An act of war they'd called it. An act of war yet he saw no planes, no fighters, no soldiers and no godamn Black Council messages rallying the people to war.
Sirius would have waged the war himself if he didn't know where in the Blotlands he was. He knew it was a room that had close to no light but that was all. He'd not had food for what he guessed was two days.
Not that he was hungry. He kept having flashes of that green eyed monster dropping him from the tower, it's hands having left a mark on his neck.
He now stared at what he assumed was a wall or a door planning every conceivable plan for how he would kill Jack the Ghoul once he got out of this place.
However, much as he kept dreaming of when he'd shoot through the biome's head with his plasma gun, he kept wondering how Acropolis had been attacked.
Not that it was the best protected city in the Blotlands, but a full on assault was something close to diabolical. No other city would have tried it except that wretched pool of Earliers. Even so, their government had already made it clear that there were no intentions to cause any more war.
Acropolis would have crushed them in a week but there was always the Secret and Maagme who'd obviously join in and then you'd have a full on war. Nobody wanted another war because it'd ruin business and it was against the Old Accords.
Sirius wanted a war. He wanted to wage it himself against the whole world who'd now taken all his family in bits.
"Did the world really take your family my lovely?"
The two days had been torture with that oily voice running a party in his head. It was all he had for company since he'd been kidnapped after the attack.
Well he'd been kidnapped twice since it happened. The first had been when he'd been dropped and for a while all Sirius saw was a boy who kept staring at him from a distance in the alley that he'd dropped him in.
He'd tried talking to the lad but he never came nearer than to offer food. Sirius lost interest in trying to converse once he'd noticed his body actively healing itself. He'd sat there staring at his side arm which had been broken and severed at the index finger heal and grow back.
The finger had fully grown back as he waited in the dark though. He'd been re-reading the newest poster from the White Council on his system when he'd smelt a gas akin to the one he'd used during his time as a low ranking soldier.
Then he'd come to in the darkness on a floor next to a cold concrete wall.
Sirius tried to remember what Dodie's face looked like when she smiled but all he saw was her lifeless body on that floor. Her eyes hadn't been shut when she died, they haunted him with their beauty even in her death.
She'd been just a child.
"Another child you brought death to my lovely, all because you couldn't finish your dealings."
He couldn't blink away the truth.
He was about to lay his head on his knees when he felt movement in the room. He looked up as lights flooded it revealing a long glass panel blocking his view.
Clearly there was someone standing on the other side though he couldn't tell who it was.
The room was a lot smaller than he'd made it out to be, the only thing he thought of was he was in a prison cube.
He watched as the person on the other side got closer to the glass and placed a hand on it. He heard a ping and the glass separated into two and Faiza the Councilor walked in.
There was a smirk on her face that made Sirius think of punching her. Would have done better for his mind than the voice in it, he was sure.
There was a concrete slab raised on the right of the cube, she sat there.
"Good morning Captain," she said.
Sirius said nothing.
"Listen I'll get to the crux of it right away yeah. This was an attack on the city of Acropolis and it was an act of war--"
"An attack on me," he mumbled.
"I'm sorry,"
Sirius sat up straighter looking her straight in the eye.
"It was an attack on me. Jack the Ghoul attacked my family and I." He said.
She looked at him with a bit of sympathy that disappeared immediately.
"It's much more than that Captain. My condolences to you but it's the whole city that was attacked. All three zones suffered major damage from terrorists and unfortunately Jack the Ghoul was unleashed upon your family."
"Unleashed?"
She nodded.
"It was a coordinated attack orchestrated by some of the most powerful biomes and humans in the Wastelands and beyond. It took the Special Reserves of the First Battalion to stop them. Our--"
"Who?"
"Who what Captain?"
"Who orchestrated the attack?"
"That's why I'm here once more. Our intelligence reported two months ago that three shipments of weapons had disappeared from one of the Districts in the secret. It is our understanding now that those weapons were military grade biome upgrades that were given to the terrorists who attacked Acropolis."
"Lemme guess, the thieves had been from Citadel." Sirius said.
Again she nodded.
"Don't trouble yourself Captain, no one could have predicted the attack. Not even intelligence." Faiza said.
"What I do want you to worry about is whether you're willing to help the city with the mission I'd introduced to you. This time the stakes are higher Captain. They didn't just attack us, they stole two high priority weapons from us. Two very dangerous weapons."
Sirius had already made up his mind once he'd heard the mission was back on the table. All he saw was an option to wage his war and someone who was pointing him towards his enemy.
"When do I start this mission Councilor?" He said.
"There's more to it than just starting Captain. The Black and White Council have met today to approve of it and they have set forth a team for you to use for the mission."
Sirius didn't need a team. He needed a plasma rifle and a good transporter across the Wastelands.
"A team?" He asked nonetheless.
"Yes a team Captain. Infiltrating Citadel isn't a one man job obviously but it also can't be an official job. So the Two Councils with approval from the Blue Council have set aside miscreants from the newest batch headed for the Yellowlines to be used as soldiers.
Dispensable soldiers at that. A unit that'll be off the books led specifically by you. Unit-95 will be expected to go into the Wretched city and bring back the weapons stolen and confirm whether it was the Citadel Government that sanctioned the attack.
Then we'll declare war based on your reports."
Sirius had seen such a thing when he was still in the force. Off the book missions were rare and for good reasons. Active spies in an enemy city could easily lead to war.
He'd never heard of prisoners being used as soldiers however. It sounded more illegal than anything he'd ever signed off, a sort of death sentence for them.
He supposed it was better than being shipped off to the Patch.
None of that mattered as long as Sirius got to wage his war on the wretchs that had taken his family from him.
"One last thing Captain, Jack the Ghoul escaped after the attack alongside a human hunter named Aman the Reaper." Faiza said.
"Time to hunt my lovely."