General Gray's Army
by
Janus
The low, deep rumble
was felt for miles around the countryside. Across the clear, cloudless
sky, the powerful, resonate reverberation could not be attributed to thunder,
but more seemingly to the tantrums of angles, stomping their mighty feet
upon the marbled floor of heaven and shaking the earth. More perceptibly,
it was like a distant avalanche, or a great river flowing through a dam...
....or an engine.
A huge, powerful, jet engine, capable of propelling a gigantic object,
near to the size of a massive cumulous cloud, at great speeds across the
sky.
The blazing celestial fireball,
glancing down peacefully on the lush, green-and-white rural field, was
suddenly blocked out. Shadows- small ones, like long, slender birds
with their wings constantly outstretched- slowly drifted through the air.
Hundreds of them, each in formation, forming rings of six, each ring becoming
a segment in a protective spheroid around an immensely larger object.
The shadow cast by one of
the smaller objects blotted out a small tree; the dominate monolith sent
it's chilling darkness over an entire mountain range. The fleet of
craft moved slowly, the greatest of them rumbling with a deafening roar
that dove to the very deepest roots of the mighty oak trees.
Each one of the smaller
fighters, of which there were over a thousand, was on the top of the line
in aeronautic technology. JNI 347-0 Atmospheric Combat Vehicles,
the culmination of 2067's most talented military scientists. With
fuel capacity for three days of flight and a range of fifty-thousand miles,
compounded by their heat-impervious diamond synthate armoring and ten-thousand
rounds of depleted carbonadium ballistic shells, a single one could wreak
havoc on a countryside. One thousand of these, in tight formation
around the flagship
The flagship of Gray's Army;
SkyScythe. A veritable flying city, powered by at least four cold
fusion nuclear reactors, with life support systems for a crew, a population,
of up to a million. Manufactured in the orbital Heilios industrial
area near the Asteroid Belt, it possessed inter- planetary capability,
and was refuge to enough firepower to blast both Diemos, Phobos, and a
good chunk of Mars to charred atoms. Five-hundred and twenty-five
cubic miles of interstellar martianium alloy, rumbling through the atmosphere
over the recently re-liberated state of Georgia.
"Lieutenant Cooper," called
General Gray, from the bridge of the flag ship. "Give me a status
report." ordered the dark-spirited army leader.
Punching a quick command
on his console keyboard, the Lieutenant ran a routine status check on both
major and secondary statistics of the immense battle cruiser. Then,
pressing the mouthpiece of his headset to his lips, he replied to his general.
"At time check 07:15 hours,
all conditions nominal, sir. Propulsion reactors 1 and 2, condition
green. Secondary reactors 1 and 2, condition, stationary. Fusion
flow to CPU, normal. Artificial atmospheric seal is up to 99.99721
percent tight. Distance from target site is 17.2 kilometers.
Objective is visible on the monitor. Fleet speed is constant at 150
km/hr. Diagnostics show no fluctuation in either the maduadin consoles,
or in the defense systems."
"Then everything is flowing
smoothly," said General Gray, nodding his rugged head in grim satisfaction.
Tugging at his black, pointed goatee, he gave his next command. "Activate
the cloaking devices. Now."
Upon the general's order,
Lieutenant Cooper re-adjusted his headset and, through a command on his
console, opened a com-link with every individual JNI fighter in the fleet.
"All units, activate radar masking devices. Repeat, all units activate
radar masking devices now."
Within seconds, the lustrous,
metal sheen of each of the ships took on a glistening, blackish, reflective
hue. Everything was nullified by the masking devices; sunlight was
reflected off every surface, every decibel of sound was absorbed and channeled
away from the fleet and the grand flagship.
"Masking devices activated,
General, sir," said the Lieutenant.
Once more, General Gray
nodded in confirmation. Turning to the main console at the end of
the deck overlooking the whole of the huge bridge, the General activated
the gigantic, central viewscreen. Typing a few commands, he called
up an image of the target site; the objective of such a massive, powerful
army.
Rinnsburg. A small,
cast-off speck of an insignificant little hamlet, by the day's standards;
only about 200,000 people, urban and rural. Only two airports, and
no more than three parallel lanes of air traffic, even in the heart of
downtown. It's defense force was comprised of a mere 5000 men city
wide; barely enough to quite a school yard brawl, let alone stymie even
a fraction of General Gray's army. Given that it's technology was
still stuck in the 20th century, it's only worthwhile industry was the
treatment and processing on impure water, and SkyScythe possessed better
facilities onboard.
With the man-and-firepower
of General Gray's army, even a heavily armed metropolis, like Atlanta,
Valdosta, and even mighty Fort Gordon would fall with only considerable
resistance to the fleet's sweeping conquest. It would take a megatropolis,
like Wen Kroy, with it's 500 million population, to pose a substantial
threat. And yet, small, meager Rinnsburg was the target of such a
devastating armada.
Glaring intensely, his face
a mask harder and colder than the martianium alloy that composed his flagship,
General Gray, fixed his hateful, black eyes upon the viewscreen.
SkyScythe had the best surveillance equipment that his renegade army had
been able to acquire. Even in orbital distances, it's monitors could
focus closely enough to read the writing on a toy book through the window
of a child's dollhouse, sitting on the floor of a darkened basement.
And all without the aid of satellites, which were constantly governed by
government agents.
"Captain Siegel," ordered
the General. Across the main bridge, the captain leapt up from his
station and saluted. "Run a cursory evaluation of Rinnsburg's offensive
capabilities."
"Yes sir!" shouted Captain
Siegel. Returning to his console, which was linked to the main viewscreen,
he instructed SkyScythe's systems to perform the mandatory evaluation of
ballistic potential. The viewscreen zoomed out to a full view of
Rinnsburg. On the map, pairs of green cursors highlighted each of
the city's strong points. A mere six were indicated; Valdosta alone
would have accounted for at least twenty.
"Seven potential danger
zones, sir," reported the captain, trying his best to submerge a laugh
of haughtiness. "Rinnsburg P.D., man power 1500, firepower rating
5. Three precinct offices, each with identical ratings of 250 manpower
and 2 firepower. Rinnsburg Maximum Security Prison, manpower 750,
firepower 5. Rinnsburg Armory, manpower 1000, firepower 7."
All along the length of
the main bridge, all of the other officers allowed their focus to shift
to the unusual brevity of the ballistic evaluation. Such reports
often carried on for several minutes. A confused murmur hummed throughout
the deck, many of the controllers offering remarks that could be broken
down to "That's all?".
General Gray seemed not
surprised, but rather extremely pleased at the report. "Exquisite,"
he whispered sinisterly, his face marred by a cold, frightening grin of
satisfaction. Typing anxiously at the console keyboard, he changed
the viewscreen's coordinates of focus to an object which he had waited
several years to see once again.
Small, three-stories high,
made of red brick, and totally out of place with the other, newer building
of the city, was the old, historical site of town. The Academy of
Rinnsburg. Now over four-hundred years old, it was the most ancient
learning facility left standing in the state. Possibly the country.
When he attended the decrepit building nearly forty years ago, he expected
the defunct structure to collapse around his ears at any moment.
He was extremely surprised to find that now, three-and-a-half decades later,
it was still being attended by a younger generation.
The General's malevolent
smile vanished, and his face once more became cold, hard, and rigid.
He gazed intensely at the viewscreen as the image of the epitome of his
youth glowed before his black eyes.
Right there, on the front
steps. That's where he used to sit. Every morning, before it
was time to go to his first class, he would sit there on that spot.
All by himself.
All by himself. General
Gray balled his hands into tight fists. All that time, they left
him by himself. Didn't they know what it would do to him? Didn't
they know what kind of hateful things roamed around inside of his mind?
They should have realized that if left unchecked, his ideas would become
something they would all sorely regret.
"Target site within visual
range, sir," called Lieutenant Cooper, interrupting the General's introspection.
Shaking his head, General Gray forced himself to control his growing instability
and firmed his voice to give his next command.
"All fighters, arm your
weapons," ordered the General to each of his JNI ships.
Simultaneously, all one
thousand of the carbonadium repeter cannons took aim. All that restrained
them from unleashing their smashing destruction upon the unsuspecting city
was the an itchy trigger finger.
The sound of the cannons
reached even inside SkyScythe. The sound was like glass. The
sound of breaking glass. The sound Gray had heard that one
night, when some cruel class- mate had thrown a brick through his window.
He hadn't even done anything. They never had the guts to show their
faces to him, nor had they ever told him what he had done to deserve their
persecution. It must have been because of....
"We've been detected, sir,"
called Captain Siegel. "They're launching a counter offensive.
Scanners detect a force of approximately five-hundred SR-71 Blackbirds
advancing in spearhead formation."
The General glared, though
he had planned for this exact contingency. "All JNI units, engage!"
he commanded. "Deadly force authorized. Ground air force, but
hold your fire on any and all ground based targets."
Like wasps breaking away
from the hive, the JNI fighters broke away from their tight, spherical
formation around SkyScythe and swarmed in full force into the very midst
of the Rinnsburg defense force, which they vastly outnumbered. The
defensive fighters began the fire- fight by attacking, not the JNI fighters,
but by opening fire on SkyScythe itself with air-to-air missiles.
The impacts barely damaged
the massive warship’s half-kilometer thick frontal armoring. The
vibration reached only as far as the main deck, where it was no more than
an unpleasant tremble.
General Gray's forces had
no difficulty whatsoever against Rinnsburg's air force. Their carbonadium
shells, denser than even uranium, aimed by the well-trained renegade marksmen
of the rebellion, easily tore through the meager Teflon armoring of the
Blackbirds. Without a single Gray casualty, the Blackbirds had been
reduced from 500 to 200 within a minute and thirty seconds. Flaming
wreckage from the smashed air craft rained from the sky like fiery black
hail. The sounds of battle were heard through to the deck, where
General Gray watched the slaughter on is master viewscreen.
It reminded him of the great
fight. Though he had done nothing, he was the center and the cause
of it. It had to do with something he had worn. Just because
it didn't quite fit in with the status quo. Someone had made a snide
remark regarding it, and Gray had only tried to defend himself. It
escalated from angry words to the slinging of fist, into which nearly the
entire Academy had joined in on, each one of them waiting to get their
turn to harm the outsider. Gray.
"Destroy them, my warriors,"
General Gray whispered as he watched stone-faced while the battle went
on. Down they went in tens and twenties, until there were no more
of his aerial foes left in the sky.
"Ground defenses are being
activated, sir!" shouted Lieutenant Cooper. "Count seventy-five ground-based
AtomATon cannons primed and taking aim, sir."
"Condition the Bahamut!"
ordered General Gray, as if he couldn't had been waiting his entire life
to give the command, and he couldn't wait any longer. Malice and
hatred twisted his face so greatly that, had anyone been close enough to
see him, would have taken him for an impostor to the leadership of this
mighty army.
Lieutenant Cooper shook
his head in confusion. "Sir, that may take too long!" he shouted
in worry. "We should take aim with our maduadins and eliminate their
power stations before they have time to get off any shots...."
"I gave the order to condition
the Bahamut!" screamed the General, not requiring his headset to be heard
within every inch of the bridge. "All units hold your fire until
the Bahamut is ready! Captain Siegel, I want control of the firing
mechanism routed directly to my console immediately!" Ignoring all
of their own common sense, the officers loyally followed their General's
orders.
"Initiating the Bahamut
sequence!" cried Lieutenant Cooper. "Repeat, initiating the Bahamut!
This is a Code Blue! All units, steer clear of SkyScythe!"
Without giving more than
three seconds for the fleet to make it's way clear of the grand warship,
the Lieutenant inputted a top secret command. With a sharp lurch,
the entire flagship rocked and shook. General Gray fought to keep
his feet, as SkyScythe began to split down the middle from bow to mid-castle.
Moving on humongous piston-driven hinges, the two halves of the front end
of SkyScythe slowly moved apart from each other, while the disorganized
fleet of a thousand fighters flew around in an uncontrolled swarm.
"General, sir!" said Lieutenant
Cooper to General Gray. "May I please instruct the fighters to swing
down and disable some of the AtomATons! This is taking too long!"
At the same moment, Captain
Siegel had linked the control systems of the Bahamut cannon to the General's
console. "Control link has been established, General, sir!
Approximately forty-five seconds till full readiness!"
Ignoring the request from
his commanders, General Gray inputted his master control command.
A mechanical seat rose from the ground behind him, and as he sat down,
the excess metal of the deck dropped away to the floor with a rumble.
With a whine of pneumatics, the General's seat was driven closer to the
viewscreen.
As SkyScythe continued to
open, Rinnsburg had managed to prepare it's AtomATons. All seventy-five
of the stations took a random aim and fired simultaneously. Each
one of the plasma beams struck it's target, either one of the madly flying
JNI fighters, or the vulnerable inner workings of SkyScythe itself.
Three score of the prized aircraft went down, glowing in radioactive flame.
"Sir, we've lost 58 JNI's!"
cried the Lieutenant. "And we also sustained 2% internal damage to
SkyScythe!"
"I am aware of that, Lieutenant!"
the General retorted, as he programmed his target into the console.
"I am very well aware of the entire situation." After several more
seconds, SkyScythe finally locked it's halves in their full outer position,
just as the AtomATons, launched another volley, taking down another slew
of JNI fighters.
It was time. General
Gray took one last look at his target. Yes. The beam of the
Bahamut cannon would strike ground zero in the very heart of the oldest
building in Rinnsburg.
The hallway. He remembered
back three decades, to when he had confronted her there. He had asked
her that most important question, the question whose answer could have
averted this hellish disaster, but instead, because of it's cruelty and
heartlessness, had inadvertently initiated it. Now, as General Gray
looked through the windows, into the classrooms, where students identical
to the ones who had persecuted him, now cringed and huddled in fear for
their lives.
"Thirty years, I've waited
for this!" General Gray screamed maniacally. "I warned all of you,
I'd come back, and you'd all be sorry! You didn't believe me!
You didn't think the outcast would ever gain enough power to strike back!
You were wrong! I'm the most powerful in the whole world now!
And I've waited to grind you all under my heel!"
General Gray, his face now
completely inhuman with long-borne rage, fiercely took hold of the console.
The great, red button flashed in his face. He smashed it with his
fist, as it he could control his anger for not another second.
In the center of SkyScythe,
a huge, pulsating, white globe began to hum. With fantastic, high-technology
electrical reactions taking place within itself, the orb began to
glow white. Electrons, drawn from the very air itself, licked and
leapt into the tempered glass surface. The pilots of the JNI armada
were blinded by the sun-bright light that emanated from the orb.
With a noise like a thousand
demons screaming in agony, the mighty solar beam ripped forth from the
Bahamut cannon. It tore through the air like a meteor wrapped within
a lightning bolt. The poor, defenseless children within the high
school had nothing to do but scream as the blinding light engulfed them,
then the entire state was rocked by the deafening explosion. In a
great, white flash, the school disappeared, blown to non-existence by General
Gray's vengeance.
"This is General Gray!"
the twisted army leader shouted. "Eliminate target Rinnsburg.
Fire at will. Repeat, fire at will!!"
With that great, liberating
command, the remaining JNI fighters impatiently opened fire upon the hapless
little city. Wave after wave of destruction swooped from the sky
as swarms of the mighty attack planes launched their artillery mercilessly
on any target in sight. It didn't matter- pedestrian fleeing in the
streets, air cars panicking and crashing into one another in the lower
levels of the tumultuous sky- nothing was safe from the cruel onslaught.
General Gray charged up
another blast for the Bahamut. But it didn't matter anymore.
He had already accomplished everything he had worked his entire life for.
The school was atomized, the old, wretched town was devastated. All
he had left was an unstoppable army at his command. He thought of
what he would do next as the mighty Bahamut fired it's second, then third
shot at random targets, causing unbelievable destruction with each earth
jarring impact.
It was nearly an hour before
the General gave the order for his fleet to fall back into formation.
By that time, the sky was overcast with smoke and dust. Rinnsburg
was nothing but a great expanse of charred and blackened land. Not
so much as a blade of grass had been spared the unmerciful attack.
General Gray, exhausted,
dropped his sweaty brow to his worn-out console. He breathed heavily,
his day's expenditures having drained him. For the first time in
his life, he was empty of hatred and desire to destroy.
"What are your next orders,
General sir?" asked Lieutenant Cooper.
General Gray thought.
There was nothing left for him. She had been long gone....
He had given up his more peaceful dreams of becoming an artist. And
they had destroyed his aspirations of becoming a respected United States
General. Instead, all he had now was a renegade army powerful enough
to take over the world. And the rest of his forty-six year old life
to command it.
"Set a course for Wen Kroy,"
said General Gray at long last. "This was just the first of many
steps in my conquest of this pitiful world."
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