Chapter 8

Strategies

Sapphire looked around to make sure pretty much everyone that was supposed to be there was in the Conference Room. Thankfully, they were. As she walked down the aisle, she tried to listen in on some of the conversation that was happening. There was a lot of shouting about fighting back, and even more about the Insurgency's defensive plans. Nothing new.

As she stepped up onto the stage and behind the podium, she looked at both of the flags before turning her head downward. She sighed as she put her gun in the podium and took off her helmet. She was going to need a lot more volume this time. Her helmet wasn't supposed to restrict it, but she felt like it did. She also felt the New Insurgents and New Hesitance members take her more seriously when she doesn't wear her helmet.

She rested her helmet on the podium, slammed her hands down, and yelled loud enough to block out all the other noises in the room that seemed to have a yellow glow:

"HEY!"

Then everything was quiet.

"Damn!" was all Niko could say. He had been taken aback by the sudden shout.

Sapphire slowly slid her hand off of the podium once she had gotten everyone's attention. She instead rested her elbows on the podium and scanned the crowd, stopping her search once she found Garnet, Gold, and Silver. "Were your Sections secure?" she asked, her voice tight and serious like, leaving no room for stuttering or any other sort of speech issue.

All three nodded in unison, and repeated a phrase they said often, "Yes, Sir."

Sapphire nodded, "Good." She then found Alex, "Did Main secure their Sections?" she asked him, and he nodded. She then turned her gaze back over to the entire crowd. "Last time we had an invasion like this, I said I had better not here any bickering until we assessed the situation, checked for damage, and made fair points in front of the entire Insurgency. Wasn't I clear on that?"

No answer.

"I said, WASN'T I CLEAR ON THAT!?"

A flow of "Yes, Sir's," finally came after Sapphire raised her voice.

"I thought so. If you have any issues with the Insurgency's defense policies or recent plans, you bring them forth NOW. Not later with your friends, not two days for a riot, NOW."

Niko marveled at his friend's ability to take control amidst chaos. He had known her for years but the five months he's been gone had changed her greatly. He was amazed and a little scared. He too had changed but he was waiting for the right time to show that off.

"Now that we're all here," Niko said. "We can properly plan our next moves. We're in a chess-like situation, we the Knights and Queen," He pointed to Sapphire when he said Queen. "Are trying to take out the enemy, but we are down both our bishops and Rooks. We now have as I see it, all eight Pawns, the Knights and Queen. We need to figure how we're going to take the enemy King, the Director, down. So in short, we need to construct a strategy to stop this without too many casualties on our side."

Suddenly, Niko's eyes glow sky blue.

"What do you think we've been trying to do, huh?" Silver asked from the backmost pew, crossing her armored arms. "You take us for fools, don't you, Mr. Know-It-All, barging in like you're going to be some hero. Well, guess what? It's not that fucking easy! We're not just twiddling our thumbs over here!"

Gold put a hand on his twin's solider, "Sil, calm down," he told her. Silver made a disgusted face and flopped down into her seat, muttering something about her outburst.

Sapphire shook her head, "Agent Silver has every right to be angry, Agent Gold." She turned her gaze to Niko. "Like I told you, you can't just go throwing around stuff like that. You haven't been here a day, you don't know what's going on. Please, hold your peace."

Another soldier, one of the New Hesitance, stood. "Sapphire, sir, we can't just keep taking these attacks and hide in the shadows. We have to do something, and quick.

"We're working on it, solider," Sapphire replied. "We can't just pull a master plan out of our asses anymore, especially with wave after wave of X Insurgents. We're getting there, but you have to be patient."

Another New Hesitance soldier stood. "Why don't we just let some escape, then track them?" she asked as if her plan was the best idea ever. There were a few mumbles.

"Hush," Sapphire hissed, eyes narrowed. "It's not that fucking easy. I'd like to see you do my job, Beatrice. Making the tracking devices would be easy, but those soldiers aren't as dumb as we think they are. We tried tracking them once, and they led some of our own into a trap. It's a dumb move now. Anyone else want to call out dumbass ideas? I'm open for anything right now."

"I do." Niko said in a hollow voice. "I gained the ability to hack electronic devices and the servers they work on. I can do something with that, but I need to know the sitch first. So, what's the sitch?" (A/N: Kim Possible reference!)

A New Insurgent sitting in the front pew stood up and turned around to face Niko. "The 'sitch' is we're pretty much fucked. And as far as hacking goes, Agent Garnet has that covered. It's his appointed position."

Sapphire held her head in her hands. "Alright, I'm about to bring this meeting to a close. For those of you on the Green Committee, we have a meeting in five hours. For those of you on the Black Committee, you are instructed to go to that meeting as well. It'll be held in the building next door. I do not want any more talk about today's events spoken in a directive manner, and if you do decide to talk about them at all, keep it quiet. We will take smaller steps to raise our defense and make a plan. If you think you have ideas, submit them to the Blue Committee at the Office. Rookies have practice in Section B today, and those of you in the Yellow Committee need to hurry up with those weapons. This meeting is now adjourned."

"So," Niko said his eyes back to normal. "What can I do? I wanna contribute somehow and just looking on as everyone does things isn't very helpful in my opinion."

Everyone started filling out, mumbling more about the meeting. Sapphire sighed as she put her helmet on and grabbed her gun. She stepped down from the podium and walked over to Niko.

"You're not exactly anyone's biggest fan right now," she told him bluntly. "Go around and help with body clean up, show them they can trust you."

"Okay." Niko said walking away. He walked up to Silver and sighed. "Hey. I know I act like a dick sometimes but I only try to help and I know I come off unhelpful. I truly want to help but I just tend to get in the way. I truly wanna help if you will let me."

Niko starts picking up the dead and checking to find the wounded. As he was he saw Tails walking up. He walked up to him.

"Da-I mean, Tails." Niko stuttered. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here on Sapphire's request." Tails replied. "You're mother...err, Mina is here too."

"But..." Niko said.

Tails smiled at his brother and shook his head. "Let's just focus on body clean up, we'll talk later."

Niko nodded and continued on his body clean up patrol.

Looks like Niko can't be trusted yet…well let's hope next chapter, they begin to trust him a little bit!