Chapter Two: Renegade Pt1


Dear Mr. Lyhte,

We are most regretful to inform you that as of Monday, June 24th your wife Gina Lyhte has been declared Missing in Action, and is currently presumed captured. Unfortunately our forces on Mars are insufficient to be able to mount any kind of rescue at this time. We are compassionate for your loss, and are willing to fulfill whatever requests of your’s that we can. You’ve been granted temporary leave if you wish to use it.

Sincerely,
T.A. Army Command

P.S.-Michael, I know what you’re thinking. But we just can’t risk losing any more troops on Mars; our presence is shaky as it is. We’ve had to withdraw far too many soldiers back to Earth, and the E.A.P. has been stepping up their attacks of late, not to mention these rumors of a new force called ‘Red Fury’. Her MF was captured along with several others and we believe were taken to Mosin Grad, a small but fortified E.A.P. base. I’m afraid all that we can do is wait, and pray. -General Derlin-
      

      His hands began to shake as he read the letter over again, his grip tightening so hard that the paper threatened to tear under the force. He felt three things, shock, agonizing sadness, and an anger that burned from his combat boots to his blazing brown eyes that glared out in hatred from behind the thick frames of his glasses.

“Insufficient forces? Put me in command of a garrison on Mars and I’ll show you insufficient forces you lazy sons of-! “

“Daddy ”

He bit his tongue, holding the steady stream of curses that so wanted to be said from coming out. He would let them out later; they had no place entering the ears of his children. He turned towards two small, eight year old girls with wood brown hair, twisted in curls like his own but longer, hanging down a little past their shoulders. They were twins, identical except for their eye colors; Jennifer who had inherited her father’s dark brown eyes and Catherine, who had inherited their mother’s bright green ones, and both were smiling widely at the discovery that their father had come home early from work.

Dressed in matching blue dresses, most still had trouble identifying them even with the different eyes. But not him, he knew one from the other like he knew the Earth from this forsaken moon base that they had for all intents and purposes imprisoned him in. He tried to smile at them, tried to make it seem like everything was normal, but he failed miserably.

“Colonel?”, a voice asked from the other room, soon revealing itself to belong to a red-head in a military shirt and skirt, quite surprised that he was home as well, “You weren’t supposed to be home for... What’s wrong?”

“What’s that Daddy?”

“Is it a letter from Mommy?”

He sighed, shaking his head, “No...”

“...Girls, go finish watching your movie.”

“But we-“

The woman put one hand on her hip, pointing, “Go, your father and I need to talk about big-people things.”

“When will we be able to-“

“When you’re taller than I am.” Michael countered with a small smile, “You heard aunt Cassandra, go.”
Sighing in defeat, they slowly made their way back to the den where a paused movie waited. They weren’t taking their time for nothing, hoping to hear the first half of the conversation. Cassandra waited for the movie to continue several minutes before asking, “Alright Michael, what is it?”

“I... It’s Gina. She’s...”

“Oh no... When?”

“Three days ago...”

“Have they recovered her... body for a funeral?”

“Heh, no according to this she was captured along with some of her companions...” He suddenly slammed the letter onto the table, crumpling it with one hand, “They’re lying. They have more than enough men to rescue them, they just have more important things on their mind’s.”

“Michael...”

“But then they wouldn’t care would they. T.A. army command cares about the soldiers in the field about as much as I care about the E.A.P..”

“Maybe Lui could-“

“No Cassie... No, I won’t ask you or him to do that. It’s not my place to ask you to get mixed up with me.”

“Michael, Lui is your brother, if not by blood then by something much, much stronger that I can’t understand. That makes me your sister. Like it or not, we’re family. We already mixed up with you, whether we like it or not.”

“That’s why I’m not going to ask him to pull strings to get her rescued. You both have a bright, happy future. You don’t need to get mixed up with upstarts and rebels, if your records hadn’t both been exemplary you would’ve been discharged along with everyone else who had anything else to do with me.”

“...You’re going to do something stupid aren’t you?”

“Eight years ago, and my answer would’ve been a resounding ‘yes’. But...” He stood up from the table, walking to look down the hall where his girls were, “Now, whatever I do... They have to pay for it with me. And they don’t deserve that.”

“They don’t deserve to grow up without a mother either,” She told him in a ‘as a matter of fact’ way, “And waiting until the war ends, if it ends, and hope that Gina survived isn’t something you’re going to do regardless. Lui knows you; He’ll find out and try a rescue mission whether you tell him to or not. The only way he won’t is if you expressly tell him not to, in which case he’ll do it anyway to spite you for becoming so cruel and heartless as to abandon your own wife.”

Michael pondered that, eyes downcast and arms crossed. His uniform was adorned with many awards and symbols of rank that glittered slightly in the light. All of that authority, and no power to help one of the dearest people in his heart, “I hate this war... The E.A.P., the T.A., it’s as if we’ve forgotten that we all live on the same planet! Some say space makes you crazy... I dunno, but ever since we went to Mars things have been in one constant downward spiral.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I could go after her myself...”

“How? They won’t even let you near the docking bays. Not after that little near-riot you caused in Detroit.”
Michael smirked, “Ya, that was fun. Did I ever tell you that?”

“...Yes, you have.”

“Hmmm...”

“What are you thinking?”

Michael grabbed the letter again, furrowing his brow. Then he smirked, before tossing it away with hardly a care, “You know, I’ll have to thank General Derlin if I ever see him. He just gave me a rather ingenious idea.”

Cassandra raised her eyebrows, listening to his plan intently. When he was done, she shook her head slowly, “I always knew you had flare for dramatics, but don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

“Perhaps. If you wish to report me then you’d better do it now.”

She chuckled shaking her head, “Wherever you go, I’ll follow. Besides, this plan will take me to Lui.”

“Indeed. Looks like you may need to contact him after all,” He looked around his home, then glanced out the window to the gray steel dome that was the other part of the base, “Goodbye Trinity Alliance. Can’t say I’ll miss it.”

“It’s funny, you used to be such a patriot...”

“I still am. You know, when America was formed people burned British flags, fighting against a corrupt empire. Now I’ll burn the American flag and everything else tying me to that melting pot of lies and corruption.”

* * * * * *

Carlos Rendetore edged closer to the fire that they had made, trying to keep the harsh chill of the Martian night from creeping any deeper into his core than it already had. He glanced around at the sky, partly from boredom and partly from fear that they had been discovered. Of course, it was unlikely that anyone thought of them as big enough a threat to mark them for destruction. Yet. It was only a matter of time, and there were only six of them...
beep beep beep

His head jerked up, and he looked to his Viper. He thought that he had heard... No, that couldn’t have been it...
beep beep beep

Carlos’ eyes widened and he dashed to his aircraft, climbing into the cockpit and flipping a few switches to power it up enough to receive the incoming transmission. It was incoming, unlikely that they would be able to get coordinates from it, so he opened it.
Appearing on his screen was a man in a loose mechanics’ jacket, covered in stains and smudges. But on his shoulders he bore the markings of Lieutenant in the T.A. army. His dirty blond hair hung low around his forehead, almost touching the rims of his dark sunglasses, “This is Unit XR-21, calling Red Fury. Respond.”

“...This is Red Fury.”

“Carlos Rendetore?”

“Yes...”

“How would you like five MFs with veteran pilots, and seven new space cruisers with all the fixings?”
Carlos gasped, reeling in shock from the proposal. He shook the stars out of his head, before he asked, “What kind of game is this? You can’t trace our location from this link.”

“Very true, only I don’t want to trace your location from this link. My name is Lieutenant Lui Kenar. My unit has been wanting to desert ever since Berlin; Myself included. However we had no where to go, until now. That’s you.”

“...Alright, but space cruisers?”

“...That’s the complicated part. I received a message from my wife on behalf of a very close friend of mine, Michael Lyhte.”

“Lyhte... Wait, the MF ace? White Lightning Lyhte?”

Lui nodded, “Ya. He says that the T.A. is currently developing a new kind of space cruiser under his supervision on a moon base. So far, they’ve produced seven; A full squadron ready for battle. He says that enough people are willing to defect that he will be able to hijack these ships and fly them to Mars.”

“T-t-that’s, too good to be true. How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

“Well, considering that I’m watching you...”

“Wha?!?!?

“Turn around,” The Viper pilot gulped, turning around. In the distance, he saw it, a form rising up from a spot just behind a hill, blocking out the stars behind it and letting it’s visor flash blue in the night, “That’s right Carlos. My unit was assigned to keep tabs on you, and have known where you were for a while; It wasn’t particularly hard to find out. Not for us anyway, we’ve been on Mars long enough to know where people could and couldn’t be.”

“...Ok, you’ve proven your point.”

“Good. I would continue this face to face, but unfortunately if I’m not back in half an hour my superior officers will be getting suspicious. We need several things from you in return.”

“What?”

“Many of the men have families that they will be bringing along; Women, children and the like.”

“I believe that we will be able to provide housing. The cave systems are extensive. It’s not much, but it will have to do.”

“Supplies?”

“That may be a problem.”

“Hmmm... We’ll tackle that when we get to it. Michael put his arrival at three months from now. Food, water, and shelter were the main requirements, however... There is something else.”

“Which is?”

“Do you know of an E.A.P. base called Mosin Grad...?”

“...What about it?”

******

Angels... He and Gina had wanted children, and God had given them angels. He stood in the doorway of their darkened room, listening to their gentle breathing, watching them toss slightly in their sleep to wrap the covers around them just that little bit more. Four days, and almost everything was ready. He had hand picked members of the men that were going to be the crewmen of the space cruisers to join him in his defection. They were quietly preparing themselves for the transition.

His plan was flawless, but required perfect timing. He was lucky in some respects, like the sheer number of people that were discontent with the T.A. and it’s management of the war. That had played right into his course of action, but also made logistics more difficult. There were going to be a lot of people on those cruisers... And a lot of people rushing to get on those cruisers.

“...Daddy?”

He blinked, before looking around the room. He found that Catherine was sitting up in bed, while Jennifer was rubbing her eyes, brought out of her dreams by Catherine’s voice. That was something between them; It only took a whisper from one to wake the other no matter what time it was.

“Girls... We need to talk.”

“About what?”

Michael sat down on one of the chairs that he had put in so they could watch the small TV in their room, “Remember that letter that I wouldn’t let you see?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well... It wasn’t from mommy... it was about Mommy...”

“What?”

“Is she ok?”

“Why didn’t you tell us!?!”

“Easy, easy. Near as I can tell she’s fine. Do you know what ‘missing in action’ is?”

They shook their heads slowly, climbing out of bed to be closer to him the parent, their source of comfort and reassurance, “What does that mean?”

“That means that they can’t find her. They think that she was taken by the enemy on a mission to a place called Mosin Grad.”

“Mosin Grad...” Jenny mumbled sullenly, sitting on one of Michael’s knees while Cathy took the other, “Where’s that?”

“Mars.”

“Mars!?! Mommy’s on Mars! You said that she was helping build space-“

Michael placed a finger to his daughter’s lips, silencing her, “I know what I said.”

“Why did you lie to us? You and Mommy always said that lying was bad...”

“Listen, this is very important. Lying is bad, it’s a very bad thing. There isn’t a time that it’s ever a good thing, and I’m sorry that I did but... When you get older, you’ll realize that sometimes you only have a few options to chose from, and none of them are good. You feel scared, worried, and afraid right now, because you know your mother is on Mars. Now imagine if you felt this way every day for the past six months, since your mother left. Me and Mommy decided together that it would be better to lie to you, so you wouldn’t worry and you could live happily and normal until she got back, then we were going to tell you.”

“But...”

“Ah, I’m the parent here. It was my decision to make, and I made it. Now, there is something I need you to do. I need you to act very big right now, I need you to make the first big decision of your lives. And I need you to think very, very hard.”
Tears of uncertainty and fear about their current situation streaming down their face, they nodded slowly, “Ok...”

“Now, I can have uncle Lui and some new friends rescue Mommy, and we can see her soon.”

“Then why don’t we-“

“Let me finish. I can have them rescue Mommy... but if I do, we will have to leave here, and we will have to go to Mars. We won’t be able to come back here, or go to Earth for a very, very long time, if ever. It means that everything that you’ve dreamed of doing possibly wouldn’t be possible anymore, and it would be hard for a while. Or, we can stay here and your lives will continue exactly as they have been, but you may never see Mommy again.”

No one said a word after that for a very long time. Leaning their heads against him, Catherine and Jennifer processed this new information to the best that their innocent child’s minds could. Michael knew exactly what they were debating; Which was more important, stronger? Their love for their mother, or their fear of the unknown? Or more than that, the fear of Mars that permeated deep into their souls? How many times had they feigned sleep to listen intently to their aunt and father talking about the horrible place that was Mars? A place of pain, death, and desperation... Even without full comprehension of what any of these things truly meant, they knew well enough to be afraid of them.

“I... I thought you said it was your job to choose things like this?” Catherine asked softly, trying desperately to relieve herself of this responsibility, which she didn’t want.

“You have to learn how to make decisions like this sooner or later. So what do you want to do?”

“...Will uh, Catherine be safe on Mars?” Jenny asked, trying not to reveal that she was really scared for herself.

“If we go to Mars, I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you with everything that I am.”

“I’m scared... but I love mommy.” Catherine said, looking up at her father who nodded with a smile.

“Me too.”

“Those are my brave girls. Now, go back to sleep. We have a lot to do, and not much time to do it, and I’ll need your help.”

“Our help?”

“That’s right. This is going to be a real family effort...”