Wings

by Fearadhach MecRaudri

  “CentGov used the ‘new settlement’ rules to declare the province insufficiently viable to be self-governed, sealed all records, installed a new governor, declared the grain a ‘menace to public health’, and recalled it.

  “The new governor immediately declared that all residents owed back taxes to the moment they originally landed on the island, nearly a dozen years ago, confiscated all of their superior grain stock as taxes owed, and stored it. He even forced them to build those grain silos you see and made them destroy the –more secure- small silos they had been using. This will make things far easier for us, but we’ll get there in a moment.

  “The governor is not allowing them to plant any grain at all, and is keeping them on starvation-rations, apparently out of pique at being given a lousy assignment. What little food the people get comes mostly from a handful of old, nearly defunct meat-vats. They are currently in these three buildings.” A trio of buildings, well separated from each other, glowed green on the projection. "We believe that CentGov’s plan is to distribute the superior grain to the agricultural-production controlling Families, and let them start growing it on their own. We expect the island to then be sold to them by CentGov, to cover the remaining 'back taxes'. Then... well... all of you know how CentGov's appointed governors treat these sorts of small half-off-grid colonies.

  “The only mystery is why this hasn't happened yet. Our hope is that it is the normal wrangling between the families over who gets what. I fear that this may not be the case, though. For one thing, only one man has the kind of pull to put something like this in place, much less keep it in place for the months it has been here, and allowing negotiations to drag on this long hardly seems Sar's style. We have no idea what he might be holding this in reserve for, but it can't be good for us.”

  Lucas could see eyes light up around the room as the plan Aaron was about to propose became clear, and could feel a weight lifting from his own shoulders as the import of this discovery played across his mind.

  Several people began to motion that they wanted the floor, but Aaron waved them down and continued. “Wait, all. You can see where I am going, but it gets better. First, to answer the questions so many of you want to ask: No, we do not have to take all, or even most, of the grain from these people. All we need is enough to start a full growth cycle in our farms which will take – at most - a third of what they have. I have also consulted Jared, and he assures me that all he needs is one or two working meat-vats, even ones which are barely working, to be able to replicate them.

  “I also have not yet told you the best news: Yolanda did a lot of exploring around the island, places it didn’t look like the people there had gone. She found a number of large, dry caves: enough space to store much or most of that grain. Of course, for them to keep it means that we have to bring in a bunch of our inferior stock to destroy, in order to make it look like we destroyed what was in those silos, but I think that is a price we can pay. We can take what we need, destroy the garrison, and leave these people here. We don't have to force them underground.”

  Someone from the agriculture division spoke up, “I don’t know, Aaron. Destroying that much of our grain is risky, even more so when we don’t know-for sure- that this grain is all you promise it to be. I do not doubt your intelligence work, Aaron, so please don’t look at me like that, but I will not feel comfortable about this course of action until the Agg department has checked this stuff out, which could take some time.”

  One of Sharon’s seconds spoke up, “There are two other factors we should consider here. The first, we have been seeing disturbing undercurrents in some press releases lately about food. We suspect that they are getting ready to cause a major food shortage, but it has been hard to determine the plan. Generally, when they are planning something like that, it is pretty easy to determine how they plan to pull out of it. One of the things which made us think they weren’t planning a food problem is that we didn’t see how they were going to resolve it, but now I think we do.

  “I submit to the council that they are planning on causing a major food shortage, and intend to have this grain come out and save the day. If that is the case, and we destroy the stuff, it could cause a world-wide famine.

  “This leads directly to my second concern, which is two-fold. First, if we destroy this stuff they will be able to blame the entire famine on us, directly, which will cause us to take a major hit in the eyes of the public. Second, they will probably come behind us and wipe the entire settlement out, meaning we will have to take all these people in after all…and it is going to be hard for us to accommodate that many people at once.”

  Aaron responded quickly, “Actually, I think we can deal with your last concern rather easily. Part of what I propose is that we, very carefully, alert one of the more independent reporters to what is happening. If we time it right, we should be able to get her to arrive at about the same time the Legion does, making it appear that they scared us off. The gal I have in mind has a penchant for broadcasting live, so there is no way that they will be able to destroy the place.

  “I don’t know what to say about the rest of the concerns that have been expressed, though. I would be comfortable enough risking what we have in food now that Jared and his folks have OK’d this stuff, but I’m not the Agg department, either.”

  Everyone shook their heads slowly, and the feeling of defeat returned to the room. Lucas closed his eyes, let his chin sink to his chest, and thought hard. There was no way they could pass this up. Sharon tapped his foot reassuringly with hers, then stood to speak, “Actually, I don’t think I’m concerned about the PR this will bring, particularly not with Aaron’s plan. I think it will present us with a number of opportunities, in fact. With this settlement which no one has heard of on the news some people will begin asking embarrassing questions. CentGov will probably just refuse to let the questions be aired publicly, but they will be asked. It will also make them anxious to bury the story, and keep it buried. Any time it is brought up, those questions will resurface.

  “This raid is also the perfect catalyst to start a major PR push with the general populace which we have been planning. We have the second step of it planned, then a number of forks depending on how everything goes, but we didn’t have a place to start.

  “Now we do. Hitting a target like this, taking down a garrison of that size, will tarnish the reputation of both CentGov and the Legion.

  “Aaron, would it be possible to make it look like the Legion destroyed the silos in their rush to get at us?"

  His smile broadened, and he gave a nod, "We won't have to, they will. I think we can count on any Legion aid sent to this place to have very specific instructions about that grain." Sharon shot him a look, and he held up his hands, "Of course, such things should not be left to chance, so we will make sure to have something in place in case they don't have the orders we expect."

  Sharon's eyes seemed to shine in the darkened room. "If we can get live footage out of the Legion destroying that much food, with shortage in the offing... they will look like buffoons to some, and the skeptical will see them for the monsters they are. This will seriously undermine both CentGov and the Legion. With confidence in those two groups weakened we turn up the intensity of the question of this settlement’s origins, which will cause people to begin to question the PR machine itself. The next step is obvious. Once we have established the fact that the PR machine is totally not to be trusted, we start to turn their own lies against them. Starting, of course, with you.”

  She turned to squarely face Lucas, who looked at her with a face full of surprise as she continued, “They have gone out of their way to make you a villain, using absurdity as a tool. It is obvious that half the PR out there about you couldn’t be true, but the weight and volume of it makes it hard for people to ignore.

  “At least, it is hard to ignore in the absence of direct contradictory evidence. The tactic they are using is dangerous, however. We don’t’ have to make you out to be the saint we all
know and love,” this brought chuckles around the room “all we have to do is make people believe that maybe, just maybe, you aren’t the incarnation of evil they make you out to be.

  “The trick here is that we have to show people this, rather than ‘tooting the horn.’ If enough people can be convinced that you are not evil incarnate –and that is not even convincing them you are good, just not evil- then the preponderance of evidence that is spouted against you begins to look more and more like the directed PR campaign that it is."

  Gencher had a small smile on his face, and had leaned forward slightly in his chair with had his eyes open slightly more than normal. It was the most excited that Lucas had ever seen the man. “Well, well, cutie. I can’t believe I am saying this, but I think you and I are in agreement for once. That should be enough, right there, for all of you. Let me and my men go do what we are trained to do. That garrison might be large in proportion to the settlement, but we can take it down without even breaking a sweat.”

  Aaron leaned over the table, putting his hands on the edge of the display, “Getting away from the Legion should be no trouble, thanks to the amphibious air-to-sea personnel carriers.” He tapped a few buttons, and the display zoomed out quickly, until the island in question was the size of a fruit on the table, and another dot glowed to the northwest.” There is an island chain about thirty kilometers from this one. It is still outside of the zone which is currently opened up for new habitation, but is prime settlement land and therefore useless to us as a base because we would have to abandon the place sooner or later. There are a number of places where we could hide, however, and will take the Legion months to search.

  Those amphibious craft can out-run anything except Legion fighter craft, and we should be able to put enough of our own fighters in to outnumber those at least three-to-one. Furthermore, if we make sure that this reporter person sees you, Lucas, as we retreat, the Legion will have no choice but to pursue with all they have. Our fighters should be able to take theirs down easily, allowing our amphibians to lead the Legion on a merry chase. They can then take to the water after reaching the islands. It will look like we have hidden there, but we’ll be long gone.”

  Lucas tried to keep the excitement in his belly from pouring out across his face. He was going Outside again, going to lead his men again, they were letting him out... Something about Aaron’s plan bothered him, though. It only took a moment to ferret the source of his discomfort, and to choose a solution. His hands came together as his voice cut through the excited buzz of conversation around the room, “I like it, Aaron. You have come up with a great idea, and covered nearly all the angles. There is one major adjustment, though. I am worried about the way we are using the amphibious vehicles. We can’t allow them to figure out, or even suspect, we have those things. If they decide to start looking beneath the water for us it will spell disaster.

  “I want some people sent to make something which looks like a Forward-Operating-Base in that area, and I want two of the Decoy craft placed there. The ones which are designed to look like an entire fleet to the scanners. They are to be programmed to look like the amphibious fleet, though one should be rigged to look like the fleet trying to hide and the other like the fleet trying to run. The one looking like the fleet trying to run is to make a B-line to the Chandu province, and go to ground there.

  “The other is to pick a random southern direction, somewhere completely away from any civilized area, ours or theirs. They are to fly for ten hours, then shut their deceiver system down and make their way to the nearest Sanctuary. Hopefully they will figure out that the first Decoy was a ruse, and believe our fleet snuck off to the south. With any luck they will be tearing the Southern Hemisphere apart for months trying to figure out where we could be. Oh, and tell the southern decoy that I don’t want it anywhere near Thebra Sanctuary at any time, even after they have switched off. I want Thebra kept on water-only approach.

  “As for this concern about the grain, let’s see if we can’t nip that right now.” He made a call to the genetics lab, asked the technician who answered to put Jared on the phone.

  When the head geneticist appeared again above the table Lucas spoke, “Jared, how sure are you in your assessment of that grain? We are about to risk a lot of what we currently have to obtain it. Are you confident enough in your assessment of its growth properties and nutritional value for that?”

  Jared looked slightly more nervous than usual as he answered, “Mostly, sir. We are still sequencing the grain, will probably be at that for a day or two. Then we will have to go through what we find. It will take several days, a week at most. I have made this a priority project…”

  Lucas cut him off, “We don’t have a day or two Jared, and I can’t risk our food on a ‘mostly’. I don’t want this to be a priority project, I want this to be your only project until you can get me a definitive answer on this stuff. By ‘your’ I mean every single resource at your disposal. Take every single scientist and technician at every facility and put them on this, if you have to. I need this answer in hours, Jared, not weeks. We have to move on this.”

  Jared began blinking rapidly and staring at the ceiling while processing the demand. It took only a few moments for him to respond, “If that is what you want, sir. I can have everyone re-tasked to this in about half a day, and have this stuff sequenced out by morning. We can then start…”

  Lucas cut him off again, “I have every faith in your people, Jared, and in you. I do not need to approve your methodology, just to know that you can get it done. I presume that if you bend all your resources to this you can get me a preliminary answer within the next couple of days?”

  Jared’s sharp “Yes, sir” caused grins to come back up around the room as Lucas continued.

  “Good. Let me know the moment you do.”

  “You got it. We will do everything we can, sir!"

  “I know you will, Jared. You always do. Lucas out.”

  Lucas began to clear the hologram from the table, but Aaron stood and waved a request to take the floor. Lucas sat, motioning for him to proceed. Aaron hit a few buttons which brought several different pictures of a flyer up on the screens, and turned to Yolanda.

  She looked like she didn’t know what Aaron expected of her, but spoke anyway, “This is Terrance Kildare. He is the flyer who procured that grain we analyzed, and has expressed a desire to defect. I followed procedure and told him he’d be contacted, then turned over the many recorded hours of his activities over for psychological evaluation.”

  Yolanda looked uncertainly at Aaron, as if wondering if she was supposed to say more. Lucas decided to rescue her with a question, “What is your assessment of the man, agent?”

  Yolanda’s eyes went wide, but her voice remained calm, “With respect, sir, I am not qualified for psychological evaluations. That said, I did trust him enough to let him grab that grain rather than doping him with naptillius, but not enough to be willing to bring him back with me. If you are looking for my recommendation, sir?” She waited for his nod, “I would say that the troops should be given no-shoot orders for the man, but in no way should he be given advanced warning of our arrival.”

  Lucas nodded, motioning for her to take her seat, “That is good enough for me. Gencher, see to it that this man’s picture is distributed to the troops with orders not to fire on him unless he gets aggressive with us.

  Lucas cleared all the displays, brought the lights back up, and stood. He leaned over the table, placed his hands on it, and took a moment to let his wings stretch a little before speaking, “Ok, people. We are going to assume that these grains are everything Aaron says they are, and going to proceed under that assumption. Let’s figure out how to make this happen.”

  He quickly lost himself, and his track of time, in the myriad of details required to prepare a large-scale raid; all the while praying in the back of his mind that Jared wouldn’t call him with bad news.

  Chapter 17

  Lucas was the first man strapped
in and armored up, as always. He felt it important for him to keep that tradition of his up, to let the men know that he had not lost his edge in the months since he quit flying missions with them. The practice and sim runs which they’d done already had, of course, done that, but he still had his pride.

  He strapped the hold-out knife to his boot, checked to make sure that his wings had free movement, and called out for men to correct problems which –by sound- he detected. It seemed as if the last time in this room was days ago, rather than months. He’d had his normal bout of fear the night before, but that was past and now he felt only the calm before the storm, as always. A smile came to his lips as his men’s preparations sounded, also as always, like practiced technicians preparing a well-oiled machine. A small glimmer of pride to seeped through his emotional control as he noticed that they had lost none of their edge in his time away.

  Everything felt so familiar. That anticipation hung in the air, but it somehow managed to be a calm anticipation. An eagerness hovered about them, but each man knew it was an eagerness to see the mission accomplished rather than for the business of the mission itself. He looked around for something to do, someone he could help, but found nothing. He saw his men note, with a smile and shake of the head, that he was the first one ready. It would have been easy enough to have stood there and done nothing, but they all knew that it wasn’t his way. He went to each man, checking a strap here, helping with an adjustment there. It was not necessary, but let them know that he knew them and their needs.

  Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he heard other sounds, wrong sounds, coming from his men. He had bent over to check the armor around a man’s wings when he heard coughing, shuffling of feet, a change in the rhythm of preparations, and no few weapon straps being unsnapped. He looked up to see Sharon, followed by Torfan and his wife, walking into the room, and his men dropping any pretense of their preparations to stand, arms crossed and glowering, and stare at the intruders to their private realm.