Story of Kings

Phase 5

The metallic grey suits of the NDF squad continued to gleam menacingly in the light of the artificial night sky. They stood poised and ready for combat, yet stagnant. Without the long range scanning of the TRAPSS drones there was only so much the NDF units on the ground could do with their own scanners especially taking into consideration the large amount of interference caused by the radiation.

Only one of the metallic figures wasn't stood at alert and that was the Squad leader as he surveyed a map of the Museum, racking his brains as to how Ken planned on escaping.

Every now and then the TRAPSS would swing by overhead like a giant bird of prey looking for its next meal. A small beeping came from the leader's console, he tapped it and a radar came up, in the middle was a thick blue circle, indicating the GPS of the NDF Squad. Outside of it was a smaller blip that gradually came closer. The whole squad looked collectively in the direction of the blue circle as the rookie turned the corner.

Helmet cracked, suit covered in dust and blood, the rookie limped towards his team. Two of his teammates rushed towards him and grabbed him before the rookie's legs gave way.

The Squad leader lightly jogged up to the rookie. "Report kiddo"

"The fugitive ambushed me while taking a piss, we clashed in hand to hand combat. After a desperate struggle he ran into that old religious building. I continued to pursue hoping that you'd get my comms for backup, but realized that without the TRAPSS long range communication in this level of radiation that it was impossible" The rookie began to wheeze and grabbed the leg of the Squad leader. "Captain please, we fought again and I managed to disable him, But I have no clue how long he'll stay there for. Tall building about 3 klicks North East from here."

"Major, stay with the kid. Rest of you, on me"

One of the metallic figures stood over the rookie like a hawk while the rest joined their leader in a light jog towards the clocktower.

The rookie caught the squad leader speaking into his comms and in seconds the whole South wing erupted in activity. The TRAPSS was suddenly overhead again, now joined with the dim buzzing of the now recharged drones. Majority of which had gone in the direction of the clocktower.

Joining this Orchestra of sounds were the drumming of NDF boots pounding the floor as they rushed towards the clocktower.

With the drones back online the long range comms were back up, the rookie hit his smaller holo-console and a more detailed map of the area had come up. He watched as the blue dots of various squads, including his own had encircled the clocktower and had slowly begun to enclose the circle, with the red dot of the unidentified heat signature remained high up in the clocktower not moving at all.

The rookie jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder, "cool it kid, rest up, you did a good job. Let them handle the rest. As tough as he is the Cap's a good guy and you'll defo get rewarded for this".

Unable to see facial expressions proved more difficult than expected, but the rookie felt like it came from a genuinely good place and nodded in quiet agreement.

After discussing furiously with someone on the other end, the Squad leader had received the go ahead to enter the structure and recover the seemingly incapacitated fugitive.

The squad split into two fireteams again, one team securing the entrance and the Squad leader leading the second team to infiltrate and apprehend the fugitive, dead or alive.

They entered the Clocktower in a diamond shaped formation with the squad leader as the point.

They sweeped the light of their various firearms over the area in case of any abnormalities.

Then there was a slight disturbance, the team froze. Dust slowly fell from the ceiling and a small creaking noise was heard above them.

"The target is in motion" the Captain said. He looked down and noticed the clear footprints of two people going towards the stairs leading to the landing above.

The Captain tapped his holo-console and 3 drones entered the landing ahead of them. They converged on the target and in seconds had the fugitive surrounded.

The Squad leader cleared his throat and began to talk. "You are surrounded, any movements outside my instruction will result in us opening fire. You're a smart kid so you should know the firing capabilities of the ship outside will shred you apart in seconds."

Despite switching to normal light optics the radiation was causing enough interference for the Squad leader to not properly be able to see the target clearly.

"Ok slowly lay flat on the ground with your arms outstretched" The target complied with the instruction and slowly laid flat out on the ground.

The Squad leader signalled 2 of his men to go and apprehend the target, walking behind them as they ran up the stairs the Leader's comms went off.

"NDF-2022, do you read me" The Captain recognised the code of the TRAPSS and responded.

"Hawkeye, I read you loud and clear, about to apprehend the fugitive, what's up?"

"Erm .... That's not the fugitive ......" said the TRAPSS co-pilot.

The Squad leader looked at the code of the TRAPSS ship, another incoming communication was coming from one of his troops upstairs.

He put two and two together and rushed up the stairs onto the landing with the last of the fireteam at his heels.

He reached the landing and flashed his light into the face of the fugitive, who was now kneeling down with his hands on his head.

The athletic, well-built body matched the description given to them.

But then his heart dropped, as a mane of red hair covering 2 sharp emerald green eyes looked at him in fear.

"NDF-7166, Akille Bradley, sir" said the young man as he quivered in fear.

"What on EARTH is going on here, why are you here, half naked ...."

Then as if his heart couldn't drop any further he suddenly felt heavy realising what has happened.

"But, but. Each suit is DNA coded. How was he able to wear it ....." the Captain mumbled to himself. Then he jumped up, "Hawkeye, do you read, I need a sit-rep on NDF-7166 ASAP"

He looked at the rookie, "Bradley, can you move?". The rookie nodded in silent determination, determination to get one more chance to look the fugitive in the eyes before slugging a plasma round in between his eyes.

The TRAPSS and its drones had already flown off to begin the search for NDF-7166 bio-signature as the Squad Leader burst out of the clocktower completely oblivious as to who was following him.

He sprinted towards where he left the Major with the fugitive maybe hoping that she'd catch on and hopefully delay his escape.

"This is Hawkeye, we've got something. One of your own, about 2 klicks from your location. What's weird is that indicators had NDF-7166's bio signature but then it just vanished from our radar?"

The Squad Leader was too busy running at full speed to curse, the clatter of boots behind him letting him know that his squad were close behind.

They finally reached the area which they left the fugitive in. The Squad leader brought up his console and there was a blue blip coming up on the radar.

Walking towards it, lying behind some rubble was the limp body of the Major.

One of the troops quickly rushed by her side to check her pulse and gave the ok signal to the Captain.

He nodded and then started looking round, instinctively his squad began to spread out searching for the fugitive. "Sir, think you might wanna see this." The squad leader walked towards the trooper who was stood next to a wall not too far from where he found the Major's body. On the wall carved with a mono-blade, was an extremely cheeky smiley face.

The roller-coaster of emotions the Squad Leader had been feeling up until now had finally crashed and all he could do was rip off his helmet and let out a bellowing roar at the top of his lungs.