“And I thought all the important people had to stay away,” the team leader grumbled.
The Meligornian shrugged and climbed into the cockpit beside the pilot. “Perhaps I am not that important,” he told them, a slight smile on his lips. “Shall we go?”
The pilot was the same one who had taken Stephanie to the testing, and he gave her a brief smile before he gaped at the cats. “They let you keep them?”
She shushed him and covered Zeekat’s ears. “They didn’t want to try telling them no.”
The feline shook her hands off his ears and yawned to display all his fangs as he stretched and his tail twitched. The pilot reached out tentatively and rubbed his head. “Smart.”
Once again, they landed a block away in an empty lot behind two warehouses. It was different than their landing spot the night before, but they were less likely to be noticed there.
The team headed out and the cats followed Stephanie. Once the pilot had closed the hatch after them, she looked at the pair and put a finger to her lips. “Quiet now. It’s time to hunt.”
They approached their objective according to plan, alert for the guards they knew were there and whom they had avoided on their first visit.
When they were in position, Lars whispered to the team. “Take ’em out as quietly as you can. Use your stunners or the darts. We have to be able to question them when we get them back.”
The team nodded, drew their stunners, and rose to their feet. Being the smallest, Frog had the first opportunity for action.
He snuck along the edges of the warehouse and crouched in the shadows while the guard made his rounds. As the target turned a corner, he attacked using a throat punch to silence him and swept his legs to upend the man before he secured him.
The second was easier. He selected a dart from his clip and thrust it into the guards back while he covered his mouth. It took two seconds for the drug in the dart to take effect, and Frog cuffed him as well before he dragged the bodies around the side and shoved them behind a stack of pallets.
The team returned silently to the front entrance and approached the door.
“I’ve got this,” Stephanie told them and raised her hands.
“Who the fuck are you?” a voice yelled before she could unlock it with her magic.
The whole team spun, their weapons raised. Another security guard stood behind them, completely unaware that Bumblebee stalked him from behind.
The team held their fire and the guard reached for his comm, but before he could use it, the cat pounced and felled him. His claws shredded flesh and his jaws closed over the guy’s head. The entire team winced as the cat twisted and a sickening crack followed.
Marcus curled his lip in disgust “Well, we won’t get anything from him.”
Johnny shook his finger at the cat. “I am not cleaning his paws.”
She turned back to the door and used her energy to unlock it silently. They slid through one at a time and stayed low while they scrutinized the surroundings.
Once they were all in, Marcus started to move forward. Lars tried to stop him but wasn’t fast enough. He stepped into a laser beam and triggered the alarm system. “Crap, sorry.”
The team moved instantly and each one sought a target. Stephanie raised her arms and directed a stream of energy to wrap it around the building and block all the doors. They heard voices and running footsteps. Someone shouted, “The doors are locked.”
Another responded with, “That way! Down. Down. Go down!”
Frog raced after them. “Shit, they have a bolt hole.”
Sho drew his gun as well and his other hand sparked with MU. “Everyone has a bolt hole unless they’re stupid. Unfortunately, these guys aren’t stupid.”
The team hurtled toward where they’d heard the shouting. They didn’t find anyone, but they did find a hatch in the floor beneath which the sound of voices was clearly audible.
She blasted the hatch clear and Lars and Marcus lunged through it before she could argue. Frog and Avery moved to follow but she was there before them and dropped in quickly while she conjured a second bolt of energy.
“Make a hole,” she commanded when she found Lars and Marcus blocking her line of sight and they stepped smartly out of the way.
She could now see the group of insurgents as they raced toward a door at the end of the corridor. None of them had stopped and none looked back. One had already reached the door and began to yank it open.
The bolt of magic struck it, wrenched it out of his hands, and slammed it shut in front of him. At the same time, the cats pushed their way past Stephanie, Lars, and Marcus, and roared as they charged.
Stephanie thrust her hands forward, pulled energy to her fingertips, and rocketed it after them. Lars and Marcus raced forward as she enveloped the two beasts with shields of light.
Ahead of them, the fugitives screamed as Zeekat and Bumblebee powered into them. From where she was, she could see past Lars and Marcus to where their targets were backed up against the outer door. One of those near the outside of the group found the time to shoot a hasty bolt of magic at the cats, and Bumblebee yowled in pain.
“Kitties! Down!” she shouted, and both felines dropped.
Before any of those they’d attacked could react, she began a barrage of small charged orbs. Where they struck, electricity arced out over their target, shorted its way through synapses, and dropped them almost instantaneously.
One almost landed on Zeekat and he gave a startled yowl and struck out at the hapless rebel as he leapt out of the way. Bumblebee followed, and both cats sat and watched the carnage while they pretended nonchalance.
“Sure, tell the kitties to get down,” Lars muttered where he crouched beside Marcus and glanced back at her. “Never mind about the two humans protecting you.”
He made his way slowly to where Stephanie stood, duck-walking under her line of fire until he was behind her. When the last rebel had fallen, he placed a hand on her shoulder. “You can stop now.” She didn’t seem to have heard him. “You can stop,” he repeated, and she lowered her hands slowly. “We got this.”
Relief surged when she let him move her back against the wall to allow the rest of the team past to deal with the fallen insurgents. “I really hope you left some of them alive,” Marcus quipped in passing.
“Me, too,” Sho said and grinned before he followed the team.
Frog hung back to keep watch between them and the hatch. “What?” he asked when Lars looked at him. “Someone has to watch your dumbass backs and everyone else is busy.”
As if his words were a catalyst, Stephanie twisted out from under the team leader’s hand and raced to the cats. Zeekat licked Bumblebee’s fur and tried to soothe a patch of reddened skin. She dropped to her knees beside him and turned to look at Lars, anger on her face. “Those idiots burned my cat!”
Before he could think of anything to say, a laser blast careened into the wall beside her face and both felines hissed.
“Bastards!” Stephanie scrambled up and prepared to launch a series of fireballs in the direction of the shot. Her gaze searched the shadows but only one figure huddled behind the ladder beneath the hatch.
Before she could do more than bring the magic to her fingertips, Frog had fired, and he hadn’t used his stunner.
Lars wasn’t impressed. “Goddammit, Frog!”
The man looked at him as he changed clips. “Sorry, my negotiation skills for getting someone to surrender suck.”
She raised an eyebrow and glanced at Sho, who nodded. “We have most of them. That’s what matters.”
He opened the outer hatch and stepped outside to send the ambassador the signal. Within fifteen minutes, Security personnel were everywhere. They swarmed over the warehouse in search of anyone the team might have missed but finding no-one.
The revolutionaries were bundled into a holding vehicle for transport, and Stephanie was surprised to see two Dreth and one human amongst the Meligornians there. Sho looked worried. “I’ll
need to call their ambassadors.” He sighed. “It looks like it will be a busy night.”
The warehouse was cleared, and everyone proceeded to Security Headquarters.
“I thought you said there was a mole,” Stephanie whispered to the ambassador.
“I did,” he whispered in response. “We are watching for someone to crack or to try to pass news of tonight’s events on to someone else.”
He straightened as one of the Federation ambassador’s arrived. She recognized him from her awards ceremony, and he gave her a brief nod as he quickly accepted responsibility for the human and promised to share any intelligence they received from him.
“I am sorry one of my species was involved,” he stated, his voice gruff as he addressed V’ritan. “If there’s anything...absolutely anything—”
“Just share what he knows,” the ambassador told him. “His choices aren’t your fault, but we’ll need to work together to discover what it’s about.”
“Agreed.” He still looked worried, but he brushed past two Navy Special Operations Officers and left with his prisoner.
For a minute, she thought they might follow the ambassador, but they didn’t. Instead, they stood and surveyed the scene of organized chaos. One of them stopped beside Jaleck. “Who brought them in?”
The Dreth ambassador motioned to Stephanie. “The Morgana team.”
Their jaws dropped momentarily but they collected themselves quickly and walked over to Stephanie and the guys. “Good work out there. Uh…we hoped we could speak to you before you left—”
Before Stephanie could answer she was interrupted by Jaleck, who shook her hand. “Everywhere I go, you do us a service. Thank you. We will let you know what we extract from them.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The team entered their quarters, stripped their armor off, and set it aside for cleaning. They weren’t necessarily exhausted, but they weren’t bursting with energy, either.
With the Dreth ambassador’s presence, Stephanie had been able to put the Navy off and simply said she had to check her schedule and would get back to them. Once they were back in the suite with the doors closed behind them, she sent a message to Elizabeth.
It was about time she gave Ms. E. and Burt an update rather than forcing them to rely on news reports. By the time she’d showered and changed into casual clothes, her mentor had replied.
“I hate that we can’t talk face to face, or live,” the woman said from the middle of the screen, “but this will have to do. Pay close attention, because not everything is what it seems—and this includes the Navy.”
She paused the message and located her tablet, aware that the guys had gathered around.
“First of all, I want you to protect yourself from the Navy,” Elizabeth continued when Stephanie set the recording to play once more. “My meeting with them was not the best. I’m not saying you can’t work with them, but you have to be careful. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to draft all of you.”
She snarled. “I would kill them.”
The woman looked into the camera with a grim smile. “And if you are anything like I think you are, Stephanie, let me remind you that you cannot kill the entire Navy.”
Around her, the team stifled chuckles and she giggled. She typed into the tablet. Don’t kill.
“Of course, there is also the worst-case scenario where they hire you and try to underpay you. If they do offer you a contract, you need to negotiate, and you need to walk away if it’s not right.”
“I mean it, Stephanie.” She glared at the screen. “Call it a consulting gig and include all the bells and whistles. Sting them hard. We’re talking hazard pay, control over operational parameters, one hundred percent coverage of damages, and approval for death—all deaths, not only enemy combatants. Don’t let them weasel out of a single thing, not even vacation time.”
Stephanie chuckled as she jotted it down and liked the fact Ms. E. was at the top of the game. She never missed a beat, not even when she probably should.
Her mentor continued, counting things down on her fingers. “Furthermore, all contracts are to come to me before you sign anything. Burt and I will go through them and make sure they don’t sneak a tour of duty into the fine print. If they did that, you’d go in as a contractor and come out as…well, you don’t come out. You stay. That does not sound like a fun time.”
She snorted as she made her notes. “Vacation. What the hell is that nonsense? Who actually gets a vacation anyway?”
Around her, the boys snorted in agreement, but they didn’t interrupt. They listened as Elizabeth broke everything down to the smallest detail of the different ranks of who had the authority to grant what.
“You might have Mr. First Class Petty Officer in there acting all tough and agreeing to your terms, but he’ll have no authorization to do what he says he can. Nothing matters, and if he doesn’t have the authority, it won’t happen. And you want to be polite—don’t be aggressive but stand your ground.”
Stephanie couldn’t believe how much the woman sounded like her mother. She spoke like she was trying to teach her some of what she’d learned over the years. “I have been in shitty spots with negotiations and still come out on top. I make it a point to come out on top.”
“She is ruthless.” She leaned back and grinned.
“Yeah,” Lars muttered. “I’m glad she’s on our side.”
Ms. E took a deep breath and clapped. “So, that is it. That is all I have for you. I miss you, girl. Time creeps by here, and you and your merry gang of hooligans need to get back here ASAP. I need something to brighten this place. This working alone thing sucks. Be careful and if all else fails, go for the nuts.”
The message ended, and Stephanie shook her head. She tossed the tablet on the table and looked around. “Huh. I guess you all heard that, right?”
They nodded, and she spread her arms and grinned. “We need to send a reply. She just gave us the one-oh-one on how to negotiate with the Federation Navy. And she said she missed us.”
The guys piled onto the couch with her in the middle. She set the recording drone and had it fly far enough back to get everyone in the picture.
As soon as the green light went on, Stephanie put her arms out. “Stephanie Morgana and her Band of Merry Hooligans here. We wanted to send you a message since we’ve been busy kicking butt, taking names, and becoming citizens of everywhere.”
The team cheered. She laughed and waited for them to settle. “As for your message, we understand and we appreciate what you’re saying. All contracts will go to you and Burt for approval, no matter how urgent we think they are. I don’t want to end up in uniform full time and I don’t think these guys do either.”
Bumblebee made a low, rumbling growl from the other room and everyone glanced in that direction. The big yellow-striped cat stalked in to sit with them, Zeekat at his side. When they turned back to the drone, Stephanie’s smile was wide. “Yeah, I hope you like cats ʼcause they…uh, adopted us, soooo…yeah.”
Lars scowled and added, “At first, I hated the idea as I’m sure you will, E, as soon as you see this message. But they’re here to stay. They fight as part of the team and followed Steph out of a forest when she was tested as a Mage—”
He paused and turned to her, his eyes wide. “You have told her that bit, haven’t you?”
“Hi, Mom!” Frog yelled before she could reply. He waved madly. “Your favorite kid misses your face.”
“Yeah,” Marcus added and held his nose. “Someone needs his diapy changed.”
“Does not!”
“Ha! So you admit you’re wearing one.”
A scuffle broke out as Frog dived at his teammate and Johnny and Avery each grabbed one of them. Brenden gave the screen a pleading stare. “You have to come back to us, Mom. They keep fighting.”
“And they keep stealing all the cookies,” Johnny whined.
Frog turned in his arms. “I do not. That was you.”
“Was not.”
“Mom! You really need to come over here. It’s all his fault!”
“Yeah! Everything’s his fault,” Avery added. “He needs a darn good whooping.”
“Oooh, you said darn. Momma’s not gonna be happy!”
Lars rolled his eyes and stood. “See what I have to put up with, E? Every damn day. They really need you, so get here as soon as you have things tied up there. Steph and I will try to keep them out of trouble until then.”
He clapped loudly to get their attention. “Time to say goodbye.”
Stephanie laughed so hard the tears rolled down her face, but she managed to control it as the team leader hauled her to her feet and everyone gathered around to wave goodbye.
“We promise we’ll be good,” they called, and Stephanie figured Ms. E wouldn’t believe any of them, not for a second. She ended the call and shut the drone off before she guided it down to land in her lap.
The guys immediately started back to their rooms, but Lars stopped when he caught the look of longing on her face.
“What’s up?” he asked.
She sighed. “Nothing. I guess I miss being able to go into the Virtual World. Sometimes, you simply don’t want to deal with reality.”
He smiled at her and nodded. “Almost all the time, and especially when it’s dealing with these clowns.”
Several cries of protest echoed from the surrounding rooms, and they both chuckled before they separated and retreated.
Stephanie walked into hers, plugged the drone into the computer, and used the corporate account to send Elizabeth her message. Then, she took a minute to record one for her parents to let them know she loved them and that she would hopefully be home on Earth soon.
She tried for light and relaxed and thought about telling them everything that had happened, but she felt too drained. Instead, she kept it short and simple and asked them to pass on her best to Todd if they should see him before she did.
The memory of her best friend brought her close to tears, but she managed to hide the sadness until she’d finished her message. All traces of that sadness vanished when she saw how much it would cost to send, and she cleared her throat.
Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2) Page 57