Heart of Darkness

[Ghodere]

Briefing

The manila folder rasped softly as it was pushed across the wood-paneled desk. TOP SECRET – Alpha Level was stamped in bold red across the front, and it was clasped by a simple metal fastener.

“Seventeen missing, Bastion sector. You’ll find the details inside.” MacBoltrough clasped his hands again. They were soft and uncalloused through a lack of combat in this lifetime. His dark eyes glittered with something unidentifiable, sunken deep into his face beneath a jutting brow, as he hunched forward over the desk from his high, leather-backed chair. “There hasn’t been a single defection on the Amerish front for nearly three decades. The fighting’s been too bitter for that. A squad of MPs is being dispatched to deal with what we’re assuming could be desertions, but I want you with them in case it’s not.”

I picked up the folder; it was surprisingly heavy for containing only paper and ink. I unfastened the clasp and opened the cover to be met with a proud, blonde youth’s face above a dress uniform. Beneath the picture was an abbreviated bio. “What else could it be?” I asked without looking up, skimming the page and the next few like it.

“We don’t know. But I want you there to oversee things just the same. Everything pertinent’s in the dossier.” I glanced up and shut the folder. He hadn’t moved an inch. Something had him spooked, to be sure; he was playing this far too close to the chest. I’d never seen him be so reserved with me, his second in command, or delegate to me something seemingly so unimportant. Pressure from above, maybe. Politics was an intricate and unrelenting machine that tied in with every element of the Terran military machine, inscrutable to those outside and, perhaps, those closest to its heart as well.

“A Galaxy will be at Landing Beta in 20 minutes to transport you and the MPs to Ikanam. From there on, Lancer fire from the mountaintops is too threatening for air trans, so a Sunderer will be waiting to take you the rest of the way. You’ll have ample time to review the case on the way, and you’ll return the same route. Dismissed.”

There had to be a reason he wasn’t telling me shit, but orders were orders. I snapped a quick salute as I stood, then turned and walked from the room. The last I saw of him, he was still sitting in his high, red leather-backed chair, hunched over the fine wooden desk with his fingers interlaced and his eyes glittering.

Departure

Outside, orderly bustle filled the great hall, both military and bureaucratic personnel going about their daily business. The sound of boots, clamps, wheels, and every other contrivance used to transport man, machine or object was an unceasing companion in the Central Atrium to the scores of men and women who each marched purposefully in his or her proper direction under the soft crimson glow of the emblem of the Republic, suspended in the center of the room, slowly revolving. Occasionally, an attendant wheeling one of the massive, hulking archival carts bursting with paper would disrupt the flow momentarily, and the lines would stretch and bend like so many ants skirting a leaf, until the cart was clear and order restored.

On the far side of the room, the Central Respawn Tubes, and their attending clerks, hummed with a gentle cadence and occasional crackle as a trooper stepped out, gave a debriefing, and was redirected to another section of the front. To the right of me gaped the doors leading to the exterior of the warpgate, the many vehicle bays, landing pads, and parade grounds that belched constant sorties- squads, platoons, and companies- out onto the front to do glory to the Republic, while behind me and to my left lay the interior, underground portions of the headquarters, where the gargantuan bureaucracy of the Republic, steering the war machine and all the rest of the empire, lived and worked.

The briefing weighing as heavily upon my coat as my commander’s words upon my mind, I stepped forward to join the practiced maelstrom and after a few moments of bustle found myself in the hallway leading to landing zones Alpha through Gamma. Stripes of labeled color ran along the dull grey walls to indicate the turn-offs for each group of bays, though I had lifted off on enough assorted missions to know them by heart. Though the hallway had begun with a steady stream of pedestrians, by the time I reached the final section, leading to Alpha and Beta, there was no one at all ahead of me.

Turning into Beta, I was just in time to see the shutters covering the bay begin to iris open, shedding natural light upon the 12 troopers inside dressed in the signature garish crimson-and-white composite armor of the Military Police. The one in front, officer tags gleaming on his shoulder, interrupted in performing a final inspection, turned towards me and saluted as I approached.

“David Ramsen, Staff Sergeant, Army MP, sir,” a gruff voice said from behind the full-face carapace helmet.

I nodded and, as the distinctive rumble of an approaching Galaxy made itself faintly heard, said, “Joseph Baughn, Internal Services.” Taking a quick look over the rest of the squad revealed absolutely nothing; they could all have been the same person for the ability to identify any one of them- not even their genders were apparent. This, I supposed, was probably for the best, both in terms of each individual and the Police as a whole. The MP, after all, were not well-liked by the enlisted men, and a faceless organization is more able to be feared than a single, human trooper.

After a moment, the bay darkened again, as the lumbering Galaxy descended to fill the vault with its bulk, aft facing us and the loading ramp already descending, and its song, which forced me to cover my ears- I would need my hearing for this mission. As soon as the craft was firm on the ground and the engines had quieted, I walked behind the troopers towards the yawning maw and its red-lit interior, waiting to drop us into a deeper level of Hell.

[More later]