Rebellion in the Shadows

“Shit, how are they above the max ceiling?” Kirtis asked, flipping switches along the control panel.

“Who knows? Let’s just hope these ones can stay up this high.” Laser bursts hit the plane near the top. Screams echoes around the cargo bay.

“Go Talaya!” Kirtis said. I didn’t need to be told twice. I pushed the cyclic forward and the drone dashed out the cargo door. I cut left as soon as we were out of the plane. There were still no explosions from any missiles.

“They don’t want to destroy the 4-5-2,” I whispered, suddenly sure that was the case.

“What are you mumbling? Can you just fly!” Kirtis had screamed out so loudly that it buzzed the speakers in my helmet.

“They won’t blow up the 4-5-2, Master Guardian still wants it,” I said. As soon as I was clear of the plane, I pulled up the altitude gain hard, forcing the craft almost straight up into the sky. That didn’t stop the drones behind us. One of them broke off from chasing the 4-5-2 and followed us instead. The first round of laser bursts hit the drone. Slicing through the metal and passing in between my feet.

“Talaya, don’t let those hit you!” Arwago said over the comms.

“Really? Here I was trying to help them with target practice!” I yelled back, Kirtis’s laugh sounded insane in the situation.

There was something different about this drone. Any slight tap of the cyclic made it jump all over the sky. I kept over correcting and it caused the drone to hop all over the sky. Kirtis had had enough.

“Get a grip, Talaya!” He was hanging on his seat like he was about to be ejected.

“You wanna fly? No? then shut up!” I yelled over comms, which made Zarleque chuckle in the back. “You are both crazy you know that? Who laughs at a time like this?” I asked. The drone swooped through the sky side to side, more so I could get the feel of the drone controls, but the enemy couldn’t hit us while I was flying like that. The one drone that was behind me was easily keeping pace with ours even though I had it flying 608 miles an hour.

“If we can get both of them away from the 4-5-2 for long enough, they can go dark and get away,” Zarleque said. Just as soon as he said it, a loud alarm blared through the drone. It came in over my helmet speaker, my calcumat and the dashboard with the controls. Kirtis held up the tablet.

“Incoming projectile? Is that a missile?” he asked. His eyes went wide, “Roll Talaya!”

I yanked hard to the left, it was the same move used in my race with Kirtis. Only this drone responded more enthusiastically and rolled twice before we leveled out. The second roll was followed by an explosion. The entire drone rocked to the side in a blast of heat. The missile had just missed our propellers.

“Don’t let them lock on again,” Arwago said over the comms. There wasn’t time for the slew of curse words and sarcastic responses that I wanted to give him, I cut back to the right to fly closer to the 4-5-2, with the same long swooping motions. On one wide left swoop, the drone went up a little bit too high and Tau Ceti blinded me. I

“Zar, hit them with the guns!” Kirtis said. The view from barrel of the laser rifle was projected in front of Zarleque from his calcumat. He tapped his thumb and first finger together and the sound of laser fire came from below us. I looked back to see if he was even close to hitting them. Each burst of the laser fire was invisible, the only way to tell if it was hitting its target, would be a reaction from the drone and there was none.

“I can’t tell if I am even close to hitting it,” Zarleque said. Tesser came over the comm.

“Turn on the visible spectrum assist, it will allow you to see the laser fire,” Tesser said over the comms. Zarleque used one of his gloved hands to do what Tesser told him. Kirtis was playing with the tablet, and accidentally launched one of the four missiles into the sky.

“If they didn’t know we were clueless before, they do now,” I said pointing at the missile shooting off at nothing. A burst of laser fire hit the drone near the back.

“Hang on, this may get a little intense,” I said. Kirtis braced himself against the control panel and the door. I wrenched the cyclic down, and we started falling to the ground. The enemy that was behind us, flew passed us, almost colliding with our drone in midair. As soon as they were passed, we leveled out and I started making those wide curves again, this time adding a short upward thrust at each turn. The goal was to be unpredictable but falling into a rhythm was difficult to avoid.

The treetops were close, each swoop towards the ground brought them even closer. I was barely able to keep from hitting them. The drone was on my tail was doing the same motion and it was keeping Kirtis from being able to lock on with a missile. My race against Kirtis popped into my head, the way he went through the trees.

“Kirtis take over, weave through the trees. I’m going to take the missiles,” I said. He handed me the tablet then flipped the switch giving him the controls.

“We won’t be able to lock on while we’re moving around like this,” Zarleque said. He was still trying to hit the aircraft that was behind us with laser bursts. His fingers both tapped continuously, and the noise from the rifle never stopped.

“Zarleque anticipate the angle and trajectory of the drone, do not shoot where it presently is,” Tesser said over our headsets.

Arwago translated for her. “Shoot where the drone will be, not where it is.” Zarleque adjusted his aim and I focused on the tablet. One camera showed the enemy drone far behind us in the trees. It was losing ground while Kirtis wove through the foliage.

“Fly past that huge conifer, I’m going to try and blow it up right as the other drone passes by,” I said. I locked on to the big tree a hundred feet in front of us. It would break my heart to see it destroyed, but that was better than the alternative. Kirtis passed the tree at the perfect time. The drone exploded and dropped to Amacuro’s surface.

“One down one to go!” I said.

“Get back to the 4-5-2!” Arwago yelled through the comms.

“Take controls back, you’re better with rolls,” Kirtis said already flipping the switch. A thought entered my mind, I got on comms with Tesser.

“Does Master Guardian have anything that will go faster than 600?” I asked.

“Not that we know of, but with all that cargo, you won’t be able to pass 550 in the 4-5-2,” she said.

“Can we reactivate the jets? Just for a short burst, to get away?”

“No it uses a different kind of fuel, and we are out, but that is an interesting concept, possibly in the future we should add a reserve tank for just such an occasion, or even put jets on the drones, I could have a concept written…” I jumped in recognizing her rambling.

“Tesser! Can that possibly wait ’till later, we need ideas for now! How do we get away?” I asked desperate for any ideas.

“You’re gonna have to take that drone down.” Arwago said.

“Where’s the 4-5-2?” I asked. The static hissed over the comms, more laser fire followed, and the line went dead.

“Shit,” Kirtis said.

“Why does that matter? Weren’t we on comms with them at the Polar base, not the 4-5-2?”

“We were relaying, I had a little device that was encrypting our comms, I left it on the 4-5-2.” Zarleque said.

“That can’t be good, head east, hopefully they aren’t above whatever is the max ceiling on this thing yet.” Kirtis said. As soon as we got close enough, the 4-5-2 popped up on the radar. It was still flying. Everyone let out a sigh of relief when we saw that little bleep show up on the screen.

Our drone was being pushed to the limit. I looked at the airspeed indicator, 623 miles an hour. I gripped tighter onto the cyclic with a smile. There would be time to brag later.

Our only hope would be to sneak up on the other drone. The craft finally came into my view, it was going up and down in long parabolas, trying to avoid as much laser blasts as possible. There was no way it could keep that up for very long, and it had to be blowing through fuel. Even as we came up at 623 miles per hour, catching up still took forever. Only Zarleque could see the laser blasts over his calcumat.

“Every time you go up, the lasers miss,” he said into the comms. The deep up and down motion was impressive. 4-5-2’s didn’t like to change direction.

“Who’s even flying it?” Kirtis asked.

“Etulay.” He had said his own name. Kirtis and I looked at each other mirroring confusion. Etulay was in the rebellion? Could have fooled me. Another blast shook us out of it.

We came up from behind the plane, the cargo door was still down. The 4-5-2 didn’t have any weapons, but someone had jumped into a strapped down drone and was firing the bullets at the enemy whenever it came into view. This was the last drone flying between me and my freedom. Kaynotee’s words came into my mind. He had asked what I had left to lose. These people were my new family and I was not about to let some other pilot make an ass out of me. I dropped our drone fifty feet. My stomach lurch into my throat. Kirtis tried to lock on.

“Don’t launch until you are certain, if it misses, it will hit the 4-5-2,” I said.

“You really think I am an idiot, don’t you?” he asked.

“Holy Tau Kirtis! Just listen to me. I am trying to help!”

“Talaya, you think I would risk anyone on that plane? They are my family as much as yours, I don’t have anyone else either,” he said without looking up. Another staccato ding came from the tablet. “Damn, I can’t lock on,” he said.

I gunned it. We were low and behind the drone, both our aircrafts slicing back and forth. The alarm went off again.

“Incoming missile,” Kirtis said.

“Ya think?” I said and rolled left. The missile barely missed us and sailed passed the 4-5-2. Exploding in a ball of fire right where we had been a few seconds prior.

“Somebody please hit the damn thing.” Arwago said over the comms.

“Wait! If you stop forward flight and hover, they might fly passed and I can lock on,” Kirtis said. I thought about it for a second. Stopping that fast could stall out the engines, but we didn’t have much of a choice.

“Everyone buckled in?” I asked, “Three-two-one. Now Kirtis!” I pulled back and lurched against my harness, the force made me cry out. If my ribs weren’t broken before, they were now. Zarleque shot at the drone and the lasers hit the enemy’s engine right before Kirtis’s missile hit. The drone blew up into a million tiny pieces and dropped down into the trees below. Kirtis yelled out, and I let go of the steering to clap. Kirtis did the same, his smile almost as big as my own.

“Praise Tau!” Zarleque said. He unbuckled and jumped in between our chairs. Kirtis tilted his head forward so he could look at me. My cheeks flushed, embarrassed at his attention.

“You have blood still coming from your chin,” he said, tossing me a towel from the pilots kit.

“It’s fine,” I said, touching the cut. “Some Corpsman will fix it later.”

It only took a few minutes to get back to the 4-5-2. Landing it inside the cargo area was tricky, and I smashed half a box of food supplies. No one cared, when we hopped out of the drone, the hundreds of rebels that had just been rescued roared in unison.

It was an amazing feeling, until I saw the bodies. Several of them lay on the ground near the side, killed from the lasers that had cut through the metal. Tiny holes littered the side of the plane. At the sight of dead rebels, everything inside of me wanted to go somewhere to hide. Zarleque hit my shoulder and let his hand rest there, sending stabs of pain through my ribs.

“It’s better than being stuck at the Flying Force. Who knows what Master Guardian was doing to make them want to leave? No, this is far better Talaya.” He took his hand off my shoulder and walked towards the front to take control of the plane.

Tesser and Arwago had successfully orchestrated the impossible. I wasn’t sure how they did it. Getting in touch with hundreds of rebels, blowing up the drones, loading supplies and T-550’s into the 4-5-2, it had taken a small miracle and a lot of planning. I tried to follow behind Zarleque but Kirtis grabbed my hand to hold me back.

“Just wait a second. I’m not ready to go into that cockpit and face reality,” he said.

“What’s the reality?” I asked, very aware of how close we were standing. He looked down at my hand and gave it a soft brush with his thumb.

“This isn’t anywhere near over. Master Guardian won’t let us get away with this, trust me,” he answered.

“Can we stay back here forever then?” He smiled at the suggestion and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. It felt so strong, he had no intention of letting go. My heart jumped into my throat, more nervous than ten minutes ago when I was shooting missiles at a drone 35,000 feet in the sky. We stared at the connection until I couldn’t take it anymore.

“The hell with it,” I said and dropped his hand to wrap my arms around him. My lips pressed against his, with a little too much enthusiasm. He rocked backward and after a few seconds, pulled his head back to stare at me. His dark eyes searched mine for something and my face flushed even more.

“Sorry, I just—”

Instead of talking, he leaned back into me dropping his hands to my waist to pull me closer. When his warm lips met mine, my stomach went into a flurry of excitement, like I was blasting into the sky all over again. It went on forever. Probably too long than was appropriate for the setting. We were, after all, in front of a cargo hold full of rebels. We were reminded of that when someone let out a loud cat call.

“I think I have wanted to do that for months,” he said when we split apart.

“Really? I barely wanted to do it now,” I told him, my eyes shining playfully. He tried to smile but his happiness had turned dark. Those blue eyes flashed to gray, sadness written in them and I felt terrible.

“No, sorry it was a joke, I have wanted to do that for months too, since I almost broke your arm,” I said.

“No it’s not that, Talaya, just something else, forget it,” he said, giving me a small smile. Gently, I touched his face. Not the side that was smooth but the cheek that was covered in scars. My fingers slowly traced the outline of each branch until he kissed me again. No amount of cat calls or ‘whoops’ from the crowd could split us apart and it lasted until someone tapped my shoulder. Zarleque seemed uncomfortable at the sight of us together.

“If you aren’t busy, we need to talk in the cockpit,” he said, rubbing his neck.

“Coming,” I said with a smile. The cargo area was left behind us as we walked towards the front of the plane, his fingers still locked with mine.

The rest of the flight was completely boring. It took five hours to get to the secret base. After we passed Attle at 122E, the world went completely dark. There was no light in the polar regions.

While we flew, Zarleque gave us the low down. The Jostedal Glacier had been turned into a giant underground base that included a huge landing strip. Tesser had found the old abandon base years ago and had been diverting small shipments of supplies there every few months. She had also been smuggling people, ten or so at a time, for years. This explained some of the random, ‘reassignments,’ that never seemed to make sense. Master Guardian had suspected the old polar base, but not before Tesser wiped it from the Flying Force data bases, including coordinates and scrubbing old flight logs. His attempt to “reprogram” Zarleque’s mind was probably a way to fish for more information about the base. It’s amazing they never caught her. The smuggled rebels were the people that had been in charge of getting this base up to livable condition, using lasers to dig out halls and rooms to house everyone while updating generators and heaters.

As soon as we had landed, the four of us were pulled into a meeting with Arwago and Tesser. There was no celebrating or hugs. It was all business. The supplies we had taken with us were enough to sustain everyone for months. Boxes full of re-hydrates, meals that just needed water and heat, and bare nutrient bars.

“We need a plan to get more food,” Kirtis said in the meeting. He was right, if we were here for the long run, it wouldn’t be enough.

“I agree with Kirtis here, though going back to steal more wouldn’t be wise,” Forchu said. He was a fidgety sort of man, very short and almost completely bald. If I had to guess, he was just agreeing with Kirtis because he was scared of him.

“I have a plan for that, we have to get the night vision goggles up, but there are several indigenous species of mammal that resides here, and it could be maybe quite possible to perhaps capture and consume them. After cleaning and preparing them of course, I mean we aren’t going to eat them raw like crazy people!” Tesser said. We all just stared at her.

“Arwago?” I asked.

“We are going to hunt, like we did when we first landed on Amacuro and like they did on Earth.”

“Yes, that is what I said, and I have worked with a master of botany to create a special lamp for growing food here, we just need to find some dirt.” She looked down at her tablet then with no warning at all screamed out, “Rochley!” Everyone in the room had jumped at her scream. The same caveman that had cracked the back of my head with a pistol that morning, jumped forward. The second surprise rebel, Etulay was off in a corner, looking surly and agitated.

“Grab some ground penetrating sonar scans, we can cross check the density...” she walked away with the caveman without saying goodbye or explaining in more detail. Arwago laughed. He was leaning against the ice wall and eating dehydrated apple slices that we had brought with us. It was his consultation for not having the hot chips. He had confessed that the main reason for hiding the bombs in the giant box of them was he wanted us to bring them along and we had failed. Much to our amusement, and his dismay.

It was terribly cold in the meeting room, but it was cold everywhere. They ran the heaters, and everyone had been given insulating coats, but my hands and feet were stiff from the freezing temperatures. Kirtis stood near me and noticed my shaking.

“Cold?”

“Nope, it’s a regular summers day down here.” My answer didn’t fool him for a second. I was shivering from head to toe.

“Here,” he said, he grabbed both my shaking hands and brought them to his mouth, huffing hot air onto my gloves. My heart raced at his touch and I could probably stare into those eyes all day and night if he let me.

“Ahem, as I was saying.” Arwago pursed his lips at us. “We will need to rotate rooms, sleeping in shifts, three shifts in a 30-hour period. Also, we need more kitchen volunteers, everyone sign up or I will have to start assigning people.” He tapped onto his calcumat and everyone received the list he was talking about.

Kirtis still held both my hands, his back half turned to the front. Arwago’s look had been pretty clear, but Kirtis was going to do what he wanted and for now, I was going to let him.

“Last issue, we need to select leaders,” he said. Everyone started talking at once.

“Yes, I am in charge, but I meant another leader, someone to be second in charge to me.” Again, everyone started talking at once.

“Tesser is not second in charge. She has no interest in leading at all. From this point forward, Tesser is to be consider something like a contractor. She’s a civilian that’s helping us out.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kirtis asked.

“It means, she comes and goes as she pleases, and doesn’t have to conform to our uniforms or rules but will help when she can, and when she wants to.”

“Isn’t that how all of us are involved?” Zarleque asked.

“The standards of the World Flying Force will be maintained as much as possible,” he answered. His patience was wearing thin, he didn’t expect resistance to his every command.

“But you have a beard!” I said, making nearly everyone in the room laugh. Beards weren’t allowed in the Flying Force.

“We didn’t have the means to take care of it, now we do,” Arwago answered. That explained everyone’s facial hair. The talking continued until he yelled over the noise, “You know? I would like to go to bed at some point, can we just get through this?”

“We need a second in command and I am suggesting Talaya,” he said. The room got quiet. The combination of that, and my name caught my attention. Before then, my attention had been elsewhere, Kirtis had been blowing on my hands again, and it was distracting me beyond belief.

“What?” I asked, my face bright red when I noticed everyone staring at me.

“I second that,” Kirtis said.

“Third,” Zarleque added.

“No, guys, I’m not a leader. I wouldn’t even know how to,” I said.

“All in favor?” Arwago asked, the entire room agreed.

“Ok, so everyone is dismissed. Sign up for the kitchen volunteering, I’m serious about that, Talaya can you wait around for a minute? We need to discuss some things,” Arwago asked eyeing Kirtis, with arched eyebrows.

“Can it wait until tomorrow? I had other plans,” I asked. Arwago let out a sigh.

“Yes, of course. You probably should see a Corpsman about your injuries anyway. Find me tomorrow, first thing. It’s urgent,” he said, with a pained expression on his face. He watched me leave the room, then went back to munching his apple chips while scrolling through his calcumat.

The main goal other than rescuing us, was to blow up as many drones as possible. We had stolen his only space shuttle and with it, effectively crippled his ability to go into space. They were certain about his plan but hadn’t shared it with me yet. As far as I knew, he only had twelve weaponized T-550’s. We had stolen ten of them and blew up the remaining two in our aerial fight. He would recover, and he would find us, it was only a matter of time.

The rebellion was at an all-out war now. Arwago had mentioned missions to steal more food from a jungle base and destroy more of Sidarc’s weapon caches, which included a raid of the rifle manufacturing plant in Da’Fergo. We were ready to do real damage to Master Guardian and the World Flying Force now that we had enough people and starting supplies.

Someone was handing out yeno roots at the door. My chuckle had Kirtis turn his head.

“What?” he asked.

“Yeno root,” I said. He gave a soft grin. We had learned that the caveman, Rochley, had laced Geokee’s breakfast with the sleeping agent, so that he would miss the launch. While the whole base was being blown up, and hundreds of Flying Force members had abandoned their jobs, he had slept peacefully. Zarleque had grabbed Geokee’s space suit, put on his space helmet with the dark visor down and taken his spot on the runway. No one had questioned him at all since Geokee was almost as dangerous as Master Guardian. The roots tasted awful but worked fast.

“Sleep well Talaya, because tomorrow the real work begins.” Kirtis said. He had set his cot up unreasonably close to mine, but I didn’t mind. The next day, everyone would be assigned their more permanent quarters, but for that night, cots would have to do. Arwago walked by on the way to assigning other cots and handing out extra blankets. As cold as it was, I still had on my coat. He gave me a reproachful look as he passed, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t going to approve of whatever I had with Kirtis. When he was gone, I reached over and grabbed Kirtis’s hand to tuck it up under my chin.

“Real work?” I asked, more to be polite than out of curiosity.

“We have to stop Master Guardian from invading Arkii,” he said. I let out a long sigh.

“Yes, that sounds like tomorrows problem,” I said. The yeno roots had done their job and I was already asleep before I could comprehend his reply.

End of book one

Sneak Peek of Beyond Amacuro

It was silent. The snow had a way of damping all sound around a person. The usual wind that buffeted everything in the north pole had died down. The muffled stillness was disturbing. It was almost better with the body numbing gusts pounding us from every direction. The air was frigid even with no wind. It helped that I was wearing a completely enclosed snow suit. They had made the suit special just for me and it fit me like a giant puffy glove. The cold had my body cramping. I had spent most of the day crouched in the same position.

Movement was impossible, or it would make this whole trip irrelevant. This was the spot we kept returning to because it yielded results. We were waiting for our dinner. My calcumat lit up. Finally, something was coming. A slight movement on my right told me that Kirtis saw it too. Two jukale’s had wondered over to where we had left the salt. It was the best bait we had for the sparse animals that lived at the polar region and hadn’t failed yet. These jukale’s were huge. If we got them, it would feed the base for weeks. They had to weigh at least 6,000 pounds. It was lucky we had brought the sled. My fist rose silently and slowly, closed inside my glove. We had to wait until it was in the perfect position. The hunting skills I had weren’t great, but it had been my turn. Kirtis was much better with the rifle, but possibly hated it more than I did. He had only volunteered to keep me company. As soon as they moved into position, I held up one finger and slowly pointed it to the jukale I would shoot. Kirtis nodded, and I counted down with my finger. We both shot. One of the jukale’s fell immediately. Kirtis had shot well. The one I had shot was running away from us. The night vision goggles only lasted for about 100 feet and I saw it disappear beyond that. A timer alerted us we needed to return to base, the heaters inside our suits wouldn’t last much longer. It was lucky we had hit this one. We both got up. My whole body was stiff. I stretched for a few minutes, twisting my back and pulling on my arms to get them to loosen up. It was a difficult task in the thick snowsuit.

I heard over the comm’s, “Not bad,” Kirtis was stretching too. Sitting in silence for three hours made it odd to hear a voice, no matter how familiar it was.

“Could have been better, can’t believe I missed.” I told him.

“Really? Haven’t you missed like seven times out of ten?”

“I guess, but I thought I was getting better.”

“You aren’t,” he said playfully.

“Shut up,” I said as I nudged him with my shoulder. We were both walking towards the giant animal.

“This guy is huge,” he told me. Huge was right. The creature was probably ten feet tall and fifteen feet long. The thick skin and hair were still warm to the touch.

“Shall we?” he asked, handing me a shovel. I could have grabbed it under his hand, but I didn’t. He knew it wasn’t an accident, but pretended to ignore it, anyway.

We started to dig under the creature. Then we would shimmy the large electronic sled under, until the beast was on top of it. The sled had tracks on it so it could easily grab at the snow, no matter the weight. After a few minutes of odd silence, his voice startled me.

“They sure are beautiful.”

“If you can get past the size, I guess so,” I shrugged. He was right but telling him that too often made him impossible to deal with. Jukale’s were beautiful. Their hair was very thick and bright white. Long enough to touch the ground, the bottom half inch was covered in tangles of ice and snow. Most of the animals at the polar region had the same dense fur. This one was surprisingly fast for its size but didn’t have any way of defending itself.

Like many other animals in the polar region, it was blind. Tesser had performed a bunch of tests on the creature the first time we shot one, and this was one of her many discoveries about it. This wasn’t really an advantage for us. It was incredibly sensitive to sound and movement. It had a large nose that could smell us from hundreds of meters away. The animal always kept its snout close to the ground. There were tiny hairs on the tip that could detect movement when they were touching the snow. The most prominent of features to this great creature was the dull rounded horns. It had three of them, two above the eyes, and one near the top of its nose. As we looked on, I gave a sad sigh.

“What now?” Kirtis asked.

“It’s almost sad isn’t it? Bringing down something so big and ...”

“...beautiful?” he asked, completing my sentence. He had stopped working to stare in my direction. It was a good thing he couldn’t see my face flush.

“Er, yes, I mean I guess,”

“I’m just teasing you, quit with the hippie crap. You won’t be complaining when you’re eating a ground protein patty tonight,” he said getting back to work.

Finally, the loaded sled was ready for the long walk back to base. It was too dangerous to use the drones. Sidarc often sent reconnaissance teams to the polar region. Even though it was a large area, it still wasn’t worth the risk. The powered sled was moving slowly behind us, creaking slightly over each snow pack. We trekked through the packed powder. It lightened my bad mood with each step to know we would be home soon. Or at least the closest thing I had to a home.

The gods alive, I hated it at the Jostedal Glacier. The noise and the hustle of the base at the polar region was familiar, but not comfortable. Maybe I hated the location, but the people, and especially, the warmth was very welcome. We always went hunting in pairs. So far, the only one that enjoyed it was Arwago. He claimed it was because it was the only time he got any peace. That was probably true. Ever since we set up the headquarters here and voted him the leader, they filled his days with meetings and strategy sessions. He always had two or three people with him trying to get his opinion or his permission to do something. His carefree, casual demeanor only came out in bursts lately. Now was no exception. As we walked into the runway area, we saw him and ten others near one of the large airplanes. We only had the two 4-5-2’s that we had stolen from the World Flying Force seven months ago. One was being upgraded with technology I didn’t even pretend to understand. The other sat outside filled with drones and covered in the deep snow that was constantly falling here. They were doing it again; I could already hear the yelling from where I came in.

“Arwago, you are insane! That’s literally impossible, not like, ‘figure it out tomorrow,’ kind of impossible either. You are literally asking me to do something beyond crazy,” Tesser yelled at him. Hurrying to play the referee, my snowsuit pants tripped me and I smacked my head on the ground.

“Shit,” I said, staying on the ground and rubbing my forehead.

“You ok? The gods Talaya, quit rushing it,” Kirtis laughed at me. His snowsuit was already off. With him standing over me, it was impossible not to notice his physique. Kirtis had been in charge of combat training for the past seven months. For hours a day, he led running courses, wrestling matches, and boxing clinics. His body had become as near to perfect as was possible.

“I have to go stop that.” I said nodding toward all the yelling.

“Don’t bother, it’s all they do, just let them work it out.”

“They aren’t children, and this isn’t a spat, anyway aren’t you due for kitchen duty?”

“Damn,” he said, leaving me still untangling from the snowsuit around my ankles. The lack of heat overwhelmed each foot as I slipped out of the snowshoes. The heavy fur insulated boots had fiber optic cables running heat to specific targeted areas on the toes. They were too heavy to wear all the time, but necessary for the heavy snow outside.

“It’s not as impossible as this other garbage! You split your focus and then nothing gets done!” Arwago yelled back. He hardly ever yelled; they must have been arguing for a long time.

With my snowsuit finally off, I hurried towards them. The coordinators and techs were standing awkwardly around, waiting patiently for their turn to have questions answered.

“Split my focus?! Yes! Perfect, tell me what I should work on Mr. Leader? Oh wait, you already do, and I split my focus because you ask me to do about a thousand things every day!”

“Just get this done, this is priority one,” he told her, attempting to hand a tablet over. She smacked it out of his hand. No one moved or made a sound as it clattered on the ground for several seconds. Arwago took a deep breath. His face was redder than I have ever seen it before. Tesser crossed her arms against her chest and smiled. Neither of them moved, until Arwago yelled out, “FINE!” and stomped off.

“Hey Arwago…”

“Forget it Talaya,” he said without looking my way or slowing down. Tesser came up to me.

“It won’t work, Talaya, I’m telling you. You can’t add that much weight.” She had her goggles on and was trying to show me something only she could see.

“You could add jets to the sides to add power for the additional weight,” Zarleque said. He had been standing off to the side.

“No absolutely not, it won’t work, you would need to add too much fuel, we will always have a max weight, these can’t be floating bases! There’s logistics you need understand here.” She was writing something down on her tablet. I still hadn’t said a word.

“He just wants me to do everything; it’s on him. I’m doing my best here, there’re variables upon variables he doesn’t understand, he just says ‘make this do that,’ and I am supposed to find a way!” Some young recruit ran up to her with a piece of another plane, she showed him something and then shooed him away, irritated at the interruption. Zarleque stepped nearer to me.

“What’s her deal?” I whispered as Tesser continued her rant against Arwago.

“They’re fighting over some upgrades Arwago wants to the 4-5-2.” There was some yellowish-green goo covering him from head to toe. It didn’t look or smell like anything I was familiar with. He noticed I was staring at his mess.

“It’s just hydraulic fluid from the 4-5-2, we removed the cargo door from the one we are already upgrading, but we need more methane to weld the new piece on,” he held up his tablet.

“So this is business?” I asked, originally thinking he was just here to talk or maybe help calm the screaming genius down that was in front of me.

He noticed my eye roll and said, “Just one thumb print signature so those guys down in supply will give it to me!” He held his hands up like I was threatening him. Zarleque had become a big part of the engineering team. He had a love of building things and had requested the department. It took a little convincing. Zarleque was an amazing fighter. He was probably the largest man on the planet. However, like Tesser, he just didn’t have the heart for combat.

“Fine,” I scanned my thumb, and he left. Calming Tesser down was my only focus for the time being. Her screaming had stopped but she was still mumbling to herself.

“It’s not personal, Tesser, he’s just trying to think of ways to help,” I said turning back to her.

“He’s over preparing! I have made this place invisible, but it’s irrelevant anyway, HE doesn’t trust ME, ”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” I said.

“I have known Arwago for eight years, we have been fighting together, side by side, for EIGHT years, and he doesn’t trust me? I can’t do it. Not without him supporting me,” she was walking away from me, “Baylere!” she shouted. A privy mate ran over.

“Where the hell is the ground penetrating sonar? I told you to have it prepped by 15! It’s 1515 and where is it?!”

“Tesser, just relax, come on. Come with me,” I said, pulling here away from the scared privy mate.

“When was the last time you ate or slept?” I asked, we were walking towards the cafeteria, or at least the giant ice cave with stoves and tables in it.

“I don’t know, yesterday?”

“For food or sleep?”

“Both? I have no clue,” she suddenly looked ready to pass out. My hand went around her shoulder and I lead her into the large room. Kirtis saw us walk in and came towards us.

“Everything good here?” he asked, concern etched on his face.

“Yeah Kirtis, I’ve got it, just bring us some soup,” I told him. People shouldn’t see us together.

“You sure Talaya? I can help…”

“I said, I got it,” I barked, sitting Tesser down. She suddenly looked close to tears.

“You aren’t the only one that hates it up here you know,” he told me. It was just what I needed, more drama with Kirtis.

“Go hate it somewhere else,” I told him. Still not looking him in the eyes. Months of pushing him away in public and being sweet to him while we were alone was not working out. He left our table, fuming at my attitude. After a few minutes in silence, Tesser looked at me carefully.

“I always hate what he did to you guys.” Tesser said.

“What who did?” I asked, some technician had brought us our soup, and I was already concentrating on the meal. It smelled amazing, some potato with chunks of fresh jukale in it. My mouth was watering intensely.

“Arwago, that he made you… I mean it’s not any of my business at all, I am just being nosy. But he had said something about not letting you and Kirtis be together,” she said. It was good to hear her ramble again, but her words had taken me by surprise. No one knew about that conversation, or at least I thought no one did.

“Oh, well, that’s not really…”

“Don’t worry, Arwago only told me, I wouldn’t say anything to anyone else, but um Talaya? Maybe you should tell him, it’s not fair to lead him on.”

“I’m not. I swear, I will talk to him, soon.” It was something that I kept meaning to do, but every time I tried, it just didn’t happen. So I kept pushing him away hoping the problem would fix itself. We ate on without really talking, Tesser devoured her entire bowl, so I gave her the rest of mine.

When she was half way done with it, I remembered that they expected us for the daily conference.

“Crap, the meeting! We better get moving,” I said.

We weren’t the last ones to arrive at the meeting. In fact, we were one of the first. People had filtered in after we sat at the long table in the conference room. They covered the ice that made up walls with insulation and wood. Making it feel less like a cold dark prison and more like a boring classroom.

When Forchu had walked in, he came to sit near us. In a room where arguing was the main event, Forchu was a breath of fresh air. Only because he was an agreeable person, almost to a fault. He usually sided with whoever he thought had the best chance of winning. The thick mustache on his lip held more hair than the entirety of his head and his back was kind of hunched over. Even though he was fairly young, he appeared to be a much older man. Forchu was a coward, but a nice one. Although he was good at his job, no one really gave him much of a second thought.

We sat mostly in silence as everyone else walked in, last of all was Arwago. He walked in and immediately started talking. “We need to talk about food first, I will be too hungry by the end to deal with it,” he said, clearly still upset over the argument in the hangar bay.

“My friends, we have figured out how to grow rice,” he looked down at his calcumat, “there is a specialty light bulb we have determined to be most useful, based on a light…”

“Far-red light,” Tesser interrupted without looking up from her tablet.

“Yes, far-red light, and also using specialized, um…water,” he seemed unsure, so Tesser shouted out again.

“Mineral enhanced.”“and a specific fertilizer with complex necessary elements,”

“…nitrogen-potash mixture…”

“Would you like to give the presentation?” Arwago turned to her and yelled. She slowly looked up from her calcumat and smiled. It was an overly sweet smile that dripped with condescension.

“Please, continue,” Arwago said to Forchu.

“We will have a full-grown crop in 6 weeks, normal fruition is five months but we have…” he looked at Tesser unsure of what to say, but this time, she didn’t help, “we modified the plants, genetically to resist the cold and grow quicker,” he said. Tesser nodded her approval. 

“How are the rest of the supplies?” he asked.

“Good, we are in a sustainability cycle with the vegetables and starches. Protein will last about four more weeks if we don’t go hunting again,” he said.

“Great moving on.”

Hunting had been the difficult thing to learn. Tesser always had the vegetables under control. Digging through the glacier was the most difficult part. She had taken the laser technology to create a tunnel digger. It was tiny, only the size of a dinner plate that strapped to a cart. A person would push the cart forward while the lasers cut a seven foot arched tunnel. The lasers started at a pinpoint, hundreds of them worked in unison slowly spreading out to the desired size and design. Using this same system, the lasers were pointed straight down to find dirt. It had taken a while since the Jostedal Glacier was about 150 feet thick.

“Yes, we wouldn’t want another… incident,” Forchu said before he sat down.

He was talking about almost starving. We ran through the packaged supplies quickly when we first arrived. When they got low and rationing began, Arwago had spent days locked in his quarters reading old Earth records of hunting.

“What’s for dinner?” Zarleque asked.

“Ground protein patties and broccoli chips.” Forchu said.

“Delightful, Moving on!” Arwago said. He said it like there wasn’t actually any delight in the meal at all.

“What’s next?” He asked. And it went on like that with each department that made up the incredible inner workings of the base. It was mostly boring. When it was my turn, I would report on the underground movement that was still happening at the World Flying Force headquarters. We still had two spies that were there and reporting back to us on the movements of Master Guardians plans.

“Quiet down, please. We should be done here soon and then everyone can go eat some dinner, Talaya has the floor,” Arwago had said. I looked at my prepared notes on my calcumat and pulled up a map of the world. I projected it onto the wall behind me.

“There is movement here and here,” I said, pointing to the two spots the flying force was recently, “our informant thinks the ultimate goal is to approach our base in the Juujii Jungle from this side,” I stood in front of the projection and pointed to the east side of the base, “we still don’t know the capabilities of Sidarc’s new drones but so far he has built two of them, and weaponized a Condor 99, that takes his drone total to eleven, his 4-5-2 total to five, and his condor’s to three,” my calcumat scrolled through the photos of the terrifying planes Sidarc had developed in the past seven months that my informant had sent me.

“He thinks some new crafts are close to being space capable, but we don’t have more information on that.” I waited for people to nod or acknowledge the information.

“Why?” I had expected no one to ask questions about my presentation, but it was Arwago.

“Why what?” I asked, confused at the interruption.

“Why do they not have access to that information? Listen Talaya, this isn’t news, we have known that Sidarc was going to the Juujii base for weeks and yet still… no plan,” he said.

“Arwago, they can’t just ask, we all need to remember what it was like living there and being a part of this, their cover needs to remain in tacked or we lose vital information or worse, we could risk losing them. We all know what Sidarc is capable of,” I said. Forchu jumped in.

“I agree with Arwago here. I think it has become necessary; they should risk exposure to get us more information,” he said.

Typical. Of course would agree with Arwago.

“Risk exposure? You talk about it like he will get a sunburn; they will die if he catches them! Has anyone else forgotten about that little torture chair? Or Notawa?” Tesser had exploded. At the mention of Notawa, the room got deadly silent.

“At this point it is as common as a sunburn, everyone is risking their lives, they don’t like it? No one is forcing them to do anything,” Arwago said to her.

“The gods Arwago! You are naïve. You aren’t even considering an alternative, that’s one solution; we could brainstorm and try several other things first before we go for giving up on our people undercover. I could run an algorithm with five or six variables and determine the safest route for everyone, it would only take a few days to get through results and it…” Tesser was making notes while talking out loud. Her tech had jumped up and stood behind her watching what she was writing and writing something himself when Arwago interrupted.

“Forget about it, I am starving. Everyone is dismissed, except Talaya,” he said directing the rest of the group to leave. He turned to me, “can you stay back for a minute?”

The shuffle of chairs was loud; people talked to their neighbors and left in groups of two or three. Tesser was the first one out the door. She had left with her technician following close behind her, still taking notes while she brainstormed out loud. She hadn’t spoken with anyone else.

“Grab me some dinner, would you? I will probably be here a while?” I asked to Kirtis. He gently touched my shoulder and then left. Even after my attitude earlier, he would still care for me. I thought back to what Tesser had said. Probably I should have just made a tech grab my dinner for me.

Lately, all my meals were in the conference room with Arwago. Even while we waited for everyone else to leave, my thoughts drifted to Kirtis. It was hard to stay away from him when he sought me out so much. Arwago was right. The reality was, this was a war, and it was not what we needed. He called it ‘fraternization,’ and admitted he wouldn’t forbid it, but encouraged me to avoid it. After that conversation, I didn’t try as much to spend time with Kirtis. Arwago helped by intentionally keeping us apart. He would send us on different missions at different times. Hunting together had been a rare occurrence, Kirtis had volunteered at the last minute so we could go together.

After the rest of the crowd left, it was only Arwago on one side of the room sitting in a chair, and I, on the other side watching him. We both waited tensely for the other to speak. I finally broke the silence.

“It’s a bad idea,” I started with.

“You don’t even know what I will say,” he said, his smile spread across his tan cheeks. How was it possible he still tan with no sun?

“I know that look on your face, it’s the same look you had when you asked for laser cannons, we still haven’t finished repairing that wall.”

“This is different. I have talked to other people about it and they think it’s a great idea,” he said, still smiling. I didn’t trust that smile at all right now.

“If you are talking about Forchu, that doesn’t count,” I said.

“No, no, he’s not well versed with recon or combat. I spoke with Rando,” He stood up and crossed the room to come sit by me. He kept talking, “this would need to be… off the books though,” he had sat down in the chair next to me. He was trying to put on the charm. It annoyed me.

“Off the books? What would that mean?” I said. I didn’t enjoy keeping things from our people.

“We would just tell the people that need to know, I want to send a team to Juujii, make sure we are ready for when Sidarc inevitably sends his men there,” he told me. His hands were nervously rubbing his pant legs, he was usually calm. It seemed like the stress of leading the rebellion was getting to him.

“Why now? My information says that Juujii is safe for another few weeks,”

“Did you see this?” he used his calcumat to send me a file. I projected it onto the wall where the world map had been.

“What the hell is this?” I asked, shocked at what I was reading.

“This is a notice that every person between the ages of 17 and 24 received last night,” he said. Quickly scanning the letter, the information only got more disturbing.

Sidarc was forcing civilians into his new army. Telling them what a great honor it is to serve, and explaining that if they didn’t show up at the designated time and date, UP’s would go to their house and arrest them.

When I had finished reading, I was ready to lead a mission, but was still weary.

“I would lead a mission,” he had already begun celebrating when I yelled, “IF, I can present it at tomorrow’s meeting,” I said. Arwago thought for a moment.

“No, I don’t think it will work unless we keep it a secret,” he said.

“Who do you not trust Arwago?” I asked cautiously.

“It’s not about trust, I don’t think the others will go for it, it’s easier to ask them to forgive a decision that has already passed then it is to ask for permission, I hate asking for permission,” He shook his head. I would have to agree that the bureaucracy wasn’t easy. It was hard to get a room full of people to agree on anything. There were no easy decisions here.

“Arwago, let’s just ask them tomorrow and see what happens,” I said. There was an argument coming, and I wasn’t in the mood. Arwago was one of the best arguers around, and he could convince anyone to do anything.

“Come on, I’m starving,” I told him. I slapped him on the back and stood up. He waved me away.

“It’s fine, just send it to my quarters, I have some stuff to read anyway and if I go to the cafeteria, people will interrupt me every few minutes,” he said. I nodded. He was right.

“I will send something there for you,” I said. I slapped his shoulder one more time and left the room.

It was the global notice that stuck with me that night. Throughout dinner, and even when I got into bed. Sidarc couldn’t do that. He couldn’t force people into his war. We were going to stop him. He had no idea what was coming for him.