Chapter 6: Reunion
Ridley was only a couple of steps closer to completely lose it and she had a very good reason to. All because her father couldn't get over a superiority complex that he had against Jack and now he was almost 100 submissive to Cross! Frustrated, Ridley began to furiously dream about her father's shortcomings.
Ridley had to wonder if her father had planned this all along. 'Knowing him, he probably was.' Ridley scoffed but kept sleeping. However, Ridley had to rest her mind at least for a day before confronting her father about this horrid scheme. When that does however, she will exhaust herself by giving him the worst verbal flailing in Radiata's history!
'Please Jack, please be safe...if not...I'll find you and I'll kick you until your breathing again, then I'll kill you!' Ridley thought. At least her anger and annoyance toward her boyfriend was still intact, it should be though. She will need all of it when she brings home Jack and pummels her father with either Jack holding on or letting her go!
Her mind, was interrupted by a soft and firm voice...
'Oh? It's only General Stone...I'll...just go to...sleep.' Ridley thought, intent on falling asleep.
"Miss Silverlake? Miss, please wake up." Dynas was saying as he gently shook an emotionally exhausted Ridley awake. The girl moaned and opened her green eyes to see a gaunt faced Dynas as he was experiencing a memory of something...
When she saw the face, Ridley's mind was panicking. It wasn't good news; it was just another wave of terrible tragedies that fate seemed to lay upon her, one after the other. She wasn't sure if her mind and heart were able take much more...
"I...I have some terrible news, Miss." The General started but paused. It seemed as if his memory have just gotten more real, so to speak.
"Yes?" The girl asked, fearfully. If it was about Jack...the General seemed to hear her thoughts as he started once again.
"Miss Silverlake, there is no easy way to say this, so I will start from the very beginning." The general sighed and started to tell his tale of how he found Jack, recruited him to save him from the harsh treatment of the army's prisoners, and how he became a decent soldier under Ganz' command.
After 15 minutes into his story, he paused. Dynas had to another young woman about her lover's demise. He had to tell Ridley, someone he considered a niece about the hardest part, Jack's demise.
"...Several hours ago, Jack Russell and Ganz Rothschild boarded a plane that they thought was heading for the Nowem Campaign against a known terrorist group operating in the area. The plane was in fact heading toward the Tria desert where a group of prisoners were to be trained and for the lack of a better term, brainwashed, for fighting in the army's beliefs. I only received word that the plane holding these prisoners was ambushed by someone, and freed the prisoners. An hour later, I received a call from a control tower communicator at the air control tower at Radiata's airport was able to pick up voices from an open channel on board that very plane." Dynas paused once more, seeing the fear in Ridley's eyes...
'My god, it seems exactly like Ganz' eyes when I told him and his mother all those years ago...' he thought sadly. Although the events were different, the fear was the same...
"It was believed that Ganz, Jack and an unknown young lady was trying to land the plane instead of letting it crash to the ground. Whether it was believed to be an act of heroism to try and save the prisoners or to save their own lives, I do not know. It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that-" Dynas was interrupted by a shout of "NO!" from Ridley as she guessed what happened.
"No! Not him...please for the love of god, NO!" Ridley shrieked as her heart, mind and the remaining bit of her self-preservation shattered. Dynas looked on as she started to tear up once more and he could do nothing...after all, he was used to it by now.
"I am sorry Miss Silverlake, but there is nothing we can do. I must tell you to move on and good luck." The General said with a formal, but regretful tone and left the office to leave Ridley alone.
It was about the last time he saw a young brokenhearted girl and now unknowingly left alone a mentally strained Ridley...
Ridley was withdrawn, she had lost everything that held an amount of importance in such a small amount of time...and it was all because of a jealous old man that was her father! Ridley, angry at her father and that damned Cross for ruining what peace that she held started to exit the office but not before searching the desk of the General's. Her mind wasn't really aware as she effortlessly entered the Radiata army compound unnoticed all the way into the dubbed "Ammo Bunker".
Ridley had pure adrenaline and a bit of insanity going on in her mind as she silently used a latent spy skill within her and entered the weapon bunker. Ridley took out a single key-pass from her pocket and entered a key code written under Dynas' desk and used it to enter. Ridley (who was entering into what she called 'Commando mode') was unfazed at the large amount of weapons and silently picked out a large rifle. She expertly loaded the weapon with the clips hanging next to the weapon and calmly walked out but not unnoticed as a random mail clerk spotted Ridley and dashed toward the nearest security guard.
Ridley hardly noticed the alarm was sounding now as she broke into a run across the base, ignoring the startled looks of the nearby soldiers. Amidst shouts of orders being given of stopping a crazed looking girl, she wasn't even stopped at this and dodged several attempts at soldiers diving for her. She hardly cared as she entered a massive laboratory with the classic "Keep out. Authorized personnel only!" Ridley ignored the sign and kept running down the hall and looked back to see several soldiers following her. Enraged and scared, she kept running down the hall and found a scientist opening a large metal door and entered with Ridley rushing behind. She sighed in relief as the guards started pounding on the door.
Knocking the scientist out, Ridley grabbed an I.D. Card from the scientist as Ridley calmly now walked toward another set of doors. She merely glanced at the card's name; Morfinn, and inserted the card into a small slot. A whirr was scanning the card and opened the door a minute later. Ridley entered to find a palace-sized room with several tanks being hung off in heavy chains. It surprised Ridley to find the tanks had no chassis for the treads.
'Must be under construction.' Ridley thought as she passed by and entered a room that had only one person inside.
"Must hack into the base and redirect development into the school's database...I-augh!" The scientist, or what was a scientist fell to the ground, unconscious as Ridley knocked him out with the butt of the rifle. She noticed that the scientist wasn't really one at all; he had a symbol belonging to a guild, but she wasn't sure which one he belonged to.
Ridley started to lose some of the adrenaline as she viewed her surroundings: It was obviously a control room and judging the man in front of him, it was clear that he was a spy. She quickly removed a keycard around his neck and briefly read the name 'Genius' as she entered the card. The man's hacking skills paid off as it did everything for her as she read the plans for the army's Hover Tank research.
Ridley, feeling nothing left to lose except for the pride of the Silverlake name (if there was any left), quickly searched the man's pockets to find a small disk inside labeled 'Plans' to download the research of the tank. She briefly wondered why she was downloading it, but wasn't really interested why. When she finished downloading the plans, she looked out the glass window to find several soldiers entering the large room outside of the lab's door led by an unknown commander. Thankfully, the windows were tinted and the soldiers didn't notice her.
"Hm...maybe I can use one of those tanks to escape. At least if I die, I can join Jack..." Ridley said sadly as a tear slid down at the thought of her dead boyfriend...though she felt an odd inkling that Jack was alive. She would have to escape and see...and besides, the plans could be sold to one of the guilds and allow a small fortune for her and Jack if she lived to find him.
A button started to flash on the control panel and Ridley pushed it to see what would happen. A panel on the floor appeared to glow next to the unconscious man and beneath Ridley as the panel grew brightly around them and flashed only her out of the room. A moment later, Ridley had appeared in a small room somewhere. Ridley sat at the seat meant for the driver and saw out through the scope in front of her. She gasped with excitement and fear as Ridley realized she was in one of the many tanks above the room where she was a moment ago!
She saw with great relief that the group of soldiers had entered the room where she downloaded the codes for the tank. she silently cheered as the soldiers only noticed that the man was there and quickly exited out of the lab, dragging the spy and probably to find their commander about what to do about the man.
Ridley was trying to figure out the controls when the tank powered up by itself. Ridley saw that the chains were letting her down as the tank's internal computer booted up and offered a registration panel. Ridley quickly typed her name and chose a password. After that, she hit the Enter key on the keyboard. The tank hummed for a moment and started to run diagnostics internally on the tank.
Ridley almost looked bored as the tank ran test after test and a short blip later, the summary was shown in front. At that moment, the chains finished lowering the tank. Ridley was half expecting to make a large sound as the tank was supposed to do but found that the tank was floating!
"So this must be the Hover Tank...how does it work?" Ridley murmured as she quickly entered a search for manuals on this type of tank. The computer searched for exactly thirty seconds and came up with a short manual.
Ridley learned that the tank was controlled by this very computer. It was lucky that she put in her name as the computer now responded to Ridley's name. The computer also described that putting in simple commands allowed the driver; in this case, Ridley, to automatically perform basic and complex actions to simply turning the turret up to using the main cannon.
Ridley further read the manual and found that she had to manually press the red, round button next to the Enter key to fire and was pleased to learn that the tank had an auto lock-on system.
"Alright...Fire!" Ridley said out loud as she pressed the button...a large beam charged up and fired from the main turret. That alone slightly shook Ridley inside. Such power was almost surreal as the beam tore a large hole in the wall as the tank offered a destination window.
"Well, I'm a fugitive now so I guess I'll try and find Jack...Tria Desert!" Ridley typed the destination as the tank responded by automatically moving.
The scene out side was chaotic as the beam that came out of nowhere completely destroyed the Ammo Bunker and kept going on towards the Soldier's Barracks! The Ammo Bunker was periodically making small explosions here and there. The damage was devastating as several soldier's quarters that housed many recruits were leveled as the beam kept going through! The recruits and soldiers alike were escaping the buildings as they crumbled into piles of metal and steel.
Ridley felt no remorse for the soldiers; after all the army took away her future with Jack so they deserved this destruction...at least the calculating part of her mind reasoned. Her heart was saying to feel pity, but this time Ridley was only listening to her brain...and somewhat loving every second of it.
The tank was practically fighting for her as the computer's online weapon defense system was overriding any safety systems placed by the researchers. The tank almost responded to Ridley's thirst for destruction and was destroying various Guard Towers with the tank's secondary shell turret. Soon Ridley and her tank was coming through the Western gate of Radiata leading to the Tria Desert.
The shells were absolutely creating havoc as the tank stopped in front of the sealed steel gate itself at the Western entrance to the Tria Desert. Ridley found that a large portion of the army was stationed there and several soldiers were firing at the tank. Immediately, the tank raised a clear, almost flowing energy shield and the bullets and grenades were only represented by the flashes of blue.
It wasn't that it was immortal, far from it. Ridley found that the Shield was run on a timer and it would soon deplete itself to recharge the shield.
Ridley pushed the Fire button again as another beam was shot toward the enemy tanks. The tread based tanks flashed before exploding and taking the lives inside the tank. The explosion also created a unstable hole as the wall around the base crumbled and made the gate that they were supporting fall to the floor leaving Ridley a clear way out of the city and into the desert.
Ridley only felt a small tear trickle down as she passed the burning tanks and fallen soldiers to the desert and into the last location of Jack.
"RIDLEY, WE HAVE ARRIVED AT TRIA DESERT, PLEASE ENTER LOCATION" The screen flashed with a search bar under the message appeared in front of Ridley. She pondered a moment and typed a general search topic.
"Find the prisoner's airplane." The computer hummed for a moment and came up empty except for a faint blip and a message of a plane's black box has transmitted a signal and was questioning whether or not to go to it.
Ridley was hopeful, the plane could mean that Jack was on board but was fearing that Jack may have not survived...regardless of the outcome, Ridley agreed to the question and the tank was auto piloting itself toward the last known location of the box.
'Soon Jack, Soon...' Ridley thought as she out the tank into auto-pilot and drifted to sleep. She hoped that it would drown the anger and slight bloodlust and wake up either refreshed. One thing was certain though, the entire world would be hunting her now; she just had to get Jack before they get her...
At the site of the crash, Jack brought himself into consciousness and was holding an unconscious Leona in his arms as he was coming to grips about what happened. He looked around and found that the captain had a large bump that was bleeding slightly on his head and Jack noticed, with slight horror, that the Captain's foot was twisted...the other way.
"Aw, man...well I wonder if I have any injuries...AH! Yeah I do..." Jack groaned as he tried to move his left arm. He found out painfully that it was broken in the elbow joint of the arm making the use of his lower left arm near impossible right now.
After making sure that Ganz wasn't dead, Jack quietly examined Leona. Pleased that she only had a few minor injuries (meaning that his arm was busted by his shielding and vice grip), he started to wake Leona up. Leona looked slightly awake and took her surroundings and blushed furiously at their awkward position. Without really thinking, Leona kissed Jack on the side and blushed even redder...
Jack was a bit red and then asked shakily that he was going to let her go. Leona, still red, had nodded and Jack used his remaining good arm. He lifted what he could and shifted Leona tenderly as to not accidentally drop her. Leona got over her embarrassment, help Jack by jumping out of his body after Jack's careful handling of his broken arm.
A few hours later, Jack and Leona had patched up Ganz by slowly moving his foot into a correct position. The captain was shocked out of unconsciousness by the pain and found his surroundings to be a large desert and not a forest as he thought.
Jack explained that the plane was heading toward a prisoner's camp toward the Tria Desert and they were to be subjected to be the prisoner's newest "recruits". Ganz, of course looked frightened as he recalled seeing a training film from his captain-training days scaring him straight.
Meanwhile General Stone was positively raging about two things. One about how corrupted and lazy his army has been behaving and two how his bad day got worse as the senate ("Lousy good for nothing old dodders!!") was looking for ways to discharge him from the position of Radiata's General.
He wasn't surprised to see that Jasne Colton was leading the charge to get him to resign. If that was to happen, then he would for the time being have control over the army until another was commissioned. It was no secret that Jasne had tried to buy his loyalty through expensive dinners and large contributions. However, there wasn't anything he could do about it legally with jeopardizing Jasne's only daughter, Ridley as well.
Ridley was unofficially Dynas' niece, even if no blood ties them. Ridley often writes to him telling him about his father's inferiority complex with Jack Russell and only recently acquired a letter stating his plan to dump the Russell boy into the prisoner's pit. Dynas had rescued Jack under the guise of personal training but it was really for his niece.
Dynas did not blame one bit on Ridley over the escape and potential theft of the army's secret research. They were able to find a spy in their ranks and immediately shipped him to the Nowem prison camp just north of the forest. The camp there was heavily fortified even more so than that of the Tria Desert and only second of fortifications, Radiata being the first.
The tank was probably their greatest technological achievement and downfall as Ridley escaped with prototype-001 of the Hover Tanks. It was the first one completed and the others were to get equipped with the same modifications of the first tank but had their plans stolen, probably by the spy. He feared that the plans were already being decoded by the Blue Vareth's team of insane researchers...
"sigh...maybe I should just retire. The army is too corrupt to run now..." Dynas said quietly but he knew he couldn't unless damning Radiata to Jasne's ambitions...and he would rather die than do that!
It had been four hours since Jack had found what remaining rations that was left from the burning wreckage of the airplane. It wasn't even much, as much of the small rations were covered in oil and was deemed poisoned. Jack was able to try and give as much to Leona and had to split as much as he could. Fortunately, night had fallen and the fires had kept them warm for the time being.
As Jack laid on the warm sand, he began to think of Ridley and his former life. It was so simple before all of this crap happened. If he could have controlled himself for a few more months, then he and Ridley could've graduated and went off to college or something...well at least Ridley would have and he could have gone to a trade college to feel useful.
'You know, I wonder if we would have gone all the way, Ridley and I...' Jack started to fantasize about a future with Ridley, no matter what happened. If they were together in the future, then they may have gotten married! Jack wasn't sure if they would have any future though, with him having a large bounty on his head care of Jasne Colton.
Looking at the moon, Jack looked at his temporary sling and was relieved when Leona had a bit of medical training in Blue Vareth's school curriculum and was able to find out that Jack hadn't a busted arm, just a sprained one and would be fine in a couple of weeks.
He looked at his companions; Ganz with a bandaged head and a small make shift cast with some of the body armor he wore and Leona sleeping peacefully with her arm over her large tome. Jack was about to drift when he heard a faint hum...
Jack was hoping that anyone would avoid this place for at least a couple of days, but that wasn't the case! Picking up a steel pipe and held it as threateningly as he could, he nearly dropped it when his pipe was up against a massive tank!!
"I-I don't know who you belong to, but I won't let you harm them!" Jack said with a small stutter and tried to swing at the tank. He tried to attack, but was thrown back as the pipe connected with the tank's bright blue transparent shield. The pipe was ripped from his hand and into the distance, but the force and partly the swing unbalanced Jack. He fell to the floor with a thud and landed on his good arm fortunately.
Jack knew he was beat, he couldn't use his gun, the pipe was pretty much thrown back and into the desert somewhere and a tank was only waiting for the order to be blast the annoying target in front of it...Jack gave up, forgetting he wasn't alone he dropped to his knees and just said...
"Dammit! I'm sorry Ridley...I guess I totally screwed up..." Jack then stood up and looked defiantly at the tank and kept repeating his apologies to Ridley in his head. Suddenly the tank's hatch opened.
"Jack? Is that you?" A voice from heaven broke from the tank! Jack looked up in surprise and thought he saw a mirage...at night...oh hell with mirages! It was Ridley!
"Ridley! This..this isn't some dream...right?" Ridley just shook her head and climbed out of the surprisingly floating tank. She approached him and just landed a passionate kiss to quell any doubts that they had. Ridley too was having doubts but that destroyed it!
Their kiss kept getting more and more heavy as they kissed with a huge desperation that they didn't know they had. So much, in fact that it was much as their first kiss: needing and passionate as they each plopped on top of each other and laid on top of each other, never breaking.
They would have gone further but were interrupted by a gasp. The pair broke apart and saw Leona with a shocked look. Ridley was certain that this was the young woman the General mentioned and asked.
"Jack, who is this?" Ridley asked at the same time Leona did. Jack wasn't sure, but suddenly he felt nervous...
"Ridley, this is my friend, Leona Weissheit. Leona, this is Ridley Silverlake, my girlfriend." The two girls eyed each other and narrowed their eyes...Jack did not like the look that they were giving each other but kept silent.
What did he get himself into?
Well...this was a lame cliffhanger. Either way, the next chapter has more involvement with Adele and her pondering questions about Jack. Also, they finally arrived! Jack and company has their first skirmish...
Well, keep looking for the next update! Laters!
T.A.