Lieutenant-General Marie Elvera paced around her office. She had been doing so for the past five hours.

Five hours. Much too long. Much too long for radio silence.

She gave into her agitation and dialled the number

“Radio room. Anything?”

“Nothing, Ma’am. Should we call for reinforcements?”

Two thoughts warred inside her head, fighting to be the one to exit her lips. Her worry would see her command a small army to the building, but her logical brain would not allow that.

Evalyn would not perish in such a boring way, nor would Colte, and neither would put Iris in harm’s way.

Or at least more harm than required.

“No. Hold out a little longer,” she said. “We can’t take risks like that yet.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She cut the line herself and slumped back into her chair. It swivelled clockwise, pointing her towards another clear sky. Day after day, the scenery outside her window had been a perfect duality between green and blue. Cloudless, dry, and unbroken. The forecast talked of rain that afternoon, at exactly sixteen sixteen hours. The Queen had a way of changing the weather at exceedingly obscure times. The rest of the nation had to trust there was a method to the madness.

A call. A ringtone that pierced through her daze like a bullet through cheap body armour. The speed at which Elvera reacted gave race car drivers a run for their money.

“Anything?”

“Marie! Fuck’s sake. Thank god.”

“Evalyn? What’s going on? Why hasn’t anyone contacted me?”

“They’re all dead. Colte, Iris and I are the only ones alive.”

“What happened?!”

“Listen! Just shut up for a second! Workar’s owner! He’s got his fucking fingers everywhere! In Geverde, Fadaak, S.H.I.A., the F.S.A., everywhere! He’s everywhere!”

“How does that make sense-”

“Later! He’s spilled the F.S.A. base’s location! Fadaak’s going to raid it the first chance they get, so we need to get our expats out now! Sixteen G FR 0712 44323.”

Evalyn’s voice disappeared, and the silence of Elvera’s office returned. Her mind blanked, a billion thoughts running around like kindergarteners in a playground.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck-”

Elvera dialled every comm station she could in an urgent frenzy, sparing no concern for authority or green lights. If she had ever cared, she would not be working under Special Operations.

“Send every fucking agent to the following coordinates! Tell them that’s where the hostages are, and tell them to get there before Fadaak does!”

Fadaak had the overwhelming advantage of airspeed. Any land-based transport would not get there in time. Elvera’s only hope was the hostages themselves. The leaked intel and Higher Order Armour were no longer a threat; it was their only hope.

“Elliot,” Elvera whispered.

 

The tension in the air base had ramped to hysteria in the matter of a single morning. Lessons had been cancelled, and the flow of personnel had gone from a steady stream to white water rapids. A knock on his door summoned Elliot just as he finished preparing for his now cleared day. When he answered the door, Staff Sergeant Yalowique—his de facto emissary to the Air Marshall—greeted him.

“Senior Captain. Follow me.”

No beating around the bush. Utmost urgency.

Elliot followed Yalowique’s unfamiliar figure through the many halls of the air base, passing officer after officer. There were airmen of all ranks, either moving at a brisk pace or speaking in hushed excitement. Everyone had somewhere to be, a far cry from what Elliot had accustomed himself to.

“Fuck,” he muttered, making an educated guess he thoroughly disliked the thought of.

They reached the Air Marshall’s office, passing the same junction he had hijacked only a day prior. With every molecule of his being, he prayed that this was about anything other than the device. The small box stuck to the junction with a wad of gum.

“Enter,” the voice said. It passed through the door like a summer breeze.

The Staff Sergeant opened the door, stepping through first as he released a wave of conditioned air.

“You requested Senior Captain Maxwell, Sir,” he said, saluting his superior officer.

“Thank you, Sergeant. You may go.”

“Sir,” said Yalowique, like clockwork.

Elliot traded places with Yalowique, giving his own salute before closing the door.

“I’m guessing you’ve already figured it out,” the Air Marshall said.

“More or less, Sir,” Elliot replied, his body tense enough that even he knew it was noticeable.

“Combat personnel haven’t officially been notified, but rumours spread fast,” the Air Marshall said. His pipe was still smoking on its rest, rocking gently. He eyed Elliot up and down before sighing.

“I hate to admit it, but none of our Majors think our pilots can fly a Rapacian. We’re sending them out in our Kresper-119s, but we need a Rapacian in the sky as well.”

“No can do.”

“…excuse me?”

Elliot’s body was stiff, but he felt a sapling sprout between the cracks. One growing from liquid confidence.

“I cannot do that. Our deal was that I train your men so we can find our hostages.”

“Well, we’ve found them-”

“Safe. I’ll only deploy if you let us deliver our hostages safely.”

The Spirit rose from its seat. Their winding body grew to fill the room as their head stayed locked on Elliot’s face.

“I would not talk with that tone to a superior officer, Captain,” they spat.

“You won’t get away with harming me, Air Marshall. Unless, of course, you’d like a shot at Geverde and Sidos, as well as the F.S.A.”

Elliot had the high ground, although it felt more like a crumbling cliff face than a solid standing.

Elliot hoped he had done his part, and Spec Ops had whatever information they were after. Even if the base found the listening device, Geverde could deny it ever existed. Fadaak would have to keep its head down and suck it up.

Fadaak was asking Geverde for military aid, not the other way around.

The Air Marshall’s sneer did not lessen, but the absence of action proved that Elliot had won.

“I cannot stop it. If we do not deploy, the army will,” the Air Marshall hissed as he retreated. “God knows those grunts would sooner be blown to pieces by a H.O.A. than reconsider an order to deploy.”

Elliot waited for the verdict, the silence only fueling his anxiety. The Air Marshall took up his pipe and huffed a lungful, the smoke again pouring from the cracks in his bark.

“I will allow you to lead the mission. Be as precise as you feel necessary. That is the only way I can guarantee the hostages' safety. Deploy without you, and we would likely face defeat; deploy late, and the army would get there first.”

“Permission to speak freely, Sir,” Elliot said.

“You’ve been speaking freely this entire meeting; what’s stopping you now?”

“I just want to confirm why you aren’t bombing them all to hell.”

“Because we want at least one H.O.A. intact for ourselves, why else?”

Elliot grinned. “Thought as much, Sir.”

 

“Two thousand rounds confirmed, fuel load of eight thousand litres confirmed, trim check, flaps check, wing mobility unhindered, dials green, canopy dropping. Grain man one standing by.”

Elliot jiggled his yoke again as the radio traffic buzzed with similar reports. The canopy motors whined until the glass seal completely shut him off from the rest of the world.

“Grain men cleared for taxi.”

“Clear left and right,” Elliot said, immediately acting on air traffic control's orders. He massaged the throttle forward and felt the engine’s vibrations chatter his teeth. As he exited his slot, he used a separate lever to extend his folded wings outward. Yet he refrained from outright locking them. Reaching the runway, he saw several fighters behind him. Nostalgic propeller engines that buzzed in a way more violent than his own craft. Flying the Rapacians almost made him forget that propeller engines were the norm. Rapacians were still such a new technology despite being in their third iteration.

He steered himself into place with his pedals and aimed his nose down the middle of the wide straightaway.

“Grain man one to ATC requesting clearance for take-off.”

“ATC to Grain man one, you are cleared for take-off.”

With a salute directed towards the Air traffic control tower, Elliot cranked his throttle forward. He felt the vibrations jerk his bone marrow as the compressed Aether expanded, propelling him forward.

The entire craft shook in an up-down motion. The motion grew more pronounced as the wings flapped faster and faster.

His landing gear let go of the asphalt in time for the runway to end. He felt the motors whirring, retracting the wheels into the fuselage.

For now, it was steady flying, simply following the bearings at the right speed. But he knew this simplicity would soon come to an abrupt end. There was no textbook on defeating Higher Order Armour in a fighter. He would have to write it as he went.

 

Kurael was not sleeping. Forcing himself to be nocturnal was something he could only do out of overwhelming exhaustion. So if he woke midday, there was very little chance the brightness would let him fall back to sleep.

The inescapable light, baking heat and sapping dryness; he had all but gotten used to it. He could now at least spend his misused sleeping hours on something other than suffering.

Many had tried journaling. Jotting down thoughts on any spare paper they could scavenge with a pen meant for working. Some kept their notes inside their threadbare pillowcases or folded under their shoe soles. Others were less concerned with what happened to their writing. One went so far as to burn them every so often.

Even though he had kept some paper for himself, Kurael had not much of a habit of journaling. It was logical, effective, and made him feel stupid by belittling his problems. He had not much of a habit of journaling, but he had promised his mother he would write to her. Naturally, he had not had the opportunity to follow through with that promise.

He found the scrap of paper inside his pillow case and carefully dragged it out; a ripped piece from a larger spread used for calculations. It did not seem right to waste anything in the desert, so he had brought it back to his tent.

He thought for a moment about what to write. He started in several ways, but eventually crossed them out all the same. He thought as he tapped his mask with the butt of his pen. He felt guilty when he realised he was having trouble thinking of what to write in such a letter. So, he decided not to think at all.

 

Hi Mum, it’s Kurael. By the time you get this message, hopefully, I’ll still be alive. Hopefully, I delivered this message myself. But I’m sorry, I can’t guarantee that as I’m writing. The desert isn’t exactly what some tourists have chalked it up to be. They’ve maybe looked at it from their hotel window or cruised along the edge of it, but they’ve never lived in it. I wish I could say the same about myself.

It’s been a few weeks now since I last saw you. Four or five, roughly. I know you often like to say, ‘I told you so,’ and gloat about how you know what’s best for me, but I guess you win this time. You’ve earned it. I shouldn’t have taken that job and moved to such a place.

But I felt like proving myself. I wanted to show you that I knew what was best for me. I wanted you to know that I could keep going without you always making decisions for me. That’s how adult children are born, and I don’t want to be that.

I’ve survived this far, so perhaps I’m doing something right.

I miss you, Mum. I’d do anything to be with you right now, to get back that unfulfilling life that sounds like heaven right about now. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to lose hope, either.

There’s some nice people.

This will probably end up as a dead letter, but I hope you know I love you.

Your Son,

Kurael Farhen

 

His hand dug the graphite into the paper as he finished writing his surname. He looked at his handwriting, examining it for any clear sign of degradation. There was none, barely any difference from five weeks ago.

He had foregone himself to his situation, thrown his hands up in dismay and focused on preserving his life. But some habits did not die so easily. Some reminded him he had a life he had led for the past two decades, one that now felt so easily forgettable, so disgustingly insignificant.

But yet so desirable.

He had never realised how good he had it. He suspected no one had until their very existence came into jeopardy. The weight of it all was insurmountable and would make him question everything if he did not let his guard down. But his mother was the only clear thought he could keep in his head; the one thought that permeated everything else. He wanted to see her again, to talk to her again. That would keep him going for as long as he needed to.

How long that was, was not his choice to make. The air raid sirens made it for him.

Today was his last day, for better or for worse.

 

Elliot market the final point on his map, slotting it next to his thigh with the rest of his belongings.

“Grain man one to all fighters, battle-ready in five seconds.”

Elliot handled the lever once more, pulling it towards him. The wings on either side segmented as Aether flooded between the metal feathers. Each piece moved independently, compensating for and cancelling out one another’s movements.

Elliot flicked a switch underneath his radar, arming the dual cannons protruding from the nose. He veered left, trading altitude for speed as he went.

A small cluster of shapes in the distance grew larger and larger as he approached. Grey boxes turned into hangars, and abstract orange grooves became rocky outcrops. The lines joined one another and the blurry cluster harmonised into something clearer.

“Grain man one to all units, target area confirmed, free to engage on my signal. Remember, you’re a scalpel, not a damn shovel.”

‘Only engage with hostiles.’ That was what he had commanded of the pilots in their briefing that morning. Yet, he could not be so sure they would follow his orders to a T. The briefing lasted all of fifteen minutes, and Elliot’s only objective had been to keep the hostages alive.

He could not put his trust in the others. None of them inspired any confidence within him. For all he knew, they wished to tear open every hangar as soon as they got the chance.

“Grain man six to all units, multiple H.O.A. confirmed, request permission to open fire.”

Elliot squinted his vision through the thick canopy glass. Six was right, yet wrong at the same time.

‘Multiple H.O.A.,’ did not aptly describe it. No matter how often they were downplayed by their adversaries, the F.S.A. was not an urban terrorist group. They were a rebellion, and rebellions had armies.

Elliot squared his reticle over a particular unit, already bringing its shoulder to aim.

“Don’t miss. You might just start a war. Permission granted.”

Elliot took a deep breath as he watched the unit in his sights, bringing its rifle to aim.

He squeezed the trigger, joining a cacophony of rattling metal and thundering bolts as a great shower of bullets cracked the air wide open. The H.O.A. on the other end of the exchange returned fire as Elliot veered himself up and out of the way. He adjusted his course with the swiftness of a sparrow, his canopy now facing towards the ground. Either side had sustained damage, but neither inflicted any casualties.

A war of attrition. One Elliot did not want to fight.