Mirage

The crowd gathers around as Annia Koronova climbs up the metal flagpole in the town square. There is nothing sturdy to climb up, it just grips it between its thighs and works its way up using its hands. It must be difficult with the heavy battery pack on its back. It could have just used the rope to pull the flag down, but that is Annia, never doing anything the normal way.

Nadia stands underneath, watching to make sure it doesn’t fall. When it reaches the top, the crowd erupts when it takes its knife and slashes the banner of black, brown, and yellow from its rope. The workers hold their guns up above their heads in triumph. Annia looks down to them with a smile and throws the Imperial flag to the ground.

Two of them catch it and hold it up between them. One of them starts reaching through his pockets with his other hand. Nadia steps up to him and offers a match. He takes it, looking at her with absolute joy, and strikes it and holds its flame to the bottom of the fabric. Those around them clear some space as they wait to catch the fabric in flame. Once it burns, one lets it go and the other waves it through the air to spread the fire faster. Once it grows near his hand, he throws it on the bricks below, where it burns to ash as the crowd cheers on.

Up above, Annia unfolds the banner of black and grey and ties it to the rope. With the emblem of the K.R.A. flying in the wind, it slides back down the pole to join the celebration below. Then something else seems to catch everyone’s attention and they start to move toward the riverfront.

A row of workers with rifles in hand face their captured sentinels, lined up against the edge of the black water. The sents are disarmed, their black helmets taken--put to better use--but left with their long white coats and their badges, the symbols of their authority. They look to each other in terror.

Nadia walks through the crowd as they clear a path for her. When she reaches the line, Elliv joins her.

“Comrade!” he says.

“Elliv! Excellent job,” Nadia says.

“I assume your part went just as well,” he says.

“Did you not hear the explosions?” she says.

“We were having a few of our own at the time,” he says. “But I’m sure it was magnificent.”

“Elliv,” she says, “Zal was injured. It’s pretty bad.”

“Oh no,” he says. “Fuck, are they gonna make it?”

“Filla and Razha are with them, they’re going back to basecamp.”

“We should go back soon,” he says.

“Once things are all secure here,” she says. “Now as for this...” she turns to the workers staring down their captives against the river.

“My favorite Helbenders!” old man Mikal says. He walks up to her and Elliv from the end of the line. “Look what we’ve caught ourselves today.”

“Quite a haul,” Elliv says.

“Now we just have the real tough decision of what to do with them. I wonder, what would Helbender Collective do?” Mikal says.

“We are K.R.A., we do not take prisoners,” Nadia says.

“Now that seems a sensible policy, wouldn’t y’all say?”

The workers all around cheer in response.

“Please no! I--” one sent says.

Mikal raises his gun and shoots him right there. His body falls backwards into the river and gently floats away.

“Goddess forgive, I ain’t got the patience for that. Y’all have anything else to say?” Mikal says.

The rest of the captives are silent.

“I thought so. What was it gonna be, begging us for his life? ‘Oh please, I have a family!’, like that ever stopped them when it came to hauling a worker away over debt or insubordination or whatever bullshit law. Like that ever stopped them from dragging our own neighbors out of their homes for being not of Kogakuan birth!” Mikal stares daggers into the eyes of the next nearest sentinel. “Y’all’s words ain’t worth a day’s wages in that deathtrap refinery. It’s our turn now, and we ain’t making no excuses for the terror!”

Mikal walks to the end of the line and stares down the captives. “If you ask me, executing y’all like this would be a waste of perfectly good powder. I’d like to throw y’all down a mine shaft, personally! But there’s a lot of y’all, and my old arms would get tired. So I guess anyone we decide to execute here will just have to eat up a bullet, real shame.” He looks over at Nadia. “But I ain’t a selfish man, no, I’m a union man. Our good friends the Helbenders ought to stand on the firing line beside us, right?”

The workers nod to each other and move apart to make spaces between them.

“Well it’d be rude to say no.” Ketha takes a position, with Elliv beside them. Maris raises his shotgun and joins the line. Annia takes its rifle and takes its place.

“Might as well, then.” Kalen takes her spot on the line, and Nadia stands beside her.

“Look!” Mikal addresses the crowd. “The workers and the K.R.A. are one! Don’t ever doubt it!”

The crowd erupts.

“Here we stand in the Korben Autonomous Zone, dare I say, the first town in this valley we will liberate! Ain’t no sent gonna stand in our way!”

Suddenly the silence that had fallen over the valley after the fighting ended now breaks with a terrible sound--the roar of an engine echoing across the mountains begins to overpower Mikal’s words. Nadia looks up to the sky and sees it.

“Shii Ha’ll-Dai...” Nadia says. The airship approaches fast.

“Aw Hel,” Mikal says.

A blinding glare of light sweeps over the town as a shining metal hull reflects the glow of the descending sun. In the eastern sky, a V-shaped monstrosity swoops down toward them. The massive twin hulls of the Wyvern-class airship skim the top of the mountain behind them, casting its massive shadow over the refinery as it descends and slows. The sunlight lights up its great silver body, rippling like fire behind the wavering smoke of the reactor exhaust.

“Ain’t no more time for games,” Mikal says. “Focus on getting all noncombatants to safety! Fighters, to defensive positions!”

“What about the sents Mikal?” one of the workers on the line says.

“What do you think, we’re just gonna let them start shooting at us again? Fire!”

The workers and the Helbender crew pull their triggers, and in a massive cloud of white smoke they wipe out the entire line. Shot in the head or the chest, they fall down on the brick or back into the water. Their blood flows into the Black River like rainwater--mesmerizing.

With no time to wait, Nadia and her comrades move back to find cover and start the reloading process on the move.

The ship descends to a hundred Length above them. The armored gondola hanging from the bottom is bristling with cannons sticking out from open ports, four on each side. On the exposed lower deck, a company of K.D.F. soldiers in brown stand ready as their transport slows down.

As the ship drifts over the square, it drops two of its heavy anchors, tied by braided metal cables. They smash into the brick. The ship continues to coast over the river and drops two more on the far shore--one crashes down on a house. Then it drifts back and comes to a stop above the bridge in the center of town. The propellers go still. It lingers there in the air.

The Helbender crew takes cover in the alley between the company store and the steep mountainside beside it. Nadia signs for her comrades to split into two groups. She goes with Kalen and Maris to take cover behind one corner of the wall. Elliv goes with Ketha and Annia, toward the other corner.

A piercing shriek sounds from above as the ship’s sound amplification machine adjusts. “This is Captain Annosov of the Imperial Airship Deliverance. You are ordered to lay down your arms and surrender. If you do not comply, we will use deadly force.”

One by one, armed imperial soldiers slide down the cables, sparks flying from their braking handles. They are light infantry, wearing long brown coats over black pants, with black helmets. As soon as they land, they draw rifles, fixed with wide bayonets.

The soldiers all fire a round as they step off of their landing anchors. They have no clear targets to hit, but it surrounds them in a cloud of white smoke to conceal their positions as they move to find their own cover. The workers shoot at their silhouettes in the fog of war.

More gunfire rains from the deck of the airship, forcing them behind their cover.

“This building will cover us from rifles but it won’t take a cannon hit!” Maris says.

“We will only face bullets here!” Nadia says. “They will not fire artillery on us so close to the refinery!”

Nadia leans out and takes a shot with her carbine. She falls back behind the building and opens her chamber to reload while Kalen takes her place and fires. Maris moves into position next. He fires, rotates his barrels, pulls his hammer back, and fires again. Then he pulls a ceramic grenade from his bandolier, lights it, and throws it out into the plaza before ducking back behind the wall before the blast.

Nadia shuts her chamber and stands to take her next shot. But when she looks out around the corner, someone is right upon them. She didn’t see where it came from--a soldier in a long white coat, with a black hood covering its head, thick cloudy goggles obscuring its eyes, and over its mouth a black mask of leather, tubes, and wires.

“Wizard!” Nadia says.

A powerful, chilling wind blows past her as she raises her gun. She fires. But somehow the wizard was standing just to the side of where she thought it was. It is advancing on her. A bright light shining from its hands reflects off of its goggles, making its eyes glow.

She draws her pistol from her belt, places the wizard’s head in her sights, and fires. But somehow, it was standing back where she originally thought it was. She pulls back behind the corner with the others as the airship’s shadow over the town seems to grow darker, and the cloud of gun smoke now surrounding them grows denser.

Nadia backs off from the corner and tries to reload her pistol. Her comrades move with her, keeping their guns raised as the wizard’s shape appears in the thick white smoke. Its hand reaches out toward them and shines with a blinding flash of light. When it fades she can no longer see the wizard in front of her.

“Nadia, down!” Kalen shouts.

She drops to the ground just before hearing a heavy gunshot right behind her. She can feel the wind moving over her head as she falls. It came within Points of her head.

Nadia rolls over as she lands and looks back to see Kalen grappling with Maris from behind. She has control of his wrist, and keeps his shotgun pointed up.

“Something is wrong with him!” Kalen says as he pulls his hand free and turns around, throwing Kalen to the ground.

He reaches for his gun and rotates his barrels over, but before he can use it Nadia springs to her feet and reaches for the shotgun. She tries to wrench it from his hands, but he is so much stronger, she cannot move him. His brown eyes have a glazed, staring past her into nothing as they grapple.

“Elliv! Ketha! Help!” Nadia says as she struggles to resist his strength. He overpowers her and slams her into the wall, then pulls away and starts to raise his gun.

“Maris it’s us damn it!” Elliv is coming up through the alley from the other side.

“His gun is live!” Nadia says.

Elliv drops his rifle and rushes at him, staying low. Maris turns toward him in stiff, jerking motions. Maris points his gun at him but Elliv gets his hand on its barrels and pushes up, rising up and using his legs to overpower Maris. With his other hand he reaches for the fire controls. Maris raises his arms and lifts Elliv off the ground. But Elliv slips his finger in between Maris’s in the trigger well and pulls the trigger with the gun facing the brick wall.

The shrapnel from his gun rebounds off of the wall and sprays outward. Nadia feels cuts in her flesh. She can only see her comrades’ outlines through the smoke now. It looks like Maris lets go of his gun and throws Elliv into the wall.

“The wizard has enchanted him or something!” Nadia says.

“How do we free him from it?!” Ketha says.

“Find the wizard! Take it out and break the spell!” Nadia says as she pulls herself up.

As the smoke clears, she sees Maris pull a grenade and a match from his belt and strike the match with his teeth in one smooth, instinctual motion.

“No!” Elliv grasps his left arm with the burning match and Nadia takes his right and tries to pull the grenade from his grasp. He slowly brings his hands closer together against both their strength.

“Nadia, behind you!” Kalen says.

She turns and looks to see the wizard next to her, raising its hand, with the glyph on its palm glowing bright. The smoke around it glows white. The light grows to envelop everything around her. Its color shifts and flows, an iridescent fractal expanding from the glyph. The light is mesmerizing, so beautiful.

When it fades, she looks up. An imperial assault ship is hovering over them. The sky around it looks white--an iridescent glow ripples through it. Some atmospheric effect of the discordium exhaust? She looks around her--the brick pavement, the brick wall--Misthaven Commune.

Maris next to her is grappling with an imperial soldier who has control of his left arm. Another slips between them and takes his right arm. She draws her pistol and places it against one of the soldiers’ heads. But another one rushes her and tackles her to the ground as she pulls the trigger. It was no good anyway, the gun wasn’t loaded. She drops it and tries to push the enemy off of her.

She frees her left hand and draws one of her knives, but the imperial brute pins her wrist to the ground. There is only hatred and malice in his eyes. They reflect the white sky and burn like fire. She spits in his face, and he recoils and loses his grip enough for her to free her right hand. She punches him in the face. There isn’t enough room to punch him well, but she does it again, and again.

Then she sees someone in the corner of her eye. She looks beyond Maris and sees Razha standing there, staring into her eyes. “Help! Help!” she shouts desperately.

There is someone coming up behind Razha--an imperial wizard. It holds its hands together and the glyphs tattooed on its palms glow with a blue light.

“Look out!” With a new burst of adrenaline Nadia forces the soldier off of her and kicks him to the side as she takes off running past Maris to reach Razha. But she is too late, the wizard casts its spell and a bolt of electricity stretches from its hands to Razha’s body.

The city around her is vibrating rapidly. The sky above her ripples like water struck with a rock. The buildings are melting away. She falls to her knees. Is this some spell of the wizard’s? Even the road beneath her begins to change color.

When she looks up again she is in Korben. It isn’t Razha in front of her, but the imperial wizard, and the lightning bolt is Annia’s electric crossbow, its bolt stuck in the wizard’s back. It lies on the bricks convulsing as Annia continues to hold the trigger, its device making a rapid clicking sound. It holds it down and continues shocking the wizard until the sound stops and the wizard stops moving. Smoke rises from under its robe where the bolt and its wires protrude.

Annia lets its breath out and relaxes. It holds its hand up and signs, “K-R-A.”

“Nadia, are you okay?” Kalen takes her hand and Nadia turns to see the deep concern in her amber eyes.

“Maris!” Elliv says.

Nadia can’t find words to speak, she just stumbles forward into Kalen’s arms. The gunshots continue all around the town, and they start to blend into the background. It all feels distant, unreal.

“Nadia you’re bleeding!” Ketha sounds far away. Nadia looks over at them. They have bruises on their pale face.

“We should fall back to the medic station!” Kalen says over the continuing gunshots and shouts of battle.

“Wait, is it dead?!” Elliv says.

Annia kicks it hard in its ribs, and it doesn’t stir.

Ketha raises their pistol and aims for its head. “Let’s make sure this time.”