***
Rayne crouched in the darkness, watching as the skirmish line formed before her. They weren’t wearing the tan slacks and black shirt uniforms they’d been wearing before, but she knew who they were. Skirmish lines didn’t just form up at random on the edge of a tree line where someone being chased was hiding. They’d found her again. Rayne frowned. Wasn’t that the story of her life?
She thought through her options. There were no exits to the park behind her; she’d already checked. During festival time, the park was partially closed down to accommodate the different venues, prep areas, and storage. Security was tight in those areas and access restricted. She’d have to punch through quite a line of security to get past. The other option was to swim the river. That was a possibility, but not one she was eager to try. She could swim okay, but wasn’t one hundred percent sure she’d make it all the way across. Drowning wasn’t on her agenda today, so that left the way she’d come—back through the now present skirmish line.
Rayne pulled one of the weapons she taken from the contractors out of her pack. She hefted it in her hand and considered the options. She could kill them. That wouldn’t be too hard, but the thought of her mother and father frowning on that particular decision prompted her to put it back in her pack. Besides, any rounds she fired off would likely be done with the crowds as backdrop. She didn’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone who wasn’t trying to hurt her first.
She put her backpack on and tightened the straps. She’d run for it. That’s all she had and she hoped she’d be able to lose herself in the crowd before they could snatch her. She stood and moved toward the southern end of the tree line. She didn’t want to try and run straight through their middle. That would put her in the position of being almost instantly surrounded. If she moved to the edge, she could deal with the first two quickly, then hopefully have the space to make her escape. She closed her eyes, preparing herself mentally for what she was about to do. Just as she turned, the bracelet on her wrist vibrated. She held it up to her face, scanning it in the dark. The bracelet had been given to her by Taft, just before they’d separated. He’d told her she would be able to buy things with it, and she had. He hadn’t told her it would do anything else. It vibrated again and she tapped the small dot on its face.
“Rayne? Are you there?” It was Lena’s voice.
“Lena?” Rayne felt a flood of relief. “Where are you?” She scanned the crowds before her, hoping to see the marine’s face.
“We’re on the east side of the plaza. How are you holding up?”
“Okay.” She wasn’t sure of what else to say.
“Stay where you are. We’re coming to you.”
“Okay, but they’re waiting for me too.”
“Who’s waiting?”
“The ones who are chasing me.”
She heard Lena curse softly.
“How many?”
“At least twelve that I can see. They’re set up in a line at the edge of the trees. I think they’re waiting for me to come out.” She heard more cursing. Not all of it from Lena.
“Rayne. You cannot let them take you.”
“Can I kill them?” While her parent’s disapproval weighed heavily on her, Lena’s permission would swing her in the other direction. Her parents were dead and Lena was here, the only moral compass she had left.
“No! No. You can’t kill them. Well, not unless it looks like they’re going to kill you first. Then it’s okay.”
“Can you kill them?” She knew they could. She’d seen them do it, but wasn’t sure if this was one of those situations where you should or not.
“No, Rayne. We can’t kill them either. The captain told us we’re supposed to help you without making it look like we are. Does that make any sense?”
It didn’t really. But she trusted Lena and would follow her lead.
“What should I do?”
“When I tell you to, I want you to run.”
***
“Contact! South end!” Followed by a strangled cry.
“I got her!” The sound of commotion, then heavy feedback.
Lex swung his spotting scope toward the south end of the tree line. The bright lights on the perimeter made it difficult to see, but he could make out two prone figures on the ground. Neither were female.
“Has anyone got eyes on?”
“Got her! Running along the south perimeter, heading west!”
“Teams converge!” Lex moved his scope to try and pick up the target. There, moving fast through the crowd. He panned to look for his converging teams and cursed. The girl was moving so fast there was no way they’d be able to get to her to physically take her down. He didn’t want to use fired projectiles, but it didn’t look like they were going to have a choice.
“Stun rounds authorized. Take her down.” Unless she could run faster than ninety meters per second she’d be down in fairly short order.
He heard the pop of two stun rounds being fired over the comms and returned his focus to the girl as she ran. She wasn’t down as he had expected, but continued to run, faster than should be possible.
“What the hell, guys?!” He panned back to see his man picking himself off the pavement. He heard cursing over the comms.
“Stupid tourist tripped me, and the shots went wide.” His man began running again as two other members of his team caught up and passed him.
Lex checked his anger.
“Get her before she gets out of range. Bravo team, move to block.” He heard two more rounds pop and more cursing.
“Watch the civilians!” someone shouted.
“Move, move, move!”
He heard screaming in the background and grimaced. This was turning into a junk show. He pulled his eye off the glass and looked down on the crowds with his own eyes. He swore as he saw the crowd surrounding the chase start to panic and run in an attempt to escape the chaos. A stampede in a crowd this size would be bad.
He heard more cursing and what sounded like another of his men going down. He looked to see one of his men down in a tangle of limbs with a civilian pushing a baby stroller. Great, that was all he needed. The pursuing teams had converged and nine men ran past, not bothering to help their downed comrade. They almost immediately went down when several large bins of colored chalk fell from its placement onto the running men. They quickly scrambled to their feet, cursing and coughing together, and continued their run in varying shades of blue and pink.
Lex swung back to the girl as he heard several more stun rounds fire. Pop, pop, pop, pop sounded in quick succession, and he watched as she impossibly anticipated their approach and rolled below their trajectories. There was no way he had just seen that. Pop, pop, pop sounded again and the girl jumped sideways, and several civilians went down. He cursed vehemently. This was going all wrong. He watched the crowd and made a quick decision. They’d been fortunate so far that the crowd hadn’t been able to hear the shots over the noise, but he wasn’t going to count on his luck holding out. If the crowd stampeded, people would die and he’d never see another contract from anyone.
“All teams, stop with the stun rounds. Bravo team is moving for a blocking position. All I need is containment.”
“Lex, the police bands are lighting up on our pursuit.”
He cursed. The police weren’t a problem necessarily, but they could get in the way of what was already a crappy takedown.
“Can you get through and get them to back off.” There wasn’t a whole lot of love lost between the civilian police force and the Fleet contractors. The police felt the contractors had no business conducting operations on their turf. They weren’t afraid to make that perfectly clear every time they crossed paths. They got particularly pissy when an op disturbed the civilian population, like this one was starting to.
“Make up some crap about tagging a dangerous AWOL marine.”
“On it.?
??
Bravo team had moved into position now and it wouldn’t be long before the girl found herself trapped. The trailing teams looked a little worse for wear, but all he needed was containment, and this should go down smoothly. He hoped so, anyway. As it was, he was going to be taking some heat for the way this had gone down.
Lex watched as the girl ran forward toward her captors. He smiled.
“Run little girl, run.” He could see her pause briefly as she saw the four men standing before her, blocking her way and then unexpectedly accelerate forward. She shot into their midst like an angry cat and began wreaking devastation. In less than a heartbeat, two men were down and the remaining two were in the fight of their lives. The girl moved so fast it was hard to follow as she twisted, struck, moved and kicked in rapid succession. The third went down while the forth managed to pull her to the ground where the fight continued. He thought his man would have the advantage of weight and power that would make the difference, but if anything, he seemed to be at a disadvantage as the fight became even more vicious. Soon, the girl was kneeling on the man’s chest pummeling his face into a bloody mess.
The trailing team arrived and ignored the orders to hold the stun rounds. He couldn’t blame them after seeing her take down their four teammates. More stun rounds popped off and the girl dodged and rolled. Not toward escape, but directly into the middle of the men firing at her. Not one of them had been able to land a hit and they now found themselves unable to use their stun guns without hitting one of their own team.
Nine against one and Lex wasn’t sure it would be enough. He’d just seen the girl take out four special-forces soldiers in less than ten seconds. By all rights, the fight should be over, but it was far from done. The rolling mass of bodies on the ground below him would have been funny if the future of his company didn’t hinge on its outcome. The nine men below him stopped trying to fight the girl and simply tried to overwhelm her with numbers and the weight of their bodies. Several of them were thrown like rag dolls from the pile, pulled themselves up and jumped back on. This happened several times until someone finally pulled a stun round from his weapon and manually slammed it into the girl’s back. The whole group took the ride with her for ten seconds as the current dissipated through them all. The effect left them all sprawled on the concrete for several seconds until they began to pull themselves up.
Lex yelled at them through the comms.
“Get up! Get up! Do it again, and then get that damn neural block on her.” He’d used the neural block before on high risk subjects and it worked like a charm. He’d gotten the tech from the doctors who conducted the Sarodian Stress Test used by Fleet. The girl was nearly to her feet when one of the downed team reached over and slammed a round into the girl’s leg. She went down like a ton of bricks, and his man took the second ten-second ride with her, while one of the others placed the small metal band that was the neural block on. Her body continued to strain through the stun round and then fell still.
***
Lena stripped off the wig and slammed the baby stroller into the wall. She stalked toward the rest of the squad gathered in the narrow alley just off the square. They’d all done their best to spoil the pursuit, but had come up short. Thirty seconds. That’s all they’d needed-- thirty seconds and Rayne would have been clear. She cursed again as she joined the rest.
“Everyone okay?” Sgt. Weber asked.
“I got tagged with another stun round,” answered Taft. He looked Lena’s way hopefully as she joined the group, but quickly shied away from the murderous look on her face.
“You’re a one trick dog, Taft. Where’d they get you this time?” Abena asked seriously.
“Right on my ass.” That drew a few smirks, but no laughs. There was nothing funny about blowing a mission.
“We’re going to go get her, right?” Lena was furious and everyone looked from her to the sergeant.
The sergeant didn’t respond immediately, but seemed to be thinking it through.
“This is crap!” She tried to keep her tone low so she didn’t attract attention. “What’s to think about? Let’s gear up and take her back!”
“Ease up, Lena.” Jackson said. “Let the sarge think.”
“We can’t let them have her! You heard the captain. They won’t let her go now until they have everything they want.” She stepped toward the sergeant. “Come on, Mike. You know we need to do this.”
“You need to calm down.” Jackson put an arm around her, but she threw him off.
“I do not need to calm down! Back off!” Lena squared off with Jackson like she was prepared for a fight. Everyone looked at each other nervously. It wasn’t common for Lena to lose discipline and it was shocking to see.
Davis stepped forward, grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to the side. She resisted, but he maintained his tight grip and dragged her back from the group to a discrete distance. Davis wasn’t senior in rank but had more time in than anyone on the squad. He had enough training and experience to lead the squad, but no desire to do so. He was there to fight, not tell other people what to do. He wanted no part in the leadership responsibilities that came with rank, but still, everyone respected his opinion and listened when he chose to speak. On those rare occasions when he pulled you aside, you didn’t argue.
After several minutes of harsh, angry words from them both, they returned to the group. Davis had obviously lined Lena out. She’d probably thank him for it later, but was still furious for the moment. She wasn’t in charge of the squad, and she needed to support whatever decision was going to be made.
“Lena’s partly right. We can’t leave her, but we can’t assault the research facility either.” He looked at Lena, who was still angry, but confused about where the sergeant was headed. “Is everyone agreed on that point?” He looked around the group, seeing their nods of agreement before finally coming back to Lena. “Agreed?”
She gave a reluctant nod. Besides going against the orders the captain had given, an assault on the research facility would get them court-martialed and likely imprisoned for a fair length of time.
“What’s the play, sarge?” Davis asked, gripping Lena’s shoulder.
“Everyone remember the neural disrupter they used for your Sarodian Test?” They all nodded and Lena’s face brightened in comprehension. “Well, they happen to be using it on the only person who has ever come out of it.” Devilish grins filled each face.
“Oh, man. They have no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into,” laughed Taft.
***
Dr. Gault practically skipped through the corridors toward the lab she was so excited. Finally! They had gotten her test subject. The entire lab was abuzz as she walked in. Technicians, doctors, and scientists were calibrating equipment and prepping instruments for what would be the first round of tests. They weren’t going to let any grass grow under their feet, even if they did have years of work and funding to do it. There was just so much work to be done and so many angles to pursue, it was hard to decide which course to take first, but that’s why so many different disciplines had been pulled into this team. They would do the initial workup and then split up into their perspective fields before finally coming back together to compare notes. Without a doubt, the first year would be very exciting, but it would be at least another five before they began to generate any real-world applications from whatever data they obtained.
Dr. Gault walked into the lab and put on her professional demeanor. It wouldn’t do to have everyone see her skipping through the lab like a little school girl. Ms. Miller was the only one not actively engaged in prepping, and looked a little lost. Dr. Gault felt for the doctor whom she thought of as little more than a girl. She was definitely out of her league, but would likely come out the other end all the better for it. She swelled with pride at her own magnanimous actions in bringing up such a junior doctor into the realms of greatness.
 
; Dr. Miller walked forward and greeted her.
“Good morning, Dr. Gault. You heard the good news?”
“I did. Took them long enough, but I think you’ll find the wait will have been worth it.”
“I think you’re right about that. But I haven’t let the time go to waste.”
“Yes. I’ve heard you’ve been making regular appearances at the university.” She doubted the girl would ever be in their league, but maybe she could at least follow some of the conversation.
“I was getting lost in the technical aspects.”
Dr. Gault smiled.
“That can happen in a crowd like this.”
“How long until they get here?”
“They told me it would be thirty minutes when they called, so it should be anytime now.” They turned toward the commotion at the far end of the room. “Ah, speak of the devil.” Dr. Gault strolled forward to see her new test subject. She was annoyed to see Mr. Lexington walking next to the gurney as the girl was pushed into the room by two lab techs. It wasn’t usual for the man to show up in person, and she preferred it that way. Like most, the man was a Neanderthal, and she considered him a necessary evil convenient to use from time to time.
The girl, she noted, was in less than ideal condition. Dr. Gault observed a black eye, cut lip and numerous contusions on her exposed face and arms. No doubt there were more underneath her clothing. She also noted the neural block in place on her head. She’d read the files, but still couldn’t imagine the necessity for beating the girl into submission, along with the application of the block. She noted the burn mark on her leg, indicative of a stun round, and frowned. He better not have damaged her test subject.