“Hello,” the tall one responded while the smaller one remained silent.
“Fregos, this is Higgens, Ciangi, Bahn, and Eske.” She motioned to the woman standing next to her. “And this small, silent one is Jannin.” She nodded, as if she was satisfied with that introduction. “Now that that’s taken care of, how about we get you guys out of here?”
“I think that would be the best course of action, yes,” Bahn said, practically pressing himself against the forcefield of his cell.
The three rescuers spread out, pressing the buttons on each of our cells to free us. Gonzales was the one to let me free, and she looked curiously to the stun baton in my hand. “Where’d you get that?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“The general and I had a little disagreement.”
“Ah, makes sense.” And that was it. Our grand reunion and she was already turning away to address the others.
Disappointing.
But I didn’t have time to voice that opinion, because she was already speaking again.
“Alright, there’s a back exit toward the fire escape that we can go through. I have a number of our forces fighting it out on the upper levels, but please don’t delude yourself that this is going to be nearly as easy as last time. We’re—” She paused, looking around. “Where’s Mimi?”
“You don’t know?” I asked, my stomach sinking.
“You mean you don’t know? What exactly is going on here?”
“We were separated ever since we were captured,” Eske said, approaching with her hand on the taller man’s—Fregos, I believed—shoulder. “We have no idea where she is.”
“Oh, right! Eske, these are for you.” Gonzales stepped forward and gently pressed something into the woman’s hands. Her grin was near blinding when she realized that it was a brand-new set of corrective goggles, and the janitor put them on happily.
“Goodness gracious,” she breathed, looking around. “You have no idea how much I missed that.”
Gonzales just pointed to her still-glowing eye. “I think I might a little.”
“Ha, good point.”
As I much as I appreciated having Gonzales back, and all of the humor that came along with her, there was something more pressing to deal with.
“We need to find Mimi,” I said, perhaps a little more forcefully than I should of.
Gonzales fixed me with a look but still went on to press the button on her comm. “Hey, Lim, can you do a scan for any sort of unusual concentration of containment fields? We’re missing our queen lady.”
Yeah, but it’ll take a couple of minutes. This facility is even bigger than our scouts were aware of.
“That’s the way life is sometimes.” She looked over all of us and sighed. “I’m gonna arm up the objectives and do a floor-by-floor sweep going up until you get back to us. I have a feeling that if we stay here for long, we’re gonna end up surrounded.”
Roger-roger. I agree with that.
Her comm went dead and she nodded to Jannin, who handed a smaller ion-blaster to Ciangi and Bahn. Eske, however, Gonzales handed her stun-staff with a wink.
“You strike me as the type of person who knows how to use this.”
“You would be correct,” Eske said, taking the staff in hand before twirling it.
“Showoff,” Gonzales said teasingly before heading back toward the hole. “This way, guys. There are bulkheads at either side of this hall and they immediately shut down in the event of an alarm being tripped. If we want to get out, we’re gonna have to use the path we made up to a higher floor where we can start doing sweeps.”
“You seem…entirely too comfortable with this,” I murmured, following her with my stun baton ready. Fregos and Jannin took up the rear, no doubt to protect us. “And who are all these people?”
“Well, it’s been one heck of a journey since I saw—watch your step—you last. Trying to find Eske’s family caused me to build some connections with a lot of people who have a beef with our current government or have been actively burned by this coup.”
She continued explaining while we walked through the jagged, gaping tunnel that she had blown through. It only went a surprisingly short distance before suddenly cutting upwards, and it was then that I realized they had blown a hole in the floor of the level above us just to get to where we were. Those explosives had to be pretty darn powerful.
“You know how it is, you stop a kidnapping or two,” Gonzales kept on, “you break up a hit fight, word starts getting around. So, when I was almost back home with all of Eske’s family and picked up on the peace negotiations that were really anything but, I knew that I had to do something.
“So, I dropped them off on the planet, since little traitor Mari seemed to be hitching a ride with the humans and hadn’t started her plan of total conquest yet, and went back to Earth. From there, I started recruiting and calling up favors on people who had the skills I need. The next thing ya know, I’ve got my own little task force. Actually, Jannin here is an escapee from the same holding place we broke out of. Small little galaxy, isn’t it?”
“So, what’s you’re saying,” Ciangi said, sounding about as flabbergasted as I felt, “is that in the span of two weeks, you managed to assemble an entire rebellion?”
“Well, I don’t know about an entire rebellion,” Gonzales answered, crouching down and cupping her hands to give me a leg up into the room above us. “But it’s enough to get started.”
“Apparently,” I muttered, but then I was stepping up and being thrust upwards. I gripped a piece of jagged rock sticking out of the floor, using it to pull myself up. Once I was solidly in, I laid on my belly and offered a hand down to help someone else up.
One by one, we all ended up in the same room. Although I was concentrating on making sure everyone got up safe, I was beginning to hear the sounds of a firefight outside. Yelling, blaster fire, things falling over, people running, it was a very particular sound that one didn’t forget.
My mind was starting to flash back to the grand battle we’d had during the Great War with the invading aliens, but I shoved that down.
“Are all of you ready?” Gonzales said, crouch-walking forward to the door. “Because once I open this, we’re going to be embroiled in a whole lot of awful, and although I’m going to do my best to make sure we all get out of here, I can’t guarantee it. This isn’t the kid stuff we’re used to, where they constantly underestimate us and think we’re not a threat, just something to be used. These soldiers are aiming to kill, and the leaders of the coup are very angry.”
“We’re ready,” I said, shoving down the fear. Once, long ago, she had beaten terrible odds to come rescue us, so the least I could do was return the favor.
“Alright, guys. Let’s go show these upstarts what a little bit of loyalty can do.”
She gave me a wink, her bionic eye closing and opening with the slightest of whirring sounds, then opened the door. She leaned out carefully, taking inventory of the hall only to jump back immediately as several bolts of blaster fire streaked past her.
“Jannin,” she said, moving to the side. “I believe this is a situation for you.”
The smaller woman still didn’t say anything but crept up to the door and took one of the bombs from her bandolier. With expert aim, she tossed it into the back of the hall then slammed the door shut.
But even the closed door couldn’t buffer the large explosion and I felt a wave of heat wash over me. It lasted for a few seconds, then dissipated, and when I turned back to the entrance… Well, there wasn’t really a door there anymore. Or a doorway. Just a gaping hole that was dripping molten metal.
“Fregos, wanna hit that with your coolant?”
The bigger man nodded and walked forward, pulling something from the many pockets in his pants and spraying it onto the superheated metal.
There was a whole lot of crackling and popping, with sparks going everywhere. Once more, I ducked away to protect my face, and when I looked forward, the broken entran
ce was no longer a fiery opening of death.
“Alright, let’s try that again,” Gonzales said, peeking out into the hall. This time, there was no hail of blaster fire and we headed out.
The hall we were in looked even more locked down than our own had been. There were bulkheads every ten feet or so and it looked like each door required a passcode and a keycard.
“They gotta be holding something good here,” Gonzales remarked, heading toward the first room.
“Didn’t you come this way, though?” I asked, still following her. “Wouldn’t you have checked for Mimi already?”
“Well, no, because I assumed she was with you all. Now that I think about it, I realize that was a silly assumption to make, but it’s my first time planning a coup to a coup, so I think a little error is allowable.”
Ciangi cleared her throat beside me and I couldn’t tell if her tone was teasing or patronizing. “Sure, whatever you say. But can you actually open any of these doors? They look pretty fortified.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Gonzales said, pulling something from one of the utility packs attached to her belt. “I tried to come at least a little prepared.” She placed the small, circular thing on the door and pressed the center button before stepping back. The disk gave off a few beeps, before I felt the electricity in the air suddenly spike and the door blasted off its hinges as the circuits around it overloaded.
“And that’s how you make an entrance,” she remarked, stepping in.
I followed quickly after her, my heart in my throat, but instead of seeing Mimi, or even a containment chamber, there was just server after server after server full of memory crystal chips.
“She’s not here,” I said, unable to keep the defeat from my tone.
“No,” Bahn said, coming up behind me. “But I think what we’re looking at might be the entire data center for this particular base.”
“You’re kidding me. They really just have all their vital info here for anyone to just come along and blow up?”
Bahn ran his hand over his stubbly head, grimacing as he did. “Considering that one normally has to go through a dozen or so layers of security to get here, I doubt they thought it would be an issue. Also, I have no doubt that they have backed this information up elsewhere as a failsafe, so damaging it, while being cathartic, would ultimately be a useless endeavor.”
“So, what? We found a treasure trove of their data and it’s useless?”
The taller engineer smiled ever-so-slightly, perhaps for the first time since we had been captured. “No, not quite. While it would be counter-productive to destroy it, I never said anything about stealing as much as we can possibly carry.”
Gonzales’s face lit up and she shook her finger at Bahn. “Clever, clever. See, this is why we all need each other. Fergos, Jannin, I need anything you have resembling a bag. Pass them around to everyone cause it’s time to load up. Quickly, of course, considering we have that whole rescue thing to get to.”
Although I hated the idea of delaying our search for Mimi for even a couple of seconds, I knew that this opportunity was too good to pass up. So, I helped fill up all the packs we had, slinging one over my shoulder and looping my arms through the straps of another.
A man’s voice suddenly came over Gonzales’s comm, causing all of us to look at her. “My help on the outside,” she whispered with a wink as we listened in.
Hey, gun-head. I’ve got a blip on a floor above you but all the way over in the west wing. It looks like they’re using some of the shielding from the landing bay to power a room that’s almost completely scrubbed off the map. I was only able to find it thanks to some old maintenance blueprints.
“What do you know,” Gonazles said, smiling at me. “Looks like that good ol’ janitor knowhow is saving our rear end again.”
“Does that happen often?” Eske asked.
“Oh, more than you know.” She looked to the door and lifted her gun again. “So, who’s ready to finally save our fearless leader?”
I didn’t need to be asked twice and followed her out. One way or another, we were going to get out of this, all together or not at all.
11
Storming the Castle
With the lifts being out of order due to the lockdown, we made our way to the closest stairs. While I could still hear the battle going on, they all seemed to be from above us. But how far above us, I didn’t know. While we had only encountered the one group of soldiers that Jannin had promptly blown up, I was certain that there would have to be others we would run into along the way.
Geez, this was nothing like our previous escapes, where few people ever got hurt and weapons were more of a suggestion than a requirement. I almost felt like that was a simpler time, like another life where I wasn’t aware of just how evil so many people could be.
But inner existential crisis or not, I had a task at hand, so I brought my stun baton up as we climbed the stairs. We didn’t run, but we didn’t quite walk either. It was more like we rushed along at a heated pace, pausing only long enough to make sure there wasn’t an enemy waiting to drop out of some hidey hole.
When we made it to the next floor, I could tell that the firefight was definitely taking place right outside the door. Well, not right outside, but close enough that it was definitely a threat.
“Stand back, guys. We’re going to lay down suppressing fire.”
“Why not just bomb them out of existence, courtesy of Jannin?” Ciangi asked.
“Because some of our operatives might be in this hall and I didn’t manage to turn off the friendly fire settings on real life.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly. Now stand back, it’s time to see if all my practice has been paying off.”
“But we have guns too!” It seemed that Ciangi was in an argumentative mood now that she was freed. Maybe she was hungry, or maybe she was on edge from the fact that any of us could die at any moment. That was reasonable enough.
“Yeah, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be shot in the back by them. I’ll tell you when you have clear shots, so please don’t fire before then. Because, I love y’all, but I’d rather not be killed by you.”
“Fair,” Ciangi said.
“Glad you approve of my logic. Now, if you don’t mind, get out of the way.”
Ciangi finally stepped to the side and the three rescuers took their positions in the doorway. There was the tiniest second where they all centered themselves, and then Gonzales kicked the door open and they all moved forward as one.
The sound of blaster fire picked up immediately, amplified that much further by their sweep forward. I tensed, sure at any moment that I would hear the death cry of one of my friends.
But eventually, the shots faded, and I heard a small cheer instead. Peeking out, I saw Gonzales hugging a young man whose bionic arm was draped around her.
“Carlos, you did good getting down here,” I heard her say as we approached.
“Thanks. Unfortunately, I lost Gibbens.” His face screwed into a look that was somewhere between mournful and angry. “Took a blast right to the face. At least it was instant.”
My stomach flipped at that. Were…were people actually dying for us? The thought made me feel more than a bit sick. As much as I loved each of us, sacrificing a life that was not my own for the cause seemed like far too great a price.
As if she was reading my mind, Gonzales looked over to me. “Relax, Higgens. They’re not dying for you. They’re dying in the hopes of getting rid of the people that have ruined so many lives. Beyond how they’ve royally screwed us over multiple times, they’ve hurt a whole lot of people a whole lot worse.”
“I…I guess I understand.”
“These are the folks that we’re supposed to add to our number?” the man, Carlos, asked, giving us a charming smile.
“That they are. My original crew in the flesh.”
“Huh. I thought they’d be taller.”
“I would supremely not like that,” Eske s
aid. “It’s already hard enough to find clothes as it is.”
“I love the banter and all that, but we have a shapeshifting alien to save.”
“Right,” Carlos agreed. “Let’s get going.”
Once again, we were moving along, passing by tons of evidence of fighting. The sounds were still coming in loud and clear above our heads, making me wonder just how many people Gonzales had managed to recruit.
I guessed I would find out eventually…if we were successful, that was.
Hey, Gunslinger, her comm crackled, nearly jolting me out of my skin. Obviously, she had the volume turned all the way up so it could be heard over the ambient sounds of battle, but I hadn’t thought about that before. According to my scans, you’re almost there. But it seems like at least a couple people knew what we were gonna do and they’re barricaded there behind a lot of energy shields.
“Gotcha,” Gonzales said, putting her large gun in a magnetic holder on her back and pulling out her stun-rod instead. “And what about our ride?”
Working on it. With varied success.
“Ride?” Bahn asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gonzales said abruptly. “But hey, for this next chunk, we’re going to do the same thing as before. Y’all hide, while we—”
Oh, crap! Remember that barricade thing I just mentioned? I’m reading three shields approaching you rapidly. It looks like they’re going on the offensive. You need to find cover, now!
Gonzales’s eyes went wide and she whipped toward us. Her mouth opened, and I could tell that she was about to give us some tactical order, but the door blew open behind her and knocked us all off our feet.
My skin felt the raw heat of the blast, then my back crashed into a solid wall. I tried to open my eyes, but the sting of acrid smoke blinded me anyway.
But time wasn’t willing to slow down to let me recover. I heard footsteps running toward us, and the hair on my arms was standing up from the electrical charge. I’d never encountered someone using an electrical riot shield before and I had no idea how to deal with it.
I fought to get to my feet, blinking rapidly, but I couldn’t make anything out beyond some shadows flittering this way and that. But what I did hear was Eske letting out a huge battle cry that quickly approached the footsteps running for us, then ended up behind them.
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