Chapter 22
Missions
Huh?
Damn, that funeral was no fun; good thing they invented vodka. Good thing Nairne had some too; cause there ain't any other alcohol in this place. Wonder where this place is? Oh yeah, Nairne's tent, where I got the vodka. He won't be needin' it anymore anyway. The bottle was about half empty when I got it, Nairne musta known I was comin' so he drank a bunch. Hope he doesn't catch me.
Shit, he's dead. Him and Lennie, both gone; all cause those fucking Wutes. When I stand up I'm gonna kill 'em all. I'll walk in there with my bottle, and hit 'em real hard, every single one of 'em.
Badang!
I oughta practice hittin' 'em though, don't wanna miss. I'll just pick the bottle up and go swoosh with it. Shit. I broke the bottle on something on the other side of the tent, hope it was a Wute. My fingers musta let go or something. Ya know, it's weird, they call 'em fingers, but I've never seen em fing. Saw a cat fing once though. Gotta get some Wutes though, oughta get up. One, two, up! Still not up, that's weird. Maybe I'll use my legs this time; left leg, right leg, push.
Whoa.
"Stop moving the floor!" I yelled.
Bastards, movin' my floor. When I catch the lil' assholes who did that…
I'll do it later, gotta go to the Wute place now. Lost my bottle though, I'll go borrow one from Az. If those people would stop moving the floor, I could get out of this tent a lot faster. How do I get out? They trapped me!
Nevermind, found the tent flap.
Ow! Too bright, turn off the lights, come on.
Hey there's Hector, walkin' away from Nairne's tent. He was the one movin' the floor! I oughta beat the shit out of him, no, wait; Wutes, gotta hit them. Need a bottle from Az still though. The bunk tent for our squad should be just down the road to the left, or maybe to the right; I'll go straight. Damn it! Hector put a pole in my way, that little shit, Guess I gotta go left now, hope Az is down there.
Took me about ten minutes, but I'm at our tent now; Az is hiding though.
"Hey, Highwind, you don't look so good," said Az from across the road.
They switched bunks tents on me!
"Az! I need a bottle…"
"Looks like you've had enough bottles for one day, man," he pointed out, now walking over to me.
"No! I need one to go get the Wutes. If you ain't got one I'll go ask someone else!" I yelled indignantly.
Az reached out his arm to try and stop me, but I didn't let him.
Badang!
Kicked him good in the leg, an' hit him in the stomach. Trying to stop me, some nerve.
No one else is out, must all be busy "mourning". More like having sex, those people and their goddamn sex.
Gotta find a bottle and some Wutes.
"Cid, come back man," gasped Az from behind me.
Nice try, he's just tricking me so I'll come back and do the laundry. I don't wanna do no laundry.
I started to run faster to get away from Az. I was goin' at like high speed when suddenly I ran into somebody. A girl I think, with brown hair. The impact knocked me to the ground, and I just lay there. Don't really wanna get up anymore.
"Whoa, sorry 'bout him, you ok?" asked Az, I think.
The girl coughed.
"It's alright, I'm fine. I'm not so sure that this guy is though. Come on, help me pick him up."
A few seconds later, Az leaned down to grab me. No way pal.
I thrashed around, tryin' to hit him. Guess I missed.
"No! I gotta get the Wutes!"
"Not today, bud. Now I'm sorry for what I'm gonna do, but you're too riled up to handle," he said.
A second later his fist came toward my eye, shit that hurt!
And then…
****
The minute that Reeve had gotten Rotterdam's message he'd wanted to walk right into President Shinra's office and stab him through the heart. Not that he hadn't wanted to do this for a long time anyway though.
Of course Reeve couldn't lay a hand on the president, but he could still help Rotterdam. The more information the vice-president had when he exposed Shinra, the better. And so Reeve had decided to play his part by looking further into the "unfortunate training accident" that had destroyed one of his development projects. There had to be some evidence left, because the building had been destroyed one way or another. If not by three fighters, then by something else.
He decided to log on to the Shinra network on his computer and do some searching. Being in charge of Urban Development gave him access to all sorts of building supplies and personnel transfer lists. Hopefully one would show some indication of the building's sabotage. It would take something pretty good to take out a ten-story building, though at least a quarter of it had just been framework. The police had found a few different chunks of what had originally been three Shinra fighters in the wreckage, and so it seemed that was nothing more to it. Reeve may have been new to his high executive position, but he was not new to Shinra, or to life; there was always more to it.
A very high concentration of explosives would be needed to take the entire building down. Though Shinra construction workers did this all the time, destroying an old building to make room for a new one. With a few appropriate keywords and well thought out clicks, Reeve had a list of all the explosives of building destroying magnitude used in the past six months. He knew from reading it in some report or another the amount of explosives needed per square foot to successfully bring down a structure. And so for the next hour he went down through the list, checking the math along with the project for each entry.
He made note of any irregularities and got through the whole list without finding any order that could have been for his building project. It was all perfectly normal, though there were a large amount of irregularities that he'd noticed. In most cases it was just a larger amount of explosives being taken than necessary, the mistake of some supply requisitioning clerk no doubt.
It could really have been three fighters that had destroyed the building, but something about that didn't feel quite right. First off, how do three veteran pilots all crash into the same building? Secondly, no camera had caught a single picture or video recording of the accident. Midgar was a technologically advanced enough city to have had a camera somewhere in the vicinity. And it was possible that fighter parts and wreckage could have been planted at the site.
With all these thoughts milling about in his head, Reeve sat back in his comfortable leather chair in his office and just thought. It was close enough to the end of the work day that no one would bother him; all they wanted to do at this point was go home. There was still a good sized stack of paperwork on his overly large desk, but this was far more important.
Over the course of a good fifteen or twenty minutes, Reeve slowly began to drift into a light sleep. He had come up with and then quickly dismissed many answers, very tiring work. He reached the point of overall relaxation, and he would have drifted off within a minute had one final thought not passed through his head. His eyes shot open as he snapped up and stared at his paper on which he'd written down all of the irregularities for a moment before rapidly punching numbers into his calculator.
For a few minutes he alternated between scribbling down sets of numbers and feeding more into the adding machine. When he was done he had added up all of the extra explosives taken out and calculated the amount that would have been needed to destroy the building; they were almost exactly equal. Shinra had just blown up the building themselves and scattered some old fighter parts around the demolition site, seemingly simple, but no one had figured it out until now.
Reeve smiled; the smile of a hunter that had finally caught its prey, the smile of someone who'd just solved a complex riddle. He'd helped Rotterdam in his own way and brought the mystery one step closer to its end.
Much more important than paperwork.
****
Shit.
Y'know those headaches that make everything from the front of your eyeballs to the back of your head hurt? I've got one of them.
Ow, it hurts to think.
It feels like I'm laying down and sweating like some cow in heat. Ooh a breeze… Wait a minute where are my pants and jacket? I can almost hear someone; I bet they took 'em. Or maybe that's just my brain throbbing, trying to explode out through my ears or something. I'd ask the person who they were, but I think if I open my mouth I might puke; sure tastes like it. I could always just open my eyes…
Bad idea.
That's the second bad idea in maybe thirty seconds. First I tried to think; now I had to go and open my eyes. All I can see is a close, wooden ceiling; I've been captured by the Wutes! They've put me in some sort of voodoo box! Damn it, Highwind, snap out of it.
"Damn it, Highwind, snap out of it."
Hey, who said that?
Might as well ask 'em.
"Who said that?" I asked, not moving a muscle but the ones in my neck and head.
Whoa, I opened my mouth and didn't puke.
"Bluuggh!"
Nevermind.
With the sudden thrust of muscles I could feel my body better, and realized that my head was turned to the left, probably aiming off into some bucket.
"Damn, man, I didn't think you had anything left to puke up," commented a voice somewhere in front of me.
Az?
I decided to sit up and see for myself what was going on; big mistake again. It was like I lit the fuse to some fucked up fireworks display inside my skull. I started to fall back down but an arm caught me and held me up. After an uncontrollable eyelid flickering session I looked up to sure enough see Az cautiously holding my sweat drenched form. I looked down to find that I was only wearing boxers and a white undershirt, classy. A quick look around showed my wooden prison to just be the bottom bunk in a series of bunk beds. The tent looked like any other bunk tent in the base. It definitely wasn't mine though.
"Easy there, bud," cautioned Az as he picked up my puke bucket with one hand and placed it as far away as possible without letting go of me.
"Hey, Az?" I asked groggily.
"What?"
"Did I get drunk or something?"
"Now that's gotta be the question of the day right there. I'm outta here, Cid. Shera will help ya out. And yes, you sure as hell got drunk," he said with a snort of laughter.
With that, Az let me go and walked out of the tent. Wait, did he say Shera?
"Cid, right? I think we met in the cafeteria at the old base," asked a quiet voice.
I looked across the tent to see Shera for the time since I'd woken up. She wore green pants and a white T-Shirt with her long brown hair done up in a bun on the back of her head.
Real nice, she barely remembers my name. I mean yeah it was a while ago, but I sure as hell remember her.
"Yeah, it's Cid. Wait, did I run into you earlier?" I wondered out loud, suddenly remembering more.
"Yeah you did. Don't worry though, I'm fine. Azrael and me brought you in here to try and let you sleep off your hangover. We didn't want you to get in trouble for breaking the no alcohol rule or anything. I figured no one would find you here in the tech's bunks. I'm pretty sure all the other techs are at the mess tent, there's sort of a party going on down there," she explained from her relaxed sitting position on another bunk.
Party?
"I appreciate you helpin' me and all, but I think I'll be fine now. A lil' sleep and a bucket always does the trick," I thanked her kind of crudely.
Real nice thing to talk about with a girl, Cid.
"No, you should stay here for just a little longer. Puking takes a lot of strength out of you. Let me get you some water," she offered, getting up and walking barefooted over to a small water cooler.
At the thought of cooling down I realized that I still had just boxers and my undershirt on. I don't know her that well; probly oughta be wearing something a little better than my old light blue boxers with no button. You really gotta be careful going buttonless, very risky.
"So, what have you been up to since we talked a while back?" she asked from the water cooler.
Well, definitely not piloting or anything.
"Oh ya know, same old stuff, flying and all," I answered stupidly.
I scanned the tent for my pants while Shera was still getting me water. They were on a bunk near the bathroom. I pulled myself together and stumbled over to retrieve them. She turned when I was about halfway across the floor and giggled.
"Sorry, I kinda forgot about your pants. Hope you don't think I was trying to hide them or anything," she smiled.
If only I hadn't drank that vodka this morning, we could be playing hide the pants. But I wouldn't be here if I hadn't drunkenly run into her, so…
"It's all set, I'm gonna use your bathroom if that's alright."
"Sure, I'll leave your water out here."
Before I said or thought anymore stupid things I quickly retreated to the bathroom and shut the door. The bathroom wasn't all that big, but it had everything I needed. After relieving myself I jumped in one of the small shower stalls. I just stood there for a good five minutes, letting the ice cold water run all around me and not doing a damn thing. It felt nice, sort of woke me up. I used some shower water to rinse out my mouth, getting rid of the puke residue. Once I was a little bit more awake I went through the soap routine, including some girly shampoo that smelled like a "lush strawberry grove" according to the bottle.
When I got out I realized that I didn't have a towel, so I just used my pants to try and dry off and put me on along with my boxers and undershirt. I was feelin' pretty clean, except for my mouth, still tasted horrible. With a little searching though I found some toothpaste and used a favorite technique of mine. I squeezed a big gob into my mouth and used my tongue as the toothbrush, after a quick rinse with water I was set.
Before heading out I gave myself one final check in the mirror. I didn't look half bad, a quick shave would be nice, but ya can't have everything. Suddenly I noticed that my right eye was kind red and a bit sore. Somehow I'd missed that in the overall feel of tiredness. Then it all came back bit by bit. I vaguely remember running into Shera, hard enough to knock her down. Az had been there too, he'd said sorry for somethin… Oh yeah, he'd punched me, the bastard.
Whatever, more important things lay in the next room. I barely knew her, but she was sending out some pretty strong vibes.
Shut up, Highwind, you don't know the first thing about women. Never had a serious girlfriend for more than a couple of months, and even those didn't mean anything. It was their fault though, I didn't do anything wrong; just didn't do anything right according to them. This is a clean start though; aside from knocking her down we're on good terms.
Before I thought myself to death I swung open the door and returned to the tent. Shera had grabbed a bunk again and half lay on top of the uncomfortable, standard issue brown army blanket and white sheets, back against the wall. My small plastic cup of water sat on a trunk near the door, so I grabbed to make it look like I was doin' something.
I started sort of pacing while drinking my water in gulps, real slick. The whole time she just looked at me out of the corner of her eye all funny. It couldn't have gone like that for more than thirty seconds but it seemed like forever. Finally she broke the silence.
"Why don't you come sit down over here?" she asked with a slight smile.
Why? Cause I'll probly trip on my way over or somethin'. Hangovers and nervousness don't mix too good. But I went over anyway, time to start being all, what's that word, suave?
I went over and sat on the edge of her bed and just kinda looked at her. She was definitely pretty in her own way, and from the look in her eyes it seemed like she was thinkin' the same thing about me. I don't mean that she's thinkin' I'm pretty or anything, but that I look good and stuff. If she called me pretty I'd be outta here so quick…
"It's a shame we haven't gotten to talk to till now," I said awkwardly.
"Yeah, yeah it is. You seem like a real nice guy, from the couple times I've met you and stuff. Well you know what I mean," she finished quickly, she seemed sort of nervous too.
Then my head went blank and the headache came back with force. Some time to get a damn headache. C'mon, Highwind, think of somethin' suave to say.
Yeah that's it. I saw it in a movie once and it worked for that guy.
Nice and suave.
"I know one way we could get to know each other a little better," I suggested boldly.
"What's that?" she asked, though I bet she knew what I was goin' for.
I leaned towards her and looked into her eyes until I got scared and closed them. As I moved in, I realized something, this really isn't gonna help me get to know her any better. But hey, whatever. Just before our lips came together I wondered if our noses would hit, but they didn't.
We only kissed for a second before we both kinda pulled away at the same time. When I looked at her she had this weird expression on her face, couldn't tell what it was. Shit, hope I didn't mess things up. Then all of the sudden she broke out laughing.
"Your hair smells like strawberries," she giggled.
Well that's nice…
****
The first thing Rotterdam did when he returned to his flat in Midgar was to take a long, hot shower. As the dirt, sweat and blood flowed off of him he tried to get his encounter in Lircos out of his head. But he could not make them leave, no matter how hard he tried. The horror of his bodyguard being stabbed, the desperate hunger of the crazed pilot, they wouldn't stop. He could not keep the haunting words of the pilot from repeating, "Save it for Satan. He'll hear your pleas while you burn in hell." He did not even necessarily believe in any religion, so why had those words rattled him so much?
It was because the man had associated him with the men in Shinra who had sentenced him and his two fellow pilots to die. Rotterdam hated being a part of Shinra, but it was the only way he could find justice. But the man had really thought he was just another heartless man in a suit from evil Shinra. He had been trying to help him though; he'd wanted so much to help him. The man hadn't let him though, he'd had to run out and get killed. If only he would have talked to Rotterdam. He would have understood, he would have helped him fight Shinra. Yet the vehement hatred that had brewed inside the man had come out in his words. He had so strongly wished Rotterdam to die, and he had believe that he was a truly evil person.
No one wanted that.
Once he got out of his nicely tiled shower he put on a warm, blue cloth robe and went into the kitchen. Maybe a drink could dull the thoughts; some hard whiskey would do the trick. But was dulling the thoughts really the right thing to do? Maybe he needed to actually think them over to sort things out. He ended up choosing dulling them for the time being though. So he downed two shot glasses worth right there at a counter of his spacious kitchen before taking a third glass into the living room.
He could have had his butler be doing all of this, but he'd given him the night off. That was the last thing he needed, someone else to ask what was wrong or if they could help. He hated it when people asked him what was wrong. Because most of the time they could do nothing about whatever his problems were, but they tried to. They'd pry and ask questions to try and help, but it didn't help, it just made him think about it more.
That was why he could never stand his family, though both of his parents were dead now and he had been an only child. He'd never married either, and that was fine with him. It wasn't that he didn't like people, he just didn't like the thought of getting so close to them. To tell them such personal things just felt wrong, they were his personal feelings, not to be shared. And so he just kept a sort of monotone appearance, barely showing any emotion. The only emotion he showed was anger, normally anger at Shinra. He had tried to block everything else out, it had become the goal of his life.
When he reached the living room he sunk into his black leather couch and turned on the TV. He needed something to take his mind off of the madness and gore he'd experienced. How Shinra could drive a man so crazy as to be a cannibal was just another example of their horrendous power. They had no idea how much power they had, if they did they would be unstoppable. They could ruin entire lives at a whim, conquer other countries for fun, it was insane. He found a cheap porno on one of the many Shinra owned satellite channels and watched it for a while.
He was barely paying attention to it, but somehow it drew his mind in. It was so brainless, and that's just what he needed. He needed to just not think. Within minutes the third shot glass was empty and on its side in the deep carpet. The vice president knew he had a mission to do, a plot to expose, but he wasn't in the mood for that. Instead he let himself slump down into the comfortable clutches of the couch and fell asleep.
****
I ended up spending the afternoon with Shera in the tech tent until it got late and I headed back to my own tent before the rest of the techs came back from the party. That one kiss was the only thing we did, the rest of the time we just kind of talked. I fell asleep pretty quick back at my bunk tent, which was good 'cause we had to report for duty at 0600 sharp the next morning. I made it to the briefing tent right on time and everything too, but somethin' weird happened; Apollo never showed up.
We decided to wait for a half hour before doin' anything about it. That came and went so we called up a couple of his different numbers and checked his tent with no luck. Someone also found out that his ship was still gone from the other day. Slippery bastard. So me and the other squad leaders, Kahne and Arkanian, decided to have the flight leaders take their groups through some simulator runs and call it a day.
A day went by and there was still no sign of him, so we put a call into Shinra H.Q. at Midgar to see if they knew anything. In a way I was kinda hopin' that he wasn't comin' back. Not that I want him dead or anything but he always was a creepy bastard. It turned out that the Midgar people didn't know what was up either, but they said that Palmer, the head of aeronautics or some shit, would be out by late afternoon. I'd never liked the guy much, only seen him a couple times, but he still had somethin' about him that was weird. He just never struck me as being too bright.
Sure enough a nice new Shinra transport landed by the fighters around dinnertime. Two Shinra soldiers were the first to step out, 'cause he was in so much danger out here and all. Palmer himself came out next, looked about the same as the last time I saw him. He was short and portly, with graying hair and beady eyes. He had on this real expensive looking suit, trying to seem important or something I guess. It was just me, Kahne, and Arkanian out there waiting for him, but he still tried to walk up all important like, though he was going way too fast and almost tripped once. What a fake bastard.
"Hello, I don't know any of you," he greeted.
Guess this guy wasn't in people skills school the day they taught 'em how to greet someone.
"Commander Highwind from Eclipse," I said, shaking his hand firmly.
"Oh Eclipse, didn't the commander die?"
Wow, this guy is something else.
"Yeah, Nairne." I helped him out with the name.
Having lost all interest in me he moved on with an outstretched hand and a cheesy smile.
"Commander Arkanian, I'm with Phoenix Squad," she said politely.
I hadn't seen much of her until recently so I'd never paid much attention to her. She was average height and skinny with fairly short blond hair in a ponytail. From the stories I'd heard and the times I'd seen her in battle she seemed like one crazy pilot.
After a quick, somewhat stupid response Palmer moved on.
"Commander Kahne of Dragon Squadron, sir," he said a little too formally to be addressing Palmer.
Kahne was built kind of like Palmer, but he was a little taller and not quite as fat looking. He sported a brown crew cut and seemed like he was one of those guys that were always nervous about somethin'.
With our lovely meet and greet done we went into Apollo's tent and sat down in the few metal chairs there were. Palmer had a little trouble with sitting still at first, but he managed to calm down for a bit. He didn't seem to know what to say, and neither did the other two, so I started things off.
"So no one knows where is?"
"That's what they told me. They said something about needing a new admiral too," answered Palmer as he fidgeted, furiously trying to stay sitting.
Wow big surprise, sounds like someone coached him on what to say. He's probly pretty proud of himself for remembering too, stupid bastard.
"I'll tell you right now that I don't want the job. I'd rather fly the missions than sit in here and plan 'em," piped in Arkanian.
"Yeah, same here," I said.
Palmer just kind of sat there for a minute, poking his stomach from what it looked like, until he realized he was supposed to say something.
"Well then I guess you're it, since they don't wanna be," he said, pointing to Kahne.
Kahne's nervous look got even worse.
"Me? Well I guess I can do it. Is that your final decision sir?"
Once again Palmer was not paying attention at all, too busy kicking his legs up and down.
"I'd say yeah," I said for Palmer.
"So don't you need to sign any paperwork or anything…?" asked Arkanian.
"Probably."
Someone kill him now, please.
"Well I'll go find the papers in your ship and have you sign them," said Kahne as he got up.
"You might want to go with him," I hinted to Palmer.
He looked up all of the sudden like he just realized we were here.
"Yeah I'll go with him. Bye," he said, almost bouncing out of his chair.
How some of these guys get to be so high up in freaking Shinra I'll never know.
****
Major Podran sat at an old metal desk he'd been given at Chamuri Base and looked over a large, detailed map. The map showed both Wutai and Shinra forces in the Da Chou Mountain region. The focus was on one particular area though, the joint Wutaian materia processing and military facility in the center of a large valley in the mountains. The forces had been at a stalemate for weeks now. Shinra troops held every pass into the valley, and were rumored to even be inside and on top of the mountains. Wutaian soldiers were in abundance protecting the valley and facility, but they looked like they were outnumbered.
It seemed that the Shinra army intended to hold the valley under siege until the Wutaians starved, but it was not working. For the Wutaians had built an expansive network of transport tunnels with railed cars underground that connected to the city of Wutai to shuttle materia many years before the war. This system had also been bringing the soldiers supplies, which had thankfully kept them alive. But the tunnels could not last forever, sooner or later Shinra troops would infiltrate them and the Wutaians would be completely trapped.
And so the Wutaians needed a plan, some way to save themselves when the Shinra army struck. Podran had been sent the map in hopes that he could come up with something. He had never been a master strategist, but apparently General Staniv had liked his defense of Chamuri Base quite a bit. He had managed to come up with a few ideas for breaking the siege though.
He knew that the help of the Wutaian air force would be needed, because the Shinra would most likely be bringing theirs. He also knew that they had to hold the tunnels at all costs, for in a worst case situation they could always retreat through them. His main idea though was that they couldn't be afraid the harm the landscape if absolutely necessary. In Wutai such an emphasis was put on nature that defacing it was seen as an atrocity. But Podran knew that passes could be closed off by fallen rock and that trenches were always helpful, among other things. These things could save many lives, and in the end that would be what mattered.
The ideas weren't much, but he was still pretty proud of himself. He hadn't even been a major that long, not to mention a strategist. He just hoped that he had enough time to come up with something more. Because he was certain that when the Shinra army struck it would be on a titanic scale.
Note – As usual I am quite sorry for how long this took. I think this one may have taken the longest yet, I'm not sure. I haven't had too much time lately with school and soccer and all. And this summer I was basically a little lazy and kind of uncreative so yeah. Also I will admit that I have never been drunk, and so if my portrayal of drunkenness and /hangovers is grossly wrong please correct me. I was thinking too that most people probably don't remember Commanders Arkanian and Kahne since they've only popped up two or three times in the story and not been of much importance. So I decided to sort of reintroduce them, cause I plan on having them play a somewhat larger part in the ending few chapters. Thanks again for reading, I hope that the next chapter will go a bit quicker than this one.
