Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) (40 page)

Passing the thick rubber curtain that shielded those inside from the foul weather, Toni came upon an interior altogether different from the one that had ferried LOGIS to Lograin. It was different enough, in fact, to make him wonder whether it was the same aircraft at all. Uncomfortable-looking seats flanked both sides of the aircraft’s aft interior, the central corridor having been left bare to allow myriad equipment and supplies to be strapped down, and more rubber curtains hid the aircraft’s central cabin from view.

On their journey to Lograin there had been no seats or divided cabins, only a very sturdy floor over which the Suits could safely pad before shutting down to be secured to the structure. Then he remembered that most of the Mocas hadn’t survived the Iron mine engagement, the crews probably having been forced to modify the aircraft to better suit the task of evacuation. Finding no one he knew among those seated, and feeling a little uneasy with such a large number of them being MPs, he passed through the second curtain and into the compartment beyond.

Toni’s puzzlement began to give way to alarm. He found not a single tied-down armored Suit, but instead a continuation of the carefully secured and spaced payload along with many more seats, their occupants mainly base personnel and another handful of MPs. Wondering whether they could smell their comrades’ blood on his hands, Toni froze where he was, and as the group turned their gaze towards him his heart skipped a beat. They soon returned to their heated conversation, however, and he pushed the thought out of his mind.

Feeling the aircraft begin to move, he took a seat beside a window as far as possible from the evacuees, trying not to look at the blue-berets as they talked excitedly amongst themselves. Having apparently discovered that there was far more room in the center cabin than in the rear, a group of runway jockeys passed through the dividing curtain and began to choose their seats. One of them, apparently thinking that Toni was also base personnel, raised a hand in cheers and took a seat two places beside his. Toni knew what came next, and a few moments later the young soldier spoke to him.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, looks like we got the final call.” The young soldier repeated.

“Why do you say that?”

“All the Quasars. They’re taxiing all at once.”

Toni peered outside the window and confirmed that they were, and he wondered whether Lieutenant Templeton had managed to make it aboard. Standing once more, he exited the central compartment and approached the boarding sergeant as he hollered at the soldiery to take their seats.

“Sir, has Lieutenant Templeton arrived yet?”

The sergeant gave him a murderous look.

“And now the fucking cadet! I just confirmed to the Lieutenant on comms that you’re aboard, I’m not about ask him where the fuck
he
is! And rest assured that Lograin Tower would rather abandon an entire company to die here than sacrifice a single Templeton!”

“Does that mean the other Temple–”

“Fuckoff! Back! To! Your! Fucking! Seat! FUCK!” He howled, and the base personnel laughed and hooted as the old sergeant bulldozed Toni back to his seat.

The sergeant then returned to his own seat beside the cargo-door, hollering curses at all present as he passed them by, and even the MPs had the good grace to lower their heads at his irate passage, some going so far as to applaud his labors.

So Toni was on the right carrier, on the principle that the lieutenant hadn’t sounded blindly to all aircraft to confirm whether he was on board. But if so, then where was his platoon? Where was Ian, along with the compliment of MPs guarding him? And where were the Suit parts that Hannah had managed to apprehend?

Ignoring the base-puke’s newest attempt to strike up a conversation, Toni stood again and, ignoring the reproving glare of the nearby MPs, began to make his way to the forward cabin. Passing through the heavy curtain, he found the compartment full of low-density, high-volume loads secured with netting. It included mostly an abundant stock of fuel and paper documents, and he realized that if they were to crash the fireball would be spectacular.

As he returned to his seat in deep thought, he barely noticed how the personnel had congregated around the circular windows, the soldiers practically silent except for some quiet observation from one or another. There was no more care for remaining seated, the sergeant’s absence from that cabin effectively leaving them to do as they pleased.

... and we’ve got those in the Quasar for future research.
Toni was almost certain that was what the lieutenant had said.

But which Quasar? Toni had presumed that he had been referring to their Quasar, but it could just as easily have been another. And where was the remainder of his platoon?

As he took his seat, he began to wonder whether the lieutenant had deceived him, but quickly he banished the thought from his mind. The lieutenant had never shown any fondness for his nephew, the relationship between appearing much closer to indifference than love. And there was the matter of the very genuine warmth and relief he had displayed only minutes ago.

Banishing the thought to the back of his mind, Toni tapped the chatty base-puke on the shoulder and asked what all the fuss was about.

“Really?! Fourteen Quasars are about to try and takeoff at the same time from three different runways! That’s more than eight thousand tons on the move at the same time without anyone in the tower to coordinate, since they’ve boarded a carrier themselves. The chances of there being a mid-air collision are beyond bad, they’re terrifying. How can you be so calm?”

“Just ignorant, I guess ...” Toni replied.

The soldier looked at him for a moment and then turned towards the window once more, shaking his head and muttering.

Toni wondered whether he and the soldier belonged to the same species.

There was a sudden blinding flash of light, quickly followed by two more, and all personnel who had been looking out the window suddenly yelled in pain, clapping hands to their faces as if they had just been burned there.

“Those are nukes detonating, guys,” Toni heard himself saying, “Get away from the windows and don’t look out again. Strap yourselves in ‘cause the shockwaves are on their way.”

Knocking into each other in their haste and blindness, the center-cabin passengers began to sit into the seats nearest to them and fasten their seatbelts. Every second that passed by made Toni more certain that the detonations had taken place a fair distance away, since the six roaring engines had only choked for a brief moment following the flashes.

Then the shockwaves arrived, and they struck the aircraft’s fuselage hard enough to momentarily rock it on its landing gear. There were a few screams and squeals, and Toni once again remembered the two men he had murdered.

As the Quasar began to turn in to its starting point on Lograin’s runway number one, Toni found the window beside him facing roughly south-east, where he observed five mushroom clouds ascending the skies perhaps ten kilometers off. That surprised him, since he didn’t know of any permanent construction to be found there. Reminding himself to follow his own rules, he turned away from the window and found himself looking at the young soldier.

“Am I gonna go blind, man?” He asked as he blinked his eyes furiously.

“Have no idea, mate. If you can see anything at all then it’s probably not that bad, I think. Don’t worry about it, we’ve got bigger –”

There were several more flashes of light, and the engines choked again before resuming their approach to their full power. Toni counted the seconds away and, once he reached fifteen, the thunderclaps finally reached them, making the fuselage creak and groan and shudder in a way that did not sound healthy at all.

Turning to his side, Toni observed six more mushroom clouds rising in the foreground to their predecessors, about six kilometers off.

“Our base defenses aren’t even firing, man. They’ve abandoned their posts, the fucking cowards!” The soldier cried, only to be stiffly corrected by another.

“That’s bullshit! The system’s automated, the GMN’s taking care of the defense.”

“They’re leapfrogging ...” Toni muttered.

“What?!”

“I said that they’re leapfrogging.” Toni answered more loudly, “They’re firing those nukes outside the base’s area of intervention. When the mushroom clouds rise high enough to block all radar and infrared, they fire a second volley through them and detonate those nukes closer to the base than they could otherwise have gone. If they keep doing that –”

“Game over ...” the first soldier breathed.

“Right. Let’s just hope we’re out of here by then.” Toni finished as he watched the clouds rise, almost hypnotized by their beauty.

He hurriedly diverted his eyes once more, focusing instead on trying to calculate how long it would take for the nukes to strike the base proper. He got as far as figuring out that, as the base anti-missile system’s delay in detection and response decreased the nearer the enemy missiles came, the leapfrogs would need to be shorter to prevent interception. The exercise left him clueless as to how long they had before the missiles came within killing range.

“Not again ...” another soldier moaned as several more blinding flashes strobed Toni’s field of vision.

He felt the heat on his face and turned to see seven luminous golden spheres ascend the skies, their distance perhaps four kilometers away. The Quasar was already accelerating along the runway, gaining the much-needed speed for safe takeoff, and Toni’s stomach lurched as the reactors began to struggle unexpectedly. They were supposed to be EMP resistant, but it was quickly becoming evident that they were not immune. There were cries of panic as the engines continued to hesitate, but then they resurged and all backs were suddenly pressed against their seats.

The shockwaves struck the aircraft’s fuselage in a flurry, and the left wing began to tip up alarmingly. A loud grinding noise became clearly audible to all, although it ceased abruptly as the carrier righted itself.

“Wing just scraped against the tarmac, guys. God!” A civvie seated near a window on the right side informed them, and Toni began to wonder whether he should perhaps be a little more concerned.

Then an unexpected shockwave struck them, weaker in intensity but with much more push. As the aircraft’s fuselage began to tip upwards and the tires separated from the ground, the windows from both sides abruptly darkened as the screaming reactors changed their tune. Barely a second passed and then the aircraft was out of the smoke cloud and airborne, although everyone in the cabin was acutely aware that the preceding aircraft had crashed.

The runway jockeys knew it too, and they wept as several more blindingly intense flashes blinded the passengers.

“Gods.” Toni muttered in irritation as the reactors began to lose power, feeling his innards rise as the aircraft’s ascent faltered.

But they resurged once again and the Quasar began to put distance between itself and the air base. Banking sharply as it ascended, the pilots pointed the aircraft’s tail towards the imminent shockwaves. When they arrived, the impacts were weaker than those preceding them, letting the passengers in on the fact that they had seen the worst of it.

Toni closed his eyes, wondering whether he deserved the reprieve. Finding no ready answer, he remained seated, quietly observing the surrounding soldiers. Some behaved like frightened animals, twisting around skittishly in their seats like cats in a shaken travel cage. Others, particularly the older personnel, he envied for their calm. The most senior of the MPs, an old lieutenant who had probably begun his career from the bottom, appeared unfazed by the events, and he eyed Toni coldly as if he suspected something. Toni couldn’t blame him, and he closed his eyes once more.

The aircraft continued its unsteady ascent, the strong winds buffeting its fuselage as it passed through turbulent airstreams. Every once in a while several flashes illuminated the cabin’s interior and Toni’s darkened world would momentarily strobe between black and red. The shockwaves gradually lost their snap and the carrier began to turn once more, and he opened his eyes to peer out his window.

He found a slowly turning world beyond, low and remote and wild. More than a minute passed by until he was awarded with a sight of what had once been Lograin air base. It had become a mushroom farm, and indeed as he watched he could see them rising, ebony pillars with a marked inclination towards the north-east, the once-spherical clouds atop them no longer fully able to withstand the furious winds. Several more bright flashes momentarily blinded him and he was forced to turn away, the searing pain in his eyes greater than he would have expected. Closing them, he saw the ghosts of the detonations like static in his field of view. He counted them, realizing that four missiles had detonated before he’d been able to turn away.

He finally grasped the fact that his crime scene had been sanitized in a way he could never have accomplished by himself. The realization depressed him terribly. The truth would remain for him alone, and he felt that he had somehow claimed undue ownership over their souls. He remembered their names once more, and promised himself that he would find out whether they had children and, if so, whether they wanted for anything. He owed his victims that, at the very least.

He opened his eyes to find the old lieutenant sitting quietly beside him. A feeling of unreality began to creep over him as the officer turned his eyes towards the recruit.