Well, I'm more or less in the middle of exams now. Luckily, I only have three to take this semester and one is already finished, so I thought I'd go ahead and finish this chapter up. There's a bit more action in this chapter with the beginning of the actual operation, but most of that will be handled next chapter.
Book I, Part III: Mortal Conflict - Element of Treachery
Chapter III—Impact
[June 30, 2152 | Galbadia City, Streets | 4:49 PM]
The low rumble of our transport's engine is the only sound out of the large group of us that are inside. My squad is here, as well as Yuna's squad and three other Galbadian soldiers, all dressed in the red uniforms of commanding officers - Sergeant Washburne, Sergeant Palmer, and Major Isane. Washburne had taken the driver's seat of our large vehicle, which somewhat resembled a bigger version of a Humvee, upon arrival, with Isane in the passenger's seat and Palmer in the back section with our two squads.
I had initially thought that we were all going to work as individual squads, but Camdus' orders had explained otherwise once we landed. My squad and Yuna's squad, due to Sephrenia and myself being Alchemy specialists, were going to take a different approach to enter the building compared with the other three squads. General Caraway informed us of a series of tunnels that spread outward from the Presidential Palace, separate of the sewer system for the city, that led to several different points around the city in case of an attack that required quick and covert evacuation of the President or other officials. Unfortunately, the tunnels had been of no use to the President in this situation because of the circumstances, but it was still possible for us to use them as a way inside. Knowing that the soldiers inside likely knew of the tunnel system and had the entrances guarded, Caraway and Camdus had come up with a means of getting inside by using Sephrenia and I to deconstruct the tunnel's ceiling at a certain point using our Alchemy, allowing us access into a specified room. Thanks to the detailed layouts and plans that Caraway has shown us, the entrance point is clearly marked on maps within our comlinks - now, all we have to do is get to that point and wait for the signal to proceed.
"We're coming up on the entrance now," Washburne states, our vehicle beginning to decelerate as the sergeant turns us towards a small, more or less nondescript office building, two stories in height.
"No signs of hostiles," Isane says, sweeping the surroundings carefully with her sight before picking up a walkie-talkie from her belt. "General, we're at the destination. We'll be proceeding into the tunnels momentarily."
"Copy that," the voice of Caraway replies over the device. "Let us know when you've reached the rendevous point."
"Roger," she replies, resuming her sweep of the area as the vehicle comes to a stop. The back hatch opens as the sergeant seated with us exits the vehicle, hefting an M4 in his hands as he surveys the area. My squad follows him out quickly, with Yuna and her squad right behind me as well.
"Alright, let's get to the tunnel system. We don't have any time to waste," the soldier says, beginning to jog towards the building with haste. Yuna and I quickly run after him, our respective squads accompanying us and closely followed by the other two Galbadian officials.
[June 30, 2152 | Galbadia City, Presidential Palace | 4:53 PM]
The sounds of four dark-colored military transport vehicles echoed throughout the city streets as they entered the barricaded and cordoned area surrounding the Palace proper, as well as a city block or two in every direction. Galbadian military command had promptly evacuated all civilians within the radius and locked it down, allowing only military officials inside the restricted zone. Doors began to open as the vehicles came to a stop, allowing the ten SeeD members and twelve Galbadian soldiers accompanying them, as well as General Caraway himself to exit the interiors.
"General, our team is in place and awaiting your commands," came the voice of a younger soldier, identified as Sergeant Dalan, as he stepped towards Caraway.
"Very well," Caraway responded, nodding slightly. "They have permission to fire when ready," he continued, turning to Camdus as the soldier began to relay the order. "I made some preparations while your squads were en route here. My soldiers are going to remove the snipers standing guard on the roof, to minimize the risk of your soldiers being injured before entry."
Camdus nodded his assent, glancing over at the roof of the building as he did so. "A sound plan. You're certain that they won't merely replace them if something happens?"
Caraway shook his head quietly at Camdus' inquiry. "There are no certainties here, but I'm hoping that your squads will be inside before they have a chance to do so."
"They will be, General. These are the elite, after all."
Specialist David Peterson calmly and methodically began to "walk the grid" with his eyes as he looked out over the city blocks in front of the Palace, tracing along the streets and barricaded sections as he tapped the stock of his rifle. He'd served under the Lieutenant General back when he was a Major, and had shared his hopes that the new presidency under Deling's son would make much-needed changes to the ailing system. The senior Deling had made a terrible mistake in allying himself with the Sorceress in the past, and Peterson had simply hoped that his son would not make an equally foolish decision in the future.
"Stop that, would ya? You're drivin' me crazy up here," a gruff voice said from nearby, disrupting Peterson's scan of the ground.
"Come off it, Moren," Peterson shot back, rolling his eyes beneath his helmet. "You can't even hear it over all the commotion." Over by the other side of the roof, he could almost swear he could hear the other two soldiers chuckling, impossible though it was. All of them knew Moren, and were quite familiar with his personality and occasional lack of respect for comrades and authority alike.
"I don't even know what we're still doing up here," Moren - who was also wearing specialist pips - continued, ignoring Peterson's comment. "Just look at those idiots, running around like chocobos with their heads missing down there. Probably don't even know who's in charge, much less know what to do about us. I'd love to take a shot down there and see what happens."
"But you won't," Peterson said pointedly, "because you haven't been told to." The statement was forceful, enough so to set Moren's face back into a scowl.
"Psh. Orders. We haven't gotten any since this whole mess started."
"Then we'll keep waiting," the specialist said firmly. "End of discussion."
Moren opened his mouth to speak, but his expression turned into one of horror as he looked past Peterson. Peterson immediately spun, in time to see one of the two soldiers collapsing onto the ground, clutching his chest with one hand - which meant only one thing, he knew.
"Sniper!" he yelled, instinctively heading for cover behind the roof's raised edge. The soldier beside the fallen officer hesitated just a moment too long in deciding whether to run or to try and help his injured comrade, and received a bullet for his efforts that tore through the upper part of his helmet. His body fell over, toppling to the ground with legs no longer able to support weight, even as the other two soldiers reacted.
Moren grabbed for the radio attached to his belt, fumbling with it for an instant as he tried to radio in the situation, but lost his grip on the device as a bullet struck him in the chest and sent him stumbling, gasping as he tried to take in air through a lung that would no longer handle it.
"Moren!" he shouted, cursing under his breath as he kept moving, knowing that there was nothing he could do now but try and survive. His heart felt like it would hammer out of his chest as he ran, only feet from the side of the roof now.
His body suddenly felt like it had been punched in the chest, forward momentum arrested as he jerked back. A dull feeling of recognition began to creep over him as his legs buckled, and the last thing he knew as the world went dark around him was the sight of the roof's surface rising quickly to meet him.
Sergeant Dalan paused as the radio on his belt began to sound, indicating a transmission. Within seconds, he had received the report from the sniper team, and immediately turned to report back to General Caraway. Good news was finally beginning to show itself, it seemed. He made his way back through the barricades and soldiers bustling about in the area to the transports, where the General and the SeeD officials were still located, before snapping off a quick salute to the gathered soldiers.
"Sir, the roof is clear," Dalan reported, his tone of voice sounding a bit more positive than it had minutes earlier.. "Reports indicate that all four targets have been taken care of."
"Good work," Caraway said, pleased by the news. "Commander Marché, your teams are cleared for entry. Good luck."
Camdus merely nodded, looking over the three squads still within his command. "You heard the General. You have your objectives, so move out!"
(Play: The Landing - Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy VIII)
A chorus of voices responded in the affirmative, moving swiftly and carefully through the restricted zone on their way towards the Presidential Palace. No alarms sounded, nor did soldiers begin firing on them as they moved, a sign that all of the squads present took as a relief. The last thing they needed was to be caught out in the open like this, SeeD or not. They were likely going to have enough trouble with the entry as it stood, without having complications arise on the positioning.
"Ready for this, Sumiko?" Naoki asked, glancing towards his teammate as they ran across the grassy lawn in front of the building.
"You already know the answer to that," Sumiko remarked, a look of concentration appearing on her face.
"We've got the front entrance, so you had better be ready. It's likely that we'll be dealing with more guards than the other two squads here," Paine commented, looking between Naoki and Sumiko as she advanced. "Which is fine by me."
"So, how do we get inside?" Sumiko continued. Paine almost seemed to smirk at the question.
"We break the door in."
"So, what kind of orders do you have for us, leader?" Uriko asked, glancing towards Yuki with a mocking edge to the last word. Yuki hesitated, honestly caught off guard by the question despite her role.
"Perhaps if you were more patient, you'd see," Shuyin told the dark-haired girl, feeling a headache already growing in his mind. He wasn't sure how he was going to make it through the mission if he had to listen to Uriko's complaints the whole way through.
"Um..." the younger girl began, her mind working as she tried to formulate a plan. "I'll use my Alchemy to open the door for us. Let's just put saving any innocent people first, okay?"
"Fine...good enough for now," Uriko replied, grudgingly agreeing to the plan as they moved around the left side of the building to their entrance point.
"Shuyin, can you take the lead? You're more suited to being at the front, I think," Yuki added, looking over towards the swordsman.
"Very well."
Quickly, Uriko and Shuyin moved to either side of the door that was their entrance, as Yuki took out what almost appeared to be some sort of chalk and began drawing a pattern around the handle on the door. All three tensed, seemingly expecting to be found out any moment, before Yuki finally completed the transmutation circle she had drawn and raised her hand to the door. The circle shined with light for a moment, before the circular section of metal simply seemed to melt away, deconstructed by the arcane art. In nearly the blink of an eye, Shuyin was inside the door with his sword drawn, scanning the hallway for any sign of enemies, with Uriko right behind him sporting hands glowing with fiery energy. Nothing showed to attack them immediately, however, and Shuyin began to cautiously creep his way down the corridor.
As suddenly as he began moving, however, he stopped, signaling to the two girls that he had heard movement from up ahead. Yuki nodded and raised one hand towards Shuyin, focusing and casting a Protect spell over his body to shield him before beginning to do the same for Uriko. As she did so, Shuyin waited for the noise to come closer before he struck. Like lightning, he moved around the corner, coming almost face to face with two figures clad in the familiar blue uniforms of Galbadian foot soldiers. The nearest man found Shuyin's sword buried firmly in his chest before he realized he'd been stricken, causing the second man to jump in surprise and bring his weapon to bear. 5.56 caliber bullets erupted from the weapon only to ping harmlessly off the magical barrier around Shuyin. Uriko rounded the corner as her fellow SeeD cadet dislodged his weapon from the first soldier, letting off a searing ball of flame that caught the second soldier on the right side of his chest and sent him stumbling from the force. Before he could realign his rifle to fire on either target in his sight, however, Shuyin struck again, cleaving down across the man's chest with a strike forceful enough to knock him to the floor. Blood began to flow from the man's uniform where the sword had hit, and Uriko walked over to the fallen soldier before kicking away his weapon and jerking him roughly from the tiled surface.
"Little...punks..." the man rasped, head lolling to one side for a moment before Uriko smashed him across the face with a fierce punch, the sound of her knuckles popping mixing in with the sound of bone on helmet.
"Trash like you doesn't deserve to serve this country," she spat, looking back to Yuki as the soldier's head slumped. "Should we just kill him?"
"...No, Uriko," she said after a moment's thought. "Just...take him outside. We'll let the General handle him from here."
"...Whatever," she muttered, dragging the man back down the hallway they had entered from. He got lucky, she thought to herself as she roughly shoved open the door leading back to the outside world.
"So...how do we get in?" Tidus asked, looking between Rikku and Silvia as he stood nearby the side entrance to the Palace.
"Are you kidding?" Rikku countered, feigning shock that he would ask such a question. "Stand back and watch a master at work!"
From a pocket on her uniform, Rikku quickly procured a small metal object as she moved to the door, examining the metal lock for a moment before inserting the lockpick she had grabbed. Her hands moved only slightly as she worked with the door's lock, carefully testing and prodding the lock's inner workings. After several long seconds of silence and stillness, Rikku smiled at the sound of a faint 'click' from the lock, and she pocketed the lockpick
"Tidus, you're up front. Keep your eyes open, and don't move too far ahead of us," Silvia instructed, reaching over and preparing to open the door.
"Gotcha," the Zanarkand native replied, raising his sword up as Silvia slowly swung open the metal door. No sound emanated from the hallway, and Tidus cautiously began to walk inside, keeping his eyes trained in front of him as the two girls followed behind. As he reached the intersection ahead, a four-way split, he looked around for any sign of hostiles...but found none.
"...The heck? It's like there's no one here..." he said, causing Silvia to raise a finger to her lips.
"Shh! We don't need to attract trouble!" she hissed, silencing Tidus almost instantly. "Let's just get to the rendevous point and clear an entrance for squads B and E, alright?"
Nods came from both Rikku and Tidus as Silvia pulled out her comlink from her uniform and pulled up the map of the building, making sure that she had the correct path to the specified room.
"It's this way," she whispered after a moment's examination, motioning to the left. "Let's go!"
Without delay, the trio began to move down the hallway towards their destination, trying to keep their footsteps as subdued as possible. Stealth wasn't an absolute necessity, Silvia knew, but it surely wouldn't hurt to avoid as much trouble as they could until their entire force was inside.
"Only four, huh...they should've had more guards."
Naoki simply shook his head at Paine's statement. The guards inside hadn't expected Paine to essentially cut the door open with her blade, and were caught flatfooted momentarily as the trio breached the front of the Palace. That momentary distraction was all they needed, however. In a blink, Naoki had sent two soldiers to the ground with severe burn wounds using Gokakyu, while Paine - under the influence of a Haste spell, courtesy of Sumiko - had buried her sword firmly in a third guard's stomach before he could react. The fourth, caught off guard by the action and not willing to chance shooting his comrade, had tried to adjust his aim to get a clear shot at Paine. That just gave Paine the chance to forcefully dislodge the soldier from her blade, then kick him backwards into the offending soldier. An instant later, Sumiko and Paine had effectively disarmed and disabled the unwounded Galbadian.
"What should we do with him?" Sumiko asked, keeping the Galbadian effectively in place by means of a rapier pointed at his throat.
"Just make sure he won't follow us," Paine remarked. Sumiko nodded lightly and called up energy in her free hand, casting a simple Sleep spell over the soldier. Instantly, his head bobbed as he tried to resist the status magic, but it was to no avail as he collapsed to the floor under the effects of the magical effect.
"They'll be sending more guards out when they realize these haven't reported in," Naoki commented offhandedly, scanning the room for any sign of hostages.
"Then we'll have to work quickly, won't we?" Paine said bluntly, looking over her shoulder at the dark-haired ninjutsu specialist. "Let's get moving."
(End: The Landing - Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy VIII)
[June 30, 2152 | Galbadia City, Escape Tunnels | 4:59 PM]
I'd never expected the underground of Galbadia City to be so complex, but the tunnel system we're currently traversing is quickly changing my mind on that matter. It seems like it was designed specifically with losing pursuers in mind, with loops, dead-ends, and branches leading in every direction, almost like a labyrinth beneath the city. Vaguely, I remember that the sewers of the city seemed to be much the same way, full of nearly-identical passages that went around in circles and made keeping track of your sense of direction a chore. Though in this case, I can forgive the architects, given what these passages were to be used for.
"How close are we now?" I ask, looking over at Major Isane with a curious eye.
"We should be nearing the entrance point soon," the major answers, checking the handheld mapping device held in her left hand. I don't reply, instead choosing to keep walking along the pathway in silence. As I walk, my eyes drift down to my right hand, which is now adorned with an intricately drawn transmutation circle, tattooed onto the skin on the back of my hand. The circle itself consists of two circles, one within the other but still close to each other, as well as three small triangles with the points touching the inner circle. A larger triangle also overlaps the entire design, with each point extending just beyond the edge of the outer circle.
Early during the Alchemy training, Katanas had informed us of a fact regarding transmutation circles and Alchemy. Normally, the user would be required to draw transmutation circles on the surface that they were attempting to transmute or otherwise utilize. However, if the user had a transmutation circle somewhere on their person or on an article of clothing that they wore, the requirement of drawing the circles manually would be negated. I had initially been against the idea of placing the circle on my body anywhere as a matter of personal preference, but the idea had proven too beneficial in my mind to pass up. Since I didn't have an article of clothing that I knew I would wear all the time upon which to place the circle, I decided instead to place the circle on one of my hands.
'So many changes...maybe too many?'
"There a particularly interesting rat down there I should know about?" Tetsuya comments, clapping a hand on my shoulder and causing me to look up.
"No, just..." I start, a moment later giving up on speaking and just pointing to the circle on my hand. Tetsuya just gives a nod of understanding, having been explained the concept by Yuki some time ago.
"Got some kind of plan figured out yet?" he continues, causing me to run through the small ideas I've gathered in my mind.
"Well...I don't know if you can call it much of a plan, really," I say, looking over at Tetsuya. "I think I'll leave keeping the hostages safe to you once we've rescued them...if there are even any left to rescue, I mean. Locke and I will focus on taking care of any hostiles, so I want you to make sure that innocent people don't get mixed up in all the fighting."
"No plan survives contact with the enemy, right?" Locke remarks from beside us, showing that he's been keeping pace with us.
"Something like that," I agree, nodding. "Just use your best judgment, guys. I really don't want this to get any worse than it already is. And don't say it can't get any worse, either, because then we're asking for trouble."
"Everyone, we're coming up on the entrance point now," Sergeant Washburne suddenly says, interrupting our conversation. "It's about a hundred feet in front of us."
"Cadet Powell, Cadet Roethe, are you ready?" Major Isane asks as we close the distance to our destination. Both of us nod quickly before my eyes drift up to the ceiling of the tunnel, wondering how far under the Palace we actually are.
"Good," she continues, stepping up to the side of the tunnel and stopping before turning to all of us. "We'll remain here until we get the all-clear to enter."
"Hope it's soon," I mutter, taking another look up towards the ceiling. I don't know what's going on in the Palace itself, but I can only hope that the rest of our squads made it inside safely. Failure is not something I want to think about at this moment in time.
You'll probably notice a few references here. Sergeant Washburne is a Firefly/Serenity reference to the pilot of the titular ship, Hoban Washburne, and Major Isane is a Bleach reference to the 4th division lieutenant, Isane Kotetsu. I would've made this a little longer, but I felt that this was a good stopping point before the real bulk of the action got underway. Next time, each of the individual squads get their chance in the spotlight, so to speak, as the operation picks up for friend and foe alike. As always, please read and review.