A/N: I'm back. This next chapter in the story is a bit long. But don't worry. You'll be getting pleeeenty of action soon...
"Danica!"
I bolted upright in bed. The shout had shocked me out of sleep so suddenly that my heartbeat was pounding in my ears. I gazed blearily at the figure standing in the light of the open doorway.
"Wh-what?" I mumbled incoherently.
"C'mon, get out of bed, quick! I don't have time to explain. You'll be briefed on everything once we get down to the war room," said the figure, who I know recognized as a visibly panicked Andreios.
"Are we under attack? What's the big emergency?" I asked as I fumbled out of bed and hurriedly pulled on some clothes, despite the fact that Rei was standing there watching me change. Well then, this had better be something. The crow was going to have a very, ahem, irritated hawk on his hands if whatever he was dragging me to was a dud.
He groaned with such absolute despair that my skin crawled. His next words made it worse.
"Zane and his family…oh, just hurry up, for god's sake! Your mother and all the other commanders are waiting for you."
With that, I promptly shut my mouth and followed Rei down to floor 140, where the war room was situated. A central command post and briefing hall, the war room wasn't a place that I visited often in the Keep. The last time I'd been there was the year Vasili was killed, when the serpiente were on the verge of decimating Tayin'kurtze.
Rei shoved open the double doors of the war room. Inside, a long table lined with chairs filled the center. The generals and flight commanders of our army stood lined up along the sides. They glanced over as I entered, their expressions mirroring that of Rei's. At the far end of the table, I saw my mother standing with her back to me, facing a large screen.
"Mom? What's going on?" I asked, dropping all formality upon feeling the heavy atmosphere within the war room.
She turned slowly toward me, her mournful eyes burdened by the bad news I was yet to hear.
"Shardae…Danica, look."
She stepped away from the screen, and I beheld the chilling image before my eyes.
At first, all I saw was an enormous crater in the ground, smoking slightly. It took me several moments to see the scattered train cars, the mangled railway, and the numerous infernos blazing among the ruins of Zane's bullet train. In fact, fires were blazing everywhere, catching on the nearby grass fields and forest, quickly spreading in an uncontrollable wild fire. I saw several fire trucks and dozens of tiny figures attempting to fight the encroaching flames.
Someone spoke. It was Karashan, a commander of a flight of high-ranking ravens.
"We intercepted this footage from serpiente broadcasts. Their communications are in chaos right now. I don't think many of them have fully realized what has happened yet."
I shook my head, as though doing so would free me from my dazed state. "Zane…Irene…are they alright?"
The raven shook her head. Her short brown hair swayed slightly with the movement. "As far as we can tell, there are no survivors."
"Our aircraft experts have already examined this footage," said Gerald, another veteran commander, "and they've concluded that the train was bombed from above. The serpiente don't have aircraft, so they're out of the equation. That leaves the falcons, the humans, or an avian assassin. We've already discounted the humans. They have little to do with us, and wouldn't gain anything by interfering with our affairs."
Rei spoke up. "Has there been anything new in the investigation so far?"
A crow in a Tayin'kurtze police uniform replied. "We have a report from the Ridgefield military airbase that just came in a few minutes ago."
"Ridgefield? That airfield is very close to the front lines, isn't it?"
"Yes. The report said that at about 11:30 PM tonight, a break-in occurred at the airfield's hangar. Four B-25 bomber drones were hijacked and stolen. One soldier was found dead with a sniper round in his throat, while three others are in critical condition with severe chest trauma."
"11:30…what time is it now?" Rei asked.
"Ten minutes to two."
"That's about two hours. More than enough time to fly those bombers into serpiente lands."
I found myself grinding my teeth in agitation. "Do you have any suspects yet?" I asked.
The crow nodded. With everyone's rapt attention on him, he picked up a nearby remote and pressed a button. The screen flashed and switched to a different scene.
"Ridgefield sent us this surveillance footage. This shows the grounds in front of the hangar."
The screen was pretty bright, most likely because of installed night-vision technology in the camera. The recording time in the upper right-hand corner showed the time as 11:24 PM. As I watched, a figure strolled from off-camera toward the hangar. The figure's hair glowed white against the darker background.
"There was one guard stationed in the outpost tower," said the crow as the video progressed.
A spotlight on the tower became animated and started sweeping toward the figure. When it fell on the figure, the crow paused the video.
"Do any of you recognize that person?" he asked.
Despite the video's low quality, I had no trouble identifying the figure. The white hair gave it all away.
"That can't be…Syfka?" I asked incredulously.
He didn't answer. The room was deathly quiet.
Rei broke the silence. "Of course. Has to be her." He turned to me. "Remember her argument with Zane at the peace conference? How she claimed that peace between us and the serpiente would never work?"
I nodded. "I should've seen this coming. It was so obvious," I murmured.
A look of defeated acceptance crossed Rei's face as he said, "Whether or not you saw it coming no longer matters. What's clear right now is that Syfka and her falcons have killed the remaining members of the serpiente royal family and have framed us for the crime." He looked at the police officer. "Is there anything else in the footage?"
We viewed the rest of the video in somber silence. We watched as Syfka and three other cohorts broke into the hangar, assassinating the sentry with a well-placed sniper shot. After a few minutes of the video had elapsed, the four falcons left the hangar with the four bombers in tow. A wave of surprise passed through the group upon seeing the pilotless bombers following the falcons.
"How are they doing that?"
"It has to be magic. Has to be."
Three soldiers came out to stop the falcons. Syfka bowled them over with a single sweeping gesture. Her falcon magic was hard to spot on the video, but I could still see it.
"That explains the chest trauma."
The four falcons led the bombers to the runway. Within minutes, all of them vanished into the night sky.
"And that's all of the footage we have," said the police officer.
There was a collective sigh as the anticipation drained from the room. I rubbed my eyes, suddenly realizing how tired I still was.
"So where does all this leave us?" I said, only slightly less confused.
"In a very serious predicament," my mother spoke for the first time. "If I'm not mistaken, Karashan, your recon teams have already discovered the serpiente amassing for an attack?"
My breath hitched in my throat.
Karashan nodded. "Had we still been fighting the serpiente, there would instantly be peace with the deaths of the serpiente's leaders." She fidgeted uncomfortably. "At least, that was the theory.
"Instead, the serpiente have rallied together to avenge their fallen leaders. They definitely feel betrayed, though they don't realize we are not the culprits. Their soldiers are willing to do anything to bring us down now that they no longer have their royal family to look up to.
"The fact of the matter is this, Ms. Shardae. Currently, we are looking at the largest serpiente offensive to date. We're talking about the entire serpiente army, roughly five hundred thousand troops, bearing down on Tayin'kurtze. I've already received reports that they've obliterated several outposts. With a force that size, there's nothing our soldiers can do to hold off for any length of time. It won't be long before they break through our defense lines and move into the city."
This night was getting worse and worse. "Isn't there anything we can do? Can't we show them this surveillance footage and prove to them that we aren't guilty of murdering their king?"
The looks I got in return weren't good.
"The serpiente aren't listening to reason right now," said Gerald. "They're driven by the fire and anger in their hearts to avenge their king's death. If we show them this footage, they'll just claim that we're faking it to cover up our own tracks, before continuing their attack."
"This leaves one option for us," said my mother. "I've declared a state of emergency in Tayin'kurtze. All military personnel are going to evacuate the city's populace further inland to escape the serpiente attack."
Gerald shrugged. "We can't fight or reason with the serpiente. So the only thing we can do is run."
So that was it, then. The falcons hijacked our planes and killed Zane and his family, framing us in the process. The serpiente were attacking in retaliation and were not going to stop at any cost. We were just going to run from them while they leveled our cities and towns.
I needed coffee. I really needed coffee.
"How long do you think we have, Karashan?" I asked.
"Until daybreak, at the most. About four or five hours."
Good lord. This was absolutely horrible.
"Tayin'kurtze is a big city. Can we really evacuate everyone before then?"
"The evacuation has started already," said my mother. "The first few convoys of refugees are heading out of Tayin'kurtze toward Vasi'pratera. If everything goes as planned, Tayin'kurtze should be empty an hour before the serpiente arrive."
Has anything gone as planned lately, mother?
My mother raised her chin, a subtle gesture that signaled the dismissal of this meeting. "Danica will stay in my convoy, along with Andreios and the royal flight. Go out and make sure all other convoys make it safely and swiftly out of the city."
With that, the meeting was ended.
The nightmare, however, had only just begun.