A Wish the Heart Makes: Fornever in Blue Genes

by Tigger

Chapter 24: Assault on the Lady's Castle

Five dark shadows closed on the small, makeshift outpost on
the edge of the BioCybernetics compound.  The smallest of the
group put a head over to the group's leader.

"You're sure that we will have the fifteen minutes we need?"
the Mandy-Leader whispered hoarsely.

"As sure as we can be, Leader," the team leader replied, just
as softly.  "They have beefed up their guard force, since they
haven't been able to get the physical security repaired yet. 
We have had them under surveillance since our attack team's
egress.  They check in at random intervals, sometimes at their
initiative, sometimes in response to a call from the command
watch.  Never more than forty five minutes between call-ins,
and only once less than ten minutes - we think that happened
at watch shift change.  In any case, ninety percent of the
reports are at intervals of 18 to 32 minutes."  The team
leader had gone over this with the Leader before they'd left
their own base, but she was used to dealing with nervous
amateurs.  Besides, the woman was simply too powerful.  Last
thing the team leader needed was to piss her Leader off.

The team leader turned her attention back to the small camp
that was her next objective.  Whoever had trained those boys
had done it right.  Nothing provided any illumination that
might guide their weapons, and they never stayed in one place
for any length of time.  Even her directional listening gear
wasn't picking up anything.  There was none of the grab-assing
that might have characterized most civilian security teams. 
These guys were pros.

But then, she thought with some pride, so was she, and she had
trained her operatives pretty damned well, too.  "Point!" she
whispered into her throat mike.  

"Point," the response came back immediately.

"Verify your count on enemy operatives at objective."

"Same as before, One," the former special forces sergeant
answered.  "It's a four man team working in pairs with a team
leader at the main post.  They've got the breech covered in a
classic crossfire kill zone."

"Send me the coordinates for the fire teams and be ready to
take out anyone we miss."

"Roger," the incongruously soft, feminine voice responded. 
Immediately, firing data flowed into the command set.

The team leader turned her night vision gear back on the
command post, wishing she dared use something like an active
sensor.  The team leader was hers, and she had to be certain
he'd just made his check in with his central watch office
before she took him down.  *Patience, Captain,* she warned
herself, instinctively using her former Army rank in the
mental admonishment.

Then, the shadowy figure in her screen went momentarily almost
to attention, and his hand went to the side of his head.  The
team leader spun the gain on her hearing gear to maximum and
was rewarded with a scratchy, "Gatepost four, all clear, out."

Without moving, she took a single breath, aimed and squeezed
off her silenced shot, then triggered the small handheld
device she'd laid next to her.  Her own target had not yet
even fallen to the ground when the two mortar-like tubes
belched out their thirty millimeter projectiles.

Two small bursts of light appeared a couple of meters above
the ground, each about twenty meters from the breech in the
fence.  "Point, report!"

"Point here, Cap'n," she said back, forgetting their new ranks
in the excitement of action.  "Gas deployed perfectly.  All
targets appear down."

*Good girl,* the team leader thought. *Never assume anything
until you know for sure.*  "Point, Two, reconnoiter the two
targets, and ensure all operatives are down."

The only response she got was a pair of "click-click's" over
the radio.  She herself moved out then, to make sure the
opposition leader was also down.  He was.  The drugged dart
had taken him just below the solar plexus.  "He'll be out for
at least twelve hours," she said when the heavily breathing
Leader caught up with her.

"Still . . . don't know . . . why . . . you insisted on . . .
non-lethal weapons," the Leader rasped out with some acerbity.

"Because this won't piss them off as much, and taking care of
their wounded might delay their pursuit if we have to make a
quick bug-out.  They're not likely going to have enough people
on site to do both, and whereas they'd leave the dead behind
to get their killers, they will stop to tend their fallen
comrades."

"One, this is point.  Right objective secured."

"One, this is Two, Left objective secured."

"Roger," she responded.  "Move out to the main objective. 
Shoot anything that moves at this point.  We need to be inside
that building in ten minutes or less and we can't afford a
fire fight."

She got clicks from each of her three troopers and turned to
the Leader.  "Well, Ma'am, now it's time for your part in this
little shindig."

"Let's go," the Leader responded grimly.  "It's past time."

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

Teri looked at the disgusting mass of primordial slime that
was slowly flowing away from the calcium-based bone structure. 
Only years of nursing kept her from adding to the soon-to-be
sewage by vomiting, but *never* had she seen anything so . . .
so disgusting.

She'd known this was possible.  She'd heard Dr. West
discussing it, but she'd never, not in her worst nightmares,
conceived of anything like this.  And it had happened so
*fast*!  Less than two hours ago, that . . . that pile of pre-
protoplasm had been a living woman, and now . . . whatever
*it* was, it wasn't alive.

*Why don't I feel anything?* Teri asked herself through the
numbing haze. *She used to be such an important, vital part of
my life, and now she's dead.*

Quietly, she let herself out of the chamber and set the
security lock. *Have to think.  What went wrong?  Maybe this
just a stage of the transition and she isn't really dead.* 
Teri shook her head.  *You're dreaming, Richards.  Morag
didn't go through anything like that.  She stayed human-formed
throughout her transition.*

"Oh my god," she breathed, speaking aloud for the first time. 
"Morag!  They'll kill her trying to figure out what didn't go
wrong in her case."  

A guard walked down the corridor.  "Dr. Florence," she said
respectfully, "will you be here tonight?"

"Yes, comrade," Teri responded quickly.  "I have to watch over
Deputy Leader Freuda's treatment and will likely be here until
she is through the more critical phases."

"Yes, Ma'am.  Well, have a good evening.  Call if you need
anything."

Teri sagged against the hall, grateful that the guard had not
heard her words.  *So, Teri, Morag will die. Did you think
they were really going to let her live?* she asked herself.

*But it would have been a clean death,* she argued, *not the
slow death of a lab animal being dissected alive.*

*Dead is dead, girl,* her other voice said harshly.

"But I don't WANT HER *DEAD*!" she said, barely realizing
she'd again spoken aloud.

Brought up short by the force of her own feelings, Teri stared
at the door to the room where the sleeping man who had been
Morag MacPherson lay. *I don't want her dead,* she repeated in
her mind.  *Why?*

And the answer was suddenly there, painfully clear and
irrefutable.  *Because I don't want to live in a world where
she isn't. Because I am in love with her.*

Taking a deep breath, she slipped into her office to plan and
get what she needed.  Whatever she did, it would have to be
done quickly - before the Leader came back and found the
rotting pile of amino acids and carbohydrates that had once
been Freuda Fredricka Van Damme.