Chapter 14: A Scuffle With The UBAF

  A noisy ruckus filled the evening air as an army cavalcade churned through the streets below the flat, stopping in front of Jessie’s building.

  “I’m guessing that’s our ride…” Erik said, getting up from his seat to look out the window. “I thought we were supposed to be low-key.”

  Luckily, the convoy didn’t exit their vehicles with megaphones and blaring sirens. Emma left the frontmost vehicle, looking around the street. She noticed Erik through the window on the third floor and looked up at him apologetically.

  “Guess we’re off?” he said to the worried girls behind him.

  Out on the street, Erik went straight towards Emma, but a couple of soldiers almost manhandled him and dragged him toward another vehicle.

  “Let go,” Erik said, calm as a lake on a still day.

  “Come with us, sir,” one soldier said, trying to pull him further.

  When he noticed a couple of other soldiers doing the same to Jessie and Sophie, the weather around the same lake changed.

  “I promise you, you will not get me into that car without my consent, soldier,” Erik said, his demeanour shifted.

  The other soldier grabbing him let him go, but the one who had ordered him around still kept his hands on him.

  “Don’t make me taser you, sir,” the soldier said, reaching into one of his back pockets, pulling an electrical device out.

  “Try me,” Erik said.

  He did.

  The device clicked several times as the soldier pushed it against Erik’s torso, but the Remnant barely flinched. He got a slight, repeated twitch from the corner of his mouth, but otherwise there wasn’t an easy way of seeing the taser working.

  A few seconds later, the device stopped, and the soldier looked nervously into Erik’s eyes. The Titan then pushed the soldier back with his hands, the soldier practically flying back until he hit the car three metres or so behind him. Erik looked at Emma, who looked just as annoyed as Erik.

  “What’s going on?” he asked her.

  “They’re just on edge, try to cut them some slack. They promised not to hurt any of you,” Emma said, though whether she believed her own words or not wasn’t obvious.

  She looked Jessie and Sophie up and down, before nodding in greeting at them. Jessie nodded back, but Sophie only looked nervously around.

  Erik went over to the car they wanted to put him in, gesturing to the driver, still in the car, to drive the window down.

  “Room for four?” Erik asked, leaning into the car through the window.

  “Uh, yes?” the driver said. Erik smiled and thanked the man.

  “Emma, Jessie, Sophie, you’re riding with me. Shotgun!”

  Erik then entered the car in the front passenger seat, eyeing the soldiers around the rest of the girls as the girls wandered off towards his commandeered vehicle.

  The soldier he’d pushed gave Erik a violent stare, but got into another car. Soon enough, they were driving off.

  “What was that about?” Erik asked openly in the car. The driver was incredibly busy focusing on the road in front of him.

  “They’re just nervous. I don’t know the details about the missive from the general, but it cracked some shells, so to speak. The convoy is under Captain Colson’s command; the guy you pushed,” Emma said.

  “Taser-man, you mean?” Erik asked in a corrective manner.

  “Yes, the guy who tasered you. The rest of them don’t know anything, but he’s putting them all on edge. Don’t give the rest of them a bad time, please.”

  “I’ll try. So do they know?”

  “They know some, I guess. Like I said, I don’t know the details of the missive Angela gave the brigadier.”

  “Do they know we can kill the Hellbeasts?” Erik asked.

  The vehicle they were in swerved back and forth in response, almost crashing into an oncoming car.

  “Well, he does,” Emma said with an annoyed tone.

  Erik looked at the driver, who looked incredibly tense. “Hey, you can keep a secret, right?” he asked with a calming voice.

  “I, uh… Y-Yes sir?” he responded, having got the vehicle under control once more.

  “Great! Anyway, Emma, meet Jessie-” Erik said. He gestured towards Jessie, then her sister. “- and Sophie, the bubbly younger sister.”

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  Sophie smiled at Erik, then greeted Emma. Jessie shook Emma’s hand as they sat next to each other. Sophie and Emma sat on opposite ends.

  “You’re the other one?” Emma asked Jessie, eyeing the driver as she did.

  “I suppose I am. Erik told us a bit about you. We should talk when we arrive, I think,” Jessie said, getting a nod of approval from Emma.

  Ten minutes later, the convoy stopped outside the gate to the air base and soon moved on through the opening gate. A line of soldiers were waiting for them outside a hangar they stopped in front of.

  Erik, not much for waiting for orders, casually stepped out of the vehicle, stretching his arms into the air. A middle-aged man practically reeking of authority walked towards him, only temporarily stopping to share a few words with Captain Colson, who still looked quite angry. The brigadier soon stopped in front of Erik.

  “Good evening, Mr Fried. I’m Brigadier Bumley, in charge of the Leicester air base. You’ve already had an exciting first meeting with the United British Air Force, I hear… I apologise for the captain’s behaviour. Maybe we can start over in a more agreeable way for both parties.”

  “Well, what’s a little light tasering between future friends, am I right?” Erik said, looking over at the captain, who merely grunted in response as he walked away.

  “Quite… General Mathisen’s missive has been both eye-opening and quite lacking in details. I hope you and I can talk more in a less public arena?” the brigadier asked.

  “Of course, Brigadier, that’s why I’m here. I want Angela, Emma, Jessie, and Sophie to join, if that’s not too much to ask. I realise my entire squad is me and a bunch of girls, so you can bring in a couple of guys if you like,” Erik answered.

  The brigadier took a few moments to respond to that.

  “Of course, Mr Fried. I would like to bring Captain Colson along, if you wouldn’t mind too terribly.”

  “My mind is nothing if not malleable, Brigadier. If you trust the man, I’ll give him a chance,”

  “Much appreciated. Shall we?”

  The brigadier guided the group into the enormous hangar, and they turned left to climb a narrow staircase. They followed a catwalk across the hangar and into a meeting room on the opposite side of the hangar gates they entered from.

  The meeting room featured an old-fashioned blackboard, a CRT TV, and a collection of desks and chairs. They arranged the desks to create a large table and put the chairs all around it.

  “This looks like ancient school equipment,” Jessie commented, and Erik agreed. It was like he was back in the first grade.

  “The invasion has stretched our resources quite thin. This is only a temporary camp, after all, and there’s only so much fancy equipment to go around. We have modern computers and radio equipment, of course,” the brigadier explained, gesturing for them to sit down in the chairs of their choice. Captain Colson and another man entered the room a minute later.

  “We should start by welcoming and greeting our guests” Bumley started after everyone had seated themselves. “As you know by now, I’m Brigadier Bumley. It’s a pleasure to meet you Jessie, Sophie.”

  “Sorry to interrupt, where’s Angela?” Erik asked, worried.

  “Miss Ashleigh is communicating with General Mathisen. She’ll be along shortly,” said the hitherto unnamed third UB soldier in the room.

  Erik nodded his appreciation.

  “I suppose that makes me next. I’m Major MacLeod. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  He got several nods of greeting in response, but silence reigned absolute for the next short while, only interrupted by the major’s clearing of his throat. It was directed at Colson.

  “Captain Colson. A pleasure,” the angered man lied.

  Erik’s group was next, and they all introduced themselves one after the other. Emma didn’t use her military rank as she did, which didn’t escape the notice of the other major and the brigadier. Angela entered the room during the introductions as well, and she ended by introducing herself to the room, for Jessie’s and Sophie’s sake. She, too, avoided stating her rank.

  “With introductions out of the way, I would like us all to now talk about this missive, handwritten by General Mathisen of the SEMP. I will begin reading the most critical part,” Bumley said, before reading a part of the missive. “For the sake of the future and for any chance of us winning this wretched war, I beg you to assist this civilian contractor, Erik, as well as his team, in whatever way you can. Understand that this is not a request for aid, nor reinforcement. Consider this a personal request, avoiding all usual channels. Let it be known that I, General Mathisen, hereby place all responsibility for the actions of this team upon myself and my rank.”

  The room was silent, but Colson’s face was almost audibly red. He had quite likely read through this himself earlier along with the major and the brigadier, but having someone in the room to direct his feelings towards only made matters worse. Meeting the stare of the brigadier, he calmed himself slightly.

  “I don’t think I need to tell any of you what this reads like,” Bumley said a short moment later. “What I wonder is, why would a highly decorated general of the SEMP write this, if not forced? Bear in mind, I do not think anyone forced her hand. This has the tone of a career suicide note and even despite the goings on in the world right now, this is highly unlike the general I know quite well,” he continued, expecting some kind of response when he finished.

  “So long as it stays in this room, at least for now, I will explain her words as well as I can,” Erik said, receiving a nod from the brigadier. “Having escaped from Norway and crossed Sweden, I found Mathisen’s regiment at Bridgefort. As a civilian refugee, they let me in, but when they discovered the contents of my luggage, Mathisen herself interrogated me. I guess, with her being on the front lines, she saw the slightest chance of turning this war around and decided something no one in her position would normally do. This war isn’t normal, though.”

  “What, pray tell, was your mysterious ‘luggage’, Mr Fried?” MacLeod asked.

  “The head of a Hellbeast”.

  Brigadier Bumley and the major nodded in response, likely already thinking something of that note. The captain, on the other hand…

  “Like hell! Those things can’t be beat! They can’t die. They won’t die, no matter what we throw at them! There’s no way you could kill one, no matter what you’ve led the general to believe!”

  “Captain!” the major shouted. The captain calmed himself, but he didn’t signal that he was finished with this.

  “She decided that I, and by extension, Jessie, would give this world one final chance to win this war. Later that same night, two beasts attacked Bridgefort. Mathisen trusted me enough to let me prove my claims to her or die trying and the two beasts were dispatched. Former Colonel Ashleigh and former Major Svensson both found their own reasons to join me in this endeavour after that,” Erik said, facing the captain at the end.

  “Lies!” the captain burst, knocking his closed fists into the desk in front of him as he stood up.

  Erik had waited for just that and pointed a stubby stick at him. Before anyone could react, a greying white goo shot from the tip of the stick, enveloping the captain from the torso down in a flash. The goo solidified, stopping his movements. The major and the brigadier both rose from their chairs in surprise,

  “Mr Fried, what the hell are you doing?” the brigadier yelled.