Chapitre 17: Chapter 16: Devil's Luck
The mercenaries had resumed their round-about trip towards Kjerag and Valeria was already questioning the wisdom of her previous decisions. She stood in the back of the the truck admist her troops as they traveled like a teacher amongst her kindergarten class. The communicators they had used previously were turned on, and the Sarkaz in the other trucks were huddled around them to hear Valeria's words pour through.
Each of them had various instruments in their hands, and they were beginning to practice the basic notes after Valeria quickly taught them how to read sheet music. That part was simple enough, but once they began their first attempts at playing, Valeria wanted to curl into a ball and die. A chaotic mess of screeching strings, wailing winds and blaring brass fought for dominace throughout the space.
Each player focused solely on their own music while ignoring the miserable attempts of their peers, but Valeria had to pay attention to them all in order to correct their mistakes. Her ear has been honed by millenia of musical experience. She could pick out each sound while knowing exactly which player caused it despite the blending amalgamation of noise. Not even those in the other trucks could escape her ear, or rather her ear could not escape them.
Despite her internal screaming at the inhumane torture, Valeria carefully called out advice to her new students on how to improve, never voicing her discontent. Slowly over time, she fixed tempos, corrected misaligned finger positions, and adjusted poor postures. They were new players. It is expected they will sound terrible at first, and the better her advice, the faster they will learn.
After the rudimentary couse, the very basics had been covered and it was time to tackle their first true challange.
Over the next three hours the mercenaries slowly honed their craft as they began to wage war against a formidable adversary. Their foe was truly daunting as failure after failure began to pile up. Morale waned with each attempt, but Valeria rallied her soldiers and marched on. The once disjointed sounds began to form together into one cohesive unit. The players now with a better understanding of their instruments, their allies, and themselves, dutifully followed Valeria's conducting as she led them to victory. As the last note sounded and silence reigned, everyone looked around with weary faces that couldn't hide the pride in their eyes. They had done it. They had played hot cross buns.
Valeria looked over her people with satisfaction and generously rewarded them for their efforts.
"Well done, take the rest of the day to rest. We'll resume practice tomorrow."
Feeling like she needed the break more than anyone else, Valeria leaned her back against the truck wall and let herself slide down to the floor with a sigh. Closing her eyes, she started to drift off into peaceful sleep while humming a proper tune to purge the lingering effects of their practice session.
However, her rest was not to be. The small metal window that separated the truck's cabin and its back slide open revealing a terror struck Nadeemah.
"Valeria we've got a catastrophe!"
Valeria's eyes shot open and her fatigue was wiped away. Rushing to her feet, she ran towards the back of the truck and pushed open the back door. The wind howled as it surged into the truck and started throwing up any loose items that were strewn about leaving the flustered mercenaries to snatch their belongings out of the air.
Grabbing onto corner of the truck, Valeria swung her body outside with one leg dangling in the wind. Peering up at the sky, her face furrowed as her eyes darted across the sky.
What greeted her was not the dark storm clouds that heralded catastrophe, but clear blue skies only broken by the occasional white, puffy cloud. As she was getting ready to berate Nadeemah, her eyes locked onto the likely reason Nadeemah called out. A sungular ball of fire was streaking its way down from the sky.
Confusion painted Valeria's face as she stared at the phenomenon, her mind racing trying to figure out what it may be. Poking her head back into the truck she barked out an order.
"Binoculars, now!"
She quickly got what she asked for, and took a closer look at the culprit of their panic. Rather than the foreboding black originium crystal, she saw a man made metal construct. Too big to be a drone of some sort, it looked more like a piloted aircraft. It was damaged and falling fast turning the craft into a flaming ball of steel.
After seeing this, Valeria's eyes widened as the clues clicked into place. It was the year 1075, near the Trimounts area of Columbia, and a damaged aircraft was falling out of the sky. While her visions didn't directly show this event, they had alluded to it so long as it was what she believed.
A gleam flashed acrossed her eyes as she swung herself back into the truck. Wasting no time, she took the communicator set off to the side and started rapidly firing off orders.
"Stop the trucks! It's not a catastrophe. It's an opportunity. I need all four of our medics, and five sharpshooters in my truck. Nadeemah stay behind the wheel. Everyone else get the hell out and fill the others. Sharpshooters bring the explosive bolts. Anders, Landon take the other two trucks and floor it to the Columbian border at the coordinates I'm sending you, we'll meet up later. Avoid drawing attention to yourselves and avoid the Columbian military where you can. We're about to kick the hornets nest."
After a series of confirmations, the mercenaries got to work. People and equiptment were quickly moved leaving Valeria with a truck only containing her requested personnel, some explosives and medical equipment. The truck was quite roomy compared to the other two packed ones.
Seeing Anders and Landon take off with the two trucks, Valeria hopped back into her own while yelling out to Nadeemah.
"That's a crashing aircraft, slam on the gas and get us in close before it hits the ground!"
Nadeemah wasted no time following orders as she speed after their new target even though she wondered what the hell an aircraft was. Questions like that will come later, for now there was a job to do. The aircraft was falling fast, but at the angle it was falling they weren't to far away from where the crash site should be.
The environment was generally arid Columbian plains broken up by rocky outcrops letting Nadeemah smoothly navigate the the truck. Valeria on the other hand was hanging out of the back of the truck again wearing her silver mask.
"Keep your eyes peeled for Columbian drones. We'll have to take them out to blind the military, so have those bolts loaded. Medics be ready to treat two wounded, conditions unknown so assume critical."
"""Yes, Commander!"""
The sharpshooters joined her at the back with their weapons at the ready while the medics prepared for emergency treatment.
Looking back and forth, Valeria frowned at not seeing the Columbian response. The aircraft was falling quickly and she didn't want to make any big moves until Columbia's eyes have been removed. She could only watch the falling ball of fire until she heard Nadeemah's voice break through the wind.
"Commander, I can see drones waiting up ahead, that must be where the crash site will be!"
Hearing that, Valeria used her arts to coat everything in the back of the truck to hold it all in place.
"Good, give us line of sight Nadeemah and don't stop."
"Rodger."
With determined eyes Nadeemah swung the wheel of the truck hard while throwing it into reverse. The tires screeched as they did a hard 180 degree turn. Spinning so the back of the truck was now facing the crash site, the truck nearly tipped over onto its side while teetering on its two right wheels. However, Valeria used her full force to slam her shoulder into the left wall and forced the truck back down onto all four tires.
Pulling herself out of the new dent, she quickly surveyed the inside of the truck and nodded in satisfaction that the shadows kept everything from flying everywhere. Pulling back her arts, she turned her attention back towards the three drones that were now focused on their approach.
Pointing forward Valeria gave the order to her snipers.
"Fire!"
Clicks resounded around her as bolts were launched through the air. The first bolt hit its mark dead center and the leading drone was turned to shrapnel by the explosion. The second drone moved quickly enough to dodge a bolt, but a second managed to nail its side bringing it down as well. The third drone was the fastest to react. It smoothly dodged a bolt aimed at it only to fly into the last bolt that would have completely missed it by a wide margin.
Valeria glanced out of the corner of her eye at the one who fired the last shot, stuck between scolding the man for his poor aim or praising his good luck. Seeing that he had enough shame to avoid her gaze, she let it go.
The aircraft was approaching the ground, so there was no time to waste now that she was free from prying eyes. Anyone watching from a distance would be too far away to make out any notable details. Valeria reached up to grab the edge of the roof and hoisted herself up. Battling the wind she centered herself on the roof and focused her attention on the falling ship. Her shadow anchored herself onto the roof as she hummed a song and gathered her arts.
A massive surge of shadow erupted out of the ground reaching up towards the falling air craft. Rather than catching the falling craft, Valeria created a ramp as smooth as ice to gently guide it down to the ground in a steady descent out of fear that a sudden stop would damage the prizes within.
Under her guidance, the aircraft reached the ground but it was still barreling acrossed the land at full speed as the truck drove parallel. Seeing this, Valeria added small little bumps to her ramp to cause friction and slowly the aircraft went from its break-neck speed to a standstill.
Hopping off the truck, Valeria ran over the the aircraft using her arts to carefully carve into its outer shell. After pulling the warped structure apart she was greeted with the sight of two people. There was man and a woman, both with blonde hair and bird-like feather features sticking out of their heads marking them as Liberi. Both were unresponsive making it impossible to tell of they were unconscious or dead.
The craft had two seats, one stationed directly behind the other. The one in the front of the craft was the man. It seemed that he got the brunt of the damage as the front of the aircraft was smashed. He was covered in blood due to blunt force trauma and his legs were buried under a mangled mess of metal.
The woman had less blood covering her, but the right side of her body was marred by burns due to a fire that ignited next her seat. Starting with the woman, Valeria used her arts to gently pick her out of the cockpit and lay her down onto one of the stretchers the medics had brought out. The man required a bit more work as the shadows had to carefully pull the metal that trapped his legs apart, revealing them to be completly mangled. After both had been freed, the medics immediately took them into the truck and began diagnosing the injured.
"We have a weak pulse, both patients are alive!"
"Male patient requires amputation above the knee, administering anesthetic."
"Female patient has internal bleeding in the head! Preparing for surgery!"
Valeria took shotgun in the truck as they drove, using her arts to make a smooth path to drive on to avoid any interference in their medics' work. They drove for hours, never daring to stop in order to avoid anyone from Columbia investigating who destroyed their drones and took their pilots. Their only saving grace was that the use of Valeria's arts also stopped the truck from leaving any tracks.
It wasn't until the middle of the night that the medics finished their work. With dark circles under her eyes one of them spoke to Valeria through the divider that separated the cabin and the back.
"Commander, both patients are stabilized for now. We won't be able to get a full diagnosis until they wake up, but for now they are alive."
Valeria cast her eyes to the two patients surrounded by bloody medical supplies. Both were covered in bandages and the man was now missing both of his legs. Giving a tired sigh she motioned for Nadeemah to stop the truck.
Pulling to a stop, everyone looked to Valeria with questioning faces wanting to know what was next. Valeria pondered for a moment before giving her next orders.
"Take our two guests and meet up with the others at the coordinates I set earlier. I'm going to pick up their daughter in Trimounts. It shouldn't be too hard to convince them to work with us after saving their lives and securing their kid from Columbia."
Nadeemah nodded at her words and glanced back that their extra passengers.
"So who did we just grab anyway?"
Valeria gave a small smile as she looked at the two.
"You're looking at the Wrights. Leading scientists in aviation technology and the reason why Columbia has developed so far in air technology."
Nadeemah hummed at the answer.
"Sounds impressive, but what makes you so sure they will turn their backs on Columbia?"
Valeria just scoffed at the notion.
"Because I know their type. Scientist who care more than their next big discovery than anything else. I can offer them better conditions than Columbia will, so it will be easy to convince them. Couple that with the fact that they are still alive because of us, and they won't care much about what Columbia thinks."
Nadeemah gave a sigh and a nod while Valeria got out of the truck. Before Valeria melded into the dark and set off, Nadeemah asked one last question causing Valeria to roll her eyes.
"What should I do if they wake up?"
"Tell them their daughter is coming or that I have an offer they won't want to refuse. It doesn't matter really. Figure it out."
Then shadows engulfed their Commander and she was gone, swimming through the darkness at high speeds towards Trimounts.
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CrunchyCouch
CrunchyCouch Thanks for reading, have a good day!
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