Mercenaries’ Tale – 5.02 Return
Julia was sat at the bar, staring at her phone so hard one could be forgiven for thinking a hole would spontaneously appear in it.
Her appearance was more bedraggled than usual; her braids frayed and only the lightest dusting of make-up gracing her features. She was still dressed though; knee-high boots, thick tights, a dark blue floral dress and a leather waistcoat donning her person. An observant person would easily notice that these were the same clothes as the day before, a fact further punctuated by the five cups of coffee laid out across the counter top and the heavy bags that had formed under her eyes.
Julia had yet to sleep so she could be forgiven for failing to notice the elderly gentleman emerging from the back rooms.
“How curious, it’s not often you see people using a phone separate from their digibook these days…” The Major innocently noted after watching Julia for a few moments. The innocence of the statement failed to prevent her from jumping from her seat in shock, her knee banging on the counter causing her to swear loudly.
“Oh! I am sorry my dear-” The old man began just for Julia to smile as sweetly as she could at him despite the throbbing pain coming from what no doubt would be a bruise in a few hours.
“It’s fine, really. What are you doing up at this hour?”
“I could ask you the same thing! The bar closed over two hours ago! You should be getting some well deserved shut-eye!” he lambasted, hands on his hips and moustache bristling, “what is the matter? Did you receive some bad news or-”
“Oh! No! I’m just waiting to hear from some friends,” she laughed as she moved to grab the phone.
“Not expecting bad news I hope? You seemed quite tense-”
“I’m just seeing if they have any plans,” the phone was stashed into a pocket, a strained smile on Julia’s face, “can I get you anything?”
“I just couldn’t sleep. Old military habits die hard. I rarely sleep past 6 these days…” he chuckled. He seemed oblivious to the awkwardness in the air as he found somewhere to sit. Julia began to work around him; grabbing a broom and beginning to sweep up. The Major watched her for a few minutes.
“Is it just you that works here now? I haven’t seen the fellow from when we first arrived…”
“He’s…around. I’m just kinda…holding the fort for a while,”
“Have you worked here long? Forgive me but I spied some of the paperwork out back and haven’t seen your name on any of it…”
“I..erm…haven’t been here long, no. It was a very… short notice job posting…” this caused The Major to give her a very quizzical look but Julia was given a reprieve by way of a crashing sound coming from the backrooms followed by hushed whispers. Either the bar was being broken into by a pair of incompetent burglars or the other renters had returned.
“I can’t believe Gratin had the key…”
“Hey, it made sense at the time!”
“He doesn’t even have pockets!”
“Yeah and yours were full of guns and ammo, what do you expect?!”
The bickering was cut short by the sound of a gasp from behind them, Doug and Kate turning to see Julia and The Major standing in the threshold of the bar having come to inspect the noise.
“What in the bloody hell happened to you two!” The Major’s cries caused the mercs to survey themselves. They had attempted to wash the blood off but Doug had been covered in so much gore at that point that all they had managed to do was smear it further into his clothes. His left side was noticeably missing an appendage, his stump wrapped up in some scraps of cloth taken from a Genetix employee’s corpse in a bid to protect it from the freezing temperatures outside. Kate’s clothes were ripped, singed and stained, the red head having to hold the front of her coat together in an attempt to protect her chest from the elements. Her hair was matted and wild and both mercenaries looked like they were one strong breeze away from collapsing in exhaustion.
“Err…we didn’t think you’d be up…” Doug said as if this answered any of the concerns the other two clearly had. The Major seemed lost for words. Julia, however, sighed heavily.
“I’ll get the kettle on…” the simplicity of this statement sent Doug back 18 years to when he was a teenager attempting to sneak past his mother after scrapping with the other boys. He half expected Julia to follow up with “proud of yourself, are you?” or even “at least tell me that the other kid looks worse than you do?” which, although not typical of mothers, had been Old Rosie McCracken all over.
Kate merely eyed Julia suspiciously but otherwise made no objections as she was far too tired to start listing all the ways in which offering tea probably wasn’t how civilians were supposed to handle these kinds of situations no matter how appreciated it would be.
“No, no, hold on! I’ve been willing to over look many odd circumstances since I met you people but this is toing a line! What happened? And where is Mr Archibald?” The old man was the only one trying to hold onto something that made sense. The atmosphere in the crammed little hall darkened, Kate shutting her eyes and turning away, allowing Doug to pull her into a hug and plant a kiss on her forehead in an attempt to offer comfort. Julia hadn’t taken her eyes off of the pair, absorbing every twitch of body language.
“Mr Morrison…” her voice was stern and steady, Stanley getting the hint. His patrons needed space, not an interrogation right now.
The barmaid led the group into the back office come staffroom where she set about boiling a kettle. The Mercs paused as they noticed the familiar bulk of the barman laying almost impossibly still on a ratty old sofa just to the left of the entrance.
“Err, Jules love? What’s up with him?” Doug asked, getting her attention.
“Oh, don’t mind him! He’s just dead tired is all!” she punctuated the sentence with a nervous chuckle. The mercs exchanged a glance, Kate stepping away from Doug to check the man’s pulse.
“…He’s just sleeping…” she announced, clearly surprised.
“Well, yeah, that’s what I said?” the barmaid busied herself clearing the small table in the centre of the room and fetching mugs. It was clear the mercs were thankful for the opportunity to sit down. The Major preferred to stand. He was pacing the room, wringing his hands.
“I’m beginning to suspect it’s time to acknowledge a few things that I have desperately been trying to ignore…” he began, his moustache vibrating with frustration.
“Look, Major, there’s a reasonable explanation for thi-”
“Oh cut the crap McCracken! I know the signs of a fight when I see them!” The old man snapped. There was deathly silence for a beat, Doug’s eyes wide like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
“…You knew-?”
“From the beginning, yes! I’m not that doddering an old fool!” the glare Stanley gave Doug made the soldier flinch. It was a look and tone no one in the room had expected from the old man.
“I was hoping it was going to turn out some other McCracken had been accused of terrorism and you really had changed your name and run off with a fine young lady but clearly that was an old fool’s dream!”
“…I don’t get it,” said Doug, his features knotting together into a frown, “Why did you help us if you knew we were the Salmanic Terrorists?”
The old man deflated, his facial hair drooping as he looked at Doug pityingly.
“Because Lieutenant Elvito would have wanted me to…” the old man finally sat down, rubbing his face. It took a long moment before he decided to elaborate further.
“…My last campaign…the battle of Glamonis…that was hardly my finest hour. You shamed me for it and rightly so. Maybe that’s why I decided to pretend your ridiculous attempt at a false identity was convincing… an old man’s attempt to protect his ego?” he sighed, avoiding Doug’s gaze.
“Did you know that Gaspar visited me in the medical bay after the incident in the dry dock? The ridiculous boy was worried for me. Me! The idiot that nearly got you boys killed many times during our escapades! He was worried about what might become of me if I was to become a civilian!” The memories caused the old man to chuckle sadly, “even after I was discharged, he stayed in contact. Sergeant Galvison teased him terribly for it but Gaspar didn’t want me to be alone. He even sent me a knitted jumper and some of his mother’s homemade fudge for Faustmas! He really was the best of us…” a tear began to run down his cheek, the old man wiping it away.
“But then I heard about Jehoth IV. Still makes my old heart ache. Did you know I went to the funeral? I know you did even though you should have been confined to a hospital bed. I still remember the sight of you; wheelchair bound with a new arm you had only just been fitted with, struggling to adjust to it…” Doug glanced down at his stump. It was impossible to know what was going through his head, his jaw tense and fist clenched. Kate wrapped her arm around his and rested her head on his shoulder, offering him solace.
“But what Gaspar would have wanted will only take me so far. It’s time you come clean! Prove to me that you and your lady aren’t the criminals the news is painting you to be!” The mercs exchanged a glance.
“…We can certainly tell you our stories but I don’t know how we can prove anything to you…” Kate began. Doug started patting his pockets.
“…Actually, Love, there is something I forgot to mention during all the excitement…” he produced a memory stick from his inside pocket and held it up for all to see.
“What-”
“It’s what Salmanic were after at Genetix, or at least part of it. By the sounds of it, those mutant sisters had been spying on damn near everyone and was compiling blackmail material. If Salmanic were that determined to get a hold of this stuff, maybe it’s got some stuff about the Power Plant on it?” Kate’s whole demeanour shifted, her eyes lighting up as she took the stick off of him.
“Oh Doug, I could kiss you!” she exclaimed. Doug grinned then lent towards her, his eyes closing as he puckered his lips.
A moment later he cracked one eye open to find Kate and Julia were now crowding around a little computer in the corner of the room, both women eagerly waiting for it to load. Doug cleared his throat, suddenly feeling very small. Luckily for him, no one seemed to notice. Even the Major had moved to look at what was on the stick, a cup of tea in hand. Doug grabbed one of the mugs Julia had left on the table and moved to join the others, taking a gulp to disguise any embarrassment lingering on his face.
The computer was slow – clearly old enough to have been replaced five times over – but the girls managed to get it working with minimal thumps and curses directed at the ageing casing. Kate sat in the chair directly in front of the thing, Julia leaning over her left shoulder where she could easily reach over to input the login credentials. The computer rejected her first two attempts logging in, the barmaid having to dig a browning old notebook out of a draw to check she had the right password.
Soon the screen was lit up with a menu detailing the various folders of information the Salmanic Troopers had ripped from the Genetix mainframe. There were a lot of them, Kate slowly scrolling down the list
“You weren’t kidding about this,” Kate muttered, her voice full of awe, “there’s decades worth of data here…”
“The Royal Court of Draguna Locar, Aquarius Springs, Elactinide Inc, The Zhenyan parliament, even the PSF. There’s stuff here on all the major players on Lusinia!” Julia exclaimed. Kate continued scrolling, her face a mask of thought, until she found the Salmanic file. She tapped it open, her eyes narrowing at what she found.
“I say, that doesn’t seem right,” this came from the Major who had taken a position to Kate’s right, “these file names are all scrambled!”
The names of the files contained such fruitful fields as “$$xxrtu^*p” and “hfcdkufhdckvls7%”. It was as if the writers’ cat had decided to take a stroll across the keyboard the moment it came time to save their work. Kate leant back in her chair, rubbing her face in frustration.
“The files are all encrypted. Should have known better than to think our luck was turning…”
“Oh don’t give up yet!” Julia lambasted, “maybe we can unencrypt them?” the barmaid reached across to start manipulating the screen, pulling up what information on the files she could.
“…Oh, wow, this looks way more complicated than I was expecting…” she mumbled. Kate removed her hands from her face so that she could peak at what Julia was doing.
“I only have the bare minimum of training in this sort of thing so I’m pretty sure it’s beyond me to untangle this. Somehow I’m guessing they don’t cover computer encryption in barmaid school,” the redhead observed. Julia was far from ready to give up. She closed the additional windows she had opened up and began scrolling through the contents of the Salmanic file.
“There must be something we’re missing- ah! Here we go,” she stopped scrolling as a few files that were genuinely comprehensible came into view, “looks like they never got around to encrypting the older files. Only the stuff made in the last fifteen years or so seem to be scrambled!” she opened one such file, the barmaid positively beaming from her victory over the data. What appeared was an old exchange of messages between the sisters and Victor Salmanic.
| G: We recommend upgrading the solution to a 40% mythril blend. It may prevent further breeches in the future. V.S: We do not have the resources for that. The Federation of Solar System’s embargo is shortening supplies and the only local source is caught behind a jumped up rancher. G: Is the great Victor Salmanic struggling to deal with one simple horse farmer? VS: I’ve sent a team to deal with it. We’ll see if they can finish the job. |
Kate was staring blankly at the screen, the conversation continuing around her as she stared at the exchange. The Major and Julia failed to notice, unaware of the context.
“Mythril blends? Breeches? What on earth? Was Victor Salmanic dabbling in magic?” asked the Major, turning to Doug for clarification. The soldier sighed, put down the mug on the desk and wrapped his arm around Kate’s shoulders as he hugged her from behind. Kate leant into it, clearly grateful for his presence.
“…In a way. Find another file, Jules, if the Sisters were helping old man Victor then there’s bound to be something a hell of a lot more damning on there…”
“Err, right, sure…” she complied with the request. The next few files consisted of phone records, spreadsheets of data regarding power outputs, suspiciously vague lists of “collections” and “disposals” containing columns of numbers and not much else. Eventually, towards the end of the collection file pathways, were schematics and more incriminating message exchanges.
| V.S: Burnouts have decreased by 30% since the new extractors were installed with a 5% larger output of aetheric energy. G: You are very welcome. Your new mythril source has truly been a boon. V.S: Yes, your new formula for the sedatives has also worked wonders. I still would like a way to extend the mages’ lifespans. Collecting more is becoming more burdensome due to the war and I fear creating breeding stock will lead to too much scrutiny. G: Yes, we have been musing on this problem for some time. Cloning sees each subsequent copy losing a degree of ability to attract aether unless they are allowed to cultivate the necessary experience. This does not seem particularly cost effective for your needs. V.S: Not particularly, no. G: And our experiments so far has seen a trade off between expending the mages’ life span and the rate at which aether is extracted. V.S: Then maybe it is time we started exploring new avenues? |
This exchange brought a tension to the atmosphere in the dingy little room, Julia quickly going back to pour over the schematics where as the Major began chewing on his thumb as what he read sunk in.
The schematics included a new type of stasis chamber and an aether extractor. The terms had seemed meaningless to Julia and The Major at first but after reading that last collection of messages, the Mercs could see them putting the pieces together.
It was the final file in the folder, however, that really drove home what it was that Salmanic was doing.
The final file was a video time-lapse of a Twigarnian mage hooked up to one of the extractors over a course of 36 weeks. The sleeping mage was only 24 years of age when they were placed in the machine but by the time the humans watching the video had finished watching the subject rapidly wither into a heavily emaciated form, the Twigarnian looked closer to being of an age where one could successfully donate them to an ancient history museum. As the video ended, the Major began retching into a nearby bin and Julia was several shades paler than when the video had started.
“…What happened to the Sisters?” she asked, shaking. It was Kate that answered, her voice quiet.
“Their experiments caught up to them.”
“And Salmanic? You said something about them being there?”
“And where is Mr Archibald?” asked The Major, the old man looking up from his position over the bin.
“Gone. Salmanic took Archie. They’re long gone… nothing we could do,” Doug answered. Both he and Kate were tense, neither making eye contact with the others. Kate’s fists were balled up so tight on her lap that she was almost drawing blood. Doug was still embracing her, the soldier resting his head atop of hers, breathing her in.
“They’re not… They’re not going to add him to their collection of mages?” The Major asked, the thought clearly not sitting well. Doug finally stepped away from Kate, a fierce look dominating his face.
“Not if we have anything to say about it! We’re heading after them as soon as we find a ship in a good enough state to get us home,” his voice was so firm and steady that it was as if he was daring the universe to prove him wrong.
“…Then we better get on with procuring one then,” replied the Major as he straightened up from the bin. Doug was taken aback. Even Kate tore herself away from the computer to gape at him.
“You’re not coming, Major. It’s going to be extremely dangerous. Just associating with us has put you in the firing line,” Kate began.
“Nonsense. I am Major Stanley Morrison of the Crimson Chests of the 89th fleet and I pledge to you that I will do everything in my power to see you reunited with your dear friend.”
“Me too!” Julia had also straightened up to her full height, a determined look on her face. The nervous energy had dissipated, the woman in the corner powered by something else entirely. She seemed even more of a stranger than she already was.
“…You’re coming with us? You? The barmaid?” asked the ever suspicious Kate.
“You’re going to need all the help you can get. Salmanic isn’t just some energy company; they’re a Pillar! The biggest one that the other four rally around! Salmanic City isn’t called that because it’s where the head offices are: they own it, the private police force that patrol it and all the other resources contained within whether they know it or not. So yeah, having a barmaid tag along is better than nothing,”
“But why?” this came from the Major, a confused frown across his brow, “invading a foreign city that you reportedly never visited before is quite the commitment for someone that’s never seen combat before…”
“…Err…”
“And you seem to know a lot about Salmanic City for someone who’s never been as well…” Katherine added. All eyes were now fixed on Julia, that nervous energy seeping back into the barmaid’s form. Even Doug was staring at her with renewed interest.
Julia was saved from having to explain herself when a loud knocking came from the bar’s front door. It boomed around the empty drinking hall, the walls shaking with the force of it.
“I don’t suppose that is simply someone hoping to simply purchase a beverage?” asked The Major, the old man fixated on the noise’s source.
“We don’t open for another five hours,” Julia muttered. Kate was the only one not focused on the front of the building, the redhead having moved to the one small window in the room and was peaking out through the blinds.
“There are men in the entrance to the courtyard. I think our exits are covered…”
“Shit, you think someone made us?” Doug asked as he hurried over to the window to see for himself.
“Small towns like to gossip and our arrival was probably the most interesting thing to happen in a while. Maybe someone recognised our descriptions?”
“Damn,” Doug glimpsed down at his stump and grunted before drawing his gun and checking the battery pack whilst Kate checked her own ammo reserves. She was down to a couple of clips and some smoke grenades.
“Don’t suppose there are any other exits, Pet?” Doug asked as he ran some calculations in his head and came up short. The men in the courtyard were armed with hunting rifles and shotguns. They also didn’t look anywhere near as tired as the mercenaries felt.
“There’s one option. Go to your room, I’ll try to stall for as long as I can and meet you at Hans Freight and Storage at the edge of town,”
“What? How’s going up stairs going to help? We’ll be cornered-” Doug was cut off by the sounds of more heavy knocking and a loud voice calling out.
“Open up in there! We know you’re here!”
Julia looked Doug dead in the eyes, that strange confidence having come back and was now radiating off of her.
“Trust me. Go upstairs.”
Kate rested a hand on his forearm, the redhead clearly making some calculations of her own.
“She’s right, come on,” she led the others up the stairs, Doug lingering at the top as Julia disappeared into the bar.
Post by Sam | March 18, 2023 at 12:01 am | The Mercenaries' Tale | No comment
Tags: Blaise, Doug McCracken, Frozen Bluffs, Julia, Kate O'Donnell, Major Stanley Morrison, Neon Arachnid, Polaris, the Mercs