YC122-12-27-7:35
Sahendaruman Fortress, Huomaeli Belt, Ternate Mountains, Skarkon II
A camera drone activates, though this one is outside. It is dark, the sun rising over the horizon and peaks of the range, but the sun doesn’t light up the sky or ground by much. Most of the light is cast by the fortress range itself, stretching far and away, and from a large construct shadowed in the darkness and light dust clouds crawling across the ground or walls of various surfaces.
Figures move in the darkness with illuminated heads, and the shuffling heard over the winds is ripe with the sound of hollow clacking and clattering, like charcoal being kicked or stepped on. From behind the camera steps Mahazkei, fully dressed as he was during his first appearance, and not a hint of skin visible, with the fleshed hand gloved. The mask is illuminated by lights at the corners around the seal, acting as a light to the ground and a means by which to see any equivalent face. His back is turned to the camera for a short time, before he twists his torso and neck to look at it, roughly at shoulder level, gesturing to the surrounding darkness.
“Still two weeks and some odd days that the place got nuked, and we don’t have full casualties. Or, they won’t tell me, worried that I’ll go rogue and execute frontier justice on whomever I find.” He’s quiet for a moment as he turns back to the front. “They’re right to be worried, but since it’s been that long and nobody who could have done it has owned up to it, I don’t have anyone to direct my fury to. Too many unknowns and worries that despite the good I might do, I’d be doing more harm than would offset the immediate reward. With this I agree, but I’ve made it clear I’m not to be idle during this investigation.”
The camera follows to one side as he shuffles along, and a wheeled vehicle, tall and only lit at the corners and front, rumbles past with the ground making a series of crumbling crunches like being driven on gravel. Hanging on the side are a few large individuals, lit enough to see an orange handprint on their left cheek. One hops off their foothold and loosens their grip on a handlebar near the roof, dropping next to him. They are taller than him by half a head, and broader, but they carry no immediate weapon besides a holstered sidearm, being imposing, but not threatening.
“We’ve assessed the damage they can’t repair with spares, and it’s not pretty. Would be superficial, but the nuke ■■■■■■ up the AA and anti-munitions systems, and they don’t have enough parts to get back to full strength, though if there’s another risk of a nuke I don’t know what good it would do them anyway.” The voice is distorted, through the filters and speakers around the helmet and collarbone, identical to the sound from the log on the twenty-ninth of the last month.
“Noted. Do we have enough to account for that?”
“Yes sir.” They begin walking towards the large shadow that looms ahead and overhead of them, with some spots illuminated, and one large rectangular space being revealed as a loading bay door. “We’re still within the green on resources, but this one is the biggest expenditure so far. And like I said, we won’t be doing much by restoring systems that didn’t intercept the missiles fast enough the first time.”
“I know, but I’ve asked some of the command staff on the Bosena side if I could be granted authorisation to link with the systems and provide fire support if and when they launch the nukes again. Their own warclones should be sufficient in infomorph state, but I’ve got just a few kicks above what they have. It’s not as much as having more of them, and I can’t issue you to stay here and stand 24/7 conscious watch for the next month or more. But they’ve agreed Block has enough range and between two points of fire we should have a higher rate of success. So we don’t need to stay here to keep them from taking another hit like that.”
“I’ll get to work on shoring up the last of the armaments.”
“Do it. Miles to go.”
“Miles to go.”
By now the warclone peeled off and away from the entrance, and Mahazkei was left to enter by himself. The door behind him closed and was sealed, by the sounds coming from behind the feed source, and he undergoes a scrubbing and decontamination procedure that lasts a few minutes.
When done, he takes off the mask and clips it to the rear of his hip, and lowers the hood and cowl, inhaling the sterile air. The doors before him open and he strides through and into familiar hallways.
“There are some concerns that what happened was blue-on-blue, and that whoever did that simply hasn’t seen a warclone until recently, and thought they were a Trig. I know that infantry can be given man-portable nuclear armaments, but I still think that’s a ■■■■■■■■ excuse. Would have had to have been a company of people no more than a few miles out to do the damage out there, and since nobody’s seen hide nor hair of them, I’m just thinking that if they did exist they’ve either killed themselves in a panic to eliminate a non-existent threat by firing that close, what with the difference in elevation and requirements to shorten their distance to get a better shot, or they never existed to begin with, and Bosena’s command is just trying to slow me down from going after the only real threat I see that could have been responsible.”
He pauses a moment before raising his voice, turning corners and picking up speed. “And before someone says the Trigs did it, I highly doubt it. They’ve got gravity weapons and crap that I don’t even want to think about, and they’re nothing like nuclear devices. Svarog’s got a twisted sense of honorable combat and rules of engagement, but they didn’t shoot at command.”
He enters his command room after a time and sits down as he has been seen time and time again. “I don’t like being kept in the dark, but I’ve been promised if it happens again I won’t have permissions revoked in the command structure, and I’ll be free to go after the sub as I see fit, with the support of the entire fortress at my back. I think some word got out about what I intend to do with the sub, but this would be my first official word on the matter. I’m tired, so I’ll make this brief.” A beat. “Briefer than you all know me for.”
He locks his fingers together as holo feeds, harder to see at this angle as the camera sits in its normal perch in front of him, appear and disappear, and his eyes look around them for some information unseen. “I want to pull the legs off the spider. Not to turn them all to ash, there’s people who don’t know better or don’t deserve that fury. No, I’ve got enough fine control between myself, my people, and my Block, to show the enemy that their wanton destruction and lust for death will give them little edge in the face of determined resolution.”
He unlocked his hands, and rested a fist on the armrest, and the other hand in his lap. “Won’t be easy, and I expect losses to mount, but they won’t be irreplaceable. The ones who are irreplaceable, especially for the enemy, they are people I intend to save. I expect most of them won’t know I don’t intend them any harm, but I hope to make that clear with action. That the enemy uses conscripts who would die final deaths makes them barbaric, and I don’t care what anyone thinks or says about their legality or their employment, I won’t tolerate what they’ve done.”
There is another, longer pause. “I don’t care what people think about my thoughts on the subject, I’ve come this far and I’m not about to take ■■■■ from a bunch of augmented bullies and murderers.”
A shorter pause. “I’ve got work to do, and if I go on any longer I’m going to accomplish nothing but piss myself off. Mahazkei out.”
The camera’s feed ends abruptly, and the recorded stream comes to an end.