Chapter 27

..[ SYLVIA ]..

Of all the hostile civilizations they had encountered, the Talingi were the worst. The fact that they were on the brink of destroying their own planet was just the icing on the cake. She knew that civilizations could be ignorant of the threat they posed to themselves, just like the humans had been back on Earth; or plain decide that going out in a blaze of glory wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

But getting those two mixed up in one species was the recipe for disaster. The Talingi were heading there. The two smaller continents had yet to be touched by the war, but their forces on the central continent had been pushed so far back that soon enough, war would come knocking at their doorsteps. The only thing that had kept their hands from already using the nuclear weapons was the treaty they had both signed, and the pressure from their allies. But if those allies got attacked, they might start singing a very different tune.

She missed her time at the Sho’sla System. That had been her last peaceful encounter from the start up to the time she left. After that, it had been a series of first hostile encounters that had to be squashed before the native species could be brought to the table for talks. Those had been mere skirmishes, trying to establish who is more powerful than who. Most of the times, no deaths had occurred on either sides. And none of the times had a death occurred on their side. There had been a close call or two, but the crew involved had responded diligently.

But on the Talingi planet, deaths had been a constant since day one of contact. They had been in the middle of slaughtering each other when they were discovered. And ever since then, that hadn’t changed at all. They were trying to keep them from realizing about their presence before it was time. In such dire situations, timing was everything. Alerting them early could help them focus their energies to discovering ways to actually hurt them.

They had tried a peaceful approach at first; Mativo had been very clear on his opinion on it. And it had proved true. All three factions had aggressively attacked them. And so the second plan had been set into motion; hostile takeover. Teams had been dispatched to the key points that had been highlighted by the intelligence reports they had gathered. And the team she was in was headed for the big guy in the southern continent.

They knew he was holed up in an underground banker two kilometers from the country’s capitol building. It had three main entrances that they knew of. One at the capitol building itself, and two more at safe houses at the north and south east of the underground banker. The northern safe house was the closest to the bunker at eight hundred meters while the south-eastern safe house was three kilometers away. The intelligence report had strongly hinted at it being the preferred escape route. All the safe houses together with the entrance at the capitol building were equally well-guarded.

They chose the south-eastern safe house as their entry point. Four groups were placed at the other entrances incase their target decided to run. And a shuttle was silently hovering overhead. They most probably knew that they were there. And if they didn’t, they would when they made contact with the safe house.

They came prepared for a long protracted battle knowing full well that the target would be fully protected. Pulse guns and ten to fifteen reserve batteries, other than the standard three reserve batteries. And even then, they would not be enough. Normally it wasn’t mandatory to carry their swords, but it had been made so for the missions. Plus, all Energy users, safe for Mativo, had been deployed. Mondhe was on a mission for a high value target on the central continent while Jacy was all the way up north. Sylvia wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she wished she had been deployed on one of those two teams. For different reasons.

She had learnt enough of the language that she could hold a conversation, so her role on the team was that of diplomat-linguist. As always. But she was also a combat certified crew member, and she would be killing her first person ever soon. She wasn’t looking forward to it. Maybe she would get lucky and not have to kill anyone. She had been for over ten Years. She had managed not to kill any intelligent being with an intelligence comparable to that of an average human.

She knew it couldn’t last though. Soon enough, they would find themselves in a situation where they would have to kill if they wanted to get out alive. The sooner she got over her reservations, the better prepared she would be; someone had told her, she couldn’t remember who. But what had her anxious was the fact that she wasn’t the only one taking her first kill, Mondhe was too. And she wasn’t even fifteen yet.

“All in position. We start in ten.” She heard over the Comms.

They had already made it to the safe house. It was an unassuming compound in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. A three-meter live fence around it. Made of thick shrubs covered in large dark green leaves and sharp black thorns from the ground to the top. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it was well maintained. There was a possibility that some of the other compounds could be housing security agents. But if they were, they were slow to respond. They were already at the fence with no confrontation yet. The barred gate was quickly cut open and they moved in.

Inside, there was a sizable front yard. Approximately fifty by twenty meters. It was mostly covered in grass, but for the tarmac path that led to the garage and the front of the house. The house was a white building with mildly slopping brown tiles. It lacked a chimney though. As she made it to the house, the fighting had already started. While a considerable number of them had used the front gate, others had found other ways to get into the compound. They had been successful.

There were gunshots, the natives; and bodies clashing against the walls, furniture and the floor, also the natives. The procession picked up speed as she walked through the house, barely allowing her time to see much of it. The out of order lights didn’t help either. They were on a timer now and no one wanted anything to go wrong. Especially not her.

They found the entrance to the underground bunker at the basement, obviously. All the way, she had had to walk around and over bodies of the Talingi. There had to have been at least twenty people in the house.

First it was a short elevator ride to the bunker proper. The first group down had already cleared the immediate area and was waiting for the rest of the team. Hiding behind nearby corners and barely returning fire at all. They had only fired as her group left the elevator for a safe room five meters from the door. She had been hit on her leg by one of the bullets and it hurt. Not as much as she would have expected but still. She would not, without good reason, throw herself in front of an incoming bullet.

They moved out of the room and advanced on the location they had for their target. They had acquired blueprints for the banker, but they weren’t sure if they were accurate or not. If they proved false, they would just have to search everything.

The walls and ceiling for the hallways were colored grey while the floor was a dull-silver. To her, it looked like uncolored cement plaster. The training they had undergone was clearly showing; taking out any Talingi that made an appearance before they could barely make a shot. But not always. Their advance was not silent. Not because of them but their opponents. Their gunshots were too loud for such confined spaces. The shots ringing the ears long after they had been fired. In contrast, their pulse guns were as silent as ever. And she couldn’t tell if anyone had fired at all until a Talingi fell. She knew the crew were good but it was hard to tell how good of a shot the crew were, they could be firing tens of shots before the enemy fell.

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She was somewhere in the middle of procession, making sure she didn’t get any action at all. The Talingi were often coming from the front or the back. There had been hardly any branch-offs they could have used to attack their sides. There had been corners, sometimes curves. They checked as many rooms as they could as they advanced. Some were empty, others storage rooms, office rooms, kitchens, restrooms, all of them. And they been all evacuated. Either everyone was a soldier and they were the ones they were meeting in the corridors, or there were hiding places for situations such as the one they were creating.

The rooms had had antique looking computers. If she had to make a guess, she would say early personal computers. With their pixelated graphics and the big punchy buttons, it was the only guess available. The chairs were big sturdy cushioned things with high mahogany looking desks compared to the ones she was used to. She assumed those were to accommodate for their large body frames.

The kitchens were white sliver all over. With ingredients and utensils scattered all over. If that wasn’t enough to let them know that the occupants had left in a early, then the open fires would have. Sylvia thought that they still had hopes of reclaiming the banker. If it had been the other way around, she was sure that the flames would have been shutoff but the flaming gas left to fill kitchens and act as a weapon when the opponents came across it. She was sure that they were still visible on the security cameras she had seen strewn all over the bunker. They knew exactly where they were and if they decided to, they could have set it a flame. But unless they could sustain the high temperatures for long, she was their suits would proof sufficient enough for them to survive. Then, even she would want blood.

She knew that the other entrances were also under attack. Not as dedicated as their own but enough to give the occupants of the banker the impression that they were being attack from all sides. The shuttle from above hadn’t reported anything to them. It could be that it had already been taken out, which was highly unlikely, or that they had been successful in cornering their target. And leaving them with no way of escape. Sylvia hoped that they wouldn’t just resort to the nuclear weapons immediately. They should wait, debate it, give the other teams enough time to do their part. Once all the nuclear weapons were disarmed, the fight would be as good as won.

They soon arrived to a junction that wasn’t on their map. And a split up was called. The team was working on the six group basic unit and everyone knew which part of the hierarchy they belonged to. So when a high ranking officer went one way, all the crew under them followed suit. Both the paths taken seemed to lead to where the target was supposed to be. But it was also possible that the target’s location had changed with the creation of the junction.

In her new smaller team, Sylvia was closer to the fighting ends of the team. And the fact that some of the lead crew had fallen back allowing others to move to the ends, meant that they were past their half point in battery packs. Soon enough, she would find herself either at the front or at the back.

A door opened at one of the branching hallways as she passed it and she turned aiming only to find three Talingi aiming for the middle of the team. She hesitated, they didn’t. Lucky for her, they didn’t aim for her, and the rest of her team didn’t hesitate. She berated herself as she fired at them. But it was too little too late. They were already down. One or two on the team had been hit, but they walked on as if it was nothing. She knew it wasn’t. And the team progressed after only losing a step.

Some had already drawn one of their swords and unretracted them, others were opting for a more bare-handed approach. She realized most of the team was below half in battery packs. It was time. She slowly advanced forward as some of the others slacked a little. It was a game well ingrained in all combat crew. She didn’t end up leading per se, but she was to the left of the leading crew. And a step behind. The next Talingi she saw, she didn’t hesitate. Was it an instant kill or a slow kill shot? She didn’t know, but they went down and that was all that mattered. If they so much as twitched, someone would finish them off.

She felt a warm wetness roll down her cheek, tear or sweat, she didn’t know. Her right hand had a slight tremor. She could feel it shaking, but when she really stared at it, it was still as a rock. Sweeping left and right as her left hand opened doors to the left of the hallway. And the next Talingi to cross her aim went down before she realized she had been the one who fired. She quickly took her place back as the first left as they cleared the next room. And on they moved, clearing rooms left and right. And more Talingi fell to her pulse.

By the time they made it to their destination, she had lost count of how many she had fell. And she was down to her eighth battery pack. They were a few steps ahead of the team, making the last corner just as they made it to the door. They waited for them before they proceeded to breach the door.

The walls were the same grey as the rest of the bunker, but the door was twice as large as any other they had come across. Maybe three meters across. It appeared to be made of reinforced steel. But it was no obstacle for them. They lined it with a highly corrosive derivative of Mutrium along the walls. In a minute, a weak area had been created and that section of the door was forcibly pushed inside by two of the bioaugments. The door flew so hard it hit the other side of the room with a loud boom. Sylvia hoped no one had being standing in its way. If it was the VIPs room, they would need most of them alive.

Two projectiles immediately passed each other at the door. They had send in a light grenade, and got in return what appeared to be a smoke grenade. Or a poisonous gas grenade. It didn’t really matter. They had been dressed as if going into an inhospitable area from the beginning. Inside, she heard groaning as the first of the crew moved in.

There were gunshots, nonstop gunshots. So much that they were forced back out, and not all of them returned. When the gunshots subsided, they moved in again. The second group was a little varied though, skewed towards the bioaugments and the hybrids. The gunshots began again, but they quickly petered off. Slowly reducing to a few shots as more of the team went inside the room.

The room was a mess. The door opened in the middle of a long room. The section of the door was still embedded on the opposite wall. The right side was a designated lounge area, with a large view screen showing a news channel going on from what Sylvia understood. The other side was a conference area with all the chairs facing the left wall. It had a wall to wall display currently showing feeds from the security cameras all over the bunker. There were ten computer terminals on the desks near the wall. Some were off while others showed unintelligible things to her. One of them had its screen completely shattered. It had been hit by something.

There were bodies strewn all over the room. Only two of them were theirs. And they were already being attended to. The array of bullets must have overwhelmed the nanobot protection system. From what she could see, they would live. Some of the crew had others in custody, some appeared to have broken hands and legs. And was that a severed limb? Sylvia focused on the one that appeared to be the most coherent one.

“Where are the leaders?” she asked causally, and nearly lost her composure by how calm she sounded. He, and he was clearly a he, turned his head in defiance. “We can make them come out. But more of them will die. We only want to talk.”

Even she could hear the irony in those words. And see too. But they had tried talking first. That hadn’t gone so well. He cast a gaze sideways and tried to recover, but it was too late. She followed it and saw an inconspicuous looking furniture by the wall near the right far corner. It had fit in with the others before, but it now stood out like a sore thumb. She directed one of the others to check it out with her head.

“Now, was that so hard?” she told him.

“Underground. Our scanners can’t penetrate. About half the size of this room,” the one she ordered reported back.

“Still not going to tell them to come out?” When she got nothing, she turned to the overall team Commander and nodded.

“Crack it open,” the Commander ordered.

They were soon descending a short flight of stairs leading them towards the center of them room, before coming to another door. The new bunker in a bunker appeared to be located in the middle of the room they had been in. The new door took a little more than a minute to open. And it was opened carefully.

There were a few shots before she called loudly, “We only want to talk.”

There was a moment of silence, stretching close to a minute before a reply came through. “You’ve already killed so many.”

“It was the only way to get to you,” she sent back. “And you didn’t make it easy.”

“What do you want?” the new voice was softer, more akin to what she had heard from the females on the planet.

“I already told you. To talk.”

“About what?” she asked again.

She was silent for a few seconds. To gather herself for the next part. There couldn’t be a shred of doubt in her voice. None at all.

“Your surrender.”