Original material based on stories and characters by Project Aces. The author claims no for-profit ownership over them.
Thy Enemy As Thyself (Knight)
Chapter 4: The Renewal
13 May 2016
Santo Matteo Penitentiary
Interrogation Room
121 mi. WSW of Mante, Emmeria
"..."
"Not in the mood for small talk this morning? That's okay. The quicker we get the information we need, the easier life is going to be for you."
"..."
"Let's start by having you telling us what you, as a member of the Air Force, were doing in the Windsor Building in the first place."
"..."
"While I'd otherwise admire your appreciation of the right to remain silent, I'm afraid there isn't much that keeping quiet is going to do for you at this point. We know the bullets in those bodies came from your guns. GPD Forensics are already tracing them back to their respective barrels and sooner or later they'll mark your bullets from their bodies."
"..."
"All we need to know is which order your little murder-suicide pact happened and we might be able to work out a little something to save that pretty little ass of yours from retribution from your former Civil War rivals."
"Captain Nemanja Dragovic. Stovakno Ratno zrakoplovsto. Serial 057-1241."
"Okay then, sensitive topic. That's fine. We're not the Osean prison system. And it's not like we're in a hurry for some corpses in a hotel. We are, however, in a bit of a hurry for Lorenz Riedel."
"..."
"Oh, he does pique your attention, does he? That's good. Because we know he's had his fingers deep in a lot of pies long before you Stovies started shooting each other, and we know he had a little contingency plan that we strongly suspect is being enacted as we speak. We know you were with him the last time he was seen alive, so we need to know everything he told you before then."
"...Captain Nemanja Dragovic. S...stovakno Ratno zrakoplovsto. Serial 057-1241."
"Need I remind you, Captain Dragovic, that the fact that you weren't put out of your misery at that site means we see more in you than just any of these murderous grunts. You knew when we dragged you in here that we kept you alive for that reason. And we have a commitment to human rights here in Emmeria, which means that your cooperation will actually ensure your survival as well as your protection, along with possibly hundreds if not thousands of innocent people."
"..."
"And of course, Captain Dragovic, that is a choice we are at liberty to make for you as well."
Years Earlier
Antic Barri, Distrito Capital, San Salvacion
There was a cold chill in the air, sharpened by the golden light of the dying day.
Although we had barely started autumn, the city had withered into a winter mentality long ago with meager gas rations putting an end to central heating. With the days getting shorter I tried to make the most of my daylight hours with the few little obsessions I could cling to, one of which was planewatching.
The skies were quiet that afternoon, made even more so with a quieter town around it. As daily activity in public spaces dwindled away to a bare minimum I found that this particular space, a mound in the middle of a small rotunda, offered a good-enough view of the sky from the middle of the thickly-clustered buildings without having to stray past any particularly heavy checkpoints.
If I wasn't working, I was studying more than just my assignments in school.
It had become easier for me to better estimate when the Yellows were flying from the bar room chatter. I could piece together where the Yellows would be flying through gossip from the ground crews, and estimate flying times and distances with the long-expired airline magazines on the bar's newspaper rack. After long minutes and many napkins' worth of multiplication attempts, I could head out in time to catch their returns from sortie.
My primary school mathematical skills brought the waiting time down to three hours on average with my inability to judge the flight patterns of fighter and passenger jets, but it was a chance better than sitting out all day in the same plaza waiting for nothing to happen.
Today, I was fortunate.
Their arrival was heralded by the familiar crescendo of their approaching engines echoing across the buildings of the old town. Although the sound could have applied to any kind of jet-powered aircraft, the speed at which it reached full blast made it quicker than any transport plane or passenger jet.
When they did appear it was only for a few seconds, but I was already prepared to record every detail. Today they arrived in a diagonal five plane formation using the city's landmarks to guide them down to their improvised airfield by the lake.
My eyes followed them, my body focusing to keep my head steady as a professional camera on a tripod.
The lead plane should have turned with the same arc and timing as the others, but only Thirteen's plane drew sharp contrails. Twin lines of condensation formed from the wingtips as they completed their maneuver, the tail aircraft banking away to begin its landing approach.
The five planes vanished under the rooftops, the sound fading into lingering echoes. My gaze returned to their previous point of entry, and sure enough four planes appeared. Thirteen's was still in front as he made sure each one of his comrades landed safely, one by one.
The cycle continued until only one plane remained. Once Thirteen vanished across the rooftops, it was time for me to head home and pick up my things for my regular employment at the bar.
As I walked home I recounted the numbers on each of the planes as they flew by, committing them to memory like a mathematical equation.
13, 4, 7, 19, 5.
It helped me quell the turbulence in my mind, as I was expecting today to be my last on earth.
Later That Afternoon
Sky Kid Pub
A few months before today I could have never seen myself orphaned and attempting to murder my parents' killer in a bar in cold blood. But now I was here in that exact situation, clutching the cold steel handle of a blocky Erusean standard-issue pistol under my coat in one hand and a knife in the other and hoping I wouldn't miss.
The knife was easy enough to acquire. I knew a regular kitchen knife would not suffice, but my uncle had kept one around for self-defense when he could still drive his cab. With business long gone he kept them in his room, nestled in the same part of his now-empty clothes drawer as his expired license and identification.
I didn't think he would mind. He rarely seemed to be home anymore, in fact I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him in the past couple of days. Maybe it was just coincidence, he probably found another open pub he could complain to about the barkeep's treachery and he was there later than I normally was or in his room.
In any case, he probably wouldn't miss something he was likely too drunk to remember.
Stealing the gun required patience. The army grunts had recovered from their previous eviction and eventually began to resettle on the seats outside. The lack of frontline action had taken its toll on their alertness and allowed them to sink to new lows of inebriation and personal protocol. Eventually one of them simply left their gun leaning out in its holster, perfect to sneak into one of my oversized coat's pockets without anybody looking.
I figured staircase up to the barkeep's quarters was the perfect hiding spot, in the perfect convergence of shadows that allowed me to remain concealed as long as I pressed myself up against the inner wall. Everyone else seemed to assume I had gone up to use the washroom in the barkeep's quarters.
And I bided my time, waiting for the right moment to approach them and trying to find the right words for my final declaration. I watched Thirteen and his wingman and held the pistol pressed against my chest, trying to steel my nerves. Trying to convince myself that it no longer mattered if I didn't make it out of the bar alive, as long as I completed my vengeance before I died.
I watched and watched, waited for a clear path to open up. I only needed a few seconds, but none were allotted to me.
Thirteen's wingman, the squadron's Number Four from the simple yellow digits printed on the back of her jacket, was always with him whenever they entered until the moment they left. There was no way I could get close to Thirteen without getting past her. I could tell she would never let danger get to him, even on land.
After what felt like an eternity I found myself getting dizzy from the tension and the sweat soaking into the lower layers of my clothing. I let out a frustrated sigh and slumped against the wall. The gun had become heavy in my pocket, threatening to weigh me down more than my mind.
The prospect of spending my youth in an occupation facility overwhelmed the possibility of outright death for failure. At that point, I gave up on my plan.
Dejected, I emerged out of the shadows and placed the pistol on the counter before walking straight to the door, trying not to incriminate myself by looking back. I heard the barkeep make an exclamation before he swiped it and shoved it back into a drawer. There was still a lot of daylight out and some fresh food left at home, I figured, I could simply go home and not perform today.
Almost as if on cue, the first thing I saw when I passed through the doorway back onto the street was a mini-tank of the same model as I encountered that night, parked by the curve. I couldn't see the crew nearby, but I couldn't assume that they weren't the same people. Instead the sight of the tank only put pace to my walk, tempting me so much to run and incriminate myself.
Curfew was not until a little while after sunset so they wouldn't arrest me for just walking back to my apartment if I just did not look back.
When I eventually reached the building, the sun had already passed low enough that the street was already in the shadow of the blood red sky. The first thing I did was hide directly behind the entrance and hope nobody followed me.
I knocked on the door a couple of times, hoping there was no answer. After what felt like an hour, I moved a trembling hand to the doorknob and gave it a turn.
My uncle didn't surprise me as I entered. I wanted to be pleasantly surprised when I found out that he wasn't there at all today.
But there was still a pile of money and ration coupons on the table, my take for the last few days and tempting enough that leaving the door unlocked would have gotten it stolen or even informed on. And that only made me even more scared.
Maybe he'd already gone out for his drinking run at wherever he'd normally gone to since giving up on the pub. As long as he didn't see me without the day's pay, and as long as it was waiting for him on the table, I decided I would be safest waiting him out in my room until he came home and passed out in his.
I slammed and bolted the door shut behind me, flopped on to the bed and cried myself to sleep, trying to count numbers to get my eyes to close.
13, 4, 7, 19, 5.
The following morning was a weekend, and I was woken up by the sound of a car or truck motor in the street outside, followed by firm yet calm chatter in Erusean.
Already scared from the moment my reddened, bloated eyes opened, I rolled down onto the floor and crawled to the window. I slowly raised my body to peer over the windowsill and see who or what had stopped downstairs.
Parked beside my uncle's long-since abandoned and vandalized taxicab was a single Erusean army jeep, manned by an army soldier in the passenger seat, as well as two air force ground crew members riding driver and in the back. They weren't the kind of raiding team that broke into people's houses in the middle of the night, but that didn't make them any less scary to me. Especially when I heard them calling my name.
I waited a few minutes to see if they were going to come inside. Then I slowly crept to the door and unlocked it, trying clumsily to be as quiet as possible before I left the apartment and made my way downstairs.
I stood glued to the doorstep for a few seconds, wondering if they really believed I was going to kill two of the country's heroes in broad daylight. The look on their faces and the tank crewman waving certainly didn't infer it, but turning away would only seal my guilt to them.
I approached slowly, but they didn't stop calling me like I was a stray dog or cat until I was right up against the passenger's side of the vehicle.
The first thing they did was thank me for turning in a loose gun. A lot of drunken soldiers had seen their weapons or other equipment go missing, coinciding with a rise in activity from local insurgents. Returning the weapon through their friendly neighborhood barkeep was a better fate than it being used against an Erusean soldier.
It was a relief. The occupation trusted the barkeep enough to turn in anything or anyone suspicious, at least judging from the fact that nobody not in military uniform had anything nice to say about them.
The next thing they told me was not to lie about my address next time. I could feel my face burning red as I recalled asking the tank crew to drop me off next door, by the corner. I apologized, a stuttering, forced apology that brought quick forgiveness.
Then they asked if I wanted to come see the airfield.
As much as I wanted to smile, to even feign some kind of gratitude, I knew it was an offer I could not refuse. I nodded and they helped me into the jeep.
It was not until I saw my first sight of farmland that I knew I hadn't been tricked and I wasn't going to jail.
Perhaps it didn't turn out to be that bad of an offer, at least in the immediate scheme of things.
Base aérienne 765 Salvacion Oeste (BA 765)
Lake Oronell, San Salvacion
Far, far away from the noise and the terror of the front line, there was something about staring a monster in the face in its own lair that seemed to dispel the fear.
In this case, the monster was the very aircraft that brought death upon my family. Or rather, it was one of them from the same squadron. But it was not the insatiable beast of metal and cacophony that I remembered, at least not while it wasn't under Thirteen's control. Now it was just one of the many aircraft with yellow undercarriages that bathed under the bright sun and puffy clouds of the occupation's base or tended to by mechanics in the shade of the disused tunnels.
The base adjutant, still as rambunctious as he was the first night he and his pilots showed up at the pub, told me that the plane was called the Flanker or Terminator. And in the hands of Thirteen...
He gave a hearty laugh in place of the last few words of his sentence. He didn't need to finish it.
13, 4, 7, 19, 5.
I could spot all five of them parked around the base, along with at least three or four others kept in reserve. I was staring up at number 7. Thirteen's and Four's were in the tunnel that would have eventually led to the new airport in peacetime.
Then he asked me if I really liked planes, to which I nodded. His face lit up a like he had an idea, and told me not to go too far away while he went to the military tractor trailer that served as his office. In the meantime I was left with the mechanics.
I made my way over to the tunnel where Thirteen's aircraft hibernated. I could spot Thirteen and Four's familiar figures and a mechanic they were conversing with as I drew close. Yet although I had expected a howling vortex of darkness to draw me in, it was my natural sense of curiosity did the job. The almost casual, relaxed nature of the base and its staff had successfully disarmed me.
The mechanic was explaining to Thirteen that he had put an unusual amount of stress on his plane again. It was expected, he explained, both for the distances they had to fly out to, and his ability to wring out its potential more than any other Erusean ace. It also meant that maintenance on his plane would take longer than it normally would.
Thirteen nodded and told him to take all the time he needed unless they scrambled.
He then told the mechanic, in no uncertain terms, that he did not pride himself on his kill record but on having never lost any of his squad members. This not only required good flying skills, but aircraft that needed to remain reliable. It was a personal point of pride that he swore he would never let go of.
The engineer then recommended that Thirteen at least try to take it easy now that there still wasn't any opposition from enemy air forces anymore, and Thirteen nodded more in acknowledgement than agreement before Four asked him if there was a problem.
Thirteen then said that he had genuinely felt compassion toward the weaker enemies he downed. It was an insult to him and his country that they could be sent up so frequently, and quite possibly against their best moral instincts. The one person he could only truly be at peace with was the pilot that could stare him down, cockpit-to-cockpit, and shoot him down.
The mechanic then asked if there was to be any changes to the maintenance routine, to which Thirteen sighed and waved him off. Five planes always ready, as the usual.
I had considered approaching him, even though I had no weapons on me. My previous desire turned out to be half-hearted at best, if I wanted to wreak vengeance, that desire was now nonexistent.
I remember seeing Four turning to smile at me before I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. I turned around with a horrified gasp, expecting an MP but instead finding the adjutant offering me a toy plane.
The metal replica of the Yellow Squadron's plane was surprisingly well made, bearing the manufacturing marks of a famous Erusean toy company. It fit perfectly in my hand, and had a little switch on the top that could retract its landing gear or open its cockpit.
I barely had time to admire the sun's reflection off of it when the crews began hurrying onto the nearest available vehicle, quickly loading them above capacity.
I asked what was going on, to which the adjutant simply chuckled and told me that lunch was about to be served at the rapidly-deployable warehouse-tents further in the base and the ground crews still thought that they couldn't get there faster by walking. It was a waste of otherwise good gas, but at least supplies were plentiful for now.
The pilots had their own personal vehicles from the garage, which likely inspired the ground crews to try to race to the mess hall.
The adjutant told me to run along and get a plate too, and that he'd catch up.
They let me ride on the bonnet, and although they drove slow enough that nobody fell off, it was the probably the closest I would ever get to a roller-coaster ride in my life.
Antic Barri District, San Salvacion
Later That Evening
When the ground crews dropped me off at my uncle's apartment that night, all the enjoyment of being treated as the base's guest immediately wore off. I hesitated before going up the stairs.
The only thing that scared me more than seeing the Erusean military parked outside my house that morning was the realization that the last time I'd seen my uncle was a week ago. Even more mysterious to me than where he was right now was the reason why.
I crept up the stairs to my apartment door, trying to reassure myself with my recent memories. The mechanics teaching me how to put things together and take them apart with scrap parts, the reserve pilots explaining maneuvers with my toy plane. All those were replaced by Thirteen and Four's continued elusiveness as I reached my floor and put my ear against the door.
Maybe he'd gotten in and fallen asleep. I unlocked it as quietly as I could and found the room darkened, but the moonlight reflecting through the window showed that nothing had been changed or moved since I left. Even the door to my uncle's room was left open, revealing an empty bed.
I locked the door behind me and quickly made my way to my own room, laying the toy plane I kept gently cradled in my coat on a drawer by my bed before going to the bathroom to clean myself up. When I emerged a few minutes later in my pajamas, I took the plane with me as I tucked myself in, holding it against the shadow and watching the moonlight glint off its plastic surfaces.
If I wanted it to hypnotize me to sleep, then it began doing a surprisingly good job as a feeling of relaxation and comfort began to wash over me.
While I could never bring myself to forgive Thirteen for what he did, I could not hold every single person on this base responsible for my own personal tragedy. At first it was simply out of a lack of resources to avenge them on so many people, but because I realized I could not fathom what these individual people would have out for my family.
I knew that they all contributed in some way to my parents' demise in some form or another, from the mechanics to the fuel truck drivers. But in a war effort where people died in the air and on the ground, how would they have known from their point of view?
It eventually raised the possibility - as mind-boggling as it was in my youth - that my parents' death was the result of the most unfortunate cascade of coincidence.
And the anger I felt at their very death did not consume me as much as it did before, let alone the possibility that it was a very unfortunate accident. Nor did I feel the burden of having simply resigned myself to powerlessness.
Maybe it was their way of trying to earn my forgiveness. Maybe I felt less afraid around people who were genuinely being nice to me. Perhaps it was the outward innocence of an orphaned youth that earned their pity.
But today I felt an emptiness had been fulfilled from the last group of people I had ever expected to do so.
I realized that I had found the kindness of a family with the personnel of BA 765, and it was in return for kindness they believed I displayed to them.
I never wanted to return to that void. I was now convinced that leaving them was no longer an option.
And in turn, I would be drawn even further into the war and all of its complexity, as well as its consequences.
To Be Continued...
A/N: I so terribly wanted to make Yellow Squadron's aircraft 30MKI/Es instead of 37s. Unfortunately for this I caved to canon.
A/N 2: Because of my continuing headcanon of Erusea as France, I went and gave the highway airbase a BA designation number because my research comes from Wikipedia. I'm sorry. Also yes, it's 765 for the obvious Bamco tribute.