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Confession Chapter II
Posted By: Kyle Stegerwald<poltava_7@hotmail.com>
Date: 13 December 2004, 11:48 PM
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Confession Chapter II
The Orion IV spaceport was spread across some fifty square kilometers of land- individual landing strips were far apart. This had been done to minimize the environmental impact, but, until recently, it had been an absolute bitch to navigate. But now, underground subway lines crisscrossed the airport, and Peter boarded one that was marked 'Private B'- bound for the cargo warehouses and offices of large shipping companies that operated out of Orion IV. Peter was looking for a small arms dealer named 'Phoenix Arms, inc.'. He looked at his watch- four o'clock. He had plenty of time.
The subway was mostly empty, save for a man in a black trenchcoat and battle fatigues, sleeping silently, his head cocked back against the window, legs spread out in front of him and crossing the entire aisle. Peter ignored him and examined the contents of his messenger-bag once more. Money. Energy bars. A change of clothes. Some toiletries and a pistol with a few clips.
Hey, you never know.
The subway slid to a stop outside the station marked 'Private B' and Joseph stood up and walked out of the train. The doors closed softly behind him and with a soft groaning of unwilling cogs somewhere in the subway, it moved off again.
Joseph climbed up a flight of stairs to ground level, and it was with reluctance that he stepped out into the cool fall air. This section of the airport was open, and Joseph could see the company offices and warehouses, as well as private landing strips, amongst the thick trees. Joseph stepped over to a large blue sign with white lettering telling the traveler where to find his destination. Phoenix Arms was... to the East a hundred yards or so. Looking down a road, Peter could see a low, gray building with an antenna on top and a large hangar-like structure next to it. That must be it, he thought, and he began walking.
The day was dying, and over the treetops, Joseph could see the sun set. The orange light was already streaming over the forest and lighting up the control tower behind the subway station with a fierce glow. Joseph shoved his hands in his pockets and put one foot in front of the other and drew in every breath of crisp air slowly and deliberately.
He was going to savor his last moments on this planet.
The building itself was rather unimpressive. There was the faint sound of a heating unit around the back of the building thrumming softly, and from inside Peter heard drills, arc welders, and some other unidentified tools banging away.
He strode into the building and down the narrow hallway past doors from behind with emanated the sounds of construction. He was looking for the main office and he found it at the very end of the hallway, behind a door simply marked 'Director'. He opened the door, and there stood Sasha.
"Hello, Peter! Welcome to our little operation." He smiled, stood up from behind his computer, and gestured dramatically around the room. Around him were weapons- sniper rifles and machine guns, mortars and rocket launchers, all hung on the wall like trophies of some exotic hunt. Sasha glanced approvingly at them, and Peter began to wonder exactly what he had gotten himself into. But before he had time to think about it any further, Sasha led him out of his office and into the next building- the large hangar that Peter had seen.
Peter stepped inside a moment later, and saw a large spacecraft the size of a Pelican parked in the middle of the hangar. It resembled a heavily modified UNSC surplus space transport. The gray, angular ship had a massive cargo bay, a bridge at the front of the ship, and some small crew quarters. The cargo bay was about half-full, and most of the stuff was packed into one side of the ship. There were strange red and green markings on it- but there was a familiar name - a small phrase above the main bridge window that read 'Phoenix Arms Company'. Peter followed Sasha as he walked slowly and deliberately across the hangar's smooth concrete floor and to the rear end of the ship, as it was being loaded up with crates full of- well, the sides read 'titanium rods, class B', but the actual contents could be anything. Two men, sweating and grunting under the weight, made their way slowly past Peter. One of them tripped and quickly darted to the side to avoid being crushed by the immense weight. Peter jumped back quickly- the wooden crate bucked and finally busted on the metal floor of the cargo plane.
Rifles spilled out of the crate and onto the floor. Peter grinned, and Sasha appeared behind him, his hands on his hips and his eyes sternly set on the mess in front of him. The two men grumbled and began hauling the rifles out of the ship. Sasha noticed Peter's expression and stepped forward, seizing a piece of the wooden crate that read 'Titanium rods, class b'.
"Titanium rods, yes. But it's what attached to them that's important!" A grin spread across his face, and he turned around swiftly, picked up an armful of rifles, and carried them off the cargo plane. Peter stood looking at the pile of gleaming metal, and the followed suit.
A few minutes later, the ship was completely loaded up with crates filled with rifles, machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, and other weapons. Peter took a quick tour, and found a small cockpit filled with controls, a smaller room lined with four beds, and an even more miniscule lavatory. He was gawking at the toilet seat when a familiar voice sounded behind him.
"Well, get used to it. We'll be in here for six weeks." It was Sasha.
"When are we leaving?" Peter said, turning around.
"Well, as soon as..." Sasha frowned, suddenly, and stepped back. He turned his head to look out of the cargo bay.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He said, sounding frightened. Peter, still in the bathroom, couldn't see who he was talking to.
"Well, sir, I think you know as well as I do. We've been receiving reports, you see..." It was a deep, resonating voice that was smooth but most unsettling.
"Bullshit!" Said Sasha, wild-eyed. He was visibly shaking now. His fists were clenched and his small mouth was tight as a drum. He ground his teeth.
"Well, Sasha, we can settle this the easy way, or the hard way. You just give all this up, and we leave. No questions asked." Peter heard the clomp of sildiers' boots, as a squad deployed around the craft. Peter summoned the courage to poke his head out, and saw a tall, thin ONI operative standing, arms akimbo, in the cargo hatchway. Behind him were three marines, rifles at the ready.
Peter pulled out a pistol, and Sasha dove behind a crate. The Marines fired a few rounds at Sasha but missed, and Peter stuck his head out again and let loose with the pistol- driving the Marines and the ONI operative behind cover, for the moment. Sasha bolted into the cockpit, slammed buttons frantically, and soon the cargo bay-door started to close. The soldiers, quickly recovering their professionalism, let loose with grenades- five of them clanked to the floor inside the ship, coming to rest in the small grooves of the diamond-plate floor.
Time moved in slow motion- Peter dashed from cover, his boots smacking harshly on the metal deck, his sweaty hands fumbling for the grenades as he scooped up one, two, three, and threw them frantically through the cargo port again. He slid, he dove, he grasped the last grenade and stood up, winding back. He threw the grenade through the narrowing portal of the bay door, and when it exploded shortly beyond it, he was thrown back onto the deck, his ears ringing, his head throbbing, and his heart racing.
The cargo bay closed, and Peter stood up shakily, only to be thrown down again when the craft lunged upward, crashing through the flimsy roof of the building as if it were matchsticks. Peter felt the metal of the building at first resist them, then buckle, then snap in twain, falling to the concrete floor of the hangar with the metal roofing, driving the Marines to cover.
"Ha ha! Try again, you bastard!" Sasha was screaming in exultation from the cockpit, his feverish intensity seeming to drive the whining engines onward. Peter groped his way to the cockpit, narrowly avoiding knocking himself on the metal floor and walls as the cargo plane lunged port, starboard, up and down in an effort to thwart the UNSC missiles that were homing in on them. Finally clawing his way into the cockpit, he found Sasha at the controls, gunning the engines. Peter saw the radar glowing red, as Longsword interceptors and missiles swarmed after them like bees chasing a particularly evasive honeycomb. Bewildered, bleeding, his vision clouded and his legs weak, he stumbled into the cockpit.
"It's a great machine, isn't it?" Said Sasha. Peter couldn't hear him, he was nearly deaf.
"We'll reach orbital trajectory in a few minutes. After we get out of this gravity well, it's Slipspace for us! We're headed straight for Elipson Seven. Beautiful place. Have you ever been there?'
Peter looked at him, pointed to his ears, and said;
"Can't hear you." Sahsa nodded soberly and returned to the controls.
"This is Atmospheric Command, come in Delta Leader." The operator was professional and businesslike, his brow furrowed over a communications console as he attempted to raise the force pursuing an unknown craft in sector 6.
"Delta, reporting in. We're in hot pursuit at the moment- the cargo ship is executing surprisingly deft maneuvers- and it's fading fast. We can't keep up with it."
"It's a cargo freighter, Delta?"
"Affirmative." Static burst on the channel for a moment, and then the operator said;
"And you can't keep up with it?"
"Also affirmative, atmospheric command." In a sudden lapse of professionalism and exasperation, the operator asked;
"What the hell are you flying, a bathtub?" Completely missing the sarcasm, the leader replied;
"No, sir. We're in Longswords."
The cargo craft punched upward into the atmosphere, while solid rocket boosters threw back long yellow streaks of flame and waves of sparks.
"Alright- we've got twenty seconds of burntime left- it should be enough." Sasha was calm now, if not nervous. Peter heard his voice as if from the end of a long tube, and slowly he began to come around.
"Hey, Sasha, what about the men that loaded the cargo plane?"
"What, them? Oh, well, I assume, ah..." He trailed off. "They know what to do."
"What do you mean?" Said Peter.
"We've got an entire network of false businesses providing arms to the rebels. There are ten of them in this spaceport alone. If they really want to get off-planet, they're smart enough to know where to go."
"Well, it's good to know that we didn't just leave them hanging."
"Yeah." Sasha was anxiously looking at the radar- no direction on the compass looked friendly to them.
"Delta leader, do you require assistance?" The operator inquired once more.
"Negative, we've almost got him in our sights." Replied Delta leader.
"Acknowledged."
The ship was rocked almost to the breaking point when a missile slammed into its backside. Luckily, Sasha had focused the shields on the back, so the rocket did only superficial damage.
"Delta leader?"
"The damn thing has shields." Delta leader was furious. "What cargo ship has beefy engines, can turn on a dime, and has shields?"
"I don't think it's a cargo ship, then." Said the operator, reassuring him. The operator switched channels, to the captain of the UNSC cruiser Kathorzane, orbiting around the system.
"Kathorzane, this is Atmospheric Command."
"Kathorzane reporting."
"We have a rogue cargo ship outbound from sector 6, we assume it may be attempting to gain slipspace."
"We are en route. Special directives?"
"Yes. Eliminate on sight."
"We copy, Atmospheric Command. Sector 6 will be in our line-of-sight in five minutes."
"Acknowledged."
"Well, Peter. It seems we have given the old bastards the slip." The radar was not glowing red anymore- there were a few dots, and the Longswords were giving up the pursuit. "The only thing that saved us was these solid rocket boosters- without 'em, we'd be toast by now."
"Yeah." Peter's head was still ringing.
"Hold up. What's this?"
"What's what?" Peter sat up in his seat, and tried to peer over Sasha's shoulder as he stared into the radar screen.
"I just flicked the radar into long-range mode by accident- look at this!" A huge red dot glowed on the edge of the screen.
"It's around the planet, it can't see us yet. I assume it's some sort of cruiser." Sasha flicked a few switches, and Peter gulped, to keep down the bile rising in his throat.
The Kathorzane was a smaller cruiser- the smallest ship that could still be given that distinction. It had seen heavy action in many wars years before, but its' size and construction prohibited the installation of the more modern heavy weaponry. So, it was relegated to garrison duty, where its once-mighty missile launchers and torpedo tubes could still manage to enforce the law, even if the cruiser could never hold up in a fair fight to a larger, modern foe. For blowing unarmed cargo ships and lightly armed pirate blockade-runners out of the sky, however, its' weaponry was more then apt.
"We're two and a half minutes out, sir." The radar officer of the Kathorzane barked professionally, and the captain on the bridge nodded his bare, old head in response, his arms folded behind him. He could see the planet softly turning to the port side of the ship, as new stars came into view and Orion itself came into view. Shades automatically dropped down over the windows, to keep the glare from burning the retinas of those on the bridge.
"Ready the missiles, pods four through six."
"Torpedoes, sir?" Asked the weapons officer.
"Nope. We'll not have enough time to fire them, before the cargo ship makes a bid for slipspace."
"Yes, sir. Arming now."
"We will have to be quick. We'll have all of ten seconds, by my calculations, to get out of Dodge before that cruiser locks onto us."
Peter nodded, and gazed anxiously out into space.
"We've got them, sir."
"Let loose with the missiles." Tiny pinpricks of light sped off into the distance, snaking around the planet, to the cargo ship. Fifteen of them- they would barely warp the paint on a larger, modern ship, but five of them could destroy a single cargo ship in a fantastic explosion.
"Oh, shit." Sasha saw the missiles on the radar before he saw them out of the cockpit window. His hands flew over the controls, flicking switches, adjusting sliders, pressing buttons. Finally, he typed a four-digit code into a small panel on the controls in front of him, and took a small throttle and slmwly moved it forward.
"Hold on."
"The missiles are almost there, sir. Ten seconds."
"It might not be enough."
The ship shook, lunged, dove, plunged forward as the Slipspace drive kicked into gear. Metal plates slid down over the glass cockpit window and Sahsa sat back in his char. He gripepd the arm-rests, and Peter did the same, sensing the worst.
And then the universe exploded.
"Sir it appears we've lost them." The radar officer said, as the cargo craft blinked of his screen.
Interlude
"That's quite the yarn, Peter." The ONI officer had sat still for the last hour, listening to him.
"It's no yarn." Peter said, sulking.
"No, no. I believe it. It seems absolutely typical." He said, standing up, and shoving his chair backward. He stretched, and called in the guards. They handcuffed Peter and led him from the room. As he was leaving, the ONI officer said;
"We'll continue this tomorrow. Same time."
The cell was still damp, and Peter's back still ached from the hard bunk. His mind was empty for the first time in weeks, and he quickly fell into deep sleep, his mind drifting back to old friends, old times.
In his sleep, he smiled.
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