Mech had never been a spiritual person but as she sailed through the air, 900 feet over the ground, she knew she needed a least a little miracle to survive what her boss would certainly have called an insane solo stunt. One he had explicitly asked her not to engage in.
Sometimes you just don’t get what you want.
She’d had enough of a run-up to the windows to hope that she was going to be able to get passed the jamming field in the building.
< Hot Rod, East side, now, > she said through her enhancer and prayed to Bhudda, the Great Bird of the Galaxy or whatever other deity deigned to listen to her at that moment, that the call went through.
There was very little else she could do as she swung her arms as if peddling the air in an attempt to drive herself forward and as far away from the building as gravity would allow.
Of course by that point she was already plummeting towards the Earth which was approaching at mind-numbing speed. Mech was an extraordinarily gifted athlete assisted by her not-so-natural enhancements but these weren’t the snow-cowered peaks of Nepal. This was the concrete jungle and no artificial augmentation in the universe was going to allow her to survive a fall from this height.
Below her she could see lights and hundreds of people who had spotted her by now, as well as the much more unlucky terrorist she had used to destroy the windowpanes. They stared upwards with a mixture of fear and excitement, most likely assuming that more hostages had been thrown out of the building and were now plunging to their deaths.
She thought she could hear the collective gasp of the helpless spectators below as they watched the drama unfold in front of their very eyes.
*
*
Tessier and half the complement of the command center were out of the runabout the moment they had detected the two figures smash through the windows on the seventy-fourth floor as if witnessing the unfolding disaster with their eyes would somehow be preferable than following it from the command center’s monitors.
“One seems to be a terrorist and the other one of the hostages,” said Captain Whren as he looked through a set of powered binoculars, quickly focusing on the woman in the red dress sailing through the air hundreds of feet above, momentarily defying gravity.
The admiral took the binoculars off him to get a look herself. “What the hell is happening up there? We still have ten minutes until the next deadline is up.”
“Masamune’s team must have engaged them forcing them to accelerate their plans,” said the Andorian and shot the MSD chief a dark scowl. “These people will be on your conscience, Chief, I hope you realize this.” The assumption wasn’t outlandish. Less than a minute earlier they had heard explosions and weapons fire coming from that very floor, as well as telling flashes of light.
But Masamune didn’t rise to the bait. Instead he secured his own binoculars and a small smirk found its way onto his lips when he recognized the person now starting to fall towards them who the Starfleet officers had falsely assumed to be a hostage. From the expression on Mech’s face she appeared to know exactly what she was doing. Or at least hoped that she did.
“What exactly do you find amusing about this situation?” the Andorian asked with indignant befuddlement.
“That’s no hostage,” he said.
“Admiral, that shuttle again,” one of the Starfleet ensigns said and pointed further up towards the building.
Sure enough the emerald-colored SAFVe shot around the corner of the building with what appeared to be a long, unfurled rope dangling from its underside.
Masamune immediately understood what Mech’s plan had been and the smirk quickly disappeared from his face. This had been exactly the kind of thing he had warned her about. But he also understood that if it had come to this, Mech had not seen any other choice.
When he tried to make contact with her, the static which greeted him was nearly overwhelming. < … located in the … primed to go …. less than ten … >, was all that he was able to pick-up. It was enough to make him appreciate the precariousness of the situation.
For the next few seconds everyone watched in captivated silence. It was clear to every bystander by now what the plan of the woman in the red dress had been, the question on everyone’s mind was if it was going to work.
Could the shuttle’s lifeline reach the plummeting woman before she would get intimately acquainted with the solid pavement and consequently turned into mush?
It was going to be a close call and while Mech’s eyes had since made contact with the approaching lifeline, there was nothing else she could do to slow her fall. To her credit she didn’t appear to be concerned about the ground racing up towards her as she kept her eyes trained upwards.
It didn’t look as if she could make it. That rope seemingly too far away to safe her, many in the crowd turned away, unwilling to witness the inevitable.
Masamune didn’t. Instead he noticed that Hot Rod wasn’t prepared to keep this entire operation in the hands of gravity alone. She plunged the SAFVe into a near vertical freefall now and it made the difference.
Mech was a good four stories above ground when she grabbed hold of the rope, more than likely tearing away multiple layers of her skin in the process, and the shuttle immediately pulled back up.
The crowd cheered in jubilation and then in awed surprise when the woman started firing the rifle she had managed to hold on through the entire fall. Her aim was accurate enough to blow out the windows on the third floor of the building and the suddenly taut and upward moving rope had given her the momentum to fly back towards Fed Plaza. She let go of the lifeline and easily sailed back into the building were she promptly disappeared.
Then the crowd loudly reacted to the far less graceful landing of the second body, mercifully dropping out of sight and into a tall and thick arrangement of shrubs and greenery.
Masamune didn’t waste time to appreciate Mech’s amazing acrobatic abilities and instead quickly turned towards Tessier who hadn’t been able to quite come to grips with the death-defying circus moves she had just witnessed. “Admiral, I just had confirmation that there is indeed a bomb in that building. We need to move now to ““
Tessier’s hesitation didn’t last long. “Whren, I want that strike team in there now and get that unauthorized shuttle out of here. I don’t care if you have to shoot it out of the sky.”
Whren hesitated and Masamune took the opportunity. “Selina, listen to me. That’s the wrong move here. My team is likely to have the hostages secured by now. We need to get our shuttles up there and evacuate the building and the immediate surroundings before it is too late.”
But Tessier shot him a venomous look. “You should be lucky I don’t have you arrested for interfering with a presidential order. Your people’s antics are endangering these hostages,” she said and then whirled around to face the Andorian. “Captain, I don’t see you following my orders.”
The man looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself. “Perhaps we should evacuate and hold off with that strike team to see what ““
“Damnit, this is not the time to lose your head, mister. Follow your orders.”
Decades of military training kicked back in almost instantly. He nodded sharply and relayed the orders to the officers around him.
But Masamune couldn’t stop wonder about the Starfleet captain’s sudden change of heart. He knew from Mech that he was involved somehow in what was going on here and considering Tessier’s reaction he was now more certain than ever that Whren knew more than she did.
Why do you not want to send in the strike team? The answer to that question terrified him.
*
*
Mech had stuck a graceful landing, rolling on the floor twice to absorb the momentum she had build up and came back up with her rifle ready to blast away any potential terrorists guarding the third floor.
There were none.
She hadn’t really expected anyone, fairly certain after hacking the orchid man that the remaining gunmen were stationed in the buildings main lobby a couple of floors below her.
She knew she had little time but after falling over 700 feet and then being yanked harshly back into the air only to go flying into the building once more, she needed at least a few seconds to collect her strength.
She took a knee, placed the rifle on the floor and then tore away at the hemline of Katanagi’s delicate dress. Then she tied the cloth around her right hand which had been badly torn when she had used it to grasp the rope. And while there wasn’t any blood and the pain was manageable, it was neither pretty nor practical to run around with a ripped open hand.
Moments later she was back on her feet, checking the disruptor rifle over even as she ran towards the main staircase. She found nobody inside.
Mech descended four flights in four leaps to get to the end of the staircase which to her dismay she found only reached as far as the first floor and did not continue down into the basement.
Would have been too easy.
She opened the only door slowly, fully aware that by her best estimates at least two or more terrorists were positioned somewhere on that floor.
After making sure nobody was directly behind the door, she slipped outside and found what looked like the entrance to the basement directly opposite from where she stood. Unfortunately she would have to cross a wide-open space to get to it.
She pushed her back against the wall and then approached the corner to see if anybody was covering the passageway.
Mech peeked around the bend and nearly had her head separated from her shoulders.
She withdrew just in time to avoid being incinerated by a barrage of disruptor fire which practically evaporated an entire chunk of the wall she had used for cover. She had to escape all the way back towards the staircase to avoid being struck by debris which exploded in every direction under the force of the unrelenting disruptor fire.
From the short glimpse she had been able to take in before they had started shooting, she now believed that there were at least five terrorists in the lobby and they had all been waiting for her, most likely following her unconventional shortcut by watching the media coverage.
Mech was stuck. They had her pinned down. There was no way she could get past the five rifles pointed at the corridor to get into the sub-basement and even her aerobatic skills would be of little help, the corridor was simply to wide to attempt a run for it.
Worse, if these terrorists really were on a suicide mission as she assumed they were, all they had to do was to keep her from entering the basement for another few minutes until there was no more chance for her to reach the bomb in time.
As the jammers were back to full effect she couldn’t tell if Tank and the others had been successful in eliminating the opposition on the forty-seventh floor or if they had begun their evacuation yet. For all she knew they needed more time than what was left to them.
And at this moment she was the only person who could provide them with it.
It turned out she had not run out of miracles just yet.
Two explosions rocked the building not quite strong enough for the tri-cobalt planted in the basement and designed to take out Fed Plaza but enough to blow the front and rear entrances to the building. The entire lobby shook and Mech realized that Starfleet was making its move.
Under normal circumstances she would have called that approach careless and amateurish, revealing Starfleet’s inexperience in dealing with a well prepared hostage situation but in this instance it was exactly the distraction she needed.
The terrorists had expected this kind of attack and had fortified their positions sufficiently to hold off the initial assault. Hearing the sound of the members of the Starfleet team being taken out and forced to regroup confirmed Mech’s theory.
But Starfleet’s crude approach notwithstanding, the terrorist had been forced to train their weapons on the new opponent, allowing Mech to make her move.
Without any further hesitation she ran towards the basement entrance, sliding across the slick marble floor of the lobby to keep a low profile and avoid being taken out in the crossfire.
She got back on her feet as soon as she was back behind solid cover and hauled ass.
Already knowing what to expect, she dialed up the power levels of her disruptor rifle to full, then shut down the firing emitter and pulled the trigger. The weapon instantly began to whine and vibrate as it worked itself to an overload.
She slung the rifle across the floor until she saw it hit an invisible barrier which flashed briefly upon impact.
Mech found a niche to hide just before the Romulan rifle ripped itself to shreds in a powerful explosion, taking the force field that was keeping her from the levels down with it. Not a second later and before either terrorist or Starfleet assault team had been any wiser, Mech dove into the sub-basement entrance.