Eventually, they all agreed this was their best option. They had their plan, complete with contingencies in case it was a trap.
Molly brought the meeting to a close. “Okay, folks. This has got to be as slick as possible. We can’t afford to make one wrong move. Remember, we don’t want any casualties on the government front. These are the people we’re trying to help. They’re not our enemy. The Syndicate is. So that means fast in and out; and, if nothing goes wrong, the only casualties will be Syndicate members.”
Maya raised an eyebrow, and glanced down the table at the team. “And their bank balances,” she added dryly.
Had the others not been so focused on the task in hand, they may have chuckled. As it was, no one at the table thought that this was going to be a walk in the park. The fact that they were going to have to hit The Syndicate in the Senate House, the very place they would normally want to protect, didn’t help them feel any better about it.
Gaitune-67, Hangar deck
The next morning, the assault team was assembled on the hangar deck, ready to go. Crash, Joel, Jack, Sean, and Molly were suited and booted, locked and loaded; ready to take The Syndicate out, while leaving the rest of the inhabitants of the Senate House stunned, at the most, and hopefully, otherwise unharmed.
Pieter stood by, holo open, checking on details they had available. “I haven’t got a live feed, obviously, because of the distances, but Oz and I have been through the shift patterns and so on for some time. The meeting lands in the middle of a shift, so there’s no getting around that.”
Molly was finishing buckling up her holsters as Pieter briefed them on the final details he had found. Sean stood with his arms folded. “Weapons set to stun, then, I guess,” he said, resigned to the task they faced.
Just then, Brock came jogging up to them carrying a bunch of tiny canisters. “Hold up, folks. I got something that may help!” he called.
The group looked around to see. He started handing out the canisters a couple at a time to each team member on the mission.
“What’s this?” Joel asked.
Brock smiled. “A present.” He finished handing them out, and held onto one. “Okay, these contain a simple knockout gas. It becomes inert within forty seconds, but anyone who inhales it will be knocked out for a good fifteen minutes. The worst they’ll have when they wake up is perhaps a bit of a headache. That’s it.”
Molly grinned. “Excellent work, Brock!” She paused, examining the canister. “Where did you get these?”
Brock smiled brightly. “Well, yesterday when you guys had finished talking to Crash about the mission, I wondered if there were a way to distribute something that would help you avoid casualties. Turns out there was just a simple recipe from some of the med supplies we’ve accumulated with the research we’ve been doing with Eugene.”
He bent his knees dramatically, and then swung his hips as he held up his canister. “Aaaand,” he told them, “the delivery canisters, I found in the armory.” He held it in one hand, then gestured with the other as if to say “ta-da!”
The group chuckled. Joel tapped Brock on the top of his arm. “Good man. And thank you!” he exclaimed.
Sean punched Brock lightly on the front of his shoulder, and Jack held one of hers up and nodded. “Thanks!” she said, trying to be more friendly than commando. She’d already tucked one into her atmosuit leg pocket, and was looking for a way to stow the other one.
Molly looked around at the warriors. “Okay. I think we’re looking good to go. Any last questions?” She scanned the faces in front of her. No one raised a hand or spoke.
She glanced at Joel. “Okay. Your mission,” she told him.
Joel circled his finger in the air at shoulder height. “Okay, folks. Let’s wrap up and move out.”
The team clambered into their pods, and was out of the hangar deck before Pieter or Brock could say “jumping jacks”.
The pair stood watching the pods disappear out the open door and out of the forcefield.
Pieter sighed. “If I were a gambling man,” he said, eyes still on the opening in the hangar, but turning his head slightly to Brock, ”which I’m not, anymore… I’d say not to trust that Garet.”
Brock nodded grimly. “I bet you’re right.”
One mile out from Senate Building
Molly watched her pod’s heads-up display and listened to the chatter on the inter-pod channel. Crash and Oz were negotiating with air traffic control.
Crash was running interference. “Roger that, Control. It seems my nav is off by twenty degrees.”
“Correct your course and reduce your altitude, or else we will fire,” came their steely response. Molly’s heart was beating faster than she had expected.
Oz continued to drop the pods, keeping them in close formation and behaving like a rogue car that had gone off course from the strato highway. They must only just have been picked up on the city radar, as their shape would be deflecting most of the radiation.
They dropped another twenty feet, and the city appeared beneath them. “Almost there,” came Crash’s voice over the private channel. Molly could see Jack and Sean in the next pod over. She didn’t have a visual on Crash and Joel, but imagined Crash doing his usual thing with absolute composure. The anxiety and personality he was putting into his voice was purely to sell it to Control.
Another few moments and Control reported back. “Mr. Ashworth, you are now clear of our airspace. Please get your nav system seen-to by a registered mechanic. This incident has been recorded, and we will be in touch.”
Sounds like he’s managed to get himself another ticket.
Molly rolled her eyes. Old habits die hard.
Want me to get rid of that off their system while I’m in there?
No. I need you to focus on getting us in and out of the building as swiftly as possible. Are you into their camera feed yet?
Yes. They have their full staff at their normal places.
Molly pursed her lips. She hated to change the plan at the last moment, but…
Oz, can you tell if there is another entrance that has fewer security personnel on it? Include upper levels in your sweep.
Okay.
Molly hit the buttons to talk to all pods. “Folks, we’re reassessing the entry point. Stand by,” she told them.
She knew from the training manuals she’d been reading that shifting plans would put her people under more stress than is necessary. But this might be their way of getting their results and risking fewer casualties in the process.
Oz came back with the results, and put a three dimensional map of the building onto the display.
Looks like the second floor is most vulnerable, on account of the windows being reinforce-fielded. They have fewer people there.
And you can deactivate the forcefield?
Building-wide would take too long. But I can do one segment, and get you through the window to an office. You’ll have to blast through the window, though, causing damage that we wanted to avoid.
Molly made a command decision. Breaking a window is preferable to shooting government employees who are just doing their job. Relay the new plan to the others.
She checked her pockets.
I have a charge like we used to free the hostages. I only have one, and you’ll need to get me close enough…
Roger that.
The team each acknowledged the change in their breach point, and Oz took the pods up against the side of the building. Keeping them close to the walls to avoid being spotted, he then swung Molly’s pod close to the window.
Molly was already out of her seat, charge in one hand, the other hanging on to the seat harness, as Oz gently drew the pod a little closer and opened the front door section for her.
Forcefield down?
Affirmative. You’re good to go.
The window was one of the secure, atmosphere-resistant ones that she’d seen in many a building. They were impervious to normal force. But against an explosive charge? Probably
not.
She stuck the charge to the middle of the window, looking inside to make sure the area was clear. It was someone’s office. She spotted the holoframed family photo on the desk, and little animals made from folded paper. For a moment, her heart sunk at the mundaneness of working in an office; grateful she would never have to live that life, while simultaneously scared to death of a strange twist of fate that might plunge her back into normality.
She pulled her focus back to the charge.
Ready, Oz?
Affirmative.
She pulled the pin, and then fell back into the pod. Oz closed the door and whipped the pod out of the blast zone.
A couple of seconds later, there was a bang. Two seconds after that, alarms started sounding.
Okay, Oz. Take us in, and feed us directions to the target room.
The pods deposited the team at the window one by one, and then disappeared out of sight.
Molly was the first into the room. The blast had blown the desk away, and left a mess of broken up furniture and a small fire smoldering away about ten feet into the room. She hopped out of the way, and took care of the fire with an extinguisher from the corner next to a supplies cupboard. By the time she was done, the rest of the team was in the room, and Sean was checking the corridor for security guards.
He called quietly into the room, “We have incoming.”
Jack swung around to look through the doorway down the other side, hearing footsteps from the opposite direction.
She pulled out a Brock-canister and looked briefly at Sean. “Smoke ‘em, then wait? Or smoke ‘em then run?”
Sean grinned. “You know, you’re my kinda girl,” he told her affectionately. Then he turned to the others who were assembling by the door. “Joel, we good to deploy the smoke, then hold our breaths to get through?”
Joel checked the distances on his holo map to the end of the corridor. “Affirmative,” he told Sean.
Sean and Jack looked at each other, pressed the clips on the canisters, and then tossed the devices down their respective sides of the corridor, into the approaching flurry of building security.
White clouds erupted, and Jack pulled back a little, pressing herself against the wall on her side of the room.
She looked at Joel. “Shit, those things pack a punch as well as a knockout!” She swiped at her face as if hoping to wipe off any traces of the mist that she might have been exposed to. Joel was over like a shot, his hands on both her shoulders, checking to make sure she was okay. Satisfied, he pulled Sean back from the door a little, too. “Careful. Best wait a few moments,” he cautioned.
Sean stepped back from the doorway and nodded. Crash, who had been the last one into the office, was standing well back, but even he could see traces of the mist coming up to the doorway.
The team waited for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, Joel looked up from his holo where he had been timing the canisters. “Okay. Let’s move,” he told them. “But careful; the gas isn’t inert for another ten seconds.”
Sean and Jack advanced first, almost side-by-side, sweeping and scanning as they went. Molly followed them, walking backwards, checking the way they had come, and scanning the corridor the other way.
Lastly, Joel and Crash followed; carefully stepping over the bodies of the sleeping security guards, who would have one heck of a story to tell their kids when they got home later that day.
The team moved deftly through the corridor. On Oz’s instructions, they turned into a stairwell and headed down. They moved quickly, as if they were one organism. At the bottom of the stairwell, Jack, Sean, and Joel went out first, guns set to stun.
The advantage of breaching at a different point was that security was moving toward the blast, while the rest of the staff had started moving out of the building.
Joel reassessed the situation. He turned to the others and signaled to Sean to lower his weapon, which he did immediately, understanding what Joel was about to suggest. Sean put his weapon away, and Jack looked confused for a moment.
Then Joel put his weapon away.
Jack and the others followed suit.
Joel stepped out into the busy corridor, and, walking against the current of people leaving, he strode as if he were there on official business to sort the problem out. No one batted an eyelid at the strike team making their way through the corridors.
Joel led them down the final corridor and into the office suite where they needed to be. There, he found a secretary picking up her purse as if making to leave. Joel signaled for her to get gone; bewildered, she looked at the entourage behind him. Eyes wide, she whimpered unintelligibly, then grabbed her key card, coat, and purse, and left as quickly as she could.
Joel stopped outside what looked like a boardroom, with big heavy wooden doors.
He thumbed at it, looking at Molly. Just then, an Ogg appeared from around the corner. “Hey!” he called. “You’re not meant to be here.”
The team looked at him. Molly frowned. There was something about him that seemed… familiar. “Who are you?” she asked.
The Ogg looked back at her. “Who are you?” he retorted.
Just then, a second Ogg appeared from around the corner. This one was running. Or, rather, waddling. “Erik, Erik, they’re all going!” he exclaimed in mild panic.
Molly suddenly recognised the pair from the hotel where they had originally extracted Garet, from her own kidnapping, and then again from the Dewitt incident. Without further hesitation, she pulled her gun on Erik and took a step forward.
“I guess this is what you get by setting your weapons to stun. The shit just keeps coming back… Probably time you took a break,” she told him, tilting her head for him to leave.
Erik scowled, his pride galvanizing his stance and his face.
She raised the weapon to the middle of his forehead. He took half a step backward. Then another step. The other Ogg looked horrified and panicked. Molly could see him out of the corner of her eye. He clasped his hands out in front of him, then danced a little on the spot. “Eriiiiiiik. Errrriiiiik!” he shrieked quietly, as if trying to convince Erik to surrender.
Erik looked annoyed. “Shut uuuup, Henry!” he tried to whisper, as if Molly and her team standing around looking at them casually couldn’t hear them.
Henry quieted down, and looked on in horror.
Erik started to raise his hands in compliance, but then Henry remembered he was carrying a weapon.
“Ooo.. OOOOoooo!” he exclaimed excitedly, reaching back to pull the weapon from the back of his belt.
Molly didn’t take her eyes off her target, but she could see what was happening. Joel casually pulled out his own weapon and stepped towards Henry, powering up the weapon and pointing it at his temple in one sweeping, relaxed movement.
Henry froze, and his eyes ticked left, trying to see the gun barrel at the side of his head. Slowly, he continued to pull out the gun; which Joel took out of his hand, and passed backwards to Jack, who switched it off and tucked it into her own belt.
“We’ll be going in, now,” she told the two Oggs. She lowered her weapon and stepped past Erik, confident that the others would put him down the instant he tried anything.
She reached for the door, turned the knob, and pushed it open, cautiously holding her weapon out in front of her. Once the door was open, she stepped forward with both hands on her weapon, sweeping the room for bogeys.
Sanctioned Page 7
