Five minutes, one 'foothold secured' message and over a hundred men transferred later, the lift precipitated Captain Fitzalan into the generator hall.
The young Longcoat officer ran a quick survey of the premises, with eyes that obviously belonged to the engineer and not the soldier – skimming over places Jeb Cain had eyed warily and focusing on others that held no particular interest to the young captain of the Royal Guard. Then Fitzalan ordered about half of the charges moved from various machine parts and set against the back wall.
"The compound is primarily hydropowered, just as the Tower was," the grey-eyed captain explained when Major Anjil demanded a reason, "with significant water pressure right behind this wall. If we collapse the barrier, the whole mine will flood."
While replanting explosives under the engineer's supervision, Jeb used a momentary lack of audience to question the other captain what he had meant with, "just as the Tower."
Fitzalan gave back the sort of duh look DG occasionally garnered when she announced her discovery of yet another completely ordinary O.Z. fact.
"Those large ducts at the base of the Tower," the young engineer said, slowly, carefully, "what did you think they were meant to be? Easy entrance for subversive elements? They are spillways. During snowmelt, or when the generators aren't running at full power and consuming huge amounts of cooling water, the surplus is drained out through there."
Seeing how that piece of information did nothing to resolve Jeb's confusion, Fitzalan launched into a lengthy explanation of the fact that the Tower had been erected atop a gigantic artesian well, whose strong current had been harnessed to provide for the majority of the construct's energy needs. Only for peak demands – such as the Anti-Sunseeder – additional generators were necessary.
The exhaustive lecture worked its own magic, too, keeping all prospective listeners at a distance. Unable to escape since he had started the whole thing, the young captain of the Royal guard soon only listened with half an ear, until a casual half-sentence brought him up short.
"Wait, wait, what? What do you mean, three cycles, at the utmost?!" the former rebel cut in abruptly.
The Longcoat captain gave him another rather exasperated look. "Continuous lack of sunlight causes a sharp decrease in temperature, down to and below the freezing point of water – or in other words, a premature, severe and lengthy winter. According to the best estimates, after three cycles the tributaries feeding the well would have been frozen to the point where the excessive energy demands of the Anti-Sunseeder could not have been met any longer. As the resonance was far from self-sustaining, the syzygy would have collapsed naturally and …"
There had to be a punchline, somewhere, 'cause this was quickly turning into the world's darkest – pun intended – joke.
"You're trying to tell me that permanent darkness would have lasted three cycles, tops?" Jeb ascertained incredulously.
Fitzalan stared at him, open-mouthed.
"You really thought us to be such …" the young engineer gestured emphatically, his entire, impressive vocabulary suddenly inadequate, "…utter fools?!"
For a few tense seconds both young men seemed to wait for a punchline, then the grey eyes turned pure granite. "I understand it's much easier to kill if you convince yourself that the enemy is not human. I did not realize your convictions ran so deep, Cain."
"What?!" How did that come up, now?
"Humans die in permanent frost and darkness," the Longcoat captain hissed, grabbed the front of his black coat and continued, "and this does not make us any less human. Some of the Alchemists might get so hyper-focused on their work that potential side-effects of their experiments won't register, but most of those in charge and certainly the entirety of High-Command had enough brains to determine that eternity is a very long time to spend in darkness."
A deep breath and a conscious effort schooled the young engineer's features into cold professionalism. "The Witch might have dreamed of permanence, but none of her human," a sneer of utter loathing, "henchmen was going to deliver that; while the Sorceress was human, too, and quite satisfied with an eclipse feeding her power continually for three cycles on end, and scaring the rest of the Zone into submission."
His biting statement delivered, Fitzalan wheeled and stalked off. Jeb stared after him, focusing on the long, black uniform coat to convince himself that it didn't feel like he'd just smashed something precious.
"You scared off Fitzalan in full lecture mode," Anjil's silky voice interrupted his brooding, with a touch of admiration in his tone that didn't quite mask the edge hidden underneath. "How did you manage that, Graham?"
"Not sure, sir. Somehow," the helpless shrug was not truly an act, "I must have told him he's not actually human. He, uh, took that personally."
Oo oo oo oo oO
The generator hall had all the explosives relocated to their proper places by the time General Zero descended into the underground compound as well.
Tagging along with Major Anjil – he was obviously not hiding behind the much shorter man – Jeb joined the fringes of the growing knot of reporting officers while Captain Fitzalan was giving his report – and was promptly greeted by an icy glare from the other captain.
Zero's eyes flickered momentarily from one young captain to the other, but otherwise the general ignored the byplay.
The stocky major, on the other hand, developed a worrying frown – Jeb had not forgotten Fitzalan's assessment of the scout leader's likely reaction to his true identity, and had realized less than a minute after the fact that he had inadvertently managed to seriously piss off one of the two persons around with the means to reveal said identity. One word from the captain to the major and Jeb would consider himself lucky if he accidentally stumbled into one of the nearby running turbines – Anjil was scarily good with a knife.
The general recaught his attention with his appraisal of the situation. "Drown them all like rats? Tempting. But let's keep that option open for later. I'd prefer to take the compound as it is."
A/N: Warning, author rant ahead. Reading not absolutely necessary to understand the rest of the story.
I really enjoy watching Tin Man, not the least because the bad guys aren't simple cardboard villains but get their little scenes of humanity, too (all except the Alchemists, interestingly), in the form of the occasional disconcerted looks or very humane interactions among their own side. Someone made good use of humankind's depressing tendency to act like real bastards towards members of some outside group, which shows up even among those people whose friends and family would swear are really decent guys/gals, normally. Depressing from a fellow human's point of view, that is; for a writer with a penchant for alternative POVs, it's a godsend.
Ahem, back to the story. Zero gets introduced as the snarky second-in-command of an Obviously Evil army (fashion sense, people!), but one who asks the Sorceress if she's alright when she goes all spacey. He also, in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, steps forward to catch his predecessor's falling body right before he gets his promotion to general, an act that seems to be pure gut reaction if the expression of shock on Zero's face is anything to go by. And if your gut reaction is to catch the man next to you when he's falling, you can't be completely evil. That's before we see the time loop, mind you, or the rest of his overall bastardry – hard to get rid of first impressions .…
Another example would be that pair of guys in the Ice Palace who grab the Sorceress and pull her out of range when faced with the explosion of some magical item – never mind the fact that she's the person most likely to survive a magical explosion in the room – because she's still their queen and they are her goddamned bodyguards. Or that bunch of guys sharing some (moving?) picture .… I could go on.
Therefore, that permanent darkness scheme really, really bugs me! The Anti-Sunseeder would be a wonderful tool for any Big Bad commanding an army of orcs or other otherworldly creatures that thrive in darkness and fear the sun, but when your reign is built on the support of standard issue humans .… Dumb, really dumb idea.
The only thing dumber (literally in the too dumb to live category) would be to keep supporting such a plan in full knowledge of the facts. With Vy-Sor studying blueprints, and Zero being knowledgeable of little details up to and including the name of the brain controlling the machine – and I can't see him sitting down for an in-depth briefing on the topic in the few hectic days he spends as a general – the upper echelons, at least, know exactly what is going on. Since you better don't get a panic among your own massed-up troops, I'll even assume every officer has enough facts to keep the rank and file reassured.
Historically, people have followed their leaders into some pretty self-destructive situations, but nothing as extreme as eternal darkness; consequently, I must assume that the Longcoats were told something that DG – and the audience – was not.