Brides of War

The Beacon

“You mean to leave Sir? Leave the known world?”

I glanced to my exec officer to see him and many of the others in the control operations room staring at me. Glancing about I stated to the room as a whole, “I want revenge. I hunger for blood just like the rest of you do. I hate those that did this to us, but…… to strike out blindly - to potentially kill the innocent - it is simply not the way of our people. Those who have attacked us are now hiding, but if we leave, if we let time work for us they will once more come out of hiding and indeed they will even brag about what they have done. We will know who they are and how best to exact revenge, but in order to have that future moment of justice for our people we have to disappear for a time. We are all that is left of our people and even so it befalls upon us to do our part to preserve our heritage. Cruelty is not our way, it’s theirs. This ship was not built to destroy nations. It was built to deter them from destroying us, but now it represents our people’s last hope for continued existence. Perhaps many will call leaving the field of battle as I am doing an act of cowardice, but in doing so, we are but being who our Creator made us to be, even as we reject being in like order to the monsters who think they have finished us off as a people. Only we can choose to do that, but as long as there is one of us left to do the right thing, then our people continue to be all that they have ever most nobly been. To do the right thing now is to recognize that logically we are greatly outnumbered and thus we should hide, but hide with a purpose. We are few, but somehow we must become many. We have no land or friend to harbor us and yet we need a haven, so yes, we are leaving and thanks to our ship’s creators we have perhaps the only ship capable of passing through the magnetic northerly Isles, which is where I have punched in our coordinates. We may well plummet from the sky like so many other explorers of the past or perhaps we will discover a haven unreachable by any other nation. I do not know. The road ahead of us is filled with uncertainty, but decisive action must be taken no matter how bitter the pill is. I am asking all of you to make the hard choice and respond to what I see as being the only way forward for our nation to remain a nation and have the opportunity of a future of one day wrecking a retribution that will be definitive in its outcomes and yet not monstrous in its realities of achieving justice. What say you the people of Lothanel? Are you with me or do I speak to hearts closed off by the unheard screams of grief that cry out only for revenge?”

The response I received was deafening for it was not only those within the control operations room, but it was the ship as a whole as someone had engaged the intercom system and my words had carried throughout the ship. In unified action the crew both saluted me and cried out a military cry of response.

They like me wished to remain a people. A people on the edge of perhaps both existence and sanity, but a people that had a chance to recover and upon doing so wreck a terrible vengeance upon our enemies without being like our enemies in terms of soullessness.

I lifted a hand to accept the praise being offered and though such a display, embarrassed me, inwardly I recognized the reality that my people needed a leader and right now I was it. Engaging all super drives the Ark of Wanel sped forward invisibly across the terrain of nations suddenly sprung into financial turmoil.

A telecommunication beacon appeared and with surprise many called out as they recognized it as such. The noisy display of loyalty to the cause of survival that lay ahead of us fell silent ship wide as word traveled fast that a Lothanian beacon had flared up.

It was coming from an underground spy post located in a mountainous area in Cherion Prime. I personally knew nothing of such an outpost’s existence in enemy territory. Many of my crew were also clueless upon the matter.

Finally, one of the tech scientists that had played a large part in the creation of certain sections of the ship stepped forward to authenticate the beacon.

Staring at the flashing distress beacon on the screen I said, “Ranis what is it that you know of this base?”

Looking nervous he said, “I’ve been there. It’s a really hush-hush facility. I know its placement seems odd, but oddly it’s also safe because of it. My research group was based out of it for several months. I thought it was shut down after we left though. I have no idea who might still be there to put out such a secure encrypted beacon such as this.”

I contemplated Ranis thoughtfully. His team had been focused primarily on the stealth functions of the Ark of Wanel.

The beacon could well be a trap, but there was a chance it might not be. The primary concern though was what if the stealth technology of this ship was housed on servers within the facility?

If the technology that was all that was hiding us from the world fell into enemy hands the end of us would come quickly. The facility had to be destroyed.

“Alter course and bring us in a new leading toward the outpost. We will go investigate this beacon.”

Nervously the crew did as ordered. We were all wary of a trap and yet we were all anxious in the hopes that there may be more of our countrymen yet alive.

The miles flew by and within three hours we hovered over the top of the facility of which nothing could be seen from the surface. How had it even been built?

What secrets did it contain? They were all questions I soon intended to have answers to.

“We have a secure lock-on to the facilities ladder shaft and they have responded with the correct protocol of authentication. The initializing certificate had an alpha level rating Sir.”

I stared hard at the tech giving me the logistics of what amounted to a very uncertain situation. An alpha level clearance was rare.

I didn’t have one and yet I was the captain of the most prized technological advancement in all of the lands combined. It was rumored that not even the president of Lothanel had qualified for such an appointment in security clearance as he was an elected official, and therefore only a temporary intermediary official.

The darker implications of what I could soon be faced with in terms of the deeper workings of one’s own government were like tangible threads of tension vibrating across the realms of my mind. Turning from the man I addressed the Executive Officer, “You have command of the ship. If anything goes haywire you destroy the facility and get this ship out of here at all costs.”

“Sir! You’re not going down there surely? I mean…. we don’t know what this could be.”

“Exactly and that’s why I need to go. You have command of the ship.”

Without another word I strode from the room. I stepped into a transport shell and almost instantly I was delivered to the demarcation bay.

The members of the scout team standing at the ready within the ladder rings blinked repetitively as I advanced to stand with them within the transport ring circle. Speaking I said, “The scout team and I are in position. Take us down.”

After a momentary hesitation the rings engaged and time became a blur as what felt like the pit of my stomach fell beyond the borders of my body. Down we went in a blur of light.

Suddenly the ladder rings stopped to then disappear and I and the others were left standing in a scene of utter chaos. The main lighting of the underground facility was down and backup emergency lighting blazed forth in odd off-color flashing hues of red and yellow as blown apart circuitry board sprayed down showers of sparks from the ceiling and from off sidewall panel displays.

The heavy stench of burned-out wires, along with the telltale odors of gunsmoke and organic based decay echoed heavily to the fact that a war had taken place within this facility. The scout team defensively formed about me as every gun was trained at the ready to render anything that moved to be made lifeless.

We had no specs of the place, but the way forward seemed obvious enough and I made for it with my sidearm weapon drawn and held at the ready. The chances of this being a trap seemed less than what it would’ve been if we’d been met by happy smiling people.

Someone had put up quite a fight down here. Bodies of mostly technicians lay all about.

Some looked like they’d been mowed down in place, while others held guns that seemed out of place with their white lab coats. No evidence of a foreign invading force could be seen.

What had happened here had been an internal affair. None of the scouting party spoke, but as sweat made its way down each of us in ode to the tension we were all under we made our way forward through the darkened emergency lit corridors.

Nothing moved. The smell of death was heavy in the air along with all the other smells of war.

A control room was up ahead. There were a lot more bodies. Mostly lab technicians.

It looked like they had been laying down a desperate assault to gain entry into the inner sanctums of the control room and suddenly I knew. This off grid facility hidden within the borders of an enemy nation had been the location of where the computer hack had occurred that had taken out the entire infrastructure of Lothanel.

The fallen bullet riddled people lying about had been heroes trying to stop the annihilation of our people. They hadn’t made it though.

Security guards joined the ranks of the fallen as we approached and it became obvious that they had been in opposition to that of the technicians and scientists so desperate to seize back control of the facility. The emotional fervor of their desperation to reclaim control of the facility was still morbidly frozen upon their faces even in death.

Gun held high I stepped into the control room. More dead bodies, but no visible breathing threats.

Cautiously we stepped over the bodies that lay everywhere with our guns held at the ready as we all breathed hard as if in a race. Something turned odd, then as the turncoat guardsmen fallen about the place seemed to be done away with in an oddly clean fashion given the shambles the rest of the place was in.

I stooped down beside one of the fallen. A bullet hole was clearly delineated in his forehead, but the way he lay said that he’d committed suicide.

I glanced about at the shadowing scout team and with silent consensus we all concluded the same thing. The scientists had never reached this part of the facility.

These traitors had taken their own lives. The question was why?

Why would they kill themselves upon achieving their own objective?

Had they been under compulsory mind control or was it something else?

In a place filled with so much death the smell of fine alcohol seemed out of place suddenly. Standing up I moved to the doorway of an office.

At the desk sat a woman of about 50 years of age. An open bottle of alcohol lay before her on the table. Most of it was gone.

She looked up at my entrance and smirked in a drunken fashion, “Well, well if it isn’t the indomitable Capt. Lee himself. I was against your appointment by the way. In at least this it looks like I was right to be wrong.”

Her hand moved to pour the bottle sloppily into the glass before her and liquor sloshed everywhere, only about half of it getting into the glass. I watched her silently taking in the loaded gun on the desk as I did.

The bottle now drained of its contents was hurled to the side. It smashed against the far wall of the office at the same time her hand slapped outward and sent the glass with its contents of alcohol flying off the desk.

“Does no good. I…. doesn’t matter how much I drink. Can’t stop the sound of their screaming and yet I can’t find the courage to blow my own brains out like the rest did. Tell me, what does that make me?”

I said nothing. She looked about among us and must’ve read something extremely definable in our gazes.

Galvanized, she lifted her hand and picked up the loaded gun. Instead of pointing it at us, though she aimed it at her own head.

Her finger on the trigger she looked away from the barrel to us and with almost desperation, she said, “You have to understand, I thought we were doing something good. We needed a catalyst. We weren’t going to do anything but sit on the advancements of the Ark of Wanel and before you knew it all of our enemies would’ve had the same technology as us one way or another. Don’t you understand? We didn’t know that we were being watched. It was only supposed to be a couple of cities. Just enough to galvanize the people into action. To war. We didn’t know what happened would actually happen! We didn’t know! We didn’t know! Oh God, I…… I killed them!”

She pulled the trigger and the gun went off loudly in the room. The woman slumped forward over her desk in the lifeless array of one who was both a coward and a traitor.

None of us moved as the growing realization occurred that far be it from just simply being our enemies doing was the reality that some of our own had willingly participated in this charade. Her words, “It was just supposed to be a couple of cities.” replayed over and over in my mind as I stared at one of my nations duplicitous alpha level clearance certificate holders.

The reality that some of our own people had had a hand in the undoing of our society as a whole set in heavily on one of the scouts in the party who became so sickened that she lost the contents of her stomach into a corner of the room.

I felt only too much like joining her in this moment of abject revulsion at the immutable truth of the situation as it was to be found. Speaking roughly I said, “Signal the all clear. Get more teams down here. Anything salvageable I want it packed up and taken out. Have the facilities detonation sequence checked for errors. I don’t want anything to remain of this place once we pull out.”

The scout team rushed to obey and slowly I walked out of the room to once more gaze at the dying efforts of all the non-traitors who had done their very best to take back the control room before it was too late. No matter how valiant their effort had been though they had failed.

Evil had won. An evil perpetrated first in the hearts of my own people.

Always I had held on to the notion that the people of Lothanel were a cut above the rest of the world. Clearly I had been wrong.

We may have seemed more morally righteous on the outside, but in the hearts of some, the same resident evil as everywhere else had invaded and taken root. All about me lay the bad fruit of their actions.

I heard a scuffling noise and turned warily. Two of my men were dragging a figure between them that could barely keep her feet under her.

I couldn’t see her face, but her hair was a mass of curly ringlets going off in every direction. The skin of her small, well-proportioned hands wasn’t dark enough to be full blood Cherion, but her hair said she still had a full dose of the blood of the people who had been our enemies for a very long time.

My gaze questioned the two men holding her. “We found her locked up in a cell down below. The strange thing is she’s in the uniform of being one of our own.”

The girl had been locked away in a cell for days without water. Going to a nearby cooler that had somehow been missed by bullets in all the action that had chewed up everything else I poured a glass of water.

Going to the girl I tipped her head back. The beauty of her light chocolate complexioned face was astounding.

Her eyes were closed and forcing calm over a suddenly awakened arousal I brought the glass of water to her lips. The water spilled a little and her eyes blinked open.

She started to gulp at the water, but I held it back and only allowed it to pour slowly through her cracked lips. They were very full lips.

Easy now. Drink slowly.” I said, as she fought against the hold of the two men in order to grab at the glass of water.

Her gaze focused on me and she seemed to still. She listened and with control she drank the water slowly until the glass was empty of it.

Blinking her eyes she seemed to take in her surroundings for the first time. I watched her eyes closely and as I did I saw the horror within them for what a truly horrific scene it was that was played out all about us.

I could tell that if she hadn’t been so dehydrated she would’ve been crying. The two task force members noticed the emotion as well and their grip on her slackened.

I met their questioning looks and nodded. They let her go.

The girl tottered on her feet for a moment, but then became more steady. I was ready to catch her if she did fall though.

Her cracked lips opened as a pair of the most expressive hazel eyes, I’d ever seen came back to mine, “Did they stop it in time? The signal?”

Wordlessly, I shook my head no. Her hand came to her lips as her face reflected the extreme anxiousness of real grief.

She burst out emotionally with, “I didn’t do this! I swear! I had nothing….”

“I believe you.” I said softly.

Her words stopped as she blinked at me in surprise clearly not expecting my response.

“You were thrown into the lock up because of your part Cherion ancestry were you not?”

She nodded and then said, “She said it had to be me that leaked the passcodes, but I’m not even involved with that. I was a field agent, mostly undercover. They pulled me out of the field and brought me here and….”

“Because they needed a fall guy and you fit the bill perfectly. Someone Lotharians could believe might rat out on her allegiance because of her mixed blood.”

“Yes.” She whispered.

I looked away. How had we become so prejudiced as a people?

Glancing to the girls two escorts I said, “Take her on board and give her more to drink and something to eat.”

They nodded and started to move her along, but she stopped them by grasping one slim, but strong hand about my arm. My muscles knotted up with tension at the touch of what was truly an exotic vision of a female, “Am I still a prisoner?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean that I trust you.”

She let go and was hurried along then. Turning away, I surreptitiously adjusted the front of my pants in an attempt to make room for the surging length of my manhood.

The girl had affected me powerfully, even elementally and yet I felt shame. Gazing once more down upon the bodies of fallen patriots I wondered in vain how I could be thinking of mating an exotic looking girl at a time like this.

Shame aside, I just couldn’t get my mind off of the reality of the need my hands had to strip the girl bare of her clothes and bury the aching length of myself deep into her. For some reason it seemed that if I could do that I might find peace.

Peace that only lasted a moment maybe, but right now even a moment of peace would be like a prized possession that I’d trade almost anything for.