by T. C. Edge
We were blind to such an invasion. We underestimated just how much power the Baron, and the Cabal, had accumulated. And now, it’s the innocent people, the hard working people, from all over the country, that are paying for our miscalculation.
In the midst of the fight, I hardly have time to consider the repercussions of the all of this. I merely use it as fuel to do what I need to, rampaging through the city like a whirlwind, ruthlessly dispatching any enemy who comes into my sights.
I take absolutely no prisoners. Even the thought of trying to capture an enemy soldier alive abandons me. Instead, my fury rises with each passing minute, with each innocent person I see lying lifeless in the dirty, bloodied streets. And as the storm continues to thunder, and the world continues to burn, I have no idea how many lives I take. I enter a state of total and utter focus, surging from kill to kill without remorse, without guilt.
Because now, this truly is a war. And in war, there’s no space for such emotion.
Velia isn’t any different. Whether from a distance using her rifle, or up close using her knife, she takes enemies out like she’s ritually slaughtering lambs for a feast. We leave so little for Captain Botica and his men that they eventually begin moving off in another direction, seeking revenge of their own.
And soon, with our support forces moving through the city from the South, the enemy begin to retreat. And just as they did in New Atlantis, they escape to their jets and disappear into the dark skies, their job well and truly done.
We don’t encounter a Seeker this time. However, by the stories we hear from some of the people creeping from their hiding places, one was certainly here.
“A cloaked man,” one woman tells us. “He led the forces into the city. He killed so many…”
She proceeded to break down in tears, Velia moving to comfort her. And despite such a vague description, it’s obvious who she was talking about.
With the fighting now complete, and the remains of the city made safe, my thoughts once more turn towards the others. Velia, too, appears to suddenly remember that her sister is out there as well, going through what we have just been through.
We quickly attempt to contact them using our helmets, but it doesn’t take long to realise that their range is too narrow. So, back to the jet we go, rushing towards the docks. When we reach it we find the pilot still aboard, and ask him to contact my father, and Captain Price, to get us updates on the other attacks.
He’s quick to tell us that Jackson has already been in contact.
“Governor Kane is safe, as is your mother,” he tells me. “They quelled the attack quickly, and are now on their way here.”
“And my sister?” asks Velia quickly.
“Captain Price,” I add. “Have you spoken with him?”
“Not yet. I can try to get through.”
“Please…”
He sets about dialling in to the young captain, but doesn’t get a response. After several efforts, all yielding the same result, he looks at us with a little shake of the head.
“No luck I’m afraid. It’s likely that they’re still fighting…”
“Keep trying,” I say, as I lead Velia into the belly of the plane to take a seat.
“I’m sure Vesuvia is fine,” I say, just as I did before.
My thoughts, meanwhile, are now locked to the fate of Ajax. And despite what I tell Velia about her sister, I can’t help but be concerned that something has happened to my best friend.
We sit for a little while, reflecting on the battle, our thoughts on our loved ones. Soon, however, the pilot is calling us from the front once more.
“Governor Kane’s jet is incoming,” he says.
I’m quickly up and out of the plane, my eyes to the dark skies. The rain continues to fall, causing me to blink as I look up and see the clouds lighting up, and an aircraft come bursting out of them. The plane lands and the doors quickly open, and out onto the docks rush my parents.
My mother draws me into an abbreviated hug.
“Is Velia OK?” she asks, seeing that I’m alone.
“She’s on the plane,” I say. “Have you heard from the others?”
My father shakes his head. “I’ve tried Captain Price several times but haven’t been able to get through. It’s possible he’s been killed.”
He says it very matter of factly, but he’s probably right.
We return to Velia as my father’s men move into the city to aid with the clean-up. Quickly, I brief him and my mother on what happened.
“Did you encounter a Seeker?” she asks.
“Not personally, no,” I say. “But there was one here. Did you?”
She shakes her head. “He may have already gone by the time we arrived.”
As we talk, Jackson continues to try to make contact with Captain Price, whilst the pilot does the same. Eventually, after several long minutes, we hear a crackling sound on the pilot’s radio.
“Sir…we have contact,” he calls from ahead.
We all move into the cockpit and gather around.
“Captain Price, do your read,” says Jackson. “This is Governor Kane…”
“Sir, Captain Price has been killed, sir…”
We share concerned looks.
“Who am I speaking with?” asks my dad.
“This is corporal Milner, sir. We suffered extreme casualties…”
His voice crackles over the static, fading away.
“Corporal, do you copy…corporal…”
“Yes…sir…the enemy forces…just left…”
“What is the state of our men?” asks Jackson quickly. “Are the Watchers OK?”
“The boy…yes sir…”
“And the girl?”
I look at Velia, unmoving as she stares at the radio.
“Injured…sir…”
She takes a sharp intake of breath and I move over and wrap my arm around her. I see her want to speak herself, but she can’t seem to. Jackson does the necessary talking.
“But is she alive?” his voice rushes.
“Yes…alive, sir…”
The static continues to worsen, until suddenly the radio goes blank.
“OK,” says Jackson, “we’re going up the coast. Let’s go,” he tells the pilot.
The pilot doesn’t delay, quickly bringing the jet to life and lifting it into the air. Jackson, meanwhile, is straight onto his radio speaking with his own strike force and Captain Botica, ordering them to stay in the city and ensure its safety.
“Where exactly did the other jet go?” I ask my mum.
“A city called Mercator,” she says. “It’s a major trading post up the coast.”
“How far?” asks Velia, clearly desperate to get there as soon as possible.
“It won’t take long. Only thirty or so miles to the North,” she says.
For the duration of the journey, Velia disappears into her own thoughts, while the rest of us consider the implications of what’s going on.
“There might be more attacks coming,” says Jackson. “All of the regions are now on high alert, and the entire military is being mobilised.”
“But the military is weak now, isn’t it?” I ask. “Hasn’t it been shrunk down over the years?”
He nods. “Unfortunately, yes. Peace will do that sometimes. It can make a country weak and vulnerable.”
“But no one ever saw this coming,” says Cyra. “We can’t have known the Baron would have such a force under his command…”
My father and I share a look. With everything that’s happened, we haven’t had a chance to properly discuss what we saw only hours ago down in Professor Lane’s lab. In fact, my mother hasn’t even been clued in yet as to the existence of the Cabal, and the many powerful foes we’re dealing with.
Her intuition is enough to convince her that something is wrong.
“What are you hiding?” she asks, peering at us.
“It’s not just the Baron,” Jackson says. “There’s a group of them known as the Cabal. T
hey have enough cumulative wealth to match us militarily.”
A heavy frown covers the tops of her eyes.
“How long have you know about this?” she demands.
“Not long,” says Jackson.
From the front, the pilot calls out that we’re coming into Mercator.
“We can discuss this later, Cy,” says Jackson. “I’ll explain everything once we’re all back together.”
She begrudgingly agrees as we land in yet another city, our whistle-stop tour of the coastline continuing. It’s not exactly how I envisaged seeing this part of the country for the first time.
As we step into the trading city of Mercator, it’s clear that the fighting has also concluded. No guns are being fired, no explosions are heard. And yet, the place burns as the others did, and howls of pain and the screams of grieving women and men continue to sound around the city.
We find a grouping of soldiers near to where we land, in an area of the market being used as a mobile command centre and field hospital. Inside, many of the wounded from the city, both its inhabitants and soldiers tasked with defending it, lie in various states of health. Some suffer from superficial wounds. Others are in a more critical condition. And beyond, in another section, the bodies of the dead have been accumulated, their surviving loved ones crying rivers of tears as they kneel around them.
As Jackson quickly moves in to speak with the soldiers and find out the state of affairs in the city, the rest of us set our sights on the wounded and injured, searching for Ajax and Vesuvia.
We move in, hunting them down amid the masses, people reaching out for help as we go. I find it hard to move past them, my own medical knowledge insufficient to offer any sort of aid. Cyra, meanwhile, finds herself stopping and helping where she can, the sight before her one she’s experienced before.
But not me. And not Velia. Together, we continue on, until we finally catch sight of Ajax and Vesuvia amid the throng. She rushes from my side to her sister, lying flat on the ground with a bloodied bandage wrapped around her leg. I follow behind, and Ajax stands to greet me with a quick embrace, his own body clean of his own wounds but covered in the blood of others.
While the sisters reunite beneath us, I ask my friend what happened.
“An explosion,” he says. “I saw it in time and we ran…but a bit of debris tripped her up and her leg got caught by some shrapnel from the blast.”
“But she’s OK?”
He nods. “She’s got some serious gashes on the leg, and the bone is probably fractured. But she’ll live.”
“Thank God,” I say. “How are you, though…”
My eyes scan the blood all over him.
“I’m fine. I killed a lot of people, Theo…”
It’s not a boast. It’s far from it. Such a thing as taking lives is never something to be proud of, no matter who it is. Only such terrible circumstances as these would necessitate such a thing.
“I know,” I say. “It needed to be done.”
He nods, and we turn our eyes down to the girls, wrapped up in each other’s arms on the ground.
“Her part in this is over,” I say, looking at Vesuvia’s leg. “But not ours.”
Ajax looks at me, the exhaustion so clear in his eyes.
“I wonder…what’s next?” he asks wearily.
“Next,” I say, “we’ll be going straight for the lion’s den.”
24
Defence to Attack
The evening is late when we gather once more in our group, finding a quiet place to sit and rest away from the field hospital. We sit around a table inside an office used by traders right on the waterfront, the flames of the city now put out and the storm having passed on.
Outside, the sky has grown clear, the stars and moon visible. Already, it’s late into the evening, dawn casually approaching on another day as if nothing has happened. And yet, when the sun rises, the full extent of the destruction of the coastline, and New Atlantis, will be revealed.
Down the coast, and a little further back into the regions, more news has come in of smaller attacks. Some have involved small forces of men, ransacking little towns and settlements that aren’t able to defend themselves. Others have seen bombs and explosive devices go off, hidden in buildings and town squares and primed to explode all at once.
Across the country, the threat of terror has spread, the entire world waking early to news that war has sprung up suddenly, and ubiquitously. And all over, soldiers have been quickly mobilised and sent far and wide, many of the military bases that still operate emptied out in an effort to protect those who have yet to be hit.
Immediately after the battle, our thoughts turned to our loved ones spread across the country. My aunts and uncles and cousins. My grandparents on my father’s side. Jackson’s family, in particular, is a large one, all of them still living in the old region of Agricola where he grew up. The others, too, have people they’re worried about, all of us quickly trying to track down information as to whether the settlements they live in have been hit. Thankfully, the news is good on that front, all of them confirmed as safe and sound.
In the office, my father stands before us, hands planted on the table, body wearily hunched over as he stands.
“I’ve just spoken with President Alber,” he says. “Eden’s doors have been locked tight, and no one is getting in or out. Most of the regional leaders, and city leaders from across the county, are still there after his coronation. They’re safe for now, but we cannot know for how long.”
Around the table, the rest of us sit, including Vesuvia who took it upon herself to discharge herself from the field hospital, announcing that there were others more in need of medical treatment and care. Her leg is heavily strapped, and the constant grimace on her face shows that she’s in a lot of pain. And yet she’s here, proving her courage once more.
The news from Eden brings Ajax’s voice into the conversation.
“What about my parents?” he asks. “They’re locked in there now? We were meant to be leaving after this and going to Petram…”
“I’m afraid our plans have changed, Ajax,” says Jackson. “We could never have anticipated such an overwhelming assault. “It may be better for Ellie and Link to stay on Eden for now.”
“Then what is this new plan?” asks Cyra. “You clearly know something that we don’t, Jack.”
My father looks to me, then around at the others.
“Earlier tonight, just before we learned of the attack on New Atlantis, Theo and I visited Professor Lane. As you all know, she’s been working hard to decipher the encrypted file, and so far has uncovered some useful information such as the names of those in the group known as the Cabal. Tonight, we learned something new…”
“What?” asks Cyra.
“We think we know where the Baron’s stronghold is. We can’t be sure, but it’s the best information we’ve got. And right now, it’s time we turned the tables on him…and attacked.”
He draws out a map of the regions and Deadlands, with the skeleton of Knight’s Wall cutting a path between them, and places it down on the table. His finger traces a path from Petram, across the empty wasteland, and past Knight’s wall towards the regions. It stops at a certain point, where a natural formation of rocks and peaks link with the wall.
“We believe that Lucius Gray, otherwise known as Lord Kendrik, has been building a secret facility right here, beneath the remnants of the wall.”
“But that’s…that’s where The Titan’s Hand is,” says Cyra, peering closely at the location of Jackson’s finger.
“Exactly. Lucius Gray has been helping with the dismantling of the wall over the years, using the raw materials to build up towns and settlements,” says my father. “However, that’s just been a front. Behind it all, he’s been a member of the Cabal as Lord Kendrik, and has been developing a secret base of operations somewhere along this stretch. We believe that he’s developed it right here, at the base of the thumb of The Titan’s Hand.”
&nbs
p; “Why there?”
“I’ll let Theo answer that. Theo…”
I quickly tell them all the same story I told my father and Professor Lane earlier that evening, about my sighting of the men stationed at The Titan’s Hand when we flew from Petram to Eden several weeks ago.
“And you’re sure of this?” asks Cyra. “We know that the wall is still being dismantled. That’s all it could have been.”
“I’m fairly sure, mum,” I say. “I definitely saw a gun. And, well, it just seems to fit perfectly.”
“And if it’s not there,” adds Jackson. “There’s definitely a base in the area. Now, we can’t be sure that the Baron will be there, but right now we have no other usable intel. We have no choice but to swap lanes and attack, and try to put our enemy on the back foot. Right now, they’ll expect us to be licking our wounds and consolidating. They won’t see this move coming.”
“OK…” says Cyra, now starting to pace and think. “So what’s the plan? Attack it head on?”
“More or less. But we need to be smart. We’ll scout the place out from a distance and then infiltrate under cover of night.”
“And if the Seekers are there?” asks Ajax. “Why don’t we just bomb the opening and bury whoever’s in there? They’ll be trapped underground with nowhere to go and a million tons of rock on top of them…”
“No,” I say, my voice cutting in. “Drake might be in there. And even if he’s not, we need to find out what they’ve got down there. If we bury it, and they’re not in there, it’ll be a complete waste.”
“Theo’s right,” says Jackson. “We have to do this the smart way. We’ll gather our full force and take the fight to them.”
“So…you mean it’s time to call Athena?” I ask, half smiling.
He nods. “It’s time,” he says.
Naturally, however, Vesuvia won’t be able to join us, yet another of our more gifted Watchers having to sit this one out. Velia, too, says she doesn’t want to leave her sister.
“What if they attack again?” she asks. “Someone needs to protect the people…”