Risen

[Ryummel]

April 735 A.G.S. - Two days after the latest events in Gone

"Monsieur Bossuet, the transport is about to moor with Evron. He's being kept aboard the medical bay, as we have been informed."

The incoming Taureau battle-transport didn't seem to agitate the Council soldiers and pilots holding positions at the outpost located in the deepest spot of the upper asteroid fields in Maine system. The Royal Navy were aware about the allegiance of the population living in the station, but on the other hand the revolutionaries were aware about the unwillingness of the royalist patrols to launch an attack against their fortress.

"We will be safer here than in any other place in the Core Worlds." Thought the man who was addressed as Bossuet once he was left alone in the dim room, staring from the only window there at the transport getting closer to the station.

François Bossuet was on his early 60's, yet somebody could've said he looked around ten years younger if it wasn't for the gray hair that totally replaced the deep dark color over the last years. The role of CEO in one of the multiple small mining companies across the icy planet of Mayenne somewhat allowed him to earn the necessary means (money especially) to have the Royal Police making little to no questions about the many trips his personal ship did outside the lane network, before disappearing into any asteroid field. His ties with the Council weren't widely known at all, and he made sure that rumors about it were silenced as soon as possible.

The secrecy surrounding Bossuet was incredibly thrilling for the people that knew him in the mining company. But of course, this was something that Félix Giroux had been keeping for long twenty-five years for a very good reason.

---

[Ryummel]

April 735 A.G.S. - One day later after the arrival to Evron.

"You will reply to her again." He still had his Royal Navy flightsuit on, soiled with the dried blood that had been coming out from his injury on his right cheek which was now covered with a bandage. Félix nodded at his son and walked away a few meters to start typing a message on a PDA. Aubert was observing the icy landscapes behind a window made of armored glass. If he looked down the cliff where the building was resting in, he would reach to see a silver ore mining site.

"You do understand what you've done and what you're going to do in matter of months, right?" Félix tapped the PDA's screen for a last time before moving back with Aubert. "I'm glad to see that despite the initial... -discrepancies- you're here now." His son kept staring at the top of the mountain located in the opposite side of the mining site. "It's been almost ten years, father. I have had enough time to think." A gallic freighter took off vertically, floating a couple hundred of meters away from Félix's house in the top of the cliff before activating the engines fully to rise and reach the planet's atmosphere. "Either way, the Councilmen seem willing take you as military advisor... But eh, who knows if they will give you a battalion to command too!"

Aubert blinked and turned around to a cabinet located next to the only couch in the room. The doors of the cabinet were polished to the point that he could see himself mirrored. He removed the bandage wrapped on his face, showing an ugly wound of torn flesh from his left eyebrow down the jaw. "I'm not doing anything. Not yet." Aubert replied sharply. "Winning or dying will be the two only options once I depart, father. But the fear flooded me when the extraction almost failed. Which also means that I cannot protect her."

Félix sighed lightly, but fortunately could understand Aubert's feelings. "Oh you mean that... I have to admit I wasn't warned about such peril when taking you back home, else I'd have arranged another plan... " Aubert cut his father's sentence before he could finish as he began walking out of the room. "It doesn't matter now. The wound will simply leave a scar. Scars make us learn, wasn't that what you told me once?"

---

[Ryummel]

Present date

"Mon colonel, the High Command of Roussillon has summoned you in about one hour." Aubert was leading a steady march outside the HQ building, glancing his head toward both sides of the street, crowded by the usual Council Army assets driving around and patrolling the area, filled with buildings that had partially collapsed during the seizure of Marne or were simply abandoned before the rebels began storing ammo in them. "And I've summoned capitaine Savreux so he would be right here 10 minutes ago." He replied in a dry tone, holding his hands behind his back and never casting a smile but also avoiding aggressive gestures ever since the deep wounds on his right cheek already gifted him with an either intimidating or unpleasant appearance, depending on each people's opinion.

An APC stopped not so far away from him, having a five men squad stepping out of it, one of them flashing a captain's insignia. "Ah, there he is. Don't need to hide the ladies inside the chariot, capitaine." As Savreux dismissed the soldiers that were with him, he walked rushingly toward Aubert, saluting and rather evading the colonel's comment. "Eh... Four silos across Amiens surface have been marked, only one of them with notable military presence. Our source cannot confirm whether royalists are sitting right ontop of what we're looking for or simply using it as a supply depot for the nearby bases." Aubert nodded lightly, content about the tenacious wording of the officer. "I'll expect reports the next week. Link up with whichever EOS units are available at the moment and move down there. I'll expect reports looking good, oui?"

Shortly after, the captain was dismissed and Giroux motioned his hand so the commander that had walked out of the building with him would approach. "Make sure every criminal caught in the green zone does not leave unpunished. We may be at war, but that doesn't mean we have to tolerate pack of bandits running rampant while citizens had put their hopes on us. Doesn't matter if it's a brigand or a corsican dealer. Got it?"

---

[Ryummel]

The healing process was slow yet effective. As Aubert was explained, the natural procedure of the human body to react against a wound was called scarring, which usually left visible marks acting as 'skin bandages' over the wound itself. Probably he wouldn't have resorted to the following costly method if the wound was located anywhere else but his cheek, result of an unforeseen encounter with Royalist troops as the Council failed in the first attempt to 'rescue' him. This, of course, would result in him not giving the image that a people's army would have expected from their future commander, the mastermind they had put their hopes on to lead the remnants of the Liberation Navy that were adamantly resisting in Champagne system.

As the rest of the High Command was fairly aware that the Council's commanders had to be both sharp-minded and charismatic, certain research elements of Solar Engineering that finally found their place in the rebellion gladly offered themselves to apply their knowledge in the field of tissue regeneration so Aubert's problem would be eventually solved. The face scars were no more. Instead, healthy skin replaced the dead tissue across his cheek, all of this thank to the miracle of regeneration, more proper of amphibians, reptiles and similar beings. "Did you know the human fetus is also able to regenerate any kind body part, monsieur Colonel?" Aubert stared through the mirror, stroking his own cheek, fully healed. "Incredible."

---

However, this wasn't in any way the biggest of his concerns stalking his mind. The Second Gallic War was far away from ending, and while his comrades exiled in Sirius tried to do their best to keep the supply lines between Roussillon and Champagne working, he alongside Colonel LaFlamme had to patch up the incoming addition of a brand new very heavy fighter craft to the Council forces... And also dealing with the potential Nomad threat in his very own homeland as he was warned by Admiral Golanski of the Order, one of the many Sirian groups still unknown to him.

Moreover, if said Nomads considered Sirians as invaders, the duty of every gallic was to remove the alien presence from their untouched space too.