“Excuse me?”
“I said, looks like we got the final call.” The young soldier repeated.
“Why do you say that?”
“All the Quasars. They’re taxiing all at once.”
Toni peered outside the window and confirmed that they were, and he wondered whether Lieutenant Templeton had managed to make it aboard. Standing once more, he exited the central compartment and approached the boarding sergeant as he hollered at the soldiery to take their seats.
“Sir, has Lieutenant Templeton arrived yet?”
The sergeant gave him a murderous look.
“And now the fucking cadet! I just confirmed to the Lieutenant on comms that you’re aboard, I’m not about ask him where the fuck he is! And rest assured that Lograin Tower would rather abandon an entire company to die here than sacrifice a single Templeton!”
“Does that mean the other Temple–”
“Fuckoff! Back! To! Your! Fucking! Seat! FUCK!” He howled, and the base personnel laughed and hooted as the old sergeant bulldozed Toni back to his seat.
The sergeant then returned to his own seat beside the cargo-door, hollering curses at all present as he passed them by, and even the MPs had the good grace to lower their heads at his irate passage, some going so far as to applaud his labors.
So Toni was on the right carrier, on the principle that the lieutenant hadn’t sounded blindly to all aircraft to confirm whether he was on board. But if so, then where was his platoon? Where was Ian, along with the compliment of MPs guarding him? And where were the Suit parts that Hannah had managed to apprehend?
Ignoring the base-puke’s newest attempt to strike up a conversation, Toni stood again and, ignoring the reproving glare of the nearby MPs, began to make his way to the forward cabin. Passing through the heavy curtain, he found the compartment full of low-density, high-volume loads secured with netting. It included mostly an abundant stock of fuel and paper documents, and he realized that if they were to crash the fireball would be spectacular.
As he returned to his seat in deep thought, he barely noticed how the personnel had congregated around the circular windows, the soldiers practically silent except for some quiet observation from one or another. There was no more care for remaining seated, the sergeant’s absence from that cabin effectively leaving them to do as they pleased.
... and we’ve got those in the Quasar for future research. Toni was almost certain that was what the lieutenant had said.
But which Quasar? Toni had presumed that he had been referring to their Quasar, but it could just as easily have been another. And where was the remainder of his platoon?
As he took his seat, he began to wonder whether the lieutenant had deceived him, but quickly he banished the thought from his mind. The lieutenant had never shown any fondness for his nephew, the relationship between appearing much closer to indifference than love. And there was the matter of the very genuine warmth and relief he had displayed only minutes ago.
Banishing the thought to the back of his mind, Toni tapped the chatty base-puke on the shoulder and asked what all the fuss was about.
“Really?! Fourteen Quasars are about to try and takeoff at the same time from three different runways! That’s more than eight thousand tons on the move at the same time without anyone in the tower to coordinate, since they’ve boarded a carrier themselves. The chances of there being a mid-air collision are beyond bad, they’re terrifying. How can you be so calm?”
“Just ignorant, I guess ...” Toni replied.
The soldier looked at him for a moment and then turned towards the window once more, shaking his head and muttering.
Toni wondered whether he and the soldier belonged to the same species.
There was a sudden blinding flash of light, quickly followed by two more, and all personnel who had been looking out the window suddenly yelled in pain, clapping hands to their faces as if they had just been burned there.
“Those are nukes detonating, guys,” Toni heard himself saying, “Get away from the windows and don’t look out again. Strap yourselves in ‘cause the shockwaves are on their way.”
Knocking into each other in their haste and blindness, the center-cabin passengers began to sit into the seats nearest to them and fasten their seatbelts. Every second that passed by made Toni more certain that the detonations had taken place a fair distance away, since the six roaring engines had only choked for a brief moment following the flashes.
Then the shockwaves arrived, and they struck the aircraft’s fuselage hard enough to momentarily rock it on its landing gear. There were a few screams and squeals, and Toni once again remembered the two men he had murdered.
As the Quasar began to turn in to its starting point on Lograin’s runway number one, Toni found the window beside him facing roughly south-east, where he observed five mushroom clouds ascending the skies perhaps ten kilometers off. That surprised him, since he didn’t know of any permanent construction to be found there. Reminding himself to follow his own rules, he turned away from the window and found himself looking at the young soldier.
“Am I gonna go blind, man?” He asked as he blinked his eyes furiously.
“Have no idea, mate. If you can see anything at all then it’s probably not that bad, I think. Don’t worry about it, we’ve got bigger –”
There were several more flashes of light, and the engines choked again before resuming their approach to their full power. Toni counted the seconds away and, once he reached fifteen, the thunderclaps finally reached them, making the fuselage creak and groan and shudder in a way that did not sound healthy at all.
Turning to his side, Toni observed six more mushroom clouds rising in the foreground to their predecessors, about six kilometers off.
“Our base defenses aren’t even firing, man. They’ve abandoned their posts, the fucking cowards!” The soldier cried, only to be stiffly corrected by another.
“That’s bullshit! The system’s automated, the GMN’s taking care of the defense.”
“They’re leapfrogging ...” Toni muttered.
“What?!”
“I said that they’re leapfrogging.” Toni answered more loudly, “They’re firing those nukes outside the base’s area of intervention. When the mushroom clouds rise high enough to block all radar and infrared, they fire a second volley through them and detonate those nukes closer to the base than they could otherwise have gone. If they keep doing that –”
“Game over ...” the first soldier breathed.
“Right. Let’s just hope we’re out of here by then.” Toni finished as he watched the clouds rise, almost hypnotized by their beauty.
He hurriedly diverted his eyes once more, focusing instead on trying to calculate how long it would take for the nukes to strike the base proper. He got as far as figuring out that, as the base anti-missile system’s delay in detection and response decreased the nearer the enemy missiles came, the leapfrogs would need to be shorter to prevent interception. The exercise left him clueless as to how long they had before the missiles came within killing range.
“Not again ...” another soldier moaned as several more blinding flashes strobed Toni’s field of vision.
He felt the heat on his face and turned to see seven luminous golden spheres ascend the skies, their distance perhaps four kilometers away. The Quasar was already accelerating along the runway, gaining the much-needed speed for safe takeoff, and Toni’s stomach lurched as the reactors began to struggle unexpectedly. They were supposed to be EMP resistant, but it was quickly becoming evident that they were not immune. There were cries of panic as the engines continued to hesitate, but then they resurged and all backs were suddenly pressed against their seats.
The shockwaves struck the aircraft’s fuselage in a flurry, and the left wing began to tip up alarmingly. A loud grinding noise became clearly audible to all, although it ceased abruptly as the carrier righted itself.
“Wing just scraped against the tarmac, guys. God!” A civvie seated nea
r a window on the right side informed them, and Toni began to wonder whether he should perhaps be a little more concerned.
Then an unexpected shockwave struck them, weaker in intensity but with much more push. As the aircraft’s fuselage began to tip upwards and the tires separated from the ground, the windows from both sides abruptly darkened as the screaming reactors changed their tune. Barely a second passed and then the aircraft was out of the smoke cloud and airborne, although everyone in the cabin was acutely aware that the preceding aircraft had crashed.
The runway jockeys knew it too, and they wept as several more blindingly intense flashes blinded the passengers.
“Gods.” Toni muttered in irritation as the reactors began to lose power, feeling his innards rise as the aircraft’s ascent faltered.
But they resurged once again and the Quasar began to put distance between itself and the air base. Banking sharply as it ascended, the pilots pointed the aircraft’s tail towards the imminent shockwaves. When they arrived, the impacts were weaker than those preceding them, letting the passengers in on the fact that they had seen the worst of it.
Toni closed his eyes, wondering whether he deserved the reprieve. Finding no ready answer, he remained seated, quietly observing the surrounding soldiers. Some behaved like frightened animals, twisting around skittishly in their seats like cats in a shaken travel cage. Others, particularly the older personnel, he envied for their calm. The most senior of the MPs, an old lieutenant who had probably begun his career from the bottom, appeared unfazed by the events, and he eyed Toni coldly as if he suspected something. Toni couldn’t blame him, and he closed his eyes once more.
The aircraft continued its unsteady ascent, the strong winds buffeting its fuselage as it passed through turbulent airstreams. Every once in a while several flashes illuminated the cabin’s interior and Toni’s darkened world would momentarily strobe between black and red. The shockwaves gradually lost their snap and the carrier began to turn once more, and he opened his eyes to peer out his window.
He found a slowly turning world beyond, low and remote and wild. More than a minute passed by until he was awarded with a sight of what had once been Lograin air base. It had become a mushroom farm, and indeed as he watched he could see them rising, ebony pillars with a marked inclination towards the north-east, the once-spherical clouds atop them no longer fully able to withstand the furious winds. Several more bright flashes momentarily blinded him and he was forced to turn away, the searing pain in his eyes greater than he would have expected. Closing them, he saw the ghosts of the detonations like static in his field of view. He counted them, realizing that four missiles had detonated before he’d been able to turn away.
He finally grasped the fact that his crime scene had been sanitized in a way he could never have accomplished by himself. The realization depressed him terribly. The truth would remain for him alone, and he felt that he had somehow claimed undue ownership over their souls. He remembered their names once more, and promised himself that he would find out whether they had children and, if so, whether they wanted for anything. He owed his victims that, at the very least.
He opened his eyes to find the old lieutenant sitting quietly beside him. A feeling of unreality began to creep over him as the officer turned his eyes towards the recruit.
“Looks like they’ve got us in a holding pattern, don’t you think?” He opined by way of conversation.
“Appears so, sir.” Toni answered quietly.
“They’ve really hammered Lograin, haven’t they? It breaks my heart, seeing the world coming to an end like this. It’s in times like these that we must be particularly vigilant. And self-disciplined. Isn’t that so, Sergeant-cadet Miura?” He casually inquired.
Toni turned towards the man beside him.
“I was told that when I arrived at this carrier, I would find what remained of LOGIS, as well as a cadet in the custody of the military police. That cadet’s name is Ian Templeton.”
The lieutenant sighed.
“LOGIS was evacced from Lograin three days ago, including the Templeton boy. The carrier was then refitted for general evac and returned there. Your lieutenant came with us. We were told he was looking for a certain rotten egg who shot his nephew and got another cadet killed. The Templeton boy isn’t under arrest, nor was he ever. He was sequestered for more than three days under threat of a firearm. You have a lot to answer for, boy.”
“More than you can imagine.” Toni muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind, sir. Is it true that certain parts of an enemy Suit were found and secured?”
“True. Although whatever that has to do with you is beyond me.”
“It has nothing to do with me.” Toni answered quietly, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Lieutenant Templeton’s treachery shocked him beyond words, mostly because it had been so flawlessly executed. He had been smart, feeding the cadet tidbits of valid information and hiding the bait in between. And the blue-berets had accosted him only as soon as the Quasar had become airborne.
He supposed he was just an amateur who had just been outmaneuvered and cornered by professionals. Varano and Nievers had simply been unlucky, that was all. The system had won. Turning to look over his shoulder, he found a stony-faced sergeant pointing a Miroku pistol at the base of his skull. The remainder of the passengers watched on silently, enraptured by the possibility of bloodshed.
Sighing, Toni stared out the window and found that the aircraft’s holding pattern had brought Lograin back into his field of view. The attack appeared to have ended and the base burned fiercely, thick black smoke streaking away to the far-off sea, towards the dark, dead side of his beloved world.
He wondered once more what true night must be like.
“Whatever possessed you to pick a fight with the Templetons?” The officer quietly asked.
“I never did, sir. They’ve been picking one with me.”
“You were a fool to put up a fight.”
“I have my pride, sir.”
The officer slapped his hands on his lap and stood, beckoning him to do the same. Calmly Toni rose and, not needing to be told, he turned his back to the man and offered his wrists. The officer removed an old pair of handcuffs from his belt and began to bind him, speaking casually as he did so.
“Let us see what your pride has cost you, boy. Sergeant-cadet Toni Miura, you are hereby arrested on grounds of incompetence, insubordination, grievous assault, false-imprisonment and sequester, and you will remain in our custody until you have been duly court-martialed.”
As he felt the cool steel sliding into place, listening to the officer’s damning words as the storm clouds outside mercifully blocked his vision of hell, Toni remembered the god of war, Cosus, and the peace he had felt when he had prayed to him.
You’re gonna be praying a lot more, comrade, the stranger sneered, enchanted by the development, better decide if it will be to the god of sheep or the god of war.
Toni began to laugh as he realized to which one it would inevitably be.
EPILOGUE
Leiben, 10H50, 21st of June, 2771
Criminal court judge Ken Hirano was nearing the end of his rope.
Two weeks ago a hastily discussed law had been passed, granting criminal court judges the power to sentence convicted felons to compulsory service in the armed forces. Such a decision had seemed a little extreme even in the midst of the recent crisis, but after news had begun to surface of more than a hundred combat casualties in the mining quadrant, Ken had realized that such a decision was tantamount to a death sentence.
Almost every judge of the criminal court circuit had flatly refused to pass such sentences, hoping that, as had happened so many times before, the council would understand that they had been hasty in passing the law, and allow it to be in effect tacitly revoked through sheer disregard for its tenets.
Instead the Council had decided to enact Article Thirteen of the offending law. In an ultimate insult to any
self-respecting judge, the article called for attachés from the Military Justice Department to be appointed to assist at criminal trials, and to advise their civilian counterparts on the best way to go about fulfilling the Council’s wishes.
Lieutenant-colonel Germano Gutierrez smiled at him as the moment for sentencing arrived, making plain his intention that the four youths accused of engaging in a street fight be inducted into the forces.
Sighing heavily, Ken shook his head at the officer, and he thought hard on a justifiable reason to spare the boys as he watched Germano’s smile grow daggers. Finally clearing his throat, Ken began to pass his ruling.
“It is the decision of this court that, on the day of the facts previously described, the four defendants engaged in the crime of public disorder. The fact that the defendants have accused each other of provoking the altercation is insignificant, since provocation as a justification does not legitimize the criminal act. In light of the proven facts, it is the decision of this court –”
He hesitated, aware that the colonel possessed the authority to usurp sentencing from his hands and make his own ruling, and finally decided upon a concession.
“... that Donovan Lieberman and Rikku Thomasson, each being the elder of the opposing pair, be sentenced to no less than eight months of compulsory military service, with the possibility of said period being extended at the pleasure of his Excellency the Commander of the CDF.”
The decision carried through the courthouse like a sonic boom, and the looks of terror on the elder boys’ faces tore at his heart. Both families lost their composure, and it took the intervention of several members of the court Police to stop them from forcefully approaching his bench. The younger two, who had only recently finished high school and had good perspectives for higher studies, both collapsed into their seats as if by common agreement.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 39