A/N: I guess one update a month is okay... right? Sweatdrops I kinda got bogged down for lack of inspiration and busy stuff. In terms of Real Life, my full-time hiring didn't yield as much as I would have liked (They tax single working people really, really hard) and I've been working out details in Real Life. Work has had a LOT of drama recently, but I'm covering my ass well enough. I like getting paid to have free time to write fanfic. XD
Thanks go out to Lakewood for his always-fantastic beta work! Wild Goose 01 is now on my beta team, as is miz-lou and Anysia. What turned into my own little back-pat fanfic now has evolved into an organized and coordinated effort... talk about networking.
I just started watching Gundam Seed and am totally loving it so far. I'm heading down to my local Comic Book Guy after work today to pick up a model kit, even. I just gotthe Gundam Wing Complete Operations box set, too.I swore I'd never be that big of a mecha otaku, but look what happens. ;-;
I've branched out into Azumanga Daioh and School Rumble! If you like either, check out my profile pages for the stories. I hope you'll enjoy them!
On with the show!
11: Prayers to Broken Stone
MV Alhambra Real
That same time
The crew of the Alhambra Real, a Spanish-flag fast container vessel, was used to mixed cargoes. Not yet a day's sail out of the Port of San Diego, they had taken on a load for delivery to three separate ports of call. A load of appliances was to be offloaded at Jakarta, and they had to drop off bananas in Cape Town before arriving at their home port, Cadiz, with several metric tons of Carolina rice.
It was a complete surprise, however, when they received a call, twelve hours out of port, to expect another container to be dropped off while under way.
"This is utter madness," the cargo ship's executive officer, a tan-skinned Basque, grumbled in articulate Spanish to his boatswain's mate. The XO and the bosun were two complete opposites; the former a tall, slim man with a pencil-thin moustache, the latter a stout, rotund, swarthy Castillian with the trademark regional lisp of Castille to his words. He was the man the captain and XO depended upon, though. As far back as Da Gama and Columbus, it was the bosun who yelled, screamed, whipped, and kicked the enlisted men into line.
"The boys're responding well enough," the bosun replied. "We've never taken on an airborne cargo before."
"But to clear out the loading cranes?" The XO stepped to the broad picture windows of the forward bridge. Amidships, a gang of sailors were manhandling a topside cargo container out of the way. It was part of the Cadiz rice shipment, and the new cargo would have to have priority. "We'll need those at dockside in Jakarta."
"Trust me, sir, we won't have anyone jump ship in Indonesia. There ain't nearly enough women to keep their interest." The bosun let out a vulgar chuckle, well-acquainted with the hospitality of a Muslim country. He'd kept a flask handy for liberty visits there during his days with the Navy. "Ever see one of these beasts in action, sir?"
The XO shook his head. "I've only seen them from time to time, but I thought they were all out of service since Vietnam."
"Doesn't mean a private company or citizen can't use 'em, sir."
"True enough, mister."
"Rear lookout here!" a young voice reported over walkie-talkie, crackling through the bridge speakers. "I have a helicopter approaching us from the east-southeast!"
"Signal XCQ," the XO replied over his radio.
"Signaling XCQ," the enlisted man replied, readying his Morse signal lamp.
"All hands, stand ready to receive helicopter cargo!" the bosun shouted over his walkie-talkie, tuned in to the deckhands. "Sir, I'm going deckside to supervise the loading if you need me."
"Go right ahead," the XO said with a nod. He didn't particularly dislike the bosun, but Basques never particularly had love for their Castillian neighbors either. After all, many a royal Spanish court had viciously suppressed the Basque statehood movement. The XO wasn't an ETA member, but his blood was Basque before it was ever Spanish...
The CH-54 Skycrane helicopter was the most ungainly, un-airworthy-looking helicopter the bosun had ever seen. It had a long, thin cargo section that held up a standard-sized sea cargo box, and its fixed landing gear straddled the sides of the box as if to hold it in place from the sides. Its cockpit was little more than a bulge attached to the rotor, as if slapped on in afterthought. It made plenty of noise and downdraft, though, and it took twenty enlisted crewmembers suffering under the bosun's bullhorn to direct the chopper crew in place.
The red-painted chopper bore commercial markings, with "Bayshore Air Cargo" emblazoned on the cockpit in small letters. The bosun tried to match eyes with the pilot, but he was busy following the hand motions of the cargomaster. Slowly, the chopper edged into position, maintaining a hover in the roiled air over the cargo deck.
"In position!" a call came over the walkie-talkie.
"Tell that thing to release the cargo and get out of here!" the bosun barked to the cargomaster. The cargomaster nodded, crossed his arms in an X over his head, and nodded.
There was a series of four KACHUNK noises as the secure cargo clamps were disengaged from the Skycrane. The helicopter increased lift, hovering away from the box, before moving back eastward towards San Diego.
The bosun couldn't resist clambering up the cargo ladders to take a look. As his gang of sailors cleated down the cargo, he examined the paperwork that had been sent via telex just an hour before.
"'Chinaware and personal effects under diplomatic control; to be transferred only to Mr. Rafiq Akbar in Karachi, dock 14-A1, no later than September 16th,'" he read off the manifest. "Who ships a cargo container full of fucking plates to Pakistan?"
The bosun screamed at his men, hurrying them onward.
The only problem was that the closest thing to chinaware in the container was a single bottle of wine. It was the last that had come out of the reserve stocks of a Cabernet that had been slowly maturing, the depth of its oak-barrel tannin growing headier since the late 1970s.
Richard Sonoma didn't give out his first-year Cabernet lightly.
The seas were calm enough that the cargo didn't shift, which was fortunate for the Alhambra Real and its crew. The ship was not licensed to ferry arms, and the 57mm Boxer rounds would certainly raise the eyes of any nation's coastal patrol who wanted to inspect her.
Somewhere in northeast AfghanistanThat same time
"At least they're nice about it," Malenko quipped as he dangled upside down, squinting from the sun that had only halfway finished setting.
Kalinin didn't share the humor, and despite Malenko's chuckles between the jostling of his injured leg and arm, the mood of the men was harshly subdued. Their wrists had been lashed together with splintery hemp rope, and each of their ankles were tied to a near-petrified stick. Those, in turn, had been hefted onto the backs of two mules, carrying the captured Soviet soldiers as if they were heavy cuts of meat.
Their captors had been going back and forth in rapid-fire Kalama, and Kuyvishev's wrist, badly sprained from the Hind crash, was getting the brunt of as many bounces from the mules as Kadashvili's leg was getting the brunt of dangling from the ankle.
"It's been twelve hours since sunrise," Kalinin noted as they passed a withered, wind-blasted rock formation, reading off of its shadow. "If we've been traveling eastwards, then-"
"Utvalat hast!" one of their captors, a scraggly-bearded man with almost Asian eyes and tufts of dark blonde hair barked at them. "Not to talking!" he followed up in halting Russian.
Then we're being taken into Helmaj territory, he read in Danilenko's worried eyes.
There was a bustle of noise as the horsemen pulled on the reins of their mounts and brought the impromptu convoy to a halt. Three Helmaj started cutting through the ropes holding their ankles to the logs with long, angry-looking military knives, and the soldiers fell to the ground in a huff.
"Up!" one yelled in accented Russian, pulling his hands in an upward motion. "Up now!"
The other Helmaj trained their rifles on the Soviets as they came to their feet. Even though he didn't show it, Kalinin could see the winces in Kadashivili's eyes as he walked on his sprained ankle. Danilenko shot a glance to Kalinin, and the lieutenant nodded as the rifles were prodded into their backs, forcing them forward.
"Just go along with them," Kalinin mumbled to Kadashvili. The sergeant nodded, then proceeded to fake a stumble, passing the information on by another mumble to the two privates.
It wasn't long before the party came to a ridgeline of cliffs, with a jagged old path leading down into a wide valley. Although there was little natural light left, a series of lights from torches and flashlights sparkled in the darkness.
"Kajavin Helmaji," a guard announced with a chuckle, prodding his AK into Kalinin's back.
Kalinin didn't answer; rather, he pressed onward as the men surrendered their horses to a teenage boy. He led them over to a makeshift corral, clustered around an oasis near the ridgeline path.
"Iqbal!" a shout echoed up from midway down the path. "Vitraji talak?"
"Ha!" one of their captors shouted back. "Vitraji tal!"
"Come with me," a heavily accented voice called out in Russian. "You are prisoners."
"Kalinin, Sergei Andreivich," Kalinin replied. "024-312-312, Second Lieutenant."
"Kadashvili, Leonid Ivanovich," Sergeant Kadashvili replied in kind. "I don't think they're worried about the Geneva Convention, comrade lieutenant," he interjected.
"We really do not," their captor said, emerging from behind a bend in the path. A tall, middle-aged man wearing a tunic-like garment over bloodied Soviet camouflage appeared before them, carrying a torch. "You need not worry, though."
Kalinin met the man's eyes, reflecting a grayish hazel color in the flickering torchlight. He stared right back at the Russian; Kalinin's handsome Slavic face yielded nothing.
"I am Majid," he said after a moment, turning his back. "I am the leader of these men for now. Follow me, obey my orders, and you will not be mistreated."
"Comrade Lieutenant..." Danilenko interjected, his voice tinged with worry.
"I don't like it either, comrade Danilenko," Kalinin cut him off. "We have no choice. We go."
The path led down a series of rocky switchbacks, at some points no wider than would be passable for a mountain goat. It took a half-hour's travel before they reached the valley floor, spreading out for several kilometers and liberally blanketed with tents, campfires, and racks of weapons, ammunition, and sundry cargo and fuel containers.
"This is the outlying region of our ancestral homeland," Majid spoke up, stopping outside of a tent covered in scrap metal, banded together with harsh lashes of pure cowhide leather. "The homeland of the Helmaj. Wait in here."Majid pointed his torch at the tent. "Iqbal and Gregor will guard you."
The man with the blond hair, obviously Gregor from his European appearance, and Iqbal, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere from the raiding party that had bright them back, stepped forward and hustled the Soviets into the tent, throwing the hard canvas cover closed and throwing the interior into darkness.
"Lieutenant, we have to get out of here now," Kadashvili hissed beneath a whisper. "If they're bluffing at being the Helmaj, they're skilled enough to be a front for the mudjehedeen. If they're the Helmaj after all..." Kadashvili left his unfinished sentence in the air, hanging like the smoke from too many cigars at a poker game.
"With what, comrade Sergeant?" Kalinin replied. "Your sprained leg? Kadashivili's ankle? Our broken equipment and lack of support?"
The tent flap came open and one of the guards, Iqbal, judging by the olive skin that was visible in the flash of outside light, dropped an already-lit gas lantern into the tent, followed by a basket of stale flatbread and thinly sliced meat.
"I don't suppose they ever fed us doner kebab at the canteen?" Kalinin remarked, sniffing at the food. "Give me fifteen minutes to make sure it isn't poisoned."
The privates availed themselves of water from their canteens, still attached to their equipment harnesses, as Kalinin waited for any obvious natural poisons mixed into the food. Seeing none, all the soldiers dove into the ground sliced lamb with gusto.
MITHPAC HeadquartersTwo hours later (5:45 AM local time)
"They still haven't reported in?"
General Sachar, already bleary-eyed from being on constant standby, trod in from the officers' mess, trailed by the strong scent of MITHRIL coffee. He felt like his bloodstream had turned brown from drinking so much of it over the last thirty-six hours, but the run-up and execution of SIGNET RING and deploying agents to the Sinai had required his near-constant attention.
A fresh-faced communications officer looked up at the general and shook his head. "Their last reporting time was at 1845 local, 0145 our time, sir. I was on after just a few hours' watch,and nothing came through. Repeated attempts to reach them through Galadriel and even through a sideband linkup over one of MITHLANT's relay birds, Gimli, via Arwen didn't make a connection to their SATCOM."
Sachar took a long pull of his coffee. "Keep trying," he muttered, patting the lieutenant on the shoulder. "No, wait – give me a line to MITHCENT. I need to speak to General Shabra ASAP."
The lieutenant punched several buttons on his keypad, and a yellow light blinked under a telephone handset on his console. "Connection established, sir," the lieutenant affirmed as he handed over the handset.
"This is Lieutenant-General Raikov," a Hebrew-accented voice responded.
"Ari, this is Andy Sachar down at MITHPAC. Is Hebron out of the office?"
"He's on an inspection tour of the Amman base, sir. I'm the adjutant on deck for now."
Sachar sighed. "Okay, Ari, listen up and listen good. Have you been briefed on SIGNET CARVER?"
"You mean the executive backup on SIGNET RING? I've seen the documents, sir."
"SIGNET ICON has failed to report in. Stand SIGNET CARVER to yellow alert. I'll leave the deployments out of Goa, Muscat, and Dubai to you, but I need to speak to General Shabra personally for the rest of the deployment."
There was a brief, heavy silence on the line. "Are you serious, sir? I mean... SIGNET CARVER would mean—"
"I'm aware of what it means, Lieutenant-General Raikov," Sachar almost growled. He had to start pulling some rank. "As operational commander of SIGNET RING, I am ordering the commencement of SIGNET CARVER as per the authority given to me by Command. Acknowledge the order."
"Understood," Raikov replied, clearly nervous despite the attentive tone to his voice. "I will order Goa, Muscat, and Dubai to begin air operations over the Sinai. Jeddah will assume alert status for airborne deployments under MITHCENT responsibility and Colombo will stand to for air superiority and close air support."
"Are your PRT and SRT otherwise engaged at this time?" Sachar had to cover his ear as a shrill alarm started to sound through the MITHPAC command center, accompanied by the flashes of a rotating yellow light. Raikov had already triggered the yellow alert notification system, firing off a computerized alert signal to all MITHRIL commands worldwide.
"Raido teamis two blocks away from the improvised bunker of a PLO commander andKenaz teamis in position for SIGNET CARVER," Raikov reported. Sachar could hear the status papers shuffled over the line, the thin crackle of dot-matrix printer paper all too familiar. "We can recall Raido, but that would blow a six-month infiltration."
"Keep them in position for now," Sachar said, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. "Someone kill that yellow alert!" he bellowed over the hooting alarm.
"It's not a yellow alert, sir!" a satellite communications operator called out from the far end of the command center. "Galadriel and Arwen have fallen out of orbit! They're moving toward the lower atmosphere!"
"What?" Sachar shouted. "Execute the operation, Ari, I'll be in contact," he barked into the phone before hanging it up and draining his coffee. He ignored his burned tongue as he half-jogged to the satellite console. "Give me a status report!"
"Orbital control in Command reported that as of 2300 hours our time, Arwen and Galadriel ceased to respond to communications relays, and they were brought down to a lower altitude. When they reached 17,000 miles, their vernier thrusters failed to fire, and the satellites are continuing downwards."
"So you're telling me," Sachar intoned every word carefully, "that both of our multimillion-dollar communications satellites stopped responding and are deorbiting?"
"That's affirmative, sir," the operator said carefully.
"Damn." Sachar gritted his teeth, wanting nothing more than a punching back at this point. "Get Shabra himself on the line!" he yelled over to the other operator. "Have Merida standing by to deploy the Pattons!"
The operator froze in mid-keystroke. "Sir?"
"MITHCENT has theirs. We have ours. Get the Pattons loaded and in the air, pronto!"
MITHCENT Combat Operations BaseMerida Island, Federated Republic of Micronesia
3:50 AM local time
Only minutes before, the shrill klaxon alarms had erupted all across the tiny island, bringing night watches to action and rousing literally every human body to action. Five C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft, nearly-unflyable monsters even under the best conditions, lumbered out of their hardened hangars built inside the extinct volcano that dominated the island. Their engines remained at a high idle, the pilots not wanting to take the time to shut them down and start them up.
Every moment counted as the volcano shelter disgorged ton upon ton of military hardware. Twelve soldiers – two groups of six each – boarded separate aircraft as bulky, shadowy metal shapes were disgorged from the volcano.
Covered in green-patterned camouflage netting, the shapes were backed in by modified tractor-trailer trucks. The other aircraft took on two Apache attack helicopters each, and just as the huge rear clamshell doors started to motor shut, the lead Galaxy practically leapt forward as the pilot applied power to move onto the taxiway.
The sound of all five Galaxies' engines screamed as they taxied off, replaced by screeching, low rumbles as they rotated off the tarmac. Coated in radar-absorbing materials, the huge aircraft disappeared to the west just as the first hints of dawn crept across the eastern horizon.
To be continued...