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La'Dasha arrived at his office as quickly as she could. She had proven herself worthy of the top assignment as a chief operations officer within the Aldmeri Dominion over the years with exemplary service, yet as a khajiit she knew she would always be under the severest of scrutiny by the Altmer she worked for. Number 1 sat with his back to the door when she came in. He did not deign to turn around, but simply indicated a seat beside another High Elf at his desk.

"Welcome La'Dasha," said Number 5 beside her. She knew his name was Tormandil, but even that was information she should not possess. She sat in the seat indicated.

"This one was notified of an urgency," she replied. "This one is ready."

"We have an unusual assignment for you today, La'Dasha. Does the name Ra'Jirra ring any bells?"

"Agent for Elsweyr. Licensed to kill. One of their best as this one recalls."

"Yes, indeed," Number 5 smiled in that too-slick way. The man always reminded her of a reptile, though he was no argonian. Sometimes she expected his forked tongue to peek out from between his lips.

"She has been causing us... difficulty of late. We would like you to eliminate that difficulty."

"She will be dead within..." La'Dasha began, but suddenly Number 1 swiveled around and La'Dasha instantly silenced herself.

"Death is not enough," said the porcine elf, quietly at first but growing redder with every word. "No, we would not trouble you with a simple assassination, cat. She must be humiliated. She must be humbled. She must fall to her knees and beg for death! Only then will you be allowed to kill her! Do you UNDERSTAND?!?"

The vehemence of Number 1's outburst took the khajit aback. This was not usual. Not usual at all. The Altmer prided themselves on their calm and impassive demeanor. Even Tormandil looked shocked.

"This one understands, sir," she replied quietly. Already her mind was reeling with various scenarios.

"La'Dasha, perhaps you begin to understand," Tormandil said calmly. "We know you are a loyal and trustworthy agent. You have a 95% success rate, the highest of all our operational chiefs. Yet your... personal predilections are somewhat distasteful, if I must say."

The khajiit grinned a toothy grin. She wasn't completely sure which 'predilection' he was referring to, nor even which he knew about, but when speaking with a high officer of the Aldmeri Dominion, it was always best to assume they know everything. They usually do.

"Still, quality service forgives much. And your dalliances have never caused us any undue issues."

"This one's dalliances do not talk afterwards."

Number 1 snuffled and turned back around, looking at something on the floor. La'Dasha knew of the trap door there. The light from below indicated there was some entertainment currently amusing him. She looked back to Number 5.

"No," Number 5 agreed. "They do not. But I do implore you to use your best efforts on this operation. It is of utmost importance that we succeed. To that end we have some... ideas. Please, if you would, let us leave Number 1 in peace and I will fill you in on the details."

"Oh gods," La'Dasha thought as she left the office and continued down the hall towards Number 5's personal quarters.

She liked Number 5 well enough, but his own penchant for mixing business with pleasure left her cold. Worse yet, when the upper management had 'ideas', they were usually overly complex and under-imagined. Still, she had always managed to streamline things to get the job done. As for Number 5's fondness for khajiits, she didn't mind that so much, but she could never finish the act as she most desired. Tormandil probably never suspected just how close to death he was after he'd lain with her. Or maybe he did. There were those who got off on proximity to danger. She'd certainly had enough of those. But she'd never gotten to taste Altmer flesh. Maybe someday. Hope springs eternal, someone once said.

**********************************

Ra'Jirra was late, but not for lack of trying. Technological progress had been amazingly fast since the near-elimination of magic, but along with it came incumbent problems that no one had anticipated. With all their talk of betterment of all, no one had yet come up with a solution to the problem of traffic in the city. And Torval was growing rapidly. While Ra'Jirra was just a visitor here, still she found that every trip to the headquarters of the HMSS was a new adventure in just how badly the city growth was being managed.

"You're late," the secretary said. "Go on in. They're waiting for you."

The Leonid head turned to look at her when she entered. "Ah, Ra'Jirra. Glad to see you could make it. We were beginning to worry. Sit down, we have a lot to talk about and you haven't much time."

Ra'Jirra crossed to where Queue and Em sat at a small conference table.

"I haven't?"

While Ta'agra did forbid the use of the first-person pronoun, she was happy to be back in Elsweyr where she didn't have to think about the quirk it caused in the Common tongue. His Mane's Secret Service did employ non-khajiit agents of course, but here in the capital of Elsweyr the de-facto language was the khajiit's own, and she no longer had to structure her tongue around the foreign words, so she didn't even have think about the pronoun issue. It was simply how you spoke in Ta'agra.

"No. There's urgent business afoot. You know, of course, of the impending crisis between the Imperials and Hammerfell."

"Of course," Ra'Jirra frowned. "Don't you remember my last assignment? I was in the thick of it!"

"Oh, yes. That's right. I seem to recall reading something about that. Anyway, the Imperials have asked for our help. It seems a Hammerfell cypher wants to defect. But they can't be caught stealing her away from Hammerfell during this crisis directly. And there's another reason..."

"Oh? What's that?"

"She's asked for you by name, Ra'Jirra. It seems she's become somewhat enamored of you, given your recent publicity."

Ra'Jirra frowned at that. She'd never been much for disguises and going incognito - in fact, she had some small pride, if not outright ego, in announcing her name far and wide. But the story of her last exploit had made it into certainly publications widely read by those into politics and intrigue. And they hadn't redacted her name.

"I see," she said simply. "Does she check out?"

"She does. She's a mid-level cryptologist in Hammerfell's security department. But Ra'Jirra, it's more than just getting a cryptologist. She says she can get us their prime encryption device. Ra'Jirra, that would take months for their agents to stop using. If we can get that, every message sent from Hammerfell would be decryptable."

"And we'd just hand it off to the Imperials," Ra'Jirra growled.

"Oh, not so!" said Queue, the head technologist of HMSS. "With the device in our hands, we could read the messages, but we would only transfer to the Imperials those that we chose to!"

"Besides, Raj, the Imperials are our friends," Em said gruffly.

"This week," Ra'Jirra countered.

The head of the HMSS had to nod at that.

"Anyway, you're to head off to Rihad as soon as possible. We have an agent there that can fill you in on the details..." Em said, but Queue interrupted him.

"But first," he said, obviously relishing the moment. "We've got a couple interesting devices that you may find helpful on your mission!"

"Oh joy," Ra'Jirra said, eyeballing him dubiously. "Last time you almost got me stabbed with my own shoe!"

"Pfft," Queue hissed. Quite literally. Queue was an Argonian. "A small error in metal fatigue calculations. We've perfected that now! But look at this..."

"Looks like a briefcase," she said, opening and closing the lid. Nothing obvious. No hidden compartments that she could make out.

"Ah, no... the secret is in the lock. It's a combination lock. Here, look... When closed and locked, the case is nearly unbreakable. Only extreme shearing force could break it open. For all practical purposes, it's invulnerable. But set these symbols to Snake, Snake, Cat and..."

The latch popped open.

"Well, that's great. But if someone steals the thing, they can force it open eventually. I don't see the..."

"Oh, no! That's not the secret! Hammerfell's been using locks like this for years. They're ahead of us in technology, you know. But look at this! Set the combination instead to... Cat, Snake, Snake and."

Queue turned the last thumbwheel and something snapped.

"Dammit!" he cried, snatching his hand back from the case.

"What?" Ra'Jirra asked, looking closely at the combination lock.

"Poison dart. Instant death," Queue said, nursing his thumb.

"QUEUE?" both Em and Ra'Jirra exclaimed.

"Should I call for a medic?!" Em asked the Argonian.

"No, no... doesn't work on Argonians. Well. Almost doesn't. My thumb's going to be swollen for a week. Dammit! Here, I'll reset it.:"

"And what's this gadget?" Ra'Jirra said, turning to the small metallic rectangle.

"Oh, that! Be careful, Ra'Jirra. That's deadly! The boys in the lab call it the Projectilized Ultimate Suppression System. Unlike the briefcase lock, it's our own design from scratch!"

"Wait... What do you call it for short?"

"The boys have an unusual sense of humor. We just call it a 'gun'"

"A gun. Better. How does it work?"

Queue proceeded to tell Ra'Jirra the intricacies of the device, explained about the exploding gas contained within it when triggered by a small hammer, and demonstrated the devastating effect on a side of beef they'd set up on the other side of the room.

The hole it left was impressive.

"Nice!" Ra'Jirra said, taking the 'gun'. And good to see you're testing your devices on proper materials too."

"What do you mean?" Queue asked.

"The beef!"

"Oh, no. That's just my lunch."