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"The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy."
~Carl von Clausewitz
Chapter Fifty-three: Against All Hope
Snow crunched under Jane's boots. She tugged on the brow of her cap, using it to shield her from the falling sheets that aimed for her eyes. She thought of her hair, but the white would be good camouflage. If she looked half as much a part of nature as Aileen...
She couldn't see Mox, but she could very well see Fatima. Not for the Assault's lack of skill: she moved and stilled at the right times, almost like a wraith. But the exoskeleton protruding from her shoulders and arms, and its pneumatic whirring, made her stand out.
"Six hundred yards." Mox was apparently about ten feet directly ahead, which made Jane feel stupid. Then again, he had lovely white armor that blended very well.
"I can't see shit." Aileen, eloquent as always, scowled. "It's cold as tits, you know that? I think I have icicles in my hair. Hell, I think I have them-"
"Cut the chatter, one-five." Jane took point, checking her shard gun. "No one fires a shot until I give the order. There will be sentries and sensors."
"Thermal reads a pair of troopers patrolling ahead of you."
"Roger that, Central." Jane jerked her head. "Mox."
Without a word, he vanished. Jane waited a moment, then started off, trading gun for axe. She saw Fatima bemusedly examine her own sword, and Aileen draw that pocketknife of hers. Through the shadows they crept, eyes straight and focused. Jane waited for a shape to appear from the darkness, mag-rifle at the ready...
None came. When a shape did appear, it was Mox, plunging his ripjack into the snow to clean it. Steam hissed up as the electrical circuits made contact with the cold, pushing past the exhalation cloud hanging over the team's heads. Of the two sentries, Jane saw no sign.
"If we don't get inside soon..." She shivered, which probably finished her sentence just fine. Her cheeks stung, and far from being refreshing, this cold air was like needles scraping through her lungs.
"Fence." Mox didn't seem as affected as Jane felt. He hurried off into the swirling doom, and Jane sighed when two steps made a chain-link fence fade into view.
"You have elf-eyes, don't you?" She waited while Mox knelt, popping out his ripjack again to cut through the fence. "I hope that doesn't have a sensor."
"Hang tight." Aileen waved Nessie on, and the drone popped out. The blonde held up her forearm, and she typed one-handed on the screen that popped into existence. She chewed her lip. "Connecting...decrypting...Jesus Christ, someone needs to update their security. What is this? 2020?" She lowered her arm a moment later. "Fence sensors are kaput. Cut the things."
"Breaching fence." Mox cut quickly, and a moment later he'd opened a hole big enough to duck through. "I will take the lead."
"Do that." Jane waved Fatima in second. Before going through herself, she paused. "Aileen, you're on rearguard."
"Watch your hat, chick." Aileen grinned when Jane made sure to tug on the brim of the object in question, in case any fragment of fence tried to steal it.
"Avenger, this is Menace. How copy?"
"Menace, this is Central. We copy four by four."
"Better than most. Could get worse before it gets better." Jane paused to study the building storm clouds. "We are inside the perimeter and beginning our approach to the prison complex. We'll keep you posted."
Fatima slipped along the prison wall, letting her compatriots who were less encumbered double over and run the fence lines. She kept her gun up, not trusting her skill with the blade she still didn't want. Jane had said no shooting, and Fatima's experience agreed wholeheartedly. Still...
"Guard." A moment later, Fatima thought she heard a thunking noise. Mox's voice returned. "She is free now."
"I like that one." The wind and snow took her words well away. Fatima hurried to the next corner. "Skirmishers are professionals."
"Donut?"
Fatima froze. She pushed up against the wall, turning her head as a priest rounded the corner, white armor making her almost invisible in the weather. She did a half-circle, eyeing the surround with gun raised.
The butt of Fatima's shard gun cracked into her forehead, and the priest tumbled backward. Fatima seized her helmet and threw it as far as she could, separating the Adventer from her comms unit.
"I'm only going to ask this once, you piece of shit." Fatima shoved her into the wall, using her shard gun to choke her. "XCOM prisoners. Where?"
"Mor...balaten..."
"Don't shit me!" Fatima shoved harder, and she twisted too. The Adventer thrashed as her neck nearly broke. "Try again!"
"The hell are you doing?" Jane appeared over her shoulder, catching her arm. "You speak the language?"
"Enough." Fatima shoved again when the priest tried to duck out. "Alright, then. Goodbye."
"Donut!" The priest repeated that word until Fatima pulled back, just a little. Color flushed back into her alien cheeks. She gasped out words in a quick and dirty stream the wind almost stole.
"Second building." Fatima listened a moment more. "Cellblock 5C. Just past the barracks."
"Because of course it is." Jane blew steam. "Right. We can work with that."
"Damn right." Fatima let the priest go, but only so she could pull her gun back and crack its butt into the traitor's face again. The Adventer collapsed in a heap, half-buried in the snow.
"Mox, Aileen, team up and push on the second building along the footpath. I've got Tariq. We'll approach along the urban side." Jane hefted her shard gun. "One step at a time. We might just get through this in one piece!"
"I should be with them."
"No, you shouldn't." Volk gave Gallant a very harsh stare. "A leader's place is to lead. Your talents are wasted with a rifle in your hands."
"This is truth." Betos nodded once. "Now place your focus in the direction to which it is owed: command, Commander."
"Menace, this is Avenger." Bradford pursed his lips, examining the fuzzy holodisplay. "Sensors are having a hard time with this morass. Report."
"We're pushing on the second building. Almost to the doors." Jane's voice went out for a minute, and Gallant strained to make her out. " -few more guards, but no trouble so far."
"Roger, Menace." That was one plus point for Bradford: despite the wounds he and Jane owed to each other, he didn't let even a hint of personal annoyance creep into his voice. He glanced up to Gallant's perch. "Weather's getting worse."
"Check in with Firebrand. Make sure she's in her holding pattern." Gallant clutched the railing. "I don't like this. I don't like any of this."
"You're not the only one." Volk frowned. "Do you think it's a trap?"
"A trap? For it to be a trap, Julian would have to be in contact with Advent. There's no other way they could know we were coming." Gallant thought of Angelis and his dreams, but shoved the thought away. Maybe she'd plucked the thought from his head and maybe she hadn't, but if he got all tinfoily about things like that, it was time to just lay down arms and let the Elders have their way with the world.
"This is logical." Betos worriedly pursed her lips. "I pray Dragunova will be alive when we reach her."
"She will be. Reapers are strong." But Volk looked away anyway. "I'm sure she will."
Silence - uneasy silence - descended on the bridge. All eyes turned to the fuzzing, hissing, in-and-out holodisplay, and the blue icons representing soldiers. They moved, hanging up and freezing as tracker signals faded in and out, then reappearing several yards along. Crystal flakes of harsh snow fell and swirled, enough that Gallant imagined he could feel the Arctirc chill in his one bones.
This isn't going to end well. It just isn't. He tried to banish the thoughts, but it was hard. Something just...wasn't right.
"It doesn't matter." No one could have heard him, not if they stood at his elbow. Gallant massaged his chest and the ever-present pain building worse and worse where it counted. "Moira."
Compared to the chance of saving her, what were the lives of one strike team?
Not for the first time, Gallant wondered if he should have sent David or Julie in Jane's place. His palms sweated even at the thought of Jane's being taken or killed. Taken might not be so bad - he could claim to Angelis that this was the only way he could deliver her without rousing the suspicion of his crew - but if she died? That would be a disaster. That would be the end of the deal, which was Gallant's only hope if this raid didn't turn up Vahlen or her location.
His breath came in and went out ragged as he watched the icons of his soldiers push on through the snow.
"Door in three. Two." Aileen yanked it open a moment later. "One! Go!"
"Clear!" Mox called after a moment. Aileen poked her head around the doorway, Bolt Caster at the ready, and eased up slightly when she too saw the empty hallway bereft of soldiers or angry janitors. She took a step in, and...
"Oh, shit!" Aileen shivered delightfully for a moment. "Bloody hell, it's warm in here."
"Breaching on the far side." Jane went quiet, and Aileen used the pause to work her way up to Mox's flank. Together, they worked their way inside, bypassing doors labeled in Advent wingdings. Hopefully Mox knew where they were going, because Aileen was lost.
"Inside." That was Fatima, quiet and cold and deadly as always. "Moving up from your three, team two."
"Copy." Aileen faced the direction in question, pushing forward down a long, wide corridor. "I see double doors ahead. Big ones."
"So do we." Jane didn't sound happy. "Take a peek."
"You're covered." Mox aimed back down the hallway.
"What a gentleman." Aileen poked her head up into the porthole set in the door's upper housing. What she saw was blurry as only badly-cleaned glass could do, but...
"Do you see what I do?"
"I don't know about that, Irish, but I make fifteen...seventeen..." Aileen blew at her bangs. "I make a fuckload of dipshits in there. Looks like the mess."
"That door at the east end." Fatima gave Aileen a moment to locate it. "The label reads cell block."
"...oh, shit." Aileen checked the Bolt Caster. "We have to go through them, don't we? At least it looks like it's mostly troopers..."
"Weapons hot," Central chimed in. "The Commander wants that room cleared."
"My pleasure-"
"No, wait." Jane didn't elaborate for a moment, but when she did, her voice was darker. "Shen, check my visual. Is that what I think it is?"
"Hang on." Lily didn't speak for so long that Aileen thought they'd lost connection. "If you're thinking that's a weapon sensor, then yes."
"Lovely." Aileen glanced at the Caster again. "Weapon sensor, huh? Those are the ones that detect mag-fire. I do notice no one in there has a gun."
"If we go in and open up, it'll be a slaughter. But every Adventer from here to Montreal will know where we are, too." Fatima let out a hissing breath. "And it's the only way through to the cell block."
Aileen swore, leaning her head on the door. "So...what? What do we do?"
"Simple, really." Jane paused, and Aileen could almost see the glint popping up into her eyes: the let's-do-something-really-stupid. "No one fires a shot."
Pratal Mox burst through the doors at a dead run. The first soldier, mess tin in hands, turned just in time to get the hallway fire extinguisher cracked upside his head. He went down in a heap, and his array of helmetless companions whirled.
"Gotcha!" Aileen raced in at Mox's left, and she caught one around the waist. They flew off into a table, and the Irishwoman's pocketknife went into his throat in a flash. Mox popped his ripjack, dropping the extinguisher.
About half of them charged, plates and dinner knives raised. The others turned and started for the door, shouting for reinforcements-
Jane and Fatima burst from the far side, axe and sword in hand, and laid into them with a vengeance. Blades flashed in the light, and limbs flew with them. Fatima's EXO-enhanced grip seized one soldier by the ankle when he tried to kick her, and the Egyptian hurled him head-over-heels down the full length of the galley.
Mox ducked as a cross nearly took him in the cheek. He wove, catching the outstretched arm and gutting its owner with one ripjack slash. He kicked the second soldier in the knee hard enough it cracked and she went down.
More came in. Mox hit his grapple, and the line shot out into the ceiling. He lifted himself above the heads of his enemies, releasing the line to land on their milling shoulders. He vaulted clear when they tried to throw him, and his shoulder jerked hard when it landed on a table. He rolled, and on came the swarm. Mox seized a fork in his off hand.
He knocked a kick aside, and before the soldier could react, Jane's grapple shot out and seized him around the waist. He flew into her waiting elbow strike, and Mox took the moment to lunge, spraying yellow blood with a ripjack slash across the next soldier's chest. She screamed, then caught his arm on the backswing. It didn't help her: Mox drove the fork into her eye, and she went down thrashing.
"Watch it!" Aileen's pocketknife flew, and it drove into the throat of a captain about to brain Fatima. For her part, she kicked him anyway, even as he collapsed, then recovered the knife without a word of thanks. Aileen, weaponless, ducked and weaved as three more came in at her.
"Here!" Mox seized his next enemy by hip and forearm, then flung him into Aileen's enemies. He took two of them down in a tangled heap, and the blonde smashed the third's head into a table so hard it cracked and bent. She lunged at the trio before they could disentangle, and the last thing Mox heard from that side was bones snapping.
"Donut!" screamed the first soldier to catch him. She yanked, and Mox stumbled - right into another trooper's uppercut. It flung his head up, but even the blossom of red pain wasn't enough to stop him hitting his grapple again. The line went out, not up, but when he recalled it...
"Mor balaten!" wailed the soldiers he faced, when Mox jerked his arm and flung Aileen's broken table right into them. It swept them away with a mighty crash, depositing half a dozen bodies on the floor in various states of damage.
"Vox tala..." Mox paused to weave away from an overeager trooper with a mop who came in hard, hitting high and low. Mox's ripjack shredded the improvised staff at one end, then the other, yet the soldier held onto the remnants still, using them like a club. Mox sidestepped an overhead, catching the soldier's arm before he could recover. His ripjack went out, plunging into his chest and out the other side.
Wham! Wham! Jane cracked her victim's head on the wall, then wove away as another came in with a steak knife. He slashed once, then twice, and on the third strike Jane caught his wrist. The kracsad shrieked when she broke his elbow, then his hand, then plucked out the knife and cut his throat with it. The next soldier to come at her - jumping from off a table with a shriek about Angelis' fury - caught a stab in between the ribs, then a headbutt and a second stab right into his eye. Without missing a beat, Jane turned and threw, and the knife shot across the room and in between the shoulder blades of one of Aileen's enemies, racing for the far doors rather than standing.
"Mox!" Fatima kicked one, and he fairly flew back, crashing onto one of the bench seats. He rose gamely, despite the EXO dent in his chest armor. Mox appreciated that: it made it easier to aim as he jumped from the table, catching the soldier by the head and taking him down with momentum on his side.
"On your left!" Aileen bounded onto and then over the table, spin-kicking into one coming at Jane from behind. He staggered, then screamed when the blonde's follow-up involved another spin-kick that brought her heel down on the back of his head. She left yellow footprints when she moved on.
"Two more!" Jane spent a moment correcting that, flipping one onto his face and dropping her knee into his back. She twisted his arm until it popped and snapped and jerked in unnatural ways, and the trooper's thrashing lasted only a moment. "One!"
"...for Ten!" Mox fired his line as the last soldier raced for the door, and the Adventer wailed when it caught him by the ankle. Mox yanked his foot out from under him, then hauled him in, fast and vicious. His ripjack flashed as soon as he had a target.
Silence fell in the mess.
"Damn fine piece of work, Menace." Gallant nodded once. "I never doubted you."
"Liar." Shen gave him a little smirk. "You going to have a heart attack, sir? I thought we'd have to call Julie for a minute..."
"Shut up." Gallant watched the holodisplay, and the faint fuzzing representations of each soldier as they regrouped. "Jane's gotten a lot better."
"She could be a Reaper." Volk eyed her icon himself, with more than a little speculation in the way he tugged at his beard. "She could be a very fine Reaper."
"She's mine, jackass: back off." Gallant paid him no more heed after that. "Menace, sweep the facility cell block. Let us know whatever you find."
"Roger that, Commander." Jane beckoned her operatives. "Two teams. No one goes alone. Aileen, you're with me and-"
"Commander!" One of the techs waved frantically. "Sir, you need to see this!"
"See what?" Gallant clutched his cane. "Son, I have never heard anyone say that and have it be good news-"
"Energy signature detected inside the facility." The tech pushed it up, and as soon as Bradford opened it, Gallant's mouth went dry.
"...Menace?" Bradford took a deep breath. "Menace, get a goddamn move on. Locate Dragunova and anyone else of value, and get the hell out of there yesterday. We're reading the Warlock in there with you."
Jane brought her gun up as the pneumatic door opened. Before the soldier on the other side had a chance to react, she clubbed him with the butt. He staggered, and that was her chance to give him a one-two in the face that sprawled him against the far wall.
"Showoff." Aileen hit him with the Bolt Caster for good measure. "Could have axed him."
"Not as fun." Jane plucked what looked like a key from the guard's belt, then hurried down the grated metal walkways. "Split up."
"You just said a minute ago-"
"I know what I said. The passage forks here." Jane hesitated. "I'll take right, you take left. Any occupied cells, open them."
"...good luck, chick." Aileen didn't go immediately, but in the end she did go and that was what mattered.
"Thanks." Jane hoped she didn't run into the Warlock around the next bend. She hoped more fervently that Aileen didn't run into the Warlock: at least danger to herself was her own problem. Her friends?
"Anybody home?" Jane glanced into the first cell, but it was unoccupied. The second was as well. "Is anyone even at this prison?"
A moment later, she had to eat her words: here was a cell with two occupants, both asleep in too-small cots with thin blankets to keep them from freezing. She scanned the guard's key chip, and after a moment of humming, the door opened.
"What is this?" An old man pushed himself up, white hair shining in the faint red light from the hallway. "It's not morning yet."
"Name." Jane studied him. "Now."
"You...don't look like Advent." The old man tilted his head. "You look like a soldier."
"And I want your name."
He nodded slowly. "Shaojie Zhang."
"Zhang? Zhang?" Jane stared... then remembered herself. "I'm Captain Jane Kelly from the Avenger, sir. I'm here with Fatima Tariq-"
"Tisiphone?" Zhang threw himself to his feet. "She's alive?"
"Yes, sir. She's with our Skirmisher liaison, sweeping the cell blocks on the far side."
"There was someone else here from the Avenger. A Reaper."
Jane's heart skipped a beat. "Dragunova?"
"That was the name she gave." Zhang, barefoot and bare-chested, still cracked his knuckles. "Friend of yours?"
"Insofar as she has friends-"
"Jane?"
If her heart had skipped a beat before, now it outright stopped. The world stopped: reality froze in place on rusty hinges, locking Jane's mind in a cyclic redundancy loop. The same thoughts spiraled in and out in a never-ending chain for that one stretching second that lasted for a thousand years.
No. It's not possible. It can't be! No!
She couldn't believe it. But there was the evidence before her eyes: there was the body, sitting up and staring with shock and wonder paling her Slavic features.
Jane's jaw dropped. "Irina?"
Author's Note 53: My Notes Called This "The Great Mess Brawl Chapter"
No lie. I have sarcastic/funny notes and snarky nicknames for damn near everything.
I just want to note that I have, as of Thursday, completed principle work on Season Two. I'll be scrambling to edit the remaining chapters, but that's not nearly as intense of a proposition as finishing the actual writing. I can safely say it's gonna be insane, so make sure you're buckled up. And I also wanted to brag. Bite me, and write your own 250K+ fanfic without bragging, why don't you?
Also: I conceived of this moment before I even finished writing the original first chapter. That's often what happens: I come up with the end-of-book or even late-in-sequel twist, and from there I work back to figure out how to make it happen organically.
Next chapter is where I start to throw everything I've got at you. I hope you're ready!
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.