Mission 10 - Breakdown - Part 3

  TA419 - 06/04, Day Following the Foiling of the Remembrance Decoy Ship,

  TSU Troy-Class Assult-Carrier Curadh, Officer’s Break Room.

  "This court material is now in session," Lt.Sota, the somewhat willowy old ship's doctor, announced. The location being the Curadh’s officer’s breakroom - a medium-sized space with a small bar, a few couches and some light entertainment devices - luxuries of the ship's middle-ranked officers. Today, it had been reconfigured to serve as a court of sorts. A long table had the ship's three highest ranked members behind it, Synapse in the middle, Moncha on his right, Kriegar on his left looking too big for the small chair. Another table at a ninety-degree angle to the first sat the good doctor, and by the door were Ensign Vega and Lt. Kappi from the bridge staff, both as security and witness. Junior Lieutenant Chas Collins was sitting in a plastic chair at the centre of them all.

  "Read the accused charges, please," Synapse said with a nod to Sota.

  "Yes, Sir. Yesterday at 1200 hours, Junior Lt.Chas perpetrated three charges during operation time. He used the emergency communication link without due cause. He disobeyed direct orders from Lt.Commander Moncha and destroyed an enemy vessel without being ordered to engage."

  "How do you plead Lieutenant," Synapse asked.

  Chas looked impassive, or even bemused, as though none of this was happening to him. The dark circles - on one side mingling with a nasty scar on his cheek, Syanpase noted - under his eyes were indicative of a lack of sleep to boot, "Guilty, Sirs," he said after a couple of moments.

  "The outstanding circumstances, please Sota.”

  "Ah, yes. In the wreckage of the destroyed ship, it was found that the enemy vessel was most likely a trap of some kind. It had no crew and contained an abnormal amount of explosives. The communique received from the vessel is suspected to have been pre-recorded. On a medical note, it was Chas's first battle after his defeat at Defence Platform 2," the doctor concluded. Her use of Chas's first name at the end drew a sigh from Kriegar.

  Synapse gave the men on both his sides a quick glance and, with no objections to what they'd already discussed prior to this session, decided to pass down the verdict, "In respect of the extenuating circumstances and the good fortune that your 'hunch' was correct Lieutenant; we have decided to give you a suspended six months confinement sentence, to be evaluated once the current conflict ends. You will also be demoted back to ensign rank alongside the pay cut that brings. Is this understood?"

  Chas stared blankly at the old man. Was he genuinely surprised his flagrant disregard of regulations was being punished, Synapse wondered.

  "Yes, Sir. I'm sorry for the trouble caused," he finally said.

  "Good, you are all dismissed."

  A few silent minutes passed until only the trio behind the long table remained. Synapse allowed himself to lean back with a long sigh in the company of solely his two closest aides and comrades of many years.

  "That boy... He has a darkness to him," XO Kriegar said rather conspiratorially.

  Moncha tried to laugh off the dramatic statement but failed to, sounding more like a cough, "He's just young, is all. And at least he was right about that ship."

  The Captain regained his posture and steepled his aged fingers, "His vehemence for the enemy, is that what all youth of this generation are like? Gripped more tightly in the resentment and bitterness for the other side than ever before. What peace can ever come of that?"

  His two friends exchanged a worried look, "Sir?"

  "Gentlemen, I hesitated," Synapse admitted bitterly, "It was an obvious trap, and yet I wanted to believe it might not be. How close would I have let that trap get to us? And now that boy, fragile as his schooling from The Bane has already made him, pays for doing what I didn't want to. A desire to end the fighting is a weakness. But a desire to eradicate the enemy as wholly as that boy - what sort of strength will that lead to?"

  "I, I don't think we need to worry that much," Moncha said, scratching his cheek. "If it came to it, I'd have taken the shot myself, or one of the other captains or Kriegar would have given you a nudge, right?"

  "Of course," Kriegar nodded.”

  "And as for Chas, honestly, I am kind of glad. When I first met him, he was just this sniffling trauma-ridden welp. He'd given up even on saving his own skin, ‘kid was a wreck.

  I feared the same would happen again when he failed to save that Sergeant Mike fella’. I disapprove of him breaking rank, but ‘am glad he's gotten back up again, even if it takes using anger as his motive for the time being."

  "You don't fear what that anger could become?" Kriegar asked.

  Moncha grinned in a rather carefree way, "I think it'll work out. The kid is always surprising me. Give it time, and he'll face that temper of his, too. Just you watch."

  Synapse returned the smile as best he could. They were right, of course. Someone would have stopped that ship, even if not him. If anything, it simply reminded him of his own weakness, a boon.

  As for young Chas Collins, the whole next generations of soldiers, even - for now, the best he could do was share in the Commander’s good-natured faith and hope that heads better than his would come up with more eloquent solutions.

  TA419 - 07/04,

  Remembrance Flagship ‘His Majesty's Axe’, Hangar Bay.

  Kigen stepped out of the service corridor onto one of the flagship's hangar-bay upper gangwalks. The hangar was oddly populated with crew from other parts of the ship floating up to the railing; Kigen scanned the floor until he found the source.

  Three men stood bound in front of a specially erected wall. In front of them, twelve men stood with rifles at the ready; behind that, Admiral Agitate and a few paces back from him, the onlooking crowd.

  "--for your crimes of subterfuge and treason against our home planet--" Kigen faintly heard the Admiral saying below. Moles had supposedly been found, and Remembrance maintained the old ways. There was only one court materially worthy of their crimes.

  "Hello, Sir," a quiet voice called at Kigen's side. Turning, he saw Omaes Agitate, the Admiral’s daughter, approach. Not for the first time, the ace found himself taken aback by her. Having a youth around was strange in their organisation; someone not past the age of twenty, especially, but Oames, more than that.

  She was beautiful, her almost blue-tinged hair cut to a centimetre perfect bob, with her smooth pale skin and narrow shapely eyes: She was without doubt a picture of the nobility she had been born from.

  Seeing her, Kigen couldn't help but wonder about kids, about what age his might be had he married. He was well aware it was a desire he held, sons and daughters to care for, nurture, and teach his sword to. A family to go home to. But that hadn't happened, not with this war and, of course, not with his position. The head of the Kigen sword school, Vi-Count of Nile and most pressingly these days, the nominal leader of Remembrance - any relationship he might try for would hold political implications.

  "Nice to see you again, Miss Agitate," he replied cordially.

  The youth bowed, "Just Oames is fine, if you like, Sir,"

  "Fair enough. That said, Oames, might I advise you to sequester yourself elsewhere. What's about to occur, it wouldn't make for a very honourable first experience with death."

  The youth's entire body language changed in an instant. Her eyes took on a cold glare, her arms folded, and Kigen's supernatural Magi ability, usually a very subtly and minor one at that, seemed to scream that this girl was suddenly, utterly hostile.

  Before he could say anything more, Oames spoke, "First, Sir? With respect, I have seen death more times than some of these soldiers, I dare say. When word came that the King was dead, our retainers and guards died in their dozens to get us out of the capital.

  My mother, no doubt dead no matter what hope the Admiral clings to, was separated from me. My guard was slain by TSU agents and even turncoats amoung our own people hoping to buy a better life in the coming occupation. With a single servant left, he bundled me into a car and drove it through the night, while bleeding out, while barely conscious; until he carried me into a military base and died on the spot. Sir, those men down there will get a far more merciful death than those I have witnessed in my life."

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  Kigen was speechless. The anger with which she'd told her tale without ever raising her voice. The casual, cold way she dismissed her own mother's likely demise. Her gaze pierced him with disappointment that he would even suggest she didn't know what death was.

  As though on queue, a swift "FIRE" was bellowed down below, followed by twelve gunshots. The moles fell instantly, a quick if terrifying death, just as Oames had posited.

  "I apologise, I overstepped my boundaries," Oames added quietly at his side, her eyes on the tumbling bodies below.

  "Oh, no, it was insensitive of me," Kigen replied.

  She nodded, apparently satisfied that he understood his mistake, "I should be returning to Commander Scarlet's vessel. Good day, Sir."

  "Ya, ah, you too," Kigen mumbled as he watched her stride away with perfect military form, the cold edge from earlier nowhere to be seen.

  Reluctantly Kigen turned his attention back to the older Agitate down below. He would have liked more time to consider what the younger had just said, but time was at a premium these days.

  Kigen quickly caught up to the Admiral, the group of guards around him showing no signs of wanting to stop him. He strolled right up and fell into pace with the stout man, their black and dark green uniforms matching stride with one another. The hangar was unusually quiet; people were moving, but none talked in the wake of the firing squad.

  "I'm sorry you had to witness that, Kiyo. Had to be done," the Admiral said over his shoulder.

  "Of course, Sir. Had to be done," Kigen replied stoically.

  This tactic exchange carried a fair amount of meaning to the two men. In truth, Agitate was very much so in favour of the death penalty for more than just soldiers. Kigen had always felt the opposite. Some day, if they won, they both knew they'd end up butting heads over whether to execute every TSU sympathiser, spy and supporter from amongst the Abhailen populace. But that day required taking Abhaile back first, and so they kept up these polite niceties on the matter.

  And besides, who was Kigen to question such things? When it came to it, war was all one series of murders, betrayals and executions. They were here because The States Union had betrayed its people by mass-deporting them to desolate Abhaile. Then betrayed them again by turning up four hundred years later looking for mining rights.

  ‘Envoirmental concerns? Underground lakes you say, jolly good. Fear not, we will certainly be careful. You want that in writing? Come now, there’s no need for that, we would offer you a place in the Union old chaps. Four centuries too late for that? Ah well, you know how it is, invitations lost in the mail and all that, better late than never.’

  Well, Kigen doubted that was exactly how the negotiations that led to the three most violent years of war in history had gone, but it might as well have been. Betrayal was a grimy, insidious thing. It coloured people, it soured life. War was just betrayal after betrayal.

  No, he supposed; perhaps humanity in general was simply prone to it, you didn’t need war to find murders.

  Betrayal didn’t always come from without either. Deep inside the betrayals, Kigen felt keenest were those of their own people; at he city of Bannerman was sitting independently while the rest of the planet lay enslaved. And of course at himself and the Admiral. Yes, they had committed the greatest betrayal of all. Their King had died. They had lived.

  That wasn't to say Kigen had bad blood with the Admiral, quite the opposite. Agitate had saved their dream, plain and simple, in this very hangar bay five years ago.

  He could still feel that day in the fibres of his very being. If stories like young Oames’s were to be trusted, perhaps every Abhailen-blooded man and woman still did.

  'The Battle of Gheleach', the final battle of the First War in Space. Ghealeach was the largest fortress in history. It was also Abhaile's moon. TSU had collanised Bhaile’s own moon, used their dry run of Abhaile to make 'the moon' into a thriving little colony. Gheleach had been less appealing to TSU so they ignored it. Its mineral make-up was all lesser metals, and it was comparatively small.

  It had been a momentous day when Abhaile had not just landed but started its one and only colony of its own on Ghealeach in TA300. Sure, they had some knowledge of space travel from the odd visitor, but effectively this barely three-century-old settlement had joined the space race.

  In retrospect, it was the second signature that ensured there would be war in space. Ghealeach changed everything for the Abhialiens. Those lesser metals gave them a small amount of trade and moreover, would be mined dry to produce, in secret, the fleet of warships that would one day terrorise TSU. It hadn't only been a mine; however, a single city was built there with a population of over twenty-four million. The single largest non-planetary city in space at the time, larger than any Nation-satellite to this very day a hundred years on.

  That city was gone now, and not during the final battle.

  During the first few months of the war, TSU had besieged Ghealeach: Long range bombardment, warheads, strafing runs by fightercraft. The city was utterly levelled, all its inhabitants killed down to the last child.

  Kigen did not believe this action justified what Abhaile went on to do, dropping the asteroid that obliterated half a Bhailein continent. One sin did not beget another sin, but he knew for a fact many soldiers used the simple phrase 'remember Ghealeach’ throughout the war to justify various actions.

  To this day they still couldn't be entirely sure why this bombardment wasn’t enacted upon Abhaile itself. TSU history books didn't mention it, Kigen had checked. Five years of history books and not one even mentioned Ghealeach city ever existing, never mind its total genocide. The war had gone on, spurred by that evil and a great many others, until in just two more years, TSU caught back up. Two years, that was all it took for them to improve their ships, create mechs, better mechs, and turn it all back around - the First Casnel at the fore.

  Beneath the ruined city, un-touched, was the core of the moon Ghealeach, wherein the ultimate fortress lay and where the King made his final stand. For days, TSU flooded mechs and infantry into that labyrinth abyss of tunnels. Trench warfare was fought on the surface while ships duked it out in the skies above that little moon.

  There were no arrests, no tribunals. The first TSU soldiers to finally make it to the fortress’s core had seen such horror that day, that they were no longer human. In wild rage and euphoria, they tore apart the King, the Magi cult, the politicians - anyone inside that inner most layor was brutally murdered.

  The news reached the fleets above that their King was dead, just minutes after the morale boost that the First Casnel had finally fallen.

  Armies do not fall when their king dies. Perhaps it would be nice if they did, clean, simpler to parse in the mind - but they do not.

  The Abhailein fleets got the news their King was dead and readied themselves to die.

  Kigen had been moved a lot in that last year, given the irregular rank of Commodore as the second leader of the Knights Brigades. Then, he had transferred to lead Admiral Agitate’s fleet when the Brigades were disbanded to try and spread its dwindling veterans to other desperately struggling quarters.

  When news arrived, he'd just been reentering the massive manta-ray shape of His Magesty’s Axe. He'd hopped out of his mech to a silent hangar just like the one today, but one loud with rage. Grown men poured tears while continuing their silent work. Pilots like Kigen were helping: Some were gravely injured, their mechs in tatters after days of fighting. All ready to go back out, to die with their king. Kigen had been foremost among them.

  "Kiyo Kigen," A solitary voice had rung out in that hollow metallic space.

  "Admiral," he'd replied, for the first time in his life forgetting to salute, "I will lead our charge, we will honour the King with the greatest glory."

  And then, to the shock of everyone in that large metal-lined space, the Admiral had shaken his head and bowed.

  When he stood, he swept his hand and stared out at everyone in earshot, and he begged them. If they died here, what of their dream? If they died here, what of their families?

  "I beg you, live with this greatest shame. If someday you desire my life in exchange, I will gladly give it, but you must, all of you must leave here with me, now."

  The funniest thing to Kigen was the feeling that he'd say no even now, five years later. That he'd hop in his mech and go die, as surely he should. Instead, they'd made a desperate retreat and lived all the way to today.

  "Were they all the spies sir?"

  The Admiral's face was old, so much older than in that memory of five years ago. He was only somewhere around fifty and yet he could have passed for seventy. His thin facial hair struggled more every time Kigen saw him to give him any sort of vitality.

  That shame he had spoken of back then seemed to weigh more gravely on Agitate than even Kigen.

  "No, one other died trying to escape. We can't be sure what, but he succeeded in sending a coded transmission."

  Kigen bawked, "Then?"

  "No," the Admiral shook his head, "It changes nothing. The home fleet hasn't moved. In fact, it grows bigger. If Columbae knows, he's playing along. That just means we have to use our skill to bridge any gap in our plan. Heh, moving the third and fourth-ranked to guard the cobal was a good plan, old friend," the Admiral smiled weakly, turning around to pat Kigen on the shoulder.

  The first-ranked did his best to return the warmth, though he felt uneasy, both at this news and the earlier execution.

  Both elder and junior Agitate were putting him off his stride today it seemed, "Very well, Sir. I'll be heading to clear a few installations in the direction of the cobal myself. I'll have Scarlet’s group stay with the flagship for a few days again."

  "Thorough as ever, Commodore, but do make sure to rest at some point before the final battle."

  "Final Sir?" Kigen smiled, trying perhaps to emulate Scarlet's signature grin, to give the Admiral some sense of confidence that it would all be alright. As if a smile could possibly offer such hope, "It will be the first when the books are written. The first battle of the new era, the first day of the newly freed Abhaile."

  The bodyguards around them looked stoked by the words, thought pretended not to be listening. The Admiral however only nodded, "Yes, that it will."