"Thank you Sergeant, that will be all."
Longbow Captain Susan Kane waited until her office door had closed fully before allowing herself the luxury of slumping forward and rubbing her face with her hands. She knew she was a good person, but there were times when she wondered just what the hell her past lives had been up to.
Twenty four hours earlier, a small group of infiltrators had managed to break into Fort Darwin, elude capture for just over an hour, incapacitate four officers and kill a fifth. As if that weren't bad enough, they were then able to hack into a supposedly secure teleport control system and use one of the fort's telepads to go...who knows where.
And now, it was all her problem.
On the positive side, Captain Kane knew that she couldn't be held responsible for any of it. Her entire unit had been engaged in a successful clear and kill mission in a Snake hatchery on the West side of the island. On the negative side, it had somehow become her fault by not being in the base at the time.
"If you had been here, we would have had tighter security. If you and your people hadn't been off on some snake hunt...," her fellow Captain Oswald Montcalm had accused, as her command had returned to the base.
"A snake hunt that we completed neatly and efficiently and one, I might point out, that you turned down because, and I quote 'It wasn't a mission worthy of my men,' unquote. And, " she continued, " I suspect that had we been here instead of you, we would have suspects in custody and your man would still be alive."
It was a low blow but there wasn't any way she was going to let him shift blame. Montcalm was a commander who had lost a man, and it was understandable that he was upset, but he was a self important fool. It was better to shut him down before he could get a solid rant going.
Had she not been bone tired, sweaty, and ready to collapse in an adrenaline crash, she might have been more tactful. Not that it would have helped. Montcalm had that most precious of assets in Longbow. Seniority. His commission predated hers by three weeks, so, despite the fact that he was semi-competent, completely lacking in basic tactical skills, and a lackluster field commander, he was, by Longbow tradition, correct. If he, as a more senior officer, said that it was her fault, then, despite all evidence to the contrary, it was her fault.
As a way of reminding her of her place, Montcalm convinced the base commander to assign her the task of finding and apprehending the suspects. And, just to make it even more galling, he had cited 'ongoing security concerns' to saddle her with a 72 hour time limit.
She had 48 hours left.
She leaned back in her chair and relaxed back into her command state. She knew what her people expected from her and she would always give it to them. She leaned forward slightly and keyed the intercom on her desk.
"Becky, could you come in here please?"
Thirty seconds later, Master Sergeant Rebecca Woodley walked crisply through the door with an armload of files. It took her three short steps to cross the room and place the papers on the corner of her Captain's desk. She took a step backward and saluted, waiting for the response from her superior officer.
Captain Kane saluted back before waving her hand at a nearby chair. Becky Woodley had been with her ever since they were both flying helicopters for the Army. She'd been offered a command of her own several times but always refused, stating 'no desire to be an officer.' She'd always been Kane's personal sounding board and seemed to be quite happy in that job.
"You've gotten everything we need?"
"Yes, Captain. Combined with those interviews you just wrapped up, I think we have a pretty complete picture of what happened."
"Any surprises?"
Sergeant Woodley laughed. "It would have been nice but, no," she continued more seriously. "Actually, other than trooper Colher, every one of our people was neutralized in a non-lethal manner."
"What was different about Colher?"
"He was holding the flamethrower and, judging by the scorch marks, fired it at least once."
Captain Kane simply could not resist anymore. She lowered her head down to her desktop and let her arms drop limply toward the ground.
"How in the name of all that is Holy are we expected to use a flamethrower to arrest someone?" She let the exasperation seep quietly into her voice.
"Well, the base was on alert, Captain."
Captain Kane raised her head up enough to look at her Sergeant's face. Sergeant Woodley's expression remained neutral but her eyes rolled slightly. Susan Kane and Rebecca Woodley had both served with the US Army and the San Francisco PD's Special Strike Teams. They had a combined thirty years of service between them but, never had they worked for an Law Enforcement agency quite like Longbow.
Susan Kane was beginning to wonder if her old apartment on De Haro street was still available when someone knocked on her office door. Captain Kane sat upright and quickly composed herself while Sergeant Woodley stood up and arranged herself at parade rest alongside the desk.
"Come in."
Oswald Montcalm stalked into the room. "Well?"
"Well, what?" Captain Kane answered calmly.
"Why haven't you done anything to find the people who killed my man?"
"As per procedure, we've reviewed all audio and video logs and conducted interviews with the necessary personnel. I was reviewing that information with my senior Sergeant when you came in."
"And? What do you intend to do about it?"
"Continue my investigation." Captain Kane stood up and turned to face her Sergeant. "Master Sergeant."
"Ma'am."
"Please assemble the unit on the main deck in 15 minutes. Full battledress and standard patrol gear please. I''ll provide further instructions at that time."
"Ma'am." Sergeant Woodley snapped off a parade ground salute, and turned sharply on her heel and strode out of the room.
Captain Kane waited for a moment before turning back to face Montcalm.
"Now, Oswald, if you will excuse me, I need to get dressed."
She didn't wait to hear if he had any reply. The sooner she was away from him and Fort Darwin, the better.
************************************************************************************
The skies over Mercy Island were gray and cloudy as Captain Kane stepped out on to the main landing deck sixteen minutes later. It wasn't raining yet but, judging by the feel of the wind off of the ocean, she knew that it would be before too long.
The main deck was, basically, the roof of Fort Darwin. Arachnos had chosen the simplest design possible for the Fort and, instead of building a dedicated landing facility, they just reinforced the roof and added landing lights. For years the this had been the main arrival and recruitment point for hundreds of Paragon City's criminals. Now it served as Longbow's only uncontested access point on Mercy Island.
The Media and Longbow's P.R. division had trumpeted the capture of the base as a great triumph against the forces of evil. From Captain Kane's point of view it was a pointless waste of time, resources, and personnel. Longbow already had a perfectly functional, strategically located, and far less politically troublesome, base at Agincourt in the Nerva Archipelago. Mercy Island, she felt, was a lost cause and had been for years.
"Ten Hut! Officer on Deck!"
Rebecca Woodley had long ago perfected the parade ground voice that was required of all Sergeants. At her command, fourteen pairs of boots snapped to attention and fourteen pairs of eyes looked straight ahead. Captain Kane had to keep from smiling since she knew that Becky had stolen it almost tone for tone from old John Wayne films.
Longbow field teams operated much like military special forces so, instead of having hundreds of soldiers under her command like she would have in a Army rifle company, Captain Susan Kane had direct control of two, seven man rifle teams. That was fine with her. She knew she could get better results with her Fourteen than other commanders (i.e. most of the command staff of Fort Darwin) could with ten times that many.
"At ease," she said as she strode the final few steps across the deck to her unit. "Attention to orders. Our mission is the pursuit and apprehension of persons unknown who infiltrated this facility and used one of the teleporters to travel to an unspecified location in the area of..."
"We know exactly where they've gone, Captain," interrupted Captain Montcalm as he walked across the deck to stand directly behind Captain Kane. "If you'd watched the video, like you claimed you had, you'd know that one of the criminals said they were going to some place called 'Diagon alley."
Susan Kane did not move. "Master Sergeant," she said calmly. "Was such a place mentioned in the recording?"
"Yes, Ma'am"
"And, are you familiar with this location?"
"Yes, Ma'am"
"And, where would this place be?" Susan Kane asked. Although Montcalm could not see it, her eyes were tightly shut. Not because she had been caught in a lie, but if she made eye contact with any of her squad at this point, they would all start laughing. They all knew that Becky Woodley had a Ravenclaw scarf in her footlocker.
"Just outside London, Ma'am"
"London?" Montcalm said. "That's impossible.Teleporters can't reach that far."
"That is correct Captain," said Captain Kane. "That is one of two reasons we chose to ignore that particular bit of information."
"And the other one?"
"Sergeant, please elaborate for the Captain." Susan Kane was an extremely patient woman but she was setting close to the point where she was going to either to start hitting him or laughing at him. She wasn't sure which.
Master Sergeant Woodley drew herself up to full parade rest before answering. "Sir, Diagon Alley is a location created by noted author Joanne Rowling in her book "Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. In her fictional world, it can be reached magically through an alleyway in London. It was here that Harry Potter first learns..."
"Thank you Sergeant, that's quite enough." Susan Kane did not have to see Montcalm's face to know that he was furious. She could feel the heat radiating off of him through the back of her skull. Before he could explode, she opened her eyes and turned to face him.
"Given that the video clearly shows the suspect was smiling when he said that, I believe he was making a joke, Oswald," she said trying to defuse his temper. "One of the first things we did during our investigation was run a trace on transporter activity. We did learn where they went but we deemed it unwise to follow them directly."
"Why? Trying to get out of doing your duty?"
Susan Kane once again reminded herself that, as satisfying as it would be, throwing an idiot like Oswald Montcalm off the deck into the ocean would not make her life easier. She was pretty certain that she would have fourteen witnesses who would swear that he slipped on a stray patch of motor oil and fell over the side in a very tragic accident. She might have risked it, if it weren't for the paperwork it would create.
"Because the the Mechanized Omni-band Unmanned Scout we sent through to take a look gave us three seconds of video before being shot to pieces by what appeared to be an Arachnos Crab spider. We did get reliable GPS coordinates on where that Crab Spider was standing at the time, though.
Only a desperate fool or a madman makes a blind teleport jump," Captain Kane stared directly into his eyes before continuing, "And only an idiot does so when he knows that it's suicide. I have better uses for my people than that."
Any reply Montcalm might have made was lost in the sound of two massive rotors roaring to life. Longbow's preferred long range troop transport was a modified Boeing CH-47. Captain Kane had already received permission to use one to move her team. At her gesture, her Sergeants started moving the team through the open loading doors at the back. After holding his gaze for a few more moments, Susan Kane turned her back once again on her fellow officer and walked away without another word. Oswald Montcalm would surely be making a list of petty things he could do to her in revenge, but she couldn't worry about that now. She had a job to do.
Her people were already strapped in and ready to fly as she reached the top of the ramp. Even before her feet cleared the ramp, the Loadmaster started closing things up for the trip.
"Everything OK?" the Captain asked Sergeant Woodley as she settled into her own seat near the flight deck.
"Yes, ma'am. All our gear is stowed and ready. The special equipment you requested will be waiting on site. The flight crew have the coordinates and clearance from ground control. All we need is your word to go."
Susan Kane sighed quietly in relief. "Ok, lets get this started." She reached up to activate the microphone at the throat of her suit.
"Strike to flight," she said connecting to the pilots ahead of her, "Take us to Galaxy City."
********************************************************************
An hour and a half in the air was plenty of time for Susan Kane to get her mind focused on the job ahead. She never claimed Zen training or any of those other, more esoteric arts, but she usually found that a brief bit of meditation usually cleared her head.
"Captain? It's time to wake up."
Then again, it had been a long night with little sleep.
She could feel the lightness in her stomach that told her that the helicopter was descending. That meant they had reached the secured area of Galaxy City called the Longbow safe zone. It was an area roughly three city blocks in diameter located midway between the end of the Kings Row tunnel and downtown. Here Longbow had used bulldozers to turn property damage into barricades, converted a mini mall parking lot into a helicopter landing facility, set up a field hospital, added satellite and radio transmitters, and turned an old hardware store into a command post.
Despite the fact that Longbow had gained law enforcement powers through the influence of some very powerful patrons, Longbow was essentially a rather large army. It was nice, thought Captain Kane, to see them acting like a professional one for a change.
Her sergeants had already given the necessary orders so that her unit was just waiting for the wheels to touch down and the ramp to drop. Landing space was at a premium so they would only have minutes to disembark and clear the field for the next arrival.
The loadmaster had gotten to his feet and started the ramp in motion three stories above the landing pad. The sunlight streamed in temporarily blinding Captain Kane's meditation blurred eyes. Ahead of her stood her troops in two parallel lines, gear over their shoulders, sergeants behind them.
The moment the wheels reached pavement, her Sergeants started shouting in unison and the unit moved forward. As they reached the end of the ramp, each soldier ducked down in the time honored (and properly paranoid) method of exiting an idling helicopter, and jogged out to a safe distance on the field. Captain Kane herself cleared the end of the ramp exactly 73 seconds from touchdown.
Waiting for the Captain at the edge of the airfield was a slightly stocky redheaded Corporal in olive drab field coveralls. It was a common public misconception that all Longbow personnel wore the red and white battlesuits all the time. Like most militaries, Longbow had adopted the all-purpose style of coveralls that had worked for decades for their support personnel. The battlesuits were good in the middle of a fight, but they were a little impractical for doing things like changing the transmission in a truck.
Captain Kane had always appreciated the battlesuits as one of the things that Longbow got right. They were made from a combination of Kevlar, Nomex, steel wire, and other, more exotic fabrics which made them impervious to small caliber firearms and strongly resistant to damage. As an added benefit, they happened to be form fitting enough to disguise any small imperfections in the wearer's physique. Captain Kane knew for a fact that she had never been centerfold material, even when she was younger, but she got more offers for dates while wearing her battlesuit than when she wasn't.
Some of Longbow's female recruits had signed up with that in mind.
The corporal waited until the roar of the departing helicopter's engines died away before snapping off a quick salute. "Good afternoon Captain, welcome to Galaxy City. It's Hell on Earth right now, but it's still better than Mercy Island." Susan Kane found herself smiling at the man's irreverent Southern accented observation. Some things about the military would never change. Good officers gave ground crews and mechanics a fair bit of leeway since they were the ones who actually kept the whole machine running.
Susan Kane returned the salute. "Thank you Corporal. Do you have the gear I requested?"
"Yes Ma'am. I've been asked to get your team set up as soon as you get here. Sergeant Wakefield sends his apologies for not being here in person but he got requisitioned for some project over in warehouse 25A."
"Anything serious?"
"Nothing that anyone has told me. But you know how that works. Given how hush-hush everything is, it's probably closer to your pay grade than mine Ma'am."
Captain Kane laughed at that summation of standard military tradition. "I'll let you know if I hear anything. But, right now we're on the clock."
"Yes, Ma'am. If I can get your team to follow me we'll get you ready to go."
The Corporal led Captain Kane and her people a short distance away to a section of the parking lot surrounded on three sides by walls of sandbags. Steel racks were spaced evenly with tool cases and at the back of the area, three other technicians we're busy stripping the electronics out of a downed Chaser.
"Here you are Ma'am, " he said indicating four jetpacks laid out on a table, "four Eagle packs checked, fueled up and ready to go."
Six of her team, including both her Sergeants, were qualified to operate the single man flightpacks called Eagle units. Captain Kane's plan for this operation was to use the Eagles, led by her junior Sergeant Benito Reyes, as advance scouts for her ground team.
The damage from the meteor strikes was bad enough that she knew she couldn't really trust any established maps for Galaxy City. The Eagles would be equipped with tactical mapping software that would be overlaying new information on her existing electronic maps. This would help her keep her team out of blind alleys and mazes that weren't there before. More importantly, they would be her early warning system for hostile forces.
Thanks to the poor MOUS, she knew that Arachnos had forces near her planned search area. As if that weren't bad enough, there were the usual list of vandals, thugs, lethal cults, and clockwork robots to be concerned about and, to top it all off, new versions of the alien creatures known as Shivans had been spotted all across the city. Susan Kane wasn't afraid of combat, but she did prefer to avoid it as much as possible.
It took twenty minutes for her Eagles and the base staff to recheck and get the suits properly strapped on. While they did that, the rest of her team made sure their weapons and gear were ready to go. At thirty minutes from the time they arrived in Galaxy City, Susan Kane and her troops were ready to set out into the streets.
"Benny," she said addressing Sergeant Reyes, "get your people in the air. Give me a staggered arc to our front and sides out to a half mile. Constant feedback on anything that even looks like a problem."
"Ma'am," he said as he saluted and waved to his fliers. As one they rose slowly off the ground and spread out into a semi circle.
"Master Sergeant?"
"Ma'am"
"Assuming Arachnos didn't shoot our fugitives on sight, they're out there somewhere. Let's go get them."
"Yes, Ma'am. Team, Move out!"
