release
With the grounding of all the Jay Starling aircraft in Falcania the Bazalonian government has proposed a solution to the problems facing the Falcanian Airline industry. The proposal suggests that the Falcanian government temporarily grant "Airworthyness Certificates" to the AirBaz craft used by BazAir with a strong safety record, time tested and constant safety audits of maintenaince procedures.
Should the Falcanian government award these "Airworthyness Certificates" BazAir will be willing to lease excess to need aircraft to Falcanian operators at discounted rates. The Bazalonian government states that as an ally of the Kingdom it has a duty to do what it can to aid the Falcanian government and for the Falcanian citizens who are suffering under the grounding of the entire airline industry.
(Of course this isn't what looked like, just a summary of the Press Release)
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BSIS Agents Analysed the Starling Trial
"Valens is obviously thrown, it seems that he was thrown by the lawyers."
"Where's Jory Georgo? The technical consultant... He should of been there but wasn't."
"Well, perhaps we might be able get a hold of his documents, but how?"
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Tarrick yawned and sat down at the desk. There was a neat plastic desk tidy in one corner, with an array of identical pens arranged by level of ink remaining, a small calculator, a telephone, a ruler, and an empty in/out tray. A pad of writing-paper was headed up with the newly-wrought Protectorate Crest. Tarrick picked up the ruler and measured the distance between his calculator and his phone, nudging the phone backwards slightly. He then pulled a small try-square from his bag and aligned the calculator with the side of the desk, at a perfect 90-degree angle.
He sighed, apparently satisfied, and drew one claw roughly over the surface of the desk, parallel to the scratch he had made earlier. The mahogany surface, varnished wood from the grove surrounding the Tomb of Kings, peeled away in a great curl under the attention of Tarrick's claw.
There came a knocking at his door. "Come," he said. The huge door nervously opened. "What do you have for me today, Clara?"
Clara was Tarrick's aide. She had been doing an internship under Status Aran before the accident, but with his going into hiding, she had been given the job of chief aide to the Protector and, truth be told, she wasn't entirely ready.
"Good morning, sire-" She stopped herself.
Tarrick froze. "I am sorry, Clara?" he said in a quiet voice, devoid of expression.
"Sir," Clara whispered. "That's what I meant to say. Sir."
"Hm." Tarrick stood up, and turned around to face the window. "Please just put down the paperwork on the desk."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Please just put down the paperwork on the desk," Tarrick repeated.
Clara noticed the scratches on the desk, and paused for a moment.
"Please just put down the paperwork on the desk," Tarrick intoned a third time. Clara put the bundle of paper in the in-tray and left cautiously.
Tarrick paused, motionless, then sat down again. He took the paper, and neatened the edges, then began to read, resting one hand's claws on the tabletop. The first item was a staff report. There had been difficulties replacing the 80 members of the civil service who had resigned and gone into hiding.
The next was a message from the Bazalonian government, who had offered their own aircraft to help Falcania's air travel infrastructure. He took the report, and put it in an envelope. On the front he wrote "FAO: Ministry of Transport. If unopened, return to Protectorate Aide." On the back he wrote "Do not open." He then put the envelope in his out-tray.
The next report came with a FLIE letterhead. It was a carbon copy of the debriefing from the mission to pacify Benjamin Valens. Of the four men sent to assassinate Valens, two had been killed by unknown assailants. The adversaries had captured Valens and escaped. There were no leads.
Tarrick's face remained passive, but his claws ground deeper into the scarred desktop. |
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Falcania |
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Winging It Since 2004 |
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Ben Valens awoke in a smallish bedroom. A figure beside him lay down her book. "Oh, you're awake." It was a familiar voice. Benila - his sister - leaned over him. Benjamin's panic showed in his voice. "Where is this? Where am I?"
"Just relax," replied Benila, walking to the door. "Status, Hack and Smith are on their way."
"You..." Benjamin paused. "Status Aran? Michael Hack?" He cast his mind briefly back to the frontpage of last week's Icarus - the government officials who had gone into hiding.
"Where is this, Benni?" he asked again. "You're hiding out, aren't you?"
"Always with the obvious questions, Benji," she replied. "They're here now." She unlocked the door and let them inside.
Benjamin immediately recognised the first two. Status Aran, the King's Chief Royal Aide, with his slight build and tawny plumage; and Commander-General Michael Hack, the red-feathered Minister for Defence and Chief of Defence Staff. He did not recognise the third man, who looked... like nothing. He was not especially short, nor thin, but his dull grey plumage and hunched stance just melted him away. If you looked at something else you could forget you'd ever seen him.
Benila interrupted his thoughts. "You know Status and Hack. This is Lieutenant-Colonel Smith Cockroft, Chief of FLIE."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Valens," Cockroft shook Benjamin's hand and faded back.
"So you're all here, all eighty of you?"
"There's us four," answered Benila. "Twenty-three senior administration staff, sixteen FLIE field agents, thirty-four secret service operatives, two secretaries and a work experience lad who got swept up in it all."
"So this is the resistance." Benjamin seemed slightly disappointed.
"We're also entertaining some smuggled Bazalonian spies. They'd like to have a word with you."
"Oh." |
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Falcania |
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Winging It Since 2004 |
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Usually when an agent infiltrates a nation they start with let's just say less than stellar conditions, but this was perhaps one of the better infiltrations, they had already a friendly resistance network to work with and to put them up. Now it was just a matter of getting the information about the Starling.
He was now awake and they had important questions to ask...
"Mr. Valen's, Could we have a few words? This is John, and call me Jake. We're agents with the Bazalonian Security and Intelligence Service... perhaps we could do this in private?" The two of them were there and dressed in the same manner as everyone else but it was fairly obvious that they weren't falcanian, though their accents were a mix, there was a bit of Bazalonian, but also Lamonian, Starblaydi, as well as slight German and Japanese. |
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Bazalonia |
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Eating A Bazalope Burger |
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Benjamin sat down with the newcomers from BSIS, as the others filed out of the room. "So what are you planning to do to help?" |
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Falcania |
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"As you know there have been alot of changes in Falcania since King Falcon died, and they worry us. They way they are done seem to imply that Tarrick has had his eye's on the top job for some time. Which could mean that he was somehow involved in the explosion of the Starling... but obviously we have no evidence... we don't even have the Starling's design. So we'll cut to the chase. We would like copies of anything that you can get your hands to do with King Falcon's death and the Starling's design."
The other agent spoke up for the first time.
"As we said before, there is very little we can do here directly but there is plenty we can do to help." |
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Bazalonia |
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Eating A Bazalope Burger |
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"The design of Starling?" Ben was weary of thinking of his favourite aircraft. "Jory Georgo has all the plans, and I don't know where he is. He never turned up to court this morning. I don't suppose you and Quicksilver can shed any light on what happened?" |
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Falcania |
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Winging It Since 2004 |
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"Nothing that I can give you now, you probably should sleep off the remnants of the drug they gave. You've got some good friends from what I hear they nabbed you just before a FLIE team arrived to take you out."
The truth was that they didn't have the information that he asked for, they themselves only had just arrived in their care an hour ago and most of that was getting here.
"Thank you for your time, that's all we want to ask for now." they both smiled and got up
"It's been a pleasure, considering the circumstances." That was the first time 'Jack' spoke. He was one of those quiet types that hangs back and steps in to change the whole dynamic of the situation."
They left the small bedroom and closed the door behind them... It was time to start planning to get the designs.
'John' addressed those that were there... waiting outside the door.
"The first thing we need to do is to prove Tarrack wrong... Ben didn't have a chance in that farce of an appeal, so we have to do it for him. To do that we need to get our hands on the Starling's design. Last known to be in the hands of Jory Georgo who's disappeared. Also should be in the offices Jay Industries but the risks of such an operation would be too high. What do we know of Jory George's location?" |
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Bazalonia |
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Eating A Bazalope Burger |
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Eighty fugitives, two foreign agents and a drugged head of industry versus an entire government. What a strange place Falcania had become in the space of just a few weeks.
Do not, under any circumstances, hurt the innocent. That was the first thing they had decided. No matter the cause, hurting the innocent would make them as bad as Tarrick. Soon after that they had divided into four divisions of twenty. Benila's nineteen kept contact with the outside world, wherever they could - it had been they who had contacted Bazalonia. Aran's nineteen were in housekeeping - they were the quartermasters, the accountants, buying or stealing food, clothes, arms, and supplies, and securing the unused, unmonitored properties around the country for Quicksilver's purposes. Smith's nineteen were spies, the eyes and ears of the organisation, keeping track of the government's movement. Of course, Michael Hack and his nineteen secret service agents were the publicity hogs. It was they who had extracted Benjamin earlier that evening. It was they who had killed two FLIE agents in the process. And it was they who were shouldering stolen weapons in preparation of tonight's jaunt. |
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Falcania |
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Winging It Since 2004 |
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Posts: 776 |
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A few enquiries had confirmed what they had all feared - Jory Georgo had not been seen since he was seen on his way to the trial. He had Disappeared. Such Disappearances were becoming increasingly prevalent - largely attributed to Quicksilver by the corpulent Ralph White, editor of the Daily Icarus. Nevertheless Quicksilver had been faced with a difficult choice - raid the headquarters of Jay Industries or the Police Headquarters in Holton where Georgo was being held. In the end it was decided to split resources evenly between the two locations, simultaneously.
OOC: Six months? better late than never I suppose. |
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Falcania |
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Winging It Since 2004 |
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| QUOTE | Fraudsheets!
The formerly-reputable daily newspaper, the Mathdon Examiner, was the subject of controversy today as it was revealed that recent headlines claiming the Falcanian Union Stock Exchange was on the brink of collapse, were fabricated by newsdesk hacks as a way of boosting sales.
In a leaked email sent to his staff, Business Editor Timothy Cauro was reported to have told his team to "make anything up, those plebs won't know what to believe." He also mentioned financial difficulties at the newspaper, and potential job cuts.
The Mathdon Examiner was formerly the highest-selling newspaper in the Falcanian capital and regularly in the top-five highest-selling papers outside the capital region. However, recent months have seen its readership plummet as the Daily Icarus has risen to top the sales index.
Here at the Daily Icarus we are happy to report that the rumours of the FUSE being in trouble are utterly false - Falcania's economic situation has never been better. |
The security guard smiled, and folded the paper up, before the knockout dart hit him in the back and delivered its quick-acting sedative.
Around him, the Quicksilver guerilla team ran through the corridor of the Jay Industries Headquarters towards the Aeronautics office.
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Falcania |
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Winging It Since 2004 |
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