- CHAPTER 42 -
- Jack Chambers' Quarters -
Hank and Victoria concentrated. There was a loud groan mingled with pops of tortured alloy as the door first bulged outward, then flew out of its normal seat to ricochet halfway down the hall. It clipped the nearby squad members, causing them to stagger slightly and their shields to sparkle as they shunted aside the careening door. Less than a second after the door finally settled to a stop, it disintegrated in an eye tearing white explosion as the AM shaped breaching charge detonated.
Hank and Victoria activated their combat subroutines, causing adrenaline and other useful compounds to course through their systems. One such compound had the benefit of speeding neural impulses, allowing the user to react and move considerably faster than normal. The pair charged out of the room and into the maelstrom left in the AM explosion's wake. This is what the Furies lived for, attacking those who would bring harm to the Terran Empire. Their fate's had already been decided, all that was left was their execution, and the Fury pair dropped into their midst like a hurricane of death. With unnatural speed and precision, the mechanical jaws on Victoria's power armor's helmet responded to the Hellhound's biological jaw's movement, opening wide to reveal rows of exquisitely sharp serrated alloy teeth. These crunched down on the nearest power armored leg, cutting it in half even in spite of the still operative shielding. Then Victoria leaped into the air towards the next victim, moving so fast that she was a black blur. Foot long claws of mono molecule sharp blades extended cat like from her armored feet mid leap. The drug allowed her to direct her strike precisely where she wanted, for from her perspective, she was falling slowly towards her target. The blades sank into the chest of her target, sinking in to the hilt as her weight and spring bore the man to the ground.
Hank was also in action, his scaled down PPHC spitting bolts of amber fire into the nearby targets. While under the drug's effects, the bolts seemed to move in slow motion, yet from his perspective he still moved at normal speed. To the remains of the strike team, he was a blur of death, meaning it out with inhuman speed. In seconds, Victoria and Frank had taken out four of the 10 remaining guards. His sensors showed the remaining six bringing up their weapons with exquisite slowness. He twitched his weapon towards the next target, sending a stream of pulses that tore his body apart. All that was left was the still surprisingly upright smoking lower legs of his armor suit. His sensors showed Victoria severing another's left arm mid leap as she arched towards her next target. Blood jetted in a slow motion crimson rainfall, and Victoria had pounced on her next target even before it hit the ground. One of the enemies behind him had finally pulled his weapon up high enough to target Victoria. With a mental shove, the man lifted up off of the ground to fly three meters down the hall. His weapon opened up at full auto in the same instant as the PK shove, throwing off his aim, causing his bullets to spang off of the floor and bulkheads as he flew.
There were only three of them left, from their thoughts, one was the Operative Section had inserted to start this entire operation moving. That was good, for he had proven most useful and could be used for future ops. Even as Hank and Victoria turned to the two remaining traitors, another mental shove sent the operative flying down the corridor, unconscious from brief but vicious the assault on his mind. By mutual consent, both Hank and Victoria decided that these last to posed no real threat. This was good, they could take their time. Like cat's playing with trapped mice, the pair charged towards the two terrified attackers. The taste of their fear and shock were like a drug to the Furies, and they reveled in them, using their abilities to stoke them still higher. Although the hallway was by now totally dark, the power armor suit's sensors could turn even that to full day. Yet no matter what setting the two troopers activated, all they saw when they looked at the Furies were vaguely human and canine shapes of the blackest black. The only thing that showed up other than that was their glowing, flaming crimson eye's.
Victoria decided to kill her plaything slowly using her blades, not resorting to a PK or TP attack. She always found it more satisfying to kill this way. Streaking around her armored target, she lashed out again and again with her blades, cutting first his ankles, then his wrists, then moving in along his extremities. He became little more than a torso even as he was still falling. As soon as he hit the ground, dual sets of claws punched through the front of his armor, piercing his ragged shielding to puncture deep into his chest. Lungs and heart were cut to ribbons. A snap was heard to Victoria's left and she turned to watch the now broken necked body fall to the deck. Deep satisfaction radiated from both of them, but as always upon the completion of a mission, it was tinged with regret that the mission had to end. If they could, they would have continued indefinitely, relishing in the pure unadulterated joy of the hunt, basking in the wonderful terror of their prey as they closed in on it.
The grip of both their pleasure in the terror they caused and their internal apothecary lessened. That brought them down off of the natural endorphin induced high as well as lowering their adrenaline levels back to normal and first slowing, then stopping the unnatural mind and body responsiveness the other drugs caused. The entire Fury attack had lasted only 20 seconds from start to finish from the perspective of one not under the influence of bullet time. As one they turned back to the doorless room. Safely behind a security forcefield, Jack Chambers sat with a smirk on his face.
"It is over I assume?"
Yes Sir. They proved an interesting diversion from the normal guard duties, but still not as wondrous as a full on hunt. Victoria's mental voice spoke to Jack's mind.
"Excellent! And as to an actual hunt, I believe that there will be many of those shortly. The military must be weeded out, for as this little display proves, some high level officers must very well be coconspirators with those who plotted the recent attack on Terra."
Ah, now I see just what you planned Sir. Frank said, for it was bad manners to read the hidden thoughts of superior Section operatives so he had chosen not to do so to Chambers. You want elements of the military to take the fall for the attack, thus causing them to become to weak to oppose you and driving the general populace behind whatever you demand to end this crisis. And they have no way of discerning that you have helped orchestrate the entire thing. Most ingenious of you Sir, I must say. Almost as ingenious as a Fury even.
"Glad you approve Frank. Now if I am not mistaken, that is the security rapid response team coming now." Jack said as he heard the clank of power armor against mangled bulkheads and the scorched and melted floor.
20 heavily armed individuals to be exact. Victoria supplied. The Furies sensors and senses had seen them coming from nearly as far as they had picked up the strike team.
"Well lets just go out and meet them then." The forcefield that had walled off Jack Chambers from the destruction occurring in the hall dropped out of existence with a fizzing hum as he deactivated the small shield emitter mounted to a bracelet on his wrist. Walking out into the hall, Jack had to be careful where he stepped as there were some places on the floor that were still hot enough to rapidly melt his shoes if he stepped there. The residual radiation present in the hall would require a hefty dose of antirad vaccine, but it wasn't anything to serious.
"It's about time you showed up!" Jack shouted at the approaching team. "I was nearly killed by what were apparently military personnel!" Jack pointed behind him down the mangled stretch of hallway to the remains of standard TE issue Power Armor. "Get that mess cleaned up now!!" Jack ordered, then began to dance around the still red hot melted puddles of alloy flooring as he strode towards Ops. The Fury pair followed in his wake, the team giving them an even wider breadth than they had given Council Member Chambers. They could clearly see the carnage in their wake, yet they had not a scratch on them. If that wasn't enough to scare even hardened ground combat veterans, they were in desperate need of a psych evaluation.
Upon entering ops, the excited, rapid fire chatter over just what could be attacking the Octagon died around Jack, leaving only the background hum and beep of machinery in the large control room. One of the terminals beeped for its operators attention, and he hurriedly turned to it, thankful for a reason to turn his back on Jack Chambers and the Furies behind him.
"Sir!" the operator turned back to Jack. "there is a priority message coming through from Mars for you."
"Put it up on the viewer." Jack snapped. The junior officer hurried to comply. The holo projection above Ops shifted to show the military commander of the Utopia Planetia Garrison.
"Sir, I must inform you that Council Member Greg Betare has been killed by a group of terrorists at his home. By the time my troops got there, they had overpowered his personal guard and killed him. We killed off 10 of them and captured nine. Needless to say I commed you as soon as possible, as I was concerned that your security might also be in jeopardy as well. I was relieved that you were at the Octagon and therefor safe."
"While I am at the Octagon, I am not safe." Jack said with great bitterness, not showing any hint that he was leaping for joy inside. His plan had gone off exactly as it was supposed to. "I myself have also just come under attack. Fortunately my guard detail was able to fend them off." The officer on the holo went a nasty shade of gray at that.
"I am glad to hear that you survived sir!"
"Your concern is noted Brigadier. Now, I want all of the captured terrorist and the bodies of the dead ones sent to Section 31's HQ at Moscow."
"Of course sir. I shall transport them via shuttle immediately."
"See that you do. I am holding you personally responsible for their safe delivery there. Analysis and interrogation should prove enlightening, for it is my belief that these attacks and the earlier attack on the Terran Council and Starfleet are related." The Brigadier and many of the duty personnel at Ops gasped.
"I. see Sir! Rest assured that nothing will happen to the terrorists while they are under my care."
"Very good. Chambers out." The signal died replacing the Brigadier with usual master status display of Sol system. "Give me a system wide com channel." Jack said to the com officer. "ALL military and civilian pickups." He emphasized.
"Understood sir. Full system wide address activated." Every operational com system throughout Sol system went active with the outgoing broadcast.
"Fellow citizens of the Terran Empire. Today, we have been attacked by an enemy striking from the shadows. This enemy's true identity is still unknown, but it has become more evident that there must have been high level conspirators within the Terran Empire itself. I am speaking specifically about the military. It was they that allowed the enemy to strike San Francisco and the orbital defenses of Terra. And it was they that attacked both myself and Council Member Betare. Fortunately I survived their attack, but I regret to inform you that Council Member Betare did not." Jack put on his most remorseful expression, playing his part to the best of his ability. It is because of this that I am authorizing Section 31 to take into custody all senior officers in Sol system pending their clearing a security check. We already have evidence that some of them are involved in illegal activities, and there is strong suspicion that some are involved in the recent attacks. As the sole surviving diplomatic body of the Terran Empire, it is my sad duty to report these horrid dealings to you, yet I will shoulder their burden gratefully until this situation is resolved. Thank you for your time, Chambers out."
That ought to stir up enough sympathy with him to allow him to get his position secure. Even now, Section operatives on the ships of First Fleet and the installations of Sol Defense Command were moving to take all those above commander and above into custody. With the resulting chaos in the military and the general public terrified that the military was responsible for attacking Terra herself, they would have no choice but to turn towards him for guidance and reassurance. And with the current crop of officers out of the way, the path would be opened to those who would be loyal to Jack Chambers as Emperor Chambers. A tiny shiver of joy went through Jack. He had really pulled it off. All of those years of political maneuvering and hidden agreements had finally given him the power he had always lusted after. Now all that remained to make his life complete would be for his daughter to be returned to him from the Barbs clutches. That would require a call to Mr. O'tole, but it was a relatively simple thing. And now that Jack had supreme control of the TE, the Cartel head would have no choice but to comply with his demands. With a slightly jaunty step and the barest hint of a smile on his lips, Jack Chambers strode up to the raised central chair and settled into its comfortable grasp.
- Jack Chambers' Quarters -
Hank and Victoria concentrated. There was a loud groan mingled with pops of tortured alloy as the door first bulged outward, then flew out of its normal seat to ricochet halfway down the hall. It clipped the nearby squad members, causing them to stagger slightly and their shields to sparkle as they shunted aside the careening door. Less than a second after the door finally settled to a stop, it disintegrated in an eye tearing white explosion as the AM shaped breaching charge detonated.
Hank and Victoria activated their combat subroutines, causing adrenaline and other useful compounds to course through their systems. One such compound had the benefit of speeding neural impulses, allowing the user to react and move considerably faster than normal. The pair charged out of the room and into the maelstrom left in the AM explosion's wake. This is what the Furies lived for, attacking those who would bring harm to the Terran Empire. Their fate's had already been decided, all that was left was their execution, and the Fury pair dropped into their midst like a hurricane of death. With unnatural speed and precision, the mechanical jaws on Victoria's power armor's helmet responded to the Hellhound's biological jaw's movement, opening wide to reveal rows of exquisitely sharp serrated alloy teeth. These crunched down on the nearest power armored leg, cutting it in half even in spite of the still operative shielding. Then Victoria leaped into the air towards the next victim, moving so fast that she was a black blur. Foot long claws of mono molecule sharp blades extended cat like from her armored feet mid leap. The drug allowed her to direct her strike precisely where she wanted, for from her perspective, she was falling slowly towards her target. The blades sank into the chest of her target, sinking in to the hilt as her weight and spring bore the man to the ground.
Hank was also in action, his scaled down PPHC spitting bolts of amber fire into the nearby targets. While under the drug's effects, the bolts seemed to move in slow motion, yet from his perspective he still moved at normal speed. To the remains of the strike team, he was a blur of death, meaning it out with inhuman speed. In seconds, Victoria and Frank had taken out four of the 10 remaining guards. His sensors showed the remaining six bringing up their weapons with exquisite slowness. He twitched his weapon towards the next target, sending a stream of pulses that tore his body apart. All that was left was the still surprisingly upright smoking lower legs of his armor suit. His sensors showed Victoria severing another's left arm mid leap as she arched towards her next target. Blood jetted in a slow motion crimson rainfall, and Victoria had pounced on her next target even before it hit the ground. One of the enemies behind him had finally pulled his weapon up high enough to target Victoria. With a mental shove, the man lifted up off of the ground to fly three meters down the hall. His weapon opened up at full auto in the same instant as the PK shove, throwing off his aim, causing his bullets to spang off of the floor and bulkheads as he flew.
There were only three of them left, from their thoughts, one was the Operative Section had inserted to start this entire operation moving. That was good, for he had proven most useful and could be used for future ops. Even as Hank and Victoria turned to the two remaining traitors, another mental shove sent the operative flying down the corridor, unconscious from brief but vicious the assault on his mind. By mutual consent, both Hank and Victoria decided that these last to posed no real threat. This was good, they could take their time. Like cat's playing with trapped mice, the pair charged towards the two terrified attackers. The taste of their fear and shock were like a drug to the Furies, and they reveled in them, using their abilities to stoke them still higher. Although the hallway was by now totally dark, the power armor suit's sensors could turn even that to full day. Yet no matter what setting the two troopers activated, all they saw when they looked at the Furies were vaguely human and canine shapes of the blackest black. The only thing that showed up other than that was their glowing, flaming crimson eye's.
Victoria decided to kill her plaything slowly using her blades, not resorting to a PK or TP attack. She always found it more satisfying to kill this way. Streaking around her armored target, she lashed out again and again with her blades, cutting first his ankles, then his wrists, then moving in along his extremities. He became little more than a torso even as he was still falling. As soon as he hit the ground, dual sets of claws punched through the front of his armor, piercing his ragged shielding to puncture deep into his chest. Lungs and heart were cut to ribbons. A snap was heard to Victoria's left and she turned to watch the now broken necked body fall to the deck. Deep satisfaction radiated from both of them, but as always upon the completion of a mission, it was tinged with regret that the mission had to end. If they could, they would have continued indefinitely, relishing in the pure unadulterated joy of the hunt, basking in the wonderful terror of their prey as they closed in on it.
The grip of both their pleasure in the terror they caused and their internal apothecary lessened. That brought them down off of the natural endorphin induced high as well as lowering their adrenaline levels back to normal and first slowing, then stopping the unnatural mind and body responsiveness the other drugs caused. The entire Fury attack had lasted only 20 seconds from start to finish from the perspective of one not under the influence of bullet time. As one they turned back to the doorless room. Safely behind a security forcefield, Jack Chambers sat with a smirk on his face.
"It is over I assume?"
Yes Sir. They proved an interesting diversion from the normal guard duties, but still not as wondrous as a full on hunt. Victoria's mental voice spoke to Jack's mind.
"Excellent! And as to an actual hunt, I believe that there will be many of those shortly. The military must be weeded out, for as this little display proves, some high level officers must very well be coconspirators with those who plotted the recent attack on Terra."
Ah, now I see just what you planned Sir. Frank said, for it was bad manners to read the hidden thoughts of superior Section operatives so he had chosen not to do so to Chambers. You want elements of the military to take the fall for the attack, thus causing them to become to weak to oppose you and driving the general populace behind whatever you demand to end this crisis. And they have no way of discerning that you have helped orchestrate the entire thing. Most ingenious of you Sir, I must say. Almost as ingenious as a Fury even.
"Glad you approve Frank. Now if I am not mistaken, that is the security rapid response team coming now." Jack said as he heard the clank of power armor against mangled bulkheads and the scorched and melted floor.
20 heavily armed individuals to be exact. Victoria supplied. The Furies sensors and senses had seen them coming from nearly as far as they had picked up the strike team.
"Well lets just go out and meet them then." The forcefield that had walled off Jack Chambers from the destruction occurring in the hall dropped out of existence with a fizzing hum as he deactivated the small shield emitter mounted to a bracelet on his wrist. Walking out into the hall, Jack had to be careful where he stepped as there were some places on the floor that were still hot enough to rapidly melt his shoes if he stepped there. The residual radiation present in the hall would require a hefty dose of antirad vaccine, but it wasn't anything to serious.
"It's about time you showed up!" Jack shouted at the approaching team. "I was nearly killed by what were apparently military personnel!" Jack pointed behind him down the mangled stretch of hallway to the remains of standard TE issue Power Armor. "Get that mess cleaned up now!!" Jack ordered, then began to dance around the still red hot melted puddles of alloy flooring as he strode towards Ops. The Fury pair followed in his wake, the team giving them an even wider breadth than they had given Council Member Chambers. They could clearly see the carnage in their wake, yet they had not a scratch on them. If that wasn't enough to scare even hardened ground combat veterans, they were in desperate need of a psych evaluation.
Upon entering ops, the excited, rapid fire chatter over just what could be attacking the Octagon died around Jack, leaving only the background hum and beep of machinery in the large control room. One of the terminals beeped for its operators attention, and he hurriedly turned to it, thankful for a reason to turn his back on Jack Chambers and the Furies behind him.
"Sir!" the operator turned back to Jack. "there is a priority message coming through from Mars for you."
"Put it up on the viewer." Jack snapped. The junior officer hurried to comply. The holo projection above Ops shifted to show the military commander of the Utopia Planetia Garrison.
"Sir, I must inform you that Council Member Greg Betare has been killed by a group of terrorists at his home. By the time my troops got there, they had overpowered his personal guard and killed him. We killed off 10 of them and captured nine. Needless to say I commed you as soon as possible, as I was concerned that your security might also be in jeopardy as well. I was relieved that you were at the Octagon and therefor safe."
"While I am at the Octagon, I am not safe." Jack said with great bitterness, not showing any hint that he was leaping for joy inside. His plan had gone off exactly as it was supposed to. "I myself have also just come under attack. Fortunately my guard detail was able to fend them off." The officer on the holo went a nasty shade of gray at that.
"I am glad to hear that you survived sir!"
"Your concern is noted Brigadier. Now, I want all of the captured terrorist and the bodies of the dead ones sent to Section 31's HQ at Moscow."
"Of course sir. I shall transport them via shuttle immediately."
"See that you do. I am holding you personally responsible for their safe delivery there. Analysis and interrogation should prove enlightening, for it is my belief that these attacks and the earlier attack on the Terran Council and Starfleet are related." The Brigadier and many of the duty personnel at Ops gasped.
"I. see Sir! Rest assured that nothing will happen to the terrorists while they are under my care."
"Very good. Chambers out." The signal died replacing the Brigadier with usual master status display of Sol system. "Give me a system wide com channel." Jack said to the com officer. "ALL military and civilian pickups." He emphasized.
"Understood sir. Full system wide address activated." Every operational com system throughout Sol system went active with the outgoing broadcast.
"Fellow citizens of the Terran Empire. Today, we have been attacked by an enemy striking from the shadows. This enemy's true identity is still unknown, but it has become more evident that there must have been high level conspirators within the Terran Empire itself. I am speaking specifically about the military. It was they that allowed the enemy to strike San Francisco and the orbital defenses of Terra. And it was they that attacked both myself and Council Member Betare. Fortunately I survived their attack, but I regret to inform you that Council Member Betare did not." Jack put on his most remorseful expression, playing his part to the best of his ability. It is because of this that I am authorizing Section 31 to take into custody all senior officers in Sol system pending their clearing a security check. We already have evidence that some of them are involved in illegal activities, and there is strong suspicion that some are involved in the recent attacks. As the sole surviving diplomatic body of the Terran Empire, it is my sad duty to report these horrid dealings to you, yet I will shoulder their burden gratefully until this situation is resolved. Thank you for your time, Chambers out."
That ought to stir up enough sympathy with him to allow him to get his position secure. Even now, Section operatives on the ships of First Fleet and the installations of Sol Defense Command were moving to take all those above commander and above into custody. With the resulting chaos in the military and the general public terrified that the military was responsible for attacking Terra herself, they would have no choice but to turn towards him for guidance and reassurance. And with the current crop of officers out of the way, the path would be opened to those who would be loyal to Jack Chambers as Emperor Chambers. A tiny shiver of joy went through Jack. He had really pulled it off. All of those years of political maneuvering and hidden agreements had finally given him the power he had always lusted after. Now all that remained to make his life complete would be for his daughter to be returned to him from the Barbs clutches. That would require a call to Mr. O'tole, but it was a relatively simple thing. And now that Jack had supreme control of the TE, the Cartel head would have no choice but to comply with his demands. With a slightly jaunty step and the barest hint of a smile on his lips, Jack Chambers strode up to the raised central chair and settled into its comfortable grasp.