Gavin Thorgood’s heart had been pounding furiously in his chest in the minutes leading up to their planned assault.
The waiting, he had decided, had been the worst part. Because hours later, when everything was said and done, he had trouble remembering the details of how exactly things had transpired after they had truly begun. The excitement and adrenaline had fused the entire episode into a foggy blur.
The three assault teams positioned in the staircase, by the elevators and in the office hallways right above the reception area had stood ready to await Mech’s signal who had let herself get captured by the terrorists, hoping to be able to pass as an escaped hostage.
She had sold it perfectly and was quickly led back below to be kept with the other captives.
And while Gavin had still been wondering what form exactly the LT’s signal would take, the shooting had already started.
By the time he, Tank and the rest of his team had reached the upper banister and brought their assault rifles to bear, they just caught a glimpse of Mech flying through the air, with one of the terrorists firmly held in a tight leg lock, and right towards the back of the bar.
Together they loudly crashed into the shelf-lined walled filled with bottles and spirits and disappeared behind the counter.
Because of the communications scrambler in effect, there had been no way to communicate with her or with the other teams standings ready to breach the room. Fortunately Mech had caused enough of a ruckus to prompt them into action as well and within moments two explosions ripped away the doors leading to the staircase and the elevators.
“Hostages, lay face down on the floor and cover your heads,” Tank roared beside him and then unleashed short bursts of rapid fire at the hostile forces positioned closest to the hostages.
But Gavin didn’t understand how, he had no clear line of fire on anyone as colorful streamers hanging from the ceiling were obstructing his vision. “I don’t have a visual, I don’t have a visual.”
Tank must have heard the young man’s panic in his voice. “Calm down and use your optical targeting assistance,” he said, just before he squeezed the trigger to take down another enemy.
Gavin mentally berated himself for forgetting this new feature. He had always been slightly uncomfortable with the seemingly magical heads-up display that his enhancers could project right into his vision. It took but one thought to bring it up.
The image was not perfect and in truth he was certain it would give him a headache if he used it for too long. A string of slight static interrupted it once in a while but it did its job. It easily outlined every person below, even if they were concealed behind the streamers. It wasn’t difficult to make out the enemy and he quickly took aim at the ones hefting Romulan-style disruptor rifles.
He didn’t miss the two men trying to round the bar counter to get to Mech who had landed behind it. He already feared that he wouldn’t be fast enough to take them out before they could get a shot off but clearly he hadn’t given his team leader enough credit. Two shots rang out in quick succession and nailed the two terrorists square in the head, sending them flying backwards.
He got the drop on the third man to the scene and practically perforated him before he could open up on Mech.
As arranged earlier, Sylvester had located the main power conduit for the entire floor and shut it down, plunging the entire lobby into darkness.
Gavin and the others had been prepared for his of course, switching their optical targeting enhancers to night vision mode. And while their cybernetic opponents doubtlessly possessed a similar ability, the MSD team took full advantage of the two seconds or so that they needed to adjust.
Gavin thought he could see Mech re-appear from behind the counter, taking down a terrorist by practically leaping on top of him and then heading towards the windows. She moved so fast, it was difficult to even be sure it was her at all.
But Mech was facing too much opposition to rely solely on her team to clear her path. Gavin was concerned that perhaps she had taken on too much as she faced off with multiple hostiles.
He needn’t have worried, he soon realized.
She moved with a grace of a deadly ballet dancer through the rows of armed men who stood between her and those panoramic windows.
And Gavin couldn’t be entirely sure but was she actually singing while she took down one man after the next in a perfect economy of movement?
“What is she doing?” he asked even while he took aim at another terrorist trying to close in from her blind spot and while she dispatched one more hostile by defenestrating him.
Before anyone could provide an answer, she had already leaped out of the building seemingly without giving it a second thought.
“Whatever it is, she’s in a hurry which means we don’t have much time left,” said Tank. “We need to speed things up.”
“What do you suggest we ““
The answer was immediate. Tank simply jumped over the banister and crushed one of the hostiles under his weight before striking out against another, smashing his face with his bare knuckles.
“Right,” said Gavin and continued to provide cover fire from above. He wasn’t certain if Tank’s hands-on approach was really going to get this situation under control sooner but there was no doubt that it made Tank feel a lot better to smash something instead of shooting at it from a distance.
In the end one thing appeared certain. Their multi-pronged assault had been a resounding success as the terrorists had clearly not expected nor had they been prepared for their tactics.
After just a few minutes the thunderous rumble of weapons fire grew silent as it became obvious that the opposition had been neutralized.
Gavin and the rest of his team carefully descended the wide staircase, keeping their rifles up and ready to fire at the slightest bit of movement form the seemingly incapacitated enemy.
Jackson was doing the same, bringing his team in from the staircase while Sylvester headed up a team entering from the blown out turbolift doors.
Tank was standing near the center of the large lobby and littered around him were the bodies of defeated terrorists, most peppered by large bullet holes but a fair number with smashed faces and other equally fatal wounds. In fact Tank was still holding on to one of them, keeping him propped up by the collar of his tattered shirt and hitting him repeatedly in the head even though the much smaller man was clearly long past noticing.
“Hey,” Gavin said as he approached carefully. “I think you got him.”
Tank looked up at him and shot him a perplexed look as if he hadn’t fully understood. He was breathing hard and his hands were coated in a white, oily substance.
Gavin lowered his rifle and gestured towards the man in Tank’s grasp. “I think we’ve got’em all.”
It took Tank another second or so to finally get on the same page before he let go, allowing the destroyed man to drop onto the floor like a lifeless puppet. “Yeah,” he said and looked over his handiwork. “They’re all goddamned androids, every last one of ‘em.”
Gavin looked relieved to hear that. He had never killed a man before and was glad that the streak had not come to an end that night.
“We need to get these people out of here and we have a few wounded as well,” said Jackson Slade, quickly adopting the mantle of leadership again which he had only recently and reluctantly given up. “And quickly. We don’t know how much time we’ve got left. If Mech fails ““
“She’ll come through,” Tank barked sharply.
“I’m not willing to take that risk,” he responded, his tone equally firm. Then he indicated to some of the team members. “Get ready to move. Injured and hostages first,” he said before he turned to Gavin. “Comms are still down so try find a way to get Hot Rods’ attention. I doubt we have the time to trek everyone back up to the roof.”
The young MSD agent nodded and headed for the blown out windows, hoping he could find and make contact with their shuttle pilot the old fashioned way.
“Tank, I need you to ““
“Hold that thought,” said Tank, heading out and then sprinting up the staircase before he had even finished his sentence, leaving Jackson Slade to curse him under his breath.
Tank couldn’t have cared less and within moments he was back on the upper floor, making his way down the hallway until he reached a familiar door. He slid it open and quickly entered. Later on he wouldn’t be able to recall what had gotten into him that he had shown such urgency to come back to this place, for now all he knew was that he wanted Kara Katanagi safe.
But before he could even call out her name, he spotted sudden movement from the corner of his eye.
The baseball bat hit him right in the side of his head and he actually shook upon impact like a huge tree caught in a strong wind.
Then he turned slowly to see Kara Katanagi with the now cracked, wooden bat in hand, starring at him with a guilty expression on her face. She didn’t speak right away and neither did he as they simply looked at each other, neither one quite able to believe what had just happened.
“That was a pretty good swing,” he finally said.
“Baseball’s big on Nyuchiba.”
He nodded. “That explains it.”
She considered the destroyed bat for a moment and then threw it away. “Is it over?” she asked. “I heard all that horrible shooting.”
“It’s over,” he said, apparently perfectly willing to move on. “Come on, we’re getting everyone out of here.”
“Thank God,” she said and then quickly followed him out of her office.
“By the way,” she said once they were in the hallway, heading back towards the lobby. “Sorry about that thing with the bat.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I probably deserved that.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled under her breath. The smirk on her face showed that she didn’t really mean that. Sure, they had not gotten off to a great start but clearly Tank had grown on Kara and not just because he had been instrumental in saving her life.
By the time they got back to the lobby Gavin had been successful in waving in Hot Rod and the SAFVe was hovering just a few feet from the large window which Mech had so unceremoniously destroyed earlier. The MSD agents had cleared the area of remaining shards and now helped a number of still dazed and scared hostages onto the shuttle. Not an easy task considering that the wind kept rocking the SAFVe back and forth and the gap between the shuttle and the building was still significant enough to make some hostages think twice about attempting this daring escape.
As time was of the essence, Jackson had decided not to try a more convenient evacuation route. Instead he had his team practically push those hostages out of the building were they could be grabbed by the men on the shuttle and pull them in.
Tank indicated towards the line that had been formed by the window. “I want you on that shuttle now.”
His harsh tone not withstanding, she looked genuinely touched by his concern. “Doesn’t look like you’re going to have room for everybody on there.”
She was right. The SAFVe had not been designed as a troop transport and was quickly filling up to capacity before even a third of the hostages had made it on board.
Gavin noticed as well. “We need some help,” he said. “If we do this on our own we might be here all night. Don’t think we have that kind of time.”
“Starfleet has shuttles in the area. We need to find a way to get their attention,” said Slade.
It turned out he needn’t have bothered. At least two white-painted Starfleet vessels were already approaching fast.
Gavin shook his head. “I’m not sure they’re here to help.”
Something that became obvious when the two shuttles opened fire.
“Get back, get down,” Jackson yelled and grabbed a short man who had just attempted to jump into the SAFVe and pulled him back into the building.
The other operatives quickly followed.
The phaser beams hit the SAFVe and the windowpanes on the floor directly above them, raining down shards of transparent aluminum onto the CCiD team and the panicking hostages.
Hot Rod had no choice but to disengage, trying to evade the incoming fire. Gavin was certain he could hear the Jamaican pilot cursing as the packed shuttle pulled away from the window.
“What in the goddamn blazes are these idiots doing?” roared Tank whose first instinct had been to push Kara down onto the floor.
*
*
“What in the blazes are these idiots doing?”
Masamune wasn’t a man known to lose his temper but once he had caught sight of the two Starfleet shuttles opening fire on his SAFVe, he completely lost it. He was so furious, his entire body appeared to be trembling as he held his cane so tightly his knuckles were turning as white as its ivory handle.
“Don’t worry, they have been ordered to set their phasers on the lowest setting,” said Whren in a dismissive tone as he was relying orders to his pilots.
“You moron,” said Masamune. “Can’t you see they are trying to evacuate the building? You are putting the lives of those hostages and of my own team at risk. Have those shuttles disengage now.”
That tone apparently didn’t go over well with the Andorian who turned to face the MSD chief with an angry look in his eyes. “You don’t give any order around here. This is a Starfleet operation which your team is blatantly interfering with.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass whose mission this is,” Masamune shot back. “We are all on the same side here. We are all trying to get this situation resolved with the least number of casualties. This is not about whose in charge but about saving those people. I am starting to wonder if perhaps you have a different motive here altogether.”
The blue-skinned captain bared his teeth and his antennae tenses visibly. “I don’t care for your implications, mister. In fact I’m mightily tempted to have you removed and arrested for you continuous interference.”
But the MSD chief simply dismissed the man, realizing that he was only wasting his time with the stubborn Andorian. “Selina, for the love of God, put a stop to this before it’s too late.”
The admiral had apparently been happy to oversee the spat between the two men quietly as she stood a few feet away and monitoring the various screens in the runabout’s command center. With her arms crossed in front of her chest, she slowly shook her head. “The Captain’s right, Tessho. You’re people should disengage and let us do our job. There are too many people here working at cross purposes.”
Masamune suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. As far as he was concerned the reason for their uncoordinated efforts was obvious. Starfleet. Then he pointed at a screen which was showing the FNS live broadcast. The sound was muted but the images spoke volumes. Two Starfleet shuttles were firing upon his SAFVe while the caption read: Starfleet battles with local law enforcement?
“Tell me is this the message you want to send to these terrorists? To the people all over the Federation?”
Selina Tessier’s eyes grew wider, clearly not having noticed the public relations implications yet. “Damn it,” she fumed. “Captain have those shuttles disengage.”
“But sir ““
“Do it now.”
He nodded and relayed the orders.
“Selina, we need your shuttles to help with ““
But she cut him off. “That’s Admiral to you,” she barked, apparently still fazed from the debacle playing out on the live broadcasts. “And I don’t want to hear another word from you or I’ll make good on Whren’s threat,” she said and then turned to one of her other officers. “What’s the status on our assault teams?”
“We’ve taken some casualties,” the young ensign reported, “but the main team has entered the staircase and should reach the 74th floor in less than five minutes.”
Masamune wasn’t easily intimidated and in order to get the admiral’s attention, harshly stomped his cane against the deck plates. “We don’t have time to wait that long. That bomb could go of at any moment.”
“Yes, that bomb again. I’m not convinced at all of this theory of yours,” she said.
But Masamune wasn’t listing. At least not to her. Instead it looked as if he was trying to concentrate on something unseen. Then he reached into the pocket of his long coat and produced a data port. He unceremoniously pushed an ensign away from his station and got to work at the console.
“Hey, you can’t do that,” the ensign tried to protest.
But by that time he had already fixed the data port to the console and just as a couple of security officers were making their way over to apprehended the MSD chief, a female voice filled the command center.
“… disabled the communications jammer. Cracking the transporter scrambler is going to be a lot tougher and I’m not going to be able to do that with the time we have left. The bombs are about two minutes away from turning this building into rubble. I don’t think I have enough time to shut it down but I may be able to find a way to buy us some more,” said Mech’s disembodied voice.
It had stopped everyone in their tracks as they listened to her appraisal of the situation.
“Mech, what are the chances you can do that?” Masamune could have used his internal comms to speak to her but this time he wanted the audience. He needed to make them understand the seriousness of their predicament.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I have been able to interface with the controls but there are more firewalls here than stars in the sky.”
Masamune looked towards Tessier who was listening carefully but kept her expressions neutral and difficult to read. “If you don’t think you can do anything, I want you to come out now. There is no point in sacrificing yourself for nothing.”
“Are the hostages clear?”
Masamune didn’t answer which of course was an answer in itself.
“LT, this is Tank. We still have people in the building but if Starfleet would get their collective fingers out of their ass and help us get on with the evacuation instead of trying to have us all incinerated, we might be able to clear the building in time.”
The MSD chief shot a telling look at the admiral. A look that seemed to say: This is what’s going on and you and your thick head are the reason everybody may end up dead. And oh yes, I am recording all this for posterity.
Support came from another and much more unexpected source. General Schneider form the UEDA who had mostly watched this drama unfold quietly since Starfleet had taken operational command now stepped up. “We already have four city blocks in each direction cleared and evacuated,” he said.
Masamune aimed a surprised look at the military commander.
“Seemed to be a wise precaution once you mentioned a bomb,” he said. “I have a number of shuttles standing by,” he added and then looked at the Starfleet flag officer. “But yours are closer, Admiral.”
One could accuse Admiral Tessier of many things, including being a stubbornly bad team player. But she wasn’t one to hesitate once she realized that she had been wrong. Now faced with the possibility that this entire operation could fail in the most catastrophic way imaginable because of her reluctance to listen to Masamune, she took prompt action. “Captain, have those shuttles head back up to the 74th floor and assist MSD with the evacuation. Ensign, give the assault team a new objective. I want those transporter scramblers found and deactivated yesterday.”
“About time somebody got their act together out there,” said Tank in his characteristically undiplomatic tone after overhearing the conversation in the command center. “LT, bail out now. We’re gonna get these folks out of here in a jiffy.”
“Even with Starfleet’s help you’re not going to have enough time. I’m going to try and get you some more by hacking this thing. Chief, tell Bobbie to make sure the switch is in place in case I need it.”
Masamune frowned noticeably at this. “You’ve never been able to test it. As far as I’m concerned the whole thing is still mostly theoretical.”
“No time to argue. I’m going to try and ““
The roar of an explosion drowned out her voice.
“Mech? Come in, Mech, can you hear me?” Masamune said, his voice betraying his sudden concern for his operative.
But the line had gone completely dead.