“I don't know,” Jack admitted. He was standing near the door, his hearing keen to try to decipher what was going on. The hallway outside of the storage room they were being kept in was quiet now, though he could still hear rumbling from above. His heart was pounding. Clearly something of great importance was going on. Could it be that the Ascendancy had already begun its attack to retake Lirna? If that was so, then it was good because the Ascendancy would surely make an effort to rescue the Empress, who was likely being held here in the royal palace as well. But it could also mean that their lives were in even greater danger than before. Perhaps now was as good a time as any to make a break for his own freedom. “Brooke, I have an idea, but I need you to do something for me.”
“Wh-What?” Brooke asked. She looked even more fearful, with her eyes going wide. “Wh-What am I supposed to do?”
“I'll tell you,” Jack said. He went over to her and knelt on the floor, lowering his voice to a whisper. “The first thing you'll need to do is...”
******
The guard out in the hall was growing anxious. After the Ailian leader had departed, he and his companion had resumed their duties, but then a frantic call had come over the radio and his comrade had been called away. Now he was all alone, and he knew that there was some kind of fighting going on aboveground. He wanted to go join the fight, but he knew that leaving his post now was a sure way to find himself in front of a firing squad later. The Ailians had told him that these two prisoners were quite important ones, though he didn't see what sort of value two slaves had. His orders were clear, however, and if he knew what was good for him he wouldn't move from this spot.
“Hey, guard!”
His ears caught the sound of the older male prisoner, not the first time that the man had tried to talk to him. The guard ignored him as usual. The cries of a prisoner weren't worth his time, but the constant pleas for information from him were starting to get annoying. He had half a mind to go in there and bash the guy's face in to get him to shut up, but he didn't want to risk damaging someone that the boss wanted to keep alive. He knew that she wanted that pleasure for herself.
“Listen, asshole, I actually need your help this time! I think she's sick!”
He rolled his eyes. Not likely. The girl had seemed in perfectly fine health when she'd been brought in there. He was probably just trying to get a rise out of him. He wasn't going to give the guy the satisfaction.
“Hey, I'm serious! Come on, man, she's not moving and I think something's actually wrong!” There was a pause. “Look, your boss is gonna be pretty pissed at you if you just stand there and let her die. You wanna think about what'll happen to you if she does?”
Now his attention was grabbed. What if the guy wasn't just messing with him? Now that he thought about it, she was a slave, and he'd heard stories all through the war about how Ailians treated some of their slaves. Maybe she was in worse shape than she'd looked. Just a little look through the window in the door wouldn't hurt, would it? Turning towards the door, he got up on his toes to look. The male prisoner was standing just inside, quite near the door, but he looked past him to see the girl laying on the floor. He watched her for a few seconds. She wasn't moving. He wasn't even sure if she was breathing. Then, a second later, he saw he take a slow, labored breath before letting it out and going completely still again. She sure didn't look normal.
He bit his lip, trying to decide what to do. He could call for someone to come down to help, but from the sounds of things they had plenty to deal with aboveground already. Distracting them would probably get him chewed out and punished somehow. He could deal with two unarmed prisoners by himself, no problem. Pulling his keyring from his belt, he stuck the appropriate key into the door and unlocked it.
“Back up!” he ordered the male prisoner. The man did as he was told, and the guard swung the door in. He quickly got his rifle in both hands, aiming it directly at the other man. “Up against the back wall. Now!”
“Hey, easy, man,” the man said, holding his hands up in front of him. “I don't want any trouble. But I think there's something really wrong with her. She didn't eat much last meal time, and then she just sorta passed out.” He backed up to the rear wall of the storage room, watching as the guard went to where the girl was laying.
Keeping one eye on the male prisoner, the guard knelt beside her. He placed a hand on her neck. She had a pulse and she felt warm, but she wasn't responsive when he nudged her. She was breathing very shallowly. Maybe he'd have to risk calling for help after all. He slung his rifle back behind his back and touched his ear, keying up his radio. “This is Red Five on prisoner detail. I need a medic in the cellar. I have a female prisoner down, adolescent, unknown cause.” He waited a few seconds, but he received no answer. Either everyone was too busy, or nobody felt like it was important enough to bother with. “Repeat, Red Five has a prisoner down. Requesting a medic.”
While the guard looked over Brooke, Jack was watching him carefully. Ever so slightly, he inched forward from the wall, making sure that the soldier was still only half paying attention to him. He seemed oblivious, for the moment. As soon as the guard took his hands off of his rifle, Jack started creeping towards him at a quicker rate. It was now or never. When the soldier opened his mouth to make a third attempt with his radio, Jack launched himself at the man.
The guard was taken completely by surprise. Jack remembered well the lessons in Ailian hand-to-hand that Aria had been giving him. He cupped one palm around the back of his other hand and jabbed them both at the underside of the man's chin. The guard gave a grunt of pain as his head was snapped back sharply, and he fell over backward onto his back. There was a louder shriek of pain as the man landed on his rifle, which pressed into the base of his spine. The soldier kicked up at Jack, and managed to land a solid blow right in his groin. Sickening pain washed over Jack, and he had the urge to throw up, but he did his best to ignore it and split his four fingers down the middle. He thrust them forward, two each aimed for the man's eyes, and he hit them hard. The soldier screamed again and raised his hands up reflexively to protect his face.
Jack took the opportunity to get back up to his feet. As the soldier realized his mistake, he started to sit up, but Jack kicked him in the chest, rolling him away from Brooke to protect the girl from being trampled underneath them. The guard wound up on his back a few feet away. Jack followed along and swung his leg back, lashing forward to kick him in his side. He heard a muffled crunch as one of the man's ribs broke. The guard started to curl up, and he rolled over onto his stomach to protect his center of mass from a similar kick. That wasn't Jack's goal now. He had been waiting for the soldier to do just that.
Once the guard was turned over enough, Jack put one foot on either side of his body and got down on his haunches, basically sitting on the man's back. He looped one arm down around the soldier's neck and put the crook of his elbow against his throat. Leaning down, Jack grabbed the back of his own neck with that hand, and he brought his other arm down and around to clutch the back of the elbow around the guard's throat. Using his body weight to keep the man from getting up, he leaned back and tightened his grip around his neck. The guard began struggling, but Jack kept increasing the pressure, cutting off both the guard's air supply and the flow of blood to his brain. He held the chokehold for a long time, as the soldier's struggling grew gradually more feeble, until finally the other man stopped moving altogether.
When Jack was sure that the soldier was dead, he let go of him and felt his body sag into the floor. He got to his feet, wiping sweat from his forehead. He'd never killed a man with his bare hands before, and it took a minute for him to stop shaking from the rush of adrenaline. As soon as he trusted his voice enough, he turned to check on Brooke. She was sitting up again, and he eyes were as wide as moons as she stared at the dead soldier.
“You okay?” he asked her, concern in his voice. He would have liked nothing more than for the young girl to not have to see what she just saw, but it couldn't be helped.
The slave girl made a hoarse sort of squeak, and then she swallowed a few times. She looked as ill now as she had been pretending to be a few moments ago, and he hoped she wouldn't be sick for real. Then she shakily got up from the floor. “I...I...I think I'll be alright...”
“Good,” Jack said. He got down next to the body and began grabbing stuff. He unfastened the guard's gun belt. He had been carrying a pretty hefty combat load for a prisoner guard. There was a sidearm and spare magazines on his belt, along with a knife, binoculars, a compact flashlight, a water bottle, and a small emergency trauma kit. Jack removed the binoculars and the water bottle, since he wouldn't likely need them and they'd just be added weight, and fastened the belt as securely as he could around his waist. Then he removed the guard's armor vest and put that on as well. The vest was equipped with ten spare magazines for the guard's rifle, which he looped around his shoulder using the single-point sling. He left the guard's radio, which could have been used to track his movements, but kept his keys. Those might come in handy later.
When he was prepared, he turned back to Brooke. “We're getting out of here,” he told her. “If there's a battle going on up there, we might be able to get away in the confusion. But we'll need to be careful. I need you to follow all my instructions, no matter what. If I tell you to follow me, you stay right with me. If I tell you we're going to run, you run as hard as you can and keep up with me. If I tell you to run without me, you do it without asking why. Can you promise me that?”
Brooke looked hesitant. “I...I promise,” she said. Jack could see in her eyes that she didn't like the idea of leaving Jack, even if it meant saving herself. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“I'm going to get you out of here,” he said solemnly. “You have my word on that.” He squeezed her shoulder and then started walking towards the door. “Come on, now. Let's go.”
******
Aria was finding her first flight inside a human helicopter to be a singularly uncomfortable experience. Besides the noise, the motions of the craft were a lot different from those of her own peoples' flying machines. The rotors imparted a subtle vibration through the helicopter that was just enough to make her feel slightly nauseous, and besides that it was cramped, at least for someone of her size. The humans riding with her seemed comfortably seated. Aria and her Royal Guards and Ascendancy naval troopers were spread out among three of the larger, double-rotored helicopters, accompanying Lieutenant Kozlov's Spetsnaz troopers and SAS commando teams. If the human soldiers were uncomfortable being with Ailians who, until just recently, would have killed them in combat, they hid their discomfort well. There wasn't a lot of conversation going around, but they were showing mutual respect to each other, which was about as much as could have been hoped for.
Lieutenant Kozlov, who was seated next to Aria, leaned over so that he could be heard over the chopping of the rotors. “Captain, I just got word from the leader of our 27
th
squadron. The enemy air units have been spread out thinly enough that we can begin our approach to the palace. This will have to be quick, however. We can't stay out in the open for too long.”
“Yes,” Aria agreed. “Is good. We go now.”
Barely five seconds later, the helicopters increased their speed. Aria looked out the open doorway of the craft she was riding in, seeing the buildings of Hayikwiir rushing past as they flew towards the palace. Twenty seconds after the word had been giving, they were over the palace perimeter, and she was gazing down at the expansive palace gardens. Beyond the walls surrounding the palace she could see human armor on the ground. The blocky, bulky tanks were much different than Ailian or Nuretan armor, tracked instead of wheeled, with swiveling turrets that housed one or two guns each. As she watched the pitched battle below, she observed the wreck of one of the rebel walkers, and she also saw several burning hulls of human tanks. The rebels were still putting up a good fight, though the addition of the human forces evened the odds dramatically.
Aria's field of vision was soon occupied by the roof of the palace, and the helicopters reduced speed drastically, coming to a hover over the building. Rebel soldiers, a mixture of Ailian, human, and Pteryd, were hunkered down on the flat surface. As soon as the helicopters came overhead, some of them began firing up at them. High-pitched clangs began sounding out as incoming rounds struck the outer skin of the craft. Two of the Spetsnaz troopers leaned out of the doors, shouldering their weapons and returning fire. At the same time, several of the rebel troops were hurled to the ground, struck by sniper fire from the SEALs who had taken positions on the upper floors of the buildings overlooking the palace.
With no time to waste, the troopers at the helicopter doors dropped lines down to the roof. This was something Aria had never done, but it had been explained to her briefly by Commander Carswell. As one, the soldiers inside the helicopter stood and lined up at the door. Aria took the lead, grabbing onto the rope with both hands and jumping out of the door. She let gravity take hold of her, and she slid all the way down the rope until her feet hit the surface of the roof. As soon as she touched down, she jumped away from the bottom of the line so that the next soldier could follow. The Ailian captain lifted her weapon in both hands, going down to one knee and firing at the rebel soldiers all around her. One by one, she was joined by her allies from her helicopter and from the other two, until there was a furious firefight going on atop the palace. The lack of cover made things hairy, and soldiers began going down on both sides, but the advantage was with the arriving commandos as the snipers did their part.