The Men in Black and The Crystal Maze

(113/1105, Aki/Glisten)

Hastily closing down the datalinks he'd been working with, Lasnus slipped back out of the computer hut and headed back to his own. He'd not got out of the secure zone when a voice barked "Hey! Where the hell are you going?" A guard had caught him. Without hesitating, he spun around, energy blade out and moving. There was a thump, a sizzling sound and a groan, and a cooling body lay in the drifting snow. Grabbing it, Lasnus dragged it back through the secure area and stuffed it - with all its' accoutrements - on an ice ledge in the glacier face. He covered it with a thin layer of snow and watched with satisfaction as a thicker layer settled over it. Then he hightailed back to the hut. Calumn O'Rourke stood up, and shook Captain Nose's hand. He thanked the mercenary warmly for his services, saying that the Cause would be greatly helped by what had been done. Despite Nose's nervousness, no awkward questions were asked, and he returned to the hut. When he got there, Lasnus briefed him on what had happened. Worried that their cover was about to blow, Nose set up a tightbeam comm channel from his armour to the Baranduin, allowing the Zho Bros to listen in on what was going on. Then they turned in. Next morning, the camp was in a very evident state of high alert, with double guards and patrols hurrying hither and thither. Around ten, both were summoned to the main hut for a meeting with Kerr and O'Rourke. The atmosphere in the hut was tense, not helped by the two armed guards standing behind O'Rourke.

Nose demanded, "Can you prove it?"

"Yes." replied O'Rourke. He pointed straight at Lasnus with his left hand. "Take off your helmet!" he barked. When Lasnus hesitated, O'Rourke's fingers flickered for an instant, and magically there was a heavy pistol in his hand, pointed directly at the startled Lasnus.

Nose was already moving. He whipped his rifle around and started firing. His first burst was uncharacteristically wild; as he corrected, he felt the spooky sensation of ...something... pushing the barrel of the gun off centre. The feeling was exactly like a failure in the gyroscopic stabilizer built into the gaussrifle; but he knew it wasn't that. As he brought his gun back to bear, Lasnus drew his energy blade and struck. Caught off guard by this unfamiliar weapon, O'Rourke's telekinetic control slipped for a moment - and Nose drilled him straight through the chest.

The room exploded in pandemonium. The two guards goggled, stunned by the suddenness of the violence. Deborah Kerr flung herself sideways, clawing out a heavy snub pistol, and fired at Nose; the bullet whacked off his waist without penetrating, and the next moment she had a gauss bullet in her eye. Lasnus continued his movement, sweeping the blade around to slice the top clean off one of the guard's heads as the other fired his assault rifle at Nose, only to be stiched from throat to sternum and dropped where he stood.

Silence fell. After listening for signs that the fight had been heard from outside, Nose and Lasnus hastily gathered the fallen terrorists' weapons. As they finished this, they heard an unmistakable roar and heavy settling noise from outside, as the Baranduin landed in the middle of the compound.

Seated on the flight deck in his shirtsleeves, with a mug of coffee in his hand, Dliiavrnt eyed the blowing snow and ice outside without enthusiasm. Activating Gvn's turret, he requested the vargr take a bead on the main hut, then switched on the outer PA.

"I'm going to count to ten," his massively amplified voice boomed, "and then we're going to start firing. Anyone who want to survive, drop their weapons and go stand out on the ice in the bay." There was a pause, and then a stream of dispirited terrorists trudged out into the bay. Watching on the sensors, Dliiavrnt was surprised to note that about a third of them carried on and set off walking... somewhere. There was definitely a sudden lack of cohesion in the group.

Lasnus and Stpierb' set off towards the computer hut. Dliiavrnt had warned them there was a "hot spot" there - probably a braver terrorist - and they were armed and ready. Not ready enough, because Lasnus kicked the door open and got a facefull of gaussfire as a result. Stunned, he stumbled back as Stpierb' went for cover, looking for a bead. A hundred yards away across the base, Nose drew a mark too and watched the high windows of the hut for a target.

On the bridge, Dliiavrnt put his coffee down. Gathering his mental force, he reached out and seized the terrorist. Flexing his psionic might, he heaved the man violently upwards for fifteen feet. Seeing a movement in the hut window, Nose fired, then stared at his rifle in disbelief as the body of a man exploded out through the hut roof in a shower of wood splinters and torn felt, before rolling down the roof and dropping to the snow with a soggy thump.

Lasnus and Stpierb' moved in and looked at the body. It was Nate Bilstein; the combination of a smashed skull and a gauss burst in the belly was killing him rapidly, and he died as they watched. Moving in to the hut, they discovered the computer system intact, but a number of ominously ticking charges attached to it and the hut. Swiftly, they scooped up 10 data backup datacrystals, five software and OS crystals, and three unarmed charges Bilstein hadn't had time to lay. Then they fled out of the hut, watching from a safe distance as it went up in a great booming explosion. At sight of this, two more terrorists, who'd planned on making a fight of it, lost their nerve and surrendered.

Taking stock, the team decided that the operation had gone as far as it could. They put a call through to Sterling Hughes, and explained the situation. Less than an hour later, Hughes was landing at the base in a large grav vehicle stuffed with police SWAT troops.

The process of rounding up the remnants of Red Action went fairly uneventfully, but around an hour and a half later, Hughes came to where Nose and Stpierb' were having a cuppa in the main hut, and rather worriedly asked them to come and look at what he'd found. He led them across the camp to the previously out-of-bounds stores hut - which now sported a couple of tough-looking SWAT guards - and inside. "What do you think of this?" he asked.

'This' was a pile of four large crates, the nearest of which had just been opened. Nestled inside was something both Nose and Stpierb' recognized instantly - a Tliazhashal PPO4 Zhodani warbot.

Nose laid a conspiratorial arm about Hughes' shoulders, and led him back outside, where they were joined by Dliiavrnt. "Just forget about 'that'," he said soothingly. "We're from the Authorities, and we know all about this. We'll clear these up; you leave them out of your report." Between the pair of them, they managed to persuade Hughes that they were 'the Men in Black', and he ended up leaving them with a firm handshake and a comment about being honoured to be able to help the Empire. His parting shot was less comforting, though; he remarked it was a good thing the story of chasing the Akhashuua was a cover, as the killing of all three of the top leaders of the Red Action had lost them any chance of useful interrogation. "Yes," agreed Nose through gritted teeth, "a good thing..." Once Hughes was gone, Stpierb' rummaged in the stores until he found a small control box from some forgotten electronic device. Making a big show of manipulating this, he pressed buttons while sending the tiny telekinetic "flicks" to the robot that would activate it. To his great relief, he found that the authorization codes he'd used when he was trained with this model were still current, and the great cerametal lump lumbered into the air, flexed its' arms and reported "Ready" into Stpierb's brain.

Still pretending to use the controller, he ordered the bot to load itself into the Baranduin, then repeated the process with the other three. Then the team loaded what other stuff they fancied from the stores - including the 26 remaining gauss rifles and 54 clips - and took to the air.