The Wars of Zegandaria, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov [inspirational books txt] 📗

- I need you for cover, at least for a while. Until my race leaves these parts or moves to live somewhere safer.

- 'So you inhabit the inside of the cathedral?,' he asked her.

- Not exactly. The cathedral itself is made up of the bones of fallen myranians, and perhaps that is why it is so beautiful.

Dislan bit his lip almost imperceptibly. He had fallen into a death trap.

The girl didn't seem upset, though. She just wanted to tell him a little more about her own race that she wished to save.

The technician had taken it upon himself to take care of her until the end, and he was true to his word. He wanted to get back at her. There was something about her, something he missed so much in many other people he was obliged to interact with. There was no stopping him from helping her and paying her back.

CHAPTER SEVEN: DIOMED BASE

Sasia Leshond was a beautiful blonde girl who definitely didn't suffer from a lack of admirers. A straight A student in her class, she stood out among her classmates from a very young age. Her parents were so very proud of her. Others believed that whatever she took up, she could handle. She was passionate about everything but was always willing to help her friends. One could really wonder how she found the time. It was hard to pinpoint what had made her enlist in the Royal Ubunder Fighting Force. A profession that many attributed more to men than creatures of the fairer sex, but one that had captured her completely. Sasia was a fighter pilot of the Destroyer class.

Her friendship with Mark dated back to training at the academy, but they had actually known each other for much longer. They had played on the green meadows of Ensarianan as children. Although the planet was almost completely deserted, the greenery thrived thanks to the special Endosian cover that the entire capital was under, which maintained not only the oxygen level but also the artificial climate of this oasis.

In fact, she had met Mark at a Book Fair, where he happened to be with his parents, looking for the latest e-book on vintage speeder models. In truth, the encounter was not significant for anything, but the fact that it took place at all had no small impact on future events.

From then on, Sasia couldn't tear herself away from him and the two became inseparable friends. They organised chases through the narrow gothic streets of Ensarianan. And they were definitely getting on the nerves of the locals. But it was all stuck back in childhood. She still kept beautiful memories of that time. Memories that made her feel truly alive.

'Life slips through our fingers like sand in an hourglass, but at least we can live for the moment,' she liked to repeat a cliché she had heard from who knew where. Not that anyone in the advanced future would ever have thought to check this out in practice, as no one had seen or heard of this rather interesting means of measuring time.

With the grace of a panther, Sasia descended the anti-gravity ladder from the speeder's cockpit and landed safely with the confidence of a cat that never falls on its back. She had just returned from a mission and was hoping to report important classified information to her superiors. The information, she believed, came from a trusted source and stated an apparent betrayal of the base. She hadn't counted on anyone believing her, as all members of the high command had been looking at her warily since her speeder had landed at the base.

There were other shuttles around, some of which were already empty, as their owners had gone to the nearby marching pub, Uncle Zengar's, which offered the Army people's favourite shake, bearing the exotic name of ‘Sunset of the Guaroons’. Actually, this rather poetic and in a way even romantic name was just a clever trick devised by the owner of the restaurant, Zengar One-eyed, to attract more customers. Uncle Zengar was definitely an odd bird.

Everybody knew this guy, but nobody knew what he was like before or where he came from. It was a great mystery to all conspiracy theory buffs, who thus got a wide field for their conjectures. One thing was clear, Zengar One-eyed was here and regularly moved with the troops, albeit in the stable, or rather the ‘entertainment’ part of it.

Faint light filtered into the hangar through the sintered hatches, which were supposed to mimic something like the glass used by mankind in the past. The difference, however, lay not only in their immeasurably greater strength, but also in the fact that they were not merely transparent, but almost invisible, and hence gave the illusion that here and there in its massive hull, made of Zendorian Kevlarite, there were simply the most ordinary holes through which one could safely put one's hand.

Stepping now on a hard surface and a few meters away from the aircraft, Sasia activated the speeder's security system in order to prevent its misuse by some possible intruder and slowly left the hangar that sheltered more than three hundred speeder of different classes. Here the keen eye of the connoisseur could stop on any model of aircraft. From the largest class of Destroyer-class fighters, such as she piloted herself, to very tiny reconnaissance vehicles called Isorenders, which were, sort of, an aerosuit that the pilot in question donned in order to be as inconspicuous as possible to enemy radars.

On the way out of the hangar, Sasia turned and took one last look at her fighter.

‘What a beauty!’ she thought.

The door closed behind her and the hangar plunged into darkness.

^^^

Uncle Zengar's Tavern was about a fifteen minute walk from the hangars, so this albeit short walk would have a sobering effect on Sasia, thus helping her collect her thoughts before reporting. Because of the planet's low oxygen level, she was still in her protective pilot suit, in which she felt as comfortable as a baby floating in the amniotic waters of its mother's womb.

On the way, she didn't encounter a single familiar face, although she had expected such a thing when she was reassigned to the Southern Front in the Learnia area, which was northeast of Synthros, appearing as its natural diagonal extension. In effect, this was the westernmost part of Ubunder, which was extremely heavily guarded not only by the Royal Navy's 2nd Pilot Division, but also by a serious amount of infantry and artillery.

Since the seasons on Zegandaria were similar to Earth's, it had to be autumn by Earth standards now. Though the hangar where Sasia had been until recently was rather stuffy and warm, she shivered now despite her suit's built-in heating system. She couldn't tell if it was due to the ambient temperature or just some sort of overexertion brought on by the fact that she hadn't slept in almost three days.

With a measured gait, she passed the hangars, walked past the warehouses, crossed the 'central square' of the camp, and in its furthest northwest corner, spied what looked like a portable capsule about the size of a medium-sized house, set well back from the rest of the buildings by about two hundred meters. Overcome with curiosity, Sasia slowly approached and examined the strange 'structure'. Her gaze fell on a tattered sign that read ‘Kersoniavtik 102’. Sasia pondered. Her initial thought was that this escape pod from a large shuttle must be very old, perhaps fifty zegandarian years old. She remembered seeing it in some textbooks, but try as she might she couldn't remember when or where.

Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by two men suddenly popping through the capsule's abruptly opened hydronic door. They were large and broad-shouldered. One was Keith Endwalker, the same friend of Mark's whose father worked at the Ministry. The expression on his face was grave, and he listened intently to his tipsy interlocutor, Major Ketrol, who was evidently telling him some incredibly interesting (as could be judged from the excited expression on the Major's face) story, while Keith, out of politeness, merely listened and nodded silently from time to time.

- 'So I tell you, Keith, that guarron had come at me, and with his sharp predatory claws was ah-ah-ah to tear me to pieces, but my faithful 'Zirault 400' saved me from the monster,' he said, and through his laughter stroked the huge plasma pistol suspended in a special holster on his right leg.

- 'Definitely an interesting story, Major,' Keith muttered barely audibly, but Sasia somehow caught the meaning of what he said.

- 'Interesting?,' the Major stammered somewhat confusedly, mainly because of the huge amount of the shake 'The Sunset of the Guarrons' he had drunk just a few minutes ago.

He scratched his nose for a moment and tried to clear his clouded vision.

- This is a story for the millions, boy, just wait until I talk to a journalist when we get back to Ensarianan. The reports will sell like hot bread. I might even write a book. - He added through a laugh, for everyone knew his not very high education, compensated, however, by an impeccable warrior courage, bordering, and sometimes even surpassing, the limits of sanity.

- 'That's right, Major, but that can only happen if we ever get back to Ensarian alive and well,' Keith said, seemingly calm, a subtle note of tension in his voice.

Throughout the conversation, Sasia had been lurking behind some boxes that had been thrown haphazardly just five or six meters from the capsule. Somehow she thought the young man had noticed her, but seemed to ignore her presence. No, it just seemed that way to her.

- 'You're right, mate, but as the poet said, 'Hope dies last,' he pronounced in a half-thought, half-joking voice and giggled drunkenly.

- 'Come on, Major, it's time to go home, who knows what's waiting for us tomorrow,' Keith seemed to command, and without listening to his ramblings any longer, he dragged him, or rather carried him almost on his back, to one of the neighbouring buildings. The darkness swallowed them up. The hydronic door of the other building opened and then closed.

Sasia stood for another minute or two before emerging from her hiding place. When she finally made up her mind, she stood once more in front of the entrance to the capsule, above which glowed the words ‘Welcome, our brave warriors of Ubunder!’. And in she went.

The inside of the capsule was well lit and, as it seemed to Sasia, far too cozy for a marching soldier's inn in a camp in the middle of nowhere. It was just that the whole setting brought you home. The area of the room was no more than thirty, thirty-five square meters at most, but someone's skilled hand had laid it out in such a way, using even the smallest and most insignificant corners, that the inside of the capsule seemed larger than one might expect looking at it from the outside.

Sasia swept her gaze over the entire makeshift 'establishment'. In fact, the time was around 10pm and it wasn't very full, mainly due to the fact that the pilots