Wow. This shows a completely different side of Starfleet, but we all know they're capable of being stupid.
Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
Barely Human: Shadow Plays
- Thread starter CeJay
- Start date
Yeah, not exactly your friendly neighborhood Starfleet here. Looks like they came around in the end. Stay tuned to see what's happening next. Thanks for reading.
042 – “Everything Ends Eventually.“
Once passed the force field, Mech reached the sub-basement level on which she expected the tri-cobalt bomb quickly and without further incident, leaving the Starfleet assault team behind to deal with the remaining terrorists above.
Her objective was clear. Find the explosive, which according to her calculations had now been primed to go off within three minute and thirty-six seconds, and disarm it any way possible.
Even with the little time she had left, she knew she couldn’t rush matters. Chances were guards had been posted to stop anyone attempting to tamper with the device.
She freed her Glock from the thigh-holster and adopting the tried and true Weaver stance, she slowly entered the vast sub-basement floor.
Since main power to the building had been cut, the lights were out, leaving only the sporadic auxiliary illumination which cast the cavernous floor into a dim green glow. Mech quickly switched on her optical enhancers and before even fully stepping into the floor, she carefully scanned her surroundings.
The fact that she couldn’t pick up any sign of life didn’t mean that the area was secure. In fact she had already expected this ever since learning that these terrorists weren’t made of flesh and blood.
And neither are you. So tell me, where’s the difference?
Mech decided that this was neither the time nor place for existential deliberations and kept moving while she kept her head on a swivel to try and spot any dangers or possible ambushes before it was too late.
The fact that the entire floor appeared to be open-planned was both an advantage and a disadvantage. There weren’t many places to hide, excluding a few large storage crates and thick, symmetrically positioned support beams. It also meant a lack of cover should she come under fire.
It took no time at all to identify the bomb. Or bombs for that matter. Packs of azure-colored liquid, gallons of the stuff, were strapped to seemingly every single support beam. Whoever had wired the building had done their homework and been deadly serious about bringing the entire thing down and turning it into a heap of junk and debris.
The tactic of using multiple devices forced her to change her own strategy to try and manually disarm the explosives. There simply was not enough time to try to attend to each of he dozes of explosives.
She did however find a makeshift computer console which had been brought in to configure the bombs. She took one more quick look around to be reasonably sure that the air was clear, before placing her Glock aside and accessing the computer.
As predicted all normal attempts to gain access failed thanks to a series of sophisticated encryption protocols which had been programmed into the console. It was nothing Mech hadn’t seen before.
She quickly slapped a dataport on the console and one on the side of her neck. Within seconds she had accessed the virtual user interface and was well on her way to circumvent the device’s security and firewalls. They were aggressive too, programmed with a counter-hacking protocol they were designed to not only stop intruders but to spike them, frying their enhancers and flat-lining a hacker instantly.
Mech of course wasn’t just any hacker and she managed to defeat the level six, double-layered firewall in just under twenty seconds. A personal best for her.
No sooner had the thought that all this was a little bit too easy crossed her mind, did she realize that the initial firewall did not actually protect the detonator controls. Instead she had merely gained access to the user interface.
From here she was able to control what looked like the communications jammer, the transporter scramblers and the detonators. And each individual system was protected by its own series of additional firewalls.
Her first instinct of course was to go for the bomb controls but after realizing that it would take her at least five minutes to break those firewalls, she focused on something easier first. The scrambler was nearly as difficult to crack so that left the communications jammer which went down within a few seconds.
She started hacking the firewalls protecting the detonator controls even while she sent and update to the Masamune who she hoped would be able to receive her now. <Chief, this is Mech. I have gained entry to the sub-level and discovered the bombs. There are at least two dozen individual devices down here but I have located the central control station and disabled the communications jammer. Cracking the transporter scrambler is going to be a lot tougher and I’m not going to be able to do that with the time we have left. The bombs are about two minutes away from turning this building into rubble. I’m don’t think I have enough time to shut it down but I may be able to find a way to buy us some more.>
Mech quickly learned that things upstairs were worse than she had thought. She was relieved to learn that Slade and Tank’s team had eliminated the terrorists on the seventy-fourth floor but alarmed that Starfleet had openly attacked MSD over jurisdictional nonsense and delaying the evacuation of the hostages in the process.
Starfleet and the UEDA had apparently changed their tune after she had made contact but by that point it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The firewalls she faced were hackable but there were simply too many of them to get through in the time she had available.
And then there was that feeling in the back of her mind that something was very wrong.
Many people claimed to have a sixth sense but for Mech this was literally true. She possessed the ability to pick up sounds and vibrations outside of the perceivable spectrum for average humans. It was an ability she had made sure to refine since her episode in Nepal in which she had been nearly blown to pieces by a not-so errant torpedo attack.
She felt the presence of something approaching while she tried desperately to crack another firewall. <Even with Starfleet’s help you’re not going to have enough time. I’m going to try and get you some more by hacking into the bomb. Chief, tell Bobbie to make sure the switch is in place in case I need it.>
The doubt in Masamune’s voice were unmistakable. <You’ve never been able to test it. As far as I’m concerned the whole thing is still mostly theoretical.>
<No time to argue. I’m going to try and –>
The thing, whatever it was, fired and Mech jumped.
It wasn’t quite fast enough.
It took Mech a moment to realize that she had been hit. Not because of any immediate pain but because her interface to the computer she had been connected to just seconds before was now suddenly gone and so was her comm link with Masamune.
She was lying on the cold hard floor and could tell by her ripped and ruined red dress that she had not been struck by a conventional weapon.
Then she heard it move again and the familiar sound made her realize that she knew exactly what she was up against. It took her a moment to be able to get a visual however. While she had clearly not taken a direct hit, it had nevertheless been powerful enough to severely damage her body and she suddenly found it very difficult to get her arms and legs to carry out the most basic functions.
She was fully cognizant that if she couldn’t re-establish control over her own body within the next few seconds, she’d be done for, unable to survive another hit.
Pure willpower got her back onto her knees and out of the corner of her eye she could see the dark green, bubble shaped AI tank closing in on her, its weapons ports already glowing angrily as it was getting ready to unleash another deadly salvo.
She focused all her thoughts onto one single action. Move.
The tank fired.
And Mech leaped.
She could feel the air all around her turn boiling hot as the unleashed plasma evaporated part of the floor she had occupied just moments ago.
She didn’t have her normal speed and certainly not her usual strength that much seemed certain as she sprinted across the sub-basement, keeping herself roughly perpendicular to the attacking tank.
Outrunning the thing was out of her question in her current condition and even if she succeeded, she’d never clear the building before the bombs went off. She had less than a minute, perhaps ninety seconds to finish off the tank and attempt once more to defuse the bombs. Her chances to achieve that, she had to admit, were negligible but she didn’t let the odds change her course of action. The stakes were too high.
The tank continued to fire, ripping apart support columns, storage crates and anything else that found itself the path of its main gun.
Mech’s plan came to her just as she cornered another pillar which was turned into rubble not a second after she had passed it.
It wasn’t the best plan she’d ever thought off but considering the time restraints, it was better than nothing.
Coming past another beam, she reached out and ripped the bomb that had been attached to it right off its fixture without so much as slowing down. One look at the now throbbing, two-gallon device in her hands confirmed her theory. The thing had been programmed to activate if somebody tempered with it manually.
The high pitched whine was making it unmistakably clear that it would rip itself and anything in the immediate surroundings to shreds momentarily.
Mech made a sharp turn and instead of trying to keep her distance to the AI tank trying to disintegrate her, she headed right towards it. Had she been one-hundred percent she’d easily been able to leap off her feet and land right on top of it. In her current state however she was doubtful she’d make the distance.
So instead she was left playing a deadly game of chicken with the tank, running straight at it and practically looking right down the shimmering blue gun port pointed at her head.
It fired and she went down.
She was pretty sure her hair had caught fire as she rolled underneath the ultra-hot plasma bolt which otherwise appeared to have missed her.
Mech came back up on her feet and found herself just a few meters from the tank which continued to approach her as if it meant to simply roll her over. Too close for another evasive dive but close enough to dare a precise jump.
With what remained of her quickly fading strength, she bent her knees and went vertical, sailing towards her target.
She realized that she had mistimed her assault while she was still mid-air. The bomb in her hand was going to go off any second.
No choice but to follow through now.
She landed dead on target and instantly dropped onto one knee, wedged the bomb harshly between the gun port and the tank’s chassis and then got back up to push herself off and get as far away from the tank as she possibly could.
The bomb detonated before she had cleared as much as three meters.
She shockwave of the explosion cleanly swept her off her feet and back into the air but this time into an uncontrolled tumble. Mech had never been a stranger to pain but what she experienced as she was engulfed in the massive explosion was beyond anything she had ever endured. She could feel her skin melting away even while her mind refused to release her from consciousness.
She screamed in agony and desperation, literally on fire she didn’t feel the impact which would have shattered every single bone in a human body.
Mech desperately tried to focus on a truism which had served her well over the years. Pain is an illusion. In her case this was true more so than with the many people who liked to tell themselves the exact same thing in order to pretend that they could conquer any amount of pain they were exposed to.
Intellectually she completely understood that it was all in her head. Her brain was the only part of her body which was able to interpret the signals which told her that her body was long passed the threshold of being able to function.
This knowledge didn’t make it any easier to bear.
<Mech.>
Lying on the cold floor in a burned and broken husk of a body, certain beyond a shadow of doubt that she was seconds from certain death, she didn’t immediately fathom the voice calling out for her.
<Mech, I need you to focus.>
She tried to respond but it seemed impossible to do anything but lie there in agonizing pain and await the inevitable outcome which would release her form this torment.
<I know you are hurt and that it seems like this is the end but I need you to believe that you can make it. Do you understand? You have to believe you can pull through this?>
<Mother,> Mech thought she heard herself say. At this point she couldn’t be sure of anything. Not the voice in her head, not even the air she was apparently still breathing. <How …?>
<It doesn’t matter how,> she responded. <All that matters is that you believe. That you refuse to give up. You hear me. Do not. Give up.>
The groan coming over what had once been her lips was a clear sign of life. But it was weak. It was the death rattle of a person resigned to die.
<This doesn’t end here, Mech. Not for you. You still have much to do and many who count on you. Including the very men and women still in this building.>
Mother’s voice wasn’t desperate or even demanding or urgent. Instead she spoke in her usual soft and soothing voice. As if all this was already a forgone conclusion. As if she had total faith in Mech’s abilities to overcome her current and terminal state. <Do you believe that? Tell me that you believe.>
It would have been much easier and probably much less painful to dismiss her completely and to simply wait for a few more seconds until the inevitable would come to pass and all the agony would be lifted from her tortured body and mind.
But Mech had never been a quitter and she decided that this was going to be a lousy time to start.
<I … believe.>
And then darkness claimed her.
Once passed the force field, Mech reached the sub-basement level on which she expected the tri-cobalt bomb quickly and without further incident, leaving the Starfleet assault team behind to deal with the remaining terrorists above.
Her objective was clear. Find the explosive, which according to her calculations had now been primed to go off within three minute and thirty-six seconds, and disarm it any way possible.
Even with the little time she had left, she knew she couldn’t rush matters. Chances were guards had been posted to stop anyone attempting to tamper with the device.
She freed her Glock from the thigh-holster and adopting the tried and true Weaver stance, she slowly entered the vast sub-basement floor.
Since main power to the building had been cut, the lights were out, leaving only the sporadic auxiliary illumination which cast the cavernous floor into a dim green glow. Mech quickly switched on her optical enhancers and before even fully stepping into the floor, she carefully scanned her surroundings.
The fact that she couldn’t pick up any sign of life didn’t mean that the area was secure. In fact she had already expected this ever since learning that these terrorists weren’t made of flesh and blood.
And neither are you. So tell me, where’s the difference?
Mech decided that this was neither the time nor place for existential deliberations and kept moving while she kept her head on a swivel to try and spot any dangers or possible ambushes before it was too late.
The fact that the entire floor appeared to be open-planned was both an advantage and a disadvantage. There weren’t many places to hide, excluding a few large storage crates and thick, symmetrically positioned support beams. It also meant a lack of cover should she come under fire.
It took no time at all to identify the bomb. Or bombs for that matter. Packs of azure-colored liquid, gallons of the stuff, were strapped to seemingly every single support beam. Whoever had wired the building had done their homework and been deadly serious about bringing the entire thing down and turning it into a heap of junk and debris.
The tactic of using multiple devices forced her to change her own strategy to try and manually disarm the explosives. There simply was not enough time to try to attend to each of he dozes of explosives.
She did however find a makeshift computer console which had been brought in to configure the bombs. She took one more quick look around to be reasonably sure that the air was clear, before placing her Glock aside and accessing the computer.
As predicted all normal attempts to gain access failed thanks to a series of sophisticated encryption protocols which had been programmed into the console. It was nothing Mech hadn’t seen before.
She quickly slapped a dataport on the console and one on the side of her neck. Within seconds she had accessed the virtual user interface and was well on her way to circumvent the device’s security and firewalls. They were aggressive too, programmed with a counter-hacking protocol they were designed to not only stop intruders but to spike them, frying their enhancers and flat-lining a hacker instantly.
Mech of course wasn’t just any hacker and she managed to defeat the level six, double-layered firewall in just under twenty seconds. A personal best for her.
No sooner had the thought that all this was a little bit too easy crossed her mind, did she realize that the initial firewall did not actually protect the detonator controls. Instead she had merely gained access to the user interface.
From here she was able to control what looked like the communications jammer, the transporter scramblers and the detonators. And each individual system was protected by its own series of additional firewalls.
Her first instinct of course was to go for the bomb controls but after realizing that it would take her at least five minutes to break those firewalls, she focused on something easier first. The scrambler was nearly as difficult to crack so that left the communications jammer which went down within a few seconds.
She started hacking the firewalls protecting the detonator controls even while she sent and update to the Masamune who she hoped would be able to receive her now. <Chief, this is Mech. I have gained entry to the sub-level and discovered the bombs. There are at least two dozen individual devices down here but I have located the central control station and disabled the communications jammer. Cracking the transporter scrambler is going to be a lot tougher and I’m not going to be able to do that with the time we have left. The bombs are about two minutes away from turning this building into rubble. I’m don’t think I have enough time to shut it down but I may be able to find a way to buy us some more.>
Mech quickly learned that things upstairs were worse than she had thought. She was relieved to learn that Slade and Tank’s team had eliminated the terrorists on the seventy-fourth floor but alarmed that Starfleet had openly attacked MSD over jurisdictional nonsense and delaying the evacuation of the hostages in the process.
Starfleet and the UEDA had apparently changed their tune after she had made contact but by that point it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The firewalls she faced were hackable but there were simply too many of them to get through in the time she had available.
And then there was that feeling in the back of her mind that something was very wrong.
Many people claimed to have a sixth sense but for Mech this was literally true. She possessed the ability to pick up sounds and vibrations outside of the perceivable spectrum for average humans. It was an ability she had made sure to refine since her episode in Nepal in which she had been nearly blown to pieces by a not-so errant torpedo attack.
She felt the presence of something approaching while she tried desperately to crack another firewall. <Even with Starfleet’s help you’re not going to have enough time. I’m going to try and get you some more by hacking into the bomb. Chief, tell Bobbie to make sure the switch is in place in case I need it.>
The doubt in Masamune’s voice were unmistakable. <You’ve never been able to test it. As far as I’m concerned the whole thing is still mostly theoretical.>
<No time to argue. I’m going to try and –>
The thing, whatever it was, fired and Mech jumped.
It wasn’t quite fast enough.
It took Mech a moment to realize that she had been hit. Not because of any immediate pain but because her interface to the computer she had been connected to just seconds before was now suddenly gone and so was her comm link with Masamune.
She was lying on the cold hard floor and could tell by her ripped and ruined red dress that she had not been struck by a conventional weapon.
Then she heard it move again and the familiar sound made her realize that she knew exactly what she was up against. It took her a moment to be able to get a visual however. While she had clearly not taken a direct hit, it had nevertheless been powerful enough to severely damage her body and she suddenly found it very difficult to get her arms and legs to carry out the most basic functions.
She was fully cognizant that if she couldn’t re-establish control over her own body within the next few seconds, she’d be done for, unable to survive another hit.
Pure willpower got her back onto her knees and out of the corner of her eye she could see the dark green, bubble shaped AI tank closing in on her, its weapons ports already glowing angrily as it was getting ready to unleash another deadly salvo.
She focused all her thoughts onto one single action. Move.
The tank fired.
And Mech leaped.
She could feel the air all around her turn boiling hot as the unleashed plasma evaporated part of the floor she had occupied just moments ago.
She didn’t have her normal speed and certainly not her usual strength that much seemed certain as she sprinted across the sub-basement, keeping herself roughly perpendicular to the attacking tank.
Outrunning the thing was out of her question in her current condition and even if she succeeded, she’d never clear the building before the bombs went off. She had less than a minute, perhaps ninety seconds to finish off the tank and attempt once more to defuse the bombs. Her chances to achieve that, she had to admit, were negligible but she didn’t let the odds change her course of action. The stakes were too high.
The tank continued to fire, ripping apart support columns, storage crates and anything else that found itself the path of its main gun.
Mech’s plan came to her just as she cornered another pillar which was turned into rubble not a second after she had passed it.
It wasn’t the best plan she’d ever thought off but considering the time restraints, it was better than nothing.
Coming past another beam, she reached out and ripped the bomb that had been attached to it right off its fixture without so much as slowing down. One look at the now throbbing, two-gallon device in her hands confirmed her theory. The thing had been programmed to activate if somebody tempered with it manually.
The high pitched whine was making it unmistakably clear that it would rip itself and anything in the immediate surroundings to shreds momentarily.
Mech made a sharp turn and instead of trying to keep her distance to the AI tank trying to disintegrate her, she headed right towards it. Had she been one-hundred percent she’d easily been able to leap off her feet and land right on top of it. In her current state however she was doubtful she’d make the distance.
So instead she was left playing a deadly game of chicken with the tank, running straight at it and practically looking right down the shimmering blue gun port pointed at her head.
It fired and she went down.
She was pretty sure her hair had caught fire as she rolled underneath the ultra-hot plasma bolt which otherwise appeared to have missed her.
Mech came back up on her feet and found herself just a few meters from the tank which continued to approach her as if it meant to simply roll her over. Too close for another evasive dive but close enough to dare a precise jump.
With what remained of her quickly fading strength, she bent her knees and went vertical, sailing towards her target.
She realized that she had mistimed her assault while she was still mid-air. The bomb in her hand was going to go off any second.
No choice but to follow through now.
She landed dead on target and instantly dropped onto one knee, wedged the bomb harshly between the gun port and the tank’s chassis and then got back up to push herself off and get as far away from the tank as she possibly could.
The bomb detonated before she had cleared as much as three meters.
She shockwave of the explosion cleanly swept her off her feet and back into the air but this time into an uncontrolled tumble. Mech had never been a stranger to pain but what she experienced as she was engulfed in the massive explosion was beyond anything she had ever endured. She could feel her skin melting away even while her mind refused to release her from consciousness.
She screamed in agony and desperation, literally on fire she didn’t feel the impact which would have shattered every single bone in a human body.
Mech desperately tried to focus on a truism which had served her well over the years. Pain is an illusion. In her case this was true more so than with the many people who liked to tell themselves the exact same thing in order to pretend that they could conquer any amount of pain they were exposed to.
Intellectually she completely understood that it was all in her head. Her brain was the only part of her body which was able to interpret the signals which told her that her body was long passed the threshold of being able to function.
This knowledge didn’t make it any easier to bear.
<Mech.>
Lying on the cold floor in a burned and broken husk of a body, certain beyond a shadow of doubt that she was seconds from certain death, she didn’t immediately fathom the voice calling out for her.
<Mech, I need you to focus.>
She tried to respond but it seemed impossible to do anything but lie there in agonizing pain and await the inevitable outcome which would release her form this torment.
<I know you are hurt and that it seems like this is the end but I need you to believe that you can make it. Do you understand? You have to believe you can pull through this?>
<Mother,> Mech thought she heard herself say. At this point she couldn’t be sure of anything. Not the voice in her head, not even the air she was apparently still breathing. <How …?>
<It doesn’t matter how,> she responded. <All that matters is that you believe. That you refuse to give up. You hear me. Do not. Give up.>
The groan coming over what had once been her lips was a clear sign of life. But it was weak. It was the death rattle of a person resigned to die.
<This doesn’t end here, Mech. Not for you. You still have much to do and many who count on you. Including the very men and women still in this building.>
Mother’s voice wasn’t desperate or even demanding or urgent. Instead she spoke in her usual soft and soothing voice. As if all this was already a forgone conclusion. As if she had total faith in Mech’s abilities to overcome her current and terminal state. <Do you believe that? Tell me that you believe.>
It would have been much easier and probably much less painful to dismiss her completely and to simply wait for a few more seconds until the inevitable would come to pass and all the agony would be lifted from her tortured body and mind.
But Mech had never been a quitter and she decided that this was going to be a lousy time to start.
<I … believe.>
And then darkness claimed her.
* * *
043 – “The Hard Way Out.”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
To Tank, the remaining hostages were moving far too slow. Starfleet had finally come through, stopped shooting at them and instead their shuttles were now assisting with the evacuation and yet things were still not moving fast enough.
And it wasn’t just the hostages. Nobody had ever drawn up a plan to try and load up a SAFVe or a Starfleet shuttle for that matter from a blown out window on the 74th floor of a skyscraper.
The first few minutes of the evacuation attempt had been spent in trial and error while trying to figure out how exactly this would work. It had been difficult enough with the SAFVe with its side-opening doors but the Starfleet shuttles were using a back hatch and the window frames had not been quite wide enough to allow the shuttle to actually land within the building.
Instead they had backed up, with their ramps lowered and fully extended until they reached into FedPlaza to create a plank of sorts to lead into the shuttle. There was just enough space for two crafts to dock side by side and allow the terrified hostages to board.
But the pilots found it difficult to keep their vessels entirely steady and most evacuees were far too scared to step onto the extended and seemingly unsecured hatch without assistance.
Tank and the rest of his team as well as the Starfleet officers on the shuttles did their best to prod the men and women along but when one of them slipped and nearly fell to her death, it was obvious that they had to slow things down.
<How much longer to clear the building?> asked Masamune who was watching events from the Starfleet command center far below.
<We’re moving as fast as we can,> responded Jackson Slade. <The Starfleet shuttles are almost filled and then we just need Hot Rod to come back around to pick us up and we’re out of here. Maybe another two minutes. How much time did Mech said we have?>
The chief didn’t respond to that right away and Jackson and everyone else who was listening in had a pretty good idea why. <Not enough. But she said she would try and get us some more if she can find a way to slow it down.>
<Chief, that was before we lost contact with her,> said Tank. <We don’t know what happened to her. I’ll go down myself and check out the situation.>
<Negative,> Masamune responded. <It’ll take you too long to get down there. I want you to evacuate with the hostages.>
<I can get down there in a few seconds if I use the elevator shaft,> he said and was already on his way.
“Damn it, Tank, I need you up here, that’s an order,” Slade shouted after him as he saw him heading out.
He took no notice of that. “You’ve got things under control. I need to find Mech.”
It wasn’t until he reached the blown off doors to the elevator that he stopped to look downwards into the ominous darkness of the shaft, considering the best way on how to get to the bottom.
He felt somebody grabbing hold of his arm and he turned around. It was Kara and her eyes were wide with fear and concern. “Please, don’t go.”
He looked at her. “You should be on one of those shuttles.”
She gave him a little smirk. “I’m scared of heights.”
He angrily shook his head. “I don’t care and we don’t have time for this,” he said and grabbed her by the arm, practically dragging her towards the windows.
But before he had even halfway reached the shuttles, he realized that they were already taking off.
“Ok, that’s it,” said Slade as he watched the two pearly-white Starfleet ships glide away from Fed Plaza to take the hostages to safety. <Hot Rod, now would be a good time for a pick-up.>
With all the hostages and most of the CCiD assault team gone, only Slade, Tank, Gavin, Sylvester and Katangai remained inside the seemingly doomed Fed Plaza.
Gavin and Sylvester had made a last, quick round of the upper floor and now came racing down the staircase. “We’re clear,” Gavin shouted, out of breath and fully aware that every second they remained in the building was brining him closer to the chance of never seeing his family again. “Let’s get out of here.”
Hot Rod brought the SAFVe up to the window and the remaining CCiD team quickly embarked.
Gavin felt enormous relief the moment he stepped out of Fed Plaza and onto the shuttle. However Tank and the woman with him were moving far too slowly as far as he was concerned. “Come on, boss, this isn’t a date, you know. Haul ass,” he said but couldn’t quite keep his lips from turn into a little smile.
The frown on Tanks’ face was priceless. “We are going to have a little conversation, once I get on that shuttle,” he hollered back, still dragging Katanagi along who clearly wasn’t too enthused about the idea of having to walk out of the 74th floor window.
That’s when Gavin noticed movement by the bar counter. Somebody was slowly getting up. “Damn it, we left somebody,” he said. “There is still somebody over there.”
Tank stopped and turned around towards the bar. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Get down.” He pushed the surprised Kara onto the floor and flattened himself on top of her not a moment later, nearly crushing the comparatively tiny woman under his weight.
Gavin spotted his mistake. The man who had come into view was not one of the hostages. He wore a smart dinner jacket with a purple orchid attached to his breast pocket. There was little left of his face. It looked as if he had taken a bullet right through the side of his head, exposing much of the inner circuitry of his artificial brain. And yet, somehow, he had managed to get back onto his feet, holding two disruptor rifles.
“Hostile, hostile!” Gavin desperately tried to bring his own weapon to bear but already knew that he wasn’t going to be fast enough.
The android opened fire.
Thanks to Tank’s quick reaction, the bolts of green energy went straight over his head.
Hot Rod had spotted the danger from the corner of her eye and reacted quickly, jerking the SAFVe upwards.
Sylvester was hit in the leg and went down but with the shuttle now rapidly pulling away, the other rounds slammed into the hull instead of taking out the remaining CCiD agents who had not been able to bring their weapons up in time.
Tank cursed himself loudly for having discarded his assault rifle earlier and now being unarmed. A mistake which would cost him his and Kara Katanagi’s life, he was sure.
But surprisingly the android terrorist did not fire again.
Tank looked up and watched as he slowly rounded the bar counter, taking unsteady steps most likely due to the damage he had taken to his brain. But no matter the extent of his handicap, he kept a firm hold on those two rifles which remained pointed in his direction.
Very slowly, Tank picked himself off the floor. “Stand up,” he whispered to Kara. “Stand up and stay right behind me. Do it, do it now.”
The young woman didn’t hesitate to follow his instructions this time, even though he could tell from her soft sobs that she was incredibly scared. Only moment ago she had thought herself all but safe. All that had been left had been to overcome her vertigo and this nightmare would have finally come to an end. Now it seemed safety was all but an illusion.
Tank slowly tracked backwards, careful to ensure that Kara would follow his movements, while keeping his eyes on the terrorist with the two rifles. “What are you waiting for? What is it you want?” he screamed at him angrily. It wasn’t perhaps the smartest move to provoke the guy with the big guns, but his anger at being caught dead to rights was difficult to ignore.
The man didn’t talk, just stepped closer, taking one wobbly step after the other, almost as if he wanted to make absolutely certain that this time he wouldn’t miss.
<Tank, we’re coming back around in five seconds, get ready to find some cover,> said Hot Rod.
The full-body android dropped his rifles.
Kara peeked past Tanks massive built. “What … what is he doing?”
Tank wasn’t sure himself. The android continued to stumble forward while emanating a high-pitched whine which was quickly gaining intensity. His entire artificial body appeared to be vibrating now.
“Run.”
“What?”
Tank whipped around and once more grabbed hold of her arm. “Run!” he shouted from the top of his lungs and sprinted towards the only way he could.
“It’s a bomb, it’s a goddamn walking bomb!”
Kara ran but slowed down the moment she realized that their only escape was out of the windows.
When the SAFVe showed up again, dropping down suddenly from above, the distance between the shuttle and the building was far to great for Kara to jump.
With an ear-shattering noise, the man with the orchid exploded, ripping apart what remained of his broken body.
The force of the shockwave gripped both Tank and Kara and catapulted them through the air and out of the windows they had been sprinting towards even while they felt the enormous heat burn their skin and singe their hair.
Hot Rod, seeing the approaching fireball mere feet behind the escaping Tank and Kara had only a split-second to make a decision. This time she dropped the SAFVe and not a moment later she heard Tank and the woman smash onto the roof of the shuttle just before the 74th floor exploded outwards in an impressive display of fires and flames and lightning up the San Francisco night sky.
Tank had the wherewithal to hold on as soon as he landed on top of the SAFVe but Kara slid across the smooth surface and across the roof, right towards its edge and already out of Tank’s reach, bound to fall off the other side and plummet to her certain death.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
To Tank, the remaining hostages were moving far too slow. Starfleet had finally come through, stopped shooting at them and instead their shuttles were now assisting with the evacuation and yet things were still not moving fast enough.
And it wasn’t just the hostages. Nobody had ever drawn up a plan to try and load up a SAFVe or a Starfleet shuttle for that matter from a blown out window on the 74th floor of a skyscraper.
The first few minutes of the evacuation attempt had been spent in trial and error while trying to figure out how exactly this would work. It had been difficult enough with the SAFVe with its side-opening doors but the Starfleet shuttles were using a back hatch and the window frames had not been quite wide enough to allow the shuttle to actually land within the building.
Instead they had backed up, with their ramps lowered and fully extended until they reached into FedPlaza to create a plank of sorts to lead into the shuttle. There was just enough space for two crafts to dock side by side and allow the terrified hostages to board.
But the pilots found it difficult to keep their vessels entirely steady and most evacuees were far too scared to step onto the extended and seemingly unsecured hatch without assistance.
Tank and the rest of his team as well as the Starfleet officers on the shuttles did their best to prod the men and women along but when one of them slipped and nearly fell to her death, it was obvious that they had to slow things down.
<How much longer to clear the building?> asked Masamune who was watching events from the Starfleet command center far below.
<We’re moving as fast as we can,> responded Jackson Slade. <The Starfleet shuttles are almost filled and then we just need Hot Rod to come back around to pick us up and we’re out of here. Maybe another two minutes. How much time did Mech said we have?>
The chief didn’t respond to that right away and Jackson and everyone else who was listening in had a pretty good idea why. <Not enough. But she said she would try and get us some more if she can find a way to slow it down.>
<Chief, that was before we lost contact with her,> said Tank. <We don’t know what happened to her. I’ll go down myself and check out the situation.>
<Negative,> Masamune responded. <It’ll take you too long to get down there. I want you to evacuate with the hostages.>
<I can get down there in a few seconds if I use the elevator shaft,> he said and was already on his way.
“Damn it, Tank, I need you up here, that’s an order,” Slade shouted after him as he saw him heading out.
He took no notice of that. “You’ve got things under control. I need to find Mech.”
It wasn’t until he reached the blown off doors to the elevator that he stopped to look downwards into the ominous darkness of the shaft, considering the best way on how to get to the bottom.
He felt somebody grabbing hold of his arm and he turned around. It was Kara and her eyes were wide with fear and concern. “Please, don’t go.”
He looked at her. “You should be on one of those shuttles.”
She gave him a little smirk. “I’m scared of heights.”
He angrily shook his head. “I don’t care and we don’t have time for this,” he said and grabbed her by the arm, practically dragging her towards the windows.
But before he had even halfway reached the shuttles, he realized that they were already taking off.
“Ok, that’s it,” said Slade as he watched the two pearly-white Starfleet ships glide away from Fed Plaza to take the hostages to safety. <Hot Rod, now would be a good time for a pick-up.>
With all the hostages and most of the CCiD assault team gone, only Slade, Tank, Gavin, Sylvester and Katangai remained inside the seemingly doomed Fed Plaza.
Gavin and Sylvester had made a last, quick round of the upper floor and now came racing down the staircase. “We’re clear,” Gavin shouted, out of breath and fully aware that every second they remained in the building was brining him closer to the chance of never seeing his family again. “Let’s get out of here.”
Hot Rod brought the SAFVe up to the window and the remaining CCiD team quickly embarked.
Gavin felt enormous relief the moment he stepped out of Fed Plaza and onto the shuttle. However Tank and the woman with him were moving far too slowly as far as he was concerned. “Come on, boss, this isn’t a date, you know. Haul ass,” he said but couldn’t quite keep his lips from turn into a little smile.
The frown on Tanks’ face was priceless. “We are going to have a little conversation, once I get on that shuttle,” he hollered back, still dragging Katanagi along who clearly wasn’t too enthused about the idea of having to walk out of the 74th floor window.
That’s when Gavin noticed movement by the bar counter. Somebody was slowly getting up. “Damn it, we left somebody,” he said. “There is still somebody over there.”
Tank stopped and turned around towards the bar. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Get down.” He pushed the surprised Kara onto the floor and flattened himself on top of her not a moment later, nearly crushing the comparatively tiny woman under his weight.
Gavin spotted his mistake. The man who had come into view was not one of the hostages. He wore a smart dinner jacket with a purple orchid attached to his breast pocket. There was little left of his face. It looked as if he had taken a bullet right through the side of his head, exposing much of the inner circuitry of his artificial brain. And yet, somehow, he had managed to get back onto his feet, holding two disruptor rifles.
“Hostile, hostile!” Gavin desperately tried to bring his own weapon to bear but already knew that he wasn’t going to be fast enough.
The android opened fire.
Thanks to Tank’s quick reaction, the bolts of green energy went straight over his head.
Hot Rod had spotted the danger from the corner of her eye and reacted quickly, jerking the SAFVe upwards.
Sylvester was hit in the leg and went down but with the shuttle now rapidly pulling away, the other rounds slammed into the hull instead of taking out the remaining CCiD agents who had not been able to bring their weapons up in time.
Tank cursed himself loudly for having discarded his assault rifle earlier and now being unarmed. A mistake which would cost him his and Kara Katanagi’s life, he was sure.
But surprisingly the android terrorist did not fire again.
Tank looked up and watched as he slowly rounded the bar counter, taking unsteady steps most likely due to the damage he had taken to his brain. But no matter the extent of his handicap, he kept a firm hold on those two rifles which remained pointed in his direction.
Very slowly, Tank picked himself off the floor. “Stand up,” he whispered to Kara. “Stand up and stay right behind me. Do it, do it now.”
The young woman didn’t hesitate to follow his instructions this time, even though he could tell from her soft sobs that she was incredibly scared. Only moment ago she had thought herself all but safe. All that had been left had been to overcome her vertigo and this nightmare would have finally come to an end. Now it seemed safety was all but an illusion.
Tank slowly tracked backwards, careful to ensure that Kara would follow his movements, while keeping his eyes on the terrorist with the two rifles. “What are you waiting for? What is it you want?” he screamed at him angrily. It wasn’t perhaps the smartest move to provoke the guy with the big guns, but his anger at being caught dead to rights was difficult to ignore.
The man didn’t talk, just stepped closer, taking one wobbly step after the other, almost as if he wanted to make absolutely certain that this time he wouldn’t miss.
<Tank, we’re coming back around in five seconds, get ready to find some cover,> said Hot Rod.
The full-body android dropped his rifles.
Kara peeked past Tanks massive built. “What … what is he doing?”
Tank wasn’t sure himself. The android continued to stumble forward while emanating a high-pitched whine which was quickly gaining intensity. His entire artificial body appeared to be vibrating now.
“Run.”
“What?”
Tank whipped around and once more grabbed hold of her arm. “Run!” he shouted from the top of his lungs and sprinted towards the only way he could.
“It’s a bomb, it’s a goddamn walking bomb!”
Kara ran but slowed down the moment she realized that their only escape was out of the windows.
When the SAFVe showed up again, dropping down suddenly from above, the distance between the shuttle and the building was far to great for Kara to jump.
With an ear-shattering noise, the man with the orchid exploded, ripping apart what remained of his broken body.
The force of the shockwave gripped both Tank and Kara and catapulted them through the air and out of the windows they had been sprinting towards even while they felt the enormous heat burn their skin and singe their hair.
Hot Rod, seeing the approaching fireball mere feet behind the escaping Tank and Kara had only a split-second to make a decision. This time she dropped the SAFVe and not a moment later she heard Tank and the woman smash onto the roof of the shuttle just before the 74th floor exploded outwards in an impressive display of fires and flames and lightning up the San Francisco night sky.
Tank had the wherewithal to hold on as soon as he landed on top of the SAFVe but Kara slid across the smooth surface and across the roof, right towards its edge and already out of Tank’s reach, bound to fall off the other side and plummet to her certain death.
* * *
044 – “Not In Kansas Anymore.”
Something was very wrong, that much she knew even before she opened her eyes again.
She was lying on something soft and surprisingly comfortable. And while her mind struggled to remember exactly what had taken place over the last few minutes, she was dead certain that soft and comfortable had played no part of it.
When Mech finally opened her eyes she found herself in what looked like a darkened room. She could make out the outlines of furniture; a sizable desk, chairs and of course the sofa she was lying on.
Her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the darkness.
Rays of light seemed to be coming from in-between a set of drawn suede curtains by the wall.
She stood slowly, not entirely trusting her balance at first. When she realized that there appeared to be nothing physically the matter with her, she walked over to the red curtains.
She took hold of them and drew them open.
The bright light was blinding and she immediately had to bring her hand up to shield her eyes. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust yet again. She couldn’t remember the last time her eyes had required such a long time to adapt to her surroundings. But then again she couldn’t remember much of anything that had happened before she had awoken just seconds earlier.
She did however recognize what lay beyond those windows.
It was her home.
Nyuchiba City.
The endless sprawl which covered most of the temperate surface of the small planet was unmistakable. City blocks after city blocks and skyscrapers after skyscrapers in every direction underneath a gray-blue sky and a piercing and hot orange sun.
The room she found herself in was in one of those many skyscrapers in which the inhabitants of this world spent the majority of their time. At least the more influential ones did while the poor and unfortunate dwelled in the sub-streets and the slums.
The mechanical wheezing of a machine powering up, forced her turn away form the window.
She found the source of the sound to be a square, wooden box in the corner of the room. It had an inset and curved screen which had just come to life with black and white images.
They were of a man in dark suit and an electric guitar.
She thought she recognized the man.
When she heard his song coming out of the small speaker of the device, she was certain she had heard it before. It was a song about a boy called Johnny who was a gifted guitar player and would someday become a big star. And just like the boy in the song, the man singing the song, strummed that instrument with the skill and rhythm as if he had been born to do it.
It was the most beautiful song she’d ever heard.
And while she wanted to do nothing more than watch and listen to that performance on that little fuzzy screen, something in the back of her mind told her that she had no time for it.
She glanced towards the far wall and found an old-fashioned clock hanging there with a big round clock face and two large hands. The bigger one pointed at two minutes before twelve while the thinner one had just passed the nine.
The hour hand seemed to be missing entirely and the one counting the seconds was running backwards, ticking loudly with each jittery move. The whole thing was clearly broken as three seconds seemed to pass for each second ticking away on that large clock.
The doors opened with a slight creak and Mech whirled around.
“Good, you’re awake.”
The man had a thick mop of dark hair and a confident smile on his lips. He looked to be in his mid-thirties with handsome features and a trim and fit figure. Those sparkling brown eyes hinted towards a wisdom and maturity far beyond his years.
He shot her just a passing look as he walked towards the desk, right underneath that loudly ticking clock and past the television screen, to sit in the high-backed chair behind hit. The desk itself was completely empty.
He looked up at her and then pointed at a chair by the desk.
Mech took a step closer but didn’t sit.
“I imagine you have many questions,” he said. “I am here to give you the answers you seek.”
Go Go Go, Go Johnny Go Go, she heard the man on the screen sing. She knew that song. She knew it by heart.
“See, I’ve been looking for you for quite some time and you have not made it easy for me to find you,” he continued. “Never staying in one place for very long, always covering your tracks on FedNet and taking every effort to stay off the grid.”
It finally clicked. His name was Chuck Berry. He had been a popular rock and roll singer on Earth in the mid-20th century, over three hundred years ago.
“You are a very special young woman, I hope you realize that. Most people would not have been able to evade my seekers for as long as you did. Even though I suspect that you had some help in the matter.”
The loudly ticking clock above his head made it fairly difficult for her to focus. The second hand had just passed the three.
“Was it that troublesome, moon-dwelling Farian? I find it difficult to believe that the likes of you would associate with such common criminal scum.”
The man in the chair. She knew him as well. His name was Michael Gary Grayson. A San Francisco businessman, activist and educator or so he liked to make people think. In truth he was nothing more than a common criminal himself. A stims dealer who peddled the new cybernetic designer drug to bored urbanites when he didn’t hold fiery anti-Federation speeches in what he called his Grayson Institute.
He had hatched a scheme with the help of Starfleet’s Captain Whren to have her killed. That had been the reason she had come to San Francisco in the first place.
But the man sitting behind his desk was not Grayson. Yes, he looked and sounded like him but that was were the similarities ended. She was convinced of that.
“Halcon, I presume?”
He smiled at her.
“Your name keeps coming up wherever I go,” she said, taking another step closer and instinctively reaching behind her back but unable to find her Glock there. “Who exactly are you and why have you been looking or me? Why do you want me dead?”
His smile widened. “My dear, you have entirely the wrong impression. I am not trying to have you killed at all.”
The second hand had now passed the twelve and the minute hand had moved to eleven. Mech was sure the clock was speeding up, the ticking becoming even more noticeable.
“I suppose you just drop quantum torpedoes on your friends on a regular basis then.”
“Ah yes, the incident in Nepal,” he said. “Consider it a test of your abilities.”
“For what purpose?”
“Why to see if you are as good as they say you are. Because if you are, I want you to join me. Together what we can achieve will be bound only by the limits of our imagination.”
She uttered a sarcastic laugh. “Is that it? That’s your sales pitch? I’ve heard more convincing holo-novel villains. I don’t even know who you are or what it is you are trying to do.”
“Who I am is not important. Not yet. And as for what I do?” he said and had that large smile on his face again. “The question should be what don’t I do.”
The song had stopped and Mech turned to look at the television set in the corner. Chuck Berry was gone but another face had appeared in the same washed out black and white colors. It was a woman just passed middle age. She was speaking but Mech couldn’t hear her voice.
Halcon, whoever he was, didn’t appear to notice. “I appreciate that you feel I’m being rather vague and mysterious. But until things are further along, I cannot risk revealing too much at this stage,” he said. “We both know that you are meant for something more than hacking your way through FedNet and chasing after stims dealers. You are special, Mech. Unique. And you could be so much more if you only allow me to show you your true potential.”
“And what would that be?”
The second hand had reached the six.
“Don’t be coy now. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it yourself. You have been going through life like a giant among man. Vastly superior to anyone and everyone you’ve ever met. You have transcended humanity to become something much greater.”
She frowned at that.
“I see you still cling to those sentimental notions of humanity,” he said. “Don’t let it hold you back, Mech. You can be so much more if only you accept what you are.”
<Mech, don’t listen to him.>
She turned to look at the TV. The voice in her head belonged to the woman on the screen. A woman she had met before. The man at the desk, it appeared, wasn’t able to hear or see her.
<You have accessed the Source. Everything you see and hear is merely a construct designed to slow the passage of time. To give your friends a chance to escape the building.>
The building.
Fed Plaza.
Nyuchiban terrorists had taken over the building and taken hostages. She and her team had carried out an assault when she had realized that the entire building had been rigged to explode, killing everyone inside.
“I can help you overcome that last hurdle that is keeping you back. If only you let me.”
She had found the bomb in the sub-basement but before she had been able to try and slow down the countdown she had been incinerated by an explosion.
“If only you agree to join me.”
A voice had reached out for her then just like it did now. Mother’s voice.
<I am still in Fed Plaza,> she said.
<Yes, but not unless you disconnect from the Source. You won’t be able to survive, switch or otherwise, if you stay in the Source after the detonation.>
The second hand had passed the six. It was the countdown. Thirty seconds were all that remained.
“She’s talking to you, isn’t she?”
Mech focused on Halcon.
“Don’t believe her lies,” he said. “Mother has her own secrets and her own agenda. Do you really think she is been helping you all this time solely out of the goodness of her heart. Ask yourself, what do you really know about her?”
Fifteen seconds.
<Mech, trust me when I tell you that you have to get out of there now.>
“I on the other hand will gladly share all my secret with you. All I will need in return is your allegiance and your loyalty.”
Ten seconds.
<How do I do it? How do I get Halcon to let me go?>
<Mech, you misunderstand. You created the construct, Halcon has simply inserted himself to distract you. You are in control.>
Mech stepped up to the desk, placed her palms on the table top and leaned forward. “You have been looking for me all this time, chasing me through the galaxy and tried to kill me to keep me away from whatever it is you have been up to. Mark my words: I will change the rules to your game. Whatever it is. I will be the one chasing you down and exposing your dirty little secrets to the entire galaxy. You were worried about me before? I haven’t even started yet.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m coming for you Halcon.”
And then the world around her ceased to exist.
Something was very wrong, that much she knew even before she opened her eyes again.
She was lying on something soft and surprisingly comfortable. And while her mind struggled to remember exactly what had taken place over the last few minutes, she was dead certain that soft and comfortable had played no part of it.
When Mech finally opened her eyes she found herself in what looked like a darkened room. She could make out the outlines of furniture; a sizable desk, chairs and of course the sofa she was lying on.
Her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the darkness.
Rays of light seemed to be coming from in-between a set of drawn suede curtains by the wall.
She stood slowly, not entirely trusting her balance at first. When she realized that there appeared to be nothing physically the matter with her, she walked over to the red curtains.
She took hold of them and drew them open.
The bright light was blinding and she immediately had to bring her hand up to shield her eyes. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust yet again. She couldn’t remember the last time her eyes had required such a long time to adapt to her surroundings. But then again she couldn’t remember much of anything that had happened before she had awoken just seconds earlier.
She did however recognize what lay beyond those windows.
It was her home.
Nyuchiba City.
The endless sprawl which covered most of the temperate surface of the small planet was unmistakable. City blocks after city blocks and skyscrapers after skyscrapers in every direction underneath a gray-blue sky and a piercing and hot orange sun.
The room she found herself in was in one of those many skyscrapers in which the inhabitants of this world spent the majority of their time. At least the more influential ones did while the poor and unfortunate dwelled in the sub-streets and the slums.
The mechanical wheezing of a machine powering up, forced her turn away form the window.
She found the source of the sound to be a square, wooden box in the corner of the room. It had an inset and curved screen which had just come to life with black and white images.
They were of a man in dark suit and an electric guitar.
She thought she recognized the man.
When she heard his song coming out of the small speaker of the device, she was certain she had heard it before. It was a song about a boy called Johnny who was a gifted guitar player and would someday become a big star. And just like the boy in the song, the man singing the song, strummed that instrument with the skill and rhythm as if he had been born to do it.
It was the most beautiful song she’d ever heard.
And while she wanted to do nothing more than watch and listen to that performance on that little fuzzy screen, something in the back of her mind told her that she had no time for it.
She glanced towards the far wall and found an old-fashioned clock hanging there with a big round clock face and two large hands. The bigger one pointed at two minutes before twelve while the thinner one had just passed the nine.
The hour hand seemed to be missing entirely and the one counting the seconds was running backwards, ticking loudly with each jittery move. The whole thing was clearly broken as three seconds seemed to pass for each second ticking away on that large clock.
The doors opened with a slight creak and Mech whirled around.
“Good, you’re awake.”
The man had a thick mop of dark hair and a confident smile on his lips. He looked to be in his mid-thirties with handsome features and a trim and fit figure. Those sparkling brown eyes hinted towards a wisdom and maturity far beyond his years.
He shot her just a passing look as he walked towards the desk, right underneath that loudly ticking clock and past the television screen, to sit in the high-backed chair behind hit. The desk itself was completely empty.
He looked up at her and then pointed at a chair by the desk.
Mech took a step closer but didn’t sit.
“I imagine you have many questions,” he said. “I am here to give you the answers you seek.”
Go Go Go, Go Johnny Go Go, she heard the man on the screen sing. She knew that song. She knew it by heart.
“See, I’ve been looking for you for quite some time and you have not made it easy for me to find you,” he continued. “Never staying in one place for very long, always covering your tracks on FedNet and taking every effort to stay off the grid.”
It finally clicked. His name was Chuck Berry. He had been a popular rock and roll singer on Earth in the mid-20th century, over three hundred years ago.
“You are a very special young woman, I hope you realize that. Most people would not have been able to evade my seekers for as long as you did. Even though I suspect that you had some help in the matter.”
The loudly ticking clock above his head made it fairly difficult for her to focus. The second hand had just passed the three.
“Was it that troublesome, moon-dwelling Farian? I find it difficult to believe that the likes of you would associate with such common criminal scum.”
The man in the chair. She knew him as well. His name was Michael Gary Grayson. A San Francisco businessman, activist and educator or so he liked to make people think. In truth he was nothing more than a common criminal himself. A stims dealer who peddled the new cybernetic designer drug to bored urbanites when he didn’t hold fiery anti-Federation speeches in what he called his Grayson Institute.
He had hatched a scheme with the help of Starfleet’s Captain Whren to have her killed. That had been the reason she had come to San Francisco in the first place.
But the man sitting behind his desk was not Grayson. Yes, he looked and sounded like him but that was were the similarities ended. She was convinced of that.
“Halcon, I presume?”
He smiled at her.
“Your name keeps coming up wherever I go,” she said, taking another step closer and instinctively reaching behind her back but unable to find her Glock there. “Who exactly are you and why have you been looking or me? Why do you want me dead?”
His smile widened. “My dear, you have entirely the wrong impression. I am not trying to have you killed at all.”
The second hand had now passed the twelve and the minute hand had moved to eleven. Mech was sure the clock was speeding up, the ticking becoming even more noticeable.
“I suppose you just drop quantum torpedoes on your friends on a regular basis then.”
“Ah yes, the incident in Nepal,” he said. “Consider it a test of your abilities.”
“For what purpose?”
“Why to see if you are as good as they say you are. Because if you are, I want you to join me. Together what we can achieve will be bound only by the limits of our imagination.”
She uttered a sarcastic laugh. “Is that it? That’s your sales pitch? I’ve heard more convincing holo-novel villains. I don’t even know who you are or what it is you are trying to do.”
“Who I am is not important. Not yet. And as for what I do?” he said and had that large smile on his face again. “The question should be what don’t I do.”
The song had stopped and Mech turned to look at the television set in the corner. Chuck Berry was gone but another face had appeared in the same washed out black and white colors. It was a woman just passed middle age. She was speaking but Mech couldn’t hear her voice.
Halcon, whoever he was, didn’t appear to notice. “I appreciate that you feel I’m being rather vague and mysterious. But until things are further along, I cannot risk revealing too much at this stage,” he said. “We both know that you are meant for something more than hacking your way through FedNet and chasing after stims dealers. You are special, Mech. Unique. And you could be so much more if you only allow me to show you your true potential.”
“And what would that be?”
The second hand had reached the six.
“Don’t be coy now. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it yourself. You have been going through life like a giant among man. Vastly superior to anyone and everyone you’ve ever met. You have transcended humanity to become something much greater.”
She frowned at that.
“I see you still cling to those sentimental notions of humanity,” he said. “Don’t let it hold you back, Mech. You can be so much more if only you accept what you are.”
<Mech, don’t listen to him.>
She turned to look at the TV. The voice in her head belonged to the woman on the screen. A woman she had met before. The man at the desk, it appeared, wasn’t able to hear or see her.
<You have accessed the Source. Everything you see and hear is merely a construct designed to slow the passage of time. To give your friends a chance to escape the building.>
The building.
Fed Plaza.
Nyuchiban terrorists had taken over the building and taken hostages. She and her team had carried out an assault when she had realized that the entire building had been rigged to explode, killing everyone inside.
“I can help you overcome that last hurdle that is keeping you back. If only you let me.”
She had found the bomb in the sub-basement but before she had been able to try and slow down the countdown she had been incinerated by an explosion.
“If only you agree to join me.”
A voice had reached out for her then just like it did now. Mother’s voice.
<I am still in Fed Plaza,> she said.
<Yes, but not unless you disconnect from the Source. You won’t be able to survive, switch or otherwise, if you stay in the Source after the detonation.>
The second hand had passed the six. It was the countdown. Thirty seconds were all that remained.
“She’s talking to you, isn’t she?”
Mech focused on Halcon.
“Don’t believe her lies,” he said. “Mother has her own secrets and her own agenda. Do you really think she is been helping you all this time solely out of the goodness of her heart. Ask yourself, what do you really know about her?”
Fifteen seconds.
<Mech, trust me when I tell you that you have to get out of there now.>
“I on the other hand will gladly share all my secret with you. All I will need in return is your allegiance and your loyalty.”
Ten seconds.
<How do I do it? How do I get Halcon to let me go?>
<Mech, you misunderstand. You created the construct, Halcon has simply inserted himself to distract you. You are in control.>
Mech stepped up to the desk, placed her palms on the table top and leaned forward. “You have been looking for me all this time, chasing me through the galaxy and tried to kill me to keep me away from whatever it is you have been up to. Mark my words: I will change the rules to your game. Whatever it is. I will be the one chasing you down and exposing your dirty little secrets to the entire galaxy. You were worried about me before? I haven’t even started yet.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m coming for you Halcon.”
And then the world around her ceased to exist.
* * *
045 – “And Down It All Goes.”
The terrified face of the hostage who had plunged to his death earlier while he had been powerless to stop it, flashed before Tank’s eyes. At the time he had sworn to himself that he would never let anything like that ever happen again. No matter what it would take, no matter if it would mean that he would have to sacrifice himself, he would not let another person get killed right in front of him.
And yet now it appeared that exactly that had happened.
He’d had no choice but to jump with Kara Katanagi out of the window just a second before a massive explosion had annihilated the 74th floor.
He had felt his own clothes singe and burn as the resulting fireball had missed him by mere inches.
The landing had been tough but could have been a lot worse if Hot Rod had not managed to keep the SAFVe steady just a couple of floors below.
The force of the impact had been enough for Kara’s delicate hand to slip out of his and while he had managed to hold on to the edge of the shuttle, she had slid across the roof and gone over it.
“Kara!” he screamed from the top of his lungs, the tone of his voice an equal part of panic and desperation.
He quickly crawled across the roof and looked over the edge.
Katanagi was holding on to a tiny crease at the back of the shuttle with just one hand but her feet were treading nothing but empty air, hundreds of feet above the ground.
Tank didn’t allow himself a sigh of relief. Not yet.
“I … can’t … hold on,” she said, looking up at him, her eyes just as terrified as those of the hostage earlier.
Her grip was slowly slipping and there was nothing else she could hold on to at the back of the SAFV. Reaching the safety of the side-doors was out of the question from her position.
“I’ll come get you,” he said and then turned his head slightly. “Hot Rod, whatever happens, keep her steady, you hear me? Do not move this thing one inch,” he hauled, hoping she could hear him. Comms were still down and he didn’t have the time to crawl to the doors himself.
And Tank was aware of another problem. The building was likely to go up any second now and the SAFV remained far too close to the building, a mere dozen feet or so, to be able to survive the resulting explosion. But if Hot Rod moved now, Kara would most certainly fall.
He firmly took hold of the edge of the roof with one hand and then stretched as far as he possible could, trying to reach her. “Hold on to me.”
Kara looked up at him but very slightly shook her head. “I can’t … I can’t,” she cried. And she was right, the distance was too great and it was physically impossible for her to reach the arm he had extended her way.
“Damnit it,” he said when he realized that he couldn’t get to her this way.
“You may have to… let me go,” she cried with tears shooting in her eyes. “You have to save yourself.”
He looked straight down into her eyes. “I will get to you, you understand. I will not lose you.”
She tried to nod bravely.
The only option that remained was to try and lower himself down towards her and try to support both their weight with his feet alone. But the roof of the SAFVe was fairly slick with very few handholds which would have allowed for such a move.
He didn’t care. Either he would get her or they would both fall. As far as Tank was concerned, there was no third option.
Tank felt a niche just large enough for his boot to hook into and lowered himself towards Kara. It wasn’t much and the smooth material of his boot began slipping out of the niche the moment he tried to support his entire weight on it.
He pushed on regardless.
“I can’t hold on … I can’t hold on anymore.”
He made eye contact with her again. “I will not let you fall.”
Surprisingly she smiled then and she became very still. “I know you won’t.”
Then her fingers slipped free.
He grasped her wrist not a nanosecond later.
“Got you.”
And as if somebody, somewhere had just waited for their cue. Fed Plaza blew up.
It was quite the magnificent sight from where Tank was hanging, head down, from the back of the shuttle.
First came a series of individual explosions far below and seemingly originating within the basement of the building. It was a perfect chain-reaction as one bomb went off after another blowing up geysers of flames and fire dozens of feet into the air all around the skyscraper.
The building began to sway and tremble not a moment later. With its foundation being ripped apart the massive structure was coming down like a house of cards with such a roar, Tank was sure they could hear it all the way in Oregon.
And as Fed Plaza was beginning to fall in on itself a dense plume of dust, smoke and debris came shooting up towards them at breakneck speed.
“Go, go, go,” he screamed as loudly as he could but even then he could barely hear himself over the thunderous noise of a 2,000 feet tall building turning into a heap of trash.
He knew that if the shockwave of the explosion didn’t get them then certainly that quickly approaching dust storm would.
Fortunately Hot Rod had no intentions of staying to find out and the SAFVe shot away from the doomed building. Apparently still aware that she had two souls hanging on for dear life at the back of the shuttle, she quickly angled the nose downwards, taking off some of gravity’s merciless pull to which Tank and Kara were still exposed.
“Climb. Climb.”
With the shuttle’s favorable orientation, she was able to bring up her other hand, hold on to Tank’s body and fairly easily managed to climb upwards almost as if she was trying to navigate a steep hillside. Once she had reached the roof, she helped Tank back up again and the SAFVe quickly leveled out again.
Moments later the MSD agents inside assisted them both to climb through the open side door and into the safety of the shuttle’s main deck.
Kara immediately hugged Tank closely the moment they were inside.
“Are you alright? Have you been injured?” he asked but making no move to disengage from her.
She shook her head and the rested it on his broad chest. “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”
Gavin and the others watched on with big smiles.
“You guys want to get a room or something?” the rookie agent asked.
Tank freed himself from Katanagi and shot the young agent a venomous glare.
Gavin put his hands up in a defensive gesture.
The inside of the SAFVe was rather cramped with most of the CCiD strike team and some of the hostages all crammed together. Nevertheless Tank managed to get his huge bulk back to the doors for a nearly unobstructed view at the total destruction of what had once been the tallest and most impressive building in the San Fran skyline.
The tower was gone and a thick and seemingly impenetrable plume of dark gray smoke and dust now rose from the site of were the building had once stood, engulfing at least two blocks in each direction.
He hoped the emergency responders and other personnel had been able to evacuate the area in time. But it was somebody else he was concerned about more than anyone else.
“Good news,” said Jackson Slade from the cockpit. “The chief got out alright. The medics are checking him over now and he’ll meet us at HQ shortly.”
“What about Mech,” said Tank. “Did Mech get out?”
But Slade didn’t respond to that.
Tank looked back towards the thick smoke which was already beginning to blow towards the bay, swallowing up one block after the next and not showing any signs of dissipating. <Chief, I hear you are ok. Where’s Mech? Did she get out alright?>
There was no immediate response and there was no way to tell if it was because the comm was down or because Masamune couldn’t and wouldn’t reply.
<Chief, are you there? Are you alright?>
<I’m here Tank. I’m fine.>
<Where’s Mech?>
<Tank,> he began but then stopped himself.
<Goddamnit, tell me already. Where is she?>
There was another short pause. <She was still inside when the building blew. Tank, I’m sorry but there is no way that she could have gotten out in time.>
With utter frustration he hit the side of the SAFVe so hard, the bulkhead actually buckled and bulged under the impact. “No, no, no! Turn this thing around,” he shouted, causing everyone in the shuttle to flinch and look his way. “Turn this thing around now. We have to go back and get her.”
“We cant go back. Not now,” said Hot Rod. “We have to –“
“I don’t care,” Tank barked. “We go back now and get Mech,” he said and turned towards the cockpit, ready to plow through the people in his way and take over controls of the shuttle himself if it came to that.
Gavin was the first to step into his way and it wasn’t too unlike a man putting himself in front of a runway train. “Tank, calm down, please. We’ve got scared and injured hostages on board. We have to unload them first.”
He came within inches of simply rolling over the young operative but then stopped himself just in time. He looked around and for the first time spotted the faces of all the men and women staring at him. Some of the hostages looked just about as scared as they had when they had been held against their will by those terrorists.
Still frustrated, Tank’s only apparent way to release the rage which was threatening to take him over was to put another dent into the side of the shuttle.
The few minutes it took for Hot Rod to land the SAFVe on top of the Civic Center seemed like hours to him and all the while he kept his eyes trained on what was left of Fed Plaza, trying to get his augmented eyes to peer through the veil of dust with little success.
The shuttle sat down and he was the first person out. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” he said, helping the hostages to disembark and placing them into the care of the medics and MSD officers who had been waiting for their arrival.
No matter his impatience however he did take special care to help Kara Katanagi out of the shuttle. “I hope you find your friend,” she said with a sympathetic smile.
“I’ll find her,” he said with a sharp nod.
“Good,” she responded. “And when you do, tell her I want my dress back.”
With Tank’s insistence the shuttle was cleared quickly but before they could take off again, Jackson Slade turned to him. “Tank, listen, I’m sorry as hell for what happened but if the LT was in there when it blew up, there is no chance she could have survived,” he said and indicated towards the rising plume of smoke which now dominated the skies just as Fed Plaza had once done.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know her like I do. She’s too smart and resourceful to get herself killed like that. During the War she escaped things far worse than that,” he shot back.
Gavin turned to him as well. “Even so, we won’t be able to get to the site for at least a few hours,” he said and his deflated tone of voice made it clear that he thought just like Slade did. Any help for Mech would come far too late. “Not until the smoke clears.”
But Tank wasn’t going to have it. “We’ll go back and I don’t care if we can’t see our hands in front of our eyes. I don’t care if we have to turn over every single rock. We go back and we find her.”
Neither Jackson Slade nor Gavin made any move to follow Tank back towards the shuttle.
“We’ll find her. Dead or alive, we’re going to find her,” he added as he jumped back onto the SAFVe were Hot Rod now stood with an equally sad expression on her face.
“There is no need to go back for me.”
Everybody turned upon hearing a surprisingly familiar voice. A voice that belonged to a person who could not possibly have been amongst them.
And yet there she was, seemingly alive and well, without so much as a scratch on her or a strand of hair out of place, leaning casually against a nearby column with that sweet smile of hers decorating those full red lips. “To paraphrase Mark Twain; The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated. I’m afraid the same cannot be said for Ms. Katanagi’s lovely attire.”
What followed were dozens of disbelieving stares and a whole bunch of gaping mouths.
The terrified face of the hostage who had plunged to his death earlier while he had been powerless to stop it, flashed before Tank’s eyes. At the time he had sworn to himself that he would never let anything like that ever happen again. No matter what it would take, no matter if it would mean that he would have to sacrifice himself, he would not let another person get killed right in front of him.
And yet now it appeared that exactly that had happened.
He’d had no choice but to jump with Kara Katanagi out of the window just a second before a massive explosion had annihilated the 74th floor.
He had felt his own clothes singe and burn as the resulting fireball had missed him by mere inches.
The landing had been tough but could have been a lot worse if Hot Rod had not managed to keep the SAFVe steady just a couple of floors below.
The force of the impact had been enough for Kara’s delicate hand to slip out of his and while he had managed to hold on to the edge of the shuttle, she had slid across the roof and gone over it.
“Kara!” he screamed from the top of his lungs, the tone of his voice an equal part of panic and desperation.
He quickly crawled across the roof and looked over the edge.
Katanagi was holding on to a tiny crease at the back of the shuttle with just one hand but her feet were treading nothing but empty air, hundreds of feet above the ground.
Tank didn’t allow himself a sigh of relief. Not yet.
“I … can’t … hold on,” she said, looking up at him, her eyes just as terrified as those of the hostage earlier.
Her grip was slowly slipping and there was nothing else she could hold on to at the back of the SAFV. Reaching the safety of the side-doors was out of the question from her position.
“I’ll come get you,” he said and then turned his head slightly. “Hot Rod, whatever happens, keep her steady, you hear me? Do not move this thing one inch,” he hauled, hoping she could hear him. Comms were still down and he didn’t have the time to crawl to the doors himself.
And Tank was aware of another problem. The building was likely to go up any second now and the SAFV remained far too close to the building, a mere dozen feet or so, to be able to survive the resulting explosion. But if Hot Rod moved now, Kara would most certainly fall.
He firmly took hold of the edge of the roof with one hand and then stretched as far as he possible could, trying to reach her. “Hold on to me.”
Kara looked up at him but very slightly shook her head. “I can’t … I can’t,” she cried. And she was right, the distance was too great and it was physically impossible for her to reach the arm he had extended her way.
“Damnit it,” he said when he realized that he couldn’t get to her this way.
“You may have to… let me go,” she cried with tears shooting in her eyes. “You have to save yourself.”
He looked straight down into her eyes. “I will get to you, you understand. I will not lose you.”
She tried to nod bravely.
The only option that remained was to try and lower himself down towards her and try to support both their weight with his feet alone. But the roof of the SAFVe was fairly slick with very few handholds which would have allowed for such a move.
He didn’t care. Either he would get her or they would both fall. As far as Tank was concerned, there was no third option.
Tank felt a niche just large enough for his boot to hook into and lowered himself towards Kara. It wasn’t much and the smooth material of his boot began slipping out of the niche the moment he tried to support his entire weight on it.
He pushed on regardless.
“I can’t hold on … I can’t hold on anymore.”
He made eye contact with her again. “I will not let you fall.”
Surprisingly she smiled then and she became very still. “I know you won’t.”
Then her fingers slipped free.
He grasped her wrist not a nanosecond later.
“Got you.”
And as if somebody, somewhere had just waited for their cue. Fed Plaza blew up.
It was quite the magnificent sight from where Tank was hanging, head down, from the back of the shuttle.
First came a series of individual explosions far below and seemingly originating within the basement of the building. It was a perfect chain-reaction as one bomb went off after another blowing up geysers of flames and fire dozens of feet into the air all around the skyscraper.
The building began to sway and tremble not a moment later. With its foundation being ripped apart the massive structure was coming down like a house of cards with such a roar, Tank was sure they could hear it all the way in Oregon.
And as Fed Plaza was beginning to fall in on itself a dense plume of dust, smoke and debris came shooting up towards them at breakneck speed.
“Go, go, go,” he screamed as loudly as he could but even then he could barely hear himself over the thunderous noise of a 2,000 feet tall building turning into a heap of trash.
He knew that if the shockwave of the explosion didn’t get them then certainly that quickly approaching dust storm would.
Fortunately Hot Rod had no intentions of staying to find out and the SAFVe shot away from the doomed building. Apparently still aware that she had two souls hanging on for dear life at the back of the shuttle, she quickly angled the nose downwards, taking off some of gravity’s merciless pull to which Tank and Kara were still exposed.
“Climb. Climb.”
With the shuttle’s favorable orientation, she was able to bring up her other hand, hold on to Tank’s body and fairly easily managed to climb upwards almost as if she was trying to navigate a steep hillside. Once she had reached the roof, she helped Tank back up again and the SAFVe quickly leveled out again.
Moments later the MSD agents inside assisted them both to climb through the open side door and into the safety of the shuttle’s main deck.
Kara immediately hugged Tank closely the moment they were inside.
“Are you alright? Have you been injured?” he asked but making no move to disengage from her.
She shook her head and the rested it on his broad chest. “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”
Gavin and the others watched on with big smiles.
“You guys want to get a room or something?” the rookie agent asked.
Tank freed himself from Katanagi and shot the young agent a venomous glare.
Gavin put his hands up in a defensive gesture.
The inside of the SAFVe was rather cramped with most of the CCiD strike team and some of the hostages all crammed together. Nevertheless Tank managed to get his huge bulk back to the doors for a nearly unobstructed view at the total destruction of what had once been the tallest and most impressive building in the San Fran skyline.
The tower was gone and a thick and seemingly impenetrable plume of dark gray smoke and dust now rose from the site of were the building had once stood, engulfing at least two blocks in each direction.
He hoped the emergency responders and other personnel had been able to evacuate the area in time. But it was somebody else he was concerned about more than anyone else.
“Good news,” said Jackson Slade from the cockpit. “The chief got out alright. The medics are checking him over now and he’ll meet us at HQ shortly.”
“What about Mech,” said Tank. “Did Mech get out?”
But Slade didn’t respond to that.
Tank looked back towards the thick smoke which was already beginning to blow towards the bay, swallowing up one block after the next and not showing any signs of dissipating. <Chief, I hear you are ok. Where’s Mech? Did she get out alright?>
There was no immediate response and there was no way to tell if it was because the comm was down or because Masamune couldn’t and wouldn’t reply.
<Chief, are you there? Are you alright?>
<I’m here Tank. I’m fine.>
<Where’s Mech?>
<Tank,> he began but then stopped himself.
<Goddamnit, tell me already. Where is she?>
There was another short pause. <She was still inside when the building blew. Tank, I’m sorry but there is no way that she could have gotten out in time.>
With utter frustration he hit the side of the SAFVe so hard, the bulkhead actually buckled and bulged under the impact. “No, no, no! Turn this thing around,” he shouted, causing everyone in the shuttle to flinch and look his way. “Turn this thing around now. We have to go back and get her.”
“We cant go back. Not now,” said Hot Rod. “We have to –“
“I don’t care,” Tank barked. “We go back now and get Mech,” he said and turned towards the cockpit, ready to plow through the people in his way and take over controls of the shuttle himself if it came to that.
Gavin was the first to step into his way and it wasn’t too unlike a man putting himself in front of a runway train. “Tank, calm down, please. We’ve got scared and injured hostages on board. We have to unload them first.”
He came within inches of simply rolling over the young operative but then stopped himself just in time. He looked around and for the first time spotted the faces of all the men and women staring at him. Some of the hostages looked just about as scared as they had when they had been held against their will by those terrorists.
Still frustrated, Tank’s only apparent way to release the rage which was threatening to take him over was to put another dent into the side of the shuttle.
The few minutes it took for Hot Rod to land the SAFVe on top of the Civic Center seemed like hours to him and all the while he kept his eyes trained on what was left of Fed Plaza, trying to get his augmented eyes to peer through the veil of dust with little success.
The shuttle sat down and he was the first person out. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” he said, helping the hostages to disembark and placing them into the care of the medics and MSD officers who had been waiting for their arrival.
No matter his impatience however he did take special care to help Kara Katanagi out of the shuttle. “I hope you find your friend,” she said with a sympathetic smile.
“I’ll find her,” he said with a sharp nod.
“Good,” she responded. “And when you do, tell her I want my dress back.”
With Tank’s insistence the shuttle was cleared quickly but before they could take off again, Jackson Slade turned to him. “Tank, listen, I’m sorry as hell for what happened but if the LT was in there when it blew up, there is no chance she could have survived,” he said and indicated towards the rising plume of smoke which now dominated the skies just as Fed Plaza had once done.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know her like I do. She’s too smart and resourceful to get herself killed like that. During the War she escaped things far worse than that,” he shot back.
Gavin turned to him as well. “Even so, we won’t be able to get to the site for at least a few hours,” he said and his deflated tone of voice made it clear that he thought just like Slade did. Any help for Mech would come far too late. “Not until the smoke clears.”
But Tank wasn’t going to have it. “We’ll go back and I don’t care if we can’t see our hands in front of our eyes. I don’t care if we have to turn over every single rock. We go back and we find her.”
Neither Jackson Slade nor Gavin made any move to follow Tank back towards the shuttle.
“We’ll find her. Dead or alive, we’re going to find her,” he added as he jumped back onto the SAFVe were Hot Rod now stood with an equally sad expression on her face.
“There is no need to go back for me.”
Everybody turned upon hearing a surprisingly familiar voice. A voice that belonged to a person who could not possibly have been amongst them.
And yet there she was, seemingly alive and well, without so much as a scratch on her or a strand of hair out of place, leaning casually against a nearby column with that sweet smile of hers decorating those full red lips. “To paraphrase Mark Twain; The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated. I’m afraid the same cannot be said for Ms. Katanagi’s lovely attire.”
What followed were dozens of disbelieving stares and a whole bunch of gaping mouths.
* * *
046 – “For Every Action, A Consequence.”
Gavin Thorgood secretly wished that they had taken more time to clean out the SAFVe or used an alternative means of transportation. As it stood he felt it still smelt too much of the blood and sweat of the dozen hostages who had been cramped inside the day before after they had been rescued from the doomed Fed Plaza.
He also wouldn’t have minded a day off after the harrowing events which had culminated in the total destruction of North America’s tallest structure.
Time was of the essence however and so Masamune had tasked his team to tie-up loose ends quickly and before anybody had a chance to make them disappear.
Gavin was supposed to be focused on their mission to raid Grayson’s compound at Half Moon Bay but like the rest of the six-man CCiD team chosen for this assignment, he kept staring at Mech, impossibly sitting on the opposite bench and inspecting the new handgun she had been issued.
“I still don’t get it,” he said. “How does this ‘switch’ work exactly? You’re saying you just beamed your entire consciousness into another body?”
Mech looked up at him and smiled. “That’s not exactly how I would describe the process but essentially, yes, you could say I transferred myself into this body as soon as I realized that I wouldn’t be able to survive the blast.”
“But how is that possible? You’re a human being, aren’t you? How can you just transfer all your memories and your thoughts into another body like that?”
“It’s really all just data,” she responded.
“Data?” he said skeptically, clearly having a hard time wrapping his head around the idea. “How about your soul? Is that just data as well?”
She hesitated at that and judging from her apprehensive facial expression, Gavin immediately wished he hadn’t said that.
“Is it really necessary to start treading into the metaphysical here?” Tank intervened. “Isn’t it enough to know that the LT is back and good as ever?”
“Of course,” Gavin quickly said and then made eye contact with his team leader again. “And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that –“
“It’s alright,” she said interrupting him. “I understand that this will need some getting used to. And I’d be lying if I said that I won’t need some time myself to adjust to this … change,” she said and looked at her raised arm for a moment as if it didn’t really belong to her. “It’s not as if I’ve done something like this before. I mean, not like this. I had used my previous body for a long time and this is as much of change to me as it is to you.”
“I would think more so for you,” said Jackson who had listened in to the conversation and now shot her a quick look which Gavin couldn’t help but notice held at least a little suspicion.
She nodded. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Just so we know what to expect,” said Jackson. “Do you have any more spare bodies lying around for you to jump into?”
“Kinda insensitive here, pal,” Tank said.
But Mech simply smiled and then looked at Jackson Slade. “You mean do I have a warehouse full of bodies like Mr. Black? I wish. For now, this is the only one I have. So try to remember that if I get killed again, I may not come back next time.”
“We’re approaching the compound,” Hot Rod said form the cockpit. “But it looks as if our friends from the Presido beat us to it again.”
True enough Grayson compound overlooking the Pacific was almost entirely surrounded by Starfleet personnel and at least half a dozen shuttles. The officers within the compound appeared to be wearing hazmat suits and were concentrated around the same warehouse which Mech and Gavin had entered the previous day.
“I don’t like this,” said Tank as Hot Rod landed the SAFVe outside the compound and close to Starfleet’s command center.
“I guess the assault just got scrubbed,” said Jackson and holstered his gun.
“Don’t wanna go up against your former buddies, eh?” said Tank to which Slade responded with a glare.
The team disembarked the moment the SAFVe had touched down and a group of Starfleet officers quickly approached.
Gavin recognized the man apparently in charge as Commander Lee, the same man who had intervened during their assault on the factory on Treasure Island. “What are the chances that this is a coincidence?” he asked in a subdued tone.
“Zilch,” responded Tank as he, Gavin, Slade and Mech walked out to meet the Starfleet group.
“It is good to meet you again,” Lee said in the similarly upbeat demeanor he had displayed during their last encounter. “And I hear thanks are in order. Without your efforts the casualty rate yesterday would have been a lot higher than it was..”
“Wanna fill us in on what exactly you’re doing here?” Tank barked, forgoing the pleasantries.
“Ah yes, the man they call Tank,” he said and he looked up at the imposing MSD agent. “Always right to the point.” He turned to Mech. “I understand you lead this team now? Agent McLaren, is it?”
She nodded. “That is correct, Commander. You may call me Mech. And however indecorously, my colleague asked a valid question.”
“Certainly,” he responded. “I wouldn’t want to keep any secrets from you and your people even if you are a long way out of your jurisdiction out here.”
He let that sink in for a moment. He was correct of course.
“We have reason to believe that this area contains undetonated ordinance from the Dominion War. We have sealed off this compound while we investigate?”
“The War? Really?” Tank asked incredulously.
“Afraid so. You may remember the Breen attack on San Francisco. Turns out their aim wasn’t all that great,” he said. “Now, if I may ask, what brings you here?”
Mech responded before Gavin had the chance. “Simply following up on a lead, Commander. However it looks to me as if you have things well in hand here,” she said quickly. “We don’t want to waste your time any further. Have a good day.” And with that she turned around to head back towards the SAFVe. Tank remained for a moment longer, staring down the shorter man, before following.
But before Mech was out of earshot, she turned around once more. “If we had any further questions in regards to what you are doing here,” she said. “Who in Starfleet may we contact?”
“We are here on the orders of Captain Whren, Ms. Mech. I suggest you direct any further inquires to him.”
“I will do that. Thanks again,” she responded and then regrouped with the rest of her team just outside the CCiD shuttle craft, leaning against the closed doors.
“Whren,” said Tank. “Goddamn bastards’ got his fingerprints on everything. I think it is high-time we have a chat with that man.”
Mech shook her head. “I just tried to establish his whereabouts through FedNet. He’s just been re-assigned off Earth according to Starfleet records.”
“That was quick,” said Gavin. “He was here yesterday and he’s off gallivanting the galaxy the next day?”
“So what now?” asked Slade. “We can’t get to the compound and our best lead on who was involved with the Fed Plaza incident has been taken off the board. And I’m not buying into the Starfleet conspiracy theory by the way.”
“There’s a surprise,” said Tank.
“I agree with Jackson for now,” said Mech. “We don’t have enough evidence to suggest that anyone but Whren was involved with Mr. Black and Fed Plaza.”
“How about this Halcon person?” asked Gavin. “You mentioned you’ve come across his name a number of times and that he may be who has been after you personally for a while now.”
Mech nodded. “Whoever Halcon is, I’m more convinced then ever that he’s pulling the strings here. But we know too little about Halcon to be able to go after him. But there is somebody else in this chain of players who is inextricably involved and I think it is time we have a serious conversation with him.”
Tank smirked knowingly. “Now that’s a conversation I’m looking forward to,” he said and hoped back into the SAFVe.
“Mr. President, I want to reassure you that you have the full support of the Council on this. The Federation has been attacked in the most heinous way possible, not by going after Starfleet or a possible military target but by spreading terror on our very home soil and targeting innocent civilians. The culprits have already taken responsibility for this cowardly attack and my colleagues and I agree that they require a swift response.”
President Kentii’la looked up from his desk and at the Efrosian man on the screen. “It is good to know where the Council stands, Mister Speaker, thank you.”
Veltum Jarni dipped his chin. “Thank you, Mister President.”
And with that his image disappeared and the screen turned off, displaying various pieces of fine painted art from all over the Federation instead.
After a moment, the president looked at his advisor. The usually high-spirited Bolian had a dour expression on his face. “Do we have a choice?”
He cleared his throat. “Under normal circumstances, Mister President, I’d say you always have a choice.”
“These are not normal circumstances,” the dark-skinned president responded with an understanding nod.
“Not at all. It’s less than 24 hours after the first terrorist attack on Earth for over 200 years if we don’t count state sponsored incidents. And while San Francisco’s Municipal Safety Department may have been successful in limiting the number of casualties, Starfleet failed at preventing the destruction of Fed Plaza. An event which has been witnessed by billions of Federation citizens as it happened. It was a strong message, sir, and one not easily forgotten.”
The president looked over a padd he had been handed just hours earlier. “FNS already reports that an overwhelming 85% of Federation citizens favor an immediate military response,” he said and then looked at his chief counsel. “I don’t recall polls being available so quickly.”
“These days they are almost instantaneous, I’m afraid. It forces us to take actions, one way or the other, quickly. Any delay can be seen as a weakness.”
The commander-in-chief rubbed his temples. “Sometimes I curse the modern age.”
“There is more,” Sill said, apparently unwilling to give his boss a chance to digest the bad news he had already been provided. “The public response to Ambassador Fujiwara speech has been overwhelming just before Fed Plaza was destroyed. Now people are taking a second look and they are finding that –“
“They are finding that during the War the Federation signed a binding agreement with the Nyuchiban Confederacy that we would provide them with any kind of military assistance in return for their willingness to join our fight with the Dominion,” the president said.
The Bolian nodded. “It was a good plan back then.”
“It was a desperate plan.”
“May that as it be, going back to your original question, sir. No, we do not have a choice.”
Kentii’la nodded and did this just as his speech pattern: Slowly and deliberately.
Sill placed a padd on the large mahogany desk.
The President removed a silver stylus from its elaborately decorated holder and put his signature on the document he had been presented. With a slow and heavy sigh, he replaced the stylus and looked up at the Bolian. “Mister Sill, get Admiral Tessier in here. Starfleet is going to war.”
Gavin Thorgood secretly wished that they had taken more time to clean out the SAFVe or used an alternative means of transportation. As it stood he felt it still smelt too much of the blood and sweat of the dozen hostages who had been cramped inside the day before after they had been rescued from the doomed Fed Plaza.
He also wouldn’t have minded a day off after the harrowing events which had culminated in the total destruction of North America’s tallest structure.
Time was of the essence however and so Masamune had tasked his team to tie-up loose ends quickly and before anybody had a chance to make them disappear.
Gavin was supposed to be focused on their mission to raid Grayson’s compound at Half Moon Bay but like the rest of the six-man CCiD team chosen for this assignment, he kept staring at Mech, impossibly sitting on the opposite bench and inspecting the new handgun she had been issued.
“I still don’t get it,” he said. “How does this ‘switch’ work exactly? You’re saying you just beamed your entire consciousness into another body?”
Mech looked up at him and smiled. “That’s not exactly how I would describe the process but essentially, yes, you could say I transferred myself into this body as soon as I realized that I wouldn’t be able to survive the blast.”
“But how is that possible? You’re a human being, aren’t you? How can you just transfer all your memories and your thoughts into another body like that?”
“It’s really all just data,” she responded.
“Data?” he said skeptically, clearly having a hard time wrapping his head around the idea. “How about your soul? Is that just data as well?”
She hesitated at that and judging from her apprehensive facial expression, Gavin immediately wished he hadn’t said that.
“Is it really necessary to start treading into the metaphysical here?” Tank intervened. “Isn’t it enough to know that the LT is back and good as ever?”
“Of course,” Gavin quickly said and then made eye contact with his team leader again. “And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that –“
“It’s alright,” she said interrupting him. “I understand that this will need some getting used to. And I’d be lying if I said that I won’t need some time myself to adjust to this … change,” she said and looked at her raised arm for a moment as if it didn’t really belong to her. “It’s not as if I’ve done something like this before. I mean, not like this. I had used my previous body for a long time and this is as much of change to me as it is to you.”
“I would think more so for you,” said Jackson who had listened in to the conversation and now shot her a quick look which Gavin couldn’t help but notice held at least a little suspicion.
She nodded. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Just so we know what to expect,” said Jackson. “Do you have any more spare bodies lying around for you to jump into?”
“Kinda insensitive here, pal,” Tank said.
But Mech simply smiled and then looked at Jackson Slade. “You mean do I have a warehouse full of bodies like Mr. Black? I wish. For now, this is the only one I have. So try to remember that if I get killed again, I may not come back next time.”
“We’re approaching the compound,” Hot Rod said form the cockpit. “But it looks as if our friends from the Presido beat us to it again.”
True enough Grayson compound overlooking the Pacific was almost entirely surrounded by Starfleet personnel and at least half a dozen shuttles. The officers within the compound appeared to be wearing hazmat suits and were concentrated around the same warehouse which Mech and Gavin had entered the previous day.
“I don’t like this,” said Tank as Hot Rod landed the SAFVe outside the compound and close to Starfleet’s command center.
“I guess the assault just got scrubbed,” said Jackson and holstered his gun.
“Don’t wanna go up against your former buddies, eh?” said Tank to which Slade responded with a glare.
The team disembarked the moment the SAFVe had touched down and a group of Starfleet officers quickly approached.
Gavin recognized the man apparently in charge as Commander Lee, the same man who had intervened during their assault on the factory on Treasure Island. “What are the chances that this is a coincidence?” he asked in a subdued tone.
“Zilch,” responded Tank as he, Gavin, Slade and Mech walked out to meet the Starfleet group.
“It is good to meet you again,” Lee said in the similarly upbeat demeanor he had displayed during their last encounter. “And I hear thanks are in order. Without your efforts the casualty rate yesterday would have been a lot higher than it was..”
“Wanna fill us in on what exactly you’re doing here?” Tank barked, forgoing the pleasantries.
“Ah yes, the man they call Tank,” he said and he looked up at the imposing MSD agent. “Always right to the point.” He turned to Mech. “I understand you lead this team now? Agent McLaren, is it?”
She nodded. “That is correct, Commander. You may call me Mech. And however indecorously, my colleague asked a valid question.”
“Certainly,” he responded. “I wouldn’t want to keep any secrets from you and your people even if you are a long way out of your jurisdiction out here.”
He let that sink in for a moment. He was correct of course.
“We have reason to believe that this area contains undetonated ordinance from the Dominion War. We have sealed off this compound while we investigate?”
“The War? Really?” Tank asked incredulously.
“Afraid so. You may remember the Breen attack on San Francisco. Turns out their aim wasn’t all that great,” he said. “Now, if I may ask, what brings you here?”
Mech responded before Gavin had the chance. “Simply following up on a lead, Commander. However it looks to me as if you have things well in hand here,” she said quickly. “We don’t want to waste your time any further. Have a good day.” And with that she turned around to head back towards the SAFVe. Tank remained for a moment longer, staring down the shorter man, before following.
But before Mech was out of earshot, she turned around once more. “If we had any further questions in regards to what you are doing here,” she said. “Who in Starfleet may we contact?”
“We are here on the orders of Captain Whren, Ms. Mech. I suggest you direct any further inquires to him.”
“I will do that. Thanks again,” she responded and then regrouped with the rest of her team just outside the CCiD shuttle craft, leaning against the closed doors.
“Whren,” said Tank. “Goddamn bastards’ got his fingerprints on everything. I think it is high-time we have a chat with that man.”
Mech shook her head. “I just tried to establish his whereabouts through FedNet. He’s just been re-assigned off Earth according to Starfleet records.”
“That was quick,” said Gavin. “He was here yesterday and he’s off gallivanting the galaxy the next day?”
“So what now?” asked Slade. “We can’t get to the compound and our best lead on who was involved with the Fed Plaza incident has been taken off the board. And I’m not buying into the Starfleet conspiracy theory by the way.”
“There’s a surprise,” said Tank.
“I agree with Jackson for now,” said Mech. “We don’t have enough evidence to suggest that anyone but Whren was involved with Mr. Black and Fed Plaza.”
“How about this Halcon person?” asked Gavin. “You mentioned you’ve come across his name a number of times and that he may be who has been after you personally for a while now.”
Mech nodded. “Whoever Halcon is, I’m more convinced then ever that he’s pulling the strings here. But we know too little about Halcon to be able to go after him. But there is somebody else in this chain of players who is inextricably involved and I think it is time we have a serious conversation with him.”
Tank smirked knowingly. “Now that’s a conversation I’m looking forward to,” he said and hoped back into the SAFVe.
* * *
“Mr. President, I want to reassure you that you have the full support of the Council on this. The Federation has been attacked in the most heinous way possible, not by going after Starfleet or a possible military target but by spreading terror on our very home soil and targeting innocent civilians. The culprits have already taken responsibility for this cowardly attack and my colleagues and I agree that they require a swift response.”
President Kentii’la looked up from his desk and at the Efrosian man on the screen. “It is good to know where the Council stands, Mister Speaker, thank you.”
Veltum Jarni dipped his chin. “Thank you, Mister President.”
And with that his image disappeared and the screen turned off, displaying various pieces of fine painted art from all over the Federation instead.
After a moment, the president looked at his advisor. The usually high-spirited Bolian had a dour expression on his face. “Do we have a choice?”
He cleared his throat. “Under normal circumstances, Mister President, I’d say you always have a choice.”
“These are not normal circumstances,” the dark-skinned president responded with an understanding nod.
“Not at all. It’s less than 24 hours after the first terrorist attack on Earth for over 200 years if we don’t count state sponsored incidents. And while San Francisco’s Municipal Safety Department may have been successful in limiting the number of casualties, Starfleet failed at preventing the destruction of Fed Plaza. An event which has been witnessed by billions of Federation citizens as it happened. It was a strong message, sir, and one not easily forgotten.”
The president looked over a padd he had been handed just hours earlier. “FNS already reports that an overwhelming 85% of Federation citizens favor an immediate military response,” he said and then looked at his chief counsel. “I don’t recall polls being available so quickly.”
“These days they are almost instantaneous, I’m afraid. It forces us to take actions, one way or the other, quickly. Any delay can be seen as a weakness.”
The commander-in-chief rubbed his temples. “Sometimes I curse the modern age.”
“There is more,” Sill said, apparently unwilling to give his boss a chance to digest the bad news he had already been provided. “The public response to Ambassador Fujiwara speech has been overwhelming just before Fed Plaza was destroyed. Now people are taking a second look and they are finding that –“
“They are finding that during the War the Federation signed a binding agreement with the Nyuchiban Confederacy that we would provide them with any kind of military assistance in return for their willingness to join our fight with the Dominion,” the president said.
The Bolian nodded. “It was a good plan back then.”
“It was a desperate plan.”
“May that as it be, going back to your original question, sir. No, we do not have a choice.”
Kentii’la nodded and did this just as his speech pattern: Slowly and deliberately.
Sill placed a padd on the large mahogany desk.
The President removed a silver stylus from its elaborately decorated holder and put his signature on the document he had been presented. With a slow and heavy sigh, he replaced the stylus and looked up at the Bolian. “Mister Sill, get Admiral Tessier in here. Starfleet is going to war.”
047 – “No Time To Lose Your Head”
Not wanting to play second fiddle to Starfleet again, Mech had decided to move quickly. Bobbie Case has already confirmed, after further analysis of the data chip Mech had retrieved from Mister Black’s destroyed body, that he had indeed visited the Pyramid at 600 Montgomery a number of times over the last few months and even better, she had been able to pinpoint his movements to the very floor which occupied the Grayson Institute.
It was enough for a search warrant.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Tank as he along with Mech, Gavin, Jackson and two uniformed MSD agents stepped into the elevator on the ground floor.
“Considering your history with this place it may be a good idea to let me do the talking,” said Jackson.
“History?” he shot back with disbelief. “Last time I got here I had the man on the ropes. Had you not interfered, we may have nabbed Mister Black then and avoided this entire mess.”
“We had no evidence linking those two to each other and –“
“We had all the evidence we needed to nail that bastard.”
“I don’t know what kind of fantasy world you live in but –“
Mech raised her hand, stopping Jackson Slade from infuriating Tank any further. Not that he wasn’t already beside himself with anger at the insinuation. “Gentlemen, let’s continue this another time, shall we?”
The two men glared at each other but then hesitantly showed their consent by nodding their heads slightly.
“I still think it be better if I talk to him,” said Jackson. “Grayson is still an influential person in this city and all we have is a search warrant, nothing against him personally.”
“You do the talking, I toss the place,” Tank said.
Gavin shot the LT an apologetic look, letting her know that he was well aware of the two agent’s combative attitude towards each other and that there was little anyone could do about it.
She smirked at that and the team spend the next ten seconds listening to the god-awful elevator music in silence.
Tank was the first man out as soon as the doors parted. “You know he’s got that tune playing in there on purpose,” he growled. “It’s psychological torture. For that alone he should be thrown in jail.”
The row of six seemingly identical receptionists dressed in identical uniforms immediately raised their heads upon sensing the new arrivals. “Welcome to the Grayson Institute of Learning and Enlightenment,” said the first receptionist. “You have made the first step on your journey for truth,” said the second one in the exact same voice. “Would you like to sign-up for one of our complimentary exploratory lectures?” said the third.
“Can it ladies, we’ve got a search warrant for this dump and we ain’t leaving until we found what we’re looking for,” Tank barked at them.
The receptionists dropped their smiles in favor of confused expressions, first looking at each other than back up at the MSD agents. “How may we be of assistance?” they asked with that smile again.
“I’ll take care of this,” said Gavin and then produced the padd with the official court order document.
“Grayson’s office is this way,” said Tank and led the rest of the team down an elaborately decorated corridor. He found the two large wooden doors with the matching set of polished golden handles with little difficulty but before he could reach out for them, Slade pushed past him.
“As agreed, I do the talking,” he said and then knocked at the door.
Tank rolled his eyes. “Why not give him a chance to hide all the evidence while you’re at it?”
But the doors opened within seconds, swinging inwards and allowing the team to enter the spacious corner office overlooking downtown San Francisco and a gaping hole just a few blocks down the road where the imposing Fed Plaza had once stood. The remains were not visible from this angle but the haze surrounding the side gave proof that they were still smoldering.
Michael Gary Grayson sat behind his expensive desk and quickly stood when he noticed the law enforcement officers enter his office. “Lady. Gentlemen. Welcome to the Grayson Institute. How may I be of assistance?” he said with an inviting smile.
“Game’s up, buddy,” Tanks said straight away. “We’ve got a search warrant to toss this place and whatever we find will be used against you.”
Jackson Slade shot the huge agent a withering look of which he took no notice before focusing on Grayson. “My colleague is quite correct, I’m afraid. We have reason to believe that you have been in contact with a criminal element linked to the illegal stims trade in this city and the destruction of Fed Plaza last night.”
“I have nothing to hide. Please go ahead and carry out your search,” he said, putting his arms far apart and keeping that same smile plastered on his face.
“Like we need your permission,” Tank mumbled and went to work, inelegantly dismantling a nearby leather sofa and carelessly throwing the cushions on the floor.
Gavin joined his team members and then helped Tank and the two officers search the office, doing so much more carefully then Tank.
“Would you like to step outside while we search your office, sir?” said Slade.
The man shook his head but refused to let go of that now irritating smile. “I prefer to stay right here so that I may assist you as needed.”
Tank grunted upon overhearing that but suppressed another comment.
Grayson, dressed in his smart business suit, turned his attention to the LT who had remained by the door, watching the man carefully but otherwise not making a single move. “You must be Mech. I have heard much about you but we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting until now.”
“That is not correct,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?” He said, still smiling.
“We have met before.”
“Is that so? I would really rather think that I would recall meeting such and extraordinary individual as yourself.”
“Perhaps that is because you went under a different name then,” she said.
“I’m afraid I do not know what you are referring to.”
“You used the name Halcon.”
At that the other CCiD agents stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Mech and then Grayson.
“I’m not familiar with that name,” he said after a very short pause.
“What if I told you that I have reconsidered your offer?”
“What offer?” Tank asked, clearly confused as to where Mech was taking this conversation. The others were clearly not following either.
Grayson’s smile wavered.
In one fluid and uninterrupted motion that she had long since perfected, she freed her weapon form the holder attached sideways to the small of her back, brought it up and aimed it straight at Grayson’s head with two hands.
“Mech?” Tank asked, not understanding what had prompted this sudden action.
The others also drew their guns but pointing them at Mech instead, after she had clearly drawn down on an unarmed Grayson, seemingly entirely unprovoked.
“I don’t know what’s going one here,” said Slade. “But I need you to lower your weapon. Now.”
She didn’t comply. Instead she kept her steely gaze and her gun pointed at Grayson’s head who in turn simply smiled at her as if this was all extremely hilarious.
“Mech, what are you doing?” asked Tank who ultimately felt compelled to draw his weapon as well and then very hesitantly aimed at her. “Please, talk to us.”
But she didn’t.
“I’m giving you exactly three seconds to lower your weapon or we will take you down,” said Jackson, his voice firm as steel as if he had always known that sooner or later this woman might snap. A possibility which had become even more worrisome since surviving a skyscraper collapsing on top of her by transferring her consciousness into a new body.
“Mech, please, just lower your gun and let’s talk about this,” Tank implored but didn’t miss the fact she was paying no attention to the five men who had their guns trained on her now. Her only focus was Grayson, who simply returned her intense look but keeping just as mum as she did.
“Three,” Slade began. “Two.” He took a small step towards her, possibly hoping to be able to get to her gun and disarm her that way. “On-“
Mech fired twice, hitting Grayson between the eyes and in the forehead and forcing his body to jerk backwards suddenly and hit the large glass panes of the window which cracked noticeably before collapsing into a heap.
Gavin and the others were too shocked to open fire and Mech didn’t give them much of a chance.
She immediately raised her hands into the air, demonstrating that she had no intentions of shooting the gun again.
“My God,” Gavin said with utter disbelief and then quickly headed towards were Grayson had been cut down.
Slade needed a moment himself to collect himself but once he had he stepped up to Mech who offered no resistance while he removed her gun. He made sure to keep his own weapon trained on her and have the uniformed officers provide cover, knowing full well of her skills.
Gavin didn’t need long to realize that something was very wrong about Grayson’s lifeless body. For the fact that he had taken two 9mm duranium slugs right into the front of his cranium from just a few meters away, there was a suspicious lack of blood. In fact he couldn’t find a single drop. Instead the wounds were pouring out a slimy white substance. Gavin had seen this before.
He stood and looked at the others. “He’s an android,” he said, hardly believing his own words.
“What?” Tank said and then quickly joined him to confirm this seemingly crazy theory. “I’ll be damned,” he said when the evidence became undeniable. Then his lips curled up into a smile as he made eye contact with Mech who still had her hands up and was being held at bay by three guns pointed at her. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
She gave him that sweet smile of hers but didn’t say anything else.
“It doesn’t change anything,” said Jackson Slade and then looked at the LT. “You are under arrest.”
Tessier read through the padd a second time just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Re-reading the document did nothing to lessens the frown edged on her face.
“I’m surprised, Admiral, I would have expected greater enthusiasm from you considering your stance in this matter,” Sill said with his typical smile.
The Starfleet flag officer looked up from the padd and aimed a dark look towards the Bolian presidential counsel. “I don’t know what you think of me, Mister Sill, but I am not a warmonger. Was I furious that these bastards blew up the Tripoli killing hundreds of Starfleet officers? You bet. Am I enraged that they struck our home soil and took down Fed Plaza? Of course. That doesn’t mean that I’m looking forward to committing Starfleet to an operation that is bound to cost us a great many lives.”
“Nobody here is implying that you were hoping for this outcome, Admiral,” President Kentil’aa said from behind his desk.
“Of course not,” said Tessier, trying hard to keep her tone free of sarcasm and then stood from her chair. “For what it is worth, sir, I agree that this is our best option for now. Of course I will have to review the details with Quinerzos and Intelligence but from the reports I have read so far, I do not doubt the Nyuchiban estimates.”
“The President and I agree that it is essential that we do not delay our response. The Council has already given its full approval of these actions,” Sill said.
The Starfleet admiral gave the counsel a surprised look. It wasn’t like the Federation Council to move quickly on anything. In her experience it was usually a slow and sluggish administrative behemoth that needed weeks, if not months to make a final decision on anything.
“We were astonished as you are, Admiral,” Sill added with a smirk. “The motion passed this morning 142 to 12. The Council is clearly bowing to public pressure on this one.”
“I would hate the idea that we are committing ourselves onto this course because it’s what the public wants us to do,” Tessier said.
“I understand your hesitation, Admiral, but rest assured that we have debated this issue at great length and come to the conclusion that this action is, indeed, in the best interest of the Federation and its allies,” said the president slowly. If he resented the implication that he was rushing them into war, he didn’t show it.
Tessier nodded respectfully. The irony of this situation wasn’t completely lost on her. Only a few days earlier she had stood in this very office, trying to convince the leader of the Federation that their best option on Asuka III was a military intervention. Now it was the President and his advisor, as well as the Council itself, who were proposing the very thing they had been so vehemently against. And it was Tessier who appeared to be the one requiring convincing.
Things had suddenly moved much too fast for the young and usually ambitious admiral. It wasn’t that she was entirely opposed to a strong response to recent events but the dust in San Francisco hadn’t even settled yet. And whenever she closed her eyes she could still see that massive tower come tumbling down while she had been helpless to stop.
She had seen many Starfleet ships and facilities destroyed by the enemy in her career and it had always been a painful experience. But somehow the destruction of Fed Plaza had hit a different nerve all together. Similarly to the cowardly Breen attack on Earth during the War, they had targeted their home soil. And while the body count was nowhere as high as it had been in the previous attack, this one felt much more like a sucker punch. An attack not just on Starfleet and its people but on the entire Federation by an unseen and mostly unknown enemy.
It had been a wake-up call for billions of Federation citizens who suddenly feared that no place in the galaxy remained safe from unprovoked terrorist attacks. The Federation had been whipped into a frenzy overnight.
In her experience it was never a good idea to make decisions while riding the emotional highs of anger and hysteria.
“Now this bring us to the more practical issue of implementation,” said Sill. “We are all aware that Starfleet is still recuperating from their wartimes losses and nowhere near ready to mount an operation of this scale within the timeframe that we have in mind. We have discussed other possibilities such as bringing in other allies such as the Klingons. Ultimately we felt that to be problematic considering the limited control we may exert on such a force.”
Not to mention that it be a PR nightmare, Tessier thought. Newsfeed images of blood-lusty Klingons wantonly slaughtering every target of opportunity would be all we need.
“We have even considered using mercenary forces on Asuka III operating under direct Starfleet authority. However that option would require us to expend a great amount of resources which we simply cannot afford,” the Bolian continued.
And seeing how using mercenary forces and the FWA got us into this mess in the first place.
“Which really only leaves us our original option of utilizing Starfleet to pacify Asuka III.”
Tessier glanced at her padd again. “The Nyuchibans report suggests that at least three hundred eighty thousand troops would be required to completely pacify the planet and stop the spread of violence within the confederacy,” she said and looked up. “That’s not to far off my initial estimates of four hundred fifty thousand troops,” she added and then shook her head. “But either way, we simply don’t have that many men to spare. Combat-trained or otherwise.”
She found both the president and Trelu-Chi Sill looking at her expectantly and she had an inkling as to why that was.
“Are there any suggestions you could bring to us that would allow Starfleet to commit the level of troops required for this operation?” Sill asked.
Admiral Selina Tessier was weary of political games and she couldn’t help wonder if they were recording this conversation just so that they could pull it out of their back pocket if things went horribly wrong somewhere down the line. She knew exactly what they wanted. After all she had made that proposal not a week earlier in this very office only to be shot down at the time. But they wanted her to bring it to them. Again.
“Mister President,” she said as formally as she could. “I may have a suggestion.”
Not wanting to play second fiddle to Starfleet again, Mech had decided to move quickly. Bobbie Case has already confirmed, after further analysis of the data chip Mech had retrieved from Mister Black’s destroyed body, that he had indeed visited the Pyramid at 600 Montgomery a number of times over the last few months and even better, she had been able to pinpoint his movements to the very floor which occupied the Grayson Institute.
It was enough for a search warrant.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Tank as he along with Mech, Gavin, Jackson and two uniformed MSD agents stepped into the elevator on the ground floor.
“Considering your history with this place it may be a good idea to let me do the talking,” said Jackson.
“History?” he shot back with disbelief. “Last time I got here I had the man on the ropes. Had you not interfered, we may have nabbed Mister Black then and avoided this entire mess.”
“We had no evidence linking those two to each other and –“
“We had all the evidence we needed to nail that bastard.”
“I don’t know what kind of fantasy world you live in but –“
Mech raised her hand, stopping Jackson Slade from infuriating Tank any further. Not that he wasn’t already beside himself with anger at the insinuation. “Gentlemen, let’s continue this another time, shall we?”
The two men glared at each other but then hesitantly showed their consent by nodding their heads slightly.
“I still think it be better if I talk to him,” said Jackson. “Grayson is still an influential person in this city and all we have is a search warrant, nothing against him personally.”
“You do the talking, I toss the place,” Tank said.
Gavin shot the LT an apologetic look, letting her know that he was well aware of the two agent’s combative attitude towards each other and that there was little anyone could do about it.
She smirked at that and the team spend the next ten seconds listening to the god-awful elevator music in silence.
Tank was the first man out as soon as the doors parted. “You know he’s got that tune playing in there on purpose,” he growled. “It’s psychological torture. For that alone he should be thrown in jail.”
The row of six seemingly identical receptionists dressed in identical uniforms immediately raised their heads upon sensing the new arrivals. “Welcome to the Grayson Institute of Learning and Enlightenment,” said the first receptionist. “You have made the first step on your journey for truth,” said the second one in the exact same voice. “Would you like to sign-up for one of our complimentary exploratory lectures?” said the third.
“Can it ladies, we’ve got a search warrant for this dump and we ain’t leaving until we found what we’re looking for,” Tank barked at them.
The receptionists dropped their smiles in favor of confused expressions, first looking at each other than back up at the MSD agents. “How may we be of assistance?” they asked with that smile again.
“I’ll take care of this,” said Gavin and then produced the padd with the official court order document.
“Grayson’s office is this way,” said Tank and led the rest of the team down an elaborately decorated corridor. He found the two large wooden doors with the matching set of polished golden handles with little difficulty but before he could reach out for them, Slade pushed past him.
“As agreed, I do the talking,” he said and then knocked at the door.
Tank rolled his eyes. “Why not give him a chance to hide all the evidence while you’re at it?”
But the doors opened within seconds, swinging inwards and allowing the team to enter the spacious corner office overlooking downtown San Francisco and a gaping hole just a few blocks down the road where the imposing Fed Plaza had once stood. The remains were not visible from this angle but the haze surrounding the side gave proof that they were still smoldering.
Michael Gary Grayson sat behind his expensive desk and quickly stood when he noticed the law enforcement officers enter his office. “Lady. Gentlemen. Welcome to the Grayson Institute. How may I be of assistance?” he said with an inviting smile.
“Game’s up, buddy,” Tanks said straight away. “We’ve got a search warrant to toss this place and whatever we find will be used against you.”
Jackson Slade shot the huge agent a withering look of which he took no notice before focusing on Grayson. “My colleague is quite correct, I’m afraid. We have reason to believe that you have been in contact with a criminal element linked to the illegal stims trade in this city and the destruction of Fed Plaza last night.”
“I have nothing to hide. Please go ahead and carry out your search,” he said, putting his arms far apart and keeping that same smile plastered on his face.
“Like we need your permission,” Tank mumbled and went to work, inelegantly dismantling a nearby leather sofa and carelessly throwing the cushions on the floor.
Gavin joined his team members and then helped Tank and the two officers search the office, doing so much more carefully then Tank.
“Would you like to step outside while we search your office, sir?” said Slade.
The man shook his head but refused to let go of that now irritating smile. “I prefer to stay right here so that I may assist you as needed.”
Tank grunted upon overhearing that but suppressed another comment.
Grayson, dressed in his smart business suit, turned his attention to the LT who had remained by the door, watching the man carefully but otherwise not making a single move. “You must be Mech. I have heard much about you but we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting until now.”
“That is not correct,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?” He said, still smiling.
“We have met before.”
“Is that so? I would really rather think that I would recall meeting such and extraordinary individual as yourself.”
“Perhaps that is because you went under a different name then,” she said.
“I’m afraid I do not know what you are referring to.”
“You used the name Halcon.”
At that the other CCiD agents stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Mech and then Grayson.
“I’m not familiar with that name,” he said after a very short pause.
“What if I told you that I have reconsidered your offer?”
“What offer?” Tank asked, clearly confused as to where Mech was taking this conversation. The others were clearly not following either.
Grayson’s smile wavered.
In one fluid and uninterrupted motion that she had long since perfected, she freed her weapon form the holder attached sideways to the small of her back, brought it up and aimed it straight at Grayson’s head with two hands.
“Mech?” Tank asked, not understanding what had prompted this sudden action.
The others also drew their guns but pointing them at Mech instead, after she had clearly drawn down on an unarmed Grayson, seemingly entirely unprovoked.
“I don’t know what’s going one here,” said Slade. “But I need you to lower your weapon. Now.”
She didn’t comply. Instead she kept her steely gaze and her gun pointed at Grayson’s head who in turn simply smiled at her as if this was all extremely hilarious.
“Mech, what are you doing?” asked Tank who ultimately felt compelled to draw his weapon as well and then very hesitantly aimed at her. “Please, talk to us.”
But she didn’t.
“I’m giving you exactly three seconds to lower your weapon or we will take you down,” said Jackson, his voice firm as steel as if he had always known that sooner or later this woman might snap. A possibility which had become even more worrisome since surviving a skyscraper collapsing on top of her by transferring her consciousness into a new body.
“Mech, please, just lower your gun and let’s talk about this,” Tank implored but didn’t miss the fact she was paying no attention to the five men who had their guns trained on her now. Her only focus was Grayson, who simply returned her intense look but keeping just as mum as she did.
“Three,” Slade began. “Two.” He took a small step towards her, possibly hoping to be able to get to her gun and disarm her that way. “On-“
Mech fired twice, hitting Grayson between the eyes and in the forehead and forcing his body to jerk backwards suddenly and hit the large glass panes of the window which cracked noticeably before collapsing into a heap.
Gavin and the others were too shocked to open fire and Mech didn’t give them much of a chance.
She immediately raised her hands into the air, demonstrating that she had no intentions of shooting the gun again.
“My God,” Gavin said with utter disbelief and then quickly headed towards were Grayson had been cut down.
Slade needed a moment himself to collect himself but once he had he stepped up to Mech who offered no resistance while he removed her gun. He made sure to keep his own weapon trained on her and have the uniformed officers provide cover, knowing full well of her skills.
Gavin didn’t need long to realize that something was very wrong about Grayson’s lifeless body. For the fact that he had taken two 9mm duranium slugs right into the front of his cranium from just a few meters away, there was a suspicious lack of blood. In fact he couldn’t find a single drop. Instead the wounds were pouring out a slimy white substance. Gavin had seen this before.
He stood and looked at the others. “He’s an android,” he said, hardly believing his own words.
“What?” Tank said and then quickly joined him to confirm this seemingly crazy theory. “I’ll be damned,” he said when the evidence became undeniable. Then his lips curled up into a smile as he made eye contact with Mech who still had her hands up and was being held at bay by three guns pointed at her. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
She gave him that sweet smile of hers but didn’t say anything else.
“It doesn’t change anything,” said Jackson Slade and then looked at the LT. “You are under arrest.”
* * *
Tessier read through the padd a second time just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Re-reading the document did nothing to lessens the frown edged on her face.
“I’m surprised, Admiral, I would have expected greater enthusiasm from you considering your stance in this matter,” Sill said with his typical smile.
The Starfleet flag officer looked up from the padd and aimed a dark look towards the Bolian presidential counsel. “I don’t know what you think of me, Mister Sill, but I am not a warmonger. Was I furious that these bastards blew up the Tripoli killing hundreds of Starfleet officers? You bet. Am I enraged that they struck our home soil and took down Fed Plaza? Of course. That doesn’t mean that I’m looking forward to committing Starfleet to an operation that is bound to cost us a great many lives.”
“Nobody here is implying that you were hoping for this outcome, Admiral,” President Kentil’aa said from behind his desk.
“Of course not,” said Tessier, trying hard to keep her tone free of sarcasm and then stood from her chair. “For what it is worth, sir, I agree that this is our best option for now. Of course I will have to review the details with Quinerzos and Intelligence but from the reports I have read so far, I do not doubt the Nyuchiban estimates.”
“The President and I agree that it is essential that we do not delay our response. The Council has already given its full approval of these actions,” Sill said.
The Starfleet admiral gave the counsel a surprised look. It wasn’t like the Federation Council to move quickly on anything. In her experience it was usually a slow and sluggish administrative behemoth that needed weeks, if not months to make a final decision on anything.
“We were astonished as you are, Admiral,” Sill added with a smirk. “The motion passed this morning 142 to 12. The Council is clearly bowing to public pressure on this one.”
“I would hate the idea that we are committing ourselves onto this course because it’s what the public wants us to do,” Tessier said.
“I understand your hesitation, Admiral, but rest assured that we have debated this issue at great length and come to the conclusion that this action is, indeed, in the best interest of the Federation and its allies,” said the president slowly. If he resented the implication that he was rushing them into war, he didn’t show it.
Tessier nodded respectfully. The irony of this situation wasn’t completely lost on her. Only a few days earlier she had stood in this very office, trying to convince the leader of the Federation that their best option on Asuka III was a military intervention. Now it was the President and his advisor, as well as the Council itself, who were proposing the very thing they had been so vehemently against. And it was Tessier who appeared to be the one requiring convincing.
Things had suddenly moved much too fast for the young and usually ambitious admiral. It wasn’t that she was entirely opposed to a strong response to recent events but the dust in San Francisco hadn’t even settled yet. And whenever she closed her eyes she could still see that massive tower come tumbling down while she had been helpless to stop.
She had seen many Starfleet ships and facilities destroyed by the enemy in her career and it had always been a painful experience. But somehow the destruction of Fed Plaza had hit a different nerve all together. Similarly to the cowardly Breen attack on Earth during the War, they had targeted their home soil. And while the body count was nowhere as high as it had been in the previous attack, this one felt much more like a sucker punch. An attack not just on Starfleet and its people but on the entire Federation by an unseen and mostly unknown enemy.
It had been a wake-up call for billions of Federation citizens who suddenly feared that no place in the galaxy remained safe from unprovoked terrorist attacks. The Federation had been whipped into a frenzy overnight.
In her experience it was never a good idea to make decisions while riding the emotional highs of anger and hysteria.
“Now this bring us to the more practical issue of implementation,” said Sill. “We are all aware that Starfleet is still recuperating from their wartimes losses and nowhere near ready to mount an operation of this scale within the timeframe that we have in mind. We have discussed other possibilities such as bringing in other allies such as the Klingons. Ultimately we felt that to be problematic considering the limited control we may exert on such a force.”
Not to mention that it be a PR nightmare, Tessier thought. Newsfeed images of blood-lusty Klingons wantonly slaughtering every target of opportunity would be all we need.
“We have even considered using mercenary forces on Asuka III operating under direct Starfleet authority. However that option would require us to expend a great amount of resources which we simply cannot afford,” the Bolian continued.
And seeing how using mercenary forces and the FWA got us into this mess in the first place.
“Which really only leaves us our original option of utilizing Starfleet to pacify Asuka III.”
Tessier glanced at her padd again. “The Nyuchibans report suggests that at least three hundred eighty thousand troops would be required to completely pacify the planet and stop the spread of violence within the confederacy,” she said and looked up. “That’s not to far off my initial estimates of four hundred fifty thousand troops,” she added and then shook her head. “But either way, we simply don’t have that many men to spare. Combat-trained or otherwise.”
She found both the president and Trelu-Chi Sill looking at her expectantly and she had an inkling as to why that was.
“Are there any suggestions you could bring to us that would allow Starfleet to commit the level of troops required for this operation?” Sill asked.
Admiral Selina Tessier was weary of political games and she couldn’t help wonder if they were recording this conversation just so that they could pull it out of their back pocket if things went horribly wrong somewhere down the line. She knew exactly what they wanted. After all she had made that proposal not a week earlier in this very office only to be shot down at the time. But they wanted her to bring it to them. Again.
“Mister President,” she said as formally as she could. “I may have a suggestion.”
Whip up some Starfleet-issue combat androids?
What is this, Star Wars?
What is this, Star Wars?
048 – “South Of the Border.”
“I have asked the Starfleet Commander-In-Chief, Admiral Quinzeros, what he will require to meet the mounting aggression on Asuka III. He has told me and I as well as the Federation Council are determined to meet his needs.
I have today ordered to Asuka III eight Marine Expeditionary units and other Starfleet forces which will bring our fighting strength to approximately 24,000 with additional forces required in the second stage of Operation Starlight.
In order to fully meet Starfleet requirements and limit our own casualties, I have approved a plan that will make available certain highly-advanced and entirely artificial fighting units to be deployed alongside our Starfleet and Marine troops.
I am confident that this task force, along with our Nyuchiban allies will successfully identify and eliminate the belligerent elements based on Asuka III within a swift and realistic time frame which will minimize Starfleet and allied casualties, civilian and military, alike.
My fellow Federation citizens. We send today a strong message to everyone in the galaxy with plans or ambitions to hurt or attack us in any way or form. We send a message that we will not tolerate unprovoked attacks and terror perpetrate on our soil or against our allies.
As your President I make to you this solemn pledge: Those responsible for the cowardly attack on San Francisco will be found and brought to justice. After today there will be no place left in the galaxy safe to hide.”
“Hit me again.”
But the barkeeper didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. Instead, like everyone else in the bar he seemed to be glued to the large monitor which carried the live feed from Paris.
Mech wasn't watching. She didn’t have to. It was running through her internal enhancer at the same time and truth be told, she had already expected something like this.
It had been the talk of town, the entire planet really, ever since Fed Plaza had come down. People were angry and wanted somebody to pay for what had been allowed to happen at the very center of the Federation were most had considered themselves to be entirely safe from such unspeakable things as terrorist attacks.
She had seen this kind of thing before on Nyuchiba and how citizens with high ideals and supposedly moralistic values suddenly turned into warmongering hawks out of fear and anger.
What she hadn’t expected and what even the president had tried to gloss over was the way Starfleet would fight this battle. She doubted many of the people in the bar had taken notice but Mech understood perhaps better than anyone else what this meant. This would be an entirely different kind of war.
And yet, revolution or not, war or otherwise, all she wanted was another shot of tequila.
“Hey barkeep, you’ve got a thirsty customer over here,” she barked at the man behind the counter.
He hesitantly turned away from the screen and looked at Mech and then the row of a dozen or so empty shot glasses littering the counter in front of her. “I think, perhaps you’ve had enough, senorita.”
She looked him square in the eye. “Do I look like I’ve had enough? Tell me, do I appear in the least bit inebriated to you? Because if I do, by all means cut me off from the supply. But I’m not feeling anything here, not even the slightest buzz which leads me to believe that either your so-called liquor is nowhere near as potent as you have claimed or that I haven’t consumed nearly enough of it.”
The bartender frowned and then got out another bottle of tequila. “There is no question to the potency of my liquor,” he said, sounding at least slightly offended. “In fact this stuff has been outlawed in the majority of the Federation.”
She shot him a smile. “That’s why I come here.”
The Mexican barkeeper purred the clear liquid into another shot glass. “You want to know what I think, senorita?” he said, “I’m starting to think you are a fenómena de la naturaleza on who El Fuego del Diablo has no effect.”
Mech took the glass and downed the hot liquid in one gulp. “I assure you, naturaleza has little to do with it,” she said as she placed the glass back onto the counter but never taking her fingers off of it. The implication obvious.
The bartender smiled. “I admit, you are about the prettiest fenómena ever to come through my doors,” he said and refilled her glass.
“Careful now,” she said before she downed another shot. “Wouldn’t want to be seduced by the devil now, would you?”
“In your case, senorita, I may make an exemption even for el diablo.”
“You keep those shots coming and perhaps you get your wish,” she said with a mischievous smile.
“The senorita has had enough.”
The bartender turned to find a short, elderly gentlemen of seemingly South Asian descent walking up to the counter with the assistance of an elaborate ivory topped cane.
“What is it to you, vejestorio?
The man flashed a badge.
The bartender quickly removed the bottle of the illegal beverage and nodded. “I think you may be correct, senior,” he said and shot his thirsty customer an apologetic shrug before beating a retreat.
“You realize you have no jurisdiction here,” she said without making eye contact with Tessho Masamune as he sat on the bar stool next to her.
“I do,” he said. “But I doubt he did.”
“You hear the news?”
The MSD chief nodded. “Hard to miss,” he said and glanced at the large monitor on which the president was just finishing up with his speech which committed the Federation to a war within the Nyuchiba Confederacy. A place which had been home to both of them once.
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
Masamune reached over to snag away the last filled shot-glass in front of Mech and then without hesitation, brought it to his lips and emptied it.
She shot him a surprised look.
“Ah,” he said. “El Fuego del Diablo. Burns in all the right places.”
“Chief, what are you doing here?”
“I think this is one of the last places on Earth where you can get your hands on this stuff,” he said and forcefully brought the glass back onto the counter.
She shook her head. “That’s why I’m here,” she said. “Why are you?”
He stood and gestured towards a corner booth and away from the handful of patrons who were mostly assembled close to the monitor broadcasting the president’s speech.
The LT got up and followed him into the booth, sitting across from Masamune.
“You understand that you were not supposed to leave the city,” he said.
She raised her hand to show him her wrist. “They put a sub-dermal transponder under my skin which I’m sure is what you traced to find me here. If I wanted to escape do you really think I wouldn’t have been able to get rid of it?”
He shook his head. “No. I know for a fact you could have done that.”
“So, you’ve come to bring me back?”
“I’ve come to tell you that the DA is not pressing charges. The Grayson Institute, what’s left of it without Grayson that is, has decided to play this whole thing quietly. They don’t want to draw any attention to the fact that their esteemed leader has been missing and replaced by an android.”
“It seems to me you didn’t have to come in person to tell me that.”
“You’re right,” he said. “But I wanted to give you this.” He looked around for a moment to make sure nobody was paying them any undue attention and then reached into his coat to reveal a black and silver handgun. He placed it on the table in front of her.
The Glock looked badly scratched but otherwise appeared to be in tact.
“They found it during the clean-up at the Fed Plaza site. I was surprised it didn’t get incinerated in the blast. I know it has sentimental value to you. Not sure how a gun can do that though.”
She picked up the weapon, racked it, ejected the empty magazine and then slid it back into place.
“I had it cleaned up as best as possible but you may want to check it out some more before you start shooting it again.”
She nodded with appreciation and the tucked it away. “Thanks.”
“Now, do you want to tell me why you are hiding yourself away in a dive bar in Mexico, consuming an unnatural amount of illegal alcohol which we both know has absolutely no affect on you?”
She considered this for a moment, letting her gaze wander across the dingy establishment. “Do you know what Gavin asked me after I shifted bodies?”
He shook his head.
The LT looked him straight in the eye. “He asked if my soul had been transferred as well.”
“You can’t blame them for being surprised by what you’ve done. It may not have been the first ever consciousness transfer but it certainly is not something people are used to. Even I haven’t come completely to grips with the idea and I knew about the possibility before hand.”
“That’s not my point,” she said. “He talked about my soul, Tessho. How do I even know I still have one?”
Masamune took a deep breath. “Is that what you’ve been doing. Trying to reassert your humanity by attempting to get drunk?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Trying to feel something, I suppose.”
“You know it doesn’t work like that. Not for you. You couldn’t intoxicate yourself as much as you could try to draw blood from this body of yours. I understand what you are going through, I really do. But what makes you human isn’t your body or even your brain. And your soul? That’s far too much of a metaphysical concept for us to tackle in a rundown Mexican bar at the end of happy hour. Do you want to know what makes you human, Mech? It’s your thoughts and your actions. It’s what you do and why you do it. It’s your concern for your fellow man and your dedication to protect them from harm even if it means putting your own existence on the line. Just like when you did when you bought your team and those hostages precious seconds to get out of Fed Plaza in time. That’s what makes you human.”
She smirked at that. “I guess I’ve been wasting a lot of perfectly good booze then, huh?”
“There are some people here who may appreciate it more.”
The doors to the bar opened and Mech turned to see the rest of her team enter. Gavin, Tank, Bobbie, Sylvester, Hot Rod, Eldex and even Jackson Slade.
She shot Masamune a puzzled look. “What’s going on?”
“We want you to come back,” he said. “Now that you’ve been cleared of all charges there is no point in hiding yourself away anymore.”
Mech shook her head. “I told you when we first started that this was going to be a temporary gig for me.”
“I remember. But let me ask you this? You are out here, all by yourself, doubting your own humanity and trying in vain to drink yourself under the table. Do you really think you’d be better off on your own? Or don’t you agree that perhaps being surrounded by people who can reaffirm that you have a true and important purpose in life would be the better choice for you at this juncture?”
She looked unconvinced.
“And from what we’ve established, the person behind everything that has happened over the last few days and who has been trying to have you eliminated is still out there, still planning and scheming to purposes unknown to us. What we do know is that Halcon remains a dangerous threat to you and to possibly the entire Federation as well.”
“Even more reason not to put anyone else in danger as I go after him,” she said.
He nodded. “Sure, I supposed it would be safer that way. But think of this. Halcon knows of you, has been targeting you all this time. Which seems to imply that he is ready for you. He is not prepared for the entire resources of CCiD coming after him.”
She thought about that for a moment.
“Hey LT,” Tank shouted at her from across the bar. “What’s good here?”
Mech turned to face him. “Try El Fuego del Diablo,” she responded. “But make sure to keep Bobbie away from it. I think she may be too young to get her stomach pumped for alcohol poisoning.”
Case shot the woman a petulant look.
“Come on, barkeep, you heard the lady,” barked Tank. “Bring out the good stuff.”
But the man behind the counter seemed hesitant now that he knew that he had the law in his establishment.
“I better go and see to the team before somebody starts a brawl because they can’t get their hands on hard liquor. Last thing we need is to get in hot water with the local authorities,” she said and then stood and headed towards the bar.
Masamune knew he had his answer.
“I have asked the Starfleet Commander-In-Chief, Admiral Quinzeros, what he will require to meet the mounting aggression on Asuka III. He has told me and I as well as the Federation Council are determined to meet his needs.
I have today ordered to Asuka III eight Marine Expeditionary units and other Starfleet forces which will bring our fighting strength to approximately 24,000 with additional forces required in the second stage of Operation Starlight.
In order to fully meet Starfleet requirements and limit our own casualties, I have approved a plan that will make available certain highly-advanced and entirely artificial fighting units to be deployed alongside our Starfleet and Marine troops.
I am confident that this task force, along with our Nyuchiban allies will successfully identify and eliminate the belligerent elements based on Asuka III within a swift and realistic time frame which will minimize Starfleet and allied casualties, civilian and military, alike.
My fellow Federation citizens. We send today a strong message to everyone in the galaxy with plans or ambitions to hurt or attack us in any way or form. We send a message that we will not tolerate unprovoked attacks and terror perpetrate on our soil or against our allies.
As your President I make to you this solemn pledge: Those responsible for the cowardly attack on San Francisco will be found and brought to justice. After today there will be no place left in the galaxy safe to hide.”
“Hit me again.”
But the barkeeper didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. Instead, like everyone else in the bar he seemed to be glued to the large monitor which carried the live feed from Paris.
Mech wasn't watching. She didn’t have to. It was running through her internal enhancer at the same time and truth be told, she had already expected something like this.
It had been the talk of town, the entire planet really, ever since Fed Plaza had come down. People were angry and wanted somebody to pay for what had been allowed to happen at the very center of the Federation were most had considered themselves to be entirely safe from such unspeakable things as terrorist attacks.
She had seen this kind of thing before on Nyuchiba and how citizens with high ideals and supposedly moralistic values suddenly turned into warmongering hawks out of fear and anger.
What she hadn’t expected and what even the president had tried to gloss over was the way Starfleet would fight this battle. She doubted many of the people in the bar had taken notice but Mech understood perhaps better than anyone else what this meant. This would be an entirely different kind of war.
And yet, revolution or not, war or otherwise, all she wanted was another shot of tequila.
“Hey barkeep, you’ve got a thirsty customer over here,” she barked at the man behind the counter.
He hesitantly turned away from the screen and looked at Mech and then the row of a dozen or so empty shot glasses littering the counter in front of her. “I think, perhaps you’ve had enough, senorita.”
She looked him square in the eye. “Do I look like I’ve had enough? Tell me, do I appear in the least bit inebriated to you? Because if I do, by all means cut me off from the supply. But I’m not feeling anything here, not even the slightest buzz which leads me to believe that either your so-called liquor is nowhere near as potent as you have claimed or that I haven’t consumed nearly enough of it.”
The bartender frowned and then got out another bottle of tequila. “There is no question to the potency of my liquor,” he said, sounding at least slightly offended. “In fact this stuff has been outlawed in the majority of the Federation.”
She shot him a smile. “That’s why I come here.”
The Mexican barkeeper purred the clear liquid into another shot glass. “You want to know what I think, senorita?” he said, “I’m starting to think you are a fenómena de la naturaleza on who El Fuego del Diablo has no effect.”
Mech took the glass and downed the hot liquid in one gulp. “I assure you, naturaleza has little to do with it,” she said as she placed the glass back onto the counter but never taking her fingers off of it. The implication obvious.
The bartender smiled. “I admit, you are about the prettiest fenómena ever to come through my doors,” he said and refilled her glass.
“Careful now,” she said before she downed another shot. “Wouldn’t want to be seduced by the devil now, would you?”
“In your case, senorita, I may make an exemption even for el diablo.”
“You keep those shots coming and perhaps you get your wish,” she said with a mischievous smile.
“The senorita has had enough.”
The bartender turned to find a short, elderly gentlemen of seemingly South Asian descent walking up to the counter with the assistance of an elaborate ivory topped cane.
“What is it to you, vejestorio?
The man flashed a badge.
The bartender quickly removed the bottle of the illegal beverage and nodded. “I think you may be correct, senior,” he said and shot his thirsty customer an apologetic shrug before beating a retreat.
“You realize you have no jurisdiction here,” she said without making eye contact with Tessho Masamune as he sat on the bar stool next to her.
“I do,” he said. “But I doubt he did.”
“You hear the news?”
The MSD chief nodded. “Hard to miss,” he said and glanced at the large monitor on which the president was just finishing up with his speech which committed the Federation to a war within the Nyuchiba Confederacy. A place which had been home to both of them once.
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
Masamune reached over to snag away the last filled shot-glass in front of Mech and then without hesitation, brought it to his lips and emptied it.
She shot him a surprised look.
“Ah,” he said. “El Fuego del Diablo. Burns in all the right places.”
“Chief, what are you doing here?”
“I think this is one of the last places on Earth where you can get your hands on this stuff,” he said and forcefully brought the glass back onto the counter.
She shook her head. “That’s why I’m here,” she said. “Why are you?”
He stood and gestured towards a corner booth and away from the handful of patrons who were mostly assembled close to the monitor broadcasting the president’s speech.
The LT got up and followed him into the booth, sitting across from Masamune.
“You understand that you were not supposed to leave the city,” he said.
She raised her hand to show him her wrist. “They put a sub-dermal transponder under my skin which I’m sure is what you traced to find me here. If I wanted to escape do you really think I wouldn’t have been able to get rid of it?”
He shook his head. “No. I know for a fact you could have done that.”
“So, you’ve come to bring me back?”
“I’ve come to tell you that the DA is not pressing charges. The Grayson Institute, what’s left of it without Grayson that is, has decided to play this whole thing quietly. They don’t want to draw any attention to the fact that their esteemed leader has been missing and replaced by an android.”
“It seems to me you didn’t have to come in person to tell me that.”
“You’re right,” he said. “But I wanted to give you this.” He looked around for a moment to make sure nobody was paying them any undue attention and then reached into his coat to reveal a black and silver handgun. He placed it on the table in front of her.
The Glock looked badly scratched but otherwise appeared to be in tact.
“They found it during the clean-up at the Fed Plaza site. I was surprised it didn’t get incinerated in the blast. I know it has sentimental value to you. Not sure how a gun can do that though.”
She picked up the weapon, racked it, ejected the empty magazine and then slid it back into place.
“I had it cleaned up as best as possible but you may want to check it out some more before you start shooting it again.”
She nodded with appreciation and the tucked it away. “Thanks.”
“Now, do you want to tell me why you are hiding yourself away in a dive bar in Mexico, consuming an unnatural amount of illegal alcohol which we both know has absolutely no affect on you?”
She considered this for a moment, letting her gaze wander across the dingy establishment. “Do you know what Gavin asked me after I shifted bodies?”
He shook his head.
The LT looked him straight in the eye. “He asked if my soul had been transferred as well.”
“You can’t blame them for being surprised by what you’ve done. It may not have been the first ever consciousness transfer but it certainly is not something people are used to. Even I haven’t come completely to grips with the idea and I knew about the possibility before hand.”
“That’s not my point,” she said. “He talked about my soul, Tessho. How do I even know I still have one?”
Masamune took a deep breath. “Is that what you’ve been doing. Trying to reassert your humanity by attempting to get drunk?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Trying to feel something, I suppose.”
“You know it doesn’t work like that. Not for you. You couldn’t intoxicate yourself as much as you could try to draw blood from this body of yours. I understand what you are going through, I really do. But what makes you human isn’t your body or even your brain. And your soul? That’s far too much of a metaphysical concept for us to tackle in a rundown Mexican bar at the end of happy hour. Do you want to know what makes you human, Mech? It’s your thoughts and your actions. It’s what you do and why you do it. It’s your concern for your fellow man and your dedication to protect them from harm even if it means putting your own existence on the line. Just like when you did when you bought your team and those hostages precious seconds to get out of Fed Plaza in time. That’s what makes you human.”
She smirked at that. “I guess I’ve been wasting a lot of perfectly good booze then, huh?”
“There are some people here who may appreciate it more.”
The doors to the bar opened and Mech turned to see the rest of her team enter. Gavin, Tank, Bobbie, Sylvester, Hot Rod, Eldex and even Jackson Slade.
She shot Masamune a puzzled look. “What’s going on?”
“We want you to come back,” he said. “Now that you’ve been cleared of all charges there is no point in hiding yourself away anymore.”
Mech shook her head. “I told you when we first started that this was going to be a temporary gig for me.”
“I remember. But let me ask you this? You are out here, all by yourself, doubting your own humanity and trying in vain to drink yourself under the table. Do you really think you’d be better off on your own? Or don’t you agree that perhaps being surrounded by people who can reaffirm that you have a true and important purpose in life would be the better choice for you at this juncture?”
She looked unconvinced.
“And from what we’ve established, the person behind everything that has happened over the last few days and who has been trying to have you eliminated is still out there, still planning and scheming to purposes unknown to us. What we do know is that Halcon remains a dangerous threat to you and to possibly the entire Federation as well.”
“Even more reason not to put anyone else in danger as I go after him,” she said.
He nodded. “Sure, I supposed it would be safer that way. But think of this. Halcon knows of you, has been targeting you all this time. Which seems to imply that he is ready for you. He is not prepared for the entire resources of CCiD coming after him.”
She thought about that for a moment.
“Hey LT,” Tank shouted at her from across the bar. “What’s good here?”
Mech turned to face him. “Try El Fuego del Diablo,” she responded. “But make sure to keep Bobbie away from it. I think she may be too young to get her stomach pumped for alcohol poisoning.”
Case shot the woman a petulant look.
“Come on, barkeep, you heard the lady,” barked Tank. “Bring out the good stuff.”
But the man behind the counter seemed hesitant now that he knew that he had the law in his establishment.
“I better go and see to the team before somebody starts a brawl because they can’t get their hands on hard liquor. Last thing we need is to get in hot water with the local authorities,” she said and then stood and headed towards the bar.
Masamune knew he had his answer.
049 – “What’s It All About, Mech?”
Admiral Selina Tessier stepped into her office and was immediately handed a padd by her assistant. She had known that her life would change quite significantly ever since the president had made his intentions clear in regards to Asuka III.
While she may not have been the highest ranking flag officer in Starfleet or even the most experienced one, there was no denying that as the primary liaison to Paris, she more than anyone else in San Francisco, had the administration’s ear. And it had been her own strategy that had been chosen in what was now being referred to as Operation Starlight.
It would be the single largest Starfleet combat mission since the end of the War and the first time forces would be deployed on such a large scale on foreign soil. It was an almost unthinkable scenario for Starfleet and the Federation and Tessier had no doubt that it would be subject to great criticism and controversy, even if recent events had swayed both public and political opinion in favor of such an undertaking for the moment.
Now it would be up to her to make this work.
“That’s fine, Jack,” she said as she looked over the padd. “I need you to schedule meetings with the C-n-C, the Commander, Starfleet, Commander, Marines and the Chief of Starfleet Operations. And I don’t care if they have previous commitments already, this takes precedent to everything else.”
The young lieutenant nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“But first, get me Yaridian on the line.”
Another nod before the adjutant took back the padd and then rushed out of the office to carry out his orders.
Tessier sat in her high-backed chair behind her desk and allowed herself to take a deep breath before facing the one person who would make Operation Starlight possible.
“I have Yaridian for you, ma’am,” the voice of her assistant advised.
She turned the desktop computer to face her and activated it by tapping a control panel.
The middle-aged man with the long gray hair and thick beard smiled at the admiral good-naturedly. “Selina, I understand we are ready to proceed?”
She frowned at that, not appreciating that this man, even though many hundreds of light-years away, always appeared to know exactly what was happening before he should have had any right to. “Starlight has been given the go-ahead,” she confirmed.
He nodded. “Good. Good,” he said and then looked away from the screen for the moment. “I can provide the first shipment of 50,000 units within fourteen days and then phase two within twenty-one days. I trust you will be happy with these to be delivered directly to Asuka.”
She considered that for a moment and then nodded. “That would expedite matters. I will need to have my specialists go over the units first of course.”
“You have had months to study all the specs and the prototypes,” he said with that same fatherly smile. “Almost sounds as if you don’t trust me.”
“It’s not a matter of trust, Yaridian. This is an unprecedented move for Starfleet and we are expanding a great amount of resources to make this work. We have to be absolutely certain of the quality of the product to satisfy all involved parties.”
“Naturally,” he said. “And let me say again that I am very pleased to be dealing with you and the Federation. I don’t even mind that I may have been able to get a better price with a different buyer, I just much rather deal with you.”
“And I appreciate this,” she said and then after a moment she added. “Now, mind telling me how come you already appeared entirely aware of the decisions I myself have only learned a few hours ago?”
“My dear, Admiral,” he said. “Some would call me an inventor, a scientist and a business man but first and foremost I am a futurist. And the only way to be successful at that fine trade is by anticipating events and decisions before they happen. I do this by studying all factors which may influence events until I arrive at an inescapable conclusion of what will come next. I predict the future, if you will.”
“And what? You’re never wrong?”
“Rarely, my dear Admiral. Rarely.”
Tessier couldn’t quite dispel the suspicious look on her face. Then she finally nodded. “I suppose your keen foresight comes to our advantage. I shall contact you shortly with further details about shipment. Starfleet out.”
His image blinked away and Selina Tessier leaned back in her chair, starring at the now blank monitor.
She had just overseen and approved the single greatest shift in Starfleet operations in its entire history. For all her hard work and lobbying to get to this point, she felt surprisingly ambiguous about what she had done.
“And this is our training facility,” said Masmune as he showed his Bolian visitor the currently rather unimpressive holodeck.
“Very interesting,” said Trelu-Chi Sill as he looked around the empty room before he turned back to the MSD chief. “This is a very interesting facility you have here as well as a very capable team.”
Masamune nodded. “Forgive me for asking, sir, but I have a feeling you didn’t come all the way out here just to tour our building.”
The Bolian considered Masamune for a moment and then nodded. “You are quite correct of course. The truth is that there are a number of individuals in the administration who have been rather impressed by your teams’ action during the Fed Plaza situation. We may have lost the building but if it hadn’t been for CCiD, the loss of life would have been much higher. You succeeded were Starfleet failed.”
“It was regrettable that we weren’t able to work together more closely during that incident,” he said and then gestured towards the doors.
The two men left the holodeck and walked down the hallway to head back towards Masamune’s office.
“Indeed,” the Bolian counsel to the president said. “Thankfully I was able to pull a few strings on short notice to get the UEDA to step in and assist you in the evacuation efforts before the explosion.
Masamune shot the taller man a sidelong glance. “That was your doing? I appreciate that.”
He waved that off. “Not at all. It is that kind of cooperative working spirit that the President values and would like to see more of in the future.”
They reached the office and stepped inside. The chief moved behind his desk while the Bolian remained on the other side. “It makes sense. Of course it is not always an easy proposition with so many different agencies working at cross-purposes,” he said as he set down.
Sill took a seat also. “That’s one of the reasons for my visit. Recent events have shown that Earth is much more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than we previously anticipated. Especially those of a cybernetic nature.”
“I would have to agree with that assessment.”
“To cut right to the chase, as they say, the administration feels that we need a more proactive institution to protect Earth from these kind of attacks.”
Masamune aimed a suspicious look at the man. “What do you have in mind?”
The Bolian lips drew a wide smile, showing off rows of pearly white teeth standing in sharp contrast to his azure colored skin. “We want your team to take on a more global role, Mister Masamune. I have already spoken to the Lady Major and while she wasn’t exactly happy about losing your vast law enforcement expertise, she agreed with me that your team could do much good on a larger scale.”
The chief nodded slowly. “I would require additional resources and I would request that we keep our base of operations here in San Francisco.”
The Bolian stood. “I think that can be arranged,” he said and offered Masamune his hand.
The chief left this chair as well and shook hands with the presidential counsel.
“I think this is going to work out great. I will make sure that I get somebody to be in touch with you soon to work out the details but I’m confident that we are doing the right thing here for the good of the planet,” he said, still wearing that wide smile.
Masamune nodded.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mister Masamune,” he said. “I’ll find my own way out.”
“The pleasure was mine, sir.”
The Bolian turned and headed for the exit.
“Mister Sill?”
The counsel stopped and turned around.
“Whom would this new agency answer to exactly?”
“You would answer directly to the Office of the President,” he said, still smiling. “You never know, you just may have met your new boss.”
Mech found her were they had met the last time, inside the Japanese Tea Garden inside the sprawling Golden Gate Park.
She was kneeling next to a small koi pound, feeding the fishes which eagerly nibbled off her delicate fingers.
Mech stepped up a few feet behind her and watched the school of colorful carp excitingly dash back and forth across the pond while the elderly, white haired woman made sure that every single one would get its turn.
“I’m glad you made it out of there alive,” she said without getting up or turning her head.
“Not all of me did.”
The woman shook her head. “You lost a body,” she said. “That’s all. You preserved what really matters.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten out without your help. Helcon was clearly planning on keeping me trapped in my own fantasy until it was too late. Either that or convince me to join his cause.”
“I don’t think you were ever in danger of crossing over to his side,” she said.
But Mech wasn’t entirely sure of that. Something about Helcon had seemed very familiar to her even if she had been unable to know exactly what that was. Whatever it had been, she would have been lying to herself if she claimed that she hadn’t been at least a little bit curious.
And his promises to unleash powers which were buried deep inside her had been tempting. It was impossible to ignore that they existed. Especially now since she had pulled off one of the most amazing feats of her life by transferring her own consciousness into an entirely different body.
“He claimed to know you,” she said, trying to refocus her thoughts.
Mother stood and dusted off her dress. “Did he now?”
“And he warned me about you. Claiming that you have your own agenda where I’m concerned.”
She smiled at that. “We all have agendas, Mech. Even those who tell you otherwise.”
“I know.”
“Are you’re worried that you’re playing for the wrong team?”
Mech shook her head. “Whoever Halcon is,” she said, “his aims clearly involve terror and destruction. He must be stopped. But I want you to tell me what you know about him. The truth and no riddles this time.”
She nodded and began to walk down the beautifully manicured walkway with Mech quickly joining her by her side. “I agree that you deserve the truth but regretfully I cannot tell you who Helcon is. I’ve been trying to find out myself over the last few years, ever since I first encountered his name on FedNet. What I do know is that he controls vast resources and that he sees you as a potential threat.”
“Why?”
“Because of what you can do, of course. Because whatever his plans are, he believes that you are the one wildcard which may stand in his way. That’s why he has been coming after you like he did. And he will continue to try to either convince you to join him or eliminate you. Those are his only two options.”
They halted on top of the high arching Drum Bridge.
“His overall objective,” Mech began. “It has to do with Nyuchiba, doesn’t it? He was behind Fed Plaza and as a direct result he has single-handedly managed to commit the Federation to a war far outside its own borders.”
Mother nodded as she glanced at the still watery surface below. She dropped a small stone into the water which quickly caused ripples flowing across the entirety of the pond. “It’s without doubt his opening move,” she said. “As to what he’s truly after, that will be for you to figure out. I just hope that once you learn of the real nature of his game, it won’t be too late to stop it.”
Admiral Selina Tessier stepped into her office and was immediately handed a padd by her assistant. She had known that her life would change quite significantly ever since the president had made his intentions clear in regards to Asuka III.
While she may not have been the highest ranking flag officer in Starfleet or even the most experienced one, there was no denying that as the primary liaison to Paris, she more than anyone else in San Francisco, had the administration’s ear. And it had been her own strategy that had been chosen in what was now being referred to as Operation Starlight.
It would be the single largest Starfleet combat mission since the end of the War and the first time forces would be deployed on such a large scale on foreign soil. It was an almost unthinkable scenario for Starfleet and the Federation and Tessier had no doubt that it would be subject to great criticism and controversy, even if recent events had swayed both public and political opinion in favor of such an undertaking for the moment.
Now it would be up to her to make this work.
“That’s fine, Jack,” she said as she looked over the padd. “I need you to schedule meetings with the C-n-C, the Commander, Starfleet, Commander, Marines and the Chief of Starfleet Operations. And I don’t care if they have previous commitments already, this takes precedent to everything else.”
The young lieutenant nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“But first, get me Yaridian on the line.”
Another nod before the adjutant took back the padd and then rushed out of the office to carry out his orders.
Tessier sat in her high-backed chair behind her desk and allowed herself to take a deep breath before facing the one person who would make Operation Starlight possible.
“I have Yaridian for you, ma’am,” the voice of her assistant advised.
She turned the desktop computer to face her and activated it by tapping a control panel.
The middle-aged man with the long gray hair and thick beard smiled at the admiral good-naturedly. “Selina, I understand we are ready to proceed?”
She frowned at that, not appreciating that this man, even though many hundreds of light-years away, always appeared to know exactly what was happening before he should have had any right to. “Starlight has been given the go-ahead,” she confirmed.
He nodded. “Good. Good,” he said and then looked away from the screen for the moment. “I can provide the first shipment of 50,000 units within fourteen days and then phase two within twenty-one days. I trust you will be happy with these to be delivered directly to Asuka.”
She considered that for a moment and then nodded. “That would expedite matters. I will need to have my specialists go over the units first of course.”
“You have had months to study all the specs and the prototypes,” he said with that same fatherly smile. “Almost sounds as if you don’t trust me.”
“It’s not a matter of trust, Yaridian. This is an unprecedented move for Starfleet and we are expanding a great amount of resources to make this work. We have to be absolutely certain of the quality of the product to satisfy all involved parties.”
“Naturally,” he said. “And let me say again that I am very pleased to be dealing with you and the Federation. I don’t even mind that I may have been able to get a better price with a different buyer, I just much rather deal with you.”
“And I appreciate this,” she said and then after a moment she added. “Now, mind telling me how come you already appeared entirely aware of the decisions I myself have only learned a few hours ago?”
“My dear, Admiral,” he said. “Some would call me an inventor, a scientist and a business man but first and foremost I am a futurist. And the only way to be successful at that fine trade is by anticipating events and decisions before they happen. I do this by studying all factors which may influence events until I arrive at an inescapable conclusion of what will come next. I predict the future, if you will.”
“And what? You’re never wrong?”
“Rarely, my dear Admiral. Rarely.”
Tessier couldn’t quite dispel the suspicious look on her face. Then she finally nodded. “I suppose your keen foresight comes to our advantage. I shall contact you shortly with further details about shipment. Starfleet out.”
His image blinked away and Selina Tessier leaned back in her chair, starring at the now blank monitor.
She had just overseen and approved the single greatest shift in Starfleet operations in its entire history. For all her hard work and lobbying to get to this point, she felt surprisingly ambiguous about what she had done.
* * *
“And this is our training facility,” said Masmune as he showed his Bolian visitor the currently rather unimpressive holodeck.
“Very interesting,” said Trelu-Chi Sill as he looked around the empty room before he turned back to the MSD chief. “This is a very interesting facility you have here as well as a very capable team.”
Masamune nodded. “Forgive me for asking, sir, but I have a feeling you didn’t come all the way out here just to tour our building.”
The Bolian considered Masamune for a moment and then nodded. “You are quite correct of course. The truth is that there are a number of individuals in the administration who have been rather impressed by your teams’ action during the Fed Plaza situation. We may have lost the building but if it hadn’t been for CCiD, the loss of life would have been much higher. You succeeded were Starfleet failed.”
“It was regrettable that we weren’t able to work together more closely during that incident,” he said and then gestured towards the doors.
The two men left the holodeck and walked down the hallway to head back towards Masamune’s office.
“Indeed,” the Bolian counsel to the president said. “Thankfully I was able to pull a few strings on short notice to get the UEDA to step in and assist you in the evacuation efforts before the explosion.
Masamune shot the taller man a sidelong glance. “That was your doing? I appreciate that.”
He waved that off. “Not at all. It is that kind of cooperative working spirit that the President values and would like to see more of in the future.”
They reached the office and stepped inside. The chief moved behind his desk while the Bolian remained on the other side. “It makes sense. Of course it is not always an easy proposition with so many different agencies working at cross-purposes,” he said as he set down.
Sill took a seat also. “That’s one of the reasons for my visit. Recent events have shown that Earth is much more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than we previously anticipated. Especially those of a cybernetic nature.”
“I would have to agree with that assessment.”
“To cut right to the chase, as they say, the administration feels that we need a more proactive institution to protect Earth from these kind of attacks.”
Masamune aimed a suspicious look at the man. “What do you have in mind?”
The Bolian lips drew a wide smile, showing off rows of pearly white teeth standing in sharp contrast to his azure colored skin. “We want your team to take on a more global role, Mister Masamune. I have already spoken to the Lady Major and while she wasn’t exactly happy about losing your vast law enforcement expertise, she agreed with me that your team could do much good on a larger scale.”
The chief nodded slowly. “I would require additional resources and I would request that we keep our base of operations here in San Francisco.”
The Bolian stood. “I think that can be arranged,” he said and offered Masamune his hand.
The chief left this chair as well and shook hands with the presidential counsel.
“I think this is going to work out great. I will make sure that I get somebody to be in touch with you soon to work out the details but I’m confident that we are doing the right thing here for the good of the planet,” he said, still wearing that wide smile.
Masamune nodded.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mister Masamune,” he said. “I’ll find my own way out.”
“The pleasure was mine, sir.”
The Bolian turned and headed for the exit.
“Mister Sill?”
The counsel stopped and turned around.
“Whom would this new agency answer to exactly?”
“You would answer directly to the Office of the President,” he said, still smiling. “You never know, you just may have met your new boss.”
* * *
Mech found her were they had met the last time, inside the Japanese Tea Garden inside the sprawling Golden Gate Park.
She was kneeling next to a small koi pound, feeding the fishes which eagerly nibbled off her delicate fingers.
Mech stepped up a few feet behind her and watched the school of colorful carp excitingly dash back and forth across the pond while the elderly, white haired woman made sure that every single one would get its turn.
“I’m glad you made it out of there alive,” she said without getting up or turning her head.
“Not all of me did.”
The woman shook her head. “You lost a body,” she said. “That’s all. You preserved what really matters.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten out without your help. Helcon was clearly planning on keeping me trapped in my own fantasy until it was too late. Either that or convince me to join his cause.”
“I don’t think you were ever in danger of crossing over to his side,” she said.
But Mech wasn’t entirely sure of that. Something about Helcon had seemed very familiar to her even if she had been unable to know exactly what that was. Whatever it had been, she would have been lying to herself if she claimed that she hadn’t been at least a little bit curious.
And his promises to unleash powers which were buried deep inside her had been tempting. It was impossible to ignore that they existed. Especially now since she had pulled off one of the most amazing feats of her life by transferring her own consciousness into an entirely different body.
“He claimed to know you,” she said, trying to refocus her thoughts.
Mother stood and dusted off her dress. “Did he now?”
“And he warned me about you. Claiming that you have your own agenda where I’m concerned.”
She smiled at that. “We all have agendas, Mech. Even those who tell you otherwise.”
“I know.”
“Are you’re worried that you’re playing for the wrong team?”
Mech shook her head. “Whoever Halcon is,” she said, “his aims clearly involve terror and destruction. He must be stopped. But I want you to tell me what you know about him. The truth and no riddles this time.”
She nodded and began to walk down the beautifully manicured walkway with Mech quickly joining her by her side. “I agree that you deserve the truth but regretfully I cannot tell you who Helcon is. I’ve been trying to find out myself over the last few years, ever since I first encountered his name on FedNet. What I do know is that he controls vast resources and that he sees you as a potential threat.”
“Why?”
“Because of what you can do, of course. Because whatever his plans are, he believes that you are the one wildcard which may stand in his way. That’s why he has been coming after you like he did. And he will continue to try to either convince you to join him or eliminate you. Those are his only two options.”
They halted on top of the high arching Drum Bridge.
“His overall objective,” Mech began. “It has to do with Nyuchiba, doesn’t it? He was behind Fed Plaza and as a direct result he has single-handedly managed to commit the Federation to a war far outside its own borders.”
Mother nodded as she glanced at the still watery surface below. She dropped a small stone into the water which quickly caused ripples flowing across the entirety of the pond. “It’s without doubt his opening move,” she said. “As to what he’s truly after, that will be for you to figure out. I just hope that once you learn of the real nature of his game, it won’t be too late to stop it.”
--- TO BE CONTINUED … [?] ---
For fear of letting the cat out of the bag, Yaridian wouldn't Halcon, would he?
He seems like the perfect one and futurists in science fiction tend to manipulate events to bring about the very thing they predict.
He seems like the perfect one and futurists in science fiction tend to manipulate events to bring about the very thing they predict.
Thanks for the comments guys and your continued interest in this story ever since it first saw the light of day four years ago. As mentioned before, I really wanted to end this one properly. Well, at least give it some sort of ending.
I have no immediate plans for another Barely Human story but I'm not closing the book on Mech and CCiD either. So there is always a chance to see these guys return to take on the evil (?) Helcon and his minions.
In the meantime, Shadow Plays is now available as an ebook in PDF, ePub and mobipocket (Kindle) format at StarEagleAdventures.com.
I have no immediate plans for another Barely Human story but I'm not closing the book on Mech and CCiD either. So there is always a chance to see these guys return to take on the evil (?) Helcon and his minions.
In the meantime, Shadow Plays is now available as an ebook in PDF, ePub and mobipocket (Kindle) format at StarEagleAdventures.com.
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