Chapter Seven

Natalia had just slid into bed, sighing as the cool sheets embraced her, when someone banged on her door. “Someone had better be dead!” she yelled, flinging off the blankets and padding towards the sliding door. She didn’t bother throwing a robe on over the short t-shirt and shorts she preferred for sleep wear. Body modesty wasn’t a problem for most Kitsune, even one with her past, and if it bothered whoever was at the door, tough.

She regretted her apathy instantly when the door slid open to reveal Shido. The male blinked in surprise, then grinned. “Pink? I would have never guessed!”

“Tell me what you want, quickly, or I will throw you out the window and see if you can grow wings before hitting the pavement.” She growled. It was perhaps ironic that the Kitsune, who could adapt to most other human ills easily, needed at least as much sleep as a normal human, if not more. That fact amused the Sirens who averaged only four hours of sleep each night, and would regularly accuse their Kitsune and Human colleagues of being lazy.

Since Natalia had spent nearly twenty hours straight running down dead end leads on the Nurse/bio-waste case she had really been looking forward to shutting down for at least a few hours of precious sleep.

“We got a call on the Nurse thing.” Shido said, bringing her out of her exhaustion induced fog. “A gang of Ferals turned up near where the sweeper team got wiped. Oh, and guess what the best part is?”

“One of the Ferals is called Rei?”

“The leader, as a matter of fact.” Shido nodded. “It seems this pack has been operating in the sector for the last year, but the Leos didn’t know where they were holding up. The investigation team stumbled onto it by chance while checking on one of our less promising leads.”

Natalia winced, realizing that the discovery might not have been a good thing for the Leos. Ferals were one half street gang, one half nihilistic cult, and all cannibals. They had grown out of the food shortages that had crippled the newly formed Australasian Federation in the dark days following the Wars of Madness. They convinced themselves that they gained magical powers by the consumption of Kitsune, Human, and Siren flesh.

As a perverse twist of irony, they were also the most egalitarian organization in the entire Undercity, due to having both Kitsune and Humans in every pack. Sirens, who were usually reluctant to do harm to another person, even after military training, had only ever contributed one member to the group.

Over seventy people were still in vegetative states at Sydney Central Hospital from the attempt to take that sociopath down, even thirty years later.

“What’s their status?” Natalia asked, dreading the answer.

“Good news on that front. The team saw a known member of the gang enter the place, an abandoned tenement scheduled for urban renewal, whenever someone gets around to voting on it, before they approached it.” Shido replied. “Over thirty of the freaks are inside according to Spy drones, though. The local Leo commander is, understandably, calling for Special Forces support for their own strike teams. We got the call instead of the Rangers, due to the nurse case.”

Natalia nodded. “Get the team up and armed. I want to move in ten minutes.”

“Yes Sir.” Shido was gone almost instantly, leaving Natalia to slip back into her room to collect her personal body armor and weapons.

The Leo scene commander looked relieved when the team’s vehicle pulled up to his mobile command center, a relief that didn’t fade when Kitsune and Sirens poured out of it. That told Natalia the man was unusually open minded for a Leo officer, and that he was scared out of his mind. This marked him as competent to her way of thinking.

He shook her hand without hesitation, which did surprise her. “Major Aiko? I’m Captain Jonathan Morris. I run the S-4 district precinct.”

“Call me Natalia.” The Kitsune officer said, hiding her wince. Among the Kitsune and Sirens in the military surnames were shared between entire crèche classes and so could get confusing quickly. She realized there was no way he could have known, but it frequently grating on nerves when the Human officers forgot. “Our people are about to be going into the hot place together, so I think we can afford a bit of familiarity. What’s your situation?”

“Jack.” The man insisted. “We have thirty living beings inside the house, with three of them likely prisoners.”

As he spoke, the captain guided them to a bank of holo-screens manned by uniformed technicians. The screens were surrounded by armored Leos. Two of the screens showed the view from what were probably sniper positions, while three others showed the distinctive fish eyed view of the tiny, spider like spy drone’s single visual receptor.

“What do we know about these Ferals?” Shido asked.

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A Leo, in an unusual set of patrol armor marked with red strips where the other men had white, stepped forward. “They’re nasty pieces of work, and we think this is the bulk of S-4 and S-3’s active cannibals. It looks like some sort of weird, communal safe house.”

Natalia nodded, and finally noticed the speaker’s scent. “I didn’t know there were any Kitsune in the Law Enforcement Office.”

“Four of us, total.” The Kitsune replied. “Officer, formerly Gunnery Sergeant, Lee Corelli at your service, Major.”

“Glad to have you here, Gunny.” Natalia smiled. “What’s the Kitsune to Human ratio in this group?”

“Well, depending on how you count the first dan…” His tone suggested he didn’t count them for much of anything. “They’re split about fifty-fifty. None above third dan, from reports, with the exception of their leader.”

“Rei.” Shido muttered.

“Yes sir. He claims to be the ‘Soul’ of the group, and a seventh dan.”

“No problem with his ego.” Natalia commented, turning her attention back to the holo-screens. “Looks like they’ve mostly settled in for the night.”

“Only seven are up and moving, from what we’ve seen Ma’am.” One of the technicians confirmed.

The Kitsune major turned to the Leo captain. “What boots do you have on the ground, Jack?”

“Two six-man squads, all with military or door breaching experience. I could call in more manpower, but I hesitate to bring virgins in on a mess this nasty… excuse the expression.”

“I agree. Green officers would just get in the way.” Natalia nodded. “I count two doors?”

“Two. And the windows are poly, so they aren’t going to be busting through them in a hurry, unless they take them at a dead run and don’t mind a broken rib or six.”

Natalia nodded. “Gunny, your team is with me.” She turned to her own people. “Aaron and Regin are to monitor my team for casualties while Takada and Noriko will do the same for team two. Haru is on backup and escapee tracing. Sorry Haru, I know Ferals give you a headache.”

“Shido, you help the techs. Kylee and Robert, I want you to find additional sniper spots to pick off runners.”

“Osamu, Miyako… you’re joining team two, and I want Miyako taking charge of that team.” Her questioning look to the Leo Captain got a nod of agreement. She didn’t need to ask for his approval, but it was polite to at least acknowledge the man. “Allison, you’re taking Gregory, Saki, and Lucas in as team three. Your primary goal is the rescue and security of those prisoners. Secondarily you will act as reinforcements if teams one or two get into trouble.”

The four Kitsune nodded, Saki a bit reluctantly. She was an Ex-ranger, and preferred to be point on door busting missions.” Sorry Saki, but you’re EMT training is more important than that assault rifle you insist on toting around.” She told the sixteen year old Kitsune.

“All teams set for lethal force. We don’t need prisoners, if they don’t surrender on their own. Snipers, you have five minutes to find perches. Door teams, you have ten minutes to get into place.” She closed. “Move it people.”

It took them eight minutes. Mentally, Natalia made a note to put Captain Morris in for a commendation, with as tight of a house as he ran he deserved it. “We ready to go, Gunny?”

“Hell Sir, I thought you were taking a nap! That being an officer’s prerogative and all.”

Natalia smirked and keyed her headsets comm. “Go! Go! Go!”

A human Leo on both teams used an old fashioned, semi-automatic shotgun to blow the doors off their hinges and within seconds her people were in and shooting at anyone stupid enough to move, which was most of them. Natalia managed not to wince at the sound of sixteen sonic pistols firing, the cacophony painful even through her sound cancelling headphones. Instead she concentrated on lining the sights of her gun up with targets and pulling the trigger.

“Team three, the stairs are clear! Go!” She heard Shido’s voice through the headsets built in comm, and smiled. It wasn’t often that a raid went this smooth. She took a chance to look around and noted only a few of the Leo’s were limping, and no one was down or dead except Ferals. The cult considered surrender to be a sign of weakness, and the weak were worthy only of being meat.

“Clear!” Rang out from both the Gunny, as well as from Miyuko on the opposite side of the buildings open floor.

“Secure the wounded, and verify the dead…”

Natalia’s orders were interrupted by Shido’s voice. “Saki! Shit! Some big ass freak just took her in the side. They went through a window, into the alley.”

“I have no shot! The Alley’s blind.” Kylee Sparrowhawk’s voice reported with voice tense.

“Same here!” Yelled Robert through his own comm.

Natalia had started running before either of them spoke, already out the door by the time Robert had called out with the sound of the ex-gunnery sergeants boots pounding behind her. She took the turn around the alley’s corner at a dead run, a pair of steps along the opposite building’s wall instead of the ground assisting that turn. She saw a muscle bound form standing over Saki’s bloody body, lifting a long knife for a stab at the girl’s chest. Natalia didn’t have to think, her hand was already aiming her gun, and the sonic pistol barked twice.

Both shots took the behemoth center of mass, but instead of falling he spun towards Natalia and threw his knife at an impossible speed. Knowing she couldn’t dodge effectively at a run, the Kitsune woman brought her gun up to block the projectile. Plastic and sparks exploded around her as the weapon disintegrated in her hand.

She didn’t so much as miss a step as she dropped the defunct gun. Her shoulder plowed into the huge man in a tackle that would have been pretty for a man twice Natalia’s size.

He grunted, and went down, but with impossible agility he kicked her off with enough force to send her three meters into the air, continuing on her previous trajectory into the concrete dead end of the alley.

Natalia flipped in mid air, and planted her feet into the cement wall. The exquisite pain of an instant change flowed through her hands as she willed them into claws, and used the energy stored in her still compressing knees to launch from the hard surface she’d landed on like an angry bullet ricocheting, only more dangerous.

Her claws took the man through the neck as she passed over him. She ripped out his throat in a spray of viscera, even as a burst from Saki’s assault rifle destroyed his spine. Hitting the ground, Natalia paused to check the corpse only long enough to confirm he was dead, before turning to the Gunny and Saki.

She was relieved to see the young Kitsune was already trying to convince the older male that she was fine.

“Well…” Shido, who had come around the corner just as Natalia landed, snarked. “We know Saki can’t grow wings!”

He didn’t manage to dodge the trashcan lid the girl in question threw at him.