The kids were ahead of them, with Kisaka, Waltfeld and Ramius, along with Dr. Simmons. Good. This is no longer their fight. Alkire thought grimly as he slowed from a jog to a walk. The other four members of TEMPESt also slowed, letting the "civilians" get farther and farther ahead, down the nearly pitch black subway tunnels that would eventually lead them back to the safe house deep underground. He slipped his LAG's (Light Amplification Goggles) down over his eyes, turning the tunnel from a cave into a well lit passageway, albeit one with green highlights. He adjusted the fit of the almost full face helmet, biting down into the hard rubber mouthpiece of the air filter that would keep him from inhaling smoke, gas and other debilitating things while fighting. Made of a kevlar base and coated with teflon and other advanced plastic polymers he did not know the name of, the helmets provided excellent skull protection, strong enough to deflect most types of small arms fire at distances of ten meters or more. Closer than that and it became slightly iffy, iffier the closer the shooter was to you. The helmets also incorporated a HUD and short range communication system that even worked underground through the use of low frequency waves. While wearing the helmet you looked like a bug eyed alien, but looks were not the important thing.
"Suit up, everyone." Alkire ordered, prompting his unit to pull on their helmets as well. The sound of their breathing, double filtered through the gas masks echoed strangely through the tunnel for a few seconds until they each adjusted their breathing cycles to eliminate the noise. "All right..." Alkire said after everyone was ready and silent. "We all know that patrol of soldiers saw us come down here and it's no fool's bet that they recognized Lacus and Cagalli. They'll have called in the sighting by now and that means one thing. They're going to be coming in after us. They couldn't kill Cagalli or Lacus in public, in front of all those people and especially on live TV, but down here in the tunnels anything could happen. I don't know who they're sending, but like I said before, expect the worst. EFSOU is a given I think, and they might even scrape up one of the Hellhound teams. Asmodeus is supposed to be here too, so watch yourselves... he's a canny snake, I don't need to remind you. They will almost certainly outnumber us by a significant margin... at least seven or eight to one, I'd think."
"Long odds." James commented.
"Target rich environment." Raine countered with a flick of her head. Alkire smiled... his thinking exactly.
"We have the advantage of home ground... I hope you all spent as much time studying the subway maps last night as I did. We also have the advantage of a head start and being able to wait in ambush. Victor, what can you set up in the next five to ten minutes?"
"That depends on how much collateral damage you want." Victor replied seriously. "Between the two of us, Vlad and I have a seriously nasty book of tricks and traps we could potentially set up." Alkire considered that, looking around at the environment.
"Say collateral damage isn't an issue. With the Merciless up there I don't think a few wrecked subway tunnels are going to hurt many people's feelings when everything is said and done." he told them. He couldn't see Victor's smile behind his helmet, but he could imagine it from the sound of his voice.
"Roger that, Major, sir! Vlad, I'm gonna need a bag of that metal grit, a roll of tape and a big ball of blackened silk twine! Let's get going!" Victor said cheerfully, clapping Vlad on the shoulder. Vlad nodded and set off after the german, his footsteps utterly noiseless on the hard ground, his form disappearing into the shadows long before Victor did. Alkire watched them go and shivered slightly... he pitied the poor bastards who got to run into Vlad down here... the tunnels were a natural killing ground, full of dark nooks and crannies and alcoves for the killer to hide in.
"Raine, you're with me. We'll lay a couple of shoot and sprint ambushes here... here... and here." Alkire decided, marking three points on the tunnel system where the tunnels narrowed slightly while traveling on slight declines. "James, I want you to find yourself a solid positon at this tunnel junction here." Alkire tapped a point on his map where three of the five major subway routes under the city came together as one. The junction was actually an automated switching station, where trains from one line could be switched onto different tracks if need be. It was shut down now, just like the rest of the trains, but it was likely to become a major focusing point for this fight, as the maintenance tunnels leading to the safe house originated there. "We're going to be fighting a lot of retreating battles and we're going to need heavy support once we leave the tunnels in order to make it to the maintenance passages in one piece."
"You got it. Ramsgoth precision fire support at your service, Major." James nodded a salute before heading off into the tunnel in the direction the kids had gone at a lope. Raine waited for him to get fully out of earshot before she spoke up.
"What are our chances, do you think?" she asked, not using the radio, her voice slightly distorted by the mask mouthpiece. Alkire grinned.
"Chances of what? Survival? Medium to high. If these guys really are EFSOU then we'll have an even bigger advantage... I trained with some of them probably, I know how they think."
"Doesn't that work in reverse though? Won't they know how you think?" she asked as they walked towards their first ambush point.
"Babe, nobody knows how I think." she considered that and then nodded.
"I suppose you're right." Raine paused a moment. "I just can't shake this feeling of doom."
"It's just a case of the gribblies. You'll get over it when the bullets start flying." Alkire replied easily, using one of many names for pre-combat stress.
"Yeah... you're right." Raine said slowly. At least she hoped he was.
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"Entry accomplished." Ramierez commed, standing at the bottom of the stairs of the Nara Attha Memorial station. The station was clear and empty and dark, though his HUD cut through it an lit it up like daylight. It took a while getting used to the red tinge, but after years in the Hellhounds, he barely noticed it anymore. Followed by Dekameron, he ghosted through the station, slipping around bits of trash and grit on the ground almost instinctively to cut down on noise. There was nothing like the adrenaline rush of being the first into the fight, the first to find danger, the first to engage the enemy. That's why he was so happy he was a scout... he got off on situations like these. "It's clear." upon the second comm there came the muted sound of many pairs of boots rushing down the stairs... barely audible to most people and easily dismissed as background noise, but Ramierez wasn't a scout just cause he wanted to be... he had just about the sharpest senses in the entire unit, though he still felt he lagged the Lieutenant slightly.
Asmodeus was the third man down the stairs, followed closely by Frost, who needed no goggles to make out his surroundings. He looked around, performing his own check though he knew that if Ramierez hadn't seen anything then he wasn't likely to either... the man had eyes twenty years sharper than Asmodeus's. "Do you hear anything, Frost?" he asked the BCPU, who had the sharpest senses of anyone there.
"What makes you think I would tell you if I did?" Frost replied sullenly... he didn't like hunting in packs and compared to him the elite Hellhounds seemed as loud as a bus full of schoolkids. "You seem to be operating under the mistaken impression that I give a damn about you and this mission."
"If you're so smart..." Glory started to say before a hand on his shoulder choked him off.
"If you feel we're impeding you, by all means, skip on ahead of us, Zacharis." Asmodeus said tiredly. "Just don't count on us coming to save you."
"I'm the last person who would ever need saving." Frost retorted, heading over to a small hatch in one of the walls of the station. With a slight grunt of effort the BCPU tore the solid steel cover plate off the wall and tossed it aside. "I'll try and save some of the fun for you losers." he said mockingly before crawling head first into what looked like a maintenance chute for automated repair units, the passage wasn't more than two feet on a side and crowded with heavy cabling and pipes.
"He's crazy if he think's he'll make much progress through there... you'd have to be practically boneless to make any sort of speed through that chute." Ramierez commented.
"You could have just stopped with "He's crazy" and have said enough." Asmodeus replied. "Though I wouldn't doubt him... Frost has quite the drive to get to the fugitives... he really has it in for Lacus Clyne." He looked pointedly at the tunnel opening ahead of them. "Enough talk, we have a mission to accomplish."
Ramierez and Dekameron hopped down onto the tracks, which were de-energized thankfully. Slowly, they forged ahead into the tunnel, keeping a good ten meters distance between them and the rest of the unit so that even if they hit an ambush it wouldn't catch more than a few of them at once. Behind them came twenty five of the finest soldiers in the EA, all armed to the teeth and ready for anything. Or so they thought. Five minutes after entering the tunnel Ramierez clicked his tongue once and held up a fist to indicate a stop. "You see it as well?" he asked Dekameron on their private channel, pointing carefully at a pile of refuse wedged between two of the mounting bolts for the primary track. Dekameron nodded... it wasn't a pile of refuse but a cunningly disguised bundle of plastic explosives. "Quentin, front and center, we got a booby trap." Ramierez called. They were joined moments later by the explosive's expert, who noticed the bomb almost as fast as Ramierez had. Quentin studied the package for a few moments.
"Tactile sensitive trigger... good thing you didn't touch it. Standard plastique. Looks like about an eighth of a kilo. I think theres some metallic bits embedded in it... shrapnel. Blast radius is about eight meters, deadly to about 1.5 times that." he said calmly. He marked the location of the bomb with a piece of infared reflective tape in the form of an arrow. "Just don't step anywhere within a half meter of it and it won't go off. It would take me too long to disarm it, the tactile ones are tricky."
"Understood. Progressing." Ramierez said, moving carefully past the bomb, staying well clear. He didn't get ten feet before he spotted two more... which Quentin immediately identified as identical to the first one. What Quentin did not see was the strings of blackened silk twine that ran carefully underneath the primary rail line, connecting each of the three bombs to a trip wire ten meters further down the passageway. The thin black twine was almost invisble to the naked eye and was completely invisible to infared vision. It wasn't until Ramierez stepped OVER the wire that he noticed it. "Aww, hell." he muttered, looking down at the tripwire he was straddling. "Quentin, I think we got a problem."
"What sort of problem?" Quentin asked from a few paces back. Ramierez took his time in answering, straining his eyes to look ahead into the tunnel. What he saw was scary enough to render him speechless for a moment.
"We got tripwires. Lots of tripwires." Ramierez said with awe, looking at a veritable spider's web of thin black threads, visible only as they stirred slightly in the musty damp air of the tunnel due to some tiny air draft. There must have been at least a dozen of them, set at varying heights ranging from head high to waist high to ankle high, with several sloping down at diagnals and many of them looped around each other. His keen eye soon started picking out the bombs the strings were attached to... each identical to the three they had already seen. The entire tunnel for at least twenty meters looked to be mined. He mentally applauded the enemy... it would have been no easy feat setting something like this up in the ten or fifteen minutes it had taken the Hellhounds to arrive on scene. Quentin took a bag of fine grained powder from a pouch and dumped some in his hand, then used a small airgun to blow it out in front of Ramierez in a fine cloud of sparkly white dust.
"Shit." Quentin commented, as the dust settled on the twine and revealed it for them all to see.
"Victor..." Asmodeus hissed to himself. "You crafty bastard." All the Hellhounds were staring forward at the fiendish trap in front of them... set off one bomb and they would all go off. It would not be quick or easy getting through that tangle of traps, and while they did it they'd be extremely vulnerable. The two members of Bravo team slated to watch the rear kept at their job, but their attention was slightly divided... enough so that they missed the shadow that slipped out of concealment in a tiny nook in one tunnel wall. A whiplash blow from the side of Vlad's metallic hand crushed the throat and spine of the man on the left while his other hand gripped the man on the right and lifted him kicking frantically from the ground. A twitch of the metal fingers and the spine parted with nary a sound. Moving fast but with his trademark silence Vlad caught both bodies before they could hit the ground and carried them quickly out of sight around the bend before dumping them.
Lieutenant Davisson stepped forward along with three members of his tactical team and his own bomb expert. "We'll try and thread the mine field." he volunteered. Asmodeus nodded... it was dangerous but it was their only option if they wanted to keep moving forward. He motioned for everyone else to back up a good ten meters, almost back into the station proper. The bomb expert went first, ducking and contorting himself to avoid the glinting threads. Davisson followed afterwards, carefully copying his man's moves as exactly as possible. His tactical team came after him, repeating the process. It was slow, painful work, but finally Davisson joined his bomb expert on the far side of the web, breathing a sigh of relief that no hails of bullets had come screaming of the darkness ahead to decimate his men during the perilous crossing. "We're clear!" he reported, taking a single step further into the tunnel. A single step that placed his booted foot squarely through an invisible laser beam that was projected from a laser pointer half buried in the near wall. Beam interrupted, a simple circuit was activated, detonating a single pinch of plastic explosive that was adhereing a loose brick to the wall. There was barely a flash, just a slight bang and then the bricked dropped a whole three inches to the ground. It was two point five inches farther than needed, for the string of black twine tied to the brick went taut after the first half inch. This single line was attached to two other lines, which in turn each looped around two more and so forth and so on. Within a quarter second of the brick falling, all the strings went taut at once.
Lieutenant Davisson and his four men disappeared in a storm of brick dust, fire and bouncing metal shards as fifteen home-made claymore mines went off at once. When the dust finally settled there wasn't a scrap of human left bigger than the palm of your hand. There was some rubble on the ground, but the tunnel had not collapsed. Asmodeus hesitated only a moment. "We go on. Carefully."
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"Major, they have triggered the first trap." Victor reported as he made the finishing touches to the third set of traps he and Vlad had laid. The sounds of the mulitple detonations were like music to his ears.
"Good work, Victor. How many did you get?" Alkire replied.
"Good question, the trap was designed to take out a good twenty meter section, but I doubt they all fell for it. Five... six, maybe?" Victor replied. "Vlad should be able to give you a better report on their numbers, if he ever reports in."
"Understood. Keep at it, Victor." Alkire said. He turned to another channel. "Can you hear me, Vlad?" there was a long wait and then a double tongue click. "Can't talk eh? You're behind them, you slick bastard, aren't you?" Another double click. "When you can find a moment, I'd like a report on numbers and idents." Double click. "Talk to you later Vlad. Out."
Vladimir stalked the Hellhounds through the tunnels, staying a good ten or fifteen feet back from their rearguard. It hadn't taken them long to discover that an additional two of their number were missing, and now the rearguard stood at four in number. He smiled as they watched him... they were good, but he was better. They moved with precision, speed and silence... he made the shadows look loud. He would wait for the nonce... they were coming up on the second set of traps. His smile grew wider as he passed a barely visible discoloration on the ground... one of a score of patches of nearly translucent double sided tape he and Victor had placed and salted with metallic grit and dust. Not dangerous in itself, the grit was just a catalyst for the real trap, which was smeared on the three steel rails. This time the tripwires were already taut, the tension in them being the only thing keeping the small clusters of impact fused bomblets from dropping from ceiling. It had been tricky, hanging by one arm from the ceiling while setting it up, but his mechanical arms made it possible where a flesh and blood human would have faltered and died. When a soldier next put a booted foot on the rail the grit on their boots that would have stuck there from the tape would spark on the steel rail. The spark would ignite the highly flammable resin smeared almost molecule thin on the rails, which would ignite the similarly coated threads, turning them to ash and releasing the tension on the bomblet wires.
There! He saw one of the rearguard place his foot on the center rail for a moment, the boot sliding on the resin, the grit striking sparks. There was another brief flash, almost faster than the eye could track. Some of the Hellhounds reacted instinctively, throwing themselves to the sides of the tunnel. More than a quarter did not and paid the price for being slow as a half dozen baseball sized pieces of plastic explosive rained down from the ceiling, their outer surfaces pebbly with small ball bearings. Upon hitting the ground a frail glass bulb shattered, causing mercury inside to flow one sixtyfourth of an inch and complete a circuit. The bomblets went off with hardly any smoke, just massive flashes and the pinging of hundreds of red hot ball bearings bouncing off bricks. The balls made no sound as they passed through human flesh... at the speeds they were moving, anything less dense that stone was barely an impediment at all. Three of the rearguard had managed to avoid the bomb, though they were now staring ahead, aghast at the sight of their unfortunate comrades. Vlad slipped up behind the last one in line and looped the matte black chain garotte wire over the man's throat. A twist of the handles locked the chain around the throat, cutting into the skin to prevent the victim from pulling it away and avoiding the crushing pressure on the windpipe. A quick yank and the strangle was complete, all he had to do was hold it for a minute or two while the man suffocated. He dragged the man backwards, pulling them both into the shadows while he waited. The other two never even looked back, having heard nothing.
The remaining Hellhounds and Asmodeus quickly recovered from their scare and pushed on after only a few seconds hesitation. Vlad frowned, doing a quick count. Fourteen, plus Asmodeus. There had been two teams initially, for a total of twenty six plus Asmodeus. They were whittling them down pretty good, but if they were still pressing on now that too said a few things. This group could not be the only group down here now, there must be at least as many again of them somewhere else in the subway tunnels for Asmodeus to be advancing with such confidence. Vlad let the enemy pass around the next bend before activating his radio and contacting Alkire.
"God damn it!" Alkire swore under his breath after receiving the report from Vlad. Raine looked at him inquisitively from across the tunnel, dug into an alcove that she'd shored up with some loose bricks to form a more complete position. "Hellhounds. Lots of Hellhounds. And Asmodeus is here in person." he informed her. "Victor and Vlad have whittled them down pretty good, but there's only one trap left between them and us. Victor should be joining us any minute now. And Vlad say's that it's likely there are other EA soldiers down here too, given how Asmodeus keep's pressing forward. Damn it, why does it have to be the Hellhounds?" Raine suddenly snapped into a ready position when she saw someone coming down the tunnel towards them, she relaxed after seeing it was Victor, though it took her an extra second to recognize him because he no long bore the heavy backpacks jammed with explosives. He moved past her at a brisk walk before taking up a position himself on Alkire's wall where he could cover them both.
"One trap to go, eh, Majors?" he said affably. "I don't think 'Deus enjoyed my earlier traps and he's really going to hate the last one... it's a real stinker Vlad showed me."
Alkire ignored the german for the moment. "James, you hear me?" Double click. "Be warned, the Hellhounds are the bad guys, and theres a full boat of them down here. Just be sure to stay extra sharp... these guys don't play around." Course, neither do we.
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Cyprus had joined Ramierez and Dekameron at the front now. He was frowning... this mission had already cost the lives of too many good men. Argrave and Hawley hadn't jumped fast enough when the last trap was triggered and they were now lying in bloody tatters back the tunnel a ways. And Corporal Lily, who'd been assigned to the rear guard, was just plain gone. He did not respond to radio calls and his helmet beacon did not appear on their HUD's. No one had seen him go, but gone he was. Alpha team had never suffered such serious casualties before... and they'd gotten off lightly compared to the mauled Bravo team, who had lost all of their senior men and were down to just four personnel. Charlie and Delta teams had reported no signs of resistance and were advancing swiftly towards a primary rail junction about three hundred meters further down the tunnel from his current position. Cyprus crept forward in a crouch, eyes scanning back and forth along the ground very carefully, determined not to miss another devious trap. Dekameron watched from waist to chin height and Ramierez watched from chin height on up, their fields of vision overlapping slightly as an additional saftey measure. Much to his chagrin, it was Glory who actually noticed the next trap. Of course he hardly noticed it in an enviable manner.
"Uhm... sir?" Glory suddenly said. Cyprus froze and slowly looked back at his big friend, the tone of his voice all the clue he needed to realize something was seriously wrong. "I... I uh... stepped on this bolt here on the side of the rail... and it went "squish" and now theres this gooey white plastic stuff stuck to the bottom of my boot. I think it's some form of explosive." Quentin hurried over to his sergeant-major and knelt beside him, inspecting the indicated foot. The explosive's expert let out a low whistle of mixed admiration and constrenation.
"What is it, Quentin?" Glory asked sharply. Quentin shook his head for a moment. "WHAT IS IT, QUENTIN?" Glory asked again, gritting his teeth.
"I'm still working that out, sarge-major." Quentin replied. "It's homemade, whatever it is. Looks like some form of adhesive plastic explosive. Not only that, but the stuff is corrosive as hell... its eating through the bottom of your boot, sarge-major." Quentin got down on his hands and knees and promptly started swearing. "Whatever you do, don't lift your foot up, sarge-major."
"Why not? If this shit is eating through my boot it's really going to do a number on my foot!" Glory complained. Quentin looked up at him.
"That bolt you stepped on is now sitting on a trigger, holding a contact shut. There's at least six wires coming off this trigger contact. If you lift your foot up the bolt will rise and cut the circuit. Then we get a kablooie. And since the wires are going out and the up the wall farther than I can see, I would estimate that said kablooie would drop most of the roof for about fifty feet in both directions, if these bombs are at all like I think they are. Thats not to mention that your foot will probably get blown off by the glue-explosive too, along with a good section of railing... whatever that stuff is, I can smell the volatility through my mask. Of course, since you, me and most everyone else will have been crushed to death a few seconds later by tons of rubble, you won't have to worry about much pain, sarge-major."
"Quentin... do something about this! Now! My foot is starting to get warm!" Glory said, trying to stay calm.
"That would be a sure sign that your boot is beginning to melt, sarge-major." Quentin allowed. He dug through one of his pouches and pulled out a dental pick and a metal file, which he used to scrape industrially at the gooey explosive that he could see on Glory's boot. "I've gotten a lot of it off, but it's still eating through your boot from below, sarge-major. Now we get to the tricky part."
"How tricky?" Asmdoeus asked, staring up at the roof as if he was expecting it to fall any minute.
"Well, if I can get the file under sarge-major's boot in the exact spot where he's putting pressure on the bolt and apply pressure of my own, he should be able to lift his foot before the stuff eats through and from there I can disarm it easily enough. If I can't either sarge-major is going to have his foot corroded away, which would relieve the pressure and thus kablooie, or he'll jerk his foot off because of the pain, thus kablooie."
A sudden thought occured to Cyprus... it would leave too much to chance to have just a single bolt be the trigger for a trap, if not for bad luck, Glory would have passed right by it... it was too chancy. He dropped to his belly and looked under the rails. His suspicion was confirmed... there were contacts under every bolt he could see in both directions. Still, something wasn't right... relying on the bolts was still too chancy for a good trap. He belly crawled forward, keeping himself low so he could look at the underside of the rails. Finally he found it... a timer box. Just about the size of a TV remote, with a bunch of thin wires coming out of it. It was almost impossible to reach, but the numbers on it were easy enough to see... it was counting down from forty seconds right now. "If you're going to make an attempt, now would be the time." he radioed. "There's a second trigger, set on a timer... pressure or no pressure the roof is coming down in about thirty four seconds. Avoid stepping on any bolts... they're all trapped."
"I think I have it, sarge-major." Quentin said, working the file feverishly between the boot and the rail. "Lift your foot any time you're ready and pray to God in heaven I'm right." Glory closed his eyes, counted to two and jerked his foot up. There was no kablooie. "Right on the edge of it! Sometimes I scare myself." Quentin said cheerfully, weighting down the file after adjusting its position. "Now we run." They ran. They were just barely in time... they were still running when the timer reached zero and interrupted the current, sending simultaneous detonation signals to six different three kilogram blocks of explosives. The roof and upper walls exploded downwards with a roar, the pressure wave actually picking several Hellhounds up and throwing them down the tunnel for several meters. When the dust finally settled, the entire tunnel was buried behind them, though none of them were more than bruised.
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The explosive roar of the final trap being sprung echoed for miles underground. Alkire, Raine and Victor rode it out easily enough, since Victor knew to the second when the bombs would go off, having set the timer himself. Vlad also knew approximately when the bombs were going off... instead of following the Hellhounds he'd instead doubled back and was on the surface streets, heading for the next station closer to the junction when the street in front of him just dropped straight down into the ground, the result of the explosions. He managed to avoid the crumbling edges of the new trench, smiling grimly as he put on a burst of speed. He had to get ahead of them now to be effective. He looked around him at the city... this section, except for the new trench, was actually still in good condition. He could hear the sounds of a furious mobile suit battle not too far away though, and pillars of smoke and dust rising into the sky from other parts of the city proved that collateral damage was unavoidable when fighting with mobile suits on city streets.
About halfway down the maintenance tunnels between the switching junction and the safehouse, Cagalli had finally realized that the members of TEMPEST seemed to have gone off on their own sometime after they entered the subway. She cursed her lack of attention, but she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised... she'd been pretty shell shocked for a while there, dealing with the terrible images of the Merciless attacking the innocent crowds who'd gathered to support her. Athrun had had to practically carry her most of the way, but she'd been moving under her own power for the last five minutes or so. "Wait a minute? Where did Alkire go?" she asked suddenly. Before Athrun or anyone else could reply there came a rumble like a frieght train crossing a bridge just over their heads and dust shook itself loose from the ceiling. "And what the hell was that?"
"Sounded like about twenty kilos of HE." Kisaka replied, one hand on the wall. "Maybe a little less. Robert and company must have laid quite the trap if that much HE went off at once."
"You mean you knew they were gone and you didn't tell me?" Cagalli asked, her voice rising. She had had it up to here with being left out of the loop for her own protection.
"Calm down, princess." Kisaka said firmly. "This type of fight is one Robert and my other students have trained their entire lives to fight. They leave the mobile suit fighting to you, you should leave this fight to them."
"But...!"
"No, you cannot go help them." Kisaka cut her off sharply. He moved to block her way back down the tunnel with his body.
"I'm ordering you to get out of the way!" Cagalli said sternly... she was going to help Alkire and company... she wasn't going to play hide and seek for the rest of her life.
"Then I'm sad to tell you I've been struck temporarily deaf and cannot hear that order, princess." Kisaka said, unsmiling.
"Athrun!"
"What do you want me to do?" he retorted. "I can do a lot of things... taking Kisaka out in hand to hand combat is not one of them." he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not happy about being told to run and hide when people are after your life and mine... but right now, it is the best option." Cagalli shuddered a little and then seemed to calm down. Even Kisaka relaxed... he should have known better. With a snake quick movement, she darted forward and slipped past him, inches ahead of his grasping arms. Stopping a few feet further down the tunnel, she turned back to face them, fire glinting in her eyes.
"Some times the best option isn't the right option." she said before turning and sprinting back up the tunnel. There was a brief moment of silence.
"Aww, hell." Kisaka muttured.
"My thoughts exactly." Athrun echoed. He wasted no time in sprinting after her... maybe he would get lucky and catch up to her before she did something stupid. Kisaka was right behind him. Waltfeld turned and looked at Kira, Lacus, Dr. Simmons and Murrue. He shrugged.
"I'm a soldier too... well, half of one anyway. It just wouldn't feel right to me to let those guys... even that rat bastard Vladimir, sacrifice their lives so I could run and hide. Maybe even especially that rat bastard Vladimir... the thought of oweing him my life is intolerable." he told them with a cocky grin. He then turned and limped back up the passageway as well. Murrue stared after him and then back at Lacus and Kira.
"We might as well go. If nothing else, Kira and I can help evacuate anyone who is wounded." Lacus said. "Besides... maybe I can help out a little in other ways too?" she continued, tapping the side of her head meaningfully. As a group they headed back up the tunnel after Waltfeld.
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Dekameron had just poked his head around a bend, about two steps ahead of Ramierez and the Lieutenant. He could have sworn he saw what looked like hastily prepared gun posi... he was cut off in mid thought by a single shot from Raine, which penetrated the red glowing camera optic eye, then his real eye and then mashed his brain into slurry. He dropped without a sound. Ramierez and Cyprus didn't need a sound though, they instinctively knew a death when they saw one. Ramierez grabbed his fellow scout by the ankle and dragged his body back around the bend. He saw where the shot had hit and nodded grimly... an excellent shot, there was at least one marksman around the corner.
"Is that you, Raine Belaruse?" Asmodeus called around the corner. There was a brief silence.
"It is me." she replied. Asmodeus smiled under his mask.
"You have to know, my dear, that you are heavily outnumbered and outgunned. If you surrender now, we will spare your life."
"You have to know, Asmodeus, that I'm dug into a position of strength and that you will lose more than a couple of your numbers if you try to kill me. If YOU surrender now, I will spare your life." she retorted.
"So much for the easy way." Asmodeus muttered to himself. He looked over at Thomas Glory. "I think it's high time you lost some weight, sarge-major."
"Aye-aye, captain, sir." Glory said with a heavy grin. "As they say, revenge is a dish best served with a heavy garnishing of 5mm JHP and a big side of HE missiles!" He brought the quad tube missile launcher and gatling gun into his hands, the missiles on his left shoulder, the gatling in his right hand. "Now it's our turn to do some blasting. Cover me!" he directed. Three Hellhounds unclipped flash bangs from their chests and tossed them around the bend in bouncing arcs, then followed up with sustained bursts from their automatic rifles.
"Eyes!" Victor called out when he saw the cylindrical grenades come bouncing around the corner. He took his own advice and buried his face in the ground, closing his eyes to prevent being blinded. The triple shock of the concussion weapons was still stunning though and it took him a second or two to regain control of his body after they went off. High velocity rifle fire was chewing into the walls and ceiling above their positions... cover fire. He was just bringing his weapon back to bear when a giant of a man charged around the bend, gargantuan weapons in hand. "Glory!" he shouted in recognition.
"Hallelughya!" Thomas called back, firing one missile which streaked by just a foot or two over Victor's head to blow a very sizable chunk out of the wall about ten meters behind him. Not letting up, the masssive Hellhound brought the gatling gun to bear and fired a three second burst, a waterfall of tinkling brass spilling from the rapidly spinning weapon. Bricks shattered and broke under the onslaught of bullets, whittling away at their covered positions. Without waiting for orders, Victor started firing back, using three shot bursts to conserve ammo. He couldn't hear it, but he saw flashes out of the corners of his eyes and he figured Alkire and Raine were firing too. Which they were. Problem was, the three seconds that Glory had pinned them down had allowed six Hellhounds to get around the bend, throwing themselves prone to use what little cover they could and the volume of return fire was only increasing as more Hellhounds started slipping around the bend in the increasingly long pauses between return fire volleys from the TEMPEST members. Victor saw a Hellhound go stumbling backwards, his chest a ruin of bullet holes, but in the confusion he could not tell who had killed him.
"Fall back... by fire and movement. You first, Victor!" Alkire ordered, popping suddenly to an upright position, throwing a smoke grenade directly into the middle of the Hellhound formation He felt several bullets graze his armor, but none struck him directly as he sprayed full automatic fire into the smoke cloud, supported by Raine.
"Raine!" Alkire called after giving Victor fifteen seconds. He switched magazines and tossed another smoke grenade, counting slowly to fifteen. There was a sudden slackening of return fire and he knew the enemy was up to something. "Me!" he called, and sprinted for his life... not a moment to soon, because Glory fired another two missiles, one at Raine's position and one at his, shattering them both under the high explosive penetrating power of the anti-vehicle missiles. Enemy fired picked up again, bullets whizzing by him on all sides as he sprinted for his life. "James, we got incoming! It's the Alpha team and they've got a missile launcher!" he turned and fired over his shoulder as he ran, causing two or three Hellhounds who'd charged out of the smoke bank to dive desperately for cover before shooting back at him, bullets making little whining sounds as they ricocheted off bricks and the rails.
"We've got other problems!" James radioed back, scrambling around another pillar to gain some temporary cover from the flanking fire that had nearly eviscerated him. About thirty seconds ago a bunch of Hellhounds had burst into the rail junction from one of the other tunnels. He'd been in a good, solid, central position, but there'd been a better place, more open but with a better field of fire to use. He'd run there and opened fire, taking down five of the masked figures in one burst. But then a whole bunch more had come in from the opposite tunnel, behind him, and he'd gotten shot three times in the stomach and back before he got into good cover again. His armor had stopped the bullets, but they hurt like hell. "I'm surrounded by Hellhounds!"
"Vlad!? Where are you, Vlad?" Alkire called, throwing himself down into a rolling dive as a bullet whammed off his shoulder, leaving a deep hole in the armor and a large bruise on his flesh. Bullets from Raine and Victor whip-cracked past him as he got to his feet again, but they only managed to slow the pursuers a little... it was hard holding back superior numbers without the advantage of prepared positions.
"I'm a little busy right now... I'll call you back..." Vlad replied, his voice tight and barely audible. At the moment he was just entering the rail junction where Hellhound teams Charlie and Delta were engaged in a very deadly and one sided game of hide and seek with James. But now, the hunters were unwittingly numbered among the hunted. He took the spool of fishing line out his his pocket and spooled out a two foot length, before tearing the line off with his hands. He put the spool back into his pocket and crept forward. The Hellhounds had split up into hunt teams of two or three... good for covering a large area quickly... bad for defending against Vlad's form of warfare. He sneaked up behind one such pair and looped the fishing line around the neck of one, yanking back firmly and steadily, neatly cutting the man's throat with the high strength plastic. His choking gurgle alerted his pal, but by then it was too late... a straight palm strike from Vlad's mechanical hand crushed the teflon and kevlar facepiece in, along with the skull behind it. Wasting no time, Vlad slipped back into the shadows. Autofire ripped through the room, along with deeper coughs that sounded like shotgun blasts as the Hellhounds tried to hem James in with a wall of fire.
Cyprus narrowed his eyes as Alkire slipped out of his crosshairs once more, again just an instant before he would have pulled the trigger and blow his spine out through his stomach. The man seemed possessed of the devil's own luck. He rose from his kneeling postion and continued forward, rasing one hand and beckoning his men to follow him. They were almost to the railway junction where the fugitives must have gone to ground. Perhaps in some of the old maintenance passageways that wound beneath the subway lines themselves... thats where he would have gone. Who knew how far those tunnels went... they didn't even appear on some maps. He could hear the sound of gunfire echoing from up ahead... plainly Charlie and Delta teams had also reached the junction. He listened carefully... there was the sound of a heavy weapon, a heavy machine gun, probably a .50 caliber. But the weapon was firing only in short bursts, not continuous sustained fire, which meant the operator was either almost entirely pinned down or on the move. TEMPEST was supposed to consist of five members, and they'd already encounterd Raine, Alkire and Victor. That meant James was ahead in the rail junction, engaged with Charlie and Delta. Vladimir... Andre... could be anywhere. Cyprus had suspected Andre to be tailing them, because of the steady disappearances of the rearguards, but he'd checked back to the tunnel cave in himself... they were no longer being followed. That meant Andre was ahead in the junction too.
He held up his hand for a halt again and then held up two fingers and gave the sign for wait again. "Wait two minutes? What for?" Asmodeus's voice buzzed in his ear. Cyprus grimaced... he did not like explaining himself, if it had been just his own team, or just them and Bravo team he would not have needed to explain, relying on his reputation to ensure people listened to him. But with Asmodeus here, he had to explain. Before he did that though, he decided to buy some insurance. He adjusted his comm set to the Charlie and Delta bands.
"LT here." he said quickly. "Send a man back to the entry stations. Guide duty. Casualties have been heavier than expected. Reinforcements in ten. All forces, fall back to positions you can hold and wait for further orders." There was a multi second pause as the other two team leaders digested his words... technically they ranked the same as Cyprus did and he had no authority to give them orders... but, he WAS the Lieutenant. The most successful and dangerous team commander in all of EFSOU, the man who'd never failed a mission. When people listened to Cyrpus's advice, they tended to live longer and better lives... when they disregarded him, they tended to end up killed, usually by the exact thing Cyprus had warned them about. In the end, there really wasn't much of a choice.
"Charlie here, acknowledged. Pulling back into the tunnel. Five dead, two wounded, no hostiles slain."
"Delta here, understood. Falling back into our tunnel. Three missing, presumed dead, no wounded, no hostiles slain."
"What the hell are you doing? I'm not accustomed to asking for explanations twice, Lieutenant." Asmodeus cut into the channel. Cyprus turned his head slowly to look back at his commanding officer, standing a few feet behind him. It was difficult to maintain eye contact like he liked to, when both men wore full face masks, but Cyprus knew the other man was staring at Cyprus just as hard as Cyprus was staring at him.
"I'm requesting to call for backup. They were waiting for us... are waiting for us. We are assaulting a position of strength, playing to the strength's of the enemy. That is not the way the Hellhounds have been taught to fight. That is not the way I fight. I am going to fight how the Hellhounds are supposed to fight. Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?" Cyprus said slowly and clearly. Asmodeus considered the reply, his eyes narrowing. He wanted to get this job done, it chafed at him... but he could not deny what Cyprus had said was true. He'd taught his unit better than to just rush ahead, bulling their way by brute force through the enemy line. That was not the way special forces warfare should be conducted. Leave the heroic rush with guns blazing to the infantry and marines... the Hellhounds would achieve their goals with the precision and deadliness of knives in the night.
"Understood, LT. You have the right of it." Asmodeus replied at last. He changed his own comm settings, setting his channel to the one used by the infantry on the streets above. "This is Captain Sark calling any Earth Forces infantry forces on the city streets. There is a vitally important mission in progress beneath the streets of the city. All available infantry units are hereby ordered, under the authority of the Emergency Command Protocol Alpha-Omega-Sigma-Nine-Seven-One, to muster at the Hameya and Mall subway stations, for attachment to special duties. Bring only squad level support weapons and lower, fighting will take place underground in confined spaces." Asmodeus switched back to the Hellhound command channel. "I sent out the call for reinforcements, Lieutenant. Now what?" I'm getting too old for this shit... to have basic strategy and tactics pointed out to me by a subordinate, even him... I've been losing my touch ever since Ray died.
"While you wait for the reinforcements to arrive, I will be leading a scout team into the enemy territory." Cyrpus replied calmly. He was really starting to worry about his superiors... Cervantes seemed to have gone off the deep end and Asmodeus was almost listless and sloppy. Sai had come along at a fortuitous time... without strong leadership nothing would get done and Cyprus did not desire to do anything but follow. He had advanced as far as he ever wanted to go, he was happy where he was. But his current superiors were jeopordizing not only his own life but the lives of his men, his responsibility, and it seemed he now had no choice but to take over command of the mission. "With due respect, sir, I request temporary authority over the mission."
"You have it." Asmodeus replied with a wave of his hand. "I invoked the privileges of ECP AOS-971, so there shouldn't be any questions as to who is in charge of the regular infantry. I think I'm getting too old for this sort of bushwacking nonsense, Cyprus. What do you need me to do?"
"If you say so, sir." Cyprus replied. Privately he thought there was a lot more to it than age... Asmodeus had commanded in the field with distinction during the first war, and he was only a year and a half older now. He sensed that Asmodeus had lost something important to him... something so important that he'd lost his will to live, the fire that had previously burned inside him, the spirit and personality that had earned him the respect of Cyprus in the first place. But it wasn't the time or place to confront his former friend and superior about this change or other pressing matters. "Hawely is dead. I need you to act as my communication link to the other teams and to the backup forces. Other than that I need you to take command of the remnants of Bravo team. You are now Bravo team leader."
"This is Colonel Kisler, of the Atlantic Federation Army Third Corp, Second Division, Fifth Regiment. I have received your order, Captain Sark and I acknowledge the authority of ECP AOS-971. I'm deploying two reinforced infantry companies to the indicated positions, one under my command and the other under the command of my XO, Lt. Colonel Barnaby. ETA is eight minutes. Kisler, out."
"Two reinforced companies... that's nearly three hundred men. You think that will be enough, or shall I call for more?" Asmodeus asked.
"It will do for the moment." Cyprus replied, his mind moving on to other things. "Ramierez... chose two other good infiltraters. Sub-mission classification: Bloody Tomahawk. Understand?"
"Bloody Tomahawk... christ sir, you're pretty pissed." Glory commented. "We haven't done a Bloody Tomahawk since we took out that control station at Victoria Spaceport."
"I'll assume that "Bloody Tomahawk" is some form of pre-planned set of instructions." Asmodeus observed.
"You'd assume right. And everyone cut the chatter, I need a clear comm." Cyprus ordered. His mouth quirked into a momentary smile... it wasn't every day he got to tell a superior officer to shut up. "Remember, people, we're up against people who are as good as we are... better in some cases. We're going to do this slow and careful... further casualties are unacceptable." He turned sharply and moved over to Ramierez. "Ready? Let's go." He stalked off down the passage, followed quickly by Ramierez and his chosen two.
"What the hell is a Bloody Tomahawk?" Asmodeus asked almost immediately, switching to a private channel between him and Sgt-Major Glory.
"Its a reference to way back when, when the western part of the Atlantic Federation, the old USA, was still untamed. Back when the revolver was the be all end all of handguns and the hand cranked gatling gun was just starting to appear on battlefields. The native people of the time didn't appreciate the colonizers much... but they were a stone age culture and almost every time they fought head on, they got their asses handed to them. So instead they'd break up into marauding bands... ten, twenty strong... and go after isolated groups of people, utilizing stealth and their knowledge of the land to make up for numbers and superior technology. They'd usually come back after every last man had a bloody tomahawk, though that might just be a folk saying." Glory replied. "The way the LT means it, it means he and a small group are splitting off from the main mass to go reconniter the enemy positions. No gunfire allowed, if you have to kill someone, you do it with a knife or your bare hands, to avoid giving yourself away. I suppose you could generalize it as a scouting mission with extreme personal prejudice. Bloody Tomahawk is getting right up in the middle of the enemy camp, cutting throats in the night, an all out, no holds barred bloodbath. God, I wish I knew how to sneak well enough to go along." Glory sounded positively wistful. "If you hear a war howl, thats the go code for the rest of us to come running, guns blazing... never had it used before, but never seen us take this many casualties before either."
"A war howl?" Asmodeus asked, slightly incredulous. "How does that sound?"
"You'll know it when you hear it... it'll set your teeth to shivering, trust me." Glory replied. He slung the missile launcher, with its one remaining missile, across his back and took up the gatling gun in both hands, reloading a fresh belt of ammunition... his last before he'd have to resort to the Gladius he'd picked up. "Just stay ready sir... we'll need to be ready to move at a moment's notice... a full on charge."
"I think I can handle that." Asmodeus said with a slight smile under his mask, taking his custom pistol out of its thigh holster and taking off the safety. The small blue dot of the laser targeting system played briefly across the walls as he sighted in again. He kept the heavy weapon in his right hand and unsheathed his rapier with his left, with its titanium-steel reinforced laser sharpened edge, the shiny metallic blade glinted in the murky light provided by the helmet sensors. Most men said the age of swords in combat was long dead, but Asmodeus disagreed... he felt that there were few more effective weapons for close combat, few weapons that evoked more fear from the enemy than a four foot length of razor sharp steel wielded expertly and with precision. He looked forward to proving this point with his point in the near future.