by James McEwan
She spoke to the empty space, “Yes, Sir”. For the first time ever Sasha began to question if she was on the right side.
Chapter 16
After the reception was over , Thad and the twins piled into the back of the new hover limo. Thad noticed the Archie’s misshapen head and was going to ask, but Archie caught his glance, “Don’t ask,” he said as he closed the door behind Thad.
Archie drove while Eve rode next to him up front, leaving the newlyweds alone in the back. Fiona was nursing her swollen eye and lip. Freya snuggled up next to Thad and fell asleep. All the while Thad was racking, his brain trying desperately trying to remember who Sasha was. Rhonda made good on her threat and went home with the young deputy.
Sasha left for Nova Texas right away, leaving the team on the ground with instructions to grab the newlyweds and call for extraction. Because they did not know how much sensory equipment Thad might have, Sasha dropped them off far from the compound so they would have to walk in. She instructed them to go by foot since vehicles would have a power signature, which could be detected. She wanted them to have the element of surprise.
It was not long into the trek before the team discovered the choice to walk was not the best of ideas. Tonight they were on the dark side of the planet so there was no light to illuminate their way. With no GPS satellites to guide them, they got lost several times. It was daybreak before they made it to the mouth of the box canyon, which held the Hammer Compound.
Shortly after the wedding party left for the Hammer Compound, another black ship landed and the sanitation team disembarked. They started their cleaning operation at the Nymphia. A lot of the guests were still making good use of the open bar. Four heavily armed men entered the ballroom and opened fire, people screamed, chaos ensued. Some tried to flee out the back only to find more men in black with guns. When they were done in the ballroom, they started going room to room killing anyone they found. Xandra heard the shots from her room. She grabbed up her own gun and when the door burst open, she got the two that kicked in her door. The first one died with a shot to the head. Her second shot hit the other intruder in the chest. His body armor would have stopped the shot, but unfortunately for him, the laser blast hit a grenade strapped to his chest. The explosion killed him, but the shrapnel from the grenade hit Xandra in the neck. She tried to crawl to the first aid kit that she kept in the bathroom, but she never made it. Her wounds were too great and she bled out on the floor.
The team made short work of the hotel. After they were done, they popped a few thermal grenades leaving the building to burn to the ground. They left the dead where they fell. The sanitation team then started going building to building killing anyone they could find.
The Sherriff had left the party early, too old and tired to carry on with the young folk. His head had just hit the pillow when there was pounding on his door. “Sherriff come quick there are men with guns killing everyone!”
He jumped up and ran to the door, yanking it open to see one of his deputies, “What?” He didn’t need to wait for an answer. He could see flames billowing from the hotel. “My God,” he paused taking it all in. Then something in his brain kicked in gear, “Get in here, and grab some guns. We have people to protect!”
The morning had come early at the Hammer Compound and Freya was still asleep. Fiona had spent the night in the healing tank and was looking her normal gorgeous self. She was wearing a short white silk robe and drying her hair with a fluffy white towel, “Where’s Thad?” She asked. Eve told her he was in the holo-room. She went to the kitchen, got a mug, and filled it with hot coffee. Wondering what Thad was doing in there, she walked to the holo-room. There she found him walking around a scale model of the compound. She walked up and kissed him on the check, “I thought my handsome husband might like some coffee.”
He took the cup, “Thank you. You’re looking better. How are you feeling?”
“Much better, no thanks to you,” she was still giving him crap about last night.
Thad took a sip of coffee then set it down on top of the model, then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. He bent down and kissed her on her soft lips, “Trust me that will be the last time I do as I’m told.”
She pulled away and her robe slipped open revealing her bare breasts. She pulled the robe open further showing off her body, “And to think, you were going to get all of this,” she waved her hand if she was a sales model, “this morning, but fat chance of that happing now.” She quickly pulled her robe closed trying to make a dramatic point.
“Oh my love, I wish I could play in your wonderland, but right now we have other things to do,” he said looking at the 3-D model.
She tried to see what he was looking at, “What is all this?”
“I have been thinking about that woman, Sasha, and the way she fought,” Thad said, then took a sip of his coffee.
“You mean the way she fought just like you?” She asked.
“Yeah, she did. I have only a few images and parts of memories coming back, but I do remember a mission where she was there posing as my wife,” Thad said, taking another sip.
“So why would she show up now, and of all days, why on our wedding day?” She pondered out loud.
“That is what got me thinking. The only thing I can come up with is that my past has finally caught up with me. I think she showed up to grab me. I’m pretty sure they want me back,” he said.
“Okay, so she tries to get you out of the hotel where she sticks you with a syringe full of night-night juice, then what?” She hugged his free arm.
“Something like that. She most likely had a team waiting to grab me, and that worries me.” He took another drink of coffee. “So I have been up all night trying to figure out their plan and where and how they will strike at us.”
“Okay, so the bad guys are coming. I think we can handle them, can’t we?” She looked up at him with her deep green eyes.
He smiled at her naivety, “They are the best at what they do in the whole universe. It will not be easy, but I do have a plan. You see, when you are outnumbered and outgunned, the only way to win is to prepare the battleground. Because they didn’t come last night, tells me they are on foot. They don’t want us to be able to detect them coming.”
Fiona knew he was faced with a choice to break his promise, or risk all of their lives, “Are you okay with having to kill again?”
Thad slipped his arm out of hers then took her hands in his, “These people shoot and never ask questions. I have no intention of letting them do anything to hurt you. I know I promised to do no harm, but I’m not Doctor Hammer. I’m a killer, and I think that I’m going to have to come to terms with that. If I’m forced to kill only those who would do me or my family harm, I think I can live with that, and I think he could too.”
Happy to see that he was okay with his decision, “Okay so what do we do?” She asked.
“Well, I had Archie working all night and we are just about ready. The first thing they will do is send a two man sniper team to scout the target. He pointed to a small bluff overlooking the poolside of the house.
The door opened again to the holo-suite and Freya walked in. She was wearing short shorts and a sports bra, “Eve said I would find you two in here,” she looked disappointed when she saw the model of the compound.
Fiona picked up on this right away, “What’s wrong sweetie?”
“Oh I was just hoping to find you two doing something fun, like taking a mud bath, but instead, it looks like Thad is giving a briefing. What have I missed?”
Thad was always a little surprised by the twins open sexuality, but he appreciated the Hell out of it, “Nothing, I just started.” He went on to explain everything again for her benefit then he launched into the details of his plan. After he finished, he had to admit the plan lacked finesse, which Thad blamed on a lack of information. However, it would do. “Eve, are you around?” He asked.
Her voice came from nowhere, “I’m always around.”
“I want you
to crank up the sensors, push them to max. If a mouse farts out there, I want to know about it, got it?” Thad said.
Eve being Eve said, “Okay Thaddeus, but do I have to remind you that Nome has no rodent population, so the chances of a mouse farting are astronomical.”
The twins laughed and Thad just shook his head. Freya spoke, “Eve honey it was just an expression.”
Eve was quiet for a second or two, “I see. Okay, I will alert you if anything out there is abnormal.”
Fiona spoke this time, “Thank you, Eve. You’re a doll.”
The twins looked at each other and laughed again. Thad did not get what they were laughing at and thought women!
With nothing to do, but wait, they returned to the kitchen and had breakfast. Then they waited. It was not long before Eve alerted them to a very faint power signature coming from the buff, which Thad had pointed out as the most likely place for the sniper team to be. He took one look at the monitor, “Yep that’s them. Eve put a camera on that buff please.” A picture of the bluff appeared on screen, but there was nothing, “See right there,” he pointed to a spot on the screen.
Freya said, “Nope, don’t see it.”
“Look really close, you will see a slight distortion in the image, right here.” He put his finger on the screen just below where he wanted them to look.
Fiona spotted it, “I see it! It looks like the outline of a person lying down, but how?”
“Active camouflage, normally the power signature is masked and the effect is undetectable, but when you get two suits too close together, like a sniper team, the fields interfere with each other. The effect of two units that close disrupts the effect just enough for you to detect it if you know to look for it.”
Freya was still trying to see what they were talking about, “Okay so what now?”
Thad smiled, “Now it begins. Freya how do you feel about a little nude sunbathing?”
“I’m game, what’s the plan?” She said.
On the bluff, the sniper team was in place. The shooter was watching the house through his scope while the spotter was watching through his spotting scope. He was marking ranges and prepping for action if they had to shoot. The spotter saw his first, “Target, one o’clock low, five hundred meters. Wow, you should take a look at that ass!”
“All I can say is a lucky bastard. Twins, I would give my left testicle to bed down twins,” the sniper said.
“I’ll remember to cut it off you after you have your turn with them,” replied the spotter.
The sniper laughed, “Oh how kind of you to wait until after.”
The voice of the team commander came over their comms, “You two will have to wait your turn. I get the first crack at them, so don’t go messing up the merchandise.”
The sniper snickered, “I wouldn’t dream of it, it would be like damaging a Rembrandt.”
Freya had the whole grab team right where she wanted them, looking at her and nothing else. The rest of the team was watching everything the sniper team was sending back on helmet-mounted monitors. She stripped off her top showing off her perky breasts.
“Oh damn, she is going native,” the spotter said.
She slowly took down her shorts showing off her perfect ass when Thad’s voice came over her comm link, “Careful sweetie, don’t make it too obvious.”
“Oh Thad baby, you are no fun,” Freya replied.
Thad groaned, “This is a life and death situation and she is worried about fun, women! Archie, have you calculated the sun reflection angle?”
“Yes, Mr. Thaddeus Sir. It was not hard to do,” Archie replied with a hint of annoyance in his tone.
“Okay give us a few seconds to get ready,” Thad nodded to Fiona who was lying next to him on a table in the upstairs bedroom, which they had converted into a sniper's nest. Both of them were behind reproductions of the old .50 cal Barrett sniper rifle.
Outside, near the pool, Freya was completely naked and sitting on a chair, while Archie rubbed suntan lotion on her back. “Now,” Thad said over the com. Archie turned so the sunlight reflected off his shiny head and directly onto the sniper team. Their active camouflage flared in the sunlight and for few seconds they were visible. Upstairs in the sniper nest, Thad took aim at the sniper, let his breath out, and gently squeezed the trigger. Inside the room, there was a deafening roar. Seconds later Fiona followed suit.
On the hill, the spotter heard the sound of shattering glass and felt a warm spray hit his left check. He did not have to look over to know the man next to him was dead. “Oh shit!” was the second to last thing that went through his mind. Before he could do anything, his own head exploded into a pink mist of blood, bone, and brain.
The rest of the team was busy watching Freya get rubbed down when a bright light blinded both cameras. The shooter’s camera feed went black. “Recon one, we’ve lost your signal,” the team leader said. As the spotter’s camera feed followed suit, “Recon two, we lost your signal. What’s going on, over?” The team leader looked down at his wrist display. The bio-signs for both men were offline. He knew they were dead. “Damn it, he took them both out! How could we be so fucking stupid? The girl was a distraction!”
Thad could see through his scope both targets were down, “Tangos down, good work everyone. Freya, honey, time to get dressed and get in here,” Freya didn’t bother with getting dressed. She grabbed her clothes and ran inside, with Archie right behind her.
The team leader was pacing back and forth with his hand on his head, “Fuck, he has forced my hand! We can’t wait now. If we do, they will slip away. Screw the stealth shit, it’s time to go loud and proud boys.”
The operator monitoring the communications asked, “How did he take them out? I didn’t detect weapon power signatures?”
“He must be using expanding gas weapons. They don’t have a weapons power signature to detect. Oh very clever of you,” the team leader said, more as a statement of his enemy’s skill, than as an answer to his man. “Now you guys get to find out why I made you pack your jet belts all the way out here, we move in five.”
The team had to move fast, they geared up and moved out. They had not planned to move in until dark, but because of this new development, they had to go now. Only the team leader stayed behind so he could call the shots.
Freya ran into the house without bothering to get dressed. Inside she found Fiona holding a copy of Thad’s black body armor. “Ooh, how fashionable,” Freya said.
Fiona was already wearing her own armor, “I know, now all we need is a gimp.”
Freya slipped on the body armor and Fiona handed her a harness with all the tools an apprentice assassin would need. “Hey it even comes with accessories,” Freya remarked as she strapped it on and snapped the clasps closed.
Fiona lifted a small pen-like tool off her own harness, “Yeah I really like this one.” She pointed it at the empty mug on the counter. She pressed a button and a red dot appeared on the cup. She flicked her wrist and the red beam cut the cup in half. “Laser knife, because you never know when you will feel the need to cut things in half.” Freya looked at her sister with a funny expression then burst into laughter.
Thad entered the room and passed out the guns. All gunned up, they were ready for the assault, which was surely coming. Eve, wearing her new body, stood close by. Thad pulled Eve aside, “Okay, I need you to head down the tunnel Archie dug last night, and if these guys are operating the way I think they are, you should be within a few meters of their base camp. The team lead should be there running the operation. I need you to take him alive, so I’m not removing all the safety protocols. You will be able to hurt him, but not kill him.”
“Oh Thaddeus, Freya was right. Your no fun,” she wheeled around and her love doll was off running downstairs towards the tunnel.
Thad shook his head, “Women! They are all the same, organic or computerized.”
The assault team was ready and every man knew his part. The first to belt in would be the PML (port
able missile launcher) team. They would jump close to the house and blow a hole for the other four-team members to breach, though. The breaching team would use flashbangs and stun grenades to subdue the targets. Then it was just a matter of bagging them up for transport, or so they thought.
Outside the compound, the PML team was already in the air, too late to stop the plan, when a hover vehicle pulled up next to the house, right at the preplanned breach point. The door opened and Rhonda jumped out and walked around to the driver’s side. She leaned into the window and gave the driver a kiss. The first missile came screaming out of the sky and stuck the car on the passenger’s side. The explosion threw Rhonda through the wall, making a small hole. The driver, the young Sheriff deputy with whom she had spent the night, was killed instantly.
Rhonda’s bot body was a mess of torn plasta-flesh, hydraulics, and circuits. She sat up. Most of her face was burned off, the metal skull showing. Her right arm was missing and she was not sure where it was, “Damn it, that hurt.” She did not mean pain but was using the term to describe the damage to the bot body. She thought it was no big deal. She would transfer back to the bike and order another body later. She tried to transfer, but her wireless card was damaged. She started to panic. She was losing power fast, and if the brain unit died, she would die with it. Because Rhonda had never thought anything like this would happen, she didn’t leave a backup copy of herself in the grav-bike’s computer.
This was the first time Rhonda had experienced fear or at least simulated fear, which an A.I. can experience. She did not know it yet, but the man she had been with was dead.
A second missile came screaming in and exploded in a ball of fire, dust, and more twisted metal. Rhonda survived the second missile strike, but the fire burned off the rest of her plasta-flesh. The whooshing sounds of jump jets screamed outside the hole. Rhonda tried to alert someone, but her comm link was damaged too. Then a round cylinder came bouncing into the room and landed next to her. She looked down as it exploded in a bright flash and stunning boom. Her optical and audio sensors were overloaded. Panic set in, as she realized she was helpless, unable to do anything.
