by Laer Carroll
Moving swiftly she incapacitated three unarmed men. Behind her Johnson killed another bearing a gun who burst out of a room behind Sasha, saving her the trouble.
She came to a halt in a room near the opposite side of the building. It was an office, decorated a bit more than the other rooms and well lit by overhead electric lights. She guessed it was the nerve center of the local insurgency.
She put a bullet hole in the thigh of an older and very skinny insurgent who was dressed in a uniform of some kind. He had been in the process of burning some papers. On the floor were crushed mechanical components, parts she guessed of communication or computer machinery. Perhaps Bluebird could make sense of the records embedded within the wreckage.
She moved to the insurgent who was clutching his leg and had collapsed into a chair behind a desk. She put him to sleep and went to normal time. She tore strips from the man's uniform and bound his leg in a tourniquet. She also injected him with heal-fast messengers.
Sasha was smothering the paper fire with her naked foot when Corporal Johnson came into the room, panting slightly at his effort to keep up with a near-superhuman.
"Jesus Christ, Storm Cloud. You move fast. I've never seen anything like it."
She smiled at him. "All part of the Mystical Warrior service. You have watched movies about us, haven't you?"
"I never thought there was any truth in them. What do we have here?"
He bent over the desk and picked up a partially burned piece of paper. "Looks like a supply list." He dropped the paper back onto the desk, gave the room a once-over. He moved to glance at a map on the wall.
Sasha spoke into her throat-mike. "Captain, we have secured the admin center. Send a squad or two to make sure it stays that way, will you?"
"They should be knocking at the door right now." And indeed they were.
Fifteen minutes later Sasha was in the air again, leaving the personnel of one of the attack craft to mop up and organize the insurgent village. She was in the second seat of her personal bat plane, viewing and controlling two of the UAVs via the displays in the helmet she had left racked in the plane. The other two UAVs were still being managed by experienced controllers at the rear base.
In front of her Sergeant Kondrashin was still piloting the plane and munching on a ration bar. It was breakfast time for her. Outside it was twilight and in an hour the sun would rise.
"Rat bar?" the woman said.
"Give it here," said Sasha, reaching to take the proffered bar from over the woman's shoulder. Much of her attention was on the UAV displays, so she unwrapped it by feel and bit off a big chunk. She had used a lot of energy with all her time spent in slow time.
Sasha was also directly viewing the slight traffic on the paved road below which ran through the forest on the side of the nearest low mountain range which was insurgent country.
By the time she had finished two more bars and a liter or so of bottled tea she had pin-pointed virtually and then directly a battered truck on the road which she guessed carried Adrian Storm Cloud. It was headed toward a moderate-sized city near the central east coast of Mindanao whose name she did not know.
Above her at 5000 feet was the attack craft carrying Captain Ishbel. The other was still at the insurgent village, its personnel supplemented by troops from the rear base. Behind her at 1000 feet, her own height, were her two subsidiary bat planes in a V formation. Both had been called off their search spirals since it seemed Storm Cloud had been found.
Her pilot eased forward and down, at Sasha's request, trailing the truck. At about 500 hundred feet Sasha removed her helmet and pulled a powerful binocular set from a storage compartment.
"Move a few dozen feet to their right, Sergeant."
The shapechanger lifted the binoculars to her eyes as the truck below her seemed to drift to her left. It took her a moment to focus the binoculars and center the image of the truck in the viewing lenses.
It was a compact pickup truck colored faded red. In its open cargo bed was a pallet with a man lying on it. Sasha guessed this was the insurgent wounded in the attack on the squad Storm Cloud had been monitoring.
There was a bench seat built into each side of the bed. On the side closest to Sasha four men sat, rifles in the hands of two of them, likely rifles near the other two. Their backs were to the bat plane. Though they might not have noticed the plane if it had been in front of them. It was in visual stealth mode and might not be visible to them anyway since all had their heads bent forward, likely dozing or sleeping.
One man sat opposite them. His head was up and he was looking around. It was Storm Cloud.
Exhilaration coursed through Sasha's breast.
"Base, I have a visual. We have located Colonel Storm Cloud. He is in the truck I mentioned earlier."
"Good show, Agent. What's our plan?"
"Hold one."
She scanned Storm Cloud's face and body, what little she could see at this height and in the pre-dawn half-light. She bumped up the brightness and contrast on the digital binoculars to combat the dimness of approaching day.
"He looks well and alert. Damned if I know how with all he went through. And he has been up maybe 24 hours."
She thought a few minutes. Then she spoke again.
"Notify Anna Prince of the situation, please. I want to get her orders."
"No need, April. I'm in sub-orbital flight on my way there. But you're my man-on-the-ground, so to speak. What are your thoughts?"
Sasha went to slow time, thought a bit, then went back to normal time.
"I'd like to follow the truck to where they are going to interrogate him. See if we can capture more higher ups. Maybe find out once and for all who is behind the insurgency."
"Makes sense. You say Adrian looks well?"
"Yes. I think he'll look better if I let him know we're here."
"How do you plan to do that? Never mind, just do it."
"Sergeant, give me control."
The control panel in front of her flashed red letters telling her she had piloting command and the control yoke came live in Sasha's hands.
She pulled a bit ahead but still behind the truck. No one in the cab could see her at this angle unless they turned around and pressed their face against the small window in the cab's back, or stuck their heads out of the nearest side window. Nor could the four insurgents see her, their faces away from her.
She slid the plane closer to the truck, then manually turned the plane's stealth mode off, at the same time cueing its skin to bright red.
Storm Cloud raised his head and looked directly at the bat plane. He nodded his head, then casually looked away and reached up with his hands to scratch his head. This let Sasha clearly see that he wore handcuffs which were attached by a long chain to the side of the truck.
She waggled the plane in an acknowledgement and returned to stealth mode, then slid further away and higher and to the rear.
Sasha said to her pilot over the inter-plane channel, "It looks like they are going to that large city on the coast. Have you ever been there? What's it like? "
"Bislig. Yeah, twice. About 100K people, maybe half inside city limits. It has a small-plane airport and medium-sized seaport. Ferries and fishers and small freighters."
"Let's hope they're not going to take the Colonel out by plane. We'd have to intercept on the ground and I don't like the political implications."
"Maybe they're taking him to a house."
"If so we can likely get him with just me and a couple of backups. Less politics if we can do it quietly.
"Now, it's about time to relieve some biological pressure."
She talked to the two other bat-plane pilots, then coordinated a brief stop in a deserted field a little way inside the low forest of the area below. The other two bat planes landed there while Sasha's circled overhead. This let the men relieve themselves just inside the forest and walk around a bit. Then once they were in the air she found a similar landing site several miles ahead and she and Sergeant
Kondrashin did the same.
Once everyone was aloft again Sasha called Captain Ishbel in the accompanying assault craft.
"It looks like we have a two-hour ride ahead of us. I'm going to let my people take a nap while I fly my three planes, then take a nap myself. How are your guys holding up?"
"These things are pretty roomy. I've already got my people on turnabout naps."
For an hour Sasha flew all three bat planes, then napped herself. She could usually go for days without sleep and suffer no bad effects, but she had gone to slow time a lot since taking Katie Storm Cloud's call. She needed the sleep.
When Sergeant Kondrashin woke her they were over the outskirts of a metropolitan area and the sun was up, perhaps an hour high. The sky remained a sullen grey overhead, with only an occasional blue patch.
"Agent. Agent. Oh, good. You're awake.
"It looks like they're getting off the highway. See."
In the helmet feeds from the under-belly camera they could follow the path of the old red truck. Soon it was obvious where they were headed: a small hospital of about a half-dozen floors. There two of the insurgents left their rifles in the truck bed and took the wounded insurgent inside the hospital. The pallet on which he had been lying was a makeshift stretcher.
The truck left as soon as it had dropped off the three men and continued back to the highway. A little later Sasha breathed a sigh of relief. The truck was bypassing the airport and on its way to the small seaport.
There it wended its way through a succession of streets and alleys to a dock serving a large, for this seaport, freighter. Openly carrying their rifles and leading Adrian Storm Cloud by his chain they approached the freighter's crew-access ramp, where they turned him over to ship personnel. They also gave the new captors something, perhaps a handcuff key, returned to their truck, and drove back into the city. When they did so rear-base controllers took over tracking them via the two UAVs which Sasha had been controlling.
The Colonel walked up the ship's ramp not at all like a prisoner. There was a spring in his step and he looked around alertly.
On the all-channel com port Sasha said, half to herself and half to everyone else. "Look at the old bastard. Cocky as hell."
Anna Prince's voice came back. "Probably mapping out escape routes already. I'd be willing to bet, if I bet, that even without us his chances of making a getaway is fifty-fifty. This is not the first time Adrian has been in a tight spot. "
Sasha took her bat plane a few miles away out to sea and up to its 1000-foot ceiling, the maximum height without engaging its air compressor. She remained at an angle so she could see one quadrant of the freighter, positioning the other two bat planes on two other sea-ward quadrants. The attack craft remained where it was at 5000 feet, over the land with the port side of the freighter in view under high magnification. If Storm Cloud left the sea vessel everyone would be able to see him.
No such event occurred. Soon the freighter cast off its lines and headed slowly out into the Pacific east of the Philippines.
"What do we know about the freighter?" Captain Ishbel had ordered the Bluebird rear-base intelligence group to begin such research as soon as it was clear to which ship the Colonel was headed.
A male voice Sasha had not yet heard said, "Manila registry, owned by an Indonesian company with international facilities. Probably a cover identity of Chinese Federation spy guys. We've handed over the job of delving into that to our ZI intel. They're better at that than we are."
"What do we know about this specific ship?"
A female voice said, "Not a lot yet. But we do have plans for this specific model. The interior may have been changed but they can't do a lot of mods without tearing down essential firewalls and water-tight bulkheads."
Sasha put in, "Good. Send the blueprints to the Captain and to me. Captain, please put together an assault plan. Include a twenty-minute lead time. I will infiltrate and find Storm Cloud, then make sure no one offs him when you begin your attack."
Ishbel said, "I can't allow that, Agent. Protocol dictates that this kind of infiltration include at least one other man to act as backup."
Anna Prince said, "Do what she said, Captain. Most of the time you'd be absolutely right, and not just for legal reasons. But I know this agent's abilities. Anyone but another of her class would just hamper April."
"Shit!" said the Captain. "Don't tell me you believe this Mystic Warrior crap!"
"No, of course not. But I've seen what April can do. And once she gets to Storm Cloud with weapons to hand over she'll have all the backup she needs.
"Or as Adrian needs, April. Unless he's incapacitated I want you to hand over leadership to him. Understood?"
"Dern tootin,' Boss."
"Dern tootin'?" said her pilot over the inter-plane channel. "Is this how heap big Mystic Warriors talk?"
Sasha grinned, squelching her anxiety for the Colonel's safety. Was this how her parents felt when they knew she was off on some perilous journey?
Meanwhile the Captain had queried his intel about schedules. A female intelligence officer answered.
"This is a best guess, Sir. Typical of Chinese interrogation in such a situation is to try honey before vinegar. They'll take off his restraints but keep him under guard, let him shower and maybe shave, dress in clean clothes, get a big meal into him, but begin questioning right away. They'll know he's gotten no sleep...."
"Then they don't know Adrian Storm Cloud," said Prince. "He's napped a dozen times since they got him. Not that he'll let on. I'd bet that right now he's happy as a clam anticipating a battle of wits with someone who thinks him witless."
"Happy as a clam?" said the Captain in a perhaps-forced attempt at returning to an even conversational tenor. "I've always wondered about that phrase. "
Sasha ignored the laughter. She was already deep into memorizing the blueprints and other information about the interior of the ship she would be invading in a few hours.
Noon came and went. Sasha had her pilot nap after the woman awkwardly urinated into an empty water bottle. She did not have to do so herself.
The plans were finalized by 1:00 pm. The attack was planned for mid-afternoon, as soon as the freighter was engulfed in a storm shower which had been brewing for some time, the start of the summer wet season.
Anna Prince called Sasha just after 1:00 for a one-on-one conversation.
"I didn't want to go against you earlier, but I've brought some people with me who can keep up with you inside the ship. I want you to take them aboard the two bat planes and drop with you as backup."
Sasha was annoyed. Two ordinary humans tagging along and observing her would keep her from going all out. But she knew better than to argue with Anna Prince when the woman spoke the way she had.
"Getting them aboard the bats may be a problem."
"I'm above you now at 20,000 feet. I'll rendezvous with the other bats at their height and take them aboard my vehicle. My guys will remotely guide the planes inside and make a personnel swap. Your two pilots are going to be pretty tired right now, anyway.
"And don't be worried about your two backups and their pilots. You know them from advanced bat testing."
"Who?" But Prince was gone.
A half-hour later (33:45 minutes) a voice sounded in the bat-plane helmet earphones. It was Anna Prince.
"We've done the personnel swap and the bats are back in the air. Listen up. I've got someone who wants to talk to you."
"Sasha. I hear you're faking being a Mystic Warrior."
"Five Inch? What are you doing online?"
A theatrically loud sigh came back. "I'm half of your backup, little girl. Oh, excu-u-use me, Agent Storm Cloud."
Sasha felt a little better at being saddled with backup. Blond man-mountain "Five Inch" Blake, despite his bulk, was second only to one other of the advanced bat-plane testers at keeping up with Sasha when she was moving fast.
"Who's the other half?"
"It's me, Sasha. I'm in the other bat."
"Hey, Black Chocolate. You're still going by Oseye?" The Nigerian woman was the tester who came closest to pacing Sasha.
She felt better. Maybe she'd be able to use more of her extraordinary powers in the infiltration. Oseye and Blake already knew she was not ordinary.
"Right-to. Anything to add before Five Inch and I take a little nap before our little excursion? Prince woke us out of our beauty sleep."
"Just this. Stay behind me all the way. And don't be surprised or get distracted by my bare ass. I'll be wearing next to nothing. And don't shoot anyone if they have no weapon. The more we have to interrogate, and the fewer dead we have to explain, the better."
"Bare ass?" said Blake. "Oh, this is going to be more fun than I thought!"
Sasha chuckled, not bothered by his jokes. When work was to be done Blake was totally focused.
The freighter below proceeded further out into the Pacific. It passed out of the territorial waters of the Philippines.
The irregular edge of the tropical storm front edged closer to the freighter. From the weather satellite feeds for this area of the world Sasha could see tiny threadlike blue-white lightning streaks at the tops of the cloud masses.
She worried that the Colonel was being tortured, despite the assurances of the intel experts that that was unlikely this early. Then she had to use her shapechanger powers to squelch her worry. Until she relaxed them and started to worry again.
The freighter slowly edged into the grey of the first tropical shower, faded from view of Sasha's bat plane and the four micro-UAVs, now being controlled by the rear base. Time seemed to slow even though Sasha had not gone to slow time.
The UAV controllers pushed the UAVs closer to their target till it could very dimly be seen by their cameras. The tiny stealthed craft would be totally invisible to anyone on the freighter.
The three bat planes pushed in close behind the UAVs.
Captain Ishbel's voice surprised Sasha even though she was expecting it.
"Attack craft stand by. Infiltration unit ready?"
Sasha and her backups reported in the order Sasha had assigned them: herself, Oseye, Blake. "Ready 1." "Ready 2." "Ready 3."