F@nService Diner: Chapter 08 Not a Hiro

Chapter 08: Not a Hiro

Meanwhile back on the roof of the backup power station overlooking Highway 02.

“Oh Gawd why! — Hiro’s hot sister I’m so sorry!” Jenkins cried.

“You blew him up. — I didn’t tell you to blow him up.” Grau said. “How did you even blow him up?”

“He must have lost control of the plasma bomb when I shot him. I did say now wasn’t the best time.” Jenkins said.

The Thaalarian went silent.

Jenkins looked through the scope again.

“Wait he’s not dead!”

“Seriously?” Hill asked.

Grau wiped his forehead in relief.

“Yeah he’s all smoking and covered in black stuff but he’s getting back up.” Jenkins described what was happening as the smoke cleared.

“That’s one tough son of a bitch.” Hill commented.

Meanwhile back on Highway 02.

“Ugh — ah my everything hurts. Oh God, why am I still alive?” Adam groaned as he stumbled to his feet unable to hear himself complain through the ringing in his ears.

His hazard suit had been blackened by the blast. The parts of his suit that weren’t charred by the plasma’s heat had defaulted back to OmniStellar off-white. Apparently the color-changing coating did not stand up well to plasma blasts. He tried to wipe something crusty off his left arm. The charcoaled shell crumbled away revealing bright red blood. Adam panicked, clenching and unclenching his left hand to make sure it still worked. It worked just fine. He looked himself over. The suit seemed to be intact. That meant the blood wasn’t his. — Oh no!

“Hiro? Hiro!”

He didn’t see his friend anywhere.

“You! You blew him up you eight-sided bastard!” Adam pointed an accusing finger at the drone that was just as confused he was. He gritted his teeth and half-pulled the pistol’s trigger, sparking another green bayonet.

While kinetics were known for being able to bend gravity, they also had varying degrees of control over the electromagnetic and nuclear forces of physics. Hiro had been particularly adept at manipulating electromagnetism which he had used to shape and grow the magnetic containment field that held the plasma-bayonet.

Adam had never been great at shaping electromagnetism but he was a natural when it came to the nuclear forces. This manifested itself in what was essentially pyrokinesis. If a flame was inside Adam’s sphere of influence he could boost or suppress the exothermic chemical reaction. This had served him quite well on the fire department. He could also steer flames in the direction he wanted them to go. This had served him quite well on the fire department. Under certain circumstances he could even control fire outside his sphere. The flames he controlled could be used as a sort of transmitter for his signal so he could control any fire linked to him by an unbroken chain of flames.

Ironically Adam did not know that fire is actually a form of plasma. What he did know was that plasma was hot, made light and burned things, just like fire. So maybe the same rules applied. When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail, but in this case it was totally a nail, a fiery, burning nail.

He cupped his free left hand over the plasma bayonet as if warming himself by its light. The blade flared erratically, growing in size and shifting its color from green to teal as its temperature increased. Eventually the plasma burst free from its magnetic container, hissing through the blade’s edge like teal gas. Free of its cage it moved in response to Adam’s mental commands, spiraling into a sphere that continued to grow until it was the size of a dodgeball. When the plasma star had reached a diameter of roughly four feet across it coalesced into the shape of a hand. The plasma-vector then proceeded to mimic all his left-hand’s movements.

“Wow, I did not know I could do this.”

Plasma was even easier to bend than fire. He had just never had the chance to try. Plasma weapons weren’t exactly common — or cheap, but then again neither were pyrokinetics. Okay, maybe Adam was cheap, ‘but firefighting was a good cause.’ Adam rationalized to himself. ‘So was avenging his friend.’ Adam turned his glowing, green eyes to the drone.

The drone saw what was about to happen and spun up to fire. Adam flattened his hand into a blocking gesture just as a salvo of orange blasts streaked towards him. He focused his will on the hand-shaped plasma vector, flaring its heat and increasing its density.

He felt the drone’s blasts impact his plasma shield like a tingly burning in the meat of his palm. Instinctively he flexed against the pain. His determination manifested as a gravity field that reinforced the back of the plasma construct. The drone’s blasts sunk into his plasma shield before dissolving like cream into a cup of coffee. The hand-shaped vector changed to a greenish yellow color as the drone’s orange blasts added their power to it. It was his plasma now.

“Well this is interesting.”

He closed his hand into a fist. The vector mirrored his gesture, continuing to grow as it absorbed the incoming fire.

The radiation felt warm against his skin. It burned but it didn’t hurt, it was a good kind of heat. It gave texture to his rage — a red tunnel that blurred his vision of everything around the path to the robot that he believed had killed his friend.

“This one’s for Hiro!”

He launched the fist of fire and lit the world in a monochromatic flash of green. The plasma bomb flew towards the drone, absorbing the incoming fire before flaring up and prematurely detonating halfway to its target.

Adam and the drone stared at each other for an awkward second before the drone spun up to resume its barrage. A embarrassed and confused Adam barely raised his gravity shield in time.

“You didn’t see that!” He shouted at the drone and whoever else might have witnessed his critical-fail.

“Okay, next one’s for Hiro.” Adam corrected himself.

What did he do wrong? Of course! He was controlling the plasma directly. There was no magnetic containment field holding it together. Once the bomb left his sphere of control it dispersed into the air. This was a problem.

In the past Adam had been able to shut down whole house fires that extended far beyond his pyrokinetic range. As long as he had an unbroken chain of flames, he could use it to maintain control. Maybe he could the same thing with plasma.

He took aim with the pistol and momentarily lowered his shield to fire a few green blasts. The first two shots missed. The third grazed the drone’s lower left panel, leaving a fiery gash. The drone wobbled as its balance was thrown off. Its shots fell in a wider cone around Adam instead of impacting on his shield. The drone flipped and spun to make itself a harder target to hit while it recalibrated its avionics to account for the damaged control surface. Now at this point it would have been perfectly reasonable to keep firing the pistol as intended by its designers until you knocked the drone out of the sky but Adam was not thinking reasonably.

He had just watched his friend die trying to pull off this move and was not about to let his death be in vain. He took advantage of the gap in the drone’s suppressing fire and charged up another fist-shaped plasma bomb. This time he took care to anchor a tether of charged plasma particles from the back of the bomb to the barrel of the gun.

He launched the bomb. It left an unbroken, pencil-thin chain of plasma in its wake which Adam used like a cable to maintain control after it had left his sphere of influence. The drone saw it coming and strafed to avoid it.

“Heheh, Not this time.” Adam laughed.

With his free hand Adam pointed a finger-gun at the drone, directing its path. The plasma bomb followed his course corrections and swung into the robot, incinerating it in a flash of turquoise light.

The loud thunder clap of displaced hot air combined with the magnetic hum of the popped containment field echoed off the highway's sound barriers. Sparks of green lightning arced through the cloud of smoke that used to be the Galactic Union drone. The drone no longer a threat, Adam then turned towards the evacuated highway and realized he had a new problem.

“Uh boy. How am I supposed to get back to the station.”

He reached for his radio. He thumbed the talk button and took a deep breath.

“Dispatch this is Five Two Seven.” The radio squawked as he released the talk button and waited for an answer.

“Dispatch copy Two Seven.” The female dispatcher replied.

“Dispatch I'm on Highway Two, close to the Fortieth Street exit. Um — I don't know how to say this. My ride got blown up. Can somebody come pick me up?”

Meanwhile back on the roof of the backup power station overlooking Highway 02.

“Well there goes the last drone. I can see why these kinetics are so dangerous. Good thing we have that.” Sergeant Hill pointed to the tracking receiver that also housed the sedative killswitch. Doctor Grau cocked an eyebrow at the device.

“So Doc, is our work done here?” Hill asked.

“I — don’t …. Something’s wrong.”

“What? — What’s wrong?” Hill peaked over Grau’s shoulder at the tracker’s green screen.

“We can see Mr. Nishimoto moving around down there.” Grau pointed. “But according to the tracker he hasn’t moved since the explosion. — Is it possible you missed him corporal?”

“Not likely, I saw him flinch.” Jenkins said.

“Could the plasma pulse have damaged the tracker somehow?” Hill asked.

“It shouldn’t. It’s quantum-entangled. The whole point of the technology is to be impervious to outside interference.”

“And yet, here we are.” Hill said.

“Indeed.” Grau stroked his chin. “It is a prototype. — There may be a bug in the designed our engineers missed. I’ll need to investigate that when I get back.”

Hill and Jenkins shared a look that said, Good thing we’re not Thaalarian engineers.

“Corporal.” Grau said.

“Huh? — Oh right, me.” Jenkins said.

“You better tag Mr. Nishimoto again, just to be sure.”

Down below Adam talked with Dispatch.

“All units are occupied right now. Have you tried calling a DrivR?” The dispatcher referred to the popular ride-sharing app.

“Not really, the phones are down.” Adam explained.

“OmniStellar says they’re going to reroute all cell traffic through The Initiative.”

“Their ship, the megalith?”

“Yes. You should have reception soon, just sit tight.” Instructed the dispatcher.

“Copy Dispatch.”

Adam clipped the radio to the hazard suit’s belt. He then fumbled with the plasma pistol, pressing every button on its side until he found the lock release. He folded it up like a pocket knife. The pistol lacked any clips he could see and as far as he could tell the hazard suit had no pockets. Adam thought back, trying to remember if Hiro had worn a holster. As he did so he noticed a familiar green dot dancing around on his chest. The same one that had appeared right before Hiro was blown up. He swatted at it and the dot jumped onto his hand. He flicked his wrist and the dot jumped back to his chest. It scurried down his body to rest on his thigh where the suit’s heavier armor gave way to the lighter artificial muscle.

THWACK!

“Ah! Mother of!”

It felt like a hornet had crawled into his suit and then somebody had tried to swat it, with a hammer. Adam stumbled, his vision blinded by green light. At first he chocked this up to the pain but when it didn’t go away he looked up and noticed a later-like flickering coming from the roof of one of the floating cylinders that powered the sky-road.

“What the vreck?” He muttered.

Back on the power station’s roof.

“Uh oh. I think he sees us.” Jenkins observed through his sniper scope.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Grau said, rising from a crouch to his full height. He opened his briefcase-like EDSC and started doing an inventory of its contents.

“There is no way he can see us at this range, not without a snipe…”

VRANNNG! POW!

Dr. Grau vanished in a pillar of turquoise flame. The crew was pelted with a shower of grainy, silver cubes and particles that had once been the Thaalarian adviser. The tracking receiver went clattering across the non-skid roof, spinning to a stop against the toe of Hill’s boot.

“Nuts! — Uh, take cover!”

Before Hill could finish giving the order the team had already scattered to new cover positions.

“I warned him.”

“I know you did Jenkins. You can remind him of that when he respawns. — I wouldn’t though.” Hill said.

“Yeah, probably best not to push it.”

Hill peaked over the roof’s edge.

“I didn’t know a plasma pistol had that kind of range.” Said Hill.

VRANNNG! POW!

A second blast pulverized an adjacent section of concrete.

“Well heat rises, so there’s no bullet drop. He probably has some really good smart sights on that thing too.” Jenkins said.

“Wonderful.” Hill said.

“Do we return fire?” Jenkins asked.

Hill considered this.

“No. If we kill him or he figures out we’re targeting him then the mission’s a wash. — We withdraw with the jump-jets, wait for further instructions and hope he thinks this was just a chance encounter.”

VRANNNG! POW!

Another section of roof was incinerated by a plasma blast that pelted the team with grit and rubble.

“Alright troopers! Let’s get out of… Dammit marine! What are you doing? Get back in cover!”

“I make my own cover.” Shoeman said.

Standing just inches from where Grau was vaporized, Shoeman wielded a leather-wrapped club that normally hung from his belt. He tapped the business-end of it to his viking-esque wrist watch.

There was a subtle flash of white light and a firecracker pop followed by a metallic ringing as the club and watch were replaced by a Cathurian warhammer and a man-sized shield.

“What the… are those Cathurian holy weapons?” Said Martinez.

According to Cathurian tradition the art of forging holy weapons from star-steel had been taught to the first steelsmiths by arhkens; agents of God, other-worldly beings of almost unlimited power.

The shield was an Art Deco Phoenix that held an aegis seal, a Medusa head ringed in arhken runes. The Phoenix’s raised wings and spread tail feathers formed notches at the top, sides and bottom of the shield.

From the front, the shield appeared completely opaque, as a metal shield would be. However if viewed from the back the shield was transparent, like tinted glass. The ring of runes that encircled the Medusa head shimmered like the reflections off a lighted swimming pool.

VRANNNG!

Down below the kinetic fired another over-charged plasma bomb.

The shield’s rune-ring glowed its response to the approaching threat. The glow was brightest in the direction of the plasma bomb. The shield seemed to be pulling at the marine’s arm and Shoeman leaned into its guidance.

POW!

Medusa caught the plasma bomb with her face. The air crackled with energy as the bomb’s containment field collapsed. A magnetic hum reverberated through the shield. Turquoise plasma dimmed to green flames that licked the star-steel surface and the ring of runes glowed bright white as they soaked up the energy. Meanwhile a matching circle of runes on the warhammer illuminated in sync with its shield counterpart. The electro-magnetic hum transferred from the shield to the hammer before fading to silence.

“That was badass! I want one.” Said Martinez.

Meanwhile down below.

These OmniStellar hazard suits really were something else. Adam thought. If he hadn’t been wearing one that Union sniper would probably have taken his leg off. Now he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else. Adam hadn’t honestly expected to make the shot. But for some reason the sniper stood up at the last second. If it weren’t for the pistols smart-sights he’d barely be able to see the Union troops up there. Some much for only fighting drones. Now Adam had killed someone. He felt guilty that he didn’t feel worse about it. He could have joined the military right of Psi School but he had wanted to help people without getting blood on his hands. That was why he became a firefighter. Still, that sniper had tried to kill him and had probably killed Hiro. God only knows how many other people he would have killed if Adam hadn’t taken him out. The knowledge had flipped a switch in Adam’s brain. He no longer thought of the Union troops up there as people. They had become the enemy, a threat to the people he loved and a problem to be solved. Adam sent more plasma bombs in their direction. They had been staying in cover. Adam had considered sending the bombs high and then bringing them down on top of the enemy when one the crazy bastards stood up right where he had blasted the sniper. Adam launched a plasma-bomb at him and the Union trooper managed to catch with a shield Adam could have sworn was not there a second ago. It was hard to say for sure at this range, even with the smart-sights.

Adam watched as the man banged something against the shield in a taunting gesture.

“What the? Okay so he’s got a shield. I’ve got something for his punk ass.” Adam said to no one in particular.

Shield Guy was daring him to try again, which he did. Going with his previous strategy, Adam aimed his next plasma missile so it flew just high of Max’s shield range. He steered it with his index finger so the plasma bolt arced straight up into the air before slamming back down into the roof behind the marine. Max barely had enough time to spin his shield around as he reacted to the rune’s warning.

“Ah! Son of a!”

Max cursed as the rest of the team was showered with rubble from the exploded roof. A geyser of steam shot up through the hole where the plasma punched through into a coolant line.

“What was that?” Shouted Martinez.

“That’s new.” Hill observed.

Another blast shot overhead, this one did a playful loop before crashing into the roof, way too close for comfort.

“This is ridiculous! The mission and hot sisters be damned! I’m taking him out.” Said Jenkins.

He ejected the last smart dart from his rail rifle and loaded an armor piercing 50 caliber slug.

“Stand down Jenkins!” Hill ordered.

“But Sarge!”

“Don’t worry. I got dis.” Hill picked up the tracking receiver and flipped up the red trigger guard on the killswitch. “Nighty night you little psycho.”

He flipped the switch and the sedative capsule in Adam’s thigh started to dissolve.

Down below.

Adam overcharged the pistol, in preparation to make another missile.

“Woo! Some people call me the Space Honey Badger! Some people call me Maureee...yugh.” Adam felt the strength drain from his legs as his vision doubled. “It can’t be this late…The sun’s still out.” Adam mused through the drug induced haze that clouded his mind.

He loosened his grip on the trigger as the powerful sedative ran through his veins. The green bayonet dispersed with a magnetic pop. He tried to take a step forward but stumbled, over-corrected and fell onto his back. Fortunately the hazard suit’s protective high collar stopped the back of his skull from cracking on the asphalt.

Back on the roof Team Jade October collectively breathed a sigh of relief and dusted themselves off.

“Fwew! That was way too close.” Said Jenkins.

“Yeah it was. And we just burned our trump card. — Captain Z is not going to be happy about this.” Said Sergeant Hill.

“What? You don’t think that was the ‘time of our choosing’?” Said Jenkins.

“I do not.” Hill replied.

“You want me to tag him again? You know — so we’ll have a dart we can activate when it is that time of said choosing?” Jenkins asked, holding up the last smart dart.

“Let me think...yeah sure.” Hill shrugged.

Jenkins ejected the 50 caliber round and loaded the smart dart.

BANG!

The dart thwacked into Adam’s other thigh.

“Well this is a classic GU cluster-vreck.” Hill took off his helmet to scratch his hairline. “I am not looking forward to explaining this to the captain. — Our target is unconscious in the middle of the highway and we don’t know whether we should grab him now or call him a taxi because our adviser is busy being reassembled one grain at a time back on Thaal. And nobody up there is answering who speaks Common!” Hill pointed at the sky.

“Well this is a lovely mess we’re in. I guess that’s what happens when you put academics in charge.” Freeman said.

“None of that matters. What’s done is done. Activating the dart was a bad call.” Shoeman said.

At that Hill grimaced. Shoeman continued, oblivious to his reaction.

“We should have laid down covering fire, dropped smoke and used our jump jets to put some distance between us and Mr. Nishimoto. But that’s not what we did. — That’s my fault.”

Shoeman took the blame on himself. Sergeant Hill did not see that coming.

“I should have called it sooner but I was having too much fun and got tunnel-vision.”

“Yeah about that, where’d you get Cathurian holy weapons? I doubt those are marine-issue.” Hill asked.

“It’s a long story.” Shoeman dismissed the question and continued. “Now we need to do the best we can with the reality we’ve been given. We used the dart prematurely.”

At that Kilroy snickered and held up his hand for Martinez to give him a grudging high five.

Shoeman sighed. “Ugh, guess I walked into that one. Anyway — tagging him was our mission so that’s what we did, twice. What command decides to do with that is their business.”

“Still, I’m pretty sure it will end up being our business pretty soon.” Martinez said.

“Oh that’s a given.” Hill said.

Shoeman bent down to pick up the EDSC Grau had dropped at his feet. A good portion of the latch had been melted clean through. The only way it would stay closed now was with duct tape.

Kilroy stood on his tip-toes in an attempt to peek over the marine’s shoulder.

“What’s in the box?” Kilroy asked.

“I’m not sure. It…”

“What’s in the box!?”

“It looks like…”

“WHAT’S IN THE BOX!!?”

…..

“It looks like — it appears to be a heist kit.” Shoeman said finally.

“A heist kit? What makes you think it’s a heist kit?”

Shoeman showed the diminutive trooper a print that started with the headline.

OPERATION FIVE OCEANS

HEIST KIT MANIFEST:

“Oooo.” Kilroy snapped a picture. “I’m making a wishlist.”

“It’s important to have life goals.” Shoeman said.

“So what’s in it?” Kilroy asked.

Shoeman ignored him and attempted to shut the briefcase, completely forgetting about the broken latch. The EDSC flopped open like a fat wallet and two items fell out.

“Knock-out Spray?” Hill said.

“Sexy lingerie?” Kilroy said.

“Thaalarian degenerate.” Shoeman said.

Hill picked up the can of knock-out pray.

“What do you think he was planning on doing with this stuff?” He said.

Meanwhile Kilroy tried to squeeze into a lacy, black bra that would have left his nipples exposed if he weren’t wearing it over his clothes.

“I dunno, but I think this might be a little small for him.”

Martinez snuck up behind Kilroy and snapped the bra strap.

“Ow!”

“Clearly he had an accomplice.” Shoeman said.

“A sexy accomplice.” Kilroy added.

Freeman raised his hand.

“Dibs! — What? — I have a thing for femme fatales. — Don’t judge me.”

Shoeman rolled his eyes and snatched the spray can out of Hill’s hand before tossing it back in the heist-kit. He gave Kilroy a look that said he’d better hand over the lingerie if he knew what was good for him. Kilroy didn’t take the hint. Kilroy let out a high-pitched squeak as Shoeman removed the bra in one deft motion.

“Ahhh! — Oh, you’ve done this before.” Kilroy said.

“Shutup.” Shoeman chuckled and then set to work wrapping the briefcase in duct tape to keep it from falling open again.

“I wish they would have told us the whole plan from the beginning.” Jenkins said.

“Maybe they’ll tell it to us now.” Hill retrieved his radio.

“What are doing?” Shoeman asked.

“I’m gonna radio Captain Z, tell him what happened and see if that changes the plan at all.” Hill palmed the communicator and pressed the talk button. “Command this is…”

“Uh, remember what happened last time?” Jenkin’s reminded him.

The communicator squawked to life.

“被告知! 这是一个官方频道!”

“Oh right. No hablo Common.” Hill lowered the communicator’s volume to just barely audible and waited for the enraged Jade Kingdom operator to stop berating him in a language he did not understand. At least Hill assumed he was being berated, going off the tone.

After what felt like an eternity the unintelligible tirade finally went silent. Hill sighed.

“Oh well, looks like we’re done here — for now.”

“So what’s our next move?” Freeman asked.

Hill kicked a piece of rubble with the toe of his boot and watched it tumble through the gap the kinetic had blasted off the roof’s edge. “Our orders were that after we tagged him we were to blend in with the local population and move to grid location Delta 4, wherever that is. So that’s what we’re going to do until Command gets someone who speaks Common to call us back and give us the rest of our mission.”

Hill pulled up the mission map on his helmet display, lamenting the fact that their micro-managing Union overlords had not seen fit to let them review the plan prior to the jump. A big part of what made special ops special was the insane amount of planning that went into each op. Not telling your team anything until a half hour before the jump and just expecting them improvise and get by on their sheer awesomeness was asking for disaster.

“Oh, well this is interesting. Jenkins, pull up the mission map.” Hill said. “Does grid location Delta 4 look familiar to you?”

“Is that the same neighborhood as the diner?” Jenkins asked.

“I think it is.”

“The Diner?” Freeman said.

“The FanService Diner.” Hill elaborated.

“FanService? Like what kind?” Kilroy asked. “Curvy eye-candy-type fanservice or like pandering, pop culture referencing fanservice?”

Kale reflected on the question. The truth was both definitions applied.

“Mmm, yes, but it’s spelled with an @ symbol, you know, for trademark reasons.”

“That’s weird.” Shoeman said.

“Well take it up with the owners.” Said Hill.

“Who are the owners?” Shoeman asked.

“A family of minkan immigrants.”

“Minkans? Like those tall, blue Wonder-Woman chicks?” Kilroy asked.

“There not all chicks. There are minkan men too — they’re just half the size of the females.” Hill said.

“That’s weird.” Kilroy said.

Kilroy was 5’2”.

“Yeah well take it up with them. Also they’re not all blue. Some of them are purple — Although these ones are blue. Anyways, they built the diner inside one of their old decommissioned warships.” Hill said.

“What! How big is this warship?” Martinez asked.

“Uh, corvette class, I think. You know — diner-sized-ish, with room for people to live in it.” Hill said.

“I’ve heard of minkan families doing this. A lot of them turned their warships into small businesses after The Big One. It was a way for them to keep their ships after the war.” Shoeman said.

“Anyway, I used to eat there all the time back in high school and I was friends with their daughter. They freakin’ love me!” Said Hill.

“Hey I was there too.” Jenkins interjected.

“Oh right. They also tolerate Jenkins.” Hill laughed.

“Uh Sarge I hate to interrupt your little trip down memory lane but…”

Kilroy pointed at the sky as a massive shadow raced across the ground. Hill looked up to see the Initiative, an upside-down power symbol the size of a city block, move to eclipse the sun. Blinding daylight shone through the gap between the megalith’s outer ring and the inner control sphere. Hill squinted to bring the ship into focus. Its blue central eye seemed to be looking right back at him. The truth is OmniStellar cameras were so good it was entirely possible someone up there was looking back. Just as the thought crossed his mind white pulses moved like landing strip lights through the control sphere’s channels towards the central oculus. In a blink the blue eye turned red as the megalith prepared to fire.

“Oh vreck.” Hill said.

A green light swept across the sky, painting the world in a radioactive green glare.

“Take cover!” Hill ordered, not that it would have made much of a difference.

The green laser cut through the sky like a razor blade, replacing the GU drone formations with constellations of orange explosions.

The green laser swept through the GU drone formations leaving constellations of orange explosions in its wake. Then as quickly as the assault had begun it ended. The laser flickered out and the Initiative’s red eye of Sauron blinked back to passive blue.

“Well this is bad. I think we just lost our air support.”

Several long, quiet seconds passed as smoke from the vaporized drones dispersed into the wind like the aftermath of a fireworks show. The Initiative hung over the sun and stared back as if daring them to make the next move.

At that moment all of their phones began to buzz in unison.

Hill read the text message.

“Team Jade October,

Warning! The OIF Initiative has broken the drone blockade. It has launched a Sharkbat class gunship which is currently inbound for your position. Break contact now!

-Love Captain Z”

“Oh no.” Hill closed the message.

“Oh no is right. I once saw a sharkbat turn a Golden Jihad war-band into hamburger. — It was a actually kind of sad.” Said Freeman.

“Alright then. JT’s, we out! We don’t want none of this shit.” Hill announced.

The team rushed to the side facing the sky-road below, activated their jump jets and jumped off. The jets gave a small boost right before they hit the hard light road. Half way to the ground they jumped again and the jump jets slowed their descent. The team landed in a parking lot on the other side of the highway’s sound barrier. Shoeman almost tripped, landing on a food truck’s roof but managed to catch himself before tumbling over the side. He was still getting the hang of his jet pack. He jumped off the back of the truck and joined the rest of the team.

They frantically changed out of their uniforms and into the civilian disguises they wore underneath. They stowed their weapons, jet packs and other incriminating gear into the knockoff-omnibags just as the sonic boom of the gunship was heard overhead.

“Please tell me you already called our DrivR.” Hill asked Martinez.

“First thing I did once the network came back up. He should be here in the next minute.”

“Should?”

A black SUV pulled up, it’s hazard lights blinking to warn other drivers not to queue up behind it and start honking.

“Oh wait, there he is.” Martinez waved at the SUV.

The human driver rolled down the window, a confused but mostly disappointed look on his face.

“Jessica?” The driver asked, one eyebrow cocked.

“That’s us!” Martinez smiled.

“Right.”

Team Jade October piled in.

“So where to?” The driver asked. “You didn’t put in a destination.”

“Oh don’t worry about that. These are my old stomping grounds.” Hill said. “I’ll tell you which way to go.”

“Of course.” The driver sighed.

“Turn left here.” Hill pointed just as the gunship settled into a hover above the highway, just a little too close for comfort. “No right!” Hill corrected.

“Whoa, hey look a spaceship. What’s it doing here?” The driver did not share Hill’s sense of dread.

True to its name, the sleek black and white striped ship resembled the unholy love child of a shark and a bat. Judging by the diamond-shaped head atop an elongated neck it appeared as though a rattlesnake may also have been involved somehow. The nose mounted plasma canons were angled in such a way as to remind Hill of enraged eyes.

“You stay away from that gunship!” Hill reprimanded.

“What? Okay.”

“Keep your distance but don’t look like you’re trying to keep your distance.” Hill directed the driver.

“The road goes right by it. How am I supposed to..?”

“I don’t know just drive casually.”

Hill slipped in one last Return of the Jedi reference as they drove away. He watched as the gunship lowered it’s tail ramp and a fire team of white-armored PeaceTroopers jumped the fifty feet to the ground as easily as if it were five. He didn’t let himself relax until they were well out of sight, safely hidden in rush hour traffic.

Meanwhile Adam lay unconscious on the highway as the OmniStellar recovery team closed in on the hazard suit’s automated distress signal that identified him as Hiro Nishimoto.

The captain caught sight of the unconscious kinetic.

“There he is. Secure the perimeter.” Said the Peace Trooper captain.

The troopers took up firing positions in a triangle facing outward around Adam while the sergeant checked his vital signs. Adam’s face and hair had been blackened as was his suit that had defaulted back to OmniStellar colors. A quick DNA scan of the blood on his suit incorrectly confirmed his mistaken identity.

“It’s him.” Said the sergeant.

“Is he alive?” Asked the captain.

“Yeah, he’s still breathing.”

The captain noticed that even while unconscious Adam still had the plasma pistol clenched in a Chuck Heston grip.

“This Mr. Nishimoto is one stubborn son of a bitch.”

“That’s funny.” Commented the sergeant. “His bio says he’s supposed to be six foot even.”

“Dammit! What did those Union bastards do to you?” The captain sounded like he was fighting back tears from inside his full-faced helmet. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you home and fixed up in no time.” The captain waved over the rest of the fire team.

With all the speed and efficiency of a racing pit crew, the troopers put a cervical collar on his neck, an oxygen mask on his face and strapped him to a stretcher before loading him aboard the gunship that hovered precisely three feet off the ground.

“The VIP is secured Ma'am. We are clear for dust off.” The Peace Trooper captain said into his helmet comm right before the ramp closed and the ship screamed into the sky.