A Wish the Heart Makes: Fornever in Blue Genes

by Tigger

Chapter 19: Damage Control

Cat's face was coldly emotionless as she took the report from
her security watch supervisor.  "Chief, whoever they were,
they were pros and they had it planned down to a gnat's ass. 
They had damned good intelligence, too, because they knew what
they wanted and where to get it.  Less than four minutes from
when they took out the gate four enclave to clear their
approach axis to the Med lab until they were on their way back
out.  They even had an anti-aircraft vehicle to cover their
retreat which meant they knew about our supposedly secret
little air force.  It was a perfectly planned and executed op
and they caught us with our pants down.!"

"Casualty report," Cat ordered stonily.

"Three dead at Gate Four.  Three armed airsleds were sent up
as interceptors and were downed by ground fire, six dead.  So
far, we know of eight dead scientists and two dead security
officers at the Med lab, but we haven't finished our search
there since we are having to worry about booby traps," the
watch officer went silent for a moment, and Cat immediately
picked up on it.

"Give me all of it, Davies."

"Yes, Ma'am.  Dr. West is one of the confirmed dead.  And,"
Cat heard Mandy's joked gasp behind her.  "Boss?  MacPherson
is recorded as being in the building, too, but we haven't
found her yet."

"Ms. Donovan!" a new voice broke in.  "High stress levels
noted on the patient.  Should I call in a doctor?"

Cat turned to face the nurse's station, and for the first
time, noticed that it wasn't the usual day nurse.  They'd long
ago dispensed with the drug belt and restraint system, but at
Bob West's wheedling, they'd kept some simple monitoring
equipment discreetly attached to Mandy's body.  Cat saw the
look on Mandy's face, made a quick judgement.  "Not yet," she
ordered.  "But keep an eye on her readings." *Besides,* she
thought grimly, *Bob was the only physician who was fully
briefed on Operation Mandy, and most of the other MD's worked
in Bob's lab anyway.  Who the hell would we call?* 
Resolutely, she turned back to the security screen.  "Anything
else?  Any idea where they went?"

For her own part, Mandy had to literally bite her tongue to
keep from telling the nurse who was in charge.  One thing she
was going to have to fix and soon was this inclination of
people to defer to Cat when Mandy was there with her Security
Chief.  *Just because she's over six feet tall and eats nails
for breakfast,* Mandy fumed quietly.  *She's not THAT scary,
is she?*  Sighing quietly, Mandy turned her attention back to
the Security Watch Officer's report to Cat.

"No, Ma'am," he continued.  "They took out our sensor arrays
when they took out Gate Four, and by the time we scrambled the
rest of the armed airsleds, there wasn't anything to track. 
Like I said earlier, whoever planned this one is very, very
good, Ma'am, and they had really high grade intelligence on
our layout here and our response plans."

"All right.  Send out some operatives to see if they can find
anything, see if anyone on the outside saw something -
ANYTHING - we can use.  Let me know when our perimeter is
secure again."

The screen went blank.  "Damn me for an UTTER FOOL!!" Cat
swore as she slammed a fist into the desk.  "I *knew* we'd
been infiltrated, and I made the grossly amateurish mistake of
thinking they'd never take direct action.  Besides, *I*  was
too damned busy tracking ghost-moles to even think of
reviewing and modifying our main security plan."

"Robert, Cat?  Robert is dead?" Mandy's voice asked softly,
breaking into Cat's self reproach.

"That's what Davies said, Mandy.  And Davies is too good an
operator to make a report like that without being absolutely
sure of the situation.  Damn it!  I never thought they'd take
direct action against us like this.  They'd been so careful to
keep themselves in the shadows before this."

Mandy wanted to weep, wanted to rail against fate, wanted to
mourn her friend, but the cold, rational mind that was still
Matthew Sorenson wouldn't let her.  "They've taken my life,
Cat.  They almost took my company and the fruits of almost
thirty years of hard work and brain sweat.  But now, they've
taken my best friend, and by all the gods, Cat, they don't
take another thing or person that is dear to me.  It's time we
started taking from *them*!"

"Big words, sweetie," Cat said dully, "but we still don't know
anything more than we knew before they hit us.  We are still
in reaction mode and they still hold the tactical control of
the situation."

"Wrong, Cat," Mandy said firmly, and was just a bit smugly
satisfied to see the nurse goggle at her. *Might as well start
as I mean to go, and dammit, I AM the majority owner of this
company.* "We know quite a bit more than we knew before this."

"Do we?" Cat asked caustically.  "I wish you'd enlighten me
because I still feel like a god damned mushroom here."

"We've got an enemy who has, as you said, been assiduously
covert up until now."

"Well, they sure as hell aren't acting covertly anymore. 
Guess we know that much."

"But, think, Cat.  *WHY* are they suddenly acting overtly?"
Mandy asked her friend.

Cat thought for a minute.  "Because they don't think they need
to act in secrecy anymore?"

"Or because they think they are ready to move on to whatever
their real objective is, and that is a more direct operation. 
However, we very likely know something more than that, too."

"What's that?"

"Once we figure out why they hit us, we will have a better
idea what their objective entails.  Like your man said, the
people who hit the Med Lab were pros.  You don't mount that
type of operation without a clear objective.  We need to
figure out precisely what it is they went in there looking
for."

Cat closed her eyes and quietly cursed.  "Right.  How is it,
Mandy, that I'm the spook here, and *you're* the one who is
thinking like one?"

A wry smile crossed Mandy's face.  "Mandy's trying to have a
breakdown, Cat, but Matt is pissed off, and ready to kill
someone.  He won't let Mandy have her crying jag until whoever
did this to Bob has paid, big time."

"That pretty face is really easy to underestimate, girl. 
Okay, just a sec."  Cat went back to the workstation and
ordered her security watch officer to report as soon as the
Med Lab was safe to enter.  When she turned back, she saw
Mandy wiggling into her combat suit.  "Hey, what is this?"

"I'm going with you, Cat.  No one knows what Bob was up to in
there better than I do.  I am not the medical type, but I
designed all of his technical gear.  I might see something no
one else would recognize."

Cat was about to argue and turned to the nurse.  "Nurse,
vitals?"

"Flat, Ms. Donovan.  If I didn't know better, I would swear
she was on blockers."

"Can you monitor her if she is in the Med Lab?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Okay," Cat responded, recognizing that Mandy was right. 
Then, she thought of something.  "By the way, where is
Richards?"

"Teri called in sick today, Ms. Donovan, and asked if I would
take her watch today.  I normally do the swing shift."

Cat felt her blood turn to ice as she stared at the nurse with
an intensity that made the smaller woman nearly cringe.  She
spun back to the terminal and immediately had Davies back on
screen.  "Nurse Teri Richards did not show up for work today. 
It might be a coincidence, but then again, it might not be.  I
want an armed team at her quarters in fifteen minutes and I
want her brought to the compound.  Got that, Davies?"

"Got it, Boss.  Ummm . . . do we have any legal authority for
this?" he asked quietly.

"Not that I know of, Davies.  Call in Jacobs for legal damage
control, but do it after you dispatch the team.  We may not
have time to fool around with this."

"On it, Boss," he replied as his figure winked out.

Cat turned to face a stony-faced Mandy.  "These people have
shown a talent for disappearing when they need to, and Nurse
Teri not being at work for the first time in my memory on the
very day we get hit like this is just too much of a
coincidence.  If it turns out I'm wrong . . . "

"I'll pay the punitive damages and consider myself ahead of
the deal, Cat," replied Mandy.  "Now, let's get over to the
Lab and see what we can figure out."

Cat nodded once before turning back to her desk.  She opened
up a drawer and pulled out a holster belt and a hand blaster. 
She carefully checked that the weapon was fully charged and
that the safety was on before handing it to Mandy.  "We don't
know that the bad guys have all left, kid," she said with
quiet emphasis.

Mandy accepted the weapon and also checked that it was loaded
and on safe.  "Well, if we see one, I will make sure I only
shoot to disable him.  I have a lot of hard questions I want
answered, and I don't much care how hard I have to be when I
ask them."

"If it comes down to a shootout, girl, you shoot to kill, read
me?" Cat ordered, her hand locked on Mandy's shoulder.

"It won't come to that, Cat, because I don't intend to give
Bob's killers a chance to shoot, and the sons of bitches will
only *wish* they were dead."

Cat thought about saying something more, but the look in
Mandy's eyes forestalled her.  She pulled another weapon out
of her desk and fitted the belt around her waist.  "Let's go,
then."

~---------------~

The flight was oddly short, Morag thought as the transport
settled with a slight bounce.  Either the craft was very, very
fast, or where ever they had landed was extremely close to the
company compound.  Since there didn't seem to be anything
about the airship that was out of the ordinary for a military
attack craft, that meant that the bad guys', or rather, the
bad girls' hidey-hole was in the same basic locale as the
BioCybernetics compound.

*I have to wait for them to clear away,* Morag thought, *and
then see if I can contact Cat.  Damn me for a fool, doing this
without any type of communicator.*

Suddenly, the door to her own hiding place snapped open and
Morag found herself looking out at what seemed to be hundreds
of blaster barrels.  "The pilot knew as soon as the door
opened, stupid," the voice Morag recognized as 'Number One'
said mockingly.  "But we had to keep to our time-table, and
since you couldn't do anything except hold on for dear life
inside that little cubby-hole, we decided to proceed to base. 
Tell me, fool, do you have a preferred way of dying?  Since
you are female, we can probably accommodate you that much at
least.  Now get out of there.  The Leader wants to meet you,
and wish you . . . sweet dreams."