Chapter 26: Liberation

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Gulag, Nifleem System. 9 January, 06:08 Standard Time

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The yawning maw of the gates to Camp C rise up in front of the small troop. The structure is intimidating, rising eight meters straight up with razor wire covering both sides in a deadly lace. As Clank promised, both of the massive double-gates are open. Rusko and Angela stop a few meters from the outer gate and wait for Clank to catch up for the fourth time in ten minutes. The short but determined robot realizes he is slowing down the others. His sensors also won't be able to help pick out Ranaia, and his diminutive stature will make a visual search impractical.

Coming to a decision, Clank stops behind on the road. "Miss Cross? Since my skills of hacking are no longer needed, I feel I would be better useful on the Banshee with Ratchet. Would either of you two mind—"

Rusko interrupts as he turns back towards the gate, throwing over his shoulder, "Do what you want." The Falnarian makes a small, tentative step towards the gate, but stops.

Clank's antenna extends and a transmitter pops open from the top of his head as he sends a signal to Ratchet in the Banshee. No more than a few seconds later, a rumble grows as the compact warship approaches through the breaking cloud-cover. The compact warship lands on the wide road behind them, the wash from the thrusters sending hot air whipping about as it touches down. The airlock opens and the ramp slides down.

Ratchet pokes his head outside and rubs the back of his neck nervously. "Say, guys, I was just wondering. Since there's really no more Ta'ree to worry about, could I join you down here?"

Angela looks at Rusko, who responds with a non-comitial shrug of the shoulders, avoiding looking at the gate. She turns back to Ratchet. "Sure, we could use the help. According to Clank, Camp C is pretty big."

Ratchet nods and hops down. Clank runs up the ramp, stating, "I will take the ship and maintain air cover," before he enters. The ramp retracts and the airlock seals as the Banshee's impulse thrusters push it back into the air. The compact warship speeds off under the clouds to continue its patrol over the sprawling gulag as Ratchet jogs next to Angela.

Ratchet and Angela glance at Rusko. He hasn't made another step towards Camp C. Angela asks, "Rusko? Let's get going."

The Falnarian lombax takes one step forward, then steps back and turns away, tears building up in his eyes. "I can't do it."

Ratchet's ears twitch to knock off some of the snow collecting. "Why not?"

Rusko clenches his hands into fists. "What would I say...? How could I explain...?" He drops to his knees. "Oh, God, Miiksha!"

Angela shouts to try to get through to the despairing lombax. "Get ahold of yourself! We're here now, and Ranaia's alive in there. Let's start with finding your wife."

Rusko finally manages a nod at Angela's simple directness and the three turn back to the yawning gates covered with razor-wire.

A small crowd of lombaxes mill around the open gates. From the smell, they haven't had a decent bath in a long time. By their haggard, gaunt looks, they also haven't had enough sleep or a proper meal in what must be years. What disturbs Ratchet the most, even more than the sickly thin-ness, is the confused look in their eyes.

These lombaxes lived in the camps for so long that they gave up hope. They lived without hope for so long, now that the prospect of freedom has returned, none of them know what to do.

The three spread out a little as they proceed down the central road into the camp, Rusko on the right, Angela in the middle, and Ratchet on the left. Many of the lombax prisoners are in such a daze that they bump into the incoming troop as they walk, then continue on without even realizing that they are there. Ratchet glances at the huts on the right and left. All of them look exactly the same, as if they had been stamped out of the same mass-production factory. He looks to his left to take a closer look. The modest barracks "huts" are made primarily of metal, painted a gloomy gray. An image is scratched into the corner of one of the huts: a lombax face peeking over the bottom edge of the hut, accompanied by the message "Killroy lives."

As they walk, Angela notices Rusko's expression change. While his features seemed to have depression permanently etched into them, the sort of helpless sadness curling his ears and drooping his tail now is different than the gloom of being apart from his family. His eyes sweep over the orange-clad lombaxes wandering in the camp.

"Rusko? What's wrong?"

Rusko jerks around to look at Angela, surprised by being pulled out of his state. "I... it's just that... all these years, I knew about these camps. But all I ever thought about was my family. All these people..." He gestures to the lombaxes wandering ahead of them, "...I never..."

Angela walks closer and puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "And now you've freed both, Rusko. C'mon. Ranaia's waiting."

Rusko shakes off Angela's hand, though she notes that the droop to his ears and the plodding of his pace lessens ever so slightly. She returns to the middle of the road and the three resume their northwards trek.

Huts continue to pass by, and the dozens of lombaxes they pass through turn into hundreds. Ratchet looks over the road and glances down the space between the barracks huts each time he passes one, but he doesn't see any lombax that completely matches the file photo of Ranaia. He walks closer to Angela and mutters, "I don't see..."

He ceases speaking when Angela stops moving, then follows her gaze when she says, "It's her."

Ratchet can't stop his eyes from roving up and down the attractive lombax female at least once, nor does he seem to be able to stop himself from whistling. Angela promptly slaps him upside the back of the head and shoots a glare at the Veldinian. Ratchet sheepishly averts his eyes and mutters something that sounds like "sorry."

Angela turns around and waves the last member closer, "Rusko!"

The woman's expression, which was only slightly less downtrodden than the other lombaxes, instantaneously perks at the sound of that name. Her ears shoot up and her eyes widen, the a shocked smile erasing the frown from her face.

Rusko jogs closer, and his expression rapidly changes. His face brightens, his ears snap up, and the first smile that Angela ever saw on his normally bleak visage finally begins to crack across Rusko's face. He begins to run closer, "Ranaia!"

Ranaia also starts to run to Rusko, but suddenly a blur of orange and tan fur sprints past her, rocketing at Rusko.

"Daddy!"

Rusko reflexively catches her in midair and swings her in the air as a full smile widens across his face. "Miiksha!"

Rusko laughs and pulls her into a crushing hug, tears overflowing his eyes. "Miiksha, I thought..." Rusko cuts himself off and relaxes his hold on the eight-year-old just as she starts to squirm. He gently sets Miiksha down, then is caught by surprise when Ranaia spins him around to face her and captures his lips with her own in a deep kiss. Rusko melts into the embrace.

Ratchet and Angela both avert their eyes, somehow feeling as if they are intruding, watching in on something they shouldn't be. Neither of them wants to interrupt the reunion of a husband and wife separated for years.

Fortunately, an impatient eight-year-old doesn't have that constraint.

"Eeeeewww! Mom! Dad!" Miiksha sticks out her tongue in childish revulsion and makes a face. Ratchet and Angela both start laughing and have to use every ounce of self-control to try to bring the laughter back under control.

The two reluctantly pull apart. Rusko looks to Angela, leaving one arm looped around the small of Ranaia's back. "What now, Cross?"

"To start with I guess we should get back to the ship. There was a spaceport connected to the gulag, we'll see what we can do for the other prisoners, but we can't even fit more than six people in the Banshee, and that's if we crush everyone in together with most standing."

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Gulag, Nifleem System. 9 January, 09:12 Standard Time

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"...That's all we can fit on this transport, and there's no more cargo or equipment we can remove." The voice crackles over Angela's helmet radio.

"Understood. Close up, lift off whenever you're ready. I'll contact Clank." She taps the controls on her forearm, switching the channel to the Banshee. "Angela to Clank, the freighter Kodiak is ready for lift off. Would you rather escort them to a warp point in orbit, or would you rather do another pass over the gulag to make sure we haven't left anyone behind? I'm gonna go get Ratchet and Rusko."

"Since the evacuation is still in progress, and the Banshee has rather poor life-sensors, I will escort the vessel out of the atmosphere. I will be able to check for incoming Ta'ree forces. Miiksha, those are the weapons controls. Please do not touch—"

High in the clearing skies above, a bolt from a pulse-cannon flashes through the sky. Angela smiles and begins jogging out of the armory and back to the gate between the gulag and spaceport, where Ratchet and Rusko were standing guard and overseeing the evacuation of the prisoners.

The steady stream of prisoners have reduced to a steady trickle. Many of them make way for Angela, a sense of awe coming over them, and she hears them whispering after her. One of the words she picks up is 'hero.' Angela blushes in modesty under her fur. Hero? I didn't really do anything. This isn't even my galaxy. She opens a new comm. channel, "Angela to Ratchet, do you copy?"

"Ratchet here. It looks like the last of the prisoners are coming through. We'll have enough ships to take care of the last of them. One thing, all of the Ta'ree in the port seemed to disappear after the prisoners came through." Angela shudders at the probable fate of Ta'ree found by the lombax prisoners. Of course, can she really blame the captives for a moment of vengeance?

"It looks like we've done all we can here. See you in a few." Angela cuts the transmission and jogs through the rest of the base to the fortified gates connecting the spaceport to the Ta'ree section of the gulag.

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Gulag, Nifleem System. 9 January, 13:00 Standard Time

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As Angela Cross makes her way to the spaceport gate, the skies darken and the clouds come back together. Snow begins to fall again right as she reaches the massive gates. Ratchet waves in greeting, then rubs his arms against the cold. "What's wrong, Ratchet? This isn't even as bad as Grelbin."

Ratchet breathes into his clasped hands, trying to warm his fingers, before responding. "It's still colder than Kyzil Plateau."

Angela snickers and leans against a section of metal gate support not covered by razor-wire. A brief chill seeps through the chinks in her armor and she suppresses a shiver. Okay, so it is colder here than Grelbin.

Rusko, followed by Ranaia, joins Ratchet and Angela on the southern end of the gate. Another transport lifts off in the distance of the spaceport. Rusko stops and breathes, his breath creating a fog that floats up and out in the starting snow, reminding Ratchet of the space station where he learned about the Ta'ree.

"I've been thinking about where we should go next. Obviously we can't stay in Falnar. I'm a Shadow Commando of the Kel'no'reem, and I don't want to put Ranaia or Miiksha in danger again." Rusko pauses and looks to Angela. "You are a chief in Megacorp, in Bogon, do you know if you could do anything?"

She shakes her head. "I'm afraid not." Ratchet and Rusko send questioning looks at her silently asking why. Angela sighs and elaborates. "I only have so much authority. I didn't exactly have authorization to take the Banshee into Falnar and break prisoners out of a Ta'ree gulag. I'm going to be in hot water myself, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do."

She stairs at the ground between her feet as if it was the most interesting thing in the camp avoiding the looks sent at her by the others. Oh look! A snow beetle! No, wait, that's just a pebble.

Ratchet blurts without thinking first, "You can come stay with me." Angela doesn't look up and Ratchet adds, "C'mon, you've earned a vacation, and Kyzil Plateau's really cleaned up since the attack by the Tyrranoids." He looks at Rusko and Ranaia to include them in his offer. "You can come and stay until you decide where to go."

Rusko looks to Ranaia and she shrugs, making a slightly affirmative grunt. He looks back to Ratchet. "Thanks. I think we'll do that."

The speakers click in the headphones of everyone in the group with a helmet, and Clank speaks. "The last refugee ship is away. I am returning to the spaceport. You should see the Banshee descending beneath the cloud cover now."

Ratchet, Angela, and Rusko look up at the sky above the spaceport, but the snow has become so thick that they can't see anything. A few tense seconds pass before they hear the rumbling of the Banshee's impulse thrusters as it descends, touching down conveniently close to the gate. All four of the cold lombaxes pile into the compact warship. Angela hits the 'close' button at the airlock and they head into the bridge.

Miiksha bounds at Rusko, clamping her arms around her neck. "Yay! You're back! Clank was boring, he wouldn't let me do anything."

Rusko chuckles and sets the little girl down. "I guess we're off to Solona?"

The others nod and Clank begins to set a course as the ship enters the stratosphere. "Should we check in with the resistance first?"

Rusko glances sheepishly at the others, embarrassed at having forgotten such an important thing as he mutters, "Yeah, probably."

"Very well, Moksha first. Then Solona it is."

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"Angela to Clank, the freighter Kodiak is ready for lift off."

Just a little omage to one of my favorite games, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. The "Kodiak" is GDI's flying command ship, though, not a freighter.