Wings

by Fearadhach MecRaudri

  Sharon seemed to detect it to, and changed gears with a speed and fluidity which the caused the tactical analyst yammering away in the back of his mind both admire her ability and shout warnings at him. He almost missed the small, subtle shift. Her piercing expression didn’t change, but her weight shifted to her right foot, and her left fist opened up then slid slightly down her hip. Instead of speaking immediately she met the eyes of each other man in the room. Her gaze no longer tried to pin the men to the wall, but to plead with them to help her keep him safe. Anger welled up at this tactic, so he moved his gaze to Torfan, and they locked eyes.

  They had been friends for decades, all the way back before Lucas ‘came over’. They had been through joy, sorrow, accord, and disagreement. They knew each other’s minds well, and they had a full conversation in the space of a moment. Torfan looked at Pilken, and shook his head slightly, as if unsure that the man could do the job of leading himself. This, of course, angered Lucas, and he instantly recognized the emotion as his friend’s intent.

  Horror came next, the emotion lancing through his body as Torfan spread his hands and shrugged slightly, expressing his willingness to speak that opinion out loud. Lucas knew the reality of the threat, and they both knew the devastation it would cause in the ranks. If he allowed these men to go out with that ringing in their ears then they would make mistakes, regardless of whether he led or not, and men would die. He would have to cancel the mission, and the story would spread.

  It would permeate the ranks of his military like a cancer, and take weeks to clean it out. Weeks, if they were lucky. His expression hardened, and Torfan’s matched it. The shorter man made it perfectly clear that he would carry out the threat if he had to.

  Lucas clamped down on his frustration and anger, allowing the battle-mind he had been preparing anyway to take over. He’d been beat, and they both knew it. Now to figure out how to back out and keep his men fit for this mission. Sharon had finished meeting each man’s gaze, and had allowed her expression to soften. As they locked gazes, he knew that she could see the defeat in his eyes, and her expression softened further, from angry near-defiance to a deferent reasoning. “Lucas, we are not here to tell you what you must or must not do,” HA! “but to fulfill our obligations as two of your top advisors. We do not come to you now as your friends. As your friend I wish I could let you go, because I know why it is that you insist on putting yourself at risk.

  “It is your moral strength and love for these men that keeps you going out there, which is part of why you are so dear to both of us, and to us all. You go because it is hard for you to take these men into harm’s way, and abhorrent to you to send them without going yourself…without sharing the risk. As your friend, I would rather you go, and not have to deal with that pain. But I am not here as your friend. I am here as a ranking member of the Council and, as such, I know that your presence and leadership are far more important. It is a sad irony that the same quality which makes you the best man to lead us all is the one which makes it so hard for you to stay here, but that is what you should do. These men are able, Lucas, you know that well. Let them fly.”

  He held his breath as she nearly continued to speak, nearly spoke about how he needed to trust them to do what needed to be done without him present, but she did not. He had to admire what she had done. She’d turned the men around, shown them why he had to stay, and how he served them better if he did. She had made it so that choosing to stay behind would actually increase their survival probabilities, because they would be protecting him, but going with them would make them -at best- less effective since they would be more worried about his safety than the mission or their own survival.

  Still, he could order them out and turn that around easily enough…. He glanced briefly at his friend, and met a stare of galvanized steel. He could turn it around, but then Torfan would force his hand.

  Well, nothing for it. He turned to Pilken, “Captain, you have led these men time and again. You men have served with him through battle so fierce no mortal man could have believed himself able to survive it. Yet, here you all stand now. It is even harder than she knows for me to stay here.” He widened to gaze to take in all the flyers in the room, “You men, more than any others, know what it is for me to stay behind. You are my comrades and my brothers, and it kills a part of me to stay here while you go forth. But such is the nature of this war we are in. Many sacrifices, large and small, must be made by each of us. Sometimes those sacrifices are those tiny deaths which we fear more than death itself.” A tiny sound from Sharon, and he caught himself before telling the men that they were capable of doing this without him. That would have either made them cocky, or sounded like he had tried to convince them of the fact. Sometimes that woman seemed like a mind reader.

  “Pilken, you know well that you have my utmost respect and confidence. Go out there. Take these men, succeed, and bring them home.” He looked up again from Pilken, “All of you, go out there and do what needs to be done. I am not going to tell you to give them hell. I don’t care what you give them. I care that you all come back alive, and bring back what you can. I know that you will meet success, because” He grinned impishly, anticipating their false-groans as he passed them his normal good-luck blessing, “Where there is a Wing, there is a Way!”

  The men held their false groans, and looked him stolidly. The first flyer to load into the transport finally moved. The man held his eyes for a moment, then spoke quietly, “Where there is a Wing, there is a Way.” He then saluted smartly, turned, and exited to the hanger. Each flyer, in turn, did precisely the same thing, until only Pilken remained. Pilken stepped up to him, saluted, and repeated the phrase. They stared at each other a moment, then Lucas clapped him on the shoulder. Pilken clasped Lucas’s forearm, then left without another word. There were times when men of deeds needed no words.

  ***

  Torfan kept an eye on Sharon as the door shut behind Pilken and Lucas strode from the room with his back ramrod straight and eyes unblinking. The leader of The Column did not look at either of them, seemed to be willfully ignoring their existence. Torfan had to dig his hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing Sharon’s arm as she tried to intercept their Commander. Something had to be done to stop her, though, so he carefully tapped her foot with his, and felt great relief when she stopped.

  Her expression held confusion and concern when she spoke. “I did not expect for him to give in that easily, I had another twenty minutes of careful arguments prepared.” Her eyes narrowed as she gazed down at him and a horrible comprehension settled into her features, “arguments carefully crafted to keep him from feeling cornered or forced. Yet, he was cornered, and his hand was defiantly forced. What did you do?!?”

  His eyes gaze moved down and to the right, away from Sharon, as he mulled over his few options for reply. He could lie to her. Sharon had great skill at reading people and would probably know that he lied but, due to the separation between their positions in the chain of command, could only do so much to call him on it. For that matter, he could tell her it was none of her business, and a personal matter between himself and Lucas.

  Sharon moved, and his gaze returned to her with a start. Her feet were separated, her arms crossed, her shoulders back: she looked prepared for battle. He realized that she had obviously managed to see his thoughts in his expression, and would have none of either. Sharon represented an unknown to him. In fact, if not for his relationship to Lucas the two of them would probably barely even have met. His responsibilities lay in running this Sanctuary, hers in the morale of the entire column and trying to finesse the opinions of the outside world to the point that they might act (or at least accept action) against CentGov. They just didn’t interact that much.

  He liked her, in general, however. She provided Lucas with a true friendship, a difficult thing for a man in that position to have. She also did her job very well: more than once had she come up with some campaign or idea which had made his life immensely easier. He preferr
ed to avoid friction with her, if only for the sake of their mutual friend and leader.

  A heavy sigh came with the realization that he now had his back to the wall, and fessing up would be necessary. “I threatened to seriously undermine the moral of The Column military.” Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, and she backed up a step in abject horror, then downright anger that he would include her in such a thing. Something like that could be counted as treason, if it played out the wrong way. He continued hastily, “I threatened to suggest that the reason he insisted on going on missions was that he didn’t trust Pilken, and by extension his commanders in general, to get the job done properly without him looking over their shoulders on occasion.”

  She stepped forward to loom over him. He hated that, but not from a sensitivity about his height -which he did not have. He hated the underlying assumptions which lead people to take that particular action. He considered doing something about it (like burying his face directly forward into her breasts), but she quickly backed up and began to speak accusingly, “You didn’t have to do that! You shouldn’t have done that! It may be the Day of Rescue before he calms down from that sort of stunt! Do you have any idea what you have done? I would have talked him down soon enough. This mission was not time-critical, and still could have been carried out. It could have been moved to another day if necessary.

  “Lucas would have come around! Even if he hadn’t, we could have taken it up when he came back, and eventually made him see reason. Instead you have made him absolutely furious at both of us, impaired his ability to do his job, and possibly permanently damaged his friendship with both of us. I can’t believe I have been a part of this!” She screamed the last at the ceiling rock over their heads, then dropped her eyes to stare her fury at him.

  He deliberately sat down on a bench, emphasizing the difference in height between them, shaking his head as he responded. “You know him fairly well, Sharon, better than almost anyone, but not on the deep personal level that I do. Nothing short of backing him into a corner was going to change his course,” He allowed a slight hint of accusing stare to show for a few moments. “especially not as late as we arrived.

  “As for your careful arguments, you had about two sentences left before he would have ordered the men to the transport and locked the door behind him. There are a lot of things you know about humans and human nature, even about the mind of a soldier, but battle-prep is not one of them. We interrupted a ritual here, and those men were already practically in combat. Lucas would not have let you drop them out of that combat-ready state, regaining it is too difficult.

  “Furthermore, when he got back, he would have categorically dismissed all arguments you then made. Lucas is more willing to listen to his advisors and confidants than any leader of his caliber I have ever known, but once he digs his heels in -particularly if he has had some time to really dig them in- there is almost nothing on heaven or earth which can shift him. It was either force him to stay behind now, or give it up.”

  The knot in his stomach, which had gone un-noticed, began to ease as her expression softened slightly in confusion and she spoke. “But you said that now is when we should do this. It sounds like this was the worst possible time.”

  “No, fifteen minutes sooner than we walked in here is when we should have done this; Just before the men started to get ready. We could have discussed it briefly, convinced him to stay off this one time, then talked him through the rest. If you want to get Lucas to do something he isn’t keen on doing, you have to move him in steps… sometimes very small ones.

  “I tried to stop you when I saw through the window where they were at, but you insisted you knew what you were doing and barreled through the door anyway. I’d had an impulse then to physically bar your way, and I guess I should have.” He tried to push the tension out with another heavy sigh, “I guess my flaw is an avoidance of physical confrontation, even when it is called for.

  “The good news is that your concerns about Lucas’s reaction paint a picture far worse than reality. He doesn’t mind being proven wrong, but being backed into a corner and forced from a course of action that he believes is right will make him quite angry. He will go find a patch of open air –probably at the Thebra Sanctuary where the perpetual cloud cover allows Outside flight- fly till he is exhausted, glide around a bit and actually enjoy the flight for a while, then find some unapproachable place to sit and consider what you were telling him.

  “Once the sense of what you said has become apparent, he’ll come around to it, but that part may take a couple of days. We’d probably best steer clear for that time, if at all possible. If not, just remain cool and collected. We will be dealt with professionally, but coolly. Don’t take it personally; it just takes him some time to come down. Don’t try to bring the matter up before he’s ready, that will only cause the anger to come back. Once he realizes we are right he will forgive us for forcing him.

  “I hope.”

  Sharon blinked at him several times, then shifted to a more relaxed posture. “Well, maybe you should have gone ahead and tried to restrain me, but I’m not sure how well that would have worked out for either of us. I can be a bit bull-headed myself when I get my feet set on a course.” She shrugged, “Well, I suppose the die are cast now, we just have to deal with this as best we can.

  “Oh, by the way, next time kindly tell me all of this kind of thing before I go walking into a situation with you. I do NOT like being blindsided!”

  He nodded to her, and quirked his lips into a half-smile which spoke of both an apology and of saying he’d tried to do just that. She studied him for a few moments, nodded back, and left. He chuckled mirthlessly to himself and shook his head. Sometimes the only thing worse than being wrong was being right.

  Chapter 9

  Gabern Toren didn’t care much either way about his official nor unofficial job most of the time, though he had to admit he liked the office. It may have been a little small, but was all dark wood- even the wall paneling- and it actually had a window. Such perks were nice to have, and a way of knowing that you were actually ascending the ranks. Getting the unofficial job handed to someone in a family with so little power inside the shadow hierarchy had required his family to use of a lot of political capital, for him it could be an important stepping stone. Officially he was an intelligence analyst for the Legion: one of its many non-winged, non-combat positions.

  Unofficially, he served as the point-of-contact and controller for some of the criminal organizations which were allowed to operate across Kethelmar. Several generations ago someone had decided to control the organized crime groups rather than fight them. Some concessions were given in exchange for certain rules of engagement (called the Conventions by most), and CentGov gained a new avenue of control. The arrangement had proven useful in a great many ways, including the ability to gain intelligence about The Column, staging public incidents of various kinds to keep the populace in check, and moving materials and information along untraceable channels. Some members of the Families also used them to supply certain vices for them, or as pawns in the constant power games, but that sort of thing hardly seemed important to most.

  Riding herd on the various mobs could be a challenging task, however. They were always trying to push the Conventions. One day one tried to expand into other’s territory without permission, the next another tried to get away with something else, or failed in even the simplest tasks: like keeping two sets of items they had been allowed to have separated. Some would have considered the incident he now had to deal with as an annoyance, but he saw it as an opportunity. If he handled it right.

  His thoughts were interrupted by just that opportunity knocking at the door. Gabern quickly opened it to greet Sar Cohen, the Commandant of the Academy. He invited the Commandant into his office, thanked him for taking time out of his schedule, and offered him a glass of fine wine. The Commandant politely refused, expressing thanks for the invitation to listen to the expected phone call. Sar spoke in gentl
e tones about how being impressed both with Gabern's foresight in knowing the timing of the call, and the generosity of the invitation. Gabern smiled to himself at the subtlety of the statement.

  Men who had no business in his position would take that statement as a compliment, and believe that they had earned some sort of points in the eyes of Cohen just for the invitation, never noticing how the man put the distaste held by all in the Families in the word ‘generosity’. They saw it as a sign of weakness or foolishness. Others would have seen the Commandant’s meaning and taken umbrage, but he saw the subtle question in the statement.

  In many ways, Gabern’s invitation to Cohen held a good deal of generosity, and he took no small gamble in inviting the Commandant. His own star had been ascending quickly for a while, both because of certain positions obtained by some of his cousins and because of how well he had done at both his official and unofficial duties.

  Still, inviting Cohen here meant taking a calculated risk. His family did not have the influence protect him if trouble arose, and so his position remained at risk. The fact that a mob boss had disobeyed a direct order-and that the disobedience had ended up with The Column gaining a cache of weapons- had cost him no small amount of prestige. If he appeared to be asking for Cohen’s help in dealing with the problem, he would look weak and his recent rise could turn into a meteoric fall.

  If, however, he could handle this in a fashion that gained Cohen’s Patronage it could increase his family’s prestige greatly overnight, and give them protection to move somewhat more boldly. The risk that Cohen could decide that him a sycophant or otherwise unworthy of his patronage, and decide to crush him, remained small. So he hoped, anyway.