A/N So here is Chapter Seven. We're Nearing the end people. Just a couple more to go. I've got a big move coming up so it might be a while before I update again.
Chapter 7: New Friends.
It's funny you know? No matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, rifles still needed to be cleaned. Well at least they did if you deserved to own them. Sure, in the military higher officers would have someone else do it for them but even then, it was a rarity. They needed to be cleaned or else you were likely to get a stoppage at the worst possible time. So, that's where Jack found himself later that evening after their dramatic rescue from the Last Man Battalion.
He was straddling the end of an empty TITAN II crate in the weapons cage with his new M1A stripped on the shipping crate in front of him. He was mostly finished and was just using a bore snake to do a few pull throughs of the barrel.
Over in the Humvees vehicle bay, Team 3 was going over their new toy. The Chenowth Advanced Light Strike Vehicle had been everything that he had hoped it would be. It handled the rubble strewn terrain like it was born to it and the Mark19 had been an absolute joy to fire for the five seconds that it had functioned. It was currently sitting on the ground about five feet away from him with Mark swearing at it as he attempted to get the jam cleared. The live round had been removed from the breach but apparently, there was still a casing and even a couple of links crammed into the chamber. How it had managed to do that, Jack had absolutely no idea. Either way it was funny as hell to watch Mark beat his brains out trying to unjam the weapon. As he wiped down the exterior of the M1A's upper receiver he listened to the heated argument going on behind him as Natasha, Drew, Chris, and Craig poured over a map of the city.
"Listen I'm not saying that her people aren't in a tight spot." Drew was gesturing wildly as he tried to make his point. This "Discussion" had been going on for nearly an hour now. "All I'm saying is that there is no feasible way to get them out. It's too much of a risk for us AND them to try and pull them out of there and transport over a hundred civilians through Riker infested territory. That's not even considering what might happen if the LMB get wind of it."
"Oh well thank you for ever so graciously admitting that my people are in a bit of a jam." Natasha even mock curtsied when she said that. "But I don't give a flying fuck. Everything you can imagine that we need, we're running low on, if we haven't already run out of it. I have people dying due to lack of medication. Last week somebody died because they cut their foot. Fucking infection. This is what I'm talking about! If we'd had penicillin she'd still be alive! But Nooooo you can't be bothered to risk your ass for the sake of someone else."
"Can't be bothered? CAN'T BE BOTHERED? Let me fucking tell you something…."
It kind of deteriorated from there. Jack finished assembling the rifle and returned it to the rifle rack. Bending over he picked up a steel bar used to secure the rifles to the rack and pushed it down the barrel of the Mk19 until it hit the end of the jammed casing. Picking up a discarded three-pound hammer, he hit the protruding end of the bar and with a hollow ringing noise, popped the casing out of the breech.
"You might have done that an hour ago you know?" Mark muttered disgruntledly.
"What and deprive myself of the quality entertainment you were providing? Not on your life." Jack said grinning. Leaving the weapons cage, Jack walked over to the arguing group where it looked like Natasha and Andrew were about two seconds from a full on brawl. Slamming his palm down on a nearby work bench he halted the argument with a yell.
"Alright that's enough!" Every head turned to look at him as he approached the group. "I'm going to put a halt to this argument right now. It's really, very simple. We're getting her people out. End of discussion." When Drew looked to be drawing himself up to argue Jack cut him off "I said end of discussion. We've been lucky thus far. We haven't had to worry about medication or where our next meal was going to come from. This was the entire reason we started doing this. To help these people. So, let's stop talking about whether or not we should help them and start figuring out how. Now Natasha, how many people are we talking about?"
She flashed him a grateful look and said "Including the non-combatants, 157 plus myself. "
Jack had to stop from choking as he heard how many people he had just committed himself to rescuing. He saw Drew grinning out of the corner of his eye. He didn't see how it would be possible. Twenty or thirty he could work with. Damn near 200 was a completely different story. However, he had already said he would do it. He couldn't be seen to change his mind on a decision in front of the people who were counting on him. A leader was allowed to make wrong decisions, so long as he made a decision and stuck with it.
"Well I'll admit I was hoping for a smaller number than that but we can work with it. How many vehicles do you have?" This was crucial Jack knew. There was no way they'd be able to get them all out on foot and it was impossible to airdrop the size and number of vehicles they'd need to move that many people.
"I've got three MILCOTS and six MSVS plus a handful of looted civilian vehicles. There's enough trucks there to get everyone out. I was trying to say that before mister ball buster over here cut me off." She threw another glare at Drew as she finished. Drew took a step toward her and Jack stepped in between them.
"Knock it off you two. If you want to kick the shit out of each other There's a boxing ring in the gym but that comes later. Now MILCOTs aren't too bad, they're light and fast and we can work with that. The MSVS on the other hand is basically a giant bullet magnet. We'll need to come up with a work around."
That was the real problem with the MSVS. They'll carry around 24 people each in the back of the truck but the only thing between them and the bullets being shot at them is a bit of canvas. They had to find a way to cover the ten kilometers of completely hostile territory with minimal casualties.
"Ok this is what we're going to do. For tonight, we're going to attempt to make contact with her people. Then we're all going to get some sleep and escort Ms. Blake back in the morning. After that it's all a matter of figuring out how to get over a hundred and fifty people from there to here without getting them all killed." It sounded a lot easier in his head to be honest.
An hour later Jack found himself drawn by the sound of cheering coming from the gym. Walking in he saw what seemed to be the entire combat staff standing around the boxing ring cheering as Tash and Drew circled each other. They were both pouring sweat as they eyed each other through their fingerless grappling gloves. Drew was stripped down to a pair of grey shorts which displayed his muscled physique gained from daily workouts. Tash was similarly stripped down to a pair of black running shorts and a sports bra. She must have borrowed them from Trish as she was the only one that could come close to her size. Her hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail and she looked focused as she slapped away Drew's jab. Jack knew from his own sparring sessions that Drew was good. While boxing wasn't his forte he was good enough to pose a challenge to anyone who wasn't a professional. Allow him to use elbows, knees, and kicks and he was damn near unstoppable.
Which was why Jack was so surprised when Natasha caught the roundhouse kick that drew sent at her head. It was a vicious kick and would have knocked her out cold if it had landed but instead she blocked it with her forearm and wrapped the arm around his leg. With his leg pinned he was unable to stop the uppercut she landed to the back of his thigh and the follow through backhand to the jaw.
He did manage to wrench his leg away and put some distance between the two of them. But it was clear that it hurt to stand on. Tash didn't give him a moment to breath however as she tried to hit him in the midsection with a running knee. He managed to slap it down with both hands and counter with a push kick to her chest.
Jack was surprised to see her stumble back and actually fall from the force of the kick. Drew was on her instantly, on his knees between her legs, raining blows down on her head and body. She was blocking them as best she could but some of them were still getting through. Right when it seemed like she was done however she managed to grab onto his right arm as it extended for a blow and clamp it to her chest. Quickly twisting her body towards his left knee she moved so fast that she almost seemed boneless as she whipped her left leg over his head and across his neck.
Drew moved frantically to counter the armbar, grasping his hands together to prevent her from getting the leverage she needed. But his grip was slipping. Five seconds later his hands shot apart and he landed flat on his back with the two of them in the classic T shape of an armbar. Two seconds later with three quick taps to her leg it was all over. Jack saw Craig grudgingly pass a pack of smokes over to a grinning Shepard before turning around and walking out in disgust. Probably to go find Krista.
The two had been nearly inseparable ever since he came back. Apparently, he had kept her company last night while Jack was missing and that combined with the kiss before they left had definitely started something. What that something was everyone could only guess but Jack was content to leave them alone about it as long as everyone did their job.
Walking back up into the main house, Jack stopped to grab a cup of coffee before heading over to Wonderland. Natasha had provided them with several phone numbers that would put him in touch with her second in command. The only problem thus far had been getting their phones to work. Jack had his suspicions that something was actively jamming all cell towers on the island.
The USB stick that Natasha had given them had proven to be a godsend. It contained evidence of not only the atrocities that had occurred in the last few months, but evidence linking the Last Man Battalion to the massacre in Port Hardy that kick started the evacuation. That, plus the documents that Krista had uncovered would point the blame squarely at both the Canadian and American governments. Which was why Jack was now sitting at the unoccupied terminal in Wonderland, coffee next to him, furiously typing his way through signal frequencies, attempting to find the source of the jamming signal. If they could just get through, they'd be able to send this information packet to every major news outlet in North America. All they could hope for was that the Last Man Battalion, and by extension the government, didn't know what they possessed.
"Hey Boss, I'm getting some weird resonances in the ultra high band. From around 800MHz all the way up to 10GHz." Anni was standing behind him on her pedestal. She appeared to be typing on a floating keyboard with dark narrow rectangular framed glasses perched on the end of her nose. Today she had long black curly hair pulled into a pony tail with the sides shaved. It gave her the appearance of having a large crest or mane flowing down her back. He was positive he had seen a hairstyle like that somewhere before but couldn't place it. She was wearing a tight fitting black t-shirt with a picture of two girls facing each other in school uniforms holding knives. Above the picture was the word "Alexisonfire". Like the girls on the T-shirt she was wearing a grey plaid skirt that stopped about five inches above her knees and knee length black socks.
He had questioned her once on her choice of appearance and she had immediately turned into a 400lb balding man dressed in an ill fitting, grease stained fairy princess costume.
"Would you rather I looked like this?" Her feminine Irish brogue mixed with the overweight neckbearded cosplayer she had turned into was decidedly unsettling. When Jack indicated that he would rather she didn't do that ever again, they let the subject drop and it was never mentioned again.
Now however she was scanning through radio frequencies attempting to discover the cause of their loss of signal.
"What do you mean by resonances?" Jack asked as he attempted to gain satellite access. They had lost access to their satellite coverage the moment that the internet had gone down.
"I mean exactly that. I can't quite place it. It's like some kind of feedback loop. Only in the higher frequencies though. Cellphones, Wi-Fi, that sort of thing."
"So pretty much anything that would have the juice to leave the island." Jack said as he gave up attempting to connect to the satellite. "Jammers then. It would have to be on a massive scale to be able to jam the entire high end of the band. You think the LMB has that kind of tech?"
"Normally Boss, I'd say no, but given who is footing the bill for their death squads? Christ, who knows?"
If the LMB had managed to completely jam any incoming or outgoing signals, that meant that any shot they had of exposing what was happening on the island was impossible until they found the source of the signal and destroyed it.
"Can you ask Natasha to come in here? We need another way of contacting her people."
"Sure thing Boss"
"Fuck my face hurts" It wasn't exactly the most elegant thing Natasha had ever said but it certainly was accurate. Andrew had gotten in a few good shots near the beginning of their match, he was faster than she had thought, but she had eventually beaten him. Now she stood under the spray of a rainfall shower head, letting the hot water soak into her abused muscles. It was in one of two "public" Bathrooms in the house. Public, being that it wasn't directly attached to a bedroom though it looked like it would fit right in in the home of a rich plastic surgeon. Turning off the water she stepped out and began toweling herself off. Looking in the mirror she gave herself a once over. Her curly black hair hung down in wet ringlets to below her shoulder blades. A lifetime of an active lifestyle had kept her looking fit and muscular while retaining the curves she had inherited from her mother. Her brown eyes looked back at her as she inspected the massive bruise that spread from her right shoulder all the way down to her ribs. The drugs the Doc had given her had reduced the pain of her cracked ribs from a throb to a mild ache. Damn that Jack for making them jump off a roof. He had come out of that unscathed, she however had three cracked ribs and honestly her breasts still hurt from landing on her front. That was one thing she hadn't inherited from her family. She was the only D cup on her mothers side and quite honestly they were more of a pain in the ass than anything else.
Snapping herself out of her self-conscious introspection she examined the newly forming bruise on her jaw. Drew had one hell of a right cross she had to hand it to him.
As she finished toweling off and began to work on her hair, Anni came over the house P.A. system.
"Miss Lucas could you come up to Wonderland please?" Her Irish lilt tinting the words
"Yeah I'll be up in a minute" Abandoning the towel, she tied her hair up into a simple bun and after rewrapping her ribs with a tensor bandage, got dressed into the clothing Jack had provided for her. The black cargo pants, white tank top, and black athletic jacket were simple and utilitarian but they fit well and they were extremely comfortable. Pulling on the black 5.11 combat boots, she noticed a theme. The clothing was all comfortable but would be durable and practical in a firefight. All she'd need to do was throw on a plate carrier and grab a rifle and shed be good to go. Nobody else dressed like this but then again they all had that fancy armour with quite specific clothing requirements underneath. Throwing her soiled clothing and towel into a nearby laundry hamper she climbed the stairs to the top floor. It really was a beautiful house she thought to herself as she looked at all the exposed beams of raw timbers. Stopping at the coffee urn she poured herself a cup. Apparently since they started taking in strays that urn was kept full and ready. The civilians that Jack had rescued were downstairs living in one of the smaller rooms until large mod tents and heaters could be brought from Natasha's people.
With her mug of coffee in hand she walked over towards the large steel door that stood out of place from the rest of the décor. The Stainless steel "WONDERLAND" set above the doorframe proclaimed that she was in the right place. Walking through the open door she found Jack sitting behind one of the consoles, his muscular frame highlighted by the green glow coming from the screen and keyboards as he navigated a world of code and binary. Next to him on her pedestal stood Anni wearing a schoolgirl skirt and socks and an Alexisonfire T-shirt. Not a bad one either, from their first album. Her hair, shaved into it's crest quite frankly made her look like Christy Mack the pornstar. Kind of slutty even for her from what she had heard. She doubted Jack had even noticed. She was discovering that that man was capable of tuning everything else out when he was faced with a problem. Everything like a computer program trying to get his attention with her appearance. She growled a bit at that thought but had absolutely no idea why it angered her. Sure the very idea of Anni was a little weird but she had handled weird before. She'd have to think about it later however. Jack was looking up at her. He was still wearing the bloodstained clothes from the night before. He had a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose and from the look, and smell, he hadn't showered since he had gotten back.
"Cellphones and Wi-Fi are being Jammed" he said by way of greeting. Fuck, that was a problem. How the hell were they supposed to make contact with the outside world without them.
"That's a fucking problem. Got any solutions?" Right to the point Natasha, classy.
"Well a jammer with that large of a signal would require one hell of a power source. Probably a large generator. Which would be relatively easy to find except that with no Internet, we can't connect to the satellite. I've got Anni combing through old footage right now trying to see if we panned across anything that fits the bill. So far, bupkus."
"No, it wouldn't be in old footage" Natasha knew that if Jack's people had missed the LMB's entire deployment then there was almost no chance that they would have happened to have seen it.
"I'm pretty sure its down at the docks. That's where they came aground. They commandeered a ferry and used it to shuttle their personnel and equipment to the island. I'll bet you damn near anything that's where the signal jammer is. When I can get back to my people I'll send out a recce team. They can get close, see what's there and take some pictures."
"That sounds like a plan" Jack said nodding along "Now the only problem is getting in touch. Without cellphones, I don't know how we'll talk to them. I don't suppose you have radios."
"We do actually" We use 522 manpacks to keep in touch with patrols. Reception is shit so they generally have to climb to a rooftop to make contact but it works. I doubt you'd be able to reach them from here though. They're underground remember."
"Oh, I'm sure between me, Jack, and Anni we can figure something out." Krista said from behind her. Turning around she saw her leaning back into Craig's arms, the big man dwarfing her as he held her.
"Well then," Jack said standing up. "Let's get to work"
Jury-rigging the 522 radio from the MILCOT as it turned out wasn't all that hard. Jack ended up having to splice an antenna from his existing arrays and feed it into the radio. Powering it was even easier all the cable ends he needed were already in the truck. He did end up having to run a cable all the way out to his power transformers in order to amplify the signal enough but he made it work.
The hard part was when Natasha told him that since they didn't have crypto they had needed to set their radios to start frequency hopping. Basically instead of broadcasting on a signal frequency which can be easily found and then jammed, It causes the radio signal to sort of 'fall' through various frequencies in a random order. It means that instead of an enemy being able to listen in on a transmission they might be able to hear a second or two of a broadcast and then have to scramble to try and find it again. Because of how it functioned, frequency hopping is tightly controlled and restricted with most militaries using cryptographic devices to scramble transmissions. Of course, given the current circumstances Jack didn't give two shits about what was and wasn't legal.
After he finally finished configuring the radio he had Natasha enter in the proper codes. When no error messages came up she put on the headset and keyed the PTT switch.
"Base One this is Rogue Leader radio check over." Jack gave a slight chuckle at the Star Wars reference as he looked over at her. She stood there looking as tense as Jack had ever seen her. There was every possibility that they had changed the configuration after she went missing. If they had they'd never get in contact with them and they would never get inside the base.
"Rogue Leader this is Base One Loud and Clear Over!" Jack had rigged the radio to also play over the speakers within Wonderland so he was able to hear the excitement in the radio operators voice as she continued.
"We thought you were dead Ma'am! It's fucking good to hear from you." The operator sounded young and her voice was definitely loosing the normal bored tone expected when using the radio.
"You too" Natasha was grinning from ear to ear as she responded "Listen Base One we need to keep this short. I'll be coming in tomorrow. You remember our southern cousins birthday?" What? Jack officially had no idea what she was talking about anymore.
"Uh… Yeah I think so." To be fair the operator on the other end sounded just as confused.
"Good" Tash said grinning at Jack. "We'll see you then Rogue Leader out"
Tash took off the headset and turned to Jack her grin splitting her face.
"What was all that about the southern cousins birthday?" Obviously it was a code for something but what it was Jack couldn't figure out.
"Birthday of the US Army, June 14 1775 or alternately 7. 14. 1775" She was still grinning like an idiot.
"7:14, you just told them what time we'd be at the door?" He was honestly stunned. It would have taken him a while to make that connection.
"Yep I knew Emily the operator would make the connection. We'd been talking about it before I left."
With that sorted they cleaned up the mess of wires that Jack had created and strode out of Wonderland Krista slipping in after them to reclaim her domain. He walked her down the stairs to one of the basement rooms feeling strangely reluctant to have her sleep so far away from him.
"Anyway this is you. It's not much but it should do for the night." It really wasn't, not compared to the rest of the rooms in the house. The basement rooms were more utilitarian than the rest. Much closer to hotel rooms than bedrooms in a house with a large communal bathroom at the end of the hall next to the laundry room.
"Not much? Fuck Jack this is bigger than my apartment." She was looking at him like he had two heads. Had he said something weird again?
"Well anyway if you need anything I'll either be in my room or in the shop. Ask Anni and she can wake me up. Get some sleep." With that he left her and went back upstairs.
Hours later found him in the small paint shop located off the side of the main work area. He had all the right shoulder pads off of the TITAN II's and was painstakingly stenciling and then spray painting on the logo from the patch on his jacket. Call it silly if you will but it was nice to have an emblem. It made it feel like they were more of a unified group not just a bunch of people living and working together. Above the Logo on each went the owners last name and below was their blood type and any known allergies. Service numbers didn't mean anything to them any more and besides he didn't want to give away that much information. As he finished the last one he wasn't sure how well it would be received. Knowing her it would probably just piss her off but as he put the last spray of sealer over it he felt better knowing it might keep her safe. Written on the pad around the near day glow white eagle were the words "BLAKE O POS PCN ALLERGY" All information the Doc had provided for him but probably piss her off even more. Ah well can't please them all.
With the paint dry he began reattaching the shoulder pads to the armour. Natasha's he attached while wincing a little as he thought of what fitting her armour would be like. In order to get a proper fit while still remaining largely one size fits most, he had needed to create a new type of shock foam. Inside each set of armour was a layer of "liquid" foam. As each piece of armour was cranked into place on a fresh suit it would slowly compress until it formed to the body wearing it where it would then set in place. The process took about two minutes and was extremely uncomfortable. It only had to be done once and once it was nobody else could wear your armour comfortably. The torso was the worst as it made it feel like you were suffocating. While the female model of the armour did allow extra room in the chest, Natasha like Tricia, wasn't exactly built small and The Doc had told him that fitting her armour had been a special kind of hell.
After then last pad had been attached and he had laid out a bodysuit for her, Jack walked back up to the main kitchen and grabbed himself a beer. There wasn't a lot so he like to save and savour them. Race Rocks Ale, It was a local craft beer and one of his favourites. He sat back in one of the armchairs and looked into the fire burning away in the fireplace as he started his drink.
Downstairs Natasha was pissed. She couldn't sleep and she knew damn well why. Not that she'd admit it. After tossing around for the umpteenth time she sat up glaring up through floor to where she knew Jack was. He was up there and not down here. It was that simple. She had fallen asleep in his arms the night before and now she couldn't and it was all his fucking fault.
"God dammit Tash you're a big girl not a fucking moonstruck fourteen year old. You can go to sleep by yourself. You've been doing it for years and one goddamn night in a shot up building isn't going to change that." She wasn't an innocent she had slept with men before, hell she had almost been married once. That hadn't taken thank god. Fucker had slept with a friend of hers. But with Jack it was different and she didn't even know why. He was quiet, calm and sarcastic when she usually went for the exact opposite. Last night had been the furthest thing from romantic and she spent half the time trying to figure out if she should just shoot him herself but now… now she knew she wasn't going to get a minute of sleep unless he was there and he could go fuck himself for that. In the morning though.
She weighed the choices in her head. Put aside her pride and severe embarrassment and ask a virtual stranger to sleep next to her. Or keep quiet and stay up all night. Unfortunately if there was one thing that was sacred to her it was sleep.
Pride Lost.
Getting up she padded over to the dresser wearing just her tank top and underwear and searched through the drawers until she found a soft wool cardigan among the bland gender neutral clothing. It was long enough to go down to her knees and was the only thing that didn't look like it had been placed there for any occasion. She was assuming it had been ordered for someone specific in the house and had been placed here by mistake. Their loss she supposed as she shrugged it on, wincing as her ribs shot a flare of pain at her. She shook out her messy curls and wrapped the soft wool around her as she made her way upstairs to where she knew Jack would be.
Jack sighed as he drained the last of his ale from the glass contemplating having another. It was made on the Island, before the Purge, and probably would never be made again. Still it was quite good.
A sound from behind him made him abandon his musings on beer to look around to see Natasha walking towards him with an unsure look on her face. Her hair was mussed up from sleep and she was wearing one of Krista's many cardigans and from the looks of things not a whole lot else. She looked good, really good. It was unnerving however to see her looking so unsure of herself. Her arms were crossed tightly under her breasts and she looked like she was two seconds away from bolting back downstairs. Jack watched her, not moving, not wanting to spook her as she seemed to wrestle with something in her head. Finally, she nodded to herself almost imperceptibly and sat down on a couch near him. She stared into the fire, not speaking for a long time until finally without looking at him she said "I couldn't sleep"
Her arms were still crossed and her legs were curled up underneath her as she continued. "And I think – no I know it's because you weren't there. I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I'll cut your balls off if you try anything but do you think- could… could you sleep next to me?"
Jack was quite frankly flabbergasted. Here was this titan of a woman, who had spent a night calmly and methodically executing people alongside him, telling him she didn't want to spend the night alone. His shock must have shown on his face because she got a panicked look on her face and got up to leave. Before she could get past him his hand shot out and gently grabbed her by the wrist. Their eyes locked as he got up letting go of her. He placed his glass in the sink and retook her hand pulling her along behind him to his bedroom.
Neither one of them spoke a word as they got ready for bed. Jack stripped down to his boxers and Natasha simply removed the cardigan, draping it over his desk chair. He intentionally stopped himself from staring at the legs that seemed to go on for miles. Christ she had to be one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
He pulled back the heavy duvet from the king-sized bed and climbed in. He grinned to himself when he felt the mattress depress as she climbed in after him. He turned around and pulled her into his arms. They both lay on their sides facing each other as she tucked her head in under his chin.
She was asleep in minutes
"No, no fucking way. There is not a hope in hell that I am strapping myself into that. Not If you don't have a set ready for each and every one of the people under my command." Tash was unsurprisingly pissed that Jack had readied a set of armour for her.
He had woken that morning to find the bed next to him empty. He couldn't say he wasn't surprised but we was faintly disappointed. The cardigan was also missing as he quickly scanned his room.
"She left about an hour ago boss. It's currently 5:14 AM" Anni's Irish lilt came from the speaker next to his bed. Her voice sounded almost… bitter?
"Everything OK Anni?" Jack was wondering if he'd have to run a diagnostic on her to find any bugs in her personality matrix.
"Oh Just peachy" yep definitely something wrong with her. He didn't have time to worry about it now though as he climbed out of bed and pulled on his new bodysuit. He had needed to fit himself another set of armour last night and his lungs still ached remembering it. Striding out of his room to the kitchen he found Natasha sitting at the island counter with a cup of coffee in her hands. She smiled at him for just a second as she looked over and then went back to talking to Maria in the kitchen. Maria was the wife of the man who had tried to stab him with a kitchen knife what felt like days ago. She was cooking something that smelled amazing as her husband Robert played with their daughter Julia in the living room. Even with only a couple of meals in them they looked better. Jack slid onto the stool next to Natasha and poured himself a cup of coffee.
"Sleep well?" he asked unable to keep the grin off of his face.
"Yes. No thanks to you buy the way. You snore." She was also smiling.
Jack raised his hand to his chest wrist limp looking affronted. "I do not!"
Tash simply rolled her eyes and took another sip of her coffee.
"I have a surprise for you" Jack said as he stood up
That led to a screaming match unlike anything he had participated in in a long time. He saw it as being quite simple. She was a commander and a tactical asset. She required extra protection. The fact that he also cared about her had nothing to do with it. He had the resources to keep her alive and she should use them.
She saw it quite differently. As she put it, if she 'strapped herself into his cyborg suit' she'd be setting herself apart from her people. They would see her as one of Jack's followers instead of the woman who had brought them together.
This concept was of course completely lost on Jack and they argued back and forth until they finally settled on Tash wearing the helmet and SKORPIAN plate carrier that Jack had worn on the trip up island. She grumbled about the helmet, apparently preferring to wear her faded UVic Vikes ballcap but Jack refused to bend.
With the matter tentatively settled, they separated to don their gear. It was strange how different and yet similar his new set of armour felt. It felt the same and yet at the same time small things like joints and servos were stiffer and firmer than he was used to. Different and yet the same.
The one thing that hadn't changed however was the action on his SCAR-H. It was smooth and well oiled as he loaded and readied the weapon. Striding over he placed the rifle in the weapons rack next to the driver's seat and heaved his nearly 400lb bulk into the cockpit of the recce vehicle. The heavy shocks barely even noticed his presence. He felt the vehicle dip to the rear as Craig climbed up behind the gun. He listened to the sounds of Craig opening the feed tray cover and loading a belt of the heavy .50 BMG or Browning Machine Gun ammo. The joke about fifty caliber ammunition is that at ten bucks a round, the sound of the weapon firing was actually the ca-ching ca-ching ca-ching of an old cash register. The standard box of .50 BMG linked, held 100 rounds costing roughly $1000. The box that Craig was loading held 300 rounds and could be completely fired in just under 20 seconds. $3000 gone in 20 seconds. Being a warlord isn't cheap apparently.
His musings on the cost of running his own private military were cut short as Natasha climbed into the passenger seat next to him grumbling the whole time about the helmet that she had strapped on. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she had a scarf wrapped over her face to keep the dust and smoke out. She had wasted no time in customizing the SKORPIAN vest to her preference. She had it worn over the tight fitting athletic jacket and had managed to find a pair of tight fitting jeans from somewhere, doing away with the cargo pants he had given her. The black suede 511 combat boots were still on her feet however. The vest had been changed from Jack's layout. Where he preferred to keep his mags high on his chest, she had them slung low across her abdomen. With two mags per pouch, she was carrying a full combat load of ten mags plus one in her rifle. Her C7 was resting in between her knees with the barrel pointing at the floor as she held on to the grip loosely with one gloved hand. Jack found it humorous that she still had that massive .357 Colt King Kobra strapped to her right thigh in a tan MOLLE holster. Mark had almost had a fight on his hands when he tried to make her turn the weapon into the armoury when she arrived at the house. Jack had had to step in to convince her to surrender the weapon. He had spied her checking the spot it had been several times after the incident.
His eyes were strangely drawn to the bare patch of skin on her wrist between jacket sleeve and black combat glove when she lifted a pair of Oakleys onto her face. With her features now completely obscured she turned to him and nodded. They were ready to go.
With a word to Anni the garage door lifted and the big war cat's engine roared as they accelerated out of the vehicle bay and down the driveway.
Brian Moss was in pain. He didn't know why or even where he was. He just knew that he hurt. The back of his head was throbbing in a way that made him think there was at least one if not two morbidly obese people jumping up and down inside his skull.
He tried to gather himself and figure out what had happened to him thought he pounding coming from the back of his skull was making that difficult. He had been out on a rescue mission with the commander. He knew that the JTF had discovered where the Rikers had been keeping kidnapped girls. They had gone to rescue them and had found someone else taking a beating in the kitchen's walk in refrigerator. He had been the last one out of the building and then… Nothing. From the pounding, he guessed he had been hit over the head with something heavy. He also had to surmise that he was hanging from his wrists given the ache in his shoulders and how numb his hands were. He could taste blood in his mouth and he couldn't see. He had a moment of panic when he tried to open his eyes and saw nothing. It wasn't until he realized that he was smelling old oil and burlap that he understood there was a bag over his head.
Taking stock, he knew that he had been captured by someone. Most likely Rikers but not necessarily. He was hanging by his wrists but his feet could touch the ground. Not enough to fully support his weight but he could stand on his toes. There was a bag and possibly a blindfold over his face. From the echo of water dripping from a rusty pipe he had to assume he was somewhere big. Probably an old warehouse or something of the like.
Before he was able to try and think anymore about his situation, He heard footsteps approaching. Strangely enough it sounded like whoever it was was wearing high heeled hoes from the tap tap tap of their gate. A woman then. The tapping stopped in front of him and seemed to examine him for a moment before resuming to walk around behind him. The tapping stopped again and this time it seemed to take hours before suddenly the sound of an electric guitar started blasting from somepoint behind him. The music was so loud and sudden that he actually jumped in surprise causing a fresh wave of pain from his head and wrists. It took him a moment to realize that there were words coming through the blasting noise.
I am an anti-Christ
I am an anarchist
Don't know what I want
But I know how to get it
I want to destroy the passerby
Cause I want to BE anarchy
The Sex Pistols? Really? That's what they were going with? Something seemed off about it however. He didn't know if it was that the song had been sped up or slowed down but it seemed to flow wrong. It took him roughly five minutes to realize that the song had actually started over again without him realizing it. Due to whatever distortion they had laid on the track it was virtually impossible to use as a method of telling time. He'd just have to be patient and wait. He just wished that the music wasn't so damned loud.
They had driven through the city at Natasha's direction taking several seemingly random turns until suddenly they found themselves parked in front what appeared to be a generic roll up garage door. The sign above it proclaimed that it was a maintenance vehicle entrance belonging to Greater Nanaimo Pollution Control Centre. Apparently it led under the city to some of the main sewage pipes. Jack cut the engine as she walked up to the steel door set next to the larger vehicle entry.
Getting out of the vehicle he pulled his rifle free and dropped to one knee facing outward in a defensive posture as Tash pounded three times on the door, waited a two count and then knocked softer twice more. Craig was scanning left and right with the big chain gun's turret making a soft whirring noise every time he rotated it.
Jack glanced behind him at the sound of the door opening and saw a short woman maybe seventeen or eighteen on the other side get wrapped up in a hug from Tash.
"Emily!" she exclaimed. "You have no idea how good it is to see you again." Emily was surprisingly short. Not necessarily as short as Jess but definitely no taller than 5'5". She had a round face that was split in a wide smile and wavy brown hair with a red streak in it. She looked like she could be someone's kid sister. Her blue eyes widened as she looked behind Tasha's masked face to see Jack and Craig behind her. Her mouth dropped open when she realized what vehicle Craig was standing in. She stepped back from the full body hug and addressed everyone;
"Let's get you inside. There's a lot of people who would love to talk to you all."