Chapter Ten:

After the Battle

Upon returning to the base, Leon Hunnisett and his companions were stripped of their Black Cross garb and each locked inside separate interrogation rooms. Joshua Cage and Dayton Owens stood together in Leon's observation room, looking through the one-way mirror at the bright red hair and youthful freckled face of their former cadet.

"In some ways, I can't believe it's really him," Dayton said. His hands rested uncertainly on the rubber mascot head that needed to be taken down to evidence. "I'm not sure I can do this one."

Joshua nodded at him understandingly. "It's okay," he said. "I'll take care of it."

A few minutes later, Joshua stepped into the interrogation room and shut the door tight behind him. "Good morning," he said.

Leon sniffed derisively and ignored him. Joshua sat down in the seat opposite him and started setting down photographs that had been taken within the last few days: images of the flying fortress and the various cities it had attacked and destroyed. He made sure to place a shot of a group of children that had been killed in Tokyo closest to Leon's side of the table. Once he was done, he crossed his fingers and smiled up at him.

"It's nice to see you, Leon."

Leon's scowl grew harder. "That's not my name anymore. I left Leon Hunnisett behind when I left EAGLE. I'm the Baseball Mask now."

Joshua stared at Leon for a second. "Alright," he said. "Baseball Mask. At the moment, you are being charged as an accessory to several dozen war crimes, including the murder of countless civilians, so, frankly, I don't really care what you call yourself."

For just a second, Leon looked distinctly uncomfortable. His eyes flashed down to the image of the children for a second before shrugging it off. "This is war," he said. "That kind of thing happens sometimes. It's not like you're innocent."

Joshua didn't respond to his bait. He studied the young Mask for a minute or two again. He pushed forward an image of the fortress itself, making sure not to let it cover the photo of the children. "What about this fortress?" he said. "What can you tell me about it?"

Leon scoffed at him. "You think I'll break that easily?" he said. "Come on, Cage. It's never going to happen. I know where my loyalties lie."

Joshua nodded. "With the alien," he said. "Right."

Leon scowled a little defensively. "Not . . . with the alien. I joined the Black Cross. We would never betray each other. We are a brotherhood."

"A brotherhood founded by an alien," Joshua said.

Leon scowled but didn't respond.

"Did you know?" Joshua pressed on. "When you joined him? Did you know he wasn't human?"

Leon still didn't respond.

"You know, the way he made it sound, when he was talking about his queen, it kinda sounded like an invasion. Which means you joining him would make you a traitor, not just to EAGLE, but to the entire human race itself."

Joshua pulled the image of the fortress back toward himself, uncovering the image of the children again. Leon scowled at the picture but continued to say nothing. Joshua chose to try a different tactic. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, studying Leon's face.

"You know something that's always bothered me?" he said. "We never really did learn why you betrayed us. Why you switched sides and joined the Black Cross."

He leaned forward again, getting up as close as he could and looking Leon in the eye. "Why did you join the Black Cross, Leon?"

Leon scowled at him, meeting Joshua's gaze with a glare of his own. "Because I don't believe in Unification."

Joshua tilted his head. "Unification?"

Leon looked like he wanted to vomit at the mere sound of the word. "We used to be proud," he said. "Every nation with their own identity, unique to each other, with borders to keep us separate and protected. Then the United Nations came along and decided to end all that, tearing down our borders and forcing us all together under their . . . new way."

Joshua nodded. "I see."

"The Black Cross promised to do away with all of that. To put our borders back where they belong and make us nations again."

Joshua's gaze remained unwavering, locked on to Leon's green. "And you really think that's what the Fuhrer wants?"

Leon shifted uncomfortable, averting his eyes. "He might."

"It didn't sound that way."

Leon sneered. "It doesn't matter," he said, meeting Joshua's gaze again. "The Black Cross is more than just the Fuhrer. And that's still what the people want."

"So what if that's not what the Fuhrer wants?" Joshua asked. "Are you going to overthrow him?"

"Maybe," Leon said.

"Interesting," Joshua said. "And just how much of a chance do you stand of doing that when he's got that fortress at his disposal."

Joshua tapped the picture of the fortress. Leon glanced down at it, and just for a second, Joshua could see how truly scared the cadet really was. There's his opening. He leaned in again, his eyes still locked. "How much do you trust the Fuhrer, Leon?"

Leon wouldn't meet Joshua in the eyes. He kept his eyes down, scanning the images on the table between them. "I don't," he said quietly.

Joshua grinned. Leon saw the grin and his eyes flared. "But I still won't break," he said. "I'm not fighting for him. I'm fighting for the rest of the Black Cross. And I'm not just going to hand them over to you."

Joshua tilted his head. "You really hate us that much?" he said. "You'd rather let an invader have his way with the entire world than let us have an edge against him?"

Leon crossed his arms, refusing to budge. Joshua matched his scowl with an even more intense scowl of his own. He leaned forward and pressed his finger against the picture of the dead children. "I would remind you, Baseball Mask, that in the last five days, more people have been killed than in our entire war combined. There is no strategy, no carefully selected political targets, only wanton destruction. And if you don't help us now, it will keep happening. And millions more will die every day. If this is really about borders, as you say, how does it help you? What borders are there to restore if there are no nations left."

Leon tried to maintain his glare, but his resolve was clearly breaking.

"This isn't about borders anymore, Leon," Joshua kept going. "This isn't about EAGLE or the Black Cross, or the United Nations, or any of it. Right now, this is about a clear and present threat to the very survival of humanity itself."

Leon's lower lip trembled. He glared down at the children one last time before lashing out and knocking the picture from the table and onto the floor. "Fine," he said, glaring up at Joshua. "I'll tell you what you need to know. But I want protection."

Joshua tilted his head. "Protection?" he said. "From whom? EAGLE? The Black Cross?"

Leon shook his head. "From him."

Joshua sat back. He maintained his serious expression. "To be honest with you, I don't know if we can ensure that one. We've never seen anything like him before. But we will put every security measure in place around you, and your name will be stricken fully from the records as our source."

Leon looked up at Joshua. Joshua kept looking back at him. The young Mask's eyes shifted back and forth as he weighed his options. Finally, he gave in. He pulled over the image of the fortress and tapped just below the fortress's base. "There's a hole in the shield, just big enough for one of our supply ships to get through, and only if they come at it from the right angle. It only opens once every hour, on the hour, and stays open for no more than five minutes."

Joshua pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. "Show me," he said.

Leon mapped out the general underside of the base, making note of specific identifiers he'd come to recognize. "The hole always appears right here," he said, marking a spot just off from the center. Right between these two notches."

"Understood," Joshua said. "Is that all?"

Leon shook his head. "No," he said. "You have to be giving off the right radar frequency. Anything else will be ripped to pieces."

"And that frequency is?"

"I don't know. It was always pre-programmed into the supply ships. Your green ranger pulled the data from our ship. It should be on there."

Joshua took down a note for it on the same paper as the fortress's layout. "Got it," he said. "Is that all?"

"As far as I know," Leon said. He turned away, the same scowl glued permanently to his face.

"Alright," Joshua said. He got to his feet and cleaned up all of his stuff, putting away the photos and picking up the one Leon had tossed on the floor. He headed to the door and started to open it.

"It's still suicide, you know," Leon called after him. "Even if you get through, the Fuhrer will kill you all the moment you step inside that base."

Joshua looked back at him for a second. "We know," he said. "But we have to try anyway."

He left the room and stepped into the observation room, where General Kenpachi was just finishing compiling a few notes.

"You heard all that?" Joshua asked.

"Oh, yes," General Kenpachi said, glancing up at him. "Well done in there. We'll compare his information with the confessions from his companions and the data we pulled from the ship. Then, hopefully, we'll be able to put together a new plan."

Joshua nodded. "Good," he said. He pulled up a chair next to Kenpachi and pulled over some notes. "Let's get to work."

Meanwhile, across the base, Kenny sat alone in the cafeteria, drinking straight from a bottle and trying to forget the last few hours. Dayton had managed to rescue a few from the downed submarine, but Benton hadn't been among them. Kenny had searched himself a little, but there was no sign of him, and with that fortress hanging over his head, he didn't really have the leisure to keep searching.

Once they returned to the base, most of his companions had been sympathetic. Sean, Dayton, Doug, and Harriet had all sat with him for a while, but, one by one, they were all called away to other assignments, and most of them were probably now in bed. Kenny stayed where he was, drinking more and more, the alcohol taking its sweet time doing what it was supposed to do.

Peggy sat across the room, watching Kenny. She bit her lip and got to her feet, crossing the room. "Can I sit here?" she asked.

Kenny looked up at her, almost looking past her, and shrugged. Peggy took the seat across from him and looked at him sympathetically. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

Kenny didn't answer at first, his eyes looking anywhere but at her. "I'm fine," he finally said, his voice hoarse.

Peggy gave him a look, knowing full well that wasn't true. Kenny tried to ignore it, but Peggy kept staring, crossing her arms and leaning toward him. "You don't have to do this," he said. "You can go to bed with everyone else."

"That's not going to happen," Peggy said.

Kenny kept looking away from her. He took another swig and the memory of Benton's final moments surfaced in his mind again. Benton's face pleading for help, the water rushing in and sweeping him away. Kenny couldn't keep the emotions contained anymore and they bubbled over.

"I should have been there," he said. "I was a power ranger, a superhero. But just like Watanabe, I just sat there and did nothing." He glared down at the bottle in his hand. "Is this thing even working?"

Peggy listened quietly. After a moment, she got up, grabbed a beer of her own from the cooler, and sat down on the other side of the table, in the seat beside Kenny.

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "You had your job to do, and so did he. He knew the risks as well as you did. You can't beat yourself up over it."

Kenny's body shook and he broke down, tears spilling down his face. He leaned toward Peggy and she rubbed his back.

"How do you deal with it?" he asked. "Benton, Dr. Watanabe, your friend. How do you deal with all these people dying?"

Peggy sat quietly for a moment, not answering him at first. She popped the cap off her drink and took a swig. "You don't," she finally said. "Not really. The pain never really goes away. It's always there, just under the surface, every bit as raw as the day it happened if you dwell on it long enough. You just learn to ignore it, not dwell on it. Then after a while, you manage to go whole days without thinking about it."

"I wish I could skip ahead to that point."

"It comes with time." Peggy took another drink. "You know what helps me?"

"What?"

"Thinking about the good times. Nothing big or meaningful. Definitely nothing recent. Just some small thing in your history, something that makes you smile every time you think about it." She turned her bottle over in her hands. "Like Diego," she said. "Back when we were living together on the streets, in some rundown flat that had been abandoned on the North End, he used to love pulling pranks on me. Silly, stupid things, like whoopee cushions hidden around the place. He only really got me the first few times, because he gave it away every single time."

Kenny put the pieces together in his head. "Because of that smile."

Peggy nodded, staring at her drink. "That stupid smile," she said. "Sometimes I pretended to fall for them anyway, just so I could see that smile get wider."

She rubbed the bottle's label for a second, a small smile crossing her own face. Kenny watched her for a moment. He could tell by that smile just how much she still loved him, despite how long it had been.

She took a breath and wiped her eyes for a second. "What about you?" she said. "Your favorite memory of Benton. Nothing big. Nothing recent. Go!"

"Okay," Kenny said. He leaned back, thinking back through his whole friendship with Benton. He cracked a small smile. "Okay, I've got one," he said. He leaned forward. "So, my mom's a vet back home, right?"

"Right," Peggy said.

"And she runs this clinic out of our barn. All kinds of animals, some pets, some wild, basically every kind of animal you could imagine being in a clinic in rural America. I used to help her out with them, mostly the ones in recovery: checking their bandages, making sure they were fed, that sort of thing."

"Okay," Peggy said, trying to follow.

"Well, Benton used to come over and help out too. Mostly after school, since his parents weren't home. He didn't like animals that much, not the way I did, but he tried, mostly because he was my friend. Well, one day, this bat got loose. We'd been tending it for a broken wing but it was just about ready to be released back into the wild. It fluttered itself up into the rafters and decided to set up camp there. I was going to go get my mom to help get it down, but Benton got the bright idea to climb up after it."

"Uh oh," Peggy said.

Kenny smirked. "Yeah," he said. "Uh oh. Benton was always a pretty good climber, so he was a little cocky. But just as he was about to grab it, the bat suddenly decided to take a flying leap at his face."

"Was he okay?" Peggy asked.

"Oh, yeah, he was fine. He landed in a pile of hay that broke his fall. The problem was, that pile of hay was in the middle of the chicken enclosure. Benton really didn't like chickens, and the chickens were not happy about him crashing into the middle of their space. Did you ever play The Legend of Zelda?"

Peggy cringed. "Ouch."

"Yeah, exactly like that. We managed to get him out quickly, but he refused to come back to the barn for three months after that, and he was picking feathers out of random places for days. When he finally did work up the courage to come back, he brought with him a twelve-piece bucket of chicken."

Peggy nearly choked on her drink. "He didn't."

"He did. He walked right up to the chicken enclosure, in full view of every chicken inside, and ate the entire bucket."

"Of course he did."

"Purely out of spite."

Peggy cracked up, her face spreading into the biggest smile Kenny had seen her wear. Kenny smiled himself. He was surprised. Just like she had said, he somehow felt a little bit better. The pain was still there, every bit as strong as it was before, but thinking about his friend and his antics had helped him be a little bit more okay with it now.

"Thank you, Peggy," he said.

Peggy nodded. "No problem." She raised her drink. "To our fallen friends?" she said.

Kenny raised his own drink. "To our fallen friends," he repeated, clinking their bottles together.