Chapter 13: Darts and Stylets
A few regulars stood along the wall making small talk around warmly lit booths. Every so often there was a soft thunk as a dart struck its board nailed to the wall.
A slim red-haired girl with a red sweater and pig tails sat at the far end of the Lone Pine's hanging log bar. She sipped a synthetic rum cocktail while she admired her bright pink nails.
A white streak ran down Kristoff's arm. There was a white blotch barely visible on Cho's neck below his white collared shirt. Alban wore a serious expression as the three stared at a large monitor behind the bar.
"Tonight we bring you a special report from our partners in the Union of Khania where a sudden explosion was observed at a large scale research mine in Sogne. Reports of a creature of some kind are coming in—hold on, we've got video. Maria, can you see anything there?"
The red haired girl took a swig from her drink through a purple bendy-straw and peeked up at the news report, then glanced over at Cho. Their eyes briefly met before she abruptly turned back to fiddling with her communicator.
"Yes Lauren," a blonde woman in a green flak jacket labeled "PRESS" stood in front of a burning heap of rubble. Behind her were upturned chemical tanks and ripped open steel chambers bathed in an ominous orange light. "What you see behind me- once a hotly controversial magma drilling site is now in ruins after an unexpected eruption has brought life here in Sogne to a grinding halt.
"This comes just days after Ishigami, the commander of a Serilonian Reconnaissance Team testified before the I.M.E.A. general assembly on their discovery of Khanian treaty violations."
The scene switched to a pre-recorded video of a green marble background with a familiar old man making an impassioned speech behind a glass podium: "There is no doubt about it! The Khanians are drilling for magma. What started fifteen years ago as an unethical research project has now progressed to the large-scale excavation of treaty-protected organisms from their habitat within the Earth's mantle. I urge the I.M.E.A. Security Council and the Council of Three to take immediate action."
The reporter returned while fires smoldered behind her. "The Khanian high premier says, quote, 'this blatant violation of the Union of Khania's sovereignty is in affront to global stability. It is well within our rights to conduct free scientific research on our own soil, and such operations shall not be restricted by an illegitimate governance body. The direct violation of our airspace by Serilonan reconnaissance squadron shall not go unnoticed'. Certainly a foreboding message, Lauren."
"Thanks Maria- one question, can you tell us what you heard or saw - when the attack began? Did you see any explosions, hear any planes?"
"Yes Lauren, I- uh, I'm not sure if I can really explain it. I heard a loud roaring noise like a kind of, I don't know, like a screech. Then there was a metallic sound. It didn't sound like any bomb went off. It was more like, kind of an eruption-"
Behind her a blue light pierced the orange flames and there was a screech like rending metal. Lauren whipped around and screamed as a gigantic black form rose above the burning rubble. Blue light shined from behind strange geometric patterns on its surface.
The camera cut to static. Maria sat behind a desk with her mouth open.
"We- uh, we're experiencing some technical- Fred! You want to cut to commercial!?"
"Now introducing di-brominated crystal dew!" a handsome man clutched a glass of clear liquid with red bubbles rising to its surface. He slammed the glass down on a wooden table and red froth overflowed from it onto his hand, "now with half the primary amines and double the flavor! Generally recognized as safe by the United Nations Federation Drug and Drink Association."
Alban shook his head in annoyance then grabbed the remote to switch the screen off.
"The fuck was that?" Cho slammed his hand down on the bar which swayed uneasily.
Kristoff was silent. Alban looked at both of them sternly. "I think maybe you two have had enough tonight." He placed a hand over Cho's glass.
"Seriously?" he got up and grabbed a stray dart on the ground next to his foot, then threw it across the room at one of the boards. It struck the green outer circle of a bullseye. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out his buzzing communicator, "Oh you've got to be shitting me." He cursed, then stormed out the door. The girl with the red sweater quickly jumped up, slammed some bills down on the log and followed him.
Kristoff sat calmly at the bar and looked at his own buzzing communicator.
"On call tonight- be prepared to scramble on short notice. Remain in the Genista base local area."
"Looks like it's going to be one of those nights," he sighed.
"You got yours, I got mine," Alban lamented, then nodded at the fancy looking patches on his flight jacket. "Some would call you a lucky guy."
"Ya, I suppose, but I bet your bad days don't leave you like this," he lifted his chemically burned arm up onto the log.
"Pfew- that's a nasty one."
"There's a reason why U.N.F. planes don't use chemical lasers anymore."
"U.N.F.? How'd you wind up here?"
"Co-pilot dragged me along."
"Royce, right? Young guy, dark hair?"
"Yeah. Lucky bastard. That guy. You know- back when I was in the hospital, this gorgeous pink haired mystery woman. I'm talkin'- eleven out of ten just jumps him, out of the blue, while I'm lying there in bed watching. This girl who he's practically never met before- just goes after him. And he runs away. Then you know what the girl does- asks me for his number. I mean, what the hell, man!"
"Pretty messed up."
"That's not the half of it," he ranted, "you know that mission on the news? The one where they discovered the Khanian drilling? Yeah," He lifted his arm up. "That's where this shit came from- two guys down over enemy territory, half a billion dollar plane blown to bits, one guy gets opto-induced brain damage, me and Cho get hydrofluoric acid burns- and Royce walks away scot-free, no injuries- AND he's still got two girls hungry for his-"
"I get it," Alban shrugged, "some guys just got all the luck."
"Even fucking Cho gets that red haired chick-" he gestured at the door. "How the hell does that even happen?"
Alban smiled a bit, "Oh the one in the red sweater? Yeah, strange. I've never seen her before. But you know, if you're talking about the pink haired girl I think you are- I know something about her that you might find interesting."
"Oh really? What could that possibly be?"
Alban grinned.
"Cho!" Ishigami shouted at the bald headed man who stumbled into the briefing room with a redhead clinging to his arm.
"How many times do I have to tell you: this is a Serilonian military base on high alert. This is no place to bring your date! I won't tolerate it from Royce and I won't tolerate it from you!" He turned to the girl, "dare I even ask- who are you?"
"My name's Kimi!"
He brought a hand to his forehead, "Go wait in the atrium, I'll have security get you a visitor's badge." He waved her off and she skipped out of the heavy double doors. "Cho, on a scale of one to plastered- what are we talking here?"
The doors burst open again and Kristoff stepped into the command center already in full flight gear, followed by Morisato and a blond haired man wearing a crisp white button-up shirt and a black tie.
"Good, at least we have two pilots ready to go. And- if it isn't Doctor Alban Stein. Now that's a face I haven't seen in too long. What do I owe this pleasure?"
Alban smiled, "It's good to see you too, Ishigami. It has been a while. It just so happens I have a matter to discuss with you privately. Perhaps you can spare a minute after this briefing?"
"Of course. Now, Cho- are you drunk?"
"I'm like- a five," Cho announced.
"More like an eight," Kristoff clapped him on the shoulder.
Ishigami rubbed his forehead and tapped a few buttons on the holographic display, "Private Simmons- does the clinic stock synthetic enzymes?"
"Yes sir!"
"Could you bring me six hundred units of alcohol D.H. and a thousand units of aldehyde?"
"Who's the patient?"
"Sunbird pilots."
"Well- we've got both in stock, I'll send a medic over with the enzymes."
"Thanks."
He then announced to the three mortified pilots standing against the far wall, "Okay, here's the deal. You three's all I've got. Victor's still in the hospital, the cadets are still recovering from spinal injuries thanks to that auto-ejection, and Royce and Ria are in orbit. Cho and Kristoff, I hope you enjoyed that night out, because now you get to experience a twelve hour hangover condensed into fifteen minutes."
With Cho still clutching his head, Ishigami pulled up a large blue map on the central holographic display.
"Thermographics indicate grid nine of the Khanian mainland has taken a pounding from recent seismic activity. Magma displacement is unprecedented in this region here near the Sogne borehole. We suspect it's a Moho-Class radiotroph cluster, ten meters or less in diameter."
A two dimensional image of the news report froze frame on the black creature cloaked in blue light.
Morisato raised his hand, "A, uh, what?"
Ishigami patted Alban on the shoulder as he stood up and explained, "A Radiotroph Cluster is a self-assembled group of organisms which normally dwell in the Earth's mantle. Their existence was known since the Plantation-era, but back then they were- poorly understood. People thought they were dinosaurs of some kind. Now we understand they're closer to clusters of plankton. Radiotrophs are extremophiles with hard carbide-like shells which protect them from the heat of the mantle, and special enzymes which allow them to extract energy from the radionuclides underneath the crust. At some point, they started self-assembling into multi-celled organisms. Have you ever heard of the phenomenon called deep-sea gigantism?"
"Uh- no."
Alban continued, "it's a trend which correlates the size of organisms with the depth of their habitat. For instance, squid which live deeper in the ocean are generally bigger than squid which evolved to live on the surface. R.T.C.'s live in an environment far deeper than the deepest ocean trenches. Therefore it makes sense that they'd be larger than any other forms of life. This is all- strictly top secret, of course. I hope you understand."
"I- uh- okay."
Ishigami picked up where Alban left off. "As I was saying. We have a Moho-Class R.T.C. on our hands. The Khanians are holding it off with conventional weapons, but they need help to finish it off. Plan A was to dispatch a Tracer, but there's been a problem. We still don't know what went wrong, but Ria and Royce were flying it when it malfunctioned.
"They're both- physically okay, but they're shaken up. The U.N.F. is at alert one and they're fueling missiles for a nuclear strike on Sogne as a last resort- but they're giving us six hours to take care of this thing before they start lobbing nukes. As you know, the Serilonan self-defense force isn't equipped to handle this kind of thing. And Sunbirds are the closest special tactics squadron to that R.T.C. I've got one last trick up my sleeve, and it's ready just in the nick of time.
"I managed to get our latest defensive satellite onto a U.N.F. Shuttle." The display showed a computer-generated image of a large satellite with what looked like a long square gun barrel at its front and two massive solar panels on each side. "This is the Stylet. A six hundred megajoule-class orbital railgun designed for the Tracer project. It's orbiting the Earth, and it can be fired remotely."
The projection zoomed out to show a large section of the Earth with the Stylet's orbital trajectory as an arc passing above the curved globe.
"Because of the way the orbits work, you'll only have a limited window. The Stylet will only be able to fire in prograde for two minutes out of every twenty. You'll also have a two minute retrograde window, but it's not recommended. In retrograde you'll only get a fraction of the impact energy. So the goal is to kill this thing on the first shot." Ishigami stood upright behind the computer simulation. "Any questions?"
"Uh- what?" Morisato's jaw hung slack.
Kristoff shook his head, "We hold off the big bad monster until the orbital cannon's ready to fire?"
"Pretty much," Ishigami nodded.
"Alright. Sounds easy enough."
"Not quite," Ishigami sighed deeply and held out his hand to stop their advance toward the prep room.
"What now?"
"To fire the satellite we need a precise position. To get a precise position on a two dimensional grid, we need at least two points of reference and a distance between them. That's called triangulation."
Kristoff looked to his left and right. Only 3 pilots. "Shit. Could we just fly one of the planes single seat?"
"No. Sunbirds aren't designed for that. And we can't afford to fail this mission. We need a fourth pilot."
"Who?"
Ishigami gritted his teeth then his back and flipped open his communicator. The smiling face of a pink-haired woman sitting against a bright red bedroom wall appeared. Dangling from her hand was a small book with the title "Jimmy and the Snowman".
"Captain Zhen-"
"I thought you'd never ask."