The First Age

Continued from: Wounds

Not once did he look back.

Michael and the Captain's men managed to catch up to the convoy as the driver sped towards the airfield like a madman. Everything had been destroyed. The base he had worked to keep secure was burnt out, the open plain littered with bodies, blood and char.

The sight was enough to sober the euphoric taste of power which he held on to. His grasp on the tangle of dog-tags tightened until his fingers were white. He glanced at Captain Istivak "What happened here? You should have been gone long before this started."


The exhausted man looked away. "I...did not follow your orders precisely. We..."


Michael spared the Captain. He did not need to know more. "It is done. I am equally to blame for this. You did what you thought best, I'm sure."


Yes, he had failed in more ways than one. He could no more defeat the mist-monster than he could keep his own troops alive. No matter that he had sent orders. As the commanding officer, he should have been there. Perhaps he could have prevented this massacre.

It is done. Remember. Learn.

The truck was silent while they approached what seemed to be the evacuation site. Already civilians and the wounded were being loaded onto planes and fresh Custody troops bolstered the thin defence.

Michael surveyed the battlefield with an impenetrable gaze. Evidence suggested that the rebels retreated at the arrival of reinforcements, likely waiting for their brothers to arrive from the south. Which meant they had little time.

On inspection, he spotted a familiar figure in the middle of the rescue effort. "Take me there,"
he said, pointing to the CEO of the Legion. The small truck navigated through the ruin with relative ease and stopped metres from his destination.

Captain Istivak and his men formed up around him as he exited the vehicle and made his way forward. Jacques Danjou held himself with great dignity even with the trace of fresh tears wet on his cheeks.

Michael met him in silence, looking the man in the eye.

Then he bowed his head in a gesture of respect and gratitude. To his surprise, the Captain and his men followed suit.

When he lifted his gaze again, Michael held out his arm full of Legionnaire dog-tags. "They fought well; to the very end."
He paused, noting the Custody surveillance material. "Their sacrifice will not be forgotten. I have kept my ability secret for over 4 years. I will likely die for what I have done here, for what you and your men saw."
He stared at Jacques without visible emotion, but the tension that had possessed his bones for so long leaked away. "I don't regret it. It was a gift freely given. Thank you."


Now I am free...

Edited by Michael Vellas, Jun 17 2014, 12:56 PM.

Continued from Wounds


Two years in operational medicine and Torri had never seen a battlefield like this. The dying and mangled were always brought to her, carried to the relative safety of a field hospital off the front lines.

What she saw beyond the confines of their truck hardened the set of her jaw. The dead lay like incomprehensible lumps around them. Often mounded together in what she assumed were once areas of defensive lines. It was hard to be grateful that more of those lumps were disheveled arrays of traditional clothing; civilians transformed into insurgents, it was a sickening loss of life.

She'd done what she could for those in her immediate care. Once the trucks rolled to a stop, she oversaw the transportation of the wounded to nearby VTOL's. Most of the ones that were capable of walking themselves there had abandoned the convoy along the way to join their brothers. Torri only watched, pride mixed with anger, when a patient left behind his dogtags and stood his ground while they drove away.

It meant those patients that remained needed full assistance if not an actual litter to make it out of one vehicle and onto the aircraft.

The Legionnaire medic that assisted her was about to sprint off to see to similar transports, but not before Torri flagged him down. "Sergeant!"
She barked in her Officer-voice; she didn't use it often. He turned toward her.

She stretched out a hand, "If I don't see you again, thank you for your assistance tonight."


He nodded and accepted her hand. "It's Sergeant Decat, Raüli Decat, and the pleasure was mine, Capitaine."
They quickly said their goodbyes and Torri nodded that he go help his comrades.

That's when she scanned the field for Michael, and found herself blinking when she realized exactly who he was talking to.

She snapped at a nearby Legionnaire and pointed out a few specific patients. "Private, make sure everyone's on board. That one needs to stay flat. Put that one next to the wall so I can hang a drip over his head. Once they're on board, find out if the Custody supplies have narcotics and report back to me."
He wasn't used to taking orders from a doctor, let alone a member of the Custody forces, but the firmament in her gaze set such foolish hesitation aside. "I'm going to speak to your CEO."
She turned and strode toward the quickly deconstructed command center without looking back.

Behind her, the VTOL blades whirled with life. The rush of air billowed her coat and snagged strands of hair as she approached. Nobody stopped her.

Her face ached and her hands were cramped, but she didn't care. She was altogether disgusted with the entire trip to DV: both for how things turned out and the helpless role she played in it.

She spared a glance at Michael, but stood alongside him despite the instinct to flee from his presence lest he turn the intensity of his gaze upon her. She didn't like being frightened of someone, but he scared her to the core of her being. She felt like a child terrified of the monster under her bed. It was irrational, but she was convinced the monster was real nonetheless.

Jacques Danjou. She merely looked at the CEO as he interacted with Michael, his screens, his staff, and his men. It had been his voice on the phone, she realized, but she held her tongue despite the buzz of a hundred questions in her head.

Actually, words altogether seemed to have abandoned her. Perhaps they sprinted off to join their brethren in the night.

In the distance, the sounds of .50 machine guns roared their dominance over the din of small arms and the occasional flash and bang of explosions. Michael's earlier display had bought them the time they had needed to get to the VTOLs, but the horrors he had unleashed had lost their effect on the enemy as more and more insurgent fighters reached the Legionnaire's line.

Insurgents occasionally drew close to the VTOLs, but they were easily dealt with by the CCD troops. Advanced imagery and sensors gave them the edge they would have had had they not been taken by surprise when it all began so many hours before.

VTOLs lifted off when ready, making a steady line over the ocean and away to safety and carrying the civilians and wounded to safety. Too few of those wounded were his men; far too few of those departing crafts carried the blue ID markers of a Legionnaire.

His gaze shifted to face Michael as the man approached; the Doctor, Weston, stood out in the dark night even for all the dark stains on her white coat. Even now the woman was still hard at work.

He did not step back in fear as Michael drew closer, although some of his command staff lingered in the area, hands near their pistols. But Jacques waved them away; the man was clearly exhausted. He hadn't the energy to destroy them all even if he wanted to. That energy had been expended on their mutual enemies, and had won the lives of hundreds of innocents.

The man seemed confident the end of his days drew near, but Jacques strongly doubted it. "You are not the first of your kind to reveal yourselves tonight. The American."
He glanced towards Trano, who was being loaded onto a stretcher in the distance, Reed lingering nearby. "The face of war has changed. There are more like you out there. They had one. Yesterday. I believe Monsieur Trano saved my men then, too."
Was it really so short a time ago, when he had been gallivanting through the streets of Mecca? Eager to start new and lucrative contracts, to build connections that would see his Legion grow? And now he had lost so many, hardly a day later.

He glanced to the south, where his men still fought. Markers flashed red and turned grey as they died. The translucent fields that marked their arcs of fire diminished. "This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog.
Napolean. Standing triumphant on a field of battle. He had walked upon the body of a nameless soldier bearing his colours and realized he knew not the man's name. I know their names, Mr Vellas. Every one of their names."


Fresh tears watered his eyes, and he let them fall freely. He did not blind himself to what his actions had cost his men, but he also wasn't lost to sorrow. Their deaths won the lives carried in each VTOL. "It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr. Also Napolean. You will not die, Mr Vellas. Your kind will be the weapons of the new war. You will live, whether you wish to or not, I fear. And so you must do your duty. Do not let this night be forgotten. Do not let this be their victory."


He turned then to address Dr Weston as she approached. He offered a melancholy smile. He refused to be destroyed by the loss he suffered that day. His men needed him to stand, and so he would. "Doctor. You have acquitted yourself well. For an officer."
A ghostly hint of his mischievous ways showed through, but faded again, perhaps giving way the question of whether he was truly the care-free man she had met in her office, or if that were the mask of what she saw now.

He studied her a moment, then glanced to Michael and back. There was an uncertainty there, a trace of fear. "Do not fear the man, Doctor. Fear what man will do with those like him. Fear what they will do."
He looked to the south again. The last of the equipment from his command post was loaded into his jet, and some of his men quit the field bound for the VTOLs; they would escort the wounded Legionnaires.


Edited by Jacques, Jun 18 2014, 08:34 PM.

By now, Torri was too tired and too drained of adrenaline to flinch more than a few eye blinks with every new explosion. The sound of battle drained what she could make out of Jacques last few words until he turned and addressed her directly. His face was blanched by tears.

"Doctor. You have acquitted yourself well. For an officer."


The quip was so unexpected she almost snickered. She didn't. She could have said as much about him - for a frenchman. She bit her tongue, otherwise. "And you. For a suit."
Her own quip was dry as sand.

A cool look absorbed his assessment of the future of war. If Torri had seen anything but a glimpse behind that hellish veil, she wanted to see no more. For now, perhaps she should be glad Michael was on the Custody's side.

She grit down on her nerves and looked at him. "Are you ready?"
She sounded less tired that she thought she would. Perhaps working 70 hour shifts for six years had something to do with that.

If the smoldering coals of resentment at the destruction wrought had not been so hot Michael may have cared about the revelation of yet another person with the power he posessed. As it was, he spared only a brief thought for Nicolas Trano. The man would need all the luck in the world to fend of the Atharim, but it was not his problem.

Michael did not reply to Jacques' comments. What he said was true enough, but Michael had spoken of a more sinister threat of the Atharim assassins. They would be drawn like a moth to the flame, and he doubted he had met their best.

As for the Custody, he relished that particular challenge. From what Dr. Weston had told him of the Ascendancy, he held out some hope. As much as the thought of the man's protection galled him, he was not so arrogant in his pride.

Finally, Dr. Weston's gaze settled on him for what seemed like the first time judging by the look in her eyes. Although the steady torrent of power allowed him to maintain a steady composition, her uneasy - but impressively cool - stare stung. "Yes, let's go."


With that Michael turned away from Dr. Weston, Jacques Danjou and Mecca and did not look back.


Edited by Michael Vellas, Jun 20 2014, 08:01 AM.

Jacques attention never left the video feeds of his men's cameras. There was nothing more he could do with the satellite feeds; CCD commanders were relaying that to their own troops on the ground now. His men were committed. There was no chance to outmaneuver his enemy now. They were dug in, and would hold as long as they were needed to. The longer the VTOLs and he remained, the longer they needed to suffer through.

He managed a brief grin at Dr Weston's quip, then nodded his farewell to both Michael and the good Doctor. He would likely see neither again; he had no desire to set foot in the CCD again. They had their mess to clean, and he had his own...and he did not know whom would have it worse.

The next wave of VTOLs took off, and once clear, the APCs that had arrived with the convoy bound from the prison were detonated. The Legionnaires had limited access to explosives, but they made do well with what they did have. Weapon systems were destroyed, engine blocks cracks, axles sheared. And then they were set aflame. There would be nothing the enemy could salvage.

The same was done with the crates of useless ammunition. Dumped into ditches away from the landing area, they were detonated in series, a row of manageable detonations scrapping the CCD mortar and rifle rounds. Rifles too were destroyed, and scraps of gear thrown into the burning vehicles; body armour stripped from the wounded, bits of uniform. Knives. Anything. The insurgents would find the airport to be naught but scorched earth and their own dead.

The VTOL Michael and Dr Weston boarded departed, and only Jacques and Lieutenant Colonel Romanov, whom stalked towards Jacques through the haze of smoke. "Mercenary! Who gave you permission to damage government property?!"


The man was angry over the destruction of the armoured personnel carriers and ammunition, and was backed by a more junior officer and a bloodied Sergeant. Jacques turned to face the three as they closed on him, but did not speak.

"Answer me, civilian. This is my command now!"
The man was larger then Jacques in stature and weight; mostly carried around the gut. He had likely been given his command more for administrative skill then martial prowess. Exactly what was to be expected of someone delegated to the unaccredited task of warden of a secret prison. Perhaps in his prime, the man had been more physically adept. The classic tale of washed out college football players in America. Remembered their prime, and no connection to their present wasted state.

Jacques' hand squeezed slowly into a fist, thumb brushing the grip of his holstered pistol. The screens on his Landwarriors were filled with the images of his men dying so this bastard would live. But they didn't do it for the Lieutenant Colonel. They did it for the civilians. For the cause.

"Sergeant! Arrest this man for acts of terrorism against the Custody of..."
His words ended in a strangled scream of pain as two of Jacques' knuckles impacted with the man's bulging throat. The windpipe buckled, and a few ounces more pressure and it would have collapsed entirely. The man's death would have been entirely unpleasant and slow; the only medics left were of the Legion, and they were already loading onto VTOLs to escape.

The large officer dropped to his knees, grasping his throat and gasping in pain and surprise. The Sergeant and junior officer both blanched at the display, and the young officer scrambled for his holstered pistol. The weapon had never been drawn in anger, if Jacques' hadn't missed his guess. The holster was brand new, without any sign of wear or tear; likely drawn from the armoury before they abandoned their prison.

Jacques glanced at the Sergeant; the man seemed reasonable, and with a half dozen Legionnaires at his back the man clearly saw how this would play out. The CCD had far more troops on the ground, but the LCol, junior officer, and the Sergeant himself would all be dead long before the firefight was resolved. He quickly stepped forward and grabbed the junior officer's arm, cursing him to stand down.

"Take this waste of flesh and quit the field, Hauptmann. Enough men are dying today for this man's indecision."
Had the LCol moved his men and the high-priority prisoners to the airport, or better still, the navy base to the southwest, when the call to evacuate high-profile civilians had been sounded, none of this would have happened in the first place, and his men would not have needed to hold and die so the evacuation could be completed.

The pair nodded their compliance, the young captain urged on by the more experienced Sergeant, and they grabbed the fallen Lieutenant Colonel Romanov and started dragging/carrying him towards the last of the VTOLs.

A few short minutes later, Jacques stood at the base of the steps into his jet, staring south. The line still held, miraculously, but it was fading fast. He could see movement in the darkness, of enemy combatants running on foot across the open stretch of ground towards the landing area where the VTOLs were escaping from. The enemy was beginning to break through, although thankfully the destruction wrought by Michael had hindered their efforts to get vehicles onto the airport.

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."
One of his men informed him of their uninvited guests, and he glanced up the steps briefly before he lowered himself to one knee. He drew his knife and sliced the palm of his left hand deeply, before grabbing a fist of sand and dirt, working the soil into the open wound. "My childrens' blood stains this soil, Sergent. This night shall forever haunt me."
He stood, and turned to board the jet, accepting a handkerchief from the Sergent as he ducked through the low hatch.

"But we shall draw strength from this." He smiled tiredly to the Sergent, ignoring the two guests that would now be accompanying him to Sierra Leone. "Forward all video feed to the PR department, then scrub all the lost Landwarriors. I want those to be nothing but hunks of plastic. What has happened here will not be summed up in some few nicely polished buzz words for the media to spew on about."


He beat his good hand against the door to the cockpit, "Away. Sierra Leone."
The engines were already running, and the steps were drawn up, the hatch closed and sealed even as the plane taxi'd onto a stretch of runway still clear enough for the private jet to take off.

He walked deeper into the jet where some of his men worked to secure the equipment and stored mortars, past the wounded American and his tiger of a guard, ignoring them both as he jerked open the liquour cabinet. A bottle of very fine scotch was pulled forth, and a splash was dropped onto his bandaged hand which curled into a fist in response, then another splash was put to a glass. The bottle was secured, the glass taken in his bad hand, and with his good he grabbed an overhead compartment to balance himself. He remained standing as the plane took off, gazing out the windows that would soon show him his last images of his dying men, of Jeddah, and the fires of Mecca in the distance.

God willing, he would never step foot in the CCD again.

To his credit, Trano stayed awake. No thanks to Reed's continuous poking and proding. She made sure they were on the fastest jet out of there. As help led her and Trano toward the VTOL's, Reed snapped her fingers and ordered they be taken elsewhere.

"That's Monsieur Danjou's personal jet?"
Some young Legionnaire thought he had the balls to tell her no?

"And I am Monsieur Danjou's personal friend."
She held every ounce of stature up to him.

She gestured at the wounded man that'd saved everyone's ass tonight, including this young kid's. "And that is Monsieur Danjou's personal wizard,"
right then would have been a good time for him to groan. So she poked him in the kneecap with the barrel of her pistol. He winced. Good.

Downfield, explosions rocked the night so hard that pebbles vibrated on the tarmac underfoot. She threw herself in front of Trano and set her sights down range. Fires turned the sky to day. She, the Legionnaires, and everyone else around them were fixed on the inexplicable. Until Trano grabbed her sleeve. He murmured something about menace that Reed didn't understand. Finally, the words matched the width of his eyes, and she understood. "Another wizard,"
she whispered and watched in awe. Whoever it was, she'd be finding out soon enough.

But only for a second. She rounded on the legionnaire.

"I'm taking him on that jet. And if Monsieur Danjou has issue with it, he can kick us off."
She shouldered past the kid. They didn't stop her.

Minutes later she was settling Trano onto a row of seats where he could stretch out. She'd heard word of a doctor floating around on the tarmac, but she'd not seen one if so. One would have been handy about then. She leaned over Trano and brushed his forehead with a wet cloth taken from the bathroom. "We're getting out of here, and I'll make sure you get help."


Soon the engines were started. Reed was watching the exterior through a window, but made sure she had a perfect line of sight for the jet hatch door.

Her gaze narrowed considerably when she finally saw Jacques himself climb aboard. She made no move as he approached, but to watch keen as a hawk as he washed his hand and throat with scotch. At least now she knew where he kept the scotch.

While he pounded on the door to the cockpit, Reed slipped out of her seat to steal the rest of the scotch. For herself, of course. She leaned close to Trano. "Looks like we're going to Africa."

"The last of the evacuees are off the ground in Mecca, Ascendancy."
A member of his staff, Carson, a European of British descent, swiped a screen from his hand-held to yet an additional pop up among the many already in view. Nikolai nodded and took over examining the information.

As concentrated as he was on the state of Custody hostages in Mecca, his attention was yet divided around similar, albeit smaller scale, operations ongoing in the rest of the Dominance. To the right scrolled continuous updates from the heads of EoA Consulates each of whom were stirred in the night to begin formulating a plan for damage control. In a very small corner ticked the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Tōshō, the only aggregate of importance to be open at the time. So far, only minor disturbances fluctuated. The DIV market would hold until the CCD's reaction was clear. So much as a flinch from the Ascendancy and entire corporations, worlds away from Mecca, would buckle from the loss of confidence. The address was everything, but nothing was going to be conveyed to anyone until the EoA gave him a more long-term plan beyond the cursory order to send them to hell. Air support would be moving in soon. The Custody navy wasn't in the habit of patrolling their own borders. So much information to assimilate at once, and he was growing tired.

He minimized the screen Carson had provided. The news meant he could take Commander Vellas and Doctor Weston, among others, out of his mind for the time being. It hadn't been a mistake to send them, he reminded himself. Vellas crafted a beautiful Intelligence Plan for the Battlefield that impressed more than one of his generals. Even if it weren't used, and it cost half a billion dollars to get them out, Nikolai learned much about the commander. His potential was unprecedented; and Nikolai preferred to keep a sharp eye on young talent.

The deployment of Custody forces to the perimeters of DV cities would be swift and limited only by the duration of time required to travel from area bases, or in the case of naval support, make their presence in the Red Sea known, a presence that had been there all along, hidden in the waters. The port city of Jeddah was home to a naval base typically focused on excursions around the African continent, but was now turning their ships back toward home. Mecca would soon realize just how far Jeddah's shadow stretched inland when battleships and submarines were aimed their way.

With the clearance of loyal civilians and dignitaries newly arrived for the cancelled Conference, the city could be picked clean of resistance. With the dawn, the insurgents would realize their exhaustion, low supplies, and drained bloodlust, but they would not be given a chance to rest. The code of war, treaties accepted by all modern societies, were continually disregarded by Hasan's men. Human rights, civilian suffering, and military necessity were civil terms tossed to the wind. Nikolai would never consider this disturbance a war, such was beneath both him and the Custody. Whatever it was, he was going to make sure it ended as soon as possible, but he'd be dealing with the aftermath for years. Come dawn, the Custody was going to swat aside this ripple from the night.

He rubbed his eyes.

The clearing of a throat pulled his gaze up. Viktor, his Deputy-Consul Chief of Staff was looked pale. "Ascendancy, there's something you should know."


Worry pulsed deep in Nik's veins. "What is it, Viktor?"


The shut the boardroom doors behind him. Nik recognized the look on the man's face and pressed a button that muted all communication with the exterior. They were effectively alone.

Yet another screen swiped to the air. It replaced the one he'd just minimized, but Nikolai pivoted to study it none the less.

The exhausted face of a young man filled it. Nikolai barely recognized the airport behind him though he'd been watching it deteriorate for hours. In the corner of the screen was overlaid the young officer's name and rank. Captain Istivak, Nikolai read, and glanced back at Viktor.

At a touch, the video played. Viktor prefaced it. "This is one of the men tasked to find Commander Vellas. What he witnessed, well..,"
and Viktor gestured that Nikolai watch for himself.

So he did.

Flame and destruction reflected in the blacks of his eyes. All of it backed by the silhouette of one figure. Nikolai welcomed the familiarity of the scene.

It seemed he would come to realize just how much there was to learn about Commander Vellas. "Bring him to me, tomorrow. I want to meet him myself."