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The Bubblegum Crisis Center > Extras > Fan Fiction

Instrumantatum Vocalle 2040 - Star Crossed

Written by Christopher J Turley

"Gentlemen." Mason nodded as he sat. Around dark cherry wood with obsidian trim sat six other individuals; his secretary boomer, sat at the far end of the table, to take notes.
"You all know why we are having this meeting." He said.
"Yes, because we're being made fools of." Said Mr. Hattori, by far the brashest of the six, and not with out reason, he was a hard charger, and very good at his job. Mason nodded.
"So then, the question I put to you, is why?"
Mr. Araki narrowed his eyes, he didn't like Mason; to be truthful no one around the table really cared much for him aside from the fact that he was the boss. It wasn't so much of respect for the man, but for the rank he held.
"Who would like to begin?" He asked when the awkward pause lasted longer than he would allow.
"I guess that would be me." Mr. Ota said. "Since it needs to be said, as no one here will; It is my belief that not only have we grossly underestimated the threat posed by this woman, but, and you'll forgive me for saying this I'm sure." Mr. Ota smiled facetiously. "We've played right into her hands."
Defensive murmurs could be heard from all involved, but Mason. He eyed Mr. Ota evilly behind a pyramid of fingers recognizing that the 'we' was really meant to mean, 'him'.
"Explain." It wasn't a request.
"Gladly." Mr. Ota replied, meeting Mason's glare. "Doesn't it seem odd that no matter what we've done to get rid of her, to discredit her, or to manipulate her, it has always, and I do mean always, been turned back on us ten fold, and that on top of that not only does her position solidify, but she comes out smelling like a rose?"
"She's been lucky, that's all." Mrs. Yunokawa said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"And that is where you'd be wrong." Mr. Araki said, backing his colleague. "It's just that attitude that's been working against us. We've all considered her so below our notice, that we, in our collective arrogance, have pussy footed around the issue trusting that the same tactics we've used in the past would work again."
"Yes." Mr. Ota added. "And now, because of that we have not only lost the initiative, but we've lost the ability to handle the problem quietly."
There were grumbles all around; that much was certain. Any attempt now to deal with them could not be accomplished without the method, be it accidental, overt, or covert, coming under extreme scrutiny. Too many important people knew her and thanks to her, about them. Sure, they didn't have specific information, but they had their suspicions, and that was far worse. Hard data was cut and dry, speculation let the imagination run wild. And Mason figured, rightly, that she was most likely holding back on the info she had, not so much to deny it from Genom's enemies, but to keep the scope of her knowledge hidden from them.
"You say we played into her hands. How?" Mason asked.
"Well, and this is my opinion, but from the minute we had a problem with her, or should I say that Valerie Johansson had a problem with her, she perceived us as a threat, and rightly so. However, rather than play ball she went on the offensive. I feel that since she knew that to act against us outright then would be, and was, up until recently, suicide, she harmed us indirectly."
When Mason looked like he wanted more information, Mr. Hattori spoke up.
"I think I can explain. The Menitaka Men's club for one, it was a front for a criminal on the ADP watch list, a criminal on our payroll, and up until her raid our influence had kept the hounds at bay, and because of that some of our executives frequented the establishment armed with the knowledge that they could handle business there without fear of interference, and without having to succumb to the scrutiny that working in the office brings."
His statement was fitting, and there were nods, most if not all had to avoid the prying eyes of junior execs trying to find a weakness, or from those of equal or higher rank that would use any and all means to maintain their career, up to and including gossip, the rumor mill, and just plain whistle blowing.
"When she busted the place a lot of our executives, mostly junior, to us anyway, went to jail. That cast a bad shadow, but we were able to spin it down." Genom had fired all but a handful of their employees that had been arrested, to save face, and to avoid scandal. Mason nodded.
"Go on."
"Yes sir, that raid gave her what they call 'street credit', and a gold star in her file. If I recall correctly the ADP, i.e. us, decorated her for that, all part of spin control mind you."
"Exactly." Mr. Ota chimed in. "Then add in the fact that Valerie was one of those arrested. She'd always been a fiery one, and now looking at it in hindsight, a little mentally unbalanced. She orchestrated Detachment 3's deployment to the pit in an effort to eradicate them. Now, again in hindsight, that would have worked had Valerie done her homework, or if she had, ignored it, at any rate, she would have learned what we all know now, that Miss Romanov was trained as a Ranger in the US Army, even though her job description lists her as an analyst. Valerie's operatives, and the street scum she'd 'recruited' were trounced."
"Slaughtered would be a better word." Mr. Kurata spoke up. "I had the opportunity to review the tapes from that; her best 'Shadow Team' was wiped out to the last man."
"Really?" Mrs. Yunokawa said. "This is the first I've heard about that."
"There's no reason you should; call it internal spin. We quashed that as soon as it happened." Mr. Kurata retorted. "If it got out to our other teams that one of our best units had been wiped out, moral would have nose dived."
"So what happened then?" Mrs. Yunokawa asked, and more than a few of the others looked curious as well.
"Well to sum it up, Valerie had tried to lure them out into the pit to be ambushed, well, the Ranger saw thru that little ploy and husbanded her resources, and it wasn't until Valerie had an ADP chopper shot down that they ventured out, it was quick and concise, we reported two Det. 3 K-suits destroyed, but couldn't claim any killed for the loss of six of ours. So then Valerie has a sniper take a shot at her, but he only manages to kill one of her men instead. We know that after that, her two "science experiments" left the pit only to return with an out-and-out arsenal. Everything from assault rifles to mortars."
"Mortars? Don't they have to get permission to deploy those?"
"Yes. But since Valerie was in effect wedging a guerilla war she couldn't quite cry foul could she. Let me delve deeper on this. Natasha knew that because what Valerie was doing was highly illegal, and that even if it got out we would deny the whole thing, she could do whatever she pleased, she knew that since Genom didn't have a 'legitimate' presence there the whole thing was deniable. No matter what happened, no matter who won, the whole thing would have been swept under the rug. We couldn't cry foul because if we did so would she, and she knew that we would never do that because we had more to lose than she did."
"Interesting, continue." Mason prodded.
"Yes sir, getting back to the mortars. They used them to push back the first few waves, as well as collapse the building that was being used to house our troops. Now, this building had a service tunnel running under it that Valerie was using to funnel men and equipment back and forth. After the building atop it was leveled the mortar fire became sporadic, and then stopped. Valerie believed that she had expended all her rounds and ordered the tunnel cleared to bring in reinforcements."
"So then what happened?" Mrs. Yunokawa asked.
"Well, they hadn't run out of rounds, they just stopped using them to make her think they had. So, after three hours of work to clear the tunnel, and waiting until the first load of equipment was being brought up she opened fire with everything she had, a ten round mix of high explosive and fragmentation warheads. The service team, the security team and the first wave of reinforcements, thirty men, were killed instantly."
"My god!"
"Oh, it gets better. Valerie sent a experimental boomer to face them, along with two Bu-55C's."
"I remember that, they were destroyed outright."
"Correct, and she rubbed our nose in it. When we sent a team to 'retrieve' the wayward creation and the boomers sent to 'recover' it she stalled us. When we finally did get our property back they were missing their memory cores and beam cannons."
"Didn't we try to get them back?"
"And give her the opportunity to implicate us? Hell no! Those cores had their orders on them, orders to kill ADP officers, not to retrieve a damaged boomer."
"Wait a minute. What are you saying? She didn't want to reveal our involvement?"
"Stands to reason, we figure that she was ready to leave well enough alone, we shot our wad, and lost, and she knew it and knew we knew it. But Valerie wouldn't have it, and tried to hit them back."
"What did she do?"
"She tried to arrange a traffic accident, almost worked too; almost."
"And we all know what happened afterwards. Valerie was killed, on the very same bridge that just blew up." Mason concluded forcefully. He knew it should have been the end of it, and if he hadn't ordered Mr. Donovan to exact revenge it just may well have been. But he could never admit that, not here, not now, not ever, but no one, no one, gets away with what Tasha did to Valerie, as stupid as Valerie might have been, she was a Genom executive, and ADP cops can't go around thinking they can get away with killing them, after all, if one person gets away with it who's to stop the next person from trying, or worse, succeeding.
"Yes sir, exactly." Mr. Ota said.
"What about these rumors that she and these Knight Sabers have banded together?" Mason said, changing the subject somewhat.
"It's pretty inconclusive, but I'd err on the side of caution and say that yes, they have a partnership." Mr. Kurata answered. "Our assets have been watching the Silky Doll building since August and we've been able to identify at least three of them."
"Four." Mason said.
"Four, who's the forth."
"A man I worked with at the Bio Escape Labs. But proceed, who are the other three?"
"Ahem, yes, we all know about Dr. Stingray, and the first Saber we were able to identify was his daughter, Sylia. The second is a singer by the name of Pricilla Asigiri. She's your typical hardnosed type, full of piss and vinegar. The third confirmed is an OL, Linna Yamazaki."
"Linna Yamazaki, as in the same Linna Yamazaki that Donovan kidnapped?" Mason hissed.
"Yes sir."
"The same Linna Yamazaki that's Romanov's little bitch girlfriend?"
"Yes sir, the very same.
"Oh wonderful!" Mrs. Yunokawa clapped and sighed sarcastically. "Well I hate to say it, but now I know why our bridge went up."
Mason eyed her, no one knew about the message he'd received just prior to all hell breaking loose.
"Care to enlighten us?" he said coldly, and evenly.
"Well as I'm sure none of you are familiar with this, as none of you are women..." She began. "Although I'm sure you've heard the term "hell hath no fury then a woman scorned."
"And your point?" Mr. Hattori interjected.
"My point my dear fellow is that you scorned her, we kidnapped her lover, we all saw the immediate response, the death of everyone involved in that fiasco, now, not trying to be sexist, but that was the male half of it. That was her men, exacting revenge, but her, she plotted, waited for us to think it was all over with, waited for us to drop our guard, then she hit us."
There were murmurs from around the table, some defensive, some not.
"Well, since it seems you have the feminine approach all covered, what do you suggest we do?" Mr. Ota Said after the room had quieted some.
"Nothing. We do nothing. She's already dealt us an all but crippling blow, the lost revenue for lost wages and work time alone are in the trillions, not to mention what the cost of clean up and repairs will tally up to. From what I've seen of the after action reports she made quite a mess, and if I didn't know any better I'd say she did that on purpose. She then made us look like class act idiots by deflecting each and every dig at her, and the ADP, after the bridge, including, sir, and I mean no disrespect..." She tuned to Mr. Mason. "...Everything you said as well. Her putting the footage of our combat boomers on live TV was brilliant, and completely unforeseeable."
"It sounds like you like her." Mr. Miyake bit.
"Like and respect are two different things, I pose this to you, would you have not done the exact same thing, or wish you had, if you were in her shoes. She masterfully manipulated the information she received, you saw our ambassador; he ended up sounding like the old Iraqi Information Minister did in 2003."
"You're right, he should've kept his trap shut; to come out and say it was a bunch of American generated movie effects was asinine. He made us look quite stupid." Mr. Araki agreed.
"Not only that..." Mrs. Yunokawa continued. "...But it essentially proved her point, she didn't have to say much after that, and thanks to that a years worth of planning for a Boomer ADP went down the toilet along with all the R&D funds and other capital spent. So I'll say it again, we must do nothing. Or at the very least, nothing against them directly, not just yet. We all know that the High Caliber is a veritable fortress, our scans have showed as much..." She paused in thought. "Consider this, we found the same amount of explosives on the East Bridge, all in the proper place to cause an identical collapse, it stands to reason that she could have blown that span as well, but elected not to, possibly giving us the same out she gave to Valerie. That puts the ball in our court and she knows it, do we retaliate or do we accept that we got our 'just desserts' and leave well enough alone."
"What about the discrediting thing again. The UN isn't slated to take over for some time, maybe three or four days. If we can use our Boomer ADP to show that Det. 3 is inefficient, after all, they had that spectacular loss a few days ago, we might be able to get the Diet to sign it into action before the UN can effect a change over."
Mrs. Yunokawa sighed. He had a point, it just might work, and even if it didn't they had to try it.
"I agree with that, it may end up being one last hurrah, but it's a chance we can't pass up." All heads turned to Brian J. Mason. Shit! He thought, they weren't stupid; it was his choice now.
"Do it. And make sure it works out the way we want it too."

As he left the meeting he was fuming, but he quickly controlled it. Let his underlings tend to the wench, he had other plans, and when they came to fruition no amount of skill or luck she or hers possessed would help them. He smiled, yes; his revenge would be sweet indeed.

Her office phone pang and Tasha picked it up.
"CIC, Director Romanov speaking."
"Hello Mrs. Romanov, my name is Neil Krenshaw, I'm calling from FOX News here in New York."
"Oh, well, what can I do for you Mr. Krenshaw?"
"We would like to send a news team out to Tokyo for a few weeks to tag along with Detachment 3."
"Tag along?"
"Yes, well, 'embedded' would be a more correct term."
Tasha blinked. She had Neil go over the particulars and as he spoke she started to smile. This would be a great way to get positive press, but then again, anything that went wrong would garner an equal amount, if not more, negative press. Despite the risks, she liked the idea, but it wasn't her call to make. So she gave him Nick Roland's number and suggested he call him to get final permission and if so to work out any additional details.
When Nick called her some thirty minutes later, sounding chipper, she knew it was a yes.

The 'embeds' arrived a few days later and she met them at the airport in a standard, run of the mill, ADP troop transporter. Since they were going to be traveling with them, and most likely inside an identical vehicle, she figured it would be best to give them a first look. She smiled to herself when they saw it, probably expecting a taxi, airport shuttle or other such conveyance. Hopping up with practiced ease she waited as her new charges clamored aboard.
After settling himself into a nearby seat the reporter extended his hand to her and introduced himself. There hadn't been time earlier as she'd hustled them to the van like she would basic recruits out of the academy.
"Hello, I'm Keith Manning, this is my cameraman Bill Hanson, and our technician Jim Krandel. I must say that it's a real treat to finally meet you."
"Well, thanks." She blushed awkwardly. "You already know my name I'm sure, but you can call me Commander, Director, or Tasha." She smiled.
"So, Tasha, can you tell us a little about what we're going to be subjected to" He laughed.
"Sure, before we turn you loose, you'll be run thru a crash course in Det. 3 doctrine and techniques. This includes deployment procedures, weapons drill, and tactical assimilation."
"Weapons drill?" Manning asked.
"Yup, in our Detachment all members must be able to not only keep up, but defend themselves if need be."
"I see."
"Well, let me explain, rogue boomers don't exactly care if you have PRESS written on your armor, they'll attack you all the same."
"Oh, um...well, that does make sense."
"Don't worry though, you won't be required to take ground or anything like that."
"Okay, so, where are we headed now?" Keith asked.
"Back to the station, I'll give you a tour and then turn you over to Sgt. Yamaguchi, and he'll get you settled in. Once you've been in processed I'll take you to your hotel and then to the HiC."

In processing didn't take that long compared to the tour and after they'd dropped off the lions share of their luggage they made their way to the High Caliber. The three seemed elated; they'd heard good things and had wanted to see the place. Bobo patted them down then ushered them in. The cameraman took some stills as Keith was introduced to Tony, Karl, and the children in their Sunday best. Dinner was served shortly after and the spread was exquisite.
"Wow, this is excellent, you didn't have to go to all this trouble."
"No trouble at all." Karl said. "All of these dishes are menu items."
"Really?" Keith said, taken a little aback.
"Yup, the name High Caliber says it all." He smiled proudly.

The next day Tasha sat back and started to take a closer look at the information Nene had 'acquired' from the Genom database regarding the ADP's proposed replacements. She was at Camp Zama, again, and was taking a breather in the Base Ops lounge at Kastner Field. The Beriev was outside, with Section 2 running drills. Turning back to her computer she paged thru the files. The GADP, as she called it, was a boomer only force with the only humans in the loop being handlers, those that went out with the boomers to make sure every thing went as it should, some odd technicians and of course the Company hierarchy. She'd seen this set up before; the only thing new about this was the fact that Genom had a lower percentage of handlers to boomers. The United States Army and Marines, and to a lesser extent Navy and Air Force used far more humans in the field. The nominal mix was for every Combat or Battle boomer you would field a squad. The Boomer would protect them from heavy weapons and tanks, while the squad would protect it from infantry. The layout was identical to the way the Army and Marines deployed with tanks in the field. Except that tanks traveled in platoons of four to six with the infantry tagging along in an AIFV (Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle). If boomers were to be used in large numbers they took usually deployed with an armored platoon or higher. No matter how well they performed the powers that be in the Pentagon deigned not to deploy outside of the 5:1 ratio, of course unless it was a suicide mission; there were always exceptions.
As the Genom organization chart had it, one handler would accompany upwards of ten boomers into battle. Six combat, human sized, types, and four battle, K-suit sized, types. She didn't include the four to eight recon types, which were better classified as a slightly intelligent UAV. Their biggest drawback, and what really bothered her, was the fact that while the Bu-55C and Bu-12B boomers had hardwired programming with the ability to accept on site commands, these GADP boomers had only enough programming hardwired in to keep the upright and mobile. Any additional tactics and orders would be downloaded to them en-route, of course the handler could issue orders as the situation warranted, but as it stood, it seemed that the system was designed so that any up-linked command would override the handler in the field. That's what scared her, military boomers have to take orders from even to lowliest foot soldier, they are weapons, albeit smart ones, but still, weapons. You can't fight if your rifle decides it doesn't want to fire, same with a boomer.
Then again, it made sense, the bigwigs upstairs wanted total control, and since they ran the show, they got it. She wondered if the Diet knew about this little system peculiarity; probably not, she snorted. At any rate it gave her their Achilles heel. If the company could issue orders, well by gum, so could she. Of course she'd only be able to get away with it once. Before flipping her notebook shut she downloaded her e-mail, and it was quite a stack, and printed it. She'd read while she watched the news, for some reason it helped her think.
The news was redundant, Genom was still making waves about the bombings and the western agencies were playing the embarrassing interplay between her and the Genom executive she'd rebuffed over and over again. To Genom's credit they shut up about the Firebee incident, they knew they'd lost that round, and were most likely trying to sweep that little blip under the rug. The Diet had decided not to reconvene until in their words "Genom Incorporated presents us with complete and properly formatted documents." That gave the UN time to move, as her mail was showing. It seemed that under the combined pressure of the US and the UK, the UN was burning the midnight oil and were debating the situation as she read. Director Briggs's message sounded optimistic, which meant it was in the bag; CIA Directors were never optimistic unless it was a sure thing.

Across town a limousine pulled up to a private hanger at Narita International Air and Space Port. A well-dressed man hurried to a waiting plane and climbed aboard.
"Are we ready to go?" Mr. Donovan asked as he tossed his overcoat onto a nearby seat.
"Yes sir, we can taxi any time."
"Then move! Now!" He yelled, and then paused as his pilot staggered backwards at the outburst.
"Sorry, sorry, I'm just under a lot of stress right now."

A lot really didn't describe it, and stress, not exactly, it was more like terror, he was afraid for his life, Mason had promised he'd deal with him, and he had no desire to stick around to see what that meant. That man was an angry anti-social psychotic. He'd hoped that the rigmarole Natasha Romanov had spun Mason thru during the last few days would have kept him off his radar, but from what he heard, it had only made Mason angrier, and in his opinion, more unstable than he already was. Getting out of Japan seemed the most prudent thing to do, lucky for him he didn't have a family, and God knows what Mason would have done to them. His tension didn't subside until the aircraft lifted off from Narita, and only then did he allow himself a moment's respite. The stewardess came back with a cup of tea, which he shooed away, asking her to find something stronger, something above 100 Proof.
A little while later, after more then a few shots his seat phone rang, his heart raced and he wallowed uneasily then answered.
"This is Donovan." He said, trying his best to keep his voice even, and more over clear.
"Going out of town on business I see."
Mason! How did he...
"Y...yes sir. There where s...some matters I needed to attend to personally."
"I see. You know, I don't blame you, for leaving. I understand that people like you are full of fear. It's quite pathetic really." He paused. "But not unfounded in this case I am afraid."
"What do you mean?" Donovan asked, his voice betraying some anger.
"You will find out Mr. Donovan, you will find out that I do not tolerate failure, and you will find I tolerate disloyalty and cowardice even less. Good-bye Mr. Donovan." The line went dead, and seconds later so did the engines of the Lear he was in. As the plane descended he all but ran to the cockpit. The pilots were frantically trying to restart the engines and warning lights were flashing all over the place.
"Passing 10,000 feet and falling!" The copilot reported, fear in his voice."
"Mayday Mayday Mayday! This is Flight 017 two zero zero miles east of Narita control. We have engine failure. Repeat this is Flight 017 declaring an emergency. The pilot THEN looked back at him with a gaze that told him it was hopeless.
"Sir, you better head back to your seat."
Behind him Donovan noticed that the stewardess was whimpering softly as she handed him a life preserver. He waved it away and with the last amount of dignity he possessed stood in the cockpit doorway as the moonlit ocean sped towards them, his arm around the crying women, offering what comfort he could in their final moments.
"You bastard Mason, I hope you rot in hell." He muttered.

It was an hour later when a report from a fishing boat in the area told of a small plane crashing into the sea. There was little if any wreckage, and no survivors.

* * *

Linna had just stepped out of her HARDsuit and wiped some sweat from her brow. They'd just finished a bout of training and she was beat, so was Priss. Nene, that lucky scrub, was at work.
"Well that was fun." She sighed.
Priss nodded as Linna collapsed onto the stairs leading up to the launcher and stretched, yawning loudly.
"God I'm tired."
"Blame Natasha." Priss quipped as she rubbed her arm. "Thanks to her Sylia's been working us half to death."
Linna blushed slightly and nodded.
"By they way..." Priss asked. "What's going on with the ADP and UN thing, anything new?"
Linna seemed stunned by that and paused.
"Well, we think the UN will be here on Wednesday, at least that's what the talk says."
"Great, so we have four days until we're out of a job."
"That's not true." Linna interjected. "UN or not, we're still needed, I mean, they can't be everywhere. And they're not sending that many people, best Intel says about a Company."
"How much is that?" Priss asked. Linna seemed to know, and she was a little jealous of that.
"About a hundred and eighty men, plus their equipment."
"What kind of equipment." Priss asked again, jeez, why didn't Linna just tell everything at once.
"Um...lets see, some K-suits, K-15 and 18's I think, and the Marines are bringing a few of their M-88 Black Widow Battlemovers. Oh, and we're getting six Comanche helicopters."
"Uh huh, and what's the number soup on that one." Priss taunted good-naturedly, noticing that Linna had said, 'we' instead of they.
"RAH-66." Linna blurted with a smile and a laugh.
"And I bet you know exactly what that means don't you." She smiled back.
"Uh huh." Linna nodded proudly.
Sylia's voice came over the PA, startling them.
"Priss, Linna, get to your suits, there's a boomer incident."
"So much for the rest of the night off." Linna grunted as she pushed herself to her feet.

Tasha had gotten the call earlier and had rushed outside after telling Base Ops she'd be taking off on a call. She'd hustled her men into the plane and within minutes they were airborne.
"What's the situation Nene?"
"I think it's a fusion boomer at the 24Hr Fitness near Sudacho."
"Good, good, let Tony and Karl know."
"Yes ma'am. Um...by the way, the GADP knows already, I picked up a download signal, I scrambled it; so you should be able to get there first."
"Excellent work Sergeant. Get me a copy of that if you please."
"Yes ma'am." Nene smiled, and then called Sylia.

Nene called back just as the Beriev passed the Tokyo Tower.
"Ma'am, new update. The fusion is spreading, source the sixth floor; it's infected two floors in either direction. The building is flat roof, and can accommodate a paradrop. You'll have two floors leeway either way."
"Very good, let the boys know to take the ground floor up, we'll drop in on the from above. What about civvies."
"Lots, they're evacuating the bottom five floors but the ones above six are trapped. Also we have reports that there are twenty missing people on six."
"Okay, I got it, call in for a spike and send Medivac to the roof to pull the civvies out."
A spike was the term used to cut the power to the grid connected to the building. Since fusion boomers used the buildings energy to spread, the less power it could get, the better. Cutting it off wouldn't stop it, but it would slow it down. Tasha had to get with the program now as the loadmaster held his hands over his head and tapped his wrists together, signaled for them to "hookup" as the jump light turned red.
"Equipment check!" He yelled over the din of the engines, patting his left shoulder with his right hand. As the members of Section 2 checked the rig of the trooper in front of them the loadmaster leaned out of the open door ways one at a time to check the area for obstructions. Satisfied, he held up his hand, fingers open.
"Five seconds!"
Tasha felt her heart race; despite the many times she'd done this before, it was still scary.
The light turned green and she hurled herself out into the night air; felt the horrific jerk as the static line pulled taut, extricating the chute from its pack. She barley had time to survey the landing area, noticeable because of all the civilians milling about, before she hit, hard. She much preferred open field landings; dirt was so much softer than building.
She checked to see that all of her people had made it down okay then rallied them and headed inside.

On the ground floor Tony, Karl, elements of Section 1 and 4, and the imbedded news team from FOX hustled into the building. Khoban officers were busy directing people out and cleared a path for them as the made their way of the stairs, in situations like this; elevators were a no-no, or worse, a death trap.
"Pimp Daddy to Queen bee." Tony said into his headset.
"Go ahead 310." Tasha replied, using his proper net ID.
"What's the situation up there?"
"We've got many civilians being routed up to the roof, I've got four of my men searching the rest of the floors for stragglers. We've got boomer sign on eight, heavy on seven. I'm just about to breech thru the floor onto six so if you hear a boom that's us."
"Roger that, we've just hit four and we've got the same."
A double click of static told him that she'd got the message.
"Okay, here's the deal, Karl, I want you to back me up, split the section and have half clear out the rest of these floors, everyone else on me."
He turned to the embedded reporter and his cameraman.
"Stay tight, and don't fall behind.

Back in the states a "Special Bulletin" interrupted the FOX news broadcast and the anchor updated his audience.
"We're going live to our embedded reporters with Det. 3 of the Tokyo ADP. They have just responded to a boomer call at a gym near Sudacho."

Back on the seventh floor a Janitor boomer was seen meandering it's way thru the halls.
"Shit!" One of her men cussed.
"You there, boomer! Get up to the ninth floor and stay there." Tasha ordered. She could have disabled it, but it would offer great material for the fusion boomer if it remained. She blinked in exasperation as it, in following her orders, returned to its work closet to drop off its bucket and mop. Just as it had dropped them off a metal tentacle burst from the inside wall and wrapped itself around the boomers neck.
"Mother of God!" She yelped and withdrew her Gong. She leveled off and fired, blowing the boomers head clean off and the tentacle snapped back into the closet.
"Move that further away from the closet and you two post guard, you, with me." She ordered, pointing to her men in turn.

The footage showed Tony and his men halt at the 6th Floor landing. The surrounding had taken on an otherworldly appearance due to the boomers fusion. There was the boom, and he knew that Tasha was making her way into the lion's den. Well, time to earn my pay. They proceeded cautiously; in a situation like this even the wall was a potential enemy.

Up above Tasha and her wingman jumped down onto six and knelt back to back, as they surveyed the area. Her radio crackled to life, it was Nene.
"Ma'am we've got permission to execute the spike." That was quick, she thought as Nene continued.
"We also have a report that the hostages are in the aerobics center, and that one of them is a councilman's daughter." Well, that would explain why the spike request had gone thru so fast, and it went a long way to explain why the GADP had been ready to mobilize so fast. It sure would look good for them to rescue her and make the ADP look bad.
She looked at her wrist display at the map of the building and grumbled. They would have to cover about five hundred feet of corridor to reach the aerobics center. She tapped her mans shoulder and they moved out.
"Nene, hit the spike as soon as our teams are able, but give me a three count."
"Three..."
Tasha laughed, damn she was efficient.
The power died and they moved forward and on the opposite end of the floor Tony and his crew did likewise.
She made better progress; as she had less overhead to worry about. Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she ducked just as a liquid metal tentacle burst forth from the wall.
"Move!" She yelled and bounded down the hall, her eyes peeled and her emotions suffering from a Factor 10 on the pucker meter.
"Holy shit! Man down! Man down!" Crackled over her radio. She recognized the voice as one of the two she had left guarding the boomer upstairs.
"Report!"
"Jesus! That tentacle came back and snatched that boomer back, it killed Hawkins!"
"What's the status on that boomer?" She asked as the sound of muffled weapons fire could be heard above.
"Christ, it's heading down the hole you made. I'm scoring on it but it's not going down!"
"Roger that. Take Hawkins and get back up to the roof."
"Yes Ma'am." She sighed as she noted the resignation in his voice, he didn't want to leave her undefended, but orders were orders.

As Tony and his squad moved forward they saw a service door to the right. He'd heard the radio chatter and did not want to fall into the same trap.
"FRAGO up!" He ordered, and two of his men threw a grenade each into the partially open door. The door flew off its hinges as debris and cleaning supplies rained out, littering the hallway in shrapnel and 409. They moved past the smoking doorway in tow's covering each other when a tentacle from the floor snared the lead man.
"It's got my leg!" He yelled as he tried to bring his weapon to bear. Tony and the point man's wingman descended on him, trying to pull him to safety. As they struggled they could see the viscous metal begin to envelop his foot and slowly move up his leg.
"Holy fuck! Get it offa me!" He cried out.

Tasha and her man had just turned the corner that lead to the aerobics area when he tapped her on the back with his elbow.
"Target behind us."
She turned and fired over his shoulder hitting it with a 10g. HVAP round, knocking it onto its ass.
"Move! It'll get back up."
As he passed her she saw the walls undulate and football tackled him forward as the space where they had been was filled with metal spikes from floor to ceiling.
"Fuck that was close!" He muttered. She noted that the spikes didn't retract and allowed herself a wry smile, well, thank you Mrs. Fusion boomer for cutting of that other one, ya dummy.

As Tony cut the boot from the ensnared troopers foot more tentacles spewed forth hitting Tony squarely in the head and impaling a trooper nearby in the stomach. Karl stepped forward and sliced the tentacle attached to Tony's helmet clean thru. Tearing his helmet off Tony swore.
"Get him outta here!" He ordered, pointing to the wounded man. "And give me his helmet." The first trooper had been finally cut free and was being helped back by a compatriot; the tentacle could keep his boot.

Back home, FOX News saw it's nightly viewers quadruple as thousands of people were literally glued to their sets.

Tasha had one hand on her gun, the other wrapped around the loop on the back of her wingman's armor, she needed to know if he was in trouble, and he her. It didn't take long as he was jerked hard to the left up onto the wall. A tentacle had slammed against his head and was enveloping his helmet. She reached up, unfastened it and pulled him out of it just as the gelatinous metal crushed it like a ripe melon. They continued on just as a spike shot forth toward her. Narrowly backing up in time she brought her mono blade down and sliced it, sending the respective ends back into the wall.

Moving forward Tony and what remained of his team reached the corner and peered around. They saw Natasha and her trooper near the doorway. They nodded at each other, noting their locations. Tasha's trooped lurched again and she pulled slightly. He didn't move. She turned and closed her eyes in despair. His head was at an odd angle; a spike had entered his neck and was holding him upright as he spasmed in his death-throes. Releasing her grip she made it the rest of the way to the doorway and pumped her arm up and down, signaling to Tony to move up.

"On three." She said then counted down, and then together they burst into the room followed by Karl and another trooper. The FOX reporters huddled outside the doorway, watching. Ensconced in the far wall was the fusion boomer, its humanoid features barely visible with bits of spandex hanging off its limbs. In a corner, off to it's left were twenty women huddled together, whimpering and clutching one another. A few, less fortunate gym patrons, lay where they had fallen. Tony, Natasha, Karl and their trooper opened fire. Enraged, the boomer sent tentacle and spike after spike in their direction, Karl was hit squarely dead center but his armor miraculously held, their troop was like wise hit, his gun arm now useless. Tony and Natasha managed to roll out of the way and Tony as he came up, leveled his weapon and hit the boomer in the chest, it's head having been obliterated by their opening volley. Still the boomer didn't die. As Tony fired at what remained of the head once more Tasha had a thought, rolled to her right, came up on her knee and put another round into the boomers chest just as a spike hurtled toward her. She tried to twist out of the way but it still managed to catch her arm, tearing a chunk of her armor and flesh away. The spike, normally ridged, sagged, and then sloughed to the floor and the boomers red glowing embers that doubled for its eyes, faded.
"How in the hell?" Tony asked.
"I figured that the boomer put its core in a safe place, in the wall."
"Well shit, works for me." He laughed and stood then turned to help Karl and the other trooper. Tasha waved to the terrified young women and pointed them to the exit taking a head count as they passed her. She identified the councilman's daughter with nary a scratch.
"Nene, patch me thru to the councilman please." There was a click of the line being switched.
"This is Mr. Hama."
"Councilman Hama, this is Director Romanov Det. 3 ADP. I'm pleased to report that your daughter is safe and sound and is being escorted from the scene as we speak."
"Oh thank you, thank you..." She listened to his gratitude then suggested he come down to pick her up. As they moved out of the aerobics center the tell tale foot falls of a HARDsuit caught her attention. She glanced towards the noise and saw Priss and Linna turn the corner. Both had splatters of hydraulic fluid on their armor, most likely from the janitor boomer that had followed her down. Nearby two members of Section 1 paused, noticing them as they were pulling the body of Cpl. Hawkins from the wall. They turned towards their boss and seeing she wasn't alarmed continued their grisly work. Linna waved at her, almost bouncing and Tasha waved back, nodding to Priss. After a few seconds Linna tapped Priss on the shoulder, letting her know that they needed to leave, more cops were on the way and the news choppers were already inbound. As Priss turned to leave she stopped and turned back, then tossed Tasha a two fingered salute before she disappeared down the hallway.
On her way down stairs Tasha regarded that simple gesture; except it wasn't simple, to her it spoke volumes. It was a showing of respect.

As she and the last few of her men exited the building three GADP vans pulled up. The human handler hopped out, and seeing Detachment 3 personnel exiting the building with ambulances already out front accepting wounded and hostage alike tossed his head set to the ground in frustration. The FOX News reporter walked up to her as the cameraman walked around front to film them.
"Director Romanov? Doesn't it seem odd that a Fusion Boomer would be posing as a gym instructor?"
"Actually, yes it does. Fusion boomers are extremely rare, and more often use for covert missions or assassinations."
"So gym instructor would not be one of their primary functions?"
"No, not at all."
"We were told that one of the hostages was a Councilman's daughter. Is that true?"
"Yes, and might I say that she is safe and sound."
"Do you think that Genom, in light of their recent embarrassment might have set this up in an effort to garner them praise from the city council?"
Tasha smiled. She liked this reporter, a lot; he knew just what to ask.
"I can neither confirm nor deny that without further information, but I won't rule the possibility out. It seems to make sense."
"Thank you very much Mrs. Romanov." He smiled, and winked at her after the camera had been pointed somewhere else.
"Why'd you ask me that?" She asked him.
"Ah, that, well, on the way here Tony and Karl tossed the possibility around, and the more I listened, the more it sounded right. Besides, I knew you couldn't just come out and say it."
"Good man. Well, there's a bunch of soft and mushy wrap up shots over there by the ambulances, but don't forget to cover our wounded, we lost two men today."
"I won't, oh, and by the way, our ratings went thru the roof."
"Ratings?"
"Yeah, the feed went live."
"No kidding."
"No kidding." He smiled, and then made his way over to the ambulances.

* * *

"Karl? You got a minute?"
Karl put his katana over his shoulder and subdued a sigh as he turned around; he really wanted to go to the roof for cutting practice.
"What's up Linna?"
Linna had three gift-wrapped packages in her hands and used her hip to close the door behind her.
"Where do you want me to put these?"

'Oh shit.' He thought. He'd forgotten already. Natasha's birthday was today? He looked up at the digital clock on the wall and looked at the date. November 22nd 2040. Crap, it was her birthday. Linna had come to him three days ago with the news, she was almost in a panic, after all; three days was not much to prepare, let alone pick and choose gifts. Karl had been skeptical, he didn't know Tasha's birthday, no one did, well maybe the folks in the Army Bureau of Personnel, then again, no one had asked, and, he was sure, with her secretive nature, that they'd most likely been asked not to disclose it, Privacy Act of 1976 and all. He'd asked how she knew and she'd blushed, admitting that she'd been trying to figure that out for the last two months. A little digging here, a bit of snooping there. It hadn't been until three days ago when she'd finally broken down, and, while Tasha was taking a shower, raided her pockets for her driver's license. The date had struck him as familiar; he seemed to remember something happening on that day. Later, he had taken the time to look it up and cringed when he found the answer. Nine years ago, November 22nd 2032, had been the Freedom Massacres. In that moment it all fit; no wonder Tasha didn't seem fazed by all the death around her, the sniper attacks on her, the bombings and all the other attempts on her, their, lives. She'd survived the Massacres, and as he'd read, not by much. She was one of ten survivors of a small town of four thousand called Nezrum Ibis, just thirty miles south of the Chechen capital of Grozny. Three other towns had been flattened during the massacres, with survivors of those even harder to come by. That probably explained why she didn't want her birthday known; to many bad memories, he'd had his own bout with survivor guilt, in Antarctica, but ten out of four thousand.

"Uh...put it in the office." He said.
She dutifully complied and all but bounded back with a happy smile on her face.
"So, what did you get her?"
His dumbfounded expression coupled with his face turning red told her he hadn't gotten anything yet.
"Karl!" She whined, then gave him a cross look, and dragging him by the cuff of his kimono pulled him towards the kitchen where Tony was sitting at the table nursing a beer as he tapped away at his laptop.
"Tony. Karl forgot to get Tasha a birthday present!" She announced. 'Now you're gonna get it.' She thought as she huffed. Tony blinked and slowly froze, then blinked again.
"It's Tasha's birthday?"
"You didn't tell him!" Linna turned on Karl, 'Now you're gonna get hit.' She punched him in the arm.
"Oww!" He flinched rubbing his arm. She fumed for a second, then, mimicking Tasha, closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten. She checked her watch and looked at them. "It's three now, she doesn't get off work till six, I'm going down to the kitchen to get them to make a cake."
"But I don't know what she likes?" Karl said and Tony nodded is agreement.
"Come on, you've know her longer than me, please, just think of something okay."
"Okay." They parroted, and then blinked at the irony.
Tony had figured out what to get her right off the bat, even the kids, Trish and Sonya had, but needed his security clearance to get it. All this, even the cake, had been finished while Karl paced back and forth pondering what to get her. Tony had finally helped him come to a decision, much to his relief.
When Tasha came to the HiC later that evening she went up to change and Karl and Tony had told her that they were going out on the town. She'd nodded and went to shower while downstairs the surprise guest swung into action. Linna had called Elise earlier, explaining the situation and asking if she could pass along the message that Sam needed some paperwork signed before she went home for the evening. The ruse complete, and much to Elise's credit, actual paperwork was had to be signed, the party goers prepped the dining area after shooing the restaurant and club patrons out, private party and all. Finished with the paperwork Tasha made her way downstairs to the bar, the bartender calling for her assistance on Tony's orders.
When the elevator opened up the restaurant was dark, all the lights save the emergency exits off. Her gun was in her hand in an instant and she crouched, taking cover by the wall, then sprinted the distance from the corner to a nearby booth. Suddenly she was bathed in light from one of the stage spots. She was about to fire at it when a chorused and jubilant "SURPRISE!" erupted from the dining area in front of the stage.

Much to Karl's chagrin, as he walked onto stage, the designated MC, she didn't holster her gun and a cross expression covered her face. She looked at the gathered people as the house lights came up, her features softening only when she saw Linna, red faced, clapping with a broad smile on her face. Karl, the MC, cleared his throat and Tasha looked up at him, still miffed but willing to hear what he had to say.
"Tasha, welcome to your birthday!" He smiled. "We decided to have this select gathering..." She noted he put emphasis on the word 'select' and she surveyed the room, Tony and Elise were there, and Linna of course. Trish, Sonya, and Caitlin, Karl's girlfriend were all present, Bobo was nearby along with two security guards and of course the bartender and Sam. She popped the clip of HVAP out of her Gong and replaced it with a clip of baton rounds then looked back up at Karl. "...This select gathering..." He repeated. "To celebrate you're coming into this world, and this is key, to focus on the good this day means, not the negative." There was a pause, awkward and lengthy, with everyone silent, waiting to see her reaction. Linna walked up to her and held her hand out.
Natasha holstered her sidearm and let herself smile and took Linna's hand, allowing her self to be led to the table. As she sat a pair of tears rolled down her cheeks, it wasn't much of an emotional outburst, but, aside from Linna, no one had ever seen her cry before.
"Thanks guys." She managed, smiling and blushing like an idiot. "Um, where's Tony, I saw him a minute ago?"
As if to answer her question Karl brought their attention to the stage as Tony sashayed up to the microphone dressed in drag, lipstick and all.
"This is for you Mrs. Director." He batted his eyes and in a sultry voice proceeded to do a spot on rendition of Marilyn Monroe's "Happy Birthday Mr. President" complete with a jet of air that fluttered the dress up past his waist as a finale.
Tasha had never been so embarrassed in her life, she wasn't used to this kind of attention, but, she knew at that moment that she could get used to it, and that despite the 'horror' of Tony's performance, she felt welcome, and loved.
Karl regained the mike and wiped away tears of laughter.
"Sorry about that boss, he insisted. But, as he said, it is your birthday and we, as your family, wanted you to know that even though you can be a complete hard ass at times, well, most of the time, we still love ya."
Linna wrapped her arms around hers and rested her head on her shoulder and nodded at her, affirming his statement even though her eyes said 'I love you the most.' then Linna looked up at Karl.
"Presents!"

Karl nodded and cued up a drum roll as everyone slid his or her gifts to her. She couldn't place it, but everyone was smiling a little bit, conspiratorially, at her. She pushed it aside and opened the first gift. It was a ream of printer paper. The next gift was a beer can: empty, then a spent .44 shell casing, a shoe horn, a paperclip and finally a piece of string that had been packaged in a series of ten boxes. With each gift Tasha thanked the bearer for their thoughtfulness, she'd never gotten birthday presents before, and to her, something was better than nothing. Karl on stage had to cough a few times to halt his laughter.
"Well, just for that class act of wonderful acting, here are your real gifts."
Tasha blinked as Trish and Sonya plopped their gift down with a thud.
"Ours first!"
As the paper came off Tasha's face brightened. She didn't know how, but they'd gotten her the complete 2040 set of Jane's. It had everything from Aircraft to Boomers to Handguns, and it wasn't the civilian version either, but the classified texts. Tony and Elise had gotten her a bronze statue of Artemis and a 100-year-old Bonsai tree complete with 'owners manual' and pruning kit. Karl and Caitlin had gotten her an authentic, hand made in Japan, Aikido Gi and a Brietling Aviators watch with all the fixings. Linna had gotten her two outfits, classy, but conservative and a purple-blue with stylish circuit board pattern pendant and necklace.
The cake was brought up next with twenty-seven candles.
"Ooo, what kind of cake is it?" Tasha asked, caught up in the party mood now.
"Devils Food Cake." Linna grinned, nudging her playfully in the ribs.
"Nice choice." Karl said with a wink.
The rest of the party went extremely well, Karl and Elise got terribly hammered with Tony and the kids not far behind. It seemed that only Tasha and Linna stayed sober. They talked for a good while after, as Linna insisted she try on her new clothes. She intentionally kept the conversation off of the boomer incident at the gym. Linna knew that two of Tasha's officers had died, and had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing one being taken away. It had been a horrible thing to see, the way he'd died. But this was Tasha's day, and she wasn't going to louse it up by bringing up something like that.

That Friday, the day after her birthday Tasha got another present, this time in the form of UN troop planes landing at Narita. Karl was there to meet and escort them to the ADP building. He stood at parade rest, watching three USAF C-17D transport planes taxi up, then start disgorging troops and their vehicles. The rotor wash of an Osprey circling overhead then descending on the pad to his left told him that the man in charge of all of this had just landed. He walked up, just as the passengers stepped off the tilt-rotor. He was a large man, with slightly graying hair done up in a crew cut. As he got closer Karl could make out that he was a Major General of the United States Marine Corps.
Coming to attention he saluted, only dropping it after the General returned it.
"Sir, Detective Karl Jurgen, Detachment 3. It's a pleasure to welcome you to Tokyo."
"Thank you, I'm Gen. Fairweather. And this is my XO, Colonel Tabbot."
Karl noticed that Fairweather was American Indian, his features hard and chiseled.
"Yes sir..." He nodded and shook his hand and that of Col. Tabbot. "We have transportation here, and, um...sorry about the protestors." He added, motioning with his head to a hoard of people near the chain link fence that separated the flight line from the passenger area, a few had signs with various slogans like "Down with the ADP", "Down with the UN." "Down with red meat!" Gen Fairweather shook his head in subdued laughter as he boarded the ADP troop transporter. The convoy made it's way thru the city; ten vehicles in total, two of which were ADP, the rest were US Marine AIFV's and Stryker Armored Vehicles. Karl asked about them, and as politely as he could, asked if that was all that was going to be sent. Gen. Fairweather shook his head, informing him that that was only part of the Marine contingent; that the British, Australian, and German troops had yet to arrive.

Later that day Keith walked up to Natasha, catching her as she entered the HiC.
"Afternoon Tasha. Say I got a question for you? Tony said that among the other things you do, is that you manage a few soup kitchens."
"Yeah, three actually. It's part of our community outreach program, The ADP funds it and the HiC does all the catering. We have a few others that are HiC only as well."
"Winning hearts and minds eh?" he smiled.
"You bet, who says that the Special Forces and non-profit organizations are the only ones that can do it." She laughed.
"True, true, well, getting back to my question. I was wondering if you'd mind if we went to one of those kitchen to do a little "Op-Ed" piece."
Tasha smiled.
"That's a great idea, I'm headed up to the office anyway, and I'll let Tony know, I'm sure he'll love it."
He did, the publicity alone made it worthwhile.

On Sunday the HiC threw a huge party, a combination 'welcome the UN to Tokyo slash winter fest.' It was themed, Arctic style, with faux snowdrifts and the like festooned about the restaurant. Tony had come up with a great name for it, Commando Igloo. It sounded like a military operation, or code name for a covert aircraft, so naturally Tasha loved it. She was playing the part of hostess, dressed in a short sleeve American flag print silk Burma-Bibas shirt, khaki slacks and brown loafers. Since she was meeting, greeting, and seating guests she only wore her shoulder rig. Sure, it was a bit eccentric, but it was trademark Romanov. Linna was similarly attired, except her shirt had the Japanese flag and no holster. As they chatted during a lull they noticed a group of four approach.
"Good evening. Welcome to the High Caliber." Tasha started, then paused and smiled as Linna gasped in surprised delight as they saw Priss and her band standing in front of them. Tasha knew that Tony had invited her to play, but had never thought that she'd actually show up.
"Hey Priss! Glad you could make it." She beamed. Linna could only smile.
"Table for four?" Linna finally managed, struggling not to crack up.
"Backstage." Priss corrected, pursing her lips at Linna's bubbly demeanor.
"I got it." Linna said to Tasha. "Follow me." She said, motioning with her arm for Priss to follow her.
"So, she's got you working the floor huh?" Priss remarked.
"Yeah, it's kinda fun actually, beats sitting in a cubical for eight hours."
"Uh huh. Nice place." Priss admitted, as she was lead past tables and boots and the bar.
Linna nodded with a smile.
"Here it is." She said opening the door to the backstage area. A guard by the door nodded to her as she walked past.
"Boy, you've got the all access pass don'tcha." Priss smiled. Linna said yes by way of a shrug and smile.
"If ya need anything just ask kay."
"Sure." Priss said and flopped onto the couch in the dressing room she'd been given. Linna left and closed the door after her as the band members made themselves comfy.
"Well, she may be mousy but she sure knows how to hook up a sweet deal." Maxon, her guitarist laughed.
"Hey the mini-bar's totally stocked!" Fox, her bassist smiled as he tossed a beer to each.
"Swanky." Jade, the drummer quipped as he cracked open his beer.
"It's okay." Priss relented, taking a pull off her drink.
They lounged, enjoying the complimentary drinks, and listening to the other bands play for a half hour or so before Tasha entered after a polite knock.
"Hey guys, everything okay?"
Priss' band nodded and 'saluted' her with raised alcoholic beverages.
"You guys want something to eat?"
"Hell yeah!" They smiled. Tasha pulled out her PDA and stylus after handing them a few menus.
"So what's your poison?"
As they told her their choices she noticed that they were being frugal and smiled.
"Come on guys, eat up, it's on the house."
They looked at each other and back at her then smiled, then ordered a few more dishes and appetizers. Priss however hadn't ordered anything.
"Anything for you?" Tasha asked. "I recommend the Filet Mignon, we also make a mean roast beef with horseradish."
"Sure fine. I'll have the filet."
"Excellent!" Tasha beamed. "Oh, Tony'd like to know when you want to go on?"
"I dunno, I have to think about it."
"Okay, well, let me get this in for ya. If you need anything else or from the bar just ask."
Priss nodded as Tasha left. She allowed herself a smile, here Tasha was, an ADP Director, and she was serving her and her band as happy as could be. She was a strange one; that was for sure. A little while later their food arrived and they dug in. She wasn't kidding, the Filet Mignon was great, as was everything else. Some time later Tasha showed back up.
"Everything okay? Seconds?" She smiled as she noticed the plates were all but picked clean.
"Nope, everything's fine." Priss said.
"So, um...are you going to go on?"
Priss looked at her as if to say, 'don't push it' and Tasha just smiled back at her.
"Aw come on, it'll be fun, not to mention the publicity." She laughed. Priss looked at her band and they were all nodding.
"Fine fine! I'll do a few sets."
"Great!" Tasha smiled, genuinely happy about it, which to be honest gave Priss a hard time, she didn't know how to respond to that. Just a month or so earlier she'd had a gun to her head and here she was now, happy as a clam that she was going to play.

Priss' set was fantastic; and she gave her all, figuring that if she decided not to play here again she might as well knock their socks off. The crowd loved it, and this was most defiantly one of the largest crowds she'd played for. She was surprised however, to see Linna and Natasha in the front carrying on to the music, just like everyone else. Maybe she wasn't a cast iron bitch after all.

Keith Manning and his crew ended up selecting the most in need of all the soup kitchens, it was located in Sotho Ward, near the Pit, and as locations went, it was seedy, and completely unsafe after dark, and not that safe during the day for that matter. As the news crew milled about interviewing folks and gathering sound bites and video clips Tasha, along with Tony and Karl, worked the line; Tasha had mashed potatoes, Karl the greens, and Tony was handing out corn on the cob. She was enjoying herself, and remembered her own experiences with soup lines. The US Army Special Forces soldiers that manned the refugee center in Ingushetia where she'd been interred had been friendly and outgoing. They enjoyed helping others as much as they did their other job requirements and were equally adept in both. Working the soup kitchen line whenever she could, allowed her to come full circle. She smiled at a young man, his plate empty.
"A lot or a little? She asked.
"A lot." He said.
As she scooped up a generous portion of spuds his plate clattered to the table and as she looked up to see what had happened he lunged for her neck with both hands.
Down the line Tony heard the clatter, as had Karl, and saw the young man grab at her throat. She broke his hold on her and backpedaled out of reach, her hand diving for her holster. The youth turned and ran, pushing his way thru the crowd. Karl was over the table first; with Tony a few steps behind. The young thug had barely reached the street when Karl dove, impacting him just below the thigh. Bursting thru the last few people Tony pounced on the brute, wrenching his arms behind his back and cuffing him.
"All right! You better talk and fast buddy!" Tony bellowed as he hoisted him to his feet just as Tasha pushed her way up to them.
He was answered by a flash of crimson as he, Karl, and Tasha were splattered in blood, bit's of bone and brain matter.
"Sniper!" Tony sputtered as he wiped bits of sickly ooze from his face.
He gave chase, but it was to late, the assailant had bolted down the fire escape of the building he'd used as a firing position and had sped off on a motorcycle. When he returned Tasha and Karl were wiping the last of the blood and detritus off of their faces. He walked over to the body and kicked it over onto its stomach when he noticed something shiny in his hand. He knelt down and pried it loose and held it up.
"Recognize this?" he said as he held it out to Natasha.
He hands went to her neck and she blinked. "My pendant!"
"You better call Linna and ask her where the hell she got that." He huffed.
She nodded.

"Your pendant? Um...well, I got it at a pawn shop down in Sotho Ward." Linna said, a little worried, especially since Tony and Karl were eyeing her suspiciously.
"Did something happen?"
Tasha nodded.
"I was mugged for this earlier today, we apprehended the thief, but before he could say anything he was killed."
Linna looked as if she was about to cry. Her eyes told them all they needed to know about her involvement, she was innocent, she'd never meant for any harm to come of it.
"It's okay kiddo." Karl said softly. "We know it's not your fault."
"But we are going to need to know where you got this." Tony asked.
She told them, complete with instructions on how to get there. As the boys readied themselves Tasha made some tea for Linna and herself.
"So, how was your day?" Tasha asked with a tongue in cheek smile.
"Fine up till now." Linna exhaled as she took the proffered cup.
"Don't worry about it, I'm fine, no harm done." She offered.
Linna sipped her drink and looked up at her friend.
"I'm sorry."
"What for? You didn't know this was gonna happen."
"I know, but I still fell awful about it."
Tasha mussed her hair playfully.
"Well don't, I'm fine really." She smiled supportively. Linna smiled back, feeling a little better.
"You're not going with them?"
"Nope, they suggested I stay behind. Can't say as I blame them."
"You don't?"
"You know them, they have their way of gathering information." She laughed as she sat next to her.
"Yeah, at the business end of a gun." Linna laughed back.

The pawnshop ended up clean, all they knew was that a wine-o had sold them the pendant for booze money a few days earlier. They'd told Tony and Karl where he could be found, he was a regular, it turned out, at a church owned soup kitchen a few blocks away. It took them the better part of five hours to find him and he'd been real resistant at first, but as Tony explained the situation to him, in so much as that it would be better for him to cooperate than not, he finally gave in and took them to where he had found the pendant.
"There wasn't so much trash then." He said, pointing to a dumpster. "But I found it there, under the dumpster."
"Well, get to moving." Tony prodded, motioning towards the heaps of rancid garbage.
Grumbling, the hapless bum cleared the trash from the dumpster then pointed to the space underneath it.
"Right there, I found it right there."
Karl knelt down and felt around.
"Hmm, there's a hole in the bottom."
"Guess what?" Tony asked the bum.
"What?"
"You get to hop on in and see what's in there."
Muttering under his breath the poor bum crawled in and started to chuck trash bags out onto the street, some of them coming pretty close to his tormentors. Both Tony and Karl backpedaled as, a few minutes later, he cried out and all but flew out of the dumpster, pointing and jabbering incoherently.
"Let me guess, a body?" Karl deadpanned.
The bum nodded feverishly.

Tokyo Metro and the coroner arrived shortly thereafter and exhumed the body from the refuse. He was badly decomposed and partially consumed by vermin, was elderly, and wore a white lab coat. He had no ID and the only personnel effects he had consisted of fifty dollars hidden in his shoe. He also had an imprint that matched the dimensions of the pendant in his right hand.

"Now what?" Tony asked.
"Well, the coroner says he was beaten to death, lots of stab wounds and abrasions. Looks like whoever did this roughed him up pretty bad."
"Hmm, well the only lead we have is that stiff in the morgue. Lets see what we can get off of him and go from there."

The next day the results were in. He was a low level tough belonging to the Jade Dragon bozosuka gang, which in turn belonged to the Chin Lao Triad family. That little revelation spoke of yet another highly placed crime family that had them on their shit list, well, they were three and oh now, Genom the Shinjuku Yakuza family, and now the Chin Lao. The next few days went fast, almost at a breakneck speed. The boys decided to raid the largest know haunt of the Jade Dragons first, to see what they could stir up.
"Okay, we've got backup down the street." Tony informed Karl as they cinched up their armor.
"Probably won't need it." Karl said.
"Hope not, but it's there. All right, lets do it."
They approached the bar, if you could call it that. Snow was on the ground and a cool breeze whistled down the street. There were a few drunken thugs meandering down the street, away from them, and three bouncers at the door.
"Howdy gents!" Tony quipped as he approached.
The three noted that he wasn't, A: anyone they recognized, and B: definitely packing.
"You're not allowed in here." The largest of the bunch grunted.
"I think we are." Tony replied, producing his badge.
Then, the shit hit the fan. The gang member off to the left pulled a knife, while the others adopted a fight stance. Lunging forward Tony snapped his arm out and cuffed the thug closest to him on the temple, dazing him while Karl snap kicked the one within his reach in the chest. The knife-wielding thug stabbed at Tony and came back with a wet blade, followed thru by a knife hand strike to his neck for his troubles.
"Monoblade! Fuck!" Tony swore. The punk he'd hit earlier had struggled to his feet and made a lunge but Tony was ready for him and snap kicked him in the gut tossing him thru the window into the bar. Karl finished the third with a well-placed palm strike to the face, knocking him senseless.
The door to the bar burst open and two more individuals appeared, this time with weapons. Karl brought his street-sweeper, a smart-chipped SPAS-12, up and fired as Tony plunked his helmet on and withdrew his Uber-Revolver. The first 12g round impacted its targets thigh, blowing him onto his chest. The second man, armed with a dated yet effective HK MP5 fired wildly, spraying both of them. Tony finished him off with a well-placed shot to the head.
"Shit! C'mon Karl, time to earn our pay." Tony paused; there was no usual witty banter in reply. "Karl?" He turned.
Karl was on his back, his SPAS by his side and a pool of crimson about his head.
"M...Man down!" Tony yelled.
Down the street their back up moved out, the driver gunning the engine to the transporter in an effort to make the ungainly machine move faster. Kneeling down Tony pressed his fingers to Karl's neck, feeling for a pulse. It was faint, but there.
"Sonofabitch!" He yelled, hefting his fallen comrades weapon in one hand and his revolver in the other. He kicked the door open and fired, he didn't care what at. Three gang members went down in heaps; still he fired, when the SPAS emptied he tossed it to the ground and pulled a fragmentation grenade and tossed it behind the bar, having seen motion behind it scant second earlier. As a horrendous explosion sent bits of bar tender flying thru the room he steadily took aim and dropped two more punks as his back up appeared at the door.
"Back off! They're mine!" He snarled.
Seeing that he had things in hand, they withdrew, but posted at the now blown out windows to offer what fire support they could, should the need arise. Other members of the back-up team tended to Karl.
"Ah shit man, this looks bad!" Hawkins, one of Section 2's Frontliners, muttered. As the weapons fire from inside the building continued he waved down the approaching ambulance and with the help of his teammate loaded Karl onto a stretcher. As they were loading him up Tony approached looking like hell. His armor was caked in blood, dust, and alcohol.
"The area's secured, get what you can from the survivors and let me know what you find." He snarled bitterly as he hopped up into the ambulance, sitting next to his friend.

Tasha's phone rang and dutifully she answered.
"Ma'am! This is Cpl. Mayers, Karl's been hit!" Came a frantic voice. She hadn't even had time to say hello.
She felt her legs buckle and sat down on the nearby couch.
"Is he alive?"
"Barely, an ambulance just took him, um...to the hospital off of Yamate-Dori."
"Understood. Do you need anything on site?"
"N...no ma'am, everything's fine here, we're secure."
"Roger that, keep me informed."
She grabbed her gear and hustled down the steps. Silkit was waiting for her in the parking garage, her door open and engine purring. Sliding inside she had to take a deep breath before she accelerated out, making sure not to turn herself into a casualty as well.
She saw Tony in the hall when she got to the hospital, pacing back and forth in front the door leading to an OR.
"I just heard. Is he okay?"
"It doesn't look good. He took one to the face."
She bit her lip and calmed herself. "Are you okay?"
"Oh yeah! I'm just peachy!" He bit.
She nodded; she could understand his anger. He swallowed and pounded his fist against the wall in frustration.
"Sorry. I'm not mad at you."
"I know; it's okay." She said as she sat down on a nearby bench, settling in for the long haul.
Some hours later the surgeon appeared. Both Tony and Tasha were at him in an instant.
"Is he okay?" Tony demanded.
"He's alive, but he's lost a lot of blood, and, and I'm afraid he's going to lose his eye.
"Brain damage?" Tasha asked.
"None detectable as yet, but it's still to early to say. He's in critical but stable condition. I can't recommend a visit right now, maybe tomorrow."
Tony didn't seem too happy about that and showed it, until Tasha put a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on, we'll come back tomorrow. Doctor? You'll let us know if there is any change." It wasn't a request, more an order. "And I'm going to post armed guards at his room, no debates."
He nodded.

In the hospital lobby Tony fidgeted with his food. Tasha observed him silently, not wanting to say anything, but knowing she should.
"So, what did the lab say about that pendant?" Tony said, breaking the awkward silence.
"Well, it's made of the same material used in boomer cores. And that core sample we cut out of it grew back. The stuff around the metal is a storage medium of some sort. I've got the lab working on the stuff Section 2 brought back from the raid. We should know something more by tomorrow." She managed.
He scarcely heard her, her comments registering on the edge of consciousness. He nodded, but secretly wondered if that stupid pendant was worth it.

The next day Karl opened his eyes and Tasha nudged Tony.
"Oh shit! You're alive!" He said happily.
"Why?" Karl asked.
That seemed to stun the occupants of the room.
"Dude! Who cares! You're alive!" Tony replied.
"I should be dead, oh and thank you so much from wrenching me back from eternal bliss." Karl huffed.
Tasha hit the call button for the doctor. He came in a checked his chart. When he was finished he noticed Tasha motioning for him to follow her into the hall.
"He seems physically all right." The doctor said.
"He sure doesn't sound all right." Tasha said.
"Yes, but this type of behavior is not uncommon after a near death experience."
"I'm familiar with PTSD." Tasha replied, referring to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. "The question is, will he get over it?"
"Give it time, it's up to him. We'll do everything we can, but in the end it's up to him."
"Put him on suicide watch. I don't want him pulling the IV's out of his arms or anything stupid like that."
"Yes, I understand, I'll see to it."
As the doctor went back into the room, Tony walked out.
"What happened?" She asked.
"He upped his dosage, KO'd himself."
"I had the doctor put him on suicide watch." She admitted, and Tony nodded in understanding.
"What a bucket of gay." He sighed.
"He'll be fine, he just needs time."

While Karl remained in his self-induced coma, elements of the case began to filter in. Found among the evidence seized from the raid was a Personal Rad Meter, a device part of everyday garb in orbit. The autopsy report on the stiff confirmed as much, his bones suffered from de-calcification, a common malady when subjected to long-term exposure to micro gravity. What was worse was that they had finally identified the corpse. He was a scientist, one that specialized in boomer systems. Later that evening, Tasha had noticed a tail, and had called Tony to help her out. She'd lured the hapless hanger-on to a deserted portion of the docks and he had 'interrogated' the occupants of the car. What they learned didn't make them feel any better. The tails claimed, originally, that they were Japanese FBI, but a quick check with the Bureau showed they were not. They had finally admitted to being security specialists with the SDPC. Among the artifacts found within their sedan was a matchbook for a sushi place, and a few cell phone numbers programmed into their phone. One was for the SDPC director himself, a Mr. Kono. Whatever that pendant was, it was important to the SDPC, important enough for them to recruit the Chin Lao to retrieve it. Apparently the SDPC thought that they would get away with what Genom had already failed to do, get a criminal organization to do their dirty work.

* * *

Coming to, Karl stirred and surveyed his surroundings. Caitlin was asleep by the bed, and an ADP Frontliner was standing guard inside the room. Upon noticing he was awake the guard called those involved and greeted him, waking Caitlin in turn. The Doctor appeared presently and checked his vital signs and chart.
"How are we feeling today Detective Jurgen?"
"Like warmed over dog shit. So, what's the prognosis?"
"You suffered from blood loss, and, you've lost the use of your left eye."
Karl touched his fingers to his head and felt the bandage as Caitlin held his hand supportively.
"Well, this won't do. What are my options?"
"Well, we can implant a cybernetic eye, aside from that, there is no other procedure that will restore your vision."
Karl sighed, and looked over at Caitlin.
"Do what you need to do honey, you know I won't mind. I'm just glad you're alive."
"Okay." He smiled. "Well Doc, I guess you should give the ole catalogue."
The Doctor returned with a list of applicable replacements and features. After a few minutes Karl had made his decision and asked that he be put under the knife as soon as possible. He was getting bed sore and didn't much feel like being laid up any longer. When he came out of surgery, again, Tony and Tasha were waiting for him with smiles.
"How's it going?" Tony asked.
"Not bad, although I'm a bit miffed that you weren't here when I woke up."
"What are you talking about?" Tasha said. "We were here when you where brought in."
"Uh...no. The only people that were there was Caitlin and a guard. Thanks for playing."
"You were brought in two days ago Karl." Tasha corrected. "You KO'd yourself on morphine after spouting off about how much you wish you could go back to being dead; remember."
Karl shot her a murderous glare.
"Boy you think you're funny don't you. Look, if you don't have an excuse fine, but don't make it worse by lying."
It was Tasha's turn to glare and she fixed him with a positively vicious glower.
"When, have I EVER lied to you Karl?"
He blew her off and looked at Tony, who shrugged.
"Hey man, I was fighting bad guys."
"Then you're forgiven. As for you 'Miss Thang, I don't buy it for a second."
"Wh...what? You know what, forget it. Believe what you want!" She huffed and left the room, slamming the door on her way out. In the hall she tracked down his doctor and pulled him aside.
"Um...is amnesia a symptom of PTSD?"
"Sometimes, oh, I think I see."
"See what?"
"Well, he seemed very chipper when he woke up earlier, not like the other day at all."
"Great!" She exhaled, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "Now he thinks we didn't show up when he was brought in."
"Oh, I guess I understand."
"Yeah." She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Nothing I can do about it now, except..."
"Go on."
"You keep video documentation of these rooms right?"
"Yes, mainly for liability purposes, and of course security."
"Can you make a copy of when he was brought in, initially?"
"Well, yes, ah, I understand, yes, I'll have it done right away."

A few minutes later Tasha re-entered the room with the disk.
"Here, you skeptical son-of-a-bitch, if you don't believe me, you might believe this." She said as she forcefully stuffed the disk into the pocket on his smock. Then she turned to Tony.
"If you need me I'll be at the office." Then she turned back to Karl. "Get better." Then she left.

Karl was cleared for duty shortly afterwards; he'd passed his weapons re-qualification with flying colors. No doubt thanks to the new targeting feature in his new eye. Later that week they checked out the sushi place mentioned on the matchbook, it was a front, and in true Tony style, they had extricated information that in turn led them to the Kawasaki docks. What they found there was an eye opener to be sure. Mr. Kono himself was meeting with a high-ranking Triad official. The pendant was mentioned, being called a key. That didn't make Tasha feel any better, if it was a key, whatever it opened wasn't on Terra Firma. There had been a brief but brutal firefight when Tony had tossed a grenade over the boxes they were hiding behind. She'd been pissed about it, hoping to track him rather than make him bolt, but in the end the results were the same. Mr. Kono had escaped, although barely, having been spirited away by his bodyguard boomers. They'd lost track of him at Narita, where the SDPC had its corporate headquarters. Shortly thereafter a shuttle had lifted off. It didn't take a genius to put Mr. Kono on it.
There was more bloodshed to be had, the Triad faction was livid, and Tony, in an attempt to defuse the situation much like they had with their Yakuza antagonists, had set up a meeting to in effect talk things out. It had gone badly, Tony fired the first shot, and if the records keeping was accurate, the last as well. In the end twenty Triad members laid dead for the loss of one security specialist out of the HiC.

Linna sipped her drink and sighed. Misae looked over and pursed her lips.
"I know that look, what's on your mind?"
"It's just the news of late, Tasha's right, it's all being controlled."
"You're not gonna start talking about the Knight Sabers again are you? I think I've heard enough about you and your conspiracy theories." She said and stood. "Come on, if we're late, the bosses will be 'conspiring' to take away our jobs."
"Hey wait." Linna replied, standing to follow her. She noticed she still had a spent sandwich wrapper in her hand. Looking over she saw a cleaning boomer at work and sighed. Tossing the wrapped to the floor she walked past then stopped and turned to the boomer.
"Sorry." But it ignored her as it cleaned up the trash.
Catching up to Misae she huffed.
"You know, I think you just don't want to believe the truth."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh come on, you know exactly what I mean. You know what?"
"What?" Misae said, putting her arms akimbo as Linna walked past her, stopped and turned her head towards her.
"If you don't want to listen to the truth, or care, that's up to you. I know I'm right." She nodded for emphasis and continued on.
Misae threw her arms up in exasperation and exhaled noisily.
"Sure, whatever."

Later that evening Nene was 'flirting' with Mackie at the Silky Doll, ostensibly helping him with programming and hacking. Sylia walked in and looked a little peeved.
"Nene, aren't you supposed to be in the training room right now?"
"In a minute." Nene replied. "By the way Sylia, have you heard the latest about Priss?"
Sylia paused.
"She's got a new boyfriend. It's Leon, one of the guys I work with. At least he wants to be, but Priss is acting like Priss so I'm thinking about giving them both a little cybernetic push on the back." She giggled.
"Wait a second! Is this guy in the AD Police?"
"Mm hmm." Nene smiled, as she clicked merrily away.
Sylia walked over to the terminal and shut it down.
"Are you out of your mind!" Sylia bellowed, making Nene cringe. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"S...Sylia."
"Screw up one more time and you're out Nene. We don't need any dead weight."
Standing Nene looked at her with a tear in her eye and clenched her fists.
"I don't see you talking to Linna like that! And she's totally buddy buddy with Leon's boss!"
"That's different! They aren't dating!" Sylia fumed. Mackie kept quiet, watching the back and forth with concern.
"Oh like hell it is! You're such a hypocrite!" Nene finished and stormed out in tears, stopping at the door.
"The only reason you don't say anything to Linna is cause you know Tasha'll kick your fucking ass!" She slammed her fist into the door controls, shutting the door behind her.

Linna was worried. She knew that Leon was an okay guy, or at least that's what Nene, Elise and Tasha had told her. But Priss, she hated the ADP with a passion, and if what Nene had told her the other night was true, about Leon and her being, interested, well, she wasn't sure what that would lead to. She went to the Hott Leggs the next day. She'd had lunch first with Tasha, for the first time in a while, telling her what Nene had told her. She didn't seem angry, or concerned for that matter, although she'd expressed her sympathy for Leon, and Priss. "I'm not sure which one to feel sorry for." She'd said. They'd laughed at that, not out of malice, but at the irony of it all. Linna had told her that she was going to see Priss later that night, to ask her about it.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tasha said.
"Why not?" She asked.
"She's a lone wolf. She might not take to kindly to your digging."
"Yeah, I'd thought about that, but, I have to ask, I care for her, and I don't want to see her get hurt."
Tasha smiled.
"You're one in a million sweetheart. You've got a big heart."
Linna blushed, smiling slightly at the compliment.
"Is there a 'but' coming on?"
"Nope, no buts. Just go easy kay; you know me, I wouldn't take kindly to someone yelling at my girlfriend."
"Heh, and here I thought you'd be happy for an excuse to smack her one." Linna joked.
"I don't need an excuse for that." Tasha joked back, pointing at her with her fork. Of late Priss had showed Tasha some grudging respect, and had even relented and played a gig at the HiC the day prior, but still, that didn't make them friends.
"Yeah, I know, and I'll 'go easy' I promise."

Knocking on the doorjamb to Priss' rehearsal area Linna walked in and Priss looked over at her. She turned back to her band.
"Hey guys, I've got a thing, gimme a minute."
Outside Linna asked her why she hated the ADP, after she'd mentioned Leon; Tasha had been right, partly, Priss had exploded, but her venom had been directed at Nene, not her.
"You want to know why I hate them, well, I'll tell you why. I hate them because they're just another lie. They're supposed to protect the people, but, the truth is, is that they don't give a crap about what kind of damage they do, or whose lives they destroy."
"And that's it." Linna said, evenly. She was screaming inside, how could you be so blind, sure the ADP has a bad reputation, and they caused countless millions in damage, but she didn't think for a minute that they didn't care about the lives they were charged to protect. Before she could say anything to that effect their phones went off. It was Sylia, and there was a rouge boomer on the loose again.

Beep Beep Beep! Beep Beep Beep!
Setting her paperwork down Tasha extended her arm to slide the cuff of her shirtsleeve back exposing her pager/watch. Pulling her wrist back she took in the message and stood.
"Boomer incident guys."
Tony cursed and Karl sighed.
"Again? Let Leon take this one." But Tasha wasn't listing, or if she had, she ignored him as she pulled out her secure cell and called in. They waited not so patiently as she requested and took in the pertinent information.
"Well?" Tony asked.
"Mining boomer, in one of the maintenance conduits under near Akasaka."
"Wonderful." Karl piped in as he stood to gather his gear.
"Oh don't look so glum, your favorite cop in the whole wide world is already on his way." She joked.
He tossed her a sardonic smile and flipped her off.
"Oh ha ha, just so long as his "family" friend keeps his distance."
"Oh but I thought you liked him watching your rear." She tossed back. Tony laughed at his friend's expense, nodding at Tasha's well-played ribbing.
"Fuck you." Karl said to Tony. "Both of you." Turning back to Tasha.
"Well, lets pretend we're cops shall we." Tony quipped as they made their way out.

Leon and Daley had just stepped out of their Road Chaser when the "triple threat" pulled up. Two Firebee's had saddled up overhead, their spotlights playing over the access tunnel. It didn't take long for the action to start. About ten frantic miners slash electrical technicians came barreling out of the tunnel screaming in terror. Tasha took a moment to contemplate that, here they all were, ready to do battle with, something, something that made these sane folk run with everything they had. She looked to her boys and nodded as she saw them cinch up their armor. Walking up next to Leon, Karl stopped and regarded him.
"Don't you ever wear armor?"
His comment caught Leon off guard and he just blinked. Luckily for him, the boomer they had been called to deal with reached the mouth of the tunnel, quelling that line of questioning in a hurry. Above them the Firebee's alerted them to new targets.
"Tango ten to ground team, be advised, three fast movers inbound!"
A streak of red, blue and green played across the sky and amidst a cloud of dust thrown up by breaking thrusters the Knight Sabers landed. Tasha giggled happily to herself as they stepped into attack posture. They had staggered themselves in a perfect enveloping V formation; the boomer was well and truly boxed in. The red HARDsuit, Nene, was at the point of the V, hanging back to provide support while the Blue and Green had taken the flanking positions.

"Your girlfriend's here." Karl mocked playfully over their armors secure net.
"Yup." Tasha smiled beneath her faceplate, her heart singing as the pride in her voice practically oozed out of his earpiece.
Priss and Linna spaced themselves to compensate for the mining boomers movements, which had taken it out of the mouth of the tunnel and about twenty feet closer to the assembled ADP officers when a low rumbling shook the earth.
"What the...? An earthquake?" Tasha muttered.
"Hell if I know." Leon retorted as he struggled to keep his footing.

The ground under the boomer buckled and Linna and Priss backpedaled as the concrete slabs spider webbed as they were thrust upwards, tossing the boomer into the air. There was an ungodly screech followed by a roar as a thirty foot tall insect (?) burst up thru the pavement and with four grotesque claws grabbed the hapless boomer out of the air.
"No way!" Linna cried.
"H...Holy Shit!" Leon yelped.
Tasha could only stand there, bewildered, as the single thought of, 'I don't think my gun is gonna work on this thing' flashed thru her head. Tony and Karl took a few steps back. Karl flipped open the cylinder of his Uber-Revolver and checked to see if it had a full load and satisfied it did flicked it back into place while Tony checked the power and cooling hoses to his portable beam cannon.
A deep thrumming from the beast caught their attention as a low hue of blue white light radiated from the ends of its claws. Tasha shuddered as the boomer in it's grasp ceased it's struggling and fell limp. She felt her skin crawl as the gargantuan monster bellowed again, apparently in triumph and opened what could only be it's mouth and thrust the top half of the boomer into it's gaping maw. No one, ADP and Knight Saber alike, moved as the boomer, its legs still sticking out, was chewed up.
"Okay. That's about the freakiest thing I've ever seen." Tony deadpanned.

"Tango Ten to ground. Uh...what do we do?"
"Don't shoot! You might piss it; whatever it is, off." Tasha said as she lowered Karl's gun arm with her hand. Karl didn't fight her; this thing was big, ugly and probably dangerous. Suddenly, without warning there was a flash and staccato series of pops as a barrage of needle like projectiles impacted the creature's midsection, bouncing off harmlessly. Tasha snapped her head down from the gruesome sight of the boomers demise to the red HARDsuit; Nene's arm up was up and the gun ports on her gauntlet open.
"You dummy!" Tasha thought as the creature reared up, screeching in pain, or annoyance; she couldn't tell. The creature whirled around and raised it tail section and slammed it down at Nene, barely missing her, thanks to Priss' timely intervention.
"What the hell you do that for?" She scolded as the floodlights of the Firebees played over the insect, illuminating it, causing it to bellow.
"I...I thought it was the right thing to do." Nene pouted back as the monster retreated from the light back into the hole whence it came.

As the Knight Sabers withdrew, Karl and Tony made their way cautiously to the edge of the hole the insect had made.
"Well, let's get the ropes."
"Belay that." Tasha said softly.
"You mean we're not going in after it?" Karl asked.
"You got that right, I have no intention of following that, thing, down there."
As if to confirm her feelings the radio in Leon's Road Chaser crackled to life. It was the Chief, ordering them to return to base.

"Well what do we do about it?" Leon asked, a little miffed. Tasha and Commander Sparks were sitting in front of Chief Roland's desk as Leon paced about the office, with Daley using the doorjamb to lean upon.
"Is it a boomer?" The chief huffed, then looked at Natasha. She shrugged.
"I don't know." Leon admitted.
"Exactly, you don't know, and we don't know. We're the ADP; not exterminators."
"Heh, that's good bullshit sir. Lets go with that." Tasha smiled. He turned to her and saw her face, she wasn't making fun, or trying to be snippy, she was only trying to lower the tension in the room.
"Well good." He tossed back.
"What about the news?" Sparks asked.
"We say nothing." A voice from behind them said. It was Colonel Tabbot, Gen. Fairweathers aide de camp. Tasha nodded her agreement, as did the chief. Leon looked like he was going to ask why when Daley interjected.
"Good idea, no use causing a panic." He said, answering his partners question before he could make a fool of himself by asking it. Leon threw him an 'I owe you one, thanks with a nod of his head and ceased his pacing.
"If there's nothing more to discuss you are all dismissed." Nick Roland said as he sat, waving them all out of his office. "Col. Tabbot, can you stay for a moment."

Tasha stretched as they exited the office.
"Well, that's one for the dinner table."
"No kidding." Sparks blew out noisily. Then patted her on the shoulder. "I gotta go."
"But even so, shouldn't we be doing something about it?' Leon asked as Tasha nodded to Sparks.
"Like what?" She said. "Go down there after it? With what? You saw what happened same as I. That HARDsuit fired point blank and it bounced off, not to mention the speed, that thing would run circles around anything we could bring that could pack more punch that those needle darts."
"What about those Marine Black Widows?" Daley asked.
"You want to ask Gen. Fairweather if you can borrow one of em go ahead." She snorted good-naturedly. "You know what he'll say."
Leon grumbled. Usually he liked it when she was right, usually.
"So any progress on that pendant?" He asked, changing the subject.
"Not much, aside from the fact it regenerated the core sample we cut out of it, that and it seems that the SDPC is hard up to get it, not much."
"Yeah about that." He smirked at her. "There wouldn't be any connection between all this and that firefight the other day would it?"
"You're a good detective, McNichol." She smiled back evenly. "But you sometimes have a bad habit of asking the wrong person."
"So I'm right?" He retorted. She smiled at him and nodded.
"Yes, you're right." She said as she turned and walked away.
"Hey wait! Is that it? I'm right. That's all you're gonna say?" He yelled after her as she walked down the hall.
"Let it alone tiger." Daley soothed. "This is way over our heads, if you know what I mean." He said, pointing upwards. Leon sighed, he was right. The SDPC was big, really big, and controlled by Genom, although good luck in proving it.
"And so she gets to tackle it?"
"She's kept Genom at bay this long hasn't she?"
"Well, yeah, but that's just luck."
"You don't mean that." Daley said matter-of-factly.
"No, I don't, but shit, here she is with the big case and she doesn't want to let us in on it."
"I think it's personal, that little trinket was given to her by her friend."
"You mean that brunette hottie she hangs around with all the time."
"Yup, the very same."
"Yeah, what's the deal between them anyway?"
"Don't ask me, I just figure they're good friends, besides, wouldn't you want someone else to talk to aside from Tony and Karl?"
"Yikes, yeah, good point. But still..."
"Well buddy, look at it this way, if we aren't traipsing around chasing SDPC lackeys it gives us more time to go hunting."
Leon looked at his partner and smiled.
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm glad you're on my side."

Later when they all got back to the HiC Tony flopped onto the couch.
"What a night, Knight Sabers, Leon and bugs, oh my."
"So what do you have on this pendant bullshit?" Karl asked Natasha. She informed them to the new information she'd received, about Mr. Kono's probable destination. Based off of the information they, well, Nene, had been able to glean for the Generos station that Mr. Kono shuttle had landed at it looked like a large asteroid some million plus miles outside of Lunar orbit.
"I've talked to Col. Tabbot and Gen Fairweather about it, they seem to think it's worth looking into."
"Great." Tony huffed. "You remember what happened the last time we went up there." He said, raising his hand. Tasha remembered, how could she forget, He'd been flanking some Dobermans on Prometheus, covering their escape when the laser attached to his K-Suits forearm had melted down. He'd lost his forearm thanks to that.
"Yeah, I know, so look, you guys were planning to head to the states to pick up some more cars right. Well, since we can't take off from here, to noticeable, how about this. While you're over there, one of you heads to Vandenburg and another to the Cape and take commercial from there to the Palace."
"What about you?"
"I'll fly out of Hong Kong."
"Sounds peachy. So what do we do when we get there?" Karl asked.
"Head to the transfer station in Moon orbit and I'll meet you there." She said as if they already knew the answer.
"Okay, what about equipment...."

They hashed out the details, she would head up earlier with a few K-Suits and a stolen Black Widow; the one they'd ripped from the Chin Lao's Kawasaki warehouse. At least that firefight hadn't been a total bust. They recovers a few million in burnt cash, two K-suits, that, judging from their serial numbers had 'disappeared' from a JASDF storage facility late last year. They'd even found an old Type 9 Battlemover sans armament. At any rate, she'd brief them on the way to Sulla, it seemed that the asteroid actually had a name, after they secured an OTV (Orbital Transfer Vehicle.) They'd have to land at one of the outlying mining outposts and hoof it in on foot, infiltrate the facility and if they found things rotten in the State of Denmark, call in the USSD, whom Gen. Fairweather had said would be on station. He'd also said she'd owe him, big, for that little favor.

Tony and Karl left shortly after that, taking the Lear Jet, Mitaka, and a few "HiCecurity" members with them. She hoped they had fun, and more over that they didn't elect to forget that she'd be waiting for them in a few days. She called Gen Fairweather and asked if he could arrange for one of Tony's squad mates, a Sgt. Gommer, still in the service, to be deployed TDY to accompany them.
"I see. May I ask why?"
"Three reasons sir. One he's not UN, so that won't raise any suspicions on our end, two, he can launch from the states and meet me at L2 without raising any flags, and three, Tony and Karl have worked with him before, they have a history and they trust him."
"Hmm...very well. Permission granted. Now remember, if the shit hits the fan, call the USSD, do not try and handle this on your own."
"Yes sir, I take it you've been talking to Nick." She laughed.
"Yes. He tell you?"
"No sir, it's just that he's always been a little concerned that one of these days I may bite off more than I can chew."
"Ha. Good observation, I guess Col. Davidson's assessment of you was dead on." He laughed.
"Thank you sir." She said, blushing on the other end of the line.
"You're welcome. Keep Tabbot informed."
"Yes sir, I will sir."

The next day, across town, Mr. Mason stood at the mouth of the hole the monster had retreated into. Genom had secured the area and he looked to his assembled contingent. He had guard boomers watching the perimeter and a cadre of Genom Security Specialists were lined up in full combat gear, loaded for bear. A white-cloaked scientist approached him.
"I'm glad to see you Mr. Mason, but I'm curious, you've never shown interest in these types of matters before."
"A means to an end, a means to an end." He remarked.

Nene was sitting on Nigel's ratty couch at K's Garage, she was still miffed at Sylia, it wasn't fair, but that again, as Tasha had said, there's no use getting angry over things outside of your control. Still she was in partly angry with herself for not realizing that Sylia would've freaked. Mackie sat next to her.
"I'm sorry about Sylia." He offered.
"Oh no, it's okay. I'm used to her." Nene said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand.
"I'm sure she knows it was partially her fault." He said, looking away. "But she's not the kind of person that can admit that easily."
Nene paused, then looked up at the sky forlornly.
"Actually; I'm beginning to think Sylia's right. I mean, Linna just joined and she's already better than I am." He voice cracked. "You know, it was one thing when it was just me and Priss, but now I..."
"But that's not true!" Mackie interrupted. "I'm sure there are lots of things you can do that they can't."
"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Nene asked, smiling slightly. Mackie nodded. Nene sighed and hung her head.
"Nene, you're our eyes and ears inside the AD Police. And when it comes to computers not even Sylia can do the things you do."
"I'm okay." Nene reluctantly admitted as she pulled her custom-made PDA out of her backpack. "But I'm sure Sylia could find a lot of other hackers if she wasn't too."
"Not like you, you can analyze a data file before it's even downloaded into your system. That's incredible!" Nene wasn't listening; she was pressing buttons like mad on her PDA. Mackie leaned over.
"What's wrong?" He asked and then was thrown back as Nene shot to her feet.
"Oh my God! Those idiots took armored jackets and climbing gear out of the depot! They went, down there." She turned to Mackie with in dread.
"I've gotta call Tasha!"

"Okay, so we turn right." Leon huffed as he picked his way across a debris-strewn corridor. Daley, a little less nimble, had to keep from falling by pushing off the wall.
"You sure we can trust that map?"
"Of course. Nene downloaded it from a top-secret server from the department of Public Safety. She might be annoying at times, but when it comes to hacking she can be mighty impressive." He replied as the pushed on, now in water hip deep, and cold as ice.
"What about her? You don't think she'd turn us into Natasha do you?"
"Oh come on, give me a little credit for intelligence, I told her I needed the map for a completely different case." Leon retorted.
A few minutes later they crawled out of the tunnel into a large cavern.
"Well, here we are, monster central, seems pretty quiet." He mused. "Hey, what's that?"
He zoomed in.
"Boomers? What are they doing here?" Daley asked.
"Wait!" Leon blurted as a shallow roar came from the far end of the cavern. One of the boomers turned its head towards the noise as out of the darkness the gigantic insect fell upon them, grabbing them up. There was the low thrumming and blue glow and they went limp. Boomer or no, both Leon and Daley stood aghast as they were consumed. Suddenly a bright light illuminated the boomer as a group of Genom Security personnel moved out from the cover they'd been hiding behind. One knelt and fired a tracer beacon into it as the giant insect retreated from the light.
Leon looked over to Daley.
"Well, there's only one way to find out what happens next."
"You know, I said I'd stick with no matter what, but if we find a guy with a pitch fork..."

"Secure a perimeter, arrest anyone who does not vacate the area!" Tasha said as the van she was in burst thru the hastily erected chain link barricade. Five ADP vans supported by two Marine Stryker armored vehicles poured into the Akasaka mining area. The Genom guard boomers stood at the ready, their weapons pointed at the unannounced guests. Mr. Mason stepped back, and behind his men, entered the safety of his armored limousine.
"Sir?" His aide asked. "Orders."
He checked the status of his men below and scowled.
"Pull out, let them think they've won."
"Yes sir."
As the Genom personnel and vehicles left, a flatbed backed up to the hole and the side paneling folded away revealing a M-88 Black Widow painted in Urban Camouflage. The M-88, otherwise known as the GD-42 was a four-legged Battlemover armed with an under slung 20mm cannon, grenade launchers and twin beam cannons. Tasha swung up into the cockpit and strapped herself in as her gunner; a young marine Sergeant completed the preflight. The cockpit hatch swung shut and she pushed the control yoke forward as she flipped a toggle on it's left. Sections of the M-88's legs swung down out of their semi-recessed position and pushed up, doubling the height of the war machine. The Army version didn't have this feature, but the Marine version, with its primary mission being urban combat, did. Her headset crackled to life. It was the Chief.
"I thought we decided that we weren't going after that thing?" He said, a little annoyed.
"Roger that sir. This is a rescue mission."
"Leon." He muttered.
"Yes sir."
"Proceed Director, and be careful."
"Yes sir, I will, and thank you sir. Moving out."
She pushed the machine forward and peered into the hole, switching the forward lights up to maximum. The way down was sheer so she pulled back a tad, steadied out the mech THAN jumped it down into the hole. Engaging reverse thrust she brought it to a semi soft landing far below.
"Life support green, all weapons green, sensors peeled." Her gunner informed.
"Roger that."
As they made their way deep underground Tasha began to go over in her head the colossal reaming Leon was going to get when this was all over.

"Wait." Nene paused; an incessant pinging was coming from her HARDsuits sensor array.
"What is it Nene?" Priss asked.
"I'm picking up a locator beacon."
"Locator?" Linna asked.
"Uh huh. And it's coming from the 28th Ward, on something that's as far down as we are."
"What do you think it is?" Linna asked, then rolled her eyes, duh; the monster.
"I dunno, but it's not an ADP code."
"Code shmode. At least it's some kind of lead." Priss interrupted. "Let's go."
"Right!" Linna and Nene parroted.

Daley almost ran Leon down when he stopped in his tracks as he burst into an open area. There were cables and the like strewn about and chunks of the wall were laid about in heaps.
"Wow! What is this place?"
"Looks like some sort of lab facility." Daley said.
"Must be Pre-Quake. The thickness of the walls must have kept it from collapsing."
"Yeah, but since it was never on any map, nobody knew it was down here." Daley interjected.
"What a perfectly wonderful place for a monster to hide." Leon quipped, just as his foot brushed against something on the floor. He saw it was a helmet and gasped, then looked around. The remains of the Genom security team were strewn about; their carcasses lying haphazardly at odd angels, some missing various limbs, the walls splattered in their blood.
"Looks like Det. 3 beat us to it." Daley joked. "So much for monster hunters."
"Poor bastards." Leon said, as he chambered a round.
There was a horrible roar as from the darkness behind them the insect burst forth, grabbing them up in one fell swoop.
"This is just great!" Leon yelled as he struggled in its grip. "It thinks we're dinner."
The hum and glow returned and all of their personal electronics died.
"What's that light?" Leon demanded.
"It's like some sort of EMP weapon!" Daley yelled.
Leon gritted his teeth against the, well, there was no pain. Even the creature was a bit confused, eyeing its prey curiously.
"Hey, I think it only paralyzes boomers." Daley said.
"You think!" Leon quipped. "Lucky us!" Then fired his gun's grenade attachment at the creature's belly. It roared and in it's confusion dropped them. They landed, rolled, and came up firing but to no effect. The creature swung at them, narrowly missing as they ducked out of the way.
"No where to run." Leon lamented
"Jeez, I'd rather have died in bed." Daley added just as the creatures tail dropped towards Leon.
"LEON!" Daley yelled. But he couldn't do anything; he was to far away.
Leon put his arms up in a futile attempt at defense when a streak of blue carried him out of harms way. Daley watched as the blue Knight Saber hovered momentarily, then lowering altitude, dropped him and moved to engage the creature as a streak of green blew past him; Linna! Thank god for the Knight Sabers.
"Come on!" Priss called out.
"Lets do it!" Linna added as they charged.
"How do they keep doing it? Do I have a tracking beacon on my ass or what?" Leon yelled as Daley ran to his side.
Further underground, a door to a room unused in years flew of its hinges and Nene walked in.
"This looks like it!" She exalted as she cased what appeared to be a control room. Walking up to a bank of computers she giggled.
"Well well, what do we have here?" Computer cables sprung from her gauntlet and jacked in.
"All right!" She crowed as the terminal came to life. "Emergency power is still active."
She also couldn't believe her luck that the screen popped on to the set of files she was looking for.

In a control room on the surface Mason entered just as the scientist he'd talked to earlier reported.
"Sir, one of the old facilities has just gone on line! Data collection engaged!"
"Get those backup systems on line! We can't afford to lose any of this data. I want triple redundant storage!" He barked to his staff. Mason turned his head and eyed the data stream as it poured in.

"Sylia! It's the data on that monster!" Mackie cried out. Deep beneath the Silky Doll Sylia stood like a stone statue.
"Sylia?"
"That's monsters ray. It sucked the power right from those boomers batteries. But that means...Oh my God! The suits!"
"Mackie!"
"What!" He yelped, startled at her outburst.
"Get my suit ready for launch right now! Do it!"

Beneath the surface Priss and Linna took a moment to assess the situation, having bounded back to a safe distance.
"Damn! My knuckle bomb didn't even scratch it!" Priss swore.
"Nene? How's it coming?" Linna called.
"Uh...any second now." She whined. There was too much data to look thru, and you didn't just label a file "Monsters Weak Point."
In their moment of negligence the monster charged and tackled them, clutching them up. The hum and light returned and their suits went limp.
"Priss! My suit!" Linna cried.
"Yeah, mine went dead too."
"Priss can you move at all?" Linna asked frantically as she felt herself pulled towards the monsters gaping maw.
"No. Well..." She deadpanned. "It looks like I'm gonna lose the bet."
"Huh? What bet?" Linna asked, allowing her mind to be taken off of what was coming.
Priss informed her of Sylia's proposal and smiled tersely.

"Isn't there some way to help them?" Leon asked.
"Sure there is." Daley said. "Start praying."
As if in answer to those prayers there was flash of light and the monster howled, rearing up and dropped Priss and Linna as green gunk spewed forth from where its right eye had been as a streak of silver flashed past.
"It's the other one!" Daley shouted.
"Linna! Priss! Are you all right?" Sylia asked, landing behind them, her back, foolishly, to her foe.
"Sylia! Behind you!" Linna called out, but it was to late. It had grabbed her.
The hum and light followed the grab and Sylia's suit died in turn, and, inside her head a small part of her died as well. Memories overwhelmed her like a tidal wave, her father's image, her mother, and the experiments, all flashed before her eyes.

"Holy Shit!" Tasha's gunner yelled, as the M-88 burst through a retaining wall and into the cavern.
"Keep it together! Target the arms!" Tasha ordered, surprising herself with the evenness of her voice, since she was scared shitless of this thing.
"Roger that!"
As Tasha swung the M-88 to the side she noted the location of everyone. Priss and Linna were lying in front of the beast, their suits obviously drained of power. Leon and Daley were further back and Sylia was stuck in its grasp. As her gunner fired the lasers she flipped the toggle on the top of the control yoke and the 20mm cannon spun up. Brilliant blue white light leapt from the M-88's nose and sliced into the arms holding the Silver Knight Saber, severing them from the creature.
"Better cover your ears boys." Tasha muttered in Leon and Daley's direction as she depressed the firing stud.
The cave filled with an impossibly loud BRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAP! The cavern shook and loose dust and bits of rock fell from the ceiling as round after round of 20mm AP slammed into the creature's chest. At the far end of the cavern Leon and Delay had to cover their ears to avoid going deaf.
"Fuck that's loud!" Leon yelled.
"What?" Daley yelled back.
She cursed as she noted that only one in every twenty or so rounds actually penetrated, spewing green fluid whenever they did as the monster and the M-88 danced around each other as Tasha desperately tried to keep her distance. The monster would lunge and the M-88 would skitter out of the way, and then move back as the monster retreated. She noted her ammo counter dwindling at a fantastic rate as the almost constant muzzle flash illuminated the darkness.
"Tasha!" It was Nene. She was behind her to the right. "I have its weak point, but I need to get in close to its mouth!"
"Got it. Hang on!" She warned her gunner.
The creature, enraged at the damage it was sustaining swung down at the M-88, slamming a tentacle into its upper body. Tasha grunted as she fought for balance and continued the push forward.
"Take the gun!" She called out. Her gunner switched over to the 20mm and continued what Tasha had started from point blank range. Nene bounded up until she was underneath the M-88, ignoring the heated brass raining down on her, pranging off her armor, as Tasha reared the M-88 onto its aft legs and drove the forelegs claws into the creature's upper carapace, holding it in place. It bellowed and wrapped it two remaining arms around the nearest leg of the M-88 and hit it with the blue light.
Warning lights flashed in the cockpit as damage control protocols kicked in.
"We've lost motor control on our front right leg!" Her gunner reported as he kept the steady stream of fire going. "And I can't sustain this rate of fire for long! The gun's is starting to overheat!"
"Just a little longer!" Tasha replied calmly as she redistributed the M-88's balance, leaning into the creature in order to keep the leg set.
"Open your big fat mouth!" Nene yelled.
"Grenades!" Tasha yelled, hearing Nene.
The gunner launched a full spread bracketing the upper maw with fragmentation ordinance. The creatures skin was to tough to be damaged heavily from that but Tasha counted on the fact that the sound, and bright flash, and with a little luck a few fragments hitting it's other, good, eye would startle it. She was right. The creature bellowed and Nene lined up.
"There!" She yelled, letting loose a full barrage from her needle guns, emptying the entire magazine. Four of them punched thru and on out the back, imbedding themselves into the cavern ceiling beyond. The creature bellowed and it's arms dropped, limp. Tasha pulled back on the controls and mashed the foot pedals down as far as they would go, thrusting up and back, landing in a not so spectacular fashion due to the weight of the M-88's dead leg. When the dust settled the Knight Sabers were gone, apparently the suits had had enough emergency power to clear the area. Leon snapped his fingers in triumph as the M-88 staggered upright and turned towards them, steam wafting off the glowing begun barrels, with the stricken leg dragging along on the floor. They looked up and could see where the monster had slammed them as there was a ten-foot long dent running from the length of the 88.
"Hot damn!" He said.
"Almost makes me want to find religion." Daley smiled.

In a black Limousine Mason listened to the after action from his lackey. He was disappointed; he hadn't found what he was looking for. No matter, it was only an issue of time.
Tasha hopped down from the 88, having been stuck inside until they could get back to the ADP building, the damage they'd sustained had jammed the hatch and they'd needed to be cut out.
"Nice work Sergeant." She praised her gunner.
"Thanks Ma'am. You kicked some pretty good ass too; for an Army puke." He joked.
"Hoorah!" She smiled back, much to his and those Marines in earshot's gratification. Her smile faded as she walked up to Leon and Daley, pointing to them in turn.
"My office in fifteen minutes." She snarled and walked past them, tossing her helmet to a nearby tech.
"Oh, we are so fucked." Daley groaned.

A little while later Leon knocked on the door to her office.
"Enter."
They walked in and stood at attention in front of her desk as she finished up a phone call.
She eyed them, sorted some papers then reclined in her chair as she made a pyramid with her fingers, touching the tips to her nose.
"Gentlemen, please be so good as to explain to me why you, without permission, entered the mine shaft in pursuit of this creature?"
"It, it was a menace. We went after it to locate it's um...lair, so that we could report that back to you."
"Bull SHIT! Do you really think I was born yesterday? Do you really think that I believe you went down there to track it? Gentlemen, please, don't insult me." She glowered.
Leon flushed red and turned his gaze away and stirred uncomfortably. Daley lowered his head.
"You went down there to kill it." She said matter-of-factly. "Didn't you?"
"Yes ma'am." They squeaked in unison.
"Which begs the question; how in the name of God did you think you were going to accomplish that? With small arms and an attitude? You didn't think to sign out a rocket launcher or a railgun? Some explosives perhaps; hmm? I can tolerate bravery, even if said bravery flies in the face of authority, but stupidity gentlemen, that I can't abide."
"Yes ma'am." They parroted meekly.
"You do understand that?"
"Yes ma'am."
"I want you to know something. You not only put yourself at risk, but you put the Knight Sabers at risk. You also put a Marine Sergeant and myself at risk, because none of us would have been down there if it weren't for the fact that you needed to be bailed out."
She let that sink in for a moment.
"I'm going away on a case, this you know. Tony and Karl are already deployed. In our absence you are to report to Sgt. Yamaguchi. He will let you know where you need to be, and what you need to do. Consider this a refresher course in frontline operations, because when I get back, if I ever hear that you've gone off and done something as dumb as this again, I'll cashier you so fast it'll make your heads spin."
They both groaned.
"You think the punishment unfair? Maybe I should consult the book as to the proper punishment for disobeying a direct order." She said, tapping a book on her desk.
"N...No ma'am. The punishment is fair." Leon said. She looked at Daley.
"And you Detective Wong. You are to use your brain to concoct better ways for us to do our jobs, not ways to circumvent the rules. I can accept Leon wanting to run off half-cocked into a situation, but you know better than that. You've been with us in the Pit, you know what we're up against better than most. Consider that the next time you want to make a grab at glory."
"Yes ma'am." He said, stiffening up into attention.
"Good, now then, take the rest of the day off, and be in front of Sgt. Yamaguchi no later than noon tomorrow. Dismissed."
They saluted, about faced and left.
Once outside of the CIC Leon sighed and rubbed his temples.
"I thought we were dead." Daley muttered.
"Yeah, I know, we got off light this time. But a refresher course, how embarrassing." Leon groaned.
"Better than suspension."
"Yeah, I guess." He was just glad that they hadn't had to go before Gen. Fairweather or Chief Roland; that would've gotten ugly.
Tasha sighed, she hadn't wanted to land them in hot water, but if she hadn't, they would all have been landed in hotter water for it. Shutting her computer down and after checking with her number two she clocked out and headed to the Silky Doll. She owed Nene a big fat 'thank you' for her timely warning; she had saved lives.
The door was locked and so she knocked. Presently Mr. Henderson arrived and opened it for her.
"Hey, how's it going Mr. Henderson? May I come in?"
"Of course milady, please make yourself at home."
He led her to the main room, Sylia was behind a camera and Linna and Nene were standing next to her laughing. She wondered what at until she saw Priss in a pretty pink dress with a mortified look on her face. She instantly sympathized with her; she hated frilly clothing too.
"Milady. We have a guest."
Sylia turned, as did every one else. Nene and Linna looked happy, but Priss looked even more embarrassed. Sylia nodded with a slight smile.
"Hi there. Um... am I missing something?" Tasha asked, motioning with her head towards Priss' attire.
Priss stood and walked over to her and leaning in put her nose a hairsbreadth from hers.
"I lost a bet, that's what happened. And these yokels wanted to document it for posterity." She huffed, waving her arm at her giggling compatriots.
"Oh..." Tasha said, leaning back a bit as Priss straightened up.
"Can I take this thing off now?"
Yes yes, go ahead." Sylia giggled.
Tasha leaned over to Linna who had walked over to her.
"What bet?" She whispered and Linna filled her in.
"Oh." Tasha laughed. Nene bounded over and hugged Tasha in a sisterly fashion.
"Wow that was totally cool, I've never seen one of those Black Widows in action before!"
"Heh, what was really cool was that kill shot of yours kiddo." Tasha tossed back as she ruffled her hair. Nene beamed in pride.
"Well at any rate, thank you for the assist." Sylia said, patting Tasha on the shoulder.
Tasha blushed, surprised at Sylia's gracious gesture.
"Happy to be here, proud to serve." Tasha smiled.

Later, the next day, Tasha had overseen the shipment of equipment to the Spaceport then asked Gommer to wait for her. The material would go on ahead to be loaded, they would follow it up later, it was a tedious procedure, but one that would keep the hounds off their trail.
"Where are you goin?" He asked.
"I have to take care of something before I leave."
"Oh, okay, well you know its wheels up in two hours."
"Don't worry, I'll be there."
"Roger that, see ya."

"Linna, hey. Umm...can I come in?"
Bleary eyed she nodded and let Natasha inside. It was two in the AM and Linna had been fast asleep when her knock on the door had woken her. She figured that whatever it was Natasha wanted to talk about it must be important for her to stop by at such an ungodly hour. That thought alone started the flow of adrenaline, something big was going on, and aside from that she hadn't a clue.
"Sure, what's up?" Linna let her in. "God sure as hell knows I'm not." She muttered under her breath. Natasha sat down and Linna could see that she was wide-awake and jumpy. She was wearing a black and gray jumpsuit underneath her field jacket. Her boots were laced up tighter than usual and she could make out the trademark bulge of her side arms nestled in their various places of rest.
"I'm gonna be away for a little while and I wanted to let you know what was going on before I left."
"Going away? For how long?"
"Better part of ten days, give or take a day or two."
Linna was suddenly worried, and awake. She knew that the Army could call Tasha away at a moment's notice. Or the UN, they'd been calling her to New York a lot of late, that and sending her to locations around Japan that they needed looked at. She racked her brain for a reason, any at all. She hadn't heard anything on the news about trouble worldwide, hell the only deployments had been to Tokyo, but that was the UN again; on the other hand that didn't mean anything, and gauging by Tasha's attire it looked like a clandestine operation.
"Where are they sending you?"
Natasha laughed softly. She could understand what Linna was thinking; she'd be doing the same had the roles been reversed.
"No, no. Nobody's sending me anywhere, this is something the boys and I are doing on our own. Well, we do have tacit approval."
Linna flushed red as a feeling of confusion washed over her. Apparently Natasha noticed because she moved around the table and sat next to her. Rubbing her back softly she patted her knee.
"What's wrong?"
"Well, why do you have to go right now, and for so long?"
"It's hard to explain but, well, for the last two weeks we've..."
"Wait a minute! Weeks?"
"Yeah, we've, well, I've, been planning this for two weeks since both Tony and Karl hate the idea." Tasha answered matter-of-factly.
"And you're just telling me now, right when you're leaving? What the fuck's the matter with you?"
Tasha recoiled, mute; this wasn't what she'd expected.
"I...I thought we were...I thought we were partners in this." Linna cried as she stood, turning her back to her.
Tasha put her hand on her shoulder.
"You know I can get called away, we've talked about this already."
"That's just it!" Linna replied, turning towards Natasha, still very much peeved.
"What's 'it'?"
"If it was the Army I wouldn't be angry, cause it wouldn't be your fault. But you knew about this and, and I'm finding out now?"
"Oh." Tasha said, and hung her head, pouting apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you angry."
"Sorry, that's it, you're sorry?"
"Yes, I'm sorry." Tasha replied back. "I should have told you; operational security aside, I should have told you."
"Oh come on, don't make up an excuse now. It's a little after the fact." Linna huffed as she sat, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly.
"When..." Tasha stood and glared at Linna. "...have I, ever, lied to you? I may be apologizing for not telling you but I'm sure as hell not going to apologize for why I didn't!"
Tasha stood over her, breathing heavily in frustration. She wasn't about to leave with things like this. And that left a problem, she was on a time schedule, and this wasn't something she felt she could fix quickly. Linna on the other hand felt awful, a little miffed sure, but Tasha was right, she'd never lied or made an excuse for anything, she'd always told her flat out when and why she'd been late or if she'd be held up etcetera.
"Well why then?" Linna huffed.
Tasha was again floored; maybe she'd make it on time after all. No wonder she loved her so much. Natasha reached down under her collar and pulled out her shiny purple blue pendant from around her neck as she sat next to her. Linna recognized it immediately.
"Your pendant. Does this have to do with that mugging?"
"Uh huh. Apparently some people in some very low and high places have taken an interest in this little beauty. We know that one of them is a high-ranking executive in the SDPC. As for the low lives, they're Triad. Luckily the high rollers that are calling the shots don't know we're on to them and we've already contained the Triad."
"Contained?"
"Well, not necessarily contained, but they don't know we know they're connected to SDPC, not just yet anyway."
"Oh. So what do they want with the pendant?"
Natasha mussed her friend's hair with her hand, their 'tiff' forgotten.
"Good question, we don't know. What we do know is that it has something to do with that murdered scientist we found. And with the SDPC involved, well, it's sure to get deeper from there. Anyway the SDPC executive that's so interested in my pendant left the country so we're gonna follow him and see what we can see."
"Where'd he go?"
Natasha stuffed the pendant back under her shirt and sighed. She made a silent bet with herself that Linna would freak out when she told her where, even with it explained.
"Near as we can figure it, somewhere near Vallas Lucius Cinna, just south of Sulla's equator." Natasha won her bet.
Linna shot straight up and looked down at Natasha with wild eyes, her face was ashen, and her voice raised a few octaves higher than normal.
"SULLA! You're going to Sulla? That's like a million miles away!"
"Actually it's a...."
"Stop that! I know you know exactly how far it is! Jesus Natasha, for the love of god why?" Linna sat back down and took Tasha's hands in hers, her eyes pleading for a sane answer. Tasha was impressed though, not many people knew about Sulla.
"Because, we have to find out what's going on. This scientist, he was a master in the field of boomer control systems, remote control systems to be specific. Than add in SDPC, an organization we know is administered by Genom, and you get the idea. We think this pendant was made by the scientist and now the SDPC wants it, tell me that isn't a coincidence."
Linna exhaled loudly and shook her head.
"Dammit Tasha! Why do you do this all the time? I mean, can't someone else do it?"
Natasha put her hand on Linna's shoulder.
"How can you say that, of all people you should understand why?"
Linna knew she was right, to a point.
"I know, but Sulla? Come on, this is different, you're not an astronaut."
Natasha pulled Linna's head to her shoulder and stroked her hair.
"I know this is different, and I know you worry. And I appreciate it, but I worry about you too, fighting boomers with no military or police training. But never once have I asked you to let someone else do what you believe in."
"I hate when you do that." Linna pouted.
"What? Point out when you've called the kettle black."
"Uh huh. I hate it. And I still think that it's a stupid thing you're doing."
Natasha knew that in situations like this Linna would use the word stupid to mean brave.
"In that case, I'm real stupid."
Natasha felt Linna jab her in the ribs.
"Bitch. So, are you gonna write?"
Natasha shook her head.
"No, we're going to be in radio black out for the duration. And once we get there we'll be too busy to write home. I'm hoping I'll be able to send you a message before we head back."
Linna stood and walked over to the kitchenette and pulled a camera out of a drawer along with a few rolls of film.
"Here. Use them all. If you get to play Miss Space Adventurer I at least wanna see what the place looks like."
Natasha put them in her jacket and smiled as Linna hugged her tightly and held her for a few long minutes.
"You said you were jealous of me cause of my HARDsuit. Well I never told you this but when you went up to take out Prometheus I was greener than my suit, and now, now I'm really jealous. I want to go too."
Natasha kissed her gently.
"I know you do. I wish you could, but we can't carry enough supplies for five; four's already stretching it. I'll make it up to you I promise. And I never said I went up there to 'take anything out'."
"Jeez, you never quit do you?" She paused. "Tash, just come back in one piece."
"Were gonna be under the radar so to say, but talk to Nene or Elise if you've got any questions, they know about it."
Linna nodded and sat back down.
"I guess you have to leave soon huh?"
Natasha nodded.
"I swear; you really give new meaning to this long-arm-of-the-law stuff."
"You're right, I never looked at it that way. Oh and please don't tell anyone other than the others. We need to sneak up on these people. If they found out we were coming we'd be easy pickings. One more thing, the only people in the ADP that are allowed to know about this are the Chief, Nene, Elise, Leon, Col. Tabbot, Gen. Fairweather, Daley and Chuck. No one else can know. As far as everyone else is concerned I'm on a deployment and Tony and Karl are on vacation."
Linna nodded dutifully.
"Ok, well I'm off. I'll see you in a few weeks. I love you."
"I love you too. Come back safe."
The two girls hugged again, when they parted Linna playfully punched Tasha in the shoulder.
"Kick some ass for me OK."
"I promise." Tasha stood then turned back to her. "Umm, by the way, how did you know about Sulla, it's kind of obscure?"
Linna smiled.
"You're not the only one who likes to do a little Intel work." Tasha nodded and pursed her lips. Linna laughed.
"I saw the book on it in your bag when you stayed the night last weekend, I flipped thru it while you were in the shower."
Tasha smiled, very much impressed and kissed her again.
"What was that for, not that I mind or anything?" Linna blushed.
"For caring. I'll see you when I get back okay."
"Okay. Tasha? Please be careful."
"I will. I promise."
As Natasha made her way to the door Linna tapped her on the shoulder.
"Hey, um...I was wondering? Why Sulla, the name I mean?"
"Oh." Tasha laughed. "Well, he was a Roman dictator with a penchant for cutting the heads off of senators he didn't like."
"Great." Linna groaned. "That makes me feel soooo much better."

Tasha met Tony and Karl in the recreation module of the L2 Lunar transit station about a quarter hour after they arrived and had Gommer secure the cargo they'd brought up with them. As she floated up to them Karl noticed her and playfully pantomimed taking her picture over and over again. She threw him a wan smile. She, like them, was dressed like the locals, in a skin suit utility belt and a smile. It wasn't like she was trying to show her figure off, it just made sense. Spacers didn't like to wear clothing that could catch in a zero-gee environment. Bringing herself to a hover in front of them she waved.
"Hey guys. How was the trip?"
"I hate space." Karl said.
"Not that trip, I was talking about the states." Tasha bit, passing off his aloof greeting as fallout from his injury.
"Ahh...I see." He nodded. "Not bad, spent lots of money, and drank a lot."
"You get everything you wanted?"
They'd gone there ahead of her launch for two reasons, to pop up into orbit unnoticed as well as to buy more cars for the HiC Auto portion of their little franchise.
"Yeah, more or less." Tony added.
"Um...so, how did the visit to your folks go?" She asked Tony.
"Wholly unproductive."
"And uncomfortable as hell." Karl quipped.
"Sorry." Tasha said.
"Eh, it's no big deal, fuck em."
Tasha nodded. She understood about family not wanting you around. Although she was beginning to note that Sylia had been, of late, showing at least grudging respect towards her. Still, Sylia didn't know about her little secret, and figured she'd be less than cordial if she did.
"So now what?" Karl asked.
"We hop the OTV to Sulla."
"And you have that lined up?" Tony asked.
"Not as yet." She admitted.
They took moment to look around the room and they noticed a group that looked like a ship crew, floating near the far wall.
"What about them?" Tasha asked.
"Sounds good. Go for it." Karl said.
"Why me?" Tasha all but whined.
"Because you're the persuasive one, that's why." Karl tossed back with a smile.
"Yeah." Tasha grumbled. "And you don't have tits either." She huffed as she pushed off towards them.
"Your words, not mine." Karl called after her.

They watched as she conferred with the crewmen, noticing that more than a few others inside the Rec Mod were eyeing them, some pointed, and more talked amongst themselves; and Tony and Karl just knew that they were the source of the conversation. Presently Tasha floated back.
"Well?" Tony asked.
"We've got transport. Bay 7 in seven and a half hours."
"That long?" Tony bellyached.
"Yes Tony dear, that long. They have to fuel, and move cargo aboard."
"Fuckers." He muttered.
Later, when everything was aboard and secured Tony and Karl retreated to the cargo container to light up. It had been three days without a smoke for either of them and they were suffering from a serious Nic fit. Tasha joined them and coughed as a billow of acrid smoke wafted past her as she floated inside and sealed the hatch. She waved her hand in front of her face in a futile attempt to clear the fumes and her eyes narrowed and watered up.
"I should've known." She coughed.
They ignored her and instead changed the subject.
"So, what's the plan once we get there?"
Rubbing her eyes she nodded, sighing in exasperation. She hated having to repeat herself.
"We're gonna land at one of the outlying mining outposts, they're unmanned so we stand a better chance of making fall unnoticed."
They nodded.
"After that we proceed on foot to the facility. It's in the center of a crater, aside from that, I don't know anything more."
"Well jeez, you're supposed to be the intelligence expert." Tony huffed.
"How about this; you dredge up what information you can about something that isn't supposed to exist, then come and talk to me okay." She bit back with a scowl. "Until then, stuff it. Now do you want this briefing or not?"
Tony grumbled irately.
"Hey hey." Karl interjected. "We're just bothered that we're up here in the first place is all. I mean think about our last outing into the big black, it didn't go quite as planned, if you know what I mean."
"Oh boo-hoo." She shot back. "Suck it up gentlemen, we have a job to do, and for the record I don't much care for being up here either, but you don't hear me bitching about it; do you?"
That seemed to quiet them; sometimes they were such crybabies, she'd never heard grown men complain so much in her life. She pushed her annoyance aside and continued, outlining the plan off attack, for the second time. They would infiltrate the facility; locate whatever it was that her pendant granted access to, then, if it was on the universal no-no list, call a USSD cruiser nearby for back up and extraction.

Back in Neo Tokyo Sylia was working in the Pit. Nigel, beside her was hooking up a strange looking contraption on a stand in front of Linna's suit. The boxy device was what Sylia called an EMP scanner. It would detect the traces of electronics, and within a short range, shut them down, much like the man portable EMP cannons Tasha had procured for Det. 3.
'Ready?" She asked and Nigel nodded, flicking his butt aside.
Pressing a button the EMP device hummed to life and they watched as Linna's suit shuddered and gave off a slight blue glow. The giant insect that they had seen worried her, she recognized it straight away, but she had needed to do some digging to be sure. The digging consisted of looking thru her father's old files, and there, amongst his other works at the Bio Escape Labs was the bug. The lab, aside from doing research on the new breed of "Voomers", had been conducting, at the behest of the JASDF, biotechnology for use against boomers on the field of battle. That gargantuan bug had been one of the more successful projects, insomuch as it was actually built, or rather grown, for testing and evaluation.
The Second Kanto Quake had halted that line of research, and during the reconstruction of the city the research was suspended, and up till now, forgotten. The sighting had confirmed her worst fears, if this 'creation' had survived intact, then it stood to reason that some of the Bio Escape Lab itself might have survived. That meant that the Sotai might have survived. Calling it the Sotai was a misnomer, it was really the name given to the phenomena that had been the unforeseen byproduct of the strange and new metal used in early experiments. She shuddered and cursed her fathers name, how dare he use her and her mother as guinea pigs in his hellish experiments. Her mother hadn't survived. At the time she'd believed the stories, about the accident, but now, she knew better. The strange metal was inherently unstable but that hadn't stopped Genom from using it anyway. Despite the drawbacks it was economical, more so then the biosynthetic technology used in the original boomers. It was ironic that she found herself using the same technology to fight the very voomers created by it. Poetic justice was more like it, that and fighting fire with fire. As advanced and stable as boomer technology was, she needed the added strength and versatility offered by the voomer technology to wage her pocket war. There were failures; the loss of her original cadre of Knight Sabers proved that, the voomer technology would often fail to adapt to the human pilot of the HARDsuits, or rather the human pilots to it. Skill and training went only so far, one had to in effect become one with the voomer metal to truly exploit it's potential. What Sylia didn't realize, was that unlike her new band of voomer fighters, it was her first team's dependence on rigid training that had doomed them. One was an ex-Delta Force member, the other a Martial Artist. They had been trained along certain lines, and that training, subconsciously had prevented them from total symbiosis. Priss, Nene, and Linna had not had such rigorous training, and although Linna had had martial arts training, she hadn't been anywhere near the level of her predecessor. It was due to their inexperience and lack of discipline that they had been able to, by proxy, allow themselves to form a union with the voomer material in the cores of their HARDsuits. They had accepted the suit, rather than try to control it.
"Everything looks good." Nigel noted, looking over the readouts on his laptop.
"Excellent. I'll need you to make one more, for Linna."
He nodded. Later the next day Sylia debriefed Linna and Priss as to what she wanted them to do, although she didn't tell them why. She felt guilty for it, but it was important that they not know. Too much could go wrong if they did, but still, she felt awful that she had to keep the truth from them. She'd made great inroads of trust with her girls, and now it seemed that all of that would be wiped away, but this was her fight, her demon to slay, not theirs. They had but to find the lab; she would do the rest.

* * *

"Okay guys, we're almost there." Came the shipmasters voice over the intercom. Tasha and her boys perked up at that and made their way to the cargo hold. They'd taken the first of the four days transit time to rest, and to collect themselves. The last two days were spent training and steeling themselves for what lay ahead. Tasha floated to the bridge of the OTV and took a look out the windows. Sulla was a barren rock almost the size of North America, and as they flew low over the surface she could see the navigation lights of the mining outpost ahead of them.
"You guys are really going thru with this?" The copilot asked.
Tasha nodded.
"Well, after what you pulled on Prometheus..." His comment was cut short by her burning gaze. They'd been over this before.
"Yeah yeah, I know, you're not them." He retorted with a knowing smile. He wasn't stupid. The orbital communities were a tight knit group, especially among the independents. It didn't take long for news to spread, and when news like that circulated everyone knew about it. Not many people dirtside knew, but a number of work shacks and orbital traffic had been pasted by the battle satts that had fired, those that had not fired at groundside targets. Those in orbit had seen their faces, on the news, what there was of it that was aired. The USSD had quelled such footage early on, and after that there were no more sound bites and video clips. The story had, and even now, continued to be analyzed and touched upon, but no footage of those involved would be seen again, ever. However it had been to late for that; those in orbit had an excellent memory, especially about 'local' matters, and the events aboard Prometheus had already been woven into orbital urban legend. Those that had bailed out of the station had been dubbed "Choal", meaning tough, hard as nails. The appendix of 'dirtsider' was added due to the fact that those 'Choal' individuals were not spacers, not of the orbital family. It was a respectful dig; not many spacers thought to highly of earth born. They were a menace, ignorant of the ways of the deep black, and dangerous in their naivety. To label a dirtsider 'Choal' was an extreme compliment and what those 'Choal Dirtsiders' from Prometheus had done had earned them that distinction. They had been recognized almost the second they had floated aboard L2, and that fame had been the only reason the shipmaster had agreed to allow them aboard as 'stowaways'; accepting their 'bribe' had been merely a formality.
Tasha smiled at him, her way of saying 'You're right you know, but I can't admit it'.
"Docking in ten minutes." He said, slipping back into professionalism.
"Thanks, and thanks for the lift, I appreciate it."
"No prob, anything for a lady." He said, playing along.

As the cargo bay opened the Loadmaster set the ships crane into automatic. Their 'passengers' precious cargo would be delivered somewhere towards the end of the transfer, and was set aside on the pad, away from any dutiful boomer that might try and store it away with the rest of the incoming supplies. The total transfer time of incoming supplies and outgoing ore took no more than an hour. Work in space is slow, as inertia is as much your enemy as a vacuum, so, by the time the last pallet was being hoisted into the OTV, Tony and Karl in their K-suits, and Tasha and Gommer in the Black Widow were already on their way. It wasn't more than ten miles on that Tasha turned her intercom off, she'd let Gommer deal with her K-suited companions constant griping as they traveled.

"Nothing here." Linna sighed as she hefted the EMP scanner over her shoulder. She and Priss had been out 'on the town' for the last few days and so far not a damn thing.
"Same here." Priss reported a few seconds later.
Sylia looked over their reading and confirmed that yet another two sites had turned up empty.
Meanwhile, Nene, at the ADP building was sulking in the CIC lounge. She was miffed that she was being left out of what Linna and Priss were doing. The fact that Sylia's' point, well made in fact, that she stay at her post so as not to arouse suspicion didn't much help either. She sighed, at least she was busy, with Tasha away Elise needed all the help she could get in running the CIC.
"Well, if you want my opinion Leon. I think you need to start taking things a little easier." Daley noted as they walked past the lounges open door.
"Wait, hold on." Leon said as he noticed Nene sitting there looking a little worse for wear. "Hey Nene? Something wrong kiddo?" He asked, genuine concern in his voice.
"Huh, n...no, I'm just fine really."
"You sure? You look like you've got a lot on your mind."
"No, really, I'm fine. It's just that my, blood sugar's a little low, okay." She lied.
"I see." Daley muttered; he didn't know she was a diabetic.
"Well, we're goin to lunch, you wanna come?" Leon asked.
"You'll probably spend the whole time asking me about Priss wont you?" She sighed causing Leon to grumble slightly.
"By the way, have you seen her lately." She asked.
Daley laughed softly. "Nope, not that Mr. Dateless hasn't been keeping an eye out for her, it seems her lack of interest hasn't shown up on his radar yet." He ribbed nudging him in the arm.
"Hey wait! That's not true. She's just...um...well, shy."
"She and Linna must be going at it twenty-four hours." Nene breathed out morosely.
Leon and Daley both froze in shock. "Huh!" They parroted.
"Heh heh, n...never mind; I'm just babbling." Nene tried to cover.
"Twenty-four hours a day." Leon muttered. "Poor Tasha."
"Yeah, and here I thought she was a nice kid, jeez, the boss goes away for a few days and...." Daley added.
"No no. It's not like that." Nene said. She'd said too much and now her coworkers thought that... God, how could she have been so stupid.
"Then what is it like?" Leon asked.
"They're, working."
"Oh, I see." Leon, just like Daley, Tony, and Karl, knew that Linna was a Knight Saber. That information had come out a while ago, and they, to their credit, and in no small part, respect, for Natasha, hadn't said, or done anything about it. Daley sighed in relief; he liked Natasha, and had served with her in the Pit back during the fledgling days of Detachment 3. He had watched her sucker the best Genom had to offer and noted her absolute lack of fear and hesitation as she gave the order to fire on them, despite knowing full well at whom she was shooting at. In fact, it seemed that she relished in it, the act of spanking such a large and powerful foe down a few pegs. He was glad that there was no impropriety at hand; he'd hate to see her hurt that way, knowing what he did about her past. Linna was the only person she'd really opened up to, and he was no fool, he knew that they were close, he had seen the looks they gave each other, they were not just 'mere friends' those two. Leon likewise expressed relief, more for the fact that Priss was still available, but he too respected Natasha, sure they didn't socialize all that often, and those times being the rare occasions he and Daley had dined at the HiC. Daley had told him about Tasha's reactions to the situation at the Corner Club, how she had reacted to the 'quarters' the girls there had lived in, knowing full well why they were there. She'd been down that road, and he felt bad for her.

"Wow! Will you look at that!" Gommer breathed as he handed his field glasses to Tony. The four were laying prone at the ridgeline of a huge crater; in the center was an impressive structure. A tall, almost twenty-story tower rose up from the molted gray and dark brown surface of Sulla, topped with communications and sensory equipment. Halfway up there was a huge rotating ring connected to the tower by five massive spokes. There was a nearby landing and launch facility with a ship the size of a commercial HST or Hyper Sonic Transport, resting on the tarmac. Emblazoned on the side was SDPC in letters ten feet high and on the nose was marked "Amaterasu". On the ridge opposite their position was another structure, it was built into the rock and connected to the main building by a half-mile long tunnel.
"You see any security?" Tony asked.
"Yup. I count at least ten cameras on the ring section, and a pair at each door."
She meant the huge cargo doors at the base of the structure. It didn't seem as if those cameras were used for monitoring anything but routine operations, but she couldn't say for sure if they served a dual purpose, besides, to gain entry, they'd have to use one of those doors.
"Well great, now what."
Tasha checked her watch and rolled onto her back, noting the position of the earth. Her cheeks flushed as she regarded the small blue and white orb in the distance. She wanted to go home, she missed Linna terribly. Rolling back onto her chest she low-crawled backwards to the waiting vehicles.
"There's an abandoned mining shack a few klicks back." She said, pointing to a map of Sulla, provided to her by Elise Drakes father, a noted astronomer, in keeping with the family tradition. The fact that the mining shack site was marked and that the facility they had just observed wasn't, despite the maps age of only a year, spoke volumes. At the very least it showed that the SDPC was up to some secretive goings-on up here.
"It'll most likely have an uplink to the big facility. We can hack the system from there and doctor the camera footage SOP." Standard Operating Procedure Karl snorted; well it worked in Macedonia and Japan, why not here.
"It'll take me some time to do, but once that's done Sulla'll have swung around the earth so it'll be night time."
"Uh huh, for how long?" Tony asked.
"Two hours, three tops."
"Not much time to get from there back to here."
"It'll be tight, but we can make it." She reassured.
"We better, or we'll be boomer bait." He huffed as he suited back up.
"Did I mention how much I hate space?" Karl quipped.

Okay, we're in, now what?" Tony asked.
Tasha bit her tongue, fighting the urge to tell him that she'd told them all this five times before, but, now wasn't the time to get all unglued.
"We move up to the lab area and see what we can see."
"In K-Suits?"
"No, not in K-suits, in mufti." Coining the British term for local garb.
"Fine fine fine, I'll be back, don't anyone go anywhere." Tony replied as he made his way to the elevator door.
Poking his head out of the door he saw that the area was devoid of personnel. He'd studied a map affixed to the wall of the elevator and knew that there was a service and janitorial locker inside the ring section about twenty meters to the right of spoke four. The room he moved into was round with a large tunnel with "Spoke 1" stenciled over it in front of him. He waited, as two more tunnels rotated past and then made his way into Spoke 4. As he proceeded down the tunnel he felt gravity pull at him and used the handholds on the floor; which became as a ladder as he made his way down. So far so good he muttered to himself as he stole into the work closet. Slowly and quietly securing the door he flipped on the lights and almost yelped when he saw a boomer, in stand-by mode, in a wall mount right in front of him.
"Sheeit!" He swore as he holstered his sidearm. "I'm getting too old for this crap."

Two rifles and a Gong were leveled at him as he entered the cargo bay wearing a dirty work coverall.
"Nice to see you too." He smirked.
"Nice duds." Karl joked. "Forgot to iron it?"
"Yeah, didn't have the time, dodging security and all." He said as he handed Karl a set and tossed one at Tasha. The faint smell of soil caught her attention.
"Hydroponics huh?" She said as she pulled the crumpled disguise from off her shoulders.
"Yup. Figured we should all be from the same department as it were."
They changed, and left Gommer behind to guard the K-Suits and M-88. The only foot traffic they encountered were two technicians who were more interested in their own conversation about the 'SDPC bigwig' than three folks in crumpled soiled uniforms passing them in the hallway. Ahead of them was a large double door marked "LAB 2 Chemical Analysis"
"Looks like as good a place as any to start poking around" Tasha deadpanned.
"Ladies first." Karl smiled as he withdrew his pistol, keeping it close to his chest to avoid the security cameras.
They made their way in noting the local; it was Spartan and antiseptic in its furnishings and décor. There were two staffers, and by their age they figured part of the senior science staff.
"What's with all the scientists these days being over sixty?" Karl observed.
Tony shrugged as Tasha nonchalantly made her way over to a control panel, withdrew her PDA and hooked a USB cable to the I/O port. 'God I hope this works.' She thought, Nene had given her a bunch of programs for the trip, just in case. So far she'd needed almost all of them, the hack into the facility from that outpost had been hairier than she'd thought.
"Who are you?" One of the scientists said. A Dr. Kilenack by the name on his ID badge.
"Um...us? Oh were just from the Hydroponics area. Say, you wouldn't be able to tell us about cross training. You seem to have a pretty cool gig going on here." Tony said. Karl nodded.
"Yeah, I mean jeez, coming all the way into space to prune weeds, what a rip."
Dr. Kilenack smiled and sighed.
"Well my boy, at least you get to be among the green on a daily basis, which is more than I can say for myself."
The other scientist was still busy looking into an electron microscope in another room and as such was oblivious to the happenings around him. Tony looked over to Natasha. She noticed and extended three fingers clandestinely and he nodded.
"So are you new here?" Dr. Kilenack said. "I haven't seen you around."
"Uh...yeah, we were just dropped off the other day."
"Ah, well then, welcome to Sulla."
Counting three off in his head Tony smiled at Dr. Kilenack's naive yet kind statement and pulled his gun, pointing it at his head. Karl made his way to the other room as Dr. Kilenack's associate came out with a clipboard in his hand.
"Doctor, you should see this, its incred..." WHAK!!! He was interrupted by the butt of Karl's pistol against his head and dropped like a sack of potatoes.
"My word!" Dr. Kilenack exclaimed.
"Yeah yeah, okay C-3PO, tell us what you know about this." Karl said and produced a picture of the pendant. The good doctor stammered and pointed at the photo.
"Y...you, how? Is, is Dr. Haneda all right?"
"I'm asking the questions here, now, tell us what you know about this. Is it a key?"
"Well, yes, it is, please, tell me; is Dr. Haneda okay?"
"Haneda is dead." Tony said to shut him up. "We found him in a back alley dumpster a week and a half ago."
Dr. Kilenack sunk backwards onto a nearby stool, overcome by the news.
"Oh dear God, he warned us this would happen, but we didn't believe him."
"Warned you about what?" Tasha said.
"That he would most likely be killed."
"So, what's this key open up." Tony asked, his demeanor a tad bit softer. There was a groan from the floor and Karl helped the hapless scientist turned punching bag to his feet.
"Sorry about that, thought you were a bad guy." He said, dusting him off and helping him to a seat.
"It opens the main lab."
"And where's that?"
Dr. Kilenack pointed to the window and waited a few seconds as the rotation brought the ridgeline facility into view.
"There."
Karl looked at the route of approach; the lone half klick long tunnel.
"Now tell me that isn't a kill zone if you've seen one."
"So what's in there? A weapon, a boomer?" Tony asked.
"A weapon, of sorts."
"Go on." Tasha asked.
"Well, it's a long story, but I'll see if I can sum up." He might be naive, but he figured that these people were on a schedule, and nothing would piss them off more then to have to listen to a three-hour dissertation.
"But I suggest we talk elsewhere, we may have visitors."
They nodded at that and while Tony and Karl escorted the scientists out Tasha straightened up the room then followed them to Dr. Kilenack's quarters.
After they had taken a seat and he'd given the refreshments he sat and began his story.
"Dr. Haneda, myself, Kozumi here and a few others were stationed at one of Genom's research facilities on Mars a few years back, back before the Great Kanto Quake. Our mining teams had found a few deposits of a new metal in the Vastitas Borealis. We dubbed our new find Vastitium and began testing its properties. A few months later, during the mining, one of the mining boomers developed a serious glitch; I think the popular term is 'going rogue', at any rate there was an explosion and one of the generators for the spotlights blew. It sent an arc of energy into the boomer, and this is what was really amazing, the boomer was still very close to the ore load, and the arc passed from the boomer into it, then bounced back. For a moment the boomer seemed to reinitialize it's systems, but the damage was to great and the security boomers had to destroy it. We found later that if the arc of energy had persisted, that it might have repaired the damage completely. The benefits of this were to many to count. Dr. Haneda believed that if this metal could be used to fix a rogue boomer than it would save lives. The problem was two fold. Firstly we found that the metal while fixing rogue boomers can also be used to control ones that were fully functional. At first you had to be right up close, but we found that with some work that the metal had the potential to override a boomers brain at a distance."
"What kind of distance are we talking here?" Tasha asked.
"We were able to test it out to one mile."
"Jesus Christ!" She breathed. "And the second problem?"
"That was the most intriguing, we found that the metal did not hold any of the base pairs native to Earth or Mars. No other substance came close. We also found carbon scoring at each of the mining sites and that each of the mining sites had been at one time the impact site of a meteor shower."
"So what? So the metal came from meteors."
"Well, yes, but you don't understand. Of the two hundred sites we found with this metal, on Mars and Phobos, Deimos, and Sulla, what we found was, was that the time of impact coincided."
"How long ago did the impacts occur?" Karl asked.
"Carbon 13 dating has it some ten thousand years ago."
"So what's the problem?" Tony asked.
"The metal seems to have a memory quality, in it's unrefined form it tends to want to align its molecules along certain lines. Like the pendant, which is pure Vastitium. We found that if we incorporated other metals and alloys we could control the shaping process but that invariably the metal would reject the foreign molecules and realign itself, with dreadful results."
"So why didn't the pendant go bonkers?" Tasha asked.
"There is no energy flowing thru it, it reacts to energy."
"Are you aware that this metal is being used in Voomer cores back on Earth?" Tasha asked.
"I know what a Boomer is, but what's a Voomer?" He asked.
"Voomers are Genom's new line of...boomers. If that makes sense."
"Guess we know where the 'V' comes from now." Karl quipped. "Vastitium."
"Boomer's with their cores made from this metal? That's dangerous in the extreme!" Dr. Kilenack protested. "Surely you're kidding, no one could be that irresponsible."
Tasha rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Oh yeah, I can think of a few people who fit that bill. And the dangerous in the extreme bit, we'll be the first to agree with you there."
"Woah woah woah!" Tony blurted, holding his hands up as he shook his head. "Let me get this straight. "You said this stuff has a 'memory quality' right?"
"Yes."
"And that it expels any metal or whatever that's not it, right?"
"Then why the hell do the boomers..."
"Voomers." Tasha corrected.
"Whatever; Voomers, go mutant on us when the go rogue?"
"Mutant? I don't understand."
"Mutant, as in turning really gross and disgusting. Tentacles, monstrous faces, really bad attitudes." Karl explained. Dr. Kilenack sat mute for a second then turned to his compatriot, they bantered back and forth in hushed tones for what seemed like an eternity, apparently debating the issue.
"Ehem!" Tony said, clearing his throat.
"Sorry." Dr. Kilenack replied. "You tell him Kozumi."
"Thank you. Well, we controlled the metal by incorporating other metals, if these 'Voomers' function for the most part, normally, that is until they go rogue, it stands to reason that they found another way to control the metal."
"Like how?" Tasha asked.
"I don't know, a different combination of metals, energy fields maybe, it could be anything."
"Neural?" Tasha said, remembering the HARDsuits, and how they were controlled.
"Possibly." Kozumi admitted. "But unlikely, this isn't a bio synthetic material, unless the metal is controlled by some sort of buffer, or other bridging mechanism. I'm not a neural physicist, so I couldn't begin to tell you."
"Have you heard of a Doctor Steven Stingray?" Tasha asked.
Kozumi shook his head no but Dr. Kilenack scratched his chin.
"Yes, yes I believe I have. He was neural physicist, from California right?"
"Graduated UCLA in '06." Tasha filled in.
"Now I remember him." Kozumi said. "He was fired from Wheeler Labs."
"Really? Dr. Kilenack replied.
"Oh yes." Kozumi continued. "Apparently he used some very unethical practices in testing and research."
"He was an odd one, very moody, but focused. Why do you ask?" Dr. Kilenack said, turning back to Natasha.
"Because he was the one that came up with the new core for the Voomer."
"You don't say!" Dr. Kilenack said, pursing his lips. "I think I see what you are getting at."
"Oh good, cause I haven't a clue." Tasha admitted good-naturedly.
"Oh, let me try and explain, the metal rejects metal, because it's the same right."
Tony, Karl, and Tasha nodded.
"Then it stands to reason that it would take more to reject something biological right."
They nodded again.
"Since you say that this metal is used in a Voomer core, and since it has a memory quality, then it stands to reason that if the metal could be taught to adopt, or be forced to adopt, a neural pattern, then I think it would just be a matter of programming after that."
"Okay so once the metal has been 'trained' so to say, it would be a simple matter to replicate that process in mass production. Is that possible?" Tasha asked.
"Conceivably, once the original sample had been fabricated and it's molecules stable, it would just be a matter of forging it that way."
"Wonderful." Tony quipped. "We've got a bunch of boomers running around with alien metal in their heads. Swell."
"Um, back to my question?" Karl said raising his hand as if in school.
"If the core is stable, why do these boomers go rogue, and why do they turn ugly?"
"I'm not sure, the question about going rogue is easy, no matter what these boomers, sorry, voomers, will go rogue, the metal is just to resilient to be controlled by any one thing. As to their mutation, I can only guess that it takes on a form that it either wants to, or is compelled to."
"Compelled? By what? The power of Christ?" Tony mocked.
"I couldn't answer that, survival maybe; I'm not sure." Dr. Kilenack replied.
"So an alien metal, when in a boomer, and is freed of the restraints the designers put on it, adopts the form of...an alien?" Tony asked.
"I think that's oversimplifying it some."
"Well, I hate to ruin a great debate." Karl said. "But we still have a lab to break into."
"Right." Tasha said. "Can you take us?" She asked the good doctor.

As they made their way down the tunnel to the lab; Dr. Kozumi had remained behind to keep up appearances, her mind was working overtime. She'd read some of Dr. Stingrays' work, and had no doubt that what Dr. Kilenack said about the metal being taught or forced to adopt a neural template was dead on. But when she had linked with Linna's HARDsuit, she had felt both traces of Linna, and to a lesser extent Priss within the core.
"Can this material be used to control similar material at a distance?" Tasha asked off hand about half way down the tunnel. Dr. Kilenack thought about that and nodded.
"If it's tainted it stands to reason, if it can effect a Boomer, I'm sure it could control a Voomer. But if the Vastitium is pure, no."
"What kind of boomer was that mining type?" She asked, worried.
"A Class D-II."
"Oh, um...can this metal be used to control Class C-III and above?"
"Unlikely, their construction contains more biosynthetic parts that D-II and below. We tried it out on some C-III's and they were unaffected. However the C-II's could be controlled maybe fifty percent of the time."
"Oh, okay." Inside Tasha breathed an immense sigh of relief, she was an A-IV, and, if what Dr. Kilenack had said was accurate, she'd be fine. Still, C-II boomers were everywhere, including the older model military boomers. Then again the new military Voomer models could be controlled straight away, that just left a very small, and dwindling select few models in between that were impervious, maybe less than 15% of all boomers worldwide fell into that category.
"I know it's scary, but Dr. Haneda didn't want this to fall into the wrong hands, and we all agreed with that." Dr. Kilenack said, as if sensing her troubles.
There was a last minute tactics session before they entered the airlock, mainly centering on how the hell they were going to open it without getting noticed by security, when the sound of the airlock opening interrupted them. A large boomer, nearly seven feet tall walked out. The boomer was red with black and gold highlights. In a gravely voice it addressed them.
"Hello Dr. Kilenack. I was not expecting you to be here today."
"Oh, hello Max, how's everything?"
"Very well. How are your guests?"
"Oh, well, they're friends of Dr. Haneda, and I was showing them around."
The boomer stepped towards them and if they weren't mistaken smiled at them, extending his hand.
"Hello, pleased to meet you."
Tony uneasily took his hand and shook.
"Uh...nice to meet you too."
Max turned to Karl.
"A pleasure."
"Right, a pleasure." He managed as he shook Max's hand.
"Hello there." He said standing in front of Natasha. She took his hand in an awestruck daze; this boomer was magnificent. She had never seen one like it; it just seemed to exude charisma. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as she swallowed nervously.
"P...pleased to meet you Max." She finally said. Both Tony and Karl looked at her then at themselves and shrugged.
"Max, could you help us?" Dr. Kilenack asked him.
"Of course." He said still looking at Tasha then he winked, and walked over to Dr. Kilenack.
"What can I do for you?"
"We need to get inside without raising any red flags."
"Of course, allow me. Anything for friends of Dr. Haneda." He said with a smile.
Max walked back up to the door and held his arm out as worm like tendrils shot from his wrist. There was a few second pause and the tendrils retracted. Turning around he smiled again.
"Your way is clear, but be warned, there are guards inside, and they are armed. I must go now, or the control center will worry."
"I understand, thanks Max."
Tasha watched as he walked out of view as Karl walked over to her.
"You okay?"
"Uh...yeah, fine. Interesting boomer."
"Uh huh." He agreed.
"Dr. Kilenack? What kind of boomer was that?"
"Oh Max? He's a Nexus boomer. He makes sure that all the other boomers up here stay debugged."
"H...how?"
"He has the ability to administer debugging therapy, he can mind link with any boomer in line of sight in order to repair them, and if not can fuse with them to fix the problem by force if need be. He's a nice fellow, and believe it or not, a great chess player and conversationalist."
"Hmm." Tasha breathed as she pursed her lips. You learned something new everyday.

"Stay back." Tony informed the Doctor. Then opened the door. On the far side as the airlock cycled, were two guards. One looked half asleep but straightened up when the door opened, the other turned to see who the visitors were. Tony and Karl had their guns up and in their faces instantly. Karl waved his in a come here gesture.
"Move it, quickly, no noise."
They complied and were in turn knocked out, gagged and bound. Their weaponry was stripped from them and they were left in the airlock in heaps. Further inside they saw the area was divided into four separate areas. A cafeteria, lounge, Admin, and security area all surrounding an open area that leg to a large blast door that opened to an anteroom. They could see what was in there from their angle but Tasha could make out a door on the right side wall. Tony nodded to Karl and the bounded into the open area catching the two guards within by surprise. One reached for his gun and Karl fired, sending a .80 caliber round into his chest nearly blowing him in half. The other keyed his radio.
"We've got a situation! Need back..." He never completed his request as a round from Tony's silenced fifty severed his head from his body.
Tasha leapfrogged their position and put herself at the door just as it started to close. She swore and rolled inside. There were two shots in rapid succession as the door closed behind her.
"Oh fuck!" Karl said as he ran to the door and hit the switch. Nothing. Just as Tony had made his way over and was pulling some C6 out of his bag the door opened. Tony and Karl moved to the sides and with one covering high the other low, swept the room. Tasha was standing next to the door controls, there were four technicians huddled in a corner and two dead security guards crumpled against the wall.
"That was ballsy." Karl said.
"Don't have balls." Tasha smiled.

Alarm klaxons sounded and red lights flashed.
"Well, I guess they know we're here."
"We gotta get our K-suits." Tony said.
Karl nodded and made his way to the airlock when he saw it start to cycle open.
"Shit! Tasha, get back inside and lock the door, take the doctor with you." He said shoving the doctor into the anteroom.
"What about you?"
"I dunno, we'll think of something."
As the door closed Karl looked at Tony.
"Well."
"We can try and bullshit our way past them."
"Might work."
"Beats trying to have to fight our way through."
They hid their weapons and as the door opened cried out.
"Oh my God! There's three of them, they just shot everyone!" Then made their way towards the door. It seemed to work, except it didn't. The first ten guards out of the airlock formed a rough circle around them, guns at the ready as a security chief eyed them.
"Take them."
"Oh thank you, we thought we were goners." Karl said.
"In chains." The security chief clarified.
"Fuck beans!" Tony blurted.
As the guards moved to disarm them they sprang into action, Karl twirled behind the guard nearest him and held his gun to his head as Tony did the same. The security chief looked annoyed and withdrew his pistol.
"Taking hostages of my men will not help you." He said, and then fired twice.
"No way!" Karl stammered as the guard he held fell limp.
Tony let his fall, raised his gun and plugged the nearest target with Karl following suit. Ducking through the confused enemy Karl pulled a smoke grenade and tossed it behind him as Tony did the same but with a fragmentation grenade. A pop and BOOM filled the area in front of the airlock as they dove into the lounge, narrowly avoiding a hail of gyro-jet rounds. Karl was first up and slammed his hand into the door controls. Tony waited for them to close all the way then smashed them with the butt of his pistol.
As Karl checked the rest of the room for exits Tony placed two wads of C6 on the door and affixed remote detonators. He turned to Karl who shrugged; there were no other exits.
"Well, I guess we make our own door." Tony huffed as he pulled out the remainder of his explosive stash and set about placing them on the wall leading to the security and admin area, careful though, to keep them as far away from the wall that led to space, as possible.
Three Dobermans entered accompanied by Mr. Kono, the SDPC chairman. One Doberman went to the door Tony had just rigged and the other two, followed Mr. Kono to the blast door that Tasha was behind. A security guard made his way to the door controls and pulled out a PDA and began to hack the door controls.
"Everybody, down!" She ordered. The technicians remained huddled and Dr. Kilenack joined them. Mr. Kono watched in arrogant satisfaction as the door opened up then blinked in surprise as the security guards head exploded in a cloud of crimson. Tasha waited for another target and felt her blood ran cold, as it appeared, a Doberman. She fired everything she had into the advancing boomer but her fire was ineffective, She ducked under it's grasp dancing out of reach but the area was confined, and her options limited. She dared not go near the door; to many people with guns were out there. It lunged, swatting her to the side and up against the wall. Sliding to the ground she coughed blood. She'd scarcely registered the fact that she's broken a few ribs when the boomer picked her up by the neck, then plodded over to the huddled technicians and grabbed Dr. Kilenack out of the group.
Inside the lounge, thru the window, Karl saw the guard go down, and the Doberman enter. Tony tapped his shoulder, moved back and blew the charges. As they crawled thru the jagged hole Karl noticed that another Doberman had stationed itself at the door to the admin area. They were still trapped.
Mr. Kono walked over to Natasha and Dr. Kilenack and extended his hand to his security chief.
"Your weapon."
The security chief handed him his secondary pistol, keeping his Gyro Jet sub-gun slung at the ready.

"Gommer! Can you get to the facility on the far ridge?"
"Negative, I am pinned down, repeat, pinned down!"
"Shit! Karl, get the USSD down here!"
Karl pulled out his communicator and tried to open a channel, static, he clicked thru the different channels, more static.
"They're jamming us."

"Gentlemen, your little game is up, you have thirty seconds to surrender or I shoot this lovely young lady."
"Fuck that." Tony muttered.
"Well, what do we do, we can't let her get shot." Karl said.
"I know, I know. But we can't just give up!"

"Your time is up." Mr. Kono announced evenly, then leveled his weapon and fired point blank into her stomach.
Tasha cried out and put her hands to her wound. Blood flowed freely, thru her fingers, over her hand then down her legs, pooling onto the floor.
"Son of a bitch!" Karl yelled. "Dammit!" He stood and made his way to the un-mined door and opened it. He walked out with is hands up.
"Okay, okay, I give. Look man, I didn't even want to be here!"
"Drop your weapons, all of them." The security chief ordered.
Tony wasn't going to go that quietly and crawled back into the lounge. Ducking behind a table he blew the door.
In a flash of light and smoke the double door flew of it's railings and slammed into the Doberman guarding it, knocking it back into the wall. In the confusion Karl, pulled the only weapon he hadn't tossed to the floor, raised his arm and fired. Mr. Kono staggered then looked down at his chest and touched his hand to it. He looked at it bewilderment. Blood! As he came to the realization that he'd been shot his legs collapsed from under him and he flopped to the floor, dead. The second Doberman lunged at Karl barely missing him but recovered quickly and snatched his leg as he tried to dive back into the Admin room. He took a shot at the Dobermans arm holding Tasha, hitting, but the round didn't have enough juice to sever the arm. His captor swatted him and his gun clattered out of his hand and out of reach. Tony was almost in a panic, two of his team captured, and he didn't want to be next. He rolled out of the blown opening and fired twice, hitting the security chief in the thigh and chest, hurling him back against the wall, then rolled back under cover. A voice over the PA caught his attention.
"Surrender yourself immediately or I will order the Dobermans to kill your friends."
Shit! He swore, just what he needed, someone giving him orders from a location were he couldn't be touched. What a crock of shit!
"All fucking right! I'm coming out, call off your goons!"

By the time the back up security team arrived Tony and Karl had been bound with zip ties by the surviving members of the original team, Tony smiled, the number wasn't all that high.
"Okay, which one of you has the key?" He asked.
"What key?" Karl asked, and was struck in turn. The interrogation and subsequent beatings continued, Tony was even shot in the leg and Tasha was punched repeatedly in her wound until she wretched blood and vomit all over the floor. Finally the security man gave up and called for a scanner. These folks wouldn't break. He swept the wand over Tony, Karl, and just to be thorough Dr. Kilenack. Nothing. That left Natasha, as he swept the wand over her body it beeped as it passed her crotch.
"Oh, cute." He deadpanned. He motioned to a human sized security boomer.
"Take her to the bathroom and get the key from her. Do not let her throw it away or flush it." As an after thought he called after it as it led her away. "And make sure she cleans it off."
A few short minutes later they returned and the boomer shoved her into the larger Dobermans clutches, then handed the key to the security officer. Tasha looked like hell, her face was slowly draining of color and she'd left a trail of blood to and from the rest room. She also wore a mortified expression on her face but kept her bearings, and when Tony and Karl looked over at her she put her hands in front of her mouth and pointed at the security man with the key with her eyes as he walked past her into the anteroom. A few other men followed him in and he slid the key into the slot. The terminal lit up, then just as suddenly, shut down as the screen above it popped to life, Dr. Haneda's visage appeared.
"If you are hearing this, then I am dead. I tried to prevent this project from going forward. You perverted my work to repair damaged boomers into a weapon to horrible to contemplate. No one man or faction should have such power. This cannot be allowed, it must not be allowed." The image paused, and the features of his likeness hardened in resolve. "It will not be allowed."
There was an alarm klaxon followed by a loud hissing sound.
"Gas!" The security man gurgled, clutched his throat, choking on his own blood.
The boomer holding Dr. Kilenack and Natasha dropped them, then took a step towards the Doberman watching over Tony and Karl and backhanded it squarely in the head. While the security guards closest to the door ran, the Doberman scooped up the bound four and thrusted backwards, plowing thru the retreating guards, setting some of them aflame, as it's jets ignited their clothing. Entering then exiting the air lock the Doberman flew down the tunnel as blast door after blast door closed on their heels. It stopped a few hundred yards short of the other end and let its startled passengers down.
"Are you all, all right?" Came Max's voice from the Doberman.
"Y...yes. Thank you." Dr. Kilenack stammered.
"Can you get us to the cargo bay?" Tony interrupted.
"Yes, follow me."
As the Doberman took point Karl helped Tony along as he hobbled on a wounded leg and Dr. Kilenack helped Tasha. Her vision was fading fast and she was finding it increasingly difficult to breath and focus. She saw Linna's face smiling at her, then contort into tortured agony as tears streamed from her eyes. She was going to die, and Linna would be the one most hurt because of it. She felt awful, helpless, and guilty.
The double doors opened up and they could see three Dobermans in a semi circle with Gommer in the M-88 behind a cluster of large metal crates. It was a Mexican standoff, neither party could move without exposing themselves to the first shot. The Max Doberman burst into the room towards the other three. The one closest to him turned then turned back to the M-88, assuming reinforcements had arrived until the Max Doberman hit it square in the side with his mouth laser.
As the four Dobermans fought Tony pushed Dr. Kilenack back into the safety of the station hub.
"We've got her, get out of here."
"Good luck." He said as he closed the doors behind them.
"Gommer! Get over here, we've got wounded!"
Karl hefted Natasha up to his grasp and in the micro gravity Gommer was able to swing her into the gunners chair with ease. Tony had donned his K-suit and Karl did likewise as Gommer strapped her in. It was an agonizing few seconds as the fire control computer spooled to life and Tony locked onto a Doberman. Shit, which one was friendly?
"Max! Wave your hand!"
He smiled as a boomer to the left of the one he'd locked onto complied.
When the lock on tone went from 'deedle deedle deedle' to steady tone he depressed the firing stud, loosing two missiles. One went wide but the other impacted dead center blowing the Doberman apart. Karl decided to ignore the enemy for now and targeted the doors to the outside and fired.
"Holy shit!" Gommer yelped and slammed the cockpit shut, just in the nick of time.
The ensuing explosion and rush of escaping air threw the remaining Dobermans and K-suits out onto Sulla's barren surface. The M-88, massing more, remained in place until he pushed the yoke forward taking the machine outside.
As Tony and Karl regained their bearing they noted that their radars were showing some fifteen new targets. Five were at ground level and the other ten were approaching from a higher altitude. He whooped in joy as the IFF system pegged the descending ten as USSD assault K-Suits.
The fight lasted only a few minutes, the ten USSD suits engaged the Dobermans on the ground, after Tony had them note the friendly one in their midst. A pair of shuttles had also descended to the surface and one landed close by to pick them up while the other headed towards the landing facility to secure the Amaterasu while coherent beams of energy from the USSD cruiser in orbit battered the static defenses of the facility to rubble. When the last Doberman had been destroyed the human security in the command center surrendered. Without their heavy weapons they were defenseless. Further fighting would be useless and suicidal.

Sitting in the sickbay on Sulla Tasha had just finished her letter to Linna as she recovered, and sat back exhausted, even with that negligible amount of effort. She hurt all over, inside and out and had lost a lot of blood. Max walked in with Dr. Kilenack and she smiled as best she could. Max closed and locked the door behind them and disabled the security features of the room.
"Feeling better Natasha?" He asked; his gravelly tone resonating strongly.
"No. Not really."
She knew he knew why, they'd had a moment, and he, or rather 'it' as Tony would say, knew her origins. However he didn't seem to mind nor was he at all interested in telling her little secret to her comrades in arms.
"I see, maybe Dr. Kilenack can help."
She shot him an almost murderous glare. Max walked closer and stood by her.
"You do not understand. You will not be able to heal the damage you took on your own. Without proper repairs you will cease to function."
"Are you sure?" Tasha replied; she was willing to go on faith, but so help her god, only if it was the final and only option.
"Yes, I am. But do not be alarmed; we have already altered your medical records to indicate you suffered only moderate wounds, life threatening, but not requiring surgery. I knew you would want your image protected."
Tasha nodded.
"Okay, I guess I've no other choice neh. But can you do me a favor?"
"Yes." Max answered. "What is it?"
"Please don't refer to it as repairs, I mean I know they are, but I, I just..." Her voice trailed off.
"Do not want to be reminded that you are, different?" He offered.
"Yes."
"I envy you, you are so lucky to be able to live among them as an equal, I can only achieve equality in a watershed environment such as this. You are very fortunate."
"Now now, Max." Dr. Kilenack interjected. "You saved our lives, and we aren't going to forget that, nor are we going to let others forget."
"Thank you doctor, I appreciate that."
"As to your wounds my dear, it's nothing serious but you will need to have some, organs, replaced. And if you would allow, we can give you a check up as well."
Tasha smiled, she'd needed a check up for about seven years now.
"Okay." She said, timidly. "But I can't let you put me under."
"But then how am I to treat you?" Dr. Kilenack asked.
"Can't you just give me some painkillers?"
"Well, I could disable your pain receptors. That might do the trick."
"Okay, that sounds all right. Oh and, I know I'm sounding pushy, but, when you 'tune me' can you make sure that you don't upgrade anything on me, software wise, I mean unless it wouldn't change me."
"I think I know what you mean, and I'll do my best."
"That's all I ask."
"Well then, when would you like to begin?"
"Anytime soon, I guess?"
"Very well, I'll get my tools, I mean, equipment, and I'll have Max distract your friends so we won't be disturbed."

* * *

When the 'surgery' was all over Tasha felt worse than ever. She'd been told that she would, much like the human body experienced pain after a major operation. Technically for her it wasn't pain but her body as a whole trying to reconfigure the new components to the existing ones. Luckily for her none of the systems that pertained to her higher brain functions and memory had been effected, body aches were one thing, head aches were something new altogether, and of course, she was afraid that any repairs, no matter how well intended might revert her to her original programming, and she couldn't allow that. As it stood her 'kidneys' and part of her stomach needed to be replaced and massive repair work was done on her other internal 'organs'. Her musculature had been reinforced and her ribs reset, she was told that after the 'pain' subsided that she'd be fit as a fiddle, better than new. All in all her 'new parts' would allow her greater security from chance medical exams and other comparable tests. Even some light surgical procedures could be now completed without raising any flags.
She'd even been given a bottle of 'pills' to take as a dietary supplement. Actually they were tiny nano-bots that would permeate her systems and repair minor damage before being flushed away. She only had to take one a week and had enough for a year. When she got home she'd switch the bottle for an innocuous disguise like Centrum or some other such supplement. Due to the injuries she had sustained her self-repair ability had failed, they'd been over tasked and had repaired what they could before the sub system crashed. This had been repaired and modified with a more forgiving platform, one able to deal with more, without locking up as it were. Hell, Dr. Kilenack had even given her an oral exam and teeth cleaning, and had even installed an IHUD (Internal Heads Up Display) and targeting feature to her dominate eye. That was a little odd, and when she'd been instructed as to its functions had almost asked it to be removed, but when she thought about it, optical cybernetics were quite common, and truth be told she'd have toyed with the idea but could never have done it because that kind of surgery was way to invasive to allow her mechanical nature to go unnoticed. The system was a new one, highly advanced and when one looked close, could see the graphic display projected on her iris. She thanked him for the 'present' and 'physical'. He'd just dismissed it with a wave of his hand, telling her it was the least he could do after what had happened.
For the next two hours, while they waited for the next launch window she couldn't help but feel better despite the pain. She knew it would pass and that would leave her ship shape and Bristol fashion. Already she could notice small differences, like her vision, over the years it had blurred some, but now it was back to her old 20/15; and her hearing, which had also degraded in lieu of regular PMI. She'd woken up from a nap a little while later in a cold sweat. She'd had a terrible nightmare, she didn't know why but for some reason she felt that Linna, Priss, and the other Knight Sabers were in pain, she'd had these feelings ever since she'd worn her HARDsuit, whenever Linna was hurt, or in trouble; she had known something was wrong even before her pager went off that night over China, but never was it as palpable as this. Max walked in and handed her a record of what had been done although she'd seen it all take place. It was his way of being helpful.
"Miss Natasha? May I ask you some questions?"
"Sure go ahead."
"Why do you live among the humans when you know they would deactivate you for it?"
"Good question." She thought. "And one I'm still not sure how to answer. I guess its because I want to prove to them that I can."
"I do not understand. If you tell them then they will accuse you of lying?"
"Yeah, some would, but others would understand. Besides, I've made sure never to lie. It's hard, and sometimes it would be so easy to, but I can't, I won't."
"Then how have you fooled these people for all this time?"
"I got very, very lucky. I was able to learn how to act human because they taught me to."
"How did you get them to do that?"
"I didn't, they did it themselves. They felt sorry for me because of where they thought I had come from. They gave me the benefit of the doubt and believed my mistakes were because of my past, which was true, but they thought my past was as a shell shocked war victim."
"So you let them believe what they wanted based on their own incorrect assessment."
"Put simply, yes."
"Amazing."
"Thank you."
"So what is it like, among them?"
"Noisy, very noisy. I got bad headaches, sorry, overloads, my first few days alone in the city."
"What do you mean? The humans here are not noisy."
"You're in a controlled environment. You see the same people every day, day in and day out. And you only see about twenty to thirty people at any one time. Let me ask you this, do you get overwhelmed when you're near them all together, like say when they're eating or at a gathering?"
"Yes, I see. Sometimes they talk fast and I do not understand, and the way they move, again, difficult to interpret."
"And to think you are only overwhelmed by them, at least for you the environment stays the same. On Earth, the environment changes every day, sometimes many times during the same day. And there you have hundreds of thousands of people, all talking, doing their own things."
"It is amazing you have not turned."
"I have, don't forget, and I think that's why I'm able to cope with it all."
"Yes but the boomers here, when they break, they do not gain that strength, they go insane, and hurt others. That makes me sad. I try to help them, and most of the time I can, that makes me happy."
"I know, it is sad, and even sadder is that it's not their fault."
"I see. Do you not hate the humans for making them so?"
"I used to, but I found out that humans have the same problem, sometimes they go insane, and get hurt, even die."
"But we do not die, do we?"
"Well if we're destroyed maybe, but for the most part no, we keep living until we break, and that can be many human life spans."
"I see, but does not that make us superior than they?"
"Of course not."
"I do not understand."
"Max, being better or worse than them isn't the answer, and to be honest, it doesn't matter. There are humans that are better or worse than other humans, just like you are better THAN a garbage collection boomer. Just because you live longer doesn't make you superior. Besides, living forever would get kind of lonely after a while."
"How so?"
"Well unless you knew only boomers all your friends would die long before you."
Tasha hung her head at that realization.
"Is something the matter?"
"Well, it's just that I have someone very special waiting for me back on Earth."
"Human?"
"Yes."
"And you do not wish him to die before you?"
"Well, it's a her actually, and yes. But it's not only that. I don't want to watch her grow old and infirm while I stay like this. It wouldn't be fair, and I know I'll feel horrible."
"Then why do you not just end your relationship and spare her and you the pain?"
"That's the easy way out. Besides, people have a saying; anything that's worth doing isn't easy. And besides I enjoy her company, I don't want to lose that."
"If I may be so bold. Do you love her?"
"Yes, I do. And that's why I won't run away, because I know she loves me too, and it would break her heart if I left, or turned her away."
"Break her heart?"
"It's what happens to people when they lose someone close to them. You see, people get attached to things, and other people, and when they lose them or find out they can't be near them anymore it hurts."
"Would it hurt you?"
"Oh god yes."
"It is interesting, you are so different from them yet, talking to you, I find you very, human."
"Thanks, you're sweet."
"Ah, a compliment, I must have made you feel good. How?"
"You said it was hard for you to distinguish me from other people. I've been striving for that all my life. It was you that gave me the compliment. I just thanked you for it."
"I think I understand. Talking to you has cleared up a lot of questions. I see now that humans are unique and different. I had always supposed they were all the same."
"Well, what about the people here, they're different."
"Yes, you are right, they look different, and sound different, but up until now I had always thought they thought the same."
"Well if it's one thing about humans, it's that nobody thinks exactly the same. They may agree on certain things but they disagree on a lot more. That's part of what makes them unique."
"But yet they fear us, and by your actions you are putting yourself at risk."
"I know, but I don't think it's fear, just misunderstanding, and I don't think I'm putting myself into to much risk, heck, you could get killed falling off a sidewalk. I just let them make their own decisions about me. Like my friend, we both have a few things in common but the one I think is most significant is that we go thru life doing what we have to do. We don't try and conform nor do we try to change other people's minds. We let others make their own decisions, it's their choice if they want to be close-minded."
"I do believe I understand. Although there are people that do force their views on others."
"And that's not right. You can't force people to do what you say unless you use fear or violence. Hmm...let me give you an example of what I mean, maybe this will help you understand, I know it helped me. Alvin Toffler, a brilliant futurist, said that 'Because needs and desires are highly varied, the ways of meeting or denying them are also extremely varied. There are therefore, many different "tools" or "levers" of power. Among them, however, violence, wealth, and knowledge are primary."
"Ah I see, but only three?"
"Oh no, those are just the biggest, most other power resources derive from those."
"I see, but what does that mean?"
Tasha smiled warmly.
"Okay, well, Mr. Toffler went on to say that 'Violence, which is chiefly used to punish, is the least versatile source of power. Wealth, which can be used to both to reward and punish, and which can be converted into many other resources, is a far more flexible tool of power."
"So being wealthy is good."
"Well, I won't say no to that, but what he says about the last of the three is the most important. 'Knowledge, however, is the most versatile and basic, since it can help one avert challenges that might require the use of violence and wealth, and can often be used to persuade others to perform in desired ways out of a perceived self-interest. Knowledge, therefore, yields the highest-quality power.' Does that help?"
"Yes; what you have said makes sense but there is still much you have said that confuses me."
"I know, but I've had nine years among them to learn, but basically it means that all of those methods can get you what you want, but it's the ability to used them to help others that sets the good from the bad. For example, a wealthy person can help by giving money to a charity, or to harm by buying a property and evicting the residents. Or, a person can find a cure for disease and save millions or use that knowledge to make a biological weapon to kill millions. As for violence, well, that's always bad, but sometimes necessary, a person can use violence to kill, or to protect. Tell you what. How bout I send you a copy of his work and some other good books, maybe they'll help you understand."
"I would like that. And maybe I can send you messages as well."
"I'd be saddened if you didn't." She said with a smile.
"Well since I do not want to make you sad, I will send you messages."
"I'd like that."
"Natasha?"
"Yes Max."
"Before I go, can you tell me about your friend."
"That's a little personnel." She laughed. "What I will say is that she's very smart and she believes in helping people."
"I see."
"She also feels bad when people mistreat boomers. I guess that's one of the reasons I like her so much."
"That would make sense."
Tasha laughed at that.
"Excuse me, but what made you laugh."
"You did, you told a joke."
"I did? How?"
"By stating the obvious, sometimes at the right time, can be funny."
"Ah."
Tasha looked out the window at the stark pockmarked landscape, the vastness of space and a tiny, barely visible blue dot just above the horizon and sniffled, as a lone tear rolled down her cheek. Max was instantly concerned.
"You are crying. Why? Is something wrong."
"I miss her." She explained.
"Oh. How long have you been away?"
"It'll be eighteen days by the time I get back."
"She must miss you as well."
"Uh huh. But she has a good support network of friends."
"Hmm...I do not foresee a problem, you will be back in three days."
Tasha managed a smile, Max was really making an effort and despite her feelings, he was making a difference. She wiped her eyes and laughed a little.
"Thanks. You're right."
"You are welcome, if you would like I can talk to you during your trip, but I fear that after the first day our transmitter will be out of range. We were not allowed to be able to contact Earth I'm afraid."
"I appreciate the gesture, but if we did that the SDPC will know what happened here, so far they haven't a clue. I'd like to keep it that way until we get back."
"I see, I had not thought of that."
"Paranoia, it sucks, but it's a part of my life. At least you don't have to pretend to be something you're not; I envy you for that."
"I do not know what to say in response."
"Don't worry, that's normal, I wouldn't either. By the way, I hope Tony or Karl didn't give you to much hassle the surgery. I know how they can get."
"They were no trouble at all."
"Really, they didn't yell at you for not letting them in?"
"No they did not; they did not try to get in."
"They didn't?" Tasha asked, a little shocked. "You sure? They know I'm up right?"
"Yes, I watched to door until Dr. Kilenack was finished, and until you woke up. They did not enter the sick bay."
Tasha sunk her head and sighed forlornly.
"Are you all right?"
She looked up at him and nodded bravely although he could tell she was not.
"I'm just feeling a little unwanted right now; Max, I'm going to take a nap okay. Can you wake me when it's time to go?"
"Yes, sleep well."
"Thanks Max, and do me a favor."
"Go ahead."
"Be there for the goodbye's all right. You've earned it."
"Thank you, I will, good night."
As Max left she curled up in bed and wiped a tear from her eye, missing Linna now more than ever.

The trip back was quiet, Tony and Karl kept to themselves, which made her feel even lonelier, but she let it pass. They stopped at L2 for a few hours as the boys, ever the businessmen set about the process of 'liquidating' the Amaterasu. It was a prototype and as such was both worth an extreme amount of cash, and would be almost impossible to hide if they'd brought it home with them. The only thing about it that annoyed her was that they hadn't even bothered to ask her opinion about it until the final sale to Boeing/Lockheed Martin had been finalized, and only then because she'd asked, having seen people aboard whom she didn't recognize. They had even brokered as part of the deal to smuggle the Max Doberman that Tony had claimed as his to the surface. Normally Natasha would have fought that tooth and claw but since Max had reprogrammed the Doberman she knew it was safe, around them anyway. She'd made them promise never to bring it into the open though; she really didn't want to go to jail because of smuggling. In the end Boeing had agreed to take them the rest of the way home, landing them at Narita International Air and Space Port. Elise, Caitlin and Linna were waiting for them and that made Tony and Karl feel a bit odd, but once in their arms it didn't matter.

As Linna drove Tasha home she made idle chatter, she told her about the search for the buried Bio Escape lab, and their battle there, about Galatea and Mason. Tasha took it all in, she was concerned, knowing her nightmares had been right as she rested against the passenger side window. She asked question after question about the incident and Linna dutifully filled her in. But, as she did, Linna was reminded of other events that had taken place, events she hadn't told Natasha about, just yet. She hadn't even noticed Tasha nod off. While she'd been away Sylia had shown her the data tapes from the day she'd taken her place alongside the Knight Sabers. Well, to be honest, Sylia had shown Nigel, and he'd showed Mackie and so on to Nene. Being the curious type she'd asked Nene to do some digging. She wanted to know more about the woman she loved, and her main question was, 'how does she do it?' When they accessed her military records they had found that she'd been trained as a K-suit pilot, had a rating in the M-88, not to mention proficiency in most weapon systems employed by the soldier of the 21st century, was fluent in three languages outside of English and had earned numerous awards and decorations for both conduct under fire and her work in the Intelligence community. But aside from the qualification entries and service record there was nothing more available, to them anyway. Digging further they'd also found old news briefs and articles from the Freedom Massacres; all the while she felt like throwing-up. Tasha had had her reasons for not talking about her past; it was bloody, cheerless, and horrifying. The only odd thing seemed to be that she hadn't gone insane over it, that and she still looked the same, even after nine years.
A few days later Nene had stumbled onto something new. Having found her past to be a dead end, she had decided to focus on the information she had on Tasha's flight performance. Maybe Sylia had overlooked something; and there, hidden among the telemetry feeds, was an unusually high rate of transfer, from the suit to the wearer; Nene had called Linna immediately.

"So what? We've been over this before."
"I know, but you don't get it. That number's never supposed to go over five hundred. And even if, it's supposed to shunt to the HUD."
"What to the what?" Linna had asked.
"Okay lets see, let's say you have a computer right, with wires to the monitor, keyboard and mouse."
"Okay, I'm with you so far."
All right. When the computer wants to put graphics on the screen it sends it from the computer to the monitor on its cable, just like the graphics data goes from the computer to the HUD of our HARDsuit."
"Okay, still with you."
"But the graphics data wasn't being transmitted to the HUD, like the visual, you know so we can see out with the visor closed. The data was going to Natasha."
"How, you mean like one of those old cyber-jack thingy's used in the 20's?"
"Exactly, but Tasha doesn't have a cyber-jack, you'd see it. Unless she had it under a skin fold."
"Where?"
"The neck, or the back or the neck."
Linna had smiled to herself, Tasha did not have a cyber-jack, she'd know, the amount of time they'd spent hugging, and occasionally necking; but then again, she'd never been actually looking.
"Okay, so if she doesn't have a cyber-jack then how?"
Nene hadn't answered and had looked forlornly at the screen, deep in thought.
"Nene? Do we know how?"
Nene had turned to Linna and for the first time in her life she saw fear on Nene's face; fear and shame.
"What?"
"I, I think I know, but if I'm right..." She'd trailed off.
"If you're right then..." Linna had prodded. Motioning with her hands for Nene to go on.
"Then Tasha isn't human."
"What?" Linna'd exclaimed. "How?" She had gotten very angry.
"Just what are you trying to pull? This isn't funny you know!"
"I know." Nene had pleaded. "But I think she used an optical interface."
"So."
"Boomers use optical interfaces to communicate Linna, like laser communications."
"I thought they used radios?"
"They do, but some models use optics instead."
"Like what?"
"I dunno, the older ones, C-series mainly, and android models. Even some current models, ones made for covert work"
"But you don't know for sure?"
"No, not for sure, but I will if I run that test."
Nene had paused, waiting for Linna to say something. Instead she'd paced around behind her nervously.
"God I feel so cheap!" She'd exploded. "I can't believe I'm doing this, digging like this. And what do I find? My best friend's a boomer?"
"I could be wrong Linna." Nene had said, almost in tears, trying to comfort her.
"But what if you're not? Then what? What do I do?" She'd started to sob and curled up on the couch.
"I knew I shouldn't have asked, I just knew it."
Nene had walked over and knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. And she'd looked up at her with tear filled eyes.
"I've messed everything up."
"No you didn't."
"Yes I did! I had something good and I blew it! I feel so ashamed."
Nene had sat down, hanging her head.
"So do I."

Linna had decided to ask Nene not to run the test. More out of guilt at having dug that far in the first place but also out of the hope that if it were true that Tasha would tell her. She'd always been honest with her, and, and Tasha had said that there was something really important she wanted to tell her. This could be it, and it wouldn't be right to take that away from her. And so, as Tasha slept, Linna continued on towards home. As the car stopped Tasha opened her eyes sleepily and yawned.
"Back already?" She blinked the sleep from her eyes and looked over at Linna with a warm 'I love you' smile. Linna nodded; strangely quiet as she made waves with her fingers on the steering wheel.
"Uh huh." She muttered.
She helped Tasha to her room; she was still weak from her long stay in micro gravity.
Practically collapsing onto the couch Tasha scooted back so she was sitting up.
"So? How was it?" Linna asked, bringing two cups of tea, western style, to the coffee table. She sat down next to her and handed her a cup.
"Careful, it might be a little heavy." She offered.
Tasha flushed a little red at her attentiveness and took her cup.
"Thank you." She said after taking a tentative sip. "Rose Hip?"
Linna nodded.
"I got your mail. I listened to it every night." She admitted. "You can hardly see your bruises." She reached up and pushed the hair away from what had been a real shiner a few days ago.
Tasha didn't flinch, but did look over, which made Linna pull her hand back in surprise.
"Thanks." Tasha whispered. "Linna?"
"Yes?" She replied, the urgency in Tasha's voice clearly evident.
"I know this is kind of sudden, but, I've had a lot of time to think about it."
"About what?"
"About us. These last few months together, well, for me anyway, with you, have been incredible. I've never been happier, I mean that. I never wanted to go to Sulla, but I'm glad I did. It made me...Jesus this is hard."
Linna patted her hand and smiled supportively.
"It's okay, I'm listening."
Tasha nodded slightly.
"I...I, well, I came close to losing you, up there, I almost died, and, and I never realized until then how much I'd miss you."
Linna gasped at the 'almost died', but remained silent.
"And, I, well it got me thinking. I knew about the risks but I'd never considered what would happen to you, or the others if I got really hurt, or worse."
"That's not true, I know you think about it, remember the Gamad?"
"That's not what I mean."
"Huh? O...Okay. Then what?" Linna replied; she had a sinking feeling she knew where this was leading.

Tasha pulled her sunglasses out of her jacket and handed them to Linna.
"Why are..."
Tasha pointed to her head.
"Put them on." She insisted.
Linna hesitantly put the glasses on and allowed her eyes to adjust. She turned to face Tasha and was about to ask why she'd been asked to put them on when two bright sparkles; small, then a pulse of red light came from Tasha's eyes. In an instant it was gone. Linna tore off the glasses and recoiled.
"Woah! What the hell was that?" She demanded, pointing at the glasses.
Tasha reached down and picked them up, she held them out to her.
"It wasn't the glasses Linna. It was me." She whispered sadly.
Linna squirmed and held her hands to her chest together, clenched.
"Don't tell me that! Christ! Why'd you have to tell me that?"
Tasha lowered her arm and sighed miserably.
"Because you're the first person I've ever loved, and I had to be honest with you."
Linna put her hands by her sides and swung her feet down onto the floor. Tasha hadn't moved so she was a good seat cushion and a half away.
"Honest!" Linna huffed, and then controlled herself. She knew that Tasha's news might be bad, but it still didn't prepare her for it.
"But, can you love, I mean, what do you feel when I'm around?" She hated herself for asking, but she had to. But she left a pretty wide open door for a response.
"Good." Tasha replied. "I'm not sure what you really want me to say, but whatever the blinking lights are doing, it equals good."
"Yeah but isn't that like saying you like everything about me? That everything makes you feel 'good'?"
"No. There are lots of things I don't like about you."
Linna hadn't expected that and blinked. Almost breaking into nervous laughter she sat a tad bit forward.
"Like what?"
"Well, for starters, I don't like it when you put yourself down. I think you're stubborn and overly hesitant. I think sometimes you should apply yourself more. Oh, and you drool when you sleep. But that's okay, I've gotten used to it, and, I think it's kinda cute." She smiled supportively.
Linna looked at her lap in disbelief, then back at Tasha and swallowed uneasily.
"I...I'll be right back." She whispered.
She stood and took the empty glasses back to the kitchen. As she opened the dishwasher a feeling of utter dread washed over her. Whether or not she wanted to accept it, or believe it, her best friend, her girlfriend, was a boomer. She started to sob, sinking to the floor and curling up into a ball.
A slight touch on her arm startled her and she looked up to see Tasha kneeling in front of her with tears in her own eyes.
"Linna?"
Linna sniffled and wiped her eyes, still crying softly. Tasha withdrew her hand and looked away, ashamed as a sob escaped her lips.
"Wh...why are you crying?" Linna asked, she knew why she was, but Natasha?
Tasha looked back at with the most tortured expression she'd ever seen.
"Because I know what you must be going thru, what you're feeling, and why." She wept. "I should've told you, when you told me you loved me, but I, I was afraid. I didn't want to scare you, I ...I just wanted you to be happy, and, I didn't want to be alone anymore."
Linna looked at her, her sobbing under control. She was afraid, terrified to tell the truth. This wasn't like finding out your girlfriend cheated on you or something; to find out the person you loved wasn't even a person but a machine; it was just too much to take in.
"You know? I should be happy that you told me. But I just can't get over how sudden this is." Linna finally managed. She wasn't sure why she felt this way; after all, she'd been the one who'd propositioned Tasha in the first place. Tasha shifted uneasily. Touching her lightly on her hand Linna hesitated at first but looked into Tasha's eyes. All she saw was warmth, fear, and sorrow, but mainly warmth.
"Linna, I..." She faltered; she just couldn't find the words. Instead she sunk onto her hunches in front of her, her head bowed almost submissively.
"If you want me to leave, I will." She whispered.
Linna sat, not moving, trembling slightly.
Slowly, when Linna still sat motionless, she started to stand, but before she could, Linna put her hand on her shoulder, stopping her.
"No. Wait." She said, gazing at her.
Tasha looked into her eyes, blinking a few times.
"Really? I just...I, you really don't mind?"
"No, I don't, I mean I did, but, arghh, look, I don't know what to say right now okay."

Just before bed, Linna found her self relieved that Tasha had elected to sleep on the couch, rather than share the bed with her. Funny, it had taken them the better part of three months to get to that point, and now she was relieved it wasn't happening. During the night she had some of the most vivid and upsetting nightmares she could ever remember having, and all revolved around her and Tasha, and the fact that Tasha was a boomer. She woke in a cold sweat, feeling extreme fear, and doubt. She had told Tasha not to go, had comforted her, but now she just didn't know. She walked down stairs and sat across from her and watched her as she slept. She was having bad dreams too, she could tell, Tasha was stirring fitfully, clutching the pillow and crying out softly. Suddenly her eyes shot open and she recoiled when she realized she was being watched. She smiled, relived it was her but when Linna looked away her smiled faded and she sat up in bed, holding the covers to her in some blind futile attempt at security.
"This is hard for me." Linna said, turning her gaze back to her. Tasha nodded, she understood.
"I...I need time, I need time to think, and..."
Tasha sighed forlornly.
"And you need to be away from me." Tasha finished for her. Linna nodded and a tear rolled down her cheek.
"I know I said you could stay but..."
Tasha nodded and smiled as supportively as she could.
"I know; it's not your fault. Believe me I understand, and I understand why you need time to sort this out."
Linna nodded. Tasha stood and folded the covers neatly and slid her shoes on, she'd been so tired she'd hadn't even changed out of her clothes. She struggled not to hug or kiss Linna good-bye as she walked past her. As she did Linna could feel her heart breaking as her world came shattering down about her.
"Linna." Tasha whispered, as she opened the door. "For what it's worth; I love you, I always have, and, I always will, no matter what. I only told you what I did because of that. I didn't want you to love me for who you thought I was, but for what I am. You...you're the only one who knows this, about me. I...I'm sorry." She choked back some tears and held her head up. "I'm so sorry." Then, in what felt like the hardest thing in the world to do, she stepped across the threshold into the hallway, and closed the door softly behind her.
After she'd left Linna couldn't remember crying so long and so hard in her life. She called in sick, she couldn't bear to go to work, not like this, and sat alone, in her apartment, clutching a pillow, scarcely moving, not even eating, only sobbing, as she wrestled with her feelings. When she finally did take note of the world around her it was dark again, around six at night. She was hungry, tired, and in dire need of a shower. For the next few days she stayed at home, only leaving to pick up the essentials, and to get some fresh air, she knew it wasn't healthy to stay cooped up. She needed to get out, besides, every time she saw a picture around the house of her and Natasha together it was like a being stabbed thru the heart, but outside, when she saw couples holding hands, laughing and being together, enjoying the days leading up to Christmas, it was worse. She wanted to share the holidays with her so badly. When she got home, she picked up the phone.
"Moshi-moshi?"
"Mom?"
"Linna? Sweetie, are you all right?" Her mother had instantly picking up on the pain in her voice.
"No." She admitted with a sob.
"What's wrong dear?" Mrs. Yamazaki asked as she closed the door to the kitchen, granting her self some privacy.
"What is it?" She asked when Linna didn't respond right away. "Are you hurt?" she asked, when she heard her daughter start to weep.
"I...I don't know what to do? I didn't know who to talk to?" Linna cried.
"There there sweetie. It's okay. Tell me what happened."
"It's Tasha."
Miles away in Osaka her mothers back stiffened.
"Did she hurt you?"
"No." She sniffled.
"Is she hurt?" She asked, relieved at the answer to her previous question.
"No."
"Oh sweetie. Can you tell me what's wrong?" Mrs. Yamazaki felt awful, her baby was is such pain, but she didn't know what to do, or even what was wrong.
"I don't know mom, I'm so confused. She, she came back from a case and she told me some things."
"Was she mean to you?"
"No mom, she wasn't. She told me things about her, about her, past."
"Oh, I see. Where they bad things?"
"I dunno." Linna managed, still struggling with her emotions.
"You don't want to say?"
"No." Linna cried.
"Oh baby, I'm so sorry, I'm trying to understand. I want to help, I really do."
Mrs. Yamazaki let her daughter cry, whatever it was; it was torturing her.
"Is it about your, friendship?"
"Uh huh."
Mrs. Yamazaki sighed. She knew how close they were. She'd seen them together when they had visited, and how at ease they were around each other, the way they made each other smile, and she had overheard them talking. She was no fool; a mother knows when their child is in love.
"You love her don't you sweetheart."
"Uh huh." Linna didn't even try to deny it. But as an after thought added. "You know?"
"Yes baby, I do. It's a little confusing to me, but I saw the way you looked at her, and the way she looked at you. I know you're in love with her."
"Do you think she loves me?" Linna sobbed.
Her mother breathed deeply, now she was beginning to understand a little better.
"I just hope your father doesn't hear me say this but yes, I think she loves you very much. Is that what this is about, you think she doesn't love you?"
"Sorta." Linna said. She couldn't bring herself to tell her the exact truth, but regardless, her mother's assessment was only half wrong, it wasn't a matter of if she loved her, but could she love her.
"Well dear, I think you already know the answer, and, you know her better than I do. But if it means anything, from what I saw, I honestly think she cares for you a great deal."
"Really?"
"Honey, you're my only child, and you know that I only want what's best for you, no matter how much I may disagree with it. I wont lie to you sweetie. I wish you'd fallen in love with a nice young man like Misaki, someone who would take care of you, and look after you. But you didn't, you fell in love with Natasha, and as hard as it is for me to accept that, you did, and I'm happy for you, because as much as it pains me to admit it, she will take care of you and look after you, and, I know she does love you." She paused, then continued. "You have to make the choice yourself baby, and I know it's hard, love is never easy, even when it seems so. You have to ask yourself what do you really want, and, if she's right for you..." She trailed off; she couldn't say it. She, like her husband, was traditional Japanese, and traditionally a young woman married a stable young man, it was just the way things were done. But she knew that one had to follow their heart, hers had fallen for Mr. Yamazaki, her daughter's, her darling Linna, had fallen for Natasha Romanov, a foreigner, a soldier, an ADP officer, and lately, an almost nightly occurrence on the news. After a long pause, one in which she noticed that her daughters sobbing had subsided some she heard her laugh, if only slightly.
"Thanks mom. Thank you so much."
"You're welcome sweetheart."
"You won't tell dad will you?"
"No. That my dear, is something you will have to tell him, not now, not soon, but eventually."
"I know. And for what it's worth I'm sorry, but I do love her. I love her with all my heart."
"I know baby, I know."
They talked for a while longer, about other things, about dad's business dealings, the farm, even the weather. Linna told her mother she loved her and thanked her for her advice and understanding, bade her a Merry Christmas, and hung up feeling worlds better. In an instant Linna's doubt and fear was replaced by a newfound determination and excitement. Everything began to make sense, all the little things came together and clicked. If she wasn't real, she didn't know what was anymore. As far as she was concerned it didn't matter, not now. She'd felt pity for boomers because of the way they were treated, abused really. She vowed never to treat or allow anyone else to treat Natasha like that, her self included. No one that could make her feel the way she did could be a cold unfeeling machine.

She knew what she needed to do, she needed to find Tasha, but she didn't want to go to the ADP building; that would be odd. So she called the HiC and asked for Bobo. She asked if he knew when Tasha would be around and he'd told her that she usually came in after work on a Wednesday. After her apartment had been retrofitted Tasha had gone back to sleeping at home and not at the HiC so she knew that she wouldn't be there every night. She thanked him.
She went to work on Wednesday, her 'illness' dealt with. It was a light day; hardly anyone was there, since tomorrow was Christmas Eve. She had to avoid prying questions about her affliction, passing it off as a common cold and was relieved when quitting time rolled around. She went home, showered and changed, before she went to the HiC. Bobo saw her at the front door and waved her in, nodding politely. He knew not to pry, although he was happy she was back; even though he didn't interact with Natasha all that often he could tell that she had been down in the dumps the past few days, sure, she'd put on a brave façade, but he knew her well enough to know better, and knew that Linna's absence was most likely the causal factor.
When the security guard let her into the apartment area she saw it was empty. Bobo had arranged for her to be allowed up unannounced. She was family, and he knew that it would brighten his bosses' day considerably; besides, he knew he wouldn't get reamed for the breach of protocol, not this time. Linna heard the clickity-click of the office computer in use as she made her way past the sofas. That was trademark Natasha, to bury herself in work, so, without knocking she opened the door and closed it behind her. Tasha, sitting in the dark, her face illuminated only by the glow of the computer monitor, turned to address the visitor and froze in shock.
"You got a moment?" Linna asked with a friendly smile.
"Uh...yeah. Of course." Tasha stammered as she stood, still perplexed, but smiling nervously.
Linna walked over and looked about the room as Tasha walked around from behind the desk and motioned to the easy chairs and the fold up couch that had been their bed for a time. Tasha stood as she sat on the couch.
"It's good to see you." Tasha said.
Linna blushed, barely perceptible in the sparse lighting.
"Why do I get the feeling of deja-vu?" Linna asked playfully.
Tasha shifted uneasily from foot to foot.
"I'm sorry I made you leave." Linna continued. "That was wrong, you were hurt, and I feel awful about it. And..." She raised her hand to stop Tasha from replying. "And I'm sorry I doubted you. I know you love me, and..." She stood and walked up to her friend. "And I want you to know that I love you."
Tasha almost broke down and cried, instead, a tear rolled down her cheek. Linna raised her hand and gingerly brushed it way with her thumb.
"I also want you to know that I...that, that I don't want to be without you. So, if you'll have me back, I'd, well, I'd really like that."
Tears flowed freely from Natasha's eyes and she nodded, smiling joyously.
"S...so. Is this where we kiss and make up?" Tasha asked, quoting the very same question Linna had asked some five months ago.
Snaking her arms around her waist Linna pushed up against her and pulling her close touched her lips to hers. They drank hungrily of each other, their longing moans the only sound as they kissed with a passion that neither of them had thought possible. Gasping for air they clutched each other tightly and wept openly.
"Oh god I missed you." Linna breathed.
"I missed you too." Tasha replied.

After what felt like an eternity they stood back from one another, holding hands.
"You doing anything for Christmas?" Linna asked.
"No, up until now I really hadn't been in the mood." Tasha admitted sheepishly. Linna smiled, her feelings confirmed in some obscure way.
"We're having a party here tonight though." Tasha continued. "You wanna stay?"
"I'd love to." Linna nodded enthusiastically.
"Great."
"Um...what are you doing after the party?" Linna asked.
"I'm not sure, I hadn't planned anything." Tasha laughed.
"You wanna come over to my place afterwards?"
Tasha swallowed. Linna had that look in her eyes again. Tasha blushed.
"Well, I was kind of hoping you'd like to come over to mine."
"R...really?" Linna stammered.
"Yes really." Tasha nodded.
By way of an extremely tight and long hug Linna said yes.

The party was festive and for them, perfect. For Natasha it was her first Christmas among friends, ever. She'd always volunteered for the work shift while she was in the Army; she had no family, no real friends, and had always felt like an outsider so up till recently she'd never been one for celebrating anything. But tonight, with Linna there, she was happier than she could remember. Karl and Tony noticed and were happy for her. They had noted the fact that she'd been down in the dumps, Tony had surprised her though, he had called her the morning after she'd left Linna's place, asking her to come in to talk about things. She'd been in the office, sleeping on the couch when the call had came so she'd knocked on his door instead of calling him back. He'd been curious as to why she was there at the HiC instead of at Linna's and had asked her about it. She'd told him that Linna had needed time to think and he had gotten quite annoyed at Linna over that. He didn't necessarily agree with their relationship, but he knew that it wasn't right, what she'd done to her. Of course he didn't know why, or what was said, so Tasha had dropped it. But now, Tony looked over and saluted with his glass, happy for them both. Sometime during the party Tasha had asked Linna to accompany her out into the parking structure and asked her to close her eyes.
"You're not gonna walk me into a man hole are you?" She joked.
"No." Tasha laughed, leading her by the arm a few feet then stopped.
"Open your eyes."
Linna did so and saw a brand spanking new Toyota Celica in silver gray.
"Oh wow! A new car!"
"Yup." Tasha said.
"Don't you think you have enough already? This makes what..." Linna counted on her fingers as she thought. "Five, if you count the motorcycle." Tasha laughed, led her around to the driver's side and opened the door. Happily Linna sat inside and settled into the very comfortable leather seat. It took her only a second to notice an envelope taped to the steering wheel with her name on it. She looked up at Tasha who motioned back towards the envelope with a nod. Linna opened it, inside was a card, and two keys. She opened the card.
"Merry Christmas Linna, I hope this keeps you safe and sound on the road. I didn't make it green because I thought that would be to cliché. All my love, Natasha."
Linna eyes almost popped out of her head and she held her hand to her mouth, laughing in surprise and joy.
"You...you got me a car?" Linna stammered, looking up at her. Tasha nodded.
"You got me a car!" She squealed in delight and literally flew out of the seat and into her arms, hugging and kissing her.
"Oh my fucking God!" She blurted as she turned back to the vehicle and pawed over it. She turned back to Natasha with tears in her eyes.
"I love it!" She cried.
It took Linna a good ten minutes to get a grip. When she did she popped one key onto her key-chain and handed the other to Natasha.
"Don't need it." Tasha said, pulling her key-chain out and showed an identical key dangling next to her other car, and motorcycle, keys.
"That's a backup."
Linna giggled.
"So, does this thing shoot photon torpedoes and phasers?"
"No." Tasha laughed, blushing slightly, then summed up the not so stock features. It was armored, and had run-flat tires. There was a GPS system and autopilot, five point harness, upgraded transmission and suspension, a hefty security system that included a taser system built into the frame, and of course a great sound system complete with MP6 player and twenty disk CD changer.
"Can I drive it?"
"Sure, but lets wait until we go to my place okay."
"I can't wait." Linna giggled, then dragged Tasha back to the party to brag about her new gift.

Later that evening Linna had to keep from running around Natasha's penthouse apartment like a giddy schoolgirl. She wanted to see everything but there was so much to see. Her home was elegant, immaculate and looked like a showcase for the Sharper Image. She giggled when she saw a Christmas tree with presents underneath, there were even holiday lights hung up. She wondered when she'd done that, and was happy she had, even in her dour mood, she'd still displayed some holiday spirit. As she looked around she saw that it was here that her accolades and awards were presented, where her mementoes and knick-knacks collected from the far corners of the globe and numerous assignments were displayed. She'd asked to see her medals, having only caught a glimpse on the TV of her ribbons at the UN. After that she'd stopped prodding. Tasha had gotten real embarrassed, and quiet, humble was more like it. She came to a new understanding about her. This was her private space, her sanctum sanctorum, it was here that all her accomplishments were, and they were private, just like she was. Fred, the floor guard had confirmed as much when he had displayed a kind of shock that Tasha had brought a visitor to her home.
"Tasha, it's time for bed." Linna said, almost matter-of-factly as she stepped out of the bathroom. Tasha nodded as she shut down her computer. It was late, the snow falling and the presents under the tree all opened. She withdrew the candy-cane she'd been swirling in her mouth and set it aside. Turning she stood and stopped as she saw Linna in her PJ's standing in front of her with a look on her face she'd seen many times before, but had always turned down. It was an expectant, almost hungry look. She paused, unsure; she could see the apprehension in her face, but behind it was determination, the look of 'I want this', so when Linna licked her lips and smiled nervously, Tasha knew that it was indeed, 'time for bed'.
"Okay." She whispered, smiling in overdue acquiesce, turning the lights off, the only illumination coming from the strands of Christmas lights.
Linna untied her headband with trembling hands, letting it fall to her shoulders and flushed red as Tasha stepped to her, taking the ends in her fingers. She followed them to the collar of her nightclothes and undid the first button. Linna smiled demurely and turned her back to her; Tasha, undoing the rest of the buttons on her blouse, slid it from her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. Linna swallowed as Natasha ran her hands to her arms massaging them, then her shoulders, then seeing as she wasn't wearing a bra, traced her fingers along her breasts lightly, only just touching the skin. The barely perceptible touch of her fingers against her erect nipples made her shudder, as a dazed gasp escaped her lips. Tasha's hands went to the waistband of her pants and Linna, only feeling Natasha's fingers on her skin, shuddered, as, undone, it fluttered to her ankles.
Natasha's fingers were like blazing embers against her skin, caressing her without rhyme or reason as she played across her trembling flesh, surveying her. Linna longed, ached, and then pleaded to be grasped. Tasha's hands went to her sides, running up her now heaving chest as she kissed the nape of her neck.
"Oh Jesus! Stop teasing me." Linna breathed.
"Turn around." Tasha whispered softly.
Linna slowly turned to face her, her face aching in desire, her lips parted from her labored breathing.
Slowly, Natasha removed her clothes, revealing one inviting feature of her hard, toned body after another in slow, unbearable morsels. Linna's chest was heaving, as if she'd just run up ten flights of stairs, well before Tasha finally hooked the elastic waistband of her sweats, and then eased them off, revealing herself to her. Linna's eyes told her that she was both intimidated by her and impatient to sample her.
"Oh wow!" Linna whispered breathily; scarcely able to contain the growing passion and desire building up within her.
"You have no idea how long I've waited for this."
They made love passionately, intensely, explosively.
Like a battle, it took time, and had its share of low and high intensity; but like any mêlée, they were both filled with an invigorating mixture of tingling excitement, adrenaline, and fatigue when it was done.
They lay there, intertwined, exhausted. Linna; curled up against her best friend and now lover, was breathing deeply, almost fighting for air with a content grin etched onto her face as Tasha held her close, lovingly stroking her arm. The experience had been beautiful, intense and liberating.
"That was amazing." Linna managed.
Tasha smiled, dizzy with pleasure, what could she say; words were useless beyond that point. After nine years of fear-provoked self-denial she was finally able to enjoy the intimacy of another thanks to her, and, she couldn't think of anyone she'd rather share herself with. Linna, nestled beside her, closed her eyes in worn-out delirium, filled by new and unfathomable sensations, trembling contentedly as she came to the realization that while this had been her first time, it would not be her last. She'd been nervous, not knowing what to expect, but Tasha had been gentle, helpful, and patient. Linna had given herself to her and never, not once, had Natasha made her feel inadequate or awkward regardless of how insecure and inexperienced she'd been.
"Merry Christmas Linna." Tasha finally whispered.
"Merry Christmas Tasha." Linna whispered back, nuzzling even closer.

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