Angels and Demons of Achkaerin

[Achkaerin]

Angels and Demons of Achkaerin isn't the next bestselling novel you've never heard of nor is it a religious thing. These are the stories that will show the world of Achkaerin's Justicars as they combat terrorist threats, protect the people, venture into the grey and dark areas and deal with their own problems, including appearances from the Military Defence Initiative.

[Achkaerin]

A Dark Day

Ashai Castle, located a few miles outside of Valtheim was the home of Achkaerin's Justicars, it was usually a busy place and when there was a crisis going on somewhere it was frantic. The operations centre, the hub of activity, had several large screens mounted on the surrounding walls each had something projected onto them, so one of them had for a long time now had the deck of 52 from Marseilles on it, another had the Royal Seleucid/Iwi situation as a focus and then of course one had a focus on the long running Tamora/Slava Lavosk issue. The boss of the Justicars was Rion Ayanami, she was walking down from her office, it overlooked the operations centre, standing centrally on the operations floor was her trusted right hand Nix Williams and the tactical expert Paul Kessel.

"They've done it?" Rion asked
"Yes" Nix said showing Rion her electronic tablet "Slava Lavosk have announced the execution."
"Thank you Rokkenjima for igniting a delicate situation." Rion said "Reckless comments start the clock."
"So what do you want to do?" Paul asked "Because we all know in about ten minutes you're going to get the call from the Palace."
"There isn't anything we can really do. Pretty much every play we could make is now out of the window." Rion said "Getting into the country is easy more or less, anything after that in terms of application of force is most likely a non starter. For now find out when in November Dilara's birthday is, at least that way we know how long she's got."
"Ok." Paul said

"Rion." another woman said from the operations centre entrance, she had face length blonde hair this was Kara Thornton the day to day boss of the Military Defence Initiative, the pair walked out into the corridor "You've heard?"
"Yeah." Rion said
"Have you got any options?" Kara asked
"Options yes" Rion said "Anything usable within the timeframe probably not. If there's going to be a hail mary it's going to be words not bullets."

"That's what I was hoping not to hear." Kara said
"You're worried aren't you?" Rion said
"That the execution especially in this manner of an eighteen year old girl is going to scream martyrdom and light the whole tinderbox?" Kara asked "Damn right I am."
"Good so it isn't just me." Rion said
"So who's going to tell the Emperor?" Kara asked
"Whoever he asks but I'm more worried about what happens after this execution." Rion said "This is going to quite possibly be ugly and we know it."
"Yeah." Kara said "As game changers go that execution happening is the biggest one there could be."

[Achkaerin]

Stranger than Fiction

Truth could sometimes be stranger than fiction, though for Rion Ayanami she was used to having to extract the truth from the fiction an operation usually accomplished by having the members of the unit she had command of do what they did best. But today's briefing was like none she'd ever been involved in. Sitting in her office she glanced over at where her colleague Kayleigh Pryde was standing "Are we seriously doing this?" Rion asked
"Unbelievably yes." Kayleigh said "Weird isn't it? If she'd just said something..."
"She's just come out of university she's not used to the whole having someone following you around thing, she's not used to how we do things." Rion said
"One word, one week and we'd have been ready." Kayleigh said "And she goes and applies for... I don't even know what to call it, Hunger Games but the prize is marrying an Emperor?"
"Pretty much." Rion said "What are you doing with the security assignments?"
"Liam's taking over as primary on Evanthe while she's in Lodja so I've got Kyoko which keeps me in Pyrettania." Kayleigh said
"Ok." Rion said as there was a knock at the door "Come in."

Into the room walked two young women first Catrin Waterstone followed by Poppy Locklyn, they took a seat opposite Rion's desk.
"This is probably the weirdest thing I'm ever going to say to you." Rion said "Normally we'd be giving newly minted operatives such as yourselves your commissions, clearances and such, but..."
"But then Sophia Anselmo went and entered herself into the competition to be Empress of Neu Uburzis." Kayleigh said "This is both somewhat troublesome given our current responsibilities but also an opportunity considering certain other things."
"Sophia hasn't been assigned a CPA yet so, and this is where the weirdness comes in, we want you to enter the competitions yourselves we don't know what format this competition takes it could be anything and it could easily involve putting all the entrants in a building together where who knows what's going to happen so having you on the inside of it is what we want. You have two jobs keep an eye on Sophia that's your primary, your secondary if the opportunity arises is to investigate certain incidents around how Orion came to be Emperor."
"Keeping an eye on Sophia doesn't mean help her win." Kayleigh said "If one of you happens to win then this will be the only assignment you're ever given. Treat this as what it is, a contest and try to win it."
"Part of this is a background check which we're not worried about." Rion said "There's no paper trail to here, they'll find your university stuff, they'll find your high school stuff, they won't find stuff relevant to here, no intelligence sharing agreement and all that. Any questions?"

"Are you picking me because of my sexual preferences?" Poppy asked "A bisexual girl for a homosexual Emperor?"
"Maybe," Rion said "That's your advantage, this isn't about love it's about producing an heir and having a positive relationship with Orion, love's a bonus in that."
"Next move?" Catrin asked
"Get yourselves packed and ready to go." Rion said "Get to know Neu Uburzis a bit."
"So a paid holiday?" Poppy asked
"Something like that." Kayleigh said "Good luck."