i like to think blue loses control of his strength once in a while

I’ve Lost Everything

Part 1 of 2

Summary: The reader (female pronouns) has been enhanced by Hydra and until a mission gone wrong, had no idea the extent of her trauma. Bucky might be the only person that could potentially understand, but will he lose her before he gets a chance to save her?

Bucky x fem! Reader

Warning: References to suicide

You had been with the Avengers for a little over 2 months when you were assigned your first Hydra mission.

Your body was present in the room while they told you the specifics, but your mind was miles away blurred with memories flashing quickly across your eyes like a bright children’s cartoon. Steve was just finishing up his spiel when your mind decided to return to your body, but it really didn’t matter what information you missed. Whatever Hydra base you were assigned to, you knew the mission would be the same. Get in, get some information, and get out. You had to pay your dues and do some dirty work, and as much as it would hurt, you had to complete this mission. But it didn’t help that the only thing grounding you to this moment was the metal-armed man to your left. You could feel his eyes on you, but you stared forward as Cap packed up the information manilla folders you’d all study on the jet to your destination. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Bucky’s arm move toward you, but you stood from your seat abruptly, nodding your head at whatever Steve had just said.

“Okay,” Steve began nodding at you both, “let’s do this quickly and quietly.”

You headed toward the door following Steve when you felt Bucky’s hand on your shoulder. You turned to stare into bright blue eyes that still made your knees weak. Bucky looked concerned and you didn’t blame him, but there wasn’t much to do but heed Cap’s orders. Do this quick and quiet. You forced a quick smile at Bucky, and shrugged out of his grasp, turning to hustle after Steve catching up to him just as he was about to board the jet. 

Climbing the metal ramp you took a seat toward the back, Steve handing you the packet of information and heading to the pilot’s seat. Bucky sat next to you letting out an extended breath that had you thinking he must have been holding it in since you left to follow after Steve. You could see Steve pushing some buttons up in the front seat and the jet roared to life jolting you back against the seat, taking you and the soldiers toward the mission you were least looking forward to.

It wasn’t that you were afraid of Hydra, quite the opposite. You were furious. And only Bucky knew the extent of your anger. You intended bury your deepest secrets, but he happened to be on the receiving end of your fury a few weeks ago when you burned your hand checking the temperature of the coffee pot. Your reddened flesh brought up the very memories you were trying to keep buried, and as the images of Hydra’s torture literally blinded you, you lost complete control of yourself.

Bucky sat silently at the counter as you smashed the coffee pot on the floor, spraying scalding hot liquid and glass fragments against your legging-covered legs. Your chest was heaving as you looked at your soaked clothing, trying to keep your emotions in check as the air around you grew hot and stuffy. You could feel yourself losing control and knew that if you let it take over, you would burn the entire compound down without a second thought. But memories of you and Lee were taking over the control you fought so hard to learn and perfect before coming to join the Avengers. Like Wanda, you too had a twin brother, Lee, who was your everything. Who was taken away from you by the same people who turned you into what you could only refer to as an atomic bomb, capable of setting fire to anything in your path including the very air in your lungs if necessary. Your brother’s testing hadn’t gone nearly as well and you often woke up screaming, having dreamt of holding his dead body to your chest, his reddened flesh hot to the touch. Without thinking twice, you burned down the Hydra facility that day, trapping all the doctors and agents inside. You didn’t regret your actions, but you had been on the run ever since, working privately to control your abilities, moving from city to city before settling on New York city, content to simply slip into the roar of the crowds’ day after day.

And it had been working well until that day in the kitchen.

A cold hand brought you back to the present effectively calming your emotions. Bucky was staring at you with those same concerned eyes, and you shook your head, returning to the papers spread out across your lap, trying to concentrate on the mission at hand. But he didn’t move his hand, rather choosing to pull you toward him a bit closer as he read over your shoulder. Since that day in the kitchen weeks ago, Bucky had grown a bit more protective over you. You hadn’t filled him in on the entire story, but you noticed he would often place a hand on your shoulder as he passed on his way to the gym or on his way on a run with Steve, silently asking if you were alright. It wasn’t that you hated him checking in, but it was surprising. You weren’t sure Bucky had said more than six words to any of the other Avengers, and for reasons unknown to you, he was spending more and more time with you.

You two stayed pressed together in your seats, silently reveling in each other’s warmth, until Steve alerted that you were close. Bucky inhaled deeply and you followed his lead, trying to calm the shaking of your hands and the slight fire you could feel in your veins. As the jet lowered into the woods near where the compound was supposed to be, you felt more in control of your body and were beginning to feel ready for the mission. The ramp opened slowly, and Bucky nodded at you, flanking your left with Cap on your right, both attaching their preferred weapons. You clenched your fists and felt the heat rise to your fingertips indicating you were at the ready. Both men waited for your go-ahead, and you took off running, expertly traversing through the dark forest toward the even darker building ahead.

Thankfully, there were no Hydra agents within your sights, and as you all scaled the concrete walls you were met with little resistance. There wasn’t a ton of reconnaissance on this particular compound, so you hadn’t known what you might be up against, but as Bucky and Steve slowed to a walk, their feet echoing in the empty halls, you breathed out a sigh of relief knowing this would be an easy mission. In and out. You found the compound’s computer room easily, and you plugged the flash drive into the modem in front of you while Bucky and Steve watched your six. You moved the mouse across the screen, searching for what you needed when the computer flashed green, before changing to what looked to be surveillance video, the image shaky and grainy. You shook the mouse a few times to try to get the screen to return, but a figure flashing across it made you freeze. The video didn’t have any audio, but the figure on the screen in the grey hoodie was eerily familiar, and when they turned toward the camera, and you could see the smirk plastered across their face, you gasped loudly, taking in the image of your brother speaking to one of the Hydra doctors whose name had long been forgotten. Your gasp of shock had Bucky turning to glance at you, squinting at the screen you had your face practically glued to.

“Y/N…” Bucky muttered, moving to place a hand on your shoulder but you waved him off, not taking your eyes off the screen, honing in on the image of your brother.

On the screen, Lee continued speaking with the doctor, the same self-assured look on his face that you knew and loved. Lee was the braver of you two and was never one to back down. Whatever he was about to face with Hydra was nothing in his eyes, and the thought made you shiver, realizing exactly what footage you were watching. The doctor slowly came into view, with another coming up just as slowly behind Lee. You remembered vividly the feeling you had in the other room as your brother’s life left his body that day like your heart was being ripped out of your chest, but you had never witnessed what happened in that room. The doctor behind Lee snuck up silently slipping a hand up to your brother’s neck, and you watched as his body tensed up and he crumpled to the floor. You could feel Bucky standing behind you, but you continued to ignore him. Your body temperature was rising, and you knew that being this close to you, the soldier could feel how warm you were getting, and he knew from experience to not touch you when you were losing control like you were. He and Steve were having a tense conversation behind you from the tone of their voices, and even though the film on-screen was muted you were tuned into every moment, your mind not paying any attention to the words coming from the mouths of the two super soldiers.

You watched intently as the doctor in his bright white lab coat looked on as your brother was hoisted up and strapped to a gurney. The video was blurry, but you could tell your brother’s eyes were open and that he was at least conscious but wasn’t able to move his body. Your hands began to shake as you watched both doctors exit the room, both of your limbs feeling like they were about to burst into flame at the thought of you being in the next room at this very moment speaking casually with another doctor while your brother was taking his last breaths. The video shifted a bit and zoomed in close to Lee’s face, so you could see your brother’s typically bright green eyes shift back and forth, the smirk on his face long gone. Though the video was grainy, you could tell that something was happening to the walls, thick metal rods heating up like the inside of an oven. It was then that it all clicked into place.

“No,” you gasped, placing both hands on the computer screen as if you could pull your brother from the depths of the grainy video. Your voice snapped Bucky and Steve back to you, and Bucky moved forward slowly.

“Y/N?” He questioned carefully, his tone soft and measured. “Sweetheart, maybe it’s time to stop—”

But you cut him off midsentence with a strangled cry as you watched on in horror at what was happening on the screen. You started to see Lee move slightly back and forth against the straps holding him to the gurney, almost as if he were in pain when suddenly the entire room on screen lit bright red, and your brother burst into flames, his entire body flailing against the bed below him. You only watched on for a few seconds before Bucky tore your hands from the screen and Steve’s shield hit the computer, smashing the glass and your view of your brother’s final moments.

“NO!” You shouted struggling against Bucky’s arms wrapped tightly around your waist and across your chest. Your body temperature rose without your notice, and Bucky dropped his hold on you with a hiss, his skin already red and angry, shaking out his flesh arm that had grabbed at your hands.

“No!” You screamed, your voice full of complete and utter agony, as you collapsed to the ground on your knees, palms raising to press into your eyes.

“Oh my God,” you could hear Steve mutter behind you as he watched the scene unfold in front of him, confusion and panic lacing his usually calm voice.

Your agony quickly turned to anger as your limbs glowed bright red threatening to combust at any moment. As you replayed the scene of your brother’s body writhing in pain, you realized you had never been experimented on like that. Hydra had never set you on fire to see how you would react. You realized with a whimper that your powers were the result of the connection between you and your brother, a connection that was broken when he died. The first time fire flew from your fingertips was when you pushed past the guards into the room to see your brother’s body red and charred from the experiment. You hadn’t known how you got your powers but setting your brother on fire and you instantly having the power to conjure fire across your body couldn’t be a coincidence. While you continued to seethe, Bucky dropped to his knees beside you and inched a bit closer, speaking softly, words you couldn’t hear. The anger continued to boil.

“I’m done!” You screamed to the walls, turning abruptly, and throwing fire from your hands at the computer over your shoulder, watching it sizzle, and crackle and burn. You flexed your fingers and slowly watched the fire float just above your skin like magic as Bucky crawled closer to you.

“Sweetheart, you have to calm down, okay?” He whispered; hands outstretched careful to gauge your reaction.

“I’m done,” You muttered again, looking up into his bright blue eyes, slowly flexing your fingers this way and that allowing the fire to dance from fingertip to fingertip. Steve was watching you intently, but you didn’t move your eyes away from the man creeping toward you.

“Buck--” Steve started, but Bucky silenced him with a quick look, continuing his slow pace closer. He reached his metal hand toward you careful to watch for any reaction. The cool metal soothed the burning skin of your cheek and you leaned into him, closing your eyes, and feeling the fire from your veins dying.

“I’ve lost everything, Buck,” tears were pooling in your eyes as the super-soldier reached his flesh hand toward you seeing that your body was losing the red angry hue it had moments before.

“I don’t know what to do,” You confessed to the man in front of you, collapsing slowly into his outstretched arms, burying your face in the crook of his neck.

Bucky gathered you carefully into his lap, holding you close, as he whispered soft promises he would never be able to keep in your ear. You clung to the man, gripping hard at the material of his suit, and breathing in the distinct smell of Bucky, gun powder, and some spice you couldn’t name. You didn’t allow the tears in your eyes to fall, but you kept your face buried in Bucky’s shoulder as he hooked his arm under your legs and picked you up off the floor and carried you through the halls toward the Jet Steve must have started while Bucky held you.

You glanced back as Bucky walked through the doorway and saw that the computer was still smoldering, black smoke billowing toward the ceiling.

The walk to the jet was quick, and Bucky kept you close to his chest even as he sat himself down in one of the seats. He stopped whispering soothing words to you but kept his hand moving at your back, rubbing soft circles. Steve hadn’t said a word since you boarded the plane, and you were thankful for his lack of questioning, as you figured he had plenty he wanted to know, not knowing anything of your past. At some point, you must have fallen asleep because before you knew it, Bucky was jostling you awake and the ramp was slowly lowering revealing Avengers tower. You were still curled into Bucky’s lap, so you slipped your legs off him and stood on shaky limbs. Bucky grasped your hand, attempting to pull you back toward him, but you moved out of his reach.

“I can walk, Buck, it’s okay.” You didn’t glance back at him as you moved to walk down the ramp and into the Avengers compound toward the elevators and up to your room on the fifth floor, at the end of the hall. Bucky followed closely behind but didn’t stop you from getting off on your floor and heading toward your room. You didn’t glance back at him.

It had been two weeks since the mission and you knew the others were beginning to question your actions. You hadn’t seen Bucky for more than a few minutes since you lifted yourself off his lap and out of the jet, and from the confusion painting everyone’s face when you refused activities and meals, and run after another that he and Steve hadn’t discussed with anyone what had happened. And you weren’t planning on it either content to bury your feelings and memories as deep as they would go.

You knew you were hurting Bucky with your absence, but you couldn’t bring yourself to fix what was beginning to splinter between you two. Where before the mission you had been in either his room or him in yours every other night for movie night, now you kept yourself as far away from the sixth floor, preferring to spend your nights taking a sleeping pill and trapping yourself in nightmares. Bucky used to be the person who you would go to after a particularly bad nightmare, but now if you woke up in the middle of the night, you chose to simply set yourself up in bed and live in the aftermath of the image of your brother on that screen. You knew you were suffering and that you needed someone to help, but it was impossible to bring yourself to ask for it. To seek it out.

And you were beginning to lose control of your powers again. You first noticed it the day after you returned from the mission. You were sitting contently on the couch in your room flipping through the pages of your latest book when one of the pages burst into flames, sizzling under your touch, and disappearing before your eyes. Dropping the book quickly to the ground you noticed the red hue of your fingers and hadn’t even realized you were activating your powers. You were much more careful to watch your hands after that day.

It was exactly three weeks after the mission, and you were tucking yourself into bed slipping a sleeping pill into your mouth and swallowing it dry. You usually only took one, but today was an especially tough day, seeing Bucky from across the kitchen and the disappointment on his face as you exited the room just as quickly as you entered. Without thinking twice, you dumped half the bottle into your hand and shoved them into your mouth, taking a giant gulp of water to wash them all down. After, you laid back in bed content with the calm that was washing over you as you settled into the choice you just made. With a smile on your face, you drifted off to sleep, your brother’s smirk the only thing you saw.

Read Part 2 here. 

I was reading your "Fallout 4 companions meet Arcade Gannon" reacts when I had an idea. FO4 companions reaction to visiting the Mojave Wasteland with the Sole Survivor.

"She was Boston, I was Vegas

She was Crêpes Suzette, I was pie

She was lectures, I was movies, but I loved her."

- Frank Sinatra, 1981, "I Loved Her"

Cait: "I've never been much of a gambler, but where there's gambling, there's usually a good time to be had."

While Cait finds the casinos of the Strip a little too ritzy for her liking, she rather enjoys the smaller, satellite venues: The Atomic Wrangler in Freeside, the Vikki and Vance casino in Primm, even the saloons in Goodsprings and the Mojave Outpost (the latter of which being where she foolishly engages in a drinking contest with Cass and happily gets her ass kicked). Her greatest enjoyment, however, comes upon discovery of the Thorn in Westside, with its arranged bouts between wasteland critters and the opportunity to go a round yourself if you're feeling lucky. Instead of the trapped horror she felt when the Combat Zone was taken over by raiders and she was forced to fight, Cait revels in the glory she reaps when choosing to face off against a fire gecko, a night stalker or a cazador with her trusty baseball bat. By the time the visit is over, she and Red Lucy have grown close, and the Thorn's mistress is going around openly calling Cait "my hunter."

Codsworth: "Ah, Las Vegas! Why, I can recall when you considered a quick getaway to this paradise just before young master Shaun's arrival. It appears we aren't too late, after all."

Codsworth is somewhat comforted by the lack of overt nuclear devastation in New Vegas, but that feeling wears off as soon as the first set of thugs in Freeside tries to corner him and the sole survivor and take their caps. Once the would-be muggers are laid out on the ground, Codsworth abandons his rose-colored glasses and puts his quippy, dismayed personality back on. Still, he loves the Strip, particularly the Ultra-Luxe with its refined guests, decor and hygienic practices, but he quickly sours on their hoity-toity attitudes. Instead, Codsworth turns to the presence of the NCR as a sign that civilization is creeping back into the wasteland. He's also tickled pink by the Kings and the Chairmen, but not the mobster-esque Omertas: They remind him too much of the pre-war mob activity in good old Boston.

Curie: "Excusez-moi, but what is that structure there? The tallest one, with the blinking lights."

Curie is thrilled to be out in the desert, observing the local populace and documenting their survival techniques, social structures and power struggles. She's fascinated with the area's history, and drags the sole survivor along to seek out the Mojave's most (in)famous individuals to record their stories for her research into post-war civilization. This lands her in quite a few questionable situations, but her general attitude of perseverance and wide-eyed wonder about the world open a lot of doors for her. She makes a lot of friends at the Old Mormon Fort among the Followers of the Apocalypse, though most of them assume her frustration about her own "biological reactions to extreme living conditions" is just her complaining about the heat like everyone else. Arcade's pretty sure she's a robot, though he's too polite to ask about it outright.

Danse: "We're close now, to the birthplace of the Brotherhood of Steel. This is an honor I never thought I'd experience."

Though it's boiling hot inside his power armor under the desert sun, Paladin Danse is overjoyed that he's accompanying the sole survivor on this journey into the cradle of the ideology that he's devoted to. He's heard about the Mojave from Brotherhood of Steel veterans, those who traveled with Elder Lyons when they initially came to the Capital Wasteland and those who accompanied Elder Maxson when he was just a Squire, and he keeps spouting off random trivia about the area. Any run-ins with disillusioned Scribe Veronica might leave him a bit put out, but it's overall a fun trip for him through a part of the continent that's a little less smashed to rubble than the rest of the world. He especially enjoys visiting the NCR and Brotherhood military outposts, if only to offer critiques and suggestions to any soldiers that give him the time of day.

Deacon: "Sheesh, visiting the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter, am I right?"

Deacon has been here before. Well, he doesn't actually say he's been here before, but he keeps dropping hints to the sole survivor that he's somehow on a return trip. He knows the legends of the Sierra Madre and the Blue Star treasures offhand, he has a whole conversation with the Securitrons guarding the Strip about what happened to Robert House, he even knows how to competently play Caravan. Every time the sole survivor asks him about how he knows so much, though, Deacon just grins and keeps chugging his Sunset Sarsaparilla. Obviously no one recognizes him by face, but he does have a setting-appropriate wardrobe along that includes NCR bandoleer armor, a coat-tailed tuxedo, top hat and White Glove Society mask, and a black leather jacket to go with his pompadour wig.

Dogmeat: [curiously sniffs everything]

Dogmeat can't figure out why this place is so dang dry, but he's on his best behavior for the sole survivor as they make their way over the dusty roads of the Mojave. He politely greets each other traveler on the roads, who keep asking his companion where they got "a non-cyber cyberdog." For the most part though, the trip is pretty in line with everywhere Dogmeat goes: Big rodents, big bugs, tired people and plenty of ruins to explore. Dogmeat's one outstanding adventure comes in the form of an attempted kidnapping by some of the Kings, who think their leader needs a new dog after Rex hit the road with some fool. The King doesn't take kindly to this, and graciously has the dog returned to his friend.

Hancock: "Oh, man, how does anyone live out here? I'm drying out, I feel like a radroach husk."

Hancock is having the time of his life in the Mojave, apart from constantly complaining about how he prefers the Commonwealth's weather. He's chummy with everyone, but especially with the ghouls he encounters. He buys Raul a bunch of drinks and asks him about his past, he suggests future career paths and hobbies for Calamity, and he is absolutely enchanted with Beatrix the dominatrix. He's also rowdy enough to attract the ire of nearly every casino in New Vegas: The White Glove Society seethes when the sole survivor points out that his Revolutionary War outfit technically meets the dress code, the Omertas howl when he starts encouraging the strippers and sex workers to band together and take over the casino, and the Vault 21 dwellers keep asking if he's liable to turn feral. The Chairmen, however, treat him as something of a novelty and gift him with a seersucker suit to go with his jaunty personality.

MacCready: "You know, I played cards with a guy from out here once. He tried to teach me a game called... what was it, Candyman? Kilogram?"

MacCready has the barest smattering of knowledge about the Mojave Wasteland, and he keeps injecting it into conversations no matter how inaccurate it is. He's fascinated with the sole survivor's recollections of what Vegas was like before the Great War, and his expectations are sky-high by the time they arrive on the city's outskirts. Those expectations are absolutely met once inside the Strip, even if the sole survivor's are let down. MacCready is just tickled by the existence of a city that is solely dedicated to parting you from your caps, and he settles into each new business for the express purpose of people-watching. He only tries gambling once, and immediately quits after he loses all of his pocket change.

Valentine: "Good old Las Vegas. Somehow, I'm not surprised it's still got a reputation as 'Sin City,' even this long after the bombs."

The Nick Valentine of old never visited Las Vegas, but he certainly knew about it well enough for the Nick Valentine of today to draw on those impressions. He's extra-wary about the city as a result, an attitude not helped by the many people staring at him because of his detective getup, jagged edges and golden eyes. Some people are polite enough to walk up and ask what he is: Others offer to buy him off the sole survivor directly, much to Nick's chagrin. When James Garret offers him a thousand caps for "one night of his services," Nick puts his foot down and starts glaring at everyone who so much as walks up to him and the sole survivor during their trip. The exceptions to this rule are Veronica, who is extremely polite and non-invasive with her questioning; Arcade, who is too polite to even mention Nick's synthetic state; and Raul, who finds the whole thing hilarious but admits that his ghoul status has landed him in some similar situations.

Piper: "I've heard plenty of stories about this place, and if even a quarter of them are true, I ought to get a good travel piece out of just about anyone we pass on the street."

Piper's on a mission to track down the history of New Vegas, which, like Curie, sends her on a path toward its biggest political figures. Aside from them, she's particularly interested in the services of the Mojave, like the Gun Runners, the Crimson Caravan Company, and especially the Mojave Express. Piper gets along swell with just about everyone, and she basks in the widespread acceptance that she lacks back home due to her chosen profession. She desperately tries to get Johnson Nash to ship a case of Sunset Sarsaparilla cross-continent for her, but he gently turns her down and tells her that the only courier he knows crazy enough to undertake a trip to the Commonwealth is too busy nowadays.

Preston: "They're not too friendly to outsiders here, or so I'm told, but there are always good folks to be found if you know where to look."

Preston, true to form, offers help to every little settlement he and the sole survivor come through on their journey, which delays their path to Vegas quite a bit. He makes a beeline for the Old Mormon Fort as soon as he hears the Followers of the Apocalypse have a base there, though, and spends most of his visit picking the brain of its leaders about the best ways to aid those in need in the wasteland. He and Arcade get into some spirited debates about the pros and cons of having a civil service force focused on military matters versus civilian matters, and the Minutemen leader leaves the Mojave with a lot of new ideas to carry home to the Commonwealth.

Strong: "Strong not looking for 'good time,' puny human. Strong looking for thing that make super mutants stronger."

Strong hates New Vegas, but that's nothing unexpected. The sole survivor tries to limit their time in the city and take him around the desert to locales where super mutants are more likely to be found, which brings them to Jacobstown. Surprise surprise, Strong hates Jacobstown - at first. Little by little, through talking with Lily, the other nightkin, and Marcus, Strong starts to realize that the super mutants of the town are doing exactly what he values and sharing their resources among each other for the good of the community, just minus the usual violence associated with super mutants. He struggles with this alternative way of life for a bit, but eventually comes to accept that to be a super mutant, you don't have to constantly attack those around you to show off your strength.

X6-88: "Be careful. The Institute's records about this area indicate high levels of theft, murder, and unsavory characters. It would be best to keep our guard up."

Like Nick, X6-88 greets everyone in the Mojave with open suspicion, and can hardly be convinced to leave the sole survivor's side for their entire journey. His dedication to this task leads those around him to joke about him being "a human Securitron," which the sole survivor finds amusing: X6-88 does not. Still, the ability to hire and maintain a professional-looking bodyguard while visiting New Vegas doesn't go unnoticed, and most people assume that means the sole survivor has a lot of money to spend or be separated from by force. Criminals are more likely to be ruthless, hell-bent on stealing the loads of caps the sole survivor surely has tucked away. Business owners, on the other hand, are more polite to the pair on their travels, giving them better service and goods that ingratiate X6-88 a bit more to the common people aboveground.

BONUS!

Ada: "Jackson brought us out here once, when Zoe decided she wanted to try acquiring a Securitron. The leader of the Strip turned us down."

While Deacon is playing coy about his experience in the Mojave, Ada is completely open about hers. She hasn't been to the Strip, the dam, or any of the Mojave's "fun" destinations, but she remembers the Crimson Caravan Company headquarters, the 188 trading post, and many of the small towns along the way. Her fondest memories are of scavenging around the ruins of the REPCONN test site, the Aerotech Office Park and HELIOS One. She also recalls that her caravan friends came to visit primarily to find a Securitron to take apart and repurpose, but won't say exactly what happened when they tried to do so, other than warn the sole survivor "not to invite the wrath of the House."

Gage: "Now this is a town that knows how to run a successful racket. We need to find out who's in charge, see if they can give us some tips."

Porter Gage walks right up the steps of the Lucky 38 as soon as he finds out that someone inside is running the Strip, and demands that the Securitrons let him in to "talk to the boss." The robots aren't impressed, of course, and toss him out straightaway. Gage, not one to be discouraged easily, tries to find information among the nearby raider gangs instead: Fiends, Vipers, Jackals or Great Khans, he's not too picky. The current state of the raiders in the Mojave quickly informs him that they're failing one by one against the power of New Vegas, and he renews his efforts to find the recipient of the endless streams of caps. Thwarted at every turn, he and the sole survivor retire to Gomorrah, where they bemoan their bad luck while the courier sits a few seats down from them, listening in and smirking.

Longfellow: "Just point me to the nearest saloon. If I can't cool down, I'll try to forget I'm hot."

Longfellow parks himself at the nearest watering hole and does his best to avoid the scorching Mojave heat. The Maine-born grandpa is pretty miserable during the daytime hours unless he's sitting in front of a fan with a cold beer, swapping stories about Far Harbor critters with the bar regulars. At night he's a bit more open to adventuring with the sole survivor, when the desert cools down and he can see the sights by moonlight. Although he's not a fan of the hustle and bustle of the Strip, most of the large casinos there have air conditioning thanks to the Lucky 38, so he claims a table in the back and glares at anyone who disturbs him and his drink. He gets along with most of the New Vegas crowd though, if they agree to pick up the tab.

Maxson: "We came this way, when the Elders sent me to the East Coast. I wonder if the chapter here is still persevering."

Elder Maxson is surprisingly reluctant to visit the two things that the sole survivor would've thought he'd be interested to see in the Mojave: The Strip, or the Hidden Valley bunker. If pressed, he'll admit that he's not the type to cut loose and gamble, drink or participate in general debauchery as a result of his upbringing and position of authority, but neither is he keen to drop in on the dying Western chapters of his order and become stifled by protocol and ass-kissing. He prefers to wander the desert itself, seeking solitude among the cacti and under the stars. Given the chance, he'd probably nip off to Quarry Junction and anonymously solve the NCR's deathclaw problem, if it hasn't already been taken care of. He refuses to wear his uniform for the entire trip.

Desdemona: "The Mojave probably wouldn't know what to make of our mission, which is how you know it's a good place to hide. I wonder if any of our rescued synths made it out this far."

This is by far the most relaxed the sole survivor has ever seen Desdemona, and why wouldn't it be? She's so far removed from her usual sphere that she drops her usual, tight-knit demeanor and embraces loosening up. She's still not talking openly about the Railroad's operations, but she is more likely to answer questions both personal and professional. Like Deacon, she knows a bit about the Mojave, but not so much that she can blend in completely. Instead, she embraces being a tourist and does all the usual things that go with it: Visiting the Strip, the Sunset Sarsaparilla headquarters, the Thorn, and especially Hoover Dam. When she's looking out over Lake Mead, with the sun getting caught in her hair as it sets on her left, she almost looks happy.

Unspoken Fear (A Wanda Request)

Requested: Anonymous

I had a little trouble with this one, and I’m sorry if its not any good.

Pairing: Wanda X Reader

word Count:2165

Warnings: Torture mentioned, swearing, fighting

Italics are thoughts

Request: Wanda x fem!Reader where R is like a really powerful mutant and she's on the run from Hydra who she just escaped when she literally runs into Wanda and Natasha who are out running errands. Wanda accidentally reads R's mind and decides to help R so she follows R with Nat tailing trying to spot the Hydra agents, Wanda and Nat get there just in time to see R smash the agents through a wall and pass out from her injuries and exhaustion.

Masterlist

Your breathing reflecting the steady pounding of your feet hitting pavement. You didn’t remember how long you had been running, or where you were. All you knew, is that you had to lose the agents on your tail or else you would be brought back to Hell.

“Hey! Watch it!” An older man yelled as you ran into him. You fell onto the ground with an umph. “Kid, are you okay?” His anger immediately replaced by worry as he took in your state.

You were dressed in black combat pants, and a gray shirt. Both were covered in grime and blood. Your [h/c] hair was tangled and matted and your [e/c] eyes dulled.

You glanced behind you, seeing the agents, you scrambled to your feet and continued running, ignoring the man who shouted at you. You couldn't let them catch you. You couldn’t go back to the cell that Hydra had kept you in for years. You couldn’t let them use your mutant gene to hurt people.

You were a very powerful mutant. Your parents had abandoned you once you showed your gene, claiming you were a mutt.

You slowly realized that you had control over ambient electromagnetic energy. Meaning you could use the microwaves in the air and transform it into heat, energy, radiation, basically anything you wanted.

Hydra had found you, and managed to create a cell that blocked your mutant abilities and had been experimenting on you for years, trying to figure out how to isolate your mutant gene so that they could use to to create an atomic bomb and other weapons of mass destruction.

You had finally managed to escape a week ago, when the base you had been kept in, had been under attack from an outside force. You didn't stick around to see who was attacking or what they wanted, you got out as fast as you could and ran.

You haven’t stopped running since. Everywhere you turn, there’s another Hydra agent. After your first incident in a cafe in Georgia, you didn’t stick in one place for too long.

~~~~~

“So then Thor kept placing Mjolnir in random places. Like on top of one of Tony’s suits, or on the lid of a toilet. It got out of hand!” Wanda’s soft sokovian accent laughed as she finished telling Natasha what had been going on in the tower during her last mission.

Natasha joined in on the laughter as the pair walked to the small strip mall in downtown New York.

Today was an errand day, and Wanda and Natasha both needed new clothes, so they had decided to go shopping while the sun was out and the day was nice.

Especially since Natasha had just returned from a mission. She needed some girl time.

Keep running, keep running, don’t stop.

Wanda tilted her head, lips forming a small frown as the unexpected thoughts intruded in her mind. She hadn’t been actively trying to read anyone, so that meant this person was projecting without realizing it, and was someone powerful enough to get through Wanda’s mind barrier.

“Wands? What is it?” Natasha went on alert, looking around for a threat the moment Wanda had stopped walking and tilted her head.

Wanda shook her head at the red head, “I thought I heard someone’s thoughts for a moment, even though I wasn’t trying to read anyone. But it’s gone now.” She was worried but tried to brush it off.

Natasha quirked an Eyebrow, but didn’t push the young woman. They started walking again, turning a corner and BAM!

“Woah! Where are you in such a rush, kid?” Natasha placed a hand on the kid in front of them to steady them.

~~~~

You had lost sight of the agents, and you didn’t know fi that was good or bad. You ran around a corner and ran into someone, again, because you were focused on running. You glanced up frantically, hoping they weren’t Hydra.

A red headed woman placed a hand on your shoulder to stop you from falling over and a strawberry blonde, younger woman, looked concerned at your appearance.

“I’m sorry! I’ve...I’ve got to go.” You shook off the red head’s hand and took off running again, thoughts swirling.

I’ve lost the Hydra agents. Where do I go now? Keep running. Find new clothes... So hungry. No don’t focus on that. Keep running. Gotta keep going or else Hydra will catch me.

~~~~~

“That’s something I don’t think we can ignore.” Natasha mused as she watched the young person running away from them down the street. They were covered in blood and grime and were obviously running from something or someone.

Wanda leaned to Natasha, her lithe fingers catching her attention as she grabbed her arm, Natasha looked over and saw that Wanda’s eyes were glowing red.

“Their thoughts...Natasha...They’re running from Hydra.” At the mention of the group, Natasha got defensive. Wanda kept going, running through what she had heard when she had actively read the person’s mind. “They’re a mutant. Hydra has been tracing them for days since they escaped. Natasha…?”

Wanda’s eyes faded back to normal as she furrowed her eyebrows, “Weren’t you on the mission that attacked that Hydra base in Canada last week?”

Natasha’s eyes widened, she shot a look down the street but couldn’t see the young person anymore, She took off down the street Wanda matching her speed, “Are you saying they were in the base being experimented and tortured on and we didn’t see them?”

Wanda kept her breathing even and scanned the area as her and Wanda ran, “From their thoughts, I gathered that they had escaped when you guys attacked the base. They don’t know who was attacking, but you guys provided the distraction needed for them to escape. When you cut the power, the power of the cell that was limiting their abilities was broken.”

As Wanda finished talking, Nat saw a flash of movement in her peripheral. “There!” She pointed. Wanda and her watched in horror as the person ran into an alleyway, followed by three men in all black.

~~~~~

You ducked into an alleyway and relaxed for a moment. You groaned as you felt the full extent of your injuries. You had scrapes and bruises and bumps, plus you were exhausted from running and hadn’t eaten anything in almost 72 hours.

“Well, well, well. Looks like we caught a little [Y/n] boys.” The russian accent sent a trail of ice down your spine as you slowly turned and saw three Hydra agents stalking you into a corner.

“Now, be nice and we won’t have to use these on you.” One of the men pulled out a collar, one that you knew would shock you and mute your powers, while the others pulled out guns equipped with tasers and nets lined with the same stuff as the collar.

Your eyes were wide as you slowly walked backwards, looking for an escape. Suddenly you felt a anger rise in you that you had never felt before.

“Leave! Me! Alone!” You screamed, you raised your hands, feeling the waves in the air and pulled them to you, creating a ball of heat radiation softly.

“Get her!” The leader yelled as he saw what you were doing. The men ran towards you, firing. You threw your hands out and the ball hit one of the agents. Throwing him through the brick wall on the side of the Alley.

You pulled on the waves again and formed a shield of light and energy, blinding the agents long enough for you to jump on a garbage bin and jump and kick another agent through the hole in the wall.

You turned to face the last agent. Your chest heaving and your face twisted in anger. He slowly backed away before turning and trying to run.

You brought up a blockade of energy, stopping him from leaving the alley. You stepped behind him, fighting the exhaustion that was brought on by using so much of your power after not touching it for so long.

“I want you to remember me. I want you to run back and tell your commandeers to leave me alone. I will not hesitate to use the abilities you guys want to use against you.”

With that, you pulled on every wave and energy you could muster and plowed them into the agent, sending him flying over the buildings, landing who knows where.

As the power left you, you felt the drain. You fought to stay up and awake. Knowing you needed to run and hide. But your feet were unsteady and suddenly your vision was black as you felt yourself falling into oblivion.

~~~~~

Wanda and Nat had reached the alley you had run into and watched the confrontation, eyes wide and frozen in shock at the display of your mutant gene. When you passed out and fell onto the pavement, Wanda ran forward and lifted you into her arms.

“They need medical. The tower is three blocks from here, call Bruce, tell him what we’re bringing.” Wanda issued the orders to Nat in a rare display of authority. Natasha quickly dialed on her cell and told Bruce they were bringing an unconscious mutant in.

They made it to the tower quickly and passed you off to Bruce who quickly hooked you up to fluids and a monitor.

“And you say she could alter energy waves in the air?” Tony scoffed. Wanda and Nat had called everyone together in the common area to discuss the Hydra agents in New York who were tracking down the mutant they currently had in the medic bay.

Wanda glared at Tony, “Yes.” She turned to the rest of the group, “It was like nothing I’ve ever seen or felt in my life. They are really powerful. It’s no wonder Hydra wanted them.”

Steve stood up and paced, thoughtful, “We should contact Charles Xavier and see what He knows. Ultimately it will be up to them, but we can offer them protection here or at his mansion. It is strange that we didn’t see them on that last mission.”

Natasha nodded, “I know. When Wanda told me that thought, I was shocked. I swear I should’ve noticed that much energy and power.”

~~~~

You woke up slowly, a headache causing you to wince. As you became more awake you became aware that you were on a bed, and looking down you saw a needle, and a monitor attached to your finger.

The steady beeping in the room became erratic as you started to panic.

Hydra has me. I’ve been caught again. Escape, escape, escape!

A door burst open and the strawberry blonde woman from the street ran in, eyes wide. She saw you struggling to pull out the needle and rushed over to you, “Here, let me.” She gently pried your fingers away and pulled out the IV gently. You watched her warily, unsure if this was a trap.

She smiled warmly at you, “My name is Wanda. What’s yours?”

“[Y/n].” You answered quietly.

Wanda’s smile grew as you answered. She guided you back onto the bed, as you realized your clothes were gone, you were wearing a hospital gown, and you were cleaned up.

“Where am I? Who are You? Are you part of Hydra?” You shot off rapid fire questions, fingers twitching, ready to use your abilities at the slightest sign of danger.

Wanda’s eyes looked down at your hands, seeing the twitching, “This is the Avengers tower. You are still in New York. No, we are not Hydra. We are actually the people fighting them, trying to take them down.” Wanda caught your gaze with hers as she told you something that made you break, “We were actually the people attacking the base the day you escaped. I’m so sorry for what you went through, [Y/n].” She grabbed a hand, clasping it in hers as tears streamed down your face and your breathing became ragged, “What you went through, was horrible. And I promise, I promise, to protect you.”

Staring into the strange woman’s eyes, you knew she was telling the truth, and honestly, you were tired of running.

“Wanda.” you tried out her name. She reached up and wiped away your tears as you calmed down.

“I’ll go tell the team that you are awake.” She stood up, releasing your hand.

Suddenly you didn’t want to be alone. You reached and grabbed her hand back, as she turned to look at you, you  blurted out the first thing, “Stay. Please.”

Her eyes softened, she crawled onto the hospital bed with you, rubbing soothing circles with her thumb on the back of your hand, “Of course.”

You fell asleep to the sound of that soft accent singing songs in a language you didn’t recognize, but you knew one thing for sure, this woman made you feel safe. You would stay with Wanda, you would finally be free.

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Trust.

Written by @grand-master-alrik-ville and @shaso-cinnjin

Chapter 1: Old Friend, Old Enemy M41.072

Shas'la Hel'ves ran as fast as his hooves could carry him. The mont'gue'la had ambushed his convoy out in what they thought was safe territory. Hel'ves looked behind him and stopped. How could he not have thought about them. Raising his pulse rifle, Hel'ves ran back to cover the civilians as they ran past. Just about 60 meters behind were the mont'gue'la that the Imperium call Chaos Marines. He knew he was no match for them, but he had to buy the civilians time to get away. Just as he was about to turn and follow them, Hel'ves noticed a little girl trip, falling face first into the churned up ground. Hel'ves slung his rifle and launched himself towards her, sliding down next to her to pick her up.

“Come on, you have to get up. We cannot stay here.” Hel'ves stated as he tried to get her on her feet.

“I can’t. My legs are too tired”

“Then I shall carry yo-” Hel'ves was cut off by the cackling of a Chaos Marine as his shadow descended up Hel'ves. Seeing the devilish and barbaric looking axe raised high in the air, Hel'ves turned his back to the marine, attempting to protect the child as best he could. He waited for the pain and the cold of death to come, but all Hel'ves heard was the sound of a loud metallic CLANG, and then a wet THUD as something landed next to him. Turning his head, the chaos marine laid next to him, and a different presence stood over him. Looking up, all Hel'ves saw was a white cape emblazoned with a silver cross and crossed lightning bolts, and a terminator standing above.

“Run, get your people to safety and tell your Shas O’ that he must press his forces into the flanks if we are to win this war.” The tall marine ordered, his shield raised to protect both him and Hel'ves.

“Who…who might I ask are you, so I know who to tell my Shas O’ to thank for rescuing us” Hel'ves hesitantly asked.

“I am Grand Master Alrik Ville, of the Storm Templars. He will know what to do beyond that. Now go!!” and suddenly the marine dashed forward into the mont'gue'la, no fear in his voice, and he could only sense duty seeping from him.

The distress call from the evacuation convoy rang loudly in his ears as he shot through the sky, the fire billowing its orange and red glow from its location becoming more and more visible the closer he came to its last known location, he feared the worst yet hoped for the best, a hope that would soon take life as he spotted the untainted popping of frantic bolter fire and the crackle of power swords.

As he crested the cliff of the canyon where the ill-fated convoy rested he saw them, weathered armor glinting with orange and yellow as their frames became silhouetted from the muzzle flash, their tall shadows flickering against the trees surrounding the area, fighting valiantly against the bloodied hounds that surrounded them.

Arvack looked upwards, “Incoming projectile! Take Cover!” he screamed as he and his battle brothers dove into what cover they had left.

A thunderous crash was shook the ground as the projectile made impact over their heads, a ring of dust now hanging over them, the cries to the blood god falling silent.

Arvack leaned around his cover bringing his bolter to bare, in front of him was no crater left by stray ordinance but the rising form of a Tau battlesuit gripping the decapitated head of a bloodletter tron from its body by the suits gauntlet. A single red eye turned to look at Arvack, scanning what Arvacks assumed was his left pauldron,

“Storm Templar… It's been so long.” the suit spoke in flawless gothic, “What happened here?” it asked.

“We were ordered by the Grand Master to hold this position to provide cover for your “people” from this convoy while they retreated.”

“I owe both you and your commander a debt, Arvack.” it spoke turning its attention to the recovering horde as it began to reinitialize its assault.

“How’d you know my name?” Arvack inquired, firing his bolter at a charging berserker, blowing its head into gory chunks across the canyon floor.

“I know many things, we’ve met before on the flaming spires Jukaa, you were but a scout.” it said fondly as the T’au began to mow down cultists with its burst cannon, each popping spectacularly in dazzling blue explosions.

“That cannot be true, you lie! It’s been 200 years! That commander’s long past, he is but ash now.” Arvack spoke briefly, his attention becoming more drawn into the defense of his squad.

“Doing pretty well for a pile of ash don’t you think!” the T’au chuckled. “Shas’O Cinnjin, it’s a pleasure to work with your chapter again, Sergeant.”

Arvack looked back at the tall suit, its snow white limbs the same as those he saw blackened by soot back on Jukaa, the same T’au that fought beside him back on that infernal planet.

“Lets go, I’ve cleared a path!” the T’au shouted pointing towards an opening in the trees, “We’ll meet up with more reinforcements that way.”

Alrik rammed his shield into the first Chosen as he charged into battle with the traitors. Swinging his axe in a downward arc, Alrik cleaved the pathetic traitor in two before spinning around and using his shield as a club to crush the skull of another Chosen. Running further towards the convoy, Alrik could see the Tau battle suit aiding his men.

Alrik gave an amused HMPH, as he barreled through some more traitor marines, carving them into pieces. “Cinnjin, you never cease to show me that I can trust you” Alrik mused as he slammed his shield into another.

“Third squad, form a defensive ring around the Tau, the 4th company will be here to push back these fools,” Alrik ordered as he made his way into the quickly forming ring and took position at the back of Cinnjin, “Hello, old friend. Miss me?”

The caped terminator barreled his way into the perimeter forming around Cinnjin,

“Hello, old friend. Miss me?” he asked warmly, Cinnjin knew only one astartes whom would greet him so kindly.

“Alrik, it's good to know you still draw breath” Cinnjin chuckled as he ignited two traitors with the beams of cyan spraying from his pack mounted plasma rifles.

“You’re most kind for aiding us, I fear the more inquisitive among our kind will brand you traitor, you know my offer from all those years ago still stands, I won't ask you outright to come, but if an unpleasant fate begins to manifest in your chapters future, beyond your control, you are always welcome to pursue your goals here, as an equal.” Cinnjin spoke with slight concern in his voice.

The ring closed around them, Chaos of all forms sprinting from the treeline over the steadily increasing mound of corpses, blue and orange flashes making the shadows flicker and grow in spastic pattern. The crack of thunder hammers slamming ceramite and the pop of pulse munitions hitting home filled the night as the defenders grew ever fewer.

The ground began to shake and the clouds opened above, beams of bright blue shot down from the stratosphere, a beam of incinerating heat traced the outline of the group, annihilating the surrounding area. The flick and hum of incoming thunderhawk and tigershark engines sang chorus for the symphony of munitions they let loose as the entire canyon, save for the convoy, became naught but atoms before the combined might of the allies combined forces.

“Hel’ves told me about your desire to flank them, looks like they finished off the others just in time to save their poor commanders.” Cinnjin laughed, his eye lenses began shrinking to pinholes to better cope with the blinding light. “Tis’ a Victory, Alrik, even the smallest can make all the difference don’t you think?”

Alrik smiled under his helmet as he hacked at a Chosen, cleaving the traitor in two. “Cinnjin, you know I must say no to the offer. My loyalties are to my Emperor and his Imperium, regardless of whether it is a shadow of its former glory or not. Maybe in a different time, our Empires would see that we would work better as an Alliance. However, I fear that the Imperium has grown to a set in its xenophobia to ever realize that.” Alrik stated with a hint of sadness. Slamming his shield into a charging possessed marine before cutting him in half, Alrik looked behind him to see a charging chaos marine with a melta bomb going for Cinnjin.

Alrik pushed his Terminator armor as best he could to get as much speed as he charged for the traitor. Unfortunately for the traitor, he didn’t notice until it was too late the charging behemoth of cermatite and muscle. Using his shield as a club, Alrik decapitated the traitor in one undercut swing, sending its head and the bomb flying.

“All units, engage these traitors with extreme prejudice, leave none standing” Alrik ordered.

“My friend, our chapter is one of very few that ally themselves with…xenos. While we keep that under black tape, we are the only ones who try to help those that have helped us.”

“Aye, I know where your loyalties lie, it was never a matter of that, of sides.” Cinnjin spoke sending a punch into a whirling screamer, the force of his onager gauntlet sending a shockwave into the treeline.

“It was about consequences, how sometimes the black ink gets washed away, it’s not an offer of annexation into the empire but of protection, so that you may serve your people even if they grow hate you, a thought that I dread.” Cinnjin spoke to the terminator as it smashed the skull of one of his traitor brethren beneath his bootheil.

Cinnjin then let out a sigh. Briefly noticing trees falling from deep in the thick foliage, the only warning of what was to come.

With a blood curdling scream the Debaser of Slaanesh slammed into the defensive perimeter, its wip like tendrils cutting through armor like it was the air itself. Cinnjin fell silent and began to crouch forward.

“You may want to move.” He said motioning for Alrik to step away.

All that stood in Cinnjins place after that moment was a cloud of dust a faint blue trail and a very, very shattered sound barrier.

Cinnjin shot fourth over the Debaser, grappling the two large horns cropping out from the head of the beast, kicking his vector thrusters around he began to rear the beast towards its own, it sending chunks of eviscerated heretic flesh through the air in spectacular gory sprays.

With a crack and a thud it was clear the commander had had enough, using his onager gauntlet to strike the beast so that the pressurised air punched clean through it and the ground, its head exploding in a purple-red haze coating him in blood.

Cinnjin them motioned to the path he had previously cleared and for the Astartes to follow.

“The evacuation should be complete, come!” the bloodsoaked commander yelled, pointing towards the salvation of the landing-zone.

“It's time we show these creatures the meaning of what we stand for!”

“If it comes to that Cinnjin, then I will accept your offer.” Alrik stated as he walked past the Debaser. “Templars, move to the LZ and secure the perimeter. Double time it” Alrik broke into a run.

“Cinnjin, I pray that the path we tread will never see us become enemies. As we both know, the path to ruin is paved with good intentions. My Emperor discovered that ten millennia ago. I fear your people are due for it as well. I just hope it will not see a good man like you taken from this galaxy.”

“I fear the same” spoke Cinnjin, “I’ve taken… "steps” to see that it doesn't. Until we meet again, Alrik.“ With those final words Cinnjin reignited his retros and shot into the air. His departure shaking the ground he once stood upon, the blue haze of his jumpack becoming ever dimmer as he rose up into the stratosphere.  

Chapter 2: New Age Diplomacy M41.109

Alrik stared through the glass of his flagship The Iron Storm. Down below were the burning remains of the Storm Templars home world Valencia. The day had come for Ahriman’s revenge. Though it had been many centuries ago, back when Lanius Pathiel had walked among their once proud halls and fought alongside the greatest of his chapter’s heroes. Today was a tragedy in the history of the Storm Templars, but one the Storm Templars will recover. Until the time for revenge is right, however, the Storm Templars must disappear, to give their enemy a false sense of security. “All ships, lock onto our warp jump point. We make for the Eastern Fringe. We have allies there that will show us hospitality. All hands, prepare for Warp.” Grand Vicar Remuldus stepped up behind Alrik, a puzzled expression on his otherwise stone-like face. “Grand Master, surely you don’t mean to barter with Cinnjin. Regardless of whether he is an ally, the wider Imperium would see this as…” Alrik raised a hand sharply, cutting his High Vicar. “Our people need a home, Remuldus, and our chapter needs a place to bury or dead. Cinnjin has offered us a home, and I intend to take him up on it. You know as well as I that he is an honorable man and a friend of our chapter,” Alrik turned to look at his friend, a long red scar running diagonally down his face, “and if we are to have our revenge for those that died down there, and for the stain on our chapter’s history, we must become like ghosts. What better way than to hide where not even Ahriman would think to look. Trust in me, Remuldus.” Remuldus stood emotionless, his face set. Suddenly he gave a sigh before look Alrik in the eye with a smile. “Once more my friend, you have proven yourself. I see your wisdom and logic in this course. May the Emperor guide our actions as he has done before, and let us go to our esteemed friend.” Alrik and Remuldus clasped gauntlets in a sign of mutual respect and kinship. Alrik turned to look our the view port. “All ships, initiate warp jump on my mark…..mark. With that, a series of over 30 warp rifts opened as the fleet made its jump to Tau space, bound for a friend they had not seen in years. A faint mechanical whining sound from within the suspended suit, chem injectors and nutritional drips retracted back into their inactive positions, Cinnjin woke from a dreamless sleep, something he had become accustomed to in his age. At least it took an edge off the fatigue, and the infernal nagging of the water caste. He did not wake to the usual hum of busy drones tending to battle damage or the flicker of his inbox prompting him within his heads up display but a wailing siren. “Ambush!” he thought lurching upright, tearing the still unattached wires and tubes from the walls and various equipment that allowed him brief rest. “Status report, Por’O!” he screamed into his communicator. “We’ve got jump readings off our starboard side, I’ve scrambled the fighters but they’ve caught us at port. They’re transmitting an unknown signal through the rift, can decipher it!” the Por”O replied. Cinnjin caught a faint flashing in his peripheral vision, a tiny screen flicked on and off as it read out its message. “Stormborn” “Recall the Fighters!” He spoke, with a taste of worry on his voice. “Get the EMT on the bridge and clear a landing zone upon the planet's surface, today is about to be a very dark one, and I refuse to let it dim any more.” “But Shas’O, it could be an ambush or a-” “Do as I say Ki’neth, trust in me.” Cinnjin cut the Por’O off, his voice adding a palpable calm to the situation. “Y-yes, Shas’O.” Just then the void tore open to birth a dozen vivid swirling holes, spears of silver and steel pierced the veil into T’au space, each one an intricate maze of spires and stunning stained glass sanctuaries depicting the heroics of heros long past, each one a grey reminder of the power of imperial might and the solemn reminder of engenuity long lost to time and tragedy. A few entered real space in ragged condition, their might hulls porus with shell holes torn to ragged ribbons by the lashing tendris of ordinance powerful enough to end trillions of lives in seconds. Cinnjin saw this, his mechanical fist clenching into a vacuum tight grip, it was the first time he felt rage in a very, very long time, the only calm in his mind came when he saw the flagship, its colossal silver hull ornately detailed and etched into swerling branches of silver and marble, its weathered prow still carried the remains of enemy vessels strewn across its titanic width. It sat protectively at the head of the fleet, like a lioness guarding her cubs. Now all Cinnjin felt was sadness, sadness and a hint of hope. He was sad that they had to come, but glad that they did. What would follow would need to be a time of rebuilding and trust, the Storm Templars have shown their true face, they need help, and now it was the T’au’s turn to be what the universe had been missing for fourty thousand years, kind. Alrik stood straight as he let his personal serfs attach his artificer armor to his neuroports. He had intended to come in his terminator armor, but Ahriman had seen it torn to ribbons. He stared at the remains of his once glorious axe, a relic of his friend, now shattered at the hilt. Alrik supposed now was the time for it to return to its old master, as well as his shield. When the Serfs returned with his new relic blade, he could scarcely believe what he beheld. A long polearm, a gigantic spear wreathed in symbols of lightning and the symbol of justice: The Hammer. His personal artificer never ceased to amaze. “Alrik, my friend, it is time to meet with Cinnjin, before his men get too restless.” Remuldus walked in before giving a low whistle. “Very fitting, I would say. Your weapon matches too. You look more like a sentinel.” “I embody that role. I am a sentinel to our chapter just as we are sentinels to our people. I agree with you friend. What is the Grand Paragon doing?” “Currently tending to his Paragons and the needs of our people. Should I recall him?” “Negative. We shall handle this. I think we need everyone we can get. Come lets meet our friend.” The Command Suit strode down the pristine halls towards the airlock trailed by a neat formation of fire warriors, each of their helms a pitch black, their pauldrons bearing the personal markings of their commander. Two warriors on either flank of the formation held a banner, one bearing the Iconography of the Storm Templars chapter as the contingent remembered it, and the other bearing a simple T’au symbol. Behind them proceeded numerous medical teams, unsure what the condition of their allies was they prepared for the worst. This was the same across the dozens of T’au ships rising to meet the sizably larger imperial vessels, the only one coming close to matching their size was the Flagship Drakken a prototype vessel with a massive centered railgun that bisects the ship right down to the picketed prow, a piece of equipment the T’au learn to fear from the Damocles Crusade adapted to meet their needs. “Wait to hail them before boarding, once we receive that it is indeed them, we will proceed” Cinnjin spoke across his fleet via intercom. “This is not an exercise in force, but compassion, this is where we prove we are different. Be kind my fellow crewman, be kind.” With that Cinnjin received the all clear, the airlock clicked and puffed oxygen visibly through its vents before opening. “Hello, old friend.” Alrik stood at the airlock as it opened, his silver and gold suit shimmering in the passageway lights. His spear was mag-locked to his back, a sign of respect and peace to his old friend. Once the airlock opened, he looked up at the battle suit, the now dull red scar very visible across his face. “Hello, Cinnjin. I wish this were on a better occasion but I must take you up on your offer. Our home system has been razed and our home world destroyed.” Alrik stepped aside to show his wounded men and the many civilians that waited in the hangar. “Many of our apothecary's were killed in the fighting, but we were able to recover as many as we could.” Cinnjin stepped aside, and his retinue followed in perfect sync to allow the medical crews aboard. “Your people are welcome here on Tash’var, and you are permitted to build upon orbiting moons to create a new “Chapter Monastery” as you call it. Shame really, I always hoped to see the Stormhold.” Cinnjin spoke, his tone serious with a hint of grief. “You have my utmost condolences. However I believe the grieving will have to wait unit things get settled.” Cinnjin then gestured down the hallway. “Shall we make room for the wounded, we should move around the ship so we can better talk without remaining ourselves an obstacle.” “I can guarantee that it would have been a sight for you, Cinnjin. I agree. If you would follow Remuldus and me, we can talk in my personal chambers” Alrik turned slowly before stepping off in a slow march, keeping his head forward, never letting his eyes wander. They walked down silver and marble halls, etchings depicting heroes of eons past. Here and there, picts displaying heroes in terminator armor holding off hordes of orks and traitors. Some depict massive combats with the Eldar. There is only one that depicts a dreadnought, its fist raised high, ready to crush a Tau battle suit. Cinnjin followed Alrik down the weathered hall of the flagship, wounded lining the walls on either side. They passed underneath gothic arches and past ancient statues. Cinnjin couldn’t help but feel the worried eyes of imperial crewmen eyeing his every move, he didn’t exactly blend into his surroundings. “Worry not about how they feel Cinnjin. They are hurt and scared. They will understand in time.” Alrik stated without looking. The group came upon two ornate blast doors. Placing his hand upon a pad beside them, Alrik opened the doors to his chambers. The main room was a rather modest hosting room, filled with furniture to sit upon. Lining the walls were shelves containing books and terminals with data streaming across them. Alrik’s personal serfs came forward before kneeling before him. “How may we serve you, Grandmaster” they spoke in unison, no questions asked about Cinnjin and his retinue. “Please, gather some tea for those that can drink, and whatever our friend Cinnjin here is able to have that we may be able to provide” “I thank you for your hospitality.” Cinnjin spoke, moving around the humble chamber briefly admiring the smell of burning incense. “Your chapter is welcome here, Alrik. The moon of Il'cea has land that is yours to govern. Save you defend it and its people. A condition I know you have little issue with.” “If there is anything specific you need we will attempt to accommodate you.” Cinnjin said turning to face Alrik. “I would like to ask of I could borrow some of your stealth teams. Despite their expertise in stealth operations, my fourth company was decimated trying to fight our traitorous cousins. We need to train our scouts going to that company.” Alrik turned towards Cinnjin. “We also need help with construction and possible terraforming. To being anymore than my people would be to invite war upon your cadre unless you were to join in an alliance. Like Commander Farsight did” “We would be honored to instruct your men, my kind are most reasonable when it comes to these things, it will not be difficult to sway things to better suit you. We’d even be willing to share equipment given time.” Cinnjin gestured towards the nearest of his bodyguard, the comparatively small warrior stepped forward, placing a disc shaped object upon the table. “A gift to soothe these difficult times, it is a shield generator, same make and design as mine, however more fitting to your “aesthetic”. The shield bore a simple design, not more than a simple disc with rivets dotting its circumference, and a single word etched in low gothic centred upon its crest. It read “Virtue”. “I saw it a fitting gift come our next meeting, albeit I had hoped to present it to you under better circumstances.” Alrik picked up the device and attached it to his shoulder. He could see the device shimmer as it dispersed the energy field around him, melding itself with his armor’s built in shield. He nodded approvingly. “A fine gift, one I am happy to receive, regardless of circumstances.” Alrik turned looked at Cinnjin. “In exchange, if your people are so inclined, we can teach your men further in the ways of melee combat. I unfortunately don’t know how much our technology would ban of use to you” That would be most appreciated, in time I’m sure your men would be willing to share with us your knowledge, though I do have to keep an air of ignorance about the truth regarding your technical equipment, the Ethereal caste still think me ignorant to the reality of the “warp” as you call it. They must be given time to better realize its complications, lest I suffer the wrath of knowing such a dangerous knowledge. A bit ironic don't you think?“ Cinnjin laughed. “All you must do now is allow us to help you, you are in good hands.” “Your men are welcome aboard our ships. They will be escorted by my men to keep any descendants in line. I must make a further ask that no mention of the Greater Good be made. We have our own version of which works for our people. I do not wish to cause any complications in our relationship as it stands. I do hope you understand.” "Understood, though you were already a whole coming together to work towards something greater, you already fight for a greater good, just one separate to my own. I however will instruct the more zealous of my crew to hold their tongues when it comes to Ideologies.” Cinnjin the paced over towards the stained glass window, a giant figure depicted in shining golden armor. “I think he may be proud, Alrik, I know little of your Emperor but if he is half the man you are he’d be proud, of you, of what you stand for.” "He was the most powerful man in the galaxy. Could persuade entire armies to lay down their weapons without a single shot being fired. Could mend machines with but a single touch and obliterate an enemy without a single motion being made. He was the epitome of what man could become. Now he is nought but a skeleton upon a failing throne. Few realize what he gave up to save his Imperium from the claws of the Chaos gods and their traitorous followers. He burned his own beloved sons soul from existence, so that he may never be brought back into being. In doing so, he sacrificed his immortality. He was a god among men, a true god. He merely wished to see mankind rule the stars, not alone, but the dominant species. I believe he would have attempted to have your Empire join the fold, if not ally with us. I merely wish to see a part of his vision come true.” "He did not know us, he knew a cold galexy that knew no warmth, I’m sure he could see the value of kind not his own given better times.” Cinnjin then turned away from the everwatching gaze of the imparator prime towards Remaldus. “I presume this to be your second? I wish to become acquainted with you, space marine.” Kindly spoke Cinnjin, extending a hand in a formal human gesture of trust. Remuldus looked at the hand before slowly taking it in his own. "I am Premier Vicar Remuldus Teuton. I am what other space marines call the High Chaplain of my chapter. I lead my brothers in prayer before, during, and after battle and in times of peace. However I am not his second. I am merely his spiritual counsel. Unfortunately, his second is seeing to his men. The first company was the rearguard in our retreat from our sacred home and took heavy casualties.” “It's a pleasure all the same, Remuldus, I look forward to hearing what you have to say, a holy mind is strongest in times of darkness.” Cinnjin praised, gently shaking Remuldus’ hand and taking note of the weathered and battered skull the Chaplin wore, the flickering of candle light highlighting the cracks lining the faceplate. “Now If you’ll allow me, I’d like to speak to you, Alrik, and perhaps a High Paragon, if one so much as remains after such a tragedy. I have a matter I’d like to discuss, in private.” Alrik went over to a command console. “Remuldus, go ahead and head to the chapel. I think now would be a good time for one of your sermons.” Alrik stated as he typed into the console. “Aye, Grand Master. As you command” Remuldus turned and walked out of Alrik’s chambers, his black armor melding with the shadows around him. “Randrid to the Grand Master’s chambers please, Randrid to the Grand Master’s chambers” Alrik called over the ship vox before shutting off his link. “So, what did you need to discuss, old friend?” “I need to share some grim news my own, we’ve managed to create a means of traversing the Damocles Gulf, after the tragedy of our fourth sphere expansion a wormhole opened in the silent zone, a path of void left by Hive Fleet Gorgon.” “We received a distress call through it, the same frequency as our missing expansion built a nexus of thousands of star forts around it and dove into it find our lost friends, this succeeded, however we drew a putrid ire.” “The sickly legions of the Death Guard appeared from deep space in numbers never seen before, a million fronts opened in an instant and the slaughter of millions took place, millions of lives that I am failing to save. They push ever closer to the nexus, and if they breach it the heart of our empire will be exposed to the destructive forces of chaos. I will not ask you to fight for us, for me, but the Empire is fighting a losing battle, and we need all the help we can get.” “I only wish to discuss such a thing in the presence of your Paragon due to the horrid eldritch powers at be, his expertise may be of some use, or at the very least he shield my words from the prying eyes of the warp.” The blast doors opened before the terminator armored figure of Randrid as he stepped through. “You have need of me, Grandmaster?” Randrid questioned, giving a momentary glance towards Cinnjin. “Yes High Paragon. Our friend here has told me that the forces of the Death Guard have launched a full-scale attack upon their Empire. He is fighting a losing battle. While I won’t necessarily say that he isn’t asking for our help militarily, he is asking for counsel about how best he can face this threat. Also, Cinnjin, this room is psychically shielded from all but Randrid here.” Alrik started with a hint of pride. “I see. Indeed, Cinnjin, you face an uphill battle if you face the Death Guard. Veterans one and all, and cursed by Nurgle to be nigh unstoppable. Depends on who leads this force, that will answer what your best course of action is. Truthfully though, the Death Guard are near peerless in psychological warfare, now more than ever. Your best chance is to kill any and all psykers, known to them as Plaguecasters. The rest would be to concentrate as much heavy firepower on any vehicles and heavy infantry they bring. Create kill zones to trap any light infantry or their regular troops. Finally, whatever you do, do not engage in melee with any cultists that look more like the undead than people. Those are called Poxwalkers. Any man they kill will rise and join their ranks.” “Thank you for sharing such wisdom.” Cinnjin said bowing slightly. “I’ll be sure to share such knowledge with my colleagues, as well as the good you’ve done for us.” “I would also like your paragon to study one of our drones taken from such a conflict, your Imperium shuns such thinking machines due to their susceptibility to dark influence, however we suffer not even the tiniest disobedience with our designs, the philosophy of our kind engrained within every fiber of their being, even to the point where they exhibit a sentience of not corruption but a desire to continue their intended task, even doing so after suffering such damage that they should fesable be incapable of doing so. Adapting some portions of our design may lead to a decrease in the creation of servators.” “Sometimes I think they may have souls their very own.” Alrik and Randrid looked at each other before chuckling. “My friend, we shun the use of fully autonomous AI, free thinking machines, for a reason. As long as the AI is controlled, we do not mind whatsoever. The reason we use servitors is because they are either criminals where even the best of rehabilitation programs would fail to turn results or trainees who have failed their trials and are too maimed to be returned. We take no pleasure in doing so, but regular humans can only do so much. Though you may notice we have many more serfs then you think” Just as Alrik makes this statement, his personal serfs return with drinks, passing them out to everyone. “Indeed, the war with the Men of Iron brought about the end of the first Empire of Man, with their reliance on technology being the catalyst. It is okay to use technology to benefit, but there is a line between benefit, and a crutch” Randrid spoke before sipping his tea. “However, we can study your drones combat footage and tell you the best course of action about how best to deal with them, if only to give your people more time to consolidate and hold. I will say, your builder drones are of interest” “You must think me a fool.” Cinnjin said with a sigh. “I know the risks, our drones are no crutch, but partner’s. The notion I was attempting to make clear is that in time your stock of servators may dwindle and although your chapter will still be capable it may be hindered without a workforce.” “And what causes the peculiar interest in our construction equipment?” Cinnjin said, motioning for his bodyguard to relax. “How quickly they work, their ability to continuously build. As it stands, we have no enginseers or techpriests to build our ships and knowing them, they would take forever. We meant no offense to you or your technology. Specifically you, but we have seen many other septs rely almost entirely on their technology solely.” Alrik apologized. “Nor did I mean any offense.” Randrid stated, locking eyes with Alrik for a moment. “Me and Alrik seem to agree on one thing. We will give you our full support to hold back the tide. We take care of our allies.” “We hope to do the same.” Cinnjin spoke kindly. In most cases septs attacked are in development, a phase of vulnerability where the infrastructure for a "living” workforce has not yet been implemented. I can see where your misconceptions come from.“ "If you provide the blueprint we will be happy to build you most anything, lest it require too much material at that time. The defense of the Empire comes first and the Ethereals only trust you with so much requisition, a stance I have worked to remove since our last meeting.” We can build you more than just a few cruisers if that's what you are asking.“ A drone then Calmly buzzed into the room, its eye lense staring curiously at Alrik. With a beep it drew back towards Cinnjin. "This drone will be the connection between you and me if we aren’t face to face.” Cinnjin said fondly, physically greeting the drone by placing a hand utop it. "Very well my friend.” Alrik tapped into his coms. “I need a servo skull to my quarters with blueprints for a strike cruiser.” Within moments a servo-skull floats in from a vent and displays the blueprints in front of Cinnjin. Cinnjin waves his hand over the holo-pict, designating the blueprint as vital information to his system, a faint but rapid click can be heard as his focal lens take even the tiniest the details with sharp precision. “I’ll upload this to my ships memory banks for data-transfer once we reach a dry dock, I am most impressed with your chapters personal changes from what is usually the standard for Astartes navy ships.” he praised. With a final click he returned his focus to Alrik. “I believe these talks have been fruitful. Once the entirety of your fleet is void worthy we’ll guide you to our space docks for further replenishment of provisions, then we will direct you to your new residence. Now if you’ll excuse me I must make my way back to my ship before they worry too much, our men aren’t as fond of each other as we seem to be, something that I hope to change yes?  Regardless it was a pleasure meeting you Randrid, you as well Alrik. Oh. Don’t forget to contact me immediately if you need anything, you are our guests after all. ” With those final words Cinnjin motioned his retinue to return to his ship, all silently standing and returning to formation behind their commander. Whether they were more relaxed after their ordeal or even nervous to begin with could only be guessed at. “Until I see you next, old friend.”

The years went by quickly, the Storm Templars rebuilt their fortress monastery with the help of the Tau builder drones. The fleet of the Storm Templars grew rapidly, its ships being completed in the spans of months rather than years. A trade route was established, with markers being placed to establish a route that would take any Imperial forces away from Tau planets. Given time, the Storm Templars returned to their former glory.

“Brothers, serfs, now is the time we return to the fold of the universe. We shall show our true might, not just to our friend Cinjinn, but to the wider Imperium.” Alrik announced from his pulpit in the staging area. Pressing a button, a hologram appeared in the air for all to see. “This planet is currently under protection from Cinjinn, and being attacked by the Death Guard. We shall through our full might into this. We shall remind them why we are the Emperor’s Storm. Board your transports, make ready for war. For the Emperor! For Mankind!” This battle cry was repeated in unison from over a million voices. Armored feet marched in lockstep to thunderhawks and stormbirds. Fighters took off to dock with their respective ships. Tanks filled into clamps underneath specialized thunderhawk transports. Death comes for the those that claim to be deathless.

Not Today: The Beginning

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Mature??

Pairings: TBA

Warnings: this is going to be rough guys, it’s aliens vs Earth soooo

Word count: 1898

Author’s note: I had a dream about this so it became a thing lolol. Also at the end when I write the other parts I will link them at the bottom of this. I will also put separate links in the master list. If that was confusing, I’m sorry, but you’ll understand later. Enjoy!

The Year 3090 A.D.

Four months ago the war started. A giant metal aircraft parked itself in front of our sun and demanded to speak to our highest official. People freaked, ran for the hills when they showed up. They called themselves Tretords and wanted to know about our history, our world. Four months ago the Hellhounds, a special operations team, were sent on a mission into the atmosphere and the mysterious spacecraft just sitting there. It was like all the movies and books out there, everything that Earth had ever feared was coming true. Their ships were bigger, their guns were bigger, and by God, their monsters were bigger. The so-called peaceful beings were cruel and relentless. The small team was victorious in their trip, learning all they could before coming back to Earth from the peaceful confrontation. The four returned unscathed but worried. The Tretords feared humans. They had seen what war we were capable of, what horrors we had committed. They had seen everything from atomic bombs to guillotines and deemed us unworthy of inhabiting a planet. That’s when the Tretords released the Beasties onto the packed safety cities. Gigantic, wild furry monsters that tore buildings apart with ease. They smashed humans under their massive paws and shook their acid drool over the streets. Three million people died in a week. Who are the evil ones now?

Like most movies, Earth fought back, and like the movies, Earth was losing big time. That’s where the Hellhounds come into play. They have seen the Tretords up close under peaceful terms; they know the weaknesses that other people don’t that’s why they’re here today. To save what can’t be saved.

This is the story of how the human race died, and how Y/N tried her best to save it.

“Jungkook seriously, stop, I want my muffin.” Viviana frowned and held her hand out towards the tall, grinning man. His eyes disappeared into crescents as he laughed, bunny teeth showing as he took a bite of the chocolate treat. The dyed blonde Jimin beside him was doing his best not to laugh at the two as the truck lurches back and forth on the highway. Your stern gaze meets Jungkook’s eyes, and he reluctantly hands the muffin back to Viviana, who excitedly devours it in a few bites. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and her sun-kissed skin is shining today. Your team, the Hellhounds, are on the way to America's army base. Jeon Jungkook and Park Jimin are the best of the best when it comes to the South Korean army, which is why when the war started the elite team was put together. Viviana Encarnacion was one of the few Mexican spies left, and you were trained through a small and hidden Russian organization in the States. Your bulletproof vest scratches against your neck uncomfortably; you let your hand reach up and rest on the strap of the vest, holding it away from your neck. “The city is in bad shape.” You start, the Beasties had been unleashed on New York City a week ago, leaving it in ruins. “We don’t have time to stop to help anyone, we have to get below the city and to the base.” The words drone out of you, practiced, precise, and most importantly without emotion. You’re met with a well known, but comfortable silence. You all know what’s at stake in today’s world.

Once the truck comes to a stop, Viviana pushes the door open, and the sight you’re met with have you cursing under your breath. Smoke billows from buildings and there are still screaming echoing off of the skyscrapers walls. “Ay, mi Dios.” Viviana murmurs, her accent thick and voice cracking with emotion. Your boots hit the ground with a soft thump, and your breath is taken away with the sight of the city. The once majestic skyscraper-filled city is destroyed, rubble and dead bodies litter the streets. “Remember why we’re here,” Jungkook mutters as he climbs out of the truck, shaking you from the moment and helping you remember the reason why you’re standing here. The military needs to understand what they’re up against. The army captain that was driving the truck has made his way to stand beside Jimin, “A nasty sight, but we’re going to win this.” The man smiles. Hopefully, his dyed grey hair swoops over his forehead as he pushes a hand through it. His name tag reads Kim Taehyung, and you make a mental note to thank him for driving later, but now, your focus is getting to the army base. “Viv, with me,” you say to your left and swing the assault rifle off of your shoulders and into your hands, there’s no promise that there are no Tretords left in the city. Viviana is silent as she follows your footsteps while Jimin and Jungkook skirt around the buildings and Taehyung bring up the rear. Your breaths come out in quick gasps as you head towards the empire state building, only to be met with a broken skeleton of a building. That’s what the army wants the Tretords to think, that they’ve broken the humans. They haven’t even made a dent in human pride.

Fluorescent lights flicker above you as you head towards the stairs and into the basement. A large steel door stands ahead, and Viviana rings the buzzer. The camera swivels in its spot above the door, and the little red light flashes green as the door unlocks. Jungkook pulls the door open as Viviana heads into the next hallway. The end of the dark hall opens into a vast space, a giant bunker right under the city that had been here since after World War II when the threat of nuclear war had gotten more prominent. Now here you were, using it to hide from aliens.

Men march in lines across the room and some families laugh in the corners. They are building a lifestyle here. “Ah, if it isn’t the Hellhounds.” A deep voice calls from the security camera office. The General of the Army steps into the brightly lit metallic hall with a dimpled smile. “General Kim, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” You smile and shake his outstretched hand. His full name is Kim Namjoon, and when the world armies merged, the US President named him General of the army. The camo outfit fits him well, belt tight at the waist and boots laced high. “I’m just glad you could make it, it was a war zone up there.” He says, pushing a hand through his hair, “I saw.” You murmur, and he motions for you to follow him. The lieutenant general rushes up to General Kim, panting and out of breath. “They’re ready for the presentation.” He pants. “This is lieutenant Kim.” he says, gesturing towards the dark haired man, “there’s quite a lot of Kims around here.” Viviana snorts beside me, “You can call me, worldwide handsome.” The man smiles, pointing his finger and thumb out, resting his chin in the crook between the two fingers and winks. Viv snorts, covering her mouth with her hand and she rolls her eyes ridiculously. “His full name is Seokjin.” General Kim laughs and Seokjin groans, “You were supposed to play along!” You smile, what’s a little fun at the end of the world?

The conference room is packed with superiors from different sections of the condensed army. The fleet admiral, Min Yoongi, sits with his vice-admiral, Jung Hoseok, at the end of the table with some other navy men. Army men file in, Taehyung and Seokjin take a seat with them, and a couple of air force men twiddle their thumbs impatiently. “Sorry, we’re late.” You say as Jimin sets up the hologram box on the table. The hologram of a Tretord springs up into the air, causing a few people to wince. These things were scary and almost like an octopus. It reminded you of the old War of The Worlds illustrations, all noodly and octopus-like. With a deep breath you begin, “Tretords are small but don’t underestimate them. They may only come up to your waist, but those tentacles are nasty. They are filled with small hooks to help them grasp onto the walls or floor, that’s how they move around.” You take a breath and glance at Viviana before continuing. “Those small hooks on their arms easily cut through skin, making you bleed out in a matter of minutes. Armor helps, so please, wear your armor.” Viviana takes this as her cue to begin. “The Tretords have a small weakness, a chink in their armor so to speak, right in their beak. Like an octopus, their beak is the hardest part of their body, but inside the jaw is the softest. If you can hit the back of their throat, it kills them instantly.” She smiles triumphantly as the hologram opens its mouth, proving her point as a holographic bullet sinks into its throat. You cross your arms and look across the room, all the men and women pay close attention to the presentation, causing pride to swell in your chest. This information will save lives.

Jimin talks next of the Beasties, they have no official name, just the name we gave them. Beasties range in height, but most of them are about two stories tall, covered in fur, and acid drips from their mouth. These things are hard to kill. “Unless you have a well-aimed grenade,” Jimin says, voice shaky with nerves, he’s better at being a silent killer than a spokesperson. “Again, the mouth is your best option, but the legs work just as well.” Jimin takes a sip of water out of the glass before continuing. “If you are stuck with just a gun, aim for the eyes, it goes straight to the brain, and like most beings, once the brain is dead the body dies.” The hologram shuts off, and General Kim flicks the lights back on. Jungkook stands beside you, tall and fearless as the room bursts into sound. Questions fly through the air and Viviana flinches at the loudness of it all. “Quiet!” Jungkook shouts, and the room falls silent, his voice shaking them into quiet. “I will answer your questions one at a time.” That’s when a boy, barely eighteen, pushes his way into the room panicked and eyes wide with fear.

“The Tretords are breaking into our communications.” He pants, and that’s when the room explodes yet again, and the boy looks like he’s either going to wet himself or start crying. “Hey!” you shout, and slowly the room quiets back down. “I will speak to them, just put me through.” The boy nods, and as he turns to leave the room you point at someone, you know who and look him in the eyes. “You. With me.” And just like that, he follows you and the boy. From here on out you’re at war and there’s no way you’re losing. No, not today.

Who did y/n pick to go with her? The choice is up to you.

Namjoon

Seokjin

Yoongi

Hoseok

Jimin

Taehyung 

Jungkook

MAYRA I JUST HAD A HEADCANON have you seen this Spider-Man movie where Gwen was played by Emma Stone? I don't want to spoil you if you haven't but it would be so great for a sonamy moment

The one where she dies? (Watch Scene Clip) Ahh… well, I hope you don’t mind, I have an alternative idea that will still touch on this, but maybe more of a happy and dramatic ending ^^

(x)

Sonic Forces concept writing

Prompt:

Shadow held the spent Amy by her throat, doing as he was told by Infinite. Over a large, carved like an earthquakes crevice drop that would surely be the end of it.

“NOO!!” Sonic powered up, his super form sparking to life as he sped forward, leaving the sides of both Gadget (Custom Chara) and Classic Sonic.

Infinitely lightly chuckled a mock, looking down as he saw the yellow stream blazing through the dark reds emanating from the crevices where his cubes power were already in effect upon the dimensions of the world.

Not only were the dark, murky colors of the dirt and steely, collapsing buildings around them proof enough of Eggman’s horrible rein, but only more so reflecting the world Infinite would create… If not stopped…

Eggman was nothing more than a puppet show! A fraud for Infinite’s real purposes.

A fake napoleon.

Eggman, on his knees, hands out to support him, lowered his head at seeing the scene.

Sure, he wanted to kill Sonic… but not… not like this.

He quickly got up, gripping and struggling to get a Chaos Emerald out of Chaos’s hands.

“You stupid, waterballoon!” He kept struggling, getting tossed back and forth as he did so, before Chaos whacked him away, and he fell back; turning to land on his belly and arms.

He heaved in heavy breaths, before getting up, his face swarmed with guilt. “I didn’t want any of this… I wanted an Eggman empire… not the deaths of my only… GRAH!” he smashed his fist against the ground and got up again. “Sonic may not be able to keep his super form for long without that emerald. And I’ll be DARNED if I let some other fool take over my dream!” he strode back to Chaos, before stopping… and slamming a fist into the side of his face.

“I’ll take down a God… if that means I can take over the world another day. I won’t be erased from all time and space! Dimensions mean nothing to me if I’m dead!”

While that was happening, Infinite shook his head, “You could have been the greatest puppet of all, Sonic… this dimension… their dimensions… All could have been one under my perfect order…” He opened out his arms, looking up to the clouds that pierced a red sunlight.

The cubes… formed around him, before starting to glow as he narrowed his one eye, not shifting off of Sonic’s approaching figure.

                                                 “…Drop her…”

“SHADOW!!!” Sonic’s eyes widened, making it up there before a wall of cubes spiraled towards him, forming a wall and then shifting into a monster, smashing him against itself and then swiping him away with an unearthly cry.

“AH!” Sonic was flung back, already weakened without the other Emeralds.

“Sha…Shadow…” Sonic’s head fidgeted as he raised it, one eye closed and the other half open. He cringed at the pain, his friends already useless in being able to help him… everyone doing what they could… but this was his fight…

Classic stepped forward, realizing…

He may not save the girl.

In a split-moment of panic, Classic raced forward, breaking sound barriers as he curved his step and ran along the side of the crevices.

He wouldn’t let that happen.

No friend was being lost.

Or left behind.

Shadow’s red stripes glowed, the same color as the cubes.

He loosened his grip.

Infinite lowered his head.

Amy started to twitch, waking up…. just barely…

“SHADOW!” Sonic gripped the ground, before yanking his head forward.

                                           “SHE’S MY MARIA!!!”

Shadow’s eyes widened as his hand was fully released from Amy’s throat..

She started to fall, as his eyes shook at that name.

He gripped his head, suddenly in great pain, as he wobbled side to side, gritting his teeth in the intesnity of the pain… the memory…

“What… what is this..?!!?!!? AHHHH!!!” He threw back his arms and cried out in pain, as a cube… slowly was being tugged and pushed out of his chest…

Infinite, realizing his control was loosening, turned back in a sharp movement, his eye scanning for understanding…

How…

How was he freeing himself!?

The painful cry was met with a relief of breath, as Shadow’s shoulders fell forward along with his head, swaying as the cube was taken out of him through sheer will power… and then he turned to the edge.

He jumped to try and catch her, but her hand just barely slipped from his grasp.

Sonic’s power overwhelmed the area, as his yellow glow burst forth as he charged infinite.

Classic arched himself and jumped back, having moved too far passed Amy and grabbed her, trying to race up while having both arms on just one of hers.

Her head fell before she flinched in pain, and looked up, wearily.

Struggling to run backwards on a rocky terrain that kept crumbling under him, and the steepness of the edge’s wall to boot… he was slipping…

In that moment, he lost his grip, and Amy started to fall.

Classic jumped for her, straining to reach her…

There was a crash, a whiplash… as suddenly a flash of light caught the recoiled bounce.

Shadow had watched Sonic fighting Infinite and his many creations with the cubes that were once controlling him, and looked to see Eggman struggling with Chaos, having a cube in him as well, glowing red…

He glared, and bite down as he skated over at light speeds, and literally dashed through chaos, pulling the emerald and cube out of him before flashing away, grabbing Classic under his arm.

Gadget, seeing Chaos grow weak, gripped the shard of the Master Emerald in his hand and raced up, sliding to then jam the shard into Chaos.

Chaos let out a piercing ring, before being absorbed back into it, and Gadget pushing his two hands against the shard, holding him in with force until he could fully be sealed into the reformed Master Emerald.

Shadow held up the Chaos Emerald, using Chaos Control to bring them both to safety, before realizing something…

Super Sonic let out a huge blast, “I’ll never let you take over this dimension… or any other one… this world… is meant to be free! And I’ll keep it that way… forever!” he spread his arms out after charging up, and with Gadget placing the last piece into Knuckles’s Master Emerald… him having held his arms up to complete the transformation…

The true power of Chaos swarmed into Sonic without measure, as the blast was engulfed the area, denigrating the cubes completely, like an atomic bomb, only destroying that which was close by, leaving a crater.

“GAAAHHH!!!” Infinite’s eye was the last to go… (I’m skipping the epic boss battle, as you can see. lol)

Sonic, coming back with his arms resting down at his sides, suddenly bolted up to stop the rift in dimensions, pulling it back together with Classic’s help, who had turned super but… his face…

Sonic hadn’t noticed.

The teams cheered when they saw the giant, glowing rift in the sky suddenly pulled back together, and Sonic gave a weary fist to Classic, waiting for a victory fist bump.

“A well deserved victory, little buddy. Thanks for taking care of Amy for me.”

Classic turned his head.

“…Buddy..?” Sonic tilted his head, trying to see Classic’s face.

Seeing the profound frown,… then his head and eyes dipping down…

He panicked, leaning back and looking down where Shadow and some of his friends were starting to gather…

up against a building, seeming to have been crashed into previously… Amy lay motionless..

Shadow went to check the pulse, as Tails quickly ran ahead of everyone, and looked down by her side.

Super Sonic dipped down, before pulling back, “No…” His hand shook, as his eyes widened in horror.

Shadow removed his hand… looking to Tails, he shook his head and lowered it in respects.

Tails stepped back… before looking to Amy, and then dropping to his knees.

Eggman and Knuckles, holding the newly made Master Emerald, made their way over with Gadget, who’s face scanned the scene, and then frowned while his shoulders bounced in grief.

Sonic slowly drifted down, before moving over to replace Shadow, and touching her face.

His head moved down to her and then back to her face, as if still in denial. “Amy… Amy you gotta hold on.”

Tails turned his head away, not going to say anything against the words.

The team all began to mourn, as Rouge held a hand over her mouth, realizing…

Blaze turned away, her fists shaking, as Silver held a hand over his face and lowered it.

Shadow… turned around….

“Come on, Ames… we won! We won, dang it!” He shouted out, his head fully ducked, as Classic flew down on the opposite side, looking over Amy again, before lowering his ear to her chest.

“Amy… you said… you said you wanted to tell me something…”

Classic looked up, his eyes glossy…

Sonic’s eyes were covered in darkness, but his mouth trembled.

“I… had something to tell you too.”

Eggman lowered one side of the Master Emerald.

“Don’t you even start, Eggman…” Knuckles warned with vicious reality… “Not now.. not ever again.”

“You don’t understand.” Eggman knelt down and then put a hand to the Master Emerald.

“If Chaos can return..”

Shadow shifted himself, “What nonsense are you trying again!?”

“Listen to me! I don’t want her to die as much as you! Summon Chaos!”

“He can only destroy, what good could-”

But Tails, in his tears and anguish, was cut off from scolding Eggman when Chaos did emerged from the Master Emerald, walking out, and heading towards the scene.

In an absolute, regal manner… he made his way over to Amy, and lightly touched Sonic’s shoulder.

Still not speaking, Sonic moved for him, and Classic watched as Chaos knelt down, and slowly began to place his clawed hand to her forehead.

He slowly gestured it down…

A glow of green light started to fly around in little balls..

The balls started to make their way out, and everywhere the bubbles touched, life began, and the city was made new, like ripples in water.

“I.. I don’t understand…” stumbling as he turned around, Silver watched in amazement as the entire war-torn landscape was replaced with a beautiful nature panorama.

“If Chaos can destroy…” Blaze suddenly spoke up, also in awe, as she then gently lowered her eyes to the Sonics and the laying Amy…

“Maybe… he can even destroy destruction itself.”

Eggman sighed in tension, his voice wavering on the breath as he rubbed and squeezed his hands together.

Sonic leaned forward, looking squarely at Amy before closing his eyes and touching his forehead to hers…

The lights continued, as Tikal’s voice suddenly rose the Master Emerald, as it glowed in a beautiful light.

“Even Chaos.. the God of Destruction himself.. can destroy it’s very self and creations… all of them… including death.”

The bubbles suddenly rushed into Amy, all at once, as Chaos stood up, and moved back.

The world was beautiful, fixed, giving new life…

And that’s when Sonic waited the longest he’d ever held still in his life…

Under his forehead… he felt a shift and a rush of a air, as Amy sucked in a fresh breath of life.

Fin~

Roll credits!

Lol nah, I’m playing~

The shift sent everyone’s eyes to Amy, smiles returning, as anxious bodies gathered and started to excitedly move and jitter around her.

She slowly moved her head, before blinking her beautiful, weakened eyes open.

“…Sonic..?”

Classic smiled, before she shifted her gaze to Sonic, still glowing…

Her vision was blurry, as she squinted, and then started to cry.

“You were right.” she admitted, pulling an arm over her eyes as she leaned her head back against the side of the building’s wall.

“I couldn’t save everyone.”

She started to softly cry before Sonic moved her arm.

“No, Amy… I was wrong.”

She blinked, seeming to maybe be aware she had died, but no one was sure…

“We couldn’t have stopped him… not fully… if I didn’t lose you.” His voice cracked in a lost moment of pain, his eyes glossed before he pulled himself down and tightly embraced her.

“I will never let you suffer for my mistakes again… I promise.”

He looked up then, “All of you!” He scanned his friends, as Gadget breathed a heavy breath.

“I won’t let his happen again, not now-” He picked Amy up, holding her close as he seriously spoke with intensity and sincerity in his eyes. 

“Not ever.”

Tails was the first to break out in joy.

Then the rest starting cheering.

Classic sighed in relief, before getting up and floating over to Amy, looking down at her happily and then hugging her forehead before ‘thumbs up’ing Sonic, and then taking off into the small piece of light that was still rifted through the skies.

He waved to his friends, and then happily curled up to spin into it; having it close behind him, once he was fully within.

Sonic looked up, before back down in all the cheering to Amy, and happily held her close to his face, smiling.

She put her cheek up to the side of his face and smiled too, before looking over his shoulder.

He thought that odd and followed the action, looking to her… and then Shadow.

Shadow… was departing.

He looked down at a burnt cube… somehow having survived… and glared.

He crushed it under his foot, before walking on as the ash took it’s place.

Amy and Sonic watched in silence through the cheering, before Amy turned to Sonic, still watching.

“Would you have become like him..?”

He relaxed his eyes, giving it some thought.

“Yes.” he lightly spoke, and turned back to her. “If I really did lose you.. I would have done everything in my power… just like he did…”

She stared into his eyes, seeing no joking or mocking of any kind.

“Sonic..” her voice almost broke through the love emoted in speaking his name, shaking her head but never losing sight of him.

They touched foreheads again, before Eggman cleared his throat, and Sonic’s eyes flashed open, before slowly rolling them to Eggman, glaring so intensely he actually stepped back a moment.

He rubbed his hands together, smiling sheepishly.

“So… hehe, now that the world’s all good again and what not from Chaos’s magical ‘cancellation’ powers,… ehem. Think we could put our differences behind us?” He held out his hand, a truce?

Sonic stared at the hand, then back up to him.

He nervously started sweating, “Eh-heh… Oh, come on, Sonic! You and your little friends saved the universe! Dimensions are praising your name right now and what? You’re too cool to let me admit I’m being man enough to let bygones be bygones? A-Amy.. You tell him. You’re with me right? Forgiven and all that jazz?” The second he motioned his case to Amy, Sonic’s glare intensified and her head ducked down to hide a bit as he suddenly rose up in the air, and dropped kicked him.

Freaking out, Eggman shrieked a moment and ran off, zig-zagging like a idiot before shaking his fist.

“I’ll win next time, Sonic! You’ll see! and this time, the only casualty will be your death! Hehe!… instead of my pri-i-i-ideeee!!!” he whined, racing off.

Sonic huffed through his nose, “And good riddance. We’ll see about that, Egghead!”

Amy giggled, before Sonic turned back with a pleasant smile, closing his eyes for a moment before walking back to the gang.

*As camera is moving away*

“Um…Sonic? Not that I mind or anything but… y-you can let me go now.”

“Not a chance.”

“O-Oh?” Amy, in statement, blushed at how he said it.

“I’m never letting you slip out of my arms again. Sorry, Amy. But you’ll just have to kick back here for a while.”

Amy smiled, lowering her eyelids, completely swooning, but also perhaps, understanding why he was saying this.

“I don’t mind in the slightest… Sonic… My hero~” she lowered her head to his shoulder, as he looked down a moment in fondness before speaking to everyone, some wanting to really check on Amy and make sure she was actually still alive and alright.

The world… was never the same again.

(it’s a concept in some of the ideas for story. I highly doubt it will happen, but I manipulated the idea to one of the many concepts I’ve had for the game :) hope you enjoy! Stole some of Eggman’s actions from Hades too at the end there, lol! From Disney’s Hercules xP)

Action set piece in Grey

Modified second draft

After Olenos and Savior return to the city from the slave camp:

Emily (Light Girl) and Ares (Ghost Child) are accosted at their home. Two armed guards have come to the home that Emily, Olenos, and Ares have lived in for a number of years. One of the guards knocks aggressively on the door, then kicks it open easily after realizing it barely holds together even when it isn't being banged on. He steps into the doorway and says authoritatively, "You're being arrested for harboring a fugitive. Both of you." Emily responds indignantly, but not surprised at all that the guards will just barge in, "What?" She refers to Olenos, not bothering to conceal that they know each other. "He hasn't been back here." The guard smirks slightly, wickedly, "So you admit he has been here." Emily is getting annoyed, "I mean, everyone knows that. He wasn't a fugitive then." The guard finishes his charade and goes for the kill, "Knowing him is enough for an interrogation." Emily stiffens, "Wait. I know what that means. You fucking people--" She directs her voice at Ares but doesn't look at him, "It's time kid." 

Ares stiffens in sudden shock and his ghost wolf companion jumps out from within his body, where it normally resides, of its own volition in response to Ares's sudden fear. The wolf lands with some force in a vicious, insanely threatening posture. Emily push kicks the first guard and knocks him back. The wolf leaps at him psychotically and latches onto his throat while he's stumbling, then rips his esophagus out while he's on the ground in the doorway. The other guard, who was knocked off balance by the first's collision with him, strikes at the spectral wolf with a mixture of fear and xenophobia. Ares pulls the dog back into himself as he sees the guard’s axe falling, desperate to protect his friend, and lashes out using the ghost wolf's claw from a distance in despair. He is unable to see the guard, but enlarges the claw to fill the space he can see. By this point Emily has grabbed her spear and launches it into the guard's throat, to kill him while he's avoiding Ares's claw attack and distracted, then quickly retrieves it using her arm's energy tether to the spear. Ares says quietly while shaking, after taking in what just happened, "Ohh… Shit." Emily is taking stock of the situation, "We're supposed to wait until he gets back if this happens, but we're a target now." Ares is quickly losing hope, "What do we do? We can't just run down the street." Emily begins to plot coldly, "I-- Someone saw this probably, and if not the other guards will know when these ones don't come back. But, we need to act as if the whole city already knows. We'll have an advantage if we're taking it as open conflict before others. We kill our way out of the city." The wolf has been pulling the bodies into the house. Ares is in shock, "Jesus… Jesus…" Emily admonishes him, "Didn't we prepare you for this?" Ares justifies himself confidently, "Yeah, but it's actually happening." He pleads with Emily in a tone communicating how insane her plan is to him, now that the worst possible version of it is about to be executed after all these years, "Can't we TRY to sneak out? Holy fucking shit." Emily hesitates anxiously, then registers what this is like for Ares and concedes, "Fine. We'll act innocent, but we start killing as soon as a guard pays attention to us." She comments in frustration, "Goddammit… I'd rather get ahead of this." They begin to leave, but Ares notices a basket on the table, grabs it, and shoves it into Emily's stomach. He tells her the cover story that just occurred to him, terrified and desperate to avoid seeing more death, "We're buying groceries." Emily looks at him with compassion she can't help, then sighs. 

They leave the building and someone nearby screams, "They're coming out!" Ares realizes there's no hope now and starts to cry. A small mob of people have surrounded the exit of their house, with more coming. Emily commands them threateningly, filled with hatred, "You will move aside so we can leave." A man at the front of crowd yells spitefully, "Fuck you!" Ares's wolf acts on its own again and charges towards the man, completely unwilling to tolerate his tone. Emily follows immediately behind the charging animal, and Ares instantly overcomes his emotions out of a desire to protect his dog, chasing after them. The man who yelled stumbles back in fear of the dog specifically targeting him, and the rest of the people on that side band closer together to block the pariahs in. The man is unable to back up further. The wolf tries to stop and threaten the man, but Ares picks him up while Emily does a leaping thrust and stabs the man through the face. She blasts away the rest of his head with her arm power and rips her spear out of the gore to the side, slashing the first person across the face and making the two people nearest to him jerk their heads back to avoid the blade. She pulls back into a combat stance, while Ares has set his wolf back down, realizing he got in his protector's way and has to follow his lead. The crowd begins to collapse inward on them. Gameplay begins and you have to fight your way out of the crowd. When their numbers start to dwindle they begin to disperse, but guards begin to enter the fray. The people gain motivation by taking the guard's assistance as evidence that they're clearly in the right, and reform their human barrier. 

Cutscene: Emily has her arm cut off by a guard and screams in rage. Ares heals her quickly but her spear is grabbed by a civilian while she is reacting to the dismemberment. The wolf gets cut in half and Ares pulls his body back into himself too late, crying out in despair. Just then, there's a distant eldritch sound, followed by half the crowd being blown away in a cacophony of tortured screams and lightning. Savior screams out in disbelief and rage, the memory of seeing Olenos do this to civilians before in an alternate history, flooding his mind and breaking something within him, "You cannot FUCKING do that!" Olenos looks at him with an overpowering annoyance that Savior partially wilts from. He explains, growling from pain, "If they're grouped up like that," he glances at the crowd in hatred, "they're about to--" He stops speaking suddenly, distracted. He's noticed that two people have come out from the space he cleared in the crowd, and are running towards him and Savior as if they're still fighting for their lives. He absentmindedly heals his torn and mutilated arm out of routine, still consumed with pain but distracted from it by his curiosity. Emily is sprinting towards the two of them pulling along Ares, looking back at the crowd and focused on retrieving her spear out of the air as it's pulled by her arm tether. She catches it and faces forward, holding it angled horizontally behind her so it's ready to be used but out of the way. She didn't expect to see Olenos so soon but doesn't react, ignoring her emotions to focus on tactics. She commands Olenos as she runs towards him and Savior, yelling across the distance between them. "Go! Keep our path clear." Olenos immediately bolts. She directs her voice at Savior, who she doesn't know but seems to be Olenos’s friend, "You too." He hesitates to register what's happening. She roars deafeningly, "NOW!" He starts running as he's turning around, following Olenos. Olenos and Savior engage enemies ahead of the group, while Emily and Ares ensure their defeat as they pass by. The two groups switch places doing this repeatedly. When she can see the gate, Emily orders Olenos and Savior to kill their pursuers from a distance, having noticed that Savior fights from range. Her and Ares take cover between the buildings on the sides of the road, while Olenos and Savior mow down the crowd that's been chasing them. Olenos yells out after he and Savior have destroyed every atom behind them going on 20 seconds straight, ready to pass out from the pain surges required to fire off his arm, as Savior rewinds time to put bullets back into his machine gun since he can't remember how to reload it, "That's good enough!" 

The four of them run together towards the gate while Savior finishes retrieving his ammunition from the carnage they left behind, and they have a large battle with the guard battalion there. When enough of them are dead, Savior yells out that it's time to leave. Ares does a powerful group heal in response, and the four of them escape towards the forest. Savior marks a smoke bomb, so he can rewind time for the object back to when it hasn't been used yet, and smashes it into the ground, then marks and drops mines during the confusion caused by the bomb. The others are leaving without him, and Olenos waits anxiously for him to catch up. Savior marks Olenos when he gets to him, as a point to fast forward himself in time to later on, and tells Olenos to go on without him. Savior begins to work at creating a "no man's land", focused on placing traps he already knows how to use from his military basic training, to make the area impassable and persuade the guards to give up the chase. He fast forwards himself to Olenos's position after surviving an ambush from a small squad of archers who have meticulously found a clear shot at him, then rewinds his traps into his possession after a few days have passed traveling at the group's exhausting pace, set by both Emily and Olenos. The group then convenes to mentally recover and plan their next move.

 (I literally cannot get these stupid dots to go away.)

The sun will probably knock out the grid someday

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/the-sun-will-probably-knock-out-the-grid-someday/

The sun will probably knock out the grid someday

Shortly after sunset on June 18, 2013, a woman drove her minivan onto Brighton Street in Belmont, Massachusetts. Her GPS told her to turn right. But the metallic voice, guided by satellite data, steered her wrong: onto a railroad track. She tried to drive off, but the van got stuck. No sooner had she ­unbuckled herself and her two kids and ushered them out than a train crumpled her car into a ball of foil. Not long after, someone sent a news story about the incident to space physicist Tamitha Skov. She didn’t just see a GPS acting up. She saw the sun acting up. While our star looks calm and contained, its ­surface roils: Spots form and darken it like scabs; loops of plasma link its regions; its atmosphere streams farther outward than the star is wide. Solar flares, which are bursts of radiation, and coronal mass ejections, which are bombs of stellar material, disturb both Earth’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere. There, they disrupt devices—like GPS ­receivers—that rely on electricity or radio communication. This interplay between the sun and Earth is called space weather, and it is Skov’s specialty.

At the time, Skov had just begun a Web ­video series that gave space-weather ­forecasts, much like the predictions Al Roker makes on TV for clouds and sunshine. In it, she explained how our nearest star affects Earth. She had a modest but engaged following. Motorists were already starting to tip her off whenever their SiriusXM service cut out, airline and small-craft pilots would tell her when navigation went awry, and taxi drivers would describe routing errors.

A number of these accounts involved drivers rolling, at the behest of their GPS, onto train tracks, or other not-roads, especially near dawn and dusk. At first, Skov blew off these anecdotes.

When the reports kept coming, she ­consulted an atmospheric expert at the ­Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded R&D center where Skov works as a research scientist. “What’s up with this?” Skov asked her colleague. “Is it something?” Yes, the woman replied, the atmosphere is always unstable at sunset and sunrise. Add solar flares to that? “It could definitely make a difference,” the expert said. Skov checked the website of the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory to see if there had, in fact, been a solar flare around the time of the ­woman’s fateful drive. And there it was: a C-class ­outburst, medium strength.

No single small solar event—like this C-class flare—can yet be definitively linked to a specific problem, like a GPS device in a minivan leading its driver onto railroad tracks. Skov nonetheless calls incidents like this one smoking guns, even if scientists can’t conclusively prove the cause. She strives to make people aware that this kind of thing can happen. “I was trying to impress upon people that GPS is extremely susceptible,” she says of the van accident, “and just blindly trusting it is nuts.”

Space weather’s effects can be small or significant. The C-class solar flare was hardly noticeable, even if it did total the woman’s car. But there is also plenty of evidence that humans need to watch out for the sun—­big-time. So Skov dedicated herself to explaining the increasing terrestrial problems that will come from the star that lets us live on Earth in the first place. She became the Space Weather Woman, connecting her viewers to the cosmos and bringing all levels of space weather to all kinds of people.

The last time the sun really made people go uh-oh was on March 10, 1989. Astronomers watched as the star set loose a billion tons of gas at a million miles an hour—a coronal mass ejection—and blasted a solar flare along with it. The radiation, traveling at light-speed, struck Earth eight and a half minutes later. As it collided with the upper atmosphere, it charged up molecules, blocking radio ­communications at Earth’s upper latitudes, including from Europe into Russia, which at the time, listeners took as Cold War interference. The radio-frequency problems mostly affected ground-to-air and ship-to-shore communications, as well as shortwave-radio and amateur radio users.

The real problems came two days later, when a slower-moving swarm of magnetically charged material arrived. It pummeled Earth’s magnetic shield, which protects the globe from everyday radiation. Charged particles whizzed down magnetic-field lines and smashed into atoms in the air, ­producing Northern Lights. Usually those stay, you know, up north. But this time, the show played as far south as Texas. Satellites lost their bearings and tottered as particles bombarded their electronics. The storm stripped the GOES-7 weather satellite of half its solar cells, ­shortening its lifetime by 50 percent.

Earth’s shivering magnetic field also ­created ground currents. Coursing along, they encountered a flaw in Quebec’s power grid. It was easier for the current to flow through the power lines than across the rocky ground, and the extra load caused circuit breakers to trip. Around 3 a.m. on March 13, the whole province went dark.

It’s Quebec: It was cold—5 degrees ­Fahrenheit in some places. There was no heat. Schools and companies closed; public transit and the airport went still. The outage affected 6 million people for up to nine hours.

Today, modern society relies on exactly the devices that such a storm disrupts. A 2017 study in the American Geophysical Union’s Space Weather journal estimated the effect if a solar storm as great as the largest on record—an 1859 shakeup called the Carrington Event—were to strike again. It would cost the United States $42 billion per day. The repercussions could last years, perhaps decades. The power grid could fail. You wouldn’t be able to get money out of a bank. Businesses couldn’t operate. Water pumps wouldn’t work; phones either. Food would go bad. Governments would have a hard time governing. “We have created an incredible vulnerability, unlike any other,” says Bill Murtagh, program coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center, the celestial arm of the National ­Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

Solar disturbances were largely the ­concern of academics until 1994, when the federal government created the National Space Weather Program to support research into the storms. In 1996, scientists held the first space-weather workshop in Boulder. Since 2007, they have been meeting annually to discuss the latest research. Their reports, as well as ones from private industry, eventually alarmed the Obama White House, which in 2014 established a task force to devise a defensive strategy, coordinate government agencies and the private sector, and increase the quality of space-weather predictions.

There is a greater than 10 percent chance that a Carrington-scale event will ­happen within the next decade, according to a ­paper by Pete Riley of Predictive Science, a space-weather research company. That might sound like a small number, but it’s higher than the chance of a major ­earthquake hitting California.

Scientists like Murtagh and Skov follow the sun’s activity daily, so they see how it fiddles with tech in ways most of us fail to register. It is precisely because of that familiarity that they understand how serious even ­another Quebec-size event would be. Skov wants regular citizens to gain the same perspective. That’s why, under the alter ego of the Space Weather Woman, she details for them the ups and downs of the sun’s violent outbursts.

Skov has outfitted a DIY recording studio in her home in the San Fernando ­Valley, just far enough north of Los ­Angeles that you begin to think that maybe you’re somewhere else. At the end of a road steep enough to require using a parking brake, she’s a little closer to the sky than her neighbors. This fall morning, she’s been working on a new video about why people should care about how the sun’s behavior affects humans.

Skov stands in front of a big monitor paused on a frame showing Twitter statistics. We live, she says, in a brave new(ish) world. A solo space physicist can start her own branch of meteorology from a room right off her driveway. And she can also gather information—about aurorae, radio-communication problems, and GPS errors—from a global community.

She moves away from the monitor and ­toward her camera. A green screen hangs from the wall to her right. The room shines with synthetic illumination: A ring light—like a luminous Life Savers candy—encircles the camera; across the room, a warmer bulb beams against a drugstore umbrella spray-painted silver.

“GPS is extremely suscepible, and just blindly trusting it is nuts.”

Tamitha Skov

The studio dates to her grad-school days, when Skov studied space physics at UCLA, was part of a pop alternative rock band, and ran a production company recording other musicians. After she graduated, she kept the studio going as she started work at the Aerospace Corporation, which gives guidance to the military, space agencies, and the private sector on research and development and technology transfer. There, Skov studied space weather’s interactions with satellites. “I was beginning to get this big picture,” she says. “This isn’t ‘space weather’ as a cool term. This is space weather.” Outside her professional life, she pivoted from audio to video production.

All of it spun together in 2012, as she grew concerned about the sun’s threats. She took to Twitter, where people had questions—lots of them. And Skov had answers, sans jargon. “You put three words that are from the space-science field on Twitter, and you already walked all over your character limit,” she says. Soon, she began producing short videos and putting them on YouTube. Then came the nickname and her likeness superimposed on the sun: the Space Weather Woman. The style reads as intense: close-cropped shots of the sun’s flares that make the viewer feel less like it’s a mysterious object 93 million miles away and more like it’s right there with her—and so with them.

Initially, Skov kept her two identities ­separate. She used her married name in her forecasts and her maiden name on scientific papers. She thought the slimmed-down ­science might slam into the research community at the wrong angle. But peers found her anyway after a space physicist discovered her videos and sent them to a researcher listserv. Some scientists pointed out small inaccuracies. Others simply didn’t like her “loosey-goosey” language, which didn’t use their jargon, with its specific but impenetrable meanings. She took the legit criticism—it kept her honest, she says—and left the rest. “I think I’d rather be pelted with olives from scientists than pelted with olives from the public,” she says. Now, researchers too watch her forecasts, along with 27,000 Twitter followers and 11,000 YouTube subscribers. “There is really nothing like it around,” says Christian Moestl, a space-­weather scientist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. “Her YouTube videos and Twitter feed are watched by both researchers and ­interested public to see what’s going on.”

Skov’s biggest fans are in the amateur-­radio community: people with handsets and ham licenses. Radio operators see space weather scrape across Earth in real time when their broadcasts get blocked or enhanced. Amateur radio operator Tom Crow first found her forecasts on a program called Ham Nation.

“Dr. Skov has a knack for explaining terms in detail without the feeling that it’s been dumbed down.”

Then there are the aurora tourists. Skov’s forecasts tell them where to go when. But that charge flows in both directions: Field reporters also tell Skov where the aurora is showing up. “People started informing each other, and the community began to build,” she says.

Skov believes that understanding how life on Earth is looped inextricably with our star can help people grok the import of the really, really big one. She draws a comparison to more-familiar weather forecasting. Humans grow up hearing about meteorological phenomena great and small. But that doesn’t happen with space weather. “It’s like trying to tell someone who’s never seen rain how dangerous a hurricane is,” she says.

Once people understand, they can ­prepare for extreme space weather as they do for any natural disaster: Have ­water supplies, extra gasoline, and nonperishable food, and make a plan for meeting up even if you can’t communicate. And have some board games, because this might take a while.

As the Space Weather Woman, Skov is at the vanguard of interpreting data from NASA satellites and observatories for regular folks. But when big entities like satellite operators, energy companies, and airlines need to know how the sun’s shine will affect them, they turn to the Space Weather Prediction Center, whose scientists scrutinize the data, looking for activity strong enough to cause friction with earthly objects.

Any time that happens, they send out alerts—categorized from one to five, with five being the highest—to utilities, satellite companies, and others. Toward the end of 2017 they did that around 100 times a month. With a warning, technicians can reroute electricity, reschedule communication, and delay satellite operations.

When the sun carries on in a big way, a subset of the scientists relocates to the High-Activity Room, a sealed-off spot where they talk with major players. There, the ­Federal Emergency Management ­Agency has its own internet-enabled video-­conferencing monitor, labeled like ­leftovers in an office refrigerator. FEMA needs to know what’s coming so it can prepare for the disruption a major power outage would cause, and to coordinate with operatives before a communications blackout occurs.“Communication is life or death,” Murtagh says.

In September, rescue workers got a taste of what it is like when the sun and Earth both create hurricanes. Just as Irma battered land, the sun sent out a series of flares and coronal mass ejections. High-frequency radio ­comms ceased in the storm-battered Caribbean. Hurricane Watch Net, made up of amateur radio operators, reported disruptions.

While this confluence didn’t add to the destruction, it could next time, especially as earthly storms come with more frequency and force, and are thus more likely to line up with a starburst. Just like with a Category 5 hurricane, there’d be no getting around a major solar event. All we could do is see it coming, get a sense of how bad and big it would be, and prepare to hunker down for a while.

Soon the Space Weather Prediction Center will gather the data to make more-precise predictions, with the launch this year of observatories like NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which will fly closer to the sun than anything so far, and two additions to the sun-and-Earth-watching GOES satellite series in 2018 and 2020. Its scientists have also created a model that will make local space-weather reports possible. “The AccuWeathers of the world can take the information and make a tailored product,” Murtagh says.

Those space AccuWeathers are only in their infancy, but Skov can’t wait for them—and for the broadcasters and predictors and translators who will bring our star down to Earth for people. She’s working with the American Meteorological Society to create a space-weather-broadcast certification. She might be her discipline’s version of Al Roker, but even Al Roker needs local forecasters, standing in front of their own green screens, giving that quotidian space-weather report to a curious audience. “You say, ‘Imagine 10 to 100 times worse than this,’” she says. “And they go, ‘My god.’ It hits them. And they go: ‘I get it. I really get it.’”

Contributing editor Sarah Scoles is the author of Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

This article was originally published in the January/February 2018 Power issue of Popular Science.

Written By Sarah Scoles

Expert: The last two weeks of October 1962, 55 years ago, was the closest the world has come so far to a widespread nuclear exchange in what has become known as the “Cuban Missile Crisis.”  The First Use of Nuclear Weapons In August 1945, the United States government, having, at that moment, a monopoly on the “atom bomb,” unilaterally dropped nuclear explosives, successively, on the civilian inhabitants of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time of this clear war crime, Japanese imperialism’s conquests and vast expansion in China, the Pacific Rim, and Southeast Asia, that began in the 1930s, had shrunk sharply. The Japanese rulers were utterly alone and isolated politically; their German Nazi ally was defeated, smashed, and under occupation. Japanese imperialism was in headlong retreat under intense attack from, on the one hand, rival colonial powers and imperialists fighting to get their colonial territories back, and indigenous independence forces in the remaining lands they occupied on the other. The latter was a mass upsurge for national independence and included resistance to Japanese aggression in parts of Manchuria in China, as well as Korea, Vietnam, and the “Dutch East Indies,” now Indonesia. At the time the decision to explode the nukes on Japanese cities was made, the Japanese navy was incapable of any operations and the Japanese merchant fleet was destroyed. The Japanese government had begun to send out “peace feelers,” fully aware of its hopeless situation. Washington’s utterly ruthless action – rationalized as necessary to prevent mass casualties for US soldiers in a ground invasion of Japan – finalized the defeat and prostration of the Japanese Empire in the Asian-Pacific “theater” of World War II…and sent an unmistakable shock and signal to the world for all time. Cuba In the Eye of the Storm The young leaders of the Cuban Revolution, now holding governmental power, were in the very eye of the storm during those last two October weeks of 1962. In the end the diffusing and resolution of the Missile Crisis – in the sense of reversing and ending the momentum toward imminent nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union – came when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave way to US President John Kennedy’s demands and agreed to halt further naval shipments of nuclear missiles to Cuba and withdraw those already in Cuban territory. Khrushchev further agreed to the removal of Soviet medium-range conventional bombers, very useful to the Cubans for defending their coastlines, and a near-complete withdrawal of Soviet combat brigades. For his part, Kennedy made a semi-public conditional formulation that the US government would not invade Cuba (this was not legally binding or attached to any signed legal or written document). Kennedy also agreed, in a secret protocol, to withdraw US nuclear missiles from Turkey that bordered the Soviet Union. The Cuban government, which had, at great political risk, acceded to the Soviet proposal to deploy Soviet nuclear missiles on the island, was not consulted, or even informed, by the Soviet government, at any stage of the unfolding crisis, of the unfolding US-Soviet negotiations. With Cuban representatives completely excluded, the five points Cuba wanted to see addressed and included in any overall agreement coming out of the crisis were ignored altogether under US insistence and Soviet acquiescence. The entire experience was both politically shocking and eye-opening for the Cuban revolutionaries. They came out of it acutely conscious of their vulnerability and angered over their exclusion.1 Washington Plans Direct Invasion By April 20, 1961, the revolutionary Cuban armed forces, led by Fidel Castro, was victoriously mopping up on the coastal battlefields and detaining survivors from the routed counter-revolutionary Cuban exile “army.” An army was organized by the US government and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron to the Cubans). This major operation to overthrow the “Castro” government and destroy the Cuban Revolution had been devised by the Dwight Eisenhower White House and carried out by the new Kennedy Administration in its third month after taking office. At the time of their April 1961 victory at the Bay of Pigs over the counter-revolutionary exiles, Fidel Castro declared that the Cuban Revolution was a socialist revolution and that he was a “Marxist-Leninist.” Castro’s declaration corresponded to the social and economic deeds and policies being implemented by the revolutionary government (and to the profound internationalism of the Cuban leadership team). By 1962 the major domestic and foreign privately-owned major means of production in utilities, transportation, heavy and light industry, manufacturing, mining, and oil refining had been nationalized (mostly with fair compensation) by the workers and farmers government.2 Concurrent with this, the revolutionary government established a state monopoly of foreign trade and the first shoots of central economic planning began which would supersede the old neo-colonial capitalist market. With all its flaws and contradictions, pressures and counter-pressures, a qualitative class transformation of the Cuban state had been realized in a dynamic way. Certainly, bipartisan Washington and the entire bourgeois political spectrum in the US from left to right had no illusions in this regard. The hostility of the US Democratic and Republican parties to “Castro’s Revolution” was monolithic and poised for aggression at that time. Playa Giron was as humiliating and unacceptable for Washington as it had built confidence and was invigorating for the Cuban revolutionaries. It was certainly no secret to anyone paying the slightest attention that not even a nanosecond passed between Washington’s debacle at the Bay of Pigs and the planning for a new invasion. But this time it would be directly by US forces without the proxy agency of the mercenary “troops” of the former ruling classes of Cuba, who were by then ensconced in southern Florida. Since October 1961 the Pentagon officers assigned to prepare for the US invasion of Cuba had been revising, updating, and “polishing” the concrete details. These “operational plans” were continually reviewed with President Kennedy. Cuba faced an imminent, violent one-two punch: intensive aerial bombardment followed by large-scale invasion on multiple fronts. It was less than ten years since the last major US war in Korea, a former Japanese colony artificially divided in the aftermath of World War II. The impact of US bombing on the northern Korean state and its capital of Pyongyang, could not have been encouraging to the Cuban leadership. Virtually the entire city was flattened by US carpet bombings. According to the Australian journalist and eyewitness to the carnage Wilfred Burchett, “There were only two buildings left standing in Pyongyang.” Pyongyang, Korea in 1953. US saturation bombing flattened 18 of North Korea’s 22 cities, an unequaled level of destruction in modern wars. All in all Washington dropped some 635,000 tons of bombs (plus over 30,000 tons of napalm) on northern Korea. This compares to 503,000 tons of bombs dropped in the entire Pacific Theater during World War II by all sides. While the numbers of civilian deaths from the US bombing assaults in Korea are inexact, well over 1 million Koreans in the north died, some 12-15% of the total population by conservative estimates. If you add injuries and missing the figure reaches 3 million. (For a comprehensive, classic account of the origins and development of the Korean War see The Hidden History of the Korean War by legendary US journalist I.F. Stone first published by Monthly Review Press in 1952. It can also be downloaded at the Amazon Kindle Store.) The 2017 Kennedy Assassination Files At the end of October 2017, amid some hoopla, the Donald Trump White House allowed the release of nearly 2900 previously “classified” US government files and documents pertinent to the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy. Other files and documents were held back for now. A number of these documents reference US violent plots against Cuba, including assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders by the Kennedy Administration. These reconfirm what has long been known on the massive military force Washington was planning to employ to invade and occupy Cuba and crush the revolutionary government after the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. One document, a memo from August 8, 1962 – over two months before the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuban territory – states, “In order to seize control of key strategic areas in Cuba within 10-15 days with minimum casualties to both sides [an absurd throwaway line regarding what could only have been horrific slaughter and massive dead and wounded] about 261,000 US military personnel would participate in the operation.” The memo was addressed to a “Special Group” within the Kennedy White House that was coordinating intensifying US efforts to eliminate the revolutionary government led by Fidel Castro. The October 30, 2017 USA Today writes: While this and other documents had nothing to do with the actual assassination, it was included in the files because of the connection between Kennedy’s desire to remove Castro from power, his support of Cuban exiles to help him, and the affinity of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald for the Castro government. The “operational plans” for the US invasion of Cuba were to involve the initial dispatching of 90,000 troops and was projected to reach the 261,000 figure. This for a country of six million people. (For comparison, the population of Vietnam was around 40 million during the years of the US war in the 1960s and early 1970s. US troop levels reached over 500,000. Massive US military operations, in the air and on the ground, killed millions of Vietnamese, perhaps 10% of the Vietnamese population). There is no question that once “the dogs of war” were unleashed against Cuba, with the accompanying propaganda onslaught, Washington would wage a war of annihilation under the rote cover of “democratic” and even “humanitarian” verbiage. Cuban resistance would be fierce. Mounting US casualties would, in the initial period, feed war fever and US aggression. In short: Cuba faced unheard of death and destruction…and the clock was ticking. Operation Mongoose By this time President Kennedy’s “Operation Mongoose” was in effect. “Mongoose” was essentially a large-scale terrorist campaign and US intervention inside Cuba employing sabotage, bombings, murder, and so-called “psychological warfare.” Kennedy’s cynical purpose was to undertake and carry out any means deemed necessary to disrupt and demoralize Cuban society through constant, incessant violent attacks and economic sabotage to the point where the social and political conditions would be created for a full-scale US invasion. But Kennedy and his civilian and military “advisors” continued to underestimate both the caliber of the revolutionary leadership and the capacities of the Cuban working people and youth they were terrorizing, as well as the Revolution’s determination and competence to organize their defenses. Above all, the US rulers were not used to facing such a politically savvy enemy. The young Cuban revolutionary government, with the indefatigable Fidel Castro as its main spokesperson, was adept and quick on its feet in effectively exposing to world public opinion Washington’s anti-Cuba campaign through a vigorous, public, and factually accurate counter-offensive based on telling the truth about what the Revolution was actually doing and what the US government was actually doing. The logic behind “Operation Mongoose” was bluntly laid out in an internal memorandum of April 6, 1960 by L.D. Mallory, a US State Department senior official: The majority of Cubans support Castro … the only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. Mallory proposed “a line of action that makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government.” On July 26, 1961 – the national holiday declared by the revolutionary government commemorating the July 26, 1953 attack led by Fidel Castro and Abel Santamaria on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba – the CIA attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara during the celebrations. The CIA plan was, if the murders were “successful,” to stage a provocation against the US base at Guantanamo and make it appear to be Cuban revenge for the murder of their top leaders. This would then be the pretext for a full-scale US invasion. Here on full display is the cynical mendacity operating at the top of the US government in the drive to bring back the power of the landowners, rich playboys, segregationists, gangsters, and pimps – the full flower of “democracy” to the benighted Cuban masses suffering under literacy drives, free medical care, desegregated public facilities, and the crushing of the US Mafia. Raul Castro and Che Guevara During the next month of August 1961, the CIA organized one of its most pernicious campaigns against the revolutionary government. Its agents spread lies through a built-up rumor bill that there was a Cuban government policy to take all children away from their parents by force and raise them in “state institutions.” Some 15,000 Cuban families, overwhelmingly from middle- and upper classes full of prejudice and hostility to the Revolution, panicked and sent their children mostly to the US in response to a Big Lie, under the CIA’s infamous “Operation Peter Pan.” CIA-hatched “Operation Peter Pan.” The Revolution Advances Its Social Program So, while all this criminal activity was going on, the Cuban Revolution advanced its program of social justice and human liberation for the oppressed and exploited majority as the most effective counter-force to the Yanqui aggression. On February 26, 1962 Cuba’s now fully legal and rejuvenated labor unions provided the people power for the campaign of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Health to carry out a nationwide drive for vaccination against polio. By the end of the year the disease was completely wiped out on the island. It took the United Nation’s World Health Organization, then far more subject to pressure from Washington than now, 43 years to finally recognize that Cuba was the first nation in the Americas to accomplish this. Things like this, and the full array of revolutionary advances taking place in the face of Washington’s mounting terrorist campaign, convinced General Maxwell Taylor, who oversaw Operation Mongoose with Attorney General Robert Kennedy at the White House, that the terrorist operation “mak[ing] maximum use of indigenous resources,” could not and would not do the job of overthrowing the revolutionary government. “Final success,” Taylor explained in a March 1962 report to President Kennedy, “will require decisive US military intervention.” US spies inside Cuba, at most, could help “prepare and justify this intervention and thereafter facilitate and support it.” With the Bay of Pigs debacle still fresh in his mind, and without some of the blinders of more gung-ho invasion advocates, Kennedy hesitated to give a green light to the invasion plans he himself had ordered up. It remained yellow-lighted, however, and Kennedy directed that Mongoose terrorism continue and step up. The terrorist anti-Cuba campaign was not limited to Cuban territory. On April 28, 1962 the New York offices of the Cuban Press Agency Prensa Latina was attacked in New York, injuring three staff members. More seriously, from May 8-18, 1962 a “practice run” for the US invasion of Cuba took place. The full-scale “military exercise” was code named “Operation Whip Lash” and sent an unmistakable signal of intimidation from the US military colossus to the six million people of Cuba. All this mounting imperialist intervention had only one possible ending point – short of a Cuban surrender, which would never come. Events were coming to a head in Washington, Moscow, and Havana. Events that ineluctably posed and placed the nuclear question in the equation. While the Cuban government and overwhelming popular majority were mobilized, armed to the teeth, and prepared to fight to the death, they wanted to live in peace and to enjoy the fruits of building a new society after a hard-fought revolutionary triumph. The Cuban leadership fully understood that a US invasion would kill many hundreds of thousands and destroy the Cuban infrastructure and economy. How to stop the coming US invasion was the burning question for the revolutionary government. Khrushchev Rolls the Dice Meanwhile in the Soviet Union, the Soviet leadership was facing a decidedly negative nuclear relationship of forces vis-à-vis Washington. This position of inequality (in the framework of the aptly acronymed Mutually Assured Destruction – aka MAD – nuclear doctrine) was perceived in Moscow as an impediment to carrying out political negotiations and maneuvering with Washington and the NATO powers, and defending Soviet interests in the “geopolitical” Cold War arena. By April 1962 fifteen US Jupiter nuclear missiles had been installed and were “operational” in Turkey on the border of the Soviet Union. “Operational” meant ready to launch at any moment. Each missile was armed with a 1.45 megaton warhead, with ninety-seven times the firepower of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The official estimate of the “fatality projection” for each missile was one million Soviet civilians. The Jupiter deployment in Turkey added to the overwhelming US superiority in quantity and quality in the “nuclear arms race” between Washington and Moscow. According to Anatoly Gribkov of the Red Army General Staff (cited in the television program DEFCON-2 shown on the US Military Channel), “The United States had about 5000 [nuclear] warheads, the Soviet Union 300. And of those [300] only two or three dozen that could hit the United States.” Khrushchev decided to alleviate this “imbalance” by placing missiles on the Cuban island if he succeeded in selling the idea to the Cuban leadership.3 Sometime in the spring (April-May) of 1962 the Khrushchev government of the Soviet Union proposed to the Cuban government that Cuba receive nuclear-tipped missiles on Cuban territory.  In no other country (including none of its “Warsaw Pact” allies, who were all politically subordinate to the Soviet government) had the Soviet government located nuclear missiles outside of Soviet territory. Washington, by contrast, had openly placed nuclear missiles in numerous western European countries as well as Turkey and secretly in Okinawa, Japan, aimed at China. (The United Kingdom and France, both US allies, also had nuclear arsenals by that time. China detonated its first nuclear bomb in an October 1964 “test.”) Additionally, US “strategic” nuclear armed aircraft were in the air ready for attack orders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. US nuclear submarines were in similar mode, and even more difficult to detect. While Soviet capabilities undoubtedly lagged behind the US, it was not so much so as to preclude inevitable reciprocal attack in response to any US “first strike.” Soviet missiles in Cuba would theoretically be a further deterrent to any US “first strike” threat. Placing the missiles in Cuba was clearly seen by the Soviet government as a bargaining piece to advance Soviet strategic interests in the nuclear chessboard that animated US-Soviet “diplomatic” maneuvers and intrigue and political objectives on both sides. Khrushchev evidently presumed that, faced with a fait accompli, Washington would redress the imbalance to the benefit of the Soviet Union. The Soviet missiles, upon being fully operational, would be able to strike major population centers and whole geographic regions of the US, roughly equivalent to the potential death-dealing capacity Washington had through its missiles in Europe surrounding and targeted on the Soviet Union. Of course, the big “if” in all of this reasoning was getting to the accompli. Given US technical proficiency this was a fantasy. Cuba Accepts the Soviet Proposal At the end of May 1962 the first direct presentation of the Soviet proposal was delivered to Fidel Castro and Raul Castro in Cuba by a Soviet delegation led by an alternate member of the Soviet Presidium (an executive decision-making body). The Soviet officials revealed to the Cuban leaders that their “intelligence” told them conclusively that a US invasion was being seriously prepared, to be implemented at any time over the next months. Of course, the Soviets were not telling the Cubans anything they did not already know in general, but there were new specific facts and details. The now-concrete proposal that measures to fortify Cuban defenses would include the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island naturally led to intense consultations within the top Cuban leadership. The chief government ministers involved were Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara, Osvaldo Dorticos, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, and Blas Roca. The day after the proposal was received the Cuban leadership told the Soviet delegation that the nuclear deployment was acceptable in principle. In extensive discussions with European journalist Ignacio Ramonet (which became the book My Life: A Spoken Autobiography by Fidel Castro, published in 2006 by Scribner) Fidel Castro referred to the discussions within the Cuban central leadership. He said that besides Khrushchev and the Soviet leadership’s “sincere desire to prevent an attack against Cuba…they were hoping to improve the balance of strategic forces…I added that it would be inconsistent of us to expect the maximum support from the USSR and the rest of the Socialist camp should we be attacked by the United States and yet refuse to face the political risks and the possible damage to our reputation when they needed us. That ethical and revolutionary point of view was accepted unanimously.” In a speech many years earlier in 1992 Fidel Castro had said: We really didn’t like the missiles. If it had been a matter only of our own defense, we would not have accepted the deployment of the missiles. But not because we were afraid of the dangers that might follow the deployment of the missiles here; rather, it was because this would damage the image of the revolution, and we were very zealous in protecting the image of the revolution in the rest of Latin America. The presence of the missiles would in fact turn us into a Soviet military base, and that entailed a high political cost for the image of our country, an image we so highly valued.4 Legality, Secrecy, and Lies: Losing the Moral High Ground Having agreed in principle, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara, repeatedly argued with the Soviet leadership that the deployment should be open and public. The fact was that there was nothing in the Soviet-Cuban agreement to deploy the missiles that contravened any existing international law. In any case, the Cuban leaders were certain that it would be virtually impossible for the shipment, site construction, and land deployment to remain concealed from the highly sophisticated US surveillance technology. Furthermore, that, on the face of it, given the US missiles in Turkey and Italy surrounding the Soviet Union, and with practically open US plans to invade Cuba, open and transparent was the way to go politically and morally. All of this was rejected out of hand by the Khrushchev leadership. The Cuban leaders chose not to push the point and deferred. In the book with Ramonet, Fidel Castro speaks of the “strange, Byzantine discussion” over whether Soviet arms shipments to Cuba were offensive or defensive. Khrushchev, in fact, insisted they were defensive, not on any technical grounds, but rather because of the defensive purposes for which they’d been installed in Cuba… [We felt there was] no need to go into those explanations. What Cuba and the USSR were doing was perfectly legal and in strict conformity with international law. Castro continued: We didn’t like the course the public debate was taking. I sent Che…to explain my view of the situation to Khrushchev, including the need to immediately publish the military agreement [on deploying the nuclear missiles in Cuba] the USSR and Cuba had signed. But I couldn’t manage to persuade him…For us, for the Cuban leaders, the USSR was a powerful, experienced government. We had no other arguments to use to persuade them that their strategy for managing the situation should be changed, so we had no alternative but to trust them. For the Cuban revolutionaries, the economic, military, and political ties forged with the Soviet Union had been a decisive, irreplaceable factor in their survival from the period after the January 1959 triumph of the Revolution through the April 1961 Playa Giron defeat of the US-organized mercenary invasion. Nevertheless, the unfolding of the Missile Crisis, and its ultimate resolution, left the Cuban leadership feeling vulnerable, bypassed, and insulted by the perceived highhanded behavior of the Soviet government led by Nikita Khrushchev. Fidel Castro’s Secret Speech In a major speech over two days to a closed meeting of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) on January 25-26, 1968 Fidel Castro reviewed the entire Missile Crisis.5  Combining great emotion with sharp, cool logic Castro detailed how the “Missile Crisis” unfolded and how Cuba’s relations with the Soviet Union emerged out of the crisis different from what they had been before. Castro stated that Cuba’s revolutionary leadership looked to the Soviet Union for, “…measures that would guarantee the country’s safety. In that period, we had tremendous faith in the Soviet Union. I think perhaps too much.” Furthermore, “I am sincerely convinced that the Soviet Party bears great responsibility in what happened and acted in a totally disloyal manner in its relations with us.” Referring to the continuing terrorist attacks against Cuba that never stopped after Soviet missiles, planes, and combat troops were removed from Cuba at the “end” of the October Crisis, Castro stated: Together with the pirate attacks and the U-2 flights, incidents began to flare up at the Guantanamo base. [The US military base on Guantanamo Bay was ceded to the US government in the notorious neo-colonial Platt Amendment of 1901 passed by the US Congress and has been maintained to this day against the demands for its return to Cuban sovereignty.] The same Guantanamo base which, we are certain, would have been dismantled had there been a modicum of serenity and firmness during the October crisis. Had they had the presence of mind to have posed and demand correctly from a principled standpoint, had they said that they would withdraw the missiles if satisfactory guarantees were given to Cuba, had they let Cuba negotiate, the crisis might even have turned into a political victory…All the rest are euphemisms of different kinds: Cuba was saved, Cuba lives. But Cuba had been alive and Cuba had been living, and Cuba did not want to live at the expense of humiliation or surrender; for that you do not have to be a revolutionary. Revolutionaries are not just concerned with living, but how one lives, living most of all with dignity, living with a cause, living for a cause…Cuba did not agree with the way the issue was handled; it stated the need to approach the problem from different, more drastic, more revolutionary and even more legal positions; and it totally disagreed with the way in which the situation was terminated. “[Around July] we saw that the United States was creating an atmosphere of hysteria and aggression,” Castro bluntly spoke, “and it was a campaign that was being carried out with all impunity. In the light of this we thought the correct thing to do was to adopt a different position, not to get into that policy of lies: ‘we are sending Cuba defensive weapons.’ And in response to the imperialist’s position, the second weakness (or the first weakness) was not to stand up and respond that Cuba had every right to own whatever weapons it saw fit…but rather to adopt a policy of concessions, claiming that the weapons were defensive. In other words, to lie, to resort to lies which in effect meant to wave a basic right and principle.” Decades later, in the Ramonet book, Castro returned to this crucial political approach, which is much more powerful than the usual technical cast of events when things had reached the stage of the actual nuclear standoff: There was nothing illegal about our agreement with the Soviets, given that the Americans had missiles in Turkey and in Italy, too, and no one ever threatened to bomb or invade those countries. The problem wasn’t the legality of the agreement – everything was absolutely legal – but rather Khrushchev’s mistaken political handling of the situation, when even though both Cuba and the USSR had the legitimate right, he started spinning theories about offensive and non-offensive weapons. In a political battle, you can’t afford to lose the high moral ground by employing ruses and lies and half-truths. The missile transport was the largest sea-borne operation in Soviet history. By the time of the detection of the missiles, and Khrushchev’s decision to remove them under US pressure, there were already 134 nuclear warheads in place and on the ground in Cuba. All three of the SS-4 missile regiments were operational even as Soviet ships stopped moving towards Cuba. The January 25-26, 1968 speech went into scathing detail on how shocking, given the Soviet insistence on secrecy, the lack of discretion on the Soviet side was in the actual deployment of the missiles, crossing into outright recklessness. “Uncontrolled Forces” At the height of the crisis, the central Cuban leadership was certain that a full-scale invasion of the island was imminent. As the latest batch of 2017 declassified Kennedy assassination-related documents reconfirm, preparations – “contingency plans” – for such an invasion had been in place for many months prior to the secret installation of the Soviet missiles. This was the only conceivable basis for Khrushchev to make the missile proposal to the Cuban leaders and expect their agreement. In fact, a US invasion of Cuba was on the hair-trigger of being ordered at several concrete conjunctures in the course of the crisis. The decision to actually carry out a direct, large-scale US military assault was being furiously debated within the Kennedy Administration and the narrow circle of bipartisan Congressional leadership that was privy to the deliberations at the top. As President and Commander-in-Chief, Kennedy had to choose whether to give the order to invade – again, everything was already in place for the execution of an invasion – the island where many nuclear warheads were already in place, targeting US territory and where Cuban armed resistance to the invading troops was certain to be massive, highly motivated, well-led, and creative.  For the immense majority of the Cuban population, having just experienced a profound social revolution, drawing millions into revolutionary struggle and consciousness, Cuba would be fighting from their own territory against a foreign invasion force and massive bombing assaults. Thousands of Cuban civilians would have been instantly killed in these air strikes. The political consequences of this carnage – against a sovereign people with the gall to make a Revolution, throw out a venal dictator, institute land reform, literacy campaigns, rent reduction, abolishing Jim Crow-segregation, etc. etc. – would certainly have been devastating for Washington even if nuclear warheads were never launched on either side, a dubious prospect at best. Washington would lose the “moral high ground,” so crucial in concrete questions of world politics. Cuba would regain what had been eroded by the secretive, clumsy adventurism of Khrushchev’s “initiative” and its incompetent implementation. The question of the nuclear weapons that were already on the island and the more that were en route would likely have been rendered secondary and the question of Cuba’s right to self-determination would have again risen to the fore. Kennedy was politically savvy enough to realize all of this and finally rebuffed the advocates of launching an invasion. Uppermost in Kennedy’s considerations were the physical presence of thousands of Soviet combat troops and military personnel (there were some 40,000 Soviet mechanized combat divisions in Cuba, although the Kennedy Administration seems to have counted less than half the actual number). This fact posed the question that Soviet casualties would be inevitable, further sharply posing the question of questions…would the US invasion inexorably lead to nuclear exchanges? Who actually would – in a hair-trigger political atmosphere – fire first becomes almost a moot, secondary question in the framework of such a political confrontation. US “intelligence” estimates were that 18,500 US casualties would take place in the first period after a US invasion, according to declassified material obtained by the National Security Archive. The presence of Soviet nuclear warheads and large numbers of Soviet military personnel, fighter jets, anti-aircraft gun emplacements, and so on, was another major factor leading Kennedy to repeatedly postpone the invasion plans and opt for a naval blockade (labeled a “quarantine” for legalistic purposes) surrounding Cuba, and the drama of a relatively slow showdown unfolding over days in the Atlantic while negotiations between Washington and Moscow intensified, negotiations that excluded the Cuban government…as if Cuba had nothing to do with what was happening. As is always the case when war and combat is actually joined, the “law of unintended consequences” comes into dynamic play. Or, as the historic revolutionary leader of the working-class movement, Frederick Engels, put it, “Those who unleash controlled forces, also unleash uncontrolled forces.” The Letters On October 26, 1962 Fidel Castro – at the most intense, dangerous point of the entire crisis – wrote a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, which stated: Given the analysis of the situation and the reports which have reached us, [I] consider an attack to be almost imminent–within the next 24 to 72 hours. There are two possible variants: the first and most probable one is an air attack against certain objectives with the limited aim of destroying them; the second, and though less probable, still possible, is a full invasion. This would require a large force and is the most repugnant form of aggression, which might restrain them. You can be sure that we will resist with determination, whatever the case. The Cuban people’s morale is extremely high and the people will confront aggression heroically. I would like to briefly express my own personal opinion. If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it. I tell you this because I believe that the imperialists’ aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of Cuba–a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law–then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other. Khrushchev responded, in a second round of letters with Castro that: In your cable of October 27 you proposed that we be the first to carry out a nuclear strike against the enemy’s territory. Naturally you understand where that would lead us. It would not be a simple strike, but the start of a thermonuclear world war. Dear Comrade Fidel Castro, I find your proposal to be wrong, even though I understand your reasons. … As far as Cuba is concerned, it would be difficult to say even in general terms what this would have meant for them. In the first place, Cuba would have been burned in the fire of war…. Now, as a result of the measures taken, we reached the goal sought when we agreed with you to send the missiles to Cuba. We have wrested from the United States the commitment not to invade Cuba and not to permit their Latin American allies to do so. We have we wrested all this from them without a nuclear strike. We consider that we must take advantage of all the possibilities to defend Cuba, strengthen its independence and sovereignty, defeat military aggression and prevent a nuclear world war in our time. And we have accomplished that. Of course, we made concessions, accepted a commitment, action according to the principle that a concession on one side is answered by a concession on the other side. The United States also made a concession. It made the commitment before all the world not to attack Cuba. That’s why when we compare aggression on the part of the United States and thermonuclear war with the commitment of a concession in exchange for concession, the upholding of the inviolability of the Republic of Cuba and the prevention of a world war, I think that the total outcome of this reckoning, of this comparison, is perfectly clear. Castro then responded: I realized when I wrote them that the words contained in my letter could be misinterpreted by you and that was what happened, perhaps because you didn’t read them carefully, perhaps because of the translation, perhaps because I meant to say so much in too few lines. However, I didn’t hesitate to do it… We knew, and do not presume that we ignored it, that we would have been annihilated, as you insinuate in your letter, in the event of nuclear war. However, that didn’t prompt us to ask you to withdraw the missiles, that didn’t prompt us to ask you to yield. Do you believe that we wanted that war? But how could we prevent it if the invasion finally took place? The fact is that this event was possible, that imperialism was obstructing every solution and that its demands were, from our point of view, impossible for the USSR and Cuba to accept. And if war had broken out, what could we do with the insane people who unleashed the war? You yourself have said that under current conditions such a war would inevitably have escalated quickly into a nuclear war. I understand that once aggression is unleashed, one shouldn’t concede to the aggressor the privilege of deciding, moreover, when to use nuclear weapons. The destructive power of this weaponry is so great and the speed of its delivery so great that the aggressor would have a considerable initial advantage. And I did not suggest to you, Comrade Khrushchev, that the USSR should be the aggressor, because that would be more than incorrect, it would be immoral and contemptible on my part. But from the instant the imperialists attack Cuba and while there are Soviet armed forces stationed in Cuba to help in our defense in case of an attack from abroad, the imperialists would by this act become aggressors against Cuba and against the USSR, and we would respond with a strike that would annihilate them. Everyone has his own opinions and I maintain mine about the dangerousness of the aggressive circles in the Pentagon and their preference for a preventive strike. I did not suggest, Comrade Khrushchev, that in the midst of this crisis the Soviet Union should attack, which is what your letter seems to say; rather, that following an imperialist attack, the USSR should act without vacillation and should never make the mistake of allowing circumstances to develop in which the enemy makes the first nuclear strike against the USSR. And in this sense, Comrade Khrushchev, I maintain my point of view, because I understand it to be a true and just evaluation of a specific situation. You may be able to convince me that I am wrong, but you can’t tell me that I am wrong without convincing me. Fidel Castro’s exchange of letters with Khrushchev assumes that given the forces in play and in motion – 300,000 Cuban combatants with 40,000 Soviet military personnel, the bulk in mechanized combat brigades, on the ground in Cuba on one side, confronting a US invasion force projected to quickly reach hundreds of thousands, all coming head-to-head while massive US air strikes and countering Cuban-Soviet anti-aircraft fire are unleashed, with enormous naval forces, many armed with nuclear weapons, including torpedoes in combat action – that the US invasion, which he considered inevitable and imminent, would inexorably go nuclear. Following this undoubtedly correct assumption, Fidel Castro’s logic and formulations in his initial letters became necessarily more abstract and algebraic. He presents, in the rush and incredible heat and speed of events, a post-invasion scenario where Soviet forces could strike, in a limited “tactical” use (although those terms are not specifically used), the US forces before the US could strike the Soviet forces. The same technical, military logic of “pre-emption” would, of course, dominate the US side which had a clear superiority in both quantity and quality of nuclear weapons deliverance at that point, the full extent of which the Cuban leadership was not likely aware of the extent of. The M.A.D. doctrine was based on each side’s nuclear arsenal countermanding the others. The seemingly absurd stockpiling of nuclear warheads and delivery system locations had the “rational” kernel of logic that after a “first strike” or pre-emptive launch of warheads the “other side” would still have enough of an atomic arsenal left to deliver a crushing response. The idea, developed by “Dr. Strangelove” US theorists like Herman Kahn, and accepted by their Soviet equivalents, was to build up and protect a “second strike” capacity in order to obviate a “first strike.” Of course, Washington continued – and continues to this day – to develop a “decisive” first-strike capability, largely through anti-ballistic and “Star Wars” systems to intercept and eliminate the other sides “second strike” (or first, or any strike) giving the US a credible “first strike.” The fact of a US invasion – that is, its actual occurrence – of Cuba would have set in motion a dynamic that would have rendered moot, useless, and even ridiculous the question of who would “fire” the “first” nuclear weapon, if that could even be determined after the event (if indeed the word after would have any content). Dozens and dozens of ships, planes, and launch sites on the ground, under the control of dozens and dozens of military officers subject to “orders” in what would have been  unimaginable chaos and breakdown inevitable in the first nuclear exchange in world history. Would anyone have even known who struck first? The key point – the only determinant fact – in whether nuclear holocaust would be unleashed to an unknown degree was whether the US would invade Cuba. New Facts What is now known about the Missile Crisis is that a situation existed where, at the height of the confrontation, from October 25-28, literally dozens and dozens of military officers well below the executive political “decision makers” in a theoretical chain of command, on both the Soviet and US side, had the capacity and even the authority to push the nuclear button and pull the nuclear trigger. We certainly know this to be true in the first-hand accounts by Soviet and US military officers and personnel on the ground, on the oceans, and in the air that have become public and from “classified” government documents on both sides.6 The author Michael Dobbs in an October 18, 2012 New York Times op-ed piece (“The Price of a 50-Year Old Myth”) wrote: While the risk of war in October 1962 was very high (Kennedy estimated it variously at between 1 in 5 and 1 in 2), it was not caused by a clash of wills. The real dangers arose from “the fog of war.” As the two superpowers geared up for a nuclear war, the chances of something going terribly wrong increased exponentially…By Saturday, October 27, the two leaders were no longer in full control of their gigantic military machines, which were moving forward under their own momentum. Soviet troops on Cuba targeted Guantánamo with tactical nuclear weapons and shot down an American U-2 spy plane. Another U-2, on a “routine” air sampling mission to the North Pole, got lost over the Soviet Union. The Soviets sent MiG fighters into the air to try to shoot down the American intruder, and in response, Alaska Air Defense Command scrambled F-102 interceptors armed with tactical nuclear missiles. In the Caribbean, a frazzled Soviet submarine commander was dissuaded by his subordinates from using his nuclear torpedo against American destroyers that were trying to force him to the surface. In his Guardian piece cited above Noam Chomsky, referring to the October 26, 1962 letter of Fidel Castro, writes: As this was happening and Washington was debating and Kennedy was poised to decide on a US invasion, Fidel Castro wrote a letter to Nikita Khrushchev which has been interpreted, over Castro’s sharp objection, as advocating a Soviet nuclear attack – a so-called ‘first strike’ against US territory if the US invasion were to actually occur. Khrushchev himself took the necessarily and purposely algebraic and highly cautious words of Castro as such a call, and used Castro’s wording as practically a cover to carry out the retreat and concessions to Kennedy that diffused the crisis and reverse the momentum towards purposeful or accidental nuclear exchanges. An Extraordinary Gathering The special January 24-26, 1968 meeting of the PCC Central Committee meeting where Fidel Castro gave his extraordinary speech was in no way fortuitous. It took place at what was perhaps the nadir of the downward spiral of Cuban-Soviet relations set in motion by the October Crisis of 1962. It was held just 107 days after the death of Ernesto Che Guevara and the defeat of his guerrilla forces based in Bolivia. This on-the-ground fact was a real blow to the Cuban revolutionaries and the perspective of building a continental revolutionary army to take on and overturn the military regimes backed by the ruling oligarchies. These regimes of the Latin American ruling classes were themselves allied with, dependent on, and conjoined with the dominant US power in the Hemisphere. This new objective reality necessarily raised many challenges in the development and direction of Cuba’s revolutionary foreign policy. Fidel Castro and the Cuban leadership placed an important part of the responsibility for the defeat of Che’s guerrilla on the top leadership of the Bolivian Communist Party which supported the program and perspective of the Soviet leadership in Latin America and opposed the armed-struggle campaign under Che Guevara’s leadership in Bolivia (which was seen as the initial base for a multi-front continental revolutionary movement against the military dictatorships and oligarchies) reneging on previously given commitments. The Cuban revolutionary line in Latin America was opposed – with varying degrees of vehemence – by virtually all of the Latin American Communist Parties that looked to the Soviet Union for political direction and orientation. What the Cuban revolutionary leadership considered betrayal in Bolivia, disrupted and undermined the formation and development of urban resistance forces crucial to supplement the rural-based guerrilla struggle under Che’s command, leaving the guerrillas exposed, vulnerable, and politically isolated.7 The Escalante Affair Prior to Fidel Castro’s speech, the Central Committee gathering had heard an extensive presentation by Raul Castro, then Chairman of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the President of the Cuban Council of State since 2006. The report was a damning indictment of a secret faction inside the PCC led by Anibal Escalante. Escalante’s faction, which was composed of former leaders, like himself, and cadres of the Popular Socialist Party (PSP).((In 1968 the Cuban publisher Instituto Del Libro, Ediciones Politicas, printed a 160-page book, “Information from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba on Microfaction Activities,”which includes Raul Castro’s report and other important documents. It is an exceedingly important document, which illuminates that historical and political period and gives great insight into the caliber and character of the Cuban revolutionary leadership.)) Before the Revolution the PSP, which had a base in the industrial working class and trade unions, was connected to the dominant currents in the “world Communist movement” and Latin American Communist Parties that looked to the Soviet Union for political direction and program.8 The PSP initially opposed the July 26th Movement (M-26-J) led by Fidel Castro, but by early 1958 they had endorsed the anti-Batista struggle and M-26-J leadership. Joint political and military collaboration was carried out in the last period before the revolutionary triumph. Over the next few years the majority of PSP cadres were successfully integrated into what became the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in 1965. In 1962 Escalante, who had been the top functionary of the Integrated Revolutionary Organization, an initial formation bringing together the currents supporting the Revolution, had come under fierce public criticism by Fidel Castro for “sectarianism” and “bureaucratism” in March 1962. Soviet-Cuban tensions escalated in this mid-1960s period, although never to the point of a public break. Nevertheless, sharp, concrete political and theoretical differences were registered between the Soviet and Cuban leaderships in this period over the US escalation in Vietnam and serious political divergence in Latin America. In several speeches in 1966 and 1967 Fidel Castro publicly excoriated the Soviet government for its economic and political relations with Latin American repressive and reactionary regimes. The betrayal and execution of Che in 1967 sharpened the existing tensions and was followed by the Escalante intrigue and covert plotting against the revolutionary government. In terms of the economic relations and exchange between Cuba and the Soviet Union during these clashes, there was limited but noticeable Soviet measures affecting the struggling Cuban economy which was being whipped by the US economic blockade, particularly in the Americas. In this period, the first decade of the Cuban Revolution, Cuba struggled with diplomatic isolation in the Western Hemisphere under US pressure, with only Canada and Mexico maintaining formal diplomatic ties. In the decade following Che’s defeat in Bolivia, all other allied Latin American guerrilla movements into the early 1970s had been crushed, most notably Argentina and Uruguay. At the same time there was a revival of mass urban and rural working-class and popular struggles in a number of Latin American countries, including Bolivia, which pushed open some democratic and political space, including for revolutionaries. In Chile, in 1970, in a byproduct of mounting class and popular struggles, the Popular Unity electoral coalition by two mass workers parties, the Socialist Party and Communist Party, won a plurality of the vote and Salvador Allende, head of the Socialist Party became President. Diplomatic relations were soon reestablished between Chile and Cuba. The September 11, 1973 US-backed bloody military coup against the Popular Unity government pulverized all democratic rights and political space for many years and was extended by the mid-1970s as military rule was consolidated in Argentina (1976) and in Uruguay after 1973. Aftermath The Cuban Missile Crisis was hugely traumatic in world public opinion. Its resolution led to increased propaganda for “peace” and “reconciliation” in both Moscow and Washington, with accompanying worldwide diplomatic maneuvering. This culminated in the actual signing by the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (formally the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which was strongly welcomed in world public opinion when it went into effect in October 1963, one year to the month from the political drama and trauma of the Missile Crisis. (The treaty did not ban “underground” nuclear tests which could also lead to radioactive releases into the atmosphere as well ground water.  The treaty put no limits on the production of nuclear warheads and their fitting onto missiles.) All of this took place as Washington steadily and sharply escalated its military intervention and aggression in Vietnam. John Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963 and Nikita Khrushchev’s leadership in the Soviet Communist Party and Soviet state came to an ignominious end in October 1964 as he was pensioned off and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev and Alexi Kosygin. The new Lyndon Johnson White House abided by Kennedy’s verbal “pledge” and invasion plans were put in mothballs, although covert action, terrorism, and containment continued. Primary focus and attention shifted to Indochina where Johnson maintained continuity with Kennedy’s intervention and deepened it. Formal and definite improvements in Cuba’s relations with the Soviet Union began after 1968 (despite tensions over the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and other questions), particularly in economic exchange, through the 1970s and 1980s until the soviet government collapsed in 1991, setting off a huge economic depression and crisis in Cuba. In this period fundamental contradictions and sharp policy differences emerged over Soviet policies in Africa, military tactics in Angola, and the soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which Cuba opposed. The immediate threat of US-Soviet nuclear exchange and war receded on October 28, 1962 with the announcement that Soviet ships had stopped advancing and that Soviet missiles would be withdrawn. But for Cuba the crisis and the pressure intensified. Not even two weeks after the supposed resolution of the crisis the world’s “sigh of relief, 400 Cuban workers were killed when a Cuban exile counter-revolutionary sabotage team, dispatched from the US, blew up a Cuban industrial facility. Right up until his assassination Kennedy was approving terrorist attacks against Cuba. US intervention by proxy never stopped and became systematic. US armed and trained counter-revolutionaries were finally defeated in the Escambray mountains in central Cuba in a campaign from 1963-65. After a pause and renewal in the late 1960s, Cuba’s revolutionary internationalist foreign policy – in the spirit of Che – reached glorious new internationalist achievements in southern Africa after the great acceleration of events ushered in after the overturn of the hollowed-out Salazarist dictatorship in Portugal in 1974 and the final collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bassau, and the Cape Verde Islands. Cuban troops stopped the apartheid South African invasion at the gates of the capital Luanda in November 1975 aiming to topple the newly independent Angolan government. Cuba’s revolutionary action and solidarity over the next nearly two decades was decisive in defending the independence of Angola, winning the independence of Namibia, and in the retreat and unraveling of the South African apartheid state.9 Fidel’s Last Thoughts On October 22, 2012 Fidel Castro addressed the Missile Crisis on its 50th Anniversary: A few days ago, very close to the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis, news agencies pointed to three guilty parties: Kennedy, having recently become the leader of the empire, Khrushchev and Castro. Cuba did not have anything to do with nuclear weapons, nor with the unnecessary slaughter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki perpetrated by the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, thus establishing the tyranny of nuclear weapons. Cuba was defending its right to independence and social justice. When we accepted Soviet aid in weapons, oil, foodstuffs and other resources, it was to defend ourselves from yanqui plans to invade our homeland, subjected to a dirty and bloody war which that capitalist country imposed on us from the very first months, which left thousands of Cubans dead and maimed. When Khrushchev proposed the installation here of medium range missiles similar to those the United States had in Turkey – far closer to the USSR than Cuba to the United States – as a solidarity necessity, Cuba did not hesitate to agree to such a risk. Our conduct was ethically irreproachable. We will never apologize to anyone for what we did. The fact is that half a century has gone by, and here we still are with our heads held high. * In a public statement on October 28, presenting the five points, Fidel Castro said, “With relation to the pronouncement made by the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, in a letter sent to the premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, to the effect that the United States would agree, after the establishment of adequate arrangements through the United Nations, to eliminate the measures of blockade in existence and give guarantees against any invasion of Cuba, and in relation to the decision announced by Premier Khrushchev of withdrawing the installation of arms of strategic defense from Cuba territory, the revolutionary government of Cuba declares that the guarantees of which President Kennedy speaks–that there will be no aggression against Cuba–will not exist unless, in addition to the elimination of the naval blockade he promises, the following measures among others are to be adopted: 1) Cessation of the economic blockade and all the measures of commercial and economic pressure which the United States exercises in all parts of the world against our country; 2) Cessation of all subversive activities, launching and landing of arms and explosives by air and sea, the organization of mercenary invasions, infiltration of spies and saboteurs, all of which actions are carried out from the territory of the United States and some other accomplice countries; 3) Cessation of the pirate attacks which are being carried out from bases existing in the United States and Puerto Rico; 4) Cessation of all the violations of our air and naval space by North American war planes and ships; and 5) Withdrawal of naval base of Guantanamo and the return of the Cuban territory by the United States.”. * The private owners of nationalized foreign enterprises in Cuba, with their governments, negotiated satisfactory compensation with the revolutionary Cuban government, in accordance with international law. The US government, at the time, was already planning and organizing for the overthrow of the “Castro” government and was therefore in contemptuous rejection of any negotiations for compensation to US owners of Cuban assets being nationalized. This was a large swath of the Cuban economy, which was dominated by US capital. * In the 1960 Presidential election, the liberal Democrat John Kennedy shamelessly promoted as an important campaign issue a supposed “missile gap” – in the Soviet Union’s favor – between Washington and Moscow, a conscious fabrication. Kennedy also postured to the right of his Republican opponent, Eisenhower’s Vice-President Richard Nixon, on “getting tough with Castro.” On this, Nixon had the disadvantage, as Kennedy was no doubt aware, of being unable to publicly tout the Eisenhower White House’s already advanced plans for the mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs, which Kennedy carried out three months after his Inauguration. * Cited in October 1962 The ‘Missile’ Crisis As Seen From Cuba by Tomas Diez Acosta, Pathfinder Press. * The entire speech, previously unpublished in any public medium, was printed in 2002 with an official Cuban Council of State English translation, in the book Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba’s Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis by James Blight and Philip Brenner published by Bowman and Littlefield Publishers. * See Noam Chomsky’s “Cuban Missile Crisis: How the US Played Russian Roulette with Nuclear War” in the October 15 Guardian newspaper, which cites several harrowing moments of near disaster. * See Fidel Castro’s “A Necessary Introduction” in Bolivian Diary by Ernesto Che Guevara, Pathfinder Press, 1994 for Fidel’s description of the factor of betrayal in the defeat of Che’s guerrilla forces. * Some thirty-five members of the so-called “microfaction” were expelled from the PCC and received prison sentences from two to fifteen years. The most serious charges involved secret activity aimed at forging ties between the “microfaction” and government officials and Communist Party leaders in the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and Czechoslovakia in their common opposition to the revolutionary line of the PCC, and the large majority of PCC members, in Latin America and on Cuba’s domestic and foreign policies in general. This went as far as to urge Soviet economic pressure on Cuba, for which they were charged with treason. Escalante’s grouping never argued for their political positions openly within the structures and procedures of the PCC, which was their right. In their secret functioning inside Cuba and intrigues with Soviet and Eastern European officials and diplomats, the portrayed Che Guevara as a “Trotskyite adventurer” and the Castro leadership as “petty bourgeois elements” that seized control of the Revolution and who held the working class in contempt. Moreover, the Cuban revolutionary leadership was “anti-Soviet”and did not support Soviet “hegemony.” * See the amazing history of Cuba’s internationalist foreign policies in Africa and southern Africa in the two volumes of the great scholar Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions and Visions of Freedom, University of North Carolina Press. http://clubof.info/

What happened when a ship packed with six million pounds of explosives went up in flames

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/what-happened-when-a-ship-packed-with-six-million-pounds-of-explosives-went-up-in-flames/

What happened when a ship packed with six million pounds of explosives went up in flames

At 9:04:35 a.m., while firefighters and crews from other ships battled the blaze, the fire on Mont-Blanc either penetrated the magazines storing the TNT and picric acid or finally nudged the temperature in the cargo hold just past the 572-degree-Fahrenheit threshold needed to detonate picric acid. Regardless, the result was the same.

The instant Mont-Blanc’s cargo ignited, it started a chemical chain reaction an immense string of dominoes knocking the next one over in rapid succession, with each domino self-contained microscopic bomb that is the molecule of a high explosive.

To try to grasp the magnitude of this unprecedented explosion, Robert MacNeil offers this simple comparison: when a rifle is fired, one ounce of explosive powder in the shell burns rapidly, fomenting hot gases. These gases expand, forcing the bullet out of the shell—and in a hurry. Mont-Blanc held the equivalent of 83 million ounces of gun powder, which did collectively what one rifle shell does, with 83 million times more force, shooting out in all directions at once.

The detonation itself took one-fifteenth of a second, five times faster than the blink of an eye. The epicenter of the explosion instantaneously shot up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit, about six times hotter than molten lava.

The explosion started in the gigantic steel casement of the cargo hold, which had been packed tight and was far too small to contain such an exponential expansion. The blast shot outward in all directions at 3,400 miles per hour, or four times the speed of sound. It tore through the ship’s steel hull like wet tissue paper, converting the vessel into a monstrous hand grenade. The heat vaporized the water surrounding the ship and the people trying to tie her up and put out the fire. The remains of these victims were never found because there were no remains to find.

Small chunks of metal from the ship crashed through roofs, punctured other ships, and killed and maimed people both nearby and hundreds of yards away. Retired fireman John Spruin, the man who had heard the fire alarm, put on his old uniform, and driven his horse-drawn pumper to the site, was ripped apart by shrapnel and killed instantly.

Mont-Blanc disintegrated, leaving only two recognizable parts: the anchor shank, which weighed half a ton and was found 4 miles away in the woods of the Northwest Arm; and an iron deck cannon, intended to protect the ship from U-boats, which landed 3 miles away in Little Albro Lake behind Dartmouth, with its barrel drooping like a warm candle.

The explosion also produced something we recognize all too readily today: a mushroom cloud. The extremely high temperatures involved created a gas fireball filled with vaporized particles of the ship, the cargo, oil, coal, and humans, skyrocketing directly upward to form the stalk of the cloud, which rose 2 miles into the air. When the blistering-hot debris reached its zenith, they cooled, slowed down, and spread out, making it look something like a mushroom cloud, though it lacked the perfect symmetry nuclear bombs produce.

The cloud was so big and thick that it made it seem as though dusk had arrived at 9:05 a.m. When the cloud could no longer hold the particles, it started shedding the oil and debris, which changed the color of the cloud from black to white.

This attracted the attention of observers miles away, who were often unaware of the cloud’s significance. Rear Admiral B. M. Chambers, who was saying good-bye to his wife outside their home near the Royal Artillery Park on the south side of the Citadel, heard the explosion and looked toward the Richmond docks. He noticed, “there, right in front of the house . . . was rising into the air a most wonderful cauliflower-like plume of white smoke, twisting and twirling and changing color in the brilliant sunlight of a perfect Canadian early winter morning.”

Another wrote to an American friend, “The smoke cloud following the explosion was a wonderful spectacle and for a few minutes we never realized the seriousness of it.”

The seriousness was clear enough to those beneath it. When the cloud released its contents—including the carbon by-products of the explosion, the fragments of bunker coal, and the steel pieces and particles of Mont-Blanc itself, plus tons of oil and airplane fuel—it created what witnesses described as “dark rain.” But anyone caught underneath the fallout could tell you it wasn’t water coming down but a thick, black precipitation of hot oil and soot, like liquid tar, mixed with heavy, scalding shrapnel that cut, burned, and blackened everything in its path.

The eruption also sent ground waves through the bedrock at about 13,000 miles per hour, which caused bystanders to feel a “thump” and houses to shake. These were picked up by the stylus on the new seismograph at Dalhousie University, a mile and a half away. People in Sydney, Cape Breton, about 250 miles northeast, felt the mysterious shock. One hundred ten miles away in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, plates and glasses shook for a few seconds, as if from an earthquake far away.

The explosion itself and the ground waves were quickly followed by the third force, air waves, concentric circles of gas bubbles racing outward from ground zero like those seen in 1950s instructional films about atomic bombs. This invisible force initially traveled at supersonic speeds before dropping to a sonic velocity of 756 miles per hour, similar to what atomic bombs generate. Ian Forsyth, a student at the Halifax County Academy, not far from the Citadel, felt two blasts as the school principal was reading Psalm 103.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field;

When they heard a “dull boom” coming from the north produced by the ground wave, “the principal looked up and we focused our eyes on him.” After a moment’s hesitation, he returned to Psalm 103.

the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

A second later the air wave hit, throwing windows inward and bringing plaster down on the students.

Although the air wave was invisible, its effects were not. As it moved out from the epicenter, the walls of air simply blew buildings apart, without leaving a trace. Also called shock waves, and concussions, they smashed the Halifax City Hall clock tower in the center of downtown, 2 miles from Pier 6, stopping its arms at 9:06. “The city hall itself is something of a wreck,” wrote Stanley K. Smith, the editor of the Saint John (New Brunswick) Daily Telegraph. “The face of the clock, though this building is over 2 miles from the scene of the explosion, is blown in and the hands register the hour and minute at which the horror fell upon the city.”

Written By By: John U. Bacon