The elemental basis of trust begins with its origins in warfare: an open palm, showing no weapons — “I mean you no harm.” The second basis of trust begins with its origins in love: revealing the self through intimacy — “I am who I say I am.” It is at telling these lies that the undercover operative must be most adept.
PLAA Training Handbook for Intelligence Operatives, Anonymous
Somewhere along the Eastern Border of Kyrgyzstan, UCF 12/31/453, New Year’s Eve
Roughly 3 months later
“Commander! Orders, sir!” Seraph crouches in the HEAVENSPEAR behind an escarpment, taking heavy bombardment. The KILLBOYS are encircled, with little avenue for advance. Enemy THRONES are coming in hot, pounding away with artillery fire, firing newly developed Thanatic bolts from THRONE-mounted boltguns. The air is thick with white ash and the sound of clicking as Thanatic arms whizz past, ionizing the atmosphere in their passage. Seraph’s face on the commsline shows a rare fracture in his cool stoicism — a flitter of panic, fear.
Acting Commander Flechette Jaydamn bites her lip, curses loudly. Around her, her men are taking heavy losses — infantry support has been decimated, and air support is minimal. It’s clear to everyone that this battle is all but lost. Every week it seems like there are new Thanatic horrors cooking up in the PLAA armories, new technologies rapidly disintegrating the combat efficacy of the UCF THRONE forces. Flechette attempts to keep calm, puts on a stony face, and nods to her cross. Tanglewire Sidewinder nods back in affirmation, immediately putting Flechette on solid psychological ground. She recovers herself, and blasts on all channels:
“KILLBOYS! On my mark, break formation and head back to the Rumsfeld! This mission is a failure. We need to regroup and strategize! Nobody needs to be a hero today! Today’s metric for victory is getting home in one piece.”
“Maybe two,” Tang quips nervously. The joke falls flat, failing to cut the tension and simply firing a twinge of irritation through Flechette, his commanding officer.
“ON MY MARK IN 3… 2… 1… BREAK!”
An explosive roar of commotion as Squadron 16 bursts out in all directions, blasting away at supersonic speeds towards the relative safety of low-earth orbit. Gravity and friction claw at the hulls of the retreating THRONES, rending damaged armor in a glowing rage. Almost there… Almost there…
“What happened to us out there?!?” Flechette roars to no one in particular in the Rumsfeld’s hangar bay. The steaming hulk of the VENUS lies limp, silent, refusing to answer her. Flechette curses loudly. Tang smoothly disembarks the TEN RIGHTEOUS, to join his commanding officer on the hangar catwalk — but his skillful, controlled movements are betrayed by the shaking of his hands as he takes off his pilot’s helmet.
“Edge, the game is changing, brother. Those new Thanatic arms are not to be trifled with.” He places a huge palm on Flechette’s relatively slender shoulder. Flechette can feel his tremors ripple into her through the point of contact.
“We need a new strategy. Something needs to change. God, it’s worse than just the Thanatic arms. It’s the quality of their intel. It’s impossible! FUCK!” Flechette hurls her helmet to the ground. It clatters impotently.
“Edge. It’s not your fault. Nobody blames you. Your command is impeccable. These are untenable conditions. Something’s gotta change higher-up.”
He pauses.
"These assignments, brah. They stay poisoned from the start."
Flechette throws herself to the ground, sitting with hands resting on her knees in resignation. Despite her frustration, she relaxes a bit, easing the tension in her shoulders. She knows the reasoning is sound. It’s not a command issue on her end. She is a gun — High Command aims her in a direction. It’s her job to fire. And she functions with impeccable accuracy — she just can’t help if High Command is aiming her in the wrong place. It’s not the place of the weapon to question how she is wielded. Flechette sighs, and looks up at Tang’s familiar bulk.
“Thanks, Tang. I really appreciate it. Genuinely. Let’s go see who we can scrape off the hangar decks.”
Tang smiles. “I’ll get a dustpan.”
In their pilots’ bunk aboard the Rumsfeld, Flechette lies in her bed, across the room from her cross. He seems deeply engrossed in some report that he’s writing. She always finds him somewhat alien in these moments — his delicate spectacles making a rare appearance, balanced on the end of his wide nose like a bird woven from silver wire. It’s in these moments when he’s fully absorbed in work — not Work, the heavy and high octane work of killing and death that they delve their hands into day after day — but in the mundane maintenance of life, that she finds that she barely recognizes him. No, the Tang she knows and loves in her heart is a man surrounded by fire and flaring artillery rounds, laughing heavy and full-throated as he rips enemy THRONES apart in his lithe TEN RIGHTEOUS IN SODOM. The Tang she knows is a killing machine, like her. An excellently crafted weapon, directional, direct, penetrating. Aim towards enemy. Elegant in his simplicity.
Where does he go, when this bookish, careful, quiet Tang floats to the surface?
“Tang.”
“Edge,” Tang responds, unwavering in his focus.
“What are you working on?”
“Just some debriefs to High Command about our last several operations. You’re an incredible commander, Edge, but you’ve been letting the administrative work build up.”
“Oh.” Flechette huffs in frustration. She hates paperwork. Who ever asked a gun to fill out a ‘Form 9S-2B’? She should be out there firing into the enemy’s frontline. Not typing into boxes in ancient bureaucratic ritual-forms.
“It's ok, brother. I got 'em. You rest now.” Tang doesn’t look up from his typing. The clack of keys fills the silence that stretches out into long minutes. Flechette tries to close her eyes, to wind down the combat clock in her core that considers stretching time out as a matter of survival.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
One.
I am alive.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
Two.
I am safe.
Time begins to elastically pull back into its normal shape. Minutes return to being minutes. Her muscles relax themselves. Her breathing evens.
I am safe here. My cross is with me.
For a while, this is the balance of the world. Flechette struggling to turn combat discipline into ease and release. Counting her breaths. Listening to the quiet tak-tak-tak of Tang’s diligent record keeping. Slowly, her awareness begins to blur and fuzz with the warm, static noise of sleep.
As she drifts off, she’s dimly aware of a knock at the door. The door opens, and someone walks in. Some words are exchanged. She’s too far away to understand them. Drifting deep in the cold safety of deep space. An ocean of vacuum where no one can touch her. I am a star… so glimmering and so very far away…
Flechette wakes in slow blinks, vision blurred with sleep, unfocused. She yawns.
“Wha…”
She sees Tang, bent over his bunk, shuffling with files, drives, clothes. Flechette sits up slowly.
“Go back to sleep, brother.”
“Tang? What…” She yawns again. “What’s going on? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Tang stiffens near-imperceptibly. His back still turned to her, he answers, lightly:
“Page keeps turning, brother. Let it turn.” He returns to his shuffling with supplies on his bed.
The softness of sleep gently pulls at Flechette, beckoning her back to the comfort of her bunk. The warmth and darkness are so enticing. The promise of a world of gentle things and empty dreams. But Flechette’s curiosity gets the best of her, even in the midst of her half-sleep. She sits up fully in her bed and lets her legs hang over the edge of the bunk. In this moment, wiping sleep from her eyes, one could almost mistake her for a young girl awoken by a bad dream, asking her father for a story to ease her back to sleep, not a halo-hallowed killing machine.
Tang stops. He turns, still hiding his face in the shadow.
“Flechette. I have to go.”
“Go? Go where?” The simplicity of the question is almost childlike.
“…Orders.”
“…Oh.” Of course. At the end of the day, they were soldiers before they were friends, before they were crosses. And orders were orders. She feels immediately brought back to those many moments, as a little girl, as she watched her father’s back march off into the night again, unsure of if he’d return from the next deployment.
“I’m sorry, brother.”
“I just… So suddenly. When did you know?” The question nags at her for some reason.
“Transmission came in while you were asleep. Said to report for duty immediately.”
“Oh...” A weight pulls at Flechette’s shoulders, twists in her gut and wrenches the air from her lungs.
“Were you… Were you just going to leave without telling me? Without saying goodbye?”
The silence sits heavy and still, like the yawning expanse of the ocean, or the black abyss of space.
“Tang, I…”
“Don’t, brother.”
Tang stands up abruptly, hesitantly hefting his packed duffel over his shoulder. He smiles.
“I know.”
“Tang…”
Tang claps a hand onto Flechette’s shoulder one last time.
“Ah, sheesh, brother. You got me all worked up. Listen. I need to tell you something.”
Flechette isn’t sure if she can see the slightest shimmer in his eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Flechette… I-” Flechette waits expectantly, confused, disoriented, desperate for any kind of solid ground.
Tang sniffs. Sighs.
“Flechette Jaydamn. You are the Rod to my Staff. You are my Cross to Bear. I hope you know that, no matter what happens to us, you will always be my cross.”
“I… I’ll miss you, brother.”
“You too, O Brother of my Sword.”
Tang stands in the doorway. He hesitates at the threshold for just a moment. Then he walks out the door.