The Rescue
Manticore safe-house. Somewhere on the coast north of Tokyo
Japan
0100 Hours
“This would be easier with our facilities at the Tower, you know.”
The man in the lab coat turned away from the bank of monitors he was reading and arched an eyebrow at the speaker wordlessly.
A woman, also in a lab coat, shrugged heavily.
“What? This is a Vali thing, and you know it. Their research section has the proper equipment we need to do this properly.”
'This,' of course, concerned the battered and bruised woman secured to a gurney and hooked to a variety of machines. Most would not be out of place in any modern hospital. Some, however, had runes instead of numbers on their faces. One almost seemed to hum and mutter to itself. It wasn't plugged in.
Then there was the chalk circle around the gurney, with currently unlit candles marked around the circle.
“You've said this five times already. How many more times are you going to bring this up?” The man snorted, and turned back to the monitor.
“Until you see sense. Manticore pulled most of the most useful apparatus from this facility years ago. What we have here is barely sufficient, and we're going to need better than barely sufficient. And as I said before: Vali's kind of thing.” The woman gave a brief glance in the direction of their 'patient.' Between the bruises and the extensive tattoos, she was just one big black and blue mass.
There was no pity in her gaze, no remorse. The look was one reserved for a troublesome lab specimen. To be discarded once its mysteries had been solved. This woman had crossed the Orochi Group one too many times, and only her status as 'Bee-stung' was keeping her alive now.
They were working to rectify that problem.
Pushing back from the monitor, the man stood from his rolling chair and stretched, yawning.
“Doctor Kepler, I'll say what I said the previous five times. Given the current...situation in Kaidan, I don't think we can even get into the tower. Besides, even if we could, I'm not certain we'd survive the attempt. That place is a warzone—no, it's worse than a warzone. It's a place not safe for human life any more, like the moon or the surface of the sun.”
Kepler frowned at him, but he continued over any possible further objections.
“And we have our orders. We were brought in from our positions elsewhere on the island here, where the Manticore knuckle-draggers brought the subject. We do the work here. We find a way to sever the subject's ties to...to what superstitious fools call 'Gaia.' End of story.”
“And you're sure of where we're getting those orders?”
For several moments the two just stared at each other. There were...rumors. Given some of the sudden reversals the company had endured over the past several months, it was only natural there would be.
“From Orochi Core,” he finally answered quietly.
“Lucky.”
The word was a rasp, barely audible. Both Orochi occultech specialists turned. The tattooed woman, despite the damage done to her body both by the Manticore retrieval team and their own mix of science and magic, was somehow conscious. The man arched an eyebrow.
“Excuse me?”
“Lucky...you got me weak. Right. Now.”
Folding his arms across his chest, the man gave a bemused grin.
“Oh? And why's that?”
“Otherwise. I'd. Kill. All of. You.”
Despite themselves, the scientists found themselves starting to back up, regardless of the ridiculousness of the movement. This woman was no threat to them.
But the look in her eyes promised violent, brutal death to both of them. And for a woman tied down and barely alive, the promise was pretty damn believable.
Barking out a slightly nervous laugh, the man shook his head.
“Your bravado, while incredibly futile, is noted. We know you have no ties to any of the societies, Miss Felicity Bane.”
He leaned closer.
“No one is coming for you. No one.”
500 yards east of the Manticore safe-house
Japan
0130 Hours
The two men lay motionless in the early morning gloom, screened by foliage and obscuring magic both. One was a young man, perhaps in his thirties, with skin the color of jet, though it could only be seen from the vision slit of his balaclava. Everything else was hidden behind nondescript woodland fatigues, gloves and boots.
The other was older, sun tanned skin showing the wrinkles and scars of age. If he hadn't been wearing his own mask, he would have displayed a mane of thick gray hair. The first watched the Manticore building through binoculars. The specialized optic of a massive sniper rifle served as a vision aid to the second.
“Almost looks like some rich businessmans getaway.”
“Mmm. Rather the point, lad. Secrecy is what protects this place, not thick walls and tanks. Your watchers find anything on the perimeter beyond what Tabby spotted?”
The 'watchers' referred to the 'watcher spirits' the dark skinned magi had summoned to do his bidding. Known to his team mates as “Hotdog,” the former resident of Chicago was a combat mage in service to the Templars. Once, along with the older man next to him he had worked for an organization known as ARTEMIS. That organization was said to no longer officially exist.
Both men knew that wasn't true.
“Nuh-uh. The orb drones making their rounds, and that parked Land Rover. I can sense the minds of the four guards at the front desk through the watchers, but I won't push 'em any closer than that. Even mundanes would eventually feel the 'being watched' thing, y'know?”
A grunt from the sniper, called “Mastiff” when on the job. The ex-SAS man had been Hotdog's commanding officer, once upon a time.
“Good form. Even without any extra hostiles outside to respond, though, there's still plenty of them inside. Tabby was pretty sure there were at least twelve in the basement area.”
Tabby was Tabitha Green, a remote viewer both had come to know in the whirlwind of events that led to the shuttering of ARTEMIS. Unlike them, Tabby still worked for this group that the Hall had supposedly shut down. The truth could be a complicated thing.
“Frank's plan ought to cut the numbers advantage.” Hotdog panned the night vision capable binoculars back and forth. At Mastiff's noncommittal grunt he glanced over, while a chill breeze shook the leaves of the maple tree above them.
“You do think it'll work, don't you?”
“Of course I do. I wouldn't have agreed to be team leader for this if I didn't.”
Several minutes passed in silence before Mastiff spoke again.
“The whole thing is still barking mad, though. Fucking Bees and their tricks.”
White teeth flashed in the darkness as Hotdog grinned.
“I read 0145. Time for me to start the ritual.”
“You do that. Don't fry us by mistake, now.”
Five minutes from the Manticore safe-house and closing
Japan
0200 Hours
Fifty feet above the ground.
Frank Calhoun was not in a good mood. In fact, it could be said he was royally fucking pissed off.
About a lot of things.
He wasn't happy about the fact he hadn't known just how much trouble Felicity Bane was in with Orochi. He wasn't happy that the team of Templar operatives she'd been working with as a freelancer hadn't been able to protect her, impossible odds and certain death be damned. He wasn't happy that Temple Hall had apparently known about this looming problem and chosen not to tell him.
Mostly, though, he wasn't happy that he had had to cut a deal with his ex boss, someone he had tried very hard to distance himself from, to get the necessary intel to even find Bane, let alone set up a rescue attempt. In the end, he hadn't had much choice. He could pull together some of his ex teammates from ARTEMIS; all were still in need of work, especially Connor “Mastiff” Davies now that he was finally out of the dungeons. He could scrap together money for equipment, to pay them, even to get the helicopter from the Kaidan caches Bane had helped set up, but he couldn't -find- her on his own.
Not quickly enough to matter, anyway. So he'd called Tova Stolt, and, surprisingly, she'd taken the call. To Frank's bubbling discontent, Stolt hadn't seemed to be the least bit surprised. She had probably known about the Bane-Orochi connection as well. The former senior controller of the Romanian working group within ARTEMIS, and now new director of 'Department F' had offered him logistical support. Satellite imagery. Message intercept. The use of the talents of one Tabitha Green, whose life Frank had saved months ago.
The price of this help, the older Swede had told him, was something they'd discuss later.
And so Frank, after serving his time in a Templar cell because of following Stolt's orders, after working hard to get reinstated, after jumping through hoops to prove his loyalty, found himself wondering just what Stolt was going to have him do that could possibly throw all of that out the window. He supposed he should have been happy. Just how often did a grunt have a connection to a director or cabal leader?
Well. He'd fucking earned that. Stolt sure as hell hadn't had to serve a sentence. She'd been promoted.
“Thirty seconds!”
Frank nodded at the voice in his headset, just audible over the throaty roar of the AW 139s turboshaft engines. Seated with him was Maggie 'Redcap' Stewart and Julien 'Glaive' Bouchard. The pilot was the Aussie Jenny Burdette. Ex ARTEMIS all, on another off the books mission.
Like I never left, Frank thought darkly as the Manticore safe-house started to fill up his night vision goggles.
Only one thing he could do with all this anger and frustration.
Take it out on the sons of bitches who'd kidnapped Bane.
The Orochi guard on the first floor bolted upright in his chair as he heard the clatter of rotors approaching. Stark white carapace armor shifting, his three fellow troopers came to their feet as well. This was supposed to be a fairly easy assignment for them. No one outside of Manticore was supposed to know what this place truly was, the heavy lifting had been done by the specialists downstairs, their detachment was there as a precaution in the very unlikely case that some civilian blundered onto the property.
There was a radar installation on a near by hill, but it hadn't detected the incoming helo. That meant hugging the terrain. That meant whoever was on their way knew their piloting.
Still, they had the advantage. The first guard pointed to another.
“Singh, raise the basement crew, tell them we have company. Hicks, Jackson, get in position to hit anyone rappelling down.” As the latter two moved quickly to the stairs, the first guard hunkered down behind a desk constructed of bullet resistant material, aiming at the only door leading in. The windows of the house were bullet resistant as well, and difficult to simply kick in. Whoever was attacking would either have to come through obvious entrances, or waste time forcing their way in with breaching equipment.
And by then, the really scary guys, the folks in the black armor in the basement levels, would respond. He almost felt sorry for the folks trying to raid this place, he thought with a grim smile as he armed his Manticore M600 rifle. Nearby, Singh turned around, a finger on his earpiece.
“Sir, I have Echo Actual. They're sending up--”
He never got to finish. For the first guard, the entire world turned white. A wall of sound so profoundly loud his mind couldn't even register it struck him, and he was dimly aware of falling over. Pieces of ceiling tile and insulation rained down on his armor and face. Gradually vision returned, and in the flickering interior light he could see there was now a perfectly circular hole, four feet in diameter in the roof. And the floor. The edges were still glowing bright red, sparks flitting away.
Singh was simply gone.
If his eardrums hadn't been shattered, the guard would have heard the helicopter hover briefly above the hole in the roof. No lines came down for fast roping. Instead, there were simply three blurs of motion as what looked like people came free falling through the holes, going straight down to the dungeon like basement.
The guard staggered to his feet, M600 still in hand, and stumbled over to the edge. He could still fight. He could still--
He toppled over before reaching the entry point, his upper body blown open. He died without even knowing how.
Five hundred yards distant, Mastiff worked the bolt of the Accuracy International AW50. He could see perfectly well thanks to the occultech scope, which allowed him to see the guards despite the darkness and the tinted windows on the first floor. Those windows had been rated against rounds up to 7.62mm.
He was firing runed and ensorcelled 12.7mm rounds. Sadly for the windows, and for the guard, that was just a few too millimeters too many. The last two surviving guards came floundering back downstairs into view, and he gifted each of them an anti material round as well. Watching the helicopter hover over the smoking hole in the roof, Mastiff gave an appreciative whistle.
Next to him, Hotdog cracked a weary smile. He'd dismissed his watcher spirits and summoned up just about all the arcane might he could muster for the spell. It was one he'd learned from Mad Dog Zeke. The name of the spell roughly translated into English as “The Sword-thrust of God.” A precise, powerful blast of energy from the heavens.
The magi panted softly as he spoke.
“How's that for dynamic entry?”
“Too fucking right.”
Frank hit the basement floor in a crouch and immediately moved out of the way. One of the great things about being Gaia-blessed?
You could pull off crazy shit like this.
His goggles amplified the dim emergency lights that had come on, and he could see two badly concussed troopers in jet black armor with gray trim struggling to their feet. With his face covered with a respirator, the goggles, and his ballistic helmet, Frank must have looked like some horrible insect like monster coming out of the smoke and falling debris.
Fitting. For monsters to see a monster coming for them.
His H&K G36 chattered angrily in a pair of tight bursts, sending the Orochi guards flopping over. Shouting 'clear!' to the others who had arrived behind him, Frank quickly took stock.
The lower levels had wards and devices to prevent scrying and remote viewing, but Tabitha had been able to determine roughly where Fel was by patterns of movement (and lack thereof). Better, she'd been able to figure where she wasn't. Hotdog had blasted his entry way forty feet from the room she was being held in, behind Frank. Ahead of him stretched a corridor leading to a door, likely to other parts of the secret basement area. There were doors on his sides, the glass shattered out from the shockwave. The rooms were empty, unfurnished.
Frank stepped into one as Redcap moved to another, automatic shotgun at her shoulder. The two leaned out of the doorways, watching the door at the end.
Glaive moved quickly up to the double doors that supposedly held Frank's friend, the woman they'd been contracted to rescue. His own H&K ready, the Frenchman booted in the door. A pair of lab-coat types huddled in a corner, looking terrified. Keeping his weapon trained on them, Glaive glanced over at the battered form secured to a gurney. Shuffling over to her, he leaned close. Gray eyes blinked back at him, uncomprehending.
Not good. Not good. He didn't recognize some of the machines she was tied into, but he certainly could figure out the chalk wards and some of the arcane runes. If he didn't do this right, he could harm her further.
“She is hooked to a bunch of machines. It's going to take me a few minutes to get her loose.” Speaking into the radio in his respirator, Glaive started to examine the wires and leads and tubes.
“Awfully exposed just hanging around up here,” came Burdette's voice back in his ear.
“How long?” demanded Mastiff.
“I don't know! I'm not even sure what most of these are.” Glaive frowned inside his mask. This wasn't his expertise, but he knew simply yanking things wouldn't do when magic was involved. As he felt his frustration start to rise, he could hear Mastiff tell Burdette to fly away for the moment and go into a wide orbit.
“Do not worry, femme courageuse. We will get you out of this,” Glaive whispered to the woman, when the motion of one of the scientists fidgeting caught his eye. The ex ARTEMIS commando straightened.
“You are going to show me how to remove her safely.”
One of the lab-coats, a man, stammered back at him.
“We...we won't help you! We won't.”
Glaive crossed the short space to them, slowly crouching down in front of them.
“Oh, mon ami, but you will.”
The door at the end of the corridor burst open, and Frank greeted the dark armored figure with a burst of anima infused bullets. He staggered, but didn't stay down, firing his own rifle as he kept moving, making room for his comrades. A second burst dropped him, but now four more were advancing towards them. Frank was forced to duck back around the door way as return fire sparked and ricocheted around him.
Across from him, Redcap's USAS-12 chugged, heavy gauge slugs hitting their targets like sledgehammers. Moving part of his body out of cover again, Frank cut loose another burst. There were now three bodies on the ground, but some had reached the cover of other doorways as he and Redcap had done.
“Ah, but they're fine big fellows, aren't they?” Redcap quipped over the radio, the Scotswoman sending another fusillade downrange.
“Probably recruit from th' University of Nebraska,” Frank shouted back, the walls and ceiling of the corridor quickly becoming mutilated from the hail of gunfire. Another black armored figure came through the doorway at the end of the hall, and before Frank could shift aim, he saw the Orochi guard bring up what looked roughly like the frame of a pavise shield. Then the guard ignited it, a blue-white energy field encompassing the frame.
“Oh, not this bullshit again!” As Frank's shots bounced harmlessly off of it, more guards formed up behind the shield-bearer.
“We're not going to do anything you say!” The bespectacled woman even went so far as to shake her fist at Glaive's impassive visor.
He turned his head, ever so slightly, to indicate the strapped down Felicity Bane. Then he faced them directly once more.
“You are monsters,” he said simply, his voice given a more ominous tone from the respirator.
“What we're doing is for science--”
“My country was once occupied by such monsters.”
The man in the lab-coat shut his mouth with a snap. Glaive continued, heedless of the nearby gunfire echoing down the hall
“Monsters. It is a strange thing, to fight monsters. What it does to you. I have been fighting monsters a very, very long time, you see. I have learned, at times, to become a monster myself.”
They were staring intently at him now as he slung his G36, and withdrew what looked like a baton with a bladed tip from his webbing. With a thought, he extended the weapon, and it became a polearm. A glaive, from which he got his call sign. The edge purred to itself as he focused anima through it.
“Even if you threaten to kill us, we won't betray the Orochi Group--”
“I am not going to kill you.” Now he held the telescoping weapon in both hands.
“If you do not help me release that woman, I will start removing parts of you. Small bits. And I am going to feed them to you.”
“You...you wouldn't...!”
Glaive said nothing, the black lenses of his mask revealing nothing. He merely fingered the iron shod staff of the polearm. The purring sound from the blade took on a hungry bent.
The man in the lab-coat blinked a few times, then held up a faltering hand.
“You...you start with that machine, over there...”
“Merci beaucoup.”
Shots bouncing wildly from the shield, the tight knot of Orochi commandos moved steadily towards them. One was leaning around the shield-bearer, peppering the wall near Frank's face with bullets. Soon they were going to be rather too close for comfort.
“Prepping a frag,” Frank bit off to Redcap, fumbling in his webbing for a grenade. From his experience in Kaidan, the energy-bucklers could be overloaded and rendered inert. Most of the time.
“Wait!” As Frank brought out the grenade, sheltering just inside the room, Redcap threw herself onto her side on the ground, aiming down the hall. The stocky rugby player then opened fire. Redcap had seen the effect, or the lack of effect, from Frank's shooting the shield. She'd also seen that from the way the shield-bearer carried the buckler it protected him down to just above his ankles.
Redcap's shotgun rounds blasted into the man's unprotected feet, exploding through his boots, splintering bone and spraying his armor with gore. Shrieking in agony, the shield-bearer went down as his fellows started to aim at Redcap as she frantically tried to pull her head and shoulders back into cover.
“Now! NOW!”
Primed, Frank sent the grenade into the mass of now unprotected troopers. There was a teeth rattling boom, and when Frank poked his head out again, there was an ungainly pile of dead and dying Orochi soldiers.
Redcap was inside the office room again, a hand pressed tightly to her shoulder. She hadn't quite been quick enough.
“You okay?” Another knot of Orochi troops rushed from the other end of the hall, finding hiding spots in the empty offices. Frank emptied a magazine in their direction, keeping them bottled up as he frantically reloaded.
“Just a flesh wound.” Frank could hear the pain in the Scotswoman's burr. She pulled herself up, and gripped her autoshotty with bloodied gloves.
“Glaive, tell me yer makin' progress, son!” Dropping a guard wielding dual pistols, Frank squawked in alarm as another Orochi threw a grenade of their own down the hall. The throw was a bit too strong and it sailed past, but once more Frank felt his teeth and bones shake as it detonated.
“More shields, Frank!” As the two tried to hold their ground, Frank yelled into his mic once more.
“Glaaaaive? Sooner would be better!”
Polearm retracted and back in his webbing, Glaive fitted the now free Felicity Bane with a rescue harness. It was awkward and slow going given she couldn't assist—at some point she'd lost consciousness entirely—but at length she was ready. As the tall Frenchman carried the mob hitwoman turned avenging warrior-monk to the door, he turned his head towards the scientists, who were right were he left them.
“You will stay here. Or it will be, ah, snack time.”
Looking like they might vomit, the two squeezed against the wall.
“Coming out!” Clutching Bane to him with one hand, holding out his G36 with another, Glaive emerged into the smoke filled corridor.
Letting his G36 fall against his chest held by its retention sling, Frank plucked out an elemental focus. It would drain his anima reserves more quickly and tire him, but they needed the extra oomph. Hearing Redcap's labored breathing in his earpiece, Frank squeezed out of the office room and almost had his head taken off for his trouble by a battle rifle shot. Undeterred, he channeled, creating a thick sheet of frost above the Orochi troopers in the lead. They had a heartbeat to point up in alarm before it collapsed on them, burying them in chunks of ice.
Behind that mini avalanche, the remaining Orochi formed up behind a trio of shield-bearers, no longer trying to make their way forward. Instead, they unleashed a torrent of gunfire to try to keep the raiders pinned. No doubt they'd sent word out. All they had to do was keep their foes in place. Risking a look back, Frank saw Glaive bring out Felicity Bane.
“Now, Burdette, now now now!” Outside and above, the AW 139 swung 'round, heading back on station.
On their hill, Mastiff and Hotdog waited pensively. As it turned out, only seven minutes had gone by since Hotdog's opening volley. For them, though, seven minutes was an eternity. The more time went by, the more chances there would be a response—from Orochi, or even from the Japanese government. Mastiff didn't want to have Burdette 'negotiate' with a Japanese F-15 trying to protect Japanese airspace.
“Vehicle,” wheezed Hotdog. Sure enough, some manner of commercial van was hurtling down the one lane road that led to the safe-house, headlights bright. Could be civilian, but...
Mastiff centered the target reticule of his scope on the front of the van, and put a magically augmented anti-material round right through the engine block at six hundred yards. It swerved madly, then came slowly to a halt. Men and women with weapons came tumbling out, scattering for cover.
“Nice shot.” The magi's voice was just a murmur. The ritual had taken a lot out of him.
“Mmm. Thanks.” Mastiff kept his rifle aimed in the direction of the (probably Orochi) armed personnel as they went into a drainage ditch. Frank and company needed to hurry the hell up.
Using a remote switch, Burdette sent a line down from the helo into the shaft. This particular AW 139 they had 'sourced' was a CSAR model, and now the mechanical hoist system was going to come in handy. As the line spooled out, Glaive first secured himself, then Bane. With her unconscious, he would need to reach the helo first to help her inside. Letting Frank know they were set, Glaive gave the audio signal to have Burdette start bringing them up.
“Move yer ass, Redcap! You next!” Frank sent a bolt of jagged lightning down the hall like a javelin, causing the Orochi to squeeze tighter behind their shields. A return bolt sailed past his ear, down the hall, and into the strange operating room, slagging some of the equipment there.
They had a combat mage too? Oh, fucking glorious!
“I'm...I'm a'right. You first!” The sturdily built woman expended her remaining shotgun rounds, blasting chunks out of the ceiling above the Orochi phalanx. Clumsily, she started to draw her sidearm with her off hand.
“God damn it Maggie! GO! We are leaving!”
To accent his point, Frank stood up, hurling anima powered bolt after energy hammer after frost lance. His vision began to swim but he kept it up. Cursing, Redcap ran behind him, reaching the line and clipping on. Soon, she was ascending. There wasn't much time left.
Feeling like he was reaching deep into his gut, Frank channeled air and fire, sending a fireball the size of a large dog hurtling into the Orochi ranks. While the shields bore the brunt, the rush of superheated air forced them back. The room starting to spin, Frank headed for the line. Jumping up, he managed to grasp a length of it before it vanished up the shaft.
As he went up, weapon fire blitzed towards him like blizzarding hail. A round broke his ankle. Another splintered his shin. Crying out in pain, he clung like a drowning man to the line. Up he went, through the first hole, then past the demolished reception area, and then into the clean air of the outside. Above him, the rotor blades of the '139 beat madly.
And then he was being pulled inside by Glaive. Redcap slumped in a seat. Bane was in another.
Vision finally darkening, Frank could just hear Glaive's voice.
“That's the last one! Past time to leave, Burdette.”
An indeterminate amount of time later, Frank came to. Hazel eyes blinking sluggishly, the Templar operative was aware of the drone of the helo's engines. So they were still flying. Somewhere. Looking down, he noticed his foot and shin had bandages and a splint. The wounds itched as he knew his augmented body was now trying to heal itself.
Giving the crew section a further look, he could see Glaive, Redcap, and Hotdog, all sound asleep. Redcap had had her shoulder patched, like his own injuries. Mastiff was awake—of course. The gray maned old bastard nodded at him, then flicked his eyes over to their last, and most important passenger.
Felicity Bane was also asleep, the safety harness still on for the moment. She was belted in as a precaution even though the massive side door of the helo was shut. Frank found himself grinning crookedly. He had no idea what might come later, how to deal with the blood price Orochi seemed to have put on her head, any of that. All he knew that was right now, with one pant leg spattered with his own blood and throbbing, exhausted and feeling like he'd been run over with a truck...it still felt like a win.
For tonight, it was a win. He gave Mastiff a little thumbs up, which brought a ghost of a smile to the grizzled SAS man's face. And then he slept for the rest of the trip.
