"Musk?" Tessa asked.
"A third party," Kalinin said. "Our guest identified them as a primitive tribe with a tradition of snatching women of power to enhance their bloodlines. She marks them as very dangerous."
"How did they know the girls would be here?" Tessa asked.
"That is unknown," Kalinin said. "The hostages are secured and the bomb is detonated. Unfortunately, we have not recovered Sergeant Sagara, Kaname Chidori or the Satomi children. Reports indicate that Sergeant Sagara and Eija Satomi may have secured the escape on their own when the Musk interfered."
"Keep searching, but our primary task has to be the safety of the collected hostages," Tessa said. "We've reports on enemy reinforcements coming in so we don't have long to stay."
Quietly to herself, she prayed for everyone to come back safely.
****
Kaname found herself flying through the air as the savage was rocked backward by the explosion. Naiki Satomi caught her before she could have a hard landing, behind her she could almost hear Sousuke calling out her name, even through the robot's cockpit.
She actually knew it somehow.
Even as Naiki brought her safely to the ground, Sousuke's AS was riddled with fire and Kaname watched in horror as the savage fell back and its body and cockpit were torn open by the cannon fire.
She heard herself calling out his name now, as if watching it on TV or hearing it on an intercom.
Deimosu said something to her and handed off Eija as he moved forward with his sister and the two of them tried use their funky superpowers on the attacking robot only to have some sort of field spring up around the thing, rendering their attacks useless.
"You have interesting friends, Kashim," a voice said.
It was the same voice that had been speaking over the airline intercom earlier. The same man that she had briefly seen before being taken to that lab.
"Why the hell are you still alive?" Sousuke asked from his exposed place in the cockpit.
"Well, it seems I have titanium plate in my skull from a previous injury," the manic voice said, pointing to his skull.
Besides her Eija started to sit up and form up her hands to do something.
Instinctively, Kaname reached out to grab the girl's hands.
"Stop it, without a link you need more time to recover from high end magic," Kaname ordered, wondering just what the hell she meant by that.
"But, I need to do something," Eija said insistently.
Above them the AS's lunatic pilot was gloating over his knowledge of the Whispereds and Sousuke's lack of understanding.
"I would have liked to see more of what you two were capable of as well," Gauron was saying. "But it appears that I'll have to be satisfied with just your sister."
The cannon raised and was subsequently destroyed by an attack from above.
"Yahoo!" shouted the speakers of the incoming M-9 AS. "Urzu-6 on the ground. I've located Urzu-7, Angel and friends, engaging hostile mech. Sousuke, can you get out?"
"I'm good to go," Sousuke said, climbing out of the cockpit and moving toward Kaname.
"Okay, you five minutes to get to the air-field!" Kurz said. "Go!"
"Watch that AS! He's got some sort of..." Sousuke was uncertain how to describe it. "...force field."
"Think who're talking to," Kurz said. "I got him once, I'll get him again."
"Is that the blonde guy from the other day?" Kaname demanded as Souske came to her side, holding a hand to his waist for some reason.
Kaname moved to his side to help support him as Deimosu started to pick up Eija again.
"Let's go," Sousuke said.
They were yards away before they noticed that Naiki wasn't with them.
****
Kurz watched as the strange AS dodged his fire and vanish into the bush around him. His opponent had an ECS camouflage system and good evasion capabilities, but he was also down to his melee back-up, so Kurz had the advantage.
As long as he paid attention
He prepared his weapon and waited for the attack.
"There!" he shouted aiming towards the flash of movement heading his way.
To his surprise the ground below him started shaking momentarily setting off his aim as a crack spread outward from between his legs straight for the approaching enemy AS, widening until it was big enough for the attacker's foot to jam inside and hold, stopping the charge.
"The hell?" Kurz muttered. "Convenient time for an earthquake."
In any case, turkey shoot time, he thought as he smirked and took aim at his opponent struggling against the grip of the Earth around him.
The round launched outward and impacted hard against a spherical flash of light that stopped it dead and dug a channel several meters ahead of it.
"Damn," Kurz said. "Any closer and my M-9 was trash. Time to get out of here. This is Urzu-6, enemy AS unknown type with unknown defensive system immobilized at my position. Fire ineffective, am heading toward pick-up. Urzu-7 and guests should be on the way to you already."
He started to turn about to leave when he heard something over the intercom.
"Mind if I hitch a ride?" a girl's voice asked from nearby.
Twisting the external cameras he found the green-haired Satomi daughter catching her breath on his unit's shoulder.
"Sure, pretty lady," he said, not asking how she got up there. "Hold on."
The M-9 sped away from the site leaving the venom behind, foot stuck in the ground for several minutes before it managed to rip it free.
The unit limped away, a frown on its pilot's face as he stared at the overheat warnings flashing in front of him. A few more minutes of operation and he'd be able to catch up with and destroy that M-9.
The only thing he got out of this was footage of the Satomi girl somehow initiating the cracked earth that trapped him just too long.
****
"We have to go back!" Deimosu said. "She's going to try to help in that fight."
"We don't have time," Sousuke said. "The transport leaves too soon."
"You're just going to leave her back there?" Deimosu said, growling as he came up to Sousuke's face.
"No, you are taking your sister and Miss Chidori to the air-field," he said. "I'll go back to see that she's safe."
"Sousuke, you're unarmed and...wounded," Kaname said. "You can't be expected to be res..."
"I am expected to be responsible," Sousuke said. "The rest of you are civilians. And only one of you can be expected to fight currently. And I'm not unarmed."
He drew a pistol and started to turn around with a resigned look at Kaname.
"Look out!" Eija called out.
Sousuke caught the incoming attack out of the corner of his eye and barely dodged out of the way as a large meaty fist swung in at him.
A flash of movement came in from the other direction which Deimosu just barely moved to intercept.
"Go! Go!" Souske shouted at the girls as he rolled aside again and Thyme's large fist crated the ground under where he'd been standing.
Reluctantly, Kaname started to pull Eija aside to run for the base but stopped cold as the flying freak from earlier came floating down in their path.
"Okay! Not this way," Kaname said, running at a bee-line away from the dangerous fighter.
"I didn't come out to these barbarous lands to be denied," Basil shouted, ignoring the pain of his injuries from that battle with that red-headed woman earlier.
Sousuke fired his pistol at the base of Thyme's skull as the giant missed him again, marveling as that managed to do little more than stun the big man.
Still it was all he needed.
Rolling aside he moved himself between the girls and Basil, his gun flashing out forward.
The dragon prince's eyes widened as he tried to force his battered skeleton and muscles to move at customary speeds and dodge aside of the bullets.
Even so, he felt impacts in his shoulder and body as he swept up into the air.
Rage burning in his eyes, the dragon unleashed a long burst of chi downward, igniting the dry grasses into a catching flame. As he did so, the battered and injured dragon prince lowered himself to the ground to catch his breath.
"Prince Basil!" Bay shouted as he zipped around Deimosu to help his master.
"Subdue the warrior!" Basil snapped angrily, standing up and holding his shoulder.
Sousuke grimaced as he and the two girls were forced back away from the flames, further away from the base. There wasn't much chance of them reaching the base in time now.
Eija looked towards her brother as Kaname held her hand and, despite the warning earlier, she quietly intoned a quiet prayer of protection and blessing.
Kaname felt it happening almost instantly, but couldn't do much more than catch Eija as she passed out.
Sousuke was quickly with Kaname and taking Eija before grabbing Kaname's hand and running from the growing flames as quickly as possible.
Behind them, Deimosu and the Musk were similarly pushed back from the flames scattering the lot of the fighters in several directions.
The blonde Satomi could have leaped over the flames if it wasn't for the Musk in his way, attacking him and pushing him away from the flames.
He recognized the nimbus of darkness that appeared to shroud his form whenever they attacked him, Eija had cast it on him or Naiki in the past.
However, given the amount of magic she'd been casting all day, including healing Naiki, she had to be tired. And he couldn't be with her to protect her. She was with that soldier who, skilled as he was, was running out of ammo and equipment.
That worry turned to angry as he watched Basil simply moving off and watching as his henchmen did the fighting. The man couldn't even be bothered to try and get in the fight? He was just going to watch?
It was several minutes of backing away from fight and flame before the Musk scattered at the approach of an M-9. As the Musk scattered, his other sister's form dropped down to his side and looked around.
"Where's everybody else?" she asked, flinching at Deimosu's angry glare.
"Hey," Kurz called out. "No time for reunions, I need to at least get you two safe."
****
"Urzu-6 has returned with two of the Satomi children on the transport helicopter," Kalinin said. "Apparently Sergeant Sagara, Kaname Chidori and the third Satomi were driven off by the flames west of the base when these Musk attacked."
"How about their mother?" Tessa asked.
"Returning with one of the tactical teams," Kalinin said.
Tessa was silent for a long time.
"Unfortunately, we can't stay any longer, armored patrol ships are on their way," Tessa said. "However, we'll have a second opportunity, what might we be able to do if we surfaced here for a few minutes at dawn?"
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(Posted Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:38)
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