1.25.2

New Perspectives

The next morning, it took longer than usual for Astrid to banish her grogginess. She discovered herself ravenous, and parched, at the breakfast table, but otherwise pleased to return to routine after such an eventful few days.

Inevitably, however, no one could quietly return to duty until they discovered what lay on the drive Hect bequeathed them.

They team huddled in Dell’s Tech Lab, a room Astrid purposefully avoided so far. She’d feared what her sensibilities might do in such a place named for its fragility and precarious experiments.

When she arrived however, she found it mostly a collection of work benches, with tools and devices strewn about. It all seemed rather haphazard. But when she drew too close to an orb-like object propped on one of the tables Dell hurriedly called her off.

“Please don’t. Believe it or not I know exactly where everything is right now.”

Astrid looked around at the barely controlled chaos, dubious. “If you say so.”

“Come on, Kitten, come look at this!” Tenya waved her over to a series of screens where she, Romo, and Anders stood for the viewing.

At the desk, Dell worked to unload the data.

A single monitor lit to life in a sporadic flicker of images. Pictures of them, the team. All of them. And even some of Astrid.

Then a video started. Prison footage, from their firefight through S.O.’s commandeered facility. Astrid watched the team maneuver, surreal as it was to see how she, too, moved a part of them.

It felt almost nostalgic to view it through another lens. From an outsider’s perspective.

Then the image swept away again, to be replaced by a long hallway. It wasn’t immediately recognizable, and Tenya asked aloud what they all wondered.

“Where is this?”

Then the door on the end slipped open, and Astrid, her hair half-braided and her armor glistening new, stepped through. With Benson’s man, Orion, on her heels.

“Penny Station,” she declared. “This was our meeting with Benson. I saw the camera.”

“How did Lui get this?” Anders scowled, perplexed.

“I’m less concerned with that and more concerned with how he got some of these messages.” Dell directed them to a secondary screen where monotype font scrawled in cryptic warnings. “You see this? These messages are from Rue. To whoever she was communicating with. How the hell did he get those? Even we couldn’t find them!”

“Maybe he’s in contact with whoever was on the receiving end,” Romo leaned over for a closer look.

“Oh my god… Anders…” Tenya batted the back of her hand against the lieutenant’s arm and pointed to the upper monitor, where video still played.

This time, Karth, Tenya, Anders, Astrid, and Rue, wove through a serpentine pattern in a bustling market.

Tetris, Astrid realized. Apparently the one man they’d spotted recording them hadn’t been the only one.

“How long have they been on our trail?” Dell frowned.

“Well, I feel violated.” Tenya shifted on her feet as if suddenly self-conscious.

“Look,” Anders added. “It gets worse.”

And there, in full view for all now to see, the team caught an outsider’s perspective of their encounter with Jenna and her crew.

Astrid’s eyes went to Jenna and Anders, just as they did then. But the camera zoomed to something she’d missed before. That they all missed.

While Anders chatted with Jenna, and Karth conferred with Tenya, Rue stood engaged in conversation with Jenna’s team.

They passed weapons back and forth, showing off. But the camera honed in on the exchange.

“Did you see that?!” Dell asked, suddenly enthralled. Before anyone could answer, he manipulated the playback to bring it up again.

In Rue’s hands, while she shared with the street gang, she passed something that was definitely not a gun. And the men she conversed with shook her hand.

“Tetrians,” Tenya hissed. “Of course.”

“Well, that explains why they’re recruiting more and have the capital to upgrade their gear. Damn it.” Anders did not look pleased.

“Makes total sense,” Dell pieced together. He almost seemed relieved to have solved the mystery. “The S.O. had to be getting help from the local gangs to get their operation off the ground. A new group on Tetris would have drawn too much attention. No one thought twice to see the Tetrians around.”

Romo shook his head. “It’s perfect. They probably don’t even know who they’re working for. Just hired muscle to transport the goods. Mercenaries get paid top dollar to not ask questions.”

“What if they do know?” Tenya proposed with an anxious scowl.

“It’s not about the cause, it’s about money, I’m certain of it.” Anders frowned in disgust. “They’re bought for sure.”

“Then maybe they can be bought back,” Romo theorized. “If it’s just about the money, we can make them a better deal.”

“Sorry, Anders,” Tenya sighed, “that means you’re up. You’re the only one with an 'in' there.”

Anders cursed under his breath. “This is going to be nightmarish.”

“Come on, Lieutenant.” Romo unceremoniously ejected the drive, despite Dell’s immediate, if silent protests. “We need to take this to the captain.”

Anders looked absolutely dismal when he nodded and followed Romo out, leaving the other three to process what they uncovered.

“Imagine, if the S.O. has been on Tetris this whole time?” Tenya shook her head.

“What happened at the prison still needed to be put to an end,” Astrid defended. Visions of her deceased Channeler brothers and sisters, of Gavin, the lone survivor, still haunted her.

“And we needed to root out Benson, all the same,” Dell supported. “Still, you think Rue knew?”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” Tenya pushed herself from the desk. “I gotta get out of here. Shoot something.”

“Is there anything I should be doing?” Astrid asked. “How can I help us get ready?”

“We could work on your aim,” Tenya suggested on her way to the door. “We’re probably going to have need of it.”

“And more endurance exercises,” Dell supposed. “Chances are it’ll be a long one. Think you can improve your range any?”

“I can try, if you think it will help.”

“We’re going to need every edge we can get.”

~~~

Astrid pushed herself harder than before. Not only because she appreciated what lay at stake, but because now she knew she could take it.

The power that flowed through her expanded, and small tasks came easy. She no longer bothered with the lantern exercise.

She would have been proud of how far she’d come, if she didn’t understand how much further she needed to develop.

Soon, very soon, they would need more from her than few stunning tactics. If a hundred men stood between them and their mission’s end, many would need to fall at her feet. And she had to be ready.

Tenya proved a more patient instructor than Rue. Which served a compensating trade-off. Because despite Rue gruffness, Rue’s instruction provided a greater improvement in a shorter period of time. Tenya, instead, focused on repetition, and a slow methodical process.

"I know Rue wanted to work on precision, but that comes with time. There's not enough of us to turn down a body shot if it's all we can manage. This is going to be about field control," Tenya told her.

"What if they're armored? Like Romo was when he got hit?"

"Then we hit them a lot, Kitten." Tenya squeezed her shoulder. "When you're this badly outnumbered, you hit them when and where you can, you got it? Just like the prison."

Astrid looked to the gun in her hand. But her eyes instead saw the number of victims she might come to list beneath "Holden Graves".

She took turns switching between channel work, and then weaponry when she needed to recover. Dell brought her lunch, direct from Sugar, who apparently noticed her missing from the Mess Hall.

Again, her tray sat heaped with a double portion, but Astrid neglected to share this time. Her body craved sustenance.

Tenya finally dragged her away for a proper supper hours later, and when the women arrived, Shaely, Hammond, and Ricks, moved their table closer, so they, too, could ask how training went.

Romo and Dell conversed at rapid pace, and when Astrid finally settled and insisted to the others that, yes, she would be ready when the time came, they announced their success in proposing their new plan to Captain London.

“It only took a few calls to collect rumors. They seem to confirm some kind of secretive settlement newly erected somewhere in the Tetris badlands,” Romo announced over his meal. "Most assumed it some kind of city expansion project on the outskirts, so they haven't looked into it."

“Captain gave me the order. As soon as I’m done here, we’re headed that direction,” Ricks winked. “It’ll be nice to know for sure that we’re on the right path this time.”

“I hope they’re far enough away from the city,” Shaely worried. “If they’re as armed as they seem, the further away from the colony the better.”

“They wouldn’t want prying eyes,” Hammond suggested to comfort his colleague.

“The real trouble is whether we can get away with slipping by the Governance,” Romo said next. “It might be worth giving them a heads up when we get closer. I might bring it up with the captain.”

Astrid felt a brief pang as her initial instinct rose to ask Commander Kendall what he thought. Surely he’d favor getting the Governorship on their side, if they could. Then she remembered he wasn’t with them.

She tried to brush past the feeling and looked for the lieutenant, who she also noted missing.

“Where’s Anders?”

Tenya smirked around her fork between bites. “Oh, probably in hell.”

“What?”

“She means he’s securing our line with the Tetrians,” Romo explained, equally entertained. “We’ll hear later if he’s successful.”

“You think he will be?” Astrid devoured her portion of casserole between questions.

“Oh, yeah,” Tenya nodded, though she sported a playful smile. “They’re still mercenaries, so dealing with them should be simple. We just need to pay more than the other guy. That doesn’t mean Jenna won’t put him through the ringer for asking, though.”

Astrid frowned at the expression. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, Kitten,” Tenya elaborated, “men like Anders are in a position of power. Both for his rank, and for his charm. And some women, like Jenna, take pleasure in making men like him work for their favor.

“Granted, he’s too smart to get tangled in that mess again. But he, or rather, we, need her cooperation. And she’s just going to love that.”

“Isn’t she bored, yet?” Dell pried. “It’s been what, two years?”

Tenya shrugged. “In distinction of Jenna’s usual prospects, he left her. He’ll always be the one that got away. And that girl has always a hard time retracting her claws. From anyone.”

“Speaking from experience, Tenya?” Romo waggled a brow in jest.

“Let’s just say the one benefit of her being in bed with the Tetrians is that we now have the luxury of knowing we won’t run into her anywhere else.”