They rallied altogether in the clearing just outside the building. Apparently she did her work fast enough - and stealthily enough that the alarm wasn't given yet.
Yet.
The men arrived, nothing was said. She didn't expected anything from them, and they didn't expected anything from her.
They probably expected her to die, rather. Point man role was always given to the worst performing unit or individual in a group - although any military would deny it, fact was the commander took their decision like that. Who would want to waste their potentially best performing soldier uselessly as a the head of the spear?
They barely acknowledged her presence, merely passed in front of her, a blood stained warrior.
She followed them in.
Small charges of explosive were attached to various part of the structure as they proceeded; these would be hard to hear, and didn't produced anything spectacular. But they were placed in strategical position, in areas where their scanner revealed the structure of the building was already weakened. Once detonated together, this entire stronghold would collapse.
"Lieutenant Kaitlynn. Lead the group."
Isabelle nodded once, and went forth. The weakest link of the chain.
--
It was a death maze. Traps set everywhere, small group of outcast and their rogue pets hidden behind the corners, armed heavily to hinder their movement. It was so repetitive, the gruesome massacre was merely applying one same technique. Grab, shoot, slit throat, clean up, repeat.
Something wasn't quite right there.
She understood it was a tactic to wear down on their reflexes. Not upon reflection, but because at the following intersection, a static high caliber laser canon shot at her on its automatic laser detector detected her body.
She fell down - backward, a reflex.
the men behind her grumbled, left her behind - some stomped on her to charge forward and she winced in pain, but didn't protest.
The canon was already destroyed, somebody threw a grenade behind the corner.
"Get up lieutenant. Your position is in front of the group, not behind." a cold voice ordered. Captain Adamas.
She didn't protest. They were close to the goal.
A few more heads to roll and it would be over.. for tonight, hopefully.
She felt an aura of evil coming from behind the door.
Not sure why. The door, painted a very plain metallic white, seemed quite normal. But there was a certain black glow around it. She could see it for sure, even though it wasn't real.
As she thought of this, she wasted no time, shot the handle of the door - it was solidly armoured, the laser beam ricocheted dangerously to the ceiling.
"Demolition" she called, and one of the men behind her charged forth, threw a sticking grenade as she herself backed off. The little projectile grabbed itself right below the handle, as the demolition man backed off as well.
Loud explosion. Now was no need for subtlety - they were discovered since long ago, but the enemies' strategy to take them down didn't succeed. The squad of 20 commandos strong was still intact and well.
The number of fallen enemies were reaching somewhere near 10 for each of the libertonian White Wolves.
Isabelle charged in, rifle at the ready, pointing forward, the laser targetting device ready. As soon as she crossed the room, she dropped to the ground, crawling - the smoke from the explosion was still in the air; the best visibility was on the ground.
She saw confused legs; people who didn't knew what was going on. Strangely, some legs were still, other were naked. Blood already stained the ground - someone injured by the blast? Aim, fire, aim fire. The gaggled struggle to survive, to breath just one last time... burned flesh dropping to the ground, the sigh of death escaping their mouth.
She thought, one day, I will be in their place too.
She didn't liked the thought.
For the moment, she was going to make them take her place. Put as many of them in front of her for the line up toward the Gates of Hell.
She didn't wanted to die...
--
Double click.
"Sector clear."
A torture room. So that was why the still bodies.
She inspected each of the corpse - for they were all killed recently. Some were dismembered. There were all sort of incisions.
Torture room? Or laboratory?
Samples of cardamine drugs in different variation were found around chemicals and other experimentation tools. Lab coats were cleanly stored on a corner of the room.
She looked around. All there was was sterile pain. The evil aura came indeed from this place. She examined the corpses more attentively. Not on a professional point of view.
But that of the child that saw her friends being blown into carbonized bodies in a civilian liner.
It was brute, pure torture. The torture inflicted by men who thought themselves as a superior race. Men who thought of their human brethren as beasts to be enslaved by their treasure, the cardamine. This wasn't scientific experiments, although this was the purpose. These men, women, children, were assembled there to experiment with cardamine and other chemical. And then they were discarded, used as test ground for other weapons, be they a laser rifle or a bio virus weapon.
The lack of humanism...
Who was she to think of this though?
She closed the eyes of the nearest corpse.
At least.
At least they won't remain forgotten here.
They scattered to search for any more relevant objects. The place has been, up now, a deception. Probably a hide out for a Maltese family of immense power for cardamine distribution and a safe harbour for criminal. But nothing concerning outcast intelligence, strategies, anything.
Isabelle went from room to room in the maze with energy, slamming down doors and scanning within with the precision of a prey bird. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
She felt something wrong with her, but she didn't knew what.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
...
"No hice NADA -..."
"CALIENTE!!"
She smashed the man against the wall, her knife against his throat, so close, blood, this lovely crimson liquid of life, was already being drained out of him, too slow to kill, but slow enough to let him appreciate pain, pain and imminent death, inescapable death...!!!
"Que monstruo..."
Isabelle breathed heavily - she wasn't tired at all, but all the energy she was freeing was exalting her. Her hatred, contended so far by her inhumane discipline, finally broke the seal, and she directed it against this poor little masked man in a now definitively ruined lab coat.
"Me asegurare..."
...
She had found the little man hiding pathetically beneath a table. It didn't took a White Wolf to notice the man, shaking in hear in his hide out of fortune.
Which finally would prove really that much more useless.
At that point, something in Isabelle exploded. She dropped her rifle on the ground - something she would never have done, something no soldier worth his name would ever have done.
Two last outcast armed men came out to surprise her - but their life ended abruptly as Isabelle plunged violently her armoured thumb in one eye of each of the men, so deep, it crushed the eye, destroyed their skull, touched the brain. They died.
She trashed forward, releasing the corpse and leaving them on the ground, trampling everything on her way under the heavy footsteps of her titanium armoured boots.
A very nightmarish sight.
...
"Me asegurare de que mueren forma lenta y dolorosa muerte..."
She held the man with one hand by her hand, her grip an iron fist of no pity. The outcast scientist began to panic, gasped for air...
"a... ayuda...!" he yelled weakly. But there were only the dead to listen. And the dead contended to watch from the opened door, his dead bodyguards.
"Para todas sus atrocidades..."
She took one of the man' finger. Reached its nail. Didn't even looked what she was doing, looked at him straight in the eyes, her beautiful cyan eyes, icy like the frozen waste of Atka.
"... usted no paga suficiente."
She violently pushed on the nail, which cracked, detached from the finger. The skin under bled, became black.
But the scream of the man, the scream of horror and pain, was so unsupportable.
Reached another finger.
"NO PAGA SUFICIENTE!!!"
Push, crack, blood, scream.
Repeat 8 more time on each of the remaining fingers.
...
He was whimpering on the floor, shaking uncontrollably in pain.
Isabelle spat on the ground, her anger now cold. A cold, heavy rock in her heart.
Or maybe it was her heart.
"La vie a ete trop misecordieu pour toi."
She said this in her own tongue, but the man understood - not because french and spanish sounded not too different. But he felt it.
Bang, crack. Slush...
She lifted her foot from the mess that became the head of the man. Some sticky part of the brain was still on her boot. She cleaned it up on the man' body, and went away, picking her rifle while doing so.
They were only three in the locker room, where they stored their ops equipment. Isabelle slowly detached every single straps that maintained her armour in place. Beneath, red painful lines traced all over her body witnessed just how heavy the set of protection was heavy to wear.
She winced slightly as she removed them.
The door slammed shut. Only three of them.
She didn't turned around to look.
There would be trouble.
She accepted this as fate. Destiny couldn't be altered, no matter how hard you tried sometime.
She just hoped...
--
"unh..."
It hurt. She bit her tongue, and blood was staining her face, although she just took her shower.
She wasn't even dressed up yet, some water was still covering her body.
She didn't resist as one man slammed her over the wall.
"You little bitch, who do you think you are?"
"We've nearly lost a man because of you..."
She felt the blow coming, the knuckle hit her face... closed her eyes.
Bam!
She felt dizzy... the world was spinning a bit too wildly to her taste.
"You ****ing whore made a ****ing sloppy job, you understand that?!"
The second man came in, did his touch as well, kicked her. The first man released his grip, she was thrown on the ground by the force of the impact...
"I don't know how the **** you managed to get in here, sucker, but I won't forget THAT!"
And he nearly sticked his injured hand right over her nose. She saw indeed, an horrible burn caused by a laser beam. It was already regenerating, thanks to cellular regeneration equipment... but the pain must have been intense.
"... sorry..."
Kick. She coughed all the air she had in her lungs, nearly vomited.
"raah..."
The two men came near her, the first one seizing her again, slammed against another wall. She tried to free her neck from his grip, but she was too tired - mentally, and his hands were rough and strong, nearly robotic.
"****! There's no ****ing SORRY in the military! Never!!"
Despite their obvious anger and frustration, they still heard the sound of metallic boot closing in. Guards.
Man number two approached, whispered,
"Tonight was a lesson... continue like that, and you'll go back home, crying, bitch..."
She was thrown on the ground again. The two men departed, their attitude suddenly calm. The two guards passed the door, they saluted her aggressors, both of them 1st lieutenants, and went their way.
Door slammed shut.
"..."
She massaged a bit her newly collected injuries. Felt like crying, but... her eyes were dry.
So cruel, she thought...
So cruel...
They truly managed to erase... all her humanity?
She couldn't even release her emotions anymore...?
Captain Adamas was writing his battle report on his datapad in their room. Nothing relaxing, she thought as she entered silently. The man behaved and worked like a well oiled machine, and apparently didn't required any sleep.
"Have you been to medical?" he asked, without turning his head away from his datapad, writing at a constant pace.
She shook her head. She was too confused by everything that was going on to notice anything, and sat on her bed. Looking very blank.
"You should. I don't want injured soldiers under my command. And I know how strong my men are sometime."
She massaged a bit her neck, unconsciously more than because she felt anything,
"How are you aware of everything, sir?"
"Cameras."
She felt surprised, yet, she didn't understood why. She somehow expected her to be always under constant surveillance... but to the point of... hidden cameras?
"Sir... what will happen to..."
"Nothing. They are valuable components of the unit - as are everyone in this unit for that matters."
Nothing? Anywhere else, they would have been at least sent to the military prison for such misbehaviour...
She looked at the captain, who didn't truly seemed to acknowledge her presence, continued working on his little machine...
She felt betrayed by the man, the man who she had gotten slightly closer to, would it only be because he was the only one who talked to her... also the man who had tormented and tortured her, physically and mentally beyond the realist limits of any human being...
"Wolves are known to hunt in pack, you know." he finally said, as he saw that Isabelle was definitively not moving.
"But we teach you to hunt in pack with the aggressiveness of a lone wolf. Our philosophy is well different from any other known units. We train you to become a one-man army, so even when all your comrades have fallen, you would still be able to accomplish the objective. We want you to sacrifice all for the team, yet to rely only on yourselves."
"Yes sir."
And, although he didn't looked at her, he produced this mysterious half-smile that gained the confidence of anyone - why? She didn't knew. But her heart didn't felt so cold and heavy suddenly, for a brief moment, the rock was melting back into a heart and...
It lasted the time the smile lasted. But she understood he trusted her.
At least, she wanted to believe that. She had to hold onto something.
"Now, get to medic. We will be deployed in a few weeks again already, and intensive training starts tomorrow."
"Sir, yes sir."
She rose to her feet, went away
"Oh, and Isa?"
She was surprised once again. First time someone in the White Wolves calling her by her diminutive...
"Yes, sir?"
"Try to get some sleep. It's good for your health."
"I'll write your report for you."
She smiled, uncertain how to interpret this sudden warmness...
"t.. thank you, sir!"
She went off to medical, feeling much better.
Adamas turned back to work on the report.
"Females are such naive creatures." he thought for himself.
Physical training - well, they say, usually your boot camp is the worst part, right?
In a White Wolf unit, as far as Isabelle noticed, there was no such thing as "worst", as she crawled -she lost count for how many meters already of humid jungle dirt. Her combat armor, previously painted in a scheme of high tech green camouflage, now truly became the color of her environment. She was hurt despite the heavy plates of titanium she carried - not only the straps that mercilessly ate in her skin, but the tree branches... the variety on planet Los Angeles were quite particular, being very long, flexible and sharp, recalling her of whips...
And these branches tore through the fabric of her uniform as easily as a knife through butter, and it scrapped her skin, tracing beautiful line of red liquids flowing, and by the end of the day, she was certain, the tip of every trees in this jungle would be crimson.
She was sure some explorers would have found this curious.
If only they knew it was caused by inhumane training.
"Move forward, faster, FASTER!" someone yelled at her, and she was pushed forth - nearly down a ravine of a few meters deep.
She turned around, grasped anything that came to her hand - the man' leg, and groaned at the effort to keep herself from falling.
"dammit you bastard!! What the hell is wrong with you!!" she yelled back, kicking herself upward.
But the other soldier just snarled and, for a moment, she thought he was going to kick her down the pit.
She looked at him with furious, burning eyes, the usually calm cyan of her iris turned into a molten blue plasma - promising thousands of painful death possible, and what else...
Somehow, the man - a captain, smirked mockingly, and didn't made a single move, so Isabelle pulled herself out, growling under the weight of her armor.
"Not bad. Now move!!"
--
A test? Just how many more she was going to go through? She had been beaten, tortured. Witnessed the death of comrades in arm, killed her own people. She had been menaced by death from senior members of the unit, met coldly by all but her commander - alright.
She could take on all that. She didn't cared anymore.
Her heart was a dark fortress that nothing could penetrate anymore.
She reflected on this, as she checked her weapons, alone on her bed. Captain Adamas was with the senior officers for a meeting on tomorrow's training, so she had some privacy - well, not really. For all she knew, maybe Adamas was, even right now, watching her from multiple hidden cameras. Didn't truly mattered, here, she had no such thing as a private life, and she gave up on the concept roughly about the time she joined the military anyway.
There was no shame for her to remains half naked, sitting on her bed, cleaning her rifle, blasters and knifes. Her nudity didn't bothered her at all. Comfort was among the first few priorities in the military, she thought, because without a minimum of it, you had, as surprising as it might be, absolutely crap efficiency.
Yeah she could take all that, alright. She knew she lost all her humanity too.
It was strange. She didn't really felt anything anymore. Oh sure, from time to time, here and there, a faint happiness at easting something she liked. And some joy at lying on a bed, feeling the contact of her soft skin against the blanket.
But mostly, these feelings... felt dimmed.
Dimmed, compared to the anger she felt a few hours ago against the captain.
Sorrow, too, but she wasn't even capable of showing it anymore.
But, she realized indeed...
Everyday that passed, her other feelings dimmed more and more only to become memories of the past.
And meanwhile, she felt herself more aggressive, easily angered...
A very strong combative spirit - but...
what about the rest?
Isabelle looked around, and seeing no one noticed the slight noise from the guard, cleaned up her knife on the clothing of the corpse.
Double click.
Ah... a single click came back to her. Stand by.
So she knelt down next to the body, readied her rifle from the only opening where the enemy could have come out and waited, her mind half absent.
"Why the jungle training for an infiltration operation?"
"The colonel likes greener environment."
"..."
Captain Adamas didn't budged as he continued to read the mission briefing
"What is the relevance of the question anyway? We were supposed to be deployed in a jungle environement. At the last moment intel revealed to us the exact location."
"What, 900 klicks above the jungle?"
"Yes."
"We did all that for nothing?"
"No, we did it to hurt you."
She wasn't sure how to interpret this mysterious last statement...
Isabelle looked down on the body next to her. She didn't thought too much about it, despite the ugly wound she inflicted to the man; blood was still gushing weakly from his cut throat. She imagined herself, being the victim of a similar wound, shivered, turned back her attention on the door in front of her.
Turned back her attention on the corpse.
There definitively was some morbid fascination to it.
She hesitated, then, used a finger to turn the man' face toward her. It was an expression of horror, shock, imminent death. Pain and frustration.
He was about her age, she figured out.
She felt angered.
Why. Why waste such a promising life... defending a rogue battle station...
"It was the age of youth, of dream. It was a time... of perfection. Your body was at its peak, your youth was at its peak...
And you, wasted your life here, working for lowly criminals...
Why waste your life here..."
A small voice inside her, barely audible, the same one that asked her...
The voice, barely heard behind the dark fortress wall she build around her heart, it wasn't so nice anymore. It was sad, regretful, spiteful toward her.
"And what are you doing of your youth, murderer..."
13 movements should be enough, she calculated. For four enemies placed in a rectangle, each at less than 5 meters from each other, armed with blaster rifle.
13 movements to kill them all, silently.
She armed her rifle with a silencer, then, from her pocket, took off a magazine, banged it repetitively against the wall behind which she was hidden.
--
"Hey, what is that?"
"Don't know. Maybe something in the mechanism broke down..."
"I'll call engineering."
The man clicked the comm, entered frequency,
"H..."
But the noise stopped.
"Yeah?" the voice at the other end responded, obviously bored.
"err... nah nothing. Can you check sector 3 oh 5 to see if anything' broken?"
"Hm..." the man grumbled a few seconds, "Don't know. I can only see electronic problems here, and there's none where you are. What's the matter?"
"Well, there was something like a constant repetitive clanging behind a wall..."
"Meh, I need to come check that by myself, you dolt. Is that really important?"
"Well, no not really. It stopped. I'll go check and call you back if there's something wrong."
--
Well, the plan worked rather well, Isabelle thought, despite it being incredibly classic.
She'd have thought, with people watching so much action holoscreen nowadays...
But whatever. The man' shadow was seen, turning around to come at her, she jumped, grasped him by the neck so his yell was cut short, and began strangling him. 10 movements to go.
"Hey Jhonny, you okay?" one of the guards standing in the corridor asked.
Grumps of effort from the man to free himself from his aggressor came back, suggesting he was making some effort against something. Then, his breathing wasn't heard anymore.
"Jhonny? the hell are you doing?"
The three guards abandoned their position, walking at a normal pace to come see what it was about.
Kick on first individual. The corridor can only let one man pass at a time. He flies, and crashes on the one behind. Confusion. 9.
She drew her blaster in range, shot the first man in the neck; no scream, 7. She didn't took the time to reload her weapon.
The second one was about to, but a throwing knife pierced his skull. 5, unsheathe and throw.
The third one was about to push the "talk" button of his comm unit.
But the barrel of Isabelle' rifle convinced him to just drop everything on the ground, and with impressive movement for a mere criminal with probably limited military training, rolled on the ground, away from her.
But he found himself with his head at an survivable angle.
Plunge forth, 4
Balanced side kick, 3
Disarming kick, 2
Grasp, violently and firmly by the torso, 1
And finally, uppercut punch with her armoured fist.
Bloodied teeth fell on the ground. Yeah, 13 movements alright.
"Freeze! Put your hand above your head, NOW!"
Isabelle turned around, somewhat surprised... and, well another feeling she didn't quite know... Hum? Where does this one comes out of?
But her enemy seemed as puzzled as she was, and she wondered why. She could have profited of this moment to counter, but cursed at herself inside her head. Her rifle was still unloaded, and the man was standing nearly at the other end of they corridor. Considering how narrow the passage was, there was about no chance he'd miss her...
But she didn't bulge. Not yet, she wanted to see how will her enemy react.
"Put your f'cking hand above your head, IS THAT CLEAR?!" he said, after his slight hesitation. Alright, this one was a seasoned veteran. She did as she was told, her face emotionless.
"Well well, pretty, you did some dirty work there it seems... 27 of my men murdered - all your job?" he asked. She tried to seek for weakness, but was frustrated to find none. The voice of the man wasn't nervous, it was pissed, very pissed. But very focused on his target.
She nodded slowly, acknowledging.
The man smirked, backed off a bit, to look at the wound of the rogues.
"Heh. You aren't normal Libertonian. They usually shoot the hell out of everyone. You are using these fancy blades. Mandal merc? Bounty hunter?"
He closed nearer to her, she could see his face distinctively now; a bald man in the beginning of his forties maybe, handsome looking, rugged body used to the dirty jobs and ah that roguish grin of those who never failed their task. Damn. She fell right on the sort of man she didn't want to meet.
"Hm. Whoever you are, you are an interesting subject of studies... maybe we could use you..." he said so with a small grin, probably to instill some fear within her.
A big mistake.
"hey..?!"
Isabelle didn't even looked around, but her heavily armoured arm landed square on the hand of the man. The trigger was squeezed, more by reflex than anything, and shot at her armour, which managed to absorb most of the heat, but still caused a jolt of pain at her body. She didn't mind. As long as she was operational.
"you little bit...!!"
She rotated her body in a perfect 270 degree, to arrive face to face with the man, and her punch, landing square on his face, would have smashed pretty much anything up to a block of concrete.
But before that could happen, she felt the handle of the blaster the man was holding crashing on her helm. The strength of the man was considerable, and had she worn nothing for her head, she would probably be dead...
Instead, she was dazzled, backed off...
Impossible! This man...!
"Haah!!"
The yell was terrifying, as if a human voice was amplified a thousand time. Isabelle stood calm, focused, but even her inhumane agility couldn't help this, when the boot of the rogue would collide with her body. She didn't have enough time to react, not enough space to back off, and, well..
Crack.
Well, bones were bones, you could hardly train them to become steel, right?
Isabelle bit herself to avoid screaming in pain, but pain was unavoidable, tears rushed down her eyes instead and she fell down heavily, kneeling in submission.
The rogue kicked the empty rifle she was still holding in her hand, and she was unarmed...
"Yeah, me too, f'ckard..." the rogue said, pointing his blaster in her face, breathing loudly under the effort.
"Liberty let me down at a point when I most needed them."
He drank, one shot, all the content of his mug. Filled it again.
Isabelle only waited for an opportunity to strike, even though her arms were tightly bound behind her back. They were in some sort of cell, protected by a magnetic gate that would not open unless you cut through it with a plasma cutter.
"See, I was, deep in Rainy-land, with the unhappy fasci and all that crap."
Drank, again, one shot.
How the hell he managed to stay that focused with all the alcohol...
"Asses."
"Anyway. Lacked all. Guns. Ammo, whatever. I fought for a week, running in the streets. The RFP Interior Security Squads were good. Very good - not as good as myself, but ****ing good enough to make me waste all my ****s."
"I received nothing. Know what that meant."
"You handed back the package, now we dont need you, too hard to retrieve, to dangerous, and no big deal, go die in heck."
"WELL ****, I didn't took that!"
"Yeah, I survived. Survived 34 days, over a month. Slipped myself back to Liberty, somehow, without getting killed."
"First thing I did, murder my boss."
He laughed, laughed and laughed like a madman, refilling his cup, drinking like the mythical dwarfs.
"Ahahahaha, you should have seen their face, girl!! Their FACE!! Oh so full of horror, my god, a ghost from the past!!"
"Only 34 days!!"
"34!!!"
Yeah. The guy was definitively not right. And way too dangerous.
His eyes shone with madness and intelligence, it was obvious.
-He- wasn't going to live.
She wanted to try and kick the man in the chin as he laughed like a maniac, but she didn't even do a single movement, that he stopped suddenly, looking furious,
"Oh I read your movement, girl, I see, when an eye changes, and become cold like steel, ready to prey upon its victim..."
"But you are mine right now, and mines are only VICTIMS!"
He went away, slamming the door shut.
Isabelle was plunged in entire darkness.
She didn't liked it.
She was bound again. By the darkness.
A cell on planet Houston, blood dripping. Blood in her mouth.
No this wasn't the good time...
Forget, forget, forget...
![[Image: audrey03a.png]](http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/7610/audrey03a.png)