Mission 6 – A Lull – Part 2

  TA419 17/02,

  Warship Palladium - Commander’s ‘Office’.

  The Scarlet Scourge tapped her prosthetic leg lightly atop the metal floor beneath her cheap plastic desk’ a half-written letter in front of her.

  Before her tapping and frustration could boil over, a voice interrupted her reverie, "Afternoon," the nominal leader of Remembrance, Kiyo Kigen, pronounced in his ever-calm tone.

  Scarlet blinked, surprised to have been caught so unaware; she fumbled to drag a blank piece of paper over the first, drawing a raised eyebrow from Kigen.

  "May I come in?"

  "Err, ya, of course. Yo," Scarlet spluttered, beckoning to a rather rugged, metal-frame chair across from her.

  Kigen instead chose to perch lightly on the end of the desk.

  "What brings you here, Bane?" The Scourge said.

  Kigen traced his eyes around the room, although the ‘broom cupboard might have been a better description - barely two metres wide and three long, with a relatively low ceiling for good measure. Scarlet's desk alone took up the entire width, meaning she probably had to hop over it to get to and from her chair. Next to the chair along the back wall were two large filing cabinets, as well as a plethora of junk on her desk and a small bookshelf just inside the door. To call it cramped would have been an understatement.

  "I had a rare fifteen minutes without appointment," Kigen said with a loose wave of his hand, "Thought I'd come and see how the victorious field commander of Platform 3’s sinking decorated her ship, but I was expecting something a little bigger. You're a commander, you know? This can't have been the only space available to you?"

  Scarlet shrugged, "What would I want a bigger space for? There was a bigger office adjoined to the pilot's break room, but that room is too small, so I had 'em knock down the dividing wall and took this--"

  "Linen Closet?"

  "...this cosier space instead."

  "Well, if you say so."

  "Aye, that I do."

  For a moment, a soft silence fell between them. It was like being cadets again, hanging out between the rigorous training old man Templar had given them before the war ever started. Competing for first place student, teasing and generally enjoying one another’s company. It struck Scarlet as rather nice they could still hold such a rhythm even after all this time.

  "I met young Oames the other day. I hear she's under your supervision."

  "Oh, that kid. Ya’ she's one of mine," Scarlet replied, not altogether enthusiastically, "What you make of her?"

  Kigen frowned a little, "She's very, well, practical in her approach. Talented, no doubt, but perhaps a little..."

  "Lacking in empathy?"

  "Ah-ha, something like that."

  Scarlet's shoulders slouched, "She's a pain to train, I'll tell ya' that. Her skills are unreal, simulators are useless, and we've had to move onto practice units."

  The standard Vijiak simulator was a clunky booth with a mock cockpit set up inside. The technology was often panned as useless and too ‘gamey’ for aces or even just experienced pilots - but for a cadet to grow out of one was unusual.

  "You don't say? That sounds impressive," Kigen mused.

  "Oh it is, but it's also a massive pain. Jasta and I, we're the only ones she can't already beat, so calling her a cadet is a bad joke. I wish she'd smile more, too; way too serious for her age if you ask me."

  "Well, I guess wartime does that," Kigen added, rubbing his narrow chin.

  S carlet could see the thoughtfulness on his face. How the next generation would be after so much war, that she guessed, was what he was contemplating. She was about to ask when Kigen spoke first, "Oames isn't what's got you so down though, is it? What is it you're working on?" Kigen added, craning his neck to try to peak at her letter.

  "Ugh," Scarlet frowned. Kigen's ability to see through her had apparently not diminished either. With a sigh, she decided to simply own up; "Condolence letters."

  "Oh," Kigen replied.

  "Ya," Scarlet slumped onto her desk, "At Gheleach, I lost people, but if anyone ever wrote letters that day, it sure wasn't squad leaders, so it's my first time."

  Kigen nodded. So many had died in the 'final' battle, and what remained had gone into hiding at the Isles of Remembrance. It was likely many parents still didn't know if their children had survived, or even that others presumed their family dead only for them to be out there somewhere.

  "Does it ever get easier, Kigen?"

  The Bane smiled a sad smile, "Easier, huh? Well, it gets more routine, and I suppose you start to justify it. Those I've already sent to their deaths, how would I face them if I stopped sending more to take their places? But easier? ‘Fraid not."

  "Figures," Scarlet sighed.

  Kigen smiled a little more genuinely, his bright eyes and rigid features softening, "But I'm sure they'd be glad it's you. Those soldiers knew to their last moment that you wouldn't forget them or leave them to die in vain."

  "You think so, huh? Is overrating me a habit all pilots are obsessed with?"

  Kigen reached across the desk, lightly gripping Scarlet's shoulder, "Whatever you think right now, I for one, am glad you came back,” the look on Kigen’s face told Scarlet he meant it too.

  Several Remembrance personnel had split off in the five years since the war ended, others had never made it to Remembrance, stranded elsewhere. Scarlet and another ace, The Golden Meteorite, were the most high-profile people Kigen had sent word to about the war they were now fighting. She’d heeded the request and come back; The Meteorite hadn’t. She wondered if that were for the best if the man who’d taken down the First Casnel, and to the public died in the process, wouldn’t have been a much better second-ranked for Kigen to have instead of her.

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  "Err, Commander, ma'am," a young feminine voice chimed from the doorway, breaking the two aces quiet moment.

  Kigen retracted his hand while Scarlet slowly sat up straight again, "What's up, girl."

  Oames Agitate - daughter of Remembrance commanding Admiral and Scarlet’s cadet - frowned a little at that address, "Lt.Manfred wanted me to pass these onto you, ma'am."

  Kigen smiled, "I better get back to work. I have a meeting planned in a couple of hours. Good hunting, Scourge. And nice to see you again, cadet."

  Oames stood aside with a salute as the first-ranked left the broom closet.

  Scarlet watched her young cadet's eyes follow Kigen's back intently; a grin spread across the older woman's face, "You've got a crush on our Kigen, don't you?"

  "Wha, wha, what?!" Oames spluttered, her cheeks brightening instantly, as she spun to face Scarlet.

  "Can't hide it from me, girl; it's stupid obvious. Although you're kinda young for him. Ah, then again, love is blind, eh?"

  In a single stride, Oames reached the desk and slammed her file holding hands against it, "I do not! And I don't think this is an appropriate topic of discussion, ma'am!"

  Now Scarlet's grin morphed to be wholly wolfish, "If you say so~"

  Seeing Oames act more like a girl her age wasn't just fun to tease, it made Scarlet happy. She couldn't help but find this normal girlish embarrassment on her young charge’s face to be a relief in the face of the usually stoic cadet.

  Oames’s cheeks flared even more. With a downright pout, she left the files on the desk and stormed out of the room.

  "Heh," Scarlet said to herself, "Thanks you two, I needed that."

  TA419 17/02, roughly two hours after the ‘informal’ meeting of the Scourge and Bane,

  Remembrance Warship Gizarim, Captain’s office.

  “Errr, Sir, first-ranked, Sir. Your ‘guest,” a youth with slightly long cyan hair shyly said from the doorway into the destroyer class ship Gizarim’s Captain’s office.

  This ship was not one Kigen often frequented, nor was the young man one of his subordinates per se. This was the homeship of Hearst Khufu, a young but extremely talented pilot and at that, Sesha’s most prized former student. Kigen could trust Khufu; trust was what he needed. The destroyer was a relatively minor ship with a nice and relatively small crew.

  “Very good, show him in,” the ace replied. Khufu did just that before smartly leaving, closing the door on his way out. He hadn’t been instructed to go, but it was precisely what Kigen had expected. He was also certain Khufu would not listen in nor investigate the tiny shuttle their ‘guest’ had arrived in on. At worst, the third-ranked would hear of this, but hearing a rumour of a guest with no more detail than that, Kigen could accept.

  “Take a seat,” Kigen gestured to the chair across from him. The destroyer only had a small captain’s office, barely bigger than the space he’d met Scarlet in a couple of hours ago, though it attempted to look more austere. It suited the man in front of him - well-pressed white suit jacket and trousers, a lime green tie, a styled crop of ginger hair - this was a salesman, a middle manager at most. Were he to be caught, he’d deny any affiliation with his people and they him.

  “The package,” that was all the man said as he slid a thin envelope over the cheap imitation wood of the captain’s desk.

  “Is it a trap?” Kigen asked straighfaced.

  The ginger had a decent poker face, and only a tiny lip twitch gave away his discomfort. “Not in any way we can see. We use a similar set of codes for our deliveries. I believe our mutual friend probably did that intentionally to express confidence in the codes.”

  “Not friends. Mutual enemy might be a better phrase, no?” Kigen scoffed.

  The salesman straightened his tie a little.

  “Something the matter?” Kigen added.

  “No. No, just, I wouldn’t have expected to meet you today, is all.”

  “Oh? When this arrangement betrays us as it surely shall before long, it will be a betrayal upon me, you understand? I am to whom dishonour and burden falls. I am Remembrance’s sword. Is it strange then I’d handle this matter personally?”

  “I guess not?” the smaller man paused; no doubt they were well off script now, “If you know they’re going to betray you, why do this?”

  Kigen almost burst out laughing, barely containing it, “You really are a disposable piece, I see. Your company is dealing to both sides. The G-type Casnels currently plaguing my people are of your design, are they not? Yet still, you sell parts and information to my people more quietly. Why is that, Mr.middle manager?”

  “War profiteering isn’t pretty, but it's not unique to us…”

  “Of course not; perish the thought!” Kigen chuckled, “Someone in TSU is benefiting by watching Columbae’s Defence Platforms blow up, and someone in Bailey Mechanics is making a lot of money by dealing with both sides of this conflict. And I am the someone who will happily take both.”

  “That, t-that doesn’t answer the question, though,” the young man added a bit stronger.

  Kigen doubted this was normal. No, this was spurned by the emotions of facing someone like himself. Perhaps that was a genuine flaw in dealing with these negotiations personally. It was easy for Kigen to forget that outside his own people - outside his head full of shame and burden - the broader public saw him as a plain monster, the leader of terrorists and murderers.

  It would have been a respectable reaction in a way, if not so selfish, “You don’t want to know about me. You want to know why your organisation would act as the middleman between a high-ranking TSU leaker and Kiyo Kigen. You’re sharper than you look, or was the quiet shuttle trip out here just a long time to be left with your thoughts?

  ‘If Remembrance beat Columbae, then the radicals, including the leaker, will take over. And if the radicals win, the occupation won’t just worsen; Bannerman will probably lose its fragile independence. Why would my bosses want that?’ That’s what you’re thinking, worrying over.”

  The poker face collapsed, and the salesman stared wide-eyed.

  Kigen grinned slightly, forlornly, “It’s funny, isn’t it? Even now, my men are carrying out raids, getting killed and killing TSU. Yet what decides such things are politics and economics no one ever sees. Bannerman stands free today because it is valuable and because Remembrance is a bigger target.

  Right now, the TSU radicals, who would probably push an ‘Abhialien Cleansing’ if they could, are lending their aid to the last vestiges of those very same Abhialein’s military. Perhaps your people think being the middleman now increases their standing power. Perhaps they're so rich that the loss of Bannerman wouldn’t even affect them; a new compound and new workers for Bailey could be set up anywhere. The fact is I don’t have your answer.

  But I’ll take these codes, and I will use them. And when the hand that gives them turns on us? I’ll cut it off. Have a nice trip home, neutral messenger.”

  The ginger salesman looked like he wanted to say more. Maybe if Kigen pushed him, he could get some info on the enemy's machines, but that wouldn’t be playing the ‘game’.

  Perhaps it was strange for him to be handling this handover, lecturing this nobody, but so what? They needed these codes, and his dishonours were already many. This was just one more.