A/N:
And so we are back to Ulrich. There are some very difficult choices to be made by him, and loyalties are going to be tested and split.
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CHAPTER 7
Ulrich saw the set of her jaw and knew he was going to have a fight on his hands. A fight with Yumi would be loud and ugly, and he wanted no part of it. His hand was raised to forestall any argument on her part; and with his hand heavy on her shoulder he pulled her further away from the group.
"You're getting worse. The 'accident' yesterday, and now this today? There is no excuse for you to be acting like this."
She looked down at the ground, scuffing her boot against a rock. Looking for all the world like a child, which dishearteningly, was something she had never had a chance to be. None of them had. It was hard not to take pity on her. Of everyone here she had by far the most difficult life.
"I'll do better, I promise. I won't let it happen again."
As much as he wanted to believe her, he knew that it was unlikely to happen.
"We can't keep charity cases on this team. Yumi, I would hate to see it happen, but odds are you won't be with us after this."
There were actually tears in her eyes, running down her cheeks and leaving incongruous stripes through the haze of dirt and grime that covered them all.
She dropped to her knees, clutching at his pant leg. "How can you do this to me?" she demanded.
"I have to make decisions for the good of the team, you know that."
She stared up at him for a long time, and he did his best to meet her gaze, but ultimately was unable. When he looked away uncomfortably she pulled a knife from her boot and slid the blade up her left shoulder, cutting through her heavy sleeve and exposing her skin.
From her shoulder down past her elbow was a dense script of names tattooed around her arm. Nearly all of them had a line drawn through them.
Seeing that script made ulrich's arm tingle in recognition. They had both had the same list tattooed at the same time.
"Everyone one of us had the survivors names inked on our bodies. Mine is in the same place on your arm as yours is on mine. Five million of dead, and only one hundred and seventy eight survivors. There's only seven names left Ulrich. When we heard about Theo's team, we both had to scratch out three names."
He opened his mouth to cut her off, but she wouldn't let him;
"Victoire par le souvenir. Victory through remembrance. We all swore that day. First thing I'm doing is having my name scratched out when we get back."
He stared at her, unable to comprehend what she was threatening.
"You wouldn't."
"There was a time when I had hoped we could have been together after all this, but now I understand that if I mean so little to you, that it would be best if I was forgotten. No point in striving for a future when you try so hard to take it away. Just to appease a murderer."
She rose up and stalked away, leaving him alone for the time being. He shook his head. This wasn't something he wanted to deal with, but he had to wonder if the cost was going to be too high in this case. He would have to find a chance to talk with Jeremy or Odd.
Speaking of, they were due to check in with him on their progress with the tower.
Odd was surveying the tower for demolition, which literally consisted of standing back with his tongue sticking out and looking at things over his thumb. Aelita was curled up in a tight ball behind the rubble he and Yumi had used for cover earlier, and Jeremy was walking slowly around the base of the tower, one of his computers in his hand.
"it wont be too difficult to bring down. See that building there?" Odd pointed up at half a wall that was still standing on the other side of the open area. "I can get that to fall down, and it'll drag the tower down too. We just need to give ample room. Lots of collateral damage."
Ulrich nodded, trying to at least act like he was still fully focused on what needed to be done.
"Do you have enough charges?"
"If I can have the last of William's grenades than yeah, easy."
Ulrich nodded slowly; "okay, get it set up. I don't want to stay here any longer than necessary."
Jeremy was on the other side of the tower now.
"How's Yumi?"
Of course that was the first thing he would ask. Ulrich mumbled something unintelligible.
"You can't let her leave the team. She's one of us. One of you. How many are left now? From the moon colony? Ten?"
This wasn't something Ulrich was expecting. Jeremy never challenged his decisions; he was always dutiful and accepted his lot and role gladly.
"There are seven. Even if I wanted, William's formal complaint will mandate a performance review. She won't be able to fake her way through another one."
"Then either we cheat, or we lose William."
That took Ulrich back. Never in a million years would he have expected to hear something like that from Jeremy. Every word in that sentence was essentially treason.
"There isn't a sniper in the world that can match her, I know." Jeremy nodded in agreement. The only person that had come close in years had been Milly.
"Aelita will leave." It was just a statement, but hidden within it Ulrich knew was the implication that Jeremy would go with her. That was half his team. Everything he had worked so hard to build up would be gone.
"Then I guess we have to find a way to keep Yumi, don't we?"
"It shouldn't be too difficult. You could always let her shoot him."
A smile tugged at Ulrich's lips. That would certainly make Yumi happy, at least for a little while.
"How's this coming?" he indicated the computer readings.
"It's good data, nothing we haven't seen before though. I think next we need to try to capture a live specimen. To watch how systems interact. If we can break into the communications, then we can explain why some are so much more lethal than others."
"You mean like what separates a Krabe from a Blok?" Ulrich had to admit that he was definitely intrigued. The idea of capturing a monster alive was insane, but still, it would be valuable information they could hopefully exploit.
A gunshot rang out in the distance, on the other side of the building Odd was going to destroy. As if on cue, everyone's heads swiveled to the source of the noise, unable to actually make anything out through the tangle of cement and rebar. Two more shots broke the growing silence.
"That's a Bower .50!" shouted Odd. "Yumi's in trouble."
William huffed, and found himself staring down the barrel of one of Odd's machine pistol. Another shot echoed through the ruins.
"We help teammates. Or we aren't teammates. Got it?"
Without waiting for an answer, Odd bounded away, chasing after Ulrich and Jeremy, pausing only to rouse Aelita who quickly drew her own weapon close to herself and chased after the rest.
As they closed in, the sounds of laser blasts could be heard. Something Ulrich took to be a good thing, if the monsters had gotten her already, then they wouldn't still have been shooting. Her pistol fired again, and a kankrelat stumbled into view with half of its body blow away in a mass of tangled metal.
Ulrich and Odd rounded a corner, hugging tight to the edge of the building. A quick survey of the scene revealed two more tangled kankrelats and a headless tarantula. Odd spun around the corner and sprayed the area the rest of the monsters were clustered together, taking out two more of the little ones.
"Six kankrelats, three tarantulas. I don't see her." Her pistol barked again, and another kankrelat was thrown backwards. "we know she's still fighting though?" Odds voice managed to sound hopeful despite what they were up against.
Three of the monsters turned around, firing their lasers and blasting craters in the wall Odd and Ulrich were using as cover, failing to hit them but managing well enough to keep them from sticking their heads out.
In an act almost as foolish as it was brave, odd angled his body so that only his hand and pistol were exposed, and fired an entire clip into the kankrelats, scattering them for a few precious seconds and managing to empty his weapon.
Jeremy and Aelita appeared behind them, acting as much needed reinforcements. Even if Aelita was stumbling as she ran. Even if Jeremy only had a heavy gauge pistol. Even if William was walking down from the tower in the near distance.
The stock of Ulrich's rifle felt good against his shoulder, Yumi had wanted him to make a choice. In doing so, even if he hadn't realized it at the time, it had been made for him. It felt good to be on the right path for once in his life.
