As the flash subsided, the radio crackled on both channels. Static.
Her HUD flickered, and as she opened her eyes, she saw the sun rise again.
"Does any—" The static briefly subsided. "—read? AWACS Bluejay, transmitting in the bli—"
"Bluejay," she replied. "I… I read you. Choppy."
She looked to the skies as geothermal thunder broke in the distance, the world below perched under the line where blue heavens met orange hell. The land south-east of them had been transformed— fire and brimstone erupting from the terrain, an incursion of the damned into the land of the living.
The radio static had begun to die down— still present, but less pervasive. "—Midnight, respond," the Federation channel's silence broke first.
Her AWACS, though, had more pressing matters. "Polaris, check in."
"AWACS Bluejay, Polaris Five, I'm still in the fight."
"Bluejay, Polaris Six." She gulped. "What the fuck is going on? What happened to Four?"
"No clue," Bluejay replied. "Think she's dead. Cygnus, check in!"
"Cygnus Three," One of the other CIF pilots called in. "I saw Cygnus One go down before—" Static buzzed. "—flash. No chute. I'm hit—" More static. "—losing fuel."
"Shit," the AWACS replied. "Finally getting the radar up again… fuckloads of—" The transmission cut off. "—ordium interference. Anyone with windows mind telling me what's going on? They bolted mine shut during repairs—"
"Uh," The CIF Tomcat pilot replied. "Looks like Presidia—" Silence.
"Cygnus Three," Bluejay said, panicked. "Respond!"
"—ucking exploded. Shit's like the fuckin' apocalypse—" The pilot shouted. "Prospero!"
"...More of those Cordium bombs, maybe?" IRIS wondered out loud, too shocked for fear. "Bluejay, what are the Peacekeepers doing? I lost visual, and radar's going insane—"
"They're at bearing…" The AWACS trailed off. "Fuck, this thing's… don't fail me now! Uh… try… 0-2-7. Or something."
"Or something? That the best you got?"
"That's the best you're gonna have. In case you didn't notice, the world apparently ended. You're the one with a fucking view."
She sighed, banking to line up with the bearing. Sure enough, silhouetted against the split skies of wind and fire, five planes. Five planes and, evidently, a radio signal.
"All of you," Her mentor's voice was calm, that iron composure unshaken even by the fires of armageddon. "Leave me. Head south. Get to Sawaiiki."
"What?" Ranger shouted into the radio. "With all due respect, sir, fuck no! Look around, we all go or we don't go at all!"
"No!" The veteran shouted, the first time she'd ever heard him raise his voice. "Do not throw your lives away as a show of loyalty to me." His voice calmed. "My time in this world is at an end. It is your generation's turn to inherit the burden of leadership, and the time for mine to fade… and face the consequences of our deeds. I have taught you too well to see your flames snuffed out before the dying embers of an old breed."
"What are you gonna do, sir?" Ranger raised an eyebrow. "Command told us to stand down."
His answer was simple, laconic. "Fix something."
"...Godspeed, Zmei. Midnight Four, RTB."
"I wish you all the blessings I never had." He sighed. "I fear you will see my curse instead."
Her breathing shook. The AWACS' voice broke her trance. "ALCON, ALCON— All CIF forces, RTB. We gotta get the fuck outta here. This is AWACS Bluejay, returning to base."
"Cygnus Three," the Tomcat pilot replied. "Returning to base."
"What was that bastard on about, Bluejay?" Burn shouted over the comms. "I'm not sure we're safe—"
"Well, we get the fuck outta here and that ain't our problem!" Bluejay put a fist down on the console. "Burn, Spook— RTB!"
She watched as four of the Federation planes turned southward.
One stayed its course.
"Lieutenant Khoury," Her mentor's voice dragged the venom-tipped dagger of stoic calm over the pilot's misery. "I know you can hear me."
She finally mustered the courage to reply. "Go to hell."
"Hm. Polite as ever." He paused. "It is good to see you again, Khoury."
"That had to have been you." She grit her teeth. "That explosion. Like Prospero."
The grey F/S-15 crew slowly closer, flanked by a background of skies the color of hellfire, lightning crackling behind the fighter. "My Federation, perhaps. You are probably correct— no others have these weapons. A tragedy, truly."
Remorse. Her breathing quivered. "How could you live with that?" He has to see the light—
"Too little. Too late."
"What?" She blinked. No. No. No. He's… How?
"I don't expect you to understand," His voice was even, calm. Clinical. "I shielded you and the others from the grim calculus of this all…"
"Polaris Five! Polaris Six!" Bluejay shouted. "RTB!"
"No." Her breathing was uneven. Unsteady. Audible over the radio, probably. Anyone could hear the terror eating away at her mind— creeping up her brainstem into her conscious thoughts. "I…"
"No way, Bluejay." Burn snarled. "There's still one rearguard. Engaging!"
"You dumb motherfucker! Get outta there!"
"Have you heard what that asshole's been screaming, Bluejay? He won't stop until Spook's dead. I've lost enough friends today." Burn grit his teeth. He really does care.
"You've got a better chance running than fighting!" The AWACS was panicked, and she wished desperately to follow his advice.
She wanted to run.
She wanted to go.
She knew, as she watched a missile peel off her mentor's plane, that he never would let her.
She dumped flares and turned, but the missile wasn't headed for her.
"Insurrectionist," the Peacekeeper snarled. "This is not your business. Do. not. intrude."
"Fuck you, bastard!" Burn's RWR screamed. "Polaris Five, Fox—"
"Shit!" Bluejay screamed. "I lost… Burn's off scopes. Wait—"
"What?" IRIS replied, banking back to vector on the Peacekeeper.
"I count three outbound missiles from Burn's last position." His breathing was choppy. "Spook, you're in the shit now. We're leaving radar range pretty soon— the cordium's fucking our sensors." Bluejay blinked away tears. "Scott left you a parting gift. Don't let it go to waste, ya hear? Good hunting... Spook. If I don't see you back at the base?"
"I know, Bluejay." She stared down the Peacekeeper's evading plane. "It's been an honor."
"Yeah," The AWACS said, a somber grin sweeping across his face as the transmission turned to static. "It has."
They were just barely on the edges of visual range, now. "So, Lieutenant Khoury," the Peacekeeper let venomous betrayal drip from his voice. "Your friends have run off, I see."
"Just you and me, old man." Okay. Smug is good. Don't let him know. Don't let him know you're scared shitless. "You knew who he was, Zmei. Why'd you even let me in? Why cover my ties up for me? Why put your career on the line?"
"Simple," he replied. "I shackled myself to the foolish hope that you could rise above your nature." A rhetorician's pause. "I let myself slide blinded into a life of delusion, as treachery took root beneath my careful hands. I bear such wishful bonds no more."
So he's gonna kill me.
"But the tree of betrayal bears such deadly fruit, and the harvest is upon us. You, Lieutenant Khoury, are the greatest mistake I have ever made. I intend to rectify it."
Yup, he's gonna kill me. Back to pressing the bomb angle?
"How can you live with that… destruction? The carnage, the brutality?" She launched into one, final, desperate plea to the man she knew. To the man who had treated her like his own daughter.
"As I said," he said, pleading with her, the veil of stoicism breaking down into despair. "I don't expect you to understand. You have not… seen… what I have." His voice quivered with agony, with rage. "The instant we had known of open insurrection in Cascadia, its center, be it anywhere from Prospero to Presidia, should have been ash in the wind. Is the memory of Oceania so easily forgotten by the masses? I have borne that burden with me every waking moment!"
"I had those scars carved into my darkest nightmares. I have not been granted the mercy of Lethe's waters. I have been tormented, haunted by one, simple reality... the simple meaninglessness of every life I took."
She stared, blankly. How long had he carried this with him? He had always grown distant speaking of Oceania…
"The unavoidable truth that I spilled an ocean of blood in an entirely preventable war. And that if I could not exorcise those ghosts— rebellion, insurrection, treachery—" He hung on that word. After all, he was speaking to her. "Then… the next generation would bear my burden. Bear my sorrow."
"Treason is a parasite that gnaws away at that fragile angel, peace... every time, it must be torn out. At the root. Without mercy. Without hesitation. Without feeling. As brutal as it sounds, it is the most painful lesson I have learned. If only that young upstart had learned this lesson sooner... his love for his country blinded him from the ugly truth. To save innocent lives... those very same lives must be taken. If we enjoy this truth, we are lost... but if we deny this truth, we are blind."
She twitched. There was nothing to say.
"The cost... of attacking that angel, peace, so delicately perched upon her throne of the slain, must be so inconceivably high as to make insurrection unthinkable. That... is the lesson I shielded you from. That I shielded all of you from. Because I thought I would never need to teach it."
"So that's it?" She shouted. "That's why you fight? To kill innocent people? To terrify the world into submission?"
"No. I fight for peace!" He grit his teeth. "Look! You have no more cause, Lieutenant. If you fight for Cascadia's independence, it is won. If you fight to protect these people, they are already gone. But you don't fight for those. No."
He continued, the mask of stoicism once again covering his indignation.
"So, why do you still fight, Lieutenant Khoury? At this point it can only be one thing. That most potent, sweet nectar of vengeance. The hero-killer. The corrupting embrace of self-righteous fury, that tears the just from their pedestals and bathes them in the wrathful waters of sin."
In both pilots' cockpits, Sidewinders growled.
"Your fight is pointless. You cannot avert what already is. All that is left for you is vengeance. The song of tragedy has already been sung. You and me, fighting here? We are but the echoes."