Back to Elodia - Side: Alex

"Breaking News!" The TV blares. "The Novemian Spring Offensive smashes through Mozakan lines. Our reporters have last seen their troops some 15 miles from the country capital, Antigany." 

Here we go again. Every time there's some kind of "breaking news" it's always a bad thing. So much for ending the war Karl. I can tell what he's trying to do, and it confirms my worst nightmares.

According to the Novemian news, I've kidnapped Sophie. Sapinish news is countering this with reality, but they're a neutral power - aka, they don't have any incentive to actually tell the truth. At worst, they tell the truth, get ignored, and move on. So now, there's a giant subsect of people who think I'm the 'patriotic kidnapper' who has stolen the princess in order to prevent her collaboration with the Elodian collaborator government. Somehow, this hurts more than what the Novemians are saying about me.

"Where is the princess? Elodia is over! Mozaka close to collapse! Sophie is a traitor!" I'm starting to get really tired of the news. With Karl dragging Sophie's name through the mud, yeah, I can see why they think that. At least he agrees with me that the term 'Spring Offensive' is dumb. It's barely February!

The days are filled mostly with pointless nothings, almost like it's college again. I've been teaching Sophie about some rudimentary flight stuff, while she tries to teach me Sapinish, since that where we're located. Oh, and plenty of talking about movies, anime, video games...

Sophie's...actually quite formidable in fighting games.

It's also a prison for Sapinish authorities to keep us contained.

I...think I get what Sophie meant.

"Hey Sophie. How are things hanging?"

"Fine, fine. Everything okay over there?"

"That Karl's spreading stupid rumors about you again." I stop. "A lot of Elodians are mad at you for something you never did." I bite my lip. It's infuriating. "I've realized something about life, and it's that deep down, most people are the same from childhood to death. People talk all the time about how politicians act like high schoolers, but you can spot the same behaviors in children, and all the way to elderly people."

"Wow, very deep." Sophie says, in a slightly mocking tone. "Do you want a medal, Sir Alexander Benoic of Elodia?"

"Oh shut it. It's true!" 

"Uh huh?" Sophie says as she grins. This girl-

"Ugh, whatever. Have...they been active, diplomatically? Any news on that front?" Sophie understands Sapinish, so she can overhear conversations that I might otherwise miss. When I turn to her, her face turns dark.

"They haven't told me anything. But I think I overheard someone suggesting that the government's starting to take the Elodian puppet government's proposal seriously." She shifts. "I might actually just get handed over."

"Uh oh." I sit upright. "Well, I won't let that happen. Is a plane-"

"I haven't been able to find anything."

"Worst case scenario...we could just fly back on the original plane."

"You crazy? That would never work!" She says, her eyes open. "Well, actually..."

"We just do what happened last time." I tell her. "You told me Novemian deserters are defecting to Sapin en-masse, right?"

"Right..."

"I've been able to confirm, there's at least a dozen Novemian fighters in the hangar. Too many for them to all keep an eye on at once. I've seen the Sapinish authorities taking them out for maintenance every now and then. If we could just get ourselves to look like mechanics..."

"...then they wouldn't blink even if we snuck in!"

"Bingo. Well, it's more complicated than that, but roughly, yes."

Sophie sits down onto the table and looks at me.

"Tell me the plan." There's a devious look on her face. "Two heads are better than one, right?"

I smirk.

***

The hangar is pretty empty. Somehow, Sardin's security is even worse than Elodia's. Sophie and I are in high-vis mechanic jackets, underneath which are our flight suits. So far, no one has questioned us. As the hangar opens, the sunlight hits the fighter jet that we came here on.

The plane sits alone, majestically. I investigate the thing. From my weekly reconnaissance, I know they do this every Friday. Today's a Saturday, so that means that the plane should be fresh and ready to go. I just need to make sure that our fuel supply is alright. I begin wheeling the dolly carrying the fuel tanks over to the plane. They're heavy, which hopefully means they're not entirely empty.

"Sophie, can you help me with the hose?" As I attach the drop tanks onto the plane, I see Sophie beginning to try and drag the hose. "Here, here!" I run over and take it from her. Holy shit, this thing weighs a ton!

"Never said it wasn't heavy..." I take the thing and plop it onto the refueling port. As I do, I run over and get the gun rack. It's time to get the gun loaded.

"Alright Sophie, get on."

"Yeah yeah, I know." She gets on, and looks at the fuel gauge.

"Fuel almost done..."

"Awesome." I say as I check the autocannon. I have a feeling some of this isn't even originally ours. Did they...fill up our gun for us. Well, whatever. I remove the safety. Hello destruction!

"Fuel filled!"

"Great. We just need the energy...oh boy." That'll definitely get noticed. I ask Sophie for battery status, which is apparently full, but to conserve as much as possible, I also attach the plane to ground power.

"Power on, instruments are waking up."

"Awesome."

We've done this before. As we throw off our jackets, we mount helmets and oxygen masks.

I leap onto the plane, kick out the ladder, and begin to wheel it out to the runway. So far, nothing interrupts us.

Hydraulics check, wings check, engine check, gun check. No missiles, a shame. Check, check, check, check. I test out the flaps, the ailerons, and even the variable sweep. Everything works fine. I close the cockpit just as the radio opens up with a strange language.

"What? I don't understand you!" I say into the radio. 

"'Unscheduled fighter!'" Sophie says to me, quoting the radio. "'This is not a place for taking off! Land immediately! What are you doing?'" She grins, and starts speaking Sapinish into the radio as I pull up the throttle.

"What did you say?"

"'Ahem, sir!'" Sophie repeats, in Mozakan. "'We're just going over to tell those Novemian bastards to go fuck themselves!'" I can hear her giggling from the rear seat. The laughter is contagious. I start to laugh too.

"I'm starting to think I'm a bad influence, Sophie." I say back, jokingly.

"Good." She responds back. "Then we can be bad together, right?"