Things Left Behind
A Valkyria Chronicles fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Notes: So, who else out there survived the freak storm and subsequent power outage of the decade? Gale-force winds, power lines down, trees blown out by the root - all bookended by a record-setting heat wave. I don't even have words for how friggin' weird this past week has been. Suffice to say I hope everyone in its path got through it okay.
To the fanfic. The actual mystery part is the element I struggled with the most. As mentioned in the prologue, this has less to do with the game events, which are thoroughly explored, and more about the broader setting, where one can be a bit more creative. That said, I was leery of spinning it too far from solid ground, as keeping it contained makes it fit neater alongside canon. One can make a good story that steps out from the original's shadow, but I'd rather keep it focused for my first go at the series.
Also, browser-based card game? Man, Sega, you're breaking my heart here.
Ethics
Mission time: +3:02 hours, 02:00
Message sent: I repeat, Base One, this is Groundhog, breaking radio silence on a code-zero, over! Damn it, somebody pick up!
Message received: This is Base One. Verify your identity, authentication Belgen, over.
Message sent: Finally! What took you so long? I authenticate Theimer, over!
Message received: Verification acknowledged. What's your status, Groundhog? Over.
Message sent: Sir, Sierra has Hoteled the Foxtrot! The town has been hit by multiple artillery strikes and Imperials have poured into the area in the last hour. I have audio confirmation of at least one other party, and gunfire has just picked up again around the town hall! No sign of the recon team, over!
Message received: Say again, Groundhog. The Imperials are attacking the town? Who are they fighting? Over.
Message sent: How should I know? There wasn't supposed to be anybody here! Extraction point is not safe, and I don't even know if there's anybody left to extract! Please advise, over!
Message received: Understood. Charlie company is being diverted to your location, ETA one hour. Retreat to a safe distance and hold for further instructions, over.
Message sent: Wait, the army has reinforcements out here? I thought everyone was-
Message received: Retreat and hold, Groundhog. The general will handle this. Base One, out.
- Logged radio transmission, timestamped 01:14 hours
"Button it up, ladies! We are pulling out!"
Juno watched the commando slam the truck bed shut, backed by a wave of acknowledgments and cries of "Raooh!" Throughout the ruined square, Foxtrot's vehicles came to life: transports, APCs, even a technical bearing the seal of the town militia. Soon enough, the few dozen soldiers had squeezed themselves into whatever space they could find, and the Federation remnants began to drive off.
"I have to say, I didn't expect you'd agree to let Trish search the vault," said Ballard, waving to the trucks as they departed.
She wrinkled her nose, the smell of battle still heavy around the square. "Frankly, I kind of hope it's a secret. If the Empire had this many men to spare for a flanking maneuver..."
"Then they've got no shortage of bodies to throw into the meat grinder," he finished, frowning. "Meanwhile, we have trouble just getting supplies to our own front."
One of the last trucks rolled out of the square, a crudely drawn skull-and-crossbones on its side. Juno swallowed uncomfortably, having seen the commandos loading what few bodies they could recover onto it.
A tinge of guilt set in. Sacrifice felt easy when it was someone else's to make. "I'm sorry about your men, captain."
"It can't be helped now. We've had our... differences." His voice wavered a bit, but the captain was otherwise as taciturn as ever. "Things that sorry doesn't quite cover. But if it helps us both hold, then it wasn't for nothing."
The sky lit up with red above the town hall, a flare jetting up from the clock tower and bursting high; the militia 'all clear' signal, albeit in a different context than was intended. From the ground, they could just barely see the shooter's outline as it waved down to them and disappeared back inside.
Shielding his eyes from the light, Ballard looked back at Juno. "I should mention our intelligence has been watching this whole thing closely. They don't usually share information unless it's actionable, but it's got our spooks nervous and working overtime. Whatever the Empire wants from you, they want it bad, and I don't think it's your resources."
"It's a shame there's no time to compare notes," she said, the regret genuine. Scout training had hammered into her the importance of many pairs of eyes on the battlefield. "It's big enough for the prince's top generals to show up, let alone the prince himself. Everything else, Welkin and the other officers keep behind closed doors."
A loud thud followed a jeep as it bounced over a pothole, the militia vehicle coming to a stop not far from Ballard and Juno. The engine died and Preston hopped out of the driver's seat, keys jingling in his hand. Alex was right behind him, fanning himself to disperse the smoky stench of the square.
"Purring like a kitten," said Preston as he approached, lightly tossing the keys to Juno. "Should get you guys outta here in no time. "
She caught the keys with a smile. "Thanks, that beats walking back."
"Too right. Captain, Bravo's just about packed up, they're waiting for us on the east side. Parker's men are waiting for Kiril on the south end, they got a civvie car running."
"Then let's not keep them." Ballard nodded to Juno. "It's been an honor. Don't hide anything for our sake, tell your officers everything you can. And best of luck."
Offering a firm salute, she answered, "Likewise, Captain. We won't forget this."
The two commandos returned it, then headed off towards a distant pair of shining headlights. "There they go," Alex said, watching as they faded to silhouettes in the night. "Think it's time we got going ourselves."
"I couldn't agree more."
Together, the two ventured back to the hall, wary of the crumbling door frame and shattered glass. With the commandos gone, the old building fell back into its eerie silence, with only the wind and their scraping footsteps to be heard. Alex heard a hollow jingle as he bumped a few spent shell casings, one of them rolling to a stop by a mounted .50cal machine gun.
"All right, where do we find the switchboard?" he asked.
Taking the fore, Juno led them down the hall away from the empty foyer. "It's not far, I told the others to meet us there."
"Have you thought about what we're going to tell command? I mean, where do we even start?"
The scout drew in a deep breath, tasting the comparatively fresh air and letting it out slowly. Against her will, her heart began to pound faster, racing in time with her thoughts. With the truth? What is the truth here? The Imperials came, the Federation came, they fought and we took sides... but for what? Why send so much for just one town? That can't possibly be the end of it.
She could imagine Varrot's sharp tone, lecturing about this protocol and that, saying what should have been done instead. Disbelief seemed likely, given the squad had fought those commandos mere months ago. Welkin would surely support his troops - she entertained a mental glimpse of him bravely leaping to their defense, to her defense - but she wondered whether anyone above the captain would listen.
They never did before, but that's no reason not to try. "You heard their captain. We'll start with what we saw and go from there."
"Hmph. That's better than my plan."
"Oh? What did you have in mind?"
"Fake amnesia, say it was your idea, then make a run for it," said Alex, as straight as he could manage. The shocktrooper wasn't quite able to keep from smirking at his own joke.
Juno broke into a soft laugh, having difficulty picturing Alex running from trouble for a change. "Our hero," she replied flatly. "Guess we'll need someone else to make the rest of us look sane."
"Maybe not in that order, but the second the guard looked away, just 'shooom,' off like that." He slapped his hands together, shooting one away to illustrate. "No heroics from this bird, no sir. Go ask Freesia, I hear she's getting good at crazy stunts."
Their laughter echoed through the hallway, the noise carrying far enough for someone to hear and shout back. "Hey, Juno! Is that you?" called Freesia's voice from a doorway just ahead of them.
"That's our stop," said Juno, indicating the sign that read 'Switchboard.' "Yeah, we're coming!"
Wires gleamed in the emergency light from the hallway, revealing connectors plugged into a neglected switchboard. Like everything else in town, the phone substation looked as if abandoned in a hurry: a coat slung over a chair, half-spent cigarettes dropped in ashtrays, a note stopped in midsentence on the supervisor's desk. Darkness cloaked most of the room, with only a tiny yellow bulb, glowing dimly on a panel, to suggest the equipment was functional.
To her relief, Freesia and Kiril had brought a lantern with them, which sat on a desk near the back and helpfully lit up the device they sought. The dancer waved them over as they entered, while Kiril busied himself with the aging, unpowered telegraph.
"My mom works in one of these back home," Alex remarked, thumbing one of the dusty cables. "Too bad the lines are down, we could probably figure out how to call her."
"That'd be fun," said Freesia from across the room. "'Hey mom! You'll never guess where I'm calling from!'"
Alex chuckled and worked his way over to the desk. "Heh, yeah. 'Need a big favor, ma. Can you call the army and tell them to send, I dunno, all of it this way? Great, thanks!'"
"It'd probably take longer to get the call, knowing the army," Juno said, only half kidding. "How's it look?"
Humming to himself, Kiril pulled his head from the device long enough to answer. "Something's breaking the power circuit but other than that she's looking good. They must've kept it maintained regularly, some of these parts look pretty new."
"All right. Everyone spread out and look for a code sheet, we need it to send the message."
The three quickly searched the room, checking shelves and rifling through desk drawers. Floorboards creaked underfoot, the noise piercing the stillness of the building. Alex waved his hand in front of his face as he went through discarded papers, scattering dust bunnies and trying not to breathe too deeply.
"Gonna love the after-action report on this one," Kiril grumbled as he tested the controls. "Although amazingly, this is not the worst scrap we've been in."
"I find that hard to believe," said Alex, and for once he didn't mean Randgriz.
"'Worst' being a negotiable term these days, but any day we're not pointing fingers or guns at each other is a step in the right direction. Thank you very much, asshole political officer whose name escapes me at the moment."
Wandering over, Alex took note of the none-too-subtle bitterness in Kiril's voice. However, as he cast an eye over the machine, something about it struck him as odd. He folded his arms, intrigued by the lack of dust on it versus the table that carried it. "Any idea what's wrong?" he asked, changing the subject.
The engineer reached in with a pair of pliers and grabbed something. "Yeah, just something in the way of the circuit, I got it. Long as your emitter is intact and there's someone listening, it shouldn't take too long to send a message."
"They'll be listening," Juno said confidently. "The Empire destroyed a lot of radio towers early in the war, so we had to improvise. Those 'stations' are mostly just scouting units with jury-rigged receivers, but they're hard to find and can move quickly. Once it's away, the Naggiar command post should get the message in a matter of minutes."
Pulling open a drawer, Freesia spotted a telltale list of dash-and-dot letter codes. "Ahh, here we go," she said, snatching it up and handing it to Juno.
Kiril pulled back and slapped the casing shut, tightening a few screws. He then reached behind the machine and popped open another section. "That should do it. Lemme just check the ink here... " As he reached inside, however, he then frowned and drew his hand back, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. "What the..."
"What is it?" Juno asked, setting the sheet down. She saw black smudges on his fingertips, like fresh ink.
Taking a closer look, Kiril carefully traced the ribbon housing with his fingers. "When was this town evacuated?"
"A couple months after the war began. Why?"
"Well, I'm no expert, but it looks like someone already changed it out, and recently."
Alex also poked his head around the machine. With the plate open, he could plainly see the almost pristine ink ribbon sitting within. The ink stains and lack of dust connected in his mind, a reminder of something else that had looked askew. "I thought something looked off. There's less dust on it than the rest of the room, like someone was just using it. You didn't brush it off, did you?"
Kiril shook his head. "No, we found it that way."
"Oh yeah, you mentioned that with the vault folder," Freesia said, snapping her fingers. "Everything else was covered in dust, but someone had checked that one too."
Juno's brow furrowed in suspicion. "How recently?"
"Can't say exactly... a day or two? Maybe less?" Alex guessed.
The scout leader rubbed her chin, staring hard at the telegraph. Part of her wanted to ignore this, get back to sending their distress call out, but curiosity won the mental tug-of-war. "Can we get it to repeat the last message?"
The engineer flipped a few switches, causing the machine to grind and tremble as it spun into action. Its tape reel quivered, feeding paper into the printing mechanism as old, but well-inked keys slammed out a mechanical beat. The four of them clustered around the dispenser port, watching anxiously as each word came into view:
Damon STOP Unit in position with access codes STOP Mayor had prepped contents for transport STOP Imperial advance stalled with heavy casualties STOP Interference from Dawes likely STOP Improvising solution END
Juno peered down at the text, her eyes narrowing. One little message had put a hard stop to any thoughts of signaling for help. "Damon..."
"Interference... from Dawes?" Kiril read aloud with mounting concern. "They... don't mean our major, do they? Who's Damon? Interfere with what?"
"Damon's one of our generals." Juno couldn't hide the disdain as she added, "Unfortunately."
Alex was more straightforward in his opinion. "He's an arrogant glory hog on a constant power trip. If I didn't know better, I'd swear the Empire planted him just to make our lives miserable."
"Alex..." Juno started with a cautioning stare, letting him fill in the blank.
"Come on, Juno, would it really surprise you to learn that bastard had a finger in this? Everyone knows he's connected, he could be neck deep in this for all we know."
The scout leader could feel her control of the situation slipping away. True, there was no love lost between general Damon and the militia, but that was a far cry from implicating him in their current mess. "We don't even know what 'this' is. Look, it's not that I disagree, but we're missing context. Kiril, is there any way to tell who sent the message, or who they sent it to?"
Kiril grazed the controls with his fingers, searching for anything that might help. "Not that I can see, but if the message was unencrypted, then they weren't too worried about being caught."
"They're using names, too," Freesia pointed out. "They weren't saying 'the Federation' or 'the Army.'"
Growing defensive, Kiril shook his head at the printed text. "I went over the town map in detail. There damn sure wasn't anything in the briefing about this."
Alex began to pace uneasily. Combat was something he could handle, but everything about this was setting off warnings in his head, and he knew he wasn't alone. "Okay, this is getting weird. We should just get that message out and get out of town. Let the cavalry worry about it."
"That still takes time, but you've got a point," said Juno, approaching the desk again. She slid the code sheet in front of Kiril. "Can you send this out? 'Militia recon team, Squad 7, reporting from Rhodall, stop. Enemy contact, battalion strength, stop. Imperials routed with outside help, stop. Require immediate assistance and extraction, end.' Got all that?"
Kiril lifted a pair of headphones off a side hook. "Yeah, I got it," he said, humor quickly disappearing from his eyes. "The major... it just doesn't make any sense."
Juno turned around sharply. "Alex, it's time we find out what we're dealing with. That message mentioned the mayor. I want you to find Oscar and go check the mayor's office. It's another long shot, but he must have known something about this."
"I'm on it," he nodded, breaking his circular pace and heading for the door.
Spinning the nearest chair around, Juno planted herself in it with a low, exhausted groan. She plucked her glasses off her face and rubbed her eyes vigorously, sensing their long night was about to get longer. Not for the first time, she felt almost comically out of her depth; her team led to a narrow victory only to be thrown for another loop over one little message. Questions piled up like a train derailed, each guess of an answer bringing only more weight into the mess.
And behind it all, the creeping, gnawing sensation that people on both sides weren't what they appeared to be; the 'what if' that supposed Alex was right. Ellet would have a field day with this.
Above the beeping of the transmitter, Freesia's slow, controlled footsteps approached. "You okay?" she asked.
A heavy sigh escaped Juno's lips. "For now. Ask me in a few minutes. How about you, Frees, how are you holding up?"
Freesia never could bluff Juno and didn't bother trying. Her fellow scout was one of the few people who saw right through the smile, to whom it looked as forced as it felt. Since Barious, something had changed inside the dancer. A reborn sense of uncertainty had seeped in, causing tiny, but perceptible cracks in her carefree facade.
An uncertainty she had thought left behind, alongside a shy, awkward little girl with a family-shaped hole in her past.
She cast her gaze towards the door, her bound gunshot wound itching. "Feeling small again."
"There is something really wrong here."
Alex wasn't sure what Oscar was referring to: the message from the telegraph, or the fact that this door was locked. "Great, thanks for jinxing it," he grumbled, throwing his shoulder into the door again. It rattled noisily, but the lock held. "Hnnh! Here I thought this was gonna be... hrrgh! Perfectly normal!"
Oscar put his own weight into it, though he lacked the strength of his older comrade. Alex had caught him on the way to the switchboard room, and relayed Juno's orders. Signs had pointed the two of them to the mayor's office, at first just another door - albeit a nicer one with a plaque reading "Matthias Johannesen, Mayor" - down a darkened hallway in a building full of them.
Grunting with every impact, Alex slammed the wooden barrier over and over, his arm growing sore from the punishment. "Come on, you stubborn piece of... grah! Come on!"
"Can't we shoot the lock out?" Oscar suggested.
"Nah, that only works in the comics. It feels like it's loosening up a bit though, let's try kicking it on a three count."
Both took a step back. "Did she actually say we could break in?"
"She wasn't specific. Make sure you bring your leg up and then out, you want your heel to land square with the door."
Slightly disturbed by Alex's knowledge of the subject, Oscar lined up and shifted his weight accordingly. "All right, ready when you are."
"One... two... three!"
Shocktrooper and sniper heaved loudly as they kicked the door at once, and at last the lock tore open in a puff of lacquered splinters. The door swung violently inwards as it came to a stop, revealing the office within.
"That was oddly fun," said the sniper, despite his complaining leg.
Alex grinned mischievously as he entered the room and hit the light switch. "Wasn't it though? Let's see what we can find in here."
As befitting a public office, the room was dotted with higher end furniture and government paraphernalia: solid oak tables, bookshelves, leather-backed chairs, a door to a private bathroom, flagpoles flanking the Gallian royal seal. Right away, the office stood out just by looking less ransacked than the rest of town, with the locked door an easy explanation for why. A clutter of papers and old maps lay on the mayor's expensive desk, and the bookshelves were visibly out of order, as if someone had been thumbing through them in haste.
Oscar wrinkled his nose, catching whiff of an odd, unpleasant, yet familiar scent. He couldn't place it, however, and wrote it off as Alex went for the desk, the obvious starting point for their search.
The mere titles of several documents put Alex off, obscure legal documents and contracts referencing things he couldn't even begin to care about. One, however, got his attention, less for content than for the faded but prominent ink smudges along the edge.
"What do we have here?" he mused, scanning the header: Origins of Gallian Neutrality. A synopsis of some kind, the date of 12 February, 937 had been circled in pencil, but Alex couldn't make much of it beyond that it referenced the well-known Gallian policy.
"These maps are all of Gallia from centuries ago," Oscar noticed, sifting through them and pointing to small shifts in the southern border - right around the town in which they stood. "It looks like someone was researching the town's past. I think Rhodall wasn't always a part of Gallia."
Alex set the paper back down. "Ah, I never paid that much attention during history class. It was important to someone though, that's for sure."
Leaving the maps, Oscar slowly headed for the window, watching the flicker of distant fires along the skyline. "So, our mystery man digs through vault construction records, sends a message to general Damon, then comes up here to read up on history... and locks the door behind them? That doesn't make any sense."
"You're telling me. I wonder if..." Alex paused, his eyes falling upon the carpet by chance and suddenly freezing there.
"Wonder if what?" Oscar turned around and saw Alex staring at the floor. "What's wrong?"
Neither had noticed the color of the carpeting, a well worn but calming shade of blue. But this did make it easier for Alex to see the small spots of red. Finding one led to more, a nearly invisible trail that disappeared under the desk. One thought led to another. Hard spots on the floor; the desk had been moved.
"Help me pull this thing," he said, grabbing it by one end and motioning to the other.
His limbs sore from the door, Oscar nearly dropped the desk but was able to drag it a few inches with Alex. Beneath where the desk had been placed, a bigger pool of red had splattered on the carpet, like someone had fallen hard on it while bleeding.
"Is that what I think it is?" asked the sniper, suspecting their thoughts were in unison. Out of nowhere he caught that smell again, though he still couldn't pinpoint the location.
Alex heard the sniffing, and he caught a whiff of it too. "I think so. Yeah, you smell that? What is that?"
"This is bad. This is really bad," said Oscar, walking away from the blood. The smell only got stronger, and at last it dawned on him that it was coming from the bathroom. "In there. If that's what I think it is... I mean, we didn't even hear it..."
Alex grabbed his weapon and took position by the bathroom door. It was a pointless gesture, but he hoped it would calm Oscar down. It certainly wasn't helping him. "Let's check it out. You get the handle."
With clear reluctance, the sniper reached out and grabbed the knob. He waited, and dreaded, for Alex to give a confirming nod, and when it came he meekly tugged on the door and immediately backed away.
The light was off, but enough came in from the office to see the body. His head, topped with grey hair and blunt contusions, lay bent at a very unhealthy angle, and a look of shock had frozen on his lifeless, well-aged face.
Heights, fighting, war; Alex didn't scare easy. Given the chance, he'd take to the skies and laugh in the face of danger, taking on all comers and living life to the fullest. He had his introspective moments, but they were few and far between. And thus he wasn't scared by the sight of a dead body, even one wearing the uniform of a Federation commando.
It was the collar pin that did it, a tiny little piece of dark metal shaped into a rank insignia. A Major.
Alex wasn't scared. He was terrified, and the next words out of his mouth were enough to bring Oscar with him.
"We are in serious trouble."