[center] [color=ed1c24][h2]The Undefeated[/h2][/color] [sub]Meanwhile on the planet Ellara[/sub][/center] The people were nervous, quiet whispers shivering around every corner. A lot of people noticed the strange phenomena when the Gateway reopened and wilder and wilder theories as to what happened began circulating among the people. As the men from the 8th and 9th divisions, recalled from the front, began returning home to the mainland cities, the rumors only grew stronger. Quiet voices suggested that the Screecher tribes have finally united against a common enemy, a thing which surprisingly didn’t happen over the past 300 years. Others fantasized that the natives have developed new technologies, or even that they have learned to use ours. There was one common denominator in all those gossips. ‘We are losing the war,’ the people seemed to be thinking. And that is something that the Grand General couldn’t allow. Especially when it wasn’t even true. It was time to make an official statement. Some Guardians suggested that he might have been overreacting a bit, halting the entire war front just because the Gateway reopened. There is probably no one there, they argued. Probably. Wars aren't won on probabilities. Some of his people were cradled to feeling safe by battling a primitive enemy. A rifle versus a spear wins. But what about a rifle versus another rifle? Or versus some more advanced weapons that we couldn’t even imagine existed yet? Nobody seemed to realize that in the next war [i]we[/i] could be the primitive ones. Oscar swiped through messages on his datapad. Thankfully, there has been no activity around the Gateway ever since the Revenant went through. What would we do if a bunch of hostile spaceships jumped through and threatened Ellara from space? Not all of the Guardians seemed to realize the gravity of the situation. Fortunately, Kelsie Blackwood did and being one of the smartest people he had ever met, he immediately chose her for the recon mission. Kelsie. She was always trying so hard to make up for certain things that weren’t her fault. He looked at the next message and cursed. Perun, one of the most important projects he reopened right after hearing about the Gateway, has hit a dead end. There was only one person that could possibly do something about it, but getting them to cooperate will be problematic, to say the least. Oskar sighed and got up. There was so much sensitive information in this matter that he could not possibly delegate it to anyone else. [hr] The prison below the Citadel was small. Most criminals were shipped off to labor camps throughout the country, leaving this place only for the most dangerous ones. And those, who needed to be silenced, to never be allowed to contact anyone on the outside. Oscar passed through several security checks before finally reaching the right cell. He took a deep breath before entering, trying to figure out what to say, but came up with nothing. Guess he will have to improvise. The room was plain gray and dim-lit, furnished only with a bed with a hard mattress, a simple table, and one chair. An older woman with short dark hair sitting cross-legged on the bed watched him carefully, hatred clearly visible on her face. “So, you have finally come to finish me off?” she said, testing each word on her tongue. She hasn’t spoken to anyone for months. “No.” The Grand General leaned against the table. “I need your help.” The woman burst into laughter, sounding almost maniacal. “Fuck off.” “I have reopened the Perun project and I need you to continue with it.” “Has the meaning of ‘fuck off’ changed while I was locked up? How about ‘go to hell’? Fuck you? Get lost? Wait a second. Why now? What changed? Don’t tell me the Screechers suddenly started using spaceships. So what is going on? Did you finally have a rebellion in your happy little country?” the woman asked ironically. Oskar shook his head. “No, Claire. The situation doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you want to get out of this place or not. I can give you anyone you choose to act as a military leader of the project. Anyone,...” he started, but got interrupted. “I want her,” the woman’s voice was a bit shaky, but her tone was determined. “...but her. She is not available.” “Not available?!” Claire shrieked and jumped up. “What the hell did you do to her? I swear to god…” she waved her hands in front of his face. “Calm down. Guardian Blackwood is currently on a mission and I cannot recall her.” “Guardian,” Claire spat the word out. “So you put a leash on her. I guess I should send her congratulations.” Oskar raised his eyebrow. “I don’t think she would appreciate it coming from you.” The woman just snorted and sat back on the bed. “You took everything from me. You took my work. You took my daughter. You murdered my husband! You locked me up in this hole. And now you have the audacity to come and ask me for help?!” “Claire, I did a lot of things, but I did not [i]murder[/i] your husband. He disobeyed a direct order and assaulted his commanding officer! There is no other sentence for that than death and Jeremy knew it. I had no choice,” he added quietly, thoughts lost in a distant memory. “There is always a choice. He was your friend, for Christ’s sake! And you put a bullet through his head. What kind of sociopath does something like that?” “A good soldier,” Oskar answered, but his eyes sank down. He couldn’t look her in the eyes, even though she was wrong. His only other choice was to end up in front of the firing squad right next to Jeremy. “Look,” he started in a rough voice. “The only reason you have been kept alive all those years was that one day we might need you. Now is that day. So do you want to get out of this cell, or should I lock it up behind me and leave you to rot? Or just take a gun and get it over with?” He realized that he might have gone a bit too far with that one, so he continued with a bit softer voice. “Is there really no one you can work with? What about Hamonga? He has watched over her all those years.” Claire hesitated. “Fine, I can take Hamonga, but I at least want to see her. And I want all the information about what the hell is going on outside. I don’t exactly get a daily newspaper here.” The Grand General smiled. “Fine. But you really can’t see her, I told you she is on a mission and I can’t recall her.” “Don’t give me that bullshit. This planet is not that big, you can just pick the damn comlink and have her in the capital in a few hours.” “That is the thing, Claire. She is not on this planet.”