Sang the Setari

21. Tomb Raiders

We had gotten word that Kayli had a long road to recovery, but was stable.   I felt so bad for the Second Squad guys. They were nearly out of their minds with worry.  I was relieved for all of them when the news came by satellite relay.

I was even more relieved when my guys arrived with Ninth Squad on the tanz that would return and reunite the rest of Second Squad with Marc, Blake and Kayli. Sean remained at Camelot to help care for Kayli, but seeing the others felt like missing pieces of my heart sliding back into place.

I was practically vibrating as I waited for their transport to land and rushed forward as soon as the ramp was down. Gabriel came barreling out first.

"Oy, Trouble! You were suppose to stay out of trouble," Gabriel said scooping me up and twirling me around.  He set me down only to throw an arm around my neck and pull me in for a kiss on the cheek. "Instead, I hear about you fighting monster spiders," he added with a shudder.

Luke leaned in on the other side to whisper, "He completely freaked out after watching footage from the mission report."

Nathan grabbed my hand next to pull me into a hug. "Next thing we know, she'll be falling into a vat of white building base material and Victor's going to be calling in a tanz to lift her out," he joked.

Gabriel teasingly agreed, "Yeah, and probably because she was trying to save some fucking idiot who went in first."

I sighed. Surely, I wouldn't be so reckless.

Kota disembarked from the tanz last with the Ninth Squad captain, Tsee Mori Reyes. He strode over to kiss my forehead and then grabbed up my hand, saying, "Come on, Blackbourne wants to show us something."

We wished Second Squad our best and bid them farewell as they quickly loaded onto the ship. We entered Tsaile Ramirez's Command Base tent where Ninth and the rest of Fourth Squad had assembled.

"We've been reviewing footage of the massive attack and Tsenel Grady Sift noticed this," Tsaile Ramirez said and with a flourish brought up a screen shot. To one side was the massive with tiny black figures suspended midair. In the other portion of the widescreen view were two Voltzach watching from afar. The feed started to play and just before the dhura showed up the Voltzach disappeared through some Gate. A few curses slipped out around the room.  North, especially, looked like he wanted to burn something.

"This is troubling, but not very surprising," Tsee Blackbourne said. His steel gaze narrowed on the image before us.

Tsaile Ramirez asked, "Weren't there suspicions of Voltzach intelligence and organization, possibly even involvement in previous massive attacks?"

"Yes, but we had no proof. I think this is clear evidence though that such is the case," Kota spoke with a hard edge to his voice.

"I agree," Tsee Blackbourne replied. "Tsaile Ramirez, with your permission I would like to take my squad on an exploration mission of that Gate. Ninth Squad can handle security around here, especially now that we have someone continually posted at the communication platform to recall the dhura."

Tsaile Ramirez nodded slowly, saying, "That should be fine. Just refrain from exploring past three Gates. I know five is standard on Tare, but I think we have to exercise extra caution for now."

Tsee Blackbourne dismissed us to prepare for the mission, while he, Tsaile Ramirez and Tsee Reyes conferred on the security arrangements.

*******

Ninth Squad was...quirky. But I really liked them. They were a Sights-based squad and were chosen to replace Second following the Battle of the Umbrella, as I was calling it, because Tsaile Ramirez was eager to get more impressions from the Sight talents on the cone buildings. It was clear he was impatient to begin his investigation, especially since our Gate exploratory mission revealed little. However, a snow storm moved in, further delaying the tanz carrying the new machinery to breach the seals on the entryways.