Author's Notes: Be careful when reading this chapter, I inserted knives and other sharp, pointy things when uploading it. One more thing: There seems to be an awful lot of hatred directed at my lamp story, and it has to stop. That is all…
Interdiction
~
"What? What's going on?" Walter
"Guilty knowledge. He knew the exact bomb type without me even telling him; the only way that could've happened is if he knew precisely which type he used." Detective O'Donnell frantically looked out the glass door of the office to see what was taking place outside. A few people who were suspicious of his presence gathered around each other. "Plus, I think this skeleton crew isn't enough to qualify for an actual security team; even though many of them are supposedly at some demonstration convention."
"Why not?" Walter asked over the small communication device.
"I counted about ten, normally they'd have a few dozen not including a quick reaction force."
"Tyler, if they…" Walter shirked away so that the 'secretary' wouldn't notice. With a whisper he said, "If they are in control of a bomb facility mere miles outside the city, the General's gonna go crazy!"
"I know, I know… it's just." The detective's sight froze when it landed on a nearby gun locker. If things turned worse, he might just have to use a little more force that only military grade weaponry could offer. "I might have to go back on that vigilant gunslinger promise."
"What? Did you kill someone already?!" Walter practically screamed, but he still kept the volume to a minimum.
"No, not yet. But if anyone's going to die, I'll do my best to make sure it's not me."
Walter knew from his experiences with his partner that he had blood on his hands before. Whether the suspect was running away or if they were pulling a gun out on them, Detective Tyler always had a superheated bolt of micro-fission heated plasma ready for them. He never hesitated when it came to someone else's life; he couldn't wait for the situation to change, he had to act. Even if it meant taking a life.
Walter rolled his eyes. "Well that's comforting." He sarcastically noted. "Tell you what, how about we do what we're supposed to do, which is call for backup, instead of having a couple of *urgh*" He groaned. "…Detectives take on a well armed force of a dangerous size."
"Backup might take too long, but call them anyways." The detective said as he scanned the nearby windows once more. He saw the guards arrange in positions behind empty containers, as if taking cover. "I think we're in for a hell of a ride."
"Fine." Walter admitted as he moved the 'secretary's' hands behind his back. He'd just performed a quick and skilled takedown on the poor soul all while speaking to his comrade. The simian squealed under the intense pressure. "Just… please don't die. Who knows what sort of creep I'll get stuck with if that happens?"
"Very funny. Now call for backup make and sure nobody gets out the way we came in."
"Yes sir." Walter said right before he disconnected. Funny, he'd never called him sir before.
"Sir? Now I might have to investigate Walter."
The detective wasted no time in preparing for the worst. He ran over to the gun locker and yanked the doors open. He expected to find a weapon, something heavier than the small sidearm he already had. But instead of finding a blaster, he was struck with an intense shock when he found himself to be the landing spot of a falling body which had been propped up inside the locker.
The detective leaped back at the sight of the lifeless body falling to the floor. "I guess I know now what happened to the real guards." He said, examining the nasty mark on the guard's clavicle. "Shot in the back, must've been an inside job. Makes sense, that's the only way a small group of thugs could've taken over a facility such as this."
He searched the locker for another weapon, but all he found was a couple of spare explosive shells and a used security uniform, as well as this year's 'Women of the Lylat' calendar. Besides that was a picture of a man very reminiscent to the one on the floor. The canine looked warm in the scratchy photo as he hugged his three children in front of a brown background.
The detective looked back at the body to see if there were any signs of breathing. The picture struck something deep down inside of him which suddenly made him care a little bit more about the guard's life. He didn't have time to tell if he was breathing, because once he leaned down to check, a voice prompted his attention over the loudspeaker.
"Attention everyone, Mr. Doles has decided that it's time to test out what we came here for. Please report to the back end of the facility so we can finally get out of here." The low and brutish voice gave a brief pause. "And don't be last."
"They're trying to escape, eh?" The detective pulled up his communicator. "Walter, they're trying to escape through the back, tell the backup that…"
Walter interrupted with an abrupt statement as nearby gunfire could be heard at his position. "I'm in a bit of a jam here buddy, maybe later?"
Tyler reacted by shooting at the door before kicking it in two. Nobody was going to get to Walter while he was in Vigilant Gunslinger mode. Immediately, the wolf saw a bulky thug charging at him only seven meters away. He didn't hesitate, the charging thug was met with a charging shot to the face, and as he fell down with the clang of a light armor hitting a metal floor, Tyler saw the searing vapor rise from his lifeless head.
Brutal but necessary. In those brief instances, reaction is everything.
He quickly turned around to see if any other positions were open to his business of death. The only movement he truly got was that of someone escaping through a darkened corridor, fearfully locking the door behind him.
It was now that Tyler felt the intense thrill that could only come from the fresh imprint of a kill. In that moment, all that mattered was putting a hole in the head of anyone who tried to hurt him or Walter. Everything was a blur, and the edge of his vision was a murky collection of flowing reflections.
That moment could be condensed into a rage fueled by his experiences of using both forceful and diatribe efforts to still his enemies. He was no longer a detective, but a soldier.
He leaped down from the railing and onto the open floor below. All manner of ground and space based weapons was construed around him in a maze of unidentifiable differences. He dodged each inert warhead which undoubtedly could wipe out an entire squadron of small craft. The thing is, there were hundreds of them.
Someone was prepared for war. The General's top advisors had always been paranoid about another Aparoid attack. Many objected when he ordered for weapons plants to be built in locations which had been known to hold a dangerous amount of criminals. But of all the places that could've been taken over by a band of thugs, this one would be the last.
A shipping container and a high security gate later, Tyler found himself unable to pass through the door which led to the atrium where Walter was. The detective's heart raced when he was unable to find an immediate way to get into the room. The door was locked, figures.
"Damn it." The detective snarled as his head swiveled from side to side. If the thugs hadn't already taken care of Walter, their numbers were definitely large enough to take him on.
"Come on!" Tyler banged on the door with both hands. For some reason, that didn't seem to work. He breathed heavily before trying to find another entrance. He needed to go back from where he came; however, that exact entrance had been previously blocked by the fleeting escapee.
The only room other than that had a warning label which secured it almost as well as any security guard could. At chest height, it read in a very deterring bold blue letters the word 'experimental.'
Tyler had dealt with experimental weapons before, but that was years ago. Even then, some weapons he had used during his time in the military had already been in production for decades.
Inside the square room, there were shelves full of circular grenades and even a massive rocket launcher which looked extremely difficult to handle. An explosion inside of a bomb factory wasn't the safest idea, but as long as it was small enough, the inert materials wouldn't have enough reason to react.
"Where's the damn breachers?!" He yelled to himself, harkening back to his frustrating days as a recruit. He struggled, shuffling through the large numbers of weapons and detonators until he eventually landed on a fine looking pulse grenade.
"Ten years." He repeated to himself. "I'm sure Phoenix won't care."
He took the grenade from the shelf and made sure the safety release was off. He ran back to the area with the locked door, intent on opening it. The grenade would shatter any systems keeping the door closed; hopefully, it would also damage the door itself, making it easier for him to get in.
One deep breath and a squeeze in the right spot and the grenade lit up on each side, prepared to discharge seconds after it had been thrown. Tyler knew that a pulse grenade posed little danger to him in this environment. The grenade showed to have a small yield, so as long as he kept a good distance, the grenade posed no direct danger to him.
Predominantly, the grenade was used to damage automated systems and vehicles. A long time ago, when such types of grenades had just been invented, they were a devastating force on any battlefield, for if it was thrown in the right spot, it could cause any nearby weapons to explode or become useless. Nowadays, weapons were often hardened to combat this problem, meaning that the once practical tactic had been lost in time.
He launched the grenade, which flew through the air with ease. Covering his eyes, he heard the distinct sound of fizzling electrostatic pulsating from its central source. He looked back up to see the door slowly tilt before falling down with a loud crash.
Now that that was out of the way, it was time to save his partner's hide. He leaped onto the fallen door, almost losing his balance. With his gun drawn, he scanned the small locker room.
Before the detective was able to move on however, his face had already been decided by someone else to be the first part of his body to hit the floor. He held on to the mysterious hand which was attempting to slam his head into the hard floor. He struggled to break free, but the position he was in wouldn't allow him to fight. His arms flailed as his body began to go horizontal. Maybe they finished Walter off, and had moved to complete the job with him. But just before he came to a hard stop, Tyler noticed who it was who'd just attacked him.
"Gotta check your corners detective." Walter said picking up the gun his partner dropped when he disarmed it from him and handed it back.
"Where'd you learn those close quarter combat moves?"
"Well O'D, if you found yourself a wife, you'd get some new fighting skills as well."
Detective Tyler stared blankly.
"That was a joke…"
The two detectives trudged away from the locker room, talking to each other as they made sure each room was clear of enemies.
"Right, did you call in for backup?"
"Corneria's finest are on their way now. At first, they thought I might have been crying O'Donnell, but then they realized that this could escalate into a military affair if handled wrong."
"Understandable… but wouldn't this be a Phoenix affair?" Tyler asked.
"Yeah, but the military gets their weapons from places like these. If they discover that their readiness is being restricted because the weapons they are supposed to receive are actually being transported to organized criminals, well…"
"Yeah I get it." Tyler nodded. "All hell breaks loose."
The detectives arrived at the atrium guarding the front entrance. Their backup hadn't yet arrived, so all there was to greet them there was the six or so unconscious bodies Walter had taken care of.
"If the General finds out…"
"Enough about the General, right now I'm worried at about the Chief. Right now, he's the last person I want to talk to-" Tyler's communicator started to beep.
"Yes… Chief?" The detective answered.
The noise from the other end was clouded with nervous speech and blaring sirens. "Detective, what the hell is going on?!"
"Didn't you hear? The bomb facility only miles away from the city is under new management at the moment."
"All I heard from Walt was that some Mr. Dolt has managed to take over the facility and is now trying to escape."
"You heard right Chief. And I'd like to inform you that I'm not going to let that happen."
The disgruntled Chief raised his voice. "O'Donnell, you stay where you are! He's got no way to escape. If he attempts to leave by air, we've got dozens of military aircraft on standby ready to blow them out of the sky."
"Chief, I recall something was said about them retrieving what they came there for. If they're shot down, we might never recover what they stole."
"I get it. But that might not be my decision; I hear some of these pilots have a mind of their own."
The detective saw through a window a bunch of thugs gathering themselves in preparation for a departure.
"Damn it they're leaving." Tyler said as he tried to get a better view. "Yep, it's by air, only real way out of here." As he got a better look at the presumed escape vehicle, he noticed that its smooth curves and gray exterior looked nothing like any ship he'd ever seen. Perhaps this was what they came for. "Chief, how long till you get here?"
There was a short pause for the confused eagle to gather information. "ETA is about three minutes, and the paramedics are on their way. That reminds me, have you killed anyone yet?"
"One sir… I think. Didn't get enough time to confirm it."
"Good boy. Now keep yourself from getting in any more danger. You do realize I have a lot of paperwork to do if you end up dying."
"Is that all sir?"
"Yeah, just… stay out of trouble ok? Believe it or not, you're the only guy we can afford to send over for those 'career days' they always have at the schools."
"I thought you said you'd never speak of that again sir." The detective retold every traumatic experience of dealing with preschoolers to himself silently.
"I lied."
Tyler rolled his eyes.
"But seriously, leave the fighting to the kill teams and the fighter squadrons. You usually seem to forget that sidearm's supposed to be used for defending your own life." The transmission ended.
Detective Tyler peered out the window once more. He walked over to the nearby exit.
"Don't do it…" Walter said nonchalantly as his partner's hand reached for the outside door. "Don't…"
It was too late. Once O'Donnell was on the chase, there was no stopping him until his prey had either gotten away or had became his latest kill.
"TYLER!" Walter yelled as he demanded the renegade detective return. There was no change in his movement; he kept running until the thugs loading speedily onto the ship had begun to take notice. All Walter could do was sit back and watch; no way was he going after him this time.
Detective O'Donnell ran behind a piece of heavy machinery. He neared the corner just as the escaping ship was about to take off. This was it, Mr. Doles could be stopped once and for all with just a carefully placed shot.
He turned the corner but rolled back when he was almost obliterated by a heavy barrage of shots coming from the ship. Fortunately for him, the thugs probably didn't have the best training, and many of their misses could also be attributed to the poor quality of their weapons.
When the blue bolts stopped falling next to the detective's feet, he peeked around the large steel container to see just where Mr. Doles was escaping.
The transport was now off the ground, but its loading hatch was still open, exposing Mr. Doles' large body to the outside world. Just before the detective lined up his shot, he was met with the intensely powerful face of the suited outlaw.
He smiled back at him as if he were confident Tyler couldn't make the shot. Whether this was purely intimidation or just a lack of fear was unknown. But it was not the expression itself that was so powerful, but the simple ability to do so without worry.
Tyler's body froze as he realized the smile was simply enough to disarm him. For it was at that moment that the smirking Rhino had him right where he wanted.
He couldn't fire, but it wouldn't have even done him much good, because just then, the loading hatch to medium sized transport closed, and the exterior of the ship itself gave a few fizzles and cracks before it became completely invisible to the eye. And with a loud noise and a sense of abandonment, it burst off with any trace.
The detective could do nothing but fall on his knees as he stared blankly into the now empty sky.
The sound of sirens and overhead aircraft made their way to the front of the facility.
~X~X~X~X~X~
"Yes that's right sir, a stealth ship, probably one of Phoenix's new toys." Walter said as he sat down among the fray of vehicles and incursion teams. The area around it was chaotic as injured facility workers were being loaded onto countless medical vehicles.
"Did you get a good look at it?" The Chief asked hopefully.
"Not really… it is a stealth ship after all." Walter stood and started to walk away, his short attention span meant he had to move somewhere else, possibly to help with the clean up teams.
"Well our boys in the air said they couldn't get a heat signature or anything. It seems Phoenix has really outdone themselves this time." The Chief noticed someone making his way towards him through the intricate path of assorted police transports.
"Detective, what the hell did I tell you about chasing after those… those criminals?" The Chief's voice was as stern as ever.
Detective Tyler's ears drooped in shame. "Sorry sir… it's just…"
"Maybe I should tell you the opposite of what I want you to do! At least then when you disobey my orders you'll be doing the right thing! I always have to remember there's a ninety percent chance that you'll go off and follow your own method, do you wonder why I give you such few cases?"
"But sir, they were escaping, I had to-"
"They left because they saw you. If they didn't know anything was up, or if they'd even assumed that you'd been dealt with, we would've been able to stop them before they left the ground! I can't take your damn renegade antics any longer! If you weren't so good, I would've had you fired long ago! And now, you have to get involved in the dealings of a bunch of pirates who will probably sell this prototype in the black market!"
The detective braced for the worst of the scolding. He knew the Chief only kept him around because he was one of the few officers who didn't have a room temperature I.Q.
"I came here investigating a murder, how was I supposed to stop them?"
"By letting us do the work. You're not the one in the sky with a hyper charged accelerator, your just a detective with a barely lethal sidearm."
The detective looked away. He saw a man which looked just like him being wheeled onto an ambulance nearby.
Up rushed Ulrich, who had just returned from a quick scan of the building. "Chief… Don…" he nodded. "I scanned the warehouses. At least forty Phoenix employees, nine of them dead."
"Did you check near the records room?" Detective O'Donnell asked.
"Yeah… poor bastard." Ulrich looked at the ground, pausing for a brief silence.
"Anyways, I checked up on this 'Mr. Doles' fellow, seems there's an interesting story behind him."
"Do you think he has a connection with the murder case?" The Chief asked.
"Possibly, although I can't confirm it, it's likely he might have something to do with it. But for all intents and purposes, this is an entirely separate case."
"Or just a most intriguing case." Tyler spoke up. "Mr. Doles knew exactly which bomb type was used in the murder without me even telling him. That's highly unlikely considering I never told him a bomb was used; nevertheless the fact that it's supposedly a rather unpopular model."
"Good catch detective!" Ulrich exclaimed. "Now we have a connection."
The Chief rose from the hood of his cruiser. His back popped as he struggled with the aches in his joints. "He's no longer on Corneria, which means our localized force can't chase him." He turned to the detective. "That reminds me, someone wants to see you…"
~X~X~X~X~X~
Author's Notes: MIISturYY!