Chapter 10: Investigative journalism
Location: Novgorod research station, Russia, Earth.
--Augmentation labs
Date/time: 3073/2553 AD, Mar 8th. 23:51 GST
Disclaimer: I don't own.
Specter had watched the surgery for about an hour, luckily his hardened stomach was able to stand watching and recording the process. The doctors were encasing the teen's bones, injecting stimulants and doing other things that Specter couldn't identify.
He waited, breathing silently in the shadows; waiting for a chance or a time when the doctors would finish their work andallow him a break. Finally, he got an idea, the kind of idea that sparks an annoyed, self depreciating remark. Working with what little he had, he placed a wireless video bug in a nearby dark crack in the wall. He had to check his PDA to make sure the bug was facing the right way and continued recording through the bug; which luckily had a battery life of three days.
Once he was sure the camera was set, he got low, crawled silently to the door and slipped through, remembering to place the rock that held it open back to where it came from. Beowulf was still alert, waiting where he had been posted in the shadows.
Specter motioned for him to follow and sent a silent query from his PDA to Castle to check on her progress.
He received a short, clipped reply.
"We are still watching, she works late and talks to no one."
Specter nodded, and realizing their situation was precarious motioned to Beowulf that they needed to head back to the security office as the guards there would not sleep forever. They sneak ran down the empty corridor and slipped back into the elevator.
"It seems our access down here was a one time offer." Specter noticed, Castle hadn't disabled the lock, she just allowed it to die and take them down.
"How many stories up?" Beowulf asked.
"No idea, come on let's go." Specter his climbing lock-clamps out of his out and fastened them to the elevator cable, also attaching his belt from a longer robe to allow him safety if he fell.
I was never much good at this. He gulped, something Beowulf noticed but didn't mention as he knew it would upset his commander and make him more uneasy.
Specter thought as he slid both hands up, one after the other, the clamps sliding up and locking when the movement stopped. They climbed for about ten minutes until they noticed the open door of their exit, the tranqed guards were still asleep; at least these two were.
It took some effort to reach the floor they wanted; as the cable was a good sized distance from the door, in the end they had to climb higher and rappel down to the door, and after remotely deactivating the locks on their gear, retrieved it from the cable by pulling on their separate ropes.
Specter pulled out his tranq pistol, and in an unrecognizable mixture of good fun and precaution he shot the guards each once more. Then with the silence of a cat, he padded down the hall to check on the security office.
"What's your status?" Specter keyed into his PDA.
"She's leaving, heading for the elevator we deactivated!" Castle typed in a frenzied response.
"Tranq her!"
Specter stood stock still, waiting awkwardly for several seconds until the reply came.
"She's out, Falcon is getting the copy of her hard drive." Castle responded, and from where she stood over the body of the Admiral, it seemed as though things were going well.
But when Specter stepped into the security office, he heard the slight groan of someone waking up, just one. He bolted into the room, with his mask shielding his face, and shot the waking guard in the face with his tranq gun.
"Shoot the others while I check the security status and warning levels on the computer." Specter entered the monitoring office and checked the computers, it was all clear, no warnings, nothing wrong... except.
Thud.
Specter was thrown into the desk from behind, the guard who had previously been asleep was on top of his, not even thinking to trigger the alarm. Specter fumbled as the guard gripped his neck.
Specter, on the floor, always figured that being thrown to the ground was never the end of the fight, and had always considered ground fighting to be its own form, one that he had always been interested in. He swung his legs up and grabbed the man around the torso, and in one swift move, twisted so as to throw the man to the side.
His direction was specifically chosen, because the man's head contacted the nearby desk and knocked him out cold.
Specter stood, brushing himself off, and out of spite he shot the man to ensure his sleep. The alarm was still not triggered, but not wanting anyone to be able to trigger it, Specter opened the case that surrounded to the button.
There were several wires, some specifically used to power the device, and more to send the signal to the alarms. Specter cut the wires that sent to the signal to the alarms and replaced the case around the button. The light showed that it had power and it looked as though it still worked even if it didn't.
"Alarms deactivated, rendezvous at Op point Baker when ready."
"Yes sir." Castle had typed the reply, but Specter could almost hear the tired strain of her voice as though she had spoken directly to him. He made a mental note to have a short; very short, shore leave and relieve some stress from his team.
Specter glanced over his shoulder once more at the sleeping guard who had tackled him five minutes before; silently berating himself for not realizing that the missing thing he noticed when he entered had been the guard; Castle had mentioned the details when he had entered but it had been his distracted thoughts toward the project that had left him open to attack.
Beowulf relaxed in the door way, leaning against the frame. "Something wrong commander?"
"...nothing..." Specter replied, his mind obviously somewhere else; evaluating their progress so far, retracing his memories to see what he should have done differently.
"Right." Beowulf stated, in an unbelieving tone that Specter would have noticed any other time, but he was too busy in his thoughts. "Sir, shouldn't we head for op. point Baker now?"
"Yes." Specter shook himself out of his reverie and lifted his laser pistol, it was a small thing he had modified; not that he was very good at it himself, so he had hired someone to mod it for him. It had been given a black glossy colour and had the insignia of the Northwind Mercenary company on its dorsal side. The Northwind insignia: a red and green plaid shield with a longsword on it was a notorious symbol in the universe he came from; a symbol of an honorable and traditional mercenary company that had been around for hundreds of years, and Specter was proud to be sponsored by them and the Mercenary Review Board Commission. The MRBC based out of the free, neutral planet Outreach.
Specter examined his pistol, the modified gun had a more focused beam, which gave it more power in concentration, but less spread; perfect for brain surgery... right?
The brain surgery bit was what the modifier had said when he was paid, laughing in his comically scratchy accent which was a mockery of english.
Specter cursed; more reveries.
"Sir, shouldn't we leave... now?" Beowulf stated, more urgent than before.
"Alright let's get out of here!" Specter jumped to his feet, sweeping the room with his eyes, the door they had used to enter the facility would do for an exit, and they sped their way to the door. Just touching the door practically froze Specter's fingers; even through his gloves. In the end, after retrieving his hands from the push-lock mechanism he used his body to press against it and open the door.
Unfortunately a gust of snow and wind assaulted them life a rain of LRM 20's from a legion of Longbow assault mechs. The blizzard had grown in strength and ferocity, sealing the hope that any tracks of them would be lost; the most luckily lost, with a bittersweet effect, was the fact that their heat trail would disappear almost instantly.
The ran out into the wind, fighting an ever increasing battle to make progress to the abandoned factory several kilometers away. Their path leading them through growing snowdrifts; like a battle through a desert filled with mountains of sand and heat; this was the complete reciprocal. Except, Specter couldn't help but think of the stories of people struggling through the desert, it sure felt the same but not the same.
Oh irony.
Specter began to love the parts of their travel when they would reach the relative safety between drifts after sliding down a 'dune'. The protection from the wind would be short lasting as the wind would level it and create new dunes for them to cross the storm's fury humbling even to someone who had been in battles in the most powerful, or most enamoured of human weapons. Specter was in awe of the spectacle before him; such raw power he could never rival or achieve, it was inspiring, and depressing; as every time he thought he was close to the factory he found they hadn't traveled as far as he thought.
It took two hours of exhausting travel through bonechilling wind and heart freezing snows. And then Beowulf stopped him. "Sir, we're here." Beowulf stated this in a startled voice, but his face was completely masked by his goggles and thick scarf and hood.
"Really..." Specter was about to get on his case for teasing him when all he wanted was warmth when Beowulf slipped his ice axe from his back and slammed it into the ground beneath his feet.
Immediatly the ground fell beneath his feet; shattered glass and snow fell like rain onto a cement floor ten feet below. Beowulf held onto the axe, and attached a rappeling cable to its built in cinch and proffered the other end to Specter to help lower him down.
Specter secured himself quickly, knowing Beowulf could hold forever, and attached beowulf's cable to his own in order to extend it to allow him to reach to ground beneath. And in an efficient process he lowered Beowulf to the ground. Beowulf motioned for Specter to lower himself into the hole; which was done in seconds as Specter willingly climbed in to get out of the wind. And in another quick process Beowulf held firm while Specter released more of his cable and slid to the ground.
Specter hadn't just tied his and Beowulf's cables together, he had used his auto-detaching climbing clamp tp secure the two ends together; so it was only a matter of pressing a button for the cables to come sliding down and recoiling automatically into their belts.
"Well, the only shame is that we lost on axe." Beowulf stated, his tone light and relieved. "Certainly glad to be out of that wind." He motioned above, gesturing at the hole in the factory roof. "I'm going to the Condor, gotta prepare some hot coffee; everyone will appreciate it."
"Good thought." Specter agreed. "Mind if I come Charlie?"
"I don't need any help right now John, I'm sure you'll find something to do." Beowulf waved and ran to keep his blood warm, plus the Condor was parked a good three hundred meters away in the storage room.
John Anderson, aka Specter, sighed knowing that Beowulf was wrong about there being something to do. The only thing he could think of was to check up on the status of his comrades.
They're running late. He thought, his brow furrowing in slight worry.
"Castle where are you, state distance in time." Specter keyed his short note into his PDA and sent it off.
He had no reply for about ten minutes, and was about to go find Beowulf when a frozen looking Katrina rappeled down and slid to a stop in front of him.
"Surprise." She stated miserably.
Falcon descended seconds later, and much quicker, she practically jumped down.
"Falcon, sit rep?" Specter asked, dissmissing Castle with a wave of his hand.
"We completed the download of the hard drive of the Admiral's computer sir." She stated, she wasn't even fazed by the weather.
Good thing she came huh? Specter thought when he noticed she was perfectly comfortable.
"Good. Any followers, suspicion, or anything else?" Specter's tone was light, but then it always was, and Falcon took it rightly to be a serious question.
"Neg." She replied in her exotic clanner accent.
"Good, go report to Beowulf at the Condor, he has something you need before we continue." Specter liked that order, but then it wasn't every day he got to order someone to drink coffee.
Falcon knew he had stated it flippantly and turned heel to go to the Condor; Specter right at her side, though he was fastwalking as she took long strides. That was one of the things that bugged him about her; her height, and not to mention superior attitude, and also to mention she didn't think of him as anything beside her commander or an inferior being; that was annoying to him.
Of course, he admired everything else about her, she was a skilled pilot, and good tactiction, and was very good looking... and she usually followed orders.
He sighed when he saw the Condor come into view; Castle and Beowulf were already sipping copious amounts of scalding cheap coffee and had their faces immersed in the steam flowing off the top of their mugs. Castle took of of the four thermoses of coffee and went straight to the driver's seat of the tank.
Specter grabbed his thermos, thankful that Beowulf had made one for each instead of making them share, and shouted joyfully. "Shotgun."
Well, hopefully I'll be able to update more and more quickely I hope this new spin and character development. Please read and review, I need motivation which is quite lacking right now... so PM me if you already reviewed a previous chapter ten. Thanks.
-Tremble wolf