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Sina stood outside the monorail tube, clutching her arms together. She was shivering slightly, and looking nervously towards the opening of the service station, fifty metres away. I’m in well over my head here, she thought. The UN can’t be taking me seriously, not if they send me a half-trained intelligence agent. Intelligence, hah!
She wasn’t sure what would happen now. Whatever Maxwell had said, the UN would never send a transport into Believer territory – not only would that be an act of war, but even worse, in the UN’s eyes, that is, they’d be seen as complete hypocrites, advocating peace while practising conflict. And Maxwell couldn’t win against the half dozen or so BIS agents inside the train. Maybe the BIS would be sympathetic towards her.
She ****ed her head to one side, trying to strain her hearing, unconsciously triangulating the source. Turning around, through the grey scratched plastic of the monorail tube, she could just make out the train silently departing. Sina touched her brother’s arm. Lalver silently looked over towards the monorail, almost reeling back in surprise.
There was a sound of someone shouting. Seconds later, Maxwell tumbled out of the open service station door onto the bare ground outside as a blue beam stabbed past him. He responded by firing another few rounds at the agent, then pulled himself up onto his feet.
Sina remained frozen to the spot, her shivering forgotten. Going up to the service station door, Maxwell tapped the keypad a few times, then banged it with his fist. Nothing happened. Stepping back, he fired three rounds into the electronic lock mechanism. With startling speed, the door slammed into place.
Maxwell trotted over towards them, shouting at first.
‘They won’t be able to cut themselves out before our transport gets here, and there’s only two left, the rest were still on the monorail.’ He looked up to the darkening horizon, where a bright point of light was rising slowly. ‘That’s our transport.’
Lalver looked towards where Maxwell was pointing, and squinted. ‘How long will it take for it to get here? Won’t it get shot down?’
Maxwell smiled inscrutably. ‘I doubt it,’ he said, remarkably self-assured, thought Sina.
The point grew into a sleek and thin disc, its searchlight creating lengthening shadows behind the three. Small rotors extruded themselves out of the top surface of the craft while a bulky undercarriage unfolded itself. Lalver frowned, and said ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen that design of craft before.’
Sina looked closely, and a shiver ran the entire length of her body. ‘I have. In a Believer military installation.’ Maxwell said nothing when she looked at him questioning, the contours of his face lost in the shadows.
‘I don’t suppose there’s much we can do except to wait. They’ll probably pick us up, since they haven’t killed us already,’ stated Lalver in a flat voice.
With a final sweep of its searchlight, the craft touched down almost gingerly onto the ground, the undercarriage compressing to absorb the impact. The rotors shut off, and the brilliant searchlight flickered out. Sina blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden darkness. A ramp banged down onto the ground in front of her, and men rushed out. Maxwell still didn’t move. One of the men detached himself from the main group, who were encircling the three, to walk up to the lieutenant. He saluted.
‘Sergeant Takayuki Sato, sir. Received your call.’ The sergeant stared impassively to the right of Lieutenant Maxwell.
Maxwell nodded. ‘Very good, sergeant. We’d better get going now. You can give me a sit-rep on the way back.’
The sergeant saluted again, and barked a series of unintelligible orders into a wire-mike. The craft rotors started up again, and the intelligence officer, scholar and defector were ushered inside. Within a minute, the craft had taken off again, heading towards UN territory. The dim light of the sun’s refracted rays coming over the horizon bathed the scene and craft with a dull red glow.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The interior of the craft was filled with low tech polymer display panels and bulky hardware. Light from the computer displays played over the faces of their operators, who whispered commands and typed away with an unconscious ease that Sina recognised well. The head of the craft held two pilots, keeping an eye on display panels overlaying the protective canopy shielding.
Maxwell headed over to a console with the sergeant, jerking his head at a row of small seats to them. Sina and Lalver sat themselves down, looking around. She wasn’t sure what to believe now – the whole experience of the monorail and now the rescue by this strange helicopter aircraft was so confusing that she’d given up trying to understand. She glanced over to the console Maxwell was bent over, talking in low tones to the sergeant.
‘Are UN troops always that formal? And what’s up with Maxwell?’ she asked.
‘He messed the mission up, and both he and the sergeant know it.’ Sina didn’t reply, although it was clear she didn’t understand.
Minutes passed. Sina tried to relax and get some sleep - the motion of the craft was smooth and quiet enough to allow it – but she couldn’t manage it. Maxwell straightened up slowly, and walked over towards the two.
‘We’ll be landing in UN military outpost in a few minutes, then we’ll take a ground transport to Serendipity.’ He looked down for a second, his jaw muscles bunching for a second. ‘I bungled the mission. I shouldn’t have allowed you to go on the monorail, it was too unsafe. I knew we couldn’t trust the BIS informants.’
‘You got us out, though,’ said Sina in what she hoped was a reassuring tone.
‘Yes, I did. There is that, at least.’
Sina spoke to fill in an uncomfortable silence, since Lalver didn’t seem to have anything to say, his eyes staring up at the ****pit. ‘So would you like to explain what the hell went on back then?’ The casual profanity didn’t faze her as much as it would have done back in Alatesia, but she still found she had to make an effort to swear. Maybe it’d put Maxwell at ease.
‘The UN end of the monorail plugged in a backup nuke powerplant and basically jump-started the monorail. Then they sent over this craft – it’s a retrofitted Believer military transport one of their defectors came over in. All this armour and low tech is because it’s been reinforced to be EMP proof.’ He snorted. ‘The damn thing’s even got a manual flight control system, for God’s sake.’
Maxwell either didn’t notice Sina’s flinch at the blasphemy, or chose to ignore it. ‘There’s nothing better than a couple of inches of lead to stop an EMP blast, even if it means this thing can only fly for a few hours.’
Sina pondered this. ‘Why didn’t the Believers do anything? They’ve got interceptors, they could’ve shot us down.’
‘The Believers didn’t have a clue of what was going on. We planned this so that their spy satellite was over the horizon at the time, and the EMP the BIS agents used also had the convenient effect of shutting down all their airborne communications.’
‘So how did you manage to contact the UN if the EMP knocked out all the communications?’
‘The comms console in the service station was shielded from the blast by all the other computer around it, and it had a ground-line to the UN communications network,’ answered Maxwell.
Sina could feel the craft descending slowly, the undercarriage folding out underneath the floor. ‘What happens now?’ she asked herself.
‘I don’t know,’ said Maxwell, his eyes closed, concealed by a hand rubbing his brow.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Author's note: Turns out that I got this done earlier than I expected. I'm probably going to finish this story, although it'll take a while because I'm starting another. Thanks for all your comments, everyone.
She wasn’t sure what would happen now. Whatever Maxwell had said, the UN would never send a transport into Believer territory – not only would that be an act of war, but even worse, in the UN’s eyes, that is, they’d be seen as complete hypocrites, advocating peace while practising conflict. And Maxwell couldn’t win against the half dozen or so BIS agents inside the train. Maybe the BIS would be sympathetic towards her.
She ****ed her head to one side, trying to strain her hearing, unconsciously triangulating the source. Turning around, through the grey scratched plastic of the monorail tube, she could just make out the train silently departing. Sina touched her brother’s arm. Lalver silently looked over towards the monorail, almost reeling back in surprise.
There was a sound of someone shouting. Seconds later, Maxwell tumbled out of the open service station door onto the bare ground outside as a blue beam stabbed past him. He responded by firing another few rounds at the agent, then pulled himself up onto his feet.
Sina remained frozen to the spot, her shivering forgotten. Going up to the service station door, Maxwell tapped the keypad a few times, then banged it with his fist. Nothing happened. Stepping back, he fired three rounds into the electronic lock mechanism. With startling speed, the door slammed into place.
Maxwell trotted over towards them, shouting at first.
‘They won’t be able to cut themselves out before our transport gets here, and there’s only two left, the rest were still on the monorail.’ He looked up to the darkening horizon, where a bright point of light was rising slowly. ‘That’s our transport.’
Lalver looked towards where Maxwell was pointing, and squinted. ‘How long will it take for it to get here? Won’t it get shot down?’
Maxwell smiled inscrutably. ‘I doubt it,’ he said, remarkably self-assured, thought Sina.
The point grew into a sleek and thin disc, its searchlight creating lengthening shadows behind the three. Small rotors extruded themselves out of the top surface of the craft while a bulky undercarriage unfolded itself. Lalver frowned, and said ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen that design of craft before.’
Sina looked closely, and a shiver ran the entire length of her body. ‘I have. In a Believer military installation.’ Maxwell said nothing when she looked at him questioning, the contours of his face lost in the shadows.
‘I don’t suppose there’s much we can do except to wait. They’ll probably pick us up, since they haven’t killed us already,’ stated Lalver in a flat voice.
With a final sweep of its searchlight, the craft touched down almost gingerly onto the ground, the undercarriage compressing to absorb the impact. The rotors shut off, and the brilliant searchlight flickered out. Sina blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden darkness. A ramp banged down onto the ground in front of her, and men rushed out. Maxwell still didn’t move. One of the men detached himself from the main group, who were encircling the three, to walk up to the lieutenant. He saluted.
‘Sergeant Takayuki Sato, sir. Received your call.’ The sergeant stared impassively to the right of Lieutenant Maxwell.
Maxwell nodded. ‘Very good, sergeant. We’d better get going now. You can give me a sit-rep on the way back.’
The sergeant saluted again, and barked a series of unintelligible orders into a wire-mike. The craft rotors started up again, and the intelligence officer, scholar and defector were ushered inside. Within a minute, the craft had taken off again, heading towards UN territory. The dim light of the sun’s refracted rays coming over the horizon bathed the scene and craft with a dull red glow.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The interior of the craft was filled with low tech polymer display panels and bulky hardware. Light from the computer displays played over the faces of their operators, who whispered commands and typed away with an unconscious ease that Sina recognised well. The head of the craft held two pilots, keeping an eye on display panels overlaying the protective canopy shielding.
Maxwell headed over to a console with the sergeant, jerking his head at a row of small seats to them. Sina and Lalver sat themselves down, looking around. She wasn’t sure what to believe now – the whole experience of the monorail and now the rescue by this strange helicopter aircraft was so confusing that she’d given up trying to understand. She glanced over to the console Maxwell was bent over, talking in low tones to the sergeant.
‘Are UN troops always that formal? And what’s up with Maxwell?’ she asked.
‘He messed the mission up, and both he and the sergeant know it.’ Sina didn’t reply, although it was clear she didn’t understand.
Minutes passed. Sina tried to relax and get some sleep - the motion of the craft was smooth and quiet enough to allow it – but she couldn’t manage it. Maxwell straightened up slowly, and walked over towards the two.
‘We’ll be landing in UN military outpost in a few minutes, then we’ll take a ground transport to Serendipity.’ He looked down for a second, his jaw muscles bunching for a second. ‘I bungled the mission. I shouldn’t have allowed you to go on the monorail, it was too unsafe. I knew we couldn’t trust the BIS informants.’
‘You got us out, though,’ said Sina in what she hoped was a reassuring tone.
‘Yes, I did. There is that, at least.’
Sina spoke to fill in an uncomfortable silence, since Lalver didn’t seem to have anything to say, his eyes staring up at the ****pit. ‘So would you like to explain what the hell went on back then?’ The casual profanity didn’t faze her as much as it would have done back in Alatesia, but she still found she had to make an effort to swear. Maybe it’d put Maxwell at ease.
‘The UN end of the monorail plugged in a backup nuke powerplant and basically jump-started the monorail. Then they sent over this craft – it’s a retrofitted Believer military transport one of their defectors came over in. All this armour and low tech is because it’s been reinforced to be EMP proof.’ He snorted. ‘The damn thing’s even got a manual flight control system, for God’s sake.’
Maxwell either didn’t notice Sina’s flinch at the blasphemy, or chose to ignore it. ‘There’s nothing better than a couple of inches of lead to stop an EMP blast, even if it means this thing can only fly for a few hours.’
Sina pondered this. ‘Why didn’t the Believers do anything? They’ve got interceptors, they could’ve shot us down.’
‘The Believers didn’t have a clue of what was going on. We planned this so that their spy satellite was over the horizon at the time, and the EMP the BIS agents used also had the convenient effect of shutting down all their airborne communications.’
‘So how did you manage to contact the UN if the EMP knocked out all the communications?’
‘The comms console in the service station was shielded from the blast by all the other computer around it, and it had a ground-line to the UN communications network,’ answered Maxwell.
Sina could feel the craft descending slowly, the undercarriage folding out underneath the floor. ‘What happens now?’ she asked herself.
‘I don’t know,’ said Maxwell, his eyes closed, concealed by a hand rubbing his brow.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Author's note: Turns out that I got this done earlier than I expected. I'm probably going to finish this story, although it'll take a while because I'm starting another. Thanks for all your comments, everyone.
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