“Cease Fire!” Petty shouted. “Cease Fire!”

A few meters away, her squad was still lined up emptying their magazines into the night. She just couldn’t seem to control them. They were like animals. Lisa prayed she had made the right decision by ordering them to fire on the cyberoid. He definitely looked like a threat anyway.

“Cease Fire!” she shouted again, her voice straining over the gunfire. They seemed to hear her this time. The shooting slowed and finally stopped. Lisa paused for a moment, a little unsure what to do next. She saw some of her subordinates looking back towards her. She figured it was best she join them. She walked forward towards the flare light and saw what was left of the assailant strewn across a small pile of rocks. It was an awful sight. She felt like vomiting.

“All right,” she pointed to two of her men. “Birch, Townly, get the two in the suits and bring them over here. The rest of you spread out and search the area. Teams of two, one hundred meter radius.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Birch saluted and ran with Townly towards the bleeding body.

“Move it out!” she commenced the order as firmly as she could manage.

Her team organized themselves and started to disappear into the night. She saw Birch and Townly returning, crudely dragging the suit clad men behind them. Lisa approached them slowly.

“They alive?” she examined them “cautiously.

“I think so,” Birch replied. “This one seems unconscious. Keeps struggling a bit though.”

“This one keeps fighting too.” Townly dropped the suited body to the ground.

Lisa looked them over. They were wearing expensive suits. Not standard military hardware at all. They had to be mercenaries of some kind to afford gear like that. Lisa didn’t want to take any chances. Especially after seeing what had happened earlier.

“Pop their helmets and drug them,” she ordered. “There is no telling what they might do right now. Better to keep them sedated until the Commodore gets here with the medical team.”

Townly shrugged. “Okay.”

He removed a small item from his top pocket and peeled off the plastic backing, revealing a drug soaked, patch of gauze. Carefully he removed the helmet of the man he was carrying.

“This guy don’t look to bad.” Townly gripped the man’s jaw and examined his face.

Lisa saw he was a young blonde man around her age. He appeared unconscious, but she wanted to be sure. “Drug him.”

“Okay.” Townly applied the patch to his neck. The man twitched for a moment and finally his head slumped.

“Hey!” Birch called suddenly. “I need some help with this one.”

Townly rushed over and steadied the other man, while Birch removed his helmet. A gush of thick blood erupted as the helmet was pried off. The man inside coughed and choked.

“Shit,” Townly said. “This guy is fucked up!”

Lisa could see the man was disorientated and in need of medical help. She didn’t quite know what to do. A medic crew was on the way anyway. Maybe she could just wait until they arrived.

“Should we drug him too?” asked Birch.

“Urn. . .” Lisa paused hesitantly. She wasn’t too sure if it was a good idea; he looked seriously injured.

With a primal grunt the man abruptly pushed Birch away and stood to his feet.

“Watch him!” she yelled.

The man then suddenly bellowed in a raspy voice.

“Stay the hell back!”

Lisa froze at his words, overpowered by their conviction. The man gathered himself quickly. Almost before her eyes, he seemed to regain full control of himself. He spat some blood and wiped his mouth with the gauntlet of his suit.

“Who are you?” Lisa tried to match the tone in his voice.

“Read the fucking patch,” he jabbed at his shoulder. “That’s what it’s there for you know?”

Townly stepped forward a little and glanced at the man’s arm. “Whoa these guys are CDI.”

“CDI?” Lisa scowled and raised her finger. “I gave your pilot strict instructions that USSD were the only personnel to be allowed on this crash site.”

“He had no choice in the matter,” he grinned at her. “We both jumped out.”

“What?” His tone annoyed her immediately. Who did he think he was? Some kind of hotshot who liked to disobey orders? Lisa wasn’t going to take any of this. She had her orders straight from the commodore himself.

“What’s your name and rank, soldier!” Lisa barked at him. “I’m going to report you to your commanding officer.”

The man looked slightly shocked for a moment, and then smiled as he shook his head.

“Major Eric Corbin,” he told her. “Head of heavy weapons division CDI, Cronus City branch under the direction of Major General Adam Font. My superior officer is Colonel Paul Drake if you want to get in touch with him. Is that all the information you require, Lieutenant?”

Lisa’s heart jumped into her throat. The strong heat of embarrassment flushing her face with bright redness. She wished she could take back her words. She had assumed him to be a sergeant or something. Not only was he an officer, but he outranked her as well. She felt the jeering eyes of Birch and Townly staring at her, their laughter suppressed beneath their grinning face's. She felt like running away and hiding. Stupid she thought to herself, so stupid.

“Well?” the Major asked her again.

“No Sir, I mean yes Sir,” she stumbled on her words. “I mean to say, I’m sorry Sir.”

She saluted him, not knowing what else to do.

***

Eric returned the salute distractedly and then looked down to his subordinate, still on the ground. He pulled the small patch from his neck and threw it away. He then looked over to one of the USSD soldiers.

“Let me borrow your comm-link, Corporal,” he outstretched his hand.

“Sure thing.” The young soldier hurried over and promptly handed it to him. “Here you go, Major.”

“Thanks.” Eric fiddled with the frequency control then held the com-link loosely to his ear. “Yo Redo. Come pick us up. Lance is hurt pretty bad, he’s gone into Hibernation State.”

Eric waited for a reply and then handed the link back to the corporal. Turning about, he searched for the Lieutenant and saw her standing next to the other private, looking rather peaked and mousy.

“Thanks by the way,” he grinned at her.

“Sir?”

“For getting that guy off me.” Eric looked out into the darkness and saw what was left of the cyberoid he was fighting. “I owe you one, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, well.. .” She then paused. “It was no problem, Sir.”

Eric witnessed the swift change in attitude only a superior ranking could provide. He had heard her mention a Commodore arriving. If he wanted to know anything about what was going on, he would have to grill it out of her before then. Eric still wasn’t certain exactly what he saw on the woman’s back. Some exotic type of cyberoid perhaps, but whatever it was, he was certain it was what they were after. All Eric had to do was get her to confirm it.

“So what exactly happened here, Lieutenant?” Shade asked her.

She paused again. “One of our aircraft went down.”

It seemed she was trained to keep some secrecy at least.

“Have you found the body of the pilot yet?” He spat out a wad of blood. “Or did they manage to eject?”

“We are still searching,” she grimaced at the sight of him spitting.

Eric saw someone approaching from behind the Lieutenant. At first, he thought it was the Commodore she had spoken of, but as he grew closer, Eric could see he was dressed in civilian clothing. He was tall, a bit thin and wore a pair of light spectacles.

“Who is this?” Eric nodded in the direction behind her.

Lisa turned and saw Webber approaching. She had warned him to stay in the chopper. That was why she didn’t want him to come along in the first place, she basically had no authority over him, and if he got injured or killed she would be responsible.

Lisa wanted to say something to the doctor, but just couldn’t think of what.

Webber continued to stumble towards her in the semi-darkness slowly making his way through the rubble.

“Have you found her yet?” he called.

Lisa snapped her head towards him, pleading with her eyes for him to be silent.

“Found whom?” the Major stepped forward.

Webber paused, no doubt surprised by the unfamiliar voice and face. “Who are you?”

“I’m Major Eric Corbin,” the CDI agent stopped just in front of the doctor. “Who are you looking for?”

“Suta,” Webber answered him stupidly. “Are you part of the search-”

“Hey!” Lisa cut him off quickly. “May I remind you Doctor Webber that this is still a classified operation and the risk of a security leak is quite high.”

“oh?” Webber looked back at her blankly. “But isn’t he with the military as well?”

***

“Yes I am,” Eric confirmed. The doctor or whoever he was seemed easily bated. He could learn a lot from him if he kept asking the right questions. “Were there two pilots, Doctor Webber?”

“There should have been two, yes,” he answered hurriedly. “Did you find them?”

“Doctor Webber!”

“I might have,” Eric scratched his face. “What is so special about these pilots, Doctor?”

“Shut up, Webber!” the Lieutenant snapped. “With all due respect Major, this is an internal affair concerning USSD personnel only. I’m sure you can appreciate the situation. I request that you please refrain from prying any more information from the Doctor or myself.”

Eric smiled. He was starting to respect this girl more and more. She definitely had a set of balls hiding somewhere. She would be a pretty good Officer once she learned how to use them.

“Understood, Lieutenant,” Eric nodded.

Suddenly high above, he heard the whine of a jet engine. Looking upwards, Eric saw the open hatch on the Aerodyne, hovering some ten meters over him. Slowly the craft lowered itself, and Eric stood back and waited. In less than a minute the Aerodyne had descended from its height and was poised just a few meters off the ground.

“Nice meeting you, Lieutenant,” Eric nodded to the girl again. “And you too, Doctor.”

The young Lieutenant snapped him a salute promptly.

Shade barely returned it.

He grabbed Lance by the collar and dragged him to his feet. His subordinate was slightly conscious, almost as if he were drunk. Eric lifted him up and tossed him as gently as he could manage into the back of the Aerodyne; much like the body bag he had tossed earlier. The irony brought a smile to Eric’s lips. He then jumping onto the ledge of the hatch himself and crawled his way inside.

“I’m good, Redo!” he shouted forward.

Redo gave a typical thumbs-up gesture and the hatch slowly began to close behind him. Eric stared earthward as they gained altitude, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on below. Eric then heard a groan from Lance as he began to come to.

“How you feeling, Lieutenant?” Eric looked down at him.

“We still alive?” Lance dragged himself off the floor and into one of the seats. “How

long was I out for?”

“Twenty minutes,” Eric shrugged.

“That’s not bad,” he began to cough. “Considering how much damage I took anyway.”

Lance undid the chest plate of his armor and let it fall to the floor of the Aerodyne. It bounced slightly, then split into two, from where the cyberoid had cracked it.

“Stuff makes you feel so safe you forget to duck.” Lance kicked the broken torso plate away from him. “Fucker got the jump on me that way.”

“Wearing armor has a way of doing that.”

“I thought he was going to be a lot slower. Should have known better than to underestimate him. Or any opponent for that matter.”

“Absolutely true,” Eric said, watching as the hatch finally out his vision from crash zone below. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. But if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”

“Sun Tzu,” Lance grinned knowingly. “So what I miss anyway?”

“Well you didn’t miss much action.” Eric turned his head towards Lance. “But there’s a whole lot of other shit you need to catch up on.”

“Yeah?” Lance began to examine himself. “What happened?”

“After you went down, the big one started beating the shit out of me.” Eric started to remove his own armor. “USSD guys showed up and wasted him though.”

Lance chuckled. “Did something good for once.”

“The CO was a greener so it wasn’t too bad.” Eric flipped open the lower cargo-panel and dropped some gear inside. “She said a single star was en route to the site. I figured it best if we pull out without a conflict of jurisdiction.”

Lance nodded in agreement.

“So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About that thing on the pilot’s back,” Shade said. “What do you think it was?”

“Well. . Lance stopped to ponder it. “If it wasn’t for the hair and facial features, I’d say it was a C type with its skin ripped off. Or maybe a D type.”

“I know but something seemed so different about that one.” Eric leaned against the hull with his forearm. “That voice. Sounded like a fucking computer. And those eyes, never seen eyes like that before.”

Lance shrugged. “So what now? Do you want to follow this up?”

“I don’t know,” Eric exhaled deeply. “USSD is already on it and we don’t have any leads. Something might be going on, but we might not have the time to get involved or the jurisdiction even.”

Eric then looked down at the body bag. “And with cyberoids like this running around, we’re going to have our ”hands full. As an anti-terrorist organization we just don’t have the time to go snooping around USSD.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed. “Although I’m sure we’d find that US SD supplies most of the arms for these little anti-government militias.”

“Can’t argue with you there either.”

“So that’s it then?” asked Lance. “We let it slide?”

Eric could hear the disappointment in Lance’s voice much like that in his own. “We’ll try to keep tabs on it, but other than that?”

“Nothing,” Lance answered for him downheartedly.

“That’s the way it has to be,” Eric shrugged. “We just have too many other things to worry about in this city.”

***********************