The PacificBoard

Kayla walked down the hallway to her room, trying desperately hard not to cry. The second day of the trial just finished, and Rang has still not been allowed to have visitors. She hasn’t even been able to find out where they are holding him, or the rest of the Commandos. The Senate seemed determined to keep all of that secret.

For nine hours a day for the last two days, the Senate had confronted Rang with accusations of things he had done. Assassinations, executions, interrogations, and many more things. Kayla had heard most of them from Rang himself, but a few of the stories surprised even her. Rang never hesitated at any of them. With each one, he either corrected them on exaggerations or explained exactly why each act was necessary to the effort of whatever war he was fighting at the time. Information gotten from tortured prisoners, lives saved by the death of an enemy commander, supplies saved by the abandonment of enemy prisoners, and things like that. For a while, it almost seemed like Rang fell back into a different personality, one that coldly calculated the risk and gain of each death caused, and had at one point determined they were all worth it. This was the Rang Orar that had fought through the Hyrellian war, back when Kayla was just doing simple guerrilla raids to steal supplies for her family. Watching Rang turn into this old killer was almost as hard as watching him stand trial.

Kayla finally made it to her room. Once she was satisfied that she was alone, she allowed the tears to start flowing again. After the first day, she had determined that she would not let the Senate use her feelings as a weapon against her. If Rang could be strong enough to stand on the chopping block, Kayla could be strong enough to watch him do it. So she held back her tears until they couldn’t see her. One thing the Senate couldn’t have the Security Forces do was spy on the Kathol’ar. A Commando had designed the security, and only a Commando could breach it. So she cried for the man she loved, the father of her child, and prayed to whatever gods there might be for him to make it out of this alive.

When she had cried her tears out, she forced herself to stand up. She walked over to her desk and looked at her computer. She noticed automated messages from almost every department of government, with standard updates on tiny changes. She trashed them all. Then she noticed one message that was quite unusual. She read it aloud to herself.

“Mountains will crumble and temples will fall, and no man can survive its endless call. What is it?”

Kayla frowned, trying to decipher the message. There was no identification of the sender, nor a source of any kind. Just a riddle.

Slowly, she started to smile. Not just a riddle. Just Riddle Squad, one of the few Commando squads that the Security Forces hadn’t managed to bring in. She quickly typed up a response.

“Time. How heavy of fish are you fishing for?”

She quickly hit send on the answer to the riddle and the coded phrase. The fishing reference was one of the many codes the Commandos had for asking how secure a line of communication was. The response came very quickly.

“We only go for the heaviest of fish, Kathol’ar. How’s the chaos in the Citadel going?”

She typed furiously, knowing now that Riddle had, as usual, already secured the system before messaging her.

“Not good, Riddle. Rang’s been on trial for 2 days. I can’t find out where they are holding everyone. It’s not any of the official holding areas. I’ve checked them all.”

“Not to worry. We can find them. We’re still out and about, and are in contact with 7 other squads who are still free. That’s 32 trained Commandos at your disposal, ma’am.”

Kayla sighed in relief. She didn’t know that so many had escaped. She really shouldn’t have been surprised though. Knowing the Commandos, there were probably still more.

“I have a favor to ask of you, Riddle.”

“Ma’am, you’re the Kathol’ar. We follow your orders and yours alone.”

“I won’t make it an order. It’s risky, and honestly selfish. If you can find Rang and the others, I want you to set up a way for me to talk to him and my father. Even just once. While you’re doing that, have one or two of the other squads start evacuating the entire program. Get younger trainees to Hell Base, along with as much of the specialized equipment as you can. We need to be prepared for Broken Halo if this all goes the way it’s going.”

Kayla leaned back and waited for a response. Broken Halo. One of the many contingency plans she had hoped she’d never need to use. And now, here she was preparing for it. To order the complete disappearance of the Commando Program was something that had never been done before. In fact, the plan had only appeared relatively recently, while Rang was in charge. His reign was the first time that the Senate really was in control of anything, and he was well ready for their inevitable seizing of everything they could get. He was certainly not ready for this trial, though. None of them were.

Suddenly, her computer lit up with a response.

“No problem, ma’am. We were planning on doing a full infiltration anyways. Give us five days, and we’ll have you talking to the Chief and your dad. They didn’t even make an attempt to arrest your sisters, so we’ll have them work with Iron Squad to begin the preparations. With some skill and a little luck, we’ll whip the whole program out from under those Security snot-noses without them noticing.”

Kayla almost laughed. For the first time in the last 2 days, she felt some hope that this was going to be alright. Leave it to chaotic Riddle to manage something like this. They were a pain in the rear to control during normal times, but that made them perfect for operations like this. She deleted all of the messages and shut down her computer. She went and lied down on the bed. Her right arm, her metal arm, strayed over to where her husband normally would be. The bed felt unusually cold without him. As she dozed off, she couldn’t help but wonder who she would see when Riddle got through to Rang. Would she see the man she loved and who had died for her once already? Or would it be the remorseless man with a face of stone that she had seen on the pedestal?

She wouldn’t know for at least another 5 days.