?


    Somewhere over the ocean on approach to a nameless ind in the Indonesian archipgo.


    Four Edenian fighter jets were screaming through the air at supersonic speed, trailing me from their engines. They had been flying with their afterburners on for over an hour and were about halfway to their destination, a pirate base on an unnamed ind in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia.


    The pilots were rxed, trading jokes back and forth and hyping each other up for their firstbat mission. They had just graduated their training a few weeks before and, like many soldiers, sailors, and airmen, were feeling invincible after having been broken down and rebuilt into new versions of themselves through the tried and true method of basic training.


    The difference was, the members of ARES—whether they be in the Army, under themand of the AI, Mars; the Navy, under themand of the AI, Poseidon; or the Air Force, under themand of the AI, Aeolus—actually were nearly as invincible as they felt. Their genes had been enhanced, their weapons and equipment were dozens, if not hundreds of generations advancedpared to so-called "modern" militaries, and their training methods were straight out of a science fiction webnovel about an advanced technological society.


    By any standard known to man or otherwise, each member of ARES was an entire military force unto themselves. And they all knew it.


    The briefing had been quick and detailed. Satellite images showed the pirate base, which was practically primitive. The buildings in the base were little better than mud huts or built from bamboo, much like some of the viges in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. There was a small dock that would perhaps allow a fishing boat or two to dock, a few boats docked there, and some medium-sized warehouses. There were also a few blocks of residential buildings, but the thermal imaging showed them either empty or containing one, maybe two people in each, tops.


    The base sat in a valley that opened up onto an east-facing beach, and on the hills to the north and south of the buildings were a few old Vietnam-era k guns and even some old eight- and twelve-pounder muzzle-loading cannons, the type that were popr during the Age of Sail. Certainly none of it could do much more than scratch the paint on the advanced jets of the Aeolus Air Force, so the pilots considered their current mission to be something of a "gimme", where the in-air refueling process would be more difficult and fraught with risk than their attack itself.


    They would fly in, release a few That Direction Removers, then turn around and return to base. Easy peazy lemon squeezy, good game all.


    ...


    On an unnamed ind somewhere in the Indian Ocean.


    Kirana Sekali was toiling under the hot tropical sun, a woven bamboo basket on her back as she trekked into the hills to the north of her small vige in search of wild vegetables and medicinal herbs. Things hadn''t been the same since the bajakut (pirates) hadnded and forced their menfolk to join them or die. Those who''d joined them had be them, and those who''d died had been tossed in the hills for the wild beasts to feast upon.


    Her father had fought them, but her brother had joined them. Now, she was the sole support for her mother, and—she patted her abdomen—her unborn child. She used to picture herself finding a good man, somehow, and creating a loving family. But after the kapten bajakut sin (fucking pirate captain) had... attacked her, those dreams had been reced by nightmares. But she still had hope for the life growing within her.


    ''That''s a good name for my baby,'' she thought. ''Nadya Sekali.'' Nadya meant ''hope'' in the vic roots of the Indonesiannguage.


    She looked around for wild vegetables and checked the snares she had set the day before. She and her mother had to eat, and with her mother toiling in the field, it fell to her to provide food for the two... no, three of them, now. After an hour of searching with nothing to show for it, she straightened and rubbed the small of her back. Looking to the east, she saw four small ck dots off in the distant sky, rapidly growingrger as they approached her vige.


    Soon, she could see exactly what they were: jets! Her vigers, as backward as they might seem, weren''tplete luddites, and they certainly knew what aircraft were... and what they might be doing at their small vige.


    Kirana dropped her basket and ran to the mud hut her vige chief''s wife lived in. The chief''s bones were scattered somewhere on the hill behind her, but his wife had taken over his position and was now the leader of the old, the young, and the women of the vige.


    "Chief! Chief! There''s jets!" she shouted as she ran, frantically pointing to the east. In her heart, she prayed she could make it in time for the chief to use the vige''s HAM radio to contact the iing jets. To her, they symbolized hope; the hope that her small vige could return to the peace they''d known before the bajakut had arrived.


    ...


    As the jets were on their final approach to the "pirate base", a crackling transmission was received by the squadron leader, Alpha One.


    "Hello to the approaching jets. We desperately require your assistance. Our vige was taken by pirates and we wish to be free. Please respond," a quavering, aged female voice spoke through the crackle, hiss, and pops of the aged HAM radio. It was tranted in real time from an obscure Indonesian dialect, but there was no dy in the transmission because of that.


    Alpha One''s AI assistant broke into the radio transmission and said, [Hold for confirmation.] Then she ordered the squadron to fly a holding pattern around the ind while she contacted Aeolus for further instructions.


    The squadron turned off their afterburners and entered a holding pattern, flying circles around the ind while they waited for a go or no-go order from home base. Alpha One, otherwise known as Derek Santiago, hoped that the transmission could be verified and he could be a liberator instead of a destroyer. While destroying things was definitely fun, he wouldn''t be happy if he had to ughter the innocent to punish the guilty.


    But they were ten minutes away from bingo fuel, so whatever the decision would be, it would have to be made soon, lest an abort be called on the mission entirely.


    Soon, the order came through: the interceptor squadron was to abort the mission and the vigers would receive a temporary assist from the Poseidon Merchant Marine. A frigate would be detached from the convoy escort and temporarily assigned to patrol the ind until the Indonesian armed forces could take over, just in case there were any pirates that escaped the earlier bombardment.


    "Control, Alpha One copies, abort, abort, abort. RTB," Derek said, then tipped his wings in salute to the vigers and headed toward the Stratotanker to refuel on the way back to Eden. His mood was bright; he hadn''t been ordered to be the viin today, but the savior instead, and he whistled a jaunty tune as he flew with the setting sun to his back.