With my Betas snowed under with work, this is unbeta'd. Again, soz about the long wait but hey, three chapters at once! You can't complain.
--------------- Chapter 6 ---------------------
She was laid out on a hammock, Shalimar curled at her side. They had reached a point of balance on the precarious structure with much giggling and wriggling and now they both lay still, neither of them wanting to break the sense of calm that had settled over them. There was a strange stillness in the woodland, even the never-stilled woodland seemed to have become quiet for them. The continuous movement fading into the distance. Shalimar shifted a little closer to Emma, the creak of the hammock accompanying her sigh of contentment.
"I'm falling asleep Shal." Emma murmured. Shalimar laughed softly, placing a soft kiss on her collar-bone.
"Sweet dreams."
"I'm not sure that this will all stay here if I fall asleep."
"I'm not going anywhere, Emma."
"No, of course not." She breathed, allowing her weary mind to drag her away.
Lieutenant Commander Luke Rogers crouched quietly in a small dip in the hillside, sheltered from the noise of his men setting up their equipment in the valley below, readying themselves for the incursion soon to take place. He could feel it from here. The soft tingle in the back of his neck indicating that new mutants were near-by. Closing his eyes he took a deep breath, allowing his power to spread around him. The first people he found were his men, several flashes of red among the silently moving faint grey forms, signifying those who had powers of their own. But these were not who he was looking for. He trusted his men to set up the operation without him, he had to provide the intelligence on what they were facing.
He pushed his power deeper, into the ground beneath his feet. There. He could feel them now. There were two standing directly below him, bright red dots in the psionic distance. Their unique signatures telling him that there was one molecular and one elemental. That was two ticks on his list, only three more to go. Staying at the same depth he spread his psionic search wide, looking for the other three. Two he found quickly, near to the others. Two more red forms, though only just distinguishable from each other because they were in such close proximity to each other. As such he was unable to tell what form their mutancy took. He had a list of names beside him, five in total, but there was no specification over the mutancies these people had. He knew that there was one feral at least, but this seemed to be the only information that his employer was willing to give, warning them to take powerful sedatives with them if they were to be successful. He scanned the area quickly, and again, finally taking the search that little bit deeper before drawing back. There was no sign of the fifth person. He cursed, starting the scan again.
"Sir!" He winced but didn't jump as his attention was brought back to his body suddenly. The young lieutenant flinched as their leader stood, a scowl on his face.
"Report." He snapped.
"The techs say that stage one was a success, sir. Major Jame wants to report we are ready for stage two." Major Jame, their telecyber, was terribly efficient.
"Good. With their hideout locked down they have no-where to run but straight into our trap."
"Yes sir."
"Put stage two into effect and make sure the men are prepared. We want this to go as smoothly as possible."
"Sir!" The lieutenant responded, spinning on his heel and heading back into the camp. Rogers sat back down. The fifth target still evaded his detection, but he would come. Soon they would all come.
Shalimar sat up as she awoke, feeling the gentle weight of Emma laid across her legs. Shifting her slightly so that she could slip off the medical bed, Shalimar lifted her onto the bed in her place, laying a soft kiss on her temple.
Silently she left the room. She could see something different about the world around her, adrenaline coursing though her veins once more, turning her eyes feral and heightening her senses.
There was something there. Something...
She walked past Adam's door, not surprised at his presence busy in front of the computer screen. He held no interest for her so she continued on past, silently seeking out that something. Finding herself in the main hall she could hear Jesse sat in the chair above her, tapping away on his keyboard, he sighed angrily but she knew he was no threat to her, still seeking the something. Brennan she could smell, prowling the halls tensely. He wasn't the something, but she could tell she was nearing it now, the scent of it filling her. She walked further into the hall, spinning carefully as she lost the scent and then found it again. Finally she recognised the elusive something.
A breeze ruffled her and she smiled, feeling a little of the tension within her releasing as she stood before the door, open to the outside.
Wasting no time, she ran for the escape.
