Log 25
Date: 19TH NOV 2186
Location: GULF OF ALASKA
The 'old friends' in this case turned out to be his former ace in the hole when he was running the Vancouver base. In other words he was referring to the submarines which he had previously referred to as 'phase two'. After they had taken out the Destroyers enabling our escape, the subs had been forced to play a game of cat and mouse with the Reapers. Staying submerged as much as possible to avoid detection. I can't imagine they were terribly thrilled to be called on by us again but they'd shown a knack for avoiding detection that would certainly come in handy.
"Why can't we just sail the sub directly to Britain? Avoid the long trip through Russia altogether." I asked.
The General shook his head.
"The captain says there's no good way to get round the Americas, all the routes are too well guarded. Bottom line is that it's his ship and he won't do it."
"Fair enough," I replied. "So they'll pick us up at Horseshoe Bay and drop us off at... What was it called again?"
"It is..." Coberg peered down at his notes. "Uelen. Apparently that's where the this underground line begins. Right on the easternmost point of Russia."
"Right and is everything prepared now?"
"It is, we leave in one hour to arrive at the Bay shortly before dawn. Our Captain wants to have cover of darkness to get us all onto his tub. Anderson, why are you doing this?"
"You've already signed up General," I pointed. "Not having second thoughts are you?"
"I go wherever the fight is. Looks like London is the right place. I asked why you're doing this?"
"Same reason, why you think I had some ulterior motive?"
"Had a hard time figuring you out Anderson. Never took you for a man of action at first, not after you took that politician job."
"Councilor position," I corrected him. "But you're focusing on the wrong thing. I joined the Council because I thought I'd be able to do more good there. You ought to ask yourself why I left."
He looked for a moment like he wanted to ask something else but simply shrugged it off and walked away.
An hour later we set off with Colonel Travis agreeing to accompany us with an escort to the bay before heading back to lead what would remain of our resistance cell. Those that were coming with us were Coberg and most of his remaining men, Lara and her crew, Xi Chan and his team, Major Coats with a handful of Alliance soldiers and volunteer resistance fighters. A small army but still an army nonetheless.
As we made our way towards the bay I caught General Coberg staring south across the water. There wasn't really much to see in the dark, not that there was much to see in any case. I knew we would see no more than a pile of rubble once dawn did break.
"Wondering what happened to the Cerberus base?" I asked. We knew the Reaper Capital ships had departed Richmond yesterday but there was little indication of how the battle had gone. We could assume the Reapers had won of course but if anyone else had managed to escape I couldn't say.
"No I was thinking about my base in Vancouver," he replied.
"I'd hoped to be able to visit it again someday. Odds are I'll never see it again."
"You might do when the war's over."
He gave me a look that mirrored my own thoughts. 'And when might that be' his expression seemed to say.
"Do you think we could've held out?"
"We've discussed this before," I pointed out.
"I know all that. But if we hadn't tried to run that mission I mean. Do think there was any way we could've..." his voice trailed off.
"For awhile longer maybe but not forever. No one's ever managed to hold back the Reapers before. Not long term at any rate."
"I think I was better off not knowing what the Reapers are capable of. It would've been better if none of us ever had to find out."
I nodded but didn't reply. I wasn't surprised Coberg had been tempted to revisit his old base but personally I was done looking back at old ghosts. I'd left all that behind at the funeral. Now I just wanted to get back to London, my hometown and bring the Reapers some pain.
We pressed on and managed to reach the rendezvous only slightly behind schedule. They were already waiting for us when we reached the beach. Four officers lined up at attention with one more stepping forward to greet us.
"Captain Gregory Hellman of the SNV Seaborn sir," he said saluting as he reached us. Clearly a man who liked doing things by the book.
"I'm Admiral Anderson of the Alliance Forth Fleet. What does SNV stand for incidentally?" I asked somewhat confused.
"Systems Alliance Naval Vehicle," he clarified though to be honest it just left me more confused.
"This is officially an Alliance Vessel?" I asked. The Alliance only operates in space, I'd never heard of SNV's or of the Alliance having land or sea based assets on Earth. As an Admiral I found this gap in my knowledge vaguely disconcerting.
"That is correct, the project was designed as a top secret homeworld defense system. It was thought Thanix cannons deployed in this way might serve as a useful last line of defense. Something enemy forces would be likely to overlook which could be used to make strategic strikes to aid the counter attack."
A weapon designed for the possibility that Earth might be captured? When I'd become an Admiral I'd been assured that some measures were being taken in case my warnings turned out to be correct. I'd assumed it had been a lie to keep me quiet but apparently they had built something albeit on less than a thousandth of the scale required. I shook myself mentally, for all my warnings even I hadn't really understood the scale of the Reaper threat. If I'd known about this project I might have thought it was enough myself.
The captain introduced the rest of his officers and then we all fell in and marched towards the waiting sub. I found Captain Gregory marching beside me as we went.
"You're late sir," the captain pointed out.
"You wanted us here before sunrise, we're here before sunrise," I replied.
"We're still behind schedule sir, we will need to leave quickly to avoid being spotted by any Reaper patrols."
And with that we were inside for our 32 hour journey to Russia. As with every other sub I'd ever been in the Seaborn felt cramped and claustrophobic. I'm not sure why but no matter how big they build the sub (this one was large enough to accommodate the crew of 75 and the nearly 250 men I was bringing to London and theoretically still had room for 125 more) they always feel small. It's always seemed strange to me as in the early days of interstellar space travel space ships themselves were also just the same. I shipped out to the first contact war in a shuttle so small we were virtually breathing down each others necks. But while subs have remained the same way, space vessels had come leaps and bounds forward (you should have seen my shock the first time I realized I could call a ship 'home'). I guess the priority in the last thirty years has obviously been on space fairing technology with other modes of transport left largely ignored. I did try to discuss this idea with some of my fellow shipmates. Unfortunately they started joking and asked me what it was like back in the stone age.
Giving up on that observation as a lost cause I headed back to the officers cabin. To my surprise I arrived to find Karlakh waiting for me. From the look in his eye in was in full firebrand mode at the moment though I couldn't for the life of me work out why.
"Admiral,"
"What is it son?"
"Thank you for saving my life," he said formally his tone level. "I wouldn't have made it without you or the girl."
"It's no problem, just doing my duty," I replied wondering if I hadn't misread his initial expression (it's not uncommon to misinterpret alien body language afterall).
"Actually there is a problem," he said in a confrontational manner reconfirming my earlier suspicions.
"Why did you drag the girl onto this mission?"
"The girl?" I murmured trying to recall who he meant. Then it hit me, he was referring to the person who'd helped treat his wounds, Cadet Sarah Smith. But she wasn't on the mission, at least she wasn't assigned to it.
"She's not assigned to- Where did you last see her?" I asked the question overtaking the platitude as realization began to dawn on me.
"Downstairs in the mess hall, keeping to herself as I recall."
I tore down the corridor and the stairs to reach the mess hall with Karlakh following close behind.
"I don't see her," I pointed out.
"Over there," he said pointing to the far corner where a lone figure was standing, hunched out a dinner tray. Her face was barely visible under the Alliance issue cap she'd borrowed, her hair tucked away or cut off perhaps at this distance I couldn't tell. I glanced back at Karlakh who noticed my surprise.
"You remember well the appearance of one who saves your life," he shrugged.
"Especially if you're a Drell," I added, recalling their famously excellent memories.
He shook his head.
"It's more than that, she reminds me of someone I once knew from the camps."
"What happened to her? Is she-"
"She was in our group when Lara rescued us, she almost got away too but the warlord was too determined to keep her. They both ended up getting left behind on Khar'shan so they're probably dead by now. I'm glad he's gone but I'll miss her, we spoke every day before the Reapers came."
"Maybe she got away?" I suggested.
"You didn't see it Admiral. The Reapers were everywhere, killing everyone, butchering them."
His eyes seemed to gaze at something far away.
"Terrified I run from room to room, desperate to keep up with the others, knowing the monsters are close behind. We find a large landing platform on the roof where our one hope of escape is waiting. Outside I can look across the fields I used to work now covered in blood. The slaves are still there and the masters, cut up into pieces, screaming. The machines are killing anything that moves."
There's true panic and fear clearly evident on his face now, unsure what's going on I shake him roughly, trying to bring him back to reality.
"My apologies Admiral,it's not uncommon for Drell to become lost in their memories, particularly disturbing ones."
"Are you alright?" I asked concerned.
"I'm fine Admiral don't worry about me, though it is best if I avoid accessing those memories for some time. For now you need to focus on the problem in front of you," he said pointing at the girl.
It was clear to me that he was struggling with his memories of Khar'shan more than he wanted to admit but he still had a point. I headed into the mess to confront the Cadet but soon decided on a less confrontational approach. Instead seeing Xi Chan hurrying past I called him into a spare room to have a word. There was some shouting some of it mine. Several other high ranking members of the resistance were called and eventually Sarah was called in and encouraged to explain. The upshot soon became fairly clear. After her traumatic experience in the Cerberus base the cadet had been kept under observation by various officers.
Unfortunately the system was disorganized to say the least. On the day before we left she asked to go out for a walk alone in the woods, to clear her head after the funeral she'd said. Instead she crept back into camp and quickly managed to lose herself in the group preparing to head out on our mission to London. In the confusion around organizing and setting out on the mission no one had noticed her absence until it was too late.
My initial reaction was to send her back home immediately but there were two issues with this. The first was Captain Hellman who insisted there was no way they could double back without risking the ship. I tried to suggest that he could keep the cadet on board for awhile and then once the coast seemed to be clear return to drop her off but he wasn't having any of it. Her experience aside, her youth alone had convinced the man that she would be a nuisance aboard the ship. Potentially I could order him to do so but as he was not under my jurisdiction (it was an Alliance project but ultimately he was still a naval officer). This meant he could delay by requesting confirmation from his naval admiral (which given the state of the command structure and our communications infrastructure might mean waiting months).
Secondly she simply refused to go. In many ways I understood and sympathized. People react to the trauma of the war in different ways. Due to her youth our initial response had been to remove all factors of stress which of course included the incredibly complex work she had been doing every day until our capture. We had been reluctant to allow her to lock herself away in the lab but perhaps some work would have allowed her to regain a sense of normality? Instead she was left with nothing to do each day but think about her survivors guilt. Small wonder she decided to try and come along, to continue doing her duty.
Honestly I'm not a psychologist which is possibly the worst issue here. The Reapers have fractured our society so far that we're losing vital skills we once had access to. Before the war I would have immediately called in a specialist to help deal with an issue like this but the option simply didn't exist anymore. The Reapers do more than than kill you, they destroy your civilization and as it goes your values and beliefs are slowly stripped away with it. Even if you keep trying to do the right thing they peel away the tools you once had to help.
"I always want to help but sometimes I don't know how," I muttered to myself. I like to think that's true of most folk really. That they look at the state of the galaxy and wish they could do something positive but they don't know where to start. Now here I was wanting to help this young cadet, unsure what the best course of action might be.
Eventually as I went to bed early that night in preparation for an early start the next day I resolved to speak to the Captain about this again in the morning. I would make him take her back to safety, even threaten him if I had to.
I was woken up by Daniels in the middle of the night along with the rest of the officers.
"Sir, the captain wants to speak to you right away. There's been a murder."