Chapter Thirty-Four: The King's Airfield

I knew I was back in my dream turret in the White Keep when I woke up, because the first thing I saw was the green stones that made up the ceiling. Green stones meant the White Keep. I pushed back the covers, lacing my hands behind my head and taking a moment to relax for a little bit. My dreams were no longer the fun, adventurous distractions that they used to be.

In many ways, my time as my dream self was even more stressful than my waking hours. When I wasn't trying to get all my consorts to march on my Denizen, I was busy fighting in the middle of a furious war between the Dersite and Prospitian armies. I mean, I only have myself to blame for this—no one held a gun to my head and forced me to leave Prospit… I was the one who wanted to leave, so I could make a difference, or do something to help besides flying around stoned and watching pretty Skaian clouds, or some shit…

I almost felt like going back to sleep. My dream turret felt nice and warm, and my golden Prospit pajamas were some of the most comfortable clothes I've ever worn in my life. But I didn't go back to sleep… Nothing was waiting for me back on the Land of Rain and Rivers but a drafty cave surrounded by hungry underlings.

Summoning the willpower necessary to get up, I floated up out of my bed. I nearly went straight out the window, as I usually did, but before I got too far I noticed a yellow post-it note stuck onto the screen of my dream computer. I dropped back to the floor and stepped over to my desk, plucking the note from my computer.

Bro. Go to the White King when you get this. Shit's going down.
-Theo

Well, alrighty then. Instead of flying out my window, I walked down the stairs in the corner of my turret, descending down into the corridor that led to the transportalizer room. It was a small chamber, set in the dead center of the White Keep. My corridor was on the western side of the chamber, the Force Aspect symbol emblazoned on a large stone over the entrance. The Space, Time, and Life Aspect symbols identified the other three corridors.

In the middle of the chamber was a transportalizer pad, which I stepped onto, ignoring the usual nausea and dizziness that accompanied that form of teleportation. I blinked and found myself standing in a different room. It was also a small chamber, large enough only for this transportalizer pad. The door actually opened up into the White King's throne room/library, hidden behind a book of shelves.

I strode out into the book-filled throne room. To my surprise, Theo was still here with the White King—both of them were poring over some sort of map that had been spread out over the White King's mahogany desk. Both of them also seemed surprised to see me, as well.

"Greetings, Knight!" the White King beckoned for me to come over and join.

"Hey, dude," Theo waved, turning back to the King's desk. "You're up a lot earlier than usual! I was expecting to be long gone by the time you got my note."

So, there was the source of the surprise. "Yeah, I ended up going to sleep early back on my planet," I murmured, glancing down at the map on the desk. "I'm currently trapped in a cave with a fuckload of underlings outside trying to get a bite of me. Nothing to do but catch some 'z's 'till shit quiets down."

"Sounds like you're having quite an adventure, then!" Theo chuckled. "What're your consorts making you do this time?"

"Oh, nothing much," I shrugged. "I just have to travel through an underling-infested region of hills to get to the leaders of one of my consort tribes, so I can tell them that I'm the Knight and they need to get their shit together. Then we can march on my denizen."

"Well, you've definitely made some progress, then," Theo grunted. "I think Cass is the only other one who's close to fighting her denizen-" Theo was interrupted by the White King clearing his throat. "Right, sorry," Theo cleared his own throat, getting back on task. He directed my attention to the map. "This is a map of grid sector—you know what? The grid sector ain't all that important. What matters is that this-" Theo tapped a landmark on the map, represented as a light blue circle. "-is the King's Airfield. And the Dersites are gunning for it."

"The Browncoats are leading the defense, here…" the White King pointed to a dotted line that had been drawn across a line of hills to the south of the airfield. "You may remember the Browncoats—they were the soldiers who you helped rescue on the last sortie you went out on with the Thane."

I remembered all the soldiers who'd been huddled in the foxholes and trenches when Theo and I had flown out on Prospitian gunships. If memory served, they'd actually been wearing brown uniforms, so the White King wasn't just making an offhand Firefly reference. "Yeah, I remember them…pretty tough bastards."

"Tough bastards indeed!" the White King chuckled jovially. "There are three divisions defending the airfield, including the Browncoats. The Dersites are attacking from the south and southwest. Another Dersite force is attempting to hit the airfield from the east, but their passage has been halted within the Cloudy Mountains."

"Okay, let me get something straight…why, if the airfield is so important to the war effort, are there only three divisions defending it?" I got right to the crux of the matter.

The White King visibly winced at my question. "The Dersites' behemoths," his answer was. "We have taken more losses than I would care to admit, due to the Dersites' behemoths…because of their war machines, the Black King is able to commit less of his ground forces to any one assault, which in turn allows him to attack us on many fronts at once."

"We're spread too damn thin, man," Theo explained. "Only thing keepin' everything together is the Royal Air Force; and if we lose the airfield, we lose the Air Force."

"What about the Navy?" I asked. When I was met with blank stares, I pressed onward. "Isn't there supposed to be a Prospitian Navy?"

"We do have a Navy, yes," the White King nodded. "They are beyond contacting, however—the Skaian clouds wreak havoc on radio signals. And even if I could contact the Admiral, it would do us no good. He cannot disengage from fighting the Dersite Navy, lest dominance of the skies falls to the Black King. It's a completely different kind of battle, altogether."

Theo and I glanced at each other and said, "It's a completely different kind of battle," in unison. Oh man, I was so happy he was thinking the same thing.

"I beg your pardon?" the White King looked up at us, blinking several times in confusion.

"It's from Airplane!-" Theo started to say, but I cut him off.

"Don't worry about it. You were saying?"

"Yes, as I was saying, the defense of the airfield is being headed up by the Browncoats, but I want both of you to help them in any way you can," the White King concluded for us. "I do not believe I have to tell you how vital the airfield is to the war effort. Should it fall…"

"We got the message, don't you worry 'bout that," Theo reassured the King. "You coming with us?"

"No," the White King shook his head, pausing briefly to light up another cigarette. "The Black King is threatening this keep from the northeast—I must see to the defenses here, and I must also be around to deal with all of the other fronts…do what you can for the Browncoats. Protect the airfield. A pilot will be waiting for you outside. Best of luck."

Theo and I left without any further discussion, exiting the throne room and walking down the grand hall towards the White Keep's entrance doors. I spared a glance over my shoulder as we headed back outside. "King doesn't seem to be in very good spirits, anymore," I remarked. I'd noticed how much more tired the White King had seemed… When I first met him, he acted almost like an eccentric librarian, but now…he just seemed tired.

"He's been dealing with attacks from the Black King almost nonstop for a month," Theo replied. "It's only gotten exponentially worse since the behemoths started showing up. The Prospitian Army is spread way too thin."

"They're gonna lose, Theo," I murmured.

"Huh?"

"The Prospitians," I clarified. "They're gonna lose this war. I spoke with the White Queen, and she spouted some bullshit about Prospit being destined to lose to Derse. I didn't really believe her, at first…but with all the shit that's been happening here… Prospit is losing, dude."

"Well, yeah." Theo nodded. "We all knew that from the beginning—oh, you know what? That's shit we're supposed to learn from our sprites; that's why you didn't know."

"Okay, that makes more sense…" I grumbled, not too happy at encountering yet another 'I didn't know this because instead of helping me, like it was supposed to, my Sprite went psycho and tried to kill me' situation. I wondered how fucking awesome I'd be at all this Sburb shit if I'd actually gotten a helpful Sprite. A normal Sprite, that is…

"Still, though…" I did not feel satisfied. "That means that everything you and I are trying to do here is pointless."

"Well, if the Prospitians were able to mess up the Black King all by themselves…there wouldn't be very much call for Heroes, then, would there?" Theo countered.

"I guess not…" I murmured. "But still. At least on my planet, I'm working towards something. I'm not destined to go through all the trouble of uniting my consorts, fighting through everything Hyperion can throw at me, only to have him just stab me in the chest, or some shit. Everything I'm doing with my consorts will amount to something; not just a predestined failure. Here, though…we're just helping these soldiers out so they can get slaughtered tomorrow."

As we stepped out of the White Keep and onto the broad, marble stairs leading down to the greens below, Theo was silent for a few moments. Then he turned to me and said, "Take some antidepressants, bro. You're makin' me sad."

"Oh, you think this is depressed?" I arched an eyebrow. "You haven't even seen me when I start thinking about home. Our real home, the one we all left behind. If I didn't have so much shit to deal with, I'd be drinking myself to oblivion every night."

Wow, okay…um… I really didn't mean to go all Johnny Raincloud on my best friend, there. But I spent so much time bottling those thoughts and emotions up that whenever they rose to the surface…they tended to be slightly explosive. A psychiatrist would probably tell me that repressing emotions was extremely unhealthy for the psyche…but you know what? Fuck it! All the psychiatrists were dead.

"Sorry, dude, I…" I started to apologize to Theo, but he threw an arm around my shoulder, nearly knocking me off-balance.

"No need for apologies, bro!" my best friend said to me. "I shouldn't have poked fun. Pressure's gettin' to everyone, one way or another… Hey, there's our pilot," Theo released me when we reached the bottom of the marble stairs.

A shorter Prospitian dressed in a tan aviator jacket, emblazoned with the symbol of the Prospitian Royal Air Force, approached us, exchanging salutes with the Royal Guards who were pulling sentry duty. "Knight, Thane." He nodded to both of us. "I am your ride to the Airfield. Are you ready to leave?"

"Born ready." Theo flashed another one of his grins.

The pilot led us to a small gunship and got us up in the air within five minutes. The trip to the Airfield took us, like last time, not much longer than twenty minutes with the gunship moving at its fastest possible speed. To save on time, Theo and I did not even wait for the pilot to land. We thanked the flight officer and jumped right out the side openings.

Theo landed with a mighty gust of concentrated wind cushioning his fall. I simply lighted upon the ground with my feet, floating gently down with my dream flight. I'd gotten a good look of the Airfield from the gunship—it was just that; a giant field filled with Prospitian aircraft. There were several buildings—barracks, the control towers, etc.—as well as a giant tarmac for the fighter jets to launch from.

We landed in the field right next to the tarmac, causing some mild surprise to a group of pilots who were returning from a sortie. They didn't exactly jump out of their carapaces, though—the soldiers never did. Wasting no time, Theo retrieved the captchalogue card containing Little Blue from his wallet sylladex, tossing it onto the ground and allowing my blue 2001 Ford Focus to spring suddenly into existence.

"You know the way?" I asked Theo, catching the keys as he tossed them to me.

"Yeah, I know the general direction." When I gave him a look, he shot one right back. "Well it ain't like we're going to any specific place; we're going to wherever the Prospitians are, and I know the direction the fighting is in. It's not like we have to navigate around a canyon, or anything."

I was already climbing into the car and starting the engine. Theo clambered into the passenger seat, and we were off. The King's Airfield was surrounded on two sides—the west and the north, as well the immediate southeast—by tall, rugged hills filled with gorges and ridges—not necessarily impassable, but highly difficult to cross. Well, maybe I should amend that; it would be perfectly possible for a solo or small group of people to pass through, but impossible for an entire army. And the Dersites would not be able to do much to this place with anything short of an entire army.

I guess what I'd asked Theo had been a pretty dumb question. The White King, after all, had already told us that the Dersites were attacking the Airfield from the south. The south and southwest. And judging from the smoke that was rising into the sky in those directions…the White King's intel did not appear to be flawed.

I eased up on the gas a tad bit. Little Blue could travel pretty damn fast, what with the engine overhaul he'd gotten from Gwen, and I didn't want to accidentally start crashing through the Prospitian lines like the Blues Brothers on their vehicular rampage through that mall. The ground went down on a gradual decline as we put more and more distance between us and the Airfield.

As we drove closer to the front lines, I wondered to myself why, when the Prospitian Royal Air Force was stationed right freakin' here, why the attacking Dersites weren't getting the living crap pounded out of them. The answer actually came to me less than a minute later, when I spotted a formation of six Prospitian fighter jets swooping down low, dropping their payloads on what could only be Dersite positions. But before they could even complete their pass, four of the six jets exploded suddenly in conflagrations of flame and metal fragments.

The Dersites had some pretty heavy anti-aircraft shit with them. That made a lot of sense, when I thought about it. When your enemy possesses a superior air force, and when you're gonna be attacking that air force's base…you'd better have some effective anti-aircraft guns in your arsenal, or else you'd get splattered before you could even blink.

The Prospitian lines, from what I could see, extended for several miles; most likely linking the hills west of the Airfield to the hills to the southeast of it. I could tell that the three divisions assigned to the defense of the Airfield had to be stretched pretty thin. Prospitian soldiers in brown trench coats lay in their foxholes and trenches, laying down fire on the advancing Dersites. Mortar teams called out angle and range calculations, machinegun teams moved their weapons from foxhole to foxhole, suppressing the Dersites wherever they attacked with the most force.

The ground had been utterly ruined by what I assumed was artillery fire from both sides. The airstrikes from the Prospitian Royal Air Force certainly can't have helped, either. Some of the Prospitian soldiers had actually used the craters torn into the ground by the artillery as shelter, expanding and deepening them. In many places, they even dug trenches to connect these craters, creating a loose network of defenses which, thus far, had been able to successfully hold back a large-scale assault.

The air hung thick and heavy, almost as if it were trying to smother the ground on which it sat. The acrid odor of smoke and hot metal clung to the wind, and I got a slightly metallic taste in my mouth every time I inhaled. The sky had turned into an ugly reddish-orange haze, the smoke adding to the already hellish atmosphere.

I didn't bother rolling up the windows—we wouldn't be inside very much longer, anyway; might as well get used to the air.

The part of the line Theo and I had stumbled across was currently under attack by Dersite commandoes. The remains of a behemoth—a bishop, by the looks of it—lay in a smoking ruin less than a mile from the trenches. Maybe that was what those ill-fated Prospitian fighter jets had destroyed in their final pass. The Dersite commandoes who'd been accompanying that behemoth, however, did not seem to have ceased their assault. They were still bearing down on the Prospitians, moving up from crater to crater, using the environment as cover, reinforced by tanks.

I muttered something naughty under my breath. "I don't suppose our turret has an anti-tank setting?" I asked my best friend, gesturing towards the energy cannon Theo had bolted onto Little Blue's roof.

"I mean, it ain't exactly an anti-tank setting," Theo started to explain. "Like, it can only expend a certain amount of energy per shot without exploding, and so its rapid-fire setting keeps its energy bolts smaller. If you were to let charge up for a few seconds, though, it could shoot a much larger bolt. You could only do this once ten or twenty seconds, though, so-"

"I don't give a shit how it works; just do it!" I cut him off, pressing the gas pedal down as far as it could go. The wheels screeched for a moment before they regained their purchase and sent us hurtling forward at speeds that should have been beyond this car's capability.

"You fuckin' serious, dude?" Theo exclaimed, gripping the handhold in the passenger-side door. "You're takin' us beyond the trenches?"

"Yeah, let's see if we can't take out a tank or three," I replied. "Give our boys in brown a helping hand, you know?"

"Yeah, and get blown up in the process, maybe?" Theo countered.

"C'mon, bro, don't tell me-" Whatever I was about to say was lost forever, because right then a tank shell struck the ground just to our right, nearly flipping us end over end. I fought with the steering wheel for control of Little Blue, breathing a sigh of relief when I finally got us stabilized, skidding to a full stop. "Okay, new plan: fuck the old plan," I muttered, killing the engine and hopping out of the car. When Theo exited the car, I let him captchalogue Little Blue, storing the car on a small, harmless-looking card for later use.

We'd skidded to a halt just a few hundred yards away from a large tent that was colored with white and gray camouflage. Vehicles—normal jeeps, mostly—were ferrying wounded Prospitian soldiers from the tent back in the direction of the Airfield. The tent was an aid station, then. Well, that was as good a place to start as any…

Theo and I sprinted towards the field hospital. Theo ducked inside, instructing me to hang back—he was much better with the carapacians than I was. I twiddled my thumbs for about of minute while Theo spoke with whoever was in charge of the aid station. When my friend emerged from the entrance flap, he looked a little sick to his stomach. He gestured for me to follow him.

"Chief surgeon told me one of the Browncoats' brigade commanders has a tent not far to the west," Theo said to me as we sprinted in a general westward direction. We were much closer to the fighting, now. I could hear orders being shouted by the Prospitian soldiers—sergeants directing their units' fire, platoon leaders requesting artillery assistance, wounded soldiers screaming and swearing…it was chaos.

At one point, an enemy mortar strike nearly shredded us when it landed barely fifteen yards in front of us, just inside the weapon's blast radius. I was knocked off my feet. Theo nearly lost his balance, too, but he was able to remain standing, even as we were both showered with dirt. There was a new crater in front of us.

Theo helped me back onto my feet. "Gotta keep movin', bro! Let's go!"

It took us five minutes to find the tent of that brigade commander the chief surgeon had pointed Theo in the direction of. Only, it wasn't a tent anymore. All that was left of the tent was the remains of one of the ops tables that had been inside—everything else had been reduced to a smoking crater.

In the crater, however, was a tall Prospitian shouting into a radio. A crude tarp had been rigged up to provide some rudimentary camouflage, but none of the HQ equipment had survived, save the sole radio that the tall Prospitian was shouting into. There were several smaller, lithe soldiers running back and forth from the crater, delivering news to the tall Prospitian and then relaying it elsewhere. With the lack of radios, they seemed to be utilizing runners.

The tall Prospitian was wearing a tattered brown coat like the rest of his soldiers, though he also wore an ashen gray beret, emblazoned with the symbol of Prospit. His hands were clawed and he had sharp teeth.

"Heroes?" The Prospitian officer glanced up from his radio set, surprise clear on his face. We were clearly the last people he was expecting to see.

"You the brigade commander?" Theo asked him.

"Yes," the tall Prospitian replied. "Give me a second; I must report your arrival to the marshal…" The brigade commander raised his radio and spoke into it rapidly. I was only able to catch snatches of what he was saying, and it was not long before a reply was given to him from the other side of the radio. He turned his attention back to us. "You, Thane," he turned to Theo first, "you have experience dealing with behemoths?"

Memories of our first dealings with the Browncoats came to mind. Theo commandeering an armored platoon, using the tanks to effectively destroy an entire group of knight behemoths, Halo-style. I could probably do the same, but Theo had been the one to come up with the idea and execute it, and word of his victory had obviously gotten around.

When Theo affirmed this claim, the brigade commander gave a quick nod. He barked out a name, and one of his runners came scurrying over. "Take the Thane to the marshal's tent—he will take command of the armored group holding the center of our lines."

Theo's jaw nearly fell to the ground. "Tanks, what? Commanding tanks? I-"

"There is no time to argue, Thane; we need you at the marshal's position straightaway." The brigade commander gestured for the runner to lead Theo away. I hollered good luck at him as he left. The tall Prospitian then turned his attention to me. "As for you, Knight, I've been ordered to send you east. The Rangers are attempting to mount a recon mission beyond the hills north of the Airfield, and they could use all the help they can get. You will be joining them."

I fought the urge to retort, 'Ask nicely.' Much as I was tempted to, this guy had obviously been dealing with a mountain of shit on a Himalayan scale, so I decided to keep my mouth shut.

One of the runners led me away from the makeshift command post, and we both sprinted parallel to the line of foxholes and trenches. Thankfully, no more mortar rounds landed anywhere near me—my ears were still ringing from that. The runner quickly took me further behind the lines and found us a jeep, and we used that to drive back north, eventually returning to the Airfield within ten minutes. I could've flown back in half that time, but I wouldn't know where to go when I got there, so I stayed with my chaperone.

Pilots were scrambling all over the place, trying to get their aircraft ready to fly. Many of them were still in the process of being refueled. "The White King has ordered the Air Force to begin evacuation measures for the Airfield," the runner informed me, noticing my questioning glances. "If the Dersites start breaking through, we want to be ready to save our aircraft."

Smart thinking, I guess. Always have a backup plan.

The runner sped me across the Airfield and dropped me off in front of one of the barracks buildings, wishing me luck before speeding back off in the direction of his brigade commander's command crater. I was left with a group of eight Prospitian soldiers dressed in brown-and-green camouflage fatigues and helmets. Their faces were also painted in an identical pattern of colors. They wore gloves and wielded energy rifles that reminded me of more modern-looking weapons, rather than the standard Prospitian energy rifle that resembled an M1-Garand. One of them had a long-range rifle, and the rest had weapons that looked like M16s.

These guys were the real deal. Not that the Prospitian soldiers of the infantry divisions were any less of a real deal, but these guys… Damn, they just radiated badassitude.

"You're the Rangers, then?" I spoke up before any of the soldiers could.

The tallest of the group—the soldier with the sniper rifle—stepped forward. A half-mask hung loose around his neck and he wore black sunglasses that didn't reflect the light. "Yes, we're part of the First King's Recon. You're the Knight, I'm assuming?"

I fought the sudden urge to blink in surprise; the soldier was a female. Not that I was surprised that women were fighting—I'd already seen my fair share of females serving in the Prospitian Army—but this soldier simply didn't look even remotely like a girl. Can't really blame myself for that, though; all that was visible of her was her face…and carapacians aren't quite as easy to tell apart gender-wise as humans.

"Yeah! Yeah, uh…yeah, I'm the Knight," I shook the female Ranger's hand, quickly regaining my composure. "And you are…?"

The female Ranger gave a slight shrug. "They call me the Pale Marksman," she replied. "Not the most original name, I suppose, but no less accurate for it. These are my men, and you will be accompanying us north of the hills. There, now we are all caught up with each other. Before we go anywhere, you are going to put these on." The Marksman tossed me a camo-pattern jacket and pants.

Again, I didn't complain as I slipped the combat clothing over my bloodstained Prospit pajamas. My golden-yellow pajamas would not exactly blend in with the environment, and if the Rangers ever came close to an enemy patrol…well, wearing bright clothing wasn't exactly the best way to evade detection. I pulled on the camouflaged jacket and pants, and within a minute the nine of us had set off at a moderately fast run, leaving the Airfield far behind us.

We forged ahead into the hills. The Rangers moved fast, and I knew I probably wouldn't have been able to keep up with them if not for my dream flight. After about half an hour of slogging through the foothills, the terrain grew much more inhospitable. It became an almost labyrinthine system of ridges and gorges. Sometimes the Rangers would leap across these gorges at narrow points. At other times, they would rappel down or climb up ridges when going around them was no longer an option.

To accomplish this, two of the Rangers were always carrying long lengths of rope on their backs. Just by studying them; their mannerisms, the way they moved and coordinated with each other… They were clearly the Prospitian Army's equivalent of Special Forces. As for me, I would simply fly up to the tops of the ridges, or float gently down to the bottom. Jumping over gorges wasn't an issue, either. Perks of being a dream self.

"So what's the deal, here?" I asked the female Ranger after we scaled what had to be the tenth or twelfth ridge. "What's going on north of these hills?"

The Pale Marksman was clearly irritated by my breach of silence, but she did not reprimand me for it. Maybe she was expecting me to ask questions. Honestly, I was surprised I'd managed to keep silent until now. "A large force of Dersites has been spotted north of our position by aerial recon," the female Ranger replied. "They are holding position and not joining in the attack."

"Why would they do that?" I asked. "If the Dersites already attacking the Browncoats and company were reinforced, the Airfield would get rolled up in nothing flat."

"Exactly." The Ranger nodded. "Something is wrong. And we are going to find out what. Now, please remain silent."

And with that, the Pale Marksman picked up her pace, moving ahead of me and effectively killing that fledgling of a conversation.

We made our way around a sheer cliff face in front of us and soon found ourselves walking double-file down a narrow, winding gorge. I ended up walking side by side with the shortest Ranger in the group, way at the back of the procession. I'm not sure how I was able to tell, but he seemed to be the most talkative member of the group, and I figured I'd get a better chance of finding out more information from him.

"So, I know you guys aren't s'posed to be talking, and all, but…you know anything about what's going on, here?" I whispered to the guy.

The Ranger gave a slight shrug. "All I know is that we're supposed to gather as much intel as possible on the Dersite force north of these hills," he answered, not really giving me anymore answers than what I already had. Then, he added, murmuring even more quietly, "Of course, it is probably something serious. The White King wouldn't have sent the Pale Marksman to lead us if he thought this was just another routine recon patrol."

"The Pale Marksman's a pretty big deal, then?" It wasn't hard to pick up on that vibe. "Shouldn't she technically be called the Pale Markswoman?"

"I wouldn't bring that up around her," the Ranger remarked. "She used to be head of the postal service back home, if you could believe that, and she still came back."

We didn't make it to the other end of the gorge. At a certain point, the Pale Marksman stopped the group and motioned for her two rope-bearers to secure a line to the top of the cliffs. The two Rangers jogged up into position, knelt down, and loaded the pitons into their rifles. They then took aim and shot the pitons up into the top of the cliff face—they'd been doing this for a long time, so their accuracy was spot-on.

With the ropes secured, the eight Rangers scaled the cliffs two-by-two. I floated up to the top of the cliff and waited for them to catch up. Once they reached the top, the two rope-bearers removed the pitons from the cliff face and re-coiled the ropes, stowing them on their backs. The Rangers were on the move again within ten seconds. These guys didn't mess around!

Before I knew it, we were crawling up a bushy hillside to the edge of a ridge. When we reached the edge of the ridge, instead of rappelling down to the ground, the Rangers all held position, taking out binoculars and gazing out at the land beyond.

Beyond the ridge, the terrain grew much more gentle and less sheer. No more ridges and gorges—just a region of grassy, gently sloping hills. And encamped on those hills, in the near distance, was a sizable force of Dersite commandoes. Many of them were not on duty—milling about the camps, resting, huddled around fires, eating their meals, exercising; doing whatever it was that off-duty soldiers did with their spare time. More of them were standing watch at the camp's perimeter.

But it was not the camp, nor its inhabitants that caught the Rangers' attention. I borrowed a pair of binoculars from one of the Rangers, taking a look for myself. In the very center of the camp, in the midst of all the tents and temporary buildings, barracks, and armories…there stood some sort of tall, obsidian-colored tower. It was covered with large objects that resembled satellite dishes… It looked like some sort of giant radio tower.

"What is that thing?" I asked.

"It's a jammer," replied the Pale Marksman. "The Dersites obviously do not want us to see something on our radar."

"The enemy can't be up to any good with it," my Ranger friend declared. "We should light it up."

"We cannot mount a direct assault." The Marksman nipped that notion in the bud, shooting the other Ranger a quick glare. Still, despite disagreeing with what the Ranger wanted to do, the Pale Marksman clearly agreed with the fact that the tower should be destroyed. "Too many hostiles, and the terrain is too exposed. So either we wait until nighttime, or…"

"…or we contact the Navy?" another of the Rangers suggested, catching on to his leader's line of thinking.

The Pale Marksman nodded. "We contact the Navy," she echoed, turning to the Ranger who bore the radio set. "See to it."

"Yessir." The radio-bearing Ranger unloaded his equipment and started to fiddle with it.

"I thought radio signals couldn't pass through the clouds." I frowned, recalling what I'd been told earlier when I'd asked about the Prospitian Navy.

"Our radios are different," the Pale Marksman said. "Calculations have been made to compensate for the scrambling effect of the Skaian clouds. These modifications have been kept within the ranks of the Ranger Corps, however—we would not want the Dersites getting ahold of them."

"Sir, I've made contact with the White Admiral." The radioman gestured for the female Ranger to take his place at the communication device. The tall Ranger stepped over to the radio and started speaking quietly with whoever was on the other end. The conversation was brief and lasted less than two minutes, ending with the Marksman tossing the mic back to the radioman with a frustrated huff.

"The Navy has only a single frigate in a position to assist us," the Pale Marksman informed us. "The Admiral will not be able to assemble a battlegroup to help the Browncoats until tomorrow, and our window of opportunity with the frigate will close in six minutes, and then we'll have to devise a way to destroy that tower on our own." The female Ranger paused to take a breath, then turned her attention back towards the Dersite camp in the distance. "I am open to suggestions."

I raised my hand. "Okay, uh…why can't the Navy just pound the tower from orbit right now? We should just be breaking out lawn chairs to enjoy the fireworks!"

"The Skaian clouds," the Ranger operating the radio answered for me while the Pale Marksman rolled her eyes. "We are only barely able to get our radio signals through the clouds. The Navy's targeting systems for their heavy weapons are unable to acquire signal locks on targets below the Skaian clouds. So when we call in Naval assistance, we must acquire signal locks for their weapon systems using laser designators."

"Ah." I actually understood what he was talking about, much to my surprise. "Well, okay, then…let's break out the lasers and start the show!"

"We are out of range." The Pale Marksman was really trying not to lose her patience. Hey, you can't blame me for not knowing this shit—it's not like I've ever served in the armed fucking forces, or anything! The Marksman went on. "The laser designators must be within a thousand yards of a target for the Navy to acquire a signal lock, due to the interference from the clouds. It is not a perfect system, but this is why we do not rely on the Navy very often."

"No way we'll make it down there in six minutes," I murmured, returning my binoculars to the Ranger who'd lent them to me.

"Really, thank you for stating the obvious," the female Ranger grunted.

I didn't even really hear what the Pale Marksman was saying, because an idea was coming to me. A crazy, certifiably insane idea. I almost wanted to slap myself for even thinking of it, but… Well, I guess I just believed that my idea had a better chance of success than whatever the Rangers would attempt to do after the window of opportunity with the Navy closed. Because, by themselves, they had no chance of getting close enough to the tower in time…but I was able to do some things that the Prospitians could not.

"Where's the laser?" I asked next.

The radioman reached into his satchel and produced a small, black object that almost reminded me of a scope that you could attach to a rifle. He attached it to his energy rifle. "You just flip the switch on the bottom," the Ranger demonstrated activating the laser for me without actually doing it, "and aim at the target. As much of an inconvenience the thousand-yard limit is, at least the target designators are quite simple to operate-"

"Yeah, great, thanks; I'll take that…" Even as the Ranger was finishing his little demonstration, I stepped forward and snatched the energy rifle out of his hands. I then turned and sprinted over the edge of the cliff face, soaring up into the air. I could faintly hear the Pale Marksman screaming for me to get my ass back to cover, but that quickly faded away.

I had surprise as my main weapon. The Dersites in the camp below weren't expecting any kind of attack. The most they would expect to get slammed with was probably a strafing run from the Prospitian Royal Air Force; they definitely would never expect any kind of ground assault.

And while maybe they would subsequently have their attention on the sky… I wasn't exactly a fighter jet. Their radars, if they had any, would not detect me. And my golden Prospit pajamas were hidden under the camouflaged clothing the Pale Marksman had given to me, so I was even less visible to the naked eye than I would normally be.

I flew as fast as I could, hugging the energy rifle close. As I neared the giant camp, though, an alarm actually rang out, and Dersite commandoes started to come out of the woodwork. Some of them were shouting orders and pointing to the sky, in a general towards me direction. It wasn't long before energy bolts started searing through the air around me.

Not okay.

I raised my stolen energy rifle and pressed the switch on the bottom of the targeting laser. A bright line of green light snapped into existence, and I peered through the scope of the designator, taking aim at the jamming tower. I kept myself moving so that the commandos on the ground couldn't effectively draw a bead on me, but I did not move the targeting laser from the tower.

After I spent about thirty seconds hanging in midair, lazing this jamming tower, I eventually heard a faint noise that almost sounded like a massive bass drum being pounded halfway across the world. If I'd known what was coming next, I would've covered my ears…

The clouds parted for a moment and a blinding missile of light roared through, slamming down into the jamming tower. The explosion was deafening, and I could actually see the shockwave of the impact. The jamming tower was completely obliterated, along with a good portion of the center of the Dersite camp.

My job now done, I turned around and got the hell out of there. A couple minutes later, I was back on the Rangers' ridge. I landed on both feet and walked over to the radioman, giving him back his rifle, making sure I thanked him. I had to take a moment to breathe deeply. My heartrate was bursting through the ceiling, at this point.

The Pale Marksman planted herself right in front of me, fixing me with a withering glare. "You ever go outside my orders like that again, and I will personally break all of your limbs. That being said…well done," she added with a ghost of a grin.

"Sir!" The radioman gestured for the Marksman to come over to the radio. "Something is not right, here… I have the marshal of the Browncoats on the line, and he says our radar systems have just lit up across the board with hostile contacts-"

The Pale Marksman hurried over to the radio and quickly jumped into a rapid-fire conversation with whoever was on the other end…but I didn't need to listen in on them to figure out what was going on. I could hear another sound…a faint, almost high-pitched, noise…

Engines. I was hearing engines.

I stood with the Rangers and watched, almost in a daze, as a massive force of Dersite bombers emerged from the clouds. There were dozens of them…they were not as advanced as the Prospitian aircraft, obviously, but they definitely made up in numbers what they lacked in technology. Dozens, hundreds of bomber planes… They cast shadows across the ground as they flew straight over our heads.

They were making a run straight for the Airfield. The jamming tower had prevented the Prospitians from detecting their approach—sure, we'd destroyed the tower…but we'd been too late. There was nothing to be done, now. All that could be done was to warn the Browncoats and the other infantry divisions to get to cover, and hope they could make it through what was to come. As for the Airfield...

We all watched silently, in some collective sense of horror as the giant force of bombers passed us by. Before long, we could hear quiet explosions, muffled by all the hills separating us from the Airfield. And not long after that, we could see the first pillars of smoke rising up into the air.

We all made our way back through the hills almost in a trance, silently. No one spoke or made any other kind of noise. We got back to the Airfield within the hour.

There was nothing left.