//------------------------------// // Chapter XLVIII: The Prodigal Sons and Daughters Return // Story: The Conversion Bureau: Setting Things Right // by kildeez //------------------------------// Chopper beats thrummed over and around everyone, the Equestrian Super-Chinook thumping over the pristine waters of the Pacific. One wouldn’t guess that the fate of two, if not three, worlds would hang in the balance over the horizon – just a few minutes away if the wind didn’t turn against them – but there it was. David’s fingers clenched the straps holding him in place, the specialized prosthetic resting next to his stump. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his intact hand: fiddling with the straps and buckles of his tactical vest, drumming on his knee, running along the cap on his standard-issue canteen. That he’d be back in proper kit again like this was downright unbelievable. Nobody had resisted his demands to join the team on the Carrier, and after all, why should they? He was as much a part of this as the rest of them, and besides, if all went well there wouldn’t be a need to shoot their way through anyway. His racing eyes went to the modified prosthetic, and hardened. All doubts about him coming had vanished later on when they’d gone out behind Lisa’s apartment building to take a few potshots at some of the empty cans and bottles that had been gathering there. He noted despite putting a dozen rounds down range, he never even heard sirens all throughout the evening. Suppose even the Metropolitan police had better things to do than chase up on noise complaints these days. Either way, with this modified prosthetic he’d knocked down every can at a hundred yards dead-center with an old AR someone had brought along, and his good hand could repeat the same maybe eight times out of ten with a pistol at fifty yards. That was good enough for everybody, apparently. He remembered when it would have been ten out of ten times... “David?” He perked at Lisa’s hand on his thigh, and looking down, realizing it was still bobbing up and down. His calves tensed, his heel knocked annoyingly against the metal belly of the chopper, audible against the sound dampening. He paused, letting his leg relax. “Sorry...” She smiled. “Don’t be, love. We’re all a wee tense.” A moment or two passed after her hand retreated where he wished for her to be touching him again, mercifully ending when Akshat spoke up: “After this, do you guys want to go for some food of the homeland? There’s a curry place near the old office that gets it...maybe...half-right. I took Liu there once or twice.” “Don’t do it.” Liu spoke up with a grin, shifting uncomfortably in his own army surplus camo. “I couldn’t even move from the toilet after!” “Oh, is that your excuse for taking so long in the crapper every time?” Lisa jabbed. “You guys remember when this job was boring?” All eyes turned to David when he spoke up. He had a small smile on his face, which immediately relieved the small bolt of tension that had spiked at the sound of his voice. “Yeah!” Andre laughed. “I miss those days so much!” “You guys remember the time we celebrated Liu’s birthday?” Francis added with a chortle. “By smuggling in that cake?” “The wine cake!” David laughed. “I knew we’d fucked up after my first bite!” “In my defense, it wasn’t supposed to be that strong!” Felipe put in with a little smile. Lisa hammered a fist against her seat and laughed. “I knew that was you, you cheeky bastard! Always the quiet ones!” “Oh, that wasn’t as bad as Anton’s--” David realized his mistake the moment the name passed his lips. If it wasn’t for the sinking feeling in his own gut, the look on the others’ faces drove it home. He straightened his seat. “--Anton’s...uh...birthday party.” “Yeah...” Liu whispered. “I didn’t know it was possible to get that sick...or drink that much without getting sick.” “Anton was...he was old school,” Lisa said, her voice also low. “A-A different breed...” Andre said, his voice watery, a hand wrapping around Francis’s. “...did anybody go to his funeral?” The helicopter thudded on quietly. In its belly, a moment of quiet understanding passed among a group rediscovering its friendship. “We should...send him off right,” Lisa said. “Do something to remember him by. Pour one out on his grave. Something.” “It would be right.” Akshat said. After a moment, he offered his hand to the middle of the group, leaning forward in his seat. “For Anton. When it is all said and done.” After a moment, LIsa’s hand joined his, then David, Liu, Felipe, Andre, and Francis. “When it’s all said and done. For Anton.” They repeated. “Two minutes!” Came a hoarse voice from the cockpit. David leaned back in his seat, twisting his head to peer out the porthole. “Alright then, ladies,” Lisa said, scooping up the rifle at her feet and loading a fresh mag. “Are we about ready to save the world, then?” A chorus of grunts followed her. “Bloody neanderthals,” she giggled as Dave twisted in his seat to peer out a window, gazing over the fleet far below. Somehow, the fleet had become even more impressive since the last time they’d sailed over it: the flat, blocky shapes of multipurpose destroyers crowding the water between the more traditional missile cruisers, covering the waves below seemingly out to the horizon. It seemed with little else to do, the UN had decided that the bulk of its remaining military power would go to guarding its hostage, held in the center of the fleet within the beating, radioactive heart of the Illustrious herself. David swallowed, his hand clenching his weapon. The awed silence around him, at least, told him he wasn’t alone in his disbelief at the number of ships below them. A hand squeezed his shoulder. He didn’t need to look up to know it was Lisa. No words of encouragement just yet, though. The time for that had ended. He turned back, running through his gear one last time: working the charging handle on his rifle, buckling any dangling straps he could find on his gear, counting the mags buckled down, and finally, running a reassuring hand over the canteen on his hip, his fingers shaking over the plastic neck. “We just got clearance!” A voice rose up from the cockpit, Shining Armor turning in his seat. Lisa let out a breath. “This is it.” She exhaled, falling back in her seat. The sleek, black rifle in her grip gave a slight creak as her gloved hands tensed around it. “Yeah,” David sighed, his fingers finally leaving the neck of the water canteen. “This is it.” The Admiral’s aged fist clenched around the bottle. It all came down to this. One last desperate bid to keep the fools from killing themselves. He eyed the regular Scotch in his glass, and with a frown, reached for his desk drawer before he managed to stop himself. No. No, this was too important. That bottle could wait. “Admiral?” Peters jolted slightly, then cursed himself as he slumped in his chair. “Yeah?” He slurred. M frowned at him from the door, his nose wrinkling with a mild bit of disgust. “We have received word that Prince Shining Armor himself is requesting to land, something about engine trouble. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?” The Admiral shrugged, blinking blearily against the lamplight. “I’ll take that as a no,” M sighed, turning to march out the door. “I’ll give them the all-clear.” “Jus’ one thing,” Peters mumbled. M paused in the door as Peters nudged the shotglass in his hand along the desk. “Have a li’l tip. Fer ol’ times sake.” “I wasn’t aware we had any old times,” M growled. “Then for the simple fact that the end of the world is approaching.” “I really should…” “Is a li’l nip really going t’do that much to ya? C’mon, a sip even…” After a moment, M turned on one heel, marched up to the desk, and, maintaining eye contact, scooped up the shot glass and downed it in a single gulp. Peters smiled as M glared down at him. “This isn’t up to your usual quality.” He said. “Well ‘scuse me, princess! S’the end of the world, case y’didn’t know.” Peters grumbled. M glared a moment, then with a cough, set the glass back down on the desk. “Keep out of trouble,” he hissed before marching out of the office. In a moment, Peters straightened, wiping at a spot of drool from the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, and fuck you too, ya pencil-pushing ponce,” he muttered as he circled around the desk and marched out into the hallway, buttoning his jacket and tucking his shirt in as he walked. Well, they’d landed, and they weren’t a pile of flaming scrap at the hands of one of a hundred anti-air missile batteries that absolutely could have wiped them out. So far, so good. David couldn’t help but tremble as he stepped out, a prosthetic hand disguising his stump clenched around the rifle’s foregrip. For a second, just as his feet touched the deck, he wasn’t in camo and heavy goggles to disguise his face anymore. He was in the cheap dress shoes and tie again, stepping out for the first time, wondering how in the span of a few days he’d gone from a mostly-ignored slacker shoved into an office to be forgotten to facing down what, at the time, felt like the ultimate evil: the greatest threat ever posed to mankind. Now, he and that exact same group of people were gambling everything on that same creature being the only hope mankind had. Life was funny. He fell in line with the others, the ocean spray hitting his goggles as the group formed up in standard guard formation around Shining Armor. The mist fogged up his goggles, kicked up by the whirling chopper blades, making him wipe at it every few minutes. David drank it all in: the feel of the sun’s warmth even through his heavy surplus gear, the weight of the vest on his shoulders, even the way the rifle in his hands clattered off the prosthetic at its own odd angles. “Not a bad day,” he mumbled. If anyone heard – highly unlikely over the roar of the waves and the still-winding thump of the S-Huey's rotor blades – they didn’t reply. Instead, they looked ahead as a couple men in uniform marched up from the superstructure. “Prince Shining Armor!” The first sailor inclined his head. “We were surprised to hear you wanted to make a visit.” “Well, thought I’d get one last little lick in, it being the end of the world, and all!” The Prince shrugged. “Besides, the rotor blade balance has been off for awhile, you won’t believe the surplus junk we have to fly now that the UN’s in crisis mode. Would your mechanics be able to take a look at it?” David let out a shivering breath, and heard the others do the same. Of all the people in this little show they were putting on to have a speaking role, he was infinitely grateful it was the politician. Whether they died in a hail of gunfire or quietly made their way down to the lower decks would be decided right here, right now. The sailors stood there for a second, weighing options, taking risks into mind. David’s heart sank as one of their hands sank to the pistol on their hip, a thumb flicking a strap off the grip of their sidearm. “I’m sorry, sir,” he started, and without thinking, David’s thumb flicked off the safety on his rifle. “But we’re under strict—” “Belay that.” All eyes whipped around to none other than Admiral Peters himself, striding from the command superstructure like a man half his age. He approached with the type of confidence only decades at sea gave. Both sailors fell into an instant salute, turning on him as he approached. “What’re you boys doing? Holding up a foreign dignitary like this!?” He barked. “But…sir, we have strict orders about who can come aboard and…” “From who? The UN?” A growl rumbled up the old man’s throat. “You take all your orders from them now? And I’m just an old, useless drunk!?” The sailors exchanged glances. “We…thought the new chain of command…” “…has always ended with your Admiral, boys,” he waved his hands dismissively. “Now, step aside so I can show our guests around!” The pair gave a final salute, sharing unsure glances as they marched back to the superstructure. “And one more thing!” The pair gave pause as Peters gestured to the first sailor’s hip. “Lock down the sidearm, soldier, unless you’re planning to go target shooting with the waves.” Without glancing down, one of the sailor’s hands moved to redo the clasp on his pistol. “Thank you, sir,” both announced before they moved out of earshot, back down the tarmac. A breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding wheezed through David’s lips. “Jesus Christ…” he muttered. “No, but I’ve been told I look like him.” Admiral Peters gave a crooked, wrinkled smile. “See the resemblance?” “Pardon me for saying so, Admiral, but I had no idea you could still summon that kinda fire.” Lisa gasped, almost slouching in her bundled-up kit. “Yeah? That getcha to take back any of the shite you said behind my back, when ya thought I was too drunk to hear?” He asked with a yellowed grin. With a guffaw, she shook her head. “Maybe about half.” “Yeah fair,” he said, turning back to the superstructure. “Well, y’bunch of prettyboys wanna stand around jerkin’ eachother off all day? Or can we finally get to savin’ the bloody world?”