James Cameron and Charles Eglee own Dark Angel. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned or any other copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.
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Author's Note: Sorry about the length of this chapter… I usually hate posting something this short, but the next chapter is rather long, so combining the two wasn't really an option. I guess I could have omitted this chapter, but it seemed right to let the characters get some down time and hang out for just a bit between crises. Hope you agree with me on that. Oh, and as for the next chapter, it'll probably be a bit more. Had to call in my trusty beta reader for that one…
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VIII – A Call To Arms
"Make yourselves at home," Set told everyone as he led his way into his expansive apartment. "We'll be leaving in an hour and forty minutes, so you should have time for a snack, nap, shower, or whatever else."
"I guess I could catch The Late Show," Alec commented.
"Not here you can't," Set responded absently. "No TV."
"No TV?" Alec asked quizzically, an amusing look of confusion and mild panic on his face. "You're kidding, right?" Set simply turned to his fellow X-5 with a blank expression, as if the concept of humor was something completely unfamiliar, and Max was forced to stifle a chuckle. "How do you kill time around here, then?" Alec complained.
"I train," Set replied. "What else do you think I'd do?"
Creepy, Max thought as she watched Set's reaction. Sure, Zack said he was gung-ho and all, but that guy's really gotta get out or something… As Max began to walk through the apartment, she only became more convinced of her conclusion. To the left of the gym, she walked down a short hallway with completely bare, white walls, coming first to an open door on her right. The room was completely devoid of furniture, with straw mats on the floor and a series of weapons racks set upon each of the walls. Directly across from her were assorted ancient hand-held weapons, dominated by an iron-tipped Macedonian sarissa – at least four meters long – hanging diagonally from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner, with an Egyptian khopesh, a Roman gladius, spatha, and pilum, and a Greek hoplite sword displayed around it. The wall on her right held medieval-period weapons – a Scottish claymore, an English broadsword, a Chinese jiang sword, a German zweihander, a French flamberge, and a paired Japanese katana and wakizashi. Finally, on her left, she saw a wide variety of assorted weapons including a morningstar, a heavy English knight's mace hung inside the curve of a Welsh longbow, a pair of sai, a cat-o-nine tails, a Saracen scimitar, and a Chinese crossbow. Well, if he spends all of his free time training, I'll bet he's mastered every one of these by now, Max concluded, grateful that Set was on her side.
Leaving the arsenal behind, she walked down the hallway and glanced in the next open door on her left. This was a small library, with one unobtrusive table and a chair, and shelves lining the walls. Max walked up next to Logan and joined him in scanning the titles. Philosophical tomes by Nitzsche and Sun-tzu stood side by side with chemistry textbooks, books on human anatomy and physiology, military history, and even instruction manuals on explosives. "Quite the Renaissance man," Logan commented with a nervous roll of his eyes.
"Yeah, but it all seems a little academic, don't ya think?" she asked sarcastically. "I don't know if I can trust a guy who never reads any fiction?" she added with a smile.
"Well, there's some of that, too," Logan replied, pulling out two books and showing them to Max.
"Oh, that figures," Max muttered as she saw the titles – Paradise Lost and The Count of Monte Cristo. "Boy's really gotta get out. If he stumbles upon some Dickens, being as wound up as he is, he's likely to go postal." Going back into the hall she looked left and saw a bathroom at the end of the hallway, then turned around, walking back out through the gym and down an opposite corridor. The first door was once again on her right, and she caught the all-too-familiar scent of microwaved burritos as she poked her head into a surprisingly large and well-furnished kitchen.
"Hungry?" Alec asked her as he dug into a bag of cheese curls with his left hand and pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge with his right. "This place is great, isn't it?" he asked with a smile.
"It's real cozy," Max replied.
"Do I smell food?" Logan asked as he walked in and joined the conversation.
"Sort of, I guess," Alec answered. "Microwaved burritos."
"Good enough," Logan said, opening the freezer and pulling out two burritos of his own.
"Once you're all done eating, we're gonna get some weapons together," Zack stated as he joined the rest. "Set's bedroom is just down the hall, and most of his firearms are spread out on a table. Take something light. We're leaving in a helicopter from here and going straight to the airport. From there we're gonna spend most of our time on a cargo plane, and when we reach our destination we'll be able to re-equip with heavier weapons, okay?"
"Sure thing," Alec responded, his head whirling toward the microwave when a loud beeping signaled that his pseudo-meal was ready.
"And Logan," Zack added, "the plane is set up with all the computer equipment you'll need to make an Eyes Only broadcast or two."
"Great," Logan said. "I hope White and his pals try to track a signal coming from a mobile transmitter… that'll be a great way to have them waste their time."
"We're also going to need you to hack into a couple of military satellites," Zack added. "I think Lydecker's planning to run this op sorta like the Manticore assault, with you keeping an eye on things from a command post while the rest of us actually do the fighting."
"I thought I'd be going in with you," Logan said immediately.
"So did I," Max joined in, a part of her actually grateful that Logan would likely be out of harm's way. She knew he had dodged a major bullet when he had survived the fight with White's team of Familiar bad-asses, and to do so again would take luck of epic proportions. Still, though, she also wanted him there at her side. She knew that he was tactically unfit for this mission, but just being there as moral support would be more than enough in Max's mind. But that isn't safe, she reminded herself, chasing away any thought of putting Logan into the line of fire. Besides, she reminded herself, somebody's gonna have to hack into a satellite and give us a heads-up if we meet any major resistance. Who else would you trust with that kind of a responsibility? Finally done rationalizing, Max focused her attention on getting something to eat. It had been days since she had had so much as a catnap, and she had to get energy from somewhere. As questionable an energy source as they were, she still pulled out several burritos for herself and stood in line behind Logan, avoiding dwelling on the unpleasant thought that if the mission got fubar'd, this could very well be her last meal.
To be continued……………………………
