Chapter 14: The Gift Horse
For the next few days we stayed on the run. We traveled back in the Alps in Southern France to hide out. We settled on Vanoise National Park. Vanoise was a remote national park where few people would bother us.
The cold weather was already make it difficult for us. We spent the next few days trying to gather what we could in the way of food. For the most part we could only find berries, nuts, and herbs and barely enough to sustain us. Only the Doctor managed to find any significant food, she shot and killed a buck. I had not tried deer meat before that day, but after a few days of roughing it…it was the best meat I had ever tasted.
After having finally having a solid meal in our bellies, we began to decide on what are next move would be. I remembered there were two airfields nearby. Back in the day, the airfields were used to smuggle in goods in out of the E.B.S.I.S. All that changed late in the war, when the Southern Cross converted one of the airfields for use with their military aircraft. The other airfield being that close a military airfield, all smuggling operations quickly ceased. How do I know this, as I say I am not a nice girl.
Anyways I digress, we headed out to the airfields to see if hopes to find some parts, or weapons. As we headed up to the airfield, the Marine realized something. Everytime we were in the Cyclones the Invid seemed to sense where we were. After to some discussion between the Marine and the Doctor, it became clear that the Invid could detect the Protoculture systems that the Cyclones used and they could probably detect anything else that was using Protoculture. As a result, we realized we could only use the Cyclones when the situation absolutely demanded it and we could accept the Invid tracking us.
So as the approached the shorter of the two airfields, we stopped in the nearby forest and hid the Hummer and the Cyclones. We then began sneaking up on the airfield. We came across a hill that overlooked the airfield. We could see a fighter, a pre-Robotech War fighter, being wheeled into a hanger. That meant there was still Southern Cross soldiers still on the base. And they might not be happy to see us…
The Marine chose to sneak ahead to see if he could get a better look at the base. He had a camouflage outfit that allowed him to blend in with the grasses around the base. Right after he moved out, we lost track of him instantly. We didn’t see again until he hit a patch of grass that didn’t match his suit. Unfortunately, that is when the troops on base saw him.
The Marine immediately came up with hands up as a soldier appeared out of the grass and took the Marine’s rifle away. The soldier then marched the captured Marine into a nearby building whose the windows were painted out black. We waited a bit and then decided to go down and see what we can do to get our Marine back.
The Comrade initially saw someone observing us as we descended off the hill and onto the airfield. However, the Comrade quickly lost track of him, when we got on the airfield. However, we were not prepared for what greeted us down on the airfield…nothing. It was like nobody had ever been on the airfield. In fact had we not seen with our own eyes, I would have hard time believing there was anybody at this airfield.
We headed to building we saw the Marine and his captor when in, but the door was locked. I tried getting the door open, but I couldn’t get the door to budge. We then decided to head to the hanger to see if anybody was there.
The hanger was completely empty, there was no one in the hanger. The fighter that we saw wheeled into the base was completely missing as well. Obviously there wasn’t right here. The Doctor immediately guessed that there was some sort of elevator here big enough for the fighter and began looking for a control panel for the elevator.
Unfortunately, the Comrade and I were not exactly helping. It had been several days since we had been seen any civilization, we began looking for a vending machine. I haven’t had a smoke in several days and the comrade was looking for a canned drink.
As we looked around, I suddenly heard “Would you like a soda?” rapidly closing in on me. A soda machine had locked on me and decided to attack me for no apparent reason. I barely dodged out of the way, but the Comrade was run down by the runaway machine.
Before it could make it escape, Charles blew away the soda machine’s wheels sending it crashing into the ground. I then pinned it to the ground with my foot as Joan finished the twisted machine off with a well placed burst into its CPU. The Comrade and I pried open our “catch” only to fine it had a single can of Lemon-Lime Diet Caffeine-Free Petite Cola. I let the Comrade have all of it, since he was the unfortunate person who was run over by the soda machine.
We then returned to help the Doctor with the task at hand, where did all the soldiers go? It was clear that they must have gone underground somehow, but any obvious entrances were non-existent. So we then began looking for vents, places where air was getting to any underground bases.
After looking around for a while, we found a vent that was active. We climbed down to see what we could find. Unfortunately as we got pretty deep it became really dusty in the vent. And that dust, aggravated my asthma and I had an attack. As I began uncontrollably gasping for air, the vent’s bottom collapsed.
We fell into a corridor near a underground hanger. Inside was the fighter we saw as well as five additional fighters that were used by the Southern Cross during the war with the Masters. Of course, I was still struggling for air. The Comrade looked like he was going to try to help but he ran into a pipe and knocked himself out. That left the Doctor who took an axe to a nearby steam pipe. The steam slowly relieved my asthma.
It was as I recovered from my asthma attack and the Comrade slowly regained consciousness, that we noticed we were surrounded. CDU troops had heard the noise and come to investigate what was going on. They immediately demanded that us “space cadets” surrender. Of course they were armed with big weapons and armor, so there really wasn’t much we could do to resist.
After taking our weapons away, they marched through the underground base, through the underground passages that looked like they were dug out, to a room where our Marine was sitting. He was at a table in a Southern Cross uniform, eating some food prepared for him. I was so upset that he had me worried about him, that I slapped him upside the head. Still I was relieved that he wasn’t hurt. The Southern Cross soldiers left us there and went about their business.
We spent a little while eating our food and discussing what our next steps were. However before we came up with any solid ideas, the room began shaking and we heard explosions. These explosions got louder and the room really began shaking. As we began to organize to go find out what happened, the lights went out.
The Doctor and the Marine led us through the underground passages towards the hanger to see what we could to help. Along the way we found our equipment the Southern Cross troops had taken from us. In addition we found some CVR-3 armor as well as enough Gallant H-90s with rifle extensions, energy caps, and rifle clips. We also found a RL-6 rocket launcher and a bunch of rockets for a Cyclone.
We equipped ourselves as best we could and headed out to join the battle. We made our way to the hanger, where the five new fighters were still located. Somebody had run around and ripped out the protoculture cells out of the fighters. As we headed to the elevator, we noticed a poor Southern Cross soldier in his armor with a big hole in chest. He was sticking halfway out the elevator door, with the door eerily trying to shut on his corpse.
The Doctor removed the body of the Southern Cross. She then climbed up the elevator shaft to check and see what was going on outside. After checking to see if the building above was clear and then helped the rest of us up the elevator shaft. We carefully moved up to the door to see what was going on outside.
We took a collective breath and opened the door. Off in a distance, a bunch of the armed lobsters were flying away leaving the airfield in ruins. The old fighter on the base was a pile of wreckage at the end of the runway. The fighter had been shot down before it could even lift off the runway and had crashed. The remaining Southern Cross personnel were all gunned down by the Invid as they tried to defend their home.
We spent the rest of the day, taking care of the dead and searching for any survivors. As we searched the base we discovered that the Southern Cross soldiers had found one of the Marine’s friends. She had been found nearby the base, but the Southern Cross soldiers were unable to save her. She was buried in a makeshift graveyard, where we wound up burying the rest of the Southern Cross soldiers. Unfortunately, we found no survivors.
So we wound up setting up the base as best we could. I painted Lorraine Crosses wherever I could and painted subdued black Lorraine Cross on my Forrager. The Marine went through and made sure all our Cyclones were back in fighting shape. The Comrade realized that we could go and retrieve Annika and the Sergeant and have them rejoin our little group. The Comrade and Doctor took the Hummer back to Monaco and retrieved our Russian comrades.
While they were away, I decided to console the Marine. He had just learned he had lost one of his comrades and probably was not in the best of moods. And he was there for me at my lowest point in my life, I should do the same for him. Well one thing lead to another and perhaps I should best leave what happened out of this journal…
Tags: Memoirs Robotech Mekton
