Chapter 15

Friends, Enemies & Grumpy Commanders

One Week Later

            "General Tandun sir, Strike Force Panther has found the camp." shouted a young private over the cacophony of Wutaian army command.

            Tandun stood in front of a large videoscreen that covered one wall of his command room, watching the infrared signals that represented Wutaian and Shinra soldiers milling about.

            "We have full visual contact with the enemy camp, awaiting orders." reported the strike force leader, Major Manarin.

            The portly general stared pensively for a moment and then turned to the radio operator.

            "Begin."

            "All forces go!" paraphrased the operator.

****

            The second Manarin heard the word "go" his gun was up and a young Shinra soldier was down from one of his bullets. Following their major's example Strike Force Panther dropped at least fifteen Shinra soldiers from afar before the camp even knew what'd hit them. And even when they did, they never stood a chance.

            Major Manarin was the first to charge the camp, and his men soon followed his example. The Shinra soldiers had finally stirred to life like some large ice creature waking from hibernation, yet they were nowhere near as formidable. The whole situation was quite amusing, men normally decked out to the fullest in uniform and medals were fighting in boxers and T-shirts.

            "Put that on a poster and see how many you get to join up…" Manarin thought to himself.

            But the situation suddenly became much more serious as four Shinra tanks rolled down the main road of the camp.

            "Orders sir…?" questioned a Wutaian corporal over his radio.

            "Original orders still stand." gritted the major through his teeth as he ran down from the hill towards the camp, dodging numerous bullets.

            Once the two groups met head to head in the camp things really got messy. If one was not careful they would not last for long, as Strike Force Panther soon learned.

            "Major behind you!" shouted an unknown Wutaian soldier.

            Manarin spun around just in time to give an enemy soldier a new orifice in his chest. And when he turned to thank his fellow soldier he saw the boy awkwardly drop to the ground, with a heavily armed Shinra soldier standing over him. Before the major could get a shot off the Shinra man had buried a handful of bullets in his chest, and he was no more.

            Manarin's partner, Podran watched in horror, the major had been his mentor, his friend, everything, and now gone in a few seconds. And the scariest aspect of all was that Podran was now in charge of the Wutaian unit, or what was left of them.

            "Strike Force Panther report in.," ordered General Tandun over the helmet radio.

            "Not now sir!" shouted Podran while suddenly dropping into a roll across the gravel to avoid a hail of bullets.

            It took the few surviving Wutaians a couple minutes more to put the rest of the unprepared Shinra soldiers down, but those pesky tanks still hadn't been dealt with, as a Wutaian man learned when the guns dirtied the road with his body. That repugnant scene triggered something in Podran's brain to give him an idea. A stack of large barrels was tucked between two tents, and upon closer inspection their labels could be read: DARK BLACK

            He sprinted over to them; narrowly missing the tanks' generous offer of decapitation, and with the minor setback of dousing his boots in black Podran had filled some small buckets with the thick paint. And so the Wutaian tactic of "painting tanks" was born. Carrying out the maneuver perfectly, the battle hardened soldier ran straight at the tanks screaming random insults and curses in Wutaian and whipped the sloshing buckets of paint right into the tanks' clear view plates.

            The Shinra men inside the tanks didn't know what to make of it, it was as if someone had turned off the sun, yet they quickly dismissed that as impossible. While they pondered other reasons the major and his men surrounded the tanks and extricated the enemy soldiers from inside them with just enough force to leave a mark.

            Once he was sure all Shinra personnel were either captives or bodies newly appointed leader Podran stepped off to the side to report back to the base, but the voice that answered was definitely not what he'd expected…

****

            Earlier that morning Commander Nairne was having his breakfast, good old fashioned vodka, straight from Nibelheim. Lately that bottle of imported liquor had been his only friend. The past week or so had been hell, training, meetings, having to deal with twits like Highwind. If only he had a friend to have a good laugh with… At one time that person had been Janus. But when Janus Apollo had been promoted to admiral and given command of Shinra's air force he'd ditched Nairne like an old shoe.

            "Commander Nairne report to the briefing tent." Ordered a voice over his personal communicator.

            With one last drink he set the bottle in a drawer carefully, as if it was some precious artifact, and headed off to the briefing tent.

****

            "This operation will be fairly small, but important nonetheless…" lectured Apollo.

            We're in the briefing tent, listening to the great admiral tell us about some stupid little mission or "conservative strike" as he calls them. And so all we did last week was conservative striking on all kinds of stupid little targets. I've only gotten two kills since the ambush on our old base. This one has to be kind of big though, since I'm invited. But as Apollo keeps talking I keep wishing I wasn't here, he's so damn boring.

            "The target is what we believe to be one of the Wutaians' military command centers. Dragon will make a preliminary bombing run, covered by Eclipse. Phoenix is busy with their own mission. You launch in three hours. Good luck!" he reported, startling me at the end with his sudden shout and making his handlebar mustache twitch slightly.

            I gladly got up from the stiff folding metal chair and got the hell out of the tent before we had to listen to the admiral anymore.

            As I walked down the dirt road of tents that I called home, Nairne shakily trudged by.

            "Hey boss you don't look so good." I half shouted.

            He spun around with a tired, drawn face that turned to a frown when he saw me.

            "Go the fuck away Highwind."

            With that he stepped inside his tent.

            What was eating that guy? It was like I'd killed his brother or something. He really needs to calm the hell down.

****

            "Approaching target, ETA 1 minute." reported Thanton, a fellow lieutenant and leader of Second Flight in Eclipse.

            The communication woke me up from my trance, flying straight for a while makes you tired.

            "Three Flight report in." I ordered.

            "Winters here."

            "Cyril good to go."

            Then Eleven, which is me, and my new best friend…

            "Azrael Maiden rolling left."

            He is gonna pay for that when we get back…

            Thanton shifted my thoughts off of revenge soon enough though.

            "Target reached, good luck all."

            Commander Kahne of the Dragons took over from there.

            "Commencing first bombing run."

            The Dragons were a ways in front but a nice big set of explosions in the distance showed clearly enough that they'd hit.

            "Two Flight commence your run. Still no sign of hostiles in the air." reported Kahne.

            And a couple of minutes later there were still no Wutaians with us up in the air. Where the hell is everybody? My questions was answered to soon when something pinged off my canopy, and then another something.

            "Eclipse Eleven here, I'm getting strange things hittin' my window."

            "Deal with it then. I ain't your babysitter." replied Nairne.

            What a bastard…

            Then suddenly another something hit the canopy, but this time it got through, making a hole in my nice clear view port. And then another, burying itself in my seat, a little too close to my shoulder. Fuck they're bullets, since they were coming in one by one they didn't break the canopy immediately, just weakened it until finally shattering the glass.

            "Eclipse Eleven taking fire!" I yelled.

            "Eclipse Ten taking bullets, one in my shoulder, two in my other shoulder, can't control fighter, going down!" cried Cyril.

            Shit, guess I'm not the only one.    

            "Shut up we have a squadron of hostiles coming in fast!" screamed Thanton.

            Sure enough we did. So making covering the Dragons' a second thought I dove right into the middle of those bastards. Must have surprised 'em too because putting bullets through their canopies was easier than painting in Kindergarten. Maiden and the rest of Three Flight joined me pretty quick, but everyone else in Eclipse, especially Nairne, were pretty slow helping me out.

            Oh well, more Wutaians for me. My first two kills were from drilling holes in their windows with as many bullets as possible. What goes around comes around.

            By then Maiden had my back and it was time to really chalk up some kills. As much of a pain in the ass as he is he's still a damn good wingman, all because of my training of course.

            One bastard in particular was really starting to piss me off though. He just wouldn't let me get a clean shot on him. Maiden was off dealing with his own problems, so it's just me and my brand new Wutaian friend. He's not a very good friend though, won't even let me near him. And so we're playing a little game of follow the leader up in the sky, wherever he goes, I follow.

            Finally! The other pilot must have gotten tired because he flew right into my crosshairs. And with a nice friendly pat on the back from my guns his dead body was tossed into the air along with other random pieces of his fighter.

            Three kills, good, but I like even numbers better. That chance was taken by Winters though with a nice clean short into the enemy's engines. With that the Wutaian squad was no more, Thanton's flight and Maiden had gotten the rest. In sync with our victory, the Dragon's had their own, totally crippling the commander center with one last round of bombs.

            "All Shinra fighters land, we have just been ordered to make sure the building is clear, on foot, and also must recover all downed pilots." ordered Kahne.

            Oh great, this could get messy.

****

            Luckily it didn't, the Dragons had done their job well. Only two or three Wutaians had survived and we decided to take them captive. Something about this just seems too easy though…

            The actual war room itself had been hit the hardest. Its roof had vanished, leaving only some charred walls and sparking computers. Although one piece of equipment had survived, the radio. And that very same radio scared the shit out of me two seconds later.

            "Podran reporting in, Major Manarin has been K.I.A. But the camp has been taken, awaiting orders." crackled a voice on the radio.

            I figured it's not very nice to keep a guy waiting, so I thumbed the button to send an outgoing message.

            "Podran or whoever you are. This is Shinra Lieutenant Cid Highwind, your boss is dead next to my feet right now, but I'll still give you some orders. Go to hell."

Note – Took a bit to get this up, but I had to really re-work the first section cause when I first wrote it, it was midnight. But have no fear, Chapter 16 is three quarters of the way done and is on it's way shortly. Adios!