Mission 12 - Evil All Around

  TA419 - 16/04,

  TSU Homefleet Defence Platform 1.

  “Admiral Luitpold, rare to see you in person,” Grand Admiral Columbae remarked as he and his fellow officer were the last to make their way out of an admiralty meeting. They stood staring one another down in the narrow hallway just outside the meeting room.

  “Quite so, your lordship. The protection of our home keeps me quite grounded,” Luitpold replied, his tone a bare inch off being a scoff; it suited his baggy, narrow face perfectly.

  Columbae was, in some ways, Luitpold’s enemy and vice versa. It was a strange thing for two leaders of the same force to think of. Luitpold was the admiral tasked with planet Bhaile’s borders. All those coming in and out, from visitors to trade ships and command over any TSU vessel in the atmosphere. He was ruthless in this endeavour. If you were from off planet, you would be frisked, interrogated and often detained on no charges of merit. If you were even part Abhailein on your mother’s side, you could expect all that and then refused entry anyway. It was extreme, unfair and worst of all, it had been necessary.

  Columbae might have been able to oppose it once, order Luitpold to stop such senseless discrimination, but he hadn’t because five years ago, there had been a very real threat that the routed Abhialen army might turn to terrorism: Bombers clothed as civilians, transport ships laced with suicide troops or gas tanks. Ultimately, that hadn’t happened, but the measures were already in place. This had given Luitpold a small but unique amount of power over Columbae, who couldn’t complain now lest he look hypocritical. Moreover, it offered a small amount of legitimacy to Luitpold’s racist activities.

  The man was, Columbae had almost no doubt, the leader of the radical faction within TSU that would very much so like to expand Luitpold’s discrimination far, far past Bhaile’s border checks…

  “By the way, I heard that the rouge unit deployed with only one Casnel yesterday and that one even had less power than normal. Strange, don’t you think?”

  It took all Columbae had to hold back a reaction. He was sure his lip twitched all the same, “It is probably difficult maintaining such machines while AWOL,” the Grand Admiral bluffed weakly.

  A sinister, twisted smile formed on Luitpold’s crooked lips, “Perhaps, and yet their number grows by the day, does it not? Two dozen or so escort ships could be called a fleet. Should we perhaps be concerned about that growing number, your lordship?”

  Inside, Columbae’s blood boiled. This man dared to taunt him so openly while aboard his headquarters, no less? The fact Luitpold had managed to get a spy within the rouge group, one that had identified only one Casnel flying and the other being operated by one of the Curadh’s B-grade pilots, was concerning as is - but for Luitpold to so openly speak like this, what did that mean? Was he challenging Columbae?

  The Grand Admiral was painfully aware that the radicals were an open wound he was currently allowing to fester, but he had little choice in the matter. His intelligence units were run thin tracking the movements of Remembrance; he couldn’t spare a single analyst, and certainly no field agents on internal traitors right now.

  The longer he ignored them, however, the stronger they seemed to get. A few weeks ago, a naval admiral had died down on planet Bhaile. The public was in an uproar; the explanation was Remembrance sympathisers had assassinated the man, but did that make sense? Remembrance were cunning; that was something Columbae could not deny. Their plan involved revenge for five years ago, perhaps, but also tactics and months of foreplanning. What possible purpose would killing a no-name naval vice-admiral serve them?

  It did, however, serve Luitpold. The public outcry had undoubtedly boosted his standing. Then, there was the strange circumstances of Defence Platform 2. A Remembrance vessel hiding as a merchant ship had gotten on board the Platform with the correct approved paperwork. When the ship had unloaded its flood of enemy spec ops and The Bane of Konpei’s Casnel, something else very strange had happened, though few knew it: The designated pilot of G-type Casnel Unit 004 had been reassigned inexplicably to that unloading bay. Why?

  For what reason would she have been moved off piloting duties to unload ships, leading to her dying at the very start of the attack and Unit 004 being piloted by the backup pilot instead? Columbae had no proof, some circumstantial evidence that Luitpold knew the navy vice-admiral, and some reports that the reallocating of Unit 004’s pilot was bizarrely filed, but there was no time to chase any of it.

  Being Grand Admiral did not mean being a king. Lord Columbae had no absolute power. Despite what its detractors would say, TSU was not a military dictatorship. The Chairman of the Union could give Columbae direct orders. The various member governments could cut, increase, and redirect military budgets at will, all without consulting him.

  He could probably still be rid of Luitpold; a demotion or transfer was possible - but Luitpold knew that too - no doubt the rumours that multiple central Bhailein governments backed and approved of Luitpold was no rumour at all but a deliberate leak.

  If he was removed, Columabae could expect massive budgetary cuts or even his position being questioned. It pained the Grand Admiral just how delicate the politics of his job were when, realistically, all his energy should have been devoted to the war going on. He still hadn’t had a chance to contact Synapse and find out why only one Casnel was flying. Where was the other one?

  “Perhaps,” he said to the grinning backstabber in front of him, “I imagine for now you are needed back on terra firma unless you're volunteering to use your own forces to catch the rouge unit and then take up its role?”

  Luitpold’s smile didn’t waver in the slightest. Columabe knew he’d been thoroughly bested in this brief verbal match; his mind was simply too preoccupied. That last comment might even be taken as an admission that the rouge unit was, in truth, anything but.

  “Right, you are, your lordship. I’ll be on my way then. I do hope they find your missing Casnel. It would be such a shame for a second G-type to meet so unceremonious an end.”

  TA419, somewhere in the fourth month of the year?

  The surface of Planet Abhaile, in the region of the Capital?

  A village of some sort, Chas had found a village. It was utterly abandoned. The houses he doubted, had ever been much to look at, just little sandy cubes with box windows and stony texture. Their current state of disrepair made them all the worse. Doors hung halfheartedly on rusted hinges; dust shutters had fallen off most windows, coating everything within each building in a thick layer of depressing, sticky grime.

  The whole village was just one short thoroughfare. At its end stood one slightly more opulent building. Two stories tall, with specs of grey and beige paint still lingering here and there. A low wrought-iron gate in front of it and even a few architectural flourishes to the home. It was in front of this building Chas had stopped, staring at a roughshod tombstone placed in front of it.

  The caked dust was immense; he reached down absently to wipe it away.

  He.

  Chas…

  The world swam as he made contact with the stone. The young pilot's mind simply went blank, his body slowly thumbled to the ground.

  <<<<

  “Stop all this, Kiyo, return to your people,” a deathly pale old man pronounced, his hair sparse and grey, his cheeks sunken - he appeared as someone not long for this world.

  “Enough. I have come, at great risk, to pick you up, not for a lecture,” Kiyo Kigen, perhaps a couple of years younger than the version Chas had encountered, remarked curtly.

  The old man shook his head, pacing around the small box room, the low ceiling highlighting his elderly stoop in the face of Kigen’s imposing height. The dim lighting making the ace’s narrow eyes seem all the more intent.

  “This is not the way of our clan. I would never have relinquished the title had I known it would end like this.”

  Kigen frowned, “We will win back what was lost. Our people will yet be free, but not with one of the King’s scant few surviving aides wasting away like this. Where is your sword?”

  The old man smiled forlornly, “A weapon of any kind tends to beget attention these days.”

  Kigen's hands lurched outwards, “You lost your sword? You can’t be serious.”

  “Better to lose it then to shatter it,” the old man growled, an anger suddenly in his aged posture.

  Kigen reeled back, but only a little, “We exist to serve our people, to protect them as we always have. Tell me then, why our home is all but abandoned, and I find you hiding in a basement spouting philosophical nonsense.”

  “You speak half a truth and no more. Our clan protected its people all right, but it knew fighting was not the only way. When the Kigen Lord, whom you're named after no less, realised he couldn’t stop his people from being force-migrated, he chose to go with them instead. That is our family's way!

  You fought hard for three long years, but that is over now. Hiding on those isles, scheming new plans, finding new ways to make people suffer, there is no honour in that. We were never a clan of revenge or glory. Four hundred years ago, we chose to back a royal family the people wanted, rather than use our former Bhailien noble status to force ourselves to the top.

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  That is our way, to serve and protect, not to inflict pain and violence,” the old man spat, “It isn't the only way. Fal-Dara still stands free!”

  Kigen's whole body tensed, his eyes narrowed to almost a squint, his fists clenched. Chas had heard Kigen speak twice, both times with a righteousness perhaps, but also with such a deep sorrow. Now, Kigen spoke with genuine, unmistakable anger. A violent fury, one stronger than any he felt for TSU. He spoke with more hate for one of his own than his sworn enemies; “The Duke of Bannerman betrayed us! He betrayed me!

  He should have been our hope. It was his duty to take the King's place! He had the power, too. With that secret reserve army of his, he made Bannerman too bothersome of a city to invade. Why not, then, make it a base for our retreating forces? Combined with him as King, TSU could never have occupied our home. We would have fought them until every last Abhialen’s blood ran dry! He sold us out, uses us as a shield and sits idle as three-quarters of the planet is enslaved! Fal-Dara is a traitor to the very land it stands upon.”

  “Don't you see Kiyo? That's exactly the sort of role our clan is supposed to hold! The Duke chose to protect what he could rather than spur the whole planet to its death. Now you would supersede that, encourage the waring to continue until every last Abhielien lies dead? That is not our clan's way.”

  Kigen sighed, his anger subsided a little. He shook his head and leant back against the nearest wall, arms crossed. His usual calm, or perhaps resignation, returned.

  “Our people are enslaved, half our lands abandoned, the other being plundered and raped. With each day that passes, the time needed to rebuild what once was grows immensely. And you’re wrong; the Kigen clan is not all you make it out to be. We are a house of dishonour. That is and always has been our destiny.”

  The old man turned stiffly, jaw agape, “How dare you, Kiyo!”

  “Pah, don’t be so conceited. Four hundred years ago, the first Kiyo Kigen fought with all his political power and lost. After that, he had no choice but to come to Abhaile to try and raise an army; the only option he saw was force.

  And then, he went and lost in fair combat with the man who’d become our first king. He didn’t step aside, nor did he lay down arms to be with his people. He got beaten over and over and submitted to dishonour time and again in hopes of a long-term victory, or simply for cowardice staying his blade from a swifter end.”

  “How dare you speak with such slander of our ancestors, Kiyo you–”

  “I am the head of this clan, and I am the one who will see both our people and our ancestor’s dream seen through. We have both read the records of our history; it is a choice whether to dress them as noble or pathetic. I see now coming for you was a foolish mistake. Broken without ever fighting, what an ill-fated blade you are. So be it.”

  “Th-that is not our clan’s way. Where will the dishonour stop? Will you ambush, trick, belittle your enemy? You must see sense, Kiyo!”

  “Heh, hahaha!” Kigen laughed, a cruel ring to it, “Father, I have already done all that and more. I have sent men to their deaths to buy me time. I have stabbed enemies to death in their sleep, led raids on the innocent, committed crimes you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Kiyo you…” the old man stepped back; he was shaking, but not with rage. It tempered Kigen’s laughter for a moment. This man had never backed down from him once, even after retiring. This man had undoubtedly never shaken in fear before because of Kiyo Kigen no less. Cowering in the corner of this dingy, mal-furnished little place, the former Vi-Count looked so tiny.

  A sad little smile crept onto Kigen’s face, “I will shatter a thousand swords if it saves our people. I will kill ten thousand innocent men if it shelters a sole Abhialien life. This isn’t about an eye for an eye; there is no such thing as peace. TSU’s peace means our people are enslaved?

  Then the only alternative is for their people to be beaten so ours can rise again.

  What would you have me do? Go to the Governor's palace and demand a duel for ownership of the planet? Prostrate myself before the traitor Duke to give asylum to what few people of our lands remain while abandoning a billion others?

  Honour won’t save my people; peace can’t exist without someone else suffering, and I refuse to leave that suffering be carried out by our own.”

  Kigen paused. He realised his voice had grown louder. Looked upon the old man, who had all but shrunk away, face a picture of horror, lips silently mouthing the words “not our way”.

  Kigen took a deep breath and saluted, “I doubt we will ever see one another again, former lord of Kigen. I hope, for what it's worth, you find some peace in your method, as I do in mine. Goodbye.”

  His fur-lined greatcoat furled outwards as he strode from that basement, never looking back.

  >>>>

  “What. The. Hell. Was. That?!” Chas Collins panted from his place on the sandy ground, half covered in his trusty rug, staring up at the tombstone.

  A memory? A Vision? Of what, who, where, when? A hundred questions raced in his mind. Just dehydration, maybe? If it was a vision, why was it here? It’d been blurry and distorted, but clearly in a room, maybe a basement. Chas remembered that Abhailien homes more often than not had extensive basements. Would a small manor like this have one that stretched all the way to its gate, to this gravestone? That was plausible, sure, but was it a vision? What the fuck was a vision-granting tombstone all about?!

  “Magi?” Chas murmured, his breathing finally returning to normal. Could it be a type of Magi esper power? But then, a vision of who? Was it random or important to him?

  The young man crept forward slowly, bundling the edge of his rug cape; he gingerly scraped away the tomb’s dust-covered face;

  In Memory of Kaleb Kigen.

  TA346 - TA417

  Vi-Count of Nile Ta380 - Ta410

  Succeeding by his sole heir, Kiyo Kigen.

  Chas’s breath caught. It couldn’t be him; there was no way. This person and their son were Counts or whatever. But then Chas thought a little more carefully. This was a gravestone for a start. The Abhaileins buried their dead, something almost exclusively done here in this age. Likewise, their nobles were not like the handful of powerless constitutional monarchs down on Bhaile - as far as he knew, Abhailen nobles fought in large numbers; they had joined the first war in space.

  The voice in the vision was the same as the voice that had stunned him at Defence Platform 2, making him helpless in aiding Sergeant Mike. The same voice he’d heard in a broken daze back at Vanadis.

  “No way,” he muttered, but it felt hollow. Surely, this couldn’t be so. The chances were ridiculous. What would anyone think if he told them he’d run away, chosen on a whim to land on Abhaile and ended up walking through the abandoned lands of his archnemesis?

  A small smile found its way to his parched, cracked lips, imagining how Moncha would react, “Archnemesis? Bahahaha, you're ten years too young even to say that as a joke!”

  But if, just if, this was the same Kiyo Kigen, Supreme Leader of Remembrance - then what did it mean? The man in that vision, he’d been unwaveringly determined, sure, Chas had no doubt of that - but he’d also seemed so terribly sad, as thought this was the last thing he wanted, as though he wished for any other way.

  “No. NO!” Chas shouted, shaking his head. Sadness? His enemy didn’t get to feel that, he was killing people. Right now, he was probably killing some innocent person whose only sin was being loosely connected to TSU.

  Anger swelled in Chas. He was often angry, at himself most of all. At captains who hesitated, at Moncha for not having his back. At himself, himself, himself, HIMSELF!!

  He kicked a piece of loose masonry; it clanged against the iron fence dully. The anger fell away.

  If Kigen had no right to feel sorrow, then what right had Chas to feel angry? Wasn’t it he who’d killed civilians by accident, gotten Mike killed with inaction, disobeyed orders and run away? And for what? Revenge? Duty to the prototypes? What? For What reason?!

  Kiyo Kigen was doing it all for his people. Mercy and, Phillipe and, Mike and the ever-growing body count of civilians raided had all died because Abhaile was enslaved.

  It wouldn’t stop, Chas realised. Even if Remembrance achieved its aim, someone else would just rise up and flip it back again; on and on, over and over. This village, no, everywhere he’d been walking, had probably been inhabited a decade ago. Full of hard-cultivated land, animals and crops. Children, families, and livelihoods - all gone.

  A chill ran down his spine as the winds picked up again. What if he was alone? What if TSU had secretly exterminated the entire population of Abhaile, and every village, every town and city was just like this one? Would they do something like that, the people he served?

  The thought of that immense loneliness made Chas’s mind race. ‘Get a hold of yourself. You know that’s not true; it's one village. Calm down!’

  With strained breathing, a slight hunch, and sweat dripping away precious liquid - Chas turned his back on the grave and headed for a well he’d passed earlier.

  The signs here, caked in dust as everything else, had a word he’d seen during his time in Bannerman: the Abhialien word for ‘Capital’. Surely there, he’d find some sort of answer.

  TA419 - 17/04,

  Hangar bay of the Frigate ‘Heliopolis’, Inside the Cockpit of Chevalier unit 003.

  The fifth-ranked of Rememberence’s Five Great Aces, The Wise Baduine, Captain Sesha Thoth, took a long swing from her canteen before letting it float freely to the side. Unbuckling her harness and stretching her arms as high as the circular cabin's roof would allow, she let free a quaint yawn.

  Another day, another raid. At this stage, Sesha could barely keep track of what they’d blown up on any given day. She appreciated that was a rather cold position to hold, especially given many of their targets were civilian in nature - but allowing the distressed emotions of all their victims to wash over her would only have frozen the ace in place, and she could hardly have that. Besides, it was nearly over now. Her small force would be setting off to rejoin with the main fleet after today; finally, they’d all get a battle with some actual semblance of honour, an odd reward but one she found quite enticing.

  As her hand moved to open the cockpit release, a contact link stopped her, “Ma’am, are you well?”

  ‘Not Abey or the 2nd mate, familiar voice thought. Feels very reluctant,’ Sesha thought, “Go ahead, soldier, I’m quite fine, yes.”

  “I wanted to inform you. Type-A’s two and three made it back undamaged, but one was… The Commander and those with him are dead… Ma’am.”

  ‘We regret to inform you that Commander Sef Abey has fallen in battle–’ that thought - the words different to what the soldier had said, but they were what he meant to, planned on his way here - to say had he not let emotions dictate his speech, that’s what her power said right now. You couldn’t lie to a Magi power like hers; no discontent was possible. Sef Abey was dead.

  …

  ….

  …..

  “I see. Dismissed soldier,” Sesha replied.

  TA419 - date no longer known,

  Surface of Planet Abhaile, ‘Somewhere’?

  He no longer knew how long had passed. It could surely have been just a few days, yet time seemed amorphous here.

  Chas Collins blinked, confused at a sight in the distance. Squares, a few as tall as four stories, most smaller. Spread out so numerously he couldn't see the horizon line behind them all.

  "Th-this," he stuttered through dry lips.

  His trusty rug fell from his shoulder; he nearly dropped the compass but barely held on. Chas sprinted towards the capital of Abhaile, his last stores of energy alight at the chance of seeing someone, anyone.