He checked the weapon and found the chamber clear and the magazine full. Feeling that the situation called for it, he racked the slide, chambering a round before placing the weapon on safety. The pistol found a noble place in the overall’s front pocket.
Before turning off their digital watches, Toni had noticed that it was only eleven. It shocked him. Less than two hours before he had been lying on a hospital bed, sated and content.
He wondered whether the two soldiers had informed their superiors what building they had entered. The reasons why they had entered in the first place seemed clear to him already; they had been searching for a missing patient and had found a broken window on the ground floor of the nearest building. That would have been enough for him to radio in, had he been in their shoes.
That helped him to make up his mind. Leaving the building was vital, the chances of having a run-in with another patrol being simply too high. He would find somewhere to hide and rest until nineteen hundred hours, since he could reasonably expect most base personnel at that hour to be at the canteen, along with a considerable percentage of those on duty.
Donning a dirty air-force cap and shouldering the rucksack, Toni exited the building gingerly from the vacant window. Holding onto his new head-covering lest the powerful wind blow it away, he moved slowly among the buildings and away from the nearby medical bay, reminding himself repeatedly that he was now a base maintenance technician. His mind kept returning to the two dead bodies that lay behind him. He had taken the time to read the corporal’s nametag, finding to his dismay that the man had been named Toni Nievers.
It was the first time he had ever killed a human being, and the stranger within was perhaps no longer as mysterious as it had once been, although it was certainly more silent at the moment. Perhaps he was just as shocked as Toni was. Either way, Toni was more committed than ever to his goal.
He came upon an abandoned building that flanked a deactivated runway, its dilapidated structure three floors tall and its top flat and out of sight. That suited him just fine. Entering carefully through a vacant space that had once been furnished with doors, Toni climbed the closed staircase inside, ignoring the crepitating shudder every time a stronger gust shook the building, until he came upon a rusting metal door. Pushing it open to a loud creaking sound, he stepped back into the wind and then closed the door securely, jamming several pieces of broken concrete beneath it to ensure no one would be able to open it from the inside.
He walked onto a roof that allowed him a fair view of the central part of Lograin air base. Barely registering that view, the powerful wind forcing him to shield his eyes, he plodded instead towards what appeared to be an empty shed at the roof’s nearest corner. It consisted of two-by-two meters of dirt-covered floor, but Toni didn’t care; it was all a murderer needed for sleep, any convict in Leiben’s Central Presidiary Facility could vouch for that.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Lograin Air Base, Nature’s Day, 26th of June, 2771
It was the roar that woke him, not the howling wind. The howl was something one got used to after a lifetime in a bipolar world, but the roar was something else entirely.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Toni wondered at the time, a sudden growling in his belly making it clear to him that he had missed a meal. He wondered whether the base’s dinner-horn had sounded yet.
Then he realized that there was no way he could hope to hear the horn above the gale, much less that thunderous roar, finally understanding that he must have overslept. Hurriedly he exited the shed, only to be forced to take sudden hold of the doorway to keep from being swept off his feet. Finding his windlegs, he peered at his surrounding and gaped in wonder at what he saw.
A Quasar heavy carrier presided over what Toni had believed to be a deactivated runway, its reactors nearing full throttle barely a hundred meters from where the building stood. It had only just begun to move, but already its vulture wings shuddered from the gale-force winds, gigantic tires rolling over asphalt that appeared to have been sprouting weeds for years.
It didn’t make any sense; any fool could see that those were no conditions for an aircraft to takeoff.
Unless an even greater threat is on its way here, the stranger opined, apparently rested enough to have reacquired an opinion.
Toni reckoned he had more than one clock ticking against him. It was not just a matter of when the MPs would catch up to him, or whether Ian had already evacuated Lograin or not. If Lograin was evacuating all its personnel and he failed to find his way onto a transport, he would soon be braving the Bakemono and the great rains with nothing more substantial than a light infantry rifle. The wind had gained a characteristic iciness to it and the sky had become overcast, and both reminded him that the great rains were less than a day away.
Dark rainclouds raced over his head, making him wonder whether it was already too late.
As the giant aircraft’s reactors peaked and it began to pick up speed, he cupped his hands protectively around his ears and peered at his surroundings. What he saw confirmed his suspicions. The base was crawling with activity, and already he could see five more Quasars on their runways or taxiing towards their positions.
He also spied what he had been hoping to find. Near the deactivated runway’s end and where it intersected one of the base’s two main runways, was the colossal building that had been built to house MEWAC’s armored Suits.
By the time the enormous transport was rumbling its way into the gloomy sky, Toni had gathered his rucksack and abandoned the decrepit building. He set off at a brisk pace towards the structure, dismally aware that the wind was against him and the ground terribly uneven. To walk on the runway’s level asphalt would be foolish, he decided, since it would probably earn him far more attention than he was willing to accept at the moment. The runway’s flank, however, was overgrown enough to provide cover and also act as a natural windbreak, and so he picked his way among the bushes and trees, estimating that the journey would take at least an hour to accomplish.
The estimate proved to be optimistic.
The detail he hadn’t considered was the weight of his rucksack, and it was his mounting exhaustion that finally forced him to question the need to carry the cumbersome weapon. It would hardly be discreet or easy to deploy, and if he kept porting it with him, by the time he finally reached the stalls he’d be too exhausted to fight.
Finally deciding he would have to make do with the pistol, he abandoned the rucksack in a flooded ditch and continued to cross the uneven ground, his mind persistently returning to the men he had killed.
He wondered why Ray hadn’t made any noise as he died, and had a newfound respect for Kaiser, for having been able to pull off the kill without waking his victim’s comrades. It had been more than cold. It had been professional.
And he was dead certain that he wasn’t nearly as professional as Kaiser was.
The runway’s outskirts were riddled with potholes and half-buried rocks, testament to the shoddy method of construction that had birthed the base, their existence made more menacing by the overgrown vegetation that hid them from his eyes. Twice he almost twisted an ankle, the first time as he hurried to hide from another Quasar as it taxied along the runway to its starting point, the second as it came thundering along in the opposite direction.
Although he couldn’t be entirely certain, more than two hours had passed before he began to approach the better maintained outskirts of Lograin’s MEWAC accommodations.
Lograin’s on-base facilities usually followed one of two architectural philosophies; while most opted for a very solid construction, others favored a cheaper aerodynamic approach to deal with the winds. MEWAC’s accommodations, however, possessed both characteristics. Shaped like a particularly squat dumpling, it was nevertheless a very solid construction, favoring a reinforced concrete inner shell covered by a spaced steel outer casing. No attempt had been made at camouflage, and it’s gigantic grey form dominated its immediate surroundings, making even t
he Quasars look like overgrown toys as they taxied nearby. Besides the grand entrance, where the Suits gained entry to the main hanger’s interior, the installations could be accessed through the three personnel entrances at its remaining three sides. The north-east entrance awaited Toni’s arrival, its gate entirely devoid of security.
Curious but cautious, Toni peered at his surroundings, his paranoia heckling him despite the stable’s abandoned look. His hearing’s sorry state, the winds and the roaring Quasars all conspired to make him effectively deaf to his immediate surroundings, and that fuelled his mistrust more than anything else. Approaching a small prefabricated cement cube tasked as a heavy machinegun bunker, he poked his head in and found no one. The primary weapon and its tripod were absent, and there wasn’t an ammunition box within sight. The fact that the armored door had been left open, exposing its interior to the brutal elements, underlined the obvious; its complement had left in a hurry and without any expectation of returning.
Making a decision, he began to approach the main installation’s entrance. Its doors were ajar and he entered cautiously, taking care to check his corners before stepping through. He found the administrative section beyond devoid of light or people, and with its office doors locked. One could apparently rely on bureaucrats to lock their offices even when evacuating.
He wandered through the dark maze of corridors, remembering nothing from the last time he’d been there; all he had seen five weeks before had been the hanger area, where the stalls and servicing equipment could be found. Finally he came upon a shadowy tunnel that he felt pointed in the right direction, and decided to follow it. Before long he bumped against an unlocked door, opening it to find that his sense of direction was not entirely absent.
The hanger looked like an oversized cave, the overcast sky and complete absence of overhead lighting lending the place a forlorn look. The wind made music off the entrance, and Toni’s ears were filled with howling and roaring. Realizing that he was wasting precious time there, Toni began to hurry towards the grand entrance, when a shout caught his attention.
Standing beside a heavy-duty forklift stood a tall, slim man. Despite the darkness, what little light there was still shone off the stars on his shoulders. Approaching carefully, Toni called out.
“Something wrong, sir?”
The officer walked towards him and cracked a white-toothed grin.
“It’s been barely two weeks and you’ve already forgotten the sound of your owner’s voice, haven’t you?”
Toni’s eyes widened as he looked the officer up and down, and realized he was staring at Lieutenant Templeton. The lieutenant cracked a wide grin, relieved at having finally located his subordinate.
“Sir! My apologies, sir.” He finally answered, saluting him before he could stop himself.
The lieutenant could have said something about Toni saluting him in civilian clothing, but instead he approached and warmly shook his hand.
“You were my only missing chick, you know it? Everyone else is either dead or accounted for. Are you alright? I was told you saw action after the mines.”
“I am fine, sir, though I’m still recovering. You said everyone’s accounted for. Are Ian and Hannah too?”
The lieutenant’s face turned ugly for a moment, and then he sighed.
“Both are accounted for, and in good health.”
“Sir, I –”
“There’s no need to say anything. Hannah said it all when she returned, and Ian’s been remanded into the custody of the Military Police. He will face court-martial and so will you, probably. And you’ll both almost certainly get slaps on your wrists because you’re both cadets, and were committed to combat before you’d taken the oath. But I don’t care about that. What I care about is that we’ve been ordered to evacuate, and there are people missing all over the place. First you, then a medical patient and now a couple of MPs.”
Toni felt a chill travel up his spine; he knew full well that none of them were missing. Feeling terrible, he tried to speak.
“Sir –”
“We’ve been ordered to evacuate. Our Quasar was already supposed to have lifted off, and I’ve been pulling in some favors to get them to wait. Our platoon and the squad of MPs guarding Ian in there are going hungry, all because you were still unaccounted for. Now there’s no longer any reason to wait. Within the hour we need to be on it, ‘cause we’re expecting the base to get hit after that.”
“Is it the Bakemono, sir?”
“The ... what?”
“The enemy Suit we fought at Base Fido, sir.”
“No, no, some puke from EWAC took care of that one. Damaged it badly enough so that it pulled out of combat, to MEWAC’s everlasting shame. But Hannah at least managed to find two of its extremities and its helm, and we’ve got those in the Quasar for future research.”
“Sir –”
“Less talkie, more walkie, cadet. I –”
A radio squawked and the lieutenant snatched it irritably from his belt, and Toni’s trigger finger slipped inside the trigger-guard of the pistol in his pocket, almost causing the weapon to fire. He scolded himself silently as the lieutenant communicated with a very angry tower-man, realizing that the last thing he wanted was the Ell-tee’s blood on his hands. Hannah was alive, Ian was in custody and the Bakemono had been defeated. The fact that the soldier credited with the accomplishment happened to have been in an induced coma at the time was of little interest. He wondered about the dead MPs and tried to smother his shame once more.
“What’s wrong? Are you alright?” The lieutenant asked, a look of alarm on his face.
“I’m fine, sir.” He answered as a cold sweat began to bead his forehead, “Though I’m just not feeling too good.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, because that’s what you’re going to do. Our Quasar has the number Thirty Seven on its tail. You’re going to find it and present yourself to its boarding sergeant. I have another matter to deal with.”
“Can I help, sir?”
“Can you? I think not. We’ll just be looking for some stragglers, and I don’t intend to lose you again. You’ll go straight to your transport, and that’s an order. Clear?”
Toni nodded and apologized, and went on his way.
I’ll tell you where you can find those stragglers, if you’d like, the stranger sniggered, and Toni began to weep.
Realizing that the pistol in his pocket was the last obvious evidence of his crime, he ditched the weapon in a deep crevice beside the runway and approached the three aircraft awaiting permission for departure.
He remembered Gordie and was suddenly anxious to see him again, and he prayed that his friend had managed to survive that day at the mines. He also remembered Hannah and reminded himself to thank her for all she had done. He tried not to think about Sueli.
The birds were parked side-by-side along the apron that flanked a taxiway, and were indistinguishable except for the silver double-digit numbers painted on their vertical stabilizers. Soldiers braved the winds and loitered near their tails, talking into each other’s ears as they peered nervously at the thunderous sky. Quasar Thirty Seven’s rear cargo hatch was lowered and an ancient sergeant waited on it, howling inaudible curses at the wind, and at the wrench-jockey who was approaching him.
“What? What?” He ordered, the words curses unto themselves.
“Sergeant-cadet Toni Miura reporting for evacuation, sir.” Toni answered at attention.
The sergeant looked him up and down, and then barked the inevitable question.
“Where’s your fucking uniform?”
“My uniform’s ruined and there was no one at deposit to hand me another, sir.” He lied.
“Hah. Would have preferred to show up naked than like that, but to each his fucking own, right?” He answered with a smirk.
The sergeant took out a piece of paper to consult, but the wind suddenly snatched the document and sent it flying over the taxiway. Keepi
ng a stiff upper lip, the sergeant irritably waved him into the aircraft.
Passing the thick rubber curtain that shielded those inside from the foul weather, Toni came upon an interior altogether different from the one that had ferried LOGIS to Lograin. It was different enough, in fact, to make him wonder whether it was the same aircraft at all. Uncomfortable-looking seats flanked both sides of the aircraft’s aft interior, the central corridor having been left bare to allow myriad equipment and supplies to be strapped down, and more rubber curtains hid the aircraft’s central cabin from view.
On their journey to Lograin there had been no seats or divided cabins, only a very sturdy floor over which the Suits could safely pad before shutting down to be secured to the structure. Then he remembered that most of the Mocas hadn’t survived the Iron mine engagement, the crews probably having been forced to modify the aircraft to better suit the task of evacuation. Finding no one he knew among those seated, and feeling a little uneasy with such a large number of them being MPs, he passed through the second curtain and into the compartment beyond.
Toni’s puzzlement began to give way to alarm. He found not a single tied-down armored Suit, but instead a continuation of the carefully secured and spaced payload along with many more seats, their occupants mainly base personnel and another handful of MPs. Wondering whether they could smell their comrades’ blood on his hands, Toni froze where he was, and as the group turned their gaze towards him his heart skipped a beat. They soon returned to their heated conversation, however, and he pushed the thought out of his mind.
Feeling the aircraft begin to move, he took a seat beside a window as far as possible from the evacuees, trying not to look at the blue-berets as they talked excitedly amongst themselves. Having apparently discovered that there was far more room in the center cabin than in the rear, a group of runway jockeys passed through the dividing curtain and began to choose their seats. One of them, apparently thinking that Toni was also base personnel, raised a hand in cheers and took a seat two places beside his. Toni knew what came next, and a few moments later the young soldier spoke to him.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 38