XX A/N XX
Chapter has been updated as of 2015
X Tim X
The helicopter moved onwards at a steady pace, the blades above whirling and whining against the wind. Every now and then I'd pull on the stick a little to avoid hitting a power line or a rise in the ground. Looking above me, I could see several specs higher in the sky. I wondered if any of them remembered that a helicopter was behind them. We were burning fuel pretty fast as it was, so I didn't bother trying to keep up with them.
"Radar is still clear," Sarah reported. The whole land around was dead, but we still had the radar activated. Who knows, those bastards in blue could be close. The radio was completely silent as well; no one wanted to talk. As we flew on for another couple of miles, the ground gradually changed. The barren landscape soon became soggy, and before we knew it, we seemed to be flying over the ocean, which was nothing but murky brown water. I took off my headset.
"How the fuck did it flood inland this far?" I wondered. We were far from the coast and the map hadn't pointed out a lake. We were actually cutting across the southeast corner of the state of Maris. It was one of the states that bordered the Channel, so the place had a lot of rivers in it, but they'd always been under control.
"You think the Lazurians blew up some dams or canals or something?" Sarah guessed. I briefly thought about it. It would drown any of our own guys in the area and destroy bases and factories, and it would also cause a lot of civilian casualties.
"Possibly, who knows what those bastards are capable of?" I shrugged, although I pondered over the idea. As far as the military were concerned, Sarah and I were warmongers, those who fought for the hell of it. But, even we drew the line with civilians. That must've meant the Lazurians were even more ruthless than us. I glanced up and didn't see the tail of a jet. "Bah!" I said in annoyance. Sarah just shrugged. It was no big deal; we knew exactly where they were heading and had coordinates to the next base. Wordlessly, we both plugged our gear back into the radio. Silence followed.
We flew on for another couple of miles or so, but it seemed like hours. The thing was, in combat, you were eager and time seemed to fly. But we weren't flying in combat to destroy a radar or an arms dump; we were flying to a base that was most likely destroyed and abandoned behind by some stupid little pricks who probably forgot we were here. I found myself scowling again, and for a moment I forgot my surroundings.
"Fuck!" I heard Sarah suddenly swear. She started activating the weapon systems. That brought me back to the situation at hand.
"Trouble?" I tightened my grip on the stick and looked around. Just below us, the water was showing a couple of ripples; something had moved, and fuck if I know what it was.
"Status report?" Stone's voice called to us above the chatter that had erupted after Sarah's outburst.
"Be advised," Sarah warned, "I'm pretty sure I just saw a submarine. There might be a Lazurian battle fleet in the area." A submarine? Here? Wait, the water here was that deep? Holy shit, Sarah was right; submarines were used as scouts sometimes, so it was possible there were more ships out there.
This caused even more fearful chatter over the radio. I started scanning the seemingly endless horizon for any signs of a ship. Warships were very bad news to us. For one, helicopters were armed for buildings and ground targets, not ships. Second, every ship fit to sail had a lot of AAA weapons. We were fucked if we came across a destroyer or a cruiser. F-15s were air superiority fighters, not anti-ship craft, so the others were fucked, too. As if to emphasize that point, the radio suddenly exploded with noise: there was panicked shouting, an explosion, and a cry cut short.
"What the hell is going on? Over!" I called. What the fuck happened now?
"Long range missile attack! We lost two planes!" It was Shaun. "More in—" There was an explosion and his radio went dead. Shit. That submarine must've seen us and sent word back to its buddies to turn on their radar and hit anything in the skies.
"Shaun? SHAUN!" Kim called. Jesus Christ, they were getting butchered and we couldn't even see them. Unwilling to let the same thing happen to me, I lowered our altitude some to avoid being picked up by radar.
"All units, evasive maneuvers. Evacuate the engagement zone." It was not Stone but Waylon who said it. Even if anyone hadn't said it, I would. There was nothing we could do here except bail.
I checked our direction and pulled the right some, towards inland. I wasn't flying anywhere near where those ships might be. So, they had taken AA fire. If it was so far away that they couldn't see the ship, it must've been a cruiser or two. I really fucking hoped there wasn't a carrier somewhere; the last thing we needed were a bunch of planes coming after us. I kept flying in the same direction, half listening to the radio chatter.
Three planes were down, and two had taken heavy damage. Clever bastards had really got us good this time. The murky sea below grew more into a swamp, with treetops poking out from the water. There was panic over the radio as one of the damaged planes spontaneously combusted.
"Radar contact! Saddle up, ladies and gentlemen!" Waylon called. AA fire and planes this far inland? There really was a full-blown war going on!
"Good luck up there guys, we'll try and see if there's anything we can do down here," Sarah radioed.
"Good luck," I muttered. I may not have liked most of them, but that didn't mean I'd rather see them dead. I don't know what the two of us would do if the others got taken out. Plus, they had the food, too.
"Radar contact, I count fourteen small targets," Sarah warned. Ships? The water was shallow here! How the hell... My mind dug up our less important lessons on naval combat.
"Might be landing forces…" I said thoughtfully. Landing craft were trained to work in shallow water. And they didn't normally (emphasis on the last word) have AAA. It was worth checking out. "I'll take her in for a closer look." I pitched forward and sped towards the contacts. It was a landing force—six landers and ten gunboats. That would've been about a few companies of troops in there. Like I thought, they had no AA; they were defenseless. I grinned savagely.
"Sink em!" I called. Without a proper escort, they didn't stand a chance. Rocket and missile fire destroyed the landers and anyone in them. The lightly armored gunboats didn't stand a chance against the helicopter's powerful chain gun. I circled around in satisfaction as we watched the ships burn. Oil spilled out into the water and a few lucky surviving sailors swam over and clung onto the dead trees for dear life. Like that would help them; they would all drown eventually.
"That's for destroying our base!" Sarah taunted. "We confirmed small landing force taken out, enemy casualties around four hundred," Sarah reported. I grinned in satisfaction. This was for real; this was war. From the sound of it, the others weren't losing, but they sure as hell weren't winning either.
"Not much we can do to help them…" I shrugged. At the moment, all we could do was engage other landing forces, and odds were there were more. Ignoring radio communications in the meantime, we flew onwards through the swampy waters for more targets. A distress call came over the radio as one of the pilots was forced to bail out. Our numbers were dwindling fast, but neither Sarah nor I would be among the casualties.
"More contacts up ahead, one is airborne," she warned. Airborne? There must be a Hind or something else providing top cover. As we got closer, the shape revealed it to be a Mil transport helicopter. Below were three more landers; together that was another landing party—and a juicy target, too. "Engaging." Sarah armed the Sidewinder. It sailed out and detonated right in the side of the defenseless transport chopper, causing it to burst into flames and sink into the murky water. The landers tried to evade quickly. One was blown to bits, and the others started sinking after the gun punched several dozen holes in the side. Several unlucky survivors tried to swim away, only to go under.
"Another landing group taken out," I said as I pumped my fist. Something was bugging me though: Why were all these forces landing? There must've been an engagement or a base inland. The radio was still alive with chatter from the others were while they were still in the heat of battle. We were one helicopter and we'd already racked up a decent amount of kills. That should teach those bastards to bomb our country.
"Weapons exhausted, we're pulling out!" Waylon called over the radio joyfully, the dumb prick.
"All aircraft; turn on original course." That was Stone this time. Damn, I was just starting to have fun. I reluctantly checked our coordinates and set off in the general direction of the base we were heading to. We arrived at the base approximately an hour later—and lucky for us we didn't spend more time sinking ships.
"Come on. Ah, fuck!" I swore. The base was within sight, but we'd been running on fumes for a few minutes now since we'd taken a longer route to avoid the enemy. I listened intently to the engines; I was waiting for them to stop and for us to fall from the sky. But, through sheer luck that had thus evaded us in life, we made it. No sooner was I a few inches above the ground that the engine finally died. We landed rather roughly. "Damn it," I swore, pulling my helmet off. I really hope that hadn't damaged the landing gear.
As we climbed out, I jumped down and began examining our bird for any damage. I muttered at a couple of scratches on the underside from what might have been an AK. I'd been a little too cocky last time we made an escape. Helicopters were very delicate; the armor wasn't worth shit in some places, and one cut line or one wrong dent could make the whole thing entirely useless. The bullets hadn't really done any notable damage, though. I bent down to examine the landing gear. No dents, no busted wheels, the steel didn't show any sign of wear. Aside from fuel, she would still fly.
Nice try, assholes.
"We used maybe half of our chain gun ammo, but we still have plenty of missiles and rockets." Sarah stepped back from the underside gun. Okay, we just needed more fuel and we could still kick some ass.
"We were beginning to worry you'd gone down." We both turned to see Stone walking towards us.
"Not in a million years." I waved my hand in a sloppy salute. "So, is there actually somebody here?"
"That's the confusing part," Stone admitted. "The base is destroyed, but we found some graves out near the runway. Some of the aircraft are gone, as well. The garrison here probably flew out already." Gone? Had they left for the Capital, too? Or somewhere else?
"Where would they go?" Sarah wondered.
"We know where the transmission came from. They probably did, too. The most likely scenario is that they left to find the source." Stone looked up and down the runway where everyone was parked. "Even then, from what we can guess, there is only a few aircraft missing. I estimate there were only three or four people here." Three or four? Was there anyone left in this fucking country? "You mentioned contact with landing forces, correct?" Stone went on.
"Aye, a whole fucking bunch of the bastards," I answered. The fact I'd killed that many people sailed over my head.
"All of them in ships we sunk. Probably killed at least two-hundred of them," Sarah said. Stone seemed to be absorbing this information. "No telling where they were going, but they were on our land and that was reason enough."
"All right, when you're ready, the rest of us will be in the cafeteria of the main building." He walked off.
"Things get worse with every passing day," I complained. "How the hell does everyone die, yet some of the buildings stay up?"
"Yeah, not sure where any survivors go either," Sarah sighed. "The others are probably mourning… we should probably just go there anyway; they all probably took it hard."
While the outside of the building was partly caved in, the inside seemed stable enough. As we both walked down the hall to the cafeteria, we could both hear (to our annoyance) Waylon blabbering away. It was only then that I realized I'd forgotten to ask how many of our guys we'd lost; I hadn't kept a count.
"I had TWO of those chumps on me, but no one, NO ONE, can beat the invincible Waylon, you hear me?" He was standing in front of the doors to the cafeteria, chatting avidly with one of his new cronies. "Well, look who showed up!" Damn, he'd spotted us. "My favorite brother and lady in arms!" He forced his way between us and put his arms around our shoulders. "Now, these are two people who treat those Lazurian chumps like they should!" Waylon was bragging to his crony. Sarah made a disgusted face. Any complement from this ass wasn't worth anything. Soon, I thought. Soon we would hopefully be free from this asshole. "I heard you sunk a few boats back there?"
"Yeah." I growled. Waylon did not appear to notice.
"They don't stand a chance! Once we meet old Greyfield, we'll be VIPs; we'll get anything we want!" He lost me there at that point.
"Who?" I asked.
"Greyfield! Some fat cat in the Capital. I got another transmission right when I was packing the radio up." And yet he hadn't told anyone besides his cronies and us? That was some shitty circle to be in. Sarah growled beside me. "Wants all surviving troops to go to the Capital. Back there was a sample. There's some crazy stuff going on up north. But, think of the possibilities! I could make some good money as a mercenary, and I'm sure you two will be welcomed, too."
"Why would you be a mercenary?" Sarah asked him suspiciously. That was a damn good question; his RAF uniform was the only thing that gave him power.
"'Cause the government's gone; went with the rest of the country. Look," Waylon said as he stepped in front of us, "those chumps—" he motioned into the cafeteria, "they all believe in nobleness and orders, and all that stupid stuff, but we—" he motioned to us, himself, and his crony, "are different, we are fighters! The worlds changed, we can get whatever we want now!" Changed? How much could the world have changed?
"You know a lot more they you're letting on," Sarah said slowly.
"Just tell us what the fuck is going on." I took a step closer to him. Before he could answer, the door behind him opened and Kim stepped out.
"Hey guys…" She probably could sense the hostility in the air. I suddenly realized I didn't want to get into a fight just yet.
"Eh, we just came by to see how you guys were, heard you lost a few people." I scratched the back of my head. Kim smiled slightly and nodded before going back into the cafeteria. We followed. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Waylon was acting like nothing had happened. He knew what had happened… he just wouldn't tell us.
The cafeteria was okay, minus a hole in the roof that showed the dreary red sky above. The surviving pilots all looked pretty miserable. Stone was sitting at a table with his eyes closed. Kim resumed a seat and stared at the ground. And Eddy was there, too—hell, the poor kid looked like he was about to puke! Waylon's other crony was hurt by the losses, unlike the one outside acting like everything was fine and fucking dandy. There was another pilot; I didn't know his name, and he was staring bleakly ahead with wide eyes. After that battle, there were seven fighter pilots left.
"Hey, at least we know Jessie is okay," the crony remarked. "He bailed out, remember?"
"The Lazurians would have no doubt picked him up," Stone said. "Considering the circumstances and the environment, I doubt he would receive good treatment." I had to agree with the old man; it was pretty clear those bastards were capable of anything. I hadn't realized that when we decided to shift all the blame to them.
"We might as well write him off as dead," Waylon walked into the room, "and we should use this as a rallying cry!" Apparently, he was unaware of the hateful glances being sent at him. "We need to teach them a lesson!"
"Even if there are any arms or fuel here, we lack sufficient manpower to do anything," Stone replied sharply. Glad to see the Old Man was pissed, too.
"Let's just fucking ignore the bastards and get to the Capital and this fat fuck in charge, whatever his name was," I interrupted. Might as well take a chance to inform the others of what their 'leader' had learned. They all looked up in surprise. Fucking mindless sheep.
"Fat...?" Kim asked.
"The Captain—" Sarah seemed to be trying to keep her disgust out of her voice, "got another transmission."
"Oh, right! Thanks for the reminder, babe!" If only her looks could kill, we'd have been rid of Captain Jackass. "Anyway, some fat admiral set something up in the Capital, wants to get the military back together to fight the Lazurians." Waylon gave the short and sweet version. "Figure we might as well head out there, take a few chumps out as we go. We could get some luxury treatment if we bring a few heads with us."
"And the other thing?" I asked pointedly, trying to get him to divulge what had happened to the world.
"Other thing?" Waylon sounded confused. Ah, fuck it. I shook my head. He wasn't talking. "Anyway, we set out for the Capital in two days!" Waylon jumped from the table dramatically. Government or no government, I just wished we could be there sooner so we could be free of him.
Everyone felt like shit, but we still had work to do after that. Stone gathered everyone up and said we had to find weapons and fuel for our aircraft. Parties were set up for different tasks. I'd never thought the Old Man had a hidden sense of humor, because he put Sarah, me, and Kim and Eddie together for the task of looking for some fuel trucks.
And, since half the group was female, we got off to a late start because they needed to go 'fix their hair', or so they insisted over and over again. I needed a piss break myself, but even when I was done I was stuck standing in the hallway for a good ten minutes with Eddie waiting for them to come back, and while he awkwardly shuffled from feet to feet. I sometimes wondered if I was just getting old or that things had changed in the last ten years.
When Sarah and I had joined up, they'd been rebuilding the military from the ground up. They'd been all serious about it then. Somewhere along the line, they must've relaxed, otherwise people like Eddie wouldn't have gotten in. And Kim? I could believe she would because sometimes I'd annoy her on some oh-so-sensitive subject and she'd get angry real quick. This kid? As skinny and quiet as he was, there was no chance in hell. They just wanted another warm body, so they cut some corners. I didn't even bother trying to talk to him. I just tapped my foot till the girls finally came out of the bathroom and then we started moving.
"All right, now we just have to find the fuel station," I grumbled as we stepped outside into the cold again. As we walked towards the runway, I hung back a little and Sarah stayed with me. "So, what the heck were you two talking about for ten minutes?"
"I suggested this idea to Kim—that maybe the lot of us could leave Waylon and get out of here on our own," Sarah admitted. I frowned, thought about it, and shrugged. As long as we were free of Waylon, I guess I didn't mind travelling with everyone else.
"And what she'd say?"
"First she said that's against military law—we'd be deserters. Next, she said that we were stronger together. Then, she said Waylon at least knew where we were going. And finally, she asked me to stop staring at her over the stall door."
"Uh, huh." I tried to ignore that last bit. "Well, they're a bunch of mindless sheep," I shrugged. "What do you expect?"
"I think I made her uncomfortable by suggesting it, because she didn't answer me when I was talking about it." Sarah shrugged and motioned ahead where Kim was keeping just out of earshot for Sarah to say something without being overheard. "All of them have been taught discipline. In Stone's case it's all he's ever known. They aren't used to disregarding authority like we casually do." She was probably right about that. These people grew up obeying their parents, teachers, and whoever else. We... well, we didn't fucking need any of them! I realized I was scowling and shook my head. I hated getting dragged into past subjects; 'that' subject was especially off-limits. None of us ever mentioned it—ever. Not to each other, and not even to ourselves. Any aspect of our lives before meeting each other was taboo, just like Sarah's problems.
"Something wrong?" Sarah asked, noticing the pissed look on my face.
"Nothing..." I shook my head. "Let's just worry about moving again. We can discuss options when we can actually do them." Like always, Sarah seemed to recognize when she'd hit a nerve and dropped the subject. After that, we went looking for the fuel trucks. We accomplished as much, and got all the aircraft fueled and ready to go. That being done, we decided to get some rest while the others got their job done.
We all moved to the housing buildings after that. Considering that a lot of shit was still standing and working, I really was starting to wonder if the reason so many people died was because of their stupidity rather than what happened. Sarah and I chose a room as far away from the others as possible. After all that shit that had happened recently, we really needed to cool down.
And we did—twice. It worked; suddenly things didn't seem so stressful. We were alive, which was always good. Even better, we were still together. And we knew for sure there was a war going on. That didn't stop us. We'd kind of prepared for such a thing. We got to use the helicopter for real, too. THAT was almost as amazing a feeling that we could ever get—almost. We'd both passed out pretty optimistic.
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*
I grumbled wearily—it felt like I'd only been asleep for a few minutes. I tried to ignore it, but the knocking persisted. There was no fucking way it was time to go again. And if it was an attack they'd have to be banging a lot more frantically. I kept hoping they'd go away.
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*
Cursing under my breath, I reluctantly left the warm comfort of the bed, making Sarah mutter in her sleep, and groped around in the darkness for my pants. After I put them on, I angrily yanked the door open.
"What?" I snapped irritably. It was the same pilot I'd seen earlier in the cafeteria. His eyes were wide and almost bloodshot. He seemed to be shaking.
"Hey, listen, there's a small room down the hall, third door on the right, go wait there, I'll get the others." He jogged off.
"Wait, what the hell—" He was already gone. I stood there scratching my head. What now? Normally I wouldn't care... but something about this picked at my brain. Considering what had happened with Waylon earlier, it made sense to be a little bit suspicious. It might be good to keep an eye on things, too.
I managed to get Sarah up, luckily avoiding injury in the process, and we both got fully dressed before going to the room, which turned out to be an office. Inside, a portable blank white board was in the center. Eddy was sitting in a chair, jumping as we entered. "All right, what the hell is going on?" Sarah demanded as she flopped down on the floor and yawned. Eddy shook his head; he had no idea. A few moments later, the same jumpy pilot entered. Kim came shortly after. She looked surprised to see us there.
"Okay," the pilot began, stuttering slightly, "I already told Captain Stone about this, and he said to pass it to you two while he passes it on to others," he said to Kim and Eddy. "He said I shouldn't tell you guys, but I think he's being unfair." That was addressed to Sarah and me. We were both awake instantly. As far as I could tell, the Old Man had no reason to hate or distrust us. What was it that was so important enough we couldn't be trusted with it?
He picked up a marker and put a dot on the far end. In the middle of the board, below the first dot, he added another. Then he put a final dot in the right upper corner of the board. "I was reading a map earlier, and I noticed something. Okay, this was the path we took." He connected the dots of each end of the board with a diagonal line. It did look like the way we'd taken, even if it wasn't a real map. But what was the point? He seemed to read it in our reactions.
"But, I noticed something on a map earlier." He put two dots in the lower corner. "These are an Air Force base and a civilian airport, both of which we could've landed on instead. So, why did we not?" The others were transfixed. Sarah and I glanced at each other. I wasn't seeing anything yet, but this guy looked like he'd just discovered an assassination plot.
"…This base would've definitely had fuel that we would need?" Kim suggested. The pilot shook his head angrily.
"No!" He snapped, causing Kim to recoil slightly. This kid was pissed about something. "This base!" He jammed his figure on the board and smudged one of the dots. "That's the HQ for the 8th Air Force! If anyone was alive, they'd be there! And it was closer! SO WHY DIDN'T WE GO THERE INSTEAD?" He yelled the last bit, making some of us shrink back. "Why would we head north when we knew there were Lazurians around?" This dude looked like a junkie suffering from withdrawal, but my mind started working now that things had been spelled out to me. Waylon had been handling most of the navigation work, I guess, and something like that as sure as hell is on a map. Of course, the military always told you to look for a superior officer if you didn't know what to do. That bastard hated responsibility, so I figured he'd take any chance to drop us off on someone else. I was actually agreeing with this fucked up-looking guy. What the fuck had Waylon been thinking?
"That bastard led us here because he was hoping for a battle," Sarah said through gritted teeth, piecing it together faster than I could. "And because he didn't want to risk having to follow someone else's orders." The pilot nodded excitedly.
"Yes! He led us here, he knew there was a risk, but he led us here, anyway! It's his fault my friends are dead!" He panted for a minute. "Ours. Our friends." We were all silent. I could feel my anger building; it all made sense. Waylon always seemed eager to fight, and there'd been a damn good possibility there would be one here.
"He wouldn't do that," Kim said, though she herself sounded unconvincing. "He wouldn't purposely put himself or any of us in danger." She was making excuses, which I had no patience for at the moment.
"You're an ignorant brat if you believe that," I told her bluntly. "You act all proper and kind, and you expect everyone else to be the same. They ain't. The world is full of assholes, and one of them is Waylon." I stood up. Kim was taken aback.
"…No real military commander would discard soldiers like that." She was barely audible when she said it. Now that I thought about it, I was stuck with two naïve kids, and three assholes in charge. Just when I thought life was grand, this fucking happens! I could feel myself snap, something that hadn't happened in a long time. Fuck the rules. Fuck the consequences. Fuck everything. Sarah stood up next to me, and even if she hadn't gone into one of her usual rages, there was no mistaking the look in her eyes. I didn't really give a damn if it was intentional or plain stupidity, but Waylon definitely had to go. I was just about to say as much when something else occurred to me: the Old Man had specifically said for us to be out of the loop. Even if we put a hundred bullets into Waylon's ass, the only guy fit for command wouldn't trust us. Fuck. I stood up.
"Fuck this," I said as I smashed the door open with my foot, Sarah following behind me. "You know what? We don't need this. Fuck these idiots, fuck that asshole, and fuck the job." I hadn't meant that last bit, but at that moment I was too pissed off to care. I stormed into our room and grabbed my helmet and pistol. "You need anything?" I asked Sarah.
"I'll go find us a map. We'll need it. Go get the helicopter ready."
"Be careful," I told her, and we split up. I walked out the building and across the runway. I knew I'd do something like this eventually.Here I was, deserting my unit. Fuck it. We'd still head to the Capital and join the war. They wouldn't care if they needed all the trained pilots they could get their hands on. Besides, it wasn't like there was anything we'd miss about these fuckwits.
I made sure the helicopter was ready and loaded. Once Sarah came, we could climb right in and we'd be off. We'd head to the Capital. We'd go to some level-headed people for a change instead of the second-rate idiots we'd been with in the past decade. I never realized how much I'd hated that until now. Well, it was over, so no point getting my shit messed up. Someone came out of the building and began to walk towards me, but it sure as hell wasn't Sarah. My grip tightened on my sidearm.
"What the hell do you want, Old Man?" I still kept my gun pointed towards the ground since he hadn't drawn his. "Do you trust us now? If it's a 'bye', I don't want to hear it."
"I wouldn't expect this from two adult officers," he began, and I just felt myself getting even more pissed because he still talked in the same flat voice. "Do you think going rogue will do any good?"
"Fuck if I know, but it's better than hanging around with you people."
"Desertion in time of war is a capital offense."
"Yeah, right. And this is coming from someone who is a piss-poor leader? How the fuck did you let Waylon take charge and fuck up everything? Christ, if you were in charge nobody would be dead!" I looked behind him and saw Sarah approaching cautiously. "Everyone here is a fucking idiot beyond hope, so why should we bother?"
"There are rules and a hierarchy to follow. Going around it is dangerous. You know that as much as I do."
"Yeah, so what? You honestly think we'll follow your lead? Fuck that! Look at what happened to the others when they followed him like mindless sheep!"
"Our point exactly. Now, move." Sarah was now standing behind Stone. He wasn't fazed, and then he spoke in that same low tone, which pissed me off.
"You lack perception of any kind beside your own. You have little tolerance for anyone. You have been serving for seven years and neither of you accept the structure of authority." He simply stepped aside. Sarah came up to me and showed me a map and some rations she had salvaged somewhere.
"Let's go," she told me, and started climbing into her seat. I looked back at the Old Man. He didn't look mad at all. I really didn't know why he bothered trying to make us stay if he didn't trust us. Oh, right: they were all fuckwits.
"Guess we'll see each other in hell someday." I shrugged, turned around and climbed up into pilot seat and shut the canopy.
"Sorry about that," Sarah said. "Kim ran to get him because she thought we were going to start a mutiny."
"Well, he didn't do anything." We both glanced outside. Stone had turned his back to us and was walking towards the buildings. Must've realized he was just wasting his time. In spite of my anger, I didn't hit the ignition button just yet. "Fuck, things went downhill fast."
"We knew it would happen," Sarah sighed. "Staying is worse than leaving now."
"We can't go back now anyway, that's for sure." I strapped my helmet on and finally hit the ignition switch. The helicopter came to life. No one came out to see us off. Stone was probably the only one who knew we were leaving. I was kind of curious what they would do next, since they'd clearly been planning something. Whatever it was, it didn't concern us anymore, and I wouldn't lose sleep over it.
Once I'd gotten some sense of the map, I pulled on the stick and the helicopter rose into the air. The others should have heard it now; would they try and chase us down? We could destroy their planes while we were here... Nah, that's too cruel, even for me. As I turned the helicopter and started flying in the direction of the Capital, I remembered having a funny thought about starting a third life after the meteors fell. Well, now I was starting a forth. Hopefully, it would turn out a lot better than the first or the last one did.
XX Author's Note. XX
This was the first major difference from the original version, and I expanded it a bit during revisions. I wondered how Waylon actually had men following him when he put their lives in danger for his own amusement. I also noticed that in the mission where you first encounter Waylon, you already have a B copter among your troops. And thus, an idea was born!