Guard Frequency Episode 474 | Porkfolio Taster

Comments (3)

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  seannewboy

  January 30, 2024 at 5:03 pm | #

  I love the highdrow power.

  Cherry 2000 is that old really?

  Wonderful job everyone, thank you.

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  Ken from Chicago

  January 31, 2024 at 1:53 pm | #

  My name is Brian Maximillian Murray. Friends call me “Kinshadow”, then again, so do my enemies. I’m a private investigator. I used to be Fed Defense, fighting to defend the Federation, in space and planetside. After 10 years, higher ups said they were impressed at my skill in taking lives and offered me a chance at saving lives. If I switched to Fed Intel, I could win battles without firing a shot. Besides, being a space spy sounded cool. It was a sweet deal but after 2 years I saw the truth hidden. I may not be firing a shot but I was lying, deceiving, framing people to get shot, stabbed, bombed, etc. And if there was collateral damage, innocent bystander hurt or killed, then I was choosing the lesser evil for the greater good. Two years undercover as a space pirate and it all came to head.

  I set up a deal for military grade weapons from a defense firm that was playing both sides to boost their revenue. I had an inside man, a fellow spy, but he was on the corp side, an I3 (Interstellar Information Investigator). He had been investigating leaks of weapon designs from within the defense contractor in question. He was able to get on-site access to the database in question and transmit it to me. I could signal a raid and in the confusion sneak him out.

  My boss approved the plan but after getting the data we needed against the contractor, nixed the raid. He said the I3 was the perfect scapegoat, someone trying to steal data and would allow to keep using my cover to investigate other companies. The I3’s death was the lesser evil for the greater good. That was the last straw. I knocked out my boss, used his comm to signal the raid. I joined in planetside and tracked the I3 in person and got him off world to safety.

  That’s how I met Geoffrey MacCombe aka “The Immortal”. He had one of the longest careers as an I3, thus the nickname. Grateful, he said he’d immortalize me. I thought he was kidding until his series of space spy novels, STAR KNIGHT, was a best seller throughout the Bubble. This allowed him to amass the wealth for him to retire in comfort and to indulge his wish of owning a pub, though he staffed it with robots to do the grunt work.

  I owed a lot to that novel series, including meeting Tony Hunter. He was local legal eagle in the star system Geoff hired to represent his writing contracts. Tony formalized my relationship with Geoff, trading my not suing Geoff for any resemblance of Star Knight to myself and in return for a corner table and endless nonalcoholic drinks and deserts. Honestly, I had laughed it off, never once considering suing Geoff. Meanwhile Geoff was furious at Tony going behind his back, saying I was off limits. That said, Geoff agreed to terms of the deal.

  After that rocky start, Tony and I were on good terms. In fact, it was through Tony that I met the third of my three best friends, Henry Pompper. Well, technically, we had met before, as part of Fed Intelligence, but everyone there called him “Rom”. I thought it was because he was so good with computers but it was short fo “Romulan Ale”. It was a drink illegal in Star Trek’s Federation but still managed to make its way aboard every Starfleet ship. Rom was one of the best drills at Fed Intel. He was able to drill into just about any computer or network.

  But while it took me 2 years to have my fill of Fed Intel, Rom took his leave a year after I started. He just vanished. Ghosting a major intelligence agency was probably Rom’s greatest trick ever, until he showed up again a few years later at one of the inaugural parties when a new regime took over the Federation, after the old regime had been mired in and taken down by scandal. Coincidence, surely.

  Anyway, Tony had a gig for me to track down the provenance of an artifact Geoff wanted to donate to a local museum. There were some discrepancies in the history and Geoff wanted to make sure it had a clean slate. The artifact had been traded back and forth across various star systems until I hit a black wall in one of the higher class planets in the bubble. I returned and found Tony at the Resting Badger, going over some contracts with Geoff. I explained there was no way to inspect it without alerting undo attention. Tony replied he knew a guy who could help, and then gestured someone over.

  “Rom?”

  “Kinshadow?”

  “Kinshadow?” Geoff and Tony asked me in unison.

  “Um, old nickname,” I sheepishly replied. Rom subtly nodded.

  Rom / Henry had outed my Fed Intel deep cover identity but wouldn’t say more. I was about to ask how he knew then realized, of course, he’s one of the best drills ever. I explained I used to do a lot of cosplay growing up, to which Geoff guffawed and Tony laughed for a solid ten seconds, before he regained composure.

  Tony told Henry about warehouse where the artifact data trail came to a halt. While everyone in Fed Intel got basic hacking training, I was far from a drill, but I knew enough to recognize a black wall. It was worse than impregnable, attempts to drill it would trigger every alarm in the parsec. Only the top drills with surgical skill in the bubble would even considered cracking them, and that only after serious analysis.

  Henry nodded and replied, “Here ya go,” and showed a holodisplay of the data trail of the artifact to an outbound world, a clean data trail. I was stunned. Tony audibly gasped. Even Geoff was surprised.

  Henry smiled or was it smirked? “The fastest way through a wall is through a gate. There are a number of black wall warehouses that the elite of the bubble use to transport goods on the downlow. Instead of losing the datatrail at the warehouses why not use them? So I shipped several items throughout the bubble through them—with various tracers and scanners inside that have revealed the lay of the land.

  Tony thanked Henry and texted a contact to finalize the donation to the museum. Meanwhile Geoff raised an eyebrow at me, “Cosplay my eye. The kid revealed one of your undercover identities. Be it for the government or for the Fortune 5,000, spying is spying. Don’t worry, I can keep a secret and so can Tony. He’s a professional at it.”

  “What can I say, as much as we lawyers are known for talking, we’re also great at not talking. Your secrets are safe with me,” and Tony proffered a hand. I shook it and nodded. Geoff offered a round on the house since the donation to the museum was approved. And that’s how the four of us met. And so our legend began.

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• 

  Ken from Chicago

  February 1, 2024 at 12:06 am | #

  Okay, that was way too long. Here’s a shorter version:

  “My name is Brian Maximillian Murray. You’re probably wondering why I’m falling from orbit of an Earth-sized planet in a spacesuit and no parachute.

  Fortunately this a prototype military orbital insertion suit, hardened against atmospheric pressures, with a nano force field emitter to shield against atmospheric braking and rocket backpack for a controlled landing.

  The fireworks are from Federation Defense ships bombing the base of an interplanetary military defense contractor—as a distraction from my solo landing, and rescue of the man who made this possible, Geoff, an I3 (Interstellar Information Investigator), a corporate spy, who revealed massive corruption and selling of military secrets and weapons to criminals. I tracked down Geoff and we made our escape on an anti-grav ski as bombs rained down on the defense contractor’s base of operations behind us.”

  Tony interrupted, “Wow that happened?”

  “Essentially,” I reply.

  Henry added, “Yeah, pure fluff, I read the reports and the captured video. Brian was shipped inside a food truck, met Geoff in a bathroom and they snuck out in a garbage truck.”

  Geoff piped in, “People aren’t paying for facts but for the legend. The ‘inspired by’ gives them cover to say it’s non-fiction.”

  The parts that were true is that I’m former Federation Defense and Federation Intelligence. After ten years in Fed Def, fighting in space and planetside to defend the Federation, I was offered a chance to win wars without having to fire a shot.

  That appealed to me but a year in I saw that while I wasn’t doing the shooting, I was tricking others to take the shot. Sometimes innocents got caught in the crossfire. My superiors said it was the lesser evil for the greater good.

  It came to a head when an I3 turned over major intel of a massive corruption among a defense contractor, selling to both sides to rake up profits, even staging false flags to boost sales. Just as we were to make the raid and I was set to exfil him personally, my handler nixed it, saying he would be the scapegoat to keep my space pirate cover as “Kinshadow” for future ops. My informant’s death would be for the greater good.

  That was the last straw. I pretended to agree and went on the raid anyway and got my informant. However on the way out, I detoured to a local news reporter reporting live on the raid. I explained Fed Def had gotten word of massive corruption from a weapons contractor from a reliable source—my informant, Geoffrey MacCombe.

  My superiors were furious but going public protected Geoff from being framed. What protected me was several googolbytes of vital Fed Intel ops that would have terrible optics if revealed publicly. And I had just shown I was willing to go public—especially if I mysteriously vanished.

  Geoff went on to become a billionaire from writing a best-selling series of STAR KNIGHT novels, inspired by yours truly, with details changed to avoid breaking military secrecy. Excuse me, that’s Laird Geoffrey MacCombe, from the Midlands of Scotland of Earth.

  Geoff hired me as security inspector for his estates, restaurant chain, the Resting Badger, and his own fleet carrier. He also retained a reputable legal eagle, Tony Hunter, to manage his publishing contracts.

  It was Tony who formalized our business relationship, I agreed not to sue Geoff for any resemblance to STAR KNIGHT and I had an endless tab for food and nonalcoholic drinks. Geoff was furious when he found out and claimed to have spanked Tony behind the woodshed for it. Since I never planned on suing Geoff, I got something for nothing.

  Henry Pompper was friends with Tony and sometimes Tony got him gigs as a drill when there was some network or computer he needed to drill into for a lawsuit. I recognized Henry as Fed Intel agent, “Rom”. I thought it was because he worked with computers. Tony revealed it was for “Romulan Ale”, a drink illegal in Starfleet yet was onboard every Starfleet ship. Rom had been a hotshot drill but he left Fed Intel a year ahead of me and just vanished.

  Ghosting a major intelligence agency was major. He finally showed back up years later at one of the inaugural parties of the new regime at the Federation, after huge scandalous info came to light about the old regime. At the height of the scandal, it was rumored that the source was from the planet-state hackers cracking the regime. I had asked Henry if that was likely, he only replied that if they could crack the highest level of security in the Fed, you should worry what other secrets would they had. And he winked. I chose not to press it further.

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