In The Absence of the Sun
Chapter 14 -- Coffee Stains and Chocobo Meat
General Sephiroth tried to contact the Shinra fighter base persistently that day until finally he got through sometime around noon.
“Black Hawk this is Red Tiger do you read me?” repeated the general for what seemed like the millionth time, using the codenames for the air and army bases.
“Hello?” came a crackly reply.
“Who am I speaking to?”
“Flight Officer Azrael Maiden, who the hell are you?”
“General Sephiroth, now put on your general or you may watch your job get ‘vaped’ as quickly as a Wutaian fighter.” he replied flatly.
There was a loud shuffling accompanied by a melee of voices and metallic crashes for a minute.
“Red Tiger?”
“Yes, and this is General Apollo I speak with presently?”
“Good guess, what can I do for you?”
“First off explain why I’ve been so greatly inconvenienced as to having to spend all my time so far today trying to contact you,” said Sephiroth, with a hint of anger.
“We received a little wake-up call, but it’s been taken care of.” Boasted Apollo, followed by a sporadic burst of static.
“I think it would be wise if we continued this conversation on viscom.” admonished Sephiroth.
Viscom lines were much more secure than regular radio frequencies.
“Not an option, our unit got screwed up during the attack. What have you got to tell me that’s so secret?” asked Apollo.
“Crude man this one,” thought Sephiroth to himself.
“An end to this conflict.” said Sephiroth almost lightly.
The other general was silent.
“I shall set up an environment in which we can talk more freely. We shall be in contact,” said Sephiroth as he abruptly killed the transmission.
The fools one had to deal with.
****
“Good morning Mr. Clifton.”
They’d moved him to a bit nicer cell, hoping it would make him talk, but so far he hadn’t said a word. He now had a folding metal chair, a table that was built into the wall, and a slab of stone raised off the ground covered with a blanket for sleeping. But aside from the furniture his living conditions hadn’t changed a bit. Food came virtually never, and when it did it was no more than a glob of colorless slop, and to his knowledge he’d received no medication for his various wounds since he’d arrived at his cell. His T-Shirt was in rags and his pants they’d made after cutting off the top of his flight suit weren’t much better.
And always there was that intercom, making sure he never had a moment of relaxation.
“Good morning Mr. Clifton.” repeated the voice.
He’d tried ignoring it, but that never worked. The message would just repeat until he replied.
“I won’t betray my friends.” he replied bluntly.
“Very well then. I will check back in with you later,” said the voice as the connection was killed with a loud click.
No food came that day, or the next. It would not come until Mr. Clifton gave them the answer they wanted, but he didn’t plan on doing that anytime soon.
****
As the door chime sang it’s tune Rotterdam made some last minute preparations. The dinner his cook had made was quite nice, but had too many garnishes.
“Get the door!” he yelled while hastily disposing of some stray lemon slices and strange pieces of greenery.
Once he was happy with the look of their dinner Rotterdam returned to the living room to find Reeve sitting in a leather chair.
“Good evening Mr. Reeve.” he said cordially.
“Good evening, and thank you for inviting me over. But I must say I am still a bit confused as to why I am here.”
“We shall discuss that over dinner. Now would you like a drink?” asked Rotterdam, abruptly switching the topic.
“Um, yes. I’ll just have a beer actually.”
Rotterdam stifled a laugh; this man was still so young.
As the evening went on the two Shinra executives eventually found themselves at the dinner table, carrying on a simple conversation while enjoying some chocobo meat. But as suddenly as the innocent conversation had begun, it ended.
“So really, tell me. Why am I here?” asked Reeve inquisitively.
“Ah you can no longer stand the wondering. All right then Mr. Reeve, I shall tell you.”
Reeve stopped eating and looked at the VP apprehensively.
“You recall a few weeks back when three training fighters destroyed your newest project and themselves?” queried Rotterdam.
“All too well, but what does that have to do with anything?” asked the young Reeve hastily.
Rotterdam took a sip of his wine and replied, “That I am not sure of yet, but I know that it is connected, somehow to this war.”
“So aside from just being social I guess I’m not seeing the reason you invited me over. You could’ve just as easily told me this over caf.” said Reeve, summing up the situation.
“True, but how do we know that our conversation is not being monitored at the café? And why would we, two well-paid Shinra executives meet at some lowly café? It just doesn’t make sense to the casual observer. Which is why, Mr. Reeve, we are here. In an environment free of possible monitoring devices, having a nice social dinner, and discussing our role in the war.” Rotterdam explained.
“Ah, I see. But I guess I still don’t quite understand what all of your speculations have to do with anything, especially Shinra.”
“Oh they have everything to do with Shinra…”
****
“My dear Rotterdam if only you knew.” mused President Shinra, as he listened to the conversation between Reeve and the vice-president
“Let’s have him arrested. I could have the entire security force at his house within five minutes.” said Scarlet hastily.
“No, no. Let him think he’s on to us. Let him spend his time, speculating, discovering, and putting ideas in young Reeve’s head. And then right when he gets close, we’ll pounce. Our little Reeve will then know what happens, when you are not loyal to the great Shinra,” said the president evilly.
“Let’s expose them both, right when they think they’re on to us. It will be front page material most definitely.”
“Rotterdam has indeed outlived his period of usefulness, but young Reeve could still be helpful,” pondered the president with a hand on his chin.
“What if we were to use Reeve against our un-loyal vice-president?” Scarlet hinted maliciously.
“Now, you are being of use. Go on…”
****
Sometimes it’s amazing what a bunch of fighter jocks can do when we put our minds to it. A day after the surprise attack we had set up a new base in a totally different location, those Wutaians wouldn’t find us this time. And I figured since I was in charge of a wing of three other men, we might as well work good as a unit, so we’d been running simulations together in the big old tent every minute possible.
The sim tent, first off was a hell of a lot bigger than the other ones, but it had to be. Cause it held twelve combat flight simulators. Now I don’t know the technology shit that goes along with ‘em, but I do know a few things. One being, they are basically fighter cockpits, inside a fairly airtight box, that displays the images of you flying around all crazy tryin’ to kick some Wutaian ass. They’re all linked up too, so we can talk to each other like in a regular battle. And the last thing I know is that they’re damn hot inside.
“Twelve, roll left.” I said casually.
Twelve didn’t move an inch off his course.
“Twelve goddamnit roll left!”
“Nah I’m good.” Replied Azrael nonchalantly.
Two seconds later his fighter was separated from itself into a few large chunks and littered across the simulated grassy plains.
“All other fighters report in.” I ordered, kind of pissed.
Why the hell did that arse have to do that?
“Eclipse Eight is kinda busy right now,” said Winters, like he was concentrating on something else.
“Eclipse Nine is covering Eight,” reported a new transfer, Cyril.
“No more fighters around here, goin’ in for bombing run on target.” Cyril continued.
“I got your back Nine.” piped in Winters.
While I flew around the simworld it was obvious that our target, the warehouse, was the only thing left. Wait a minute, that’s weird, something slowly coming out of a hill. Long, skinny, oh shit guns.
“Eight an’ Nine get the hell out of there!” I screamed.
But it was too late, in seconds of each other the two little lights showing the two fighters on my console winked out. I went in for a run on my own, but the guns destroyed me. My screen abruptly went black and the door to my simulator was roughly thrown open by the simulator manager, letting in a slight breeze from outside.
That slight breeze wasn’t enough to cool my temper down though; Azrael Maiden needed to learn once and for all how things went around here. He was standing at a coffee station near the corner of the massive tent, when my arm spun him to face me and he spewed coffee all over his shirt in surprise.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I demanded.
“Flight Officer Azrael Maiden…” he drawled in mock confusion while pointing to his name patch.
“Look kid, we don’t have time for this shit.”
“So I didn’t roll to the left, big deal,” he said lazily.
“No, you didn’t. An’ because of you we failed the mission. If you had rolled to the fucking left you’d still have been around to help me take out that gun that tore us other three to shreds.”
“Guess I made a mistake, all apologies.” he said, a bit peeved.
“There are two kind of mistakes I read about in a book in school once, physical and mental ones. When you directly disobey orders that is a mental, fucking, mistake. And if there’s one thing that I can’t stand it’s a mental mistake. And the next time, my Fair Maiden, you make a mental mistake, you better hope to whatever god you pray to that ain’t in the middle of a dogfight in a real sky. Because then you’re as good as dead.”
With that I turned around and headed to talk to Winters and Cyril.
“By the way that coffee on your shirt is nice, really brings out your eyes!”
****
The first thing that struck Godo was the intense shock buried deep within the surviving pilot’s eyes. What he had seen would stay with him forever.
“Lt. Daegon, it is an honor to finally meet you.”
“The honor is mine Lord Godo.”
The wizened Wutaian leader marveled at the fact that this man had been the only survivor of the recent attack.
“Lieutenant Daegon, after looking through your records I have come to a conclusion. One, you are the only pilot to survive every conflict in this war so far, and two you should be, and are, promoted to colonel.”
The young colonel just stood there, tall and straight, no indication that he’d ever heard Lord Godo crossing his face. Perfect military procedure.
“Thank you sir,” he replied with a salute.
“And now that you are the highest ranked pilot in Wutai, you need to earn the title.”
“How so sir?”
“Tell me why we are losing this conflict in the sky. Why we must have families whose son’s won’t come home ever again, why the Shinra pilots look at our air force as a disgrace.”
“Because almost every pilot in our air force has little or no training.” Daegon reported starkly.
“Then we shall train them.”
“It takes time…” said Daegon annoyed.
“Ah, time. A thing not in abundance, or in our favor. But we must fight on, and we will, and in time our pilots will be trained.”
“Yes sir.” he said with a salute as he turned on his heel to the door.
“I have one more request.”
Daegon turned partially back to face his Lord Godo.
“Make the prisoner in Cell 13 talk.”
“Yes sir, and I will not fail our country. Soon the Shinra will be fleeing in our wake.”
Author’s Note: Wow has been quite a while since I posted anything on here. Had most of this chapter written since the middle of August, just needed to finish off a few scenes. Don’t know when more will come, I hope soon, the quarter is over so work is somewhat light now, maybe I can squeeze a few more chapters out before school cracks down on me again. – Diego Chavez
Go on to Chapter 15