Deadly and Blonde
Chapter 10: Mission Time
Aya awoke at about five o'clock local time, it took her a moment to get her bearings, especially since the room was underground and had no windows. Looking at her watch, she figured it was about time to get up. The sun would be setting soon, and then the real work would start. Shaking the last remnants of sleep from her head, she stood and headed for the shower.
Ten minutes later, clean and dressed in her hunter getup, Aya crossed the hall and knocked on the door. "Room service," she said loudly before pushing open the door and flipping on the lights in the room.
"You'd better be either a hot masseuse, or a cute girl in a French maid outfit with a very impressive breakfast for me," Tamsen grumbled as she slowly sat up in bed and tried to shake the sleep from her brain.
Aya smiled and assumed the best French accent she could manage, "Ah, miz Tamsen, today ve hahve zis magneefeesent Furench Toast fou you." Tamsen whipped her head around to look at the door, surprise on her face. Aya laughed, "You should see the look on your face. It's amazing that actually worked."
Tamsen tried unsuccessfully to keep herself from blushing. "You…you… This does not leave this room!"
"As you wish, mademoiselle. Now get up, we have a briefing at eighteen hundred hours."
"Hey, where's my French Toast?" Tamsen demanded as Aya turned to leave.
"Get dressed, I'll call up to the kitchen and see if we can have some made," she replied as she walked out and closed the door behind her.
Fifteen minutes later, Tamsen knocked on Aya's door which promptly swung open for her. "It took you long enough. Now let's get upstairs and try to have something to eat before the briefing starts," said Aya as she put down the report she had been reading and led Tamsen up the stairs out of the basement. Seras was waiting for them at the top of the stairs with a somewhat cleaner looking Shielle.
"Took you two long enough to get up here; now let's go get you something to eat before the briefing," she chided as she started leading them down the corridor. "I wasn't really sure what you Americans usually do for breakfast so I asked the kitchen to make a bit of everything." Tamsen was still wondering just what "a bit of everything" would entail when Seras stopped them in front of a pair of very large doors.
"So, what's in here? King Kong?" Tamsen asked, unable to resist. She got an amused look from Seras in return before the vampiress turned around and pushed open the doors. On a long table running along the center of the room were plates and bowls of just about every type of breakfast food any of them could think of. However, despite the impressive display, they rushed through breakfast in order to get to the morning briefing on time. They arrived in front of the doors just as the briefing was scheduled to begin, Tamsen still had a piece of French Toast hanging out of her mouth which she barely managed to choke down by the time Seras had pushed the doors to the meeting room open.
The group hastily seated themselves in a semi-circle on the end of the table opposite Integra and Walter. As soon as they had seated themselves, the doors closed and locked themselves and the lights in the room dimmed as a projector turned on. The image shown on the screen seemed almost like a completely random scribble. Integra stood and began the briefing, "This is a map of the sewer system under London. We have reason to believe that whomever is behind these incidents is running their operation underground and likely using the sewer system as a distribution system for those creatures.
"Alucard has already killed four of them tonight, and we lost a survey team that we sent into the sewers to set up cameras and motion sensors. We lost contact with them approximately and hour and a half ago, and their last reported position was here." She indicated a portion of the map about a mile East of the Tower of London. "For now your mission is primarily going to be reconnaissance, but you are to destroy any of those things that you may run into. We will have the Wild Geese standing by in the event that you need to call in some backup.
"You will enter the sewer system here," she indicated a point that seemed to be directly under the parliament building. "We will escort you to the parliament building where you will take a maintenance elevator to the sub-basement. There should be an access to the sewer system from there. If there is not, we have calculated that the south wall of the sub-basement is thin enough for Seras to make a hole in with her Harkonnen if it proves necessary.
Walter handed each of them a copy of the sewer map. "You'll need to follow the route on the maps," continued Integra, "it should be the easiest and fastest way to get to your destination. Once you reach that point, you are to attempt to track down whatever attacked our scouts and eradicate it. Your weapons have already been transported and left in the sub-basement near the elevator for you.
Shielle, you'll be staying here at the manor for your own safety. Walter will take you to the infirmary for a checkup and to take some blood and tissue samples right after this meeting. After that, you'll be given access to the library and one of the computer labs to keep yourself occupied. Should you feel so inclined, you are also welcome to use the firing range under Walter's supervision if he is available." She looked around the table," Are there any questions?" Nobody raised their hand. "You are dismissed then. Prepare yourselves for deployment in half an hour."
Fifty minutes later, Aya, Seras, and Tamsen were situated around a large steel door in the sub-basement of the Parliament building wearing black, supposedly water-tight bodysuits covering every inch of them up to their necks over their normal clothing and body armor. They rounded out the ensemble with breath masks that were supposed to take care of the stench they would be encountering, and of course, lots of weapons. Seras slipped on her radio headset, followed by the mask. "Am I coming through clear?" The other two women nodded and she received a double click of acknowledgement from mission command.
"Alright ladies, let's go," she said as she attempted to turn the wheel on the hatch. The wheel wouldn't budge at first, but eventually started to move, throwing of chunks of rust and sounding like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. "Bloody hell," murmured Seras, "This probably hasn't been opened since before my grandparents were born." She kicked the door and was immersed in a red cloud as the rightmost two inches of the door dissolved into a rust cloud and the door fell out of its housing and into the foul looking river it had been hiding.
"Y'know, I don't think I really want to wade through that," remarked Tamsen.
"It's not as bad as it looks, It should only be about knee deep and it rained recently, so it's been flushed out not too long ago," replied Seras as she led the other two through the doorway and into the foul looking river. To her great relief, the mask did indeed seem to completely filter out the smell that she was sure had to be emanating from the foul looking water they were wading through.
Tamsen grimaced as she sunk up to her knees in the muck. "That's so very reassuring," she murmured in reply.
They reached their destination about half an hour later without incident. Upon arriving it was immediately apparent what had happened. There were bodies lying facedown in the muck and bullet holes in the walls and ceiling of the small corridor. The walls were splattered with blood and there appeared to be the remains of a Mossback in a state of advanced decay next to a jagged hole in the wall.
"This is Lieutenant Victoria. Command do you copy?"
"This is command, please report on situation Lieutenant Victoria."
Seras looked around and took a quick body count, "We've found the remains of the reconnaissance team, it appears they suffered 100 casualties. There are the remains of what appears to be a Mossback and a hole in the wall leading into a smaller tunnel. It also appears that one or more other NMCs passed through this area after the recon team was killed; it seems that some of the bodies have been partially eaten by something at least the size of a human." She paused as she heard something crunch under her foot and bent down to see what it was, "The surveillance equipment also appears to be a total loss," she added, kicking aside the case of the ruined infrared assembly. "What are our orders?"
The voice of Integra Hellsing came over the line, "Search and Destroy. Follow the tunnel to its point of origin and destroy the enemy facility and any conspirators you run into there. We will have reinforcements prepared for you to call in if and when you need them. You are authorized to use all force necessary to eliminate the threat. That is all."
Well, it's been a while since I've updated I know, and I apologize for the awkwardness of this chapter. The first section of this story was originally intended primarily to be an experiment in character development and writing styles, now that the experiment's over and I've decided to pick up this piece again I needed to segue between the experiment and the rest of the story which should be a bit more exciting. It should get a bit easier to write from this point on, so I hope to have the next chapter up within a week or so.