Guns Of Icarus Online
Community => The Cantina => Topic started by: C r o w on March 06, 2016, 02:13:25 pm
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(Author's note: this story, written by my hand, will be used to build up a more explanatory and wide background for my RP character, so that I won't be annoying future story threads with my character telling the story of his life and main points, as it could result in being an annoyance for the other writers.
I dare to write such a piece since I have already seen examples of such throughout the Cantina.
I'll try to release as many chapters as fast as I can.
This awfully long story is to substitute the character bio that is in another thread, since I changed a lot of ideas since then.
TEXT WALLS ARE BOUND TO HAPPEN, THE READER MAY SUFFER BRAIN DAMAGE, BUT THAT WOULDN'T BE MY FAULT
(Maybe it would be my grammar's...)
Also, constructive comments about how to improve my writing are always well accepted.
Note also that this style of writing is precisely intended to tell a story by myself,
in "co-op" stories I'll try to use a less heavy and long-winded style of story telling (obviously).
About the clothes now, since I know I'll be too lazy to describe them later: in the first phase imagine the main protagonist with any kind of nobleman clothing from the XVI century. In chapter 3 he's wearing the armor presented for the Baronies in the alliance artwork, only withou the silly helmet. By chapter 4 onwards he has an armor like the one used by the NCR elite rangers from Fallout: NV, with the same kind of helmet and gas mask, all painted black, with a crimson crow emblazoned on the back of his coat.
Enjoy the text wall story!
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Prologue
Cainhurst Castle, homestead of the Cainhurst family, Barony of Ravenrook
The day was nearing its end, and the sun was already descending behind the high ridges of the fjords.
*clang*
With a strong sound of metal clashing against metal sword trough the air, sent flying a few meters far from its wielder.
"Stop! I yield!" said a young and tired voice, as his sword touched the ground
Standing in front of the young weaponless opponent stood another boy, tall, slim, blond haired, pointing his saber towards the defeated opponent.
Both were breathing heavily.
"Y...*pant*...you managed even to disarm me...*pant*...usually you go for a killing blow...*pant*...this was...unexpected."
After this words, the one that was standing tree beside him his sword and sat down in front of the defeated boy.
"*pant pant* You were good too, you actually managed to see trough my feint."
"Nay, I just was badly positioned, wasn't for the strength of your blow, probably I would have fallen face-first into the dirt."
After he said that they both boasted laughing.
"Better get back to the castle, I'm getting hungry, it should be nearing dinner-time, here let me giv'ya a hand" said the victorious boy after getting back up on his feet and pointing ingredients his hand toward his fellow.
After getting his friend up, they both picked up their own swords and headed back to the castle.
"Sure the sword master is happy to have such talented apprentices!" Said the other boy. "He sure is, Astelan, but I highly doubt feels the same about my shooting skills..." Replied the boy with a saber.
"You are still thinking about when you really missed the broadside of a galleon? Don't worry, you'll find a way someday to compensate that horrible aim of yours with handguns!"
"Yeah... Sure"
"Hey, cheer up! At least you don't have to start practice to behave like a politician like my father is!" Tried to comeback Astelan.
"Well, instead it looks like I'm already copying the situation of our fathers, the Lord and his most trusted Companion"
"When I'll be lord and all the castle will be mine, you shall be my right hand, my champion, THE champion of Cainhurst!" Said Astelan enthusiastically.
"Mhh, sure it is a nice plan."
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Chapter 1 (one)
Cainhurst Castle, homestead of the Cainhurst family, Barony of Ravenrook
Outside the day was cold, dark, and cloudy, a powerful snowstorm was passing over the fjords, and only the most brave and the most foolish airship pilots would dare to take off, while everybody else sealed themselves at home for the time being.
Deep inside the castle walls all kind of sounds could be heard, servants carrying out their various tasks, noblemen and women discussing, cooks cooking... But one sound in particular was easier to catch amidst all of these, and it was the clashing of swords coming from the castle barracks.
*clang*
"Higher!"
*clang*
"Keep your guard higher damnit!"
*clang*
"What the..."
*toc*
And like that there was one less sound in the castle.
In the training area of the barracks, where the duel took place there was a little crowd of watchers, all with the same surprised expression on their faces.
An old man was standing with a sword hilt in his hand, sweat pouring out of him like never before, and a hilt less blade a few meters behind him.
In front of him, still in the position that he took after the swing, a boy, tall and slim, breathing heavily, with a saber in his hands.
"You actually managed to defeat ME?!?!? What kind of dirty trick did you use???"
The boy, staying calm and taking a relaxed position replied:
"You were putting too much stress on the blade, I-I intentionally lowered my guard a bit, in order to bait the right attack to disarm you..."
After some moments of awkward silence the public, composed mainly by the guards that were having their training session started to talk carefree, some discussing about the unexpected outcome of the duel others just having small talk.
The old man, still surprised, with a very calm voice started:
"Well, I guess...this is it" as he shrugged his shoulders "you learned all that it was within my capability of teaching!" He started to smile. "You are my best apprentice ever, I was glad to have the chance of refining your talent"
While he kept calm during the previous minutes, now it w the boy' sti me to be surprised.
"What are you talking about!?" He asked with an almost shocked face.
"Finally, the apprentice have beaten the teacher, don't you understand? You have become better than me!"
"I'm flattered by the compliment sir but..." But he was interrupted by his mentor.
"Lad, listen to me, you are almost a full grown man now, I taught you the basics of piloting, gunning, even a bit of engineering, you are ready to start a career, being it in the Royal military or in the Royal politics, you show clear loyalty, and that's a rare trait in this conspiracy filled land, I strongly believe that you are ready."
And then he raised his voice a bit: "I know that even if you knew that Astelan was hiding behind those boxes all along you didn't say anything out of your care for him."
Hearing that, the young soon-to-be lord came out of his hiding spot.
"Damn you old jeezer, I thought I was perfectly hidden!"
"A piece of your cloak wasn't covered by the boxes" said calmly the instructor.
"And it was not the best idea trying to sneak with a long cloak on in the first place" commented the young swordsman.
Astelan's comeback didn't take long to be heard:
"Broadside of a galleon"
"Oh, flak you!"
"Shut up you two and go upstairs, the launch should be ready soon, and I don't want to hear your parents complaining to me about your punctuality!" Boasted the instructor.
"Aye!" The boys said at the same time while they dashed towards the stairs.
-
Chapter 3 (three): "Bring the honors of battle", part 1
Outskirts of the Ravenrook Fief, precise location unknown.
~A few months later~
"So... Who's the new officer?" Whispered a soldier in the night to his comrade, pointing at a far tall and silim figure.
"Uhhhhh...dunno, very young, and never seen in the barracks before, must be a nobleman if he's already an officer" answered his friend.
After this, they stared into the air, looking for any suspicious event.
[A guard]"Damn! It's cold today!"
[Other guard]"Yesterday was cold too!"
[A guard]"But today is colder"
[Other guard]"You got a point"
"HEY! You two there!" The guards heard yelling towards their direction.
[A guard]"Flak! It's that officer! Did you do anything?"
[Other guard]"No! Did you?"
[A guard]"Neither, then what does he want?"
"HEY YOU TWO! Are you deaf of what?" Kept yelling the officer while walking near them.
"What, we didn't hear you sir, the wind blows unusually aggressive today!" Replied a guard.
"Like if the other days was less aggressive..." Comments the officer.
Then he added "I give you 20 minutes, go to the western tower, tell them I sent you and take some extra pelts and a hot drink, I'll stand watch here until you return.
Be a minute late and I'll have your heads."
"Thanks sir.... I guess" said the other guard as they started walking.
"Sir, we don't know your name" Said the guard.
"Uh? Ah, yes, I'm Captain Emil Ansager Von Cainhurst, now get moving."
"Aye sir"
After getting distant from the officer, the guards started talking:
"Von? What that does mean?"
"Some say 'of' whatever land they come from, others say 'von', depends on the family tradition really. I'd guess he comes from one of the fiefs south of here."
~19 minutes later~
"RUN YOU MORON! RUUUUUUUUUN! I don't wanna get beheaded because you had to piss!" shouted a guard while running towards their guard post.
The other guard was spewing a curse every step.
"There he is! SIR! Sir! We are here, thank you for the favor!"
The officer noticing them, spoke with an urgent voice:
"You two, keep running and go call me a spotter!"
The guards, surprised by the tone of the officer's voice understood that there was some real problem.
"Understood, on the move!" They replied. They returned after a minute or so.
"Sir! The spotter is here!"
"Good, you there, look on the western pass and tell me what you see."
-The spotters are the elite marksman units in the Royal Army, when weaponized they are deadly snipers, otherwise they act as target finders-
"I see the lanterns, strange design, foreign...
Ships, non-Royal formation, many squids...
I can count fifteen, behind them... Three big vessels, uncommon design, heavy...
I CAN SEE A SYMBOL!"
"So where are those ship from?"
In that moment, the spotter, who just was still a little sleepy, since it was still deep night, became fully awake, eyes widening like he had seen a demon.
"A-a-a...Angleans..."
Even if the average fjordlander was with already a fair skin, everybody there became suddenly wither than the snow.
The Captain suddenly started sprinting towards the nearest tower.
"Damnit! How the hell did they sneak past Sky's End's patrols?!?"
He thought as he was ascending the stairs to the tower top.
"Wait... Was this that week when every unit was to return to the city for maintenance?"
He checked then a paper taken from his pocket.
"IT WAS! Damn these anglean monsters and their bloodlust...and how the hell did they even knew about that?"
He reaches the top of the tower.
"It matters not, now we know they are coming, and we will be ready to give them a warm welcome party"
In front of him there was a little wooden pillar, on which was fixed a bell, to be sound in case of alarm.
And he rang it.
*ding*
And the guards woke up.
*ding*
And the pilots woke up.
*ding*
And the keep woke up.
This garrison was the second line of defense in case of a foreign invasion, and as such it was both a stronghold and a staging point for airships. The main build was towering, so tall that two spires could be docked on top of each other and still have a lot of extra space, in fact there were at least 12 air-docks there.
The keep had also two very peculiar features: one was an enormous bell that could topple every sound in the garrison, the other was a very rare and unique piece of artillery mounted on top of the keep.
Said piece was called either "The Baron's Organ" or "The King's Hand", it was made of five Lumberjack cannons of increased size, that every time it shot made a noise that reminded of an organ, hence the name. While being a very simple weapon, it was also extremely effective, since it had a ridiculous range, moreover, together with lesmok super-heavy rounds it could reach an astonishing maximum range of a 100 kilometers*.
As the captain was still looking in the distance, the great keep bell started tolling.
Muffled and incomprehensible sounds came out of his personal radio, far clangs in the keep's direction could be heard and little movements from the Spires. A radio in his proximity started crackling as a voice, at first with a disturbed signal, then clearer said
"Control tower west 3, do you copy, control tower west 3...
"Captain Ansager reporting"
"What's the meaning of this alarm? I hope it's not some paranoia or some night drill."
"An airship battle group has been located, they are coming towards here and are trying to sneak up on us, they have been recognized as angleans"
"They might be warmongering extremists, or a rogue battalion, right now we are at peace with the Republic"
"We SHOULD be... Anyway, they have not been reported by Sky's End patrols, I say they are hostile."
"...hmpf.... Many bodies and ships are hidden in the snow anyway"
At that moment troops were being deployed on the walls, some wielding rifles, other manning the static defenses.
*{62,3 miles}
Meanwhile, inside the keep
"Attention all airship crews, this is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill"
"Enemy air fleet approaching, repeat, enemy air fleet approaching"
"All hands to battle stations, repeat, all hands to battle stations"
With these alarms being shouted trough the building's comm system, every single airship crewman was running towards their assigned position, starting engines, checking the weapons, and making final take off preparations.
The First Captain began a little speech:
"Ok boys, 19 ships, 15 of which are Squids and 4 currently unknown, have been located, we all know how fast Squids are, so I want Spires 10-11-12 to make our rearguard, and I hope you all are bringing fast tracking weapons, because the annoying buggers are going to try every their trick to break our formation.
Now, everyone go! Life in honor!"
And was answered by everyone else with: "Death in duty!"
Back on the walls
"They will be here in nearly 5 minutes" said the spotter "in a few seconds they will be within optimal range of the Organ."
"Ready the flare gun, it will be too late when they understand what hit them" replied Emil "Inform the garrison commander about that and wait till' he gives permission to fire, we don't wanna screw up some plans."
"Aye"
Far from the walls
The fleet approaching the garrison seemed to be oblivious of its positioning, perhaps because the storm was making anything difficult to spot, maybe because it was not precisely positioned on the flight maps.
"We should be approaching the research post, tell everyone to be at the ready. And remember, first take down the defenders, next search for any relic from the Old World that we don't have, destroy the ones that we already have, only in the end you mop up the survivors" a gritty voice said on a radio, far from the garrison.
Men fully covered in furs and body armors were around him, each with either a carbine or an smg strapped on their back and and either an axe or a dagger on their sides.
The man who spoke was met with silence as an answer.
-
Commander's quarters, inside the keep
"Very well commander, but remember: the relic have the foremost importance, you must use your soldiers to defend it at all costs, apparently the one that it was found by your research team is a never seen before model, it may help the Baronies' war effort a lot.
Our comm team will try to redirect as many patrols available to reinforce your defense, HQ out."
Mumbling angrily, the commander walked toward his desk and took a bottle of Firewater. Sipping directly from it, he heads to a large underground hangar, under his room. In that place are located multiple heavily armored vehicles, all with tracks, all with a thing on their back reminiscent of a heavy flak, only with 4 really long barrels, with extremely long ammo belts filled with what would seem some kind of mixture between lesmok and burst rounds. Everything was frozen, except a single one that was the first found.
"Damn this things... You only gave me problems... Flaking glorified scraps... Bloody nuisances..." Mumbled the commander while walking staggered around and dripping alcohol from the bottle "What wrong did I do to you, why do you give me so many problems?!?!?!?"
This commander was just one the many noble firstborns, that thanks to his family ties, was made an high ranking officer very young. "I hate this place! I hate this cold! I hate everything!" He shouted whimsically, and then pointed at a guard there "And I hate YOU! Bring me another bottle!" And then he fainted on the floor.
Back on the walls
After the commander fainted for... 'Unknown reasons' the garrison entered a moment of chaos, with every lieutenant and captain minding only their own plan, leaving behind their back any previously prepared plan.
"What the hell do we do now?!?" Asked a terrified soldier "Nobody is following standard procedures now!"
The young captain, with a stressed look on his face, coming down from the tower, started shouting:
"Y'all here, man your guns, take the other soldiers to their own, prepare to fire at the enemy formation as soon as the spotters on the tower shoot the signal flare!" Seeing that the soldiers present there were just looking at him surprised he added:
"What'cha looking at? GET MOVING!" Then the soldiers started getting to their places.
A spotter with grizzled hair and a scar covered face got near the captain saying "This garrison didn't even exist a year ago, it was just a bunch of ruins in the middle of some mountains, not even scavenge-worthy, I don't even know why it was established. Anyway, apart from me, the First Captain and few others, everybody here is barely a recruit, and this is just a glorified boot camp, don't expect efficiency."
"And you old man would be?"
"The First Spotter lad, the guys you sent for a spot woke up the whole room, I'm very displeased with that."
"Well, sorry my lord but we are under attack."
"By who? I don't see any fighting going on."
"Angleans, only the Organ has them fully in range." Replied the young captain while pointing at the enemy fleet's general direction.
"Oh, well, this is going to be fun!" While saying that, the old man took from his back a modified portable Mercury Gun and after few moments of taking aim, he shot a flare towards the enemy fleet, and then smiled childishly.
"What the... You gave out our position just like that?"
"Eh? The Organon is in range, let it shoot!" He said while still smiling.
After a few seconds, surprising the while garrison with its sound, the Organ started firing. The heavy lesmok rounds creating trails of fire behind the shots that quickly disappeared in the distance becoming faint lights in a matter of few seconds.
Only to be seen as explosions on the mountain sides and on the enemy ships.
Anglean fleet
A series of five gigantic explosions took the raider fleet by surprise, with one of the shots simply melting in the hit a Squid.
"Unit 3-1 here, unit 3-7 taken down, readjusting formation"
"Roger unit 3; unit 1 engage delta formation, scout the origin point of the shot"
"Another volley incoming!"
"Evasive maneuvers!"
"Unit 2-1 here, unit 2-5 and 2-6 got taken down, readjusting formation"
"Roger unit 2; unit 2, unit 3, lower altitude, widen formation, engage scatter formation. That must be a long range piece, we are sitting ducks here, follow unit 1 and prepare for engagement; unit 1 change from delta to scatter formation, number of casualties is a,ready too high."
In the keep's air docks
The First Captain was an old man, strong, still fully possessing of his mental faculties, unlike the First Spotter, that recently has almost gone fully senile in his behavior.
"All ships, commander's down, 'unknown reasons', so now you take orders only from me, and you'll be happy about it, understood?"
"Aye" answered the whole fleet.
"Have your guns at the ready, remember the basics, first tear down their reactive armor, then break the main structure, for every shot you'll miss, I will personally punch you in the face, and don't any of you dare to die, or I'll will kill you!"
The small fleet of 12 spires finally took off, executing a coordinated maneuver in order to get into their planned position without any problems.
"Let the dances begin!"
-
On the wall
"Spotter, fire the flare, all guns have the clearance to fire at will"
With a little, almost silly, noise, the flare was shot by the beacon gun, after a few seconds a little red shining spot appeared in the skies, making even clearer where the garrison was and making begin that cacophony that was the combined fire of the defense guns of that side of the garrison.
The main weapons placed on the walls were heavy, yet easily produced, guns, mainly heavy flak cannons, with a restricted number of lumberjacks and minotaurs on the towers and an even smaller number of hwachas concentrated around the keep.
The towers and the keep also housed large numbers of rocket launchers, missile carousels, light flak cannons and gatlings.
With the Organon still toppling every other gun in that concert of shots, a wave of fire was directed towards the Angleans.
Anglean fleet
"Engage evasive maneuvers!"
The heavy vessels increased temporarily their altitude in order to avoid the shots, while the squids scattered in multiple directions.
"No casualty." Reported every unit.
"Unit 1-1 reporting, only the eastern side and the keep are combat ready, located large group of spires, main weapon on the battlements: heavy flak, main light weapon: rocket launcher, ship main heavy weapon: hwacha, ship main light weapon: gatling.
They are going for a killer setup, they are already in formation."
"Unit 2, prepare for drop-in action break and disable this line of defense, disable defensive infrastructure on the southern side and make your troops land. Unit 1 focus on destroying the eastern side defenses, my ship will supply with long range support, keep you troop transport in the rearguard, unit 3 engage the enemy ship formation, keep your transport ship in the rearguard too."
Underground hangar room, keep
"Quick! Try to take out of the ice that one too! We need to have at least 2 of them ready to be shipped away if the garrison falls!" Shouted a scared scientist. "One is already fully operational, the gun too!" Replied another. "The King will be pleased of these specimens." Said another one.
Behind them, under a hidden hangar door and ready to take off, a special vessel laid in wait.
Walls
"Keep on firing, try to lead them with the rocket launchers! Disable their engines! A disabled Squid is a dead Squid! Flaks! Stop fucking around an try to actually HIT something!" The captain kept shouting into his radio, since any voice sound was cancelled by the continuos noise of firing guns.
In that very moment a group of Squids flew past the eastern wall, aiming for the southern one.
They started to drop things and shoot, while their various guns did I almost no damage to the rocky structure of the wall, the things that they dropped blew in brutal and big explosions, taking away large chunks of the wall, of the guard towers and making weapon places fly around.
"They are demolishing the southern wall! You morons, stop behaving braindead and shoot them damn buggers!" A gunny shouted in the radio to the keep's gunners.
Anglean fleet
"Unit 2-1 reporting, unit 2-4 got taken down, moving in 2-7 to drop troops."
Royal fleet
"Rearguard open fire!" A salvo of hwachas was shot in answer, hitting a Squid and razing another.
"Enemy squid disabled, rearguard gatlings, open fire." The little ship, now with little to no engine power was she redder to pieces by the continuos fire of 6 gatling guns.
"S-7 reporting! We are being flanked, they keep out-turning us, requesting change of formation to circular formation."
After a bit of chatter on the radio channel, the radio operative says to the First Captain:
"Captains from s-12, s-11, s-10, s-4 and s-2 second s-7's motion."
"All ships, change formation from two-lined to circular, form it around the keep." Replied the captain.
The 12 spires engaged at the same time multiple maneuvers, some going backwards, some forward, some decreasing and some increasing altitude, leaving like a phalanx no place out of gun arc, and ending up looking like a crown adorning the keep, albeit a bullet-spewing, rocket-launching crown, but still a crown.
Anglean fleet
"Unit 3-1 reporting, we lost 3-4, 3-6 lightly damaged, we are having trouble with their fleet, top-notch coordination, can't break their formation, requesting support."
"Roger unit 3, unit 2 what's your transport's status?"
"ETA 120 seconds, travel is safe, defenders appear to be either tired or inexperienced"
"Unit 2 redeploy units 2-2 and 2-3 to aid unit 3. Unit 1 status report."
"Can't begin demolition procedure, AA mass fire is too intense, luckily their aim is lacking, no casualties so far, unit 1-7 is readying now his heavy artillery."
"Roger"
"Very good" the Anglean commander thought "All is proceeding according to plan, the Spires may be a nuisance tho, but if we manage to get on one of the wall mounted heavy guns we could bring them down..."
*clunk* *squish*
"What the...?!?"
A shot hit the main deck going straight trough the wheel and the pilot's chest, landing then on the floor behind them.
Wall, eastern
"Good shot *hic* chap! But not good enough, let me show yo-*hic* how you do it!" The drunken spotter pushed Emil away from the field gun and took control, loaded a round, held his breath for a few seconds, then pulled the trigger.
The shot flew, leaving a burning trail behind itself, reaching the captain's target and then exploding loudly, both the shot and the gun.
"See? That's *hic* how you do it!"
"Was the Lochnagar shot really necessary?"
"*hic* Yup!"
"Would you mind keep shooting like that a the target, but without the Lochnagars?"
"Nope, as long as you offe-*hic* the next drink!"
"Deal."
"That First Spotter may look senile and yet shoot like a pro, but his elite spotters are all even sillier and with even a better aim." Thought Emil to himself, then ran off to a radio structure to warn the First Captain about the nature of the enemy heavy vessels.
"This is Captain Ansager, First Captain, do you read me, copy."
"First Captain copy, what's wrong Captain?"
"I have been able to discover what kind of vessel the heavy ones are: Anglean Corsairs."
"..."
"First Captain?"
"Ready your ground teams Captain, if it's what I think it is, things are going to get hairy soon."
"Roger, Ansager out."
Anglean fleet
*boom*
"What's going on here?!?" Asked angrily the Anglean commander.
"Mercury field gun, standard model, baronies pattern, a Lesmok and a Lochanagar round, pilot dead, wheel damaged, backup system will be operational shortly, the main balloon pump has been damaged beyond repair tho." Answered the boatswain.
"Very well...MARAUDERS! READY YOURSELF, WE ARE GOING TO LAND!"
As an answer the Marauders roared a war cry.
"Unit 1-7, unit 3-7 follow me, the Squids are taking too long, the enemies are tired, prepare for hand to hand combat, we are landing!" Added the commander with a shout to the radio.
Wall, eastern
"Ships approaching sir!" A soldier cried to Emil's position.
The captain turned towards where the heavy Anglean ships were located. And saw them becoming bigger as they got closer, making him realize how actually big were those vessels.
"Anglean Corsairs, they could easily stand in a head-on fight with any heavy ship from anywhere, be it a Yeshan Galleon, be it a Baronial Crusader. They can carry a heavy weapon in every direction, rendering useless out turning the ship, as it could deal heavy damage in any direction I would face. Heavy armor and a powerful ballon model make the Corsair truly a formidable opponent.
It would be very painful to engage 3 of them at once.
Too bad we have to..."
Talking to the radio on the main channel the captain shouted:
"All heavy guns, focus fire on the heavy enemy vessels incoming, focus fire on the Corsairs!" After a little interruption of the continuos drumming of the heavy guns everything started firing towards the Corsairs at the same time, creating an enormous explosion sound, so strong that it shook the wall the guns were placed on.
Still all was in vain, the shots weren't well aimed, nor the inexperienced soldiers knew how to lead the targets, that managed, trough heavy usage of chute vents and hydrogen to change their position just enough to make the shots miss.
And even if the various heavy rounds met their target, usually was the heavy armor of the balloons.
The Corsairs opened fire in response with oversized twin carronades, that tore large holes in the wall with moderate explosions.
As the ships got closer, Emil could see the people aboard, each had around two dozens of heavily armored soldiers, that appeared imposing even by Anglean standards... Marauders.
Marauders were sometimes the best raider pilots of a raid fleet, other times they were elite heavy infantry units, most of the times they were both.
All the while light guns kept targeting the Squids that after the heavy weapons'
re-targeting had a lot of extra maneuver space. Soon, they started to find opening in the AA barrage and started to drop the explosive ordinance that has already been used on the southern wall.
Temporarily unaware of that, being fully concentrated on the Corsairs, Emil remembered only when an explosive charge landed meters in front of him.
Before he even relived what it was, it exploded, sending man, rocks and weapons alike flying around.
Emil landed abruptly on the fresh snow, a dozen of meters below, he utters a few words before blacking out:
"This is gonna hurt so much tomorrow..."
-
Garrison Siege, chapter 3, part 2
Anglean fleet
"Unit 1-1 reporting, 1-4 and 1-3 got shot down, demolition operation successful, command ship, unit you are clear for siege operations."
"Unit 2-7 reporting, Marauder team 2 has been deployed, beginning infiltration operation into the enemy keep."
"Command ship here to all non-engaged Squid units, move to intercept enemy Spires, they have been slowing the operation far too much."
After a little radio chatter came answers: "Unit 2-1 engaging." "Unit 1 engaging."
"They are defending the keep like madmen, the Old World relic they have found must be very important for them... I'm really curious about it now." Thought the Anglean commander.
Grounds around the keep, 14 minutes later
A lone figure, clad in in a Royal Officer standard armor was limping and crawling away from what remained of the eastern wall toward a side of the keep.
The chest's hurting, the back's hurting, the legs too, left arm probably have a broken bone, but
MUST KEEP MOVING
Dead soldiers all around, some with deep axe made cuts in the chest, some beheaded, some heavily maimed, many shot, but
MUST KEEP MOVING
The side entrance must be near, the wreckage of a Spire lays flaming near there, another falls from the skies dozens of meters beside me, but
MUST KEEP MOVING.
Command spire
The Angleans didn't even try to shoot the last Spires down, they just approached them and boarded them.
The infantry men on each were the only ones that put up some kind of fight, only to be killed during melee combat.
The Command Spire, S-1 was the only one boarding readied, the First Captain has been quite the brawler in his youth and now he was still able to kick some ass.
His guard were war veterans that ate pirate raids for breakfast and Anglean raids for launch, even tho this raid might prove to be a little bit too much to eat, even for them.
The melee engagements were brutal, the Marauders were strong men, wielding axes or combat knives for close quarter combat, while the guards and the First Captain themselves wielded swords. The fights for a few moments looked like a duel, and ended with grace if the guard managed to outsmart the Marauder, and ended in a brutal slaughter if the Marauder managed to overpower the guard.
The Anglean commander himself took on the old First Captain. The old man managed to strike once on each of the Anglean's thighs and on his shoulder, but after an attack he remained with his guard lowered for a moment too long, and took a powerful slash to the chest, making him stagger. Death came swiftly, as the axe was swung again and hit again the chest, cutting even deeper.
"The enemy's air commander is dead! ANGLEA!" Roared the victorious commander.
"ANGLEA!" Answered his crew.
Bringing a hand towards his radio operator he was handed a comm device
"Marauder unit 2, marauder unit 3, report."
"Main gate breached, scattered resistance, high enemy casualty, none of ours, we are about to reach the inner gate."
"That's what I like to hear, I'm bringing there the rest of the troops, out."
"What a nice sword this man had" the Anglean thought as he grabbed the dead captain's weapon. It was a balanced broadsword, long enough to give some a decent reach in open spaces, yet short enough not to be impairing when in a small spaces, it was decorated with inscriptions and incisions, all made to commemorate the captain's deeds. Looking first at the sword, then at his axe and then again at the sword the captain said to himself "I'll keep this as a trophy, that axe was getting dull anyway".
Keep side entrance
The side entrance has been created to make it easier for officers to escape the keep in case of siege and to guarantee an unseen entry passage for infiltrators in case an assassination was needed. Now Emil had to use it to hide from the Angelans: even the worst of theirs could have been able to overpower and kill him in that condition.
The code to open the door was simple, while there were many digits available to open the door, of the 20 letter spaces that were available to use, only 4 were actually.
The code word was almost a joke, but so obvious it was easily ignored.
C.O.D.E.
And the door opened in front of Emil, that just fell trough it, it closed automatically after a few moments, returning in such a position to perfectly blend into the wall.
"Now" Emil thought as he barely raised up again on his feet "Onto the infirmary, it should be on the northern side."
He thought right, but being very confused in that moment, he headed south, towards one of the inner gates.
-
Inner gate 1, keep
*ratatatatatatatatatatata*
A gatling gun started to noisily shoot salvoes of greased bullets towards one of the corridors coming from the outer gate, making become a marauder a bullet sponge.
"Take cover!" Shouted one of them.
"Die bastards!" "Ready your guns men!" "You there go and take another ammo belt, he eventually will have to reload!" Shouted around the barony soldiers, barricaded behind and improvised blockade made of turned tables and furniture.
"They have a gatling there!" A marauder stated.
"M2 units from 1 to 6, go find a side passage." "M2 units from 7 to 12, go tell M3 that we need their heavy weapons team now." "Everyone else, stay here with me and shoot from cover." chain-ordered the commander.
Outside of the keep
The squids kept driving around the main structure of the keep, and tried to blow open the Spire air-docks' gates with their weapons, as the demo charges would have damaged the main structure too.
The Corsairs were on the ground, acting as command centers for the various Marauder ground teams and supply point for siege.
6 members from the Marauder team 2 came out of the keep, and after relaying the orders other 12 marauders came down of a Corsair, carrying portable flamethrowers and rocket launchers.
Southern side corridor
Strange... Why can't I find the infirmary... It should have been here! Who put a bar in here instead? Wait... The pub was on the southern side... FLAK! At least there should be some stimpacks and first aid somewhere around here...
There they are! Damn... This is some good stuff.. The chest doesn't hurt anymore, nor the back, legs are still a bit stiff, and the left arm still hurts a bit. This thing is truly miraculous, no wonder they cost so much and are only available for the officers.
"Now" Emil muttered "Since I'm on the southern side, I might as well take something from the armory."
And he started moving towards it, more limping than walking.
Inner gate 2, keep
A message full of static arrived trough the radio:
"Can anyone read me?!?" A terrified voice said "Here is inner gate 1's guard post, we are being overrun! We require immediate backup! Please help me!" Said the voice while starting to cry. Then nothing was heard from the radio, on the other hand, the help request was met by silence at the guarded barricade, weapons were scattered around, swords, smgs, rifles, bodies stood motionless on the ground, in the pools made by their own blood.
Both inner gate defense post were fallen.
"M2 units 1 to 6 reporting, we eliminated enemy guard post at the second inner gate, we found a side passage but it's locked by a blast door, we require heavy ordinance."
"M3, roger that, we are on our way with heavy ordinance."
Minutes passed and explosions could be heard, chunks of metal crashing on the ground, corridors, halls, every and any piece of the internal structure of the keep being hit by shockwaves and explosives.
"Unit M2, find the armory!
Unit M3, demolish the upper hangar doors, our ships can't break them!
Unit M1, find the command center!
Unit M0, with me!
Take no prisoners!"
-
Keep, armory
Unlocking the door to the armory, Emil slowly opens the door, only to be met by a dozen heavy rifles priming.
"Stop there! Hands up!"
Slowly raising his hands, Emil sees many figures lit by the dim light of the armory, everyone of them was a man cladded in standard Baronial combat outfit, some of them with recent battle scars, some without, all of them with a grave face.
After a few seconds standing there one of the youngest soldiers brake the silence and says:
"Sooo... Who talks first? Would you mind sarge?"
Grunting in answer, the man with the gravest face and the dirtiest uniform started talking:
"You an officer?" While nodding in the direction of Emil.
"Yes, a captain, to be precise."
"Well, g'day sir, nice to see an officer who isn't a corpse or fleeing for a change."
"Thank you, I guess, are you the only ones here?"
"We have another dozen soldiers in the other side of the armory and around two dozens of shock troopers at the hangar level, they were the one who sealed the hangar doors, and prevented us from being swarmed by Angleans on multiple flanks."
Hangar level, inside
"M3 reporting, we are at the hangar level, it will take some time to commence demo operations, this place is a damn labyrinth...
M0?
M0!
M0 come in!" Only static answered. "Something's off, everyone, eyes peeled, someone's on us."
In fact, the shock troopers had already seen them. These soldiers, while still carrying some of the stupidly heavy decorated armor given to Baronial troops, are more often than not equipped in a more useful and less scenic way: coats that were actually warm, flak vests and padded armor, an smg, a pistol and a combat knife.
While the Angleans would absolutely overpower them in terms of raw strength and technological level of equipment, the troopers had the element of surprise, had the ground advantage and, most important of all, they perfectly knew the layout of the place.
With a simultaneous attack from multiple levels of height and sides, the troopers started shooting on the Angelans, who dived for the nearest covers they could find.
The firefight lasted for some minutes, with the shock troopers moving all around the Anglean's position, pinning them down. When the Angleans tried to use their heavy weapons to gain the upper hand, they ended up damaging the structures around them and eventually making them fall onto their own troops and killing them.
"Casualties!"
"3 wounded, 1 heavily, no dead!"
"Get them back to the armory. Everyone else, proceed to the next area!"
Command center, keep
The door was slammed open, M1 unit rushed inside weapons at the ready.
They found a man sitting on a heavily decorated chair, with an empty bottle in hand.
"Oi, who are you? *hic* did you bring me that bottle I asked for?"
"Are you the commander?"
"*hic* Yup"
And shots were fired. "M1 reporting, command center conquered, enemy commander is dead."
"M0 here, move to the upper areas, we lost contact with M3, investigate."
"Roger, on the move."
Armory
"M2 here, armory located, door is unlocked, we are going in...
M0?"
A marauder fell on the ground with a groan.
"What the...?!?" Stared to say a marauder.
"So you guys can die after all." One-lined Emil, with a gun his his left hand and a reitterpallach in his right hand, its blade bloodied.
Beside him stood multiple soldiers with firearms.
Before any of the other members of the Marauder unit 2 could turn around, they were all shot dead.
Anglean standard issue armors were already extremely high quality pieces, that valued a lot utility over looks, but still had some decorations. Marauder armors instead looked like parts of a ship reactive armor, stripped from the vessel and strapped on their winter coats.
"We were lucky we supposed them from behind, the armor weakspots are mostly located there, we would have never survived a frontal engagement, look." And then he pointed at body of the only marauder that managed to turn around.
"The chest have withstood multiple shots, and has only light penetrations, and they have the habit of wearing flak jackets all that thing, he died only because someone got a lucky shot between his eyes."
In that moment a radio started to emit noises:
"M2, do you read me, we lost your signal for a while, report your status! M2!"
A soldier took the radio and started talking, imitating surprisingly well the voice of the Angelan soldier that managed to say a few words before dying:
"M2 reporting sir, we encountered some enemy defenders at the armory, they are dead now, all weapons inside have been broken or taken away."
"Copying M2... Wait...2-3? Why is that you answering? Where is 2-1?"
The soldier looked a bit panicked.
"Sir...he..." The soldier said while looking for the numbers on the corpses.
"He what?" Questioned the voice on the other side of the radio.
"He actually died along with 2-2 in the firefight with the defenders, 2-5is gravely wounded, if they mount a counter attack we couldn't stand our ground."
After a few moments of silence, the voice on the radio started talking again:
"Very well. Regroup at the first inner gate, bring the dead with you, we can't let them have any piece of our technology."
"Understood sir, we are on our way." The soldier was dead-pale and sweating.
"Wow, that was risky." Commented another.
"At least now we know where they have their beachhead." Added Emil.
"Makes no difference, they still have air superiority and... What the hell are those things there." The sergeant said while pointing to a window.
Coming out of a ground-level side hangar there were a couple of big, grey, tracked vehicles that had on top of them want appeared to be a very big, quad-barreled flak cannon.
They pointed upwards, toward the Anglean squids.
Sun was starting to rise outside.
-
Keep
A Squid immediately bursted into flames, another followed and another and another more. As the engines of the static Squids started, many more were shot down. The two strange flaks were drumming shots into the air, covering the place with explosions. The snow storm was getting weaker by the minute.
For the Angleans this event was shocking: an entire combat unit was destroyed in mere seconds. A terrified and surprised chatter followed this event, but the Anglean commander cared not about his losses at the moment, as he had just found the pre-war relic held in that place, and it was wonderful. He wanted to take it as soon as he could, so he started to move on a lower wall side of the keep, so that he could rope-jump and reach the ground that in that place was just less than a dozen meters below.
As the commander started to run, trough the window, the group of soldiers with Emil started too, in order to intercept him.
They met on a large spot on the outer wall, where once heavy defence hwachas were located, just above the hangar doors and the relics.
When the two parties met, the first to shoot were the fjordlanders, but were barely effective against the marauders' heavy armours, who, in return, answered with a volley of their guns, which shredded to pieces the chests of many fjord soldiers.
After that first exchange of shots, everyone ran to cover. The fjord soldiers had the number advantage, but the Angleans had superior guns and armours.
Barely sticking their heads out of cover to shoot, both groups were in a stalemate. It only ended after the fjord stormtroopers sandwiched the Angleans, that found themselves surrounded.
This was an inglorious death, it was horrible to be outsmarted by an enemy he believed eradicated...
The weapons, the relics he sought to gain even more power, turned against him...
His soldiers, his brothers in arms, his friends, were all being slowly killed by enemy gunfire, killed not by a clear shot, but by the continuos hits that were slowly breaking their armors, their skins, their muscles, their bones...
He was about to be defeated, in the most stupid and gratuitous way, all because of a little underestimation of his...
He was growing ever angrier...
And the he snapped.
Blood started to drip down from his head, his body appeared like it got suddenly pumped and enlarged.
The commander staggered for a second, then he erected in his full height, blood in his eyes.
With an inhuman roar, the Marauder that appeared to be the unit leader charged, troweling away his rifle and wielding both the sword he pillaged from the First Captain's corpse and a hand axe. He was running faster than anything Emil ever saw, and he was charging directly at the center of his team.
"Focus on that one! Kill the one that's charging!" He shouted, but it was too late, he had already broken thought he line.
Despite being as bulky as a blast door and almost tall 8 feet, that beast of a man was outperforming every and any soldier that tried to attack him.
His attack so were a continuous chain of slashes and thrusts, and he was reaping soldiers like chaladonian peasants reaped wheat from their fields: it was a massacre.
Eventually came Emil's turn to face this beast.
Every its movement was extremely fast, with a lot of strength put in every movement, yet using the minimum amount of energy it needed.
It was a brutal, fast, ruthless and efficient.
This combat style just lacked one element: grace. Duelist from the baronies used grace of movement to make every move look like a continuation of the previous, trying to hide holes on their guard, trying to leave no space for the enemy to find an opening, the Anglean had very mechanics movements instead, making obvious many openings in his attack patterns. On this term a duelist such as Captain Ansager had it easy, was it not that every attack packed enough punch to cut in half a barony standard issue carbine. He had to deflect and drive away the Anglean's attacks, otherwise he may get his own sword broken.
The dawn was fully upon the keep of the garrison, Angleans were running out of the keep as a wave of new barony soldiers was stating to come from the inside, carrying heavy weapons. Squids were circling around the super flaks, trying to engage them, only to be turned into a flaming wreckage.
On the big balcony where the Anglean commander had gone berserk many corpses were laying around, many fjordlanders and a few marauders.
On one side two teams of elite troopers suppressing each other's position, on the other there was Emil the Anglean commander, dueling, surrounded by many bodies.
The duel was very biased, while the Anglean was even going beyond human strength, Emil was being held up by heavy pain killers and combat drugs, and yet he was standing toe to toe with the commander.
It was truly a stall, neither was gaining any advantage, not in terms of damage dealt, nor energy kept.
The efficiency of the Anglean's melee kills could be witnessed in the fact that he had only his weapons bloodied, while the rest of his attire had barely anything on it, the only peculiar thing was that he was sweating blood from the head, painting some of his hair with a dark red.
Emil on the other hand was covered in dirt, blood, his clothes damaged in some point, the armor broken.
At one point a body on ten ground moved, quickly stood up, and silently charged with his bayonet behind the Anglean.
The marauder commander felt him coming, so he turned around, deflected away the bayonet attack and then proceeded to launches the man meters back.
Then he heard a click.
"I wonder what has he been thinking all this time"the captain thought as he pointed his gun towards the Anglean.
"MAIM!BURN!KILL!MAIM!BURN!KILL!" then, as he turned around to see the gun pointed directly at him, and understanding he had no way whatsoever to avoid that shot:
" Truly, an inglorious death.
With a large bang the handgun held by Emil emitted a burst of fire and smoke, and the bullet travel the short distance between him and the Anglean in a less than a seconds.
It hit at his throat.
Gurgling with blood coming out of his neck, the Anglean staggered, then he turned towards the sun, looking at it:
"I still have one last thing to do.". Thinking this he ran over the edge of the balcony, and dived towards the relic weapons that were tearing his air units apart.
He pulled a trigger, hidden in his chest-piece armor, and exploded, bringing with him the super-flaks.
With that the Anglean corsairs and the remaining squids managed to take off unharmed and leave the combat zone with the surviving marauders.
Hearing this explosions, the commander personal guard survivors knew what had to be done. They came out of their covers, charging headfirst towards the Royal shock troopers, preparing to pull their hidden triggers.
In a matter of seconds, where before stood a large passageway, now was a large hole in the keep's wall.
Looking down towards where up the Anglean commander fell, he then helped the heroic sergeant that tried to help him in the duel.
"What do you think it was that thing?"
"Something not human certainly. Old stories are told to the children, about men so mad and full with anger that they become unstoppable, they call them "berserkers". But I can't bring myself to believe this kind of legends."
"The snowstorm finally stopped, now long range communications should be functioning again."let's go call an evac."
-
INTERLUDE
The funerals were few, only for the few nobleman that actually had families that were informed about this secret garrison, everybody else was burned on a pyre.
The official report stated that this was the incursion against the biggest pirate hub point in the Fjords, and it was a victory, every dead man was a real hero that fought to the last to save and protect the people of the baronies.
The few that knew the truth were sent back to their family, I of very noble and rich origin, or were being held in custody by the Royal authorities. Emil was among the latter.
"One of the first to notice the attack, the first to organize the defense, suffered combat injuries and actually managed to kill then enemy commander. A truly impressive series of deeds. Unfortunately you are not form a family important enough to be released without problems, so now, you have one option, one you couldn't ever refuse: join the Corps of Recon and Intelligence Ex-State."
"CRIES? Never heard of it."
"It would have been strange of you had. The CRIES is another section of the Royal intelligence department. We directly answer the king and act as his eyes, ears and hands abroad, we are his informers, like spies only more expendable, you only carry intel from outside the Baronies, not from the inside. Still, since our job is full of risks, we have a lot of liberties in it, first and foremost, the dress-code, so no more scenic and shiny armors for you, but you can use literally anything except for that. You better like this option, lad, I don't think you would like to live the rest of your life in prison."
Shrugging his shoulders Emil replies: "I don't think I have match of a choice, count me in."
"Good, your first assignment is tomorrow, I hope you like traveling, because you'll be doing that, a lot.
And this, is your only way to be known as a member off the CRIES section."
He said while giving Emil an little badge with a flying raven depicted with writings around it. It read: "Bonae nuntiae lentae venient, malae alas habent" the man kept talking
"Good news travel slow, bad news have wings" that, lad, should not only be the motto of our section, but its doctrine altogether."
-
Chapter 4 (four): The crow and the dove
Northern Chaladon,
Years later
A man with a long raven-black armored coat was laying on the little bridge of what appeared to be something akin of a Squid, only that it had only the central section, no side ones, the wheel in the middle and all the engines cramped up behind, leaving no space for an aft gun. The other present guns were two, a field gun and an artemis strapped in front of the ship.
"This thing's just a glorified piece of junk, only made by taking away parts to make the squid lighter. I still can't believe that I accepted to fly on such a thing....
At least it's fast."
"Now, the presumed target location is exactly to the west of Cadia, deep into the Sea of Devils."
Emil looked around, trying to see if any other airship was in the area.
There was none.
"Ufff, so good that finally I haven't got to avoid patrols all the time.
Peaceful Chaladonians my ass, their patrols are annoying as hell to deal with."
The flight lasted two days before he reached his objective.
It was a little island, not wide at all, but very tall.
It was like an anti-social mountain that didn't want to stay with the others on the Chaladonian seaside.
The modified Squid landed in a little forest on the mountain-side, hidden well between the tall trees.
Before Emil disembarked, he put on his armored gas mask, he took a backup duster, a reitterpallach, a dagger and a heavy revolver.
He turned off the ship, and then proceeded to scout the forest.
He was quite the walker, and wandered on the island for some hours, when he saw a cargo ship, flying loudly in the sky, believing that no one would notice it in such a desolate place. It was wrong, some one had in fact noticed it, and was proceeding to follow its movements.
The ship stopped its movement right in front of a little dock, coming out of a cave on the mountainside.
As the engines got quiet, the cargo floated in place and then docked.
A gangplank came out of a side door and serfs on the docks began to disembark the cargo. Many big crates, carried on motorized carts, were shipped inside the cave.
Emil approached the place slowly and cautiously, looking around himself in the possibility of guards patrolling around.
Apparently there were none, probably because the overseer of the facility didn't even think about the possibility of someone infiltrating there, let alone discovering the facility in the first place.
Despite being quite well armored, Emil was making near to no noise, the heavy coat muffled most of the sounds produced by the armor itself.
Even if the gas mask was taking away some of its field of view, it compensated by making him enter a very cautious mental state.
He stood a few dozens meters from the docks, observing the whole disembarking operation.
There were a lot of crates, you probably could have been able to hide inside them a complete royal siege team, with all their equipment, and still have some space left.
After a few hours another operation started, this time, things were being embarked,but instead of many crates there were few, yet extremely big, things.
One appeared to be an entire airship, it had some similarities with the Squid, but looked more "talonish". Behind it there was a cart with some grenade-launcher looking...thingie.
The embark was extremely quick, while the previous operations lasted for a couple of hours, this one was completed in less than a quarter of hour.
After that, the cargo ship undocked, went backwards for a while, and then engaged full thrust ahead and maneuvered towards Chaladon. It took little time to disappear into the horizon.
"Well then, show's over, time to go."
Emil cautiously climbed towards the airdock, that fortunately wasn't very highly located.
If before there were few people on the dock, now there were none. Thus, Emil easily entered the cave and successfully infiltrated into the unknown complex.
-
Chaladonian unknown facility
Everything was well lit, the walls were painted green, maps of the facility were printed at every corner and crossway, the structure was extremely geometric it was structured like a spider web. Apparently there were multiple entrances, and something very important was in the center of the web.
Many long corridors had plants, bushes, even trees planted in the middle. Some personnel could be found smelling the flowers of the big bushes.
"Typical Chaladonian behavior." Emil muttered as he got behind a couple of guards distracted like that.
He then stabbed with the dagger both their necks and hid their corpses deep in the bushes. Neither of them had a radio, meaning that their absence could go unnoticed for some time.
Then he proceeded towards the center of the structure, finding that the plants were indeed perfect hiding spots.
Large part of the people moving a round were seemingly scientists, the guards were in fact very few.
"I bet they are used to this place being so empty, really I didn't manage to see more than four people walking together at once!"
Emil thought, just as he noticed a lonely scientist inspecting the plants and taking notes about them.
With as much speediness as he possibly could, Emil grabbed the man and dragged him into the bushes, menacing slit his throat hurts with the dagger.
"Shout, and I kill you. Now answer me.
What's in the center of the facility?"
The scientist appeared totally terrified.
"Th-th-the overseer's office."
"Does it have anything special?"
"It-it's sound proof, it has one way windows and they are bulletproof, the walls can even s-s-sustain cannon fire."
"How many guards are there in the facility?"
"L-l-l-less than two dozens."
"Any combat ready airship?"
"O-o-only a Shrike."
"What's a Shrike? What are you researching here?"
The scientist had eyes mad with fear, the man started agitating and shouting.
"N-N-N-NO! NO! Please let me..." His throat was slit. He kept looking Emil with fear filled eyes.
"Don't look at me like that, I told you: You shout, you die." The body remained where it stood, deep within the bushes, which so far has acted as the main movement way for Emil.
Research facility central area
Emil looked at the map printed on the wall. Beside the usual one, there was also a zoomed one, portraying in detail the central area.
Three things caught in particular Emil's attention: the first was the "Overseer's office, the seconds was "Experimental Cavy Test Lab, and the last was the "Shrieking Lab".
"I know what the first is, I guess that the last one is where that Shrike thing is being developed, but this "Experimental Cavy" test lab sounds fascinating.
First things first: the commander must die." Emil thought.
-
As he approached the office, he found that there was an antechamber, with the doors to the side, covered by little walls.
He heard chatter, two voices, most probably guards guarding the office's entrance.
"Help! I'm stuck in the door! Anyone? Help me!" Emil said with most tragic voice he could do.
"Hold on! We are coming!"
Apparently the guards took the bait.
As they turned around the little wall Emil dashed forward, piercing trough a guards chest with his reitterpallach and stabbing in the face the other guard with his knife.
The guards barely had any time to get surprised.
Locking the doors to the antechamber, Emil then headed for the office's door. He enters slowly, this time preferring to use his handgun, as the room was both bulletproof and soundproof.
He found a man in his 50es talking to a radio, he was looking trough a window in front of him and was giving his back to Emil.
"What do you mean that another one died?!? Why are your experiments failing this much? Do better! If we don't show results, this facility will be shut down!
How many cavies are left anyway? ONLY ONE?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Huh, so this one seems the one with the best chance to survive the treatment? Go on, even if it barely works, it'll be a progress, and we will be given more cavies to continue researching.
How about the Shrikes? How many are ready? Oh, that's very good, I think they only let us research this way because we have delivered those ships.
Very well, keep on working, call me again when you use the last cavy."
Then she switched off the radio and turned around to reach her desk.
Only to find Emil a few steps from her, pointing at her his gun.
"Who are you? Have you any idea who I am?!?"
"No, and neither I care, now, tell me, what is the purpose of this facility."
"Who sent you?"
"Answer me!"
"I can pay you the double, just let me do my job."
"WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS FACILITY?!?"
"Oh, well, no way I tell you anything about it."
Emil sighed profoundly, then straighten his aim towards the man's neck.
"So be it, the Baronies send their regards."
"So you a-!" She never ended her phrase, as she was shot right in the neck, the bullet breaking trough skin, muscle and bone, landing behind her, cracking a layer of bulletproof glass.
Only one being in the facility sensed that shot. She was very surprised about it, but was also filled with hope by it.
After he hid the guards' corpses into the office, he took every document found on the overseer's desk and then put the sign "Don't disturb" on the door handle and then left for the Cavy Lab.
"Even the overseer was very concerned about the cavies, so that may be some very important stuff.
Bless their overconfidence in this island's location, this place is too big and heavily under-guarded. They are making this a cake walk."
He ran hastily towards the lab, even in the open corridors, not caring anymore to hide, he was feeling in his guts that he was about to be discovered. The place was bigger than he actually thought.
He only found a scientist and two guards on his way to the lab. Emil killed the scientist and left the corpse in plain sight to bait the guards that he heard coming in the distance. Then he ambushed the two as they were checking the corpse.
Only after that, he tried to hide the bodies, but there was already a large pool of blood on the ground.
"That's certainly going to make someone suspicious." He commented as he finally entered the lab.
Inside a man was looking trough a small window and talking on a radio.
"Deja vu" Thought Emil.
-
"...and by tomorrow at 6p.m. the subject must be under the effect of the drugs, we don't want her going berserk like subject 008 and 032, understood? Very well, get going."
After the man ended the conversation, he didn't even turn around, he just faced his notes and kept reading them.
After seeing that no one was in the room exception made for them, Emil raised his gun towards the scientist and asked:
"What do you intend to do to the cavy?"
"Flak off you moron, this kind of things are far above your pay grade!"
"Oh, please, I do insist."
Only now the scientist actually looked directly at him.
"What's the meaning of this?!?"
"No, no, no, it the man with the gun that makes questions, now, YOU answer ME: what is the purpose of this facility?"
The scientist remained very calm, strangely enough.
"Here we research and develop new prototype weaponry, medicines, drugs and other substances."
"What do you intend to do to the cavy?"
"Uh, the cavy, well, I suppose the plan is to use them to see what would be the effect of said substances"
"I heard the overseer talking about a special kind of cavy, what about it?"
"Oh, that, lad, is a secret."
Then very quickly the scientist took a vial from near his notes and injected himself with a strange substance.
He suddenly looked a bit taller, wider, and had a very strange look into his eyes.
Emil recognized that look. He has seen it only once before he joined CRIES: that man was about to go berserk.
In a second, even before Emil could pull the gun trigger, the scientist dashed towards him, punching him in the middle of the chest and sending him flying a few meters back.
As soon as Emil touched ground, he shot twice, both shots missed.
The madman charged again, and Emil rolled away, shot again once and missed again.
Finally Emil got back up, dashed sideways to avoid the furious swipes of that beast and managed to shoot again twice.
He missed again two shots.
"Damn, gun's empty." He thought as he avoided another of the man-beast attacks.
Then, as there was another charge from the berserker, Emil threw his gun in the man's face, stunning him a second. Just enough for Emil to dash forward and strike the beast's neck with his reitterpallach, effectively chopping off its head.
Blood started to spill out of the chopped neck like a torrent, even more torrenting than it should normally be, the blood had even an unusual aspect too.
"Now, let's see this special cavy."
Emil walked toward a door with written on it "Only permitted personnel allowed."
He opened it.
-
Inside it was a round area, in its center there was a table, with machinery all around it.
On the table was positioned a stretcher, and tied to it there was a girl.
It looked like a pretty normal human, exception made for the hair that were all of a light grey and jet black on the temples.
She looked like she was sleeping, so no worrying about her for now.
"Wait, if I came in from that door, where does this lead instead?"
He muttered to himself while trying to remember that zone's layout.
He then opened the door.
"Gods have mercy...."
It was full of stretchers, all with people tied on them.
All had gruesome malformation on them, pieces of the body cut off and sometimes even inhuman body shapes.
Extremely long teeth, skins with colorations that wouldn't be possible to have in nature, the hair and the hairs, all with strange shapes and colorations.
This were certainly the left overs of a mad scientist.
On the side of each corpse there was a little card with written on each things like
"C-14- Failure", "C-27-Failure", "C-05-Failure" and so on.
Under the word "Failure" it was written what caused the death for each of them.
Everyone had written there "Test-Substance-02".
After staring at that gruesome slaughter-fest, he rushed out of that room and closed the door behind him.
He found the girl awake, looking directly at him.
"Hi, who are you."
"Nobody."
"Are you a doctor?"
"No, not at all."
"Am I going to die like the others?"
Those words were very saddening for the man, he realized she already knew what happened to the other cavies. Feeling like it was a cowardly thing to just run away without trying to help. But it was also too dangerous for him to bring that girl with him.
He walked around the table, thinking, continuously coming in and out of the girls field of view.
Then he stopped near the door.
"Hello? Where are you going?"
"To hell with it!" He blurted out, surprising the girl. "I'm expendable anyway."
Emil then drew out his bloodstained combat knife and walked quickly toward the table.
The girl was scared, she didn't want to die, that man was scary, she closed her eyes as he was upon her, waiting for the knife to hit her.
Only to hear the straps that tied her to the table snapping as they got cut.
"Quick, get up." The man said while reaching out to her.
Emil was wearing a combat armor, and over it a duster. He then took off that duster, there was another underneath, perfectly and totally identical to the one that he had just took off.
"Here, put this on, good, now follow me."
Emil first went outside of the lab and started to look for some good distraction on the map.
On the easternmost side of the facility there was the generator that powered up the entire facility.
"If I can find a way to blow that thing up I coul-!"
Something clicked sonorously behind him. He turned around, knife already in hand, only to see the girl loading a heavy revolver, strangely similar to his...
Wait, I'm not feeling it in my side! "Hey! That's my gun!" He then said angrily.
"This is a nice gun! Can I keep it?"
"No, you ca-" He targets to say when he was interrupted by another voice.
"Doctor Ahslim! Are you there?" It was a guard, he lowered his guard for a second and that happened, typical.
"Hey!"
"Who ar-!" The last word was silenced by a powerful boom coming from the girl's direction.
A bullet caught him between the eyes.
The body wilted, lifeless, on the ground.
When he turned around he found the girl with the gun aimed at the guard's dead body, then quickly taking another bullet from Emil's belt and loading it into the gun.
"Ok, you can keep it."
She smiled as an answer.
-
The lights going towards the generator area were stronger than the ones that were everywhere else, so trying to sneak in the shadows and in the bushes had become difficult, or at least it would have, if on,y the place wasn't so unguarded.
At one point there were no plants around anymore and the area became full of machinery.
Enormous cogs chaining into each other, moving multiplied other systems, pipes spewing jets of steam, the stench of diesel burning...
That was definitively the generator room. Multiple cables departed from the generator towards center of the facility.
"Ok, you stay down, try to hide if someone comes, and shoot them if they are guards, understood?"
She nodded, her long hair following perfectly her head's movement, creating a grey wave in the air.
"And hold your hair still! They are moving all over the place, it's distracting me."
Then he crouched and started to walk trough the room.
There was an engineer inspecting a panel beside two enormous working cogs.
Seeing the scene Emil already formulated an idea about how to stop the machinery,
it was quite gruesome and very likely to happen.
"Come oooooooon, do I really have to do this..."
He tried to find some other way to stop the generator.
"Well, I'm no demo man, so I gotta do what I can."
He muttered.
The engineer managed to hear the muttering despite the noise from the generator and turned around:
"Oi! Who's there!?!" As soon as the man finished his phrase he found Emil's sword passing through his neck.
"The Baronies sends their regards."
When the man's body fell on the ground, Emil sheathed his sword and started to lift the body.
He then threw it between the cogs and immediately there could be heard screeching sounds and bones breaking.
In the end the cogs stopped, and the steam streams started to overflow the room.
Emil started to run where he left the girl, only to find a man with his face mashed into pulp by what appeared to be the handle of a handgun, other six corpses were around him.
"Hey! You still here?"
She came out from behind a corner.
She had a guilty face.
"I have run out of ammo."
He took off his bullet belt and gave it to the girl.
"Oh, much obliged."
The generator room was becoming a sauna.
And the screeching from the generator itself was getting terribly loud.
"Let's get moving."
-
The maps on the wall had pin-point accuracy, they also presented every and any secondary passage.
"I still don't know why would anyone put everywhere maps of the place in what is supposed to be a secret facility." He said to the girl.
She actually answered:
"Oh, I heard that people kept getting lost in natural caves, and that someone even died, so they decided to mark the really usable ways, that had no chance of getting you lost."
"It actually makes sense."
Running quickly to the southern hangar he met nobody, and nobody still had noticed the corpses hidden by Emil hours ago.
When he reached the hangar, the light were off, many other systems were malfunctioning.
Explosions could be heard in the distance.
With a little buzz also the lights of the hangar overheated and exploded, creating sparks that temporarily illuminated the room.
Still running the two exited the facility.
-
Outside, it was night time.
"Ok, now, be careful and do exactly as I do."
Emil said while starting to climb down the cliff on which the airdock was located.
Even if she was climbing bare handed, she was actually moving faster and with more agility than Emil.
Still, she was perfectly copying every his move.
When they reached ground, in the forest at the mountain side, while Emil immediately started to walk rotor wards his ship, the girl was standing still and looking amazed around her.
"What is this?"
"Uh...a forest?"
"I heard that name! It's beautiful!"
"You know how to shoot a gun but you don't exactly know what a forest is."
Emil lowered his guard and looked directly at her in amazement.
She simply shrugged her shoulders.
"Whatever, we still must get out of this island."
"What's an island?"
"Ohgoddamnit."
"Huh?"
"Nothing! Just keep following me."
He said as he speed up.
The modified squid was still perfectly covered by the foliage of the surrounding trees.
Emil climbed up and then reached out to the girl's hand.
As soon as both were on board, he reached the wheel and started the engine and the balloon lift system, quickly raising above tree-level and gaining speed.
The mountain could be still seen at their side. Some booming noises were heard and on another side of the mountain, flames erupted and pieces of rock were thrown in the air.
Apparently, the engineers weren't able to prevent the overheating of the generator.
The girl was still like she was glued to the starboard railing, her eyes shut open with a mixture of joy and amazement in them.
"This time I'll have to go around the northern border of Chaladon, it was already annoyingly risky flying trough the mainland once, don't want to do it twice."
Emil was thinking loudly.
The girl was lying down near there, covered with his duster and a pair of portable blankets: "Who are you talking to?"
"Why, I'm talking to one of the few people that I know is capable of understand my reasoning!" Snared Emil.
"Who would they be?"
" Me, of course."
He then proceeded to take a bottle of moonshine, that was near the fuel tanks.
He was about to open the bottle, when he remembered to check if it was really drinkable moonshine, or the engine moonshine.
It was the drinkable one.
He took a few sips and then put the bottle back into place.
"Why are you drinking fuel?"
"That's moonshine, a pilot's best friend, when either they or their ship need a boost."
The girl was showing for the first time a suspicious face.
"If you say so."
-
The travel back to the CRIES HQ was felt as fairly quick by both, since Emil was being continuously hammered by questions and had to talk a lot.
His original plan to kill some time during the travel back was to read a novel called "El Muid", it was very recent and many of his colleagues found it to be a simple, short and yet epic and enormously entertaining story. For some reason the ones that were the first to discover it were the guys specialized in explosives and demolition operations.
-
Interlude 2,
C.R.I.E.S. HQ
In a dark room like the one where he had first joined the CRIES.
A man was sitting is front of Emil, the only thing that he could see clearly was his extremely smug face.
"A very high kill count, a girl saved and a facility blown up.
This seems like the basis to write a novel, y'know?
It looks like a story extremely unlikely to happen. And yet it's true."
"How can you be sure? Even I myself am surprised by the fact that I managed to survive and that the info leak was true in the first place." Questioned Emil.
"The girl you saved and brought back was superbly cooperative and answered calmly, even cheerfully sometimes, every question we made her, and also confirmed in full your report, moreover she added a few things that she saw personally in the facility, but we interrogators all presume that she doesn't know anything else, she has lost all importance to us now."
"Have you found anything special about her?"
"Well, except those hair of hers, everything seems pretty normal. Even she doesn't know anything in particular about herself.
However, her presence brings up a dilemma: what are we going to do with her?" The man's smile widened.
"I already know what you would say, lad. I can see clearly that you have a liking for her, your knightly attitude makes you want to help her and keep her at your side.
You know what lad? You can!
We in CRIES are people very expendable in the eyes of the Barons, we have carte blanche in any situation we are involved, as long as we are out of the Baronies.
Also, since we answer to the King himself, he is the only one able to give us direct orders, but as I said, we are also extremely expendable, so not even him really care about us."
"Now your smile is becoming a bit creepy." Commented Emil.
"Oh, goddamnit! You ruined the atmosphere!
Still, you got me? She's all yours, happy travels!"
He then left the room, leaving an astonished Emil alone.
"What the...You know what? I ain't even mad, just going to roll with it."
Emil then headed for the infirmary of the CRIES HQ, where she was brought after the interrogation.
As soon as she saw him, she smiled and said cheerfully "Hi!"
"Can I go now? This place is comfy and nice, but those blanket and duster of your were better." And then she made a puppy face.
"Are you serious with that?"
"What 'that'?"
"The face."
"Can I come with you? Please? I won't annoy you like I did last time..."
The behavior of that girl was shocking, a moment she looks like a maid in distress, the next she shoots in the head a man and smashes into pulp the face of another.
A moment she snarks about what you drink and the next she makes a puppy face to convince him to bring her on his ship, between the section commander and then girl, Emil couldn't be more confused.
After getting back a bit of composure, he said:
"I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to come with me, but I take in advance that the answer would be yes."
Emil smiled kindly.
"Come on, ready up."
The girl just literally jumped out of the bed, already dressed up with a set of high quality traveling clothes designed by the famous designer Khovansky.
"Who give you those clothes?!? They cost a lot!"
"A smiling man, also, what is CRIES?"
"Why do you ask?"
"The smiling man asked if I wanted to join CRIES and I said yes! The name sounds nice!"
Emil's confusion increased.
Putting his palm on his face, Emil said calmly: "And yet again, I ain't even mad, I just gonna roll with it, but you girl, sure are strange."
"I may be strange but I'm not the one that wears two identical dusters one on top of the other and drinks ship fuel." Was the girl's comeback.
"Ok! Now! That was my backup duster and I didn't have any place to put it, and that wasn't even ship fuel, it was moonsh-"
"Ship fuel!"
"Ok, whatever, whatever, whatever whatever whatever! I'm losing my sanity, I need to get flying or I'll go insane!"
He said while he exited the infirmary and started to move towards the airdocks.
"Wait for me!" Yelled the girl while running to catch up with the man.
"And I still don't know your name, kind one."
"Mine's Emil, what's yours?"
Now they were walking side by side.
"I don't know, I don't remember clearly, but I always liked the name Selenia, I want to be called like that."
"Yeah, I think that it is a very nice name for you."
He said while boarding his Squid.
The he reached out to her.
"Welcome aboard Selenia."
-
Strayed, the one who gets lost
A couple of years later
During the years, the Shrike, the ship of which Emil caught existence, had become quite popular, it had become a very appreciated vessel, with great maneuverability, a decent amount of fire power and a likable shape.
One of such vessels was in that very moment driving straight trough the Yeshan territory, to the city of Far Point.
On the ship there were only 4 people: two men were playing cards on the upper deck, a man and a woman were sitting on the lower deck, covered with portable blankets.
The man was sharpening the blade of his sword, while the woman was looking at the landscape.
"Have you ever seen an Anglean woman?"
The question came out of nowhere, its randomness surprising even Emil, who, with the years, has become accustomed with every and any kind of shenanigan that might happen.
"Come again?"
He actually thought to himself that he may have misheard.
"Have you ever seen an Anglean woman?"
He didn't misheard.
"Why do you have to ask things like this Selly? I know you are bored but could you please abstain from such a high level of randomness?"
He now took out his combat knife and started to clean it from some dried blood, of which the knife appeared always to by dirtied from.
"I'm serious Emil, have you ever seen one?"
Finally taking really into consideration such question, Emil stopped the cleaning process and while scratching his bristly beard turned his head to the horizon.
After a minute he started playing with his mustaches, noticing that he actually have never seen one.
"No, I actually never have. Why do you ask?"
The girl then turned to Emil.
"I just realized, that I have never seen a live Anglean!
I only imagine them from that stories of yours about that battle some years ago."
"Well then, what do you think about traveling to the Republic after we finish our current assignment?"
Now Emil turned in her direction.
"Seems wonderful." She smiled.
Emil then tilted his head upwards, in the general direction of the two crewman on the upper deck.
"Oi! You done playing yet?"
"Nay cap'n! This damn Quinqaachian is damn good!"
"We are 36-4, by the way, and it's not me who's good.
It's you that suck at this game."
"C'mon lad, don't be so harsh, I could be your brother!"
"You ARE my brother, moron."
"Why are you always so serious?"
"Because you are never serious enough."
"Do your magic you two, and find where we are on the map, this lands are repetitive!"
"Aye, gimme a sec"
"..."
"If we are correct, Flyaway should be some tens of kilometres on our left, just a day worth of flight and we will get to your objective."
FarPoint
It was night time when Emil's shrike reached Far Point.
Judging by the lights coming from the houses, the city was quite small, but it was easily seen the presence of multiple very high towers, each of them armed to the teeth.
In fact, if someone were to look at them with a spyglass, they could see that those towers could go toe to toe with even a large detachment of the Yeshan Imperial Fleet.
As Emil's ship was getting closer, the radio he had in board started to crackle, the tower guards were trying to make contact. Since Selenia was closer, she got to the radio first.
"Hello?"
"Unidentified vessel, stop your movement, state your business and then proceed to the control tower to have your vessel inspected."
"Which one is the control tower?"
"First state your business."
Emil was a bit fearful, sometimes Selenia could be extremely sly and capable to masterfully lie, but other times she was very ingenue.
"We need to refuel and take extra fuel tanks, we have business to do in Anglea."
"What's your origin point?"
"Our ship departed from Iscadon."
Hearing that name Emil thought:
"We have never actually been to Iscadon too, we will have to spend this year more on scouting."
There was silence coming from the guard for a good minute.
"Very well, the control tower will start now to flash a red light, go there."
"Understood."
Then a tower in the middle of the others started to blink the red light.
While moving with minimum speed towards the tower.
Everyone on Emil's vessel was feeling the tension.
"This have the stench of a trap."
"And we are just going face first into it."
The two engineers commented.
"Keep calm you two, and let the miracle maker do his work." Emil replied.
"And who would the miracle maker be?"
"Why, me of course!" He said while grinning. "Dear, load burst rounds on every gun, if they want to play the bad guys with us, things are going to blow up."
As soon as the shrike reached the control tower skydock, on every docking bridge appeared men with guns.
One in particular, that looked like he was an officer, started to shout:
"From now on your ship belongs to the FarPoint independent city.
Now dock it and debark, we are watching you."
Emil's grin just got creepier and bigger.
"Why, you will be watching me?
I'll be hwatching YOU!"
With that lame joke, the docks where blew to pieces by the side hwachas.
The shrike entered full backward thrust and, as soon as he got far from the control tower, he did a 180 turn, engaging full forward thrust, trying to get out of the towers many guns' arcs.
The towers, noticing the failure of the ship capture operation, opened fire on the vessel.
As the fire from the towers was intensifying, the shrike was too dishing out shots, its hwachas covering with explosions the surface of the towers, the heyoka missile launchers hitting gunpoints with precision.
Soon they were also out of the towers' firing range.
Things got messy when the combat planes took off.
Quick and nimble, the planes were a pain to hit.
"Everyone!" Emil shouted to his crew while tying up his belt to the wheel.
"We need to out climb the planes! Hold on tight!"
The two engineers, knowing the specs of the ship, already had an idea about how to out climb the enemy planes so they tied themselves to the main deck.
Selenia first tied herself to her hwacha, then she realised what her parter was about to do.
She tried to stop him but he was out of her hands' reach.
"Emil no!"
"Emil yes" he replied grinning.
"Emil no!"
"Emil yes"
"EMIL NOOOOOOO!"
"EMIL YEEEEEEEES!"
In that moment, when they both shouted, the Shrike, burning both kerosene and hydrogen, and turned 90 degrees upwards and skyrocketed, leaving behind the planes, whose pilots remained utterly surprised of the neigh impossible manoeuvre.
After a few seconds of vertical flight, Emil reactivated the ship's talons' turning system, and regained a stable position.
The engineers were panting, one of the two even puked off the edge of the ship, the other was just laying on the deck floor, looking skyward, with shocked eyes.
On the lower deck Selenia was laughing hysterically, while still being tied to the hwacha.
Only Emil was still calm, holding the wheel like nothing happened.
"Well, none of you here would have what it takes to be a fighter pilot!
This talons act perfectly as elevators and ailerons.
Man, I wish I could drive one some day."
Then both the other engineer and Selenia puked.
"I would like to see how you all would react to an Immelmann then."
While holding on the railings, Selenia, untied herself from the hwacha and walked towards Emil.
She grabbed onto his shoulder and said:
"I don't know what that is, nor I want to. But try, even try to do something like this again, and I'll shoot off myself pieces of the ship."
He then turned around and hugged her.
"You are all over reacting, come on, this is nothing that a good dose of moonshine couldn't fix."
"Will do!" Groaned an engineer from the upper deck.
"Sorry, I still don't drink ship fuel." Replied Selenia, leaving the hug and laying in the floor.
"If you say so."
After that, Emil stopped the ship and turned in the direction of Far Point. "We still have to make contact with our fellow operative."
"Not now dear, I need some time to recover." Selenia groaned from the floor.
"Oh, don't be such a girl!"
"Hey, guess what? I am."
"She got a point you know."
One of the two engineers commented from ten upper deck.
"Whatever then! We will be landing now, y'all should have a sleep."
Even before he finished his sentence he heard snoring from the upper deck and found Selenia already curled up and sleeping under the blankets near the back engine.
After he landed, it took him a bit of time to get sleepy enough to convince himself to lay down.
Suddenly he heard a clank on the side of the ship.
Emil turned quickly around, unsheathing his sword and drawing out his hand gun.
A man covered in a sand coloured cloak, was walking towards him with his hand raised.
"Operative "Strayed" I believe." His voice was cold, tired and yet also gentle.
"You should be "Sandcrawler" then."
"Indeed I am, and I presume that the fair lady sleeping there is the operative "Dove" in this case."
"We were trying to reach you inside Far Point, that was the planned meeting point."
"It "WAS" you say truly, now the city is in near lockdown after they spotted a few days ago some Yeshan warships patrolling just outside of the towers' gun range. Since I was not a registered citizen they planned to imprison me, as also I was seen as a suspicious individual..."
"Especially since you keep going around in that cloak of yours."
"Every operative has his trademark, as you do too, Strayed, this is mine, and on the other hand, you would never see me if I were stalking you in a desert."
"Well, enough about this trivialities, what message did you want to relay in the first place?"
"There are three events:
First one: political parties in Yesha are strongly disagreeing about what to do about the imperial expansionism. It may ignite a civil war within a decade if things keep going like this.
Second one: Arashi raids are getting stronger and more frequent towards the Guild, I have no idea why, the Arashi don't do things harshly and without thinking, they must know something we don't.
Third one: the strength of many independent cities is increasing dramatically, especially Anvala. Somehow that managed to get some extra relic-tech, and their weapon production is enough to rival with the one of the homeland.
Another city, Iscadon, has gone silent, as much as I tried to get info on my way here, no one knows anything about what's going on right now in the city.
So, I have to ask you to give me a lift to Dragontown, then I'll try to reach Iscadon myself."
"No problems about that, but why couldn't you relay these news yourself?"
Sandcrawler looked with sad eyes to Emil, he shook his head for a few seconds, then with a voice broken by sadness, he said:
"Something in my guts is telling me that, from the moment I leave this place, my life will be at risk and if I die, I don't want to let my discoveries die with me.
We have very few operatives left, we are barely a hundred, but due to our operation rules, it's like we are much less, we are just wandering agents, to be held as much far as possible from the baronies."
Then, all within the same second, Sandcrawler turned around, pulled out two heavy revolvers and aimed directly at Selenia, that in that same second woke up, pulled out her gun and aimed at the man.
All the guns clicked as they pulled the hammer of their guns.
"And you can count on a loyal partner too, Strayed."
Emil gestured to Selenia to lower her weapon.
As she lowered her gun, Sandcrawler did too.
"Farewell operatives." The man said while jumping down from the ship.
And while he was walking away he shouted:
"Apparently Anglea is quite good looking in this season and the flowers are blooming in Chaladon."
Emil laid on Selenia's side and put on the portable blanket. Finally being relaxed enough to sleep.
"Wake me when the sun's high."
-
Then sun was high when Emil woke up, and his head was hurting.
He was also put upside down, arms were around his chest.
"Uhm, what's going on? Selly?"
"OH! FINAL-FUCKING-LY! You slept past lunch time! We were waiting for you to wake up in order to take off!"
"Why are we like this?"
"The other operative helped me make you stand up, so that I could supplex you."
In that moment Sandcrawler entered Emil's field of view.
"And she did a damn good job! You finally woke up!"
Emil had a very surprised face for a few seconds, trying to find any sense in what he heard.
"Well, girlie, would you mind letting me go? It's quite uncomfortable being supplexed."
"Take this as a very energetic wake-up-hug."
"It sounds very sweet, but still I got supplexed."
Selenia then let Emil go. She immediately stood up, while Emil first slowly rolled on the floor, the groaned and in the end stood up too.
"Are these kind of situation common between you two?" Asked Sandcrawler.
"They have this kind of shenanigans AT LEAST once a day." Replied a passing by engineer.
"Shut up you and go warm up the engines. Selly, check the balloon, Sandcrawler, check the reactive armour, we will be taking off in a few minutes."
Hours later
Shrieking as it flew trough the air, Emil's Shrike was doing slaloms between the cliffs and the mountains sides.
A Squid was quickly flying behind it.
The front gun was blown off, a corpse still holding its handles.
Behind it another man was shooting forward with a rifle, the others were taking cover behind the various components.
"Who the hell is their gunner?!? How is it possible that they are having us pinned despite having no aft gun?!?"
On the Shrike, on the upper deck, between the two engines, a woman was standing.
Her whitish hair fluttering in the wind, her coat duster giving her an imposing aspect, a LMG held in her arms.
She targeted the hostile Squid with controlled bursts of fire, aiming with near perfection and landing most of her shots.
"I think I saw a pyra near them too, only it's taking a more direct route, they want to do a pincer move!" Shouted Sandcrawler."
"Until she has any ammo, there won't be any problem whatsoever!"
Replied Emil, while steering the wheel.
"Why do you trust her so much?"
"We have been trough even worse things than this! And she always managed to shoot the hell out of it!"
"Cap'n! Enemy on starboard side!" An engineer cried when he spotted the pyramidion.
"Use the Heyoka! Disable their front guns!"
In that moment banshee rockets came flying in the Shrike's direction, covering the area around it in fiery explosions.
With a light "thwup" the guided missiles were shot, and then, a second later, their propulsion systems ignited, making them flying, faster and faster, until they impacted on the pyramidion.
"Got it!"
The pyramidion then, with its front part full of fire, pointed downwards and started falling, as also its steerer have been hit directly with a missile.
"I'm out of ammo!" Selenia yelled as she reached the hwacha beside Emil.
"Turn right, now!"
Steering quickly, nearly bumping a rock, the ship turned and offers its right flank to the Squid.
The Squid's captain, on the other hand noticing the Hwacha aiming straight at him, steered to the left, covering his position, but leaving without cover many crewmen.
Limbs and other pieces of bodies flew around as soon as the rocket salvo hit the ship.
One of its manoeuvre engine and one of its main engines destroyed, the Squid lost a lot of speed, and its steering capabilities decreased dramatically.
Emil stopped his vessel in mid air, its guns acquiring a clear firing solution.
"Fire!"
A final salvo of hwacha, mixed with some Heyoka missiles and small guns' fire hit the damaged Squid blowing it to pieces.
Sandcrawler then commented loudly:
"Now this ship is going to have a very big bounty at Far Point, you too Strayed, since you were seen by some people."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I'll let her deal with that."
He said and nodded in the direction of Selenia, that was in that moment reloading and checking her guns.
Some more hours later
"Dragontown is in sight! Switch in the radio, prepare for docking manoeuvres!"
Emil yelled to his crew.
On the docks
The man with a sand coloured cloak stepped off the ship, waved once and then disappeared into the mass of people that was crowding the docks.
Arms crossed, Emil kept looking a while into the crowd.
Then, satisfied, he turned around and started the engines, communicated via radio to the control tower that he was taking off.
"You have the clearance to take off."
Engines roaring, the Shrike first took altitude, then turned north.
Emil turns to Selenia.
"Now it's time to keep my promise."
The ship thrusts forward, engine at full speed ahead.
"To Anglea."
The Shrike was flying fully into Yeshan territory, to avoid eventual bounty hunters from Far Point, where Emil got a bounty on his head.
Flying trough Yesha and towards Anglea, it was obvious that sooner or later he'll have to fly thought the infamous northern canyons.
The canyon were always a nice sight for airships, wasn't for the fact the almost a single error could cost you your ship, or even your life.
The winds above the Canyon were unnatural: extremely strong, even a Squid flying at full speed could barely move a meter per second.
The ground level was like a labyrinth, were the rule was "kill or be killed", pirates, raiders, patrols, scouts, many kind of ships passed trough that little piece of land, few came out of it unscathed.
Emil just hoped to not be ambushed by ships he could not deal with.
He had been slaloming for the last hours, always aiming north.
He had met a few ships on his way, two merchant ships with a few escorts, some Yeshan patrol galleons that were blockading some zones, but fortunately no pirates.
Or so he thought...
At a certain point, in the evening, he came across a little merchant barge.
It's engines were burning, the reactive armour was all torn to pieces, pieces of steel were falling off everywhere. The bridge itself was set ablaze. There was many bodies on the bridge, some with deep cuts, other with big holes in the chest.
There was only one man alive, kneeling, his face all burned, arms along the chest, looking high in the sky with empty eyes.
Shocked by such a sight, Emil neared his ship to that.
The crewmen threw some grappling hooks so that the two ships wouldn't fly too far away from each other.
Emil jumped on the ship, sword in one hand, a gun in the other.
He neared the man, who, as soon as he nicked the foreigner, started talking.
"They came out of nowhere....
A single ship....
Many died from their shots even before we noticed them....
Only the balloon was alive, perfectly intact..unscathed...
Everything else destroyed...."
The man then turned towards a canyon branch and pointed it with his finger.
"THEY... ARE COMING!"
He the turned in the general direction of Emil, eyes blind.
"Please... Kill me... I don't want to suffer from them anymore...
Please..."
Emil quickly thruster his sword into the man's chest, piercing the heart.
"Thank you."
"Who are coming?" Asked Selenia from the ship.
"I don't know, he didn't specify. Maybe pirates. In any case, start the engines, I don't want to discover it on my skin."
It was too late.
From the canyon previously pointed at by the dying man, a Pyramidion class ship appeared, it was all painted black, even it's frame was jet black. Some strange kind of smoke was coming out out it, the engines were roaring like monsters, trails of flames were coming out of it back.
Painted on its front there was a white cloaked figure, wielding a scythe.
Emil dashed on his own ship and brought the engines to maximum.
"Engineers! Start pouring moonshine in the engines! That's a Pyra mk I! We gonna have a rough time shaking it off!"
The Shrike accelerated all of a sudden, engines screeching for the pain of being put under constant tension by the moonshine.
"Selly, go help those two!"
"Aye!"
The Pyra was already going crazy fast, so for a few seconds it was actually capable of gaining some space.
Suddenly there were explosions all around the Shrike and high speed shots were landing all around it.
"They are shooting us!"
"We have reached max speed! Now the moonshine is only damaging us! We are switching to kerosene!"
The two ships were in a stalemate: both were racing trough the canyons, the Shrike not fully in range of the Pyra.
Emil turned around for a second to shout to his ship's back:
"Close the balloon valve!"
"WHAT?"
"DO IT!"
The balloon, while giving less and less lift by the passing of seconds, also reduced the drag on the ship, giving the Shrike enough speed to shake off the Pyra.
When the ship was barely a dozen meters from the ground Emil ordered the balloon valve to be reopened.
Suddenly, the Pyra was there no more.
Only some fog was in its place.
"Keep worrying people! I'm not cutting the throttle 'till we are in Anglea!"
Its engine shrieking, the Shrike kept racing trough the canyo as the sun disappeared on the horizon.
-
Remembrance: fortunately, I got lost
Driving in a somewhat.... Random way, Emil's ship reached the coast of Anglea, flew over the Bay of Ink, and was in the direction of Oaxley.
Everyone was entirely covered in furs. The engineers were actually from Quinqaachi, so they were used to the cold climate.
Selenia was another whole story: the girl only visited southern lands while with Emil and only went a few times in the Baronies during summer. So the anglean cold was a new thing for her. As such, she was wearing even the blankets as a cloak.
After a while, only Emil was really working: the engineers, excusing themselves by saying that they were keeping the engines in check, even if it was clear that they were using them to heat themselves up. Selenia had become a blanket that talked and ate.
"Hey, it's not my fault he is so damn cold!" She said usually.
Over the Bay of Ink
"I see something on the horizon!" An engineer shouted. "From the east!"
Emil turned around and saw a figure in the distance, a fat spot with two thin appendices on two sides.
Grabbing his portable spyglass, he looked at it.
"It's a plane! Take cover from that side! Don't man the guns, they are from the Republic Regular Army!"
Emil cut throttle to the engines and stopped the ship mid air.
It better not to risk to appear aggressive when dealing with angleans, especially with anglean planes and infantrymen.
Some high speed shots flew a dozen of meters in front of the Shrike.
"That's a warning shot." Emil yelled to his crew.
Then the plane appeared to multiply, showing that actually there were at least other four planes behind the one that was spotted.
The squadron assumed a delta formation. And started to circle around Emil's ship.
Just to be sure, Emil, moving stiffly for the cold, raised a white flag on a side of the Shrike.
From below, with a sonorous "vroom", an anglean corsair raised and stopped at the same altitude of Emil's ship.
It had a front mounted hwacha.
Under his masked helmet, Emil got ghastly pale: a single salvo from that thing and they would all be dead.
From a speaker, a metallic voice could be heard:
"You have entered the republic's airspace, as protocol we will have now your ship inspected."
The hwacha was put aside by mechanical systems, and behind it there were some infantrymen, cladded in full armour and furs, they were aiming their rifles in Emil's direction.
"Guys, you should really come here, so that they don't think we are doing something funny! Selenia, you too, stop being a blanket and come here."
Groaning could be heard from around the whole Shrike.
A few moments after, grappling hooks were thrown to keep Emil's ship in place, then, a gangplank was set between the two airships.
The infantrymen walked over it and surrounded Emil and his crew.
An anglean officer came then over.
They spoke, but the helmet muffled too much the sound.
"Sorry, come again?" Emil replied.
It could be heard a sign coming from the officer. Then they took off their helm.
Much to everyone's surprise, the officer was a woman, and actually a very good looking one, with an anglean-pale skin and dark hair.
"I said, take off your guns and show your faces."
Each of the two engineers took off from their belts a gun and put it on the floor, beside them. They had only hats, so they didn't have to take them off, to show their faces.
Emil put on beside him his sword, a pair of combat knives and his revolver.
Selenia on the other hand spent almost a minute taking off all the handguns she had in her.
Then they both took off their masked helmets.
"State why have you come here." The officer then said.
Emil stood there for a few seconds, thinking about what to say and what not to say.
He was quite good at lying, he managed to learn with time how to mask the various sign a person would show when telling a lie, and that ability have always come to be useful.
"What? Cat bit your tongue? Speak now." The officer added.
"We were flying as escorts for a merchant ship, but we had been ambushed by pirates during our passage trough the canyons south of here. The merchant ship got overwhelmed and we had to run for our lives."
"Nice escorts you were."
"We were outgunned and outnumbered, if we had stood back there, now we wouldn't be nothing but corpses."
"Hmpf..." The officer looked for a while at each member of Emil's crew.
The planes were still flying around the Shrike.
"What do you intend to do when you dock?"
"Refuel and buy food supplies to keep on travelling."
"Tell me where do you intend to go next."
"Well, after this misadventure, I think that I could pay for once a visit to my relatives that live in the Baronies."
"Fjordlanders... Hmpf.... Suits yourself.
Now follow my ship to the docks."
She nodded in the direction of a plane.
"Do anything funny, and these boys here will shot you down."
They slowly followed the corsair to a nearby anglean settlement.
The refuelling operation took very little time, he had then a few minutes to buy some food before being forced to take off.
They were followed by the anglean planes until they left their airspace.
Everyone was eating, except Emil, who was on the aft deck of the ship, looking at the planes that were quickly disappearing in the horizon.
Taking a bite from a piece of dried meat, Emil took a walk down memory lane.
-
It was a hot day by Firnfeld standards:
there were not as many clouds as there were usually, the sun was high and quite visible, the wind was not as fast as usual and there wasn't ice absolutely everywhere.
"Since we are having a lack of suspicious leads to justify our operative's lone wandering, we will have to deploy you in groups in order not to have agents staying in the homeland." Said the smiling man, who actually was a member of the council of Barons AND the operative-leader of CRIES.
"A number of you will have be sent to investigate in the four different cardinal directions. A number of you will be sent to scout to the south of Chaladon, some to the west of Yesha, some to the east of Chaldon and some deep into the Firnfeld."
He then pointed at a paper on his desk.
"There is written who will go where. Have a good day everyone."
I was to be deployed in Firnfeld, with other nine operatives.
Since there was a total refitting of the Royal Fleet, no heavy ships for many people were available whatsoever, and so the team had to be deployed with airplanes.
Three members of the team were actually aces, while the rest of us were either novices with planes or never flew one at all.
We actually spent a month or so continuously training. It actually came out that the planes weren't too difficult to fly, soon enough we even started racing against each other trough the fjords.
I was personally the best pilot at landing: as long as I had an airfield I could land whatever the damage my plane had.
Unlike with airships, when flying planes we really had issues with the fuel.
We were flying for a maximum of 3 hours per day.
One time we even reached a Firnfeld airfield which barely few minutes worth of flying left.
The place that was to be our home base was a large airfield, with a lot of underground buildings.
Another time most of our squadron had to empty their guns by shooting when landing, since the wind was screwing up our landing speed and and the ice impeded our brakes to function correctly.
Nothing happened for at least two months, but in the meantime we trained a lot, the Aces were not rusty anymore and us newbies were newbies no more. Really, the Firnfeld climate made us improve by necessity our flight performances.
The event that broke our routine was a fisher village I found.
A strong gust of wind hit me, I temporarily lost control on my plane and got separated for some hours from my squadron.
It was near a large complex of pre-war ruins, everything was on fire.
After we spotted that we immediately flew back to base to take an airship in order to scout on the ground the place.
Fortunately the weather didn't change, so we reached the village without too much trouble.
We searched it trough for some hours.
We found only dying people. We managed to make one speak, but the only words were:
"Četiri vragovi."
He grunted for some seconds, then he died.
His last words were:
"Duhovi od Razgriz."
He also pointed to something north-east from there.
Sun was coming down, so we had to come back to base.
Realising the next day that we didn't understand shit about what the dying man said, we tried to ask to some Firnfeldman how to translate that.
Apparently he said:
"Four demons, Ghosts of Razgriz."
That evening, heavy drinks were had, booze flowed around in some Firnfeld tavern, theories were made.
We immediately got sober after hearing a theory from one squadronmate.
Those demons may actually be some kind of assault air crafts.
The next day we danced for some hours, and by dancing I mean we did I the Firnfeldian dance, in order to be ready in case we needed to take off at a moment's notice.
We actually didn't, so we went around the hangars used by the FSDF, or Firnfeld Self Defence Force.
Their planes had heavier frames, looked sturdier, and yet they had similar performances to ours.
We did a test ride with their permission. Almost everyone in our squadron fell in love with them.
We actually bargained our planes for theirs. I don't remember whether them or we were happier about it.
Their planes were very similar to ours in terms of performances, the main differences were that now we didn't to have to worry too much about the extremely cold climate and that the muzzle speed of their guns was higher.
Our old planes were the standard A type, Model 6 ones, also called A6M, perfect for dogfighting between the fjords.
The planes we then acquired were called Yak-9, we only understood that it was the mark 9, but we were absolutely oblivious about the "Yak" part.
One day one of the ace pilots decided that our next recon flight should be in the direction where the dying man pointed at, days before.
Men form the FSDF actually said that transports and exploration crafts sent toward that direction or passing near there have been disappearing for years, only to be never found as they get quickly covered by the snow.
We took off at midday.
The fighters we recently acquired could actually fly for 4 or even 5 hours, so we even extended our flight time.
After an hour of flight we flew over the remains of that destroyed village, then we proceeded in the direction where the villager pointed.
After another hour, to our supreme disbelief, we found the wreckage of one of the enormous juggernaut pre-war airships.
There was no wind nor any cloud whatsoever, the skies were strangely clear.
One thing was amiss.
It was almost totally intact.
Some of the engines were off, but it was straight on the ground, it was like it actually landed and not crashed.
On it could be seen an enormous straight bridge that remembered the runway of an airfield. There were two towering structures on each side of the runway-looking-bridge. One was broken in half, the other was totally intact.
In front of the ship there was an enormous figurehead: a long-haired woman dressed in what looked like a Firnfeld pilot vest, wearing a winged helmet.
On the side of multiple structure was depicted the detail of the head of the woman with the winged helmet, writings were under it, but the letters were either frozen and totally cancelled.
"Should we land?" These were exactly the words that one of the pilots said when everything went to hell.
We heard roaring coming from an end of the downed vessel.
We saw a trail of fire and a black silhouette dashed in the air.
Three more followed.
At first we were in total awe, then we woke up as one of our planes was blown to pieces by one of those things.
"Operative down! All units engage evasive manoeuvres!"
A large explosion was heard, the tail of one of ours had been blow off, soon after salvoes of bullets reached the now falling flame, shredding it into shreds.
"How can they be so fast?!?"
"I can't see them anymore!!!"
"They are above us!!!"
"How can they climb so fast?!?"
"How can they be so fast in the first place!?!"
"Stop panicking, spread formation, gather intel, and...
EVADE! EVADE!"
Our squadron was barely managing to keep up the pace.
We found that one of the planes had a single, extremely high caliber, gun. With a single hit it could blow an entire plane apart, also it acted for the rest of those planes as a targeting signal.
"I see that they are fast, but they lack manoeuvrability. Try to outturn them, don't let them get a fire solution on you!"
I wasn't the best at dogfighting, I either was in an offensive position, or in a defensive one, my ability to dodge the enemy attack and then to re-engage was lacking.
I could fly hours straight dodging shots and barely get hit.
But in terms of attack I was only good with dive-and-climb attacks, which required altitude and speed advantage, which I didn't have at all in that moment.
The aces of our squadron managed even to properly outturn and form up in an enemy plane and shot at it.
While they actually didn't deal any major damage, their attack was extremely empowering for our morale.
During this half an hour long engagement, we lost a total of 3 planes, but we managed to hit multiple times an enemy boogie. Also, by the looks of the size and the frequency of the enemy attacks, it looked like that they were running out of ammo.
We actually were almost full, since we barely managed to get them in our sights in general.
At a certain point a plane broke from formation, their squadron leader engaged us in dogfights, he actually managed to take down one of our aces before being ganged up by the rest of us.
After the plane exploded, its fiery carcass falling off the sky, the rest of the squadron engaged us.
One by one they fell off the sky, each one bringing one plane to hell with them, the last one tho, after remaining alone, managed to shoot down two more of ours.
Of the 14 man our squadron was compared of, 3 were during the first 30 minutes of battle, 2 when the squadron leader attacked, other 5 when the rest of the enemy planes started dogfight. Only me, another operative and two of our aces were surviving.
We actually didn't want to land on that juggernaut's airway, but we had no other choice, we all had less than enough fuel to return to our base.
The landing was extremely simple, we lowered our speed, we extended our landing flaps, put down the landing gear, and simply touched ground, not even slipping on the surface of airway that was clear of ice, somehow.
When we left our planes, guns in hand, we decided to go for the intact tower on the side of the runway.
The door was opened.
Inside there were two stairways, one went up, the other went down, we decided to stay in group and then we all went down first.
We found a very big hangar, filled with what looked like scraps of the same design of the fighters that were fought.
Almost every single one of them was in pieces, in some cases even looking more like random scraps than a broken plane.
There was no model intact.
Bones frozen corpses were all around, their equipment looked very similar to the one that now is used in Firnfeld.
We only managed to find some samples of the weapons: the machine guns were actually very similar to the ones used all around the world, while the long barrelled heavy guns used by the enemy' squadron leader was extremely similar to...
"A field gun? Are we serious!? That guy was attacking us with a field gun strapped to his plane?!?"
"Calm down operative, I'm as much surprised as you are...
Apparently there is nothing else here for us to see.
Let's get to the other stairway."
The upgoing stairs lead us to what looked like a command bridge.
More corpses were there, well dressed corpses.
"These must have been the officers."
"Look around if you find something."
We combed the room, finding frozen papers that broke on touch and more frozen corpses.
"Oi! There is still something to read on this thing!" Said one operative raising high a notebook.
"What can you read?"
"On the front cover I can read something like 'Captain's Log', only it is written like...uh... Looks like an old version of our language. We can still read it."
Then he flipped the notebook.
"Nope, this one not."
"What is written?"
Emil stepped forward and took the notebook.
On its back it was written.
Cum historia
mutat valde Razgriz
revelat ipsum
primum daemon scelestus est.
Cum potentia
caenum daemon fundet
mortem in terram
deinde moritur.
Cum somnus finis
Razgriz surget
surget iterum
magnus heros est.
"This could need some time, but I can translate this language...
Somebody copy these words somewhere, I don't think this thing could survive outside the Firnfeld cold."
Then he opened the notebook.
The first page had written on it.
'Captain's Log, 18 December 1923, Captain Franz Gallifrey, Air-carrier ship Razgriz'
Emil read it out loud.
Then, turning the pages found very few retrievable information, as many letters were frozen and not legible anymore.
Emil remains reading for a few minutes.
"This ship was some kind of flagship and a flying airfield, it is never stated its allegiance. Here it says that it should have had on board 10 fighter squadrons, plus one elite squadron, called "The Ghosts of Razgriz", for a total of 44 combat planes."
"We met four... where are the other forty?"
"They are the scraps in the hangar bay."
"A shame..."
"I'm too tired right now, we need to find some way to get back to base."
"Yeah, nearly dying takes up a lot of energy."
"Operative, bring with you that notebook, we will have to at least try to copy it at the base, there may also be written something else."
After looking for a little more for something in the command room, our team went back to the planes.
A guy had such an obvious idea about our return flight that everybody else felt like a fucktard.
"What about we transfer fuel from some of our planes? There is enough space for two in each plane too."
"We are two couples , so a plane with two people each, for two."
"This was so fucking obvious that I feel like an idiot for not thinking about it first!"
"Shut up and help me refuel."
As we took off from the downed juggernaut, we saw in the distance a blizzard coming our way from north.
"Full throttle! If the blizzard catches us we are dead men!"
Fast like the wind, which in that region is damn-fucking-fast, we flew away.
We managed to come back to our base of operation in nearly 2 hours.
The flight officers were dead pale, even by Firnfeld standards, when they saw that out of 14 planes, our squadron returned with only two.
Around two days before this fight the Royal fleet had been fully refitted.
The event that happened to our team of operatives had us retread with utter urgency, as our HQ thought that leaving us there may cause the leak of info about some of our discoveries.
From that moment, 'till I had to switch to an airship for the mission where I met Selenia, I flew only planes, gaining a whole bunch of experience.
Taking another bite of dried meat, Emil said out loud:
"I love planes."
Hearing that Selenia replies jokingly:
"Gods help me if I ever have to fly with you, I would rather fist-fight an Anglean, that being present during your shenanigans-filled manoeuvres!"
"Suits yourself."
Then he yawned loudly.
Looking at a flight map Selenia adds:
"Go for Lord's Leap, we will have to drop the engies there..."
Emil finished the sentence:
"...and then we go for the HQ."