Patriots Chapter 9

Date: Five days later, after midnight, tower construction site

It was a quiet night, at least as quiet as a downtown street in the human capital ever got. Which is to say instead of a steady stream of hover-cars and hover-buses they only appeared every few minutes. A dim safety light and a blinded camera the only witness to a gate in the fencing swung open and shut with seemingly nobody passing through.

Inside the now empty construction site, however, the air shimmered and two figures appeared. Clothed head-to-toe in active camouflage, the pair removed the facial coverings revealing Oliver and Perdy.

<”Finally there was a long enough gap in the traffic. I’m glad I can get out of this; the stuff is stifling.”>

<”Quiet! Let’s not alert anyone passing outside the fence that we’re here. Now come on, we must get to our position. Do you have the gear?”>

Perdy rolled her eyes at the smaller Dlamisan and nodded. <”Of course.”> She hefted the large active-camo covered case she had slung over her back. <”Everything is here, from the rifle to the cleanup charge for after we’re done. You just focus on making sure the security system is blind and reporting everything is all clear.”>

She walked towards the metal skeleton of the under-construction tower. The frame’s shape much more organic in appearance than what a 21st century human would expect. The rigid grid of steel beams having long since been replaced by forms far more efficient as typical welding had been superseded centuries ago by massive industrial 3D printers that built the frame as a single piece from the foundation up. A grin crossed her face as she found the entrance to the temporary construction staircase. *“Time for a teensy bit of payback.”*

<”Do try to keep up.”>

Before Oliver had any opportunity to protest, she took off running up the stairs. Outpacing her smaller partner with ease as her muscles carried her up the flights like they were nothing. By the time Oliver caught up she was sitting comfortably in the firing position on the 45th story of the construction site. A wry smirk on her face as the smaller Dlamisan huffed and puffed after climbing all those stairs.

<”That was not professional of you.”> Oliver complained as he sat next to her, watching as Perdy unpacked first the cleanup charge. The incendiary device was compact but powerful, when it was ignited after they left it’d burn every bit of equipment and gear to ash leaving nothing to trace. Up next was the rifle, the spotted female assembling it with practiced ease and then sighting through the scope at the park.

<”Run data link test.”> The musical tones of the Enkanti language serving as a vocal command to order the simple expert system in the gunsight to run a diagnostic. Two yellow LEDs lit up in the scope, each one representing a live data feed to a drone. <”I’ve got good data links to both drones. If they’re in good positions with a full view of the park, we shouldn’t have any problem with the smart round.”>

Oliver let out a soft growl. <”Of course they’re in good positions. I parked them myself; you know I’m a better drone operator than you.”>

Perdy sighed and set down the rifle, no sense taking the bait on that. She stripped the active camo off, revealing her civilian clothing, and piled it on top of the cleanup charge. Oliver doing the same as they prepped for their later exfiltration.

<”And now we wait.”> Oliver said as he peered through some binoculars at the park. <”I wish we had slightly more of a field of view, but this will have to do. Hopefully the target won’t pass through our viewing window too quickly.”>

<”I’m a good shot, you know that.”>

It was going to be a very long wait.

It was well past midday and Perdy had started to dose until she was woken up by Oliver’s voice.

<”The feed from the embassy, the target’s security team is on the move and is going to be arriving at the park soon. Get ready.”>

<”I’m on it.”> Perdy grabbed the rifle and got into a prone firing position, lining the scope up on the park and scanning the visible area for their target. Oliver kept his earpiece tuned into the security channel as he grabbed his binoculars and began to search with her.

<”Security chatter says the target is disembarking now, it shouldn’t be but a few more minutes before he drifts into our line of sight.”> The final few minutes passed in agonizing slowness until Oliver spoke again. <”Target sighted, west near that water feature.”>

Moving the scope Perdy leveled the cross hair on a dlamisan that would be extremely familiar to anyone on earth with an internet feed. <”I’ve got Bailey in my sights. Waiting for a clear shot.”> She said as she tracked him while he played fetch with a female human. Her finger tightened on the trigger and the two lights in the scope switched from yellow to green. <”Data feed is good, round is tracking.”>

<”Take the shot as soon as you have an opening.”> Perdy took some deep breaths calming herself as she kept the crosshair on the target. *“Still too many people close by…okay the human is moving off…good…almost…what the?”*

Her train of thought was interrupted when she caught sight of a familiar black furred Dlamisan in her scope. The sight of Genghis’ face made her hesitate.

*“Being here teaches you that happiness isn’t a crime.”*

Something clicked inside her as she remembered those words. Another deep breath, and her finger relaxed on the trigger. <”No…”>

<”No? What do you mean no?! Take the shot before the target is out of view!”>

<”I mean just that, no.”> Perdy sat up and set the gun down from it’s firing position. Laying the rifle on the ground as she shook her head. <”This is wrong, this won’t help our people at all. Our handler should never have sent us.”>

Oliver just stared at her, his jaw agape at her behavior. It took a moment for his brain to catch up to what was happening, and he growled. <”You’re insane…”> He grabbed the rifle and looked through the scope and cursed under his breath. <”The target is gone, you cost us our opportunity! I will see that you get what’s coming to you once we’re back on the home world. You’ll be a genetics lab sample because of this!”>

Perdy reached out and pulled the rifle from Oliver’s hands and set it back down. “Just…stop. It’s over and you and I both know it. You’ve been too busy trying to pressure the embassy staff or searching for firing positions to really LOOK.” She waved her hand in the general direction of the park. “You should look at our people who live here. You never see as many wagging tails on Dlamias as you do here. We need the humans, and Bailey is the best shot our people have at making this work. Our people must heal.” The female switching to English as she struggled to put things into words.

The male just turned his back and growled his hackles up as everything seemed to come apart for him. <”This isn’t happening, you’ve gone insane! We’ve never failed in a mission before!”>

“You heard our handler himself before we left. We aren’t supposed to endanger the alliance, so we’re not technically disobeying orders if we can’t find an opportunity to eliminate Bailey. And if you don’t like the idea of going home and explaining it like that well…why not stay on Earth? We could just burn everything and vanish. It wouldn’t be that hard.” She reached out and put a hand on the male’s shoulder. “C’mon Oliver, let’s go.”

Her attempts at reason fell on deaf ears as the smaller male jerked from her grasp and growled. <“That’s NOT MY NAME!”> Perdy’s eyes went wide as Oliver unholstered his sidearm.