Chapter 10: BlackLion007

The sound of gunshots echoed through the otherwise silent town. Shiro ignored them. Lance would take care of it.

There was a blur of movement off to his right, the sight of a figure appearing briefly on his periphery. Shiro ignored that too except to acknowledge it. Keith would take care of it.

He didn't ask what their status was. He didn't ask Pidge of the proximity of the closest hostiles and which moment they needed to duck behind the nearest building. Pidge already had that handled, was handling it even at that moment with headpiece firmly affixed and ears trained for the slightest beeps from her radar that would direct them. "Thirteen hundred, two hostile. Hang a left. Wait… No, we're good, moving on."

They moved on. They raced along the narrow stretch of road towards the centre building, towards the site of the hostages, and Shiro didn't need to think of the thousand and one things that would otherwise be plaguing him as the captain of his company. He didn't need to monitor his soldiers' every move, to relay instructions every other minute. He didn't need to watch his back, even if the urge to do so was reflexive, because there was always someone to cover it, always someone with an eye on it for him.

Shiro didn't need to worry, even in such a tense and potentially deadly situation. Not when he was with his team.

He barely needed to consider the thick, heavy door of the building that stood directly before them as they charged forwards. Not for such a trivial barrier. Sparing a glance over his shoulder and catching sight of his squad – Keith ducking behind a building and the heavy thump of a fist that followed, Lance edging backwards with rifle raised to his shoulder, Pidge tapping a finger to her earpiece as she darted a glance around herself – Shiro slowed in step. He slowed, not because they wouldn't be charging forwards but because –

The door splintered. Fracturing, it caved beneath Hunk's brute force as, with shoulders reinforced for just such battering ram purposes, he charged through the door of the hostages building. The sound of a warbling, terrified shout reverberated through the doorway, the cry of someone who Shiro knew wasn't a hostile.

Hunk shouted from the depths of the building.

The sound of Lance's gunfire resounded in Shiro's ears.

Pidge muttered something at his side – "Gotta move, Shiro. The vultures are descending" – and Keith reappeared at his side.

Shiro readjusted his grip on his rifle. He spared a final, unnecessary glance around himself – unnecessary as his squad would always be with him, always have his back protected – and he stepped forward.

It was dark. Gloomy. A single room and sparsely smattered with broken furnishings. Those furnishings, the sway-backed table, the rickety chairs, were likely only so broken after the hostages had been dragged into the building hours before.

Dragged. Shiro had seen the dragging, as though they were little more than sacks of refuse to be tossed heavily onto and afforded little further care. Even had Shiro not been assigned such a mission, even had he not been told to evacuate the hostages from the scene with as minimal risk to his own team as possible, he wouldn't have been able to stand for that.

It wasn't right.

It made him angry.

The room was far from empty. In a split second, Shiro took in the scene: hostiles first, one, two, three, and yet all suppressed – one on the floor, groaning, another on his knees and the third waveringly lowering his weapon before Hunk's direction. Hostages, clustered in the centre of the room, hunkered upon themselves at two, four, seven altogether. Windows were covered, one other door across the length of the room, potential trip hazards should he have to move fast.

Shiro absorbed it all in a split second after entering the room. He thought like a machine, he knew, as necessity dictated. He had his squad: positive, all accounted for, none injured and in fighting form. He had his back up: the Mothership, waiting his call. He had his rifle in hand: full cartridge loaded, prepared for use. He had his –

"Put it down," Shiro said in an instant, slipping into the local dialect with the thin smattering of words he'd affiliated himself with. His rifle swung to attention without thought.

The third man, the one that Hunk had already told – ordered, directed, suggested – to lower his weapon hadn't yet done so. Shiro could see it in his face, in what he could make out of his face through the dark, threadbare mask covering his features. He saw the rebellion in the tightness of his lips, the resistance in his eyes. He saw the instant his finger twitched towards the trigger of his own weapon.

Shiro's rifle trained on the centre of his forehead. "I won't ask you again. Put. It. down."

Pidge had always said he had a commanding voice. Hunk had once called it scary, while Lance openly expressed his respect for his "disapproving tone that's more than a little bit intimidating". Keith didn't say anything. He didn't need to, not in such circumstances. Shiro saw on his face the satisfaction, the approval, even, as though he was indeed approving of the use of Shiro's 'captain voice'. Whatever that meant.

Shiro wasn't thinking about that at that moment. He barely considered his team except with the usual awareness that he always had of them: surrounding him, Lance behind, Hunk in front, Keith at his right and Pidge at his left. They would always be there. Always the support. He didn't even need to consider the other two hostiles, subdued as they were. The moment either might think to reach for their weapons there would be a quartet of metallic muzzles, the cold, unblinking eyes of assault rifles, staring them point blank in the face.

Shiro had confidence in his squad. He had never second-guessed them or their support. Never.

As such, he could focus on the third. The third figure, the man still holding his weapon with hands that twitched in trembles just slightly. Shiro didn't blink behind the thin film of his goggles. He didn't look away from the man for even a second. They didn't have the time to waste, to pander to the hostile's resistance, for the hostages needed out, they needed out now – but Shiro paused. He waited.

Two seconds later and the man's weapon clattered to the dirt floor with a snap of metallic pieces.

Shiro's team flowed into action in an instant. The hostiles weapons were removed. Hands were disabled with thumb-cuffs, faces pressed to the ground, gestures made more than verbal commands that had all three of them stretched out in a sprawl of defencelessness. A moment later and Lance was standing watch at the door, Hunk at the window, Pidge tapping through her Comms and Keith pinning his eerily unshakeable gaze upon the twitching hostiles on the ground.

Not so hostile anymore.

Shiro started across the room to the clutch of hostages at the very centre. Civilians, they were. Townspeople, and they shouldn't have been dragged into the fight. Even if they hadn't taken the precaution of evacuating the town with as much speed as was suggested of them by the Mothership that morning, they didn't deserve such treatment. Mind whirring like a machine as it was, Shiro still felt a stutter of enraged sympathy as he dropped to his haunches before their little huddle, gaze raking over the dirt-smeared faces and wide eyes before him. Tears streaked the masks of filth, clothes were torn from the rough handling, and more than one was trembling in a fit of stark terror. The smell of distress reeked from them, but Shiro didn't care. He felt nothing but aching regret for their circumstances, for the two children in the midst of the rest of the hostages who'd had to witness such things, for the circumstances that had lead to their situation at all.

It wasn't fair. And it wasn't fair that Shiro's mission was of rescue, not vengeance. The enemy… they should have to pay for what they'd done.

When Shiro raised one hand in placation, the other tipping his rifle upwards in a gesture of deflected threat, the hostages flinched as one. When he spoke, they flinched again, but the use of their own tongue seemed somewhat soothing, and he didn't miss the slight easing of tension in their midst.

"We're not going to hurt you," he said slowly, gently, as kindly as he could in the focused and unforgiving mindset his thoughts dwelled. "We've come to help you. We're getting you out of here."

None of the hostages spoke. Not immediately, anyway. Glances were exchanged between some while others simply stared at Shiro, at his team over his shoulder, and clutched one another with shaking fingers. Shiro eased further into his crouch and blessedly none flinched this time. "I am sorry for your distress," he said, "and I'm sorry that you have been subjected to this. But just for a little longer we'll need your support and compliance." Another pause and he repeated, "We need to get you out of here."

For another moment, none spoke. Then, straightening slightly, a single woman raised her voice waveringly. "Where would you take us?" she asked, her accent so thick that Shiro almost couldn't understand her.

"To safety," Shiro said. "We have an aircraft waiting to remove us from the scene –"

"Where is 'to safety'?" the woman interrupted him. Her voice still wavered, her dark eyes were wide in her pale, dirty face, but she persisted.

Shiro paused. He couldn't explain, and not only because of the language barriers between them. They simply didn't have the time for an explanation. So instead, he simply said, "Away from these people who are hurting you."

It was a feeble reply. Inadequate, even. But it was all Shiro had the time to give and, after a moment of tense contemplation, the woman – and all of the hostages – seemed to unanimously deem that it was good enough. The woman nodded. Two children exchanged glances. A man swallowed audibly before rising slightly from his knees.

"Are we good to go?" Lance muttered from the door. "'Cause now might be a good time."

Shiro spared him a glance. "How long?" he asked. He didn't need to ask why Lance had spoken. He could hear the unvoiced warning of the encroaching threat in his voice.

Lance didn't glance towards him, peering out the door from his covered position with eyes visibly narrowed behind his goggles. "T-minus-forty seconds and counting."

"Thirty from mine," Hunk grumbled, glaring out the window. "Little bastards, they're making a run for us." The warzone was about the only place that Hunk every got aggressive. It was the only place he ever really got angry.

Shiro nodded curtly. He shared a glance with Keith, who spared him only a heartbeat of a glance in reply before dropping his gaze back to the hostiles still immobilised on the floor. He didn't need to speak to Keith to tell him to put them temporarily out of action and he didn't watch as Keith dropped to his haunches beside them to do just that.

Instead, he turned to Pidge, who was peering at him expectantly sidelong. He nodded curtly, rising to his feet. "Send the call to the Mothership, Pidge. We're getting out of here."

"With the hostages," she said, more of a statement than a question because of course it would be with the hostages.

Shiro nodded once more, sparing the hostages a glance as they rose slowly to their feet alongside him, gazes wary. "With the hostages."

A pause, for Keith to finish, for Pidge to relay her message, for Lance and Hunk to readjust their rifles just as Shiro did. Then he turned to the door at the back of the room. "We're falling out."