Post by EmperorMyric on Sept 20, 2021 10:42:43 GMT
Tau Orbicular
Aedelshaven
Killian Verge
Whipped by the strong wind and rain, a human sea churned around him. He tried to push against the current, nudging those he could out of the way and holding onto his footing for dear life. He was never more than a couple inches away from a screaming face, a swinging fist or a protest sign being flung around like a club. Wherever he could he ducked under the chaos, trying his best not to flinch and let go of his parka because revealing the shirt he was wearing underneath would probably mean certain death when surrounded by the OMPAF thugs.
He didn’t even have anything to do with the disturbance going on. His shirt was green because that’s what Capitol Army dress shirts were. It had nothing to do with the olive-clad political militia trading blows with OMPAF’s strongmen all around him. That shirt was one of the few possessions he’d kept after the war, and even if it wasn’t there was no way he could have known that’s what Aedelshaven was going to be like. This planet was supposed to be next to abandoned! For the entire war he’d heard of Aedelshaven as this lost battlefield inhabited only by nuclear survivors and the shattered remnants of a couple of Capitol and EPA garrisons. He’d expected a desert and instead had been met with days-long queues, no hotel vacancies, passenger terminals packed to burst and a veritable street war going on in the downpour.
“Welcome to Aedelshaven!” His guide clutched her bleeding nose after taking a stray blow in the melee. Gripping him tightly by the backpack, she pushed him through the dense crowd.
“What the fuck is this place?!” He said, digging his heels into the bloody mud and immediately throwing himself back. Both sides of the protest were bringing out phalanxes of men clad in improvised armor to poke at each other with sticks and try to recover each side’s wounded off the ground. “Whoa, whoa, stop! STOP there’s a whole army of lunatics here!”
It made no difference if she’d heard him. Were she not the one pushing him then it’d be the person behind her, or the person behind that. There wasn’t much of a choice but to go wherever the shockwaves in the crowd forced him to, in this case right between the two phalanxes. At least he wasn’t like the poor saps he’d seen who had gotten pushed into a barbed wire barricade that they themselves had erected.
“We’re getting close to your guy!” She replied. Little by little the two got pushed closer and closer to the clashing lines of political infantry. There was still a little gap between the two sides, wide enough for him to try and run the gauntlet and have a chance at survival. Fucking Morgan. Fucking Aedelshaven, fucking OMPAF, fucking Abelcain, fucking Zgrzz and especially fucking Glassbag for getting him in this bind.
“Come on, I’m getting crushed here!” His guide shouted.
On the other side of the muddy no man’s land. There he was, the guy he’d come all the way to this world for. It was hard to discern any of his features under the multiple layers of heavy clothing and the hood he wore. But he’d have to be completely mummified for his pursuer not to notice the extremely obvious cybernetics of a former officer of E Pluribus Axioma.
He ran the gauntlet. Covering his crotch and his head, acidic water and mud splashing at his feet with every step. After the third step or so he felt the first whack on his back. Men of both shield formations saw him and his guide running between them, both sides assumed they were with their opponents and started hitting them. An OMPAF militia hit him on the knee and Morgan was unfortunate enough to get clocked right in her already-broken nose. The blows that missed them ended up hitting militias on the other side, causing them to retaliate and both shield walls to clash against each other with the tankman and his guide caught in the middle. Through the acid rain, clouds of pepper spray, mud, shouting and fighting he kept his eyes fixed on Zgrzz and pushed forwards.
“Fuck Tulcazar!” Shouted a rioter as he tried to bash the tankman with his shield. With a nimble side step he managed to make the rioter trip and fall onto the mud.
The tankman had already run the gauntlet anyways. The greatest of gauntlets, spanning hundreds of thousands of lightyears. From Suarez-Miranda to Aedelshaven, passing through the lands of shattered revolutions and marauding Freikorps to make it to a world that seemed to have gotten the short end of every stick in the galaxy’s history and kept getting back up every time. He was a soldier with no army, not by his choice but by his commander’s.
Suarez-Miranda had been the last bastion of Capitol outside of their homeland after all other expeditionary forces had been broken. He and millions other men of the Imperial Army had held the line in the idyllic worlds of the Crown against AGA forces and the native armed forces. The men and women of the Suarez-Miranda Capitol Garrison had fought like lions at every level from the tactical to the operational, gaining the distinction of being the last of the Empire’s conquests to endure in the twilight of Inara’s reign. But the war had been lost without them. The loss of the Crucible had broken the Empire’s capability to wage war and the conquest of the Rubikon industrial centers had cut off the Suarez-Miranda garrison from its much-needed supplies. The tankman’s whole division had mentally prepared themselves for the final stand, gathered all the remaining ammo and fuel to conduct one last offensive against the Union of World’s first succesful beach-head on the planet. He’d been ready to die not just for his tank’s crew but also for the crews of his platoon’s other tanks, for the support elements of the battalion, the commanders, the recruits, even the generals. For his ten million-strong family.
The Suarez-Miranda garrison was not destroyed by the Union Marines. It had been killed from the inside. Several weeks into the offensive, word ran out of the most vile treachery: the garrison’s top staff had left their posts and evacuated the planet. Like many other members of the top brass, the garrison’s commanders had heard of Inara’s capitulation in advance and scrambled to be the first vultures to fill the power vacuum. The garrison’s equipment had been sold behind their backs to arms traders and information on their positions and plans was sold to Union of Worlds agents. Even the transport ships, their only way out, were sold off to scrappers leaving them stranded in the world. The small fortune that the dozen or so treacherous officers at the top had made from completely liquidating the garrison had allowed them to leapfrog into the new aristocracy of post-Inara Capitolite society, they’d become factory managers and landowners. The fighting men on the other hand had been completely dispossessed, with no way out, surrounded by Union Marines and the newly reconstituted Royal Army of Suarez-Miranda.
“Hold onto me!” He yelled, pushing a rioter out of the way and making him trip on his own spear.
He’d made it this far. He had one of the traitors in his sight. And he wasn’t going to be stopped by some Aedelshaven kids fighting over an airport.
“OMPAF out! All invaders must hang!” A rioter led a small group in the charge against the shield wall. Rocks and bottles were flying on both sides, a miasma of pepper spray made it almost impossible to breathe and horsemen wielding paintball guns walked back and forth trying to find where to wedge themselves into the melee.
Not a single police officer or paramedic in sight. The last policeman he’d seen was more or less seventeen thousand lightyears away cracking the head of a protester, pretty mild compared to what he saw later in his voyages. A forgotten fugitive like him, with no ID, no money and no family wasn’t allowed through the civilized lands of the Golden Cross. He’d had to get to Aedelshaven through the path of maximum pain, a meandering trek through the lands that had never recovered from the Peony Revolution, realm of pirates, guerrillas, freikorps and bandits all vying for a good spot to mount raids on shipping. He’d earned his living fighting for everyone who offered, he’d been enslaved multiple times and escaped, sometimes then fighting for the same people who’d previously enslaved him. In the backwater worlds flanking the glittering nations of the Golden Cross the only rule was revenge.
“Abelcain is with us! Fuck you! Abelcain is with us!” A teenager wearing a balaclava lunged at him with a bike chain from a gap in the OMPAF shield wall, earning a punch to the throat from the tankman’s quick reaction.
“Hey! Don’t hit ‘em!” Morgan yelled from behind him, slapping him in the back of the head. She tried getting between him and the OMPAF rioters, convince the crowd of men they were on their side but all she got from it was a bike lock to the face.
They were almost to the other side of the melee. Both sides were clashing fiercely now, firecrackers and improvised tear gas bombs were exploding in both crowds and everything around them devolved into a stampede. The OMPAF crowd, significantly outnumbering the locals, quickly began overruning them and pinning them against the fence around the airport runway. When they found themselves with no way to escape and being crushed against the fence, the local rioters started panicking.
Somewhere out there, a purple pin was placed on a continental map in the location of the airport. One pin out of thousands, all spreading out from Aedelshaven’s new capital and OMPAF’s beating political heart: Tau Terminus, city of Abelcain Tulcazar. The pins were placed on airports, railway terminals, space elevators, fuel pumping stations, canals and harbors. Each pin symbolized a struggle, a riot like the one the tankman had found himself caught in, and a new objective won by blood. What remained of Aedelshaven’s infrastructure had, for too many years, belonged to a myriad of warlords and city councils that taxed access to earn a living. Now it would all belong to OMPAF.
For now the heavily-armed loyalists of Tulcazar were content with letting their local supporters dispose of the local militia with sticks and rocks. And among this crowd of observers that watched the riot was the man who the tankman had traveled all the way to Aedelshaven for.
“I got you, motherfucker!” The tankman made it out of the melee with a leap and tried to grab Zrgzz.
The cyborg emitted a buzzing sound of surprise and focused his facial optics on him, recognizing him in an instant. Zrgzz immediately reached into his parka and pulled out a gun but was prevented from leveling it at the tankman by how dense the crowd was. By the time he managed to pistol-whip all those who were in the way, the tank managed to grab his arm and swing his gun up away from him. Zrgzz pulled the trigger and fired a burst from his machinepistol, which made all hell break loose.
Zrgzz, the coward, looked way less imposing without a whole convoy of EPA special forces escorting him. That’s how the tankman had first seen him, back in Suarez-Miranda. He’d no doubt been among those who’d sold his troops out, although given he was in Aedelshaven, it seemed he hadn’t sold them out for much. No surprise, given the sheer speed at which EPA had disintegrated it would seem as if from the moment of their creation they’d all been waiting to backstab the movement. Zrgzz, the battalion commander of some special forces outfit, had been in contact with OMPAF even before the end of the war judging by the propaganda materiel that his unit often left behind.
Azel’s unit had crossed paths with Zrgzz and his personal convoy a few days before the offensive fell apart. His powerful Hyperion tank had helped one of the APCs that had gotten stuck, and Zrgzz had taken particular interest in the tankman’s Visone gunner, Glassbag. He’d been transporting a Visone prisoner himself. Glassbag had never gotten over that brief glimpse of someone his species, and had followed Zrgzz’ trail all the way to Aedelshaven. Unlike Azel, he still had a family out there, somehow despite the Visone been thought to have long been extinct.
Azel had followed and aided Glassbag’s search for his peers through the periphery of the Golden Cross, through freikorps-infested hideouts and gulags and finally to the middle of a political riot over the ownership of an airport. Why? It was hard to tell. Maybe because everything else seemed less inviting. Serving the traitors in the Capitol Republican Army was out of the question. The betrayal of the general staff had soured him on the military so much that even the many ad-hoc military formations created by other stranded Capitolites like Amber Dawn and the Ironbottom Wraiths did not interest him. Joining the Freikorps or their Nerma opponents would be condemning himself to a very short life of barbaric raiding and killing civilians. Helping Glassbag, on the other hand, seemed like a worthwile thing to do, especially since the Visone’s many talents had come to shine in their quest.
Now this search for the Visone remnants had led him here, in the middle of a panicked stampede with an ex-EPA cyborg who’d just fired a gun in the middle of a crowd. Glassbag was blissfully unaware of Azel’s situation. He was still just trying to find somewhere to pass the night while Azel had gone off with their local guide to follow up on a lead on where the remnants of the EPA 68th special operations division had ended up. He was just there to scout, didn’t expect to stumble upon the former EPA colonel.
And maybe even then he should have just blended into the crowd and followed Zgrzz to where he could ambush him, instead of rushing him in the middle of a street battle. But Azel didn’t just see a former EPA colonel, he saw a symbol of those who had gotten away with abandoning him and his comrades. Maybe Zgrzz hadn’t quite gotten away with it but there had been Capitol marshalls who had. One day he would have his way with those traitors, who had torn the Suarez-Miranda garrison apart.
Until then, Zgrzz would have to do.
Azel kept the grip on the man’s gun arm and tried to restrain his other, the hard rain still hammered down onto them and the ex Capitolite shoved his knee into the augmented bastard’s stomach. It was a small act, but it was one tiny fraction of the revenge he sought for what had happened. He had to act fast however, the crowds were clashing again, and he didn’t have much time. As much as Azel wanted to split the things skull in he needed information and already the shouting of the two sides was getting to the point where he couldn’t even think. He kneed the man again before speaking.
“You’re going to answer my fucking questions you piece of shit!” Azel shouted as close to the man’s head as he possibly could, both to torment him and so he could actually hear the tanker over the clashes. Once more he held on as the ex EPA leader tried to struggle out of his grasp but Azel held on.
“Where is Avalon! I need co-ordinates, tell me or I will break your fucking arms!” Just saying the name almost made Azel internally laugh. Avalon, a place of historical relevance who’s entire existence was a myth, and yet it was real in this galaxy at least the place was, the name could be whatever he didn’t even care at this point. He needed to get there, somehow in some way, he needed to help Glassbag get home, and Avalon was that home. Zgrzz was practically the only lead he had given the things close working with Visone and unless he wanted to go politely ask the government of the Union of Worlds or the ex AGA nations he could not think of any other avenue to pursue.
Besides knowing where the place was located was very different to being able to get there, but just like every single day of the tanker’s life for the last years he would cross that bridge when and if he got to it.
The clashes escalated again, causing another tug on his back coat by his guide. How Aedleshaven had exploded… All because of that fucking standoff or some shit. He remembered the sheer number of ships he had seen on the way in here, even through the comically small window hole he had seen through, itself a grandiose blessing considering the quality of transport he had come on. Azel had fought three people over that seat, at least one of those was probably dead.
After the gunshots were fired the great crowd became agitated enough that the fencing was actually torn down and the gathering spilled into the tarmac. A lumbering cargo aircraft that was on final approach was redirected to a different runway, as were the other 8 aircraft that followed it in a close line. The cloudy skies were abuzz with the sound of dozens more such transport aircraft all flying holding patterns around the airport, all of them loaded with engineering goods and merchandise.
The airport was ten times over capacity, to the point where many aircraft had just been parked on the gravel. Trucks and couriers dashed across the runways, now joined by the local protester but air traffic control still did not halt departures or arrivals. Abelcain had given extremely clear instructors to not shut down, not even slow down for any reason. The airport had to be kept running and the machinery operating like it was a matter of life and death… and with all the OMPAF militiamen that had been flown in maybe it was indeed a matter of survival for the airport workers.
The same was happening all over Abelcain’s newly-seized infrastructure. OMPAF showed up with guns and money and ordered full 24/7 rotating shifts with no weekends or time off. The pay was good, but the workload threatened to buckle the endurance of man and machine alike. But it had to keep running. It was now or never, the kind of opportunity that only showed up once and could turn the tide of the most lopsided battle, and OMPAF had to take it. But instead of being a battle of guns, it was a battle of engineering and management.
The discovery of the ancerium star Zarathustra and its imminent exit from the Golden Expanse’s interdicted zone had attracted unaligned ships by the tens of thousands. They all flew close to Zarathustra, exploring and charting out interdicted zones to be the first one to get to the star brimming with exotic materials.
Aedelshaven, which for years had been a forgotten relic from a time ancerium harvesters were far less efficient, was now once again at the center of the world: it was the world closest to Zarathustra. As the ships from hundreds of nations held station for weeks, then months, they came to need maintenance and fuel and the closest planet that could provide it was Aedelshaven. The world’s dilapidated spaceports and orbital maintenance yards, forgotten ever since Uprising, suddenly found themselves at maxed out capacity and on the verge of falling apart from the workload. The influx of money from ships trying to outbid each other for limited maintenance slots had brought a torrent of wealth to the planet, which Abelcain’s OMPAF seized upon and reinvested to expand his facilities immediately.
But throwing money at the problem wouldn’t be enough. If Aedelshaven’s shipyards were going to expand fast enough to meet demand, the entire planet would have to work in unison to get the job done and its whole infrastructure utilized. No middlemen, no local warlord directing money to their pet projects. OMPAF would have to control it all; direct the whole world’s forces of production to manifest Aedelshaven’s one shot at glory.
And, incredibly, it seemed to be working so far.
Zrgzz heaved and coughed after getting kneed in the stomach twice, trying to catch his breath and push Azel away.
“Avalon?” Zrgzz said over the shouting of the crowd. While OMPAF seemed to have dispersed a large portion of the crowd already, this part still seemed to be occupied mostly by supporters or a local warlord, who were using the broken fencing to build a barricade. “Everyone in a lightyear radius wants to go to Zarathustra! You’re feeling different, huh?”
"Fuck Zarathustra! I couldn't give a single fuck about some Ancerium star that's about to breach the expanses asshole!" He applied some more force on the pinned down ex leader "I need the location of Avalon! I know you have that knowledge" He still needed to shout even at such close range, the sound however slowly dying down for a brief moment leaving ringing in Azels ears.
"That is classified information I was entrusted with." Zrgzz grunted underneath Azel. "You of all people should know the value of having officers that you can trust."
Of course, with the disintegration of E Pluribus Axioma years ago there was nobody actually classifying that information. Zrgzz was just taunting Azel for having his commander leave him to die while Zrgzz himself had lived pretty comfortably after the war.
"Yea fat lot of good trusting commanders was you backstabbing piece of shit!" For a moment the bait made Azel want to smash the mans face in but this was so far his only lead "Classified from who hm? By whom? You aint military anymore and you dont work for those lazy snakes any longer, tell me where Avalon is and maybe I wont do to you what you deserve for doing to your entire fucking unit!"
"You won't do that regardless." Zrgz strained under Azel's weight, trying to sound calm and dismissive. "I am your only lead, as you stated. So I think you'd do best to start discussing prices."
Azel noticed that, rather than trying to hit him or throw mud in his face, Zgrzz was using his right hand to clutch his parka and keep it from unbuttoning. He remembered why: Zrgzz was wearing an OMPAF shirt and yet the crowd had shifted in such a way he was surrounded by warlord supporters wielding bats, chains and homemade shields.
"Hey, the hell's going on?" Morgan finally reached him, her lower face drenched in blood from her nose. Azel knew she was an OMPAF supporter, so things would have to be kept discreet if he didn't want his guide to end up lynched alongside Zrgzz by the mob.
"Try me, maybe I dont get to Avalon, but if I take you down I at least trade a life for justice metered." He turned to Morgan "Personal business just keep my back covered and patch up that nose of yours" He grunted with a smile turning back to Zrgzz.
"Besides these fellas here they dont exactly like men like you. I would be quite happy to throw you open and let them do the work, I know whats under that fucking parka its a death warrant for you here. You tell me where Avalon is and I dont let you get lynched by hundreds of people because you wear a funny shirt hm?" He let his eyes go wide, while he was bluffing and didn't intend to let Zrgzz die before he got the information the want to kill the man was real, very real. Enough to come across as more than convincing given the deep history that Azel had experienced.
Their continued confrontation started getting the attention of the warlord supporters around you. They started getting agitated, pushing Azel and shouting him questions in an unknown language. Soon enough they all realized Zgrzz was the one who'd fired the gun in the middle of the crowd and fiercely mobbed up the two. They were trying to pull Zrgzz and interrogate it themselves.
Suddenly, it wasn't just a threat. Azel wasn't the one who was going to throw him to the wolves anymore, the wolves had come on their own volition and the only one who would help was Azel, who kept him pinned below him and kept opportunists from dragging him away.
"F-fuck!" Zrgzz felt his legs get beaten with a stick. "Go get killed in Avalon, then! That place has been inaccessible ever since the Eostine pulled their stint, you'll wish you'd stayed in Suarez Miranda with your little Visone pet!"
The coordinates were transmitted and, taking a couple good swings from a 2x4 himself, Azel allowed the EPA commander to get back up and run away back to the OMPAF line. Halfway there his parka was pulled off, revealing his shirt and almost getting him caught a second time. Azel knew better than to overstay his welcome among the warlord supporters and got away with the help of Morgan, who pulled him out of the crowd and helped to get him to the relative safety of the OMPAF supporters.
Azel staggered away feeling the impacts he had taken by the attacks as he had held the EPA bastard and watched as Zrgzz was dragged off by the Warlord supporters after his allegiance was open for all to show. Clutching his arm, he checked his PDA, the data stream definitely indicating that he had the Co-ordinates. Feeling a bit of internal relief Azel followed Morgan back to the OMPAF lines sparing one last glance back towards the man who had wanted to kill with his bare hands.
The mass of men and women now on top of him swinging with weapons told him everything he needed to know. Inside Azel felt a little bit of the anger and hatred dissipate, one off the list, another down. Part of his deep demons from the abandonment were gone, a small amount but it was enough for him to find solace as he tried not to slip up on the mud underneath the OMPAF supporters battered against him and Morgan. Azel actually clutched onto her hand, not out of any affection but to purely stop them from being separated in the mass of people.
“What the fuck was that all about?” He heard Morgan call back over to him, mid barging a supporter out of the way so he could get through.
“It doesn’t matter. I need to make a call; I need to get somewhere quiet. And we are going to need a ship” Azel shouted back to her. He took a risk and once again pulled out his PDA, with Morgan now leading him to an area which wasn’t entirely crowded with hundreds of men and women he could tell Glassbag the good news. As the small holographic depiction of their destination blinked on a stylised galactic map Azel even managed a smile. However, another barge caused him to frown and put it away again. Hard to believe this was Aedleshaven, back in the tank training academy he had an instructor who had been on Aedleshaven and somehow escaped after the collapse of organised resistance there.
He had told Azel Aedleshaven had been a shithole, that much the tanker could see right now and could see ever since he came here. But he had said it was quiet, with dour and dreary people who barely lifted a finger for themselves apart from to work. They had regretted fighting to defend a place with such dullards but had done so anyway and endured some horrific fighting. Hard to believe given those same people were now out in force, not just here, but the entire planet over fighting for what they now believed in.
All because of one man.
Abelcain.
But Azel knew what putting your faith in one charismatic leader meant. What seeing your hopes and dreams be embodied meant? Disappointment and the eventual sell out of everything you once were. Still Morgan took him to one side, it was still noisy, but the crowd wasn’t entirely compacted here. With a few flicks of his fingers he tried to connect with Glassbag.
“Hey, hey man you there?”
“Azel, it’s fucked.” The former tankman heard Glassbag speak with a trembling voice of frustration. “It’s all fucked.”
He was still unaware that Azel had managed to acquire the information but that wouldn’t have changed much. Bad news were coming down the line which put the entire plan in jeopardy.
Effective immediately, all civilian ships that operated from Aedelshaven had been seized by OMPAF. Abelcain’s fleet of engineering ships were not enough to keep up with the demand, especially when they started breaking down from overwork. Now, just like how the ground infrastructure had been seized, so would civilian ships of all types be requisitioned by OMPAF so that they could be adapted to engineering and maintenance duties for the spaceports. All civilian shipping, including the ship that Azel and Glassbag had secured to fly into the expanse, were now OMPAF assets and were treated as such. Crews and armed escorts were being flown up to orbit to occupy the ships, while any that attempted to flee was intercepted by OMPAF’s nascent orbital forces.
Sure, those who had their ships seized were generously compensated for their “service”, but no one was given a choice. They were just given money and dared to make a fuss over it by armed militias. Such was Azel’s luck, the one day he arrived in Aedelshaven was also the day Abelcain decided to practically mount a revolution.
“Every fucking starship in orbit got chartered.” Glassbag lamented. “And the bastards paid us in some Aedelshaven monopoly money on top of that.”
The call was suddenly cut by a fierce burst of lighting that wracked the entire sky. Thunder followed, so loud it was like Azel was right beneath a nuclear blast, shattering windows all over. Practically every building and lighting rod in Tau Orbicular was hit by a blinding bolt of electricity; the sky was bright white. It was like a huge wave of lightning expanding outwards from somewhere, passing over Tau Orbicular in a second before continuing on its way. All lights and electronic equipment remained off for a few seconds before turning back on and Azel’s tablet had to reboot as the smell of ozone filled the air.
Impressively, the cargo aircraft that were on terminal approach to the airport continued going even after they were all struck by lighting. Now that the crowd had dispersed, the runway was reopened.
“Woohoo!” Morgan cheered while having her nose fixed by some OMPAF doctors who had set up an encampment. “The madman is actually doing it!”
Azel ran his hand through his hair, feeling wetness as semi scabbed blood from his own head still somewhat flowed. For a moment he said nothing, feeling like at the very cusp of victory they had been spat on. Finally, he responded to Glassbag.
“So, we can’t get off this fucking world then? I have the location of Avalon, I JUST got the co-ordinates Glassbag, the real co-ordinates! Not only that but that bastard Zrgzz is dead. We cant stop now monopoly money or not we have to get off planet, if we don’t we are going to be roped into working factory shifts for the rest of our lives by some overgrown gorilla revolutionary” Azel realised he had said the last part a little loudly in his anger, turning to Morgan he wondered if she had noticed.
“Hey I need to get off world ASAP, I don’t give a fuck about chartering I need a vessel this is critically important-“ The blast from the lightning taking him completely by surprise and out of pure muscle memory had him dive to the floor to take cover under one of the poorly set up tables in the encampment. As his PDA fizzed and buzzed Azel finally pulled himself up and frowned, totally unsure what had just happened. Aedleshaven had always suffered from massive storms which disrupted aerial and orbital operations but that was something else.
“What the hell just happened that was not usual lightning?”
Morgan stood up, having gotten the blood cleaned off her face and her nose splinted and dressed, trying to see what was up with Azel who seemed quite agitated on the phone.
“They’re clearing out the ion storms!” She said, looking cheered up to the point that her nose didn’t bother her much. “They’re draining the charge out of the atmosphere, looks pretty spectacular doesn’t it? We’re gonna see some sun for a change!”
“It gets worse.” Glassbag spoke over her through the phone. “They’re getting crews too. They got our pilot and engineer! Shit, they even sent me a fucking text message telling me to either report to my local embassy! They’re rounding everyone up, I need to get the fuck out of here.”
Sure enough, it wasn’t just the equipment and facilities getting seized by OMPAF. There had to be people to man the machines, architects and engineers to design the logistical expansion. The human capital of Aedelshaven had just gotten locked in the planet, and now every person with specialist knowledge was a wanted man. A well-paid contract or a cell in prison were the two things all pilots on the planet were being offered by intimidating squads of Abelcain’s jackbooted thugs.
This was so out of Azel’s expectations that he didn’t know how to react at first. Unifying Aedelshaven’s warlord territories and seizing infrastructure had been pretty daring actions by Abelcain already, but actually kidnapping high-skilled laborers was a step up in egregiousness. Suddenly the issue wasn’t just being stuck in Aedelshaven, but having foreign ships show up and start shooting over this incident.
Glassbag described the situation to Azel in an agitated tone. Foreigners were stampeding out to their embassies alongside hundreds who wanted to escape, but OMPAF had set up barricades outside of the embassies to check for papers. Anyone who couldn’t immediately prove their foreign citizenship was apprehended and bussed out to the worksites on the spot. This was even worse for Azel and Glassbag, who were effectively stateless after being left for dead by the Capitol Republic. From the sound of it they had already nabbed the co-pilot and engineer of Azel’s trip, the only two with actual experience operating in the Golden Expanse. Glassbag was on the run, trying to avoid being “offered” a similar contract.
Even if he managed to get a ship, unlikely as it was, Azel was now without a co-pilot and flight engineer. Without the former he could manage for the moment -as Azel had previously had to fly much of the way alone- but without an engineer the slightest technical issue could spell his demise.
He had no engineer now, so the second best thing he had was a Strzalan, Morgan. By her own account she’d been living in the planet for years, but Azel knew that for Strzalan, starships were almost a matter of genetic instinct. More Strzalans knew how to spacewalk than knew how to swim, and the majority of the population of their country, the Republika Strzala, were not even born in their territory but in the engineering bays and technical decks of starships to mothers taking a brief “birth break”.
Given his luck so far Azel wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d met the one single Strzalan who wasn’t familiar with starship engines. But it was all he had, and probably all he’d ever have since OMPAF wasn’t going to let him ask around. On the other hand, Morgan herself was OMPAF. She could just as well rat him and Glassbag out, unless Azel could offer something really enticing.
In any other circumstance Azel could have said he was witnessing galactic history. He was there the day Aedleshaven finally rose up, he was there the day they finally cleared the sky, he was there the day the people took back what was rightfully theirs. Aedleshaven had been known for its storms since it had been surveyed and they had just been one accepted fact even as the world was colonised and built from the ground up. They had held back invading forces, causing havoc with both the AGA and APP forces as the planet changed hands during the Peony Revolution and the 2nd Ancerious war.
And now they were being torn from the sky itself. Azel watched, Glassbag still ranting about the situation update on the PDA as he observed, the huge flash of light and energy had been a major step and now other huge spires connected to whatever terraforming or atmospheric editing marvel they were using seemed to energise and spin up. Clouds which had perpetually covered the world for its entire history and cast it in a ever present dull twilight swirled angrily causing the medical tents and clothing to fly around vigorously, tornadoes spawned and died as the tempest surrounding what was likely one of many hundreds of facilities reached its climax.
And the he saw it. A ray of sunshine, the clouds beginning to dissipate as more came through.
“By Inaras ass cheeks they did it” Azel muttered. He took a few moments before realising he was still in a terrible position and they needed to get off world, the entire population in the surroundings having stopped to watch in awe, the fighting seemingly put on hold. No doubt this would be a huge propaganda win for Abelcain and the OMPAF. Once again, he spoke in reply to Glassbag.
“Alright, alright! Ill see what I can do, don’t run off or I won’t be able to find you, stay in close contact” He clutched the PDA tightly in anger before he turned to Morgan, knowing what he was probably going to say to her would either be what killed him or got them out of this mess.
“Morgan, we need to talk. Their rounding up all the pilots and engineers, I know you firmly believe in the cause, I did too once. But theres something more important going on, something that if you help me with, could give OMPAF the edge it needs in the coming months. Something if you help me find could get you in Abelcain’s good graces personally. I need a ship and an engineer to get me and a friend into the Golden Expanse, we are going to find something that could change everything”
Azel frowned at the statement. He had considered himself one of the true believers until he had been betrayed.
"I supported Inara right up until she betrayed me and the very ideals we stood for. I joined the military because of her, I wanted to fight for the things she believed in. I saw the good her reforms did when my parents were liberated from slavery for some half assed excuse for a crime under the nobles and I saw the direct aid that she gave to the people after Celefra was attacked. I was a true believer, I still believe in the ideals she championed, but when she betrayed those ideals and sold off my entire unit while I was fighting for me and my mens lives far from home I could serve her no more. You still have a chance, if I had an opportunity to secure an asset capable of potentially turning the war I would have taken it" He was stern in his voice, even above the shouting.
Resting her hand on her hips, Morgan shifted her weight between her feet a couple times, staying silent and letting Azel speak but with a somewhat visible eagerness to immediately answer.
"You think you know what I believe in? Fuck OMPAF" she said in a defiant voice, in deeply-accented Strzalkan so that the other OMPAF militiamen in the medical tent did not know the kind of blasphemy she had uttered. Everything in this city moved and happened for Abelcain Tulcazar, and the militiamen were the instrument of his will. Here most of all, in the middle of a medical tent right after an action that resulted on dead and wounded for both sides, was where the ideological fire of Abelcain and OMPAF burned the brightest in the faces of the young soldiers singing songs and telling each other of their deeds for the day. But apparently Morgan Szafranska wasn't having any of it, even though even Azel had been fooled by her apparent fanaticism. "You think I give a shit about whether some alien revolutionary takes an airport? I don't believe in Abelcain or OMPAF. What I believe in is Aedelshaven. Do you know why?"
Azel was somewhat shocked to the reply, if only he had known earlier. This would have been a damn sight easier.
"No I do not know why. Although what I am going to ask is beneficial beyond just helping any organisation and place."
He was somewhat resentful of course, if the people of Aedleshaven had cared about their shithole of a world then maybe they would have rebuilt it the two times Capitol helped liberate it from oppression. The empire had put surprising funds into trying to kickstart this place and to use it as a bastion of economy. But both times the people had just wallowed in their own filth, fought each other and casually let others invade after they had been freed.
"I believe in Aedelshaven, not its people. All people know here is working and chewing cud, but the planet itself has some magic, you know?" She said, leaning in and pretending to pat him down so the other militiamen around them wouldn't suspect them. She grabbed what passed for Azel's wallet, an old tablet pouch, and began ruffling through his papers. There was nothing major left of the man who had once optimistically ventured off to fight with the Grand Imperial Army; no ID or passport for he had no country to call home anymore, no photos of family. All he had was a temporary transit permit he'd slaved away to get in order to land in Aedelshaven. "Aedelshaven is where foreigners come and become legends. Menck, Nivose, Raxis, Abelcain, the Red Angels... Even the Peony Revolutionaries managed to whip these people into moving. Whoever and wherever you are, this dumpster fire of a world is always calling you to come and become legend."
She handed him back the pouch, keeping the transit permit to herself and folding it up in her own wallet. "And I'm taking the call. So don't try to convince me with bullshit about what's good for Aedelshaven or OMPAF or how I'm a true believer. If you want to be anywhere but a work camp tomorrow then you better start telling me exactly what you are promising and how you came to find it."
Azel had to admire her straight up fortitude and direction to the point. There was no reason to beat it around the bush any longer and he merely looked around as she patted him down, trying to blend in to not arouse suspicion.
"Alright Ill tell you. You have heard of Avalon yes? Well I have the co-ordinates. I promised I would get a friend of mine there, and we all know the tale that Avalon is a place of powerful things, it was once a Visone stronghold likely with enough Visonite alone to make a fortune off. However the technology and the knowledge there could be worth so much more. My friend, he is..." He paused, but decided to tell her everything up front.
"Well. He is a Visone, and he told me they have libraries there, knowledge of the ancient eras, maps of lost treasures, cities and weapons all that jazz. They were archivists, and despite the fact they got genocided twice I would say the danger it represents is worth the immense power that it can offer. You help me get there and get my friend home, and hopefully you get knowledge and more to help this place and its people" He eyed some of the workers nearby with suspicion "This time maybe without the insanity"