Wings

by Fearadhach MecRaudri

  Jared’s head shook, “Already considered that, Sir. My teams have strict instructions to analyze anything like this as if The Rescue depended on it. If they try to feed us trash, we’ll catch it in time. That sort of thing is actually very hard to do, if you have good geneticists with good equipment going over the data. Which you have.”

  Lucas felt his grin return, both at the good news and at Jared’s manner. Someday he would get that man to say the word ‘I’. He considered needling the guy about it a little, but decided that it wasn’t the time. “I want…”

  “Yes, Sir. We will give you regular updates on our progress, but I don’t think we will learn much more from what we have here. We could use some more samples, samples of anything, really. We have no idea where this benefactor is, nor how much of this hidden code has been set out there for us to find. I have a strong suspicion that there is something in these meat-vat cast offs that we have missed, but have no idea what. Anything else you can get us, particularly samples from young flyers, could contain clues.”

  Lucas felt a moment of astonishment, realizing that Jared should have heard by now, but the fact that he hadn’t should not have been a surprise. There were all sorts of jokes around the labs about what it took to get the man to look up from his microscope. “Jared, we had new flyer in two days ago, wings still fresh. You should have been given samples by now.”

  The geneticist looked abashed, “Oh. That’s why those were marked urgent. We were so caught up in this discovery that they got shunted aside. We’ll get on that right away.”

  Lucas nodded, and clapped Jared on the shoulder. The other man simply smiled briefly, then turned back to his computer screen and immediately became absorbed in the display. It wasn’t that he was less excited about the prospects of what the find could mean, just that he was far more focused on taking the millions of tiny steps required to get there. Lucas shook his head and rushed out of the lab to find Sharon, his head of PR, and talk about how to start this campaign.

  Chapter 8

  Alicia Akido felt out of place and alone despite being in her own kitchen with her best friend. She played her hand in and out of the morning sunlight that streamed through the window, trying to enjoy the smell of the coffee Ann had brewed, and studying an environment which somehow managed to be totally familiar and totally alien.

  She and Ann talked for some time before her son woke. They had regularly shared breakfast for many years at this very table. In some ways she sat in that same familiar territory, but in some ways, it could have been on another planet. All those times before she knew that there would be many more such times ahead to enjoy, this time she felt terribly aware that this would be the last one. Her mind’s eye cast a slight white haze over the entire experience.

  She could see everything clearly in reality, but the experience seemed almost blurred. Ann noticed something wrong, of course, but seemed disinclined to ask questions. Her friend seemed relieved that she had at last stared to talk and appeared to be, if not her old self, on the long road towards recovery, and seemed to chalk Alicia’s behavior up to grief. She began to feel bad, as if deceiving her friend. She finally reached across the table and took Ann’s hand.

  She bit her lip slightly and looked down at the table before she spoke, “Ann, I want to know that I love you as much as any sister I ever could have had, and I appreciate all you have done for me more than you could ever….” She stopped herself, as she saw the slight quirk to Ann’s lips, and realized that her friend did, indeed, know, “more than I can ever express. The kinship I have with you is the one thing that makes what I must do now difficult, but it is what I must do. I have no choice. I just can’t stay here. I have lost a husband and a son to the Legion and these stupid wars. I can no longer stay here, right in the middle of this conflict which has claimed almost everything I love.

  “A few days ago, this apartment seemed to echo with the laughter of the boys, with the padding of their feet. Every shadow I saw seemed to belong to them, and every time I saw a nick or scrape on the walls, I could nearly see the hands which did it. But no more. The laughter has died, the nicks have lost their memory, even the colors seem dimmer - less vibrant.” She shook her head and lowered her eyes to their hands as she saw the tears well up in her friend’s eyes, and felt the answering tears in her own. “I just can’t stay here. I used to be able to look out the window, and see echoes of both my son and my dear husband in the men flying there. I remember watching both of them learn to fly, and my heart flew with them still.

  “Now, all I see when I look at those flyers is my dear, dear men falling to their deaths…their wings broken…their bodies...” Her words were broken by sobs, and Ann hurried around the table to hold her again. They both knew healing to be a slow process, and sometimes you had to go back before you could progress. Both women became aware that Santiner stood there by them. His expression seemed torn between disbelief, sympathy, his own pain, and something else she had trouble placing.

  Alicia collected herself as best she could, and stood to hug her son. He returned the hug, but it seemed that his heart wasn’t fully in it. She realized that he had heard, though how much remained a question. “I know it will be hard to leave here, son, but we must. I have lost two of the three most important things in my life to this ‘shadow war’, and I don’t think I could survive losing you as well. I know how much it is to ask son, believe me, I do, but” she looked down, unable to face him. She then gathered her strength. He deserved better, so did the memories of her husband and lost son.

  She raised her eyes to face him as she made her plea, “Please, my son, let this conflict go. I know the dream you hold of flight, but even that is not worth this. Please, come with me. I can’t bear to sit here day by day and watch you head towards this meat grinder which has taken all else I love away from me. I know what the Academy means to you, and how much pride you feel in following the footsteps of the two men you admire most: the ghost you never knew and the brother you so loved.

  “But there is no guarantee, even with your heritage, that you would be approved for wings. I know that you would willing serve in other positions if you aren’t, and that you have the skill, dedication, and courage to do wonderfully if you did, but family is more important. You are the last heritage of your father, the last of a long and proud line. They have to let you go. Please, come with me.”

  Now came his turn to lower his head, and Alicia felt her battered heart fall with it. She heard the words before he even spoke. “I can’t.” His hands balled into fists, and the tears were flung from his eyes as his body started to shake. His next words were forced out through clenched teeth, “I can’t. I can’t” His eyes lifted to hers, and the pain in them had been swallowed by rage, “I have been approved for wings, mother. The Commandant told me that at the same time that he told me about Korla.

  “The approval brought me no joy, however. Only resolve. I understand your need to leave here, mother. You have given all in this struggle, have taught and supported us through it… Rescue knows you have done more than could be asked. But, fighting on is what I must do. I will take this back to them. I will hunt The Column wherever they hide, wherever they are. I will not fail you, mother. I will not die on you. Neither, however, will I back away from this.

  “They took my father away before I was even conceived, before Korla could even be born. For this They Will Pay. Father died not knowing that he had a son. For this They Will Pay. They took Korla before he could find a wife, before he even got the chance to truly enjoy his wings. For this They Will Pay. I can’t walk away from that. I can’t leave it up to others. I love you, mother, but I love them as well, and I can’t just leave this!”

  She heard herself weeping, and watched her hands catch herself on the floor as her knees went out from under her. The next hour hurt. She wept, she pleaded, she begged, railed at him in anger one moment, held him and cried the next. He stood firm through it all, through her tears, Ann’s, and his own. He met her anger with a
firm calm, met her pleas with anger. He tried to get her to change her mind, and to assure her that he would survive. He would be careful about the positions he took, and would always be mindful of staying alive, for her sake, but he could not walk away.

  So young, and so terribly, terribly much like his father. So full of passion, strength, determination. In the end her tears had refused to come. She then stood, facing him with dry eyes, and told him that if he intended to do this it would have to be without her. That she could not bear to see him or hear from him while he remained in the Legion. To see him in that uniform would be too much. He had grown furious, then. He’d railed at her, stopping just short of making accusations. In the end he had simply nodded agreement… and walked quietly out the door. She held tight to his hand as he walked away, but to no use. He told her he would disappear until he felt he had done what he needed to do. She walked behind him to the door, her hand aching to try again to hold him. He paused at the door and told her he loved her over his shoulder and left. She leaned one hand against the door, and found that her tears were not so dry after all.

  ***

  Lucas could never understand why he felt no fear at times like this. The back of his mind grimly reflected on the thought as he checked his blaster rifle’s chamber and slammed the bolt home. His mind held only business, emotion driven to a distant back bench as he loaded grenades into a bandolier and strung it across his chest. The fear had come the night before, as his palms sweat and he searched the battle plan for flaws. Now there came the calm, and a certain anticipation.

  Not eagerness, just a sort of heightened readiness. It felt like his entire body knew what headed toward it, and waited for the adrenalin to hit. No, definitely not eagerness. Eagerness got people killed. If you were at the bottom of the command, usually just you died. Eagerness for battle in a leader, however, could cause mountains of bodies. The moment he found himself ‘eager’ for battle he planned to turn in his weapons and refuse to lead men in battle ever again, for any reason.

  He put his foot on the bench so he could strap a few micro-explosives to his calf, taking care that they didn’t interfere with the skin-flap he had instead of tail feathers. The locker room could almost have been mistaken for that of a pro sports team if not for the weapons. It had the same metal lockers, wood benches, the same smell of sweat and soap. Also, like the locker room before the big game, a loud but measured din surrounded him as his men strapped on and checked equipment.

  To those unfamiliar with it the sounds were chaos, but to him it had a sort of fluid order. As he strapped his weapons and armor on, he could judge the readiness of his men just by ear. Occasionally he would, without taking his eyes off of the task at hand, speak a reminder to one of his men. He did not have to shout over the noise, he knew how to make his voice carry through it. “Mikalson, did you forget your knife? … Frasier, double check that strap…Someone give Nielson a hand getting that wing through the armor.”

  He could do it differently, of course. He could have had himself ready some minutes ago, and be watching and pointing instead of talking toward the bench. He preferred this method, though. Both ways instilled a healthy dose of respect in the men, even hardened veterans like these, but this one had a certain air of mystique which made the men all the more ready to allow orders to pass from ears to limbs without slowing them for analysis in the brain.

  If you watched the men get ready, they might wait to see if you were looking before they followed an order, or might be hesitant to follow it if they thought you couldn’t see them. If they had confidence that you knew their situation without having to see, then they were more likely to just react. Such things were vital in battle, where both lives and success often turned on how quickly men responded to orders.

  He heard Pilken, his second for this mission, speak up just before he had the chance to, “Jefferies, double-check the strap on that pistol. No, the other one. Make sure you threaded the buckle correctly.” He smiled to himself as he heard Jefferies unbuckle the strap and re-do it. Pilken was a good soldier and a solid battle-leader. There were few whom he would be as happy to have at his side.

  They both knew that their actions had an internal purpose, aside from getting the men adjusted to hearing their commands. Focusing on each man’s actions, without having to check, brought their minds into sharper focus. It helped the two of them concentrate on each individual, and be able to track those men in the chaos of battle. It brought their minds into that special battle-focus which kept themselves and their men alive, and allowed the men who followed them into that focus to achieve it themselves.

  Lucas finished his preparation ritual, stood, and faced his men. They were all very nearly prepared, and he watched them make their last small adjustments. The space inside their transport would be cramped, and then there would be no chance for adjustments in battle. He frowned slightly as the door to their locker room swung open and Sharon Dolen - leader of what could best be described as The Column’s PR division - stalked in with a look of grim determination on her face. An equally grim Torfan followed her.

  Sharon’s somewhat tall and thin figure, long auburn hair, lips which seemed perpetually upturned in a near-smile, and deep blue, guileless stare usually turned heads anywhere she went. The perpetual smile could not be seen on her lips now, however, and the iron in her stride matched that in Torfan’s gaze.

  Lucas’s frown deepened and he set mental ‘feet’ into position, hoping to stave his friends off before they started. He didn’t need to have to fight a battle of words here, just before going into a firefight. The men around him sensed something amiss and he felt each of their stances shift slightly as they turned, as one, to face the new threat.

  Torfan barely even noted their subtle shift. If not for their long friendship Lucas would not have thought he’d noticed it at all. Torfan knew these men, and knew that they were no threat to him, though his stride and manner suggested that he would not have cared if they were. Sharon had a more pronounced reaction. She knew how to read people, but had little experience in dealing with soldiers. She could read that these men were hovering near the edge of violence, but didn’t understand that they had been gearing themselves up for it for the last several minutes. She did, however, understand that they had just focused that readiness on her.

  Lucas took advantage of Sharon’s momentary loss of focus, hoping to stop them before they started. “Glad you two could make it down to see us off. This is an important raid. Don’t know if you have seen the Intel reports, but we found a Mob depot clearing both weapons, industrial-grade digging equipment, and probably a few meat vats. This could set us ahead months in terms of material production, and could solve half of the food problem to boot. “

  He allowed himself to grimace slightly as Sharon took one of her best ‘stop digging now’ poses, and fixed him with a level stare. So much for trying to head them off.

  “You know why we are here Lucas, just as well as we know how vital this raid is, and how vital each of these men are. What we begin to wonder is if you understand just how vital you are. Not only as our leader in a practical sense, and in terms of authority, but in terms of moral throughout The Column, and in terms of PR throughout the world.”

  ”Yes, so you keep telling me, Sharon. But, as you say, I am the leader, and have responsibilities to these men here, and to all who fight. One of the things I, and many of us, despise about those bastards in CentGov is that they are unwilling to get their hands dirty, to take risks. They are all for sending someone else off to die so they can make some money or increase their prestige, but will go to any lengths to protect themselves. I will not allow myself to be like that, nor to be seen like that.”

  Sharon rolled her eyes, then leveled a piercing stare at him which seemed intended to pin him to the locker at his back. “There is no one, not a single person, on our side or theirs who would think that of you for a moment. You put yourself in harm’s way over and over, and the people on both sides know it. You do it too o
ften, though, and too easily. Having some half a dozen people grumble because you start to avoid combat is far less detrimental for us than losing you would be. For that matter, the number of people who currently complain about how you put something so vital to us all -yourself- at such risk far outweigh any who might harbor some doubt about your courage or willingness to do what is needed yourself. You are the voice of The Column, and our most powerful symbol. You must to stop doing this, Lucas.”

  Lucas shook his head, looked at his men, and found himself startled to realize that they were agreeing with her. They knew his courage, his will, even how his presence in battle increased their chances of survival. They were willing to put their lives on the line for The Column, and they were willing to accept the increased risk of going without him for the same reasons. The determination in their stances and set of their jaws told him that they were not just willing, but ready to accept that increased risk.

  It didn’t matter. He went on these raids whenever possible, and had told these two that often enough. They were going to have to learn to accept it. He would not, could not with a clear conscience, allow these men to constantly go into danger without being willing to brave it himself. Aside from that, his skill as a battle leader could be matched by few others, and his skill increased his men’s chances of survival. He began to feel himself growing angry over their interference, especially here and now. They were the ones who had insisted, so long ago, that he lead the movement, who insisted that he accept absolute dominion over The Column. The decision fell to him, and him alone, and he had made it time and again.

  Furthermore, they had no business being here! The preparation for a mission was a sacred ritual for every soldier. Here they prepared their minds to deal with what lay ahead, and brought their bodies into readiness for battle. To interrupt these rituals represented more than just a breach of protocol, it could be deadly. To do so in order to question a commander in front of his men represented an even greater sin. He felt the heat rise through his men and realized that the same thoughts passed through their minds as well.