FFM 2025 16: The Return

Getting close to being caught up! This is a follow-up to FFM 2025 14: Whatever, and for once a non-challenge story that didn’t go over the limit.

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Steirdrar returned from the successful mission, uninjured aside from a few bruises and a road rash, to an immediately tensing intelligence department. Everyone who was on shift looked at him with expressions of fear or concern. Now what? He hoped it was not something about his family or bad intel from the IRS trying to defame him or some gossip about his skill gone out of hand… Fine, that last one he would not mind if it meant people here stopped giving him shit when higher-ranking people were not within hearing distance.

The message he had left for Agent Ket to find was gone. In its place was a different one, written on Inkstay of all paper types.

Steirdrar Urrang,

Some of your coworkers are what we Eskel-Zai call lut’ortana’te. You might want to reconsider leaving a message in a mutable format at their mercy next time. I won’t retaliate to what happened to your message to me beyond mentioning it to General Porti this time as to not cause you unforeseen trouble while you are out on the field. I’ll fill you in on what happened next time we meet.

Best regards,

Beyari Ket

The office was silent. Steirdrar looked around, eyebrow cocked as if he was still a colonel in the IRS. Everyone was making an effort not to meet his eyes.

Steirdrar huffed, continuing to lean into his old demeanor. “Don’t you all know better than to risk angering an Eskel-Zai, let alone one of their warriors?” He took the paper, folded it neatly and pocketed it. “You’re lucky Agent Ket decided to be considerate of the fallout I might get.” Then he sat down and got back to work, marveling just how silent these people could be when they were scared shitless.

General Porti, predictably, stopped by his desk upon coming to work and pulled him to his office to discuss the defacement of his message to Agent Ket. Steirdrar almost laughed; the little General Porti could do even if the culprits were found was so minuscule compared to the looming threat of an irritated Eskel-Zai warrior. Unlike in the Infini’Republic, here people did not get particularly discouraging punishments for minor offenses — the Anti-Infini’Republic Forces could not afford not to have all uninjured, undeployed personnel available at all times this long into the war.

Frankly, Steirdrar did miss the stricter discipline to an extent; there was a suitable middle ground but neither party was anywhere near it, one out of cruelty that had been snuck into the system over decades and the other out of a lack of resources to handle the consequences of punishing their personnel more severely.

Well, it could not be helped. Being here, even surrounded by people who directed their justified hatred towards him either into passive animosity or petty acts of revenge, was infinitely better than remaining complicit in the atrocities and civil rights violations the Infini’Republic now endorsed behind closed doors.

What would his great-grandfather think, were he still alive to see what his beloved republic had turned into?

Steirdrar shook that thought off. He had to focus on work for now so that he could look up Agent Ket to hear what she would have done to his coworkers later.

When he was eventually done with his shift, he found an Eskel-Zai warrior leaning against the wall opposite to the department’s exit. The triangle-eyeglass visor turned to point straight at him and the Eskel-Zai pushed themself off the wall. Despite the casual body language, Steirdrar could not help but dread that he was about to get hit with a Qual-armored fist.

“It’s good to see you’re back, Commander Urrang,” the Eskel-Zai said with Agent Ket’s voice and lifted their helmet, revealing the Pryzis’s smiling face. “Sorry if I startled you.”

Steirdrar shook his head. “It’s fine.” He took another look at the armor. “I didn’t recognize you with the new paintjob.”

Agent Ket smirked. “Good.”

Steirdrar frowned in confusion.

“I change my paintjob between major missions to help prevent enemies from recognizing me and sending non-Guild hunters after me,” Agent Ket elaborated.

“Ah, I see.”

“Anyhow, since you’re back, wanna head to the mess hall to grab dinner and spar later if you’re not injured or too tired?”

“Mess hall I can do, but I’d like to wait at least until tomorrow before sparring. I got some road rash and would rather wait for it to heal so I won’t tear the skin.”

Agent Ket nodded. “Fair enough. Shall we?”

Steirdrar took initiative by starting to walk to the mess hall’s direction. Agent Ket fell into step with him. “You haven’t been stalking around looking for me all week, have you?”

Agent Ket barked out a laugh. “Nah. I did think about doing it to scare the lut’ortana’tea but I would’ve had no excuse if General Porti would’ve asked what I was doing since I knew the Twilight Sky was not on-base. Besides, I lost a bet I had with QWERTY and had to harvest the ripe fruit from our Narlanita tree.”

Steirdrar had to cringe at that. “What did you bet on with that kind of a task?”

“Something I didn’t think would ever be settled.” Agent Ket waved her hand. “It’s irrelevant.”

Steirdrar wanted to ask for more but he knew someone like Agent Ket would not tell him if he pried. “How did the harvest go?”

“The usual. I had to mend my Sleekore mesh gloves from a few places where the thorns caught it but I did get all the fruit intact. How was your mission?”

“The usual. Got the supplies, did the sabotage, fought security forces on the way out. Nothing too bad aside from the part where I fell and got that road rash on my forearm where my sleeve hiked up during the slide.”

Agent Ket grimaced. “Ouch.”

“It’ll heal in no time,” Steirdrar reassured. “I’ll be up for a spar soon enough.”

Agent Ket nodded, smiling. “I look forward to it.”