The Kota

by Sunshine Somerville

  Pitt Prison’s impenetrable, thought Bullseye. But they never imagined anyone teleporting in. That’s my one hope we’ll actually pull this off. And it’s why the Underground needed us for this mission.

  Bullseye checked her friend.

  Tigris knew her job, but she still looked nervous. After a courage-summoning breath, she looked Revenant in the eye to create a mind link. That done, she took hold of his arm, closed her eyes, and they both disappeared in a flash of portal light.

  Bullseye motioned for Sid. He glanced at Miller but obeyed her, holding his computer pack and crouch-walking to join her.

  “Once Tigris gets us inside, stay with her here and use her like a radio to contact the rest of us in the prison.” She poked a finger at the computer. “Use that thing to guide us to the commanders. Do not leave Tigris alone while the others draw off the soldiers. She’ll need to focus entirely on her mind links, and that’ll leave you to defend her. She’ll teleport you guys back to safety at the rendezvous point if she has to, but don’t leave her.” Her eyes moved past him and settled on Anya. “And don’t leave Anya either.”

  Sid nodded and sat against the bus before opening his computer pack.

  Tigris appeared again in a flash of portal light beside Bullseye. She put a hand on the bus to steady herself. “I got Revenant inside. He’s hiding for now until the rest of you get there. Who’s next?”

  Whitewolf held out his hand, Tigris took it, and the next instant they vanished.

  Rave adjusted his weapon as he looked up through the smashed windows of the bus. “The soldiers haven’t noticed us yet, but a patrol walks the road every five minutes. We’d better move fast. Still the same plan?”

  “Yep.” Bullseye checked her own weapon. “Revenant, Whitewolf, Washington, and I will go in. Sid and Tigris will guide us. You, Miller, and Bunsen Burner stay here and make a lot of noise.”

  “And me.” Anya had crept up behind Rave, and she scowled at Bullseye. “I’m helping too. Don’t you dare tell me I can’t.”

  Bullseye swallowed again but nodded. “Rave, give her a gun.”

  Just don’t let her turn it on me, she thought.

  Tigris appeared again. She herself waved for Washington to join her. She looked in his eye only a moment to create a mind link, then took hold of his arm and reached for Bullseye’s hand. “Better take you both at once. Revenant and Whitewolf can’t hide much longer.”

  Bullseye held a tight grip on Tigris’s hand, and the next moment portal light blinded her.

  Then they were inside. Bullseye didn’t even check her surroundings before signaling Tigris to leave again, and Tigris flashed out of sight.

  Bullseye drew a weapon and looked around to find herself and Washington crouched in a prison dining hall. Barred windows high overhead let in exterior security light. By this light, she saw a long room with tables and chairs bolted to the floor. At the far end of the room stood a set of metal doors. Revenant and Whitewolf were positioned on either side of the doors, guns drawn. Bullseye held her weapon ready and led Washington over to them.

  Suddenly, an alarm screamed through the silence of the prison. Outside the high windows, security lights flashed with the alarm. Bullseye heard shouts and running farther inside the prison as guards left their posts to answer the alert.

  Fast work, Rave, she thought with a smile.

  Dozens of footsteps ran past the dining hall door, and an operative yelled, “You and you, stay at your posts! The rest of you, get to the main entrance! We’re under attack! Don’t let rebels breach the walls!”

  Too late, buddy, thought Bullseye.

  Once things settled down on the other side of the door, Bullseye signaled Revenant to lead the way. He pushed open the metal door and swung around, gun raised. Washington mirrored this. Bullseye aimed high and wide in the direction Revenant had gone, and Whitewolf covered the rear.

  They emerged into a wide hall. It led to the exit in one direction, but Revenant led them the other way, farther into the prison. They scanned each connecting hall but hurried on unnoticed. They only encountered one patrolling guard. Before the man could cry out, Revenant’s silent shot struck him in the forehead and crumpled him to the floor. Cleared, they moved onward.

  Finally, they came to the locked entrance of Pitt Prison’s C block. Bullseye had her own function in this mission. She looked at Whitewolf with a nod before facing the double doors and dematerializing to step through the crack. Once through, she expertly scanned C block and saw an enormous room with a wide, concrete floor. Along either wall, two levels of prison cells ran all the way to the far end, where another set of double doors was locked. High overhead, metallic beams and pipes supported harsh lights and wiring.

  All this she took in with a glance, but she counted guards in the cellblock. Two soldiers paced each second-level balcony. Two more paced each side of the ground level. Two more guarded the far doors. Back where she stood, two more.

  With no time to lose, Bullseye aimed a gun at each of these two unsuspecting guards.

  Here we go, she thought.

  She materialized and shot them in the heads. In the same heartbeat, she stepped to the door controls and smashed the lock. A second later, Whitewolf, Washington, and Revenant burst into the cellblock.

  “Sound the alarm and-” this guard on the ground level met a swift end as Whitewolf shot him in the chest.

  Bullseye faced the open room again and fired with her team at the guards running toward them.

  All this drew the prisoners to their bars, and a great commotion started as they yelled and gestured at the rebel team for help.

  Time to split up, thought Bullseye.

  “Washington, you’re with me! Level two! Whitey?”

  “On it! Sis told me where to go!” Whitewolf shot a guard from the ground level before darting forward under a balcony to avoid fire from above.

  Bullseye left him and Revenant. She dodged a shot from a guard above and sprinted to a set of metal stairs that ran up to the second level. She heard Washington following and shooting at more guards who arrived from behind them, and she turned on the stairs to use her superior aim and drop five guards who appeared from the main hall of the prison.

  Someone did sound an alarm, she thought.

  She pulled Washington after her and scrambled to the top of the stairs. A prisoner in the first cell almost grabbed ahold of her through the bars, but she dematerialized that arm and staggered back.

  Shouldn’t we help all these people? she thought. Why am I only realizing that now? If they escape, that’ll add to the confusion and help us get out of here too!

  “Washington!” She pointed to a set of controls by the stairs.

  He was facing down the stairs, and he fired at a guard before yelling back, “Yeah?”

  “Those controls behind you! Flip ‘em unlocked!”

  Washington turned and hit the controls, but nothing happened. He tried again. Same result. “I think they’re manually locked from the main system! There’s no way we can open these cells!”

  Bullseye felt Tigris in her mind. “I just teleported Whitewolf and his rescued commander out of there, Bulls. Sid says the remaining commanders are on level two in cells C2-8 and C2-11. Should be in the middle section. You need to hurry. Soldiers are pouring out of the prison now. Even with Whitewolf and this commander, I don’t think we’ll be able to hold ground for long. If I teleport us to safety, I’m not sure my mind links will be in range to keep tabs on you. You have to hurry!”

  Bullseye didn’t need further coaxing. Turning along the narrow balcony, she ignored the shouting and pleading prisoners as she ran in search of the correct cells. At last, she came to C2-8. A man’s stubbled face pressed against the bars to see, but he stepped back when she stopped in front of him. His brown eyes widened.

  “I’m here to rescue you!” Without explaining further, she dematerialized to enter his cell. Materializing again once through the bars, she ignored his amazed gape. “You’re an Underground
commander?”

  The man nodded. He spoke with a southern region accent. “I’m Commander Joseph Emmit. How did you-”

  A spray of shots made Bullseye block the commander as she turned with her gun aimed out of the cell. Washington appeared on the other side.

  “There are too many! I couldn’t hold them off! We’ve got to get out of-”

  A shot fired, Washington’s head jerked, and a spurt of blood shot against the bars. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the floor.

  “Tigris!” Bullseye screamed.

  “Get back to the dining hall! I can only teleport to the dining hall!”

  Bullseye shot out the lock on the cell door and kicked it open. Looking around the edge of the bars, she saw three guards on the balcony, hurrying toward Washington’s fallen body. She felt a tingling burn and aimed her weapon, firing three times. Each shot hit a guard, and the balcony was clear again.

  “Follow me, Commander Emmit.” Bullseye stepped out of the cell.

  “Emmit is fine,” he said. “To whom do I owe the biggest thanks of my life?”

  “Bullseye.” She didn’t wait for his reaction but instead stooped over Washington, pried his gun out of his dead hands, and handed it to the commander. Then she hurried along the balcony past a few more cells and came to C2-11.

  She gave this commander even less explanation than she’d given Emmit, and she shot out the locks before throwing the door open and yelling at the man to follow. Together, they ran to the far end of the balcony where another set of stairs led down to the first level. Just in time, too. A group of more guards than she could count burst through the doors on this far end of the cellblock.

  Bullseye dematerialized and threw herself down the stair as the guards fired at her. Their shots hit only the stairs, and she materialized in time to drop between the guards. She fired from point blank range before they could collect themselves. She turned left, right, left, right, and fired with every turn. When these were all dropped she spun, with gun raised, to the doors they’d appeared from. But there were no more guards for the moment.

  The prisoners were shouting and calling to her from this first level now, but she ignored them as she looked up the stairs and motioned for the two commanders to descend. They hurried down the stairs and had the sense to collect weapons from the fallen guards. Another guard ran out the doors, but Emmit was quick and shot him dead.

  Bullseye reloaded. “Let’s go! Get to the dining hall!”

  “The dining hall?” asked C2-11.

  “Trust me!” She took off through the middle of the cellblock.

  The prisoners on either side shouted for help as Bullseye and the commanders escaped. She noticed one cell door lying on the middle of the wide floor. Its correlating cell was now empty. That must’ve been where Whitewolf rescued his commander. Toward C block’s entrance, a few more cell doors lay on the floor. Apparently Whitewolf had freed a few more prisoners too.

  Well, so can I, she thought.

  With another tingling burn, her eyes scanned ahead in her run to focus on the locks of the cells she was passing. A gun in each hand, she spun to run backwards. Firing each weapon, she shot out the locks, which allowed the prisoners inside to escape their cells. At the entrance to C block, she collided with the doors. Emmit steadied her as they looked back at the escaping prisoners.

  More guards appeared from the doors at the far end. Unfortunately for them, the freed prisoners poured out of their cells and attacked.

  This distraction gave Bullseye time to turn and lead the commanders out. Only a few shots slammed into the doors before they slipped through and ran to the dining hall.

  Bullseye threw open the doors. To her relief, the room was empty except for one dead operative. A streak of blood smeared the floor under him.

  “Tigris!” she called again.

  The next instant, Tigris crouched where she’d first teleported them inside the prison. “Come on!”

  The commanders were past the point of asking questions, so they hurried to Tigris, who was waiting with outstretched hands. Bullseye kept a gun aimed at the doors as Tigris made her mind links, and she felt Tigris touching her foot. Turning, she saw Tigris had one leg stretched to reach Bullseye while she held the crouched commanders’ hands.

  In another flash of portal light, they were back behind the bus.

  The security station’s light was at full strength now, and gunfire illuminated the scene as Bullseye hid behind the bus with Tigris, her commanders, and Whitewolf’s rescued commander. She peeked out and saw at least fifty soldiers and higher ranking operatives gathered at the bridge’s security station. These fired whenever Rave or Bunsen Burner broke cover on the opposite side of the road. While the soldiers focused on them, Miller fired from the bus’s side of the road. Whitewolf and Anya were also on the bus’s side, firing from a crossing angle. A few operative bodies lay where they’d tried to venture out to lead the attack.

  Not bad, thought Bullseye.

  Sid had discarded the computer pack now that that part of the mission was done. He fired through a window of the bus before scrambling over. He looked at Bullseye. “Washington?”

  She shook her head.

  “Revenant?”

  Now Bullseye looked around, realizing she hadn’t seen him. She looked at Tigris in dread.

  Tigris had her eyes closed to concentrate. “I can still sense his mind link, so he’s alive. But he’s… I think he’s unconscious. I have no idea where he is.”

  Sid swore. “But he’s still inside?”

  Tigris nodded and looked at Bullseye.

  “We left a man behind?” asked Emmit. He had the decency to look responsible.

  Bullseye thought fast as she watched the Dominion soldiers gathering at this end of the bridge. “Do they know what’s going on in the prison?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Sid. “They wouldn’t still be coming out here if they knew we already broke in. Rave shot out the security station’s transmitter first thing.”

  Miller dashed over to crouch in their circle. When he saw his fellow commanders, he smiled in greeting. “Glad you made it.”

  “Revenant’s still inside,” Emmit told him.

  Miller looked at Tigris. “Can’t you-”

  “No,” Bullseye cut in. “She can’t teleport when she doesn’t know where she’s going. And we can’t teleport to the dining hall anymore. By now those operatives have figured out our access point, even if they don’t know how we get there.”

  “So we just leave Revenant?” asked Sid incredulously. He motioned toward the small army on the bridge. “There’s no other way we’re getting in!”

  The commander Whitewolf rescued waved for their attention. “Revenant? You mean Vadim Romanov? He was a prisoner before. Do you have any idea what they’ll do to him? Factoring him would be a mercy! We can’t leave a man to be-”

  “We’re not leaving him!” Bullseye shouted as they all talked at once. Knowing there wasn’t a lot of time, she tossed her empty gun away and grabbed the gun C2-11 was holding.

  Miller watched her and hesitated. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He looked her in the eye and seemed to debate with himself. So far Miller had graciously accepted that he wasn’t the one giving orders, and what she was planning would save one of his men. But he also was aware of the danger she’d be putting herself in.

  Miller’s not a bad guy, she thought. But I have to do this. Miller might even suspect my history with the Romanov family, so he knows I have to do this.

  Bullseye suspected Tigris was listening to her thoughts, so she faced her partner. “Keep Anya here, Tig. She’ll want to go after her brother, but don’t let her.”

  Tigris nodded, her eyes worried.

  Emmit turned to Bullseye. “We’ll hold them here as long as we can.”

  “Much appreciated.” She faced Tigris. “If the team here is overrun, teleport to safety. Save as many of our team as y
ou can, but…”

  “Anya,” Tigris said. “Got it. Be careful.”

  Bullseye exhaled, tucked the weapon into her holster, and turned to the bridge. A group of operatives arrived at the security station, and they gestured back to the prison and yelled orders at the soldiers.

  I’ll have to race them back, she thought.

  With one last deep breath, Bullseye dematerialized and ran across the broken concrete to the bridge. Unseen, she ran right through the soldiers firing at Rave and the others. Past this group, she sprinted over the open bridge to the midway checkpoint, and the squad heading back to the prison never saw her as she ran by. By the time she got to the far security station where the prison gate blocked her path, she was well ahead of them.

  This proved to be good timing. The gate of the prison groaned open, and she jumped to the side as an armed vehicle rolled out.

  That’s not good, she thought. If they use those guns on the team…

  She raised a gun to take out the driver, but then the armed passengers turned their weapons on the security station, decimating the guards there. The passengers stuck their heads out and whooped with excitement.

  Prisoners, thought Bullseye.

  They shouted a charge, and the vehicle accelerated down the bridge. They opened fire on the soldiers running back to the prison. Bullseye left them to it and ran through the prison gate.

  The prison was in chaos. Well-lit chaos, for the security lights on the walls were at full strength, illuminating a mass of prisoners. They ran for the open gate or else fought guards in the open yard between the gate and the main cell house. Many were armed with their captors’ guns.

  Whoa, she thought. More got free than I thought.

  She didn’t see Revenant anywhere. Still dematerialized, she watched as a fresh group of operatives arrived, but she left the prisoners to defend themselves and ran through the crowds to the main cell house.

  Using the space dimension to push the doors open, Bullseye entered to find the building relatively still. She ran down the main hall, peeked into the now empty C block, and slowed only when she heard voices ahead, in B block. One of its doors had been torn off its hinges, so she stepped around the destruction and stood in this cellblock.