To my reviewers (Jade-k, Debl, and Nat452) I love you, this is for you let me know what you think.
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Terminal City seemed to be at peace for the first time in a long while. The airwaves were silent and the transgenics had just menial duties to do that day or wait. Max was in HQ sitting by Luke as he monitored the surveillance screens. She was waiting for it to be eleven when Alec would call in from their newly established secondary base with today's report. It had been a five months since the sight had been given the go ahead and Alec had lead it's new transgenic occupants to set up fort. He would call her at the same time every night and at first they only ever talked military, needs and necessities but over time their usual friendly banter drew their conversations out. It was weird being away from him since for the last year or so he'd been forced into her life at every opportunity. But there was no one she trusted more than him to take on the role of commander at the new base. She was just trying to think of an excuse to go down and see him and how he was doing when her cell rang jolting her out of her reverie. She frowned looking at the clock it wasn't even ten yet. Dix nodded to her indicating that the line was not tapped and she answered.
"Max here."
"Max? It's Biggs. We've abandoned base and are heading back your way be prepared to receive all of us including some wounded. ETA twenty minutes."
"Biggs? what's going on why are you abandoning base? what happened?" Max was up off her seat all focus on the sounds from the other end of the phone. She could make out Biggs giving directions to the person she assumed was driving, she also heard what sounded disturbingly like whimpers, the wounded she quickly concluded. She was on the verge of panic something pretty bad must have happened if the entire base was evacuated.
"No time to explain now, I'll give you the whole story once we get there, out." with that the line went dead, Max looked up into the expectant faces of that nights staff, they were clearly as unnerved by the unexpected desertion as she was. Then she realised they were waiting for orders.
"Dix keep hold of this incase they call back. Mole we're going to need to clear an entrance route into the city take whoever you need you've got twenty minutes," Mole nodded loading his rifle before he grabbed a couple of people and left." Jax we may have casualties so I need medical quarters arranged and medics in the quad ASAP." Jax nodded and ran out next. "We need to sever the computer link with the secondary base if we can retrieve any data then we should. "Max was now looking to the logistics and data analysts by Terminal City mainframe. " We're going to need to sort out accommodation for the night at the very least, can you handle it ?" the X6 in questioned nodded grabbed a fellow x6 and left. Max approached Moles weapon store within HQ grabbing a couple of sniper riffles and an array of grenades feeling they may have pursuers and the perimeter would need to be defended. Walking out of HQ she called out to a group that had begun to assemble in the quad due to the commotion. "Take these and find stake out points incase we have stowaways, the rest of you we need to fortify the perimeter."
Terminal city came alive with a frenzy of activity expertly executed by the soldier with the determination to defend their adopted home and their own people. The operation ran smoothly and all four trucks made it into the quad where they began to disembark. The wounded emerged first some temporarily bandaged, others having to be carried. Mole and his team remained at their entry point to secure it then returned to HQ. Max approached the convoy, the first two were unloading whatever supplies they had salvaged before they had left the other two carried the wounded. Max caught sight of Biggs at the rear of the final truck carrying an unconscious X6 in his arms which he handed over to the waiting medics. He seemed cool and collected but she could tell the whole event had shaken him. His blood stained shirt not doing much to help him.
"Biggs!" Max called out getting his attention, Dalton slipped out of the truck behind him carrying rifles.
"Dalt, go make sure everyone's accounted for." Soon after he had disappeared Cali and Speed appeared from the truck in front with the last of the wounded and gave him a thumbs up to tell him their truck was clear.
"Hey Max," He greeted as she arrived. She looks worried, he thought, and she doesn't even know yet.
"What happened?" She began looking round at the unscathed as they sorted through what they had salvaged. She kept looking round with another pressing concern that had bothered her since the time she'd spoken to Biggs on the phone but now was once again pushed to her immediate thoughts.
"Where's Alec?" Cali and Speed stilled exchanging silently concerned looks,
Biggs looked her straight in the eye and gave her his honest answer "I don't know."
Max stared at him with a mix of confusion and alarm, in fact she looked like she was ready to burst. Max's mind immediately thought, what's Alec got himself into this time, almost readying the, never abandon your unit speech in her head that she would no doubt give when she got her hands on him.
"Let's start with what you do know then." she said indicating HQ, he followed her in as he began his account .
"Alec had been distracted all day, I should have known something was up. Earlier this evening Alec called me, Cali, Speed, Pan and Dalton into the briefing room telling us to keep it on he down-low....
(flashback)
"We've been compromised," Alec began running a hand steadily through his tousled hair, "There's a mole among us, we've been betrayed." Biggs could tell he was angry he could see it darkening his eyes and tensing his jaw. The others sat in silent disbelief. "We need to evacuate now..." Alec continued.
"Hold on, that's a bit drastic isn't it?" Pan piped up rising from his seat not entirely prepared to up and leave everything they'd worked for there over the last few months, just when it was beginning to whirr like a well oiled machine.
"Not when we're dealing with Familiars, not when we don't know how much has been leaked. This place is supposed to be secret, a back up, it's worthless if they know it's here." Pan sat back down as the possible severity of the situation dawned on him.
"What do you want us to do?" Cali spoke up still shocked one of their own could be stupid enough to switch sides.
"You need to get everyone out of here ASAP but also as discretely as possible, I'll deal with the traitor. Salvage as much supplies as you can and just get the hell out."
(End Flashback)
Max looked shocked as did the rest of the HQ staff who all stopped to here the events recounted. She gestured for him to continue.
"..I was in the main operation room retrieving the last of our ammunition when Alec dragged him in. I've never seen him so angry..." Just then Dalton ran in to report hesitating slightly at the grim atmosphere that greeted him.
"Everyone's accounted for except Alec and Fife." Biggs laughed hollowly as he thanked Dalton.
"I wouldn't worry about Fife, lying two-faced rat-bastard is probably dead." The room was once again taken aback now that the traitor had been named. To some it seemed to make sense others couldn't believe it. Biggs suppressed his anger and continued with his account. "...The little shit was just laughing...
(Flashback)
"You think he's gonna just let you go!! This is White we're talking about, How can you be so stupid!!" Alec screamed at him gripped with a rage he didn't know he possessed.
"You think we have a better chance facing him head on, No this way when he comes running in here I'll slip out the back while he's too distracted with you fools." Alec struck out throwing Fife across the room to clatter loudly in the corner.
"You dumb shit! What gives you the right to sentence the rest of us to death just so you can save your own skin! Where were you when we were being drilled about the good of the many over the few!!!" Fife rose slowly wiping the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.
"Manticore betrayed us remember." He hissed "How can you expect me to take anything they've said and except it?!"
"Try fucking common sense!" Alec shouted as he once again approached Fife his eye's cold and unfeeling, the eye's of a killer.
"Fucking common sense says don't wait around until someone else you 'trust' tries to burn you alive." Alec was upon him now a hand clamped around his neck and raising him up the wall. A single flex of his fingers and he could snap his neck.
"What have you told them?" Alec's attention was suddenly snatched from the squirming runt in his grasp as a loud crashing sound which sounded like the perimeter being breached. The traitor just smiled a dirty great big grin spread across his contorted features and his squirming slowed, instead he laughed. The fire in Alec's eye's grew as his rage did and his hands began to shake with it.
"Enough!!" Alec controlled his anger long enough to turn and shout at an almost equally enraged Biggs. "Get out now, get everyone and go!" He pulled out his cell and chucked it across the room at him "Call Max." With that Biggs left the room, leaving Fife literally in Alec's hands.
(End Flashback)
Max was disliking this story more and more as it progressed. Her gaze remained intense with thought and an underlying fear as Biggs continued to captivate the entire room.
"...We were lucky, thanks to Alec's foresight we were pretty much ready to leave at the other end or the fort. The last I saw of him was on the monitors in the observation tower just before I cut the power. He signalled into the camera for anyone watching to run. We had to fight to get the last of us out but we managed it before the place was entirely over run. We didn't lose anyone although we have four in critical and another two incapacitated." Max swallowed at the lump slowly rising in her throat. Although she was relieved that complete disaster had been averted this horrible sense of dread pierced her heart and she was trying not to show it. "What happened to the base?" Max asked although right now that was the least of her worries.
"Burnt to the ground." Cali spoke up in an unsteady voice. Max looked across the stricken faces of the prior occupants of that base. For them they had for the second time escaped being barbecued in a place they were beginning to call home. This time though they knew who the enemy was, this time they had somewhere to go but neither of these things made the sight of those burning buildings any less poignant. But there was something else that on top of the loss of their home, an uncertain feeling that their loss was greater than they knew for sure.
"We shouldn't have left him there." Cali spoke quietly still apparently lost in contemplation.
"Like we had a choice!" Biggs said turning on her and indicating the stains on his shirt. Cali had unshed tears in her eyes but like a true bred Manticore soldier she refused to shed them, she refused to be weak. Biggs looked at her regretfully, he too wished with all his heart that any minute their light-hearted CO would waltz in the door with some inappropriate joke and make their unit complete. But right now there was no guarantee he was even alive anymore. Dix broke into the tense atmosphere as he spoke up in the uneasy silence.
" I couldn't retrieve any data it had already been deleted, Alec's doing no doubt. But I did manage to collect all surveillance footage from the site before the equipment melted." Speed, Biggs and Cali looked at each other remembering the surveillance was independent of the main power circuits for tactical reasons. In a second they were behind Dix asking him to call up the footage. Max joined them a moment later, she was having trouble enough taking this all in. She refused to think of Alec as gone until she had solid proof. She had thought Zack was gone but then he turned up, granted he wasn't quite the same but he was alive. Dix typed away as he accessed the right footage. He skipped the early stuff which just showed the normal hustle and bustle that was the norm for the last few months. The screens around him blinked into life and showed a different area under surveillance. They all watched silently, the entire of HQ focused on the soundless pictures streaming in front of them. They watched as Alec pulled his most trusted aside, they watched as the discrete evacuation began to spread to each screen. They saw Alec in his confrontation of the traitor who had foolishly tried to make a run for it. All observers leaned in closer as the tension built after the power was cut and new chapters could be added to Biggs' story. They watched Alec execute the traitor then set about retrieving the mainframe data disc. They held their breath as the other screens began to fill with loony cultist who were closing in on Alec's position. The fires were being ignited as Alec finally confirmed the deletion of the last hard drive. At that moment White and his men burst into the HQ of the beta base and shot at Alec who made a speedy exit through the back exit with the cultist in hot pursuit. Then the cameras flickered one by one and died as the heat of the flames melted their components. A tense silence lingered long after the last image died.
To be continued...