Chapter Fifteen: Leading Like Leo

Thursday night

Three animals—one black weasel-like marten with a splash of creamy yellow at her throat, one small gray wildcat with striking black markings, and one muscular dark green turtle—jumped off an open-sided helicopter into the claustrophobic clearing created by a great old tree that had finally submitted to time and lay, roots coiled high around a sphere of dirt, on the alemnea-infused forest floor. Raph adjusted the coil of rope over his shoulder and slid into the night. His eyes gleamed. Now this is more like it.

This morning after he, the panda, and the hedgehog had gotten some food back at the Da'an base, the raid leader and Vesuva himself had shown up to debrief them. Both had been pleased to hear that Raph had managed to damage some computers, and apologetic that they had been captured at all. They had about to leave when the forgnathu, to his chagrin, hadpicked up Raph's mutter about poor planning. The fennec fox had appraised him, and then asked, "Have you been raiding, back in your world?"

Raph had shrugged. "Almost more times than I can count. Leo an' Donnie come up wi' a plan, and we sneak in an' Donnie gets the info or busts the tech, or whatever."

Vesuva glanced at the raid leader, who still looked a bit offended. "All Deutsu are trained in basic attack and defense as part of our training, but few humans see fit to train their slaves in stealth. Othila, of course, have access to advanced training and literature if their humans are lenient or unobservant, but once a Deutsu decides he is a Da'an, he is cut off from human resources." He glanced at the raid leader, who had crossed his arms but was listening, and back at Raph. "You were well-trained in stealth?"

"My sensei taught us The Way of Silence an' The Way of Invisibility. Ninjitsu."

"Perhaps, then, we can learn from you. How would you plan a raid?"

Now Raph and his makeshift team of two crept swiftly through the trees. These two had been closest to passing Raph's impromptu ninja lesson and test this afternoon. Raph had the advantage of a lifetime of stealth training; they had the advantage of speaking the language without a translating device—although a Da'an techie had hooked Raph's forgnathu up to tiny wireless earbuds for both him and his teammates instead of the personal speaker it had before—and knowledge of the area, the base, and the Othila.

Gleaming black glass peeked ahead between the midnight trunks, and Raph halted. Looking up, he selected one of the trees that darkened the roof of the Othila building. He removed his coil of rope and handed it to the gray wildcat, Grek, who threw it over his shoulder and started to climb. It must be handy having claws when you want 'em. Once at the first branch high above, he secured one end of the rope and tossed the other down.

Raph pointed to the slender marten; she nodded and tried to scale the rope, but made little headway. After a moment, Raph rolled his eyes and tugged on the rope. The marten—her name was Ausla, if he remembered right—slid down and hung her head. Heh. I guess rope climbing does take some technique and upper body strength.

Hiding his amusement, Raph jerked a thumb toward his shell. Setting aside her embarrassment, the marten climbed on and hooked her arms around Raph's neck. The turtle climbed the rope with ease. Shell, she's tiny—she only weighs half as much as Donnie. Maybe less.

Once at the top, and all three animals on the big branch, Raph led the way further up the tree before walking out a branch and dropping onto the roof. Finding a rooftop entrance on the alien architecture proved difficult until Ausla produced a tool like an acid pen. From there, it was a simple matter of shimmying around to a vertical, slightly rusty pipe and climbing down.

Keeping his team behind him in the dark shadows, Raph scanned the big, open room. The cage that had held him when he first entered this world was currently suspended close to the ceiling, stored along with a few others, leaving the room clear. Good. I don't see any cameras. And everyone's asleep, except—the turtle squinted at a light across the room, at the wall of computers. To his satisfaction, several computers had their guts strewn all over the floor, doubtless from techies trying to repair his damage, while two or three were gone entirely.

Gesturing behind his shell for the others to follow, Raph slipped along the wall, following the deepest shadows. He chuckled silently to himself. Yup, that's a techie, still up, like Donnie. But unlike Donnie, he's not even working—he's playing something like Pacman or Galatica. Raph allowed himself to study the simple game for one moment. Don would love to try it. And Mikey. Grr, don't them about 'em right now.

Raph slipped up behind the techie—a meerkat, if Raph remembered his Africa-themed animal tv shows correctly—and sent him off to la-la land. As he pushed the occupied, slightly squeaky wheeled chair away to the left, Grek pulled up another and set to work pulling up records and programs. Ausla woke the darkened computer console to the right.

These computers are even weirder than I thought when I was here the first time, Raph thought as he looked over the triptych screens with alien blue characters and the strange half-circle keyboards. Each computer console stood on its own, separated by a foot or two from the next. Obviously, since Raph couldn't read the language, these two had been tasked with finding information useful to the Da'an: troop movements, what the Othila knew about the Da'an, weaknesses, plans, the strength of various Othila bases. When Raph had asked what the goal of the mission was, Vesuva and the raid leader had discussed it and decided against gathering supplies, although always needed, in favor of speed and lightness, and against sabotaging more technology, so that the Othila would not realize they had been here.

As he stepped back, a flash of red off to the left caught Raph's eye—two buttons perched on the wall between two consoles. The red one was obviously original to the building and was emblazoned with a fire icon, making its purpose clear. The second gleamed shiny and new; its wires ran up the wall to the ceiling. Beside them leaned an abandoned bo. I bet that new one would alert the whole base. It's prolly the same one that went off when the Da'an blew a hole in our cell. Raph turned his back to his teammates at their computers to do his part: guarding. I don't like how exposed we are, but we did need computers, and we didn't need that techie yelling for help.

A slight noise made Raph turn. The marten shook her head, gesturing to a box on her screen outlined in red. Oh, it's password-protected. That makes sense. Well, I guess it's good that meerkat was up playing games. He pointed to Ausla's eyes, and then at the techie. She nodded, and slid behind her teammate's chair toward the meerkat.

Raph turned back to watching the room for any sign of danger. He slid into the shadows off to the wildcat's right so his silhouette wouldn't be visible from afar. His eyes flickered back and forth across the room, lingering on the doors and doorways. This would be a lot harder at the Da'an base, with hardly any real doors and all those tarp rooms. On the other hand, Raph thought, adjusting his grip on his sais, I feel so open out here.

Moments trickled by with no activity. Man, I almost wish there were goons to deal with while Don—I mean, my teammates—are doing their thing.

He glanced back at said teammates. The marten looked up from writing something. Raph spun his finger in a "hurry up" gesture. She nodded and held her fingers slightly apart: "only a little more."

Raph nodded, reminded her to keep an eye on the meerkat, and turned back.

A moment later, a gasp made Raph spin. Ausla was in midair, reaching for the meerkat, who was not only awake, but was reaching for the shiny alarm button.

Shell!

As Raph leapt toward them, sais out, Ausla tackled the techie, and the pair became a tangle of black and tan limbs. The meerkat strained toward the alarm; the marten fought to keep him back. They're actually almost evenly matched, Raph's brain said as his body moved closer and waited for an opening to take down the meerkat. Just back off, and I can take him down-

As if in slow motion, an elbow hit the bo that had been innocently leaning in the corner, and it fell onto the red button with the fire symbol.

Uh oh.