Pt. 1 - Realization

A long time ago, the sun would rise in a glorious display of color and light. That is the stuff of history books now. Not many civilians had ever seen the sun itself rise up from the horizon – the only thing that would herald dawn was the light that slowly filtered down through the clouds and smog.

“A panic broke out among the citizens of the Ministerial District as, according to various eyewitness accounts, a firestorm blew out the bottom floors of the Citadel. Now, the details are unclear as of yet, but a terrorist attack is a suspected cause. Stand by for more details, as we head to the scene of the disaster.” ~C7 News radio broadcast, 12:07 AM

The outskirts of Citadel City were a sad sight to behold. There were rows upon rows of dull black factories, belching pollution and smoke into the atmosphere. Around them were dead trees and burnt landscape – a remnant of the ancient nuclear wars.

“The general public is already creating their own theories about the incident that occurred earlier, around midnight. The bottom floors of the Citadel are still burning and no officials have come out to explain the cause of this tragedy.” ~unknown news reporter, 12:20 AM

The grand centerpiece of Citadel City was its namesake. A three-thousand-foot tower, wide at the bottom that gradually narrowed into a huge spire with one room at the top: the Prime Minister’s office.

“As the people of the city have already found out, the Prime Minister has been abducted under unknown circumstances.” ~numerous radio news stations, 12:39 AM

Southwest of the city, a lone airship powered its way across the skies, its sharp prow cutting through the winds and dense clouds. As the first rays of moonlight shined through the clouds, its name was clearly visible, written in white upon black: the Nightblade.

“The Prime Minister’s capturer had allegedly used a stolen assault zeppelin, the Supremacy, to descend upon the pinnacle of the Citadel. While doing so, he had sent several accomplices on a suicide mission to rig the bottom floors of the Citadel with C4 charges. Among the explosions, the terrorist escaped with the Prime Minister in the stolen airship.” ~AR-News radio broadcast, 12:42 AM

Inside the Nightblade, a strange creature stood at the helm. It was obviously a male human, but seemed not to be. He had an almost perfectly round head, with a noticeable lack of hair. His eyebrows stood out immensely, a bright blue color. The man had sinister-looking shiny beetle-black eyes, positioned above an inconspicuous nose and a curled mustache ending in sharp points. Below that, a prominently spiky goatee pointed straight down.

“In a completely unexpected turn of events, the abductor of the Prime Minister has returned in the stolen airship, named the Supremacy. As far as we know, he has positioned it above the slightly-ruined peak of the Citadel. Most radio and television crews were forced to take cover in shelters as the zeppelin fired warning shots at them from the sky.” ~various radio station broadcasts, 12:48 AM

The rest of the man was just as odd as his head. His body was very round, nearly spherical. His legs seemed almost nonexistent; but they were, in reality, very short. The man’s boots took up most of the view. His clothes were mainly all black, with a red sash running from his shoulder to his side. His black cloak lay on a nearby chair.

“The man, identifying himself as Richard Harrington, is demanding access to medical and botanical resources of Citadel City’s government. Our intelligence has told us that he is an ex-agent of the government, who was also the captain of the Supremacy. Once he has this plus a considerable amount of money, he guarantees the release of the Prime Minister.” ~C7 News radio broadcast, 12:49 AM

“Hold on!” the man said, raising his eyebrows, which were bright blue. “I’ve heard zat name before.”
“Richard Harrington?” the navigator shouted back from the other side of the control room.
“Yes,” the man replied, remembering quickly. “He nearly arrested me before. He was an agent for ze government.”
The navigator and two other crew members walked over to the man. “What I don’t understand,” one of them said, “is why he suddenly returned to the City. Edward Hall from the 912 counter terrorist branch stated that he was escaping south and west of it.”
“Don’t be a fool,” the navigator snapped. “It’s clear to me that our sources have turned out to be unreliable. Plus, I may be no tactician, but it’s obvious that he knew we were tailing him. He wanted to lose us, so he returned to Citadel City.”

“Harrington also has clearly stated that any attempt on behalf of the government to attack his zeppelin would result in the Prime Minister’s immediate death.” ~C7 News radio broadcast, 12:51 AM

The odd-looking man looked at the radio. “We’ll have to get around zat somehow. Schneider!”
The navigator looked up from the radio. “Yes, sir?”
“Chart us a course back to Citadel City. We will circle it and approach it from ze north. If Harrington is expecting us to return from ze southwest, he’ll be in for a slight surprise.”
Schneider nodded and rushed over to the navigational console, where an autopilot was in control. “Yes, sir.”
The man walked over to the control room’s floor-to-ceiling bulletproof glass windows. The Christmas-night sky was stormy and dark. It would not be fit conditions for taking on one of the government’s best assault zeppelins, albeit a stolen one.
However, he had no choice. The government did not strike a deal with me for nothing. If I did not obey them, I would be strapped to the electric chair at this moment. I’m in this thing until the end.
The airship’s prow turned. The floating behemoth made a complete turn and resumed its normal speed, retracing its invisible path. The Nightblade was well on its way back to Citadel City.
The odd-looking man quickly threw on his black cloak, which had his only known name written on a small tongue of paper on the inside of the collar: Lieutenant Boom.

“We are still deciding on the subject of whether we should accept your proposal or not! Can you not wait?” the Secretary of Defense blurted out.
One of the staff members placed a hand upon his shoulder. “We must remain diplomatic,” he whispered into the Secretary’s ear. “Kingsley’s life hangs on the balance. There is no predicting this madman’s next move.”
Richard Harrington tapped the conference camera’s screen rudely. “This madman here happens to have a camera rigged with ultra-sensitive speakers.”
The staff member glared at him and walked back to his place at the table. The clock on the projector screen showed 1:09 AM.
“Mr. Harrington,” the Secretary of Defense began again. “You have given us a timeframe of two hours to decide. Please be so kind as to hold true to our agreement, and wait the time out.”
The rogue agent shrugged. “Well, as long as you don’t break our agreement by attacking me, I’m fine with it.”
“I assure you that will not happen,” the Secretary replied calmly.
Unfortunately, it was at that very moment that Lt. Boom’s airship entered Harrington’s radar screen.

Above the ruined army bases on the outskirts of Citadel City, the Nightblade skimmed through the mist at over eighty miles per hour, cloaked from all radar devices by its black stealth paint. Even its propellers were specially designed to only generate a low hum.
The prow broke through the last of the mist and the lights of the city appeared below. Like a myriad of multicolored stars, it spread for miles in all directions. However, to the south was a red glow like the fires of hell itself, silhouetting the Citadel itself. Towards this they headed.

Assistant Minister Danielson’s earpiece buzzed. “Our temporary agent,” the voice said sarcastically, “has entered the City airspace.”
The minister turned away from the conference screen, whispering incredulously. “I thought he and the crew were pursuing him southwest of the city?”
“Apparently not,” the flight control officer replied. “They tailed him back, I’m guessing.”
Danielson swore under his breath. “I was counting on keeping Harrington unaware of their existence...” He glanced at the screen. Harrington was looking completely disconcerted, his crewmen investigating the strange blip on their radar screen that was the Nightblade.

Lt. Boom was just as surprised as the rogue agent was. He turned on the rest of the crew. “I thought we were covered in stealth paint?” He pointed at the small flashing light on the panel. “Why is zis thing telling me we have been detected?”
Schneider ran over to the blast-proof windows. “I’d say that’s hardly the point right now. We have been detected. The Supremacy’s technology is new, and hence the name, supreme over anything we have.” He looked back at Boom. “This also goes for their weapon arsenal. We could be targeted, and,” he added humorlessly, “consecutively dead, at any moment.”
Boom snapped his gloved fingers. “Put ze engines into triple-time.” Not detecting any movement among the crew, he barked, “Now!”
“Sir,” an engineer began. “It’s always strongly advised against doing so...if the temperature is overly heated up, the engines could explode.”
Boom stared into the engineer’s eyes, and the man felt a certain fear when looking at those shiny beetle-black eyes. “That,” Lt. Boom said, “is a risk we will have to take.”

From the Supremacy’s helm, Harrington narrowed his eyes to get a better glimpse at the zeppelin’s prow heading so boldly towards him. He glanced at the weapons screen and saw that the missile cannons were now targeting the strange vessel.
His radio squawked. “You won’t like the sound of this, sir,” his chief gunman said hesitantly through a wave of static. Harrington listened to him.
He didn’t like it.

“Fifteen seconds to impact,” Schneider said from the control screen. “Sir, are you sure that we will not all be dead before we ram them?”
“Sure? Of course not,” Boom snapped. “By all probability, we should have been dead two minutes ago. For some reason, they are not shooting.”

Speaking calmly despite the waves of fury coursing through him, Harrington spoke to his navigator. “Turn the ship several degrees, for Christ’s sake, so we can shoot them!” He turned back to the windows.
“I can’t believe they were this lucky – none of the guns can target them?” the navigator said. “Sir?” he asked again, for Harrington had just gone stock-still and staring wide-eyed out the window.
The moonlit helm suddenly went dark. The light was blocked by a giant shadow, and it was only too obvious what it was.

Among Boom’s other eccentricities, he had trained himself in the use of parkour, the sport of French origin similar to free-running. He half-wall-hopped, half-climbed up the access hatch ladder leading to the top deck of the Nightblade. The night air whipped past him. Leaning into the wind, he sprinted towards the front of the vessel. Three seconds were left until impact. He had mere moments to grab onto the railing before the inevitable happened.
With an ear-splitting crash of tearing metal, the Nightblade rammed into the right side of the Supremacy. The spike buried itself deep into the body of the other zeppelin.
Meanwhile, the Nightblade’s engines coughed and spluttered, driven to their maximum limits. Inside the control center, chaos reigned. An oil tank had fallen through the ceiling and now hung by a few pieces of debris.

Lt. Boom leapt, grabbing onto the base of the ramming spike. He rocked himself back and forth, eventually swinging onto the spike itself. With an amazing carefulness for a man his size, he walked across the long spike like a tightrope. He then slid off the spike and swung right onto the side deck below him. He grinned as he glanced at the two airships interlocked together, now lit by giant floodlights from the ground below.
However, inside the Nightblade’s helm, things were not going so well. Quite badly, you might even say. Schneider, in the last few seconds of his life, looked in dread at the freed oil tank falling towards the floor.
The tank burst upon impact, releasing a torrent of oil. Schneider saw, as if in slow motion, the sparks from a broken fuse box fall onto the puddle. He saw the flames rise up, licking the ceiling.
Up on top, Boom’s grin slid right off his face as the helm’s supposedly blast-proof windows exploded from the inside. The grin never came back, because the heat soon reached the overheated front propellers. The inferno increased as the flames traveled further back. In a blazing explosion worthy of the Hindenburg, the airship was pushed out of the hole that it had created. It crumpled upon itself, falling onto the helipad on the top of the Citadel. There it broke in half, one part staying on the helipad and the other half falling three thousand feet to the ground below.
Boom watched all this with a growing sense of horror, just now realizing how lucky he had been to jump when he had. Then again, he thought as there was a swooping sensation in his stomach, maybe not. The Supremacy was starting to fall, most of its gas escaping out of the big hole and the propellers being too weak to hold it aloft.
Harrington, however, was a quick thinker. Before Boom could even fully form a plan of escape off of the falling ship, several titanium grappling hooks were jettisoned from the aircraft. Latching onto several points on the Citadel’s peak, the ship only fell about fifty feet before the metal wires snapped taut. Boom breathed a sigh of relief.
There was no more time to philosophize about his luck. Boom’s mind was working fast as he sprinted, ducking low, along the side deck. Harrington is asking for access to government resources. Why?
The first door came up fast. He stopped on its right side. The black cloak that Boom wore was one of his biggest assets, because it could hide many things at a time, away from prying eyes. Now, from its depths he pulled out a single black Desert Eagle, screwing a silencer onto its barrel. Boom twisted open the door-handle and lightly stepped inside. A short corridor led to another pathway with railings that opened up to a giant chamber on its right side. No guards yet. Good.
But, Boom thought. Harrington has gone to great lengths to get access to those resources. It cannot be for a good reason. He slowly crept down the short corridor, towards the pathway. The government can’t accept. I have to get the Prime Minister away from Harrington. Then Harrington will have nowhere to hide.
He came up to the pathway. The giant open chamber seemed to contain the generators that powered the airship. Plenty of crew members below. Two on the pathway – one to the right of him, one to the left.
Lt. Boom reached inside his cloak again. This would have to be a quiet job. He took out a single five-armed throwing star. Holding the steel star between his index and middle finger, he took quick aim and threw.
The star sliced into the guard’s side. The muffled thump of the man falling down alerted the other guard. Boom raised the pistol and shot him in the chest. Deaths were inevitable on this mission.
Damn! he thought. I could’ve – should’ve! – questioned him about whoever’s on this ship…
Too late now. The alternative was to find the map of the craft, to begin with. They were almost always somewhere aboard, plastic plaques. Crouching low and sticking close to the walls, he made his way along the pathway to the left and down a spiraling metal staircase. There was a strange absence of crewmembers here.
At the bottom of the stairs, Boom sprinted down a corridor, ignoring the closed doors on either side. The corner came up quickly. He pressed against the wall, peeking around it. There was one man, walking in his direction, reading several leaves of paper.
Boom swore to himself in German. He only had two spare cartridges. The way things were going, he would be meeting more crewmembers along the way and he would run out of bullets soon. But the only thing Boom could do was save them until he needed them.
Moving at a speed unnatural for someone his size, he jumped out from behind the corner. His gloved hand snapped out. A silver star sped out, slicing through the air and into the man’s neck. The papers fell to the floor, stained with drops of blood.
Boom kicked open a metal door with a round porthole-like window. The guard’s body went into the metal closet in the corner of the room.
However, Boom’s search for the plaque was interrupted by voices issuing from below a grille in the middle of the hallway floor.
“...me to clean the guest rooms.”
“I feel your pain, man.”
“Why’d he have to bring her on thi...”
The voices faded away, accompanied by footsteps. Her, Boom pondered, continuing to pad along the hallway quietly. In the guest rooms...this will be interesting.

Twenty minutes and three more additions to the body count later, Boom was standing outside the door of the third of ten guest rooms. The first showed signs of being inhabited at least a month ago, and the second was empty. Yet as the Americans always say, third time’s a charm.
As it turns out, there was truth to it. The third guest room was decorated with items that most men wouldn’t even consider putting in their room. Quite obviously, this was inhabited by a woman’s.
As it happens, Boom thought, this raises several interesting questions.
He set about searching the room. The first thing that caught his eye was a laptop sitting on top of the bed. Crouching down, he flipped it open and it sat clam-like, winking at him as it started up.
He took off his right glove and started exploring the system, his finger moving fast over the touch-pad. There wasn’t much of interest to Boom, until he opened up the woman’s email inbox. The two most recent messages, both sent before midnight. Midnight was the time Harrington made his move, Boom thought. And, he added, cringing a bit, this woman is definitely his girlfriend. He also noted from her email address her name was Keira.
It felt a bit wrong to invade peoples’ privacy this way, so Boom moved on. He scanned the room with his eyes, eventually landing on a Motorola-brand cell phone sitting on a table that was bolted to the floor.
Hurrying over to it, he flipped it open with a flick of his thumb. He needed to verify what he was thinking...so he scrolled through the ‘Outgoing Calls’ list. Ah, thought Boom. All her calls to Harrington are way before midnight. And why shouldn’t they be? She wouldn’t need to call him if she was nearby him. I’ve just confirmed that she’s onboard the airship.
He glanced around at the decorating – done a long time ago. She’s been here before, too. Harrington’s the former captain of this thing; what captain hasn’t taken his significant other out on a ride in the sunset before?
Boom was about to close the phone when he noticed the most recent call. He had scrolled through most of the calls so quickly that he hadn’t even noticed this one.
Five minutes before midnight. The time at which the call was made caught his attention before he took a look at the number Keira had dialed.
909.
The one hotline. The one that you dialed instinctively when you were in trouble. From history lessons, Boom remembered that it had been 911 as recently as fifty years ago, until someone decided to change it.
So, Boom mused. Why would Harrington’s girlfriend call the authorities? I think my nose smells a traitor.
He settled himself on the bed and browsed through her recorded calls. His heart beating fast, Boom selected “11:55 PM, 909.” The recording began.
“Hello?”
“You’ve reached the Ministerial District authorities, how may we assist you?”
“Don’t interrupt me, please. This may already be too late. You need to patch a call through to the first five levels of the Citadel and order the personnel to evacuate.”
“Ma’am, is this some kind of practical joke?”
“Please, I know this sounds like a prank call.”
“It certainly does.”
“My name is Keira Adison. I’m currently onboard the airship Supremacy. A man by the name of Richard Harrington has sent five suicidal operatives to the first five levels of the Citadel. They’re dressed as engineers and exactly at midnight they’re going to detonate their bombs! You’ve got to get everyone out of there!”
Boom heard laughter on the other end. “Ma’am, pardon me for sounding skeptical. Have you been watching too many action movies on Christmas Eve? Real life isn’t like Die Hard.”
“Listen to me, you m*********ing idiot. There are two minutes left until midnight! If you call now they could get at least some people out of there!”
The humor disappeared from the man’s tone completely. “You got any proof that you are on this airship? What are you doing there?”
“Richard Harrington is my boyfriend. Please, trace this call if you must, but you have to evacuate the building as well!”
“All right, all right. Starting the pinpoint now. It’s Christmas, I got nothin’ better to do.”
About fifteen seconds passed in silence. “Sweetheart, you’re showing up in the neighborhood about two hundred yards outside of the Citadel. Mobile, too. This Harrington fella taking you out for a ride?”
“Dammit! I’m in the airship! We’re moving in on the Citadel’s peak! What the hell are we doing...? Did you evacuate the bottom floors?”
“Whoa, I’m sorry, girl, I forgot to place that call. Seems like there’s no need to, either!”
“What the hell do you mean - ?”
“Will you look at that! It’s near thirty seconds past midnight. Merry Christmas, sweetheart. And I’m lookin’ at the Citadel right now – no sign of any explo –”
Then there was the blast. Boom’s ear stung from the sound’s volume. The man was screaming, having forgotten about the phone. The shock from the explosions reached the man’s station, and Boom heard the sound of a million glass shards shattering.
Gritting his teeth, Boom snapped the phone shut. He’d had enough. Those deaths could have been prevented, god dammit!
He calmed himself down soon after. There must be some other clue as to what Keira had done. If she was willing to betray her boyfriend for this, then she couldn’t have sat idly around while the Prime Minister was captured. Plus, Boom was sure she didn’t know about the Prime Minister’s planned capture – she’d never mentioned it in the phone call.
Then the Motorola phone was back in his hand. Boom scrolled through the “Received Calls” list. Sure enough – a similarly unique phone call had come to this phone seven minutes after midnight. This one came from 912 – the counter-terrorist branch.
“Miss Adison, you have proven yourself to be a trustable source. We have a request to make of you, to confirm our suspicions about Harrington’s true rank. We need you to take the black box tape recorder from the cockpit...”

Boom paced the room up and down, kicking the furniture at random. The call from 912 was made over an hour and a half ago! If Keira had recorded Harrington’s speech, then it should’ve been brought here. He had searched and overturned nearly every hiding place he could think of. He had seen the black box tape recorders that were in the Nightblade, he knew what they looked like.
There was no alternative. He would just have to accept that the recording wasn’t here. He picked up his Desert Eagle from the bed and thumbed back the hammer, walking towards the door.
Then the floor creaked.
If this story were to take place in a wooden house, this event would not have been given its own line – hell, it wouldn’t even have been mentioned. But Boom was in an all-metal airship, and metal does not creak.
He bent down and ripped back the carpet. There lay a gash in the metal floor, with three thin pieces of wood crisscrossing over it to cover up the hole. Wasting no time, Boom plunged his hands into the hollow space, his fingers scrabbling about. And then he found it: the small, flat, rectangular object that he knew could only be the tape recorder.
Not even bothering to put the carpet back, he pressed Play on the device and put it on the bed.
Two minutes passed before Boom realized that the interesting part would only come later. He fast-forwarded the tape, silently chuckling at the funny high-pitched noise of sped-up voices emitting from the speakers.
Then he realized Harrington’s noticeably deep voice was already on the speakers, in its sped-up pitch. Boom hurriedly pressed Play again.
“...why, Keira? You need justification for what we did?”
“We captured the Prime Minister of the City!”
“Are you just mad because I didn’t tell you about it? You know WHY I didn’t tell you? I know you, Keira! I knew you’d react like this.”
“I want off this damned airship. I want nothing to do with this anymore.”
“Sorry, babe, you’ll have to wait.”
“This started as a short air trip. You told me you had been reinstated as the captain. Instead I find out that you’ve murdered the real crew, and probably killed another two dozen people when your friends blew up the Citadel’s bottom floors along with themselves! On top of that, you’re threatening to shoot Kingsley!”
“Keira, listen to me. Kingsley will not be shot. The government won’t allow it. They’ll cater to our every need.”
“Your hands are already stained with the blood of over twenty people. Permanently stained. How should I know that you won’t add to the massacre? I mean, the man’s only the bloody Prime Minister of Citadel City! No one important, right?” Keira ranted in a sarcastic tone.
“I won’t shoot Kingsley. He is vital to the plan.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“All right. I’ve already told you more than I planned to. I should tell you this, too.”
Boom’s ears perked up.
“You know, of course, of the terrorist group that our dear government has fondly dubbed “Black Sun.” Of course, this was all done by purpose and that is their real name…”
“Rich, please tell me this has nothing to do with them! Please!”
“Oh, please,” Harrington laughed a slightly deranged laugh. “This has EVERYTHING to do with them. Black Sun likes to operate in stealth. If there is no sign of them, yet the government is slowly turning a blind eye on it all, the people will naturally be afraid of what might be going on in the upper hierarchy.”
“What do they have to do with this?” Keira’s voice definitely had a touch of fear in it now.
“Unbeknownst to all of us, they have been slowly infiltrating the government. The latest technological advances – they are all our doing. We needed the government to think that they are safe.”
“We?!” Keira’s voice and Boom’s thoughts were of the same caliber. Part of his intelligence had already figured everything out, but the rest of it was unwilling to accept it. It could not be true.
“Yeah. We. Meet Richard Harrington, the 3rd head of Black Sun, standing here right in front of you, in the flesh.”
Boom brought his thumb down on the Stop button. His heart was pounding at what he had just heard. But the reason he had stopped the recorder was entirely different.
There were footsteps echoing off the metal hallway floor outside. And they were coming closer.

Keira Adison walked into her room, her heart pounding as much as Boom’s was. Her worst fears were confirmed. The safe that she had chain-sawed in the floor an hour earlier was now strewn apart. The recorder lay on the bed. And yet, no one was in the room.
The girl carried an MP5K on her belt. She took it and held it at the ready as she opened the closet.
It was empty.
Then there came a bump. It came from her other closet that resembled a wardrobe more than a standard airship closet.
Keira crossed the room in a few steps, kicking open the wardrobe door. The space was empty. There were two black boots lying inside, with the remains of a tiny silencer noise grenade smoking nearby.
Then the Desert Eagle’s barrel pressed against the back of her neck. A rough gloved hand knocked the MP5K out of her hand before she could do anything with it. The clock struck 2 AM – Harrington’s deadline.
“Time is very much of ze essence. We’re going to talk, Miz Adison. And you are going to do everything as I say.”