Three Strikes [✓]

The Good Die Young

Chapter Fifty-Five: The Good Die Young

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Shilage, Erusea.
October 24th, 2019.
1015hrs.

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The operation was completed as soon as the transport was full. They took what was needed to sustain them all for at least another month or so, based on the assumption that the war wasn't something they could just finish overnight. Naomi and Colonel Beckett made it clear they weren't taking anything more than what was needed, not that anyone needed to be told not to be greedy after seeing who they were taking from, but luckily for them Erusea had been stockpiling resources at the castle base for a long time. There was still more than enough for the people of Shilage. No one on either side was going to go without.

Even knowing this and being well aware of why they did what they did, no one within the LRSSG was interested in celebrating their victory. The town surrounding the base of the castle had gone unscathed by some stroke of luck, with every single building still standing and in one piece, the roads having suffered the worst of it. If there was any damage to anything that wasn't minimal it was military, and the civilians had all been moved to safety. The same couldn't be said for the castle itself, but every target there had been military. They did their jobs well enough that there wasn't much if any collateral damage, but even so none of them felt good about what they had done.

They all gathered around the transport on the makeshift runway, everything loaded up and ready to go. All they had to do now was wait for the group they sent out in search of the wreckage of that advanced fighter to come back with news. Her father had offered to lead the group, and Bandog went with him and a handful of other soldiers. The rest of them sorted and loaded up the supplies, then took the precious little free time they had to try and rest for a bit. Something they found wasn't easy.

Naomi couldn't do anything but pace without anything to do, while her wingmen and the rest of her men all stood or sat around the pavement. She was exhausted, but she couldn't settle down. Not until her father and Bandog got back. Not until she knew what General Shilage's fate was. He had been shot down and that should have been enough for her, but it wasn't. And the worst part was that she didn't know if she hoped he hadn't made it or not. After he just dropped his burdens onto her, part of her didn't want him to get off that easily. But she knew as long as he wasn't going to be able to come near her or her wingmen again she'd be happy. Or she should be.

Then there was that comment about the drone production. The file Genette had gone over with them contained information about the AI that Belka had lent to Erusea, but they only knew of the researchers and engineers working on the project. The AI was created to be able to learn and grow, seemingly with the intent to create a perfect soldier, and they knew Erusea was using one of their own 'legendary' aces to create it. But whoever they got that information from didn't seem to know who that ace was any more than they did. Naomi had had a hunch but for some reason hearing it more or less confirmed was weird. She wanted an explanation. Or something.

Admittedly, since their operation to take back Tyler Island she hadn't been thinking about the drones that much. It had been in the back of her mind after having a million other things to be worried about, but now that the biggest of her concerns was out of the way there wasn't really anything standing in the way of that now. Unfortunately, since all they knew was that killer drones existed out there and no idea when they were going to be deployed there wasn't anything to be done about it except be worried.