Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

Did I just say that?
He thought in astonishment.

He willed himself to shut up, and they stared silently at each other for a few moments. Finally, Toni let his breath out and slowly unwound, and before a minute had passed he was finally prepared to say the words.

“I’m sorry, Tani. It’s been a long day and I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.”

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked.

The question hurt him deeply and he was not entirely able to hide it. He spoke without thinking.

“I like you, Kaia. I mean, I like you in a way I really shouldn’t ...”

For a moment, Rakaia’s wide eyes remained fixed on his, unblinking, the tendons of her neck standing out in stark contrast to her soft throat. She seemed about to say something, but instead her body shivered as if a particularly unpleasant thought had just flashed across her mind. Finally she broke eye contact and sat up.

“Not if you were the last man on Thau.” She hissed softly.

A few moments passed by as Toni digested the statement. Apparently calm once more, Rakaia politely addressed the wall. “I think I’m quite recovered. I’m leaving now. Excuse me.”

She quietly left him sitting there.

For a long while, Toni was simply too stunned for thought. The first thought that did find its way into his consciousness, however, arrived in the form of a question.

What in the hell is wrong with me?

MEWAC medical bay, 19H15, 19
th
of May, 2771

The confrontation with Rakaia left Toni horrified. Not with her, of course; the Terminator had always rebuffed the cadets surrounding her, and he would never have expected anything other than the same for him. It wasn’t what she had said that distressed him, but his free-running mouth instead, and more specifically, the words it had uttered. Most especially, it was the
feeling
that had accompanied the words that were jilting his nerves.

The
feeling
was not entirely unfamiliar.

Over the course of his training, there had been moments when the pressure mounted alarmingly. In those times, a terrible thought sometimes crashed into the midst of his consciousness, yelling that he had finally reached his limit, and that it would all be so much easier if he simply gave up and took the Walk. At first he had simply ignored the thought and, more often than not, those moments were fleeting enough for the tactic to work.

But then those critical moments had begun to stretch out, and simply ignoring the voice was no longer a practical option. It eventually became something to put up with, like Mason or the tics, any attempt to smother the voice only resulting in it squealing even louder in more desperate instances. It began to harass his spirit and slowly he had begun to hate the voice, and then that
feeling
had begun to make itself known. His memory tended to become hazy whenever that happened, and he would eventually return to himself afterwards in the shower, another critical training session having been accomplished without incident, his only memory of the session that
feeling
.

A
feeling
as if he was no longer alone in his own mind, that there was another consciousness to be reckoned with, one which held grudges, which took revenge, which felt itself entitled to more than a fair measure of divine selfishness. There was no pity in it. That intrusive stranger would laugh whenever Toni agonized, and indeed he could hear a sniggering despite his present solitude. Closing his eyes, Toni focused on the emotion and sought to reach out and make contact with that hidden facet of his self.

He let go of his self-pity and felt himself approach the stranger. He abandoned his empathy, and closer he crept. He rose out of the trench that was his life and looked down upon it, observing the shoddy workmanship and the haphazard way it interconnected with those around him, and he sneered at it all. The
feeling
was becoming very strong. He accepted that he was of no worth. How tremendous it was, life. He had no value in the midst of it all. The myriad trenches surrounding him were better organized and kept, for the most part. They accommodated platoons, whole battalions, even, while his accommodated a young boy who didn’t even know how to speak to members of the opposite gender. He sneered once more, his fangs showing. None of that mattered, of course. No matter how many virtuous lives needed to be snuffed out to validate his own insignificant existence, the deed would be done. No matter that his genes were defective, whether they be folic acid deficiencies or something even more sinister, he would pass his genes onwards. He would engineer his way into the Terminator’s unworthy womb, even if he had to forcefully pry her lily-white thighs –

He began to tremble as the horrible imagery paraded before his mind’s eye, the stranger smirking slyly beside him. His emotional self began to tear itself apart, the horrified rejection of the delicious possibilities opposing itself to the epiphany of a draconian world view. A savage dogfight broke out in his mind, and his body began to shake and shudder.

Turning his back towards the infirmary door, he smothered a scream and caved in to the overwhelming intensity of his emotions. At the peak of his anger, as his hate extended beyond himself and towards all the antagonists of his life, he sensed his moral skin slip away, feeling simultaneously terrified and delighted that it could so easily slide off if he allowed it to.

He glimpsed the demon hidden beneath, and it proudly basked in the light of its discovery before once more hiding itself within the fabric of his mind. As the foul creature disappeared from Toni’s consciousness, his weaker self tried desperately to hold on to some remnant of its power, but a moment later it was wholly gone except for that
feeling,
and for the reassuring knowledge that it was still concealed within.

His shaking eventually subsided, and he began to lose track of time.

The affliction had long departed when the infirmary’s automatic blinds suddenly snapped shut, putting an abrupt end to Toni’s dark thoughts.

What time is it?
He wondered. Slowly he rose, joints cracking loudly, and he crossed the room towards the entrance, unfastened boots squeaking over the varnished wooden floor. He found the medic at her desk reading, and she reluctantly turned her attention towards him as he approached.

“Well, finally up. You look flushed, cadet. Are you alright?” She asked, concern lightly etching her pretty brow.

“Oh. I’m just fine. What time is it?”

She pointed delicately to the wall-clock above her head. It read nine o’clock. Dinnertime had come and gone quite a while ago. He had missed formation. The medic appeared to read his mind.

“There’s no need to worry, dear. The Commander passed by more than an hour ago. Told us it was alright to bring dinner to the injured in the infirmary.”

“The ... Commander?” Toni asked.

“Well, yes, of course. The entire base is out and about. Something’s up, but I’m afraid I don’t know what it is, so don’t ask.” She warned. The furrow of concern deepened.

“Listen, dear. I don’t like how you’re looking, nor did I like the strange noises you were making while you slept, so why don’t you try resting a little more. I’ll bring you your dinner just now, alright?” She proposed with a sweet smile.

Toni felt that her smile was disingenuous, but still felt obliged to comply. Presenting her with a smile of his own, he thanked her and returned to bed. As he lay down again, Toni realized he was still smiling, and quickly wiped it off his face. What had she meant by strange noises? Had he spoken out loud? He wondered what she must be thinking of him. And how had he not noticed the arrival of a full-blown Colonel in the bay?

He couldn’t afford to lose his mind, not when the world was on the verge of becoming an interesting place.

Toni made his way back to the casern a few minutes before the call-to-silence horn. What he found there caught him by surprise.

The entire platoon had travel-gear spread out on the beds, and were prepping their Tier Three travel-packs for locomotion. His own bed had one such T3 pack lying on it, but everyone appeared to be too busy to explain to him what to stow where, or why.

“Yo! Still in time to go back to Med Bay, Tonesy!” Toni heard someone bray from further down the compartment.

Ray’s arms were dug in up to their elbows in his larger backpack, and the Leibanese looked happier than Toni had seen him in a long while. He sauntered over to the busy cadet, hopeful for information.

“Mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

“Are you ready to fight a war?” Ray asked, giving him a wolfish grin. He then proceeded to explain.

Apparently, the CDF has finally gotten wind of the enemy’s general location. Their defensive systems had proven so advanced that all unmanned aircraft in the vicinity had been incinerated. In fact, the weapons’ range was so extensive that the venerable Adamastor, Capicua’s one-time interstellar spaceship and sole remaining space station, had that very afternoon been knocked from its orbit as it passed overhead. All hands had been lost, elevating the body-count since the conflict’s beginning to more than four hundred dead.

“Oh, and the Enemy’s got an official name now. We’ll be calling them Unmil from now on.”

“Unmil? How did they figure that?”

Ray looked at Toni carefully for the first time that day.

“You alright, man? You usually pick that crap up faster than me.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I get it. Unknown Military, right?” Toni ventured, trying to look as excited as his friend was. Ray’s preoccupation vanished at once and he proceeded to lay down facts more relevant to their immediate future.

The brass, in their infinite wisdom, had proposed to the government that MEWAC’s entire ground force be committed to offensive action, aimed at striking a devastating blow against the Unmils before they got too well established. And somewhere along the line MEWAC’s entire ground force had come to include the Moca Suits, momentarily tasked to a certain platoon of eager, if rather malcontent, cadets.

Hence the T3 packs.

“So you pack for extended operations, as per page one-oh-seven of the MEWAC Recruit Manual. Though they told us to pack it all very tightly, ‘cause they’re gonna have us stow three days’ combat rations and a few extra Lacrau clips in there. Yo, master and commander! You got that pill for the Tones here?” He bellowed suddenly at Ian, who had been methodically running a pen through a checklist.

Apparently, the novel situation had put Ray in such high spirits that he had quite forgotten about his beef with the special one. Ian approached them quietly, taking a small capsule out of the breast pocket of his brand new dolmen as he did so. Toni accepted it reluctantly, deeply suspicious of anything Ian would offer him to swallow.

“It’s a sleeping pill ...” Ian explained neutrally, “They want us to take one at the call-to-silence horn.”

He returned to his list without another word.

“Yeah, that’s right! We gotta take it at the call-too-shilence hawn! But you’d better put a hold on that until you got everything packed. Help me out, and then I’ll give you a hand, arright?”

Ray’s enthusiasm proved infectious, and soon Toni found himself forgetting about what happened at the infirmary as they set to work. By eleven o’clock, even Toni’s backpack was neatly stowed, Ray having already gotten good practice sorting his and Gordie’s out, and by then both had decided to swallow their little ivory-colored pills. The drug appeared to have no effect on their disposition, making them wonder after a while whether they’d been given a placebo.

As the remainder of their fellow cadets slept like the dead, the two friends clasped hands aggressively. With not the least care for any lurking sergeants or officers, they slapped each other’s faces, laughing and promising one another that they would cut a fair length of Unmil-throat before the campaign’s end.

As Toni finally lay down in his bed, a genuine smile spread across his face as he wallowed in his good mood, he peered around at the remaining members of his platoon, wondering idly whether any would die over the following weeks. They certainly looked dead at the moment, not a single one stirring except for Ray, who was rolling under the bed sheets as awake as he was.

Sleep fell on him like a thief, stealing from him also the memory of any dreams he might have had.

Dawn proved to be a particularly windy one, and it was the music the gusts made against the casern’s exterior that woke him. He hid his head under his pillow, trying hard to shut out the sound, made worse by the loud conversations taking place all around him. His shoulder was shaken twice before he found the resolve to look around.

Gordie was once more among them. As the cadet laughed with his mates, ecstatic to be among his own again, Toni noticed only some puffiness around his eyes. Other than that he was no worse for wear.

The wall-clock read four o’clock in the morning.

Yet another shove on his shoulder finally got him onto his feet. Moving like a drunk, he uniformed himself, not caring to wash. He’d do that after the morning run. Then he remembered there would be no morning run.

Sergeant Mason stomped into the compartment, and Toni discovered what his face looked like without its characteristic smirk. It was carved from stone.

The platoon stood immediately at attention beside the beds.

“At ease, cadets,” he began, dispensing with his usual game of stare and intimidation, “I’ll say this now, ‘cause this is the last chance I’ll get to say it. I’m dead sure none of you are ready for this. Not a one! None of you should have been pulled from your training for this!” He growled.

The cadets watched their sergeant silently, none daring to agree, disagree or state any otherwise opinion.

“In fifteen minutes you will all form up before the company building for a briefing by our Company Commander. You will leave your equipment inside your casern. After a short briefing you will be distributed PDWs and corresponding ammunition, an anti-trauma suit and helmet, three combat rations, one box of combat nootropics and one pair of binoculars. None of what I’ve referred to is to be stowed in the Moca Suit. Instead it will be worn on your person or stashed inside your T-packs. No exceptions!

“There is one last thing I need to say before formation.” He added after a short pause. He observed them one at a time, and for once he had no sneer reserved for Toni.

“What’s going to happen can end a million different ways, but there’s only two ways this will end quickly. Either the Unmils are a bunch of pussies, and we’ll sweep the Cap free of them in a day, or they will be far superior to us on every level, and they’ll defeat us decisively. In my view, and considering we don’t have a clue as to the technology gap between both forces, the first battle may well result in one of these two scenarios.