Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Natalia listened to the reports from her team, even as she watched kids stream by her, stopping where Kay and Marigold were waving them to the side, to join with the mass of refugee non-combatants from the Deep. Her thirty-man assault team stood ready, with the demolitions man holding the detonator. They were standing at the last wall before the Diana’s building and launching slip. Rei appeared around the corner, dragging one of his team, injured, behind him. He quickly handed the wounded man off to his sister as Natalia approached.

  “Status?”

  “Noriko and the last of my guys are at the end of the column. I lost two men and a few of the kids to stray fire, but we got to the tunnels far enough ahead that we could blow them. I think Noriko said she had a few devices Saki had given her that she was going to plant…”

  The sound of an explosion, muffled but audible even over the footsteps and muffled sobbing of the children around them, reached their ears.

  “Plant them along the way behind us.” Rei shrugged, finishing his statement. “We won’t be having anyone come after us that way, at least not any time soon.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Natalia nodded and raised her voice. “I want all the kids to keep their heads down and covered. Older students cover the infant’s heads. You all get one minute to tune your ears to take the sound of a nearby explosion!” She yelled, nodding to the demolitions guy. She strode down the line, looking to make sure her orders were being obeyed, when she grabbed Marigold. “I’m going to need Kay to come out with the combat team to act as a medic. I want you to wait till I signal and bring those kids in after we’ve cleared a path. Got me?”

  Marigold swallowed but nodded. “We’ll be right behind you, Major.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear.” Natalia smiled at the smaller blond. “Check your kids. Then I want your head covered too.”

  Turning to Rei she looked him over critically, to make sure he wasn’t injured. He grinned at her attention. “What, making sure I’m not broken?”

  “I might need you in working order later.” Natalia commented, blushing when she realized how that could be taken. Rei chuckled but didn’t return the unintentional double entendre. “Get your unwounded people rounded up as they come in, and take the rear guard position on the kids. Your guys aren’t carrying the heavy weapons the assault crew is fielding, so you’re not going to be much help in the initial raid.”

  Rei frowned, wanting to argue, but knew he’d be next to useless. The men selected for the assault squad were the best marksmen, armed with a mix of sniper rifles, and old fashioned assault weapons equipped with their small number of rocket propelled grenade launchers. They were praying the security inside the Diana facility was still as weak as Shido’s information suggested, and those grenades where their method of handling the towers their few pictures showed inside. “I’ll cover your ass. But then, can you really blame me?”

  He winked, stealing a kiss which sent several of the older kids into giggles despite their fear, before he headed back down the tunnel and column of children still trickling in. Natalia, blushing, shushed the children and re-issued her orders to get down and covered.

  She keyed her headset. “Saki, I’m getting ready to breach the final wall. Rei and what’s left of his team is on rear guard. Get the Sirens together and join up with him.”

  “Yes sir.” Was the younger girls reply.

  Natalia turned and gestured to the demolitions man on her team. “Raul, you ready to make me a door?”

  “Sure, just as soon as you tell me if you want a decorative door, or just a simple slab.” He snarked back. Absently Natalia wondered if all explosives experts were crazy.

  “How about big?”

  “Big I can do.” He grinned, flipping the safety cover off the switch. “Fire in the hole!”

  The explosion caused the children to scream and cry, none of them having been anywhere near as close to one of its scale before. Natalia ignored them and shouldered her assault rifle, bringing the sights to her eye even as she reached the jagged mouth of the new hole in the cement. Around her several others did the same, and the rest settled their rifle and grenade launcher combos onto their hips to absorb the kick. The dust slowly settled, and her sights settled on a stunned looking InSec officer. “Fire at will!” She ordered.

  Saki almost rammed into Rei as she found the last stream of scared kids from the crèche and rounded the corner. Takeda was on her shoulder, barely able to walk. “There you are!” Rei said, gesturing at one of his bigger men to take the albino from the small girl’s shoulders. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming. Where’s the rest of the Gestalt team?”

  “Half passed out, and trailing behind. I’m not sure they’ll make it without help.” Saki admitted. “I grabbed Takada, but I’ll need more people to go back after them, sir.”

  Rei looked at Saki, and at the last of the children going down the tunnel. Sounds of gunfire and grenade originated explosions drifted softly up the tunnel from where the fighting was. “How far away is the gestalt team?”

  “A hundred meters sir.”

  Rei did the math. The kids would be in the chamber before his people could reach the handful of Siren Saki had been forced to leave, with no one watching their backs. He considered the possibility of sending only a couple of his people with the girl, but quickly ruled against it. They’d have to choose who to help, and who to leave.

  He got the job of leading them, so that was his job now. “Natalia ordered us to cover the kids retreat. That’s the priority.”

  “We won’t be able to come back for them once we reach the Diana.” Saki argued.

  Rei nodded. “I know. But there’s easily a hundred Siren among the refugees and I’ve counted easily twice that number among the kids. Ten versus two hundred other innocents, and that’s ignoring the Kitsune. The math isn’t there, Saki.”

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  The girl grimaced, but nodded. “We better get moving then.”

  “Yes. We better.” Rei sighed. They moved down the tunnel to catch up with the children.

  Natalia brushed her red hair out of her eyes, sweat and chemical smoke stinging her them. She was over half way to the large, boxy shape of the Diana and had been relieved to find that resistance had been relatively light. Of her original thirty men she still had twenty-five of them, and none of those were wounded.

  “Sven! Grab a few people and get that door open!” She yelled, gesturing to a large cargo and personnel loading ramp at the back of the ship. The other man, wielding an assault rifle, pointed at three other fighters and ran straight for the ship.

  Natalia turned and looked back, scanning the area behind them for enemy combatants. Seeing none she taped her headset live. “Marigold, get the refugees moving! Make sure they know not to walk!”

  “Yes Major!” Marigold’s voice replied, and moments later running men, women, and children came out of the hole, heading for Natalia’s position.

  “You ten, go around the left side of the Diana! You ten, take the right. Make sure no one’s trying to come around her to get at us!” Natalia ordered, before following the team she’d sent to open the door. The hydraulics were already whining, the huge leaf of steel and ceramic lowering to the work floor. She spotted the bodies of two security men, next to the lock her people had used to enter, and slid in after them.

  “Any on board resistance?” She asked, scanning the cavernous cargo hold of the experimental ship, her rifle lowered but the stock secured against her shoulder.

  “No. There might be people further in, but none down here.”

  Natalia nodded, and keyed her com again. “Saki, how are you doing?”

  “I’ve joined up with Rei. We’re behind the refugees but it’s going to be about five, ten minutes before we get to you.”

  Natalia walked to the lowering cargo ramp, gesturing to the refugee’s who were already closing on the Diana to run up them. She froze; dread filling her, as she saw armed men in the clothing of Expeditionary Force Rangers appearing from the secured tube way station on the other side of the factory floor. “Make it five. We’ve got hard cases coming up from our eight o’clock!”

  “I’ll start kicking the kids in their asses, sir. Saki out.”

  Natalia changed the ammo clip of her ammunition starved assault rifle and brought it to her shoulder. Scanning the orderly moving mass of Rangers she passed over target after target, finally finding one with a flash of brass on his shoulder. Her rifle barked and when she returned her sights to her target he was a corpse laying on the deck. “I need my snipers at the cargo bay, NOW!” She yelled, hoping the teams on the side of the ship could hear her over the panicked refugees.

  Rei blinked as they left the dimly lit tunnel for the well lit, cavernous chamber that was the launch slip for the ship. Scanning around, he cursed as he saw men exchanging fire with defenders on the craft. His cursing turned viler when a grenade, launched by the Rangers, landed among a pack of refugees and exploded, sending their bodies flying, some in more than one piece.

  “Saki!” He yelled, the girl appearing next to him an instant later. She cursed and pulled a wide, short tube off her back and pushed it into Rei’s hand. “Spare launcher. Try to hit big crowds. Even you should be able to manage that!”

  “Gee, thanks!” Rei muttered, as he watched her launch a grenade from the barrel slung under her own assault rifle. He considered asking why she had two of the things in the first place, but decided he didn’t want to know. Instead, he brought the borrowed weapon up to his shoulder and fired into the biggest crowd of soldiers he could see.

  He was satisfied when they met the same fate as the unarmed refugee’s they had killed. “Everyone not toting big bombs get your asses to the ship and help them defend!” He ordered, sliding a grenade off the back of Saki’s bandolier and sliding it into the now empty tube in his hands. “And hurry it up!” He yelled, firing another shot, scoring another handful of dead Rangers.

  “Remind me to give Takada crap about missing these jokers.” Saki commented as she loaded another grenade into her launcher.

  “No problem. Now start running.” Rei yelled, snatching the rifle out of Saki’s hands, and pushing the launcher she’d given him into her arms.

  “What the hell!”

  “You’re our pilot. You need to get on that thing’s bridge five minutes ago. I’ll be right behind you!”

  “You can’t hit the broad side of a barn! Why’d you take my gun?” She snarled

  “Cause they’ll shoot at the guy gunning at them, not the pretty girl who’s just running, now haul ass!”

  Saki snarled again, but swept off her bandoleer of ammo and grenades and threw it over Rei’s shoulder, and then she began running full tilt towards the Diana, passing scared refugees and children, unintentionally spurring them on to greater speed.

  Rei changed out the gauss rifle’s clip and began running himself, aiming at the biggest masses of rangers and squeezing off bursts of fire at random. He winced as concrete, and steel tools began taking hits in return all around him. “Oh god, this is so stupid! I can’t even run fast like this!” he muttered, barely keeping up with the end of the line of refugees. “Natalia’s going to kill me.”

  Natalia grabbed Saki as she tore up the ramp. “Where’s Rei?” She demanded. Saki gestured behind her, pointing at the figure farthest in the back. “What the hell is he doing there?”

  “Drawing fire, like an idiot. Your kids had better take after you in the brain category!” Saki grunted.

  “I’ll kill him!”

  “Only if he lives, which the idiot probably will. Where’s the bridge?”

  Natalia grabbed one of her men and pushed him towards Saki. “You two read the maps, same as me. Go find it and get this tub moving!”

  “Right away, Major.” Saki sang as she ran with the other man on her heels.

  “Everyone, give Rei covering fire! If a Ranger kills him before I get the chance, I will have someone’s head on a platter!”

  Saki cursed, ripping the front of her shirt off to bind the hole in her leg. She glanced at the corpse of her partner, but shook him off and limped into the gore covered cabin that was the Diana’s bridge.

  While the powers that be, in whatever they mistook for eternal wisdom, decided not to have personnel stationed on the Diana for the most part, they’d apparently kept a small security team of four men in the bridge at all times. That was Saki’s assumption at least, when she had come around the corner and found them all pointing weapons at her.

  She’d thrown herself to the ground, hand drawing her sonic stunner as she went down, even as her partner came around the corner. Her partner squeezed off a burst, taking one man in the chest before he ate the remaining three men’s fire himself.

  Her pistol free, Saki had planted two shots into the chest of the nearest man, then squeezed a third into the one behind him. Unfortunately, the last man standing had not panicked, and had drawn a tight bead on her. Reactions born of spending time in the toxic swamps that dominated most of Australia was all that allowed Saki to curl into a ball putting her own thigh between her chest and the InSec man’s sonic pistol.

  She’d felt her thigh shatter, and saw blood as the sound shred flesh, but it wasn’t enough to put her down and she’d had her pistol locked onto his head even as he’d shot her. One last trigger pull and the man went down.

  Clumsily she climbed into the pilot’s chair, tapping the screen and bringing it live. A quick scan showed all systems at nominal rest. Sighing, relieved that the ship wasn’t behind schedule and unable to fly, she keyed her headset on. “Natalia, this is Saki. I have the bridge.”

  “Can she fly?” Natalia asked, the sound of gunfire making her hard to understand.

  “Starting emergency activation now. I’m not sure I’ll get a chance to warn you before I shut the doors.”

  “Stop talking and do it, Saki!”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Saki’s fingers began to fly, forcing systems into hard boots, and the engines to spin up without the proper pre-flight checks. It was reckless and stupid in an experimental craft, but Saki was smiling like a loon.

  This was what she lived for.