Kostia didn't even try to restrain her grumbling as she laboriously made her way towards Niylah's trading post, Klark's unconscious form slung across her shoulders in what the Old World would have called a 'fireman's carry'. Maybe she shouldn't have sent Niylah quite so far away with Mist, but then she hadn't expected for Klark to get herself shot not once, but twice, requiring Kostia to play pack mule to the unconscious girl. Nor could she make a litter, because she risked not only being caught by any other Maunon in the area for lingering too long in making one, but litters tended to leave rather distinctive drag marks everywhere they went.
The stench of the fire she had set to the Maunon carriage and the 'pod' lingered strongly, still casting a wide and thick pall of smoke over the tree tops, and she was glad for the recent storm soaking the ground and foliage. The last thing she wanted to do was set fire to half a territory just to cause problems for the murderous bastards. Fortunately, it hadn't been a difficult task, between some deadfall and all the extra fuel that the Manon carriage had on it. The clans didn't really know what it was or how it was made, but they had long since learned that it burned hot, fast, and relentlessly from ambushes just like this one. Most had been used on the interior of the pod, and some blunt force to the fuel cap paired with a 'fuse' made of strung together cloth torn from the bodies has seen the carriage itself nearly exploding, and she was glad again for both the dampness of the forest and of the large crater the 'pod' had created when it landed, which she had pushed the carriage into before burning it.
As she trudged, she considered, once again, the situation that she had inadvertently found herself in over the last day or so. It certainly wasn't how her missions typically went, even ones regarding sky-metal and other things involving the Old World. Well, actually, most of the basics were exactly the same as countless missions before. Klark was really the outlying factor, the root of all the strangeness involved in the day's events.
And what an outlying factor she was.
To say that Klark was unusual was an understatement, certainly. The number of questions that surrounded her were steadily increasing, and so was the amount of concern Kostia felt about everything. The blonde didn't talk right, didn't walk right, seemed knowledgeable about some things but oblivious to others, and Kostia couldn't imagine any clan that would let a girl as incapable of stealth as she wander about by herself, fayagon or no fayagon.
For that matter, the fayagon itself was a matter of some concern, because she couldn't imagine how there could be a clan, one so out of the way or so secretive that she had never even heard a rumor of them, that could equip people the way Klark was equipped. Everyone knew that touching a fayagon was a death sentence for dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent people. Yet, her clan seemed to think nothing of sending her out with a very large, and presumably very powerful, forbidden weapon that was not in any way concealed.
On the one hand, this was amazing news. This meant that there was a place that the Maunon could not see or reach, at least not with whatever perfect means they used to spy on the Clans of the Coalition, because the expression of utter surprise and appall on Klark's face when Kostia had explained the Maunon's retribution had obviously been entirely legitimate. Just the fact that there was someplace safe that people could go that wasn't in the ruinous wastelands of the west was important to a level that honestly couldn't be overstated.
On the other hand, there was apparently an entire clan out there that no one knew anything about, that carried the weapons of the Old World with frightening ease and thoughtlessness. A clan that had allegiance to neither Lexa, nor any other organization that they knew of, but seemed willingly and able to send their people without warning (or, apparently, sufficient training) on lone pilgramages into the heart of Coalition territory.
Presuming, of course, that Klark really was from another clan here on Earth. As much as she had chastised Niylah for even contemplating it, even if the other woman hadn't connected all the dots yet, she was…no longer willing to simply dismiss the possibility that Klark was the Sky Princess. She wasn't willing to put too much stock in the theory either, and she certainly wasn't going to mention it to Niylah, but as much as she wanted to dismiss the possibility she couldn't.
Though she had never heard the phrase 'Occam's Razor' before Lexa had become Heda, it was a theory she had always been familiar with: that the simplest explanation was probably the correct one.
It was possible that Klark was from a strange, never-before-contacted tribe that had customs and equipment none of the other tribes had, including a baffling lack of ability to train someone in walking through the forest without everyone in a quarter mile being aware of it.
It was also possible that Klark was the source of the blonde hairs that she had found in the pod and the human tracks that she had found in the dirt of the crater that said pod had created. After all, she hadn't been so oblivious as to miss the fact that Klark perfectly matched the estimated description of whomever had left the tracks, and Klark being from above the Sky would certainly explain her struggles with the terrain and general obliviousness to life on Earth.
No, it was much, much easier to believe that Klark was the descendant of Aleksia Pramheda than the absurd theoretical tale the young stranger had…no, it wasn't even fair to say that Klark had spun the tale, rather that she had been as noncommittal as possible and let Niylah and Kostia draw their own conclusions as much as possible. Something else that should have made Kostia more suspicious than it had, because any novice liar was taught to keep your lies as simple and as basic as possible.
What, then, would be done about it? Telling Lexa went without saying, but what should be recommended to her lover from there? Klark was far from being capable of fulfilling the expectations that her heritage placed on her, expectations she didn't seem (at first glance) to be particularly aware of in the first place, which meant putting her in the middle of those expectations would be terrible, even deadly, for everyone involved.
She could ask her Commander to lie, even if only by omission, until Klark was ready for her future, but she was loathe to do that. Not least because Lexa despised lying as a general rule, and would consider lying about the Sky Princess to be genuine sacrilege. It would all depend on how she framed it…
"Kostia!" a familiar voice cried out, and the Commander's Shadow blinked out of her meditative, plodding reverie and looked round towards the source of the voice. There, hidden in the shadow of the trees, stood her beloved Mist, with Niylah's wide eyes locked onto the form over her shoulders.
"Niylah, bring Mist here, and help me get Klark onto her back." Kostia grunted, relieved to see the pair even if they weren't supposed to be there, and the tradeswoman hastened to obey, leading the horse from beneath the canopy. Together, the two of them worked Klark's unconscious form into a relatively safe and comfortable position.
"What happened?" Niylah demanded as they set off at a brisk walk down the trail, and Kostia frowned slightly as she quickly considered which events to share and which to keep to herself, for the time being.
"We had to split up to kill the Maunon. Mine weren't an issue, but Klark got spotted after killing her first target. She was able to kill the second one, but not before he shot her a couple of times." She reported, and Niylah gasped in worry, eyes flying to the still form slung over the horse, causing Kostia to hasten on. "She's okay, the wounds are through-and-through, but she lost a lot of blood. Between that and the pain, I imagine, she couldn't stay awake much longer. I torched the Maunon stuff and the sky-metal, then started carrying her back. Just have to hope that the Maunon don't decide to follow us."
"If we're worried about them following us, we should head to the bunker that Klark found, hide in there." Niylah suggested, and Kostia started in surprise, before her expression changed to one of contemplation.
"Do you think the Maunon know about it?" she asked, but her friend was shaking her head before she had even finished the sentence.
"No way, Kos, not unless they knew about it and decided to never take anything out of it or have anyone staying there to ambush scavengers like me. Maker, even if they didn't have people there often, Dad and I spent hours there almost every day for years, we would have seen them or evidence of them at least a few times." She refuted firmly, and Kostia had to acknowledge that she had a point. Still, there was another concern, that of being able to get past the door without Klark conscious enough to help. When this concern was voiced, Niylah smiled an almost-confident smile. "I think I remember where the thing that opens the door is, I'm sure that I can get us in without a problem!"
Somehow, Kostia thought that there would be a problem, but she had faith that Niylah would also be able to resolve whatever problem did crop up to get them safely into the bunker's proverbial embrace.
"Alright, lead on then, Niylah. I won't say no to being safely locked away in some Old World vault until Klark wakes up again, or at least her wounds have stabilized enough for us to set a brisker pace than a slow walk." The scout mistress finally agreed, and Niylah grinned before taking the lead.
The subsequent trip was a short one, which was fortunate given the slow speed that Klark's state required, and while Kostia was less than pleased that Mist wouldn't be able to make her way down the stairs to the bunker itself, she was at least somewhat mollified by the fact that her beloved mount would be safely out of the elements in the husk of the house itself.
The two Tree Clan women struggled a little to get their unconscious companion down the stairs, muttering the occasional curse along the way, until they shuffled to a stop in front of the large, black metal bulwark that blocked access to absolute safety. Shifting Klark's weight entirely onto herself, Kostia watched with bemusement as Niylah started rubbing the wall on the left side of the door, with an expression of such utter focus that it went right past hilarious and back around to serious again. There was a soft click and an exclamation of delight from Niylah, and Kostia raised an eyebrow as a small portion of the wall swung open, revealing what Kostia recognized to be a keypad of some sort. Even at Lexa's side, she didn't see many of them, but the Commander's residence had several, as did a few others in Polis. Somehow she doubted that Niylah knew the 'passcode' required, unless Klark had decided to show it to a total stranger, which meant…
A faint glow from her peripheral vision had her pulling her head back and twisting it just enough to see the strange device near Klark's ear had come to shining life, and her eyes narrowed in contemplation as the keypad gave a muted beep. Niylah stared at it, surprised, the glow near Klark's ear vanishing as quickly as it had come, and the oblivious shop-keep shrugged and closed the panel again as the door began the noisy process of opening.
The next several minutes consisted of getting Klark through the door (which closed by itself, heralded by yet another brief glow from the unconscious girl's device) and settled into one of the available beds. Niylah went to take a shower, something Kostia had to admit that she was very much looking forward to when it was her turn, while the scout dedicated herself to checking and refreshing the bandages. While the past hour or so wouldn't have usually soiled them to such a point, hanging over the back of a horse and being jostled about as it walked was hardly conducive to helping wounds clot and close.
Fortunately, the inspection made it clear that no additional damage had been done by the trip, so while her recovery might have not yet started due to the exertion, it hadn't been extended either. Under the circumstances, that would certainly qualify as the best possible result, and Kostia carefully tucked the younger girl into the blankets before leaving in search of her friend. Above and beyond enjoying a nice shower for herself, there was some chatting to be done about…everything.
She looked around, taking in the bunker's interior, something she had been to distracted to do earlier, and while her eyes coasted over most of the shelved artifacts and relics and oddities within, they paused as they fell on a certain display case. Making her way over, she silently considered it's contents for a long, contemplative moment before reaching in and pulling one of the contents out, deftly slipping it into a hip pouch.
Satisfied, she nodded to the case and returned to her search for Niylah.
Whatever was coming, whatever was going to happen, she would stack the deck as much as she could, and then stack it further still. For Lexa, for the Coalition, she would do anything and everything within her means to bring a brighter future.
############################################################################
"It's all torched, sir. The savages used the extra gas on the pod and blew the entire scout vehicle straight to hell. Must have done something with the gas tank, sir." The radio reported, sounding unhappy even over the airwaves, and Dante Wallace, President of the United States of America, scowled darkly in equal displeasure. He wasn't surprised, by any stretch of the imagination, that the tribals outside the walls of Mount Weather would do such a thing, he even understood why they would work to deny him an asset whenever possible, but that didn't make him any less unhappy about it.
"I presume that there are no survivors?" he asked with a calm and collected tone of voice that didn't remotely reflect how he actually felt, though he had to admit (even if only to himself) that he was far too used to his dwindling civilization taking casualties. Even if the Population Incentives, the sad fact of humanity was that replenishing your numbers took time. About sixteen years, as a matter of fact, before someone could be truly useful to society.
"That's correct, sir. I've already tagged and bagged the scout team and prepped them for transport back, along with whatever can be salvaged material wise from the pod and the scout vehicle. We should be squared away and ready to return within the hour, sir." The other man confirmed, and Dante hummed quietly in thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on the table. A thought occurring, he tapped away at his computer, pulling up the limited drone footage from the area that had been captured during previous patrols.
"There is a small savage residence not far from your location, a trading post of some kind. If anyone is there, capture them for interrogation and Reclamation. Regardless, I want the location destroyed as thoroughly as possible." He ordered, and there was a moment of silence on the far end before the other man responded.
"Understood, sir. My team and I will take care of it as soon as we finish here, then return immediately."
Nodding in satisfaction, the leader of what was left of civilized human society, at least as far as he was concerned, cut off communications and leaned back in his chair as he considered the situation. Losing those four men was a bit of a blow, the hardware more so, and destroying one savage trading post and (at best) capturing a handful of savages for Reclamation was hardly equal recompense. That being said, it was hardly a crippling lose, and not something to focus on compared to the potential that the pod represented.
Unlike everyone else, besides his son and future successor Cage, he knew about PROJECT: ARK. He knew that Alexia Griffin had been a strategist par excellance and had planned for mankind to survive in the stars even if the foolish, the delusional, or the maniacal had done their damndest to do wipe it out. He gave a familiar, bitter chuckle at that, because he doubted there were more than a hundred thousand people alive in the world, including the damn savages. A few minutes of difference during the final war, and the orbital habitat he believed that this pod had come from would have been all the hope mankind had to continue.
And he did believe that the pod was from Ark Station. The initial reports and images from the now-deceased scout team had showed something that was in fantastic shape, far too good to have been jettisoned junk metal or part of the debris belt before it went through reentry. No, it was a deliberate launch by PROJECT: ARK, and he was willing to bet it had been occupied too. A single-man pod was the perfect way for the Ark to discover if the ground was still inhabited, radio signals and satellites still rendered…unreliable by the changes to the atmosphere. Doubtless, whomever had been sent down was well-equipped to report back to the Ark, but it begged the question if they were still alive.
Surely his scouts and the transport team would have reported finding the body of an Arker, whether butchered by the savages or dead from exposure to the toxic atmosphere. The fact that they hadn't meant one of two things: either the Arker hadn't been caught by the savages, or the savages had dragged them away to make an example of them. It was unfortunate for him either way, because it meant that he didn't have the frequency and codes he needed to talk to the Ark and recruit them, though how he would have done so was admittedly a rather large question mark.
The idea that the Arker was capable of surviving without an environmental suit and had actually helped the savages kill his men never for a moment crossed his mind, something he would bitterly lament in the future when he contemplated his narrow view of what was and was not possible.
Slapping his hands on his desk, he got to his feet and left the room, absently saluting the guards outside the door, and began making his way through the corridors of his mountain-bound nation. It was not a glamorous or beautiful place, but it was a good one. Utilitarian, perhaps, dark and cool and filled with air that was always a little stale, despite the efforts of their carefully tended gardens, but filled with dedicated, loyal, hardworking men and women.
The halls were more or less empty, this time of day, with the children at their lessons and the adults performing their assigned tasks and duties, leaving few people for him to encounter and plenty of quiet time for him to think about his nation. A nation that was always in danger, always at risk, always no more than a few minutes of interrupted airtight seals from total destruction.
A hell of a Sword of Damocles to have hanging over the heads of a few hundred people, but one that was manageable with sufficient effort and careful control. It helped that, thanks to the…space to inhabitant ratio of Mount Weather, there was an abundance of levels between the surface and were the majority of the civilians lived. In fact, the only people who lived deeper were the savages slated for Reclamation, and they were barely inside the complex as it was.
Not for the first time, he found himself lamenting the situation his people found themselves in. Forced to bleed other humans, if less advanced and civilized ones, dry in order to have the transfusions they needed to survive, before butchering and eating their exsanguinated bodies. It was a disgrace, appalling and thoroughly distasteful, but what choice had he or anyone else? Even if there had been time when the Last War had gone nuclear, any farm animals that they could have had would long since have died out due to inbreeding, and they had neither the space nor the resources to survive entirely off of vegetation, which had long since been relegated to scarce supplement at best.
Oh, some of the younger generations might legitimately believe that those living outside the mountain were subhuman, little more than intelligent beasts vaguely related to 'real' people, but he was an old man, well past sixty. His parents had been born less than twenty years after the bombs had dropped, and had raised him (with the assistance of his grandfather) quite differently from the way people were being raised now.
Of course, part of that was his fault. It was easier to bleed people dry and then eat them when you considered them 'lesser' or 'different' from yourself, after all, and though he had known he was damning himself, it had been he who had begun the propagandizing of the opposing experiences of those who lived on either side of the stone walls and blast doors of his home. He could just imagine how ashamed his family would be, how disgusted they would be by what he had put into motion. Really, the best he could ever have hoped for was that they would understand that he was doing it out of duty, not malice. That all those deaths, all those broken bodies and banks of blood-bags were not because he wanted it, but because it was the only way he could carry out his duty to protect and preserve his people.
What moral high-ground could he claim if he let his own qualms, his own desires and beliefs, lead to the deaths of hundreds of men, women, and children, all of whom relied on him for safety? No leader, he knew, should put himself above and before his people. No leader should allow those he was responsible for to suffer simply because the solution to what ailed them made him uncomfortable or remorseful. He had a duty, an oath that he had sworn, and he intended to keep it regardless of cost.
Shaking his head roughly, trying (and only partially succeeding) to banish the crushing weight back to the back of his mind where it had been nesting for the past thirty years or so, he found himself stopping outside one of the dedicated classrooms and looking through one of the small windows. A smile creased his lips as he watched a dozen four- and five-year-olds working hard on a vocabulary lesson, high-pitched voices stumbling here and there despite their best attempts.
It was sights like this that quelled his doubts, his fears, his regrets. It was the knowledge that none of those children would ever have been born if it were not for his actions that centered him, the knowledge that they would have died young if not for the blood transfusions that sustained him. So what if he had to make himself into a demon, a monster fit only for Hell and for contempt for the rest of history, if it meant keeping those precious, fragile, young lives safe.
If I must be evil, then let me be evil. If I must be damned, then let me be damned. For the future of mankind, no sin is too depraved, no act too abhorrent, no sacrifice to make. He told himself firmly, turning away from the windows and moving forward again, physically and mentally alike. Here, in the bowels of a scarred and battered mountain, was the last, best hope for mankind, and he would preserve that flickering candlelight until his dying breath.