Symphonie Fantastique (Act I): Scene 1.
#1 of Illustrious
Illustrious: Symphonie Fantastique (Act I): Scene 1.
Production number FY-3, Revision I, Part 1
Story copyright MMVII Ironsides WordSmithing, a division of Sylderon Machine Works, in cooperation with HoosierMousie Ltd.
Overall setting and all characters except Kalmbach are property of Field, usage subject to approval.
This story is meant as a continuation of the storyline in Solstice: Friend, Foe, or Something Else? http://www.yiffstar.com/index.php?pid=11739 and it is very strongly suggested that that story be read first. It is similarly suggested that the rest of Solstice series be read, as well as the Luminous series, the Arctic series, and everything else written by Squirrel (his output is both considerable and of consistent high quality).
The author has selected and provided several pieces of music, each of which represents a specific character or element within the story. They are provided in the hope that they might increase the enjoyment of the reader.
[Kalmbach's Theme:](%5C) Pohjola's Daughter by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Halle Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Bariboli cond.
[Advent's Theme:](%5C) Piano Concerto #2 in C Minor, Opus 18, 1st Movement by Sergei Rachmaninov, performed by Moura Lympany and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent cond.
[Fermont Theme:](%5C) "Mars, the Bringer of War" from The Planets by Gustav Holst, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Geoffrey Simon cond.
The Solstice was stopped, all engines powered down. Not drifting, though; she was docked to the Illustrious, which had returned after dropping a crew to board and secure the drifting, unoccupied Riparian.
Soltice was in bad shape. No surprise, considering she was attacked by three wasp vessels. Advent mentally thought over the list of damaged systems as she walked towards the stern along E Deck: Two outer hull breaches, ground fault on Number Three Generator, overloaded bow deflector screen, damage to the main Fire Control Station, blown-out monitor at the Ops Station, and a coolant leak that had forced the shutdown of the engines. As if that weren't enough, the steering gear had inexplicably shut down after the battle was over; the rudders were not responding to her Helm console.
Advent passed through the aft torpepo room, and the reason for the inactive rudders was apparent: The shield door was open. The rudder was electromagnetic: It generated variable magnetic fields that deflected the ion streams of the engines, thus steering the ship. Of course, that same magnetic field could deflect the ions in the brain and the iron atoms in red blood cells, so mechanical interlocks shut it off when the maintenance hatch was opened.
Advent looked inside and saw, flicking out between two rudder coils, a long fluffy tail, white with black spots and tip. Actually, the undercoat was more of a very light grey, but that mattered little as Advent's breath caught in her throat; there was only one fur with that sort of tail.
The tail retracted, and her suspicions were confirmed: A deep smooth voice called out.
"Hello? Someone there?"
Captain Kalmbach climbed over the powerbus housing and looked at Advent. Rather than his old-style greatcoat and cap, he wore olive-green coveralls, a cloth hat, toolbelt, and rectangular glasses with black plastic frames. The black anchor on a yellow star (the emblem for the Federation Capital Navy) was not on his shoulder. Instead, there was a white castle on a red rectangle.
They looked at each-other for a moment before Kalmbach turned his gaze to the deck. Advent broke the silence.
"What were you doing in there?"
Kalmbach stared at the deck a few moments longer before answering. "Heh? Oh, I...I was cleaning the carbonization off of the coil housings. One of them shorted out during the battle, and it grounded to the hull. Actually, it was more likely inductive kickback. Eh, anyway, there was arcing, it heated up the metal where the spark hit-"
"And it got carbonized, and it's a fire hazard, and so on," Advent interrupted. "I know all that." The front of Kalmbach's fatigues was dusted with carbon-black. "What I meant," she continued, "was 'Why is a Fleet Captain crawling around in my steering gear?' And what uniform is that?"
Kalmbach was about to say something witty like 'Is there somewhere else you'd like me to crawl around?' but stopped himself. There would be plenty of time for ribaldry later. "It's like I told you before..." he trailed off. "Well, earlier. 'Victory through Versatility.' Before I was Fleet Captain Kalmbach, I was Commander Kalmbach of the Fourteenth Orbital Artillery."
Advent huffed. "What's your point?"
"I'm getting to that. Be patient, my dear."
He called me that the last time we met, Advent thought. 'My dear...' He used the same possessive form of address with Captain Advance, but...suppose now he is being less formal, more...personal?
Kalmbach prattled on. "Before that, I was Technical Sergeant Kalmbach of the Twenty-Seventh Heavy Engineering Company."
Advent snickered. "You sure it wasn't the Twenty-Seventh Heavy Opera Company?" Referring to his lovesick serenading while stoned on catnip. But he did have a nice voice, she thought, especially when he whispered in my ear...stop it!
"Yes, I do enjoy singing, but that is beside the point." Kalmbach acted like she hadn't said anything important. "I was an Engineer. I helped build the orbital artillery, then was put in charge of November Station. It's like on those old recruiting posters: 'You make it right, they'll make it fight.' I did both. Because while Engineers build, we can also destroy!" The former Engineer was getting a bit excited. He continued waxing prideful. "My predecessors made a river go backwards! We stopped up the Great Falls just to see what was behind it! You do not mess with my beloved Corps, because if you're on the wrong side of the ACE, we will dig a grave and put you in it. Huzzah!"
"Calm down," Advent chuckled.
"Sorry. It's just that, while all of the services defend Home-world and the Colonies, without the Engineers, there wouldn't be any Colonies, ya see? Yeah, but the main reason I joined was, well, I can't help but help others." Now his turn to chuckle. "If that makes any sense."
Advent looked him in the eyes. "Yeah, like how you 'helped' me."
Kalmbach blinked hard, and that proud, confident light disappeared from his eyes; there seemed to be more grey among the blue. Damn it! he thought, why does she keep insisting on bringing that up? Well, what did you expect? asked another part of his mind. You came here anticipating--planning, even--to meet her again, and you thought she would just forget about it?
Oh Hell, let's get it over with. "What I did..." he trailed off again, unsure of how exactly to put it. "I...you must understand that your actions, your attitude, were going to get you into trouble sooner or later." Gee, that was cliche, he thought, fighting the urge to smack his paw against his forehead. "What I mean is...well, I just couldn't let you go on, continuing to hurt others. It wasn't good for you, it wasn't good for this entire crew."
"But," Advent mumbled, "you left me...shattered."
"I know. It's like I said, about building and destroying...There is good in you. There is good in all of us, somewhere. With you, it was just...hidden, behind a prop front, a facade of faulty beliefs. It had to be knocked down, to let your goodness out, let it expand."
Advent blinked, sniffled a tiny bit. "I really don't need you to be pushing faith on me right now."
Kalmbach snorted. "Good for you then, that I don't have any faith to push." He sighed, almost as if he regretted that statement. Not because he said it, but because it was true. How much could a predator such as himself need faith? He was strong and powerful, physically and mentally. His form had been fine-tuned over millions of years for hunting, fighting, and breeding, and he was somewhat successful at all three. What more would faith provide him? Happiness, perhaps. That hidden confidence and sense of purpose that prey seemed to have, even when everything else was crashing down round their ears. But this is not the time for self-analysis. There are greater themes at work.
He continued. "Well...all of this predator-prey tension, it's all a lot of foolish nonsense, all politics, hormones, and ego. You know, like Admiral Silver's pack. 'Let's start an interminable war against a vaguely-defined enemy that hasn't even attacked us. Use the threat of the wasps to keep the prey good an' scared, keep 'em distracted and in their place.' That's why they kicked me upstairs, so to speak, to get me to go away and shut up about having to defend ourselves against the actual threat, not turn into an autocratic police state. Then came the Luminous, and all that...
"The point I'm trying to make is that we need prey, and prey need us. They need us to protect them, to comfort them, to snuggle them every so often. The predators need them. We need their dainty little paws, their creativity, their humility, their piety."
Advent frowned, looking sad. "I know. I did some...awful things. I'm sorry now. I suppose I deserve what you did to me."
"Nobody deserves that!" Advent felt herself jump, startled by the other cat's sudden vehemence. Kalmbach took a few steps toward her. "Don't you understand that I took advantage of you? I seduced you, I dominated you! I...I fucked you!" She winced at that violent-sounding vulgarity. "If one of my crew did something like that, I may very well feel justified in putting a bullet between his ears." He patted his shoulder holster and the Merrick-Sonevski P38-09 inside. "What I did was immoral and despicable, and I greatly apologize."
Advent was clearly unsettled by this emotional outburst. He was only doing what any predator would have done, when presented with a female of similar species, in heat. What does he have to apologize for? "You just did to me what I did to-"
"That does not matter!" he bellowed, eyes showing both frustration and sadness. "The end does not always justify the means."
"And still, you went through with it."
Kalmbach blinked heavily to clear his eyes, and nodded. "Yes. Because it is sometimes necessary to corrupt your own moral standards for a higher purpose, a greater good."
"With that logic, I suppose you could justify doing almost anything."
"You're right, you know." Kalmbach looked at her squarely, regaining his composure. "That's why we need faith. Or, failing that, we need others who have faith. Yes, it might hold us back from what we can do, or may want to do. Instead, it shows us what we should do, what we must do. It's like when that snow rabbit...what was her name?"
"Aria," Advent whispered.
"Yes, Aria; when she knocked me down, it was because I was a threat to her and those she cared about. She had this look..." Kalmbach's paws shook until he clasped them behind his back. "I was a predator, laid low before her. I was a threat to be exterminated. And I could tell, the way she looked at me, that she was itching for any excuse to blow my head off. In her eyes...I could see the cold blue flame beneath the ice, trying to break through. I'd rather not think of what might happen were she ever to lose control."
Advent thought about this: She had been scared of Aria, from her reputation. And here was another predator--older, stronger, more fierce, even from the ice--who literally trembled in fear of the snow rabbit. Perhaps, Advent thought, I am not so weak myself.
Kalmbach continued. "I like to think that it was her faith that kept her from crossing the line between defense and attack.
"Same thing with that station out there. I was all set to unload a few broadsides, but your Captain convinced me that we did not need to exterminate the enemy, simply eliminate their capacity to do us harm."
Advent peered at him, squinting, trying to see where all this was coming from. "But, you don't really have a problem with killing when you need to, right? Being a Navy fur, out here on the front?"
"If somebody were to tell me that they had no difficulty killing, either they're lying, or I should put some distance between them and myself."
"I understand," Advent said warmly. "I got jitters when I saw my first dozen or so kills. You're so insulated from the reality of it when in civilian life. I wouldn't blame you for having the same trouble."
"That reminds me of another story," Kalmbach said. Why did he keep saing that? Advent thought. He must have a story for all occasions. "Before I joined the Engineers, I was a motor machinist in West Vindenstadt."
Advent suppressed a giggle. "What haven't you been?"
Kalmbach was about to say 'Loved', but thought better of that; it would interrupt his story. He continued: "I then worked at Page-Pauling-Harnischfeger in West Allis, and was sent by them to supervise the erection of an electric mining shovel for an iron mine in the Upland Provinces, near Fermont."
"I thought you had a bit of a Youper accent." He had already begun to depart from his precise, clipped manner of speech for a more relaxed, less formal dialect, somewhere between the UP and Vindenstadt. The diction softened, final consonants were left off, usually 'd', 'g', and 't'.
"Yeah, I spent three months up there, putting it all together, going through commissioning, breaking in, instructing the operators. And then I could go off and hike through the pine and birch forests, frolic in the snow, watch the stars, much more peaceful than the Vindenstadt suburbs."
"So how did you end up here?"
"Well, back when I was twenty-six, so that would be...eight years ago, something screwy happened. I was done with my shift for the day, and so I went out in the woods to watch a meteor shower that would be later that evening. The light show was beautiful, but it was a bit strange. Some of the meteors made it through the atmosphere, which wasn't expected. Then came some explosions from the direction of the mines. There was light, I assumed from fires. I made my way back to the mine, and I saw them: Wasps. The meteors had masked their approach. I don't know why they chose Fermont."
"Maybe they wanted a place that was isolated, but not completely unpopulated," Advent suggested.
"Yeah, that makes more sense as anything else I've heard about it. The nearest military units were at Camp Douglas, Great Lakes, and Fort Sheridan, all about four-hundred miles away. It would take several hours for any troops to make it there, assuming they had packed and assembled beforehand. Anyway, I made my way back to the mine pit itself, and saw that the wasps had destroyed the shovel."
"What's so important about this shovel, anyway?" Advent asked, a bit dismissive.
"For starters, it weighed over a million pounds, was larger than a two-story house, and had a bucket that could hold thirty cubic yards of rock. I helped to build it back at the West Allis plant; that took eight months to build, and the wasps destroyed it in just a few minutes. Needless to say, I was quite properly peeved."
"What about the rest of the mine workers? What did they do?"
"The other workers were a mixture of digger- and builder-type prey. Moles, prairie dogs, ferrets, beavers, a few Welsh rabbits. They say that wherever there's a hole being dug, you'll find at least one Welsh rabbit at the bottom," Kalmbach chuckled.
"Any badgers?"
"Nope, which was strange, there being an entire province of them just south of the UP. But no workers, they'd all fled. The wasps were just poking around, looking for anything else to destroy. As for myself, well, I always thought that living in Fermont would give me an opportunity to 'get back to nature', if you will. However, I didn't think I'd go as far as I did."
"What do you mean?" asked Advent, although she had a pretty good idea of what he was implying.
"It's funny how instinct works," he began. "I had never really operated exclusively on instinct before. I'm not truly 'of the ice', as the expression goes. I had a fairly comfortable--if uneventful--upbringing. Nice neighborhood, stable family, good public education, the whole suburban experience. But I found myself in the snow, in the woods, in the dark, and my heritage came to the front for the first time. I found myself dropping to all fours, stalking the wasps, employing my natural camouflage-"
"Your what?" Advent interrupted, sounding perplexed.
Kalmbach chuckled. "I'm surprised you had to ask." He stepped toward Advent and lightly gripped her arm. She tensed, but relaxed, seeing no ill intent in Kalmbach's eyes. He rolled up her sleeve, then held her arm next to his own. "My spots, of course."
Advent drew her arm back, but remained where she stood. She gave a cheeky smile. "Do you always go about the woods in the fur?"
"While I'm sure it is a rather liberating experience, no. Apparently, I lost the need for clothing the same time I lost the need for fully rational thought."
"But you said there was snow."
Kalmbach sighed with mock-exasperation. "My silly kitten, perhaps you forget that I am a snow" he emphasized "leopard. I do not get cold. Actually, that's one of the reasons that I prefer the older-style wool overcoat, because it has a vent hidden in the expansion seam between the shoulders."
"What are the other reasons?"
Kalmbach grinned, showing a bit of fang. "I look good in it, or so I've been told. But anyway, the stalking. I made my way to the nearest wasp. I crept steadily closer, until I could see it clearly. I guess I wasn't entirely unthinking; I can remember exactly what it looked like." He leaned a bit closer, lowered his voice. "I waited until the wasp turned around, then I pounced."
Advent noticed that, despite his speaking quieter, Kalmbach's breathing had become heavier, faster...
"I knocked it down, avoiding the stinger. I bent down to its neck, thin tube connecting the head to the thorax. I put my muzzle around it, clamped shut, jerked my entire body up and backwards."
He was practically panting now...
"Head came right off. My first hunt, first kill. Quick and clean, never saw me coming. The others did, though. I flung the head away from me and charged. I honestly don't remember anything after that. Instinct took over completely, I suppose."
Advent now found herself distinctly uncomfortable. Kalmbach's eyes were wide open, moist, but not from tears, with a distant look. That, along with his voice, gave him the appearance of speaking from a dream. His paws clenched and relaxed, the claws extending, retracting. Advent broke the silence.
"Then what happened?"
"When I came to, so to speak, I was a mess. Covered in snow and frozen blood. I had been stung three times, but had somehow survived, probably on adreneline. The sun was coming up, and the northern dawn in winter is truly a beautiful sight. The light reflecting off the snow, giving all a golden glow..." He took a long pause, as if savoring the image created by his inadvertant poetry.
"But it was not a pretty sight that I awoke to. Burned-out buildings and machinery, and the wasps. The Home Guard said they counted twenty-six wasps dead. Could've been more, but they weren't sure. Most were smashed and tore up, parts and pieces scattered all over. Ye see, I didn't just kill them quite completely; I slaughtered them.
"But then, it got even worse for me."
What could be worse? thought Advent. "You passed out again?"
"No."
"More wasps?"
"No. It was far worse than that. As I returned to rationality, something hit me: A realization about what I had just done, something that troubles me to this day, as I looked over those mangled corpses."
Kalmbach leaned even closer to Advent, so that their faces were only inches apart. The dreamlike state disappeared. His eyes flashed with an inborn fire, his brow with scorn was wrung. Advent remained motionless, paralyzed not just with fear, but also anticipation, a strange desire to hear what had so haunted the snow leopard. He tilted his head forward, his eyes peering over the top of his glasses directly into hers. And, in a voice just above whisper, he said something that made her shiver deep within.
"I enjoyed it." The corners of his mouth curled upwards into a sinister smirk. "That was the most exhilarating, the...the greatest rush I've ever felt." His voice stuttered, as if just the memory of it was powerfully arousing. "Very few things have come even remotely close. I felt that my strength, my speed, all my senses, they were amplified a hundred times; I could practically hear each individual snowflake as it passed my ears. For a while, I would have done anything to feel that power again.
"Some suggested that I join the military. But I was scared. Scared of what I might do in combat. At Fermont, there was only myself and the wasps. What if I lost control again? What if I killed everything I saw, so caught up in the rush that I couldn't stop myself? So I joined the Engineers, then the Artillery. I had to help, to protect against this threat. And I could do so from a distance, killing ships, not individual enemies. It didn't stir up the urges...
"But then along came Admiral Silver to fuck up everything," the snow leopard hissed. "He wanted all the funding, all the prestige, to go to his organization. He didn't care what anybody outside his collection of sycophants and lackeys had to say, even if they had actually fought the wasps. He cut the budget for all defensive operations, and then directed Naval Intelligence to ignore the wasps and concentrate on imaginary 'subversives' back home. And when he took my artillery crews, he said I wouldn't understand the real priorities. I hadn't gone to the Academy, and therefore I wasn't a professional officer."
"Then how did you get your own ship?"
"By being a professional pain in the ass. I never had any real command training, only engineering and logistics at DOI."
"Never heard of it, but it's not Raithal, and that's all the Admiralty cares about," Advent commented sarcastically.
"DuPage Omnitechnical Institure, where you can get an education in almost anything, and at a very reasonable price. Now, did you go to Raithal?" he asked, referring the Federation Fleet Academy.
"Yes, but only for two semesters," Advent replied, without any apparent regret. "I went to Pilot Training after seeing how Fleet Command really operates. It's all politics, you know? All intrigue and little...passive-agressive snubs, mind games, petty personal squabbles. It's almost like they were so isolated from the actual combat, their instincts for the hunt had been suppressed, and they stopped acting like real predators. It is not our way to debate problems out of existance."
"Same for engineers. You see a problem, analyze it, decide what to do about it, then fix it."
"I just couldn't stand it, especially not from all those wolves."
"I know how you feel," Kalmbach said, his voice lowering and his calm demeanor returning. "They said I couldn't be trusted because I was a stuck-up feline, and I didn't have that innate canine sense of loyalty."
Advent snarled. "Damn hypocrites."
"Exactly! They are loyal, but only to themselves and their own aims. The only reason they've ever given a thought to the collective defense is that otherwise, they would have no other species to lord over. I wrote my Strategic and Tactical Defense Analysis and submitted it each week, just like the Officers' Handbook directed, and the only thing I got from Home Defense Command was an acknowledgement of its receipt. They told me to send it to Fleet Command. So I did, and heard nothing. No requests for additional information, no orders for implimenting any of my recommendations. I sent them one the next week as an appendix to the first, and still nothing. But I knew that if something happened, I had to be ready to deflect any accusations of perceived inability or dereliction of duty on my part."
"So basically, you tried to cover your ass with as much paper as possible," Advent snickered.
"Precisely, my dear; I guess they did teach you something at the Academy. Anyway, when the wasps finally did attack, and I somehow became a hero just for doing my duty, they had to listen to me, if only for public-relations purposes. That, and I got a big 'I told you so' out of it. Very satisfying.
"By now, I had been at November Station for over eighteen months, and my STDA had grown to about four-hundred pages long. The Admiralty finally decided that they should take a look at it.
"One of my recommendations was to expand on the concept of the Orbital Artillery. It would obviously be inefficient to construct Artillery Stations to cover all of our territory, so I thought that we should incorporate the concept into a sort of mobile fortress."
"Like an old-style battleship."
"With perception like that, you would make a fine Squadron Commander," Kalmbach said warmly.
Advent felt herself blush ever so slightly.
"The fleet expansion program was a good idea, but it needed to broaden its focus. The Wabash class are beautiful ships, fast, efficient, excellent sensor and stealth capabilities. However, they lack the armor, the tonnage, and the raw firepower for a full-scale engagement, as we have unfortunately seen. Thankfully, somebody pulled off a brilliant convergent-crossdraw maneuver, something they definitely do not teach at the Academy. You almost had a good fight without me."
He smiled, and Advent felt her ear-tips heating up.
"Trouble is, building the necessary ships takes a couple of years. There are no more City-class heavy cruisers, especially after ONI managed to wreck the Indy."
"The Independence?" Advent asked.
"No, the other one, CA-35. She was one of the most beautiful ships I've ever seen, sleek lines, powerful armament, could outrun or outgun anything. But they sent her into a trap, then let her crew drift for three days because they forgot to tell the local command about her mission." Kalmbach's tone left no doubt as to how little respect he had for the Office of Naval Intelligence.
"They did have an old Montanowa-class left over, and they told me to get her back into active status. We saved a lot of time by foregoing any of those fancy new gee-whiz weapons systems and kept the entire Main and Secondary Batteries, our good old-fashioned long-range naval whoop-ass. Got her from mothballs to first patrol in five months.
"Then I get my orders from the Admiralty. Called it Operation Rusty Blanket; thought they were being clever. But I suppose the Illustrious could be considered a blanket. We give protection to those who need it, and smother our enemies. At least I got to pick my own call sign."
"What is it?"
"I decided on something from my personal history: Victory Echo November. I was told to make full-circuit patrols of the Colonial Regions, always standing by for calls for assistance, and investigating any suspicious activities. Which is how I came across you."
"So, you didn't have that planned."
"No, not initially. What happened afterward...you know, with the two of us...that was something I came up with."
"You are a devious one, aren't you?"
"I suppose. Ensign Ross told me about your situation with Herkimer, and I suggested a method of solving it. He was hesitant at first, but we both came to see that it was the only remaining option," Kalmbach explained, his voice containing a certain amount of regret. "And no, I didn't really want to strangle him; I just said that so you wouldn't suspect my true intentions."
"Well..." Advent started, again taken back a bit by his apparent remorse. "I...I thank you. You made me understand how I was wrong, and that probably was the only way to make the point. And...I thank you, for not leaving me with cubs."
"If anything, I try to be a gentlefur," he replied seriously. "Those that would sow their seed and then abandon it deserve nothing but contempt. I could not possibly do that to you, regardless of your past actions."
He took one last step forward and gently wrapped his arms about her, pulling her close with a deep pur that reverberated in his chest, and hers as well. He laid his chin on her shoulder and whispered into her ear, making it even more heated as his paws rubbed her lower back.
"We are out here, facing the enemy, practically alone. Our political and military leaders ignore us, and the civilians we protect remain blissfully ignorant of the horrors we have witnessed and the terrible choices we must make. But we are together in our loneliness, and we must support and care for each other in every way we can, my dear. We must not forget that.
"But I caused you pain and suffering, and so if there is anything that might make you feel better, I will do whatever you desire."
Advent felt her body heating up from this proximity. Kalmbach's whiskers tickled against her ear, and she shivered, her knees weakening...and she gently, though insistently, pushed away from him, out of the embrace. "I'm sorry, but I have to get back to my post; I'm still on duty," she said, but it came out with a bit of a mumble, as if she were conflicted internally.
Kalmbach released his hold. "But of course. Duty must come before everything else." He nodded and pushed his glasses back up his nose. He then took Advent's paw with both of his, and very delicately pressed it to his lips.
As she turned away and left, the snow leopard spoke to himself, quiet and whistful.
"Fare thee well. Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you."