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035 “ “Gotta Go Up In Order To Go Down.“


“We’re approaching Civic Center. Sly has assembled a strike team which will board as soon as we touch down,” said Hot Rod as she steered the SAFVe towards the brightly lit landing platform on top of MSD headquarters.

Gavin was focusing on Fed Plaza a few dozen blocks away. The massive tower was easy to spot any time of day but was practically unmissable now, as it was lit up by a plethora of bright spotlights, making the building the unquestionable focus of the city. The entire Federation tonight, I bet. Thought Gavin.

Mech looked over the team as they prepared to land. Including Sylvester Martinez, there were ten of them, most of which Mech realized she hadn’t even had time to be introduced to yet. They all wore black tactical vests and matching outfits and were armed with the new Seburo handguns strapped to their backs as well as the more powerful yet less reliable assault rifles.

She understood that for many of them, this would be the first time that they were tested in such a manner, executing a rapid and precise tactical strike against a presumably well-armed enemy holding a large number of hostages. Mech knew that they had trained for these kind of situations, and they had done a halfway decent job when they had assaulted the factory on Treasure Island, but Fed Plaza was an entirely different kind of playground with the stakes were much higher.

Mech stepped next to Gavin who still had his eyes on the brightly lit tower which was going to be their ultimate destination. “Are you ready?” she asked.

The young man gave her a surprised look. “Yeah, sure.”

She shot him a small smile, letting him know that she knew otherwise.

“A bit nervous, I suppose.”

“I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

“So I take it you’ve done these kind of things before,” he said.

She nodded.

“Good. Means you know what you’re doing.”

The SAFVe touched down on the landing pad and Sylvester and the rest of the team promptly boarded the vessel.

“We’re still going in there pretty much blind. We have people on the inside but no way of communicating with them. We have no idea how many terrorists we’re dealing with or what kind of weapons they have. We also have to assume the entire building might be wired to be blown to hell and we don’t know on what kind of timetable these guys are operating on.”

The rookie CCiD agent gave her a blank stare.

“Other than that,” she said and gave him that sweet smile again. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“If I may say so,” he said. “You make a for a great team leader but you really need to work on your inspirational speechmaking.”

Hot Rod had the SAFVe back in the air in less than a minute, the time it took the rest of the team to board, and she was already steering the shuttle towards the part of town in which the Federation tower stood.

Mech shrugged her shoulders. “Never been good at speeches,” she said. “But listen. You did fine at Grayson’s compound. Just stick close to me, follow my orders and you will be alright.”

Gavin gave him a sharp nod. And then before she could turn away he asked. “Are you nervous about this?”

She thought about that for just a moment, as if trying to consider the right response first. Then she nodded. “Doesn’t work any other way.”

He smiled at that. Gavin wasn’t sure what he had hoped to hear from their seemingly fearless and capable leader. Perhaps he had wanted reassurance that this was just another Thursday night for her. That she had done these kinds of things a thousand times before and that it was nothing more than routine by now. That she was somehow super-human which after all wasn’t a far-fetched notion after he’d had a chance to observe her in action over the last couple of days. And yet her admission that she still retained part of her flawed humanity was a surprising comfort to him now. No, she didn’t give good speeches, but she inspired confidence nevertheless.

“We may have a problem here,” said Hot Rod from the cockpit.

Mech and Gavin exchanged one last look and then moved to the front of the shuttle to find out what Rodgers had been concerned about.

The Jamaican pilot pointed at the gleaming white shuttles which appeared to hover around Fed Plaza. “Looks like Starfleet has sealed off the airspace around our target,” she said.

“It’s a prudent call,” said Gavin. “But how do we get there. Starfleet isn’t exactly our biggest fan judging from our last encounters.”

< Sir, we have a problem with Starfleet. Any chance you could work something on your end? > said Mech through her internal comm.-unit.

Masmune responded immediately. < Doesn’t look good. Tessier has all but taken command over here and from the looks of it she’s secured a presidential order to give her full jurisdiction. So far she has resisted any notion to accept our assistance. >

< Chief, > said Gavin who could easily listen in to the conversation through his own enhancer. < Do you want us to abort to wait and see what Starfleet does? >

< I don’t think we can afford to wait. If you are right and there really is a bomb in the building than we might have a lot less time than we have been led to believe. Also, it looks as if the terrorists have just made good on their threat and killed one hostage by throwing him off the roof. So you tell me now: Can you get in there, free the remaining hostages and prevent Fed Plaza being turned into rubble or not? >

Gavin as well as Hot Rod and Sylvester who had joined the others by the cockpit turned their full attention towards Mech. The LT for her part didn’t need long to think about that question. < If we can get into that building, we can do it, > she said and looked at their pilot.

“It’s all on me then, huh?” she said. “Way to put pressure on a girl.” She turned to her instruments, pressed a few panels and then looked out of the windshield to take in the scene before them. After a few more moments she nodded. “Yeah, I can get around’em but it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“What does that mean?” Gavin wanted to know.

Hot Rod just smiled, revealing two rows of pearly whites.

< Chief, we are ready to roll on our end, > Mech said, apparently not requiring and further explanation.

< Then go. And Mech. No solo heroics on this one. Get in there, get those hostages and get out. If you find that bomb, try to stop it but the hostages are your primary objective. Understood? >

< Understood, > she said and then terminated the link, full well knowing that once they approached Fed Plaza they would no longer be able to communicate. Then she turned to the pilot. “Hot Rod, do your thing.”

The woman had a gleam in her eye when she gave her response with a nod. “You got it, LT. Everybody find something to hang on to. And try to hold your dinner, ladies and gents. I just had this thing cleaned.”

“What?” asked Gavin confused.

But Hot Rod had already engaged the vessel’s main thrusters, catapulting it to speeds multiple times the speed of sound within seconds.

Gavin hung on to dear life as he felt the relentless g-forces trying to turn his insides into mush. That’s what it must feel like to travel at warp speed without inertial dampers, he thought.

And just as he thought the worst was behind them, Hot Rod angled the shuttle upwards at a steep angle, adding gravity to the mix as hey rapidly climbed into the moonlit San Francisco night sky.

“I … I don’t understand,” Gavin managed to say. “Where are … we going?” his voice was like a stutter to his own ears.

Mech seemed to know the answer. “With the airspace closed off, there is only one way to approach Fed Plaza.”

Gavin peeked out of a window, realizing that they had climbed hundreds of meters in just a few seconds. “Uh Hot Rod, you do realize that the SA in SAFVe stands for sub-atmospheric, right?”

“Chillax, brother, we’ll only be up here for a moment or so. Air will be bit tight and you might feel a little weightless. Just hold on and enjoy the stars.”

No sooner had Hot Rod spoken, did Gavin feel gravity lose its hold and his feet lift off from the deck plate. “Woah,” he exclaimed in surprise. Like most humans, Gavin had been to space plenty of times but thanks to artificial gravity, he had never had never experienced zero-g conditions before and for a moment he panicked.

Then he saw the LT’s face and found a huge, almost child-like grin on her face. She was loving this. And to underscore the point, she pushed herself off completely and performed a quick mid-air roll. She made it look easy too and Gavin couldn’t help but smirk at her unexpected playfulness. He was however not quite bold enough to try and follow her example. Instead he held on tightly to a handhold to keep himself in place.

“Okay, if you thought going up was tough. Brace yourselves for the going down part,” said Hot Rod.

The nose of the SAFVe turned downwards and the main thrusters kicked back in, catapulting them back towards the surface.

Gavin’s stomach lurched, ready to familiarize him with his last meal. Along with the rest of the team, he was pushed so hard against the bulkhead, he could barely move a muscle and for as he watched the City at the Bay, racing up to greet them at breakneck speeds, he was certain beyond a shadow of doubt, that they would smash into the ground with such force, it would leave a crater the size of the moon.

He remained mistaken and just moments after this insane journey had begun, Hot Rod leveled the shuttle off and Gavin realized that they were coming to hover just a hundred feet or so above Fed Plaza.

“Everybody still in one piece?” she asked over her shoulder.

“I’ll ask my brain once it has dislodged itself from my toes,” said Gavin and needed a few deep breaths to compose himself again.

Hot Rod laughed. “You better get ready. We may have been able to circumvent the Starfleet blockade but they’re not blind. They’ll know we’re here in a few moments.”

Mech nodded and quickly strapped on her tactical vest and reached for a spare TJ-7 rifle. “Put us about fifty feet over the roof and we’ll drop down. Once we’re in we won’t be able to communicate but we’ll need you to come back to evacuate the hostages.”

Hot Rod nodded. “Sure thing. I’ll have to play hide-n’-seek with Starfleet for a while. Just tell me where and when you need me and I’ll be there.”

“Stay on overwatch until we are inside. Then give us thirty minutes and get to 74th floor on the west side the building.”

“I’ll be there.”

The LT turned towards her assault team. “Alright folks, strap in and get ready to drop. Assume there are hostiles on the roof and fire on sight.”


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