The two children of the family were urged on by their parents, and cautiously approached Timothy. They handed over what they were carrying and stood there, looking down at their feet. Tim could tell that they were shy, and he instead observed what they had given him.
Presents. They were presents from the family, for saving their lives. Some silverware and a small stainless steel model of a Civilian Eagle.
Tim looked up at the childrens parents in the background, and he received a warm smile from the couple. He looked back at the children, reflecting their parents expression, and returned the silverware to them.
I cant take these, they belong to your parents. But, Id like to keep the model of the Eagle if you dont mind too much.
The children returned to their parents, and talked a little. The parents and Tim stared at each other, before parting with a shout of thanks from the father.
Before he could respond, the Bretonian woman in front of him poked him to gain his attention.
Oi! You couldve just asked, there wasnt a need to poke me!
I wanted to. Anyway, Ive got to take you down to the station now; its time that you get debriefed on the situation.
Um... okay... What about that woman over there? I'm sure she wanted to speak to me if shes still here, right?
No, she was one of our agents operating inside Rheinland. In short, shes here because she got too close to the ship that attacked you, and got captured.
Well, technically, I attacked it... anyway, what about that well-dressed fellow over there?
Oh, I dont know who he is. He can speak to you if you like.
She beckoned him over and he obliged, stepping in front of the woman like she wasnt even there. The Bretonian woman recoiled, but controlled her annoyance as the man seemingly ignored her presence.
The Libertonian man rambled on about good flying, contracts, perks, potential jobs and the like. At the end of it, Timothy politely declined his offer, and they parted ways, to the annoyance of the well-dressed man.
The three of them made their way on foot to the nearby police station. As Tim approached, he was slightly taken aback by the well-armoured appearance of the building. This was certainly not like the personnel centre where Tim took his captured pilots to be transferred to their various destinations. Even though Tim had lived in the area for a few years now, hed never had the need to visit the station. He was usually laying down the law under contract, rather than asking the police for help.
As they passed into the bowels of the station, they passed many security doors of progressively higher level. The place was like a maze, but the two women knew exactly where they were going. Eventually, they reached a level 10 security door, made of what looked to be Tungsten Carbide. As they passed the open entrance, Tim noticed that the door was two feet thick.
Wow, this building must be like a fortress. All this security in a police station...
Yeah, its a bit ridiculous, though this is one of the newer stations. Apparently, it was designed to survive a 50 megaton fusion blast from the roof of the building, though I reckon thats an exaggeration. Such a shockwave would easily tear a city apart, so I dont think this building could withstand it.
Well, just as a precaution... Timothy laughed in sarcasm.
As Timothy took a seat, he was taken through various factfiles of a shadowy organisation who called themselves ‘The Phantoms’.
“Ohhhhh... scary!!” Timothy whispered to himself with a smirk on his face.
Almost as if God had answered his dare with an act of his own, the building suddenly shook violently. Alarms blared out and doors automatically sealed themselves in record times. The two women in the briefing room braced themselves against the wall in an effort to stabilise themselves, but the room kept shaking.
The earthquake must have lasted about 20 seconds, but it felt like an eternity, with chairs loosening on their fixings, lights flickering and papers strewn across the floor. Eventually it ended, and the three rushed outside of their small briefing room.
In the hallway of the level 10 section were many people, some running to the exit, others still bracing themselves against a wall, or anything solid. There looked to be no injuries apart from a few scratches, so the three followed the crowd to the security door.
Under the two foot deep armoured door, there was a faint orange glow, and the door itself refused to open. Soon, environment controllers whirred to life to keep the conditions inside the security corridor habitable.
There were panicked shouts of “We’ve been attacked!” and “What happened?!”, but they were soon calmed by the Bretonian woman.
“Be quiet! We’ve enough protection and supplies to last us a while yet, just in case this is a siege. If it isn’t, we should be out of here in no time! So don’t worry too much. We’re alive right now, and we’ll have our answers soon enough. Now, get a hold of yourselves! You call yourselves intelligence officers and yet you panic like stricken children when there’s a little explosion?! I ought to have you lot fired, but I’ve got bigger problems right now. Now, go find something useful to do! Shoo, all of you!”
It wasnt long before communication was re-established with the outside world. The only thing that worked after the ridiculous quake was the resilient radio transmitter. Even though it was crude, it got the job done.
News quickly spread that the surrounding area and a large part of the surface of Cambridge was turned into a smouldering cinder. However, news of the culprit was not so forthcoming. Wild accusations of the culprits being Gaians, Mollys, Outcasts, Corsairs, even Hessians were rampant inside the remainder of the police station as well as outside in Bretonia. No one quite had a clue who did it. Even so, such rumours were crushed by the surprisingly ruthless Bretonian Intelligence official and her Rheinlandic compatriot.
A few days passed, and slowly the inhabitants of the reinforced police station began to understand the situation. They sat on the floor of the corridor in silence as a relayed and amplified news report was played to them. The culprit was the pilot of a Talarca light destroyer, which the BAF had failed to stop before it careered bridge-first into the planet, full of toxic and evidently very volatile MOX.
Some slept. Others sat on the floor, holding back tears. A few had let go of their inhibitions and were crying uncontrollably.
Tim was lucky. He had no-one to care for on the outside, no relatives, no friends, no-one at all. He was one of the few trying to comfort those who had presumably lost relatives, no, their whole family. After all, being high level intelligence personnel didnt absolve anyone of their feelings. Tim felt their sadness and helplessness as he had once for himself, but at the same time, he felt overjoyed. Finally, other people knew what it felt like. That joy allowed him to smile while others suffered, and helped them to smile too.
What really puzzled Tim though, was the reason for this horrific attack. Bretonia had done little in the way of preventative action against criminals, bar handling obvious and constant threats of raids. It was unfathomable as to who would do such a horrible thing, even if it did make Tim feel slightly warmer on the inside.
For many years, Francesca had been a captive inside this Rheinland prison. The only way that she knew where she was, was the sign on the wall of her isolated prison cell. Vierlande - Wo das unerw?nschte sich von ihren S?nden freispricht. In translation; Vierlande - Where the undesirable absolve themselves of their sins.
She hadnt spoken to someone for what seemed like an eternity. Her memory was fading with her sanity. She barely remembered her own language, let alone her identity. She scratched patterns into the metal wall with a sharpened pebble, desperately trying to remember what life should have been like. The memories of the blue skies, the rainy days, the sun in her eyes and the machinery she used to operate were tainted by the rotting mould that inhabited her mind.
Food was delivered every day through a hatch in the wall, which she consumed like a beast after a hunt. Her clothes were rags, darkened with sweat, pus, dirt and parasites. Each month, the room was gassed to put her to sleep whilst more rags were delivered and the old ones were taken and sterilised. More than once, Francesca cursed herself for the human survival instinct. She hated herself because she knew she couldnt end her own life. She convinced herself that she couldnt, anyway. She was completely broken, and she didnt even know why she was there.
Each time she inhaled the sleeping gas, it burnt her lungs and convulsed the muscles in her throat. Every time she woke up afterwards, she lost a little more of her mind, not because it damaged her brain, but because it stayed in her system. It would have been easy to restore her mental health, but the Rheinland government wasnt going to spend any more than was absolutely necessary on prisoners.
The armed forces had formed an atmospheric bubble outside, nullifying the radiation, heat and toxic air. As the group inside the charred building slowly filed out into the bubble, those looking around could see the full extent of the devastation. As far as the eye could see, the black remnants of the surface were visible. Trees were felled, pointing away from the epicentre of the blast. Buildings were reduced to rubble and dust, and the exterior of the police station had been vapourised. Only the bomb shelter that was the level 10 section of the station survived.
This made some feel lucky to be alive, and Tim was one of them. It made others feel utterly downcast, rating the chances of their familys survival at close to nil. They still hoped, but Tim knew that it would only end with sadness and a bitter hatred for the culprits of the attack. Quite right too, it was only natural.
His thoughts snapped back from the others, and he contemplated his next move. It was obvious that very little had survived the blast. Even his customised Eagle wouldnt have survived, let alone the house around it.
He brought the silver model of the Eagle out of his pocket, twiddled it in his hand, and began to think. Tim had enough money put away to easily be able to purchase a new top-tier fighter and outfit it for serious combat, but not quite enough for a permanent residence.
Hmm... what do I need a house for anyway? He wondered out loud.
He decided that he would live in his ship for a few months while he did jobs. Of course, that would require a ship to own.
Tim stayed a few nights in emergency housing erected by the Bretonian government. He simply observed the other people, sobbing, crying, grieving and ... well, in his view, whining. He himself hadnt lost anything of real value, but what did he have to lose at this point? His entire family was dead by one cause or another, hed already felt what they were feeling, and he was scarily numb to it now. Not because he was suppressing it, but because he truly didnt care anymore.
Of much more concern to Tim was that he needed to find a means to earn his keep again. He thought of many paths he could take, even visiting that backstreet shipdealer that he had purchased his Eagle from. Maybe, but that area had probably been flattened too. He was truely at a loss as to where he could get a high tier ship from. There werent many for sale in Bretonia, and his pride didnt allow him to see Tobias.
Come to think of it, he hadnt written to Tobias in a while... that was the first thing hed start on. Letting him know that he was alright after this catastrophe was the least he could do, and it would make him feel better even if Tobias didnt care anymore.
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