Returning to Roots
It was Riel's last day as a pilot for the Cascadian National Guard. She had signed on at 17 because she wished to get out of the slums of Presidia. She no longer wanted to be that emotionally numb from the things she did to survive. Eight years later, she had been a newly minted pilot for only eight months when the Rebellion started. This lean and aggressive woman had returned to the numbness that Riel had wanted to abandon. Now, Riel was a pilot who had achieved her goal reckoned with the fact that she was supporting the people who wished to suppress people just like her. Just another day, or so she thought. Riel had been posted to Aitor as it was one of the quieter fronts of the Cascadian conflict, as she still was a rookie. It was routine, to say the least. Lots of busy bodies running around as she woke up in her small ground floor dorm room. Platoons of soldiers marshalling near hangars, awaiting to board cargo aircraft, to fighter jets being loaded with missiles and other assorted weaponry.
However, luck was on her side.
Riel decided that getting food now would be a nice idea, knowing how fast it goes. She tiredly sat up, wiping the sleet from her eyes with one hand and closing the blinds with the other. As she stood up, her tall stature arose with an energy that screamed it was too early for this. They reached into their open dresser, took a basic olive green t-shirt that was a size too big, utility pants and her work boots. She closed the door behind her as she didn't care about the ruffled hair and made her way to the main base dining hall.
The Federation Air Forces based in Cascadia had been increasingly defensive and tense ever since that Crown arrived. This was all that many of the other pilots had been talking about in the dining facility. On the way in, she picked up a small cheese & ham toastie, a cup of coffee and a couple of biccies. Her stature stood out amongst her colleagues, as most were much shorter and bulkier than she was. Inside, much of the dining hall was full, so she elected to sit outside on one of the benches in the smoker's area. At least she would get some quiet and peace out there.
As she took a sip of her coffee in the already searing hot heat of the Aitor desert, Riel thought about how she hadn't had to deploy as much, as her flight was posted to base defence, protecting the most extensive communications array this side of the world. Compared to Presidia, Aitor was much quieter and laid back. Finishing her coffee, Riel overheard from other pilots about the feats the "Crown" had accomplished.
The so-called 'Crown' had struck cordium production facilities near Apodock and fought off a whole Federation flotilla in capturing the hallowed Eminent Domain. Pilots who sortied grew fewer and fewer in the days following. Riel knew something was up. She'd typically be on the alert crew during the day, but at the end of March, her flight was now on-call all day. There wasn't much she could do in the hangar ready room. Being someone who hadn't questioned anything since joining the Force, things were changing. Clock in for alert crew shift, sit around either reading books, surfing the net on her phone or watching the bland sitcoms that were shown on the crew ready room telly. Luckily, Riel had figured out how to bypass the channel lock the intelligence guys had put on it, and managed to catch some badminton competitions.
The days were much more welcoming, in that Riel knew how most of the day would go. They'd rather prefer the mundanity of shifts rather than constantly rethinking.
Riel was somewhat of a crafty nerd when she was younger; she knew more than her peers. Years of breaking into locked rooms in hotels and pubs to put wireless access points so she could skim free internet, Riel had managed to get posted to an odd building. Her room was on the ground floor. Much of the rest of the building was empty except for the cafeteria. The Federation Communications Directorate had trouble censoring the internet. At the behest of that commissariat, the Fed techies usually sitting around in control rooms were asked to repurpose an old cafeteria into a large server farm. It was left unguarded as they used it as surge capacity for censoring. From time to time, Riel would plug in and surf the net.
Her lanky stature made it easy to attach her access point modules to open ports at the top. She chose the top ports, as it would help the signal pass between the 3 concrete walls that separated her room and the servers.
Here she found out that the Federation was lying about the relative peace seen on the mainstream big five social media outlets. Lots about the success of increased cordium production and the potential of the Cascadian economy… but they had known better. On the uncensored side of the internet, lots of discussion about Independence Force battles, all with the photos & videos from eyewitnesses. Riel had found out that Presidia had been captured and lost; mind you, she worried about her friends back home the most. She couldn't get in contact with them as Rebels in the capital had cut communications lines.
She thought of her crew in Lacey, Evelyn and Maja. They were her family, her adopted family. Lacey, in her ability to charm unsuspecting targets in which Evelyn & Maja would later jump. Evelyn & Maja were a firebrand of a couple; both had been to juvie at least twice. Evelyn was the muscle and would fight a lot in the Red Light District on the southern portside of Presidia. Many Federation soldiers would accost her. Here is where they all met. Maja was the agitator, herself an angry but fearless woman. Her slender body would hide the fact that she had been trained in street fighting by her ex, who used to be her pimp. They had all met once as illegal & underage sex workers in the shrouded brothels that led to the Federation naval base. She knew of what life was like in that city, that metropolis of glass, steel and the underworld that consumed it—girls her age on street corners, selling their bodies to make money to live. Cashed-up Federation government employees or soldiers picked up many. Some would make it out alive; others wouldn't. Riel remembered that. Living day to day, scrounging for enough to get a feed and hopefully a place to sleep. Without it, Riel and her friends would have to constantly relocate because of the Fed cops harassing them over loitering, or by rowdy and very drunk men. As the day ended and her shift finished, she returned to the small room she called home for now. Many of the planes that had been on the tarmac earlier had come and gone and replaced with more cargo planes.
It was a hot spring night out here in Aitor, and Riel was downing a shot of moonshine in her pyjamas at her desk when an alert came up on her laptop screen. She firmly put the shot-glass down on her desk and leant over her laptop. It stated that a singular aircraft had destroyed a significant radar array in the Wensleydale Range. It ended with a message that posted air superiority squadrons had been shot down. Riel thought to herself, "They're coming here, aren't they". By here, she meant Aitor.
She knew what was coming. Riel decided to pack things up over the last few days quietly. She did this because she wanted to escape. Her base commander was too busy readying ground troops to be redeployed for her to as well.
"Fuck this place", she uttered. "No point in staying in this place when everything's going to hell."
She closed her laptop and unplugged the access point receiver she had used. Her bags were packed. Riel began to take down the posters of her favourite band, Nights to Forget, pictures of her friends and her only friend in the Air Force, a fellow pilot who had been posted to Rowsdower Air Base earlier in the war. She hadn't heard from them in some while now. With all the things she needed to do, she took her towel & an electric shaver with her to the bathroom. Riel, had at this point, grown her tawny her out and felt that it had to change. With what she was about to do, it felt right to change. She was used to a gelled up mohawk when they were younger. As she picked up the shaver, she told herself, "No turning back". She cut it off to what she originally had when she enlisted eight years ago.
There was a pile of locks at her feet, she was feeling herself again, she was in control. Riel showered up, towelled down and got ready for the day. They were preparing for what was coming and the opportunity to escape and, maybe, just maybe, join the rebels.