Serpens Cauda - Chapter One

“If you ask me, it sounds like a suicide mission,” Rhodes grumbled, hefting up the next in a line of heavy containers and carrying it to the cargo door.

    “Good thing no one did then,” came Carla’s quick reply, casting her eyes between him and her tablet.

    “We’ve been through some tough spots but nothing as outright dangerous as this. Cauda couldn’t even give us a specific drop off point. It’s like we’re flying into the heart of darkness.”

    The metal box slammed down onto the floor of the transport, the carbon composite walls echoing the sonorous sound. Carla looked in with vivid indignation.

    “Careful with those. They cost more than you’re being paid.” She hopped up the ramp into the halogen lit space, clicking the lock off the box to reveal an intricate interior of folding shelves, each loaded with weapon parts.

    “Take our last mission,” Rhodes carried on regardless of Carla’s scorn, “I nearly lost an arm to that sand-thing. Some of those mages have one hell of an imagination when it comes to conjuring their personal armies. What if this next guy is even more pissed off?”

    “You’re not even listening, are you? If you could just try to be a little less forceful with my equipment -”

    “Our equipment.”

    “-I think you mean my equipment,” came the voice in their earpieces, the mellow sound of Oxford’s voice, sat on the bridge doing his pre-flight preparations. “If you’re going to bicker like that try not to do it over the communicator - and not on my ship.”

    Rhodes snatched the sliver of electronics from his ear and pocketed it, turning to Carla with his arms crossed, leaning against the hydraulic shaft propping the door open.

    “All I’m saying is that this feels different. Call it gut instinct.”

    “Maybe it’s just the mess food getting to you. You’ve been enjoying home-cooked meals too often.”

    “Hey, the missus is a damn good cook - best on the island. Sure as hell beats the slop they serve here. Still nothing beats your algae casserole though.”

    “Yuh-huh, thanks,” she rolled her eyes, jumping back down onto the hanger floor, “come on, still got all this gear to load. Quit slacking.” Her smirk was hidden behind the sleek black tablet now shielding her face, tapping its flat surface with her slender fingers.

    Their mission would last as long as it needed, and that meant packing for a long stay. The transport - Oxford’s prized gunship the Clocktower - had been their base of operations and home away from home several times, and it was always Rhodes’ job to load it. Precisely what Carla did while he laboured and sweated he didn’t know, but she would always assure him that it was of critical consequence. And with her smile he would always believe her.

    “Our take off slot is in forty-five minutes guys. Sure looks like there’s a lot to get done down there still,” the metallic voice called down from the flightdeck.

    “How about you get your graphene-laced ass down here and do some heavy lifting then Oxford?” He said, yelling back, his bellowing voice echoing through the hanger.

    “No graphene down there, Rhodes. That’s not how cerebral implants work. Good try though.”

    “Screw this, I’m getting the auto-loader.” He mumbled to himself. It took him ten minutes to bully one from the man at the utility shed, but he eventually returned with a hovering platform capable of moving the gear autonomously. By that point, their squad leader had arrived, standing among the unloaded equipment in her custom made fatigues. AM always got away with things like that - it was part of being an anti-mage.

    “Where the hell have you been Rhodes? We’re never going to be off on time with half our gear laying on the tarmac.” Her eyes pierced into him, vibrant green with a chilling sparkle to them. Had he not known her for so long, he might have suspected it a magical trick, but AM was the most stringent and fanatical opponent to magic he’d ever met on the island.

    “Getting an autoloader - and you?”

    “Never you mind what I’ve been doing, your job is to get the gear on the Clocktower, and if it isn’t on there by the time we’re scheduled to leave, I’m the one who’s going to have Cauda breathing down my neck.”

    “Aww, come on AM, cut me some slack. One guy can’t move all this. I might look like Hercules but I’m not.” He flexed his pecs under his khaki jacket with a cheeky smile. AM stared him down. He tried a different approach. “Can’t you just make them hoppity-hop in Fantasia style for once? Go on, Carla will even hum the tune.”

    “I hope that was a joke, Rhodes.”

    “Jeeze, of course it was a joke AM. You got something on your mind?”

    “I’ve got thirty minutes to get half a tonne’s worth of gear into this transport, check over the flight manifesto, green the board with mission control and get your sorry ass ready for combat. Do you think that’s enough? Honestly, if you weren’t the best sharpshooter I’ve worked with I’d have kept you rotting in that hovel of yours.”

    Suddenly Rhodes’ face sharpened, his tone sinking like that of a bar brawler.

    “Hey, I’m a happily married man now. I didn’t have to agree to this mission, but I have a sense of duty to my people. Maybe they don’t teach you patriotism in that freak house you were raised in.”

    Had she not been in uniform, her fist would have found its way to Rhodes’ broad face. Instead, with an expression channeling death itself, she grabbed his collar and pulled him down to her height.

    “Do not question my loyalty, Rhodes.” Her deep eyes cackled with furor, swirling around in that deep luminous green was a transhuman energy, one that she willingly hid away, one that made her an outcast.

    She threw him back, clattering against piled up machinery that lay waiting to be loaded. He stumbled, but found his feet and readjusted his top as if nothing had happened. A cool smile at Carla as if to shrug it all off was met with a solemn, reproachful shake of the head.

    “Give the idiot a hand please Carla. I’ve got to go through this with Oxford.” The lithe redhead jumped up the open cargo ramp and into the guts of the Clocktower, leaving the two alone once again - bar the ever listening Oxford wrapped around their ears.

    Without a word, knowing he had overstepped the mark, Rhodes got back to loading up the ship, now greatly aided by the autoloader and Carla.

    “You really should know better than that by now,” she could not help but say, making sure her comm was off first.

    “If she can’t take the pressure of being a leader then she should hang it up, leave it to someone less of an emotional trainwreck.”

    “She’s not let us down yet. Besides, it’s not her choice. It’s just the way it works.”

    “It’s just the way the anti-mages like it. Holed up in their academy,” he sneered, “we all know it’s a prison. Hell, if they weren’t so damn useful when it comes to beating the crap out of the mages then we’d be the first to toss them into the ocean.”

    “We don’t know what goes on with them behind closed doors. I think we should be sympathetic. It must be hard on her - on all of them - trying to fit into a society that considers them a threat.”

    “They are a threat, Carla. Any magic user is. Anti-mage or mage, it’s all magic in the end. All you’ve got to do is look beyond our little island and you’ll see exactly why I’m the way I am. You’ve not been on the number of missions I have. You’ve not seen the destruction out there.”

    Carla turned defensively, standing her ground on the ramp above Rhodes, blocking him entry.

    “Oh, I suppose I’m some fresh recruit huh?”

    “No, that’s not what I said. What I meant-”

    “Well, just you remember she’s in charge. She’s done us proud in the past. We can rely on her.”

    “I know, I know...” he trailed off. Carla could be surprisingly level headed at times.

    Having set down what she was carrying, she gave Rhodes an encouraging rub on the upper arm, her dark skin warm to the touch.

    “It can’t be easy for you coming along, but I’m sure you have your reasons. Just don’t take it out on her OK? She’s got enough on her plate. Take it out on Oxford if you have to.”

    “Naww, might as well talk to a brick wall.”

    “He’s a good conversationalist - maybe he just hasn’t opened up to you yet.”

    “That'd be nice, then I’d get to see if there are cogs and capacitors inside.”

    “I’d know a robot if I saw one, Rhodes. I’ve built a few in my time.”

    Their eyes catched each other for a moment - a moment too long. Both turned their glance away, keenly aware of it.

    “I’ve got to get up on the flightdeck. Last minute checks and all.” She excused herself.

    “Hey, AM said you had to help me-”

    “You’ve got the autoloader now you lug! Get to it!”

    She took off, down along the narrow space left in the cargo hold to the tiny staircase leading up to the flightdeck. The autoloader beeped softly, its blinking green lights like eyes, waiting behind Rhodes with its goods in toe.

    It had only been three months since their last mission together, after which he’d spent his time in matrimonious harmony with his wife down in the city, yet there had never been such tension in the squad; Rhodes had been involved with several mage hunters and known it to be a universal fact of life. The anti-mages were always brilliant, cunning, bold but inherently untrustworthy. The recon pilots were always cold and distant. His own tensions with Carla were unique though, and the less he thought about them the better. But this time around something had changed. This was a new anxiety, not the usual calm before battle, but a darker, vague illness, like the bright grey clouds billowing and evolving in the sky before a storm.

    Oxford was a good rock to cling to though, for nothing about Oxford changed. Rhodes often joked their pilot was a robot, as much machine as the Clocktower itself. With no way to prove it one way or another, speculation and humor was all it ever amounted to. With AM being stand-offish and Carla being, well, Carla, seeking solace in their pilot seemed like a sensible path of action. He’d have to pull him over at some point for a chat.

    Through some miracle - in fact through the unrelenting hard work of the industrious autoloader - every piece of equipment and every box of supplies was soon on board and tied down. WIth the door shut, he joined his fellow crewmembers on the flightdeck.

    The Clocktower was not unique. Every mage hunter squad had one or something similar assigned to them. Capable of supersonic long range flight, air to air and air to ground fire support, it was the touchstone for the remaining military forces. A hybrid of pre- and post-Benefactor technology, it combined familiarity with superior firepower. Under AM’s command, flown and operated by Oxford and maintained by Carla, its ownership was contentious - the only universally accepted truth was that Rhodes, the gunner, had none.

    “Good of you to finally join us, Rhodes,” Oxford said from his seat at the helm, surrounded by the vastness of his console before the transparent polymer that coated the ship’s nose.

    “Good to be up here where there’s a seat,” he grunted, sitting himself down at his station, receded from Oxford’s and next to AM’s. From there he had control of each and every piece of fire power hidden away in the aircraft’s sleek yet massive hull - save for the nukes. They were AM’s to use only. She even had a neat little red button hidden behind a panel on her console, marked with a typical radioactive symbol.

    “OK. Control has given us the green light for take off. Everyone ready? Recon,” she commanded.

    “Go,” Oxford replied

    “Specialist.”

    “Go,” Carla yelled.

    “Tactical.”

    “Yup. All here. Go,” Rhodes called out.

    “We’re green across the board. Take us out Oxford. We’ve got a long journey.”

    The engines flared, the roof of the hanger slid open. Gracefully the great grey beast ascended, blue flame pouring from the nozzles and licking at the launch pad. Roar and crackle rolled across the hanger like thunder, with the great whine of superheated air flowing out from the two pairs of VETOL thrusters . Up and up it went, clearing the hanger, the vast expanse of their island base before them. Lines and rows of wind turbines as far as the eye could see, stretching out like a spiders web, from the core of the continent to the shoreline, with the huddle of towers and buildings behind them.

    Under Oxford’s expert hands, the four engines slowly begun to pivot, the ship tilting forward a little as it begun its forward motion. A moment later and the acceleration had the crew pinned to their seats, the Clocktower rocketing off up and out, away from their safe haven and into the chaos that remained of Earth.

    “Get us transonic and I’ll get on with our briefing. A proper one, not that garbage Cauda fed us,” AM said, her voice tinged with professionally masked sorrow, the same tone a doctor would us delivering bad news with their greatest aplomb. “I’ve got some explaining to do.”