Paragon Center, Alliance Memorial Park, November 5th 2033 8:21 EST
The nano-transmitter burst into activity, the robotic text to speech even programmed in a stilted version of Nano’s voice to indicate the message’s origin. “Artemis and Alphus Secret Service B squad inbound. Orders to watch and intervene if necessary. Unknown parameters of ‘if necessary.’ No update on Brujeria. Titan can be on site in seconds if decision is made.”
Standing up from the squat she had taken in front of her father’s statue, she turned and walked the short distance to where Casey stood talking to one of the cameramen, “Thanks Tommy, but no, let’s not disturb any of the mourners and visitors, at least as much as possible. We aren’t going to ask them to move,” and he nodded towards where the tall man stood with arms clasped behind someone in a wheelchair. “It’s their monument too. On again in one minute.”
He turned and smiled at the masked woman beside him, “Ready then? Doing…uh, feeling ok?”
She nodded, “Thanks for letting me hijack your show. I’m used to…..pushing the boundaries.” She paused, “I know everyone wants to talk about the scenes that are replayed over and over again, the….” pausing a moment while clearing her throat, “the door gunner, and the last trip we made, but, I guess. . . but, but, well after that, and well any questions about….” she pauses, again, “I guess its a a little harder than I thought it was going to be to talk about it.” A deep breath, “after that, I thought maybe we could spend a few minutes going over….well, I guess I have a few things I need to acknowledge if I want to be covered by the HAPP Act as well. I was hoping I could do that here too. Make it official I mean.”
Obviously hesitant, Casey, “Are you sure? Won’t that…..uhm, tarnish your father’s memory?”
“Oh no, he would want the truth…..in fact, he was close to discovering the full story of illegal Alphus experimentation when, he….they died. That’s why he died.” The anchor’s eyes widened at that little bombshell, “I think you’ll agree. I mean it can be dumped online, but I was thinking the personal touch would be better. He’d want it this way. He always thought you were a decent man and a truthful reporter. Maybe the only one he actually trusted.”
The veteran anchor, and former beat reported smiled, “Well, let’s break a few more news stories tonight. It’ll be even more memorable. In honor of your Dad and his friends. For you too, for everything you’ve done for the people of this country.”
With that they turned towards the primary camerawoman, and a few moments later, “Thank you Mikaela, and as stated, I am Casey Becker, and we are back here at the center of Alliance Memorial Park, with the iconic statue of the Alliance members who lost their lives ten years ago today in the background, fully restored from the vandalism that struck it a few days ago on Halloween. With me, if you are just joining us tonight, I have Red Widow, current leader of the New Rangers Corps, and as revealed earlier tonight, the daughter of the late Ghost Venom, one of the very Alliance members who tragically lost his life in defense of the American people and the Paragon Academy all those years ago. As Mikaela just summarized, Red Widow was here that day, in fact was the pilot of the craft seen in all those iconic shots who helped evacuate so many patients, students, and staff of the Paragon Center a decade ago. She has graciously agreed to discuss the tragic story of those iconic moments, the fates of those involved, and then…..then one more breaking story after that, as if she hasn’t given us a memorial broadcast to remember already, she’s stated she will list out her own official violations of the HAPP Act, as mandated, submitting them via this very public forum for Titan’s, and the rest of the independent commission’s, review.”
Turning to the woman patiently standing next to him, “Red Widow, will you take us into the details of that iconic rescue scene?”
Nodding at first, then recognizing the futility of such a gesture, she said, “I can’t say it will be a pleasure, Casey, its nothing but tragic, both in general and personally, to revisit that day, but I think its important that the American people, and the world, frankly, to understand what really happened that day, and why.” She paused, taking a deep breath, “For example, in all the coverage before tonight, I’ve never seen any significant discussion as to why only a lone craft, mine, ever arrived to assist the Alliance in its fight to defend the Paragon Center. All that, and more, will be forthcoming in the uploaded information, but suffice it to say, that the conspiracy to attack, and kill, HomoSapiensAlphus, was much more widespread than many thought. But first,” and, everyone could almost feel the sound of her teeth grinding, “let’s talk about the day and events that gutted my family.”
Crosswook, November 5th, 2023
After three flights, Drogon air reeked, even with the infusion of fresh air every time they landed. Fear and pain overlay the seats already, and on this return trip it was her, Bomber and Jayson. A little over ninety minutes and still the Alliance, combined with the Paragon Rangers fought on, supremely outnumbered by masses of UDP mechs and personnel, and where the fuck did they get so many anyway? Somebody was going to have to pay. Bunny had intercepted a few encrypted air force communications about panicked calls for help from Avalon, which made absolutely no sense, but referenced a plague. Logic later, back to work.
“Ten Minutes out, Mum.”
A weary, “Acknowledged, Bomber out.” The mic didn’t cut out soon enough to avoid picking up the sound of one of the reasons Drogon smelled. She’d refused to listen to her suggestions, and the two obstetricians that had been on duty, including hers, Dr. Coreen Grantly, to sit this hopefully last trip out and recover in the med tent at the airstrip in Arizona. She should of ordered her out of the craf, but one of her Dad’s favorite stories from his soldier days was to, “Never give an order you know won’t be followed. Just makes you look stupid and weak.” Besides their really wasn’t anybody remotely qualified to operate the door gun in the way it would take to cover the last group out.”
“Uhm, Olivia,” and she spun at the hesitant voice that shouldn’t be here, “please eat this. You need to eat and drink something.” In front of her, now at the back of the cockpit stood Hamilton with a bag of food and a bottled juice drink. “I know its not much, but the alternate base really only has emergency supplies.”
“I,” she paused. “I thought you were staying behind to help the refugees.” Then she started gobbling the rations.
“Someone needs to take care of you crazy Andersons.” His tone smiled where his weird little bird face couldn’t.
“Thank you Hamilton. I’m sorry we couldn’t eat the feast you made.”
“I’m used to it Olivia. We’ll make up for it next week. After your Dad fixes the base. Well, maybe not next week, but you know what I mean. Christmas, maybe.”
“I’m sure he will work on the kitchen right after the bedrooms.”
“You think?”
“With the way Dad eats, it may be first, Hamilton. He loves your food.”
At that point, “Three minutes out, Red Widow,” stated Bunny.
“Better get buckled in Hamilton. Thanks again for the food.”
As tired as she was after almost two hours of emergency flights, she had no idea how her father and uncles, and if honest about it, her aunt, along with the Rangers, were keeping up their constant battle against the overwhelming UDP mech forces.
“Bunny, start trying to raise the Alliance team, or failing that, the Ranger’s team leader, Voltaic.”
“Drogon One – Alliance 2, Respond, please. Alliance Team, respond, rescue flight inbound, two minutes.”
“Drogon One – Alliance 2, Respond, please. Alliance Team, respond, rescue flight inbound, two minutes.”
Thirty seconds passed by, with the stress racketing through the roof.
“Drogon One – Alliance 2, Respond, please. Alliance Team, respond, rescue flight inbound, two minutes.”
“Alliance, Ghost, responding.” Exhaustion poured from his voice. “Drogon One, acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged, Ghost, Red Widow here.”
“Hey, kiddo, how ya holdin’ up?”
“Good Da, flight training paid off. Mum’s yacking out the gunner’s station though.”
“She never did like flying in gunships.” She could almost see the tired smile. “She should have stayed in Arizona but that was never going to happen I suppose, stubborn old sheila that she is.”
She hears a deep breath over the comms, “Listen kiddo, we’re almost done here. The Rangers are covering for about thirty remaining students, couple patients and one last doctor and nurse. Plus we got a dozen or so of my security team, including Captain Lincoln. Your going to have to get them all on Drogon, quickly and then be gone.”
“Understood. And you?”
“Livy, we’re infected. I know ya don’t know what that means but we can’t get on there with you.”
“So…..Alliance 2 is capable of taking off then?”
“James is working on the repairs.”
“Dad…….”
Murmuring in the background, “Gleam says she’s got enough energy left to open one of her plats if we need. May not get us far, but it will be far enough to get out of the circle.”
“Where are the others Dad?”
“Working on a cure.”
“Dad…..”
“Livy, it doesn’t matter right now. All the info I have has been uploaded for later. Just do what’s needed now. Worry later.” More than anything, it wasn’t the orders, the refusal to answer, or even the exhaustion in his voice that bothered her. It wasn’t until long after that she realized what she heard was resignation, more fuel for the nightmares of a lifetime.
“One minute out Dad.”
“Get to it then kiddo. Oh, and Livy……no matter what happens. I’ve never been prouder. Love ya kiddo.”
“Love ya too, Dad, here’s Mum,” and she switched the comm channel over to her parents.
Paragon Center, Alliance Memorial Park, November 5th 2033 8:30 EST
“You all know what happened next right? Probably not. Ten years ago, and all the replays show are the iconic scenes. Fine.” A palpable waive of anger radiates off the masked woman, at least for the audience in attendance.
“We landed of course, but the perimeter had shrunken as the UDP kept pressing in, as more and more defenders dropped out of the positions and ran for the evac position, my father and Silver Spyder and White Wrath rampaged through the attacking mechs, Gleam Shimmer firing from above, Bomber spewing rounds out the side of Drogon until all that was left was the non-lethal weapon, which wasn’t much use but she fired it anyway. Everyone was onboard besides a couple of the last Rangers running towards the airship and and most of the security team when it happened of course. As the pilot I didn’t even know, not right away, just the screams and no response from my crew, no response…….no response from my gunner, Bomber, my mother.”
A deep breath, a pause, a broken voice thrumming with pain, “Multiple rounds from a UDP mechanized weapon system entered through the open position near the door gunner. Several of the evacuees were struck, but the iconic image everyone always wants to talk about, that was one of the rounds hitting the stricken door gunner, Bomber, MY MOTHER IN THE FUCKING THROAT.” Shaking with emotion, Red Widow turns, putting a hand on the statue of Ghost Venom behind her, “My pregnant mother, pregnant with twins. That’s the beginning of your iconic scene. The rest……” she turns, sees it playing silently on the screen the media personnel have erected behind the cameras for the visitors in attendance.
Watching it again, the horrors play in her mind, she speaks as she watches, “Hamilton, that sweet little man, throwing himself in between the bullets and my Mum. Voltaic jumping forward, absorbing some of the damage and bending over my mother, hitting the releases on the safety straps, one hand throwing power into her next,” and those watching the interview and not the replay of the carnage see Red Widow, her eyes closed, now speaking blindly to the timing of the video.
“You can see his massive healing power to be successful as blood starts to pour our of his neck as a massive hole opens in his throat as his ability transfers the wounds to his own body, indicating the patient is still alive. . Gleam Shimmer shrieking down in a raging storm of music and massive firepower to hover in front of Drogon One. Inside I’m returning to the cockpit to get us out of there. And then , , , then multiple massive depleted uranium shots strike Gleam Shimmer blowing apart her armor, and she’s dropping like a rock, the Ranger Impulso diving out of the jet to catch her before she slams into the ground, awash with the blood from a ruptured artery splattering him. My father, next to Gleam Shimmer as she dies, his screams of rage. I know what he thinks, and I can’t even tell him he’s wrong because comms are down after the multiple hits to the ship. I do what he told me to do.”
As the traumatized hero pauses in her story, sobs and gasps of horror echo from the crowd, Red Widow begins again. “To my constant shame and horror, I took that ship out of there to get the civilians, and my mortally wounded mother out of the fight and prayed to every goddess I knew that Voltaic had the strength to mend my mother, Hamilton and, frankly, himself. Knowing that Gleam Shimmer would never have been hit by such as massive shell, let alone multiple rounds if she hadn’t flown in as a shield, intentionally using her armor to protect the refugees, to protect my mother, who had become her friend, to protect my father’s children.”
“Later analytics of Drogon’s scans show my father, enraged, tearing apart mech after mech, they can’t touch him, and they fall apart under the onslaught of the three remaining Alliance members, the last half dozen security members, led by Captain Lincoln going completely free fire in support, Impulso throwing up pieces of the demolished center to provide cover to Lincoln’s team. You see, what everybody ignores is that the Alliance fought a defensive battle the entire fucking time from the moment they arrived at the Paragon Center, hard enough to protect the evacuation, but light and indirect enough to avoid significant injury to the forces attacking them. An enemy who was was trying to kill them and everyone in that facility. The Alliance, my father, my friends and family, fought for hours to avoid serious injury to anyone, including the fucking racist, murderous thugs of the UDP. And what did that get them? Dead, my family gutted because they insisted on being the white knights of the world.”
“Once my father changed tactics, it became very obvious, very quickly that the UPD forces assembled could not compete with even half of the Alliance, even as wounded and sick as they were. Perhaps nobody else has noticed or at least publicly commented, but even enraged at the perceived deaths of the people, women, he loved, my father didn’t intentionally kill anyone, he just didn’t take precautions against severe injury or death for the enemy.” A rage so cold that the air seems to fog around her and radiates from Red Widow, a formerly suppressed rage that is so bitter that it slices through the mild southern California night. “Even after he watched the death of his wife, his love and probably his unborn children, he still maintains a semblance of the Alliance code of not killing. I believe that was his mistake. If he and White Wraith and Silver Spyder had torn those mechs apart without regard to life, they may have destroyed enough of them quick enough to avoid what happened next. As they fought through, having destroyed roughly half of the various heavy mechs available, and a host of smaller ones, that’s when the secret order is given, and the nineteen remaining heavy mechs power cores receive a self destruct command from some secret fanatic headquarters, and they each detonate with the equivalence of a five kiloton nuclear explosion. Nineteen separate five kiloton nuclear explosions centered upon the Paragon Center.”
The camera is solely focused on Red Widow, standing in front of the statue to her father, breathing as if she had just fought the four hours of combat from that day beside her family. “I sometimes wonder, in my nightmares of that day, whether or not if my father and his family may have survived if they hadn’t already been so weakened by the pathogen. Over and over I think, what if we’d just evac’d everyone, would my family still be alive? Could we have done something to keep them alive for the three months until the super brains discovered the cure, at about the same time that the Rangers found the base with an antidote? It haunts me, so I’ve made it my life’s mission to find the people responsible for the destruction of my family and bring them to justice, where the government has been unable to do so. And I won’t make the same mistake my father did.” With that dire pronouncement, she turns back to face the statues of her dead family.
The silence echoes after her announcement before a subdued voice murmurs loud enough for the sound equipment to pick up and broadcast, “This is Casey Becker, and we will be taking a short break, and Mikaela’s going to give us some updates on the streaming chat commentary and trending analytics about the news that have dropped tonight during our amazing exclusive interview with Red Widow, leader of the New Rangers Corps. Then we will be back here, where this fearless woman will publicly line out all of her requirements under the HAPP Act. Stick with ABC National News live, or join our streaming team to debate with the public and the experts!
“Thank you, Casey, this is Mikaela Runson, and let’s start with……..”
TO BE CONTINUED . . . . . .
Last Dreams 