A Wish the Heart Makes : Fornever in Blue Genes

by: Tigger

 

Chapter 24: Assault on the Lady’s Castle

Five dark shadows closed on the small, makeshift outpost on the edge of the BioCybernetics compound. The smallest of the group put a head over to the group’s leader.

"You’re sure that we will have the fifteen minutes we need?" the Mandy-Leader whispered hoarsely.

"As sure as we can be, Leader," the team leader replied, just as softly. "They have beefed up their guard force, since they haven’t been able to get the physical security repaired yet. We have had them under surveillance since our attack team’s egress. They check in at random intervals, sometimes at their initiative, sometimes in response to a call from the command watch. Never more than forty five minutes between call-ins, and only once less than ten minutes - we think that happened at watch shift change. In any case, ninety percent of the reports are at intervals of 18 to 32 minutes." The team leader had gone over this with the Leader before they’d left their own base, but she was used to dealing with nervous amateurs. Besides, the woman was simply too powerful. Last thing the team leader needed was to piss her Leader off.

The team leader turned her attention back to the small camp that was her next objective. Whoever had trained those boys had done it right. Nothing provided any illumination that might guide their weapons, and they never stayed in one place for any length of time. Even her directional listening gear wasn’t picking up anything. There was none of the grab-assing that might have characterized most civilian security teams. These guys were pros.

But then, she thought with some pride, so was she, and she had trained her operatives pretty damned well, too. "Point!" she whispered into her throat mike.

"Point," the response came back immediately.

"Verify your count on enemy operatives at objective."

"Same as before, One," the former special forces sergeant answered. "It’s a four man team working in pairs with a team leader at the main post. They’ve got the breech covered in a classic crossfire kill zone."

"Send me the coordinates for the fire teams and be ready to take out anyone we miss."

"Roger," the incongruously soft, feminine voice responded. Immediately, firing data flowed into the command set.

The team leader turned her night vision gear back on the command post, wishing she dared use something like an active sensor. The team leader was hers, and she had to be certain he’d just made his check in with his central watch office before she took him down. *Patience, Captain,* she warned herself, instinctively using her former Army rank in the mental admonishment.

Then, the shadowy figure in her screen went momentarily almost to attention, and his hand went to the side of his head. The team leader spun the gain on her hearing gear to maximum and was rewarded with a scratchy, "Gatepost four, all clear, out."

Without moving, she took a single breath, aimed and squeezed off her silenced shot, then triggered the small handheld device she’d laid next to her. Her own target had not yet even fallen to the ground when the two mortar-like tubes belched out their thirty millimeter projectiles.

Two small bursts of light appeared a couple of meters above the ground, each about twenty meters from the breech in the fence. "Point, report!"

"Point here, Cap’n," she said back, forgetting their new ranks in the excitement of action. "Gas deployed perfectly. All targets appear down."

*Good girl,* the team leader thought. *Never assume anything until you know for sure.* "Point, Two, reconnoiter the two targets, and ensure all operatives are down."

The only response she got was a pair of "click-click’s" over the radio. She herself moved out then, to make sure the opposition leader was also down. He was. The drugged dart had taken him just below the solar plexus. "He’ll be out for at least twelve hours," she said when the heavily breathing Leader caught up with her.

"Still . . . don’t know . . . why . . . you insisted on . . . non-lethal weapons," the Leader rasped out with some acerbity.

"Because this won’t piss them off as much, and taking care of their wounded might delay their pursuit if we have to make a quick bug-out. They’re not likely going to have enough people on site to do both, and whereas they’d leave the dead behind to get their killers, they will stop to tend their fallen comrades."

"One, this is point. Right objective secured."

"One, this is Two, Left objective secured."

"Roger," she responded. "Move out to the main objective. Shoot anything that moves at this point. We need to be inside that building in ten minutes or less and we can’t afford a fire fight."

She got clicks from each of her three troopers and turned to the Leader. "Well, Ma’am, now it’s time for your part in this little shindig."

"Let’s go," the Leader responded grimly. "It’s past time."

~---------------~

Teri looked at the disgusting mass of primordial slime that was slowly flowing away from the calcium-based bone structure. Only years of nursing kept her from adding to the soon-to-be sewage by vomiting, but *never* had she seen anything so . . . so disgusting.

She’d known this was possible. She’d heard Dr. West discussing it, but she’d never, not in her worst nightmares, conceived of anything like this. And it had happened so *fast*! Less than two hours ago, that . . . that pile of pre- protoplasm had been a living woman, and now . . . whatever *it* was, it wasn’t alive.

*Why don’t I feel anything?* Teri asked herself through the numbing haze. *She used to be such an important, vital part of my life, and now she’s dead.*

Quietly, she let herself out of the chamber and set the security lock. *Have to think. What went wrong? Maybe this just a stage of the transition and she isn’t really dead.* Teri shook her head. *You’re dreaming, Richards. Morag didn’t go through anything like that. She stayed human-formed throughout her transition.*

"Oh my god," she breathed, speaking aloud for the first time. "Morag! They’ll kill her trying to figure out what didn’t go wrong in her case."

A guard walked down the corridor. "Dr. Florence," she said respectfully, "will you be here tonight?"

"Yes, comrade," Teri responded quickly. "I have to watch over Deputy Leader Freuda’s treatment and will likely be here until she is through the more critical phases."

"Yes, Ma’am. Well, have a good evening. Call if you need anything."

Teri sagged against the hall, grateful that the guard had not heard her words. *So, Teri, Morag will die. Did you think they were really going to let her live?* she asked herself.

*But it would have been a clean death,* she argued, *not the slow death of a lab animal being dissected alive.*

*Dead is dead, girl,* her other voice said harshly.

"But I don’t WANT HER *DEAD*!" she said, barely realizing she’d again spoken aloud.

Brought up short by the force of her own feelings, Teri stared at the door to the room where the sleeping man who had been Morag MacPherson lay. *I don’t want her dead,* she repeated in her mind. *Why?*

And the answer was suddenly there, painfully clear and irrefutable. *Because I don’t want to live in a world where she isn’t. Because I am in love with her.*

Taking a deep breath, she slipped into her office to plan and get what she needed. Whatever she did, it would have to be done quickly - before the Leader came back and found the rotting pile of amino acids and carbohydrates that had once been Freuda Fredricka Van Damme.

 

 

 

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© 1996 by Tigger. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.