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Balkan Mountains, near Resistance Base "Homestead"
Every assassin tried to be invisible…but it was ultimately an unobtainable goal. At least until now.
As Violet Beauregarde moved through the trees, she continued to wonder at the marvel of technology currently strapped around her waist: a field generator that made her own attempts at stealth look laughable by comparison. It was a duplicate of a device recovered from the spacecraft that had crashed nearly six months ago, a true miracle of technology. She was moving in broad daylight, strolling casually through the forest rather than creeping from cover to cover…yet she could not be seen. She turned her head, the lens attached to her headset allowing her to see the other eleven operatives with her, all of them nothing more than blue outlines. Without the eyepiece, she would not have been able to see anything at all, save for the occasional suggestion of a ripple in the air. There was still sound, of course, readily audible to Violet's trained ears: a faint rustle of feet walking over the leaves and twigs which covered the forest floor, the vaguest whisper of breath. But even these things were no louder than the sigh of a gentle breeze through the foliage, and most would likely have dismissed them as such. Even still, it would not do to get careless.
"Hold up. Rebel patrol," a harsh, crackling voice said in Violet's ear…the microphones resting against each of her soldiers' throats picked up the faintest whisper of speech and turned it into an audible, if unnatural, synthetic voice. The warning came from the scout in the lead, roughly fifty yards ahead; Violet and the others shrank back away from the trail and froze. Their gentle breathing became completely silent as a half-dozen men in dark green uniforms came crunching their way down the trail, the two in the rear talking animatedly with guns held loose at their sides. Violet had the advantage in both stealth and manpower; the little band would have been dead in a heartbeat if she had ordered it. Yet she and the rest of her operatives did nothing more than watch the Resistance soldiers pass before they continued on in the opposite direction, heading along the flank of the mountain to the primary rebel base.
After another fifteen minutes, the scout stopped again, only this time he waited for the rest of the team to catch up to him. "Insertion point's up there," he said, gesturing; several hundred feet further up the slope, several men stood on a sort of balcony which projected from the hillside, a steel walkway stretching out of sight to the next observation post. Behind them was a large protrusion of concrete, which held a massive circular grate; it was from the pipe beneath this grate that Awolowa Mugabe had transmitted a few days before. As the only part of the rebel's ventilation system that the satellites could pinpoint, it was Violet's ticket in. "How do you want to get rid of the guards, My Lady?"
Violet tilted her head, considering. "Where's the nearest perimeter sensor?" The team had been sidestepping rebel ground vibration sensors all morning; there was an entire network of them buried across the area, presently keeping the rest of the army at a distance. But that problem would soon be handled.
The scout was already moving back down the slope. "Rest assured, I'll find one. What do you want me to do when they come to check?"
"Leave them alive, for the moment…let them think a deer ran across it. They can't suspect anything is wrong."
"Yes, My Lady."
"Kaplan, remain behind with Reese. Keep our exit clear."
"Yes, My Lady."
Reese, the scout, moved silently off into the foliage. Two or three minutes passed, and then the movements of the men on the platform suddenly grew more animated. All three of the men above exited their post and came quickly down the slope, directly toward Violet and her team. The operatives remained silent and still as they passed, despite the fact that one of the rebels tripped and nearly stumbled straight into Raines…the three men disappeared down the hill, and Violet made the single gesture to move out. Concerns about noise momentarily forgotten, the operatives rushed up the slope to the platform, vaulting over the rail and drawing up before the ventilation grate. They had no more than a few minutes…a miniature laser cutter flared to life, and the heavy bars began to part with maddening slowness. Violet struggled to control her impatience, which was heightened all the more by her anticipation of what was soon to come; willing herself to remain calm, she managed to hold her silence until the last of the bars was cut.
"Rebels are coming back," Kaplan's voice crackled across the radio, the man in question a faint blue silhouette crouching near the base of a tree…the grating was pried loose with scarcely a sound, and the lead operative slowly began to ease into the pipe.
"Faster, you fools!" Violet spat, now able to see the distant shapes of the approaching Resistance soldiers; though they could not yet see the open mouth of the vent, they would be able to in a few seconds. Unconcerned about noise, Violet all but pushed the second man into the pipe and quickly followed him; emulating their leader's example, the rest of the agents made no effort to avoid banging about as they ducked inside. The last two seized the grate and pulled it up into place behind them, the bars having been cut at an angle that would prevent the grate from falling inward. Two tiny spot welds were made, just enough to stabilize the grating, and then the agents were again silent as footsteps marked the arrival of the rebel soldiers.
"False alarm," one of them said, his radio crackling something in reply, and the operatives relaxed. Now, however, the real work began. Easing her way down to the front of the group, Violet found herself perhaps three feet above the first of several laser tripwires which crossed the inside of the pipe; the same visual frequency that allowed her to see her teammates allowed her to just distinguish the narrow beams which barred her way. There were almost certainly no explosives or other traps in the air vent itself, but the disruption of one of the beams would undoubtedly alert security…something Violet was obviously keen to avoid. Easing a tiny case from a pocket on the leg of her jumpsuit, she carefully attached a tiny double-sided mirror in front of the first laser projector, breaking the circuit without triggering an alert. She repeated the process with the opposite projector, now sending both beams directly back into their source emitters. Sensors still registered a constant laser beam, but the pipe was now clear. She repeated the process at three more sets of projectors, creating a path forward to where additional ventilation conduits split off to either side. At her nod, two men split off to the left, while the other seven followed her to the right, more of them breaking off at set intervals. A bewildering array of ducts and conduits ran in every direction, undoubtedly spanning the entire rebel facility; while the ventilation system was not represented on Mugabe's map, a rough approximation of the operatives' present coordinates gave them some idea of where they were in relation to the rest of the base. Finally, only Violet and Chu remained. They were to separate at the junction just ahead, but Chu hesitated.
"You're certain you don't need backup, My Lady? Flynn and his men can handle the charges, if you wish."
"That's quite all right," Violet replied, "I thank you for your offer, Lieutenant, but I am quite certain I can handle one old man. Besides, this has become a matter of…honor. I must do it alone."
Chu nodded and disappeared into the duct.
Violet waited there at the junction after he was gone, fury and anticipation building in her chest until they became unbearable. Again she closed her eyes, ordering her mind into a state of calm. When she was again in mastery of herself, she opened her eyes, concentrating on the row of five tiny circles superimposed at the bottom of her vision by the eyepiece. Each represented an objective marker, and each would illuminate as her teams completed their objectives. She did not know how long she waited...in the field, her patience was almost limitless. But it had not been terribly long before there was a chirp in her earpiece and the first circle changed to green, signaling that, somewhere above, the rebels' main communications system was now scrambled beyond repair. And the best part? They would not even know until it was too late. They had no idea that their perimeter was down…had no inkling that their own radio receivers had just been used to transmit the all-clear to the Army divisions hiding at the lower end of the valley. The next delay was longer, but eventually the third circle changed to green as well, informing her that Chu had completed his task. The emergency charges that the Oompa-Loompa spy had so fortuitously discovered were intended to block the route of any invader, giving the fortress's personnel and the huge civilian complement time to escape…now they would serve the opposite purpose: to keep the rebels in. Violet grinned as she imagined the consternation that would result. The final indicator lit up, and it was done. The main Resistance fortress, the golden prize that had eluded Nova Britannia for so long, was now ready to fall. Only one thing remained, one casualty that had to be guaranteed no matter the outcome of the battle. Violet was ready. She had failed once. She would not fail again.
Making her way along the duct that Chu had taken some time before, she quickly turned and followed another branch. She ducked lower as she made her way into a smaller ventilation shaft, now able to check the rooms below through the gratings that she passed. A cruel smile split her features as she found herself directly above the man she wanted…he had no idea what was about to befall him. She had a strong inclination to try to kick out the grate right then and there, spring down into the room, and perform her task with theatrical flair. Only it would not do to be shot on reflex before she could complete her mission; she did not know how well her active camouflage would respond to such rapid movement, and noisily kicking open a ceiling grate would somewhat defeat the purpose of stealth. Even if she killed her enemy, she might still be shot in the back…and death, while temporary, was an experience she did not care to repeat. Only what if the General moved, left his office while she was trying to find another way around to him? She bit her lip as she considered, nearly drawing blood in her indecision…only then the choice was made for her. The door of the office hissed open, General Bucket greeting the newcomer; though Violet could not see who it was, the two men quickly dropped into a conversation that did not seem in danger of ending soon. Under other circumstances, Violet might have stayed to listen, to see what information she could glean. But she did not care. Whatever it was, it no longer mattered. The Resistance would be in tatters by nightfall.
Backtracking to another grate, Violet lowered herself down in a dark storage room. Making her way to the door, she eased it open and slipped out into the corridor, her tread completely silent. She shrank back against the wall several times as enemy soldiers passed her, oblivious to her presence despite the fact that she was no more than six inches from them. Several turns brought her to what was surely the correct corridor, the door she wanted just ahead; two men stood guard outside, and she could just hear the indistinct sound of the General's voice from beyond the door. The two guards remained blissfully unaware as she stepped up beside the first man, so close she could have kissed him…her arm shot out, seizing his head and pulling it forward as a knife shot from her opposite hand, skewering the second man through the throat as he turned to see what was wrong with his companion…she threw herself into the air, using the first man as a pommel horse as she flipped onto his shoulders, wrapped her legs around his neck, and sprang free with a neat horizontal pirouette, twisting his head almost backwards. Landing cleanly, she took a brief moment to straighten her jumpsuit before pressing the button just to one side of the door.