War and MG Chap 16

Reia stalked about the large, dank room, attempting to discern any possible means of escape.

 

A single light dangled from the middle of the windowless, concrete-walled room. Shadows were cast into the corners by the collection of junk and furniture heaped everywhere. Far as Reia could tell, the only possible way into and out of the room was the lone door through which they’d been herded. Though there was no one posted near the entrance when they were brought in, she assumed the two guards that escorted them would also serve as their jailers.

 

Running her hand along one of the walls, she wondered if it’d be possible for her or Yvonne to smash their way out. The wurm was certainly the most powerful member here, Reia thought as she glanced towards the hulking serpentine woman, who was currently coiled up atop herself below the light. If these weren’t meant to be load-bearing walls, the cinder blocks used to construct them would be relatively thin.

 

“What’s up, Captain?” Yvonne said as their eyes met.

 

Even if they could create a breach big enough for them to escape through, it’s not like the guards would just stand by and watch them flee. Reia frowned, looking back towards the wall. “Nothing much, just thinking.”

 

Yvonne hummed. “Pacing around won’t get us out of here.”

 

That’d explain why she was nestled up in the center, Reia thought.

 

Both their attentions were suddenly drawn to a loud clatter from a heap of junk as it shifted and scattered across the floor.

 

Viole leapt backwards from the avalanche of debris as it threatened to bury her, a bucket held in her paw.

 

Almost immediately after the noise subsided, the door was practically thrown open. One of the guards – a powerful tiger woman – filled the doorway, looking around before her eyes focused on the wolf and the junk scattered around her.

 

“What’s going on in here?” she growled, one paw kept near her holstered side-arm.

 

Pivoting on her heel, Viole turned to the guard, holding the bucket out in her direction. “Just procuring supplies for hygiene, since you guys haven’t seen fit to give us anything. Sorry about the noise.”

 

“…I see,’ said the Jinko, her tense posture relaxing somewhat. She then glanced across the three woman kept prisoner in the room. Once she confirmed that they weren’t attempting an escape, she began to draw back into the hallway. “Keep it down.”

 

As the door clacked shut, Viole shrugged and began walking towards a barren corner of the room. “Not the most ideal solution, but better than letting it go on the floor, huh?”

 

“Hopefully we won’t be here long enough to make use of it…” Reia said, abandoning her inspection of the room’s walls.

 

Though she knew they hadn’t been there long, she had no means of telling precisely how long. It was doubtful more than a half hour had passed, but time could pass much more slowly or quickly than one expected when there were no windows or clocks.

 

There wasn’t much that could be done now. The only option available was simply to sit and wait, unless something could be done with all the junk lying about here, Reia thought as she took a seat on a desk.

 

She didn’t have the faintest idea where they were, though the lack of a proper jail facility and a room full of office furniture led her to conclude they weren’t in any military installation. They’d been blindfolded until they reached the room, so she couldn’t even speculate on the type of building they were in. Guessing from how far they’d walked since entering the structure, Reia thought it was at least fairly large. There was an elevator as well, but she couldn’t guess at how many floors they traveled down.

 

Finished with dragging some filing cabinets around the bucket in a make-shift screen, Viole clapped her paws together in satisfaction, then approached Reia.

 

“What do you think they’ve done with the others? With the men and the Colonel?”

 

Hearing Viole’s question, Yvonne shifted about to face the two, but remained quiet.

 

“Well,” Reia began, “Considering how they’ve treated us so far, it’s reasonable to assume they’re being handled the same way…” Hoisting herself completely atop the desk, the metal and wood creaked and groaned under her bulk. “Though Serlov is probably getting the VIP treatment. For better or worse.”

 

“What about Emrald? She isn’t with us…” Yvonne said, raising her torso up into the air.

 

Reia grinned. “If she’s not with us, that probably means she eluded them. Leave it to that crafty fox… though considering how long our helicopter and truck ride were, I wouldn’t count on her showing up with an army behind her.”

 

There was the niggling issue of the kitsune being stranded in the middle of a relatively remote forest, though she’d make it out eventually. Probably.

 

For the time being, they were on their own, and probably weren’t going anywhere soon. Reia sighed. At least they could’ve given her a book or something.

 

 --

 

Gigantic fox ears swiveled about, orienting themselves towards where the helicopters had been their forms disappeared into the night sky. Once the chopping noise of rotor blades had faded, the ears began to pivot seemingly at random, picking out the sounds of the night forest.

 

On the rare occasion, Emrald was glad to have her massive, radar-dish-like ears; they captured distant sound quite well.

 

Once her senses confirmed that she was now alone amongst the trees, she crept from her hiding spot between a fallen tree and a large boulder. And immediately hated her ears once again as the tips snagged on the overhead branches. The tails she could wrap around herself and keep them in some manner of control, but she was powerless to do something about the ears.

 

Maybe she’d get them clipped, she thought… though Casey did seem to enjoy touching them. Maybe not, she through with a wry smile.

 

Unfortunately it was a cramped hiding spot, even for a dainty fox-woman like herself. Her joints popped and her muscles ached as she allowed herself to move for the first time in hours. Unwinding and stretching herself out, Emrald looked up at the sky, facing the direction the helicopters had traveled.

 

“To the southwest, huh?” She whispered to herself.

 

It matched up with what she’d learned from the soldier she interrogated.

 

She shivered in spite of herself. Not from the cold, but rather from the knowledge that their strongest allies may have betrayed them. Still, her many years of life had taught her not to jump to conclusions without some solid proof or evidence. Picking the brain of one low-ranking mercenary had been useful, but she’d come away with more questions than answer.

 

It would not be unreasonable to assume they’d been hired by one entity calling themselves another, or that the soldier had been trained to resist the sort of mental manipulation Emrald had at her command. She’d have had to snag someone higher in the chain of command before she could count on the veracity of the information.

 

Catching herself staring at nothing, Emrald shook her head and closed her eyes. She could stand here and ponder things for hours, but to what end? Pushing aside those thoughts for the time being, she needed to find a way out of this forest and get to a town or city where she could contact the military.

 

Without a map or knowledge of the area, her best option was to head east – towards their original destination. There ought to be roads that she would be able to follow towards the city, or even hitch a ride.

 

To add to her problem of not having a map, she didn’t have a compass either.

 

What was it about a North Star? She knew from her survival training that one could use that as a guide. But, as her eyes raked the night sky, she had no idea which star was the one she sought. It’d been too many years, and all she could recall was something about constellations or some such.

 

Frowning at the stars as if it was their fault for being so numerous, Emrald was about to give up on a heavenly method of navigation when the moon caught her eye. Or, more specifically, its crescent shape. Wasn’t there something about how a line that went from the top tip of the crescent to the bottom tip would point towards the south?

 

She traced an invisible line through the sky using her finger, going from the top of the moon to the earthly horizon.

 

“That’s south, huh?” She said to herself, pointing a foot in the same direction. Using her foot as a guide, she made a mental quarter circle. “…so then that’s east…”

 

Her tails danced slowly in a waving motion as she thought. If she was wrong she would be walking for quite a while. Well, she was going to be walking quite a while anyways, she thought with a sigh. At least heading east she’d eventually stumble onto some sort of civilization. Probably. Who knows if there was anything around in the other directions?

 

At least she’d find out if she was wrong about her directions as dawn came. Sun rose in the east, so as long as she heading towards it as the sky brightened all would be well.

 

Inhaling sharply through her nose, she then let out a slow exhale that turned to vapor in front of her face. Then, wrapping her tails around herself, she started off in the direction she hoped was east.

 

“…Please be alright,” she murmured to herself as new thoughts began to fill her mind now that one problem was solved.

 

 

 

The gentle pink glow of the approaching dawn buoyed Emrald’s spirits as she scuttled up a steep incline. She’d been heading a little more south than she’d have liked, but it was east enough, and gave her hope that she might escape the endless sea of trees soon.

 

Traversing through forests irritated her. As there was no path, everything sort of blended together on her, making it difficult to gauge if she was still heading east. Several times now she had to stop herself and backtrack as she’d gone off course. Emrald cursed often at the trees, but they didn’t seem to mind her tirades.

 

The irony of a kitsune getting herself lost in a forest was not lost on her as she smiled bitterly at the realization.

 

Cresting the steep hill, her bitter smile gave way to another hopeful one. There was an even steeper slope on the opposite side, dropping down quite a ways. But, the trees thinned out to virtually nothing just beyond. And, best of all, there was a winding road just a short ways away. It appeared to head northeast and southwest, so the chances of it leading towards the city were good. Hopefully.

 

Emrald peeked over the side, estimating how far the descent was. As she was now, it’d likely be a hazardous-at-best journey. There was a solution. An unappealing solution for Emrald, but there was one nevertheless. She really did hate having to do this.

 

With a groan, she slipped off her boots, then her uniform and undergarments. Folding up everything into a neat little package, she then stood back and took a deep breath. A pale blue glow seemed to emminate from within her, and then in a rapid burst of magic the human-looking woman with over-sized ears and multiple, fluffy tails was gone. In her place was a very large, person-sized fox. With over-sized ears, multiple fluffy tails, and striking green eyes.

 

The fox picked up the package that was bound together in boot laces with her mouth, and approached the precipice. Looking down for a moment, she then took a short hop, landing on the near-vertical drop. Shifting her paws, body, and tails about to keep balance, Emrald looked as if she was surfing down an earthen wave.

 

Reaching the bottom, she took a graceful leap just before landing, avoiding what would have been a rather jarring impact. Looking back towards her now-dirty tails, the fox let out a low, sorrowful whine before becoming bathed in blue light.

 

Just as quickly as she’d become a fox, Emrald was once again mostly-human, albeit naked and quite cold. As she slipped back into her uniform, she cast a glance up the path she’d descended, then across the way to the road. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” she murmured, lacing up her boots.

 

Once at the road, she looked down it both ways, praying there would be an approaching vehicle. One ear listened one way, the other swiveled to listen towards the opposite direction.

 

Nothing but silence.

 

It would be too easy for a car to be coming along at this hour, at this place, wouldn’t it? At least she was out of the forest.

 

 

 

Emrald’s journey down the road was dull, but at least following its meandering path meant she could let her mind wander. Not having to verify she was still heading in the proper direction every hundred paces was nice.

 

Her mind went back to what she’d learned when she interrogated the mercenary. Casey and the others should be safe for a while, maybe a few days. Apparently the fiery explosion had been unintended as well; their intent was simply to force the aircraft to make an emergency landing. If their intent was to capture everyone unharmed, it did make sense that they didn’t want the plane to explode, so she was willing to believe that tidbit.

 

She wasn’t so sure about the other morsel that’d been divulged to her. The mercenary group was supposedly hired by a technology firm that had several board members acting as consultants to the United Front, and the company often made campaign contributions. It was a little too convenient as far as Emrald was concerned, but then again so long as the money was hidden no one could link the two to the events that transpired last night.

 

Companies that dealt in warfare often hired private firms for protection, especially on shipments, so such a contract would be seen as normal business. The vast, empty expanses between large population and industrial centers made shipping prime picking for piracy and pillaging. In the past there would have been military patrols along trade routes, but they had always been sparse. With the outbreak of war, all the patrols except for those deemed vitally important to the war effort had been stripped, leading towards a boom in the ‘protection services’ market.

 

So, again, nothing too strange about a cutting-edge firm spending coin to protect their goods during shipment. Even if the services they purchased were diverted elsewhere, administrative bureaucracy could be blamed for sending them to the wrong place.

 

Still, it was all just so convenient. Emrald couldn’t shake the notion that it was some kind of setup, but as she only held a few pieces of the puzzle there was nothing she could do but speculate.

 

It simply didn’t make sense for the UF to pull something like this. Wasn’t this rally thing their idea? Wasn’t it in their best interest to keep everyone safe?

 

If the powers that stages this little fiasco had simply wanted the rally or the men to go away, why not just kill everyone and be done with it? Why go through the trouble of making sure everyone was alive and well? Were they intended to be hostages?

 

Letting out a groan and ruffling her hair and ears, Emrald felt like she was going to think herself crazy.

 

Why couldn’t the mercenary she found have at least known their destination? The only part she knew was a landing site where they’d change over from the helicopters to trucks. Not much help, but maybe an investigation of the location might yield a clue or two.

 

Ambling on, Emrald wished for the city to appear before her. She was tired of walking, tired of thinking, and tired of letting precious time slip away. With nothing else to do, she broke into a jog, hoping the exertion would quiet her thoughts some.

 

 

 

“Are we there yet…” Emrald mumbled to herself, huffing and puffing as she slowed to a crawling walk. The cold prevented any accumulation of sweat, but the air burned her throat and lungs in its own way.

 

By now the sun was well on its journey through the sky; she figured it was probably eight or nine in the morning. Despite the time spent along the road, she’d not seen nor heard anything other than the sound of her boots on the pavement. At least the bright morning light warmed her face and ears, providing her with some measure of comfort.

 

Jogging had not been a good idea. It’d been years since Emrald had been forced to travel on foot for such a long time without a break. Though light and fit, there were limits to what one could do to alleviate the inevitable pains of long-distance travel in military boots.

 

Based on the various pin-points of pain, she knew blisters were developing. But without some kind of sterilized needle or bandages, she was hesitant to pop them. Things weren’t bad enough for her to risk an infection. Yet.

 

Proceeding up a long, gentle incline, Emrald hoped that she’d see something, anything other than plains, trees, and this road, once she crested it.

 

For once her hope wasn’t in vain; approaching from the other direction was a truck of some sort.

 

Though she was certainly glad to see a vehicle as it heralded an end to her marching, doubt crept into her mind. There was a chance of it being a patrol meant to apprehend her, but the odds were very low. At least, she hoped they were low.

 

Waiting at the top of the hill, she waved her arms and tails about, drawing the attention of whomever was driving. As it drew near, it began to slow and drift over to the side of the road where she was standing.

 

Getting a look at the driver, and passenger as well, Emrald pegged them as farmers of sorts. Both of them appeared to be some sort of lizardwoman as well.

 

The truck pulled alongside her, slowing to a stop. Sharing a brief word with her passenger, the drive then rolled down the window. Emrald could see now that they were both salamanders, rather than the typical lizard.

 

Farming was a rather strange vocation for such a fiery and brash species, but then again most would scoff at a kitsune being in active military service.

 

“Need somethin’, stranger?” Said the driver, tipping her wide-brimmed hat up. Her eyes fixed on the small woman in front of her, drifting down to read the name sewn onto the kitsune’s military outfit.

 

“Yes… is the city back that way?” Emrald asked, pointing towards the direction the truck had come from.

 

 “Yea, why ya ask? Headin’ that way?”

 

Emrald thought about the cards she should reveal. Would they help her if she simply asked? Or would she have to pull something about urgent military business? Casual friendliness would come first.

 

“Yes… there’s been a… mishap of sorts, and I’ve been walking all night and morning. I need to get to the city to contact someone.”

 

Both women inside glanced at each other, then back towards the kitsune. “What sorta mishap would have ya walkin’ all that way?”

 

“Well… I was on an aircraft that crashed in the forest to the southwest… would you be able to give me a ride into town?” Emrald said, sporting her best ‘pity me’ face. Due to her small size, people often mistook her for being an actual youth, rather than simply being tiny. She hoped it’d be effective here, attempting to position her hands to cover up the rank insignias sewn onto her clothing.

 

“What? Crashed?” The passenger spoke up, then looked out west; maybe hoping to see some sort of smoke or fire.

 

Chewing her lip, the driver regarded Emrald for a moment before turning to the passenger. “Hey, do we have time to head back?”

 

Her passenger turned back around, placing a clawed finger to her chin. “Mmm, yeah, pretty sure. Time enough to give that kitsune…”

 

“Emrald,” the kitsune in question said with a smile.

 

“…Emrald, a lift back to town.”

 

The driver nodded. “Alright, we’ll give ya a lift. Ain’t no room up here, but ya can hop in the back. Always one to support military folk.”

 

Emrald clapped her hands together happily. “Great! Thank you so much…?”

 

“Diana,” she said, returning Emrald’s smile.

 

“…Diana, thank you again,” she said as she made her way to the bed of the truck and jumped aboard as it began to turn around.

 

 

 

The remainder of the journey was mercifully brief. The cold wind whipped and tore at her in the bed of the truck, but she only had to endure it for less than half an hour as she balled herself up in the corner to keep warm.

 

Though she was content to be dropped off at the outskirts of the town, the salamander duo insisted on bringing her near the downtown area. Emrald gave them thanks again, waving as they drove off. She kind of wanted to have them drop her off near the rally grounds, but decided on keeping as much secrecy as possible.

 

Seeing as how they were supposed to have been here last night, there should still be a sizeable contingent of the military around somewhere.

 

A few quick questions to various passersby on the sidewalks yielded the information Emrald sought. Fortunately, the grounds were close by to where she was – not more than a fifteen minute walk according to most.

 

Despite the heavy fatigue settling down upon her, Emrald knew she had to endure longer. Probably another entire day and night. She grit her teeth, trying to force out thoughts peaceful sleep, nestled up in a bed made from her own tails. Slapping her cheeks, she gave a short shout that drew some curious glances from those around her, then set off for a little bit more walking.

 

 

 

As expected, the rally grounds were abuzz with activity despite no rally actually having taken place. Scores more troops than she’d have thought usual were stationed around in a perimeter. There wasn’t a guard like this at the last event; though a plane with the star attractions had not crashed at the last event either.

 

Spotting the approaching kitsune, a guard moved forward to call Emrald’s attention. Once she was within talking distance, the guard spoke. “I’m sorry, but this area is currently closed to…” the guard trailed off, realizing the approaching fox-woman was wearing a military field uniform.

 

“Ah, hello… private,” Emrald replied with a smile, taking note of the name and rank on the guard’s uniform.

 

The guard hesitated, staring down at diminutive kitsune. “Er, excuse me… Captain Dirz, do you have a pass for this area?”

 

“A pass? I’m afraid not... however, I was supposed to be here. Last night, actually. The plane I was on kind of exploded. So, can I go through?” Emrald said casually, as if she were simply a few minutes late.

 

Confusion adorned the guard’s face for a moment until she made the connection with the name and the captain’s appearance. “S-sorry, I didn’t realize… go on ahead, Captain Dirz. I’m assuming you’d like to speak with General Jurai? She should be in the large building across from the stage.”

 

For once Emrald was glad for her status. A little bit of arrogance and a few letters in front of her name that denoted her as an officer were all it took to get poor troopers like the private here to bend to her will.

 

“Thank you, private.”

 

The guard fumbled out a salute; Emrald couldn’t help but grin. She returned it crisply, then proceeded through the checkpoint.

 

Near the stage, things were less chaotic than she had imagined, though still rather busy. Instead of crowds of civilians, the audience area was packed with tents and supplies. Soldiers were milling about, doing this and that. Looked more like a field base than a fair ground nestled inside a city.

 

While making her way towards the building the private had mentioned, Emrald came to the realization that she didn’t know anything about General Jurai’s affiliation. Or much at all, aside from her name and species. Emrald never was much one to really care about the upper echelons of the military. Far as she cared, the daily routine would not change just because someone she didn’t know took over for someone else she didn’t know.

 

What would the odds be that Jurai was in league with those who pulled off the abduction? Would she wind up being captured anyways? Would information about her escape trickle back? If only she knew; Emrald was full of regrets today.

 

Pausing in front of the largest structure she could find, Emrald began to think some covert espionage was in order. First, however, she would need to stop being a captain. Officers were relatively well-known, so she’d need to do something about that.

 

With some quick modification, she could alter the chevrons and rank abbreviation on her uniform to one that’d make her a rank-and-file soldier to those around here.

 

Yes, she thought, a little intelligence gathering would be helpful. Provided she didn’t run into that same private, and that no one wondered why a kitsune had suddenly appeared in their midst. No one would recognize her, would they?

 

Shrugging, Emrald decided she’d deal with things as they came. Not like she had any other options.