Chapter 30: Two By Four
"Which one should I follow? AVA?"
Avocato, having helped AVA hack into Geegua Spaceport's less-than-adequate security system, looked up sharply from the bank of projected screens he was scouring for more information as Gary's voice came over the comm lines.
"Follow?" he echoed in disbelief. "What? AVA, tell them to stay together. Just pick one target and stick with it. They'll have to report back to their ship eventually and that will give our other teams a chance to catch up with him."
AVA quickly responded. "Either will do and I quote, they'll have to report back to their ship eventually."
"But – but - crap."
The panic was evident in Gary's whispered voice. Though far more a master of himself than Gary Goodspeed, Avocato felt his own anxiety rising at the fear he was hearing over the comm channel. It was a sound he'd heard many times in the past, the uncertainty of indecision, the dread of making the wrong choice in the heat of the moment. It denoted a lack of experience and preparation, yes, but it was also the mark of someone who wanted to do what was right. Leaving his seat, Avocato all but lunged for the communications panel, fighting the urge to yell at Gary himself before twisting around to watch the blurry image of the security camera they had hijacked. He could see Gary and Mooncake, and just barely make out the Kssess in the distance.
"Okay," said Gary with feigned determination. "New plan. Two of them, two of us. We'll split up and follow both."
"NO!" Avocato almost screamed, frustration at Gary's impulsive stupidity overwhelming him for a moment. "No! Gary, no! There aren't any cameras in that alley! Tell him to stay where we can see him!"
Paraphrased AVA, "Strongly not advised. There are no cameras in that alley, Gary."
"They're moving off. We gotta do something!" Gary called. "Command decision time. Mooncake, follow the bug. Be super careful, bud. I got the mutant garden gnome."
"What the hell's a garden gnome?" demanded Avocato of the air. "What is Gary thinking? Does he actually think? Mooncake has no comm unit! He can't talk! AVA, stop him!"
"I'm jammed," she said, taken aback.
"Boost the signal!"
"No good."
"GARY!" growled Avocato deep in his throat, exasperated beyond measure. He had the sudden impression that this was a state of being for his future self. Great. Just great. things to look forward to. "What the-? Mooncake could find the whole operation and won't be able to tell us. How is it I married such a complete idiot?" Throwing caution to the wind, he hit one of the buttons on the panel, desperately calling, "Gary! Gary, respond."
Static.
He tried again with similar results, and again. It was no good. Resisting the urge to curse, he instead ordered, "Keep alert for any land or air vehicles in the vicinity of that alley. See if you can spot if it has another entrance. Keep looking for Gary."
"On it."
Avocato dropped his hands, taking a deep breath as he stepped back from the communications station. In that motion, as he slowly expelled the air from his lungs, he stepped out of the role of father and husband and friend and into the role of a general in the field. He stood straight and unmoving, his hands clasped behind his back and his focus inward as he bent all his training and skill to address the situation with stern dispassion. This was not the time for emotion, but reason, something Gary seemed completely incapable of grasping.
"AVA, monitor Mooncake as best you can and alert Fox and Ash to try to catch up with him. Tell them to watch their backs and to stick to the main streets. They are to stay together no matter what." There was no emotion in his voice, but his eyes betrayed a mounting storm. AVA quickly noted the shift in his demeanor and hastened to obey.
Despite what he'd said a few moments before, Avocato knew that Gary Goodspeed was no idiot. Impulsive, yes, with little to no control and no formal training or education to fall back on, but no idiot. At least, not a complete one. Idiots didn't survive in deep space or encounters with Titans. They didn't make good fathers or captains, and Gary was both. No. In this case, it was a matter of unchecked compassion and concern that seemed to land Gary into trouble. It occurred to Avocato that he and Gary were well matched after all – for all their individual intensity, they balanced one another. His own learned coldness was tempered by Gary's natural warmth. His rigid upbringing by Gary's freedom. His measured approach by Gary's spontaneity. They could learn a lot from one another, and Avocato suspected that perhaps they already had.
Closing his eyes for a moment to block out all distractions, he laid the situation out in his mind, mapping out the principle events, players, and available resources to formulate his plan of action. His primary objective was to get Little Cato back. His secondary objective was to get his husband back. The tertiary objective was to shut down a slaver ring, but not at the expense of the first two goals. Odds were good one objective would correlate directly with the others. Nightfall was temporarily grounded as she tended to Chuckie. Fox and Ash were capable, but children, little older than his son, and Avocato would do everything in his power to keep them out of harm's way. Mooncake could be useful and was apparently extremely powerful, but in Avocato's assessment, naïve. The little blob also had his limitations as far as communications and self-control were concerned. HUE and KVN were completely unreliable – one was barely mobile at the best of times and the other was insane.
That left him.
It wasn't ego that made Avocato acknowledge that of all the people on the ship, he had the best chance of getting Little Cato back. It was an indisputable fact. He was a soldier and fighting was his job, and he knew the only way he'd wrestle his son out of the slavers' clutches was by brute strength. Since he'd been a kitten, he'd been learning martial arts, well before he began the long journey to be an officer in the Ventrexian military, and even now, as the head of the Lord Commander's fleet, he practiced those skills almost daily. His training had included empty hand fighting, weapons of every sort, plus battle strategy, tactics, stealth, hunting, and tracking. Five years at the Royal Military Academy of Ventrex and non-stop service since he'd graduated had honed those skills to a razor's edge. According to Gary, he would do some truly reprehensible things during his tenure as the Lord Commander's second-in-command. Avocato hadn't said as much, but deep down he could see himself doing those things. It wasn't pleasant to imagine, but being a soldier wasn't pleasant. It was necessary. And being good at what he did meant he had the strength to make the hard decisions and carry out the worst duties.
He might be a lot of things, but he wasn't a liar. Especially not to himself.
Not for the first time, Avocato wished his fur was any other color but teal. Even for a Ventrexian, it was a highly unusual color, and in his lifetime he'd met just a small handful of Ventrexians with similar coloring. He stood out in a crowd at the best of times. He hadn't been exaggerating to Gary when he said he'd been on the receiving end of every recessive gene his family had to offer. Had he been any other color, he might have gotten by with a disguise, but he was too distinct to even try to change his color or deal with the blaze down his face. Besides, he needed his uniform. It was his greatest resource. He grimaced, but the situation was what it was and time was not their friend. Besides, his reputation and the shock that he wasn't dead were two excellent weapons, and he intended to fully exploit both.
"AVA," he said, his decision made, "I'm going after Gary. If these are the same slavers who have my boy, they'll lead me to Little Cato."
"You mustn't leave, General," she protested. "You're in as much if not more danger than Little Cato if anyone figures out who you are."
"Who else is there?" he demanded. "You and I both know Nightfall sent Fox and Ash to the spot these slavers will least likely be. Until she's sure Chuckie can see, she won't be able to help. Who can we send? KVN? HUE?"
It was a pretty solid argument. At the moment, their choice of hero candidates ranged from ridiculously overqualified to hopelessly unfit. "What's your plan?"
"I need a comm unit. I'm going to go to that alley we last saw Gary and track him down while his scent is fresh."
"How?"
"Leave that to me."
"How is your plan any different than Gary's?"
"In this case, it's not so much the plan as the one carrying it out. You know my record," he added softly.
There was a long silence as the AI weighed his words and everything she knew about Avocato, now and in the future. This was a man who got things done. Who wasn't afraid to do whatever it took. He was intelligent, well traveled, and knew more about the ins and out of running an armada and an empire than any ten AIs. What was more, it was her job to assist the crew and she had not been ordered to keep him secure in the Crimson Light. Running the numbers twice through her processor, she concluded that not only was he their best bet, at the moment, he was their only bet. Nightfall would be pissed beyond words, but the general was right. Instead of arguing, AVA pointed out, "Gary secured your firearms. The lock is biometric. I can't open it."
Avocato shrugged, unconcerned. "I'll borrow one on the way."
"Comm units are in the wall locker to the right of the door."
"Download a map of the city into it. Unless Little Cato, Gary, or the Tera Con fleet show up here, do not call me before I call you." As he spoke he retrieved the comm unit and secured it to his wrist. It was smaller than what he was used to, but it wouldn't interfere with his uniform's internal systems. Walking quickly through the lightrunner, he ignored the lift and slid expertly down the narrow emergency ladder to the docking bay, talking all the while. "I've set it to vibrate. Send three quick pings if you need me to respond. Be ready to pinpoint my location when I call. Lights off and lower the ramp."
"I'll track you on the cameras," she said, following orders.
Avocato, riding the ramp down, glanced back with a smirk. "No, you won't."
Before the ramp was fully open, he jumped out of the ship to the hangar. Beneath the ship the ground was dry, but beyond that shelter it was pouring rain. Good. Fewer people would be out and the gloom would hide him from watchful eyes. Avocato lifted his wrist and hit a control on his shocktog's cuff before darting off into the night.
AVA saw Avocato only as long as he was under the Crimson Light. The moment the darkness swallowed him, he took with him all sensory data. For a fraction of a second the AI was surprised (not that she would have ever admitted as much) until she remembered: his uniform was a shocktog. She knew the suits could be highly complex, but she had never heard of one that included a repulsor field. A good one, too. Avocato would be visible to a person looking at him, but she was ten years newer than any tech on this planet, and if she couldn't see the general with all her sensors and cameras, there was no technology under these suns that would detect him. Ventrexians might be a pack of cultural snobs, but their tech was unparalleled.
"Cheeky," she muttered, and went back to monitoring the comm channels and security cameras.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
The first thing Avocato noted was the difference in gravity - it was not as strong here as on Ventrexia or even aboard the Crimson Light. Being fresh to lighter gravity would work in his favor. He'd be stronger and faster than anyone who had been here even a few days. To test this theory, he found a blank spot of wall open to the sky and crouched low before leaping up as high as he could. He reached a little more than halfway up the wall before he sank his claws into the sandstone and climbed the rest of the way with ease and even managed some grace as he went. He needed to get above the streets, and he hauled himself up hand over hand to reach the top. He lay flat, making sure he hadn't been seen, noting his uniform was the same dull color as the rock beneath him. Rain started to soak his exposed fur, but he didn't let it distract him. There was no one around. Good.
Most of the spaceport was just underground to protect the population from the intensity of multiple suns, but there were roads and walkways and bridges on the surface, too atop the heavy stone walls between the streets. A few buildings dotted the surface, but little else besides patches of trees swaying in the heavy winds. Geegua was a warren, lit from below, and he needed to get across it quickly.
Luckily, he was prepared to do just that.
Though most Ventrexians were loath to admit it, they were not so far removed from their savage origins. They had claws and sharp teeth and killer instincts, and civilization and denial couldn't erase what evolution hadn't. What was more, they still retained the capacity to move on all four feet, though such conduct would have been the stuff of scandals and shunning. As the son of a noble house, Avocato shouldn't even have joked about anything so gauche
But he was also the one who embraced anything that would make him a better soldier. He had learned to run and hunt on the ice fields of the north with Nicos and Kedi and all five of Kedi's brothers. The best, safest, and fastest way to move in slippery conditions was on all fours, and once he realized how quickly he could go, Avocato had been beyond enthusiastic to learn. As Kedi's oldest brother Kotikat had said, Two feet will never outrun four. Avocato had taken the words to heart, and delighted in his family's horror when he told them about his new skill a full year after he'd returned from arctic training.
If only his brothers could see him now.
The sandstone was wet and gritty beneath his hands as he extended his claws. He would need them for this, along with the tools that came with his shocktog. Avocato pushed himself up and arched his back slightly, poised for a few moments and getting his bearings. A few deep breaths, and then -
The hunt was on and he was getting his son back.
No matter what.