Achi and Zaleria travel to Denver three days prior to D-day. Jevelle and Fandtha traveled to Chicago two days before them and have been on the road since. Beltare will start tomorrow in Salt Lake City and Toshi the day after in Las Vegas.
Zaleria looks around the room. “It all started here, our reunion. This is the very room you stayed in the night you were attacked, and I was forced to come to your 'rescue,'” she laughs a little at the memory.
“You noticed,” he shares. “It's so hard to keep secrets from you or build any suspense.”
“Well, you wanted to share everything. I try to pretend to be surprised, but I of course noticed shortly after you thought about it, and then followed through by making the reservation. As I am sure you noticed my approval.”
Achi smiles. “Yes, particularly since I made the reservation for one room. Happy honeymoon.”
She wrinkles her nose at that. “Work first, honeymoon later. Besides, I think we should be wearing our own skins when we truly celebrate our bonding, with nothing else vying for our attention. Like the security remotes deployed around and throughout this hotel,” She shares while checking out her assault rifle, ensuring it is mechanically sound and fully charged. “Not that sharing a bed while slightly distracted is all that bad…” she looks up mischievously, but I want to be able to totally lose myself. Until then, we'll do what we can to maintain esprit de corps.”
“Hey, I'm the easy one to please. I just want to be with you, no matter the form, no matter the place. But, yeah, I could do without so many distractions, so I can, heh, help you get lost.” He sees her smile at his anticipation and suggestive thoughts.
They run through the plan again, commingling thoughts faster than even shared words can convey. They have been dispensing with any delay between their thoughts more frequently of late, acting more and more as a single entity. They will act as scouts, each guarding a different flank. When coupled with their symbiots in charge of the remotes, they can maintain a sphere of awareness around the group and coordinate fires with a speed and precision the others can't hope to match.
They spend the night relaxing together, enjoying an uneventful dinner, a few drinks at the hotel lounge, and a—mostly—quiet night. They start for Los Angeles the next morning. In two days, they arrive at their staging area, a small office in a building a few blocks from their target destination—the old Library Tower in downtown LA. Tamika Kyamoto has offices and a private residence in several of the highest floors, and to get to those, they'll have to traverse the ones used by the public.
Beltare is waiting when Achi and Zaleria show up shortly after sunset, and Achi notices she is not wearing her usual subtle, floral fragrance. They have learned a lot from each other over the last six months. Jevelle and Fandtha soon follow, with Toshi being the last to show, somewhat apologetic that it took him longer than anticipated to make it here from his hotel. They have an hour to get into position. They head out in pairs for the tower, about five minutes apart. Zaleria and Achi go first to scout the location and secure a starting point. They take the bulk of the remotes with them but leave a few for each succeeding group to use. The remotes move silently using small graviton drives that also warp visual and infrared light, so they are nearly invisible—at least to most recording devices. They leak radio waves at exceptionally high frequencies as well as soft x-rays—both of which quickly attenuate in the atmosphere, making long-range detection very difficult, even if you knew what to look for. He's discussed their design with Fandtha at length, and they are exceptionally flexible in how they can be employed. They are really nothing more than an assemblage of symbiots, with a few discrete components added as needed.
Achi and Zaleria enter the main lobby, and head to the public restrooms. Inside they don their gear and assemble their weapons, which are camouflaged to look like a cell phone, backpack, and several articles of clothing—such as a belt and shoes. Their webbing and ballistics suits are miracles of micro-manufacturing, comprised of materials that man has not yet conceived—infused with nanomachines able to scavenge power from virtually any source, including sunlight or the wearer's body heat. They fit like footed pajamas but are tough enough to stop almost any ballistic or edged weapon. The soles are tougher than any shoes when needed but supple enough to deaden the sounds made by moving. Achi turns on his graviton generator with a thought; he is now nearly invisible and silent.
When it is quiet, they exit, unseen, using the remotes as their eyes and ears to plot a wide course that limits the number of people they must sneak past. They come to the security turnstiles that guard the elevators, but their symbiots make quick work of the primitive—to them—security systems. A couple cleaners have just entered the facility, as far as the system knows. They take an elevator up to the 43rd floor, which has many empty office spaces. Their remotes ensure the hallways are clear. Most occupants have long since left for the night, although a few people remain at their desks. These stressed few are unlikely to get distracted by stray, peripheral activity as they struggle to meet whatever deadline keeps them here on a Friday night. Zaleria quickly gains entrance to an unused office space, having bypassed the security alarm with a maintenance code. Quantum computers can sure make short work of conventionally secured systems, Achi thinks to himself.
Or not quite to himself.
He can feel Zaleria right next to him, although he can't see her. She shares their position to the others, so they can join them. Then he senses her next thought right before she grabs his butt. Hello! Don't worry, I can find that in any darkness.
Behave, we don't have that much time before the others get here.
“You're yammering again,” Zaleria scolds them.
“Okay, that's not playing fair.”
They're worried, Achi notes. Okay, then let's be sharp. Let's think like the shell.
I think it's too late to improvise.
So then let’s make sure we ID all comms in and out, full spectrum, as we planned. “Guys, that is a good place to get started. Release the hounds!”
Their symbiots send remotes to various computers, wiring outlets, power outlets, where they each release their payloads of nanomachines. Specially built symbiots designed by Fandtha, with inputs from Beltare and Achi that quickly, physically access the networks and start mapping out all comms pathways into and out of the building. They will be able to gain complete access in a very short period of time and are adaptive, looking for any stray energy unaccounted for—to ensure they find everything. They are the group's electronic scouts and sentinels.
They wait, more tense now than before, but more alert, too. Soon Jevelle and Fandtha show up, then about five minutes after them, Beltare and Toshi. To be extra cautious, they are using only local comms, heavily protected with multiple layers of pass-phrases and obscure DNA sequences from widely separated species. They head up the tower the rest of the way using the stairways. While these don't nor
mally open from inside the stairwell to grant access to the individual floors; this is not an obstacle to well-equipped galanen. They get to their target floor, wait until the appointed time, then—upon Clive's go order relayed to all the squads—flatten a few remotes and send them under the stairway door to ensure the way is clear. They open the door, bypassing its security features, and flood the space with remotes. They spread out, infesting the entire floor with nanomachines that soon map out all physical and electronic pathways in and out. They find a network operating beyond what humans should be able to achieve, that connects to transceivers near the helipad on the roof. They'll take this network down last, once they finish tracing it completely.
They locate the room where they all connect. This should be where Ms. Kyamoto is located. “It's too quiet. I don't like it. There should be more activity up here,” Achi shares.
“I agree. It's like they're expecting us,” Beltare echoes.
“There isn't much we can do about that now. Uh, we should keep progressing. If nothing else, we can learn more about the shell's infrastructure and networks,” Fandtha shares.
They send a few remotes toward the room, when suddenly their sentinels in the security system note that an alarm has gone off. They are blocking it from alerting the guards and police, but those in the room will undoubtedly know. Achi and Zaleria share “We need to move!” at the same moment, so connected, neither can tell who originated the thought.
They rush to the door, force it open, and almost immediately start taking well-aimed gunfire. Their ballistic vests have no problem dealing with the barrage, but they can't see where it is coming from.
“Switch visuals to include W-band and soft x-rays,” Jevelle shares, while firing coherent beams at several rapidly moving objects.
Achi and Zaleria implement the command and suddenly they see them—remotes. Not as sophisticated as theirs, but equally stealthy. They quickly switch to hyper-velocity projectiles and, using their superior symbiotic augmentation, quickly take them out.
“Remember, optical stealth refracts coherent light around them,” Fandtha reminds everyone.
“Right, sorry,” Jevelle mutters.
“We should each of us monitor different bands of energy besides optical,” Toshi suggests. They quickly adjust to implement his suggestion.
They quickly scan the rest of the room; there is no one here. Suddenly, they hear the doors shut, followed by the by now familiar sensation of a thermal oscillator warming up. Not this time!
“It's a trap. We need to find our target now or scrub the mission,” Jevelle says.
“I concur,” Beltare seconds.
Achi stops to commune with his and Zaleria's shared symbiots, knowing they've been monitoring things far quicker than any of the rest of them can.
Achi and Zaleria quickly share this information with the rest of them.
Toshi digests the information. “I don't know; it sounds risky. We could just be walking further into the trap. Thoughts?”
Achi shares this latest information with the group. “Cheryn is here, alive, so that confirms this is undoubtedly a trap. The shell may have a unitary here, directing things. How are the other units faring?”
Jevelle pauses for a moment, to confer with Clive. “Three have succeeded, three have not yet found their targets, and will likely come up dry. None have met resistance. I guess that makes us the lucky ones.”
“Can we bring in backup from some of those that have come up dry?” Zaleria asks.
“We could, to what end?”
We need to get Cheryn out of here.
“The attempt would be fool hardy,” Fandtha shares.
Yes, so?
Jevelle and Beltare hear the resolve in their shared thoughts. “Then strike quickly and hard. We'll watch the perimeter,” Beltare commands.
“But if I say it's getting too hot, you disengage, you got that? There are many human lives potentially at stake here,” Jevelle reminds them.
“You're the boss,” Achi says as he picks through the hole the exploding thermal oscillator made in the wall. It also burned through to an elevator shaft when it was destroyed. He feels Zaleria's presence right next to him. They both reload their weapons, one set to energy, the other to projectile, instinctively optimizing their combined capabilities.
Achi steps out into the void and begins to drop quickly. He feels her follow without hesitation. Their suits now use their graviton fields to control their descent, guiding them around an elevator car blocking the shaft. It takes them about 30 seconds to traverse the nearly 1,000 feet to the bottom. They're fully trusting their symbiots and remotes now. Their sentinel machines have blocked all communications, shut off power, and are being spread all around the hidden portion of the facility. They're close enough to begin getting direct feeds from the ad hoc sensor net. There are two humans around the next corner. Zaleria dispatches them with an audible schoop, schoop. Two others hear the commotion and come running. Schoop, schoop. They too hit the ground, stunned.
There is something else moving out there. Several alien remotes, but they are quickly destroyed by some of the galanen remotes using kamikaze tactics—more improvisation by their symbiots. That leaves one target. This one is stealthy and heading toward where Cheryn is being held. “Guys, you've got to help her. We can't get there fast enough.”
He feels an immediate surge of adrenaline and finds he can run faster. They sense a couple defense turrets up ahead, two quick shots from his rifle, and they're gone.
They run down a corridor and around a corner, feeling as much as seeing where they're going because of the density of sensors feeding them information, their symbiots finding creative ways to patch the information into their otherwise limited senses. They come to the door where Cheryn is being held and hear her cry out. Achi throws the door open, sees Cheryn hanging in the air, hands bound behind her back, visibly pregnant, with a wicked looking blade under her chin. He steps into the room and lunges to the right as Zaleria comes in, looks up, and shoots a turret angling to take a shot at Achi. He doesn't hesitate an instant, shooting the blade five times in rapid succession with massive, low velocity rounds to maximize the energy transfer to the blade.
It flies out to the side, slashing a horrible gash under Cheryn's chin, but without cutting anything vital. The blade clatters against the wall, where Zaleria slices it into several pieces with a coherent beam. The creature holding her throws Cheryn against the wall, knocking her senseless. Achi finds a spectrum where he can see it, just in time to block a savage blow aimed at his head. Zaleria kicks it in the small of its back, as Achi spins out of its way. He fires a burst across its back for good measure, knowing it won't cause much injury, but that it'll hurt like hell. It screams out in pain, a frustrated female voice. She springs up and goes after Zaleria, feigning a kick at her solar plexus, before shifting it toward her head. Achi has shown her that move multiple times before, so she
easily blocks it but can't connect with a counter kick. However, Achi has no problem landing a stunning blow to the back of her head, after which he desperately tries to grab hold of her, grasping at the fabric of her suit.
As Achi has taught Zaleria before, the problem with grappling your opponent is it ties up your hands, but not theirs. He gets a solid elbow to the ribs to remind him of this lesson again. His suit takes most of the force out of it, but the blow knocks him back. Zaleria skips into a left side-kick, putting her full weight behind it, sending their adversary flying over beside Cheryn. Her head is now clearly visible, Achi having ripped her hood off. It's the woman from his dreams. Vile, full of spite and hate, and utterly, utterly evil. She is about to say something, when the broken blade of her knife slices cleanly through her neck, nearly decapitating her. She mouths a few words but can only burble through the blood flooding out of her neck, before her eyes roll back in her head, and she falls over. It's Cheryn. Once freed of the shell's symbiots by the determined action of Achi and Zaleria's symbiots, she pulled one hand through the handcuffs, nearly severing her thumb in the process, grabbed the knife, and while the mystery woman was distracted, killed her. She falls upon her, and starts savagely slicing her to bits, hacking her face apart with the knife. Stabbing at her eyes, slicing off her ears, her hair…
“Cheryn.” She ignores him. Achi has seen this before, victims of torture on the rare occasions they are able to overcome their tormentors. He lets her get some more out of her system. “Cheryn.” he tries again, trying to calm her with his voice. She is yelling at the corpse, raging. She's starting to strip her down, exposing her ample breasts, which she promptly attacks. Then she pulls more of its clothes off and exposes something else. It appears to also have male anatomy, before Cheryn mutilates it. “Cheryn, that's okay, we didn't come here to talk with it anyway. But I expect it has other bodies. It's really nothing more than a machine. An empty shell.” She finally stops. Stands up, and spits on it, before turning to try to find who is speaking to her.
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