"Thank you Sergeant, that will be all."
Longbow Captain Susan Kane waited until her office door had closed fully before allowing herself the luxury of slumping forward and rubbing her face with her hands. She knew she was a good person, but there were times when she wondered just what the hell her past lives had been up to.
Twenty four hours earlier, a small group of infiltrators had managed to break into Fort Darwin, elude capture for just over an hour, incapacitate four officers and kill a fifth. As if that weren't bad enough, they were then able to hack into a supposedly secure teleport control system and use one of the fort's telepads to go...who knows where.
And now, it was all her problem.
On the positive side, Captain Kane knew that she couldn't be held responsible for any of it. Her entire unit had been engaged in a successful clear and kill mission in a Snake hatchery on the West side of the island. On the negative side, it had somehow become her fault by not being in the base at the time.
"If you had been here, we would have had tighter security. If you and your people hadn't been off on some snake hunt...," her fellow Captain Oswald Montcalm had accused, as her command had returned to the base.
"A snake hunt that we completed neatly and efficiently and one, I might point out, that you turned down because, and I quote 'It wasn't a mission worthy of my men,' unquote. And, " she continued, " I suspect that had we been here instead of you, we would have suspects in custody and your man would still be alive."
It was a low blow but there wasn't any way she was going to let him shift blame. Montcalm was a commander who had lost a man, and it was understandable that he was upset, but he was a self important fool. It was better to shut him down before he could get a solid rant going.
Had she not been bone tired, sweaty, and ready to collapse in an adrenaline crash, she might have been more tactful. Not that it would have helped. Montcalm had that most precious of assets in Longbow. Seniority. His commission predated hers by three weeks, so, despite the fact that he was semi-competent, completely lacking in basic tactical skills, and a lackluster field commander, he was, by Longbow tradition, correct. If he, as a more senior officer, said that it was her fault, then, despite all evidence to the contrary, it was her fault.
As a way of reminding her of her place, Montcalm convinced the base commander to assign her the task of finding and apprehending the suspects. And, just to make it even more galling, he had cited 'ongoing security concerns' to saddle her with a 72 hour time limit.
She had 48 hours left.
She leaned back in her chair and relaxed back into her command state. She knew what her people expected from her and she would always give it to them. She leaned forward slightly and keyed the intercom on her desk.
"Becky, could you come in here please?"
Thirty seconds later, Master Sergeant Rebecca Woodley walked crisply through the door with an armload of files. It took her three short steps to cross the room and place the papers on the corner of her Captain's desk. She took a step backward and saluted, waiting for the response from her superior officer.
Captain Kane saluted back before waving her hand at a nearby chair. Becky Woodley had been with her ever since they were both flying helicopters fror the Army. She'd been offered a command of her own several times but always refused, stating 'no desire to be an officer.' She'd always been Kane's personal sounding board and seemed to be quite happy in that job.
"You've gotten everything we need?"
"Yes, Captain. Combined with those interviews you just wrapped up, I think we have a pretty complete picture of what happened."
"Any surprises?"
Sergeant Woodley laughed. "It would have been nice but, no," she continued more seriously. "Actually, other than trooper Colher, every one of our people was neutralized in a non-lethal manner."
"What was different about Colher?"
"He was holding the flamethrower and, judging by the scorch marks, fired it at least once."
Captain Kane simply could not resist anymore. She lowered her head down to her desktop and let her arms drop limply toward the ground.
"How in the name of all that is Holy are we expected to use a flamethrower to arrest someone?" She let the exasperation seep quietly into her voice.
"Well, the base was on alert, Captain."
Captain Kane raised her head up enough to look at her Sergeant's face. Sergeant Woodley's expression remained neutral but her eyes rolled slightly. Susan Kane and Rebecca Woodley had both served with the US Army and the San Francisco PD's Special Strike Teams. They had a combined thirty years of service between them but they had never worked for an Law Enforcement agency quite like Longbow.
Susan Kane was beginning to wonder if her old apartment on De Haro street was still available when someone knocked on her office door. Captain Kane sat upright and quickly composed herself while Sergeant Woodley stood up and arranged herself at parade rest alongside the desk.
"Come in."
Oswald Montcalm stalked into the room. "Well?"
"Well, what?" Captain Kane answered calmly.
"Why haven't you done anything to find the people who killed my man?"
"As per procedure, we've reviewed all audio and video logs and conducted interviews with the necessary personnel. I was reviewing that information with my senior Sergeant when you came in."
"And? What do you intend to do about it?"
"Continue my investigation." Captain Kane stood up and turned to face her Sergeant. "Master Sergeant."
"Ma'am."
"Please assemble the unit on the main deck in 15 minutes. Full battledress and standard patrol gear please. I'll provide further instructions at that time."
"Ma'am." Sergeant Woodley snapped off a parade ground salute, and turned sharply on her heel and strode out of the room.
Captain Kane waited for a moment before turning back to face Montcalm.
"Now, Oswald, if you will excuse me, I need to get dressed."
She didn't wait to hear if he had any reply. The sooner she was away from him and Fort Darwin, the better.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
The skies over Mercy Island were gray and cloudy as Captain Kane stepped out on to the main landing deck sixteen minutes later. It wasn't raining yet but, judging by the feel of the wind off of the ocean, she knew that it would be before too long.
The main deck was, basically, the roof of Fort Darwin. Arachnos had chosen the simplest design possible for the Fort and, instead of building a dedicated landing facility, they just reinforced the roof and added landing lights. For years the this had been the main arrival and recruitment point for hundreds of Paragon City's criminals. Now it served as Longbow's only uncontested access point on Mercy Island.
The Media and Longbow's P.R. division had trumpeted the capture of the base as a great triumph against the forces of evil. From Captain Kane's point of view it was a pointless waste of time, resources, and personnel. Longbow already had a perfectly functional, strategically located, and far less politically troublesome, base at Agincourt in the Nerva Archipelago. Mercy Island, she felt, was a lost cause and had been for years.
"Ten Hut! Officer on Deck!"
Rebecca Woodley had long ago perfected the parade ground voice that was required of all Sergeants. At her command, fourteen pairs of boots snapped to attention and fourteen pairs of eyes looked straight ahead. Captain Kane had to keep from smiling since she knew that Becky had stolen it almost tone for tone from old John Wayne films.
Longbow field teams operated much like military special forces so, instead of having hundreds of soldiers under her command like she would have in a Army rifle company, Captain Susan Kane had direct control of two, seven man rifle teams. That was fine with her. She knew she could get better results with her Fourteen than other commanders (i.e. most of the command staff of Fort Darwin) could with ten times that many.
"At ease," she said as she strode the final few steps across the deck to her unit. "Attention to orders. Our mission is the pursuit and apprehension of persons unknown who infiltrated this facility and used one of the teleporters to travel to an unspecified location in the area of..."
"We know exactly where they've gone, Captain," interrupted Captain Montcalm as he walked across the deck to stand directly behind Captain Kane. "If you'd watched the video, like you claimed you had, you'd know that one of the criminals said they were going to some place called 'Diagon alley."
Susan Kane did not move. "Master Sergeant," she said calmly. "Was such a place mentioned in the recording?"
"Yes, Ma'am"
"And, are you familiar with this location?"
"Yes, Ma'am"
"And, where would this place be?" Susan Kane asked. Although Montcalm could not see it, her eyes were tightly shut. Not because she had been caught in a lie, but if she made eye contact with any of her squad at this point, they would all start laughing. They all knew that Becky Woodley had a Ravenclaw scarf in her footlocker.
"Just outside London, Ma'am"
"London?" Montcalm said. "That's impossible.Teleporters can't reach that far."
"That is correct Captain," said Captain Kane. "That is one of two reasons we chose to ignore that particular bit of information."
"And the other one?"
"Sergeant, please elaborate for the Captain." Susan Kane was an extremely patient woman but she was setting close to the point where she was going to either to start hitting him or laughing at him. She wasn't sure which.
Master Sergeant Woodley drew herself up to full parade rest before answering. "Sir, Diagon Alley is a location created by noted author Joanne Rowling in her book "Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. In her fictional world, it can be reached magically through an alleyway in London. It was here that Harry Potter first learns..."
"Thank you Sergeant, that's quite enough." Susan Kane did not have to see Montcalm's face to know that he was furious. She could feel the heat radiating off of him through the back of her skull. Before he could explode, she opened her eyes and turned to face him.
"Given that the video clearly shows the suspect was smiling when he said that, I believe he was making a joke, Oswald," she said trying to defuse his temper. "One of the first things we did during our investigation was run a trace on transporter activity. We did learn where they went but we deemed it unwise to follow them directly."
"Why? Trying to get out of doing your duty?"
Susan Kane once again reminded herself that, as satisfying as it would be, throwing an idiot like Oswald Montcalm off the deck into the ocean would not make her life easier. She was pretty certain that she would have fourteen witnesses who would swear that he slipped on a stray patch of motor oil and fell over the side in a very tragic accident. She might have risked it, if it weren't for the paperwork it would create.
"Because the the Mechanized Omni-band Unmanned Scout we sent through to take a look gave us three seconds of video before being shot to pieces by what appeared to be an Arachnos Crab spider. We did get reliable GPS coordinates on where that Crab Spider was standing at the time, though.
Only a desperate fool or a madman makes a blind teleport jump," Captain Kane stared directly into his eyes before continuing, "And only an idiot does so when he knows that it's suicide. I have better uses for my people than that."
Any reply Montcalm might have made was lost in the sound of two massive rotors roaring to life. Longbow's preferred mid range troop transport was a modified Boeing CH-47. Captain Kane had already received permission to use one to move her team. At her gesture, her Sergeants started moving the team through the open loading doors at the back.
After holding his gaze for a few more moments, Susan Kane turned her back once again on her fellow officer and walked away without another word. Oswald Montcalm would surely be making a list of petty things he could do to her in revenge, but she couldn't worry about that now. She had a job to do.
Her people were already strapped in and ready to fly as she reached the top of the ramp. Even before her feet cleared the ramp, the Loadmaster started closing things up for the trip.
"Everything OK?" the Captain asked Sergeant Woodley as she settled into her own seat near the flight deck.
"Yes, ma'am. All our gear is stowed and ready. The special equipment you requested will be waiting on site. The flight crew have the coordinates and clearance from ground control. All we need is your word to go."
Susan Kane sighed quietly in relief. "Ok, lets get this started." She reached up to activate the microphone at the throat of her suit.
"Strike to flight," she said connecting to the pilots ahead of her, "Take us to Galaxy City."
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
An hour and a half in the air was plenty of time for Susan Kane to get her mind focused on the job ahead. She never claimed Zen training or any of those other, more esoteric arts, but she usually found that a brief bit of meditation usually cleared her head.
"Captain? It's time to wake up."
Then again, it had been a long night with little sleep.
She could feel the lightness in her stomach that told her that the helicopter was descending. That meant they had reached the secured area of Galaxy City called the Longbow safe zone. It was an area roughly three city blocks in diameter located midway between the end of the Kings Row tunnel and downtown. Here Longbow had used bulldozers to turn property damage into barricades, converted a mini mall parking lot into a helicopter landing facility, set up a field hospital, added satellite and radio transmitters, and turned an old hardware store into a command post.
Despite the fact that Longbow had gained law enforcement powers through the influence of some very powerful patrons, Longbow was essentially a rather large army. It was nice, thought Captain Kane, to see them acting like a professional one for a change.
Her sergeants had already given the necessary orders so that her unit was just waiting for the wheels to touch down and the ramp to drop. Landing space was at a premium so they would only have minutes to disembark and clear the field for the next arrival.
The loadmaster had gotten to his feet and started the ramp in motion three stories above the landing pad. The sunlight streamed in temporarily blinding Captain Kane's meditation blurred eyes. Ahead of her stood her troops in two parallel lines, gear over their shoulders, sergeants behind them.
The moment the wheels reached pavement, her Sergeants started shouting in unison and the unit moved forward. As they reached the end of the ramp, each soldier ducked down in the time honored (and properly paranoid) method of exiting an idling helicopter, and jogged out to a safe distance on the field. Captain Kane herself cleared the end of the ramp exactly 73 seconds from touchdown.
Waiting for the Captain at the edge of the airfield was a slightly stocky redheaded Corporal in olive drab field coveralls. It was a common public misconception that all Longbow personnel wore the red and white battlesuits all the time. Like most militaries, Longbow had adopted the all-purpose style of coveralls that had worked for decades for their support personnel. The battlesuits were good in the middle of a fight, but they were a little impractical for doing things like changing the transmission in a truck.
Captain Kane had always appreciated the battlesuits as one of the things that Longbow got right. They were made from a combination of Kevlar, Nomex, steel wire, and other, more exotic fabrics which made them impervious to small caliber firearms and strongly resistant to damage. As an added benefit, they happened to be form fitting enough to disguise any small imperfections in the wearer's physique. Captain Kane knew for a fact that she had never been centerfold material, even when she was younger, but she got more offers for dates while wearing her battlesuit than when she wasn't.
Some of Longbow's female recruits had signed up with that in mind.
The corporal waited until the roar of the departing helicopter's engines died away before snapping off a quick salute. "Good afternoon Captain, welcome to Galaxy City. It's Hell on Earth right now, but it's still better than Mercy Island." Susan Kane found herself smiling at the man's irreverent Southern accented observation. Some things about the military would never change. Good officers gave ground crews and mechanics a fair bit of leeway since they were the ones who actually kept the whole machine running.
Susan Kane returned the salute. "Thank you Corporal. Do you have the gear I requested?"
"Yes Ma'am. I've been asked to get your team set up as soon as you get here. Sergeant Wakefield sends his apologies for not being here in person but he got requisitioned for some project over in warehouse 25A."
"Anything serious?"
"Nothing that anyone has told me. But you know how that works. Given how hush-hush everything is, it's probably closer to your pay grade than mine Ma'am."
Captain Kane laughed at that summation of standard military tradition. "I'll let you know if I hear anything. But, right now we're on the clock."
"Yes, Ma'am. If I can get your team to follow me we'll get you ready to go."
The Corporal led Captain Kane and her people a short distance away to a section of the parking lot surrounded on three sides by walls of sandbags. Steel racks were spaced evenly with tool cases and at the back of the area, three other technicians we're busy stripping the electronics out of a downed Chaser.
"Here you are Ma'am, " he said indicating four jetpacks laid out on a table, "four Eagle packs checked, fueled up and ready to go."
Six of her team, including both her Sergeants, were qualified to operate the single man flightpacks called Eagle units. Captain Kane's plan for this operation was to use the Eagles, led by her junior Sergeant Benito Reyes, as advance scouts for her ground team.
The damage from the meteor strikes was bad enough that she knew she couldn't really trust any established maps for Galaxy City. The Eagles would be equipped with tactical mapping software that would be overlaying new information on her existing electronic maps. This would help her keep her team out of blind alleys and mazes that weren't there before. More importantly, they would be her early warning system for hostile forces.
Thanks to the poor MOUS, she knew that Arachnos had forces near her planned search area. As if that weren't bad enough, there were the usual list of vandals, thugs, lethal cults, and clockwork robots to be concerned about and, to top it all off, new versions of the alien creatures known as Shivans had been spotted all across the city. Susan Kane wasn't afraid of combat, but she did prefer to avoid it as much as possible.
It took twenty minutes for her Eagles and the base staff to recheck and get the suits properly strapped on. While they did that, the rest of her team made sure their weapons and gear were ready to go. At thirty minutes from the time they arrived in Galaxy City, Susan Kane and her troops were ready to set out into the streets.
"Benny," she said addressing Sergeant Reyes, "get your people in the air. Give me a staggered arc to our front and sides out to a half mile. Constant feedback on anything that even looks like a problem."
"Ma'am," he said as he saluted and waved to his fliers. As one they rose slowly off the ground and spread out into a semi circle.
"Master Sergeant?"
"Ma'am"
"Assuming Arachnos didn't shoot our fugitives on sight, they're out there somewhere. Let's go get them."
"Yes, Ma'am. Team, Move out!"
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
"Two to the right. Keep on it."
"Three more left, who has grenades?"
If it hadn't been for her airborne scouts, Captain Kane's team would have been torn apart by a Shivan ambush less than a half mile from the safe zone. As it was, they were being pressed hard on three sides but were holding their own. At Sergeant Reyes shouted warning, the ground team had just enough time to put a concrete wall at their backs and form up into a 3 sided box. It was a variation of a tactic that armies had been using since the time of Rome and, although it was a bit outmoded against a modern force, it seemed to be working just fine against ambulatory alien blobs.
Master Sergeant Woodley focused on keeping her breathing even and regular. Firefights were never her favorite place to be, but she had gotten used to them over the years. The Captain and herself were in the center of the square acting as spotters and directing fire. They were also acting as grenadiers, using their rifle mounted launchers to break up any large groups of Shivans before they could advance.
"Left side, fire on my spot in three.. two... one" Sergeant Woodley called out as she pulled the trigger on her on her under mount grenade launcher. She held the weapon tightly as it fired with a dull thump of sound sending a simple, high explosive grenade arcing out over her people's heads and into the three Shivans. The troopers on that side of the formation held their fire until the grenade exploded, then they opened up with a fully automatic wall of steel coated bullets.
The Shivans didn't die so much as explode from the damage. It seemed that whatever was holding them together failed if you hit them hard enough. Actually, thought Sergeant Woodley, that was the case with everything but most things didn't pop like a giant blister. In a way, it was fairly disturbing, but there would be plenty of time to think about that later on.
"They're pulling back!" someone on the right side of the formation shouted.
"Clear to the front."
"Left clear."
"It looks like the Shivans have had enough of you," came Sergeant Reyes' voice over the radio, "they've dropped back a block on all sides and look like they have somewhere else to be."
"Can you tell where they're going Benny?" asked Captain Kane.
"No way to be certain Ma'am, but they're generally pointed toward downtown. Shall I have someone follow them to be sure?"
Captain Kane thought for a moment before replying. "Only long enough to make sure they're not coming back for us. No more than a mile I'd say. Also, give me an orbital pattern around our current position for a few minutes, we need a chance to catch our breath down here."
"Can do ma'am. Just let us know when you're ready to move."
Captain Kane cut the connection before addressing her ground units. "Ok, gang, lets take ten minutes. Medics, check everyone over just in case. Anyone trying to bravely suffer to keep me from worrying will find themselves on medical leave from one too many kicks to the side of the head."
She heard the laughter from her team. Susan Kane had found that a light bit of humor kept her team functioning well. She had worked hard to keep the glory hounds and heroic martyrs that tended to flock to Longbow out of her command. She had a team of professional soldiers and it never hurt, particularly in a lighthearted way, to remind them of that from time to time.
Susan Kane motioned to her Sergeant and kneeled down next to the wall. Becky Woodley joined her a moment later and the two watched the team.
"What do you think, Becky?"
"We lost a bit of time there Ma'am but we're still in good shape. I'm a bit concerned about ammunition after that but we should be ok as long as we don't have another big fight."
"How are the team feeling?"
"Pretty good. Although there was some quiet talk on the flight in about whether or not this was all pointless."
Susan Kane grinned and slowly shook her head before answering. "Becky, it is pointless. I know it, you know it, they know it. We've been given an almost impossible mission with a ridiculously short time limit for accomplishing it. We're meant to fail at this."
"Then why did you agree to the mission?"
"Well, it was an order for one thing and, there are some legitimate reasons for bringing these people in. At the very least we have charges of breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, trespassing, illegal use of Longbow property, and one murder. Although I'm pretty certain that last one could be interpreted as accidental death during an act of self defense. I personally would like to ask them how they did it so we can tighten base security. But more importantly, there's just way too much that doesn't make sense about all of this."
Captain Kane held up a hand and continued.
"Lets take a look at what we know about our suspects.
One: according to the video, all of them were dressed in civilian clothing. That makes no sense at all. If they were intended to be a raid, then why so few of them? If they were meant as infiltrators, why make as much noise as they did? None of the major organizations are that inept.
Two: They made no attempts to steal, destroy, or sabotage anything. They had all of the time in the world but what did they do? They simply took the shortest route they could to the nearest teleporter and left the base. Also, they used the teleporter to come here? Why here? They had most of the Eastern Seaboard to chose from. What was so important here that they had to put themselves at that much of a risk?
Three: Yes someone did get killed but every other person they encountered was subdued non-lethally. That's a sign to me that they would have been perfectly willing to avoid fighting if they could have. The only reason Colher died is because he had the weapon most likely to kill someone accidentally.
All of this leads me to believe that these people were not agents of Arachnos or any other major organization. So, the question is, who were they and what did they want? "
Susan Kane took a sip of water before continuing. This was an old habit between her and her Master Sergeant. Captain Kane had always found it useful to verbalize her thoughts when presented with a problem. If there was a flaw in her thinking, Rebecca Woodley would probably spot it.
"More importantly, I recognized one of the people in the surveillance videos, Becky. She's a reporter, the one who broke that whole 'Golden Ace' thing last summer. If she's involved in this, then she thinks she's on to something big, and I'd really like to know what it is before it all blows up in our face.
Now here's the problem, We know that the teleport on this end was guarded so it's very likely that she's already dead or imprisoned. It would be helpful to know which. If she's dead, it'll be unfortunate in many different ways, but there isn't much we can do about it. If they're imprisoned, then we might have the opportunity to rescue them and find out what's going on."
Captain Kane stood up, followed by her Sergeant. Her team, which had been keeping half an eye on their Captain, climbed to their feet as well. Captain Kane looked at her team then at her Sergeant who, very respectfully, avoided meeting her Captain's eyes. Susan Kane knew that they were humoring her.
She shouldered her pack and casually leaned her rifle on her right shoulder. She wasn't that old and it was time to remind her team of that.
"Lets go Sergeant. I have questions for a reporter."
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
The streets were not easy to move through.
The threat of being attacked again kept Captain Kane and her team on edge. Fortunately, the Shivans had not reappeared, and it seemed that all of Galaxy City's usual mix of gangs and oddballs had decided that being in front of a well armed and obviously hostile Longbow unit was not a good place to be.
Perhaps, thought Captain Kane, they were still in a state of shock or hadn't quite decided that it was safe enough to come out of their rat holes to begin the serious business of looting. Perhaps, even, the meteor strikes had done the entire city a few small favors by killing off a few of them. In either case, it was one less obstacle to her and her team.
The real problem came from the buildings that had collapsed into the streets or, more often, dozens of cars that had been abandoned by their owners as they ran. Her aerial scouts had guided them through or around the worst of the blockades but time slipped by with every detour. A trip across town that should have taken no more than an hour, had stretched out into several. It wouldn't be long before they lost the sunlight, making things much more difficult. Captain Kane had long since given up on the time limit she had been saddled with 'in the interests of 'security' but she didn't want to travel at night if she could help it. Also, she could not shake the feeling that she had been having since arriving in Galaxy City, that she needed to get this job done as quickly as possible.
The shadows were just starting to stretch out to the East when the team reached the edge of the industrial park their GPS coordinates had led them to. The area around Constellation Row was fairly clear of damage and the warehouses seemed to be intact. That made for fewer ambush points but, fewer, was not the same as none. One of the first rules of urban combat is that every city has thousands of ambush points in the form of dumpsters and doorways; trashcans and mailboxes; fences, storefronts, and decorative railings. Captain Kane could see the slight movement of gun barrels and heads as her team reminded themselves of this.
"How far, Becky?" asked the Captain?
"The coordinates are about 100 yards South, and a little bit east of us. If the records are right, it should be a stand-alone building belonging to a 'West Shipping Company' out of Canada."
"Ok lets split into two groups. Take yours around and give me some crossfire if I need it. I'll hold my group here for a few minutes to give you the time to get into position."
Before the Master Sergeant and her part of the team could move, Sergeant Reyes' voice came across the radio.
"Captain, I have the front of the warehouse in sight and I have something unusual here."
"Unusual?"
"Yes, Ma'am. I would say that the door is guarded except...well...I have a single Crab Spider in view and he has white flags tied to all of his suit's arms. And, Ma'am?"
"Yes, Benny?"
"He just waved at me and is now holding a sign saying 'Welcome, Longbow."
Captain Kane found herself in a rare moment of surprise. Out of all of the possible things that could have happened, this wasn't even on the list. She glanced at Sergeant Woodley who shrugged and shook her head slowly.
"Benny, your team has that building covered. Correct?"
"Yes, Ma'am. We're positioned to all sides and we have as clear a line of sight as the light allows. As far as we can tell, that Spider is all alone out there."
"Keep an eye on him. If you or your team see anything..."
"Yes, Ma'am...Bang."
Abandoning her earlier plan, Captain Kane motioned her team forward. Standing outside the front door was the Crab Spider Sergeant Reyes had described. Crab Spider armor was designed for intimidation. With arms extended, a suit stood almost 15 feet high and carried a very impressive amount of firepower. Crab Spiders were Lord Recluse's heavy troops, so seeing one acting friendly was almost too surreal for words.
As the Captain approached the Spider waved again and motioned her closer. Her team spread out into a rough semicircle leaving the Captain at the center of their arc. Captain Kane stepped forward slowly, trusting that no Arachnos officer would go to this much trouble just to set up an ambush.
"GOOD EVE..." boomed the armor. "SORRy, I always forget where that switch is. Good Evening Ma'am. I have a message for you if you'll take the time to see it?" The voice coming out of the armor sounded young and male. The slight questioning tone in his voice left some doubt about whether he had considered that he might have just been put there for target practice.
A more... traditional... Longbow officer might have replied with something involving arrest, and maybe something degrading. More than likely, since there was a lot of bad blood between Arachnos and Longbow, a more traditional officer would have just shot first. From a long way away. From behind if possible.
Captain Kane simply nodded.
"Thank you Ma'am," said the Spider. "Please watch the screen next to me."
The screen, a simple flatscreen monitor like the ones used on thousands of computers worldwide, brightened into an image of the black and red headdress that was the uniform of an Arachnos Seer.
"Good Evening," said a voice from the screen, " My name is Seer Constantine. I must thank you for not being one of the typical thugs that Longbow hires. It would have been inconvenient if you had killed my soldier. I still have some use for him.
First: Allow me to express my condolences for your loss. I know a lot of people looked up to him and even my Lord Recluse was not unmoved..."
"Captain Kane looked at her Sergeant. "What is she talking about?"
The image stopped and the head tilted slightly. "Oh, " it said "you haven't heard? I won't spoil the surprise then. After all, you have more important business than some dead hero. And, yes, I can see and hear you. Please don't think less of me for using such mundane things as a camera and microphone. I know we Seers cultivate a certain...reputation, but that's a bit exhausting and it's much less confusing this way.
In the interests of saving time, let me answer all of the questions I know you want to ask. Yes, your fugitives arrived here after Leaving Fort Darwin. No, they are not dead, nor are they in our custody. Yes, they left under their own power shortly after arriving. No, they were not beaten, tortured or otherwise harmed by my people, except perhaps for being scared out of their wits. No, they were not, nor are they, agents of Arachnos. No, you don't know if you can trust me, but at least I'm giving you straight answers. Did that cover all of them? Or did I miss one?"
"No..." said Captain Kane after a moment's hesitation. "No I think you got them all."
"Good," said the Seer. "Now, take this advice for what it's worth but you might want to head downtown to catch up with them. The reporter is about to find out something that will make some very... unpleasant... people, very fatally angry with her. And, not to scare you, but if she dies, something even worse will happen to Paragon City."
"Worse, what do you mean worse?"
The image on the screen turned so that, even though it was off to one side of her, Captain Kane got the impression that the Seer was looking directly at her.
"I don't know. I can't See it that clearly. All I know is that if you lose that one life, many more will follow. And there will be nothing that anyone can do about it."
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hi, JWB here.
Just thought I'd take a moment here at the end of part two for a few thoughts.
For those of you that have been following along, thank you very much for sticking with me. I promise that there will be a Part three and all of the loose plot threads will be wrapped up.
(I hope)
Alexis Alexander will be taking over the writing duties again for the next part. She seems to have a lot to say and she's getting very insistant about it. So, she'll be back with us next week in a new thread.
For those of you that have just joined us and are wondering what's going on, you'll find links to Part 1 in my signature below. I'll add a link to part 3 when the first episode goes live.
Until then readers, have a good evening.
JWB
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Interesting...
Very interesting.
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
Hello everyone, JWB here.
For those of you who have been following the story up until this point, I figured I'd start the second part in a new thread just to help keep things neat and tidy. If you're a new reader, part one of the story can be found here.
As before, the plan will be to post new episodes on Saturdays until I reach the end, and, as before, I have no real idea how many episodes I will need to get there.
I do appreciate feedback so please feel free to PM me if you have questions or comments.
Epitaph: part 2. Episode 1 coming 1/28/12
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.