The Unseen War

Chapter 17

Earth Year 3011, February 6th

Thirty-Six months after the Attack

It felt like we were road blocked. We had made it back to Qronia and had been trying to get an open communication with the East. We had Faucheur, but they weren't even acknowledging his existence, let alone that he was part of the Eastern government. We had been trying to get in contact with the Western Government as well but they seemed to be burying their heads in the sand with all of this.

Qhuten had put himself to work again without spending too much time worrying about Faucheur. He had taken the Mobile Guardian apart and fitted it with a new Central Pod. He had asked Sia if she wanted it, she had thought about it and then said yes. But after some time inside of the armor she decided she was more comfortable with piloting small ships. Qhuten understood but left the new Central Pod installed anyway. He had built a new blade for the Voidstorm Guardian to use and had even modified the Proto Guardian a little bit for Mitsu.

There was one bright side to all of this, I had spent so much time on the other side of the interrogation table before the tables had turned. Faucheur didn't speak, he didn't seem to even care that he was now a prisoner of the very people he had started a war with. It had been four weeks since we had taken him from the Dilail and Qhil was starting to get antsy.

"Can't we just..." I could tell Qhil wanted to use a different word than torture but couldn't find one. He breathed out deeply. "We need to get some answers and start moving things back towards peace. Sedronia is self-sustaining at the moment, but if the East comes in and starts to attack us here then we will be in a bad spot."

"I understand your feelings brother." Qhuten chimed in. "This man has hurt you, specifically you more than most of the people he has hurt. But we must remain calm in this situation, if we were to just start beating him into submission, it wouldn't help anything."

"Could we pretend to let him out and see who he contacts?" Mitsu asked. That was a Tracer trick if I had ever heard one.

"If we let him out, he doesn't have to contact anyone." Qhil said. "All he has to do is send out a distress call for his specific location. Whether they would try to rescue him or just bomb the prison to silence... him..." Qhil stopped talking for a moment.

"I don't like this idea." Sia chimed in.

"Wait, let me think." Qhil waited a second before continuing. "If he 'sends' his distress call and after a couple of days we say that an Eastern forces bomber has entered Sedronian airspace, he might come to the conclusion that we would move him to safety if he tells us something worthwhile."

"And what if, while he is out, he just takes a weapon and starts killing Taggons?" Sia asked.

Qhil laid it out quickly. "We don't have to do this plan quickly, we can take our time and make sure that the only weapons available to him are stun batons. The guards on duty can be insulated so as to take as little damage as possible. We can cut power to the cells with criminals in them so as not to let anyone we don't want to escape. We could even set it up so that the power is fluctuating days before his 'escape'."

"Would you be able to record if he tries to make contact with someone, just in case he does?" Mitsu asked. "It would give us the contact information without even letting him know we have it."

"Of course." Qhuten said stepping in. "And honestly, his attempt to free himself might even give him a feeling of superiority. He seems like quite an arrogant man after all."

"He is." Me and Qhil said together. Faucheur might feel superior, but he was soon going to feel completely different.

February 12th