Mission Active – Search and Rescue2000 short story by Jonathan Hicks Thirteen years after Episode IV
– A New Hope The snow covers me totally.
I’ve been out in it for seven hours now and its started to soak through my combat
fatigues and press against my skin underneath. The combat tech’s said this clothing
was good for twelve hours. Lying nerf herders. I clutch the BP-43 closer to my
chest, making sure the barrel’s facing down so that the frozen moisture doesn’t
get down the pipe, and wait for orders. Captain’s doing another scan, trying to
locate the beacon. He’s been quiet for the last couple of hours, directing us with
hand signals and sharp movements of his head. I know he was doing it to avoid talking so
that we wouldn’t detect any nervousness in his voice because the last two beacon
sweeps had been negative and he was getting jumpy. The search and locate had taken more
than the four hours Tactical had told us it would take less. Once again I watch Jarvi make sure
that he’s fitted a pack in his TY-96 and I wink at him. He gives me a weak smile with
his bright blue eyes and then turns his eyes back to the Cap, whose putting the scanner
back on his belt. He spends a couple of seconds rubbing his forehead and then comes over.
He’s keeping low and out of sight in the frozen Amagad jungle but we know
there’s no hostiles for at least twenty kilometres. Satellite recon has been giving
us regular reports and there have been no contacts for a while. Jarvi crawls in closer as he
approaches. Its obvious the Cap wants to talk as he motions Hideo over from the lip of the
narrow gully we’re using as a rest point. He quickly comes down and joins us. The Cap takes off his tactical
helmet and wipes his shaven damp head. He looks worried now. He knows that we know that
something is wrong but he probably kept it from us until after he had a definite about
mission failure.
“No contact,” he says after a long sigh. “SatRec puts us in the
right position but the shuttle’s beacon is either damaged or we’ve been
glitched.” Glitched. What he’s trying to say is that there’s been a screw-up somewhere during mission creation and we’re paying the price. No-one disagrees; if it is our fault and our equipment’s faulty then there’s nothing we can do. It makes what’s left of the mission go easier if you can blame it on someone else for the time being. Hideo nods to the scanner on the
Cap’s belt.
“Did SatRec give us a hostile report?” he asks in his usual dark-eyed
manner, foregoing discipline and dropping the ‘sir’. The Cap knows him
well and ignores it - he can worry about protocol when there’s an officer present.
“We got broad contacts coming in from the south but they don’t think
it’s an intercept. There’s no wave chatter about searches or patterns so they
surmise it’s just a patrol.”
“On foot or heavy, sir?” Jarvi enquires. He’s a stickler for
protocol and keeps to the regs at all time.
“Arial. Three Evileye Attack Fliers, probably with standard anti-personnel
blasters on board. They’re not doing any sweeps so they’re probably just out for
the fresh air.”
“Or looking for Mutant Rebels,” Hideo puts in. The Cap nods. The MR Army
had been fighting the scavengers and pirates, who had come to the recovering world to take
land and set up bases, for the better part of a decade and knew the territory well.
Evileye Combat Hoverfliers usually went for little jaunts over the frozen jungle and
firebombed anything that scanned as ‘bipedal’ on their scopes.
“Sir, is this mission over?” I ask. I’m not one to beat about the
bush and if I want to know something then I ask. The Cap looks at me and frowns, not at
the bluntness of my question but at the answer he was about to give me.
“Tactical want us to continue. We do a run over the hills to the north then we
quit, three hours max.” None of us say a thing. We know the
mission should be scrapped, we had been told two hours max three hours ago, but we’ve
got a job to do.
“With the hostiles in the area we won’t get evac for a while so lets use
the time we have. Jarvi, go with Travees and skirt the lower hills. I’ll go with
Hideo and we’ll rendezvous on the far side. Keep the helmet range down to one
kilometre and keep chatter to a minimum. When we meet I’ll contact Tactical and
request instructions. Sing if you find the crash site. Questions?” Nope. No questions. There never
were. We had been working as a team since the Heed hit the planet and we knew the drill.
The Cap had saved our lives more times than I care to remember and we tried not to make
his job any harder than it already was. It was strange that our last three missions had
been wastes of time but the Cap took it well. We had a good rep in the North Territories
and the survivors in the west thought the sun shone from our holes after the Kerok Island
campaign against the pirate armour assault so he wouldn’t have to worry about work.
From what I understood he had seven other jobs lined up for us after this one. Me and Jarvi go crunching through
the snow and I resist the temptation to trip him up again. I knew that the Cap was going
to cite me after pushing him into a snowdrift but it was worth it. It broke the tension,
too. We had been trekking through the snow wastes for hours and I could see Hideo was
getting annoyed. We picked Hideo up after the Kerok
incident. Hanner had got herself killed trying to defuse an unexploded proton torpedo
which had crashed through a hospital roof and failed to detonate. We had managed to get
half the people to safety before it timed out and blew everything in the vicinity to pudu.
Poor old Hanner. I liked her. Jarvi liked her so much he got her pregnant, I know because
I was there when the medical ‘droid told her but she made me swear not to tell him.
So I didn’t, and then four days later boom,
she’s dust. Jarvi doesn’t speak for a week then he acts like the old soldier,
‘she knew the score’ and that kind of stuff, but I know for a fact it hit
him quite bad. The mission after that was a locate and destroy on a Janite missile battery
and he wasted every funster he clapped eyes on. The Cap said we might have well just let
him go in on his own. I never told Jarvi about the baby.
I take my promises quite seriously. Anyway, Hideo was one of the
soldiers we got out of the hospital before it fried and unfortunately his unit was in
there so he was basically up the creek. He was walking wounded so we gave him a lift back
to Tactical. Whilst we were sub-orbital he asked the Cap if he could join, straight out,
no pudu. We ran him through his paces when he was well enough and he was good. Good enough
to replace Hanner, at any rate, so we let him in. Hideo was a bit nervous at first, not
knowing how a hired fireteam was going to be regarded by the public but when he started
getting kisses and thank-you’s from the people we helped he knew it was worth it. The
cash bonuses helped somewhat, too. And the Cap? We had this phase of
calling him lanky because he was from A-Desando. He lived just outside the Bay of Amagad
area where the first fragments of the Heed hit. He went along with the joke; I
always got the feeling he did that at first so that he could basically laugh off what had
happened to his home, some kind of screwed-up psychotherapy, but it withered after a
while. His real name’s Artunianonlipolitle. So we call him Cap. We had all met in a bar just
outside of a western settlement, when it was still there, and when they heard my Zelon
accent we had one of those ‘go on, say something’ conversations. I was
getting Hanner to say ‘Weennicoos’ because that was where she came from
and Cap to say ‘pardner’. I had to say ‘jolly good’ or
some stuff because that was what they expected. I remember Jarvi keeping out of that one.
Amagad City had been turned to crap after the Heed hit three months previously and he was
worried about his family because of the aid riots. And then the Janos Executioners
made a claim to the ravaged planet and tried to invade. Screwed-up mother funsters with
religious opinions on the end of this world and their judgement day, revenge on Glann
Cipple for stealing their starship the Heed, as if the Heed impact was a
sign from their god warning us of our recklessness and arrogance. Word had it they had
built their forces around an old moon Habstation, one of the original colonisation
ecodomes, way before the dust had settled after the impact and then made their move after
the disaster. They burnt whole cities, napalmed towns and wasted a couple of important
places then sent in shocktroops which they called ‘Executioners’ to scourge and
purify the non-believers. So, we make a living out of shooting the bastards. No one really
knows why they’re doing it and military psyche-types are blaming it on the sense of
Armageddon we all got when we heard the disaster was on its way. Other people reckon
it’s just displaced system wanderers getting together and trying to get a piece of
land from mother Amagad but I think they did it so that people like us could keep our
jobs. That’s thoughtful of them. Anyway, that’s enough
background. I’ll embellish as I go on. Jarvi takes the lead and
double-times it, stopping every few minutes to do a quick sweep with his helmet binocs. I
bring up the rear and watch his back and my own, looking for tell-tale signs of wreckage
or whatever in the snow. The snowfall gets thicker and we start to slow down. Then the Evileye’s arrive. Three of the bastards, coming in
low on a search vector and keeping wide and staggered, their engines screaming and turning
the frozen moisture to steam. Cannons hang from their weapons pylons and the ground search
scanners are scoping for unfriendlies. One swings left on the Cap’s route and at
first I think they’ve zeroed us, but then I see that they’re low enough to be
below the tops of the hills and are just skirting. The cannons are pointing straight ahead
and don’t appear to be active. Jarvi panics and hits the snow. I
do the same, my stomach tightening as I eat ice and wait for a blaster bolt to tear me up.
I know they’ll be on thermal but I hope the damp fatigues I’m wearing will cover
my heat bleed. I press my face in the snow so hard it goes numb. The snow all around me whips about
as they fly over, turning on their sides to bank around the hill. Then they’re gone. I keep comm silence for a minute to
allow them to get out of range of our kilometre radius and then call the Cap.
“Travees to lead, Travees to lead. Respond.”
“Lead. Give me a sit-rep.”
“Three Evileyes on a search pattern,” I report, “No discovery on our
part.”
“We’re clean here,” says
the Cap. “The one over us was pulling off a
couple of fancy spins so I don’t think they’re doing anything but going for a
drive. Get on with it.” I tap the side of my helmet to
cease the communication and start to crawl over to Jarvi. He’s dived head-first into
a drift and is struggling to get out and I laugh loud enough for him to hear me through
his snow-filled ears.
“Mother funster, that’s twice!” he moans, trying in vain to brush
the encrusted snow from his body. It’s just a show for the joke and I shake my head.
“Get your behind out of that stuff, Jarv, we’re moving.” He takes point again, I follow,
trying to listen for the Evileyes but they’re history. Just a rumble in the distance
as they go supersonic for whatever reason. An hour later we’re at the
other side of the hill and Jarvi holds up his arm, not bothering to look behind to see if
I noticed because he knows I’m already down on one knee and weapon-ready. He stays
like that for a minute whilst he scopes the ground in front of him and then waves me up. Ahead of us are three figures
dressed in similar white combats to our own. They’re digging their way out of small
drifts they probably made to avoid Evileye detection and are scanning the area with what
look like Bee-Two’s. Mutant Rebels, the more intelligent caste of Cipple’s
escaped genetic experiments. The Cap’s already approaching
them and it’s obvious he’s contacted friendlies. Jarvi pats me on the shoulder
and we move in. As we get nearer my boot hits something under the snow at the same time I
notice that the ground here is unnaturally higher than the rest of the tundra. The crashed
shuttle? Doubtful. It was only supposed to have gone down sixteen hours ago and this
snowfall had been on the go for eight. I couldn’t conceive it could have been totally
covered in that time. Then I see there’s a partially
hidden furrow leading up to the base of the hill and the snow on the side has cascaded
down. Likely the craft hit the snow, slid into the side of the mound and created a small
avalanche which buried it. The snowfall finished the work. Convenient. As we get closer the Cap is taking
his unit off his belt to contact Tactical and trying to listen to what the MR creature has
got to say. These guys are not pretty. They’ve all got growths and strange
insect-like additions to their bodies. Glann was fond of genetics and these poor saps are
the result. There are some who are a lot more bestial than these. I don’t think about
them. We’ve got Coryarthinax infestations everywhere as well. It appears they had a couple of
spotters out here looking for possible safe sites for their people and watched the shuttle
come down. It flipped over on its back and the tail fin was ripped clean off as it
connected with the frozen trees. It slid up to this hill and got buried. They skinned out
back to base and reported and these three guys came here to look for survivors. Whilst the MR man’s explaining
this Hideo’s demanding to know why SatRec never warned us about the Evileyes.
“Obvious, isn’t it?” Jarvi points out. “If they had called us
whilst they were in range of the uplink they’d have picked up the transmission and
traced it to the source. We’d have been do...”
“This has sucked from the start,” Hideo snaps. He wasn’t known for
his long fuse. “Cap?”
“Leave it.” That was enough to shut Hideo up but he went into a sulk. So
did Jarvi. Kids, I tell you. The MR man tells us that
they’ve only been here an hour and haven’t found an opening because they’re
unsure of the design. We know it well. It was a Bantha, orbit to surface no-frills utility
dropship used for special missions. I’d been in one of these things before. They were
built from sturdy stuff so it stood a good chance there might be someone alive in there. Actually, I hoped there was. That
was, after all, our mission parameter. Find the crashed Bantha and get it’s one and
only passenger out alive, then blow it. The blow it part of the mission
wasn’t actually communicated to us until after our ship had dropped us at the landing
zone. We didn’t want to destroy it because an explosion would have lit up the Janite
sensor net like a laserworks display. We reluctantly agreed after bonuses were discussed. There was a niggling doubt at the
back of my limited mind, which grew after Hideo’s ‘from the start’
comment. It was true that the search area was wide, I mean really wide, and the SatRec
couldn’t pinpoint the shuttle which I thought was a little odd. The reactor core on
the Bantha would have appeared on the SatRec scans as a heat bloom, even under all that
snow, and it amazed me they didn’t have better intelligence on the area. Jarvi just
said it was usual Tactical crap and dropping troops, especially hired troops and into
potentially hazardous zones had tuned into a routine. Hideo mentioned something about
stealth shielding on the Bantha but these craft aren’t built that way. He then said
something about modifications for undercover use but Cap shut him up. He didn’t want
our thoughts going off-mission and feelings of distrust towards Tactical but I could tell
that Hideo’s words had spooked him. The mission was a little lacking in detail and
hurriedly pushed on us. If it was a secret then why didn’t they use their own men?
Thing is, when you start thinking that way then you go down that ‘need to
know’ and ‘expendable’ road. The truth is, the Impact Survivors
Coalition just doesn’t have the resources on Amagad to pull off this kind of job and
they needed a result, fast. We knew the passenger we needed was
the one and only female on board and she was to be returned, dead or alive although alive
would be a bonus. All we had to do was get her to the extraction point and we’d catch
a lift off a Screamer. We’d be sub-orbital and away before Janite intercept sensors
could react. Cap thanks the MR’s and sends Hideo and Jarvi in - they’re in charge of securing the passenger whilst I play the lookout and Cap call Tactical with a situation report. I head over to a part of the furrow where I can get a good view of the immediate area and drop the binocs from under my helmet rim. The Cap keys in the uplink code and waits for the SatRec to respond. Jarvi and Hideo start digging snow with help from the MR’s and we start the clock. What I mean by that is that as soon
as the Cap calls Tactical they’ll send a Screamer to our position. Janite sensor nets
will detect the ariel descent and send intercept and with three Evileyes hanging around
we’d have to get extracted pretty quickly. The Screamer is built for speed not combat
and even though we’d get the drop as far as running away goes the Evileyes would drop
us out of the sky with a three second burst. Cap makes the call. The SatRec
patches us through and Tactical is literally going crazy. What’s taking so long, were
we spotted by the Evileye patrol, have we located the Bantha, all kinds of real soothing
crap a commander wants to hear when a mission suddenly starts to get hairy. Cap listens
with his usual calm disposition and answers as only a trained, disciplined military man
can.
“Freck you, Tactical, you freckin’ idiots! This area crawls and your
screwing me around with demands. I repeat, we have located the Bantha and are securing the
target. Send the freckin’ Screamer before
we’re compromised!” Tactical starts to have a go back.
Shouting something about following orders and that they don’t pay him to be
insubordinate.
“And I don’t work with idiots who’re sitting on their useless
behinds halfway round the freckin’ planet!
I’m leaving my global positioner open so despatch the Screamer. Out.” I quickly turn my head as Cap looks
over to see if I was listening. He knows I’ve got a smirk on my face and I also
don’t want him to think I wasn’t keeping watch. Jarvi appears from a small snow
hole and shouts.
“We got her, sir! She’s alive! I don’t believe it. Alive and
mobile!” He clambers from the hole over the access hatch and then reaches back in. A
naked hand comes out and grabs him by the wrist and he pulls the woman free with Hideo
behind. She’s quite pretty, I guess,
but she’s pretty banged up. She’s got blood across her forehead and down her
left temple but she seems to be well aware of herself. She’s not exactly dressed for
sub-zero conditions but it’ll have to do whilst we wait for extraction. She wipes her
head and mingles the blood with her black bobbed hair, as if suddenly realising she’s
hurt. Jarvi leaves her with Hideo and heads over to Cap.
“Superficial head wound and bruising but she’s fine, sir. Pilot’s
dead, the window shattered and buried him. The co-pilot’s alive, though, broken leg
by the looks of it. There’s also...” Cap waved him silent as his
communicator buzzed. He unclipped it and held it up. “Receiving.”
“Tactical. Screamer ETA seven minutes.
Do you have a definite on the target, over?”
“Target is secured. We also have the co-pilot, alive but immobile. Request
secondary vehicle for extraction.” The Cap knew the Screamer was only large enough
accommodate the pilot and co-pilot that flew it and five others. That’s why we were
selected for this search and rescue, there was only four of us.
“Tactical, request denied. Secure
primary target and wait for extraction.” I looked back at the Cap in shock.
Request denied? The man was one of theirs. What did they mean request denied?
“Repeat request for additional vehicle....”
“Sir, there’s something else...” Jarvi began to say but then he was
cut off by the communicator squealing loudly and then going to white noise. I jumped to my
feet.
“We’re being jammed!” Cap shouted. “Travees, scope for
incoming, Hideo, get her over here!” he turned to the MR men. “I suggest you and
your men make yourselves scarce, Major.” The Mutant Rebel nodded and turned to his
men, calling them over in their own language. Quickly they headed for the frozen jungle.
“What was it, Jarvi?” Cap said, unslinging his rifle and powering it up.
“There was another body in there, sir. Suited up with top-range equipment and
no ID. New Republic Security, if I’ve ever seen one. The woman says it was her
bodyguard.”
“Great. Mutants, Janites, pirates and now the New Republic. Has this planet
turned into a vid-soap, or what? Well, she must be an important woman,” Cap says, but
then forgets it. He turns to the lady as Hideo approaches with her in tow. “Lady,
things have gone jurifruit-shaped. It might get hot.”
“Give me a weapon,” she says, her eyes are hard and her jaw is firm.
“I know the drill.” Cap nods and points for Hideo to
get a weapon from the Bantha. We hear a sonic boom and then a
high-pitched whining and the Screamer drops from the low cloud cover. It’s thin and
long with sweep-wing configuration and its engines swivel to accomodate a landing.
I’m as surprised as the rest of us as the thing suddenly erupts into nothing. The Evileyes were back. I don’t know if it was by
chance or if the Janites have ways to scan even during jamming but they tear the Screamer
to little pieces. Heavy armour piercing blaster bolts rip into the fuselage and the
canopy, destroying the craft totally. It’s not as if that was enough; even as the
craft starts to tumble they pop a couple of torpedoes into it and it blows utterly, the
minimal weapons and fuel pods blowing bits of it all over the snow. We hit the deck and
wait for our turn. Cap shouts.
“We’re compromised!” But, honestly, you’d have
thought we’d have figured that out for ourselves by now, yeah? Jarvi is already
firing, his blaster belching deathlight at the Evileyes. They spark and bounce off the
fuselage of the lead craft but do little to stop it. Then the firing stops and the sides
of the Evileyes are opening, wires dropping to the snow and Janos Executioners in their
blue body- armour sliding down.
They’re toting Tollecks, not as powerful as our weapons but accurate in the right
hands. They hit the snow. We should have sprayed them as they
were descending but the situation was confusing. Standard procedures for the Janites is to
destroy air support then firebomb the site but these guys seemed to be after something.
They were even taking the time to scope the scene before they opened fire. I kind of got
the feeling that the girl was a little more important than we realised. The Tollecks are ripping up the
snow and turning the landscape to Trefnarian cheese so we hit the ice and return fire.
They’re obviously checking their fire so they can mark their targets but we
don’t have that disadvantage. We flick off the safeties and give them a burst. The
lead Executioners are struck several times by mine and Hideo’s precision fire and
bits of armour fly off, along with bits of flesh. Blood turns the snow into Zelonberry ice
cream. My barrels steaming and my weapon
bleeps to indicate low charge. My heart is pounding, the cold suddenly an old memory, my
hand finding new-found strength as they fight against the cold. I try to suppress the
feeling of urgency and will time to slow down. My mouth suddenly goes dry and I’m
trying to get a tactical picture in my mind but it’s no good. All I can see is
what’s directly ahead of me. Hideo has flicked from spray to single shot and
he’s popping bolts into the Executioners as they advance. The second Evileye has
swung in low behind us and the doors pop open. I’ve always been an admirer of
the Mutant Rebels and they don’t let us down. A thin line of smoke appears as a
rocket flies from the snow bank to the east and inserts itself right up the exhaust of the
Evileye. Tail engine goes and it nose-dives, some of the Executioners jumping clean but
landing hard. It’s exploding before it hits the ground. The third Evileye swings and
the cannons train on the location the smoke trail leads to. The cannons burp a two second
assault and the frozen trees are obliterated. The area is saturated with fire and the snow
turns to steam. The Evileye starts dropping countermeasures in the form of sensor buoys
and a couple of flares in case the launcher’s got any buddies in the vicinity but
there’s no other rockets. The doors slide open and the Executioners start their
descent. The exploded Evileye has given us
the escape route we need now that that area isn’t covered. The Cap is giving the
newcomers a burst when he shouts, “Evac east, cover fire!” The woman has a
smaller pistol but she’s giving the Executioners some trouble. She looks as though
she almost enjoys it. Jarvi is up on his feet; he was pretty close to the Evileye
eruption, and firing blind into the Executioner ranks. I count eight on my vector, with one of them armed with a heavy support cannon. Me and Hideo have dropped five but the Evileyes are obviously larger inside than they look. Again the Cap calls for an evac and we head for the east hole. Cap and Jarvi keep them down and when me and Hideo have gone ten leaps we drop to the snow and turn. We open up and they start their retreat with the woman in tow shouting, “Coming through! Coming through!” It’s a risky retreat tactic at the best of times but at this juncture we didn’t give a damn. Cap has to grab her and give her a yank to stop her from firing and she seems to be reluctant to leave the slaughter. They run past us and do their ten then hit the ground and open up. Me and Hideo are on our feet as they cover our retreat. “Coming through! Coming through!” The Executioners are doing their
usual stuff. They’re crying out for salvation to their leader and are just rushing
in. At first we thought they did it because they were suicidal but that’s just a
ploy; they want you to think that. Whilst you think they’re just religious freaks
they’re actually engaging in proper assault tactics so things get a little confusing.
I mean, you don’t expect a soldier to scream out a prayer whilst he’s capping
the enemy, now, do you? We do our ten and start to turn but
it seems the Executioners have new problems. The MR men have started a laser rain from the
tree line and now the Janites are under fire from two fronts. We take advantage of the new
assault and run. The Executioner with the support
cannon flicks on his rangefinder and leans into it. The long-barrelled weapon on the
giromount flares with a bass rumble and we see fountains of sparks from the ZR men. It
jerks me off that I never got the chance to say thanks. I’ve been in situations
before when we’ve been given covering fire on the run and I never said thanks. I
imagine the soldiers go back to their barracks, peppered with holes and low on ammo, and
think ‘ungrateful bastards’. Once we hit the frozen tree line
we’re history. Legs pumping, forgetting the retreat action cover fire and just going
for it. We go past the destroyed area where the Evileye fired but there are no bodies. The
MR men are better than that. Behind us we hear another woosh of a rocket and the biggest explosion yet as
the ammo of an Evileye goes critical. I can feel the hand of Janos on my back as the shock
wave sweeps over us like a heatwave and I stagger. It’s embarrassing, now I think
about, that I was the only one who nearly lost my footing. Even the woman kept going and
she had a gash in her head like a canyon. The last Evileye pilot sounds like
he doesn’t give a freck about checking
targets as he opens up with his cannons on the tree line where the MR’s are shooting
from. It sounds like a drum roll, a two hundred decibel drum roll, as the cannons do their
work. It kind of gives me the incentive to work my tired legs faster. The adrenaline kicks
in late these days. Fire-and-forgets pepper the
position now as the pilot really goes over the top. Somewhere in the noise I can hear the
loudspeaker under the nose of the flyer reciting a prayer or some such stuff. The gunners
literally screaming out something about salvation and blessed be and the Janites are real
nice dudes and they’re really hard and so on. That’s fine. I’m sorry for
the MR guys but it’s keeping the Evileye man occupied. The running minute is up and we all
stop and spin, guns-ready, watching for pursuit but there is none. The MR’s have
obviously kicked some Janite heads in and the ground troops were history. There’s
another line of smoke as another rocket narrowly misses the Evileye. Whoever’s firing
that launcher must be hopping about like mad to avoid fire. A hopping mutant with a
shoulder-launched surface-to-air independent targeting warhead. Now that I picture that it
strikes me as funny and I laugh to relieve the tension. The adrenaline is making its
presence known and my laughter seems forced. Hideo gives me a funny look and tells me to
stow it. Then we’re running again. The
Evileye obviously can’t get a bead on the shooter and bugs out. Its taking hits from
the ground from small arms fire and even something as heavily armoured as that can’t
take the punishment. We’re in the clear for the moment. I know I got a funny look from my
compatriots but I couldn’t help but stop for a second and shout ‘thanks’ at the top of my lungs towards the
battle site. Cap checks the recovered target and
we keep moving. He’s obviously decided against blowing the Bantha; we should have
done it but I can hardly blame him. There was no way on this frozen planet I was going
back there, because if we did blow it the heat would be visible for miles. Fair enough,
the blown-up Evileyes were already giving off more heat than the average furnace but we
didn’t want to make things worse, did we? Anyway, the jamming was still in effect
even though we had to assume that the white noise could be cut through by the Janite.
After all, they were using some technology none of us had seen before and we didn’t
know what they were going to pull out of the bag next. That’s why they’re so
difficult to beat. The woman signals she’s good to go and we start out. We head west, towards the frozen coast, knowing that we stood a better chance getting a pick-up because Tactical had more ground vessels than it did starships. Now that the area was hot there was no way they were going to send in an evac transport. Not that we could ask for it anyway, what with the jamming. Jarvi, who knows more about the area than us, says that we’ll probably hit the sea rink in about a day. The journey’s a long and
boring one so let me tell you what’s going on. It’s very simple. Big battle
in space over the planet, thanks to Glann Cipple. He got hold of this huge powerful
warship called the Heed and tried to trade it to what was left of the Empire in the
Setnin Sector for control over what they left behind. He sold everyone out to them for
power. There’s a huge fight back and the Heed is bought down by the hero of
the day, a woman named Luschia Arkensaw. There’s a lot of dispute at how she did it,
but whilst the battle raged on she got inside the Heed and stole the Janos Jewel
that powered it. The ship, devoid of power, falls out of the sky. Everyone cheers.
Luschia’s a hero! The war is won! Glann has been defeated! The Empire thwarted! Unfortunately, the Heed is
being held in orbit by huge tractor projectors in Amagad city and it comes down virtually
on top of them. You’d have thought someone would have shouted ‘quick, turn
them off’ but they were probably a bit concerned at how the Star Destroyer in
orbit was dropping bombs on them. You see, from what we know it was Glann’s own
people who started the fight back and the Imperial in charge thought Glann had
double-crossed him. Bad news for everyone. It hits the bay off Amagad City and
creates a huge ecological disaster. The resulting crap that’s thrown into the air
from the impact creates a permanent winter, freezing the surface and basically starting a
new ice-age. It was a real upset, too, because we had more or less made the planet green
and habitable with decades of eco-building. Millions are killed, animal and plant life is
practically wiped out. On the equator, right by ground zero, nothing survives. Not even
bacteria. Species are gone, people are gone and everything’s just gone. We’ve got loads of support
from the Zelon and Leogard so we get help straight away but most Southern Hemisphere land
is totalled. The equator suffers the worse with firestorms and tidal variations. And if you think that was bad, then
you listen up. Some other mid-planet settlements are peppered with heavy meteor showers
before the big one hits. The land is laid waste but people have a decent way of coping and
start to rebuild virtually straight away. The north is holed and the south is slammed to freck. The biggest impact, other than the Amagad
hit, landed smack-bang on a little town called Hillfin, just south of Amagad. My home.
Gone. Just like that. No small craters, no peppering, just one big slab of starship, one
huge firestorm and the whole of Hillfin and the northern parts of our direct neighbours
over the channel and are roasted. I was out of the town at the time, on maneouvers with my
regiment, but I watched the glow on the horizon. Watching the light and thinking ‘damn, someone’s got it bad’. The others never, ever talk to me
about my home. Theirs are in a bad state along with the rest of the world but mine simply
doesn’t exist anymore. We laugh and joke about their homes but mine doesn’t even
get a mention and I’ve been in one or two fights with others who don’t know any
better. I’m Amagadian, but that
doesn’t seem true to me anymore. There isn’t an Amagad to be patriotic about. Then along come the Janites on the tail of the disaster. They start out, wanting to help with both supplies and spiritual stuff but we look on them with skepticism, the same way any new cult is frowned upon. The Eastern Mutant Alliance, bless their little tentacles, tell them to go spin on it, in so many diplomatic words, because their troubles are more than enough. So the Janite do the most anti-social thing imaginable; they waste them. That kind of gets our back up and a small war starts. I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a firefight with people like the Eastern Alliance. They fight with such a passion it’s both admirable and scary at the same time. Heavy action required? Just pick up the comm and ask for the ‘EA Revengers’. We do a ten-kilometre hike and then
rest up. Our limited packs are light, we didn’t expect a long stay so we dispensed
with burgens, but they seem a lot heavier with the moisture and the rough trail. We take a
break and check communications. Still jammed. The woman’s complaining now, about the
cold and her wound, and so I’m given the duty. I take off my overcoat and put it on
her and check the wound. Then I recognise her. It’s
only the Tactical commanding officer’s daughter! We’ve been sent around the
planet and been shot at and blown up to rescue the daughter of the freckin’ command officer! Talk about
abusing your command. I hope to freck she’s
worth it. This world is so screwed up. No-one
really knows why they’re fighting anymore. There’s nothing left of the Heed,
I don’t know why the Janites are still here. Or the pirates who think they can
salvage something. Or the scavengers, slavers, mercenaries... I take a long hard look at the
frozen world that used to be my home. Thank you very freckin’ much, Luschia Arkensaw.
Mission Active – Search and Rescue2000 short story by Jonathan Hicks Thirteen years after Episode IV
– A New Hope Histories – Set four years after the destruction
of Amagad City by the Heed explosion, this tight Jonathan
Hicks short story shows the repercussions of that
devastating explosion and the effects it took on the planet. Told from the point-of-view of a soldier defending
his world from constant attack, the trail of devastation that the Heed’s destruction
left is evident to see.
Cast of Characters Travees Cap Hideo Jarvi Hanner |