Welcome to Our Life -- Chapter 23

Disclaimer:  The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Jondy, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me.  No money is being made off of this fic.  I only own the original characters (Elle/X5-164, etc.).

Notes:  This chapter will be going back-and-forth between different character’s points-of-view.

Layla (X6-728)

We started to unload everything and get things set up in our camp at one end of the forest.  I was getting more nervous by the second as the déjà vu started to set in.  We’d done pretty much the same things the first time around when it had been my un—my old unit and we’d gone in to investigate the seemingly abandoned base and once again, I would be behind waiting for everybody to come back.  Last time that happened, only Wes and Ralph had come back.  I didn’t want it to happen again.  I was really starting to like my new brothers and sisters and I didn’t want to lose any of them and definitely not Wes and Ralph.  I shivered as I set out some medical supplies.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Becky glance at me from where she was checking over her weapons and set them down and walk over to me.

“Is something wrong, Layla?” she asked.

“I’m really worried, Becky,” I said.  “This happened the last time.  I mean, everybody getting this camp together and…”

Becky smiled reassuringly.  “Don’t worry about it.  This isn’t the last time.  Our team is much larger, we’re completely prepared, you won’t be alone because Maggie and 400 will be here at the camp with you, and most importantly, we will be bringing back 941 and 111.  I promise.”

I reached over and gave her a hug.  “Thank you, Becky.”

“You’re welcome,” Becky said.  She walked back over to her gear and I took a deep breath and went back to setting up the medical supplies.  Maggie finished setting out some gauze and antibiotics and walked over to me.

“Becky was giving you a pep talk?” she guessed.

“Yeah,” I said.

“She’s right,” Maggie said.  “It’s going to turn out very different than how the last time did.  You don’t have to worry.”

“You don’t sound as convinced as she did,” I pointed out.

Maggie shrugged.  “I guess.  I’ll be honest.  I’m nervous as hell myself.  This is most likely one of the most dangerous missions that we’ve ever undertaken, but I think that we’ll pull it off.  Becky’s a fantastic commander and with her and Zack and Alec and everybody, we’ve got an equally fantastic team.  I think that we’ll pull it off without too many problems.  Lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  “It doesn’t.”

Kenny (X5-987)

I did my final checks on my handguns before I smiled in satisfaction and put them in their holsters.  I double-checked to make sure that my rifle strap was secure and walked over to where Sasha was checking over the components of her sniper rifle and loading them into a case.  “Hey, there.  Everything looking good?”

“Yeah, everything looks pretty good,” she said.  “My equipment’s in pretty good shape.  I’ll be ready in case anybody decides to make an unwelcome appearance.”  She placed the final component in the case and shut it and strapped it to her back.  “How about you?  Are you ready to go?”

“I’m as ready as I’m going to be,” I said.  “Got everything that I need and it all seems to be working properly.”  I looked around.  “So…have you been out on anything on this kind of a scale before?”

Sasha looked thoughtful.  “No, not like this.  I’ve been on missions with my entire unit before, but this is the first multiple unit mission that I’ve ever been on.”

“Same here,” I said.  I cleared my throat.  Whoa, what was with the nerves, Kenny?  She’s just Rena’s twin.  It’s not like you haven’t seen that face every day since Rena was brought into regular training when she was two years old.

“Got something in your throat?” Sasha asked.

“Yeah, just some dust or dirt or something like that,” I said.  Hey idiots, roll out the red carper for me because it looks like I’ve just been appointed as your leader!  “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you are,” Sasha said, looking at me.  She blushed.  “I mean, you seem like you’re in perfect health to me.”

Was she just checking me out?  I smiled.  “Yeah, I am.  You look—“

“Kenny, if you look at me like that when we get back home to Wyoming, I will kill you,” Rena interrupted.

“Look at you like what?” I said.

Rena rolled her eyes as Sasha walked away to talk with Alec and Biggs.  “You were into her.  That’s how you always look at girls that you’re sweet on when you go out on missions, except it was worse and if you even think about looking at me like that when we return from this mission, I will take a machete and fillet you like a fish.  Got it?”

“Rena, I wasn’t looking at her like that and even if I was which I definitely wasn’t, I haven’t looked at you like that in all of the years that we’ve known each other.  Give me a reason why I would start to look at you like that now,” I said.  I glanced back at Sasha.  “Can you think of any reasons?”

“Good point,” Rena admitted.  She followed my gaze and turned back to me, though her eyes looked a little sad.  “Kenny, after…never mind.”  She shrugged.  “We should finish prepping.  Big brother will probably give us the go-ahead soon."  She turned and walked away.  I tried to think of what Rena had been going to say to me, but I pushed the thought out of my mind and went back to my own preparations.

Krit (X5-157)

I’d just finished checking all of my gear when I heard a whistle.  I turned and saw Zack and Alec standing next to each other near the edge of our camp.  Zack was gesturing to us.  I stiffened and turned around and nodded a quick good-bye to Maggie, Layla, and 400 before the rest of us filed out of the camp and went deeper into the forest.  We moved quietly and quickly until we reached an area several yards away from the perimeter of the enemy base.  Zack and Alec gestured for us to hold position and we once again looked around and listened for any sign of the enemy.  When none of us found anything, Zack and Alec turned to the comm. and surveillance team and nodded and Parker, Karen, Felicia, and 263 brought out their gear and quickly hacked back into their security cameras.

Parker bit his lip.  “I’m counting twenty-six of them spread out through the building.  I’m guessing one of them is outside somewhere on sentry duty.  More of them appear to be gathered closer to 941’s location.  Not that it’s going to be easy for 452 to reach 111, but this is going to be tricky for 405 to pull it off.”

“Sir, should another soldier go in with 405?” I asked.

Zack took a look at the footage on the laptop screens and then he shook his head.  “No, 405 will still go in on her own.  The enemies’ placement will make it almost impossible for more than one person to be able to slip by undetected before they could reach 941.”

“Okay, everybody, final instructions,” Alec said.  “Our snipers move into position first.  After the pairs of 405 and 941 and 452 and 111 have informed the rest of us that they’ve picked up their pursuits, then and only then will the explosives team moves into position.  As for the ambush groups, we’ll move into the building and into our positions when our comm. and surveillance team gives us the green light.  Once they have given us the okay, we observe comm. silence until 941 and 111 have been retrieved.  Any last minute questions?”  I didn’t have any and nobody else did, either.  “Good.  Let’s move out.”

Rena (X5-120)

We all moved up as one and inched closer to the base and closer to where I had planned to position myself when Becky, who was up at the front with Zack, Max, and Alec, suddenly gestured for us to hold.  A moment or two later, most of us also caught what she had heard.  Up in the very tree that I had planned on using was one of the enemy soldiers.  We crouched down and stayed absolutely still.  Zack made a gesture to Becky and she took out one of her handguns and attached a silencer to it and sighted in carefully and paused to make sure that the soldier didn’t hear her.  When it appeared that he didn’t, she fired.  We heard a grunt and then a thump as the injured man fell to the ground.  Before he hit, though, Becky had gotten up and blurred to him and when he tried to swing at her with his left arm, she took him down and pinned him, holding him in a choke hold to cut off his oxygen supply so that he wouldn’t be able to get free.  We came up to them and Zack took out two pairs of cuffs and cuffed his wrists behind his back and then his ankles.

“Let me go, you fucking bitch,” he swore.

Becky just coolly looked back into his eyes.  “I don’t think so, soldier.”  A moment or two later, Wayne walked up next to the prisoner and set down his rifle and took off his backpack and opened it.  He removed a case from it and opened that and took out a vial and a fresh syringe, which he removed from its wrapping.  He filled the syringe with the medication in the vial and rolled up one of the sleeves of the prisoner and injected it directly into a vein in the enemy's arm.  A few moments later, the soldier passed out and Becky let go of him.  Alec made a few gestures and Wayne and 786 picked up the prisoner and headed back in the direction of our camp.  When they'd returned a short time later, he started to signal to us to move forward again, but stopped when a voice came from the speaker of the enemy’s walkie-talkie, which he had dropped when he’d been shot.

“A14, this is A1.  Report in,” a voice said in Polish.  I calmly went up to the walkie-talkie and picked it up.

“A1, this is A14.  All clear, sir,” I said in the same language, imitating the soldier’s voice perfectly.  I always was good at mimicry.

“I copy.  Continue on your patrol.  A1 out.”

“A14 out,” I replied.  I shoved the walkie-talkie into my pants pocket and unstrapped my sniper rifle case from my back and opened it and quickly put the weapon together.  I slung the rifle’s strap over my shoulder and I climbed up the tree.  I signaled to the others that I was in position and ready to go and I took a deep breath.  Good luck, everybody.

Brin (X5-734)

I rubbed my hands together as we approached the perimeter fence that surrounded the enemy base and stopped.  I was really feeling the butterflies in my stomach.  It was now or never time.  I glanced next to me to Syl, who was going to be in the same ambush group as I was.  “What do you think?  Looks much worse than our facility, doesn’t it?”

“It makes our home look like Palm Beach,” Syl agreed.  “Those other two buildings don’t look inviting, to say the least.”  She and I zoomed in on the two destroyed buildings.  “I think that one over there was a medical center.  The other one looks like it used to be an armory.”  We paused when we heard two clicks over our comm. units and a moment later, three clicks.  Sasha and Kevin were in position.  That was the cue for Becky and Max to get ready to go.

I walked over to Max and gave her a hug, ignoring the disgusted or annoyed looks of some of the members of Alec’s unit.  “Good luck in there.”

“You too,” Max said.

I turned to Becky and wished her good luck as well.  “Kick some ass.  Don’t leave too many dead.”

“I’ll make sure that you’ll be able to have fun,” Becky deadpanned.  She smiled a little and went over to Zack.  They just stood there looking at each other but unable to say anything.  Finally, they gave each other a quick hug and Becky took a deep breath and jumped over the perimeter fence and headed towards the building.

Max gave a few last hugs to Jondy, Krit, and Tinga before she walked up to Zack.  “I’ll see you later.  Good luck.”  Once again, Zack couldn’t seem to find his voice, but he nodded and pulled Max into a hug.  They separated and Max also went over the perimeter fence and headed towards a different section of the building than Becky did.

“What was that shit?” 908 said, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s called building morale among your teammates,” Alec said.  “You know, try to psyche them up so that they’re in a better frame of mind to complete the mission and to strengthen the bond between them so they work better as a team.  The trainers said that it can be done in many ways.”

Zack shot Alec a grateful look.  “Thanks, Alec,” he said quietly.

“No problem,” Alec said.  “Anytime.”

“494, 599, this is 263.  Ambush Groups A and B are cleared for entry,” 263 said.

“We copy,” Alec said.  He made several hand signals and we moved into our groups.  I got behind Alec and his group and we cleared the fence and headed towards the east side of the building, the area that Max had moved towards.  Here goes nothing.

Becky (X6-405)

I approached the west side of the building and immediately began looking for the air vent that I had planned to make my entry from.  I spotted it and took out a few tools from my backpack and got to work.  I had the cover off in only a few second and I put my tools away and I climbed inside.  Thank goodness that the vent was wide.  I quickly crawled through the vent until I had gotten as far as I could before the vent narrowed.  I paused at the cover and listened for any signs of people.  When I didn’t hear anybody close enough to possibly catch me, I brought the tools out again and opened up the cover and then I slipped through and into an office.  I replaced the cover, put the tools away, and I started to move out of the office, but I stopped suddenly and blurred into a closet when I heard voices.  I held my breath as I heard the door open and I almost let it out again when I realized that it was merely two doctors.

“There it is.  I almost forgot it,” a male voice said in Polish.

“If your head wasn’t attached to your neck, it wouldn’t make much of a difference,” the other doctor, a woman, said.  “My goodness.  Speaking of the report, what did you get out of the genetic code of that Manticore soldier that we tested?”

“His genetic code wasn’t too different from our soldiers,” the male doctor replied.  “The thing wasn’t quite as strong or as fast as our people and it only lasted a day after we tested him.”

“Only a day?  What did you do?”

“We took blood samples, we took tissue samples of various types, we tested its ability to handle pain, just like we were ordered to do,” the male doctor said.  “It had a remarkable ability to handle pain.  It didn’t even scream until we pulled off the fingers of his left hand.”  I put a hand to my mouth to stop myself from screaming in anger.  They fucking pulled 520’s fingers right off of his hand just to see how much pain he could take?  For crying out loud, the worst that they would do back at Manticore was to break them or clamp them at pressure points.  At least they wouldn’t yank them off!

“Did it bleed to death from that wound?” the female doctor asked.

“No, it died when we—“  The doctor stopped when his beeper went off.  “It looks like they need this report soon.  Let’s go.”  They left the room.

I waited for a few moments, trying to calm myself down.  When they were safely out of earshot and when I had myself under control, I slipped back out into the room and towards the door and I opened it and went out into the hallway.  I looked both ways before I crept down the hallway, confident that Parker, Felicia, Karen, and 263 were doing their jobs and fooling the cameras into not showing me on the video feed.  I quickly ducked into another room when I heard more voices.  These voices suddenly stopped right when I had ducked into the room and I had to force my heartbeat to remain steady.  Shit, these were some of the enemy soldiers.

“Did you hear anything, A2?” one of them said.

“Yeah, I thought I heard something,” A2 said.  “A2 to Control, please scan the cameras.  A9 and I heard movement in the west section, floor 1.”  I closed my eyes as the seconds went by agonizingly slow.  Don’t let me down, please…

“A2, this is Control.  Nothing unusual on the cameras.”

“I copy, sir.  A2 out.”  There was the soft click of a comm. unit being turned off.  “There’s nothing on the cameras.  Let’s wait here and see if we hear it again.  If we do, we’ll check it out.”

“Yes, sir,” A9 replied.  I very slowly and quietly let my breath out and drew in another one and held it for almost five minutes.  Finally, just as I was about to lose my breath, I heard the soldiers walk away.  I quietly breathed in and out until they were out of range and then I moved on.  This was not going to be easy.

X6-941

I counted the cracks in the ceiling of my cell.  Yep, there were as many of them now as there were yesterday when I counted them.  I sighed to myself and turned on my side so that I was starting at the door instead of the ceiling.

I was still having trouble grasping the fact that I had lost so many of my teammates.  Seeing so many of them go down right before my eyes…I was their leader, their commanding officer.  I should have been able to protect and save them.  Calm down, 941.  You know that it was a well-planned ambush.  They got you in a good spot and it worked for them.  Yeah, and thanks to them, I’d lost 252, 437, 811, 646, 583, 520, 217, 419, 155, 343, and 761.  It was so nice of them to tell me that they had killed 520 after doing Manticore-knows-what kind of experiments on him.  The armed soldiers with tasers was also a nice touch.

I felt tears in my eyes and I wiped them away quickly.  As much as it was hurting, I would not give these people the satisfaction of seeing me in pain.  If they wanted to see a weak person that they could do what they wanted with, then they were not going to get that.  Not in a million years.

What the heck was that?  I sat up when I heard faint noises coming from the hallway outside of my cell.  Somebody was coming, but the sound didn’t match the usual noises of these soldiers or others passing by the cell.  I could barely hear these sounds.  It was if the person was trying to be…I suddenly stood up and stretched.  It was time to get ready to go.

The sounds stopped at the door and then I heard the lock being picked and a moment later, the door opened and my eyes went wide.  Standing in the door was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen before, and there were some really pretty ones back home in Seattle.  She looked like an angel, one that wore forest camouflage and carried enough weapons to take down half a small town.

I quickly snapped out of it when she turned around and showed me her barcode.  She handed me the extra weapons that she had been carrying and after I’d secured everything, she gave me an earpiece, which I put in immediately.  She quickly began to give me signals.  312, 334, and 728 are fine.  312 and 334 are in the building and 728 is back at our camp.  Follow my lead.  We’re going to be leading these guys into a trap.  I nodded and she put a hand to her earpiece.  “405.  Package wrapped.”  She waved me forward and we moved out of the cell and she led me down the hallway.  A few moments later, as we turned the corner and started to go down another short hall, our earpieces came online.

“405, 941, watch it.  You have incoming.  I repeat, you have incoming,” a voice said.

“We copy,” I said.  I listened and sure enough, I could hear unfriendlies approaching us from both sides.  “They’re coming around the corners.”

405 nodded and glanced up at the ceiling beams and a moment later she reached for the holsters on her hips and drew two handguns and fired upwards at the beams and we heard two grunts as two enemies, one on either side, went down.  Before they could hit the floor, I turned around and raised my M16 and fired, taking down a third enemy.  405 raised a hand to her earpiece.  “Three down.”

“Copy, you’ve got another twelve incoming.  Hurry,” the same voice said.

“I copy, 367,” 405 said.  She and I raced on.

Max (X5-452)

I sighed in relief when I heard Becky’s voice report that she and 941 had taken down three of the enemies.  Good for them.  I smiled when I reached 111’s cell a few moments later.  I looked both ways down the hall to make sure that nobody was coming and I took off my backpack and reached inside for my lock picking tools.  I smiled when I got it done in a few seconds and I opened the cell door.  I quickly showed the poor kid my barcode when he looked at me suspiciously and I signaled to him that everybody was here and the plan.  I gave him the extra weapons and the extra earpiece that I’d been carrying and we started to leave.  “452.  Package wrapped.”  I motioned to 111 and we left his cell and headed in the direction of Alec’s ambush group.  We managed to get pretty close before we picked up our tails.

“They’re incoming, 452.  Watch yourselves,” Parker warned us.

“How many?” I asked.

“Eleven,” he replied.

“I copy,” I said.  I could hear them coming up behind me.  I gestured to 111 and I reached into one of my pockets and I took out the grenade that Zane had given to me back at the camp before we’d headed out.  I pulled the pin.

“Nice,” 111 said.

“Hey boys, wanna play catch?” I sang.  I threw the grenade back down the hall and 111 and I put on as much speed as 111 could.  A moment later, we heard an explosion and a few less pairs of feet running after us.  “Five down, one injured but still on the move.”  111 and I turned another corner and I pointed to the door of one of the apparently empty rooms.  I ran all the way to the end of the hallway and skidded to a stop at the dead end and turned around as the remaining soldiers followed me.

The one in the lead smiled evilly.  Who did he think he was, some villain from an old James Bond movie?  “You’re out of room, soldier.”  Cue the cavalry!  The doors popped open and the place turned into a shooting gallery and the six soldiers fell to the floor, dead.

I smirked.  “Ooops.”

“You sure do like to play dirty, 452,” Alec remarked as he and the others in the group stepped out into the hallway.

“I know.  It’s fun,” I said.

“Apparently,” Alec agreed.  He put a hand to his earpiece.  “This is 494.  Group B’s assignment is complete.”  A few moments later, I heard Zack’s voice through my earpiece and I sighed in relief.  Thank goodness.

“This is 599.  Group A’s assignment complete.  Explosives Group, what is your status?”

“This is 205.  We’re almost set.”

“I copy,” Zack said.  “Any unfriendlies left in the building?”

“Only groups of ordinaries, sir,” Felicia reported.  “All enemy transgenics in the building are K.I.A.”

“I copy.  205, do you need any additional assistance?” Alec asked.

“No, sir,” Zane replied.  “Approximate time to completion, five minutes.”

“Copy.  Groups A and B, rendezvous back at the communications team.  599 out.”

“Group B on their way.  494 out.”  Alec turned off his earpiece and gestured to us and we made our way out of the building.  We jumped over the perimeter fence and made our way back to Parker, Karen, Felicia, and 263.  When they got there, Ralph, who’d been a part of Alec’s group, squealed and gave 111 a big hug.

“Thank goodness that you’re still alive!” she said.  “I thought that I’d never see you again.”

“Me too,” 111 said.  They turned around when they saw and heard Zack’s group approaching and as soon as they were close enough, Ralph and 111 blurred over to 941.  I couldn’t help grinning as I watched them.  Zack came over to me as we watch the three of them plus Wes hugging and laughing.

“That’s good to see,” he said.

I nodded.  “And wait until 941 and 111 meet back up with Layla at the camp.”  I looked Zack over.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Maxie,” he assured me.  “What about you?  Are you injured at all?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.  “I’m good.  I’m really glad that you’re okay.  That could have gotten worse faster than a penny off of the old High Place, you know?”

“Yeah, it could have,” Zack said.  We stood there silently until we heard Zane and his team approaching.  Zane was grinning like a nutcase.  Oh, boy.  This was going to be a big one.

“Let’s get to safe distance,” he said.  Parker, Karen, Felicia, and 263 quickly packed up their equipment and we got out of there and headed towards our camp.  About halfway there, Zane gestured for us to stop and we all took out protective ear wear and put it on.  Zane’s grin grew even wider.  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, feast your eyes on this work of art!”  He took out a remote and pressed the button on it and even with the protective ear wear, we heard an explosion and I couldn’t hide my surprise at the fireball that we saw erupt from where the building had once stood.  Wow.  Zane really had out done himself this time.

Kenny looked impressed.  “Wow, bro,” he said after we’d taken off the ear wear.  “I think that might have been your finest work yet.  Well done.”

“Thank you,” Zane said.  “It was a team effort this time, but I’m glad that you appreciate the results.”

Zack shook his head, but I could see that he was smiling just the tiniest bit.  “Come on.  Let’s get back to camp.”  He waved us forward and we continued on.  I couldn’t help smiling.  They’d gotten what they’d deserved in a big way.  Don’t mess with this family.

TBC