AS 2.07: Devil's Waltz by Star24 2003

Disclaimer: Dark Angel and its characters are copyright 2000-2002 Twentieth Century Fox Studios and James Cameron and Charles Eglee. This original fiction is copyright 2003 Star24.

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Chapter Nine

Manticore Medical Center

Logan had another dream visitor, but this time it was an unwelcome one. The soft yet chilling voice urging his attention, was that of Donald Lydecker.

"Cale. I know you can hear me. Max is in trouble. She's trapped with a Tac Team and a squad of Red Series is closing in on them. We can't get to them with any reinforcements. I know you helped her with the Red Series last year. I need your help now."

"Didn't help Max with the Red's last year." Logan muttered. "She did it herself…she had a Red implant…almost killed her…" Logan couldn't concentrate. He was drifting off again.

"That's what I need to know. Why didn't it kill her? What did you do to it? I know you were there." Lydecker's voice was insistent. "Cale, Max could die if you don't tell me something I can use to help her."

"Blew it out. With cardio paddles. Short circuited the damn thing." Logan roused himself enough to say.

"We can't do that. Damn it." Lydecker muttered to himself.

Logan chuckled. "Don't need to. Had no time to do anything else last time. Inelegant solution. Easier one available."

"What are you talking about?" Lydecker's voice demanded.

"A Pulse." Logan said.

"It's no use, he's too out of it to make any sense, sir," another voice said.

"No, wait." Lydecker's voice said. "What do you mean by a pulse?"

"A mini-pulse. An EMP in the area of the implant would have killed it as well. Didn't have the equipment. Used the paddles instead. Brute force instead of finesse…" Logan was drifting again. This time Lydecker let him go. The fog reclaimed him.

Manticore Weapons Lab

The weapons tech stood listening intently to Donald Lydecker as he explained what he wanted. "Can you do it?" he asked when he finished.

The tech looked offended. "Any High School kid with a rudimentary knowledge of physics could do it sir. Given the time and equipment."

"I need it done within fifteen minutes at this address." Lydecker indicated the British Embassy on the plasma display in front of them. The tech studied it.

"Do you have any Tac teams in the area?" he asked. "With full weaponry?"

"There's a backup here." Lydecker pointed to the map.

"I need to talk to their demo guy. And they need to get within a block of the target."


Lydecker nodded to his assistant. "Get him set up on comm. I'll advise the team leader to get into position." He looked at the tech. "You now have ten minutes to do this. I don't look kindly on failures." With those chilling words he left the room.

Panic Room

The soft sounds that indicated the Reds were placing the explosives had slowed down. Max looked grimly at Griffin and Trina. "It's getting quiet."

"They should be almost set. I estimate they'll blow the wall in three to five minutes." Griffin confirmed.

"Get everyone to the far corner – move this furniture to create a shield against debris." The Xs were already in action before she finished speaking. Max joined her team, crouched behind the makeshift shelter they had created, hitting her comm set as she did.

"Lydecker? We're down to the wire here. What's happening??"

Her headset crackled with his voice. "We've got a solution. It should be a go within the next five minutes."

"It better be because…" Max's words were interrupted by the dull crump of explosives going off, followed by a shower of debris as the panic room wall blew in. "They're in. What've you got for us?" she demanded even as she prepared for the Red assault.

The Reds followed hard on the debris and she found herself caught up in a fight for her life. The other Xs were similarly occupied. The fight would have been over in seconds but Max realized that they had an unforeseen advantage. The Reds wanted to capture not kill, them, while they had no such restraints.

Max quickly signaled her realization to her SIC who passed it on. "Avoid the Tasers." Max shouted. "Aim for their heads. You've got to shoot to kill."

The room was a mass of smoke and dust as the two groups battled fiercely. Max found herself facing a hulking Red soldier who easily outweighed her by at least one hundred pounds. He aimed his Taser at her but she had already leapt into the air and somersaulted over his head. She landed behind him and threw herself onto his back, tightening her hands around his neck. Despite his strength he died as quickly as any normal human when she twisted sharply and listened to the snap of it breaking. The Red dropped to the ground and Max turned, only to see two Reds more bearing down on her. Several of the Xs were writhing on the floor where the Red Tasers had sent them, and it wasn't looking good.

"Deck we're out of time!" Max said into her comm. The two soldiers began to bring up the tasers. Suddenly they seemed to shudder and they stopped their motion. Max looked around and saw all of the Red series similarly frozen. One by one they dropped to the floor where they lay convulsing.

"What just happened?" she asked.

"Are they down?" Lydecker asked in her ear.

Max checked the room. "Every one of them is on the floor in convulsions."

Lydecker chuckled in satisfaction. "They just got hit with a Pulse. It fried the microchips in their implants."

"How come we can still talk then? Why wasn't the comm gear fried as well?"

"Manticore gear is EMP hardened and shielded. It would take more than the minimal pulse we created to knock it out. We're lucky that the Reds never thought to shield the implants. Maybe because they never experienced a Pulse firsthand."

Max's team were picking themselves up and gathering their equipment. "I guess we can get out of here then."

"No, you have one more thing to do. I want Murdoch, the Red team leader. Trina knows his location. Bring him in." Lydecker said.

"Fine. Be ready for pickup in five." Max snapped. She instructed her team to move to the pre–arranged rendezvous point, and then nodded to Trina to come with her.

Max followed the X6 down the main stairs. More Red series lay there twitching, and they stepped over them. When they reached the first floor they entered an office. A gray haired man in his fifties stood behind a desk.

"Let's go." Max said to him.

"I don't think so." Trina said. Max turned and looked at her. The X6 had a gun out pointing at her. "You're going to be taking a little trip to South Africa. One X5 is better than none."

"You're the traitor." Max said flatly. "What for? Money?"

Trina laughed, "You of all people should know the answer to that. Freedom."

Murdoch spoke for the first time, "I think not. The deal was your freedom in exchange for a few X series. Male and female. Not just one. You're both going to be coming along with us." He had a gun out, pointed directly at the two of them.

Trina growled in rage and sprung at Murdoch. There was the sound of a shot and her body seemed to hang in the air for a moment before falling with a thud onto the desk. Blood began to spread from under her making a thick pool on the polished desktop.

Max whirled back to Murdoch, only to find herself in his gun sight. "The rest of my forces will be here any minute now. We aren't going anywhere," she said calmly. She held Trina's gun loosely at her side. The X6 had shoved it into her hand before she leapt at Murdoch.

There was the sound of voices in the hallway and Murdoch frowned. "In that case you're going the way of your friend. If I have to go, I'm taking both of you bitches with me." His fingers tightened on the trigger of the gun he held pointed at Max.

There was another gunshot. The man dropped to the floor. Max looked down in horror at the smoking gun in her hand.

"Nice work 452. I knew training would tell when it came down to it." Donald Lydecker stood in the doorway of the room, regarding her almost proudly. "The mission was always to terminate Murdoch. He wasn't going to stop until he got his hands on Manticore technology. With him gone, it will take the South Africans several years to regroup."

"You set me up. You knew I'd never agree to an assassination."

Lydecker shrugged. "I didn't plan on you specifically killing him That was Trina's assignment. But you did what you had to do. What you were made to do. Blood will out, Max. You're a soldier, no matter how hard you try to deny it."

Max growled and with a feral look on her face, she sprung at Lydecker. "You god damned bastard…" That was the last she knew, as she was hit by tasers from all sides and she fell into a heap at the Colonel's feet.

End of Chapter Nine