Tauberg, Belka, 24/05/1995, 14:30, Weather: overcast.
She survived. No, she asserted. She didn't survive. She only lived. She barely lived.
She remembered all of it. The burning smell of the air within her fighter. The terrific shock as she was shaken by the shockwaves. The burn on her arms caused by the current that had gone through her electrical system due to her blown fuses. She had chosen to eject toward the ground at this moment. Like Gelb 2 had felt the heat of his disintegrated leader, she felt the heat too. Her first parachute was hit by incandescent debris and began to burn. Bit of melted nylon fell on her, adding even more little burns to her slightly tanned skin.
Fear of dying became really strong at that moment, when she fell like a rock toward the ground. Furthermore, she didn't know if the explosion that was still lingering a bit was fully hiding her chute.
She felt a bit of relief when she landed after having deployed her secondary chute. Still, it was a hard landing, since her chute got stuck into trees, and as she tried to descend after extracting the under-siege compartment, she fell into the forest. The oak she fell from was at least more than ten meters high. Luckily for her some tree parts slowed her way down, but not without leaving a great number of bad bruises on all her body. She was glad she suffered no serious injuries, such as a sprained ankle or anything like that. At least all those new injuries would be a good reason to have new tattoos to hide them, she reasoned, trying to best her mood.
Walking in the forest wasn't that difficult. She preferred walking in the woods to keep her cover. Sure, the local inhabitants weren't equipped with laser armament to repel any intruder, but she wasn't willing to find herself in the crosshair of some shotgun or some old Mauser a Belkan farmer would have inherited from his grandparents. For an unknown reason there wasn't any Belkan patrol around Tauberg. Something was wrong here. But what, she couldn't tell.
Walking by night was a pleasant sight. The remains of Excalibur's effect on the ionosphere lingering in the sky could have almost make her believe she was in the arctic circle, in those far away cold countries such as Wellow or the kingdom of Nordennavik. Those artificial Northern lights were a fine addition to the Milky Way's small stars. In the end, from war art was created.
There was only at one point she encountered some difficulty in her travel, when she had to cross a little ten-meter-wide river. Of course, the case containing the weapon the Oseans handed to her was waterproof, but most of her gear wasn't. She emerged chilled from the water, and the fact that she kept walking until late in the night didn't help getting her dry. And sleeping in the cold Belkan nights without much to cover her and with her clothes half-soaked wasn't very healthy for obvious reasons. It would be a shame to die of pneumonia, after all, when she had only evaded death by disintegration one day ago.
Still, even with the survival rations, she was getting weaker. They were meant to give you the energy, but not all the vitamins needed. And there wasn't that much to eat in the woods of Belka in May. If she was in June maybe she would have found some wild strawberries. Furthermore, since she wasn't willing to be spotted by the farmers that had laid their fields between the small forests, she didn't try to steal anything from them. Maybe she could have tried. After all, she was wearing the Belkan-like uniform Pixy had given her, and not a greyish-blue Osean one.
Even the ultra-violet generator that allowed her to cleanse her water had not much battery left. Only two days more. She hoped than in two days she would have found those Oseans that were supposed to extract her. She was only wondering how much the back travel would take, especially if they had to do it by foot. How many glory days would slip away from her?
Yet now she wasn't walking anymore. She was right where she wanted to be. She had climbed a tree at the forest limit near the Belkan base at the North of Excalibur. The tree she climbed up had been hit by thunder, maybe due to the EMIs created by the Belkan Wunderwaffe. If it wasn't bearing any more leaves, and thus lowered her stealth, the lighting strike had created an almost flat surface of one meter in diameter when one very big branch had been ripped off by the thunderstroke. She had a perfect view on the two runways drawn on the ground in an open-scissor pattern.
Now she was maybe happier to attack from here than from the sky. She understood why no allied fighters had managed to score kills to retreating Gault squadron members. The runways were supplemented by three linear railways, each with one RTLS. And each hundred meters self-propelled anti-air defenses had been set.
She had set the given sniper rifle and its scope on a small section of the platform. Of course, if the recoil was too strong and kick her off the top of the tree she would baldly fall again. She had waited for the whole day to see Gault leader land and step down, as she saw him lifting off as she arrived on her observatory.
At one o'clock she saw from this point a Yukte taskforce being dealt with quite quickly. Yukte Flankers of all sorts could be seen, trying desperately to get hits on the Belkan Wunderwaffe. But like her tentative one day prior, it only resulted in utter failure. One by one, the Yukte were shot down, and the few that tried to flee to the East or West, she saw these DW-2s lifting off vertically and destroying them with great efficiency -with their very efficient ERAAMs it was easy-.
But now he was finally landing. Soon he would step down. She was following his aircraft taxiing on her scope. She could have fired on his craft, but she couldn't assert his OBOGS would save him from the poisoning or not.
A few dozen seconds later, helped by a small chute, the fighter finally stopped its forward motion. The canopy opened. If she could have seen his face, she would have surely seen a bright yet cold smile on his face. Osea was enacting the exact thing they shouldn't be doing. They should have used their industrial might to its greater extent. But they had underestimated Belkan achievement in technology. And all of their allies were paying the price now.
And now he was getting down his fighter. As he was climbing down on a ladder, she chose to fire. Maybe because of her anger, or of any other sentiments born out of her defeats: sorrow, grief, guilt, sadness and powerlessness, she missed him a bit. He was hit on his left shoulder. She saw him stumbled, then falling from the ladder and fell hard on the ground. His body was contorting in erratic manner, in the throes of the terrible poison. But like his opponent didn't get a chance to see her dead body laying in front of him, she couldn't confirm her kill. She would have liked to go there and plunge her harpoon down his throat to ensure her success, but the Pendragon project soldiers would not allow her such luxury. The Belkan soldiers around this place would not need a great amount of time to find where the shot came from.
So, she got down the tree as quick as possible. But not quick enough. She had only climbed down half of the oak when she saw its dead branches beginning to burn. One RTLS had already opened fire where she was standing a couple seconds ago. Some burning part fell from the top of the tree, only fostering her speed. She run as fast as she could when she got on the ground. The top of the tree was now burning like a torch, but not the whole tree. After all, it had already burned when the thunder stroke that tree seasons or years ago.
She didn't know when she stopped running. One hour after, or a few minutes, who could know?
And now she had to find those Osean infiltrators and get out of here. Even if by foot it would mean weeks to reach the ruins of Glatisant or even Ustio. After all, getting to Glatisant wasn't very useful: all choppers and VTOL craft the allied forces had parked there had been reduce to smithereens by Excalibur strikes almost a week ago. She was just hoping all could happen as expected from here, yet few missions had rarely been straightforward, without a hitch. What future was laying in front of her, she couldn't know either. But she would accept it. And fight for it.
North of the Schayne plains, Belka, 26/05/1995, 21:30, Weather: clear, few clouds.
Osea hadn't attacked Excalibur since a few days. At least it was what she could think from having heard no fighters fighting each other over her head, and as such, the thunderous weather born of the EMIs created by the Belkan Wunderwaffe had ceased. And it was under a nice half-moon that she was approaching some clearing in the forest where she had heard a bit of noise.
Yet, the noise origin was definitely something she wasn't expecting. It wasn't sounding like human screams, but the living being that was suffering in this area seemed to be desperate. What could be waiting for her in those Belkan forest?
In the end, the noise source was indeed a living being. However, as she had foreseen, there was no man screaming there. But a wolfpack around a big grey wolf stuck in some wolf-trap. They looked a bit like the demonic beast the Galm emblem was bearing, especially in the night with the moon barely lighting the clearing through the forest coverage. The wild mammal was trying to get free and had surely bled from the clamp of the trap. Iskanda had never taken action for biodiversity and had maybe nothing against hunters to be honest. And she was not someone that could honestly question the cruelty of others, herself being capable of the worse thoughts the human brain could conceive toward her next one.
Still, she slowly approached the animals that were looking at her with angered eyes. For some unknown reason they did not try to bite her as she was closing the distance. Maybe the wolf was too tired of the trap he had been embedded into for too much time, but it wasn't explaining the unusual calm behavior of this wolfpack. She took her weapon. And fired.
The wolf-trap mechanism was blown up to pieces, and the beast was released. Again, the wild mammals didn't attack her when she was now quitting the clearing after having a look at the wounded wolf. He hadn't tried too much to get free, and as such wasn't that hurt from this trap. She had allowed what many mens were considering to be an old adversary of man to live. At least she could confess to Myriel she did one good act in this whole war, if she either come across the old bishop in this country thousands of kilometers away from here right now.
She realized just one slightly strange fact as she was leaving the area on a forest path: she saw Osean written on some half-destroyed piece of the wolf-trap. It meant the Osean she was seeking were maybe closer than expected. Yet, why would the Osean need to keep Belkan wolves away from them, when these ones hadn't shown any sign of clear aggressivity toward her? She had no answers at this moment. And she wasn't willing to have immediate answers either.
North of Schayne Plains, Belka, 26/05/1995, 22:30, Weather: clear.
She had found the Osean camp. Still, she found something was amiss: they had some unexpectedly heavily armed sentinels, even if the area had been evacuated by Belkan soldiers. As such, and on a pure intuitive hunch, she decided to approach them without warning them, to understand what those Oseans were up to. She knew all Oseans weren't holding her in high esteem, especially since the operation Juggernaut to the incident with that Osean pilot, including the unkind talk between that major Perrault and Koenig. Yet, like with that encounter with Belkan wildlife, she hadn't foreseen what she was going to hear in any possible way.
"Sergeant Neelan, are we gonna wait for hours like this? It's getting cold!" An Osean commando soldier spoke up.
"Private Keeler, you know the drill. And you know what Weeker want us to do." The said sergeant Neelan replied unkindly.
"I know. But why do we have to wait here when we could just ambush her and empty some clips into her androgynous body?" Another commando team member added, not understanding was so much subtlety was needed.
"Yeah, we could have terminated her since some time." The soldier Keeler agreed with his fellow teammate
"Cuz' if we do that, the Belkan could identify our rounds and blame that death on us. Besides, before we killed her, we can play a bit if we catch her alive." The sergeant ended the talk, and the clearing went quiet once more, after some heavy laugh from the two other commando members with devious thoughts.
By now it didn't require to be a master tactician to understand that their intents were nothing but bad ones. This Weeker wanted her dead, that was a certainty. After all, Koenig had said after the operation Juggernaut that if some Osean were praising her for her achievements, some only want to get rid of that kind of mercs that think outside the box and care for something outside wealth. And she belonged to that kind, she knew it. He could have at least sent his marines to do the job, since she killed his sailors.
She analyzed the situation quickly: there was two scouts that were circling around the camp regularly, and one of the two had passed right beside her hiding spot without noticing her. Then there were those three soldiers she heard talking, and another one a bit further guarding the North of the clearing. The scouts would be the first she would have to care about. Hopefully she had approached them from the South, or she would have to worry with taking the sentinel and the scouts at the same time.
People in this moment could have felt remorse for what she was going to do. After all, they were her allies, officially speaking. Maybe saying they had been her allies was more exact... Informally she never cared that much for Osea. As such, she didn't feel any sadness when learning about the terrible aftermath of the EMP disaster. As such, nothing was holding back to do what needed to be done to ensure her safety. Using the barbs of her harpoon, she silently cut a piece of thorn in the bushes she was hiding.
She sneaked in toward the unfortunate Osean. He should have definitely looked for his surrounding, especially in such forest were moonlight wasn't very strong under the canopy. Furthermore, there were few leaves on the ground, unlike there would be in fall. As such she managed to get behind him without too much difficulty.
N/A: Here began the bloody part again. Skip to the next location "unknown place".
Maybe he had felt some shift in the wind that was coming from behind. Or maybe he had finally heard her. But for him it was too late. As he drew his weapon, he felt something tight on his throat. And that tight thing was hurting him more than usual garotte wire would usually do. He could feel like little pikes being embedded in his skin as his unknown aggressor tighten her grip. He was about to strike with his elbow to try to break free when something changed the odds. One of the pikes of the thorn that was choking his throat pierced his jugular. As such, his death was even faster. And with his own blood filling his throat, he wasn't able to emit any scream to warn his teammates of this assassin that was now lurking around.
When he stopped moving his legs and arms erratically, she pulled him inside the bush she was hiding him. The pierced jugular was preventing her from checking his pulse, but due to the fact that the blood wasn't flowing that much of the terrible wound, she could see he was going to die soon. And the other scout that had run toward the place of the fight, as he heard a bit of noise, would follow him soon.
The scout had heard some deaf noise, like if someone tried to scream but couldn't. Uneasy, he switched on his light on his way. They weren't supposed to use them in order not to be seen. But what he saw frighten him. A pool of blood was spread on the ground, with foot marks printed in it. Whoever had hurt or worse, killed the other scout must have gone this way. Veering his torchlight toward the blooded footprint, he saw the legs of his fellow soldier. However, as he was moving his torch to see the rest of the now unanimated body, he felt something gliding on his collar. The aggressor of his teammate had gone the other way the footprints were heading to, thus making him mistaken on her position. He quickly went down, but the thing that he felt was now choking him and making him bleed from the neck. By sheer luck the part of the thorn that was pressuring his jugular had no pikes there. As such, he was able to grab his opponent arms and sent her flying above his dead. He quickly raised toward the dark silhouette with his gun ready.
Yet Iskanda wasn't exactly sent flat on her back. She indeed felt that sudden push but didn't fall. She rolled forward, before throwing her blade where she was standing, and where the Osean scout was now standing. The blade of the weapon missed his throat, but one of the barbs finished what the thorn hadn't accomplished. He shot but missed due to the great pain he was suffering, and that her opponent had moved. And she didn't miss her shot. A bullet from her Luger succeeded where his harpoon failed, going through his throat.
She closed the distance toward the bleeding soldier, whose mouth was only emitting incomprehensive gurgles. And pulled her weapon from his neck, which make him suffered quite a lot. She didn't hear him wail in pain, but his eyes cried enough to make it understandable. Yet she didn't show any sign of empathy toward the dying Osean.
"Thanks for intercepting my blade with your throat, otherwise I could have lost it." She tossed, looking at the once more bloodstained harpoon. Some people would have looked at it with horror. The reflect of the blood on the jade was definitely something beautiful to her eyes.
But those few shots had attracted the attention of the three other soldiers.
"Quick, we are attacked!" The sergeant broke the silence he had imposed.
"Other there!" Keeler noticed the torchlight of their now-fallen -and dead comrades, before a shot blow the device into pieces.
They ran toward the area, only to stumble on the body of their dead compatriots. Only the Private Keeler, that was a bit behind stopped when he saw then fall on the ground. But it was only to be shot by someone hiding into a hollow tree. The bullet cut the back of his left knee, and as he was stopped his run abruptly, he fell to the ground.
One bullet fired with haste on his nape ended his life. The other commando member that had fell to the ground met the same fate, with one bullet to his spine and another to the back of his head, as he was trying to stand up. The sergeant was faster to stand up, but as he stood up, he felt something tight on his throat. And this time Iskanda positioned herself below him, so he could not crouch down and do her an armlock.
Yet all of this had attracted the attention of the last soldier, who was watching at the North. Iskanda saw him carrying a heavy submachine gun. Her Luger with only one round left was no match for such weaponry. And there was little chance the hollow tree in which she ambushed those soldiers that tried to ambush her could withstand such high caliber.
So, she fired her last bullet as he was running toward her. By sheer luck, it hit his weapon in its magazine, exploding the high explosive gun round this commando member was using. The explosion acted like a heavy flash-bang. Enough to thrown him on the ground and slow his pace, but not enough to pierce his bulletproof vest. Yet, it gave her opponent, this damned Erusean mercenary, enough time to get close enough to engage him in CQC.
He thought he would have the upper hand, being taller and stronger than her. He tried to use his greater strength to catch her, but he was forced to recognize this ace was still agile even on the ground. The fact that she wasn't following any rules of any martial arts was quite disturbing. And surely it disturbed him greatly when she foot kicked him between the legs.
"Filthy merc!" He swore, as he fell due to the pain, but failed in catching her as he went down. He only scored another foot-kick into his elbow as she broke her leg free.
"You're as much. Just a weak man like your boss Weeker." She replied, and the next second tried to stab him in his spine but failed when he suddenly stood up. However, it was not a complete failure at first, as she managed to strike at his shoulder blade. Yet her blade was stuck due to the barbs, and she was a bit surprised when he rotated quickly, rendering her weapon out of reach, before he pistol-whipped her with his heavy gun.
"I despise your kind utterly. You think you can just do what you want because you're a so-called freelancer soldier? You're not above the rules. And I will teach you that the hard way!" He insulted her with all of the hatred he could assemble toward this woman who just slaughtered all of his commando team but him.
She had avoided a hit on the head but had badly fallen. She was almost knocked-out, finally taking the effect of this forced march she imposed on herself for those last three days. She was slowly drifting into unconsciousness. And him, he was laughing at the irony, as he took a step closer, and raised the rifle stock to strike at her once more. He would have ended this fearful merc that had killed so many Belkans and cause the death of dozens of Osean sailors. Furthermore, her failures at destroying Excalibur -to be fair, the EMP disaster, but this soldier's point of view was definitely biased- had caused the death of almost fifty thousand Oseans, military losses and civilian ones added.
Of course, she could not appreciate the irony. She had fought against so many opponents, and she was going to go down like this? Killed by a single soldier in the middle of literally nowhere? At least a death by some TLS, TFLS or any kind of tactical laser system would have been instantaneous. But this one was going to be painful and long.
Yet, something caused him to be reluctant. Not that he had any remorse finishing an already downed enemy and now an unconscious one of course. But some noise of broken branch and growls of animals closing and getting stronger did.
Iskanda wasn't sure by now if he had struck and if she was dead or dying shortly. She finally drifted into unconsciousness, but the last thing she heard were screams of pain. There were horrific screams of agony -of course they were horrific for the normally constituted person, but for Iskanda they sounded almost nice-. Was it scream of the damned ones that were welcoming her to hell, or screams of a real person? She hoped she would get the second answer if she either survived this very troubled night that saw allied turning on each other's because of one man that couldn't accept the price of wars.
Unknown place, Unknown country, Unknown realm, Unknown time, Weather: Unknown (that I guess you could figure it out).
She was slowly standing with only plain darkness over her head. This was definitely not in the real world. No horizon line was in her field of sight. Or she was inside some building with a dark roof, dark walls, and without any sign of visible structure, either it was a metallic one, a wooden one or a one made of rocks.
When she rose at last, she saw a silhouette standing near some statue. At first glance she didn't recognize neither of both, but when she stepped closer, she realized what she was looking at. She was looking at her tormentor, Anton Kupchenko. And next to him was a smaller version of Excalibur. Which he pulled out of the rock without any issues. Its blaze was sheathed by a somewhat blueish field, maybe plasma.
"At last, you are here to face your sentence. Death." He claimed, as he walked forward her with the sword raised.
"You weren't the one to kill me, you know." She retorted with a bit of irony.
"Oh, you are speaking of that Osean soldier? He only terminated a vanquished enemy. But I crushed your will. Destroyed your hopes of victory. And now I will destroy your warrior spirit." He lunged forward with the Sword of the Kings, that she barely evaded.
She drew her weapon, only to cause this apparition to laugh at her.
"You're threatening me with a needle. This is not enough. It never was. And never will be." He jousted her verbally and literally, and then sliced diagonally. Foolishly she tried to block with her harpoon, this souvenir of her dead aunt. But when he ended with "never will be" the jade was shattered in a million of pieces. Her only birthright was truly and only the losses she suffered now, as Kupchenko had said three days ago.
"Go to hell, Eruseanerine!" He twirled his weapon backward, before striking at the ground. From the impact point, a crack appeared, that quickly grew into a wide rift. She tried to run away, but the rift was widening far too quickly. She tried to hang up on the limits of the slope, but a swift motion of the blade pushed her in the abyss. And after having fallen into unconsciousness, she fell into another abyss of darkness.
Each meter of the fall was a sufferance, like she was falling over sharp glasses or something like that. She tried to catch anything to stop her chute, but everything was just cutting edges that only hurt her even more. Her fall wasn't like if she had stalled in her fighter. She wasn't feeling the acceleration. She was only seeing her body get covered by even more wounds that she already had as she hit the slope of the rift.
And hitting its bottom was quite painful too. If she wasn't in an unconscious state, she would have surely lost her consciousness again. But what welcomed her in this so-called hell weren't people she wanted to see. The first was her breeder. This woman she only felt envy of murder toward her. Iskanda knew she had made the mistake of letting her live. But next time she would be in San Salvation, she would kill her for sure, even if it meant bomb their family house and as such a civilian target.
"Low born girl." She insulted her, quickly followed by the servant of Myriel:
"Unfaithful girl! Thief."
"Weak girl without any sense of honor." Was Weeker's insults, shown to her as a faceless Osean soldier with some stars on his uniform.
"We had faith in you. Yet you failed. Failure." The now-fallen members of Halo squad had come to harass her in this place too.
"I have said sufferance and pain is the only thing you would be allowed to feel." The voice of Anton Kupchenko seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
"Now you will face death." He solemnly claimed.
A silhouette appeared amongst the insulting crowd, in a black cloak. Only skeleton hands and foots were visible out of her dark clothes. As she went closer, Iskanda could sense the heavy smell of rot corpses that this "Death" was emitting. The ferric smell of blood never disturbed her, but this… This was a horrific smell, like those giant carnivorous plant that reeked of rot flesh. And with her not just this smell came. A strong and cold wind came that made her entire being shiver. Yet she kept her will strong. She would not bow. The flame of her will would not be blown easily
"I ceased fearing death since I ceased fearing you, mother." She exclaimed proudly, causing her breeder's apparition to go quiet. Then she noticed that the apparition was still bleeding from her hand, like if this wound could not be healed.
"And about you, your master forgave me. Yet I will never change who I am. I am no Hero nor knight. Just a warrior." She repeated, facing the threatening crowd.
"You can strike if you want to, Death. But I won't kneel before you." Iskanda let go of her fear. If it was her last stand, she was going to make it last, even in this unreal place.
The Death raised her scythe. The cloaked figure was now laughing in a maniacal manner that should have sent chills to anyone's spine. But Iskanda wasn't just anyone. She didn't actually fear the Death itself, but the nothingness that came with it. To become nothing when you could be gone with glory on the battlefield was annoying for the mercenary, who like any of her kind wanted to reach a bit of fame before dying. Death taunted the now-slightly-scared Iskanda a last time:
"Your time on this earth is over, Galm 1. Go join the previous one." She struck, but surprisingly Iskanda lunged sideway forward, evading the scythes' motion. The next second she was trying to catch the arm of the silhouette but meet nothing to grasp. And the Death was slowly rotating leftward to regain the reach her weapon needed.
Even if all of this didn't seem to be real, and if she didn't know if her life was really at stake here, Iskanda caught the hilt of the Scythe and was now struggling with the energy of despair to take it from the owner. At least death wasn't a very strong opponent physically speaking. And after a few seconds of intense fight between the two pair of arms for the possession of the weapon, Iskanda managed to make it twirl, ripping it away from its rightful owner.
A strong push from the side of the weapon was enough to make the Death step back. However, this has caused the insulting crowd to close the distance toward our Erusean merc. And the crowd had now become threatening. Thus, she tried to strike at her nemesis and her tormentors of her past and present, but with few avails: they would fade away like eddies and materialize a bit further.
"Borrowing a power from someone else is never a good idea." The Death pointed out, laughing slightly in a maniacal manner.
She had taken advantage of the crowd of soul harassing Iskanda to get behind her. And suddenly, stretching a hand, she caused a cold wind to push Iskanda. This time, it was way more powerful. She fell flat on her back, and black thorns grew from the ground to maintain her in place. She had fought against fate, but in vain, apparently.
"Arrogant child. Do not defy what you cannot hope to defeat." The Death raised her scythe a second time. And this time, if the Death had eyes, Iskanda was sure she would have given her one hell of a death glare. She heard the scythe began its downward motion, as she closed her eyes by reflex. But when the scythe should have hit her and killed her undoubtedly, she felt nothing. Her skin didn't feel the wind current that striking at someone with such weapon would have cause. No, she only heard the metallic sound of two weapons clashing against each other.
When she opened her eyes, it was only to see a winged woman wearing white robes over a bright silver coat of mail standing next to her. So much white was contrasting with all her surroundings. Maybe light could still exist in her dark soul that shouldn't be containing any. And this white-clothed woman had blocked the scythe with a lance bearing the twin cross guard of Ste Victoire.
The second after her savior lunged against Death and pierced the hooded silhouette with her blade. The Death stepped back, apparently hurt. The pike of the strange lance had caused the dark fabric to melt all around the point of impact, like a match would have done if it had touched nylon. The light born of the hit was making this a bit weird, but they weren't in a real world. Everything was possible
"She belongs to me. All traitors belong to me." The Death argued, raising her scythe in a defensive posture.
"We both have our definition of treachery. You judged myself traitorous in my behavior back then." Her savior counter-argued, before trying to poke the black covered specter. And as a scythe is not the best defensive weapon, the Death was forced to step back even further, with more bright holes in her cloak. And with each hit the apparition seemed to become weaker.
"Besides, I don't fear you anymore. You made me know fear. But I have become this fear in the heart of my enemies." Iskanda said with a newly found strength in her voice, trying to get back up, with the thorn having vanished when the two apparitions began fighting each other. For an unknown reason, when she stood up, she found a lance with an intact jade harpoon as its spike laying at her side. Strengthening her hold on this new weapon, she joined her savior -which by now she had understood was some apparition of Sainte Victoire- in her assault against death.
"I am Fear incarnated. I am Death. You cannot beat me. I will always exist. Even stars die." The Death claimed, using a bit of reasoning against her adversaries, which were pushing her back.
"We won't defeat you forever, I know that. But we can win this fight if you believe in me. If you believe in Victory." Victoire retorted with a convinced voice. Her voice was definitely sounding old, but it was a good kind of old, the old one you would listen for advice when all hopes of victory is gone.
"Then I can say that through pain I have become a believer." Iskanda added, before moving forward with her lance hold tight alongside Victoire as the winged woman pierced the cloaked figure.
The small holes had look like if they were matches melting a plastic fabric cloak. But the combined weapon made the attack look like more a flamethrower than a match. Surrounded by flames, the Death was shivering, like the wick of a candle under too much wind. The dark of her cloak began to turn into a bright white, bit by bit, this illuminating the place even more. The darkness in Iskanda's soul was being drifted away by the flame of her will. The dark silhouette was now a bright fire, and Death was only screaming in ultrasonic as she was met with fear for the first time.
And then in a bright flash that looked like a heavy flash-bang, the apparition vanished. With her gone the dark place was illuminated again. Victoire took for a moment Iskanda's weapon, making the hilt disappear with a hand gesture, before handing it over to her rightful owner.
"Never let your weapon fall. You have a strong will, but it's not enough." Victoire reused the reasoning of the apparition of Kupchenko.
"Then what can I do?" Iskanda asked, open to any guidance that could ensure victory once she would return into the strange, real world she was fighting in and for.
"Let's have a walk, shall we? Idea are often clearer when people speak while walking." Victoire proposed her, before making the hilt of her own weapon disappear, before sheathing the blade into a hidden scabbard.
"I am open to any change. After all, one wise man once said that we're open to the greatest change when we are at our lowest." She agreed with Victoire. After all, what could she do? She has nothing to lose in doing so. Only something to win. Even if it's just a back-travel ticket to her world. Thus, they began walking into a white corridor ornamented with vines on the lowest and highest part of the walls
"I won't judge your methods, your fights, your choice you've made, the oaths you swore or your allegiance. They are yours. And only yours." Victoire began her explanation, before stopping before a balcony, where nothing but a nebulous fog was to be seen.
"Then what? My fate isn't yours to decide." She didn't want to have her choice made for her by anyone, even by an ancient wise woman.
"I said I'm not here to judge. I have made mistakes myself; my methods weren't much chivalrous than yours. And I did use questioning on some of my captives to extract what I wanted from their flesh. No, what I want to speak about is what you want to become? A simple number on an Osean report, the new Chronicles of your historical era? A name of mystery and hate? Or like me, a name that will be worshipped, feared and associate with greatness?" Victoire exposed some path that were open to Iskanda right now.
"I guess the third one is the most thrilling, to be honest." Iskanda huffed, feeling it to be the best she could hope to become, if she survived this war. And she had learned the hard way that wars never come with any guarantee of any kind. History had no continuity
"It's your choice. Good or bad I won't judge. Time will tell. Let's have a look at your futures perhaps?" She invited with a dapper gesture the young woman to look at the nebulous fog.
"My futures?" Iskanda repeated, emphasizing the "s" at futures. After all, this model hadn't absolute probability, would have said Herr Thesermeister if he hadn't become plasma and light.
"Yes. Your futures. Your choices are yours, but they can cause so much." Victoire answered the doubtful girl, who was now looking at the fog.
"There will be great wars. I see people trying to have you at their sides." Victoire described what she was seeing. Dozens of fighters were clashing, most of them unknown, or having strange shape in their fuselage to Iskanda's point of view. Some look like fighter of her era, but with strange ailerons, some were looking like a refined version of the ADFX-01. There were backward and forward-swept wing fighters alike, and even drones with strange wing surface. Missiles, explosions, shockwaves, plasma born of energy-based weapon filled the skies. But all of those aerial assets weren't the only ones to fight : it was a total war, with all army corps in it : the sea was set ablaze by the fuel of the sunken ship, with again, some of known design, and some weird double or triple hull shape, making them look like trimarans. The land was colored in red by the blood of the fallen troops.
Then she saw herself, older with her hair having turned grey, looking a bit more feminine, in the cockpit of a very strange fighter, who seemed to be flowing in the eddies, leaving a luminescent trace. To be strange, it was strange: without wings, ailerons, canards nor vectored nozzles, its long yet fine fuselage was reminding her more of a downhill kayak than a true fighter. This older self was smiling. Had she obtained victory, maybe?
"Or great catastrophes." She showed her gigantic explosions, leaving only cities in rubble, some were causing nuclear mushroom clouds to appear, other seemed to be caused by something falling from high, was it from space weaponry or asteroids? She had no answers.
"But I see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Some choice will grant you a bit of peace. Other won't." She kept describing what was being shown in front of them, with an Iskanda being either bedridden and disfigured by horrific scars, or on the very opposite, being at some point that seemed to be impossible right now : she was looking at the earth from afar, yet with tears in her eyes. Durable peace wasn't something any of her possible selves would encounter, apparently.
"We will meet again on the battlefields, Iskanda. Even in your darkest times. I will be your sword, your shield, your camouflage." Sainte Victoire promised, and then the winged woman in silver coat began to fade away, little by little.
"Does that mean I will have victory once again?" Iskanda desperately asked, looking for answers she deeply know she wouldn't get.
"Perhaps. See you on the battlefield, Iskanda Rayien." The woman finally faded away. And slowly, everything faded away too. Had all of this been real? No, obviously. But some bits of the future she saw seemed to be utterly real. And she could do nothing but agree she wanted to be remembered. But what path will she have to take? She couldn't know for sure by now. Maybe history would judge her. Yet winners write history. However, she had read in Pixy's notebook that winning a war was never easy. She would not try to end up in the winning side if it was easy anyway.
North of Schayne Plains, Belka, 27/05/1995, 02:00, Weather: little nocturnal fog.
Iskanda suddenly woke up from this unusual, and almost paradoxical dream. But time of dream was called paradoxical slumber after all. As such, having unorthodox and apparently incomprehensive dream was something to be expected.
Curiously, she wasn't laying on the ground, but on what seemed to be a mattress with fur coverage. That was weird to say the least. This strange bed in which she was sleeping in was quite warm, but the blanket seemed to be a bit heavy, because she had trouble moving or rotating within it. She didn't know what had happened to the Osean soldier. No remains of him was visible in this pitch-black night, as the moon was hidden by the forest canopy and the light fog. The artificial Northern lights intensity had greatly decreased. It meant Osea hadn't attack during her sleep.
She could have thought her dream was not finished. She was still in a very dark place, with no means of analyzing her surroundings. If this was the afterlife, it was better than hell. The only issue was the loneliness and the darkness around her. Both were frightening and ensuring: she was alone, which meant without help from any men or women, but also without anyone threatening her. And it was definitely better than hell because the warmth wasn't coming from flames but from the fur covering her. At some moment she could have believed the blanket had moved, but she was too tired to assess anything properly. There was just some lingering smell that remind her of a masculine forest perfume she tried in Directus but didn't buy when she saw the price: more than she earned on the battlefield when taking back the city. A few minutes later, overcame by tiredness, she fell asleep, this time without a single inch of paradoxical slumber.
North of Schayne Plains, Belka, 27/05/1995, 06:15, Weather: clear with high altitude stratus.
The rising sun was slowly awakening Iskanda. Unlike the penultimate nights slept on the forest floor, this one had been quite comfortable to her. This fur mattress was maybe a bit hard at some point, but at least she had a warm night, when she spent the other shivering in the Belkan cold. She stretched a bit her arms, rubbed her eyes, and finally opened them.
She thought maybe someone would have found her and dragged her to some house, hence could be a plausible explanation for the slightly hard mattress. Or that she fell asleep on some area covered in moss. But both couldn't explain the slight move that she felt in times of semi-slumber. Nor the warmth that had separated from the cold Belkan night she had endured until now. And if the forest had a bit of wooden scent in the air, the perfume she smelled during the night and was still smelling now was more of heavy musk than light wooden scent. It was almost if she had taken a bath with that perfume instead of using soap. And the smell of musk should have put her on that road.
No man nor woman were around her or had taken care of her. No, not at all. But grey wolves. For an unknown reason, they had kept her warm in the middle of the night, when such beast should fear or at least rarely approach man for obvious reason. At least it was the case in Erusea, she had rarely seen wolves from this close, the closest one she saw, it was during a survival stage in a wooden area. But maybe Belkan wolves were different somehow. They were already pretty spread out when she stood up. She walked slowly, tired from the fight of yesterday, and the prolonged walk until now. As she looked at the different wolves, who differed slightly in size of ears, tail, or in fur color, she found one with a light injury on his left forward paw. The same wolf she freed yesterday had stuck into a wolf-trap.
"Maybe you're more selfless than humans. lupus homini homo I guess." Iskanda said out loud, inverting the proverb, knowing she had few chances of being heard speaking alone if the nearest living being were only a pack of grey wolves.
But as she ventured around the clearing, she found the body of the Osean that knocked her out the night before. Now she understood what those were screams of agony she heard while drifting into unconsciousness. He had grievous wounds on all his body, mainly claws and bites marks. His face was petrified with horror, or what was left of him. Maybe half of him had been eaten by the wolves. What would remain of him would be a dismembered skeleton, his torn-off uniform and his military plates. But why did they attack him especially? Just because they set some wolf-traps? This kind of aggressivity from wildlife that in the same time had almost been kind toward her was not something she was able to process right now.
Maybe some Belkan do some experiments on pheromones and create obedient wolves they would use to kill any allied pilots that would bail out over Belka. But this theory wasn't making any sense, or not much. First, why did they spare her if they were conceived to kill any allied soldier? And second, if the wood were so dangerous, why did the Oseans sent soldiers this way, if they were aware of such kind of danger? She just hoped Kupchenko's Pendragon Project was only aiming at creating giant laser, and not biologically modified weapons. Such thing would be surely considered as a breach of ethics, but did such man care for ethics? She didn't much, so anything was possible with such determined man.
She then wondered what to do. She has nowhere to go, especially with the Osean now all dead. And of course, none of them had means of contacting the allied forces. Would it be good for her to call them anyway? What would she tell them?
"Hello, I just killed all of your soldiers because I heard some Weakling wanted me dead and let the wolves feed on the last one." was definitely not something to say to those Oseans that had not very kind relation with the Ustians. What was even left of the Ustian army? She knew Pixy and one Crow pilot had survived when she engaged the Erben von Kupchenko, but they could have died in other operations since.
She pulled her blade out of the shoulder blade of that Osean soldier. He truly suffered when dying, if his face was that scarred and deformed. Maybe it would have been better for him that she just killed him in CQC. At least he would have had a quick death. But she had never authorized herself to feel mercy, because she never had any.
Sadly for her, her theory was almost asserted when she chose to follow the wolves on their path toward an unknown aim. On some clearing such as the one where she fought those Oseans, she found makeshift tomb for Osean soldiers. One of them had the remain of a dead wolf as ornament. Those wolves had definitely killed Osean soldier on purpose. Maybe this was the reason the forest around Tauberg did not need any overwatch from the Belkan military. Why resorting to intense seeking parties for potential Osean spies when some wolves could murder them in the night? But again, she had no idea why they spared her. Because she saved one of them? It did not seem a reason valuable enough for her, but she was glad she was now alive.
However, if she was alive, that soldier had broken the ultrasonic sanitizer she hoped to use scarcely to obtain a bit of pure water. And her food reserve was not very high either. She had indeed calculated in biology class than humans could survive quite some time on their reserve of fat and muscle, but she had not that much fat, and wasn't planning on losing all her muscle mass to survive. Or she would be as fine as her chute when she would finally arrive at the allied frontline
The solution came to her a bit later, when the wolves she was following a bit slow due to her tiredness went slow suddenly. Then they run as suddenly as their stop was. Running behind them in that state wasn't good for her. They were lower than her, and as such, went often in paths she had not that much mobility in, or only get some bruise from thorns or over thorny plants. They weren't following walking path, but small and narrow forest path, filled with holes and moving rocks. Her lungs were not in fire because the weather in the morning had warmed a bit, but it seemed they were twice smaller than usual. Her feet were burning, and she was sure she evaded closely a sprained ankle one or two time in that run. How many times this run last, she didn't know. Minutes or hours. She thought she had good stamina, but in stadium, not in irregular cross in the middle of the woods with the lights shoes she was wearing to be at ease in prolonged fly.
And finally, when they stopped, the effort had been so sudden for her who had already walk for half a week already that she was about to pass out, hearing only the frantic beat of her heart. She wasn't even hearing the wolves growling anymore. Her vision became blurry for maybe a half minute, now she understood what that bomber pilot meant when he was speaking about ophthalmic migraines. Yet when she opened her eyes, it was to see the wolves feeding on the deer they had pursued. They had killed him by numerous bites on arteries. Blood was spread on the ground, coloring some fallen green leaves. She had never tasted deer nor any meat out of venison. Obviously, such meat would have never been allowed for her when she lived in San Salvation, and this kind of food was not something she would expect in a convent for the diner or in school mess at the midday pause.
"It's ironic I once said to that Rot 1 wolves feed on raw flesh. Because they really do. But I'm not intending in doing so." She spoke out once again. Hopefully she reminded some of her lessons about survival she learned in that stage in the EAF (Erusean Air Force). Like, how to make fire -and not with rocks, because, if finding flint is not that hard, finding some iron-rich mineral to do fire with the flint was sometimes hard-. By luck there was some dry moss on some dead trees. Her harpoon and a flat root she saw surfacing nearby would be a good beginning to have a bit of fire. She knew that doing fire through this method wasn't a fast one.
After almost a good quarter of hour, some wounds due to the barbs of her harpoon, and quite a lot of tries, she finally managed to obtain some fire by making spin the pike of her harpoon on the dry moss. And by fire, she was meaning to make the moss fume a bit. It took her another good fifteen minutes to obtain some true fire. Fortunately, there was a bit of slate in the area. A clean slate was her dish for today, after she cut a bit of meat on the dead deer.
Again, she was a bit startled that the wolves weren't afraid of the fire. All wildlife fear fire, they told her in that survival stage. And now she was guessing that normality had to stop at the Belkan borders, because she was shot down by an abnormal super laser like anything else. The meat was definitely harder than usual, maybe this deer was an old one. But she resigned herself to eat it, it was surely the only form of meal she would have before a long time.
North-East of Schayne Plains, Belka, 29/05/1995, 13:00, Weather: light cloud coverage.
Now she had been following those wolves for two days. She had stopped dithering about the heavy smell of musk that had impregnated her clothes. And also, about the meat she had to eat. At least she found some plants that had leaves who could add a bit of taste to this venison.
But right now, they were venturing through some hills, after having walked at the bottom of some cliff were a small water stream was flowing at the middle of the said cliff. At least she had finally a bit of clearer water than the one flowing in the small creeks flowing across the woods toward the Tau. Behind the stream there seemed to be a small cave, yet she could have sworn this cave entrance was a bit too regular to be natural. She hadn't seen this cliff from the sky nor the stream, yet it was understandable, as she went on the anti-air base at the North-West, and if her sense of direction was right, she was at the North-East of the Schayne Plains.
A few dozen minutes of ascending, climbing and walking on narrow path where she almost fell once or twice into the nearby bushes filled of thorns and pikes, they were met by a heavy metallic door well camouflaged in the stone. Under a smaller metallic plate covered by moss was an old mechanical lock. Each axis was for a letter. And there were six axes.
"Well, twenty-six to six must give a number of possibility way above the million Maybe something close to some hundred million. And unlike Thesermeister I'm not good in probability." Iskanda judged the few chances she had to find the code of this apparently forgotten bunker. Of course, no hinges were visible on the metallic door. Furthermore, given the very deaf sound it produced when she knocked it a bit with her hand, this bunker armored door was at least twenty centimeters thick of hard steel. Even acetylene torch would be useless with such thickness, and above all using such tool could damage the opening system by melting inner components or deforming them.
She looked methodically all around the door, but no weakness was visible either. The rock face was not featuring any imperfections that could have hidden some opening mechanism. And trying to go around it to enter in the cave below the stream seemed to be very unlikely and dangerous, as the rock face had been flattened by mechanical means, rendering any climb of it nearly impossible.
And as she was coming back from the flattened edge of the cliff, she was a bit surprised that the wolves that had followed her almost in front of this gate weren't there anymore. She looked around, but no one was visible, not in the narrow paths around the rock face, nor hidden in some nearby bushes or small groves. But she spotted a bit of their grey fur on some thorns that were hiding a big hole from which growls could be heard.
"Well, guess I will have to do a bit of gardening before following you down there." She said while looking at the thorn bush and at her already bruised forearms who had dozens of small cuts by now, which she got by falls or when following the wolfpack on unclean narrow forest path. Soon she would have a net of new skin, slightly less colored than her mid-tanned natural skin.
Five minutes after, she crawled inside, with the heavy smell of musk getting stronger in this tunnel. She could guess they had yet to discover VMC. Some meters were hard, but since a human and a wolf on four legs were approximately the same size in height, she progressed in the burrow without any issues, other than piece of rocks scratching her skin, or a bit of dirt falling in her hairs. Nothing she would not survive anyway.
After a dozen meter of speleology, she arrived in some kind of natural cave. It had to be in limestone, as she sighted the stalagmite and stalactite -some guide during that survival stage actually said her the difference between both, but right now she couldn't remember it- slightly illuminated by the very faded light from the outside. A bit of water was on the ground, with some wolves drinking it from little ponds were the maybe slightly more acid water pierced the stone through the centuries. Still, a strange spectacle was welcoming her: a bunch of wolf cub were sleeping on some dry rock, near a wolf she hadn't seen in the last couple of day.
"Nice place for setting the nursery I guess." She described the calm place, well hidden from the only thing wolf could fear: men.
Still, she noticed one more thing. The water on one side was a bit warm. Way warmer than water should be in caves, usually it should be around less than twenty -surely cold enough to hurt Pixy cold-sensitivity-, but here it was like a comfortable thirty centigrade. At least this place was surely a bit warmer in Winter. Yet this was intriguing her. She walked toward the origin of this surprisingly warm water, which was hidden in the shadow. It wasn't coming from a simple cracks or stalactite. But from a fairly large slanted, almost vertical passageway, slowly flowing on the slope of the karst face. A man could have stand in, but it was surely not possible to climb for a four-legged mammal such as those wolves which had assumed this place as their own.
Going upward with few places to use as climbing holds was not easy, especially with all that water slowly coming from somewhere higher. At least, since the water was drifting slowly, it meant that the slope was not very stiff. One or two times, she was almost stuck, but manage to unstick herself by rotating. But the passageway was getting thinner and thinner, obliging Iskanda to crawl with her arms outstretched before her. And obviously she hurt her fine hands of pilots that were more used to the manning of aircraft systems than speleology. Yet, what she found when finally crawl out of this thine rocky pipe was worth it. It was definitely worth it, and way above the little worthiness of the Oseans she killed now two days ago.
Unknown bunker, North-East of Schayne Plains, Belka, 29/05/1995, 14:00.
She arrived in another room, which look like some tomb, as the only thing she could perceive was a big parallelepipedal shape made of concrete. It was a bit close to a sarcophagus, but it was a bit too warm to be such cold stone meant to contain the bodies of the deceased. A strange light seemed to be coming from the other side of this concrete structure.
A bit puzzled by the warmth coming from what should be a cold tomb, and by some noise that she thought could come from insects, even if it sounded like a low electric buzzing. She walked around the big block of thick concrete, still hearing this buzzing. Then she saw the source of light she had spotted right before. It was a small red lamp, maybe the people who designed that place chose this color not to harm the eyes of anyone who would come in. Few things were made visible by this pale reddish light, only a two-way commutator to be precise. As she could have expected it, it was written in Belkan. Now she was really glad her instructor in Farbanti was a former Belkan, which enable her in this moment to read and understand the letters on that switch.
"It's on Zu, and the other position is Auf. Since aufmachen means open but is often reduced to auf, I guess I should put in on Auf." She reasoned this simple linguistic challenge.
A bit more of electric as well as hydraulic noise was heard when she turned the switch. Then rays of small reddish diodes came to life on the ceiling. This allow her to see the corridor in front of her, who was giving access to a small staircase. She chose to go downward first. As she was walking, the diodes changed the light they were emitting to a bright white. But as she had some time to adapt with the red light, her eyes weren't harmed that much. Yet this sudden change of light color allowed her to see something she hadn't notice on the concrete mass. It was a very easily recognizable sign: the circular black and yellow sign of radiation. Apparently, what was producing the electricity here was running on atomic energy. The water seemed not to be radioactive, or the wolves wouldn't have stayed here. Maybe it was only heated by simple heat transfer from the concrete that was a bit warm when she touched it. Still, this worried her and surprised her in the same time. She had thought that nuclear engine were only huge thingies only for submarines or carriers. But it seemed Belkan scientist had found some ways to shrink it down.
The downward path did not reveal any secret base, nor secret tech or anything otherworldly armament the Pendragon Project could have hidden in such a remote location. No, she only found other big mass of concrete. She thought for an instant they could be back-up generators for this secret place, but it was quite the opposite. Instead, they were what Iskanda had thought seeing in the first concrete block: tombs. Two tombs that blue light illuminated when she stepped in the room a bit more forward. Thus, she was able to see the name of the people buried here.
"Krysta Kupchenko, 1950-1990. Elana Kupchenko, 1975-1990." She read the name of the deceased ones laying there. So, there was the tomb of the deformed and scarred body and an empty one apparently, if Kupchenko's daughter was still MIA. Even if by now the body had been surely turned into a skeleton, Kupchenko said they had been murdered in atrocious ways. So, she didn't search to open the tomb to verify his wife's body state. Even if she didn't respect their only living relative that she knew, she would at least respect their eternal slumber.
Instead, she focused more on the epitaph a bit higher above the tombs, written in dark red, almost bloody red, on a marble plate. Of course, it was in Belkan, but the message it contained was quite simple.
"Mögen Sie in Frieden ruhen. (may you rest in peace)
Mögen Ihre Henker Niemals. (But your tormentors never)." This was the solemn epitaph that was written. Strangely nothing was written about a will of seeking his missing child. Maybe Kupchenko had already searched, but without getting anything. This could also explain why he chose some of his Gault squadron members to be his Erben (heir). Of course, it was just an assumption.
A second, maybe less solemn and more passionate was written above, carved into the rock with anger "Brennt Osea Nieder" (burn Osea to the ground). Maybe she would try to do the same if she had suffered the same losses and in similar ways. Besides, he had already burned a bit of the Osean territory by now, especially with the violent fire caused by the EMP disaster as a result of the Merlin satellites disabling Yukte nukes on their trajectory toward Belka, yet above allied territory.
"I'm sure you can count on your husband to fulfill this last wish." Iskanda chuckled as she left the room. Osea had been wounded deep in his territory with this disaster. And wounded beasts were often the more dangerous one, as they tend to act erratically and do more harm to their surrounding and even allies sometimes than to their true enemies.
There was nothing else to be found at this level than those tombs, so she chose to go up instead. She hadn't expected to find flowers here, she could difficulty picture Kupchenko coming here to flower those tombs. The only thing he would likely bring to decorate this place would be a half burned Osean flag taken on some fortress of his enemies. At least that would be good with the "Burn Osea to the ground". The generator was still buzzing at his place when she was going up on the staircase. After all, if it was here for five years there was no reason why it couldn't work for one day or two. And she had read in some scientific magazine that some of the longue range space probe mankind had launched since now twenty years were still up and running on atomic generators.
The next floor was definitively something she had expected more to see in that kind of secret bunker: a small lounge with a bed that hadn't be remade in years, a small bathroom and a little kitchen-like space. Of course, the few foods she found in the latter were only dry fruits and other dehydrated thingies, but it would complete her venison regime she underwent for the last couple of days. She enjoyed having found those means of subsistence, but nothing could have rejoiced her more than what she was about to find.
This small living area was prolonged into a small corridor that go straight or on her left. Inspired by the demon of curiosity, she chose to go left first. She only met the other side of the heavy metallic door that blocked her a bit sooner. And it had the same six letter lock. On a pure hunch, she decided to try Kupchenko's defunct wife's name, Krysta. Slowly, she aligned the letters in a right and high order. To her greater satisfaction, it worked, but she could only push the door a bit, this coming from the door having no mechanized system to help move their gargantuan weight. Still, the flow of fresh air in this closed space was something good to feel on her skin. She looked a bit at the forest from the entrance of this bunker which was overlooking it. Pixy was right, there was not so much differences between Ustio and Belka, after all, if we judged only on sight.
Yet she hadn't found nothing valuable -she didn't consider the tomb of the relatives of her nemesis to have any value to her right now-. So, she headed back inside, and kept walking in the corridor. She only walked for twenty seconds or so before the corridor grew into a big hangar that was finished by another metallic door that seemed to possess some mechanized opening system. For a strange reason, she could hear some flow of water from over this room, like if she was under some river. Maybe this room was near the water stream she saw sooner on the outside of this hill. Still, the most mysterious elements of this room were the big white piece of fabric that were covering what seemed to be fighter jets, as she saw their tires. Those white pieces of fabric half-turned yellow through time reminded her of the Griffon Steller had lent her for her first two missions.
Again, inspired by her curiosity, she pulled the tissue out, revealing a first fighter. It was an old F4-E II with a paintjob way too old to be identifiable. The paint was gone on half the fuselage, leaving only a grey and white fighter. Some other tissue pulled revealed the piece of what seemed to be the pieces of an ultralight plane. She wasn't understanding the usefulness of such a plane in modern warfare. It was maybe a little cheaper to use for discretion than stealth ones but was far too fragile for her to see any use of this kind of plane. Then the third one was what caused her to startle a bit, confused. It was a Su-47 with a Vantablack camo, this artificial color Pixy used to describe the darker than pitch black camo of the DW-1s and DW-2s. Unlike the F-4E it seemed far newer. Maybe it could even fly, she thought. And with that kind of color, she wouldn't need to paint it once more. Only some Belkan low observation roundels were visible on its rear fuselage. If she was on a black op, it would be always better to use an enemy plane conceived for such ops.
Finding a nearby ladder, she managed to climb near its cockpit, trying to see if the ones that abandoned this place emptied it or not from its flight component. The answer was definitely a no. Everything seemed to be in its right place, and there was no sign of dust from the inside of the fighter. Pushing the emergency opening button around the canopy, she caused it to open in her direction, causing her ladder to fell. Luckily, she didn't fall from very high, and as she saw it coming, she didn't fall flat on her back either.
So, she climbed in it from the other side, and try to study a bit its cockpit that was a lot different than the one of a X-29A. Of course, the HUD was at the same place, and like all modern fighters, it had HOTAS flight control, but everything seemed to be a generation ahead of her old prototype. There was so much more informatics, will it be for the radar -which was poorly integrated on the X-29A due to the aircraft no being intended to be a combat fighter at first- or the weapon management system. Now she was beginning to understand how Kupchenko could best her in such a high-tier plane. But now she had a plan to get back on the battlefield. And finally taste the sweet victory once again.
In order to do that, she would have to do a bit of maintenance. Finally, hanging out with the mechanics in Farbanti instead of her fellow pilots would reveal to be useful. If a bit of electronic wasn't working, she could always take some part on the fourth aircraft she discovered in this place, who was an old Su-25. She only knew Yuktobania and some other Socialist or Communist countries were still using this craft, but it was slowly replaced by the Su-32. But maybe having older airplane with less electronics could be better when up against EMIs.
The last thing she noticed as she began looking at the vectored nozzles of the Su-47 was a strange marking, which was barely visible on the Vantablack camo. On the lower fuselage between the two separated engines was a low visibility marking made of infinity symbols and arrows. It was made of a streak of three upward arrows, then an infinity symbol and three more upward arrows. Surely, Thesermeister could have decipher that kind of mathematical symbol. But this was definitively something she had never heard about. Maybe it was referring to an astronomical number of kills the former pilot of that aircraft obtained, hence the infinity, but the arrows had no meaning to her. Still, it was fitting for her. Her kill count was quite high, even if since the last two mission her exchange ratio had dropped a bit. Yet she wasn't planning on being shot down once more. Not ever again.
End of chapter.
I'm finding it difficult to write those chapters without aerial combat, but I cannot just write missions after missions without anything between then, especially after what happened in the last one. By the way Wanderung come from wandern, which is the equivalent of to wander.
So yeah, she had some bad words with the Oseans… Well of course, a bit more than bad words. She did hit Gault 1, but no weapon is perfect, even HCN (hydrogen cyanide in chemical symbols).
I try to put a bit of "Hoth scene with Obi-wan" in this chapter, if you know what I mean with the entire section in this "Unknown place in an Unknown time." I let you try to find what this final symbol mean. It's quite a high number, but since the sum of integer equals minus one twelfth, I will say that in this matter look can be deceiving. I wish good luck for Pixy on the next one, because he's going alone next time or maybe not…Anyway, feel free to review, comment, and so on.
Bis nächst mal, Lesern und Leserinnen.
22/01/2020: some grammatical fixing.