ACES Online

Chapter 15 - Thieves in the Night, pt.1

By the morning after the Battle of the Bay, the atmosphere at Hendon was one of palpable sadness. Not even when Rechlin had fell had there been such a response to a mission, Asuna thought to herself.

There was also an air of drunkenness that still lingered over the base, as people had spent the evening mourning their lost comrades – be they Air Force or Navy – and that had led to an almost surreal atmosphere that morning.

In the past thirty minutes that she'd been awake, she hadn't so much as heard another soul stirring on the base – no movements of aircraft, no early morning preparations, just... quiet. Even the birds seemed to respect the sombre mood, as the seagulls seemed eerily absent for once.

She looked around at the base - it was so quiet it could easily be mistaken for being abandoned, were it not for the wreck of the Viking still lying beside the runway, the still somewhat pristine looking planes parked up on the tarmac, and the fact it was still lit up like a Christmas tree – before looking at the aircraft of her flight lined up on the taxiway.

Despite having braced herself for losing a friend, especially after the Avalon Incident, it still felt like someone had taken a boot to her stomach repeatedly. She remembered losing her grandmother as a child, but this was different, she felt.

Losing someone to the passage of time was one thing but losing someone to what had been an obvious trap had left an extremely bitter taste in their mouths, and Argo, ever the diplomat, had them bluntly what she was going to do to Diavel when they made it back to Canaveral.

For the man's sake, she hoped he retired quietly... and ran as far away as he could. An angry Argo was possibly the most terrifying thing she'd seen yet – and she'd been nuked!

If she was honest though, the quiet had probably come from the fact that many of them hadn't gotten to sleep until the early hours of the morning anyway; either still awake from the mission prior or thinking about the disaster that it had been.

That quiet was soon broken by the noise of a horn – the horn used to gather everyone in case of a major announcement...

That was never good news, she knew that much.

/-/

After about ten minutes, everyone had gathered in the main command and control centre of the base, in various states of dress and tidiness. It was apparent that everyone had been drinking last night or had suffered a rather poor night from those who hadn't been drinking.

About the only two people who didn't look completely dishevelled and exhausted were Alice and Eugeo, who she'd noticed were noticeably more comfortable around each other now, even holding hands as subtly as was possible...

Good for them, she thought briefly, before turning her mind back to the task at hand.

Bercouli had gathered all of them; be they Black Blade, Samurai, Twilight, Solitaire, Idol or Knight flights, to explain what was going to happen now.

They had found Koharu's aircraft, though she was still listed as "Missing in Action", given her body wasn't found with the wreckage. Kirito, even in his tired state, had spared a moment to explain to her that the game didn't show the bodies of pilots who'd died, simply because, as real as ACES was... it also had to be age rated.

Showing amputated limbs, or dismembered people, in all that realism? Yeah, that would be going straight back to the development team for some cuts. She would've found that darkly amusing - a literal death game, full of the horrors of war was a-okay, but blood and limbs were a no-no – had it not been in the context of her deceased friend.