The Hawaiian Special Forces

Chapter 8

Aoloa woke up as Hanale shoved him off his perch. With a rapid flip, he caught a bar on the way down and landed on the ground gracefully. "I'll get you for that, Hanale!"

"I was getting you back for earlier, Aoloa! I'm top cat right now!"

Aoloa charged up a sequence of bars, a maniacal grin on his face as several heads lifted to observe. Hanale, for his part, sought to position himself better to resist an attack or attempt to shove him down. What he wasn't ready for was Aoloa to slam into the bottom of the perch, popping Hanale into the air.

Aoloa clung to the bottom of the cloth perch and watched as Hanale stopped his descent halfway down. With an elegant flip, Aoloa was back on the perch, his nails of one hand gripping the cloth tightly. "You were saying, runt?"

Hanale eyed him warily for a few moments before huffing, "Whatever! Have fun herding us on the next mission."

"I always do!"

A short time after that, Hokulani started working her slight frame up towards him. She was wearing a skirt that flipped about her hips as she worked her way up the various bars towards him. She even did a few extra flips, clearly flirting with him.

He raised an eyebrow at her as she finally slipped in next to him, smiling shyly. "Can I help you?"

Hokulani merely nodded, while pressing her body against his, settling into his lap and wrapping her legs around his waist. "You can show me what makes you the best," she whispered.

"I suppose I could do that." She wriggled against him. "And to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Anyone who can thump Hanale soundly deserves my appreciation," she whispered with a smile.

Hanale had a tendency to pick fights with most everyone. Apparently, Hokulani has been on the losing end of a few of his attacks... interesting.

Before they could get very far in her... appreciation, Keaka was attempting to join them. The small size, however, made that impossible, and she instead succeeded in knocking all of them out of the perch. They landed softly in a pile of pillows, and the two girls proceeded to play with him, much to his pleasure.

---

Waking a while later, he found himself musing on their circumstances again. They were created soldiers, genes and circuits and missions. He didn't really know how much of what they'd been taught was truth, and how much was propaganda to make them ever-loyal soldiers.

Does it even matter, though? It's not so much that we're loyal, as that we're happy. We do work for our food and room, and are left to our own devices beyond that. As things go, it's not a bad life. Plus we have access to television, the Internet, and many other resources. It's not as if they're trying to hide anything from us. I don't suppose it's worth trying to sort out, anyway.

With his mind settled, he relaxed, watching the others, when they all got the summons to the briefing room. "Come on, let's get this over with. We have to earn our keep somehow!"

Entering the briefing room, they found that only the colony and berserkers had been summoned for this mission. Commander Clarke stood before them. "This one's a smash and grab for data. Aoloa, you'll be in charge of getting the colony in to grab all the data you can off the computers. Once you give the signal, Kawikani will be in charge of tear down of anything left. I expect you to ensure there are no data leaks, and no one left alive. Understood?"

Everyone shouted an enthusiastic, "Yes, Sir!"

---

The process of going through the building was tedious, at best. Lopaka had hacked into the security systems fairly easily, which made it easier for Hokulani to cut the external data connections without detection. Once that was done, the rest of the team began a systematic sweep through the building.

Sonar and infrared did most of the work of finding inhabitants before they were aware of the invaders. Most of the people appeared to be scientists and researchers. Once they had all the data and had cleared out, the berserkers did what they do best: rampage. It took them very little time to level the place, turning it into a crater of smoldering ruins.