ENSENADA, UNION OF SOVEREIGN REPUBLICS
Gregorio 603 (Cormorant-F-class WiGE), San Rafael sea-approaches
August 6, 2827
The shuddering of the Wiggy’s landing finally subsides to the fainter tremor of its taxiing across the water. Throughout the cargo/passenger compartment, the olive-clad troopers of this latest draft trade thank-God looks and shift in their seats, waiting for the loadmaster to give them the all-clear.
“C’mon, already,” one man bitches. “Let us get outta these seats before my ass falls off completely!”
“Calm down,” his neighbour says patiently, lifting the Soren outdoorsman’s slouch-hat from over his eyes and sitting up straighter. “You’ve been on this tub for ninety hours already; you’ll survive another few minutes.”
“Yeah, but I still don’t get why we couldn’t just take a Tigersnake,” a third trooper chimes in from across the aisle. “Why make us sit through a three-day trip on this bus-with-wings when a sub-hop on a landing-craft could get us there in less than an hour?”
“Because even if the Ensie castillos didn’t zap us as soon as we cleared the horizon, their fighters would’ve knocked us down before we hit apogee.” The sleeper rolls his neck, grunting as his vertebrae pop, then unbuckles his belt and reaches under his seat for his rifle. “Besides, d’you really think Their Lordships are gonna waste a Tigersnake on a bunch of grunts? Those are for moving ’Mechs, not meat.”
Ensenadan cargo companies remain as fond of Cormorant-F transports as Soren ones have always been; San Rafael’s sea-port has several terminals designed to support their operations, and the Ensies didn’t manage to wreck them all before the city fell. Tractors haul Gregorio 603 up to one of the loading docks backwards, and the aircraft’s stern-mounted cargo-ramp drops. A near-wall of ‘fresh’ Ensenadan humidity rolls into the cargo-bay, prompting a new spate of complaints and profanity from the Landsers within, but the first men are starting the trudge out even as the ramp hits level, most of them with their heads down and rifles slung.
The fellow in the slouch-hat is one of the few exceptions, keeping his weapon in-hand and his eyes moving warily, but for the moment it looks like his caution is unwarranted. A trio of Captains and a distinctly fidgety Corporal are waiting for the fresh meat on the dockside, and one of the officers cuts him out of the mob with diffident courtesy. “Tenente Ferretti?”
“Yes,” he sighs, wishing his anonymity could have lasted just a little longer.
“A staff-car will be here to take you to the 2° Soren Legion’s depot in a few minutes. Corporal Marcks will keep you company until it arrives, and show you the way to 231° Reggimento Fanteria once it does.”
“Respectfully, Sir, there are better things you could be doing with that staff-car. I’ll ride in the trucks, with the men.” Ferretti’s voice brooks no argument, even from a ‘superior’ officer.
Captain Liotta hesitates for a moment, caught between his orders and knowing who he’s talking to, then shrugs it away. “Suit yourself, Tenente. There’s been a snarl-up with the transport to 2° Soren Legion, but it’ll probably be here within the hour.”
“Thank you, Sir.” Ferretti salutes, and Liotta returns it before turning away. Once the other three Salernans have turned their full attention to sorting the herd of new cannon-fodder, the young officer turns a crooked smile on Marcks and digs out a pack of issues, offering one to his guide. “Something to break up the boredom?”
“Sounds like a plan to me, Sir,” Marcks avers feelingly, as much relaxed by the other officers’ departure as by the simple offer.
The nearest quiet place is at the hangar’s seaward doors, looking out on the Cormorants taxiing around the open harbour. Both men have the sense to stay out of the open while they light up. Ferretti coughs a little; the GCC buys most of its tobacco from the Scarlotti famiglia estates on Phoenix, and the stuff is about as kind to the airways as steel wool.
“New smoker, Sir?” Marcks hazards.
“Sort of,” Ferretti wheezes, managing not to turn green. “I quit when I left the École Militaire, but after three days stuck on a Cormorant with not much else to do....”
After another puff or two, Marcks ventures another observation: “Lot of Wiggies coming and going today, Sir.”
“Yeah, somebody spent a lot of money,” Ferretti snorts. “Don’t know if it was spent the right way, though.”
“I -”
Whatever Marcks was about to say dies on his lips as one of the outgoing WiGEs suddenly slews sideways in the water. Both men blink as they realize something grey-brown and glistening has reached up out of the water and furled itself around one of the wingtip tanks. Ferretti has the time to think Is that a tentacle? My God, it’s got to be a metre thick! before almost a dozen more erupt out of the shallow waves, reaching more than a hundred feet straight up into the air before they fall back down and wind around the Cormorant’s wings and fuselage.
Both men watch in slack-jawed amazement as the Ensenadan scyllasquid, its body still invisible beneath the surface, casually drags a fusion-powered aircraft the size of a small shuttle under the waves as easily as a child would pull down a rubber ducky. Seconds later, all that marks the passing of the luckless Cormorant is a patch of foamy-white water. A massive bubble roils the surface after a moment, and a breath later a single, empty life-raft pops up and self-inflates, but nothing else appears, not even debris.
While sirens scream throughout the port complex and a pair of patrol-boats tear across the harbor towards the aircraft’s sinking-site, their gun-crews and depth-charge launchers clearing for action, Ferretti and Marcks simply stand there in open-mouthed amazement, both teetering on the edge of gibbering breakdowns, trying to get their heads around what they just saw.
Eventually, Ferretti brings his cigarette back to his mouth again, proud that there’s only the faintest tremor in his hand and his voice. “Y’know, Corporal,” he says, taking another deep drag on his smoke, “on any other planet, I probably would’ve called that ‘extraordinary’.”
