The Hawaiian Special Forces

Chapter 45

It was fifteen minutes later when the strike force was dropped off. Eight berserkers, several birds, and a lot of mutts. The mutts had their helmets off, as did the berserkers, and they all quickly oriented on the direction they'd fled.

Hokulani cut the connection and gestured to take off again. "How'd you know?" he whispered.

"Another connection came on. They were monitoring our conversations with Lopaka. They knew we were coming. Then they just had to monitor the primary connections and wait for us to hook in."

"So we run, and how do we connect with Lopaka?"

"I don't know."

They glanced back to see the strike force advancing. They couldn't take to the air without exposing themselves to the birds, and the berserkers and mutts were doing a fine job of tracking them.

"We can't outrun them," Aoloa finally observed. "And this isn't the same as before. Or is it?"

"They've changed the encryption on the comms. Hardened it. I'm working on getting around it. Want to try the nanite trick again?"

"Let me do a variation on it. They're used to their armor for missions like this. Let's shake things up a bit, mess with their confidence." With that, he concentrated a bit while running, until he had the desired effect. Then he cut himself, trailing blood for them to follow.

After a couple minutes, their pursuers faltered, the main group coming to a complete halt while those around slowed.

"What did you do?"

"The ones that touched my blood will soon be naked. It'll make the others nervous about tracking us too precisely. Now we veer towards the water."

They did so, but their pursuers reacted, sending the birds ahead to cut them off.

"Was that in your plans?"

"Kind of. Let's eat some sparrows."

Aoloa charged ahead, when one of the birds buzzed him, he flicked blood at it. Shortly after that, it went crashing to the ground. He snatched up its gun and used it to take out the rest of the aerial support.

"Now we go on the hunt," he said, as they took their weapons back towards the nervous mutts.

"They'll know we struck back."

"Yes, but they'll be nervous about closing. My guess is they aren't clear on what really happened."

They circled back to find their pursuers had regrouped. This time, however, there was a familiar face among them. One of the berserkers had Keaka with a knife to her throat. Another had Hanale. Both looked nervous.

"Got any tricks?" he asked Hokulani. Instead of answering, she closed her eyes and concentrated. After a bit, she shook her head. "How's your marksmanship?"

"Good."

"Time to snipe these misguided bastards."

Both berserkers dropped at the same time, a neat hole appearing in each of their foreheads. The rest of their opponents ignored the captives and instead charged towards the sound of gunfire. They managed to drop all the berserkers before the mutts arrived.

At that point, it became another slaughter. The dogs didn't have the ability to find hand to hand effectively, and were rapidly ripped apart. Once that was done, Aoloa and Hokulani approached Keaka and Hanale, who were staring at them wide-eyed.

"Well, that's two rescued," Aoloa observed causing Hanale to look pale and Keaka to look flustered.

"It'll take a while for them to get rewritten," Hokulani added.

"We work with what we've got. At least it's warm."

"How?" Hanale finally managed to ask.

"It's a long story."

"And he loves to tell it."