• Published 22nd May 2012
  • 7,340 Views, 759 Comments

Hegira: Option Gamma - Guardian_Gryphon

  • ...
49
 759
 7,340

Chapter 4

Wrenn sighed and collapsed into a half-sitting position against a wall. He was sweaty, exhausted, and emotionally spent. Five hours, and all anyone had managed to do was verify a headcount and ensure there were no PER left in the building.

Wrenn suspected it would be at least ten hours before they reached a safe non-hazmat stage. There was still congealed potion all over the building, some of it in hard to reach nooks and crannies.

He wondered how something so good could have been turned to such a terrible use.
It occurred to him that most technology fell into the same formula. Something could be very good or very bad depending on context, perspective, and consent.

Wrenn looked on as a suited soldier helped a newfoal to his feet. The military police had arrived in force two hours previous, putting a great many desperately needed personnel into action.

The soldier gave the pony some water from his canteen, then helped him to the lift where two med techs took over. Wrenn was about to take the moment for all the encouragement it was worth and get back to work when he noticed something through the side-scan range of his implants. The soldier was taking off his helmet and gloves.

Wrenn turned back to deliver a scathing rebuke, and saw a nightmare in motion.
The soldier had turned to lean against a wall. A wall covered in potion residue that he hadn’t seen as he was removing his helmet.

As Wrenn dove forward, the accelerated emergency course came back to him, forced from the depths of memory into active recall by an overriding need. He reached for a small amber hued canister on his belt, inscribed with a double triangle.

The soldier’s hand hit the potion covered wall at the same moment that Wrenn hit the man and forced him to the ground.
Not waiting for an invitation, Wrenn used his left hand to pop the cap from the cylinder and spray it all over the man’s hand.

He snagged the discarded helmet with his free hand, and forced it rather harshly back onto the soldier’s head, holding it in place until the air seals clicked.

For a moment neither of them spoke, they just stared in unison at the crystallized blob over the man’s right hand, and within its transparent depths, the patch of pastel fur that had just begun to form.

A patch which the crystallization mist had only just arrested in time.

Wrenn yanked the man to his feet and rammed his left glove back on directly over-top of the crystallized blob, “Get to medical. Now.”

It wasn’t phrased as a request, despite the fact that the soldier wore a lieutenant commander’s bars. The officer staggered to the lift in a daze.

Wrenn shook his head in awe. One little act of stupidity had nearly cost the officer his choice.
They would likely have to amputate his entire arm at the elbow and regrow it. Just to be sure.

Fifteen hours in, and the Liberty Bell Tower was finally clear of uncontained potion.
The newfoals had all been evacuated, and forensics had begun to process the building.
Wrenn sat in the forward command tent, slurping from a large water canteen.
Beside him the three Gryphons were also drinking their fill, albeit in a more measured fashion.

No one spoke. There was no need for words. Even Sildinar seemed tired, which to Wrenn meant that they were all well past the breaking point. Sleep was quickly becoming a survival necessity.

“Not the average work day you guys expected when you signed up for this huh?”
Even in exhaustion, Wrenn wanted to take advantage of the moment and satisfy his curiosity.

Kephic glanced up from his canteen, “I must admit, I’ve seen many strange things since coming to your world. This would have to rank as the most horrifying.”

Varan nodded in agreement, “Honorable combat is one thing, but this kind of warfare? It is the coward’s way out.”

Wrenn shrugged, “The PER certainly don’t seem inclined to conventional warfare tactics. Gotta give them this tho; They managed to get over half the ConSec Northeast main force deployed. That's never happened before.”

“Say that again.”

Everyone turned to stare, Sildinar’s tone had been blood chilling.

“This kind of warfare is the coward's way out?” Varan proffered with cocked head.

“They managed to get over half the ConSec main force deployed?” Wrenn shrugged again and sipped his canteen.

“Hang on!” Wrenn spluttered, spewing water across the tent, “You don’t think....?”
Sildinar stared at each of them in turn as the realization dawned.

Kephic didn’t seem convinced, “This entire attack has been... What? a ploy to bring down the security strength at the Bureau?”

Wrenn slammed the canteen down on a shelf, “It makes sense. The PER fight a coward’s war. The kind of war where you send soldiers into battle loaded down with a deadman's switch, who aren’t ready to die for their cause. The kind of war where psychological manipulation is key. The kind of war where something like the new variant of potion could deal their campaign a crippling blow. The new variant being stored in a Bureau that is now missing three fourths of its security division.”

Sildinar leapt up, all traces of exhaustion gone, and bolted to the holo-table. His talons moved back and forth across the surface so quickly that it looked like some sort of choreographed dance.

Commander ‘Hutch’ blinked into existence on the screen, the hustle and bustle of the ConSec situation room framed behind his head.

“What’s the emergency? You aren’t supposed to check in again for another three---”

Sildinar cut him off, “Double your security precautions and initiate full lock-down. To be safe you should also evacuate all civilian personnel and newfoals immediately.”

Hutch turned and relayed several shouted orders to the room behind him, then faced the screen again, “Do you mind telling me why I just put our main command center into lock-down in the middle of a crisis?”

Sildinar and Kephic took turns slowly explaining the line of reasoning that had lead them all to the same inevitable conclusion. After a few minutes even Hutch was forced to admit that it was worth taking precautions.

“I want you four back here as soon as possible, and if you can manage to corral them bring two security squads as well. If not, then bring every other soldier you can lay hands on.”

Sildinar nodded and cut the channel, “Wrenn, Kephic, go commandeer three VTOLs, Varan you’re with me.”

By the time the small VTOL formation and the Gryphons reached New York it was dusk again.
The smog of the city rendered the twilight in gray foreboding tones, most of which were lost on Wrenn. Even with the antiseptic view of the world presented by his implants, he could see enough to know there was going to be a nasty storm, one way or another.

He shifted in the co-pilot’s seat and tapped his mic, “Any luck?”

The pilot shook his head, “Negative, still no contact with the Bureau. Special Forces and Marines are finally en route from the Indianapolis though. They should arrive about the same time we do.”

The Bureau had stopped responding to radio contact during the flight. Wrenn knew better than to think that it might be a simple malfunction or mere coincidence. He glanced out the cockpit window at Sildinar’s silhouette. The three Gryphons had taken up a V formation around the aircraft.

The lieutenant directed his query outwards, towards the avians.

“What’s the play here?”

Wrenn could just make out Sildinar’s claw as it came up and tapped his own strangely shaped earpiece.

“Kephic and I will accompany one ConSec VTOL, land on the roof and enter through the upper lift shafts. Special Forces squads, Marines, and the Military Police will breach through the main entrance. You and Varan will be dropped off at a mid-level balcony to attack from the center.”

“A three pronged blitz?”

“I suppose you could call it that, yes. Go directly to the vault and secure the crate. Don’t go out of your way to secure the building. Let the rest of us deal with the PER. If they choose to fight a pacifist’s battle, then we have the advantage.”

The rest of the flight passed in silence. Wrenn’s implants picked out the Bureau complex at a distance, but it wasn’t until the VTOL swung around to an outside balcony that he got close enough to see that the windows lacked the distinctive colored glow of interior lighting. The building had lost power.

As the VTOL slewed to a position near the twentieth floor, the side doors swung open.
A soldier passed Wrenn his rifle, along with a ‘good luck’ slap on the back.

The lieutenant jumped from the craft and hit the balcony dead center. He rolled to diffuse his momentum and came up with his RAC covering the door.

A moment later Varan silently dropped from above to alight beside him. If he hadn’t been looking right at him, he would have missed it, the Gryphon had moved with near absolute silence.

Wrenn quietly mouthed ‘after you.’ Varan nodded, and without further ado kicked in the door.
As he stepped through the hole of the deformed frame into the dim corridor, a small part of Wrenn’s brain wondered how much force it had actually taken to dislodge a steel door from a heavy weatherproof fitting in one blow.

He swept the corridor from one end to the other with his implants, but detected no anomalous movement. The shadows left by the emergency lighting did nothing to adversely affect the digitized polygons that showed Wrenn every inch of the space.

Perhaps the evacuation, at least, had gone according to plan, he mused. There didn’t seem to be any civilian activity.

Varan had already taken up a crouch in a T-junction at the end of the hall, so Wrenn assumed the Gryphon's night vision was also good enough to navigate the low light situation in the building.

From the intersection the two set off at an unusually fast pace. Most infiltration actions Wrenn had been a part of had consisted of a long slow game of ‘leapfrog’ as each operator on the team moved to a point, and gained a fraction of secure ground.

With Varan it was more of a ‘take no breaks, no prisoners, and few precautions’ methodology.
Eventually both stopped paying any regard to stealth and simply did their best to move as quickly as possible.

“So. Done this before?” Varan’s voice surprised Wrenn so much that it took him a moment to see the humor in it.

“Repeatedly, though never with such a... uniquely qualified wing-man. You?”

Varan chuckled darkly, “Repeatedly. Although usually the kill count was much higher by now.”

They rounded the next corner to behold a man in white combat armor with no insignia leaning over the body of a ConSec guard. Varan’s reaction was preternaturally fast.

Before the PER agent could even open his mouth, the Gryphon flung his sword in a tightly spinning arc that left it buried up to the hilt right in the weakest part of the intruder's neck plating.

Wrenn stood in shock as the Gryphon retrieved his sword forcibly from the corpse.
“The PER will have to learn some harsh lessons. That was a fledgling mistake”

“Will you teach me that trick?”

“You don’t have the reflexes.”

Sildinar and Kephic were making good progress. Since their ingress via a roof hatch they had eliminated two PER agents and lost none of their human squadmates.

That was largely due to the fact that Sildinar insisted the Humans stay far behind and provide long range cover. As far as he was concerned they were there to secure the areas that had already been cleared. Why, he reasoned, should they risk more lives on point than necessary?

In the next side room the two Gryphons came upon a pair of PER infiltrators huddled over something on the floor. Generally the policy was no prisoners, but it was too good an opportunity to waste. Forming fists out of their claws Kephic and Sildinar administered what they would have considered to be fairly average blows. The two infiltrators fell forward with shattered helmets and bloody skulls; Alive, but just barely.

As the unconscious bodies fell to the side, the object they had been working on was revealed.
Kephic frowned, “I may still be getting used to human technology, but this particular piece strikes me as bad.”

Sildinar raised an eyebrow, “Extremely.”

“All teams, switch to hazmat protocols. There are dispersion cylinders on site.”

Wrenn skidded to a stop and pressed his earpiece into a better position, “Say again?!”
Sildinar repeated the warning.

Varan raced back and began unpacking gloves and sealing rings from Wrenn’s belt as the lieutenant readied his re-breather mask.

Once the heads up display on his visor and the light on his mask all showed green, Wrenn breathed a sigh of relief. “You know, on second thought we probably should have all come in like this.”

“What is your human phrase? hindsight is 20/20.”

“For us maybe, for you I’d guess 20/1”

“Actually it is closer to 200/1 on the standard scale.”

“Show-off.”

When they finally reached the secure potion vault below the main level, Varan had to provide the biometric access. Wrenn, like all the Humans, couldn’t risk removing his helmet or gloves until the complex had been swept down to the micrometer.

The interior of the vault was dimly lit by capacitor-powered emergency lighting, drawn from the same power source that kept the doors magnetically sealed and the security measures active.

Not for the first time in his life, Wrenn truly appreciated his implants; He knew they were the only thing that kept him on par with Varan for night vision. It made him much less open to ambush in the dark.

Wrenn stepped into the long low room and Varan sealed the door behind them.
The potion vault was twenty feet high, four aisles wide, and easily a hundred yards long; A featureless concrete half-cylinder four stories underground, with steel trussed ceiling buttresses.

Each aisle had shelves stocked with row upon row of ponification serum in sealed canisters.

The canisters were contained as sets of four inside clear plexiglass cubes, with gray carbon fiber frames, housing a four digit locking mechanism; A final safety measure to ensure the substance wasn’t abused, dropped, splashed, or in any way misapplied.

Varan and Wrenn made their way cautiously to the back of the room where a separate sealed door partitioned off a large alcove for hazardous waste, prototype potion, or any other sort of chemical too important, or dangerous, to be stored in the main vault.

Varan supplied his bio-metrics by way of laying a talon on the DNA scanner pad, then typed two long codes. Wrenn knew enough to guess that the second one was an override for emergency situations when only one authorized person was present to unlock the alcove; It likely wouldn't function without certain prerequisite conditions, such as the loss of power.

Varan then gestured for Wrenn to supply his access code.

The lieutenant shook his head, “My clearance is too low.”

“I supplied an override, but it still needs the authorization of a second person with at least some sort of Bureau security clearance, however low or high.”

The Gryphon shrugged, an amusing imitation of the human motion with his wings and shoulders, “Don’t ask me why, your kind designed it.”

Wrenn stepped forward and dutifully tapped out his authorization code. There was a clank, a hiss, and the large door slid back to reveal the Gryphonization potion crate, still securely locked into the floor with four large clamps.

Wrenn sighed, “Well that’s a relief.”

“Its a start.”

“Now we babysit?”

“Peculiar turn of phrase. But yes.”

Wrenn took up a cover position behind one of the potion racks.
Varan re-sealed the alcove, then surprised Wrenn by vaulting into the air.
As he watched, fascinated, the Gryphon effortlessly flipped over in mid-air and snagged hold of a ceiling pylon.

He hung there in the shadows, completely out of sight to the average human entering the room.

Wrenn smirked. He almost wanted the PER to break through the vault door, just to see their reactions to having an angry mass of claws, feathers, and beak dropped on their heads.

He got his wish.

After close to fifteen minutes of silence a low hiss began to emanate from the vault door.

Wrenn recognized the sound of a plasma cutter. He had been in the boots of the soldier on the other side of the door more than a few times. He knew from the pitch of the accompanying whine, and the growing glow down the center of the door, that the PER had brought a very large, very powerful variant of the tool.

Under normal circumstances a powered energy diffusion matrix would be protecting the door, making it virtually indestructible to anything but the raw force of a man-portable nuke. But without main power the door’s defenses were all innate. While the inactive diffusion matrix could hold off the cutter for a few minutes, it would eventually reach saturation and ablate, after which the door would practically dissolve in the face of the merciless searing plasma.

Wrenn waited until he judged that the door was at shattering-point before signaling Varan to be ready. True to his guess, the door essentially vaporized with a loud bang as room temperature air rushed into the super-heated space left by the dissociated metal.

Through the haze and smoke stepped three figures in unmarked white combat armor.
Wrenn waited until they were well inside before standing up.

The PER agents turned to train their weapons on Wrenn, and thus missed the tiny scratching sound of Varan’s claws disengaging from the ceiling buttress.

After that they didn’t have a chance to make further mistakes.

Wrenn was disappointed, Varan dealt with them so quickly his implants couldn’t even process what was happening.
There was a blur, and suddenly three bodies slumped to the floor.

One had his rifle jammed all the way through his head and out the back of his helmet, the second sported four identical talon punctures in the weak points of his neck plating, and the last one slid off Varan’s sword blade, which had been forced violently into the lower edge of his shoulder joint.

“Are there any more?” Wrenn called out from behind a potion rack.
As if in answer, a bolt of something purple and electrically charged whizzed past his head, having missed Varan by only a millimeter a moment before.

The Gryphon dispatched the offending shooter with a well placed RAC round of his own, then ducked back behind the door frame.

“Most definitely.”

The ConSec situation room had devolved into chaos. It would have been apt to describe it as a war-zone; Purple energy bolts, RAC rounds, and laser pistol fire practically filled the space between desks.

The PER had broken into the room at about the same time Sildinar, Kephic, and the reinforcements had arrived to bolster the holed-up troops. None of the teams securing the building had found any additional potion bombs, but it was assumed that the force assaulting the ConSec wing might be carrying one or more besides the previously diffused one.

Kephic popped his head up, leapt to the side to dodge incoming fire, then dove for cover behind an overturned desk.
“I count seven!” his voice was loud enough to be heard over even the thunderous noise of large rail-gun rifles being used indoors.

While the ConSec forces far outnumbered the PER, the intruders had a choke point and good cover from within the doorway. Whatever they were using for weapons, nobody had seen it before. Nobody wanted to be the first to find out what the new rifles did either.

Sildinar managed to find a space close to Hutch and shouted across to him, “Any casualties so far?”

The commander leaned around his desk and sprayed the other side of the room with his laser pistol before replying, “We sent four guys to secure the vault earlier, they never reported in!”

“Unfortunate.”

“Yeah tell me something I DON’T know!”

One of the ConSec troopers stood and began laying down fully automatic suppression fire.
Everyone else took that as the cue to attack, and the entire mass of tired, over-armed, and enraged troopers descended on the enemy position.

Humans, the Gryphons, and even a few Ponies; All had abandoned the idea of a bloodless end to the conflict in favor of simply shooting anything that moved.

A few stray bolts of purple energy whizzed through the doorway, but these quickly ceased after Hutch tossed two grenades into the aperture followed by a spray of pistol fire.

When the smoke finally cleared, seven bodies, in multiple pieces, lay strewn throughout the entrance hall to the situation room. The three Ponies who had been part of the defending force turned away. The few Equestrians who could learn to muster violent tendencies at vitally necessary moments could seldom hold onto their aggression, or stomach serious violence, for more than a few minutes.

“Commander!” an urgent voice rang out, and Hutch turned to see two staff members supporting the heavily armored trooper who had begun the assault.

“He was hit by one of the energy bolts!”

Sildinar cautiously removed the soldier’s helmet, while Hutch unfastened the chest-plate.
Both jumped back reflexively when the person inside was revealed. The man, or rather half man, was well on his way to becoming a deep green Pegasus with a lime mane.

Hutch cursed, “How did they penetrate his armor?”

Kephic stepped into the room from the hall and held up one of the deceased invader’s rifles; It looked, to Hutch's eye, almost like a particle weapon, but the stock was far bulkier.

“It’s using what looks like potion cartridges for ammunition.”

Hutch cursed a second time.
Kephic threw the weapon down, “You can say that again.”

“I’m out!” Wrenn grasped the barrel of his empty RAC, and swung the rifle like a baseball bat, catching an incoming intruder full in the helmet.

The stock of the weapon put a series of shallow, spidery cracks in the plexiglass, and distracted the woman long enough for Wrenn to pull his laser pistol and finish the job.

The fairly weak blasts couldn’t penetrate the energy diffusion matrix of combat armor, but the face-plates of the enemy helmets weren’t quite as well protected, and thus made an excellent exploitable weak-point at close range.

“Only four more!” Varan called out from across the room as he finished driving his sword into an attacker’s heart by way of his armor’s shoulder joint. The Gryphon had been fighting from a bipedal position for the last ten minutes.

As Wrenn looked on, Varan effortlessly snagged the dead soldier’s falling rifle, tossed it into a vertical spinning arc, then yanked his sword from the corpse’s armor.

The Gryphon continued the motion, bringing the sword down and around to catch the next enemy in line directly in the legs. He moved his left claw off the sword, caught the falling rifle again, this time by the barrel, and swung it forward into the soldier next in line, killing him instantly as the stock of the weapon crushed his helmet.

Without pausing, Varan brought his back left paw down onto the fallen soldier whose legs still contained half of his sword. He used the retractable claws to dig into the screaming enemy’s helmet, then twist it violently to the side, snapping the neck contained within.

“Two more.”

Wrenn figured the Gryphon had accounted for three times as many kills as he had, and so far none of the PER infiltrators had been able to lay a single gloved hand on Varan. His reflexes more than made up for the fact that the enemy soldiers had far more armor.

By contrast, Wrenn sported six or seven serious bruises from close quarters fisticuffs.

The first of the two remaining enemies caught Wrenn’s attention. He wasn’t carrying an odd particle rifle like his teammates, instead he carried what looked to be an actual full on grenade launcher.

Wrenn presumed it was intended for either the Gryphons, the inner vault door, or both.

His speculation was cut short when the man let fly with the weapon.
The explosion was deafening in close confines, and there was nowhere to run or dodge, even for Varan. The explosion was simply larger than the space containing it, making it quite effective.

Potion from broken containers spattered everywhere, and Wrenn found time to be thankful for his armor as he was thrown back into the concrete wall with the force of a freight train, robbing him of consciousness temporarily.

When he came to, his first thought was that his armor might have been compromised in the impact, making him vulnerable to all the serum now covering the inside of the vault.
A quick systems check relieved that fear, causing it to give way to worry over Varan’s fate.

Wrenn pulled himself up through the wreckage of shelves and containers to behold the two remaining enemies holding an unmoving Varan’s talon down onto the biometric access pad of the potion crate. That at least told him that the Gryphon was still alive, the DNA scanner would reject the imprint if it didn’t come from a living breathing being.

Whatever had happened to his laser pistol, Wrenn suspected it was likely in pieces or buried under potion. His RAC was gone, so that left him with his KA-Bar.
He quietly yanked the serrated combat knife from its sequestered leg sheath, and tip-toed towards the secure alcove, waiting for the right moment.

As Wrenn clutched the side of his helmet, trying to clear the wringing in his ears, the PER soldiers began typing on the keypad in unison. To his astonishment, the crate accepted whatever codes they had supplied.
The two intruders succeeded in removing the container’s lid, and leaned in to take stock of their prize. That was all the opportunity he needed.

Wrenn charged madly into the alcove, a guttural war cry tearing from his throat as he slashed back and forth at the two attackers’ neck plates.

He scored a lucky hit in an open joint with the first one, killing him instantly. The second one was in a better position, and his plating deflected the blade easily.

The man tried to raise his particle rifle, but Wrenn kneed him hard in the forearm, sending the weapon spinning away, end over end, into a corner.

From there it was a pure contest of wills. The two combatants smashed each other with every available hard edge in their gloves, boots, and gauntlets trying to either dislodge one another’s armor, or knock the enemy fighter unconscious.

After several adrenaline and rage fueled moments of ceaseless battering, Wrenn sidestepped and allowed his attacker to slip and fall forward into a puddle of potion.

He stepped up behind the man, placed his hands on either side of the white helmet, and kicked it with all his might into the concrete wall.

The force of the blow cracked the already stressed plexiglass and dazed the man. Wrenn delivered another kick, and the faceplate shattered all together. The man’s face fell forward into the purple goo, sealing his fate, and Wrenn flashed a belligerent middle digit before turning to tend to Varan.

He discovered that the Gryphon had been directly beside the grenade when it went off; he was covered in shrapnel wounds and sported a huge gash in his skull, but he was still breathing. Wrenn tapped his earpiece, “Enemy targets neutralized, I need a medic in the potion vault. Bring hazmat gear. And crystallization canisters. Lots of canisters.”

He closed the channel and turned to staunch Varan’s wounds, when the open potion crate caught his eye. So close... and yet so far.

Wrenn shook himself violently and put the idea out of his head.
As he retrieved bandages and scabbie foam from his small medical pack he mumbled under his breath, mostly vague imprecations against politics and the PER.

As the scabbie foam accelerated the process of clotting in Varan’s blood, thus plugging most of the minor and moderate cuts, Wrenn pried one of the Gryphon’s large golden eyes open to check the pupils.

It occurred to him then that perhaps their species didn’t react to concussions the same way humans did, but Varan came to before he could pursue the internal line of questioning further.

“Good morning sleeping beauty.”

The Gryphon coughed, a small spurt of blood tinting the side of his beak, “Why must you insist on using these obfuscated cultural references?”

Wrenn rolled his eyes, “Yeeeaaah. You’re gonna be fine.”