A/N Sorry for the delay - I had found a major plot hole and had to fix it.. and then... Life. I'm working on finalizing the last fixes and going through and editing... but there are at least 10 chapters that are ready to go... so.. I'm going to work on getting those up here so things are just... sitting in places.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Clay watched as Roque started drawing something on the ground and smiled. He knew it meant Roque had an idea and needed to work out the details. He shook his head as the others started to emerge from the cave. It wasn't safe.
'Roque, you have to get them moving,' he transmitted. 'Odds are, with no communications the enemy knows this area is compromised, that means they're either coming in hot, or abandoning the operation. Smart money's on 'coming in hot.''
'Yeah well Clay, you're our tactical genius and smart money's on you. I'm just along for the ride and to cover your ass... and evac-ing now is not going to cut it. I didn't let Casey check out early and, while she is cuter than you are, she's not you. So quit interrupting and let me work this out.'
Clay rolled his eyes. It was one thing to suspect that your second in command followed you simply out of morbid curiosity, and quite another for him to tell you as much.
#
Roque turned as the others joined him.
"I'm guessing we're stopped for a reason and he isn't standing out in the open for his health?" The man who'd introduced himself as Nick asked.
Roque sighed and shook his head. "No, that's my commanding officer... we lost our drones so he figured he'd find the mine field for us."
"Effective," Mike agreed, noticing how the others were keeping their distance, except for the Druid, Richard, who joined them. "Not terribly practical: but effective."
Roque smiled, relaying Mike's opinion to Clay. He noticed that the remaining four prisoners had armed themselves and had now arrayed themselves around their position. Nope, no one was going anywhere until they got Clay out.
He nodded and focused back on Casey and his drawing. "You ready to do this?"
Casey drew a deep breath. "I've never... consciously... '
"We'll walk you through it." Roque assured her. "Between me, and these gentlemen... you'll be fine."
Casey nodded, but Roque knew she didn't believe it for a minute. "I'm going to need some help with this," he told the others.
Mike rolled up his sleeves. "What's the plan?"
Roque laughed. "We need to make sure that any enemy recon doesn't have the chance to use Clay for target practice; keep everyone else safe while we disable the mine and get him out of there without tripping-off any of the others."
"Nice general plan. You got any details?"
Roque smiled. "We're still working them out. Pull up a rock and I'll fill you all in."
#
Pooch waited and listened as the patrol continued to cover the area, looking for any sign of his, or any other stragglers, passing. He tried to think about the places he might have left a sign and it kept coming back to the craft.
It wasn't that hard not to spot, granted he had landed away from the diversionary explosion but still, he'd flown it in and landed it. It wasn't like he'd take the time to try and camouflage it.
No, his focus had been keeping it from exploding, and getting it back in the air as quickly as possible. Now, he was forced into a game of 'wait and hope.'
He was not particularly a fan of waiting.
#
Casey looked at Roque as if he'd grown a second head and a third eye. "There is no way..."
Roque shook his head. "Casey, if there was another way, I'd be working it right now, but this is the only way we can do this with what we have."
"Your plan is to have me... hold down the pressure switch while the rest of you move Clay to safety. Roque... do I need to remind you that I've done this exactly NEVER?"
"Casey, Richard is going to guide you through it. When you get there, you should be able to feel your way around."
He would have given anything to be more reassuring, but he knew the odds weren't in it, and the only reassurance he could offer was that his team was called 'The Losers' for a reason. They had to try something, and this was a better plan than leaving and letting Clay step off the switch and that was what he told her.
"I am so putting in for extended leave after this," Casey muttered as she started trying to coax the roots and runners around her to help.
Without realizing it she began humming the tune she'd been singing when they found her. Roque smiled: they'd come full circle.
#
Three mages, a latent semi-dryad medic and a mine: it sounded like a bad joke and for the life of him Clay couldn't figure out the punch line. He could feel the earth moving beneath his feet and it took everything he had not to jump. As it was he faced Roque and put his trust in his second in command.
'I hope you know,' Roque told him as he worked on creating a barrier around him. 'That I'm not doing the paperwork on this one. You're on your own.'
Clay snorted. 'Where's your sense of adventure?'
'Clay, after Emma... and Amber... I'm kind of used to pulling you out of minefields. You want fun: you're going to have to come up with something else.'
Clay had just started to smile when a bullet whizzed past his ear.
'I didn't mean now,' Roque growled.
#
"Richard, keep Casey focused on the mine, she's almost there," Roque ordered as he tried to figure out the bullet's trajectory.
"Mike," he added, still focusing on the trees beyond the mine field. "I'm going to need some cover."
"I'm already on it," the mage replied. "Nick, if you'd be so kind..."
Roque watched as Mike's partner pulled out a grenade and tossed it, not at the trees but straight into the air. He could sense the magic as Mike manipulated the grenade in mid air and launched it at the trees. A moment later he heard yells as the grenade hit. It was obvious the duo had done this before.
With their inventive grenade launcher/cover fire in place, Roque focused on getting Clay out of his current situation.
#
Casey tensed as she sensed the changes in the area.
"Relax, focus on your objective," she heard Richard tell her. Part of her hated the feeling of his hand on her shoulder but it kept her focused and as he settled into the job, some of the novelty of who and what she was wore off, at least for the moment.
"You're almost there."
Casey nodded allowing her senses to reach out to the roots that had been disturbed when the mine field had been set up. She was close... so close.
#
Clay clenched his fists as a grenade went off behind him. He watched anxiously as Roque, Casey and another man seemed frozen in place while the other two seemed to be playing baseball with hand grenades.
He chuckled to himself. 'The people you meet in the army.'
#
Roque let his breath out as he felt the pieces falling into place. Even before Casey or Richard gave the all clear, he started moving. He knew all too well that once Casey took over, everything was going to need to happen very quickly. He knew there was only so much preparing you could do and in the end it came down to timing and luck. He didn't mind relying on luck when it came to his own hide, but when it came to any member of his team, especially Clay, he preferred to have the edge.
'Hold on Clay, I'm coming in,' he radioed knowing Clay didn't really need to be warned since he could see everything they were doing, but it was simply SOP.
#
Clay tensed as Roque started racing at him at full tilt. Halfway into the run he knew there was no stopping this from happening and either Roque's plan would work, or he'd just signed both their death warrants.
He let his breath out unsure what to expect. One thought ran though his head a moment before impact.
'This is going to hurt.'
#
Casey felt rather than saw when Roque began moving. She could feel him moving across the bed of roots she had grown or maneuvered into place. She didn't really know what to call it, but he was running along the path she had made with the roots and they kept him from activating any other switches since he was running above them.
She felt her grip on the switch tighten as the weight on top of it was removed. Without meaning too she pushed the sensor further down. It didn't really matter. All that mattered was keeping the switch from moving upward. She held onto it, blind to everything else around her.
#
Roque drew a deep breath the moment before impact and let it out with a simple, "Now!"
The command served to activate the spells he had prepared ahead of time, as well as notify Mike that it was time to activate his own. The same moment he impacted with Clay they began to float, an invisible shield forming around the pair of them.
He only had a moment to wonder if Mike had heard him before he felt the wrenching motion as Mike's spell grabbed them and pulled them back towards the others.
He breathed a sigh of relief. At least Clay was off the mine.
#
Clay met Roque's charge with open arms, latching onto his SIC at the moment of impact. He held his breath praying that whatever the mage had planned was working. Eyes closed he felt a sense of vertigo as they were grabbed by unseen hands and hurled back towards the cave.
He swallowed as he fought to control his reactions to the sudden changes and finally relaxed into it. When playing with half a deck, dealt by a psychotic nightone, he'd learned it was best to just close your eyes and pray it was over soon.
#
Roque let out a relieved sigh as he felt the pull of magic and the power that had brought him back gently set him and his wayward commander on the ground. He smiled and was about to comment when he saw the pained look on Clay's face and realized that the rescue had done more damage than he'd thought.
"Mike," he called worriedly, knowing he didn't have enough power or control to properly heal Clay. "Need your help here."
He worked to keep his voice calm, not wanting to worry Clay or Casey. One look at Clay and he knew he needn't have bothered. Clay knew full well that things had definitely gotten worse.
"Now."
#
Clay was relieved to see Mike's quickly turn towards them, but he definitely didn't like the expression on the man's face as he moved to join them. He tried to say something funny or sardonic, but a coughing fit left him all but clinging to Roque for support.
While the mage lacked Roque's gentle touch the effect was undeniable, and compared to his prior level of pain, the process wasn't all that bad. He felt as if he were cocooned in fire and steam as it penetrated his aching lungs. It felt as if flames evaporated the gathering fluids and air that had made breathing difficult and then forced it out through the wound, then the power seemed to cauterize the wound itself, leaving him breathless and yet whole.
He took an experimental breath of air and then another before nodding gratefully.
Mike studied him for a moment before patting his arm. "You owe me a beer," the mage informed him as he looked for signs of the enemy. "But then again, I owe you and your men a warehouse full by now."
"We got incoming," Nick called. "Eight ball side pocket..."
As the man tossed another grenade in the air, Mike gestured towards it, accelerating it at the enemy.
"Duty calls," he said as he moved closer to his partner.
Clay smiled, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "I'm sure we can arrange something appropriate."
#
Roque watched as Clay took charge, relieved that he could once again relinquish that job to his commanding officer. Clay was the sort of leader who won people's confidence. Something that was difficult enough for an antisocial 'Nightone'. Add the fact that he was a blood mage with a vindictive streak and you had a formula for a very strong number two man. Something that made Roque very happy. He hated people depending on him for command decisions. He was good at planning for himself, for working the problem and coming up with solutions but picking a plan and implementing it? Not so much.
He watched as the smile on Clay's face grew. If he had smiled that way people would be cringing. As it was, he knew he was going to enjoy what was to come.
"I don't know how you did it," Clay stated.
Roque gestured towards Casey and Richard and noticed how the temperature seemed to drop around them.
"He's keeping her focused," Roque reassured him. "He's a druid and with Casey's... peculiarities... he seems to understand her nature better than I do. Besides someone had to pick you up."
"She kept the mine from detonating?"
Roque nodded. "She wasn't sure which one... so she felt her way around until she had all of them."
"So... she can release them all simultaneously?"
Roque smiled liking where the plan was heading.
#
"I don't like it," Richard complained. "You're asking her to do something against her nature."
"How do you know?" Clay asked, trying not to let his dislike for the man's hand resting on Casey's shoulder, color his judgment.
"Dryads are delicate creatures," the druid began, his voice taking on an odd reverent quality.
"Do not let her hear you call her 'creature,'" Roque growled only to find Clay gently resting a hand against his chest.
"I don't think he has the full picture," Clay warned before turning back to Richard. "Casey is many things, but delicate and creature aren't on the list. First and foremost she is a UCAS Master Sergeant and a combat flight medic."
"It's not in her nature to kill unless threatened..."
"And you don't think these people have threatened her and the people in her care? When we found her they'd staked her out to an aerial antenna and nearly killed her with electric charges. If they had, odds are one of you would have taken her place."
"When she heard what they were doing to you and the others here, there was no asking her to come along. I turned around and she was prepping arms for the mission. Fighting may not be her main area of expertise, but she is one hell of a defensive fighter and believe me- she's part of my team and she's accepted the consequences of that decision."
He turned back to Roque.
"Roque, can you brief these men on the situation while I talk to Casey?"
He smiled, as his second in command gestured for the others to join him.
#
The first thing Clay noticed as he slipped an arm around Casey was the sweat beginning to bead on her forehead. The next thing he noticed was the way her fists were clenched so tight they were cutting off circulation to her fingers.
"Casey," he called softly. "Casey, can you hear me?"
He was surprised when Casey shook her head in a short jerky motion and refused to open her eyes. This was about to get downright... interesting.