The Siege Against Tolkeen

Jack sat in his apartment, reeking of beer and cheap cigarettes. He was dressed in a plain white T-Shirt and torn, faded blue jeans. Both were stained with spaghetti sauce, grease, and alcohol. There was a thin haze of smoke in the air, making breathing difficult.

Sitting with him were two representatives of the Coalition military, both in clean, nicely pressed dress uniforms. They seemed woefully out of place in the filthy, smoke-filled room.

"Why're you here?" asked Jack, glaring at the two through bloodshot eyes. He took a drag from his cigarette, coughed a few times, then went on. "You knock on my door at three in the morning, invite yourselves in, and sit down on my couch. Why?"

The first of the two, who wore an Air Force officer's uniform, replied coolly, "We need your help, Mr. Perrin."

"I'm out of the military!" barked Jack. "Got a certificate to prove it. I don't want any more to do with your Unity Campaign or whatever the hell name you've given it!"

"I understand your concern," said the general, not at all perturbed. "We know about how you lost your wife in the border hostilities. But this is a matter of national security! Thousands of soldiers, or millions of civilians might die if you don't help! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" His words bore a ring of acting, like he was reciting a speech he had memorized long ago.

"What're you talking about?" asked Jack, taking another drag.

The second man, an intelligence agent by the looks of him, suddenly jumped into the conversation. "You know that right now, a great part of our army is massed on the Tolkeen borders, ready to begin a massive offensive. However, our intelligence agents have warned us that in their capital city, Grand Alamar, the greatest magicians of Tolkeen have created a magical weapon which dwarfs anything we've seen so far. Unfortunately, we do not have exact coordinates for this doomsday device."

"Where do I come in?"

"We need you to fly a prototype spyplane over the city, to locate the weapon from overhead. Then, we'd have the coordinates which we need to destroy it, with a precision bombing run. You'd start your flight at one of our border bases, go in high altitude to evade their sensors, then come in low over the city when you arrive."

"Why can't you nuke the whole freakin' city? Carpet-bomb it."

The man shook his head. "We'd need a massive air convoy for that, which would easily be seen and shot down by their air defenses. Besides, the city has certain protections against large-scale bombing. Our strike will depend on a handful of stealth bombers coming in low."

The other man, almost as an afterthought added, "You understand, of course, that everything we say here is strictly confidential."

Jack nodded, muttering, "Yeah, of course."

"Will you do it?" asked the intelligence officer. "You'd have a quick medical check-up at the local recruiting office, be sent to the borderlands tomorrow, and start the mission the night you arrived. After completing your mission and returning to base, you'd receive 100,000 credits for your work, and then would be free to resume your civilian lifestyle, exactly as before."

Jack looked down to the floor, deep in thought. Then, he gazed up to the mantle, to a framed photograph of himself and his wife, on their wedding day. "Why me?" he asked, after a long pause. "You've got plenty of RPA flyboys down there who aren't washed-up or alcoholics. Why pick me for this mission?"

"Because you're the best," said the general solemnly. "Your unit led the Tolkeen force in confirmed kills, and a large part of that was due to you. Hell, one time you and your wingman managed to both outflew three hatchling dragons at once AND lead them into a trap!"

Jack smiled bitterly. "I guess we did get more of them than they got of us," he admitted. Noticing that his cigarette was worn down to a burning stub, he tossed it into a nearby ashtray. "But there's one other thing that's troubling me. What happens if I don't see anything?"

"In that case," said the intelligence officer, "We go ahead with the invasion. Our intelligence reports have not been very clear on this weapon. Nobody knows exactly what it does or how it works, and the odds are good that it's just an urban myth, or a real weapon which has been greatly exaggerated. Our magical experts have told us that anything with such a great power level would have to be huge, so it couldn't be kept in a building, and there are no illusion spells great enough to hide such a big device."

Jack said nothing. He simply stared up at the picture of himself and his wife on their wedding day. How happy they had been.

"Mr. Perrin, if there is a secret weapon, and if we begin the invasion before it is destroyed, then millions of innocent humans could die. Is that what you want?"

Jack said nothing.

"Mr. Perrin, there is no time to waste on this matter. We need your answer."

Jack buried his head in his hands. He was trembling every so slightly.

"Mr. Perrin!"

"All right," he whispered hoarsely. "All right, damn you. I'll do it."

"Your country thanks you."

The general pulled a document with the official seal of the CS military out of an attache case, along with a pen. Jack picked it up and looked it over. The paper was simply a contract for "mercenary services." He reluctantly signed.

The general shook Jack's hand. Then, the two men left his apartment. Jack sat alone in his apartment, thinking about what the next few days could bring. He walked over to the window, then looked out over his home city. It was a large, yet quiet farming community. Dawn was just beginning to poke its head out from over the distant horizon. Jack thought about all the people in his city who could be spared by what he would soon do. He was surprised to realize that it meant nothing to him.

Then, he looked up at his wedding picture, and looked down at the network of scars the boulder had left on his chest when it caused his armor to rupture. And he thought of how this could be his great revenge.

This thought cheered him very much, in a malignant and unwelcome way.

Perrin walked into the local recruiting station at 8:30 AM, wearing his old dress uniform and a pair of sunglasses to cover up his bloodshot eyes. A few hours to get ready had done him a world of good. He had taken his first shave in about a week, had a nice hot shower, and had gulped down a homemade hangover cure. It didn't make him feel a whole lot better, but he at least looked presentable.

"Are you Mr. Perrin?" asked the recruiter, a typical enough desk worker.

"Yeah," said Jack. "I was told to report here for a medical checkup."

"I was told that you'd be here," said the man, with a cheerfulness which irritated Jack. "Just go into the next room and follow the doctor's instructions. If you pass the medical examination like I think you will, then you'll get into a hovercar that we got for you, and you'll be on your way to Fort Joseph."

Jack nodded, then walked through the door with a red cross painted on it. Behind the door was a complete doctor's office, with all the latest equipment, including a miniature CAT scanner. A young, attractive woman in a doctor's lab coat wearing surgical gloves was tweaking some of the buttons on a vision testing device. "Hi," she said sweetly. "I take it that you're Jack Perrin?"

"You got the right guy," he said, nodding his head slightly. "What do I have to do?"

"For a start," she said. "Why don't you strip down to you briefs?"

Jack reluctantly shed his uniform, neatly folding up the jacket, shirt and pants, and placing them on a nearby table. Looking down at his body, he saw that he was not the man that he had been a few months ago. His muscle tone had degenerated and his washboard stomach had become a beer belly. Also, there was the confounded network of pale scars. "What now, doc?" he asked quietly.

"Nothing," she laughed. "I just like to see guys in their underwear." Jack gave her a strange look, causing her to chuckle even more. "It's a joke, ace," she said merrily. "Here, why don't you just lie down on that tray-thingy on the CAT scanner?"

Of all the doctors in the States, why do I get the one with the deviant sense of humor, Jack wondered. However, he complied with her request, and lay down on his back, on what looked like a small sliding cot protruding from the scanner. The doctor came over and pushed a few buttons, causing the cot to slide into the machine.

It came out a few seconds later. Jack climbed off of the tray, and looked over the doctor's shoulder at a handful of charts, X-Rays, and strangely colored thermographic pictures which were coming out of small slots in the side. "I didn't think those machines could do all that," Perrin said inquisitively.

"This is a deluxe diagnostical model," said the doctor as she thumbed through the readouts. "It does almost everything in a normal checkup in a few seconds." Frowning, she pointed at the lungs in a thermographic image. They were much fainter than they should have been, and there was a thin layer of cooler material on the inside. "You been smoking much?" she asked with concern.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Like a chimney."

Then, she pointed towards the liver, which was blotched by areas of warmer and cooler temperatures. "And I trust you've been washing down all that tobacco with plenty of alcohol," she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

"Yeah."

"Well, I want you to stop both of those for a while. You've been overindulging in both. And for heaven's sake, swear off at least the drinking for the duration of your little mission."

"Oh, yeah, well that's just common sense. I don't fly drunk."

"You'd better not!" she said, placing her hands on her hips. "Because if you crash around here, then I'm stuck doing the coroner's report, and do you know how hard it is to ID you with dental records when your head has been liquefied?"

"I get the picture."

"Good. Now get over on the table over there. I've got to check your reflexes." Obligingly, he hopped on up, while she took out a small, rubber-headed hammer.

"Well," she said with obvious appreciation when the test was over. "You may smoke and drink too much, but you've got the reflexes of a Juicer!"

"Thanks," he muttered.

"Last test, big guy," she said, picking up the holographic vision tester which she had been tuning when Perrin came in. She placed it right next to him, and then turned it on. It created the illusion of an eye chart, with pictures of dogs, cats, eyes, and many other simple images. It was clearly designed with illiterates in mind, and that suited Perrin just fine. While he could read and write, it did not come easily to him. In a low monotone, the pilot read off what he saw.

"Good job," she said, smiling sweetly. "Not a great job, but you qualified. I'm giving you a clean bill of health, but cut back on the boozing, OK?" She pulled a folded piece of paper out of one of her pockets, signed her name, and handed the paper to Jack.

"Thanks," he muttered half-heartedly, and began to get his clothes back on.

"Oh, and one more thing," she added. "When you get back from your mission, look me up, OK?"

"Only if I get back," he sighed, and then walked out the door, shutting it behind him.

The three hour ride up to the Tolkeen borderlands was uneventful. The pilot and gunner of the Skull Patrol Car were both silent for the entire journey, although the gunner had a small CD player hooked into his armor. Perrin suspected that the man was listening to jazz music, which was the latest CS fad.

Finally, the hovercar began to sink down from its cruising height of 500 feet. It arrived at an air force base, docking on one of many concrete landing platforms. Perrin stepped out of the car, and looked around him. Everywhere were soldiers and technicians running from place to place. Huge warplanes were being tuned up, and off in the distance, a squadron of Super SAMAS were standing guard in the skies.

The intelligence officer walked out of the enormous control center, and ran up to Perrin. "Glad you finally arrived. Come with me and I'll tell you more about your mission." The pilot nodded grudgingly, and the two walked off towards the headquarters.

Next Chapter

By David Haendler.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.

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