Prologue | 4. Stupidity
"Are you stupid?!" Konstatin stared at Viktor in disbelief.
"What?" Viktor protested innocently. "The wall can stop grenades and even armor piercing bullets, but can it stop a 15,000 kilogram death machine moving close to the speed of sound?
I'm pretty sure the jet has some missiles attached to it as well. Extra damage, I guess.
Listen, you take a couple of people along with you on one of the vehicles. The armory is 2.5 kilometers away from the camp. If you go at 140 kmph with a jeep, it'll take about two minutes...." Viktor calculated the amount in his head. "Yep, it'll take less than two minutes to reach the walls. Then you guys can get to the top using a grappling hook, maybe stand on top of the car. Do your thing. I'll crash the jet."
"Okay, assuming we somehow go through with this stupid plan, the automated weapons'll shoot your jet before you get to the tower."
"No. I'll be flying it less than 50 meters off the ground. Radars tracking planes find it extremely hard to track planes flying super low. I mean, which moron flies a jet barely above the ground?
And by the time I get to one kilometer distance, it'll be super hard for the guns to shoot my plane. I'll hit the tower.
Then you guys will move in and get the turrets on your side in 2 minutes. We win, easy."
"What about you? What'll happen to you?!"
"Well....as long as those fuckers die, I'll be glad." Viktor replied. "I'll be watching you from heaven, alright? You better fuck 'em up."
"No, I'm not going to let you-"
"What are you two doing?!" Deputy Commander Pyotr walked towards them angrily. "Planning to run away?!"
"No, sir." Konstatin twirled around.
"Then what were you doing?"
"Coming up with a plan to save everyone, or at least kill everyone in the armory, sir." Viktor grinned. "We'll kill 'em all, sir."
"....what?" Deputy Commander Pyotr looked at him, confused.
"Well, sir. If you could give me some of your kerosene and alcohol filled molotov cocktails, I'll get the abandoned jet running and crash it into the automated defence system control tower. Sir. Then Konstatin and a couple other people can scale the top of the wall, manually override the turrets and kill everyone in the confusion, taking the armory for ourselves. Uhhh, sir. "
Pyotr stared at Viktor for an eternity, then muttered "Are you serious?"
"Exactly. This is stupid. He'll get-" Konstatin was interrupted by Pyotr
"No, like. Are you serious? Serious that you're about to do it?"
"Well, I either die for nothing, or die getting you all alive. Easy choice, sir." Viktor replied.
"Hmm....they have communication channels too....maybe we can try to request for backup." Pyotr muttered to himself. "Ugh....there's no chance they'll send support though. They won't risk so much just for us and an armoury. There's more of the enemy's army further north, beyond the armory-"
"But at the very least, we get to keep an armory." Viktor replied.
"And since most of the army in the armory is coming towards us, the armory itself will be weakly defended once the automated system is down!" Pyotr perked up. "Viktor. If you can get the automated system down...I.. you'll be our god." he looked solemnly at Viktor. "Okay, I'm sorry. But I can't fully thank you now. If we're going to do this, we have to do this quickly.Come with me. I'll bring one other combat technician. "
"Are you coming with us, sir?" Viktor said.
"Sir, with all due respect, I'm not going to go along with this plan yet." Konstatin shot a glare at Pyotr.
"Konstatin, buddy. " Viktor put his arm on his shoulder. "You can say whatever you want, but I've made up my mind. You don't have to follow me, by the way. We can get another combat technician instead. You can defend this place with the commander. Deputy Commander and I will take two other technicians with us."
"....so you're really going to do this?" Konstatin looked at Viktor.
Viktor nodded.
"I'll come with you, then."
"Okay."
"Alright let me go talk to the commander, I'll bring another combat technician as well. You guys wait here." Pyotr walked back into the camp.
"Don't forget at least eight bottles of molotov!" Viktor yelled at the Deputy Commander as he walked back into the camp.
"And now....we wait." Viktor said as he stared into the sky.
FORTY MINUTES LATER:
"I'm sorry, baby." Viktor stroked the MiG-29 as he fed it a mixture of petrol and alcohol. There was no jet fuel, so he had to make do with car fuel. The engine probably won't last for more than a few minutes and neither will it hit its top speed, but Viktor was positive that it'll easily hit 900 kmph. Neither will he need it to work for more than a couple of minutes. There was a nice pseudo runway in the camp as well.
"Okay. The plane is ready..I think." Viktor said, closing the fuel tank cover. "So, we wait for the camp to shoot their flare to show that the army's away from the armory. Then I hit the tower, disabling the turrets and you guys hit the pedal on the jeep and get there quick."
"Yeah. " the other combat technician, Artyom gulped. "Hopefully this works."
"If not, we can just drive back to camp and join the combat." Deputy Commander Pyotr said. "It won't get to that point, though."
"Okay...." Viktor replied, and gave a shaky smile.
"You should see the looks of hope on the faces of our brethren." Pyotr smiled back. "No pressure, though."
"Haha...no problem." Viktor looked at Konstatin, who refused to look at him. He sighed, and leaned against his jet. "So....we just-"
A streak of orange swam through the afternoon sky and exploded in a beautiful pattern.
"That's our sign, huh?" Viktor's mouth went dry. The reality of the situation was starting to dawn on him.
"Yeah." Artyom replied.
"Okay" Viktor grunted as he sat into the cockpit. "I'm ready." He said as he pressed the ignition button.
Nothing happened.
"Uhhh.." Viktor kept pressing the button as nothing happened. "Fuck. No."
"What happened?" Pyotr asked him.
"The jet isn't turning on."
"What?"
"Fuck."
Viktor's heart started pounding in his chest and he felt like he was about to puke. "No. This isn't working. The jet is probably uhhh....one second." He tried his best to not lose himself in panic.
A distant gunshot rang out. The battle had started. And the jet didn't work.
"Uhmm....the-the jet isn't working." Viktor said.
"What?"
"Y-yeah..." Viktor stood up. What the hell is he supposed to do now? Fuck. There was no hope. No hope anymore. What should he do?
The cruelty of the situation dawned on him as he felt his head spin. Fuck. After all he did. This was life. Life was cruel, why did Viktor think his plan would work?
"What the fuck do you mean the jet isn't working?" Pyotr started panicking as well.
Right on cue, the jet coughed to life and shuddered. Viktor felt the familiar vibrations of the jet coming to life. The fuel tank slowly went up to show that there was about 15% of fuel in the tank. Dirty fuel.
"Fuck, nevermind" Viktor immediately sat down and buckled his seatbelt. He let out a nervous laugh. "Heh, imagine if the jet just stopped working." His heart jackhammered against his ribs and a wave of relief washed over him as his brain dosed him with a cocktail of drugs stronger than heroin.
"Okay..uhh.." Viktor gulped, and started pressing the buttons to get the plane ready. Everything seems fine for now. Fuck, the seatbelt. He put the seatbelt on. Alright, it's time to-
"-Viktor, bro!" Artyom rapped against the plane's side, trying to get his attention for the past 7 seconds.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks, man."
"Heh." Viktor gave him a thumbs up, face showing a mix of concentration and relief.
"Viktor." Pyotr looked at him. "If I get out of this alive, I'll....name my child after you. And I'll make sure none of my descendents would forget who you are."
"Pfft." Viktor let out a small laugh. "Appreciate it, sir."
He looked over to Konstatin, who stared at Viktor with a really, really sad look on his face. "Viktor..."
Viktor's heart melted right then and there. "You don't need to tell me anything, buddy. I understand. I love you too, man."
Konstatin nodded at Viktor. He didn't know what else to do.
Viktor forced himself to look away. He closed his cockpit, and prepared to take off. The rest of the group went to the truck, at a safe distance.
His jet shuddered and started inching forward, moving slowly though the 'runway', then rapidly increasing speed. Viktor pulled the centre stick up and the plane -despite groaning and complaining- left the ground. He pushed the acceleration to maximum and felt his head sink into his seat. He'd almost forgotten how hard the g-forces hit when he hit top acceleration. The plane sputtered, but shot forward. Beautifully, there was a perfect space between the mountains that directly pointed towards the armory. He just had to move downwards a little bit to hit the tower
I don't want to die.
There was an eject button on this plane. But I don't want to die. If he ejected, the plane might not go the right direction-
The plane's speed went up. 150, 250, 400, 600, 1045, 1800, it was exactly going at 2386 kmph as it exited the mountains and shot straight towards the armory. By the time the 'crack' sound -caused by the plane breaking the sound barrier- falls on the ears of the people in the armory, it'll be too late. It was too late even for the AI to figure out what was even happening. By the time the radar showed signs of something being off, there was no chance of the bullets hitting the plane.
It will take 1.500015 seconds for the plane to hit the tower.
5 minutes and 58.499985 seconds ago:
At the Armory
"Well....they could have surrendered." Gabriel looked at his captain.
captain Kortez stared at him."Yes. But you can't really expect anything intelligent from these barbarians. The only thing they know is to wage war."
Gabriel looked behind him-behind the glass panels- at the Bloom Engine. The thing was massive, taking up the entirity of the west side of the L-shaped base of the armory. The base was the longest of the five buildings in the armory and hugged the north and west walls, taking up about 40% of the volume inside the armory walls.
It was a thing of beauty. Nukes were the thing of the past, the new age weapons of mass destruction were the Chrysalis machinery. And they needed Bloom Engines to operate. Only 4 of these engines were present in the entire world.
It was far too dense and delicate to be carried by air. They need control of that mountain pass to get it to their Navy waiting behind them.
'Oh, Thema.' Gabriel thought to himself. 'It's so boring here.'
'What if Thema's already got a girlfriend?' evil Gabriel said unhelpfully.
'Shut up evil Gabriel' good Gabriel growled. 'I bet Thema's in love with us. Why else would she sleep with us that night?'
'Don't make it sound lewd!' Gabriel squeaked at good Gabriel in his mind. 'We just slept in the same bed together! There was nothing weird going on!'
'But did you not see the smile she gave you?! And the way she told you good night!' good Gabriel yelled.
'You're overthinking it, dumbass.' Evil Gabriel rolled his eyes. 'She just gave you a regular smile. You're so infatuated with her that even a regular smile she gives you gets you mesmerized!'
'No, I'm not dumb!!' Good Gabriel and Gabirel yelled together. 'We have a chance! A really fucking high chance!'
'Look at yourself. What makes you think you're someone she likes?'
Gabriel was stumped. 'Well....why shouldn't she like me?'
'What have you even got going for yourself? You're too scared to actually be a part of the army.'
'Oh shut up. Whether we end up alive or not in war -especially as a soldier- is a pure dice roll.' Good Gabriel replied, but evil Gabriel's words hit good Gabriel's heart even harder.
'That's not the point.' Evil Gabriel retorted. 'You're a scaredy cat. You aren't even anything special. You aren't really even all that good looking. What have you even accomplished?!'
'...can't I dream, at least?' Gabriel protested.
'No. A woman will show you the basic amount of kindness. Then you fall in love. Then you dream about her. Then she ends up liking another guy and they make out and have sex and get married. And we end up getting hurt.' Evil Gabriel shook his head. 'This always happens with us.'
'Well...Evil Gabriel is right.' Logical Gabriel popped into the conversation. 'How many more times must we dream and get our hopes crushed?!'
'You don't listen to these idiots.' Good Gabriel put his imaginary arm on Gabriel's imaginary shoulder in his imaginary body in his mind.
'Fuck you guys.' Gabriel said. All the other Gabriels sulked, to which Gabriel replied: 'Not you, Good Gabriel.' to which good Gabriel instantly lit up. 'The rest of you Gabriels can eat a bag of dicks though.' Gabriel exited his mind and sighed out loud.
"You alright, son?" Captain Kortez looked at Gabriel, concerned. To him, Gabriel had just been standing abruptly still for a couple of minutes, staring into empty space and looking distressed for no reason.
"...yeah. I'm fine. It's just that- my uhh- my mind. It's been acting up."
"I understand. We aren't exactly in a five-star resort enjoying a holiday, are we? ZEHAHAHAHAAAA!!" captain Kortez put his hands on his belly and laughed painfully loudly, startling the two other people in the room with them.
"Hehe....yeah. Hey, uh, I guess I should ask the workers to get the vehicle ready. You'll probably get control of the mountain pass in a couple of hours, eh?" Gabriel asked captain Kortez.
"Heh. Yeah."
"You know, I think it might be a bit too much of an overkill to send the entire army and the offensive machinery to kill the starved bunch in the guerilla camp. Plus, I'd feel safer with a few millitary people inside."
"Son....what's your job?"
"Uhhh...I'm just a scientist guy."
"I'm assuming they put you in your position because you're good at your job."
"Yep."
"So do you think the same people will put me in my position if I was a moron?"
"....sorry."
"Yeah, you better be sorry." Kortez chuckled. "How can a Defence Engineer like you not have any faith in your own creations? The automated defence systems are impenetrable, right?"
"Of course. Grenades, high velocity-armor piercing bullets, even a severe earthquake can't damage the central infrastructure. Weapons cannot win against it, boss."
"And that's assuming the monkeys can even get close to us."
"Which they can't. Our AI watching the ground can accurately shoot humans or even cars down despite the ground turret's slow fire rate." Gabriel replied solemnly. "We've even got radars scanning the skies if they somehow get air support. But even I know that the Verdant Collective won't be sending any support."
"Heh. Why'd you turn the radar on? The skies will be clear today."
"Well, I don't want to risk anything." Gabriel replied.
Captain Kortez shook his head. "Don't you worry about a thing, son." He placed his arm on Gabriel's shoulder. "I've got 35 years of service under my belt. You're safe in my hands."
And that was the moment a jet crashed into the tower.