CH: 107 After images (Patreon)

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Chapter 107

After images

Freya looked at Mon’s salt and pepper hair and couldn’t get over how old he looked. There were crows feet at the corner of his eyes, and he was thicker than he had been around the waist. That wasn’t the only thing that had changed, though. He had a finance. She was very beautiful and was everything that Freya was not.

“It’s so nice to meet you.” The woman said with a big smile as she reached out to shake Freya’s hand. Freya looked down at the hand then at the yoke she was holding pretending to fly to the plane.

Trying to keep her expression neutral she exaggerated her movement pretending that taking her hand off the yoke was dangerous. She took one hand off the yoke and shook her hand. She had to fight now to squeeze the woman’s hand too hand, but from her expression she failed. A small part of her, in the deepest part of her mind, chuckled at the woman's discomfort as they both let go.

“Nice to meet you too.” She lied to the woman. The woman was dressed in a dirty white uniform with a doctor’s emblem on it. It also had some colonial services rank marking on her collar that Freya didn’t recognize. She knew the colonial services had weird rankings, and their rankings didn’t show up in her download from bootcamp, but her Hud’s addon recognized it though. According to her Hud the woman was an officer. An ensign, according to what she read.

Behind her was Mod’s sister who was a Commander in the colonial services and also a doctor. She was an older looking woman with hard eyes and a soft smile. It gave her a weird intense look. The last woman, or rather a girl, was Mon’s sister. She looked to be roughly in her late teens. She had her mothers hair, but with green eyes which looked striking with her asian features. She also was wearing bright colored civilian clothing. That absolute wrong thing to wear in a war zone.

“Mon, I can’t take these people with me.” She told him, trying not to snap at him for lying to her about who these people were. Sure, they could have been in the militia, but he had to know that taking his family to the staging area was a very bad idea.

“They should be fine.” He told her, waving it off. “Just dope them off at the aid station and they’ll be fine.”

“I seriously doubt there will be an aid station that close to the action.” Freya said, trying not to get upset. “At best there might be a casualty collection area, but that’s it.”

“They’ll be fine.” Mon said with a bit more heat in his voice. “Unlike the Federation, we’ve been fighting them for almost a year now. They’ve seen more action than all those Marines who have been sitting on their asses for the past six months while people have been dying.”

Freya felt a flash of rage at his tone. He had to know why the Marines had hid. In fact, they did the same thing on their last mission together. She opened her mouth to remind him, but spotted Monkeyman behind the crowd pretending to dry hump Mon. It was so absurd that Freya had to fight to keep a smile off her mouth.

“Whatever.” Freya said after a few seconds. “Their safety is on you. Why don’t you guys head back and get ready to land. We got about five minutes until we hit the water. I’m not completely sure this trash bucket will survive submersion. Keep your respirators on, and if you have them, use your eye protection.”

To her surprise Mon chuckled. “Just like old times. Magic, in all seriousness, they’ll be fine. You’ll see.”  With that they left. Dana, Mon’s sister, gave her a little wave as she backed out of the cockpit.

“So, old battle buddy, hun?” Monkeyman said, as he sat down in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Yup.” Freya told him trying to hide the invisible hole in her chest.

She never really thought about him for the past couple of months, but seeing him again brought up all sorts of emotions that she had forgotten she had. She was also annoyed with him. Sure, she knew it had been ten years for him, but he could have sent her a message or something telling her about his life. She knew it was stupid to think that. He had his own life to live and she had hers, but it still stung.

“I haven't even thought about him in the past few months.” She told herself as Monkeyman sat quietly beside her looking out the window.

“So, you really think this chatarra is gonna crash once we hit the ocean?” He asked her after a few minutes.

“We’ll leak for sure.” Freya said, pulling herself back to the present. “But crash, nah. We should be fine, for the most part. What I’m worried about is losing a generator. We only need to lose one to lose our active camouflage.”

“Anything we can do?” He asked her. “Like, anchor the things to the inside the cargo area?”

“Damn, Monkeyman, that's a great idea.” Freya said, nodding as she turned to him. “Can you guys get it done in three minutes?” She asked, after checking her flightpath.

“Will see.” He said as he stood up from the copilot’s chair and started speaking to the team on the command channel as he left the cockpit. To her relief he got it done in just a little bit after two minutes.

“Get yourselves strapped in.” She said over the plain’s intercom, as she started lowering her attitude towards the ocean below her. “Thirty seconds until we find out if that engineer is any good or we should just shoot her the next time we see her.”

“All strapped in, boss.” Monkeyman told a few seconds later. “Hey boss, what’s inflight move? Star voyager’s last flight?”

“Nah, it’s the Titanic, the remake.” She replied, chuckling.

“Oh good.” Monkeyman replied over the talk around channel. “Hey boss, there any frozen commits heading our way? Asking for a friend.”

She ignored his comment as the plane dropped below fifty feet. The waves were rolling. According to her sensors, they were riding right around fifteen to twenty feet. She angled the plane so that they were coming in the same direction as the waves. It was so much safer than flying into a wave that was going in the opposite direction.

Her active camo generators were blinking yellow as she took her plane in. The whole come down hast plan the engineer had come up with was already impossible, and not just because of the waves either. Biting her lip she angled the plane towards a really large wave. She slowed her speed down so that she was going slightly faster than the wave as she came up behind it. Her damaged control sensors were screaming about going to slow. All the stall warning lights were red, but she knew she had enough speed to glied into the wave.

The whole plane jerked backward when it hit the wave, and she felt the tail rise upwards. With her sensors screaming at her, she pushed the engine power from twenty percent all the way up to sixty driving the ship forward into the ocean. A few harrowing seconds later they were deep enough in the ocean that waves weren’t a danger anymore.

The ocean wasn’t that calm under the waves, however. There was a pretty strong cross current going on that Freya was constantly fighting. It was so bad that she had the yoke turned roughly half way towards the left so that they could continue on their course towards the staging area. The ocean wasn’t that deep where she was and it wouldn’t get that better at the staging area either. She was moving in roughly sixty feet of water, which made traveling very difficult as she had to constantly monitor her sensors for unexpected hills under the water.

Another thing that she had to pay attention to was her active cam generators. They kept slipping into red. She had to slow the plane down several times until they moved back into the yellow. She cursed the entire time as her pace slowed and slowed some more. By the time they arrived at the staging point Freya was barely going four knots. The one good thing that happened during her time under the water was that, according to her sensors, the plane didn’t leak around the generators.

The staging area was a swarm of activity. She could see a few large civilian Mechs sitting in a line waiting for their pilots. The place was also packed with underwater vehicles. None of them looked military, so Freya had to wonder where they got them. The most comforting thing she spotted as she passed the active camo line was her dropship. It was sitting in the middle of the staging area on the ocean floor. It’s artillery cannons were up and ready, pointing towards where the enemy had to be. It could fire self propelling shells underwater, but the resistance due to the water would severely keep the speed of the shells very slow. On top of that, that type of shell was soft, so the damage would be limited.

She brought the plane in for a landing next to her dropship. As soon as landed her radio turned on. “Magic, a bit late, but nice to see you. Status report.” Mother asked her over the radio.

She gave her report as she started flooding the back of the plane. She watched the militia members as she did so, but they didn’t look like they were having any troubles with their rebreathers. She did note that none of them had armor so they would have to decompress if there were no medi pens available. The Marines had their armor to protect them, but the civilians didn’t.

She finished her report and waited knowing Mother was going to be upset with her about bringing the medical staff with her. To her surprise Mother wasn’t mad. In fact she sounded almost happy about it. “Have them report to the casualty collection area. I’m sure Maddog will be extremely happy to have them.” She told Freya.

“Will do.” She responded.

“I’m sending the pilots over to off load your Mechs. Have your militia pilots ready.” Mother ordered. ‘I want you and your team out and patrolling. I want your team to map out a path through their cloaked bio constructs. Once you find one, wait until we have a drone over it and move on. We have enough drop operators that we shouldn’t have any problems keeping an eye on them.

“Understood.” Freya said, as her cockpit slowly filled with water. Freya was more than strong enough to swim through the water once her cockpit was full of water. Her suit had some proportion due to her space warfare skills, but it was very minor. She didn’t think she needed her hardcore space warfare equipement here.

There would be problems fighting underwater though. For one thing her plain ballistic rounds would be useless due to the water. The good news was that her long barrel rifle was the only rifle she had to worry about. It had the ballistic option which she wouldn’t be able to use. It did have the electromagnetic covered ballistic round that would be fine underwater, but the pure ballistic option was out. Her beam setting would also be mostly fine. Her range would be reduced, but that was to be expected. She wasn’t looking to shoot anything over the horizon while she fought under the water.

By the time she shut off the engines to the plane and swam to the cargo section they already had the ramp down and were taking the locks off the Mechs. She met with her team who were waiting for her just outside the plane. They were treading water about five feet off the ocean floor. There was no sign of Mon or his group. She assumed that someone had already told them what to do.

“Mother wants us to find a way to the factory. She…” Freya started to say to her team when she noticed something happening behind her team. Frowning, she swam upwards a bit to get a better look and notice a Marine floating about twenty feet from them. He didn’t appear to be moving. He looked like he was just relaxing floating there, but her sixth sense screamed at her that he was dead.

She checked her mini map and swore as she found a black icon. She was still wondering if he had died because something as simple as his armor had malfunctioned or something else when she spotted a white snake like fish explode out of the ground and go through another Marine. Then she saw something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. The body of the female Marine remained where it was, with a hole in her chest, but there was a light blue ghostly image of the female Marine being dragged by the white fish thing for a few seconds before the image faded. The fish circled around and dove to the ocean floor where it disappeared seconds later.

She was still trying to figure out what happened when Lurch started screaming over the command channel. “Contact below us on the ocean floor. White fish looks like a barracuda. I see two of ours, down.”

Freya blinked and yanked into action. She pulled her Nester off her back and started to look downwards. She spotted a barracuda explode under Lurch and fired before she really thought about it. She hit it roughly four feet from him. She recently noted that there was no blood or guts to the fish as its head exploded from her round. She also noted she could see her explosive bullet’s path through the water. The bullet left a tiny white streak that quickly faded.

She was about to key up to say she killed it when she saw another barracuda-like thing explode from the ocean floor and rise up and through another marine. She watched the Marine fire and missed at the thing before it went through his chest. She watched in horror as it dragged his ghostly image through the water. The ghost image of the guy, she noted as she brought up her rifle, was of him in his armor, but without his face shield. She could see his surprised expression right before the image faded. She pulled the trigger and the fish’s head exploded.

She looked up as Monkeyman fired at something below her. Looking down she saw a dead fish about a foot away from her. Cursing she started swimming upwards. “Swim away from the ground.” She yelled over the radio.

Looking around she saw more and more fish exploding from the ocean bottom. Some were following her advice, but most weren’t. A lot of Marines started to die. “All Marines…” Someone she didn’t know said over the radio, “... swim to a depth of forty feet and defend yourselves.”

“Twenty feet from the ocean floor.” Freya automatically corrected in her head as she fired at another fish as it leaped out of the ground. Her round hit its head and traveled halfway down the thing's body before exploding, demolishing the fish.

She was looking around thinking that they were starting to win when a huge shark-like thing swam out of the ocean haze and bit a marine in half. The shark was roughly fifty feet from Freya and like the white barracuda-like thing she saw an after image of the marine it killed being dragged by the shark's mouth for a few seconds before he faded. Almost in a trace Freya raised her rifle and fired.

Her round hit the shark, and exploded. Worryingly it didn’t die. Instead it turned, and started swimming at her. She noted, even as she fired again, that her shot left a gash on the things side, but it wasn’t deep. What was worse, she didn’t see the thing bleeding. Her second round hit the thing in its nose causing a large cut that started at the nose of the shark and traveled upwards taking a huge piece of flesh out of it. It didn’t even slow down.

Freya started to swim upwards hoping to somehow avoid the shark when there was a flash of white and the sharks bent sideways. It’s head was simply gone. Freya looked down to see Monkeyman rearm his bazooka. She nodded to herself as she looked around the battlefield.

They were getting slaughtered. She could see a bunch of sharks swimming through the battlefield killing marines. What was worse was that she kept seeing those ghostly images of the marines. Those who tried to go lower in the water were getting holed by the barracuda things below. She was not sure who was doing  the most damage. The sharks or the barracuda things. What was very evident was the Marines were losing. There were a lot of dead bodies floating around the water now.

“Mother, we need to leave.” Freya said over the radio.

“All Marines…” A voice that Freya recognized came over the command channel, “... this is Captain Thompson. Get your asses to a ship. Magic, get back in the cockpit and get that ship out of here.”

“Roger.” Freya replied as she started swimming downwards. As she did she raised her rifle and fired at the ground. A barracuda was just leaving the ground when her round hit it. She looked back at her team and noted that they were still all with her. She turned towards the dropship and nearly froze as she saw a shark thing swim right up the ramp and disappear into the ship.

“Captain Thomson!” She yelled over the radio. “Shark!”

There was a muffled explosion and a ball of white water flowed out the ship. She must have stopped because BT grabbed her and started swimming towards the ramp. She took her eyes off the dropship to see that they had reached the plane, but when she turned back to the dropship she saw what was left of the shark float out of the back. She saw a panicked looking after image of Mother trying to swim back inside. The image faded about a second later.

“Magic, wake up!” BT yelled at her.

She turned to him. “Mothers dead.” She told him. She sounded odd to herself.

“So what.” He replied. “She’ll kick your ass if you don’t get us out of here, when she comes back.”

“She’s gone, BT.” Freya told him feeling weird.

“Get it together, Ma Shiv!” Monkeyman said, pulling her away from BT. “Get us out of here or we are all going to die!”

“RIght.” Freya said, trying to get herself together. She looked up and saw a bunch of people swimming for her plane. White barracuda’s were taking most of them out pulling their very souls out of their bodies. She froze again, but someone yanked her backwards. She found herself being pulled towards the cockpit. She pulled herself back from the brink and started helping BT and swam for the cockpit.

She pulled herself out of his grip and swam the rest of the way into the cockpit. She sat down and pulled on the seat straps so she didn’t float away. She ignored the window, not wanting to see what was happening through it. She flipped the switch to start the engines, but nothing happened. Looking down she saw that the power was off on her control panel. Cursing she flipped her battery switch, but nothing happened.

She flipped it off then back on, but nothing happened. Cursing she undid the straps and yanked her backpack off. She pulled out her tools and unrolled the strip. Yanking out a probe, she jammed it into the metal covering the battery switch and yanked it off. She pulled the wiring out a bit, being careful not to damage it. She looked at the connections and didn’t see anything standing out.

She yelled a curse and looked around at the control panel. She noted that the active camo generator lights were on. They were red, but she ignored that as she grabbed her probe. As she did Monkeyman came over the command channel.

“What’s going on up there, Ma Shiv?” He asked her.

“Power is out.” She told him as she pulled the metal covering off the bolt on the console.

“How long?” He asked her.

“I need five minutes.” She told him as she pulled the console off the control panel.

“Ok, permission to dump some of the Mechs. It’ll give us more room for all these people.” He asked her.

Do it.” Freya told him as she found a burn wire. Cursing again she swam over to the copilot’s seat and used her probe on the control panel yanking off the covering. She started to float upwards and had to grab the dash and pull herself downwards costing her a few seconds. Once she was down she used her scanner to scan the mess of flat clear crystals inside.

The scanner beeped at her twice. She quickly looked down at the scanner then brought it up to one of the crystals. It beeped again. She yanked the crystals out of its slot and dropped it. It floated to the floor. Then she rescanned the crystals. The scanner beeped again and she yanked yet another crystal out before scanning it once more. This time her scanner didn’t beep.

She then changed the setting on the scanner and ran it over the panel once more. It beeped a couple of times. She started yanking crystals out of the board and putting them back in other spots. She scanned them once she was done, but the stupid scanner beeped againg.

Cursing at the thing she yanked out two crystals and swapped their position. She scanned the board again and yelled in anger as the scanner beeped once more. Biting her lip she changed the settings and scanned each crystal stopped for a few seconds at each crystal until the scanning was done. Once she was finished scanning them she changed the setting and looked at the results. Nodding to herself she rearranged them once more then scanned it. This time there was no beep.

She smiled and pulled herself back towards her seat. She tried the battery switch once more and this time the control panel turned on. Her sensors slowly came up. Much slower than they should have, but she was just glad they came on. Her active camo console lights turned from red to green. As she waited for the power to rise enough so that she could start her engine she silently cursed the engineer who wired the active camo generators into the control panel. She kind of admitted to herself that it might not be the engineer’s fault, but she still felt pissed at the woman.

“How are we doing back there?” She asked as the power to plane’s generators slowly rose.

“We need to go!” Came the reply from Lurch. “Sharks are making a run at us.”

Freya checked her camera’s as soon as they came back on and noted the while the ramp was up, it was missing a huge chunk. Her team was firing through the hole, and she could see sharks slowly circling the back of the plane. She suddenly looked up at the window as something drew her attention. She was just in time to see a huge shark mouth close on her window. There was a crunch and the glass splintered like a spider web. It was safety glass so it didn’t shatter like normal glass, but Freya could see the shark's teeth through the spider web of broken glass. She looked down at the energy readings and bit her lip harder. It was close, but still in the red. Shrugging mentally, she flipped the switch and closed her eyes. There was a revving sound and then the entire plane shook as one of the engines turned on. Her damage control center screamed at her as the engine slightly torked, but she knew it was fine for now. The plane would have problems in the future, but she didn’t care. She had an engine, that meant they could move.

“Get strapped down.” She yelled into the radio. “We’re leaving.”

She looked up, and saw the cracked window and cursed herself as she had completely forgotten about the shark attack. “Please work.” She chanted over and over again as she pushed the power to the single engine that was working upwards.

The plane started to move. She looked down at her power supply and saw that it was finally in the green. She flicked the switch to the second engine and laughed in relief as it turned over. She gently eased the engine's power upwards to match the first engine.

The windows finally gave in and fell inwards towards her. They didn’t completely let go as the bottom held, but water started to rush in forcing her into her seat as the pressure slowly built up. Her armor held off the pressure for the time being.

“B396, C101.” Freya said over the radio calling Fred, hoping he was still alive and piloting her dropship.

“Go for C101.” Came the reply. She smiled as she heard Fred’s voice.

“We’re up and moving.” She told him. “Where do you want us?”

“Stay on that heading. You got a swarm of sharks following you, but I got you covered.” He told her. “How many were you able to save?”

Switching channels she turned into her team's channel. “Monkeyman, how many do we have aboard?”

“We gonna to live?” he asked her.

“For now. Fred is covering us with the dropship, but we got a swarm of sharks following us.” She replied. “How many did we take on board?”

“We got about forty, but we had to drop two Mechs, plus the one the offloaded when we got here. We got your battle buddy and most of his family. The sister didn’t make it.”

Freya cursed and felt a sharp pain in her chest. It wasn’t a physical thing, but it was still there. “How’s he taking it?” She asked him.

“Say’s shes colonial service. She got a digital backup.” He replied, but his voice had a sad note to it. She wondered if he saw the ghostly after images of the dead too.

“Understood.” She replied, trying to keep her calm.

“What do I know? They may be able to bring her back, and I was just hallucinating.”  She thought to herself as she switched back over to the flight traffic channel on her radio. She reported what Monkeyman had told her. He told her to report back at the way station where everyone else was at.

“Copy that.” She replied as she keyed off the radio. She checked her rear camera, but all she saw was white water. She couldn’t see anything on the feed. Her sensors were not mil spec so they weren't able to pick up the sharks that were following her. She had to trust Fred to keep her plane alive.

She looked down at her active camo generator console and noted that all the lights were green. “Ha, fixed it.” She thought to herself, but she didn’t smile. Too many bad things had happened. What were those ghost things. Was she going crazy or were  they the souls of the dead being ripped out of their bodies. She shook her head and tried not to think about it.