by Sam Hval
"Aliah!" He said with his distinct, hearty laugh of his. "I've been waiting to catch up with the rest of the squad!"
After he and Aliah embraced, he looked behind her, confused. "Where's Cross and Goldan?"
"They're back at the mound," Aliah said, her voice as smooth as it always was.
"What are you doin' here?" He asked.
"I'm gonna need one of those stealth vehicles of yours. We're gonna head out to the hills"
"Wait, what? Why?" Stelly was still quite confused.
"We got orders from Terren himself to go find a way into the Oldie compound," Aliah tried to make things more clear. "You and I are gonna go snoop around for a way in."
Stelly's eyes lit up. "Ooh! Like that time we was spooking around the Great Beyond!" Aliah shuddered at those words. She never wanted to remember that scouting mission.
"Yeah, sorta."
"Well, I'll go see if I can get one of them sneakers out. Heard their camouflage works better than ever."
"Sure, I'll just wait here for you," Aliah said.
Stelly started to walk away when Aliah said, "And hurry. Oldies could attack at any time." Stelly broke into a jog.
***
"So, we're just gonna sit here and wait?" The Oldie sentinel asked Devil, as they stood out on the watchtower looking at the archers setting up below them.
"That's our current plan, yes," Devil replied with a hint of uncertainty in her voice.
"Why not attack first? Gain the edge?" He pressed further.
"Because we already have, and we already do." Devil said. "Have you ever heard of chess, Pillinger?"
"Once or twice," Pillinger replied.
"That's what we're playing right now. We've made our turn, now we wait for theirs."
"And what if they never make their turn?" He asked.
"We start over," Devil said with a grin.
***
Corridan was startled by the sudden appearance of his courier. All this time watching the Oldies sit there made him wish for any sort of news.
"Teller has sent Q-Squad to investigate the Oldie compound!" The courier said, breathing heavily. He had obviously been running.
"Good. I trust that they will find useful information to extract," Corridan said. "This is their kind of mission. Scout squads tend to be the most useful."
"Indeed sir. I must be going."
"Wait," Corridan said to the courier's surprise. "Come on, sit down and relax. You deserve it."
The courier stumbled over to the chair next to Corridan's by the window. "Thank you, your highness."
"My pleasure," Corridan said with a smile. "Now, what would you like to talk about?"
Chapter 11
Just as Aliah was about to doze off, she was startled by a small poke on her right shoulder. Aliah jolted up off the ground and swung her elbow up behind her.
“Ow!” she heard, but there was no one there. Aliah looked all around and couldn’t see the source of the noise. Then, the air in front of her seemed to distort and created ripples. Out of thin air a small, two-seater hover vehicle appeared, with Stelly in the driver’s seat.
“I was just playin’ with ya!” Stelly yelled.
“Don’t scare me like that!” Aliah laughed.
“Well, whaddya think?” He said, extending his arms outwards as if to show off his new ride. “It’s some pretty next level Corrilide engineering. Both the vehicle and the driver completely disappear.”
“Wow,” Aliah said. “Are there any cons to this beauty?”
“Well, it still makes noise I guess. It shouldn’t be a problem though. We’ll be far enough away for them to not hear us, right?” He asked.
“I suppose,” She muttered. Aliah was still amazed at how effective it was. “So, are you ready to head out?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Aliah picked up her gear and sat down in the passenger side.“All right let’s roll out.”
“Except,” Stelly said. “I’d like to at least know what we’re planning to do once we get out there.” He had an innocent look of worry on his red face.
“Don’t worry, Stelly,” she said reassuring him. “Everything will go just fine.”
***
Angel was pushed awake by William’s hands. She hadn’t realized that they were sleeping.
“Get on up kiddo, we gotta find somewhere else to go,” William announced. Angel sat up, stretched, and dusted off the sand on her clothes. She took a good look at the sand as well. Angel had never seen orange sand before. She had heard about it before in old history books about Pre-Breakout Morridia.
“If I’m correct,” William said with his finger pointed towards the small dots across the desert. “That’s Corridia. And if it is, that means Ullicar is not too far from where we are.”
“You’ve been here before?” Angel asked.
“Too many times to count,” William turned his head to look around their surroundings. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of yelling. He looked toward the source of the noise. He climbed out of the rocky formation and looked behind it to find none other than Ullicar itself. The stone buildings peeked up over the stacked-brick walls surrounding it.
“Guess my memory wasn’t as photographic as I thought,” William said, surprised. “Come on. Let’s go see what’s going on in there.” Just as he started off, Angel grabbed his arm. He turned around to face her.
“Will, don’t you remember?” She asked quietly.
“What? That it’s filled with Oldies, and possibly an army of them. Yeah I know.”
“Then why are you going in there?”
“I’m not going in,” he said, annoyed. “I’m just going to take a look around that’s all.” He tugged his arm out of her grasp and continued onwards.
“Well, be careful,” She said.
“Hold on, you’re coming with me. Right?”
“Does it look like I wanna be killed?”
William internally laughed. Her wit surprised him. “No, but I wouldn’t mind it if you did.”
***
Stelly seemed to be driving pretty slowly. Slower, at the least, than the Aliah thought he’d be driving.
“Shouldn’t we be going a little faster? You know, with the Oldies preparing for war and all?” Aliah asked.
“I don’t wanna go too fast,” Stelly replied. “This thing still makes tracks in the sand ya know.”
“Oh yeah, and the noise.”
“Yup.”
Stelly pulled back on the control stick and the vehicle came to an steady stop. Aliah stepped out of the hovering, invisible car and began to set up her equipment.
***
William slowly walked over to the tall, brick wall, carefully placing each step and holding his breath along the way. He stood before the sloppily constructed barrier, and glanced around to see if there were any weak points.
Sure enough, one of the clay bricks was slid about halfway out. William tried his best to silently grab the brick from both sides and slide it out the rest of the way. He didn’t know what was behind the wall, but he felt being as quiet as possible was better than the risk of being caught by whatever was behind the wall.
William pulled the brick out without making too much noise. He placed it down in the sand next to him and leaned forward to peek through the hole in the wall.
The space was just big enough for him to see pretty clearly. His eyes darted around the area. To the left, there were several tall tents all lined up in a row. To the right, there was a small metal shed no more than thirty feet wide. It was too far away to see, but just down the aisles of tents and sheds, he could see a crowd of men and women.
They were fitted with shiny metal armor, with iron helmets on their heads. On their hips, William was able to make out sheaths, probably with swords in them. He could also tell that on their backs they had large shields.
He was so distracted by the figures in the distance he didn’t notice someone stepping out of the metal shed to the right. Willi
am quickly turned away and leaned back on the wall, hopefully out of sight.
He didn’t get a good enough look to tell whether or not the person saw him. He just stood still, and held his breath for as long as he could. Then, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, a grumble of some sort, and a patting sound.
After that, William looked over to his right to see a hand stick through the hole in the wall, feel around a bit, then grab his jacket.
***
Stelly doubled checked the meter on his wrist to see if the cloaking function was still operating correctly. “See anything yet?” he asked Aliah, as she peered through the scope of her rifle.
“Not yet,” she began to say, but changed her mind once a movement caught her eye. “Wait a minute.”
“What? See somethin’?” Stelly said. His voice a little louder than it should have been. Aliah raised her hand up into a fist to silently shut him up.
She continued to stare through her scope and saw several Oldie guards run out of the main entrance. They quickly jogged over to the side of the Ullicar boundary wall. At her angle, Aliah couldn’t see what exactly was over there. Obviously whatever it was, it was important enough to send three guards.
“A few guards just ran out,” She finally said.
“Where to?” Stelly asked.
“I can’t see well enough, but they appear to have gone around the other side of the wall,” She observed. “They went pretty fast too. Something must be up.”
A couple of minutes later, one of the three guards had a bearded man in a brown jacket with him. The guard pulled out his gun and pointed it to his head. One of the other guards had a stun stick in one hand, and a blaster in the other. They dragged him along towards the entrance, and eventually headed into Ullicar.
“Looks like they picked up a spy,” Aliah announced.
“Did you recognize him?” Stelly asked.
“Didn’t look like one of ours, but it probably was,” She replied. “Who else would it be?”
“What do you think we should do?”
“Well, we can’t just let them keep him,” She pointed out. “They will most likely try and pry some intel out of him.”
“Looks like we found ourselves a mission,” Stelly said excitedly.
“We sure did. Let’s go squad up.”
Chapter 12
“Will!” Angel called out. There he went, getting himself in trouble. Angel predicted this wasn’t the first time. She walked over the wall he had traveled to and saw the hole he’d made. Angel peered through it and saw several tents, metal sheds, and guards all lined up in rows. She watched as two burly men dragged William into one of the metal sheds.
Angel didn’t have the slightest idea on what to do. She was lost next to an Oldie base, didn’t know where Corridia was, and didn’t have William to help her.
She should have been more worried, but Angel decided he would eventually find a way out. She decided to walk out to the small dots William had identified as Corridia to look for help.
Angel hoped he was right.
***
Cross was surprised to find Aliah back so early and even more so, to see Stelly with her.
“Stelly?” he asked.
Stelly stumbled over and gave Cross a tight embrace. Cross always hated Stelly’s hugs.
“Hey buddy!”
“I thought you were transferred to be strictly in the vehicle division.”
“Well thanks to Aliah here, I got to go do some scouting with her!” Stelly said.
He always loved sneaking around, Cross remembered.
“Bring back anything?” Goldan stepped in to ask Aliah.
“Does a new mission that just so happens to tie in to our other mission help?” Aliah said.
“Depends on what the mission is,” Cross said.
“I spotted a few guards take in a spy who was snooping around,” She started to explain. “I say we find a way in there, get him out before they smack some info out of him, and figure out what the Oldies have planned.”
“We still don’t know how to get in there,” Goldan reminded her. “I thought your job was to look for an entrance, not drag us further into unwelcome territory.”
“We don’t need to sneak in,” Aliah said. “We can break in!”
Cross laughed. “That has to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever said Aliah.”
“Well how else are we supposed to get in there?”
“That’s what I asked you to find out.”
“Well if I’m gonna go back out there, you’re coming with me,” She proclaimed. “All of you.”
Cross glanced over to Goldan. Goldan nodded, and then Cross looked back over to Aliah. She was standing straight with her arms folded and her stealth goggles still on her head.
“Ah what the hell,” he said. “Why not?”
***
Angel trudged through the deep sandy hills and covered up half her face with her shirt. At this point, she was sweating profusely. Every now and then, she had to wipe the sweat off of her forehead with her sleeve.
She finally decided to look up from her feet to check her progress. She could see the city better now. So Will had been right, she thought. She looked back down to the ground, but was suddenly stopped by something she couldn’t see.
Then, before her very eyes, a hover vehicle of a sort warbled into to view, seemingly out of thin air. Aboard the small vehicle were four people: Three men and one woman. Sitting on the rear of the vehicle were two of the men, both of them holding large blaster rifles. The other one was driving the vehicle, with the woman in the passenger seat.
One of the men on the back jumped down and stepped towards her.
“Who are you?” he said. “And what are doing all the way out here?”
Angel just stood there stunned. The man glanced back over to the vehicle, and then back at her. “Hello?”
“I… I’m heading to Corridia,” Angel pointed towards the city.
“Why?”
“To see if I could get some help for my friend.”
“Who is this friend?”
“His name is Will. He was taken by some people over there,” She shifted her finger behind her. “They took him into a shed.”
“How did you see all of this without being caught?” The man asked.
Angel began to explain. “Well first, I was hiding in a rock when he was taken. I looked into a hole in made in the wall and watch them take him into the shed.”
“Does Will have any relations with the Corridian military?”
“No.”
“Wait there for a minute,” He said. Angel nodded and watched the man walk back over to the vehicle.
***
“Turns out that spy wasn’t actually a spy," Cross explained to the rest of the squad.
“Who is it?” Aliah asked.
“Some random civilian, I guess.”
“Are we going back?” Stelly asked, worried.
“No,” Cross answered. “We still have to go in there and find out what the Oldies are doing. It wouldn’t be bad if we helped out a civilian along the way.”
“Good point,” Goldan chimed in. “All right we’ll continue.”
“Let’s bring the girl with us too," Aliah added in.
“Sure, but we need to make sure she’s safe the whole time,” Cross said before making his way back to the girl.
***
“What’s your name?” The man asked as he made his way back to Angel.
“Angel,” She replied.
“My name is Commander Cross,” He said, extending out his hand. Angel shook it.
He pointed to the other man on the back of the vehicle and said, “That’s Second Commander Goldan,” The man waved. “Driving is Stelly. The squad engineer. And next to him is Aliah, our scout.”
Angel smiled and waved at all of them.
Cross smiled and said, “Hop on. We’ll go get your friend back”
Chapter 13
A sharp pain smacked strai
ght into William’s right cheek. He wished his blindfold was off, and his wrists were free so he could show whoever it was that was hitting him how it felt.
Another smack came on the other cheek. And then another on the right. William tried to yell through the cloth stuffed in his mouth that he got it already.
The guard ripped his blindfold off. William got a good look at the man. He was at an average height, strong build, basically the typical guard.
“What were you doing on the perimeter!” he yelled. William shrugged.
“Oh yeah, forgot to take this out,” He laughed and forcefully pulled the cloth out of William’s mouth.
He threw it in his face and yelled, “What were you doing!?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe seeing what’s up.” William said casually.
“Oh shut up! I know you’re a spy! What were you looking for!?”
“First off, I’m not a spy. Second, I wasn’t looking for some-thing I was just snooping around.”
“Why!?” The man continued to yell.
“Why not?” William said.
The man just stood there and folded his arms. He looked over at the other guard and said, “Strap him up. I wanna give him a good whipping.”
***
“Right here," Angel said, as she pointed towards the hole in the wall.
“Oh, I see," Cross said. “Well the best option I see here is to efficiently and quietly remove enough bricks to crawl through.”
“And carefully too,” Aliah added.
“Yeah, that too,” Cross agreed. “All right Q-Squad, let’s get to work.”
***
Pillinger headed back to the watchtower to inform Devil of the impending battle’s current developments.