PART 1: A PUPPET'S FREEDOM
CHAPTER 4: THE NAVAL OFFICER
17th of Quintember, Year 3378, Third Age
Waker Sky Principality, off the coast of Dragon Roost Island
Guardian Coalition Ship Wind Fish
Captain Dark Knight knew something was up. When you had served long enough, you were generally apt to judge swiftly and take everything in stride.
He didn't appreciate that Commander Agahnim Veils had summoned him in to talk about his next assignment with curt and clipped tones, like Dark had done something wrong. Of course, Dark Knight considered any discourtesy an affront to his greatness, but one thing was sure, there had definitely been something bothering the Guardian Navy command and it had made his commander nasty.
"Are you sulking?" came the icy question of Gerudo captain Aveil Thieves, quite possibly the only thing worthy of being looked at on this damned piece of floating metal everyone liked to call the Wind Fish.
The Wind Fish was an ocean battle cruiser, and it doubled as one of the few aircraft carriers stationed off Dragon Roost Island, one of the forward-most advances of the Guardian forces in Waker. They had been sitting there, waiting for the others troops to catch up further south to reinforce the line moving in on Rutela's Waker Sea Principality. Boredom was their worst enemy at the moment.
Dark gave Aveil an appraising smirk. She was wearing her burgundy uniform so smartly that it hardly revealed any skin. White gloves, dark boots, high-collar. Boring. If it hadn't been for the well-defined waist and the relatively tight pants, he'd have probably forgotten what a woman looked like.
"Sulking?" He asked. "Why would I be sulking when I can look at you?" He paused then asked, "Is that a whip or just a crop?"
The female captain looked at what she was holding ―an oscilloscope part, he presumed; the woman loved machines more than people― then shot him a warning glare. "It's none of your business, and for the record, I don't recall you ever being allowed to make advances on female crew. It's against the rules."
"Woe is me," Dark sarcastically said, still smirking. "You have found my weakness. Cursed be those darned rules."
Aveil rolled her eyes. "The Commander asked me to give this to you earlier." She handed him a map with a few symbols on it, but Dark alone held the cipher. "He also said you're to leave as soon as you're packed."
Dark's brow rose, sceptical. "No more details? What's the rush?"
"I wouldn't know," Aveil snapped suddenly, shooting him a malevolent, biting glare. Dark smirked.
"Oh, he didn't tell you, did they?" He shot her a pitying face. "Poor Aveil," he baby-talked.
She glared at him, simmering, but ultimately cooled off by slamming the door behind her as she left. Dark rubbed his nape casually, amused. Teasing Aveil had a fun quality to it that few people could truly appreciate, probably because she shot anyone foolish enough to mock her.
"I knew I did well to bonk her at the Academy," he mumbled smugly to himself, turning his attention to the map.
Come to think of it, it was an odd mission for Agahnim Veils to entrust to him. Secrecy was not completely unusual for his missions, but he'd never been asked to complete a task alone, and without even knowing all its components or variables.
Something was going on in the higher ranks of the Guardian Coalition and he was being moved like a pawn at its every whim. The thought was unappealing. He was a free spirit, after all. He glanced at his neatly shined shoes and snorted derisively to himself.
"Free spirit. Yeah. Right."
He glanced at the map again. Maybe even Agahnim Veils didn't know the whole picture. It would explain his temper.
The trajectory was clear. He'd merely have to enter the coordinates in his navigator's computer and he'd be set. It didn't make sense, though. As far as he could see, the point was at the extreme northwest edge of the Waker Archipelago. It roughly corresponded with Ganondorf Dragmire's old ocean fortress, something like…
The Forsaken Fortress.
Dark cocked his head to the side, watching in his mind as pieces came together sluggishly.
The name was enough to make lesser men tremble, which was, in Dark's opinion, utter foolishness. The fortress wasn't even in real use that anyone knew of anymore, yet it still made grown sailors shake in their beds at night. Legends had it something evil, corrupted and cruel resided there, something that made day into pitch-blackness, which explained the perpetual night and the yearlong storms that battered it ceaselessly.
Dark wasn't one for superstition, much less cowardice. He'd mock that very fear. How could any mere thing rival with him in terms of evil? He would make sailors curse him and call jinxes.
He smirked and snickered. Cuckoos.
A blinking light came on next to him. Someone was calling him, long-distance. Unusual. He accepted the call and returned to planning his trip. He'd be carrying cargo to an unknown destination, so he might as well pack more than necessary, in case.
"Evening."
Dark looked up at the noisy screen of his transmitter, wondering why there was so much interference. Usually, the image was clearer.
There was no mistaking his caller, though. He'd recognize those breasts anywhere, no matter the amount of interference and static, for having ogled them enough back at the Military Academy. Nabooru Spirit, captain in the Guardian Air Force, was the only woman who'd not only put up with his numerous flirting tactics without succumbing but also taught him how to prepare amazing cocktails. And fly.
He smiled and nodded at the eye of his camera in acknowledgment. "Evening."
"How are you, Capt―"
"The line's scrambled, Nabooru," he interrupted without even looking up.
"Oh." The redheaded Gerudo seemed taken short. Still, she sighed and said, a smile audible in her voice, "Well, alright then. How've you been, Dark?"
He grinned at her. "As well as can be expected from within a tin box in the middle of a pond." He arched both brows. "You'd be surprised by the view. Completely unexpected, I know, but all around, for miles and miles, there's water, Nabooru. Water. And not one drop good to drink. Who'd have thought the Navy would be so masochistic?"
She laughed, the sound crackled over the airwaves, then said, disgust evident, "Do I feel sorry for you, buddy. Around here, there's sand for miles and miles."
He looked up from his map. Nabooru had always preferred inlands to the open oceans. With mild interest, he asked, "Oh? You're in the desert?" He reached for a topographical atlas that lay beneath the mess gathering on his desk. "Let me guess. Border of Hyrule and Twilight?" He leafed through the worn pages and found the area.
"Too good a guess to be a guess," Nabooru said.
Dark smirked. "We got news of your advance an hour ago. I was going to call later tonight for congratulations."
"Oh," Nabooru teased, "you're too kind."
He chuckled, then asked, when the noise on his screen doubled for a moment, "Is it just my end, or is the connection―"
"Night brought a nasty sandstorm," Nabooru curtly explained. "That's why there's interference. It's keeping us all cooped in... Those of us that made it, at least. So many of our men were stranded out there in the desert…" There was a pause. He averted his eyes, out of respect for her choked silence. When she'd composed herself, Nabooru continued, "No point searching for them anymore, I reckon. The battle was hard-fought. The Hylian Alliance has got quality pilots on its side, but no quantity."
"That's the Hylian Alliance for you," Dark said. "All good intentions and no means to uphold them."
Nabooru was silent for a moment, as if recollecting something, then wonderingly said, "A single Hylian Flit left one of the main airships late in the battle, weaved through the airfield, and took down one of our best dogfighters in less than fifteen minutes. A total loss, pilot and co-pilot dead. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was near suicide on the Flit's part."
Dark's expression was grim. "Despair will do that to a person, even a military type."
Nabooru shook her head. "There was nothing desperate about it. It was almost cheeky. Either the pilot's got the hap of gods or he's the most talented ass-wipe aviator this side of the sky."
Dark tutted. "You're demeaning yourself. You're a good pilot too."
Nabooru shrugged. "Well, I still got honours for my operation. The Admiral was busy in Holodrum, so I had to assume his position." The Admiral, or Ganondorf Dragmire, was foremost the Air Commander of the Guardian Coalition. "We've claimed the west of Hyrule, but the Hylian Alliance solidified their defences in the Canyon… and now this damn sandstorm. Sands, it's almost as if the goddesses don't want us in Hyrule at all."
"Maybe they don't want their children fighting," Dark shrugged. "Either way, the bickering is too far-gone to be stopped. Either Hyrule and its remaining allies surrender, or Ganondorf Dragmire tears them all down, and we're in for the ride."
"You don't like him much," Nabooru insinuatingly commented, "do you?"
"Who?" Dark returned to his map, playing dumb.
"Ganondorf. Admiral Dragmire."
"That's a gross assumption. I dislike both sides in this conflict. Present company excluded, of course."
Nabooru knew better than to ask why he was participating in the military if he hated both sides equally. He didn't like thinking about it, but Dark had no other place in the world, and the pay grade was worth it.
Nabooru avoided the topic altogether. She wasn't fond of war either, but she liked the notion of democracy that the Guardian Coalition was pushing for. "What are you studying?" She suddenly asked. "What's that map? It's a map, right?"
"It's a map, yes, with coordinates to Ganny's secret fortress of doom. I'm to pick up cargo there, solo. Not that you heard anything from me."
"Heard what?" She asked. Dark smirked. She continued, "What do you think he's planning?"
Dark shrugged uncaringly. "Beats me. All that matters is that I get my pay check and that I do not get annihilated by the battles to come."
"Says the man who participated in the eradication of Great Fish Isle. We all heard about it. The Hylian Alliance is biting its nails over that one."
He snorted, his laugh a concession. "I'd have to be insane to seek pride in that. I was following orders. In peace time, they'd call it a mass murder." He felt something that stank of guilt eating at his gut, and pushed it aside with some difficulty. "It had to be done," he explained. "Great Fish was too far west and too strongly armed to let it fester in our lines." It was the drivel the high command had told them, but sometimes he imagined the dead eyes of the civilians they'd bombarded, and it didn't feel right. "Anyway," he said, lightly, "You're by far the better captain of us."
Nabooru made the usual noise of thanks, but her mind was elsewhere. She frowned at the news of his latest mission. "It's a bit strange to be sent solo in that place. I heard it was abandoned."
Dark shot her a mild glare. "If you're going to give me more superstitious nonsense―"
She laughed. "That's not what I meant." She hesitated then said, quickly, as if confiding something she shouldn't have shared, "I think you ought to know. I heard over an interference radio that Admiral Commander Dragmire spoke to Princess Midna Black about receiving a secret weapon from the south, and something about finding a powerful force. I didn't hear the whole thing."
Dark Knight's expression soured. "So Princess Midna Black is really on Ganny's side, huh?"
"Well, obviously," Nabooru answered, mildly confused. "You doubted it? She separated herself willingly from the Hylian Alliance after the Scission, remember? Her Artificial Design… What's his name? Zant Grim? He claimed on behalf of the royal family that it had grown too weak to serve Twilight's interests."
Dark shrugged. "I never thought she'd be so actively involved in Ganny's plots, that's all."
"I didn't know you had an opinion on her motives," Nabooru teased. "But I can't blame you for keeping an eye on her; what was that? Legs that go on forever?"
He laughed. "Right."
Nabooru's laughter softened, died out. Seriously, she asked, "Dark, what do you really think of Admiral Dragmire?"
He didn't answer at first. He glanced at his clock; it indicated eight at night. "Hey," he noted, "I have to get started on my departure preparations, Nabooru. I hope you don't mind if―"
"Dark," she hastily pleaded, "just say it. Off the record."
"What does it matter?" he asked, defensive. "I'm getting my work done."
"Off the record, Dark. Your insight is usually accurate."
Dark pursed his lips. "If Dragmire really wants to guard the future of our world and its people, I'm all for it." He stood, reached for the line termination switch, and smiled at his friend. After gathering his thoughts, he said, "But the means…" In his mind's eye, he saw the red heat of explosions sending Great Fish's beaches skyward. "He's not using the cleanest methods. That says something of him. I think." Dark clicked his boots together. "Now, if you'll excuse me." The switch was flicked to 'off'.
He had to pack. He had much to do.
Nabooru's call had not cleared things up, on the contrary. The secrets apparently ran deeper than he'd first assumed. It'd be interesting to unravel those particular threads. If Ganondorf Dragmire expected a secret weapon, if he, a captain, had to transport an unidentified cargo, if Hyrule was on the defensive…
The future would be very tumultuous indeed.