Double-Edged - By Cairn Rennin

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All characters are copyright of Squaresoft except the Omega and the extras.

Double-Edged

Chapter Four

"War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade."
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Freedom: it is a word used too often. It is often used by children to their parents, complaining over the restrictions that they have to suffer, fighting the injustices that they see in every face and in every turn. When so many of us are denied the basic freedom in life – that of being able to live – we must take our freedoms, however small, like a beggar, grasping the penny flung at him by a scoffing man, both disgusted at the level to which mankind has sunk.
The freedom that Rinoa Heartilly was now enjoying was a recently-gained freedom, compared with the whole of history. It was exhilarating and fun. Many men had tried to fly, to pursue man's dream of freeing itself from the earth, of applying a solvent that will free them from the glue of gravity. He has built weird and wonderful contraptions to this end, but the temporary freedom gained, the true exhilaration of being free from that which has enslaved you, bonded you to the earth like a prisoner in a jail, is quickly lost. As the contraption in which you experienced the dizzying rush of ecstasy that accompanies man's momentary triumph over gravity falls to earth, a single thought runs through your head: gravity always wins.
Bounded in a metal shell, encased in the technology that can finally realise man's dream of conquering his prison, Rinoa flew. She really sat, whilst the metal hulk flew, but in the mind's eye reality is warped, and satisfaction can be attained, despite its victory being a hollow one. With one hand on the cyclic and the other on the collective, she piloted the helicopter.
They have none of the speed or glamour of the latest fighter jets, which streak across the air at Mach 3. They are much more sedentary, drifting along, albeit at a respectable 100 miles per hour. Some people saw the helicopter as an outdated form of transport, unable to pack the punch of the fast jets that could reach trouble five times as fast as the humble helicopter. But the helicopter has survived because of its ability to survive. It could hover and duck behind hills and trees. It was a very potent weapon on the battlefield.
Normally this helicopter, like most others, would have two crew, but there was little point for a weapons officer on board a weaponless craft. It was a very stupid country that left its weapons on the aircraft. Rinoa was flying solo, and it was helpful because she did not want to tell anyone that she was gone. Xu might suspect something and sooner or later they were going to notice that there was one less helicopter than there should have been. Luckily for Rinoa there was no-one there as security and it was very easy to take the craft.
I have to stay below radar coverage*. She had skipped the pre-flight checks and gone straight into flicking on the engines. As the three-bladed rotor hummed into life, she had lifted up sharply on the collective, pulling up on the lever. The collective is a short lever, much like a handbrake in cars, that is pulled up to alter the angle of the rotor blades – in essence it lifts the helicopter.
She had only taken two flying lessons and was starting to regret the decision to take this craft into the sky. Noticing a hill in front of her, she pushed her left foot down on the yaw pedals to turn right, much like handlebars on a bicycle. Unfortunately, yaw pedals don't quite work that way, as she suddenly remembered to her dismay as the craft spun to her left, heading straight for a rather closer hill. "Warning! Collision warning!" the computer chimed in a soft feminine voice. It seemed to Rinoa that the computer was not quite taking this seriously. Smashing her foot down on the right pedal, and yanking up the collective, she pulled right on the cyclic, banking the helicopter away from the hill, and climbing to two hundred feet.
"Unidentified aircraft heading one-niner-three degrees, you are violating Balamb airspace. Identify yourself and prepare to be escorted." Shit thought Rinoa, thinking a rarely used word in her vocabulary. She didn't respond and instead lowered her collective to dip to about one hundred feet, still moving at 110 mph. She dropped below the hilltop and the radar ground station lost contact. She doubted if they were not going to send an aeroplane to intercept her though. Guess I've got to get out before then. She pushed the cyclic forward as far as it would go and adjusted the collective so she wouldn't fly into the ground. The helicopter's nose dropped and the hulk of metal surged forward, slicing through the air at 120 mph. She could see the coastline ahead of her. She didn't slow down as she dropped the craft to fifty feet, and would soon be skimming the tops of the swells.
The majestic craft shot down the beach, catapulting out into the vast ocean. In the bulbous glass cockpit of the craft, Rinoa marvelled at the sea in front of her. The clear blue stretched as far as she could see, disappearing into the horizon many miles away. She was free at last, free of SeeD, free of her father, free of gravity, free of all of the cares in the world. She could stay up here forever, lost in the majesty of the world around here. She eased the craft upwards. There was no need to avoid radar coverage now, she was in international waters and beyond Balamb's radar stations' range. She raised the collective and pulled back on the cyclic. She was going to savour every moment.
The craft started to climb, first passing five hundred feet, then a thousand feet. She levelled it off at two thousand feet, admiring the view. She looked up at the sky, seeing light blue and the yellow disc of the sun. Two clouds, white and puffy, slowly glided along the midday sky. As the helicopter cruised along at just over sixty mph, she sat back and remembered.

"Squall, I want to learn how to fly." Squall looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face.
"You want to fly. Why?" Rinoa shrugged.
"I don't know why, but when I'm in the Ragnarok, I feel that the…I don't know how to explain it. It's just a terrific rush that I get when I'm in the air, and I think that I would enjoy flying a plane." Squall hesitated for a moment. "You have flown before. It's all a part of SeeD training. You only took the basic modules but Selphie did the full course. She told me once that flying was the most important thing in her life. Being in command of your own destiny, able to decide where you want to go, it was a terrific feeling. All I want is the chance to try it. You cannot be so selfish as to deny me that which all of you have done." She thought that maybe she had overdone it with the last line, but Squall seemed to agree.
"OK, you can do a taster course, to see how you like it." Rinoa hugged him with all of her might. "If you don't like it then you can stop. And the instructor can always stop it in the interests of health and safety." Rinoa glared at him. "Hey, I've seen your driving." She blushed, and turned away.
The two of them went down into the training area outside Garden. Ever since the conflict with Galbadia Garden, SeeD have kept a small number of aeroplanes and helicopters on station in a purpose-built hangar. Squall found the man that he was looking for underneath an attack helicopter. "Jefran." The man pulled himself out from under the craft.
"Hey Squall." He was a little over six feet in height, and looked superbly fit. Blond locks fell about his face, coming to just above his eyebrows. His eyes were a brilliant blue, and sparkled as his face turned. He was dressed in overalls, covered in oil, but he was perfectly clean. He offered his hand, and Squall shook it. Rinoa looked puzzled. Squall had never shaken anyone's hand that she had seen before. "This must be Rinoa." She nodded. "Pleased to meet you. So, what can I do for you?"
"Well Jef, Rinoa here wants to learn to fly, so I agreed that she could have a taster session. What have we got today?" Jefran started but was interrupted by Rinoa, who was looking at the helicopter.
"Why is there a spinny thing on the back of it?" she inquired. Jefran smiled.
"First, is called a rotor, but second, I'm going to answer your question with a demonstration. He wandered off, and left the two of them looking at each other. He returned a minute later carrying a plank of wood and pushing an office chair. "Squall, would you care to help with the demonstration?" Squall looked like a deer trapped in headlights. He looked at Jefran, then at Rinoa and back to Jefran. He finally surrendered, nodding his tacit compliance.
Jefran smiled and pushed the chair over to Squall. "First sit down on this." Squall obediently sat on the chair. "Now, hold up your arms and grab this." He handed Squall the plank, which Squall struggled to hold above his head. "Now, lift your feet off the floor and rotate the plank in your hands." Squall did this, straining his muscles to hold up the heavy plank. He turned the plank round, and he started to rotate in the opposite direction.
"Thank you Squall." He took the plank off him and Squall flexed his arms. "Can we have a round of applause for our assistant Squall." Rinoa clapped and so did three or four maintenance workers who had heard Jefran talking. Squall glared at the instructor. "This is scientifically known as 'conservation of angular momentum', or more colloquially as 'a problem'. The solution is the tail rotor, which forces the craft in the opposite direction, cancelling out the turning effect." Rinoa smiled, understanding.
"I like you Jefran. Can you teach me to fly?"
"I don't fly aeroplanes. I'm a helicopter instructor. I taught Commander Squall here to fly a Huey back when he was thirteen, back when we leased our aircraft from Balamb Air Force. Picked it up real well, too. He didn't go past basic training, though. He could have made a top pilot easy, but I guess it's not in everyone's blood. If you want to fly a chopper, then I'm your man, but if you want to go with the fighter pukes, then that's your prerogative, girl."
"No, I think I want to fly a helicopter. They look cool." Jefran smiled.
"And one more is converted to the faith. The infidel fighter jocks will lose the battle for supremacy, and we will rise again as the kings of the air!" He laughed, and the maintenance crew chuckled. They heard this little speech every time someone took up helicopter classes.

Rinoa grimaced. I'm in way over my head here. She had had only two lessons, only three hours in a seat, and half of that was Jefran explaining what to do, or more often what not to do. Like go solo after only two lessons. She chided herself for being so stupid. She was in the middle of nowhere. Well, not quite, she was in the middle of somewhere but it was anyone's guess where that somewhere was. But she knew that simply flying in this direction, she will eventually hit the Galbadia-Esthar bridge. Let's hope not literally, she thought.
In the distance she could make out a thin line stretching across the horizon. Her heart leaped. She could follow the tracks straight into Timber. She wouldn't risk taking a helicopter straight into Timber so she would set it down as soon as she reached the other side of the bridge. She knew that radar coverage was almost non-existent in this area: she and her resistance group had had a rather large part in that fact.
She looked at her fuel gauge, but it was not that important. The craft was slightly low on fuel, but she need not worry. There was plenty in the tank for the short distance that she had to travel.

The Ragnarok was not the type of craft that you could camouflage with a few branches and tarpaulin, so Selphie had to land several miles away from the relay station. She dropped the power to the ventral engines and the ship slowly descended to the ground. The group hoisted their bergens onto their shoulders and checked their kit. Each carried their chosen weapon in the holster on their hip. On the other side each carried a silenced pistol. A sheathed commando knife was attached to the bergen by Velcro. The five of them wore dark-green camouflage for the night assault. Black suits were incredibly easy to see, as it was the only thing in the night that was black.
Inside their bergens they carried enough equipment and supplies for seven days. Water bottles, rations, compass, GPS, pencil-beam torches, ammunition for their machine guns as well as stoves, radios and medical equipment. Each SeeD struggled a little at the start with the seventy-pound load strapped to their back, but after a few minutes they were used to it and could move around almost normally. Picking up their machine guns they headed for the bay door.
Emerging into the twilight, they quickly found cover in a nearby forest. Whispering the instructions, Quistis directed them to follow Squall, who was on point. Zell, as 'tail-end Charlie' held the rear, constantly checking behind him for any movement in the silent and still forest. They had five miles to cover in four hours, and this would be quite easy under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. Every two hundred yards into the forest Squall would check his compass with the torch. He tried to keep heading north-west, but with moving around trees and debris on the forest floor, the bearing started to change. Stepping carefully so as not to break branches, the five walked quietly through the forest.
SNAP! In the forest even the slightest noise was multiplied a thousand-fold. The lack of all noise makes everyone's ears much more sensitive, and the snap of the branch sounded like a gunshot. Squall stopped dead, squatting to the ground. He turned to look for his team-mates but he could not see them. He fished about inside his backpack and retrieved his IR goggles. Switching them on, he heard the faint hum of the imager, and quickly raised it to his eyes. He scanned the scenery, easily making out his four team-mates, but no other humanoid life signs. Birds flew and mammals scampered around on the floor.
Squall slowly returned to walking, and gave the hand signal to his compatriots behind him. The barrel of his gun swung from side to side, scanning like his eyes for the slightest disturbance in the night. He found none, and after a few more broken branches, they had made it to the end of the forest. Squall checked the GPS.
"We've made it about a mile so far," he whispered to his comrades. "A mile in just under an hour. We should make it to the OP in about three hours." The party considered eating some of their rations, but decided against it. They would eat at the observation point.
The five members started off again, Irvine on point and Selphie bringing up the rear. Irvine brought up his IR goggles, bathing his eyes in a hue of green light. Why is infra-red green? he thought. Have to ask Zell. He might know. He briefly scanned the horizon. Seeing absolutely no heat at all, he switched off the goggles to conserve power. They had brought two packs of spare batteries each, but sometimes even those were not enough. Wasting power on a mission such as this was not an option.
Irvine started their advance to the next ridge, constantly scanning the horizon for the slightest movement. But all was still. He walked to the next ridge. Lights flickered in the distance. Motioning the others, they quickly scampered up to meet him, lying down so that only their heads appeared over the ridge. Getting out his binoculars, Zell looked through them at the facility. "About fifty people by the looks of it. They have trucks, machine gun emplacements and there are two sentries in guard huts elevated above the compound." Quistis nodded.
"Let's go then, " she said, crawling over the ridge. The last thing that they wanted was a man-shaped silhouette striding across a ridge. The rest of the trip was uneventful, and they made their way towards the facility without any trouble. They made good progress and was about half of a mile away from the perimeter fence when they stopped. "Look for a good OP." A good observation point was a necessity to observe the patrols that the guards made. They noticed with dismay that the guards had dogs. Dogs were an annoying sentry, because measures had to be taken to prevent the dogs from finding you. They would have to stay downwind, and take excretory precautions.
"Looks like it's 'shitting in cling-film' time," stated Irvine. In a long observation, the observers obviously required to excrete, and faeces had to be wrapped in cling-film and buried so that the dogs could not smell it. Likewise, urine had to be stored in bottles and buried. Empty bottles and rolls of cling-film were brought for precisely this eventuality.
Squall grimaced as he shuffled along the floor. Zell moved up next to Irvine, and looked him up and down. "I don't think we've got enough cling-film." Irvine glared at him, and Selphie hit Zell.
"Don't say things like that about Irvy." She hugged her boyfriend, who smiled at Zell. Squall rolled his eyes and shuffled over to a clump of bushes. Burrowing a little underneath the soil, he spoke quietly.
"I think that this will do as cover. If I can get some of my camouflage net in the right place then this should do just fine. We can probably fit two people here. Quistis?" She nodded, and shuffled over to him. I wonder why he wanted to be next to me? A year ago I would be in heaven now. Now, what? How do I feel about this?
Squall started to gently shift soil from behind the bushes. When he felt that he had done enough, he shuffled into the place and started clipping the branches that were in his way. I wonder if it was obvious why I asked Quistis? I don't think that I could stand Zell for three days straight. And maybe I might want to talk about Rinoa. Quistis would listen, Quistis always listens.
Zell moved down the slope until he reached another clump of bushes. I bet he chose Quistis so he wouldn't have to talk to me. He started to shift the soil from behind the bushes, and within a few minutes he was inside the bushes. He got out his radio and tuned it to channel seven, the channel chosen for communications beforehand. "This is Zell, I'm in place."
"Roger that Zell. Quistis and I have finished setting up." The three of them waited for Selphie and Irvine to find a spot. Maybe it wasn't clever to put the two of them together, he thought. But then he suddenly remembered. I'm not in command of this mission. He looked over at Quistis, who was totally still. I wonder what she is thinking? Maybe she's pondering why I asked her. He had a thought.
"Quistis, I have a question. Have you ever seen a weapon with a long wooden handle and a curved blade at the top of it?" Quistis frowned.
"I think that I know what you are describing. It's not a weapon, it's a tool. It's used by farmers to cut their crops. Surely you know what a scythe is?" Squall remained expressionless.
"I have heard of a scythe, but I have never seen one."
"Well, that's one. Why do you ask?" Squall answered very quickly.
"No reason. I just saw one, and wondered what it was." That was a quick answer. Too quick an answer to be truthful. He's definitely hiding something, but then Squall always is. Quistis nodded once, and let the subject drop. The two SeeD settled in for the rest of the night, looking at the perimeter sentries walking around the compound.

Rinoa banked right when she reached the bridge. Trains had stopped running along the bridge as soon as Galbadia and Esthar had declared war on each other, and so she had little chance of being seen. It had severely affected the trade of Fisherman's Horizon, who relied on the services along the route for export of its manufactures. But they were not complaining too loudly. Better broke than dead, they had thought.
It was not long now, she thought. The coastline was already visible, a faint line, much like that of the bridge, but this kept getting larger. She couldn't tell when she had passed the coast, she was too high up, but she scouted out a good place to land and went towards it. She did not need circuits, it was a large landing area and she was not going fast enough to warrant that type of landing.
She looked out of the cockpit. Green and yellow fields filled her view. Hedges criss-crossed the land, going off to the edges of her vision. She could see a herd of cows grazing in a field off to her right, and a few houses and a barn off in the distance. The metal hulk of a tractor stood lifeless to her left, its occupants having left some time ago to tend to their crops. The yellow of the wheat swayed gently in the breeze, the entire field in unison. Trees stood proudly along a riverbank in front of her, about three miles in the distance.
She could tell from the swaying of the branches that the wind was moving right-to-left, and turned right to face the wind. Whilst this would be unheard of in an aeroplane, landing into the wind was the best plan for a helicopter. Lining up over a large and flat field, she noticed that she was 2500 feet about sea level. She dropped the collective, and the helicopter started to drop, and fifty feet-per-minute. This will take all day, she thought, and dropped the collective almost to the bottom. The craft started to fall heavily, dropping at a fast rate. That's a little too fast, Rinoa thought, raising the collective a little. To her astonishment the helicopter gained speed. It was past 1250 feet and falling fast.
"What the hell is happening!" she shouted in frustration as she passed a thousand feet. You've done it now, Rinoa. You were too inexperienced to fly solo, and you've done something stupid. She had done something stupid. She had created a vortex ring effect. It happens when the helicopter drops too fast, and cannot be broken out of with the collective. If you raise the collective it feeds more power into the vortex ring and you drop faster. You cannot bottom (fully lower) the collective either, because you cannot drop below the vortex ring.
"What is happening!!" The helicopter passed 750 feet and showed no signs of stopping, falling lower and lower until…

Author: the helicopter that Rinoa is flying is based upon the Aérospatiale Alouette III Astazou helicopter, just in case you wondered. If you have never heard of this, it is operated by several countries, including South Africa, India, France and Portugal.

*: Radar has a minimum level, below which it is virtually useless. This is because anything below about a hundred feet gets lost in ground clutter – trees, cars and hills.

Cairn Rennin