"Two eyes can't see everything, buddski. But, then again…I am much, much more…than a mere pair of eyes. Let's just say that I can see a lot. Kinda like Big Brother after a few shots of vodka and a sugar high. Hehehehe…"
-Databurst intercepted during Operation Pincer Strike, originating from a spot directly on the equator, in the middle of a featureless stretch of ocean. Author unknown.
-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-
The morning sun cast out its weak light over the Lynx Desert, bathing the golden dunes in an orangey-red light, turning the shifting, swirling sands into a violent cacophony of fiery colour. The first slivers of the rising sun were crawling into view, their rays struggling to pierce even the faintest of mists that had wisped its way inshore. It drifted slowly and silently across the barren sands, the volcanic sky above it completing the image of a smoky, war-torn wasteland.
Several small dots crawled their way along the landscape off in the distance, plumes of sand emanating behind them as they motored their way along. Five, ten, twenty, a hundred…in all, nearly two hundred vehicles snaked their way across the dunes; the leading part of the main bulk of the Allied Nations expeditionary force. In the lead Recon, an Orange Star model adapted for desert use, two figures were conversing in hushed tones.
"This place unnerves me, Sonja…" Rachel said, casting an uneasy glance over their driver's shoulder to the bleeding red sky outside. "The whole place just looks…looks…"
"Hellish?" Sonja asked, raising an eyebrow. Rachel nodded for a few seconds, before shaking her head suddenly and resolutely.
"I shouldn't be worried, really. No hitches, no alerts…what should I be worried about?" she said, taking her hat off, tossing it down by her feet and running a hand through her hair, breathing deeply. "It's...unbecoming of the leader of Omega Land's Allied Nations."
A pause. Sonja put her hand to her mouth in an effort to conceal a small grin and stifle laughter that was building up in her throat-
"Hehehe!"
Too late.
"What?" Rachel said, eyes narrowing slightly. "What's so funny? If it's funny enough to make Sonja of all people laugh, then it's pretty darn funny." She continued staring as Sonja lowered her hand, unable to hide her smile.
"I'm sorry…it's just, 'unbecoming of the leader of Omega Land's Allied Nations'," she stated, shaking her head slightly. "I would have expected that from a speech by Father, not from you." She sighed. "But…it is to be expected, I guess. You're having to change your ways because of your position…I hope the others don't take it too hard."
Rachel's mouth opened slightly, and she frowned in confusion. "What do you mean, Sonja? I mean, I get the whole 'changing ways' thing - kinda gets me down, too - but why would the others take it hard? They know I have to become like…well, like my big sis - I mean Nell. They'd understand, wouldn't they? They're Commanding Officers too, they know what a leader's job entails-"
"I wasn't really referring to the CO's," Sonja said softly, cutting off Rachel's uneasy rambling. "I was referring to the people behind those titles, the people that really care…me, Jake, Max…your friends, Rachel."
Rachel was silent, biting her lip apprehensively and looking down as a depressing silence fell around the two commanders. Rachel sighed, looked back up, and opened her mouth to speak-
"Crrrkkk - Yo! Rach! Sonja! Can ya hear me?" came the crackling, staticky voice of Jake over Rachel's radio communicator. "Just checkin' in to, y'know, verify your position an' all that junk."
"Saved by the bell…" Rachel mumbled under her breath, unclipping the radio from her blood-red jacket and speaking into it. "Reading you loud and clear Jake. We're about forty to fifty miles from the rendezvous point; we'll reach it in another hour or so." She gazed out of the passenger window, looking up at the now yellowing sky as she waited for Jake's reply.
"Crrrkkk - Cool. Looks like everythin' is rockin', then," Jake said. "I can't wait to serve those Black Holers and finish those freaks off once and for all!"
Rachel rolled her eyes and smiled. "Neither can we Jake, neither can we…what's the status of your advance recon party?"
There was a pause before Jake replied, his voice unsure. "Crrrkkk -Party? I haven't even got a mix tape sorted yet - oh! You mean all these recons and shiz I have…riiiiiight." He laughed, while both Rachel and Sonja groaned in frustration. "Sorry 'bout that. I'd say we're…a few miles from the rendezvous point ourselves…we're slowing down, and it looks like the techies are getting ready to set up that scanning post Sonja wanted. Not long now…."
Rachel nodded, despite that fact that Jake couldn't see her. "Yeah…" she agreed, her gaze drifting off as she stared into space. "Not long now…"
-B-C-B-C-B-C-B-C-
Creeeeaaaaaak.
A door slowly opened, casting a rectangular splotch of light over the floor of the abandoned warehouse that Lash had arrived at. The wunderkind herself was stood in the doorway, framed by the light of the outside world as she took a few steps inside onto the cold concrete floor, letting the rusting steel door close behind her with a clang. Scratching her frizzy-haired head, she looked down at the letter in her hand - a letter she had received a while back, exactly one month on from the end of the Omega Land War. It had a cryptic message on it, which Lash mumbled aloud as she scanned it.
"You know who this is, Lash. The time has come to take back what is ours. Rejoin Flak and Adder, and bring them to the coordinates on the back of this letter. For the Black Cadre never truly dies...it only sleeps.
Respectfully Yours,
The Flightless Bird."
Lash rolled her eyes at the last line. "Heh, what a lame nickname…" she said, turning the letter over and checking the co-ordinates one more time. Yes, this was the place. A deserted, run-down warehouse on the outskirts of Orange Star's capital city…why did he want her to come all the way out here anyway, especially with those two dolts tagging along?
"Speaking of dolts…" she mused, turning around and opening the door. "Addykins! Flakalakalak! You can come iiiiiiiiin!" she shouted, descending into giggles and backing away from the door as two grumbling figures came through.
"I ssssswear, ssshe usssesss her rank asss a way to punissshhh usss…" Adder hissed, his pale face sweating and contorted, grunting as he staggered under the weight of a huge rucksack, filled to the brim with Lash's personal items and 'toys'. "If I keep carrying thissss, my ssspine will ssssnap…but if I ssstop carrying it, the bombsss inside will go off…I mussst have done sssomething really bad in a previousss life to deserve thissssss…"
"Speak for yaself!" growled Flak, who was laden down with at least five similar pieces of luggage, stumping his way into the warehouse and closing the door behind him, cutting off the light. "I have to carry her stuff, yours, an' mine!"
"Aaaahhh, but you can handle it…" Adder said, leaning on a nearby steel pillar for support, his face barely visible in the darkness, apart from his glittering, snakelike eyes. "Carries luggage like a donkey, and lookssss like one too…"
"Grrr…" Flak rumbled, slowly stomping his way towards Adder, his massive form towering over his serpentine counterpart. "If I could dump this stuff without settin' off the boom thing, I'd turn ya into pulp."
"Heeheehee!" Lash said, bent double as she giggled at the two. "You guys are a walking double act! Hehehehehe…"
"Lassssh, if you would pleeeaaassse turn off the bombsss…"
"HEEHEEhehehehehehehe…"
"LASSSH! BOMBSSS! USSS! NOW!" Adder shrieked, his painfully thin form starting to crumple under the weight. "FOR THE LOVE OF SSSTURM-"
"Oh, fine," Lash said, pouting as she took out a remote with way too many buttons, and pressing a few. "They're off now, you killjoys."
THUD!
"That'sss better…" came Adder's voice, emanating from under the rucksack. "Well, apart from the crussshing…"
"Adder, you're a wuss," Flak said, plucking the rucksack from above Adder's prone form and laying it next to the others he had dumped on the floor. "Why didn't ya get Lash to rent a pickup like we had planned?"
"The fumesss turn my hair green," Adder hissed, picking himself up and carefully dusting himself off.
"Like I said. Wuss."
"GREEN! CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW THAT WOULD LOOK?!"
"It would be a marked improvement, actually."
Lash, Adder and Flak gasped and whirled toward the sound of the voice. Adder shook his head in disbelief, his face somehow becoming even paler, his mouth wide open in an astonished gape.
"It'sss…it'sss not possssible…" he managed to force out, wringing his palms nervously.
"I assure you, it is quite possible," the newcomer said, his strong, tall figure appearing out of the darkness. "A collapsing fortress is not as lethal as you might think."
"Hehehehe, it all makes sense now!" Lash giggled. "I was wondering when you'd surface again!" She peered at the figure. "…Have you gotten a haircut?"
The figure rolled shadowed eyes, and stepped into what little light there was inside the warehouse. A grey trenchcoat, tanned skin, and silvery-grey hair came in view.
"I assure you, my hair is the least of my current concerns," Hawke said, his face as expressionless as always. "As for any questions you may have about how I survived, they can wait. We have more pressing concerns right now…"
-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-
"Crrrkkk - Yo! The scannin' stuff is all set up, and we're getting' some wack signals!" Jake said, static crackling its way around his words. "Reeeaaal crazy stuff, a few miles south of the rendezvous point!"
"Wonder what that means," Rachel said, before having the radio plucked out of her hand by Sonja. "Woah! Hey!"
Sonja held a slender finger up to silence Rachel, her eyes distant as her mind went to work. "Jake," she said, "What are these signals like?"
There was a pause; Sonja bit her lip anxiously and looked at Rachel, who matched her anxious expression with one of her own.
"Crrrkkk - I don't have a clue, but the techies are calling them 'ghost signals' or somethin' like that. Very faint, and they say they wouldn't have picked it up if it wasn't for your guys being here, Sonja. You think this is what we're after?"
"Hmm…"Sonja mused, the cogs in her mind whirring. She had heard of ghost signals before; very faint artefacts of the fields generated by most heavy-duty machinery, barely undetectable. The only reason heavy machinery would be out in a barren desert like this is if something important was here, like a town or military base. She also knew that the Bolt Guard had been working on advanced stealth technology near the end of the war.
'Two and two make four…' she thought, opening her mouth to speak into the radio. "The Bolt Guard - or Black Hole, seeing as the two terms mean the same thing in this day and age - were developing stealth technology. It must be them. Hold tight, we'll order the convoy to get us there as fast as they can. We are not going to lose them after all this work. Sonja out." The Yellow Cometan turned to Rachel, handing back her radio. "Would you do the honours?"
Rachel plucked the radio from Sonja's hand.
"Gladly."
-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-
"Situation is nominal; Allied Nations forces are performing an intensive recon of the area."
"Commander Shade's shrouds are active, army concealment is at ninety-nine-point-two-seven-five percent."
"All technical staff, be advised; the main bulk of the Allied Nations expeditionary force is en route to their recon post."
"Forces in the field report a mild sandstorm coming in from the north; alert indirect units to the possibility of aiming difficulties."
The hubbub that echoed around the perfectly circular, maroon walls of the Command Room of the Red Mesan Forward HQ had no intention of dying down; it dealt with all the high-level duties of maintaining, ordering and directing the army in the field, passing down the directives from the Commanding Officer and displaying all relevant battle data on a large viewscreen set into the wall. Computer banks lined every inch of the wall apart from the screen and the mahogany double doors that led to the corridor outside, and technical staff members were sat at every station, processing data and announcing vital information via their microphones. In the centre of the room, on a raised circular platform, was the CO Command Chair. No techies were rushing back and forth from it, relaying orders, and for a very good reason; in the chair was Shade, his legs crossed in a meditative position, his eyes closed behind the ruby-red lenses of his sunglasses, brown wavy hair falling like a glossy stream down the sides of his head. He was clad in a plain black t-shirt and faded grey jeans; his black and red trenchcoat was hung over the back of the chair, swaying slightly in the breeze from the air con.
"Situation predictions are slipping towards the negative," came the broadcasted voice of a techie. "Possibility of conflict is increasing."
Shade's eyes twitched slightly, but remained closed. Even during his pre-battle meditation, he could still keep tabs on all the announcements…and the last one troubled him. After a few seconds of contemplation, he cast the thought aside, and sank deeper into his trance, descending deeper and deeper into himself until-
Contact.
FLAAAAAASSHH!!
Suddenly Shade was flying over houses and offices, rocketing away from the city the HQ was based in at incredible speed, the feeling of weightlessness enveloping him and propelling his electromagnetic 'soul self' further and further until-
There. Just outside of the city, in the dunes and the rough scrub. His soldiers. Barely visible to normal humans; rippling and shimmering anomalies to anyone who looked closely. Any other person would be severely confused by now, but Shade had done this so many times it was almost second nature to him. People theorized about 'psychic projection' and 'remote viewing'; through a weird quirk of his electromagnetic powers, Shade could emulate this skill and use it to view the situation from anywhere his army was stationed. His powers covered his units in a shroud of concealment; through meditation and concentration, he had discovered how to project his consciousness out of his body, 'latching' onto the signals that the shrouds produced.
He was slightly nervous about doing it this time, though; he usually dove very deep into the meditation, so much so that he could watch the battle from his soldier's eyes, but he had no idea how such an in-depth view would affect him if the soldier he was viewing died. From MRI scanning, they had found that several critical areas of his brain were very active during his meditation; the death of a unit he was viewing from could possibly knock him out cold, or worse…leave him brain-dead.
He took the plunge anyway, diving into a tank commander on the front line of the waiting defences and looking out across the sands at the distant Allied Nations recon outpost, a gathering of dots barely visible through the growing sandstorm. He watched and waited, his attention wandering as he kept note of the announcements being made around his body back at the HQ.
"The Allied Nations expeditionary force has begun to arrive at their recon outpost. Viper Team Two report frenzied activity around the site."
"A glitch has been detected in the artificial shroud tower for this town. Engineers assure us the shroud has no chance of failing."
"Alert! Allied Nations units are arranging themselves around the outpost in a standard Steinman defence diamond. Artillery are being brought forward."
"Allied Nations unit activity has been verified by Viper Team Two. Sending BattleNet into Yellow Alert."
Shade 'gasped' mentally, trying to keep his concentration despite rising panic. He couldn't just tear himself away and flee back to his body; it would cause a cascade failure of the shrouds hiding his units, and the resulting electromagnetic storm might even wipe out the artificial shroud tower in this town, revealing everything to the Allied Nations and giving them a valid reason to attack his men. He took deep breaths, and began to pull back from the tank commander's eyes, but the soldiers around him pointed and shouted at flashes of light off in the distance-
WHUMP!
WHUMP!
WHUMP!
If Shade had been able to use his voice at that moment in time, he would have gasped in despair.
Artillery bombardment.
Too late…
He concentrated and braced himself for the inevitable impact as the whistling of the shells grew louder and the soldiers panicked and shouted orders to retreat and the tank drivers worked furiously at their controls and the sandstorm whirled and whistled and-
WHUMP-BOOOOOOOOM!
WHUMP-BOOOOOOOOM!
WHUMP-BOOOOOOOOM!
Contact.
FLAAAAAASSHH!!
Everything rushed back to him in a millisecond; he was back in his body, the Command Room was in uproar, and his mind felt as if it was tearing itself apart-
"NnnggghhhAAAUUUGGHH!!" Shade howled, rising from his chair and staggering forward, his body coated in crackling, sparking electricity, his eyes glowing an electric blue behind the sunglasses as his powers went haywire, sparking their way through his nerves, up his spine, and into his brain, swirling destructively and malevolently and frying every fibre of his body until-
Thud!
-His smoking, trembling body collapsed in a heap.
"PARADIGM ALERT! COMMANDER SHADE HAS SUFFERED A MEDITATION INDUCED COMA AS A RESULT FROM AN UNEXPECTED ENEMY ATTACK! MEDICS ARE URGENTLY NEEDED!"
"PARADIGM ALERT! BACKUP COMMANDER REQUESTED VIA REMOTE LINK!"
In the midst of the chaos, Shade was still.
And for once…he was at peace.
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