Chapter Twenty
“Shido, stand down! I’m alright.” Natalia wished her voice sounded better, it was weak and rough. Shido holstered his pistol though he looked unconvinced. He eyed Rei mistrustfully.
Noriko winced, and walked over to Natalia, “She’s been Deep Scanned.” The female Siren gently touched Natalia’s head, and she sighed gratefully as the Siren soothed the battered edges of her mind. “I don’t sense any permanent damage.”
Natalia looked at Rei, the betrayal in his eyes tearing at her. “Rei meet my team. The Kitsune are Shido, Miyuki, and Osamu Yu. The Sirens are, Noriko, and Takada Aiko, and Haru Miko. The human is Luke Herald. “
“The rest of the team should be here in the next couple of minutes, we were closer to you when your comm came back on grid.” Shido said as he typed on his data pad, there was an odd look on his face as he kept deeply breathing in smelling the air.
“Alright-.” Natalia felt her legs buckle, and Rei and Noriko held her up. “We need to report in.”
“You found the subject!” said Noriko in surprise. “This was the Rei we were looking for, the one who helped her escape!”
Immediately Shido re-pulled his gun.
“Specialist Noriko, you are speaking out of turn! Lieutenant, did I not order you to holster that weapon? Now do so before I kick your ass!” Natalia said, even in her weakened state her words held the snap of their old drill sergeants.
Noriko blushed, and Shido jumped. Natalia looked around at her people with cool professional eyes. “Yes, I found Marigold Sullivan, she is alive. However, InSec has been misled. Nurse Sullivan did not steal a bio-weapon. She stole an infant Siren, who had been marked for termination. Apparently, the Sydney Central Hospital has overstepped its bounds and is moving on its own anti-Siren agenda. Nurse Sullivan reported to Rei that she found multiple dead infants in the incinerator room that she found our “bio-weapon”, a newborn infant, in.”
Takada looked sickened, and the rest of the squad just looked pissed. Noriko moved over to Rei she inclined her head politely. “Rei-san, with your permission I wish to check you for further tampering and make sure that you are undamaged.” For Noriko that stated her view on Rei, she was willing to offer her abilities to help him.
Reluctantly Rei nodded, and Noriko slipped into his mind, enraged at the level of disregard that had been shown to him. However, her mental hands were gentle as cooling mists as she soothed and mended the ragged psy-wounds left by this ‘Alexander’s’ attack. She felt Takada’s silent agreement, as he remotely monitored her work.
“Better?” Noriko stepped back next to Takada
Rei gave the albino woman a half grin. “Much.”
“Once this is over I will teach you how to protect your mind.” said Haru. The InSec Kitsune looked shocked at the somber Siren, who almost never spoke out loud.
“Shido, please connect me with the Tower. It’s time to make this right.”
“Yes, Sir!” Shido tapped onto his comm and opened a channel.
Rei leaned over to Noriko. “Why do they keep calling her ‘Sir’?’ I know we’re shape shifters and all but I can assure you she’s a woman.”
Noriko stared at Rei for a moment, before chuckling. “It’s a military thing, Rei. Just go along with it.”
Natalia ignored them both in favor of her CO. “Colonel Trencher. Major Natalia Yu reporting, we have located Marigold Sullivan. However, the situation is not what we were led to believe.
Pouring a shot of whisky was the first thing Colonel Noah Trencher did as he disconnected from ISF team Yu-Aiko, then he got to work. He pulled up a map of the sector Natalia and her team was in, determining exactly where they were.
Pressing a button on his consol, he had his secretary get him Special Operations, black op’s, on the line. “This is Colonel Noah Trencher. I need to speak to our people in City Management.”
The functionary who had answered the line didn’t bother to confirm his request, instead transferring him instantly. “This is Major Christopher Marpel.”
“Major, this is Colonel Trencher. I need you to arrange for an accident.”
“May I inquire what has happened, Sir?” The Human officer asked, though the tapping of keys over the speaker told Trencher he was already beginning to obey.
“The Yu-Aiko team has been influenced by… revolutionary forces. They are on the three thousandth block of Sydney Undercity District Four. We don’t have time to do this clean for… security reasons and I require something to destroy the building they are occupying, and anyone who may be in the area.”
“Did you say the Yu-Aiko team sir?”
Trencher frowned. “Yes Major. Is that a problem?”
“Not at all sir. Just a shame, such a group of up and comers falling and all.” The man's voice held no hint of despair. That angered the Colonel, but he didn’t waste the effort in correcting the younger man.
“Just get it done, Major.”
“Should I work to avoid civilian casualties?” The man asked.
Trencher paused to think about the question, before sighing in resignation. “No. This is a Red Class situation. Do what you need to do.” He ordered before disconnecting.
He did not let himself feel the guilt that nibbled at the corners of his mind; if he did he never would have been able to excel at his job, a job that required many hard choices. It would have been better for everyone had the damn nurse gotten eaten by the Ferals like they had originally thought. He could only pray that Gaia would forgive him.
The simple fact was that, if humanity was to survive, the Kitsune and the Sirens had to be either controlled or eliminated. People didn’t know how many spontaneous Kitsune and Siren births were still happening. They didn’t know, and didn’t want to know.
Trencher hated the fact that, in order to save his own race they had to destroy innocent infants who had done nothing wrong except be born with the wrong set of genetics. But that was not going to stop him from fulfilling his duties.
For more than twenty years they had done everything they could to control the sub-human populations, destroying almost all the Sirens, and about fifty percent of Kitsune births. Female Kitsune always had twins, so it was easy enough to tell the family there was only one live birth, the extraneous twin would then either be eliminated or sent to the military crèches.
Even with this brutal pruning Kitsune made up about twenty present of the billion people living in the City, a series of arcologies that had only three million square miles of land. Even with the arcologies there was only so much space to spare, and only so many resources to feed and maintain the population.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Especially now, since Luna was cutting back on its food exports. The moon people claimed that the federation owed them millions of cred in resources for the previous aid, and unless they were paid they were going to cut the Earth off.
He took another shot of whiskey. He could not allow Project Beagle to become public knowledge. There would be too much fall out, too many families wondering if their “still-birth” was really a Siren. It was his job to protect humanity. Someone had to.
Natalia grinned at Shido. "The Colonel is sending re-enforcements to secure the hotel.
“Why didn’t you tell him about the Deep?” asked Rei as he watched Noriko, help Natalia to a bench.
“Because he didn’t need to know.” Natalia rubbed her temples. Not telling her commander about the Deep had been a difficult decision. “I know too many Kitsune and Sirens who have died because of human intolerance. Your people are safe, they aren’t hurting anyone and from what I saw they really aren’t draining resources that the city needs. I can understand them wanting a sanctuary.”
“You will need to go down and get Marigold.” said Shido, “They are going to want her here, and she is going to need to give evidence against the hospital to InSec Sirens.”
“I can do that.” said Rei. “I may need to kill Alexander to take her, but I don’t consider that a huge loss to the Deep.”
“Nor would I” growled Noriko. “That ham-handed bastard.” The pale woman turned to her leader. “Major, I would like to accompany Rei-san to the Deeps. If this ‘Alexander’ tries to tamper with Rei-san’s mind or use psionic attacks he may need backup. Also having one of our people with him may show that we mean no harm.”
“I agree. Rei, would you mind taking Takada and Noriko with you?”
“No, I like the idea of having someone back me up against that albino snake.”
“Major are you sure you want to send both of us? That leaves Haru as the only Siren you have.”
“Alexander is strong. The strongest Siren I have felt in my mind.” Natalia looked into both her Sirens’ eyes to emphasize how serious she was. “He may have no finesse, but he does have power. I’m not taking any risks. Are you armed?”
Noriko shook her head. “I only have my knives. The serving uniforms didn’t have anywhere for me to hide a pistol.”
“I have a spare pistol.” Takada said handing it to her. “I also have my knives, and a handful of flash bangs. We are expecting the Genie case to be messy so I over armed.”
Natalia smiled at her team. This was why they were the best.
“Understood.” Rei and the two Sirens made their way back to the elevator. A few minutes later Alison arrived with the other half of the team, and Natalia quickly briefed them.
“Okay. Let’s run this clean people, secure the hotel while we wait for transport. Remember we are dealing with a powerful rouge Siren, so keep sharp. Once we have Marigold secured, we are dealing with him. Shido, you’re with me.”
The team scattered, And Natalia, leaning on Shido’s shoulder, made her way to the hotel lobby. “Damn Deep Probes.” Natalia cursed; she hated feeling weak.
“You’ll feel better after some sleep. And don’t you dare go all noble, have Noriko monitor you. It will take twice as long for you to feel better if you are nightmaring all night, and you know you will. It’s a side effect of the probe.” Shido’s voice was stern and full of care as he checked his com for updates.
“Talia something’s wrong. I’m not seeing any messages through dispatch for our transport.”
A steal whine came from overhead. Suddenly the building shook and the ceiling crashed down around them, the plasticine rebar snapping sending shards of shrapnel through the air. Shido threw himself onto Natalia, his tuned reflexes responding instinctively to protect her. Both of them screamed in pain as the cacophony of destruction battered their tuned ears, as they where buried in the collapsing building.
Saki watched in horror as the Leo administrative gondola crashed into the shoddy looking hotel. She could see the Leos inside panicking through the windows as the clamps released from the archeology ceiling, and dropped the armored station forty meters down onto the hotel crushing it like a cheep can of protein.
She ran her heart panicking. That was the building her team, her family, was in, but her head remained clear. This was her training; she had not been raised ISF but instead in a Ranger’s crèche. She had been transferred out of the Rangers when an opening had come up for an ISF team. Rangers didn’t panic. Fear was a murderer that could never be captured, but the wise learned how to avoid.
She slid her slim body through a partially crushed window and began crawling through the rubble. She found two dead civilians in the rubble, her heart pounding as she continued moving, checking her comm periodically for her team’s locations. She found Haru first, dead and half crushed by a fallen wall, his blue eyes staring blankly. Not far from Haru was Miyako, the saucy Kitsune woman was dead from hundreds of shards of plasticine that had shredded her body like a fragmentation grenade. She also found Lucas, but the only way she recognized him was by his scent. He’d been buried by the ceiling and the smell of death mingled with his sweat under the rubble. She winced as she crawled over the pile of debris covering her friend’s body, whispering a silent apology to him.
She already knew Aaron, Takada and the other Siren had to be dead, they would be mind calling for help otherwise, but she hoped that some of the humans or Kitsune had survived. Saki prayed that she was doing more than searching for corpses.
Her comm flashed as a message was broadcasted.
“All Leos report immediately to the three thousand block of sector Sydney three. There has been a terrorist attack. The area is to be sanitized. Terrorists may be dressed in InSec uniforms. Shoot to kill all Human-forms in the area. Repeat, shoot to kill all Human-forms in Area, there is to be no exceptions...”
“Sweet Gaia.” Saki whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here!” She found herself in the lobby. It was the first area she’d found with any standing room. The ex-Ranger heard coughing and cursing, and carefully made her way towards the sound. She found Shido and Natalia, partially buried, in ceiling plaster.
“Hold on! Don’t move. I’ll get you out!” Saki winced as she speed tuned her muscles for extra strength, and began pulling the chunks of concrete off of her friends. Shido moaned as he was freed, and Saki could see that one of his arms was shattered. There were also a lot of lacerations on his back, both from placticine shards and from chunks of cement.
“Saki?” Whispered Natalia as she coughed.
“It’s me big-sister. We need to get out of here!” Saki winced as she heard gunshots ring outside of the building.
“They are trying to kill us!” whispered Shido in horror.
“Saki, do you have your door cutter.” Natalia asked.
“Yes, I have my full kit. If I was going to get into trouble for disobeying orders, I wasn’t going to get in more trouble for being under-equipped.”
“Open the elevator shaft.”
The sixteen year old girl pulled a tube out of one of her numerous pouches, and carefully applied yellow paste it to the elevator door. It hissed and bubbled for a moment then Saki kicked it in, sending a three foot circle of the door spinning into the darkness. Without being told she began to set rappel lines in place. A loud whining sound caused all of the Kitsune to pause.
“Oh shit. That’s the gondola’s generator. It’s going to explode!” Saki cursed and hurried, loading a web shot into her assault rifle’s grenade launcher and shot it down the elevator shaft. Then she threw Shido into the tunnel, ignoring him as the wounded man shouted in terror as he fell into the darkness. There was no time to set proper rappels, let alone a repelling rig for an injured man. She and Natalia grabbed the one line she had set and climbed into the hole. Quickly the pair slid down the rope to the web that Saki had set, Shido was unconscious from the pain of landing on his bad arm.
Saki and Natalia covered their injured brother with their bodies as a thunderous boom echoed through the elevator shaft, the pressure wave plastering them to the web. The edges of the resin mass began to fray and loose contact with the wall as dust and plasticine splinters rained down on them.
Oh Gaia please let the web hold. Prayed Saki, as seconds seemed to turn into hours. Then there was only darkness and a silence broken only with the sounds of their breathing, Saki pulled out a glow rod and broke it, bathing them in an eerie greenish yellow light. The young Kitsune girl looked up. The elevator shaft was completely blocked by rubble.
“Saki, how many more web-charges do you have?” Asked Natalia,
“Um, I had a full clip, so five more.”
“Alright, Set a new web for us to put Shido on, I don’t trust this one not to give out after taking that shockwave. After that I want you to fill in the tunnel above us. I don’t want them to be able to follow.
Neither woman spoke of the rest of their family joining them. If they had survived the building’s fall they would not have survived the blast. Once they were out of danger they would mourn. Saki hoped it didn’t break her sister. She’d only been with the team two years, and it was tearing her up that out of the fifteen field agents, now there were only three. She couldn’t imagine how much harder it was going to be for Talia, who had been raised all her life with them, and who had the responsibility of leading them.
Saki set another web further down the shaft, and they used the remains of the first web to lower Shido to safety. Natalia began giving their brother-in-arms what medical attention she could while Saki climbed the shaft and set tiny ball shaped charges into the upper part of the concrete tunnel. She set a web to catch the rubble so it wouldn’t land on their heads, and climbed back down to rejoin her teammates. The detonation was small, precise and filled another twenty feet of tunnel with rubble.
“Now what Major?”
“Now we climb down. We are going to have to carry Shido, and hope we don’t injure him more.” Natalia reached out and hugged Saki to her, burying her face in Saki’s hair. Saki returned her hug, taking comfort in her adopted big sister’s scent.
“Let’s go, we have a hard climb ahead of us.” Natalia said her, voice thick with unshed tears.